The latest word is that Elin Woods will file for divorce. If you don't know why, shame! Everyone now knows every last detail of Tiger's infidelities (doesn't that term seem incredibly inadequate in his case?). Does the couple merit such scrutiny? Well, you'd have to say so. After all, even with both a yacht and a marriage called Privacy, every last juicy detail must be revealed. After all, they deserve it--him for winning all those golf tournaments and making all those commercials...and her for being too cute.
And today, in the midst of the deadest news week of the year, coincidentally we learned that Karl Rove, American traitor and Weasel of the Potomac, is also getting unhitched, this time from his second wife. Now, here is a man who has actively thrust himself into the national dialogue on all sorts of issues, particularly marriage--how sacred it is, how fundamental it is to the 'American way' of life, and particularly, who should be barred from taking part in it. Certainly, such an active interest would invite a nice, healthy dialogue on marriage in general--and his, in particular.
But instead, here's what his spokesperson had to say: "There will be no further comment and the family requests that its privacy be respected."
Hmm. The guy who couldn't talk enough about your marriage...suddenly clams up about his own. But I guess some things should remain confidential--unless, of course, it means outing a CIA agent for your own country in order to divert attention from your sorry, should-been indicted ass. I guess Valerie Plame's marriage...her career...really wasn't that sacred.
So, really nothing hypocritical here. At least not for his ilk. And I guess we should respect his wishes.
But I do have to confess I'd love to know who the other woman was.
Or...the other guy.
Or...the other sheep.
Tuesday, December 29, 2009
Why the FAA?
This holiday, tens of thousands of football fans gather together in outdoor stadia to watch bowl games. Tens of millions clog malls to buy and return holiday gifts. Billions of dollars in food and drink are sold to help celebrate the season. And of course, airports across America are jammed with passengers boarding flights to visit friends and family.
What these events obviously have in common is a joint connection to our holiday culture--no matter ethnic background or religious persuasion, at this time of year we are all 'Americans'. But at the same time, these ceremonies also share a darkly sinister bond. Because each--the flight, the meal, the spree and the game--also create ideal targets for terrorists intent on striking during our most vulnerable, trusting time of year.
That was the lesson of the would-be bomber who attempted to blow a Cleveland-bound flight out of the air. That he failed was temporary good news. But it was soon followed by the predictable laments, led by the President himself, about how the government had failed us. But why?
Think about the kindergartner's picture puzzle, one that shows a horse, a pig, a goat and a pencil. She is asked to choose which one doesn't belong. If you applied that same overlay to the terrorist targets listed above, which would be the outlier? Well, the airplane flight, of course. Because it is the only threat where the federal government is charged with protecting us. In Glenn Beck's world, this should be seen as 'socialized security'--it is government involvement in a private enterprise. Consider: if your purse is checked on the way into the Rose Bowl...or someone is monitoring security cameras in the local mega-mall...or a bad guy is surreptitiously wandering the aisles of the Safeway contaminating your green beans, that is neither the responsibility nor the liability of the federal government.
So why the skies? Why isn't United running that process by itself...and competing with all the other airlines on the basis of who can deliver a safer flight? What worked as a brand identity for Volvo would certainly be at least as compelling for an airline. Why does the President have anything to apologize for?
The FAA took its current form in the late 50's to serve four purposes: test aviation equipment for safety; certify both equipment and pilots; run air traffic; and manage airport facilities, particularly the control towers. Consideration of securing flights didn't come until a decade later, with a spate of airline hijackings. Rather than demanding the airlines secure their own flights, that big government liberal idiot Richard Nixon literally called out the troops. And they remained on the job until a truly world class waster of tax dollars, George W. Bush, vastly expanded the size if not the efficiency of the airline safety apparatus by folding it into the ridiculous monstrosity called Homeland Security.
So, I say destroy the TSA. If secured flights must exist, then let the private enterprises who run those flights bear the cost...just like the mall owners do for their security cops. Because private enterprise always outperforms the government, right? OK, fine, prove it. Presumably, we'd all ride more confidently.
But of course, we know what the airlines and their apologists would say: "there's no way we can afford that--we're going broke the way it is! We'd have to go out of business!"
So be it. What's wrong with the government being responsible for the airlines? We already pay taxes to certify the pilots, test the planes, keep them from crashing into each other, while trying to prevent people from getting on board with explosive chemicals sewn inside their clothing. All in all, seems like the government's doing a better job on its parts than that than the airlines are doing on theirs: keeping track of luggage...providing clean and spacious accommodations...serving a nice, hot meal--how does all that seem to be working out?
I know the knee jerk libertarians will hate this idea. They'll say governments can't run airlines. But of course, they'd have to then explain Singapore Airlines and Air France. Vive le difference.
What these events obviously have in common is a joint connection to our holiday culture--no matter ethnic background or religious persuasion, at this time of year we are all 'Americans'. But at the same time, these ceremonies also share a darkly sinister bond. Because each--the flight, the meal, the spree and the game--also create ideal targets for terrorists intent on striking during our most vulnerable, trusting time of year.
That was the lesson of the would-be bomber who attempted to blow a Cleveland-bound flight out of the air. That he failed was temporary good news. But it was soon followed by the predictable laments, led by the President himself, about how the government had failed us. But why?
Think about the kindergartner's picture puzzle, one that shows a horse, a pig, a goat and a pencil. She is asked to choose which one doesn't belong. If you applied that same overlay to the terrorist targets listed above, which would be the outlier? Well, the airplane flight, of course. Because it is the only threat where the federal government is charged with protecting us. In Glenn Beck's world, this should be seen as 'socialized security'--it is government involvement in a private enterprise. Consider: if your purse is checked on the way into the Rose Bowl...or someone is monitoring security cameras in the local mega-mall...or a bad guy is surreptitiously wandering the aisles of the Safeway contaminating your green beans, that is neither the responsibility nor the liability of the federal government.
So why the skies? Why isn't United running that process by itself...and competing with all the other airlines on the basis of who can deliver a safer flight? What worked as a brand identity for Volvo would certainly be at least as compelling for an airline. Why does the President have anything to apologize for?
The FAA took its current form in the late 50's to serve four purposes: test aviation equipment for safety; certify both equipment and pilots; run air traffic; and manage airport facilities, particularly the control towers. Consideration of securing flights didn't come until a decade later, with a spate of airline hijackings. Rather than demanding the airlines secure their own flights, that big government liberal idiot Richard Nixon literally called out the troops. And they remained on the job until a truly world class waster of tax dollars, George W. Bush, vastly expanded the size if not the efficiency of the airline safety apparatus by folding it into the ridiculous monstrosity called Homeland Security.
So, I say destroy the TSA. If secured flights must exist, then let the private enterprises who run those flights bear the cost...just like the mall owners do for their security cops. Because private enterprise always outperforms the government, right? OK, fine, prove it. Presumably, we'd all ride more confidently.
But of course, we know what the airlines and their apologists would say: "there's no way we can afford that--we're going broke the way it is! We'd have to go out of business!"
So be it. What's wrong with the government being responsible for the airlines? We already pay taxes to certify the pilots, test the planes, keep them from crashing into each other, while trying to prevent people from getting on board with explosive chemicals sewn inside their clothing. All in all, seems like the government's doing a better job on its parts than that than the airlines are doing on theirs: keeping track of luggage...providing clean and spacious accommodations...serving a nice, hot meal--how does all that seem to be working out?
I know the knee jerk libertarians will hate this idea. They'll say governments can't run airlines. But of course, they'd have to then explain Singapore Airlines and Air France. Vive le difference.
Monday, December 21, 2009
A Curious Case of Baseball and Race
There is a long history of the interrelationship between baseball and race--the parallel universe of the Negro Leagues, the Hall of Fame racism of Hall of Famer Ty Cobb, Jackie Robinson's triumph over institutionalized bigotry.
For those of us in the northwest, the gnawing consideration of race has returned with the announcement that the Seattle Mariners have traded for a mercurial African-American outfielder named Milton Bradley. Seattle will be his seventh major league home. And that hopscotch journey in itself is the backdrop for his story. How could a player accomplished enough to have been named an All Star have, as they writers say, 'worn out his welcome' so frequently?
Well, he has 'issues'. You might even say he's a 'problem'. In fact, a 'cancer in the clubhouse'. Yep, that's what everyone knows.
Now, I don't know Milton Bradley, and I have no way of judging either the accuracy or context of the incidents which stick to his reputation like cat hair. But I do believe that if Bradley and his greatest detractor were to sit down together, they would probably stipulate to this description: a proud, private and competitive individual whose actions are characterized by occasional piques of anger. In other words, just like a lot of people. But what gives his profile newsworthiness are the specifics of those temperamental moments. So let's review some:
On the Field: Charged an umpire (and suffered an injury in the process when blocked by his own coach); stripped off his jersey and stormed off the field; after a plastic bottle was thrown at him by a fan, took the bottle and threw it down at the feet of the fan who first tossed it.
As a Teammate: Accused infielder Jeff Kent of being a racist; made people uneasy with his 'sullenness'.
As an Employee: Publicly criticized both a manager (Eric Wedge in Cleveland) and a general manager (Billy Beane in Oakland); argued in the dugout with his most recent manager, Lou Piniella, after Piniella told him to stop throwing his helmet.
As a Threat: Left the dugout to 'confront' a team announcer who had criticized him.
As a Victim: Claimed umpires expanded their strike zones in attempts to call him out; essentially saw the media as the enemy.
Now, we don't know the accuracy or all of the specifics, nor will we ever. However, we can augment this description with a few facts. After the aforementioned confrontation with the umpire, it was the umpire who was suspended for taunting Bradley with language you wouldn't want to hear from your Little Leaguer. In regards to his dispute with Piniella, the manager himself admits that he called Bradley a 'piece of shit', and that Bradley responded to him calmly. And certainly the media have taken full advantage of all opportunities to turn Bradley against himself.
But for kicks, let's compare these transgressions with Piniella, the demon of the dugout:
On the Field: realistically, too many to mention. He's been ejected from more than 70 games. To be fair, his career is three times as long as Bradley's (including manager years), but that's still more than four times as many ejections. But really, it would be a shame to omit mention of the numerous pieces of equipment thrown from dugout onto the field, the bumping of umpires, throwing dirt onto home plate, kicking dirt onto umpires' shoes, kicking his own hat around the infield, and even ripping bases from their moorings and flinging them into the outfield. Bradley has nothing to compete with this body of work.
As a Teammate: No, technically managers aren't teammates, but you're still sharing a clubhouse everyday, so what is said matters. When asked last year why he didn't replace a slumping hitter, he said, 'we really don't have many options'. Over the years, he has regularly called out players for not performing to his standards, and particularly for not being 'men'.
As an Employee: As sure as there is baseball every spring, there will be off-the-record Piniella comments every summer about how the front office is not giving him the players he needs (assuming he's losing a pennant race). And the same histrionics he's brought to dugouts have also characterized closed-door meetings with his own bosses.
As a Threat: He once came to blows with relief pitcher Rob Dibble--the star closer of his own team. As a player, the man who would later demand that Bradley cease throwing a batting helmet once threw one of his own and bounced it off the head of his own manager.
As a Victim: Lou has a temper. He won't deny it. And when he's angry, it's certain that the players, the front office, the umpires, the fans, the media or all of the above are out to get him. And yet, he remains the lovable 'Sweet Lou'.
So, it could well be that the simple conclusion here is that white people and black people who behave similarly are judged differently. OK, well, yawn. Nothing new there. Instead, what makes Milton Bradley most interesting is not the contrast with Piniella, who used to rule the Mariners' clubhouse, but with a new teammate who ostensibly holds the job now--the immortal Ken Griffey, Jr. Like Bradley, he is a black man. But in his case, he has not only overcome any racial victimization, he has elevated himself to a pedestal where the same sins that are held against Bradley, and are laughingly admired in Piniella, are relegated to the memory hole of baseball--if Griffey did it, let's just pretend it never happened:
On the Field: Leading off, let's give Griffey credit--anything he ever did on a major league field could not rise to the level of Piniella or Bradley. So let's move on.
As a Teammate: If you read the mainstream media, you know Griffey as the kind uncle of the clubhouse, always looking for a way to make his teammates looser, happier and better players. But the truth lies here, penned by a college sportswriter in Seattle a couple years after Griffey left town. It is not an opinion piece--it is filled with attributed quotes from people who actually shared those clubhouses with him. One from former teammate Dmitri Young stands out: ""Once Junior got [to Cincinnati], the team broke off into cliques. Then you had guys that basically gave up. (He's) got his accomplishments. But he throws them back in your face. He'd sit there and say, 'How many home runs do you have? How much money do you make?'" Another Reds player, Pokey Reese, added, "Junior's going to be Junior. He's going to do his thing and they are not going to say anything. But it's 25 of us, not one. I know he's Ken Griffey Jr., but someone should have said, 'We're all in this together.'"
As an Employee: Managers and owners knew who ran the teams Griffey played on. When in Seattle, he publicly complained, 'where's my pitching?' As if a star of his caliber had a right to more dollars being spent on a supporting cast more to his liking. (For the record, nine members of the Mariners' pitching staff when he made that statement had successful major league careers). Aside from the impact on the pitchers of his own team, this was a clear message to ownership that they had better perform better. That was not an isolated expectation. In Cincinnati, manager Dusty Baker defended keeping a clearly declining Griffey in the most important spot in the batting order because it was 'a matter of respect' owed for all that Griffey had accomplished. In other words, massaging Griffey's ego was more important than the team's success.
As a Threat: Bradley allegedly left a dugout to 'confront' a broadcaster whose opinion he did not appreciate. We actually don't know his intentions because no confrontation occurred. But Griffey was much clearer on this issue. In Cincinnati, when criticized by team broadcaster Jeff Brantley, Griffey concluded a home run trot around the bases by looking up at the broadcast booth and delivering a throat slash gesture to Brantley. Nice role modeling for all the young fans in the park.
As a Victim: Here's where Griffey really cements his Hall of Fame credentials. Despite a level of blind adoration matched by no other athlete in Seattle history, Griffey sees disrespect behind every door. In order to escape the town, and move to a park where his own personal statistics could be better padded, he concocted a preposterous theory about being closer to his wife and kids in Florida. If so, no one asked why it was that he had moved those beloved wife and kids out a Seattle suburb in the first place. Or how he enforced a provision in his contract which limited the Mariners to deal with only four teams--those in Atlanta, New York, Cincinnati and Houston. Last time anyone checked, none of these locales would allow Griffey to drive home for a nice meal and a couple hugs after a night game. Some fans were understandably upset about this ruse. And Griffey responded thusly, ""The front office, the fans and the media, everybody's ripped me." When that didn't work, he implied that his reason for leaving was a death threat (certainly no small matter) that was months old, and one he hadn't bothered reporting to the police or his own team. To him, the words 'fault' and 'Griffey' should never appear in the same sentence.
An English novelist named Anthony Powell once wrote, "life is full of internal dramas, instantaneous and sensational, played to an audience of one." The actions of Milton Bradley, related by sportswriters across the country, have cast him in the role of villain for the internal dramas that play out in the minds of baseball fans. For many of them, the color his skin confirms Bradley's status.
But those same sportswriters, equally intent on casting the valiant lead, have ignored the same actions in order to promote Ken Griffey, Jr., as an athletic and interpersonal superhero. Consequently, Griffey is now positioned as the one last hope to 'save' Bradley's career--correcting flaws which can only be conquered by the unflawed.
When the Seattle team comes together in spring training, this internal drama will have the chance to be played out in public. Can Griffey remold Bradley in his own image? Among his other predilections, Bradley is known to not suffer fools. Beginning in March, he will have the chance to try again.
For those of us in the northwest, the gnawing consideration of race has returned with the announcement that the Seattle Mariners have traded for a mercurial African-American outfielder named Milton Bradley. Seattle will be his seventh major league home. And that hopscotch journey in itself is the backdrop for his story. How could a player accomplished enough to have been named an All Star have, as they writers say, 'worn out his welcome' so frequently?
Well, he has 'issues'. You might even say he's a 'problem'. In fact, a 'cancer in the clubhouse'. Yep, that's what everyone knows.
Now, I don't know Milton Bradley, and I have no way of judging either the accuracy or context of the incidents which stick to his reputation like cat hair. But I do believe that if Bradley and his greatest detractor were to sit down together, they would probably stipulate to this description: a proud, private and competitive individual whose actions are characterized by occasional piques of anger. In other words, just like a lot of people. But what gives his profile newsworthiness are the specifics of those temperamental moments. So let's review some:
On the Field: Charged an umpire (and suffered an injury in the process when blocked by his own coach); stripped off his jersey and stormed off the field; after a plastic bottle was thrown at him by a fan, took the bottle and threw it down at the feet of the fan who first tossed it.
As a Teammate: Accused infielder Jeff Kent of being a racist; made people uneasy with his 'sullenness'.
As an Employee: Publicly criticized both a manager (Eric Wedge in Cleveland) and a general manager (Billy Beane in Oakland); argued in the dugout with his most recent manager, Lou Piniella, after Piniella told him to stop throwing his helmet.
As a Threat: Left the dugout to 'confront' a team announcer who had criticized him.
As a Victim: Claimed umpires expanded their strike zones in attempts to call him out; essentially saw the media as the enemy.
Now, we don't know the accuracy or all of the specifics, nor will we ever. However, we can augment this description with a few facts. After the aforementioned confrontation with the umpire, it was the umpire who was suspended for taunting Bradley with language you wouldn't want to hear from your Little Leaguer. In regards to his dispute with Piniella, the manager himself admits that he called Bradley a 'piece of shit', and that Bradley responded to him calmly. And certainly the media have taken full advantage of all opportunities to turn Bradley against himself.
But for kicks, let's compare these transgressions with Piniella, the demon of the dugout:
On the Field: realistically, too many to mention. He's been ejected from more than 70 games. To be fair, his career is three times as long as Bradley's (including manager years), but that's still more than four times as many ejections. But really, it would be a shame to omit mention of the numerous pieces of equipment thrown from dugout onto the field, the bumping of umpires, throwing dirt onto home plate, kicking dirt onto umpires' shoes, kicking his own hat around the infield, and even ripping bases from their moorings and flinging them into the outfield. Bradley has nothing to compete with this body of work.
As a Teammate: No, technically managers aren't teammates, but you're still sharing a clubhouse everyday, so what is said matters. When asked last year why he didn't replace a slumping hitter, he said, 'we really don't have many options'. Over the years, he has regularly called out players for not performing to his standards, and particularly for not being 'men'.
As an Employee: As sure as there is baseball every spring, there will be off-the-record Piniella comments every summer about how the front office is not giving him the players he needs (assuming he's losing a pennant race). And the same histrionics he's brought to dugouts have also characterized closed-door meetings with his own bosses.
As a Threat: He once came to blows with relief pitcher Rob Dibble--the star closer of his own team. As a player, the man who would later demand that Bradley cease throwing a batting helmet once threw one of his own and bounced it off the head of his own manager.
As a Victim: Lou has a temper. He won't deny it. And when he's angry, it's certain that the players, the front office, the umpires, the fans, the media or all of the above are out to get him. And yet, he remains the lovable 'Sweet Lou'.
So, it could well be that the simple conclusion here is that white people and black people who behave similarly are judged differently. OK, well, yawn. Nothing new there. Instead, what makes Milton Bradley most interesting is not the contrast with Piniella, who used to rule the Mariners' clubhouse, but with a new teammate who ostensibly holds the job now--the immortal Ken Griffey, Jr. Like Bradley, he is a black man. But in his case, he has not only overcome any racial victimization, he has elevated himself to a pedestal where the same sins that are held against Bradley, and are laughingly admired in Piniella, are relegated to the memory hole of baseball--if Griffey did it, let's just pretend it never happened:
On the Field: Leading off, let's give Griffey credit--anything he ever did on a major league field could not rise to the level of Piniella or Bradley. So let's move on.
As a Teammate: If you read the mainstream media, you know Griffey as the kind uncle of the clubhouse, always looking for a way to make his teammates looser, happier and better players. But the truth lies here, penned by a college sportswriter in Seattle a couple years after Griffey left town. It is not an opinion piece--it is filled with attributed quotes from people who actually shared those clubhouses with him. One from former teammate Dmitri Young stands out: ""Once Junior got [to Cincinnati], the team broke off into cliques. Then you had guys that basically gave up. (He's) got his accomplishments. But he throws them back in your face. He'd sit there and say, 'How many home runs do you have? How much money do you make?'" Another Reds player, Pokey Reese, added, "Junior's going to be Junior. He's going to do his thing and they are not going to say anything. But it's 25 of us, not one. I know he's Ken Griffey Jr., but someone should have said, 'We're all in this together.'"
As an Employee: Managers and owners knew who ran the teams Griffey played on. When in Seattle, he publicly complained, 'where's my pitching?' As if a star of his caliber had a right to more dollars being spent on a supporting cast more to his liking. (For the record, nine members of the Mariners' pitching staff when he made that statement had successful major league careers). Aside from the impact on the pitchers of his own team, this was a clear message to ownership that they had better perform better. That was not an isolated expectation. In Cincinnati, manager Dusty Baker defended keeping a clearly declining Griffey in the most important spot in the batting order because it was 'a matter of respect' owed for all that Griffey had accomplished. In other words, massaging Griffey's ego was more important than the team's success.
As a Threat: Bradley allegedly left a dugout to 'confront' a broadcaster whose opinion he did not appreciate. We actually don't know his intentions because no confrontation occurred. But Griffey was much clearer on this issue. In Cincinnati, when criticized by team broadcaster Jeff Brantley, Griffey concluded a home run trot around the bases by looking up at the broadcast booth and delivering a throat slash gesture to Brantley. Nice role modeling for all the young fans in the park.
As a Victim: Here's where Griffey really cements his Hall of Fame credentials. Despite a level of blind adoration matched by no other athlete in Seattle history, Griffey sees disrespect behind every door. In order to escape the town, and move to a park where his own personal statistics could be better padded, he concocted a preposterous theory about being closer to his wife and kids in Florida. If so, no one asked why it was that he had moved those beloved wife and kids out a Seattle suburb in the first place. Or how he enforced a provision in his contract which limited the Mariners to deal with only four teams--those in Atlanta, New York, Cincinnati and Houston. Last time anyone checked, none of these locales would allow Griffey to drive home for a nice meal and a couple hugs after a night game. Some fans were understandably upset about this ruse. And Griffey responded thusly, ""The front office, the fans and the media, everybody's ripped me." When that didn't work, he implied that his reason for leaving was a death threat (certainly no small matter) that was months old, and one he hadn't bothered reporting to the police or his own team. To him, the words 'fault' and 'Griffey' should never appear in the same sentence.
An English novelist named Anthony Powell once wrote, "life is full of internal dramas, instantaneous and sensational, played to an audience of one." The actions of Milton Bradley, related by sportswriters across the country, have cast him in the role of villain for the internal dramas that play out in the minds of baseball fans. For many of them, the color his skin confirms Bradley's status.
But those same sportswriters, equally intent on casting the valiant lead, have ignored the same actions in order to promote Ken Griffey, Jr., as an athletic and interpersonal superhero. Consequently, Griffey is now positioned as the one last hope to 'save' Bradley's career--correcting flaws which can only be conquered by the unflawed.
When the Seattle team comes together in spring training, this internal drama will have the chance to be played out in public. Can Griffey remold Bradley in his own image? Among his other predilections, Bradley is known to not suffer fools. Beginning in March, he will have the chance to try again.
Sunday, December 20, 2009
Knowing and Believing
Here in the closing days of 2009, an adamant punditocracy demands a way to define not just the year, but an entire decade. The New York Times yearns for an appropriate nickname--like The Roaring 20's. Never mind that no one used that descriptor until years later. We need a solution--and we need it now.
At first glance, it would seem that for virtually all of the common historic metrics, during the past ten years not much has changed.
The business narrative spans an indecipherable distance from Enron on the front end to the Wall Street mortgage ruse on the back. Ken Lay to Bernie Madoff. Dust unto dust.
The unchallenged technological narrative of this decade is the Internet. It has infinitely expanded the availability of both knowledge and voice. It is so revolutionary that some think it too complex for its predecessors to grasp. But while it's easy to disparage Time Warner's ill-advised purchase of AOL in the first weeks of 2000...or the similar misstep by Rupert Murdoch assuming he'd control the future just by swallowing MySpace...it's more uncomfortable to blithely dismiss the thousands of newspaper people displaced from their professions. It is ignorant to believe nothing has been lost in the process.
And in the political arena, these last ten years have perpetuated not only the same puppet show--but the same crazed puppeteers pulling the strings. I assert that the singular historical event of this period was not 9/11, but the gathering of a small mob of faux 'ordinary citizens' in a courthouse in West Palm Beach Florida at the end of 2000...screaming and pounding on the glass walls of a room until duly appointed public servants quit their Constitutional duty of recounting ballots cast by their fellow citizens. And that begat modern day Tea Parties too manic for even a Mad Hatter to attend. The same political terrorists of the Republican Party controlled both actions. Their purpose is not to promote an alternate political ideology, but rather simply to obstruct.
Together, all this can support the perception that during a ten year span, nothing has really changed--certainly not for the better. In fact, a stronger case can be made for unquestioned societal regression. Indeed, scratching a little deeper beneath each of these examples, what emerges is a more fundamental and troubling truth. The ancient tug between 'know' and 'believe' has once again swung decisively to the 'believe'--to the detriment of us all.
Here's what I mean.
What Enron's trading operation and Wall Street's 'liar's loans' asserted is that you can, indeed, make something out of nothing. There is no need to provide an asset behind a promise when that promise can so deeply move the inherent greed of man. Yes, the truly rational people knew all along that the tech and housing bubbles would eventually burst. They understood that no one could keep generating the returns of a Madoff, or the profits of an AIG. But those dealing in reality not only constituted a small minority; more importantly, their input was systematically stripped from the mechanisms ostensibly constructed to avoid the consequences. If enough people devoutly believed that fiscal gravity could be defied, well, that was enough.
The technology and communications struggle between 'old media' and new is similarly troubling. For every 100 blogs brought to life (just like this one), another newspaper career is put to death. To some, this is not only acceptable, it's preferable. Why? Because the blogosphere is not 'controlled' by evil media overlords...it doesn't face a permanent and unrelenting deadline...and what's more, its proprietors are probably smarter than those pathetic, Neanderthal ink-stained wretches. But even if all these beliefs were true, a fundamental ingredient is lost in the transition. Because bloggers tell you what they believe; while reporters tell you what they know. At one time, every ambitious cub reporter working a police beat in the middle of the night dreamt of the day when he or she would be granted license to write a column...to leaven all that was known with the sequential conclusion of what should be believed.
On the Internet, that linearity is no longer required. As long as you believe, there is no reason to know.
And as these rivers of opinion flood the wide sea of fact, grotesque life forms evolve and build immunity. Manipulation and cynicism thrive. Once you could see clear from the surface to the bottom. But now the waters are turgid; 'belief' is the cloudy undertow.
Those who 'believed' there were weapons of mass destruction beneath a desert helped lead thousands of our bravest to their deaths. Those who believed the cost of these escapades could be moved 'off the books' drove us to the brink of fiscal ruin. Those convinced that our nation...our needs...and 'our' religion...were inherently superior, hurt America more deeply than overseas adversaries ever could. We've begun to slay ourselves from within. We've seen the cancer--and the cancer is us.
Unfortunately, it is impossible to entirely separate the idea of unsubstantiated 'belief' from the totality of religion. Yes, there are forms of belief--and dangerous ones--without religious component. But religious belief is the most powerful tool against fact. It offers the blessing of devotion: we know, so you need only believe. Because we think, you need only react.
Christians, who once responded uniformly to the call to help others, now also allow for a monstrosity called the 'prosperity gospel': God will reward you with material gifts...if only you will make a down payment through self-appointed ministerial mortgage brokers here on Earth. Spend and you will be saved.
Some rightfully scoff at this. But to many it is belief--a weapon of mass delusion that undermines our culture.
In the end, most frightening of all is evidence of absolute conflation between belief and knowledge. If they can be made one, there is no more place for reason.
A born-again New Zealander named Ray Comfort currently promotes every aspect of his interpretations of biblical truth from a pulpit in Orange County, California. He summarized a lengthy YouTube debate against a non-believing adversary with the following words: "I know what was in the beginning. You don't know. In the beginning God created heaven and Earth. You don't know--I do."
Simple as that. His belief is our reality.
Descartes once declared, "I think, therefore I am". Today, by eschewing evidence, data, science and fact, we are faced with an alternative: "I believe, therefore it is".
To borrow from Comfort's own belief system...and to reflect on what has transpired over the last decade...let me just conclude: God help us.
At first glance, it would seem that for virtually all of the common historic metrics, during the past ten years not much has changed.
The business narrative spans an indecipherable distance from Enron on the front end to the Wall Street mortgage ruse on the back. Ken Lay to Bernie Madoff. Dust unto dust.
The unchallenged technological narrative of this decade is the Internet. It has infinitely expanded the availability of both knowledge and voice. It is so revolutionary that some think it too complex for its predecessors to grasp. But while it's easy to disparage Time Warner's ill-advised purchase of AOL in the first weeks of 2000...or the similar misstep by Rupert Murdoch assuming he'd control the future just by swallowing MySpace...it's more uncomfortable to blithely dismiss the thousands of newspaper people displaced from their professions. It is ignorant to believe nothing has been lost in the process.
And in the political arena, these last ten years have perpetuated not only the same puppet show--but the same crazed puppeteers pulling the strings. I assert that the singular historical event of this period was not 9/11, but the gathering of a small mob of faux 'ordinary citizens' in a courthouse in West Palm Beach Florida at the end of 2000...screaming and pounding on the glass walls of a room until duly appointed public servants quit their Constitutional duty of recounting ballots cast by their fellow citizens. And that begat modern day Tea Parties too manic for even a Mad Hatter to attend. The same political terrorists of the Republican Party controlled both actions. Their purpose is not to promote an alternate political ideology, but rather simply to obstruct.
Together, all this can support the perception that during a ten year span, nothing has really changed--certainly not for the better. In fact, a stronger case can be made for unquestioned societal regression. Indeed, scratching a little deeper beneath each of these examples, what emerges is a more fundamental and troubling truth. The ancient tug between 'know' and 'believe' has once again swung decisively to the 'believe'--to the detriment of us all.
Here's what I mean.
What Enron's trading operation and Wall Street's 'liar's loans' asserted is that you can, indeed, make something out of nothing. There is no need to provide an asset behind a promise when that promise can so deeply move the inherent greed of man. Yes, the truly rational people knew all along that the tech and housing bubbles would eventually burst. They understood that no one could keep generating the returns of a Madoff, or the profits of an AIG. But those dealing in reality not only constituted a small minority; more importantly, their input was systematically stripped from the mechanisms ostensibly constructed to avoid the consequences. If enough people devoutly believed that fiscal gravity could be defied, well, that was enough.
The technology and communications struggle between 'old media' and new is similarly troubling. For every 100 blogs brought to life (just like this one), another newspaper career is put to death. To some, this is not only acceptable, it's preferable. Why? Because the blogosphere is not 'controlled' by evil media overlords...it doesn't face a permanent and unrelenting deadline...and what's more, its proprietors are probably smarter than those pathetic, Neanderthal ink-stained wretches. But even if all these beliefs were true, a fundamental ingredient is lost in the transition. Because bloggers tell you what they believe; while reporters tell you what they know. At one time, every ambitious cub reporter working a police beat in the middle of the night dreamt of the day when he or she would be granted license to write a column...to leaven all that was known with the sequential conclusion of what should be believed.
On the Internet, that linearity is no longer required. As long as you believe, there is no reason to know.
And as these rivers of opinion flood the wide sea of fact, grotesque life forms evolve and build immunity. Manipulation and cynicism thrive. Once you could see clear from the surface to the bottom. But now the waters are turgid; 'belief' is the cloudy undertow.
Those who 'believed' there were weapons of mass destruction beneath a desert helped lead thousands of our bravest to their deaths. Those who believed the cost of these escapades could be moved 'off the books' drove us to the brink of fiscal ruin. Those convinced that our nation...our needs...and 'our' religion...were inherently superior, hurt America more deeply than overseas adversaries ever could. We've begun to slay ourselves from within. We've seen the cancer--and the cancer is us.
Unfortunately, it is impossible to entirely separate the idea of unsubstantiated 'belief' from the totality of religion. Yes, there are forms of belief--and dangerous ones--without religious component. But religious belief is the most powerful tool against fact. It offers the blessing of devotion: we know, so you need only believe. Because we think, you need only react.
Christians, who once responded uniformly to the call to help others, now also allow for a monstrosity called the 'prosperity gospel': God will reward you with material gifts...if only you will make a down payment through self-appointed ministerial mortgage brokers here on Earth. Spend and you will be saved.
Some rightfully scoff at this. But to many it is belief--a weapon of mass delusion that undermines our culture.
In the end, most frightening of all is evidence of absolute conflation between belief and knowledge. If they can be made one, there is no more place for reason.
A born-again New Zealander named Ray Comfort currently promotes every aspect of his interpretations of biblical truth from a pulpit in Orange County, California. He summarized a lengthy YouTube debate against a non-believing adversary with the following words: "I know what was in the beginning. You don't know. In the beginning God created heaven and Earth. You don't know--I do."
Simple as that. His belief is our reality.
Descartes once declared, "I think, therefore I am". Today, by eschewing evidence, data, science and fact, we are faced with an alternative: "I believe, therefore it is".
To borrow from Comfort's own belief system...and to reflect on what has transpired over the last decade...let me just conclude: God help us.
Friday, November 6, 2009
Getting Scary
In January of 1835, Andrew Jackson was walking down the steps of the Capitol after attending a funeral service when a man walked up to him, pointed two pistols, and pulled the triggers at near point blank range. In what was later called a one-in-125,000 chance, the powder in neither pistol ignited. The would-be assassin fled, chased by Jackson armed only with his cane, until the culprit was knocked over by a naval officer.
The point being that neither violence, nor the threat of violence, is alien to the history of America--nor to the steps outside our Capitol. There is a fatalistic hubris that affects every generation: "Now it's really getting bad".
Having said that, let me also say this: now it's really getting bad.
The hateful 'patriots' (does that make them 'hateriots"?) who spread across the Capitol lawn this week edged the threat of violence even closer to permissibility. The President of everyone in this nation was portrayed as a traitor; the health care plan he backs was likened to the Nazi death camps; one sign showed an automatic rifle pointed at a picture of Obama, with the caption, 'come and get it'.
It could not matter less whether this makes sense in the real world; it makes sense in their world.
In a predictable perversity, no doubt some of those hateriots were actually encouraged by the killings of more than a dozen U.S. military personnel at Fort Hood on the same day. After all, the shooter's name, Hasan, certainly cast further suspicion on a commander in chief whose middle name is Hussein. See? The signs are all there if you just look, aren't they?
In fact, the shooter himself was the victim of hate crimes simply because of his heritage. Which in no way allows or even explains the decisions he made to open fire on fellow Americans.
But it does suggest, even to the reptilian brains gathered this week on the lawn of our Capitol building...a crowd whose leaders do not know the Constitution from the Declaration of Independence...who can not remember the words of the Pledge of Allegiance...these people need to remember a declaration in the holy book they hold so dear: you reap what you sow.
The point being that neither violence, nor the threat of violence, is alien to the history of America--nor to the steps outside our Capitol. There is a fatalistic hubris that affects every generation: "Now it's really getting bad".
Having said that, let me also say this: now it's really getting bad.
The hateful 'patriots' (does that make them 'hateriots"?) who spread across the Capitol lawn this week edged the threat of violence even closer to permissibility. The President of everyone in this nation was portrayed as a traitor; the health care plan he backs was likened to the Nazi death camps; one sign showed an automatic rifle pointed at a picture of Obama, with the caption, 'come and get it'.
It could not matter less whether this makes sense in the real world; it makes sense in their world.
In a predictable perversity, no doubt some of those hateriots were actually encouraged by the killings of more than a dozen U.S. military personnel at Fort Hood on the same day. After all, the shooter's name, Hasan, certainly cast further suspicion on a commander in chief whose middle name is Hussein. See? The signs are all there if you just look, aren't they?
In fact, the shooter himself was the victim of hate crimes simply because of his heritage. Which in no way allows or even explains the decisions he made to open fire on fellow Americans.
But it does suggest, even to the reptilian brains gathered this week on the lawn of our Capitol building...a crowd whose leaders do not know the Constitution from the Declaration of Independence...who can not remember the words of the Pledge of Allegiance...these people need to remember a declaration in the holy book they hold so dear: you reap what you sow.
Wednesday, October 21, 2009
Time To Choose
The promise of the Barack Obama campaign seemed improbable for any number of reasons. For me, two elements seemed most suspect. First, that he would become the emissary of the common man amid the temples of power. And second, that he would build consensus among all Americans--rich and poor, black and white, left and right. Each of these goals is laudable, if quixotic. But together, I believed they eventually would prove mutually exclusive.
Now, in the final throes of legislating health care reform, this has come to pass.
The President is facing the Achilles heel of his belief system--that with enough intelligence, logic and charm, it is possible to win the support of those whose own position depends on defeating you. Bill Clinton came to Washington with the same delusion. Many historians would say that FDR and Andrew Jackson did the same. Compromise does not work. Not with with cancer cells. Not with the cancerous special interests who corrode the arteries of democracy.
Mr. Obama faces a choice. He can begin the process of providing health insurance to the tens of millions of Americans who currently can't afford it--and actually save some money in the process. Or he can cling to the hope that somehow those whose own well being depends on the untreated illnesses of others...will somehow change their minds.
Mr. President, it will not happen. You must choose. You know the situation. While some argue with the World Health Organization's ranking of America's health care system as only 37th best in the world, it unquestionably is the most unfair, the most expensive, and even--shockingly to me--the most prone to cause death by surgical or medical mistakes.
Either represent with courage the 'average Americans' you promised to defend; or let that first cancer cell of compromise begin to replicate within your own body politic.
Now, in the final throes of legislating health care reform, this has come to pass.
The President is facing the Achilles heel of his belief system--that with enough intelligence, logic and charm, it is possible to win the support of those whose own position depends on defeating you. Bill Clinton came to Washington with the same delusion. Many historians would say that FDR and Andrew Jackson did the same. Compromise does not work. Not with with cancer cells. Not with the cancerous special interests who corrode the arteries of democracy.
Mr. Obama faces a choice. He can begin the process of providing health insurance to the tens of millions of Americans who currently can't afford it--and actually save some money in the process. Or he can cling to the hope that somehow those whose own well being depends on the untreated illnesses of others...will somehow change their minds.
Mr. President, it will not happen. You must choose. You know the situation. While some argue with the World Health Organization's ranking of America's health care system as only 37th best in the world, it unquestionably is the most unfair, the most expensive, and even--shockingly to me--the most prone to cause death by surgical or medical mistakes.
Either represent with courage the 'average Americans' you promised to defend; or let that first cancer cell of compromise begin to replicate within your own body politic.
Thursday, September 17, 2009
Mario vs. Donkey Kong
Well, I actually don't want to talk about video games. But for the purposes of this post, let's start by considering the character of these two arch rivals...who first faced off in the seminal arcade game back in the 80's. Sure, Pong and PacMan and Space Invaders preceded these two...but their debut was the moment when video games assumed sympathetic anthropomorphic form. And what classic rivals they were: Donkey Kong, the larger, brutish, unthinking thug who had kidnapped the princess; in opposition, the hero was played by a simple plumber, equipped only with the insistence that wrongs be righted.
We've just been informed about the results of a ranking called The Atlantic 50 (not surprisingly collated by the magazine of the same name). The methodology is threefold: survey 250 Washington insiders on who most influences their thinking; assess the reach of each of these 'voices'; and then grade each for 'webiness', the extent of their reach online and via social networks.
And right at the top, what do you know--there's Mario and Donkey Kong--assuming, as I do, that Paul Krugman of the New York Times slips easily into the role of Mario...and that Rush Limbaugh (from the planet of the same name) is the quintessential Donkey Kong. Picture the 'kidnap victim' here as civil American discourse, and I don't see how you can fail to see the radio radical as DK.
What pleases me is that somehow Krugman comes out on top. If you don't know his work, he is the unapologetically wonkish Princeton economist who wound up writing a column that correctly predicted, among hundreds of lesser alerts, the folly of the Iraq invasion and the collapse of the mortgage markets. By character and accomplishment, he is the prototypical 'pointy headed liberal' that Nixon first started warning about in the 70's. He is the antithesis of Limbaugh, who is nearly always wrong, doesn't care, and if pushed, will concede, "hey, I'm not a journalist--I'm an entertainer".
For Krugman to lead this pack...in the center of what is clearly the most self-centered pocket of America east of Sunset Boulevard...where the hard right exerts influence far beyond its importance in the nation...well, I'm hoping that this says something. Because it may mean that even the people who despise him...also concede Krugman's command of the facts. They need to understand the reason of the matter...if only to prepare their next set of fallacious talking points.
And if we can ever move back to a discourse where the facts matter...well, there may be hope for the princess after all.
We've just been informed about the results of a ranking called The Atlantic 50 (not surprisingly collated by the magazine of the same name). The methodology is threefold: survey 250 Washington insiders on who most influences their thinking; assess the reach of each of these 'voices'; and then grade each for 'webiness', the extent of their reach online and via social networks.
And right at the top, what do you know--there's Mario and Donkey Kong--assuming, as I do, that Paul Krugman of the New York Times slips easily into the role of Mario...and that Rush Limbaugh (from the planet of the same name) is the quintessential Donkey Kong. Picture the 'kidnap victim' here as civil American discourse, and I don't see how you can fail to see the radio radical as DK.
What pleases me is that somehow Krugman comes out on top. If you don't know his work, he is the unapologetically wonkish Princeton economist who wound up writing a column that correctly predicted, among hundreds of lesser alerts, the folly of the Iraq invasion and the collapse of the mortgage markets. By character and accomplishment, he is the prototypical 'pointy headed liberal' that Nixon first started warning about in the 70's. He is the antithesis of Limbaugh, who is nearly always wrong, doesn't care, and if pushed, will concede, "hey, I'm not a journalist--I'm an entertainer".
For Krugman to lead this pack...in the center of what is clearly the most self-centered pocket of America east of Sunset Boulevard...where the hard right exerts influence far beyond its importance in the nation...well, I'm hoping that this says something. Because it may mean that even the people who despise him...also concede Krugman's command of the facts. They need to understand the reason of the matter...if only to prepare their next set of fallacious talking points.
And if we can ever move back to a discourse where the facts matter...well, there may be hope for the princess after all.
Monday, September 14, 2009
Owning and pOwning
The other day one of my favorite conservative adversaries was complaining about the 'socialist takeover' of our government. "I guess if that's what they want, fine, but I just worry about the future of my children and grandchildren". Interestingly, his issue of the moment was not a public option in the health care system (I'm guessing that he also fears a future where one or more of his grandchildren, despite their hard work and best efforts may still be denied medical care). Instead, what still bugged him was the government-arranged 'resignation' of GM CEO Rick Wagoner, even though that happened six months ago.
It must be said that the government, now owners of 60% of GM, were simply exercising the same oversight that boards of directors have applied to millions of American workers.
But no matter. In the end, I agree with him. I wish the government didn't have to spend a minute of its time or a dollar of tax payer money worrying about GM...or Countrywide Financial...or CitiGroup...or any of the rest of them. I wish the people hired and paid to run these entities had simply done their jobs.
But they didn't. Consequently, I do support the intrusion of government by an order of magnitude--but in a specific way. Not in the role of holding the reins of private industry. Instead, when necessary, slapping the hands that hold those reins until they bleed.
During the Bush years we saw the evil genius of reactionary thought played out transparently. As was evident, part of that playbook called for repeating the Reagan mantra, "government isn't the solution, it's the problem". A fundamental tenet of this creed is that all government workers are lazy, fumbling bureaucrats who couldn't hold a job in the 'real world'--unless, of course, they are firemen, policemen, members of the armed forces, the nurses in VA hospitals who care for those servicemen and women, members of your family, or yourself. On the other hand, underlying evidence in support of this cynicism came regularly in the form of 'Brownie' mishandling the FEMA response to Hurricane Katrina...or now, the retrospective failure of Chris Cox and his cronies exercising oversight on the likes of Bernie Madoff, or for that matter, all of Wall Street.
What's that you say? The people I appointed to these jobs were idiots or co-conspirators? No! The government is the problem, don't you see?
The fact of the matter is that the SEC is exactly the type of place where government should be 'pOwning' business. Its powers of punishment should not be limited to financial penalties, but also incorporate criminal recourse. The entities they oversee should be taxed to fund 100% of this enforcement, just like we're expected to pay 100% of our speeding tickets and the salaries of the policemen who issue them. And the budget for those agencies of enforcement should be multiplied until success is realized.
As has been reported frequently of late, a year after the financial meltdown, the financial system not only has not reformed--it's actually worse than it was two years ago. Unregulated greed and unmitigated gall never left 'the Street'. The faces may have changed, but the practices have not. The only difference is that now, the successor clones are using 'house money'--our tax dollars--to help place their new reckless bets.
I have an acquaintance with a spoiled young daughter in college. In the process of failing to bother with any academics during her freshman year at a lovely campus in California, she also managed to wreck the nice new car Daddy had bought her.
His response was quick and firm: "that's it! I've had it! The next car she wants she's going to have to research herself--I'm not going to just go pick it out for her!"
This is where we are with Wall Street. They have no fear of Daddy, because they know Daddy has no teeth.
Time to sharpen up the incisors.
It must be said that the government, now owners of 60% of GM, were simply exercising the same oversight that boards of directors have applied to millions of American workers.
But no matter. In the end, I agree with him. I wish the government didn't have to spend a minute of its time or a dollar of tax payer money worrying about GM...or Countrywide Financial...or CitiGroup...or any of the rest of them. I wish the people hired and paid to run these entities had simply done their jobs.
But they didn't. Consequently, I do support the intrusion of government by an order of magnitude--but in a specific way. Not in the role of holding the reins of private industry. Instead, when necessary, slapping the hands that hold those reins until they bleed.
During the Bush years we saw the evil genius of reactionary thought played out transparently. As was evident, part of that playbook called for repeating the Reagan mantra, "government isn't the solution, it's the problem". A fundamental tenet of this creed is that all government workers are lazy, fumbling bureaucrats who couldn't hold a job in the 'real world'--unless, of course, they are firemen, policemen, members of the armed forces, the nurses in VA hospitals who care for those servicemen and women, members of your family, or yourself. On the other hand, underlying evidence in support of this cynicism came regularly in the form of 'Brownie' mishandling the FEMA response to Hurricane Katrina...or now, the retrospective failure of Chris Cox and his cronies exercising oversight on the likes of Bernie Madoff, or for that matter, all of Wall Street.
What's that you say? The people I appointed to these jobs were idiots or co-conspirators? No! The government is the problem, don't you see?
The fact of the matter is that the SEC is exactly the type of place where government should be 'pOwning' business. Its powers of punishment should not be limited to financial penalties, but also incorporate criminal recourse. The entities they oversee should be taxed to fund 100% of this enforcement, just like we're expected to pay 100% of our speeding tickets and the salaries of the policemen who issue them. And the budget for those agencies of enforcement should be multiplied until success is realized.
As has been reported frequently of late, a year after the financial meltdown, the financial system not only has not reformed--it's actually worse than it was two years ago. Unregulated greed and unmitigated gall never left 'the Street'. The faces may have changed, but the practices have not. The only difference is that now, the successor clones are using 'house money'--our tax dollars--to help place their new reckless bets.
I have an acquaintance with a spoiled young daughter in college. In the process of failing to bother with any academics during her freshman year at a lovely campus in California, she also managed to wreck the nice new car Daddy had bought her.
His response was quick and firm: "that's it! I've had it! The next car she wants she's going to have to research herself--I'm not going to just go pick it out for her!"
This is where we are with Wall Street. They have no fear of Daddy, because they know Daddy has no teeth.
Time to sharpen up the incisors.
Tuesday, September 8, 2009
School Daze
At this moment the President of the United States is directly addressing school children across the country.
But not all of them.
Because, of course, many parents have determined that their little ones will not, damn it, be subjected to the propaganda of this evil socialist scourge. After all, as the dizzy home schoolers have learned, the best way to teach your children is to keep them out of school.
Now, it is tempting to just plainly say what's at work here: ironically, the parents making these types of decisions by definition are dealing from a gene pool which is so deprived that school won't really help their kids anyway.
But the larger issue should not be lost.
The people who have turned this innocent moment into a political battle have once again shown themselves to be political terrorists of the level that renders Al Qaeda a forgettable afterthought.
Shame on them.
But not all of them.
Because, of course, many parents have determined that their little ones will not, damn it, be subjected to the propaganda of this evil socialist scourge. After all, as the dizzy home schoolers have learned, the best way to teach your children is to keep them out of school.
Now, it is tempting to just plainly say what's at work here: ironically, the parents making these types of decisions by definition are dealing from a gene pool which is so deprived that school won't really help their kids anyway.
But the larger issue should not be lost.
The people who have turned this innocent moment into a political battle have once again shown themselves to be political terrorists of the level that renders Al Qaeda a forgettable afterthought.
Shame on them.
Wednesday, August 26, 2009
Pornitics
Across nations, cultures and the Millenia, the human race has propagated itself the same way: through the reproductive act which most sane people would call both natural and enjoyable. At the other end of the spectrum, some elements of sexuality have been combined with the forced submission of young children. This is an activity which most sane people would rightly call both unnatural and criminal.
In between lies the vast expanse of human sexual experience and expression. To define and divide it, societies have named censors to determine what is acceptable for common discourse, and what is not. There is no universal conclusion. The line continues to move. But at some point all censors are called on to declare what is pornographic. Academics have argued that pornography is more subjective than descriptive, and after wrestling to find his own definition, Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart famously declared, "I know it when I see it".
Wherever pornography begins and ends, it does have certain common characteristics. Among these are fantasy, delusion, submission, and frequently the magic elixir of commerce. "Just give us your credit card number, and that beautiful young thing will submit to your every desire!" While the faces and the figures may vary, the procedure is fixed: the use of illusion for the arousal of passions, a hedonistic form of propaganda for profit.
Opinions on pornography vary. Some find it a form of healthy release. Others call it repressive and reprehensible. But where the argument should end is at the point where we now find ourselves; where the pathology of pornography hijacks the political process. Where the unthinking wing of the American electorate is unknowingly subjected to a constant and subversive stream of fantasy and delusion. And where the merchants selling these wares remain utterly unconcerned about the consequences of the inevitable orgasms these passions will produce.
Again, we are in the land of pornitics.
As Frank Rich so clearly recounted in the New York Times, the script for this subversive stag flick really never changes. In our lifetimes alone, we are now seeing it acted out for the third time. Act one: an evil liberal is thoughtlessly elected by a duped electorate, resulting in the end of a long reign of special interests under the Republican banner. Act two: the evil liberal is proven to be--gasp!--a 'socialist'! Act three: the passions of a suddenly aroused electorate play out, literally, with a vengeance. While the larger part of America concludes, 'that was horrible!', others quietly mutter, 'they had it coming'.
History repeats itself. Kennedy defeats Nixon. The John Birchers start shouting, 'socialist!' Kennedy is gunned down.
Clinton defeats the first Bush. Limbaugh and Falwell amplify the socialist message using direct mail and talk radio. Hundreds of 'enemy' government workers in Oklahoma City--and many of their evil children in the facility's day care center--are exterminated.
Obama defeats McCain. He is exposed as the ultimate socialist. Already, we have one doctor gunned down for legally practicing his profession...and a security guard gunned down for...well, apparently acting as a security guard.
What's different now is that we've moved message delivery from the John Birch pamphlets past the Limbaugh rants and propelled it into the infinite echo chamber of the Internet, where people can find 'proof' for their delusions...and anonymously build upon them...endlessly. Without concern for evidence, civility, or the rule of law.
The victims of pornitics now carry their loaded automatic weapons to town hall meetings 'because they can'. Their ammunition is a delusional witches brew of phony birth certificates, gay marriages, government death merchants, glorious Marines, confiscatory taxes, flag burners, Muslim terrorists, Constitutional purity, Michael Moore documentaries, wasteful bureaucrats, free markets, lost jobs, public schools and a scornful Jesus.
This paranoia is a beautiful young thing. She'll allow you to do anything. She knows you're fully loaded. And the only thing she's ever wanted...is for you to go off.
In between lies the vast expanse of human sexual experience and expression. To define and divide it, societies have named censors to determine what is acceptable for common discourse, and what is not. There is no universal conclusion. The line continues to move. But at some point all censors are called on to declare what is pornographic. Academics have argued that pornography is more subjective than descriptive, and after wrestling to find his own definition, Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart famously declared, "I know it when I see it".
Wherever pornography begins and ends, it does have certain common characteristics. Among these are fantasy, delusion, submission, and frequently the magic elixir of commerce. "Just give us your credit card number, and that beautiful young thing will submit to your every desire!" While the faces and the figures may vary, the procedure is fixed: the use of illusion for the arousal of passions, a hedonistic form of propaganda for profit.
Opinions on pornography vary. Some find it a form of healthy release. Others call it repressive and reprehensible. But where the argument should end is at the point where we now find ourselves; where the pathology of pornography hijacks the political process. Where the unthinking wing of the American electorate is unknowingly subjected to a constant and subversive stream of fantasy and delusion. And where the merchants selling these wares remain utterly unconcerned about the consequences of the inevitable orgasms these passions will produce.
Again, we are in the land of pornitics.
As Frank Rich so clearly recounted in the New York Times, the script for this subversive stag flick really never changes. In our lifetimes alone, we are now seeing it acted out for the third time. Act one: an evil liberal is thoughtlessly elected by a duped electorate, resulting in the end of a long reign of special interests under the Republican banner. Act two: the evil liberal is proven to be--gasp!--a 'socialist'! Act three: the passions of a suddenly aroused electorate play out, literally, with a vengeance. While the larger part of America concludes, 'that was horrible!', others quietly mutter, 'they had it coming'.
History repeats itself. Kennedy defeats Nixon. The John Birchers start shouting, 'socialist!' Kennedy is gunned down.
Clinton defeats the first Bush. Limbaugh and Falwell amplify the socialist message using direct mail and talk radio. Hundreds of 'enemy' government workers in Oklahoma City--and many of their evil children in the facility's day care center--are exterminated.
Obama defeats McCain. He is exposed as the ultimate socialist. Already, we have one doctor gunned down for legally practicing his profession...and a security guard gunned down for...well, apparently acting as a security guard.
What's different now is that we've moved message delivery from the John Birch pamphlets past the Limbaugh rants and propelled it into the infinite echo chamber of the Internet, where people can find 'proof' for their delusions...and anonymously build upon them...endlessly. Without concern for evidence, civility, or the rule of law.
The victims of pornitics now carry their loaded automatic weapons to town hall meetings 'because they can'. Their ammunition is a delusional witches brew of phony birth certificates, gay marriages, government death merchants, glorious Marines, confiscatory taxes, flag burners, Muslim terrorists, Constitutional purity, Michael Moore documentaries, wasteful bureaucrats, free markets, lost jobs, public schools and a scornful Jesus.
This paranoia is a beautiful young thing. She'll allow you to do anything. She knows you're fully loaded. And the only thing she's ever wanted...is for you to go off.
Sunday, March 15, 2009
Time for a Little Baseball: The Ouchies
The snowbirds are off to Arizona, the fantasy freaks are deep into their spreadsheets, and yes, another summer of baseball stretches in the on deck circle. But before the Mariners’ opening pitch bounces in the dirt, let us take a few moments to consider that despite how it felt, the most miserable performances of last year didn’t all belong to the Mariners. There were plenty of baseball-related disorders spread through the national lineup.
Thus, without further ado, we award the first annual ‘ouchies’ to those players who did the most in 2008 to cause fans to squirm in their seats and fire adult beverages at their flat panels.
MOST OUTS
Is there anything more depression-inducing than watching your guy make an out? And yet, as a raw total, this futility is seldom counted. Certainly, in order to slouch back to the dugout repeatedly, you have to be good enough to keep your spot in the lineup—and preferably, at the top of the lineup. So it’s no surprise that Jose Reyes of the Mets and Ichiro were two of only nine major leaguers to make more than 470 outs last year. In fact, Reyes was the only one to top 500.
But a special tip of the stat sheet goes to the Mariners, the only team to land two of those nine spots in the all-out lineup—come on down, Jose Lopez!
GROUDING INTO DOUBLE PLAYS
Well, actually there is something worse than making an out—it’s making two outs at the same time. Twenty-one different batters grounded into at least 20 DPs, and we should not fail to recognize the catching Molina brothers, Yadier of the Cardinals and Bengie of the Blue Jays, who doubled up, so to speak.
It may seem improbable that a shortstop, say like our Yuniesky Betancourt, could hit into as many double plays as a funky slow Molina, but in fact he did. Nevertheless, take heart—Derek Jeter of the dreaded Yankees actually hit into one more. And yes, there is worse—the leaden standard for shortstops goes to the clay footed Miguel Tejada of Houston, who forced out 32 teammates ahead of him before unsuccessfully reaching first base.
THROWING ERRORS—INFIELD
OK, let’s move to what seems like a simple task for a major league ballplayer—throwing the baseball where you want it to go. I know that it seemed like Yuniesky was flinging at least one over the 11 foot reach of Richie Sexson every other game last year, but he really only recorded nine for the season. Two other shortstops in California alone, Bobby Crosby of Oakland (13) and Erick Aybar of the Angels (11) actually were among the eight infielders to reach double misthrowing figures.
And those numbers seem nearly acceptable compared to Edwin Encarnacion of Cincinnati, who somehow missed his fellow fielders 16 times when he let fly. Still, all hail Mark Reynolds of the Astros, whose 18 throwing errors take on a nearly mythical significance when coupled with the fact that he also led baseball by striking out 204 times.
See…doesn’t that make you feel better about Yuni?
THROWING ERRORS—CATCHER
Catchers have special challenges. They’re often called on to try to throw out or pick off baserunners thoughtlessly allowed to reach base by their numbskull battery mates. When the runner is off, there’s no time to set your feet in advance, because you don’t know where the pitch is going to finish. Then, although you’re supposed to just ‘throw to the bag’, you know that the intended infield recipient inevitably is a moving target. And inexplicably, there is no reward for just hitting the runner himself. Shouldn’t he therefore ‘thrown out’? This is the true failure of the Bud Selig era.
Eleven catchers were charged with at least seven throwing errors last season. Does this stat matter? Apparently not. Two on the list, our Kenji Johjima and Pittsburgh’s Ryan Doumit were awarded fat contracts during, and after the season, respectively. And it didn’t hurt the Dodgers’ Russell Martin, either. (Although Martin’s inaccuracy probably deserves to be forgiven somewhat, since part of his would-be formative baseball years were spent growing up in Paris).
THROWING ERRORS—OUTFIELDERS
It’s really hard to make a throwing error as an outfielder, even though there are thousands of horrible outfield tosses every year. For example: is someone as slow as Ryan Howard just touching third when you let fly from short right? And your toss still sails 25 feet up the first base line? Even before big Ryan is halfway home? Nope, not an error. In the eyes of the official scorer, you can never assume anyone should have been thrown out from the outfield.
Nevertheless, six different outfielders were charged with four throwing errors last year. Among them was Rick Ankiel, the former Cardinal pitching prodigy banished to greener pastures after he uncannily but constantly missed his target from 60 feet. So, from 250 feet, what would you expect? Which just goes to show…when you can’t aim, you can’t aim.
HOME RUNS ALLOWED
For a fan, this is the ultimate thrill—or cringe inducer, depending. A couple dozen hurlers saw their offerings fly over the wall at least 25 times last year, including some really bad pitchers (Vincente Padilla of Texas) and some really good ones (Cole Hamels, World Series MVP of the Phillies). Special tribute here to the Nationals, who had four guys give up 20 or more, and the Cincinnati trio of Bronson Arroyo, Aaron Harang and Johnny Cueto, who averaged 31 gopher balls apiece.
But let’s devote a moment’s sympathy to the southsiders of Chicago, who saw their Gavin Floyd not only initiate 30 round trippers, but also easily lead the league by allowing 37 stolen bases. The guy should have run a merry-go-round.
HIT BATSMEN
Here’s where the ouchies really begin to sting. Some pitchers hit guys more than others. Nineteen plunked into the double digits last year. Some of those guys are bad (yep, Padilla again), but some are good—both Roy Halladay of Toronto and Brandon Webb of Arizona, each placing second in the Cy Young voting in their respective leagues.
But the standout here was the wildman flamethrower of the Orioles, Daniel Cabrera. After years of waiting for him to ‘find his location’, Baltimore decided to move his location across the metro area to the Washington Nationals. Imagine how excited those National League batters will be to see him!
HIT BY PITCH
Of course, there is always a bruised body at the other end of those HBPs. In fact, 29 batters were felled at least ten times last year. Some of them are big hulks who can’t seem to get out of the way in time (Giambi of the A’s, Fielder of the Brewers, Shoppach of the Indians), and some are annoying little guys just trying to get nicked in order to steal second (Ichiro, Sizemore of the Indians, McLouth of the Pirates).
But perhaps the most surprising leader in any Ouchie category is Chase Utley, the uber-second baseman of the champion Phillies, who easily led the field with 27 airborne wounds. Not surprisingly, he’s spending most of spring training recovering from hip surgery.
NORTHWEST HIGHLIGHTS
Before we move to our national Ouchie of the Year, three separate feats by Mariners should not go unnoticed. Jose Lopez, in some respects, was eerily ‘typical’. The statistical difference in his Gross Production Average (sort of like on base percentage—don’t ask) between left handed and right handed pitchers was a mere .001. In other words, it made absolutely no difference. And the percentage of times he hit fly balls, line drives and ground balls were all exactly the major league average. Scary.
Equally scary--Lopez and Yuniesky combined to record the two lowest percentages for accepting walks in all of baseball. Swing, batter, swing!
But the Mariners’ stat of the year is guaranteed never to be bested. Felix Hernandez had exactly one official at bat…and hit a grand slam home run. The resulting slugging percentage of 4.000 is the statistical max. For fun, imagine anyone averaging four RBIs per at bat for an entire season. For someone with 686 at bats like Ichiro, that would project to over 2,700 RBIs. Sure, that’s stupid—but isn’t it fun to look at?
OUCHIE OF THE YEAR
You may know him as the former Diamondback who came out of nowhere to lead the American League in home runs for most of the year, striding menacingly from the White Sox dugout. But in baseball as in life, with joy there is often pain. As one of only four players with four throwing errors from the outfield, and one of only three who was zapped by opposing pitches at least 20 times, the White Sox’ Carlos Quentin is the first recipient of Ouchie of the Year—well actually, part of the year. His season ended in September, appropriately enough, when he suffered a fractured wrist—by angrily smashing himself with his own bat.
Dude, that’s Hall of Fame ouch.
Thus, without further ado, we award the first annual ‘ouchies’ to those players who did the most in 2008 to cause fans to squirm in their seats and fire adult beverages at their flat panels.
MOST OUTS
Is there anything more depression-inducing than watching your guy make an out? And yet, as a raw total, this futility is seldom counted. Certainly, in order to slouch back to the dugout repeatedly, you have to be good enough to keep your spot in the lineup—and preferably, at the top of the lineup. So it’s no surprise that Jose Reyes of the Mets and Ichiro were two of only nine major leaguers to make more than 470 outs last year. In fact, Reyes was the only one to top 500.
But a special tip of the stat sheet goes to the Mariners, the only team to land two of those nine spots in the all-out lineup—come on down, Jose Lopez!
GROUDING INTO DOUBLE PLAYS
Well, actually there is something worse than making an out—it’s making two outs at the same time. Twenty-one different batters grounded into at least 20 DPs, and we should not fail to recognize the catching Molina brothers, Yadier of the Cardinals and Bengie of the Blue Jays, who doubled up, so to speak.
It may seem improbable that a shortstop, say like our Yuniesky Betancourt, could hit into as many double plays as a funky slow Molina, but in fact he did. Nevertheless, take heart—Derek Jeter of the dreaded Yankees actually hit into one more. And yes, there is worse—the leaden standard for shortstops goes to the clay footed Miguel Tejada of Houston, who forced out 32 teammates ahead of him before unsuccessfully reaching first base.
THROWING ERRORS—INFIELD
OK, let’s move to what seems like a simple task for a major league ballplayer—throwing the baseball where you want it to go. I know that it seemed like Yuniesky was flinging at least one over the 11 foot reach of Richie Sexson every other game last year, but he really only recorded nine for the season. Two other shortstops in California alone, Bobby Crosby of Oakland (13) and Erick Aybar of the Angels (11) actually were among the eight infielders to reach double misthrowing figures.
And those numbers seem nearly acceptable compared to Edwin Encarnacion of Cincinnati, who somehow missed his fellow fielders 16 times when he let fly. Still, all hail Mark Reynolds of the Astros, whose 18 throwing errors take on a nearly mythical significance when coupled with the fact that he also led baseball by striking out 204 times.
See…doesn’t that make you feel better about Yuni?
THROWING ERRORS—CATCHER
Catchers have special challenges. They’re often called on to try to throw out or pick off baserunners thoughtlessly allowed to reach base by their numbskull battery mates. When the runner is off, there’s no time to set your feet in advance, because you don’t know where the pitch is going to finish. Then, although you’re supposed to just ‘throw to the bag’, you know that the intended infield recipient inevitably is a moving target. And inexplicably, there is no reward for just hitting the runner himself. Shouldn’t he therefore ‘thrown out’? This is the true failure of the Bud Selig era.
Eleven catchers were charged with at least seven throwing errors last season. Does this stat matter? Apparently not. Two on the list, our Kenji Johjima and Pittsburgh’s Ryan Doumit were awarded fat contracts during, and after the season, respectively. And it didn’t hurt the Dodgers’ Russell Martin, either. (Although Martin’s inaccuracy probably deserves to be forgiven somewhat, since part of his would-be formative baseball years were spent growing up in Paris).
THROWING ERRORS—OUTFIELDERS
It’s really hard to make a throwing error as an outfielder, even though there are thousands of horrible outfield tosses every year. For example: is someone as slow as Ryan Howard just touching third when you let fly from short right? And your toss still sails 25 feet up the first base line? Even before big Ryan is halfway home? Nope, not an error. In the eyes of the official scorer, you can never assume anyone should have been thrown out from the outfield.
Nevertheless, six different outfielders were charged with four throwing errors last year. Among them was Rick Ankiel, the former Cardinal pitching prodigy banished to greener pastures after he uncannily but constantly missed his target from 60 feet. So, from 250 feet, what would you expect? Which just goes to show…when you can’t aim, you can’t aim.
HOME RUNS ALLOWED
For a fan, this is the ultimate thrill—or cringe inducer, depending. A couple dozen hurlers saw their offerings fly over the wall at least 25 times last year, including some really bad pitchers (Vincente Padilla of Texas) and some really good ones (Cole Hamels, World Series MVP of the Phillies). Special tribute here to the Nationals, who had four guys give up 20 or more, and the Cincinnati trio of Bronson Arroyo, Aaron Harang and Johnny Cueto, who averaged 31 gopher balls apiece.
But let’s devote a moment’s sympathy to the southsiders of Chicago, who saw their Gavin Floyd not only initiate 30 round trippers, but also easily lead the league by allowing 37 stolen bases. The guy should have run a merry-go-round.
HIT BATSMEN
Here’s where the ouchies really begin to sting. Some pitchers hit guys more than others. Nineteen plunked into the double digits last year. Some of those guys are bad (yep, Padilla again), but some are good—both Roy Halladay of Toronto and Brandon Webb of Arizona, each placing second in the Cy Young voting in their respective leagues.
But the standout here was the wildman flamethrower of the Orioles, Daniel Cabrera. After years of waiting for him to ‘find his location’, Baltimore decided to move his location across the metro area to the Washington Nationals. Imagine how excited those National League batters will be to see him!
HIT BY PITCH
Of course, there is always a bruised body at the other end of those HBPs. In fact, 29 batters were felled at least ten times last year. Some of them are big hulks who can’t seem to get out of the way in time (Giambi of the A’s, Fielder of the Brewers, Shoppach of the Indians), and some are annoying little guys just trying to get nicked in order to steal second (Ichiro, Sizemore of the Indians, McLouth of the Pirates).
But perhaps the most surprising leader in any Ouchie category is Chase Utley, the uber-second baseman of the champion Phillies, who easily led the field with 27 airborne wounds. Not surprisingly, he’s spending most of spring training recovering from hip surgery.
NORTHWEST HIGHLIGHTS
Before we move to our national Ouchie of the Year, three separate feats by Mariners should not go unnoticed. Jose Lopez, in some respects, was eerily ‘typical’. The statistical difference in his Gross Production Average (sort of like on base percentage—don’t ask) between left handed and right handed pitchers was a mere .001. In other words, it made absolutely no difference. And the percentage of times he hit fly balls, line drives and ground balls were all exactly the major league average. Scary.
Equally scary--Lopez and Yuniesky combined to record the two lowest percentages for accepting walks in all of baseball. Swing, batter, swing!
But the Mariners’ stat of the year is guaranteed never to be bested. Felix Hernandez had exactly one official at bat…and hit a grand slam home run. The resulting slugging percentage of 4.000 is the statistical max. For fun, imagine anyone averaging four RBIs per at bat for an entire season. For someone with 686 at bats like Ichiro, that would project to over 2,700 RBIs. Sure, that’s stupid—but isn’t it fun to look at?
OUCHIE OF THE YEAR
You may know him as the former Diamondback who came out of nowhere to lead the American League in home runs for most of the year, striding menacingly from the White Sox dugout. But in baseball as in life, with joy there is often pain. As one of only four players with four throwing errors from the outfield, and one of only three who was zapped by opposing pitches at least 20 times, the White Sox’ Carlos Quentin is the first recipient of Ouchie of the Year—well actually, part of the year. His season ended in September, appropriately enough, when he suffered a fractured wrist—by angrily smashing himself with his own bat.
Dude, that’s Hall of Fame ouch.
Two Different Worlds
This week, Jon Stewart proved himself to be the best financial reporter in broadcasting, with his jab-by-jab knockout of CNBC's clueless Jim Cramer. If you missed it, you owe it to yourself to pay a visit to YouTube or Hulu to see the evisceration. What it proved, beyond a doubt, is the fact that the rapacious preeners of Wall Street--including their media apologists--live in entirely different world, with an entirely different world view, than the rest of us.
Incredibly, now there is fresh evidence, courtesy of reporting in the Washington Post. AIG, the company that was deemed 'too big to fail', is failing us once again. A new wave of executive bonuses, to the tune of $100 million, is being awarded, with no word of approval or assent from the group that holds an 80% stake in the company--namely, you, me and the rest of the U.S. taxpayers.
In attempts to explain this away, the current CEO of AIG said that he really had no choice, since the bonuses were contractual, and in any case, "we cannot attract and retain the best and brightest talent to lead and staff the AIG businesses...if employees believe their compensation is subject to continued and arbitrary adjustment by the U.S. Treasury."
This is so insane, it's almost impossible to know where to begin, but let's take a stab:
There is only one possible positive outcome: if this keeps John Stewart pissed off and on point, there may yet be some remedy to this madness.
Incredibly, now there is fresh evidence, courtesy of reporting in the Washington Post. AIG, the company that was deemed 'too big to fail', is failing us once again. A new wave of executive bonuses, to the tune of $100 million, is being awarded, with no word of approval or assent from the group that holds an 80% stake in the company--namely, you, me and the rest of the U.S. taxpayers.
In attempts to explain this away, the current CEO of AIG said that he really had no choice, since the bonuses were contractual, and in any case, "we cannot attract and retain the best and brightest talent to lead and staff the AIG businesses...if employees believe their compensation is subject to continued and arbitrary adjustment by the U.S. Treasury."
This is so insane, it's almost impossible to know where to begin, but let's take a stab:
- First of all, if the bonuses are already contracted, they aren't really bonuses, are they? They are part of contractual compensation. They are not awarded on the basis of merit (as if there were any left in that company)
- Second, the stated threat is that these employees might sue. Well, there's an easy solution to that. Simply pull the government funding, let the company fail, and see what's left to win in the lawsuits. It's like trying to retrieve your best suit from the dry cleaners that just burned to the ground
- Finally, and most importantly, consider that 'best and brightest' shibboleth. The people being paid these bonuses are exactly the same people who leaped headlong into the derivatives schemes in the first place. They are the ones who brought AIG to its knees. They are the ones who undid all the honorable work being done by the people who conducted the company's historic business, namely insuring people (ironic, is that not?).
There is only one possible positive outcome: if this keeps John Stewart pissed off and on point, there may yet be some remedy to this madness.
Friday, February 27, 2009
What Do Conservatives Want?
The most cynical answer to that question--one which I fully endorse--is this: in the viewpoint of the conservative movement, government exists for one reason: to transfer as much money as possible from the working class to the wealthiest individuals and biggest corporations. That's it--the big funnel. And when those recipients of welfare for the wealthy turn around and contribute generously to keep those same conservatives in office, you have closed the wicked circle of government. One that mocks the Constitution, sure, but you have to admit it's pretty damned efficient.
Of course, people will disagree with this contention, but sometimes facts emerge which are pretty difficult to argue. The Atlantic Monthly provided such a service recently. They printed a two page graphical spread which compared what's happened to our country in the eight years since George W. Bush took office. The most compelling combination of facts is this:
In your heart, you already know the answer. It went to all of the private contractors who are building weapon systems we don't need, failing to adequately arm the troops we are sending into combat, and otherwise driving cowboy convoys in perfectly armored SUVs where they can kill innocent locals without fear of prosecution.
So, next time you hear so-called conservatives on TV complaining about budgets that collect too much tax revenue, remember what's really killing them--the money's now going back to the people who paid it, rather than to the plutocrats who run the wicked circle.
Of course, people will disagree with this contention, but sometimes facts emerge which are pretty difficult to argue. The Atlantic Monthly provided such a service recently. They printed a two page graphical spread which compared what's happened to our country in the eight years since George W. Bush took office. The most compelling combination of facts is this:
- Defense spending increased 76%
- The number of designated foreign terrorist groups grew by 52%
- Total troops deployed in Iraq and Afghanistan (whether rightly or wrongly) went from 0 to 214 thousand
- BUT...the number of active duty personnel in the American troop levels actually went down three percent?
In your heart, you already know the answer. It went to all of the private contractors who are building weapon systems we don't need, failing to adequately arm the troops we are sending into combat, and otherwise driving cowboy convoys in perfectly armored SUVs where they can kill innocent locals without fear of prosecution.
So, next time you hear so-called conservatives on TV complaining about budgets that collect too much tax revenue, remember what's really killing them--the money's now going back to the people who paid it, rather than to the plutocrats who run the wicked circle.
Friday, February 20, 2009
Nationalization
Sometimes things are just as simple as they seem.
Right now, the financial community (as reputedly evidenced by the further drop in the Dow Jones) is in a panic about the 'nationalization' of the banking industry. Let's set aside for the moment that no pending proposal really calls for that--even though they should. Let's actually think about the idea of the banking system as an arm of the Federal Government.
First of all, when someone pays an agreed upon amount of money to buy something, they own it. One automaker or drug company or local coffee shop buys another one--they own it. You buy one of those cars or pills or lattes--you own it. This is called the 'free market'. (Remember, once upon a time, when the Republicans prayed at that altar?)
But Jesus, we can't let that happen! The government owning the banks?! Think how bad that would be--the government screws up everything!
Wrong. If that's so, you're saying our brave fighting people in Iraq are screwups. You're saying the people who patrol your streets and put out your fires are screwups. You're saying George W. Bush was a screwup...(ah, well, OK, I give you that one).
The point here is that government is a product of people. It does not live and breathe on its own. And as a product of human beings, its value is simply the product of the people who lead it and provide it every day. To think otherwise is to say that all companies are bad...or all schools...or all rugby teams. There is, of course, conclusive proof to my contention: FEMA under James Lee Witt--very, VERY good; FEMA under Joe Allbaugh and Michael Brown--very, VERY bad. See what I mean?
Next point--if you fear the government running the banks, I ask you, how could they possibly do as criminally poor a job as the masters of the universe who have run them over the last five years? Honestly. Think of it this way. As a government agency, there will be regulations and laws for lending practices. If you break those laws (say, something as stupid as letting people make up their own income and fill that in on the loan form--really, who could be that dumb...), well, you could face prosecution and jail time. On the other hand, as long as banks remain in private hands, bad and greedy people are going to try to make more money for themselves.
So, government control=fixed salaries, no bonuses, oversight, transparency. Private control= what we have now. You choose.
What we are seeing at the moment are the same hypocritical bastards who ruined our economy yelping about how our economy might be ruined. These people shouldn't be on TV and in boardrooms trying to save their jobs--they should be in jail.
As long as our tax money is buying up their mistakes, we get to say what happens next. Free market--love it or leave it.
Right now, the financial community (as reputedly evidenced by the further drop in the Dow Jones) is in a panic about the 'nationalization' of the banking industry. Let's set aside for the moment that no pending proposal really calls for that--even though they should. Let's actually think about the idea of the banking system as an arm of the Federal Government.
First of all, when someone pays an agreed upon amount of money to buy something, they own it. One automaker or drug company or local coffee shop buys another one--they own it. You buy one of those cars or pills or lattes--you own it. This is called the 'free market'. (Remember, once upon a time, when the Republicans prayed at that altar?)
But Jesus, we can't let that happen! The government owning the banks?! Think how bad that would be--the government screws up everything!
Wrong. If that's so, you're saying our brave fighting people in Iraq are screwups. You're saying the people who patrol your streets and put out your fires are screwups. You're saying George W. Bush was a screwup...(ah, well, OK, I give you that one).
The point here is that government is a product of people. It does not live and breathe on its own. And as a product of human beings, its value is simply the product of the people who lead it and provide it every day. To think otherwise is to say that all companies are bad...or all schools...or all rugby teams. There is, of course, conclusive proof to my contention: FEMA under James Lee Witt--very, VERY good; FEMA under Joe Allbaugh and Michael Brown--very, VERY bad. See what I mean?
Next point--if you fear the government running the banks, I ask you, how could they possibly do as criminally poor a job as the masters of the universe who have run them over the last five years? Honestly. Think of it this way. As a government agency, there will be regulations and laws for lending practices. If you break those laws (say, something as stupid as letting people make up their own income and fill that in on the loan form--really, who could be that dumb...), well, you could face prosecution and jail time. On the other hand, as long as banks remain in private hands, bad and greedy people are going to try to make more money for themselves.
So, government control=fixed salaries, no bonuses, oversight, transparency. Private control= what we have now. You choose.
What we are seeing at the moment are the same hypocritical bastards who ruined our economy yelping about how our economy might be ruined. These people shouldn't be on TV and in boardrooms trying to save their jobs--they should be in jail.
As long as our tax money is buying up their mistakes, we get to say what happens next. Free market--love it or leave it.
Friday, February 6, 2009
No Place to Hide
From the very start, I've had only one reservation about Barack Obama: did he really believe in the possibility of bipartisanship?
This week, he stood before a Democratic retreat and at least hinted that even if he did, he wouldn't take the opposing BS sitting down. He taunted the Republicans who taunted his stimulus plan. And he did this, I believe, because he recognized that breaking the culture of partisanship in Washington is not a realistic goal...maybe not even possible in any circumstance. The remaining people on the other side have just two goals. First, continue to carry water for the same plutocrats who have pushed our economy to the brink; and second, to discredit him.
Now, I have serious reservations about any stimulus plan. I don't see how anyone could not harbor doubts after we drowned the criminals on Wall Street with our tax dollars...never bothering to ask them, much less require them, to spend those dollars for the common good. Of course, the Republican opposition against the stimulus is largely a matter of objecting that middle class dollars be spent to help the middle class and poor. They believe the only job of government is to funnel the dollars of the non-wealthy to the uber-wealthy.
But there is at least one comic aspect to this drama. As the play moved into the Senate, it became abundantly clear that there simply is no actor to credibly stand before the cameras on behalf of the purchased scum. News channels were reduced to Senate floor clips of the increasingly irrelevant John McCain...and Newt Gingrich was pulled out of his psychiatric ward to blather on about the myth that is Ronald Reagan. But beyond that, who is there left to speak in the 'gentleman's club' for the hate wing of the party?
These people are defeated. They don't matter anymore to the American public. And as soon as the media realize this, we will all be better for it.
This week, he stood before a Democratic retreat and at least hinted that even if he did, he wouldn't take the opposing BS sitting down. He taunted the Republicans who taunted his stimulus plan. And he did this, I believe, because he recognized that breaking the culture of partisanship in Washington is not a realistic goal...maybe not even possible in any circumstance. The remaining people on the other side have just two goals. First, continue to carry water for the same plutocrats who have pushed our economy to the brink; and second, to discredit him.
Now, I have serious reservations about any stimulus plan. I don't see how anyone could not harbor doubts after we drowned the criminals on Wall Street with our tax dollars...never bothering to ask them, much less require them, to spend those dollars for the common good. Of course, the Republican opposition against the stimulus is largely a matter of objecting that middle class dollars be spent to help the middle class and poor. They believe the only job of government is to funnel the dollars of the non-wealthy to the uber-wealthy.
But there is at least one comic aspect to this drama. As the play moved into the Senate, it became abundantly clear that there simply is no actor to credibly stand before the cameras on behalf of the purchased scum. News channels were reduced to Senate floor clips of the increasingly irrelevant John McCain...and Newt Gingrich was pulled out of his psychiatric ward to blather on about the myth that is Ronald Reagan. But beyond that, who is there left to speak in the 'gentleman's club' for the hate wing of the party?
These people are defeated. They don't matter anymore to the American public. And as soon as the media realize this, we will all be better for it.
Thursday, January 15, 2009
Why I Despise George W. Bush
So here we are, in the final days of this disastrous coup d'etat, watching this sad little emperor with no close, fall back on the same cards he has played so consistently and so shamelessly all these years--the terror card, the fear card, those folds of an invisible toga that have never remotely concealed his lack of manhood. He was never the person who protected us after 9/11--he was the person whose incompetence allowed it to happen in the first place. He was the problem. He was the terrorist's tool.
And yet, in this final farewell...with words so impossible that they fit only in the world of satire...only now has he finally answered the question about him which I have struggled with every single day of his administration: could he possibly be stupid enough to believe the words coming out of his mouth? Or was he lying?
Now I know. Yes, he is that stupid. Your dog is smarter. And by that, I mean no disrespect to your dog. W is the mutt who has gnawed on the body politic for eight years. He drew blood. A lot of blood. And still, he could never figure out why we finally stopped feeding him our doggy treats.
Good riddance, you cur.
And yet, in this final farewell...with words so impossible that they fit only in the world of satire...only now has he finally answered the question about him which I have struggled with every single day of his administration: could he possibly be stupid enough to believe the words coming out of his mouth? Or was he lying?
Now I know. Yes, he is that stupid. Your dog is smarter. And by that, I mean no disrespect to your dog. W is the mutt who has gnawed on the body politic for eight years. He drew blood. A lot of blood. And still, he could never figure out why we finally stopped feeding him our doggy treats.
Good riddance, you cur.
Wednesday, January 7, 2009
Spare the Rod...
Does this individual sound familiar?:
But this individual also exists within the family of nations.
His name is Israel.
Equipped by his sugar-daddy America with everything from the highest level intelligence to nuclear weapons, he sees danger only in the popguns of neighbors. Ignorant of the unlockable tendrils of original blame, he is confident that his aggression must be justified--certainly, somewhere in the mists of history, the other guy hit first. Every one of his people is good. Every one of those across the border, even those children cowering in United Nations schools, is free game. For they are bad.
Every U.S. President in modern times has walked into the Oval Office promising to bring peace to the middle east. Perhaps some even believed it. And this will be particularly difficult for Barack Obama, whose name alone continues to arouse suspicion among the most rabid and tone deaf supporters of Israel.
This is the unneeded crisis thrust into the middle of a global economic meltdown. It is one that must be dealt with quickly and forcefully. But it will require that this spoiled Israel, this emotional cauldron of paranoia and self-righteousness, is finally taken to task.
Is Obama the one to administer tough love?
- A child, told he is 'special' from birth, always held to lesser standards, protected from responsibility by nervous parents, becoming hypersensitive and whiny at every turn;
- In the 'tween' years, moving to a permanent petulance, a consistent sense of exception, confident only in his sense of entitlement;
- Finally, as a young man, he is permanently ruined. Driving the newest and most expensive convertible his Father can find, breaking every traffic rule, showing early but clear signs of paranoia whenever he is questioned, incapable of seeing that the perpetual faults he finds in others could ever be mirrored in himself. Whatever he does is perfectly defensible; that same act done to him is unforgivable.
But this individual also exists within the family of nations.
His name is Israel.
Equipped by his sugar-daddy America with everything from the highest level intelligence to nuclear weapons, he sees danger only in the popguns of neighbors. Ignorant of the unlockable tendrils of original blame, he is confident that his aggression must be justified--certainly, somewhere in the mists of history, the other guy hit first. Every one of his people is good. Every one of those across the border, even those children cowering in United Nations schools, is free game. For they are bad.
Every U.S. President in modern times has walked into the Oval Office promising to bring peace to the middle east. Perhaps some even believed it. And this will be particularly difficult for Barack Obama, whose name alone continues to arouse suspicion among the most rabid and tone deaf supporters of Israel.
This is the unneeded crisis thrust into the middle of a global economic meltdown. It is one that must be dealt with quickly and forcefully. But it will require that this spoiled Israel, this emotional cauldron of paranoia and self-righteousness, is finally taken to task.
Is Obama the one to administer tough love?
Tuesday, January 6, 2009
Petty
Eight years ago this month America was saved--a straight-talkin', have-a-beer-with drooling moron was going to save the White House from that dastardly, eight-years-of-peace-and-prosperity sucker who succumbed to a desperate overweight girl who flashed her thong. Thank God!
But as the little piss ant was worming his way into the dark pages of our history, his 'people' finalized their campaign to discredit the predecessor by spreading stories about how his 'people' defiled the majesty of their White House by various means of sedition, including removing the 'W's from all the typewriters (or keyboards, or whatever they would have used had they been able to communicate in full sentences).
We later found out it was all--100%--wrong. They lied--GASP!!!
Well, in a perfect culmination of two terms of both disaster and pettiness, that same piss ant denied his successor access to the secured premises of the Blair House, across the street from his eventual home, the White House. Bush said it was already booked--sorry!
Except that it wasn't. He lied again!--GASP!!!
Yes, that cipher in Australia, John Howard, was supposed to visit for a couple days. But let's get real...the Blair House has 119 rooms, 35 of them bathrooms. Even trying, it would be hard to interrupt one of Howard's calls of nature with one of those little kids accidentally barging in.
Petty in...petty out.
How can that bastard not be in jail?
We may not be the greatest nation on Earth anymore. But we are unquestionably without peer in terms of delusion.
If you remain happy with Bush...you remain hopelessly out of touch with reality.
But as the little piss ant was worming his way into the dark pages of our history, his 'people' finalized their campaign to discredit the predecessor by spreading stories about how his 'people' defiled the majesty of their White House by various means of sedition, including removing the 'W's from all the typewriters (or keyboards, or whatever they would have used had they been able to communicate in full sentences).
We later found out it was all--100%--wrong. They lied--GASP!!!
Well, in a perfect culmination of two terms of both disaster and pettiness, that same piss ant denied his successor access to the secured premises of the Blair House, across the street from his eventual home, the White House. Bush said it was already booked--sorry!
Except that it wasn't. He lied again!--GASP!!!
Yes, that cipher in Australia, John Howard, was supposed to visit for a couple days. But let's get real...the Blair House has 119 rooms, 35 of them bathrooms. Even trying, it would be hard to interrupt one of Howard's calls of nature with one of those little kids accidentally barging in.
Petty in...petty out.
How can that bastard not be in jail?
We may not be the greatest nation on Earth anymore. But we are unquestionably without peer in terms of delusion.
If you remain happy with Bush...you remain hopelessly out of touch with reality.
Subscribe to:
Comments (Atom)