Left-handed Rants

A Week Off?

2012-01-23T09:41:00.000-08:00

I don't think Vania King will make it into the Tennis Hall of Fame. Still, her name keeps popping up in this space, almost as much as what's-her-name and her sister, whozits.
Ms. King, the daughter of Chinese immigrants, is only 5 feet 5, and so the 6-foot Pam Shriver towered over her during an interview following a match at the Australian Open last week. Vania was articulate about her game, but a little surprised when Shriver said she had heard that King had a good voice and asked her to sing. Vania took a second to select a song, then gave a couple of lines from "Dream a Little Dream of Me", the song brought back by the late Mama Cass Elliot of the Mamas and the Papas. The selection wasn't hard to sing, but it was...nice. It was one more reason to like her - as a person, not just a doubles partner. I'm going to start looking for a local chapter of Geezers for Vania to join.

This week's nominee for Snappy Sports Name goes to the always cool Fab Melo, a hoopster with the Syracuse Orangemen. Let's hope he gets his little academic conundrum solved soon. The team needs him in the middle.

This week's title question is meant to ask if it's theoretically possible with everything going on for this blog to ignore the mano a mano of the Republican presidential campaign. My answer is "no", not with so much going on.
For instance, there's the term "Cayman Islands". I'm as good at geography as the next guy, but I doubt I could find C.I. on a map. I think it (they?) are somewhere South of the Virgin Islands. What clicks in your mind at the mention of this particular locale? Two words should suffice. The first one is "tax" and the other could be "cheat". "dodge" or "haven", depending on how tough you want to be.
The point is: legal or not, Mitt Romney has money parked there. That's about as smart for a presidential candidate as holding a press conference to introduce your good friend Tammi, a dancer from Las Vegas who's borrowing a little money because she's been laid off at the Boom Boom Room. But I was so busy, I forgot to tell my wife about it. Darn. Any questions? No, just good friends....

And just as soon as we start to miss Rick Perry's foot-in-mouth quotes, up pops Sarah Palin again, getting way more than her share of attention for a journalist for Fox News. Palin, while explaining her nonexistent South Carolina vote for Newt Gingrich, went on about "vetting", letting everyone know that there wasn't enough of it by the GOP four years ago.
Wait a sec. You mean four years ago, when the nominee was John McCain, the very guy who took Palin out of the deep hole of obscurity that is the Alaska statehouse? The same John McCain who opened the door for Palin to get millions of dollars from Fox and assorted speech listener/suckers for doing little except tease the voters that she could decide to run for president after all? That John McCain? The John McCain who could have conceivably been elected president if independent voters had not gone thumbs down on Palin herself?
Please, Ma'am. This isn't ancient history we're talking about here. It was less than four years ago. Even your followers aren't that thick. Are they?

Finally, a raspberry for the Republicans of Iowa. As an ex-Iowan, I have great regard for the people of the Hawkeye State, but what they (GOP leaders) did last week, stumbling back and forth over the final result of the caucus, was near criminally inept. By the time they had finally concluded that Rick Santorum had, in fact, won the vote, you couldn't blame the campaigns for screaming that they would never return and spend millions of dollars only to be treated shabbily when it was time for the Party to get it right. Maybe in 2016, the first presidential event will be in Puerto Rico. They couldn't mess it up worse.

A Tough Day in Salt Lake City

2012-01-17T14:56:00.000-08:00

First, from the department of "I'm So Vain": For several years now I've been marking down each day's tennis results, with particular attention to wins and losses. It came time to tabulate the totals for 2011 on New Years Day. I wasn't sure what the results would be, but am happy now to announce the news. My 2011 winning percentage topped 2010 by almost 1%. For what it's worth, I get in about 20 sets a month, almost all in doubles.

Certain images and certain people on TV somehow make us laugh. There's those Coke-swilling polar bears, for instance, and the hamsters who drive the KIA Soul, both famous all over the planet. Another such image, I believe, is that of Charles Barkley, former basketball star and a very funny guy even when he's using other people's words. Anyway, Charles is the latest famous person to undertake weight loss by using a well-advertized system, in this case Weight Watchers. He even uses a line from his most famous commercial, done for Nike, in which he declared "I am not a role model." I can't explain just why, but he cracks me up every time.

Now imagine a scene in the largest room of the largest home in Salt Lake City, home of the Huntsman family. John Huntsman, out of the GOP presidential race as of yesterday, sits on an enormous multicolored couch. Mrs. H. sits, well-dressed, on an adjoining couch as big as any in Buckingham Palace. She speaks:
Mrs: Oh, John. I'm so sorry things didn't work out in the campaign. Can I get you anything?
Mr: Thanks. You know I don't feel sick, but I just feel so dry...
Mrs. : That's because we're home, Dear. It's a desert, remember? How about some lemonade?
Mr.: Thanks. You know I didn't think until this minute that we will have to make other plans. We're not moving to the White House after all.
Mrs.: I guess you're right, Hon, but is it really that bad?
Mr.: You're right, Darling, but once you're as rich as kings, which we are, and the political track is shut off, what does that leave? Every other offer involves money, which we honestly have no more use for, and none of them give you the chance to drop bombs on anyone. I mean, what am I going to do? Go around on my Harley hoping no one recognizes me and says something stupid?
Mrs.: Oh, but it can't be that bad, John. You've already endorsed Mitt. Couldn't you get a spot in his Cabinet or something?
Mr. (laughing): Believe me, Babe. How many guys who are Mormons, have good hair and a pretty blonde wife do you think there would be room for in the Romney administration, if there ever is one? I'll tell you how many - one, and his initials are Mitt Romney. You remember how many times I ripped him in those debates? It was enough that we'll be lucky to be on the Romney Christmas card list. I guarantee Mitt's five times more interested in Colbert's 5% in South Carolina than he is in my 1%. And just think - until I saw those numbers myself I was thinking I coulda been a contender. Now I'm just another ex-governor rich guy. Could it be worse? Yeah, I could be Pawlenty and have to live in Minnesota, but that's about it.
Mrs.: Well, couldn't we go back to China?
Mr.: Once again you're a little short of vertical, my dear. You only leave the Obama administration once. He wouldn't even send us to one of those sinking island countries unless he was sure there wouldn't be a boat waiting. Don't get me wrong. He's a nice fellow and all, but Republicans aren't at the top of his list right now. Know what I mean? There's a bigger chance of a weeping apology from Cheney than there is of us being ambassadors again.
Mrs.: I see. Well, is it too late to run for that old guy's Senate seat? What's his name? Hatch?
Mr.: Gee, I don't know. I just feel like I've shaken way too many sweaty palms and kissed too many homely babies to want to start up again. Maybe I'll call up Rick Perry after awhile. That guy always makes me feel so...ah... smart.
Mrs.: Well, come over here first, big guy. I think I know just what you need to feel a little happier.
Mr.: I second the motion!!

I've Seen the Future

2012-01-14T16:33:00.000-08:00

When asked the name of the Lion King, three year-old granddaughter Ireland replied without taking her eyes from the screen, "Dad".

Coming to a parking lot near you - Pizza tycoon and presidential wannabe Herman Cain must have realized that any call to take over the Department of Defense won't arrive for at least a year following the next inauguration, and so he has a different plan for the short term - riding a giant bus around the country reminding people of his "9-9-9" tax plan. Let's hope there's room on the vehicle for, ah, Mrs. C.

There was a big meeting this weekend of Christian bigshots this weekend. They are ready to do almost anything to avoid supporting Mitt Romney for president. The vote went to a Catholic, former PA Senator Rick Santorum. I don't know if this will pay off, but it can't be good news for Texas governor Rick Perry. I, for one, will miss statements from Perry such as "Every barrel of oil that comes from Canada is one we won't have to buy from a foreign country."

We got around to seeing the Planet of the Apes movie. I guess you know you're having a bad day when a 600 lb. gorilla is heaving manhole covers directly at you.

Now to this week's subject. You may recall a SCOTUS decision of a year or two ago referred to as the "Citizens United" decision. It's been described in this space before, but the practical applications of this decision are proving to be breathtaking in this election campaign.
What just happened in Iowa is a good example. Big money donors are still restricted to $2000 or so toward the actual campaign, BUT the same donors can make unlimited donations to "Super Fund" operations that just happen to favor a certain candidate. The Romney campaign spent a little over $1 million getting Iowans to line up for Mitt on caucus night, but the Romney-associated super fund spent upwards of $3 million on negative ads - all aimed at Newt Gingrich.
This normally might have finished off Newt for good, but then Newt's own fund picked up $5 million of so from another sugar daddy, and so he's still around, spreading the gift of Newtism to South Carolina.
Donors to these funds may not have to identify themselves at all, and corporations are using their newfound "personhood". I strongly doubt that they'll ever be called on by shareholders to come clean in some future annual meeting, either. The thing that is supposed to make all this possible is the assumed independence of the funds from the campaigns themselves.
But the "independence" may be more legal than real. John Huntsman's fund, for instance, depends on big donations from Utah's richest man, a guy named John Huntsman Sr., the candidate's father! His company looked over the GOP field, and settled on Jr. And the two never consult on how dad's riches are to be spent.
Yes, the future has arrived in the form of a pinstriped suit bearing money AND the subtle understanding that it does not come without strings. Those without this backing are doomed to continue as history's also-rans. I find myself siding with the bumper sticker that states "I'll believe corporations are people when Texas executes one."

Round One to Mitt

2012-01-04T09:33:00.000-08:00

The football bowls aren't over with just yet. We're bound to see some more strange things before they are. I am willing, however, to nominate Whitney Mersilus of Illinois as having the coolest football name. Stanford's quarterback Andrew Luck, by comparison, played a great game but ran out of, ah, luck when the Cardinal field goal kicker flubbed on two attempts, one of which would have won the game immediately. So it goes.

The Iowa caucuses were held last night, and the phrase which still applies is "you couldn't make this stuff up". Mitt Romney was publicly low-keying his chances in the Hawkeye state until some unknown allies in unknown places exercised their corporate right to speak with millions of dollars, not so much for Mitt as against his opponent of the week, Newt Gingrich. The effort by the big money boys earned Mitt a virtual tie with Rick Santorum, ex-senator from Pennsylvania, who was considered a likely first round washout just a few weeks ago.
Newt, seeing his chance at the White House evaporate before his eyes, didn't take his own fourth place finish well. His concession speech wasn't just ungracious, but declared a totally new role for himself in the campaign, that of the anti-Mitt, tied, like it or not, to Santorum's quest. So much for holding off on the negative campaigning.
Ron Paul doesn't look a day over ninety, but he IS 76 years old, and he finished a close third last night. Fox News can't stand him, so he's unlikely to be the nominee, especially since he's left a long paper trail identifying him as a closet Libertarian, a mindset current Republicans only pretend to respect.
The rest of the list is, shall we say, unpretty. Congresswoman Michelle Bachmann took 6% of the caucus vote, good only for 6th ahead of Jon Huntsman who abandoned Iowa for New Hampshire some time ago. She's out of the race as of this morning.
Texas governor Rick Perry's numerous public gaffs were funny, unless you were him. He finished fifth with 10%, and still has plenty of money, but no momentum heading into New England. You might next see him working on his line dance moves or signing all those backlogged death warrants back home in Austin.
As for the Mittster, the news isn't all good. Short of the actual deaths of his rivals, nothing seems to move his numbers over the 25% mark. No keys to the Oval Office unless you get 100% of the GOP vote, and some others, as well. He got the same numbers this time as he did in '08, when Mike Huckabee was the Iowa winner. Mitt gets plenty of endorsements, but they have yet to pay off, especially with that self-described leaderless bunch of Tea party folks and the usual Mormon haters clustered in the Deep South. And the prospect of Newt constantly in his rear view mirror can't be pleasant, either.
Still, Santorum has his own paper trail of wildly off the wall statements that may now take center stage, and he has neither the money nor the organization to go toe to toe with Romney. But the longer he lasts, the less time Mitt has to concentrate on bashing Obama full time.
We've already been at this for a year, but we'll have a nominee in about eight months and a winner in just over eleven. Only a large earthquake could keep Mitt from winning in New Hampshire, so the next bloodletting might be in the Palmetto State, a polite name for, uh, South Carolina.

Person of the Year

2011-12-28T09:09:00.000-08:00

A week from now we still won't be able to say who's going to lead the GOP ticket in 2012, but the folks in Iowa might be yesterday's news just as fast as they were four years back, when they decided Mike Huckabee was their guy. A year from now I'll be able to write some kind of sage comments, God willing, about forty years of marriage to the same woman. And at some point I'll be able to talk about my tennis career-ending injury, mostly so that all my readers worldwide can know for sure that I've become old, not that many will care.
But for now, let's consider the title in this week's title, then come out for someone, though it need not be someone who's likable. Time Magazine, who first got in the business of fluffy-type honors decades back, gave their nod for 2011 to "the protester".
And that isn't a bad answer, but it begs for clarification. Those fire-breathing Tea party congressmen who took their seats in Congress with all kinds of plans for shaking things up, for instance, now don't seem to be leaders so much as the kind of person who gladly throw sand in the gearbox of government, then point left and scream "HE did it!" Person of the year? They wouldn't even get the nod from Boehner. The price of corrupting them also seems likely to go down as their first incumbency defense in November looms closer. No award for them.
The Republican candidates for president would also like to be thought of as "protesters" in the way that the Pope might be regarded as a protester against evil. Their debates have been revealing during little exchanges, but on the whole they resemble a dog pile on Obama - pretty riskless as long as he's not there to make replies, while the audience that is there would just as soon see the president dismembered on stage. Most of this group of me too-ers, all brave Christmas Christians will be one with Gephardt and Pawlenty by spring, forgotten by all but self-appointed experts like me. "Protesters"? Impossible - when your hand is out for millions.
Of course, the Left has the Occupy folks. They deserve credit for talking loudly about the inequities of society that often get ignored though they're in plain sight. I honestly believe we haven't seen the last of these tough folks either, though they are facing their toughest enemy right now - winter. I also like that their message is simple enough for everyone to get - "They are rich, and we (all of us) aren't, and it's not because they're so smart, either."
But I'm giving the prize to some real heroes, far away though they may be. If you launch a protest in the wrong country at the wrong time, or in front of the wrong audience, you can find yourself as part of the local landfill. And darned few will care because you were supposed to know the risks before you opened your mouth. But that didn't stop some brave folks in unfree places like Egypt and Libya, most armed with nothing more lethal than cell phones. With blinding speed, they showed the rest of the world what the Iraqis didn't - that people can change things by themselves, guns or no guns, if they want to badly enough. Even if the cause is a little dodgy, you have to pay attention to people willing to risk their lives when success is far from guaranteed. The least I can do for these folks is name them "Person of the Year", with the wish that 2012 works well for them.

Peace Time?

2011-12-19T09:55:00.000-08:00

Wrapping up 2011, the family can notch a few milestones. Naturally, this also depends on how broadly the term "family" is used, inclusively or excluding certain members. I already mentioned Zach's success in the esoteric art of Ferrari upkeep. Two daughters, Marla and Leah, got immediate employment following their training: Marla in nursing and Leah in dental technology. No babies or marriages this year, but an engagement for an early 2012 wedding for daughter Anna popped up, and our oldest grandchild, Sally, reached the milestone of adolescence. Woo Hoo!

And we couldn't top this year for nature sightings. Besides the whale that did us the favor of moving on fresh water up the Klamath River before dying, this last week we spotted two decent-sized black bear cubs about a half block from home. We were in our sturdy old Buick at the time, so we didn't panic, but we did make sure the garage doors were closed before opening the car doors.

And, not to change subjects too radically, but it was also a big year for Herman Cain. True, he ended the year gone from the list of GOP presidential candidates, but he told Barbara Walters on TV last week that he has a new challenge in his sights. You could see her head almost explode when he said he now wants to be ....the Secretary of Defense! I can just hear him explaining how assembling an aircraft carrier is really no different from putting together a (rather complex) pizza. And his self-proclaimed ignorance of other countries and their leaders? No problem. He'll just sit down with one of those generals he's always talking about in order to get caught up. It could take, oh, an hour or two.

Don't wait for a parade to come through your neighborhood, but we scratched one war front off the list last week. We're finally through in Iraq except for a few mercenaries willing to provide hired gun services for Iraqi bigshots. The locals say they'll handle the rest of the job from here, and what can we do but wish them the best?
Iraq isn't going to become an Islamic Sweden anytime soon, but its people are sophisticated, there's plenty of oil left, and maybe the bad guys will be too worn out from the last war to start the next one for awhile. Explosions, both deliberate and accidental, won't stop, but it's probably now illegal to even say "nuclear weapon". But peace, as we know, carries no guarantees.
In fact, one surprising thing about the new peace is that it's so poorly regarded by those who started the war in the first place, neocon Republicans. None of them are very sold on peace at all, and so naturally have nothing nice to say about president Obama, even though the troop withdrawl coincides exactly with Bush's plan for wrapping things up. To hear the GOP presidential candidates, taking troops out is almost proof that Obama is taking his orders from a klatch of mullahs. Forget the polls, they say. Eight plus years just isn't long enough! The names "Bush" and "Cheney" have disappeared from all public utterances, but they've become used to at least two war fronts going at all times. More importantly, so have those big "job creators", the defense contractors.

Numbers Games

2011-12-11T20:40:00.000-08:00

Do you recall mention of son Zach, chosen by the Ferrari folks to compete with nine other master mechanics for the title of (and I'm sure this isn't too accurate) World's Best Ferrari Tinkerer Guy? The contest is over for this year. No, he didn't win, but did finish in the top half (5th) and so he has earned the right to feel pleased. I haven't talked to him, but I think the trip was enjoyable for him and his wife even though it included at least one nine-hour flight non-stop to Paris. Anyway - what a guy!

I won't always have Governor Rick Perry to kick around as a presidential candidate, but the guy is comedy gold when it comes to things he says (or forgets to say) on the campaign trail. Forget for a moment his plan to eliminate three cabinet level departments from government altogether, but only remembering two. Here's what he's done lately:
Referred to Election Day as "November 12th, 2012". It's actually the 6th.
Called on people in that same sentence "age 21 and over" to support him. The legal voting age, by amendment to the Constitution, has been 18 for over forty years.
Referred to the Supreme Court as having eight "unelected" justices. The court actually has nine justices, though Perry was right that none got the job via the ballot.
He couldn't remember Justice Sonya Sotomayor's name, which would be understandable if he hadn't been trying to single her out as a flaming liberal at the time.
I guess it's easy to see how Perry was in line for the governor's job when Bush went off to Washington as the newly (sort-of) elected president in 2001. Perry made Bush look smart.

Albert Pujols is going to be remembered for a long time. Even if he suffers a career-ending injury during next spring's preseason workouts, his new employers, the Los Angeles Angels (or whatever their current name is) will be on the hook for $250 million, payable over the next ten years. That's quite a bit of money - about what Mitt Romney has in financial assets today. Is the hard-hitting Pujols worth that much? Ah,...is there an economist in the house?

Speaking of Mitt, there was another GOP presidential debate last night in which the most interesting moment may have been when Mitt tried to call out Perry about a minor accusation regarding a line in Mitt's book regarding health care. Romney offered to put up $10,000 backing his side of the argument. Perry backed off the bet part, though he persisted with the allegation. It wasn't so much Mitt's conviction, but his treatment of 10G's as pocket money that may have started some folks thinking that Mitt's life is far removed from that of most people. Does that preclude someone from being an effective president? No, but it's not a bad thing to see a little empathy in the nation's CEO, and that's a quality seldom seen of late by current CEO's. To many of them, all of life is little more than a numbers game.

Another One Bites....

2011-12-05T09:10:00.000-08:00

Our daughter Anna, like her siblings, grew up in Iowa. Some good fortune in her life has led to an upcoming wedding with David, a native of Idaho. They will make their home in Ohio. My question: might all this be hard to explain to the portion of Anna's co-workers who communicate only in Spanish? Hay, caramba!

I've concluded that after all the noise of several decades that soccer is finally here in the US to stay. A sprinkling of Americans play in foreign leagues, and the USL (Is that correct?) in this country is drawing good crowds who mostly know when to cheer and what the yellow card means. But I knew we had crossed some kind of line the other day when I saw a trio of Americans trying to pick over the schedule for next year's European Cup. They were using terms like "group of death" with straight faces and had no problem picking the favorites, but what impressed me most was the fact that all this discussion was taking place on TV even though play doesn't begin for over six months, and the US isn't in it at all!

Finally, there's the "Herman, we hardly knew ye" portion of this entry. Mr. Cain shoveled out all the "my family, my wife, blah, blah" cliches as he reluctantly put his campaign for president into the bun warmer, where it's liable to stay.
I have no special dislike for Cain, but have to wonder about just what people ever saw in him as a possible president. His speeches seemed to have little content other than he doesn't trust Muslims no matter WHERE they're from, that he's against abortion, but murky as to who should be in charge of enforcing his preference, and that he's almost proud of knowing little or nothing about the rest of the world ("beki, beki, beki..").
Yes, he had a proposal - the easy-to-remember 9/9/9 plan. It took a couple of people with calculators about three minutes to figure out that the plan was yet another "don't tax the rich AT ALL' play that would do nothing to solve yearly deficits, but much to completely transfer the weight of taxation entirely to the middle and lower classes. Cain didn't really give any more details, but went on repeating "9" enough to remind us of background sounds on a Beatle cut from the white album.
The Cain campaign, in fact, had a kind of Potemkin village quality about it. He had no one doing actual organizing in the early primary or caucus states, and his views on things like defense seemed to boil down to saying that leaders do what the generals and defense company lobbyists want. Any more questions?
The strangest aspect of all this, it seems to me, is this: Cain exits the campaign still declaring his innocence in matters sexual although he has more than one accuser. None of these accusers were pure enough to be believed by the TV bullies at Fox News, but it becomes harder to say all FIVE are liars. But regardless, the person who appears most likely to scoop up the Cain followers is - Newt Gingrich, who, if you know anything at all about, it's that he cheated on TWO wives. ALL THIS, folks, comes your way courtesy of the Republican Party, the "pro-family values" folks who will keep insisting that they're good guys even as another candidate bites the dust.

Travelin' Notes

2011-11-30T09:11:00.000-08:00

As nice as home is, sometimes you're obliged to pack up and drive or fly to where other family members reside, and such was the case last week when we used one son's home near Oakland as the jumping-off place to Phoenix, Chicago and finally, Iowa, where we bunked at our oldest daughter Laura's place. If a person is watching and listening, you can learn some interesting things along the way. Here are a few, arranged without regard to importance.

Laura herself has become an impressive person, laying aside, as we must, the religious differences between us. Making it an issue would be too painful for everyone, but, that aside, she has acquired the best skills required for a self-employed single mom. Her schedule would buckle the knees of some people, but she has adapted to get her three young daughters onto the side of getting things done happily, on time and with mutual respect. Good for her. The holiday weekend featured two guys identified as former boyfriends, along with the chance to see her nearby ex-husband on friendly terms.

Chris, the ex-husband just mentioned, has now served the military in both Iraq and Afghanistan, though not in combat roles. Upon return, he works part-time at a job he held about ten years ago. Since then, he has obtained both a BS degree and officer status. His wages have gone from $13 an hour to $8.50. His garage is now a gym designed for strength/fitness classes for the few, the proud, etc.

A friend of our fourth daughter, Marla, is a Romney guy who describes this year's pre-primary presidential race as being like "speed dating", in which everyone gets five minutes or so to impress the GOP faithful, who are not obliged to line up behind anyone as yet. I don't know if that's a good way to pick a nominee, but I can't disagree with the analogy.

Everyone describes flying these days in negative terms. We had a flight cancelled on the return trip, which wasn't fun, but our fellow passengers were generally patient, the babies were somehow pacified, and the people watching was fun. I especially enjoyed the cultural clash of a string of orthodox rabbis passing through the airport in Salt Lake City. Do you think they ever compliment each others' hats? Maybe not.

The extended family now owns cars with nameplates from Japan (more than one company), Sweden and Italy. Then there's our aging but still serviceable Buick. So what if it's closing in on 200,000 miles? Leather seats, baby.

Our son-in-law to be, David is, I'm told, a fairly conservative guy. Maybe that's not strange for a science/physics teacher, but, regardless, he did a good job of biting his lip while I pontificated about some of the things you read about here. I never did as well around Mona's family, I admit.

We had a little tour of what I called "ancient Muscatine", the little city where I was born. It was mostly a matter of showing spots where something, for instance, a movie theater, had been. The same trip generated a list of things I had offered as fatherly advice. Some of them had held up pretty well, while others made me cringe. We stopped at the cemetery where three family members are buried, including Grandpa and Grandma. All three graves are within earshot of the high school football field, built after I graduated.

Marla lives with Laura for now, because Laura has the room. But the daily commute isn't fun, and Marla's considering possibilities closer to her job at the hospital in Cedar Rapids. Her sisters and mother strongly counseled against living among poor people. I felt obliged to remind her that most of her years growing up were when, in fact, we lived in an older, not too elegant neighborhood, and that poor folks could be just as good neighbors as rich ones.

Cedar Rapids, where we live for so many years, has moved past the flood destruction phase to the rebuild stage with some enthusiasm. Still, there are neighborhoods that have simply disappeared. It's sad to see nothing but grass and trees for several blocks where homes, albeit older ones, once stood. I'm not sure where the people went, but the census shows a tiny growth in the city's population in the last ten years in spite of the flood.

Late November in Iowa isn't showtime. The fields are harvested, the trees are bare, and there doesn't seem to be anything in place to slow the wind. The temperature wasn't piercingly cold, but about the only thing that could keep many folks outside voluntarily would be pursuing a particularly delicious game bird or animal. No wonder wrestling, always held indoors, is such a big deal there.

Can Liberals be Patriots?

2011-11-14T20:20:00.000-08:00

Before tackling this week's title question, I ask another, totally unrelated. If you were in the top ten of your profession in the whole world, should you be famous, or at the very least well-paid for your expertise or skills? I ask because our oldest son Zack is traveling to Italy next month to determine in competition the world's best Ferrari mechanic, with ten competitors from dealerships all over the world, I guess. I'm not sure how he got the nod as one of the top ten, but of course we wish him the best. He's been there before, but this time he gets to take Brooke, his wife. As I've said in wonder many times, I don't know where his abilities come from, but I have no doubt they are NOT from me. Good luck to him. We hope he is compensated according to his abilities, which is no more than fair.

I attended a program last week honoring veterans for their service to our country. Veterans SHOULD be honored, and the nation's promises to them should be kept. The program included music, presentations and a speech or two. You could have found similar events all over the country.
These events are not overtly political, but I can't help noticing certain things. No one questions the rightness of our various military ventures, their monetary or human cost, nor the decisions which led up to the battles themselves. There's always the mention of "protecting our liberties", as though war was simply the only choice, and there was no doubt that the liberties would otherwise have been lost, no matter how large or small the enemy forces were.
I suppose the average person, if posed this week's title question would probably answer "Yes". But if I hear someone described as a "patriot", I start to fear the worst. My antennae go up as I try to determine where this person stands, especially on certain current issues. Do all patriots want to launch another preemptive attack, this one on Iran? Do they all favor our use of the latest euphemism for "torture"? Are they all ready to defer to what generals, who are always said to be "on the ground", want to do? Must a patriot be blind to war's effects on families, on the mental health of the vets themselves, or to how wars change our nation's standing with the countries who are supposed to be our allies?
And the patriot thing isn't limited to foreign affairs, nor even to things of any real importance. Today I received in the mail one of those letters, always written in short, breathless paragraphs, warning about the coming evil. This time it was the possibility of deleting "under God" from the Pledge of Allegiance. Nothing about the poor, the homeless, the unemployed, the ill or the suffering. Is this group collecting money? Absolutely. What, after all, could possibly be worse than such a change? Haven't we all known people who became devout Christians by repeating the words "under God" as a religious sacrament?
Do all patriots have to welcome government involvement in preventing (and prosecuting) abortion? What must a patriot feel about things like flag abuse, declared by courts to be legal, however objectionable? Must patriots favor reducing those eligible to vote if they don't have the proper ID? Must they all favor tax cuts for the rich, private health insurance only, and government restriction of risque video or reading material?
Sure, it's easy to express love for my country, and want it to succeed, but must other countries fail if they don't strictly adhere to the US model? Must I oppose left-of-center protest as UNpatriotic, and urge unity even if it means one more class warfare victory for those who've already been the winners for so long? When I read scriptures talking about the rampant sins of the last days, is there nothing good from these times worth retaining?
I keep thinking about these things. Like Jesus, I may not be enough of a nationalist to be considered a patriot. And if it means endorsing social injustice and never-ending war, then it may be I just don't make the grade.

Smokin' Joe

2011-11-08T15:30:00.001-08:00

There's something to write about every week, and that applies this week, too. I could try to tackle the Herman Cain thing, which seems to be quickly becoming a matter of he said - they said. The man denies (today, anyway) even knowing yesterday's accuser. Anyway, I wasn't there, and things in this matter are subject to daily change.
That last also applies to the Penn State scandal, in which colleagues have had to choose between protecting children or a fellow coach. And no, I don't know if or how this affects the dwindling career of the university's 85 year-old coach.
But I was around during the rise and decline of the sports world's dead athlete of the week, former boxing heavyweight champion "Smokin' Joe" Frazier, who just passed away from cancer. He was in his sixties.
We don't think much about boxing now. The greed of the promoters and managers finally became too much to ignore. The average American would now be hard pressed to name more than one or two active boxers. But it wasn't always this way. Boxing and horse racing were the nation's most popular sports coming into the 20th century.
It wasn't uncommon to have championship fights, or even non-title bouts on TV during the 1950's into the 70's. Every person in those days knew the name of the heavyweight champion, if not the other weights. This was Frazier's time.
Of course, you cannot talk about "Smokin' Joe" without filling in the picture with the biggest boxing name of all - Muhammed Ali. Ali's outsized personality was such a change from the old model of boxers (especially black boxers) who spoke in short, simple sentences that he constantly hogged the spotlight. Some of his competitors didn't seem to mind this so much. Others, like Frazier, resented the flamboyant Ali, at least in public, feeling he was entitled to but not getting his fair share of adulation. He would always refer to Ali as "Clay", the original surname of Cassius Clay.
Frazier became champion during the time Ali was banned from the sport because of his resistance to the military draft. When the Supreme Court reversed that, unanimously, I might add, the Ali camp scheduled several fights intended to prepare him to re-take the title from Frazier. The first title fight between the two took place in March of 1971 in New York's Madison Square Garden. It went the distance, but Frazier kept the title by scoring a knockdown in the final (15th) round. It was an instant classic.
There were two more Ali-Frazier fights, one a rematch in New York, the other one held in the Phillipines, the fight we remember as the "Thrilla in Manilla". Ali won both, the last one when Frazier's eyes became so puffed up that he could no longer see. Both fighters spent the night in local hospitals following that one.
Frazier wasn't a particularly big man. He was just under six feet tall, nor was he have a long reach or blinding speed. What he did have was the ability to keep moving forward, moving his head and throwing punches in a way that made you think he would gladly give up three or four jabs to score one himself. The man was fearless, unsurpassed at taking punishment.
His life wasn't marred by scandal. He helped his own son in his boxing career, which came up well short of the father's. As far as I know he never ran out of money, nor was he forced to glad- hand at casinos or sign his name thousands of times to pay the bills. The folks of his native Philadelphia never stopped honoring him, even using him as a kind of role model since Ali was considered unique and therefore inimitable.
The movie about the important stuff in his life has already been made. Too bad that it was made by Spike Lee about the life of Ali. There won't be a movie about Smokin' Joe, any more than there will be one about Roberto Duran, Sonny Liston or Larry Holmes. Still, as we say goodbye, we honor his contribution to his sport.

Fall Classic Side Notes

2011-10-31T14:20:00.000-07:00

I know full well that everyone's not a baseball fan. Still, I try to get myself in front of a TV when the World Series happens, because you can see and hear surprising things IF you're alert enough to notice. In August it certainly looked as though the Cardinals would have a long off season to consider how much to pay hitting monster and free agent to be Albert Pujols. Instead, the Cards made fools of all the analysts with a late summer run that ended in their being crowned champions for the 11th time in their long history.
The game-to-game record of hits, runs and errors is pretty easy to find and analyze, and others do it much better, so I'm honing in on little things that I noticed, most of which have nothing to do with the games themselves.

There was the contrast, for instance, between Cardinal manager Tony LaRusa and Texas Rangers' skipper Ron Washington. The former seems strictly analytical as he ponders his next move while the latter is more of an enthusiastic type. It just shows that there is more than one way to succeed in this assignment, because both managers (and LaRusa announced his retirement as manager today at age 66) are well-liked by their players. Ever notice that big league managers never punch each others' lights out or bicker the way NFL coaches do?

Nolan Ryan is a Hall of Fame pitcher who has become an executive for the Rangers. He's now 64, and is considered a big help to the team, but his body has gone to seed. He now looks a little like a slightly younger Dick Cheney.

Speaking of which, did you notice who was sitting next to Ryan at the games played in Arlington? Yes, it was George W. Bush and Laura, down in the first row near the on deck circle. Funny how the Fox people never made mention of the former first couple's presence. At least, I didn't hear any. Of course, being front man for the Rangers helped Bush become well enough known to run for governor in the 1990's. His own investment in the club was minimal, but the leverage of the deal also made him rich when he sold out. I thought Laura looked great, and I think they made the right choice to sit by the field instead of up in the luxury boxes.

Then there were the sponsors Fox lined up. Toyota isn't exactly American, but they are made here, and anyway Japan is a major baseball country, right?'Mazda had a commercial which featured a car tooling around the inside of an empty prison, which I thought was odd. But I liked the music they used - slide guitar sounds that we associate with early delta blues. Volkswagen? Not really a name we associate with baseball, but the ads were pretty good. I guess the male side of the audience was confirmed with both Viagra and Cialis as sponsors.

Fox shows plenty of baseball every year, but really only have one "A" broadcast team - Joe Buck and Tim McCarver. Fox has a tendency to think of the audience as old, I guess, or the network wouldn't keep feeding loads of mostly meaningless statistics from bygone days to McCarver, which he dutifully repeats. The man's playing career goes back to the 1960's and he was citing things from the 1940's for gosh sake! Oy. I thought the TBS guys did a much better job in the earlier playoff series that they broadcast of helping the viewers get inside the game.

If you saw a group of baseball players at a beach, you might not be too impressed. As a group, they're kind of - fleshy. But seeing them in these pressure packed situations makes you appreciate their skills IF you're paying attention. Pitching, fielding and hitting are all very difficult, especially at the big league level. Sure, they're overpaid and prone to outsize egos, but what are you going to do instead, watch triathlon?

Mitt Gets the Kissoff

2011-10-27T09:24:00.000-07:00

Mormons in this country share many things that go even beyond the obvious matters of a common thrology. The church is made up of overwhelmingly white folks, many of whom could trace their families back to 19th century European convert immigrants. The members are predominantly family people and typically find themselves on the same side of many public questions.
And it gets even weirder to folks outside the church. Sunday meetings are always presided over by volunteers, with the men all in white shirts and ties. Things like Sunday School lessons always seem to emphasize proper thoughts and actions for TODAY, while actual scriptural knowledge often gets consigned to the back seat.
The desire to be one of the "fold" stretches to include things that haven't actually been mentioned by church leaders but seem to spill over into what others call Mormon "culture". Holiday observations, courting practices, demographic norms, musical tastes, shoe styles and many other things get included, many merely by "custom".
I bring this up in order to confess: Mitt Romney and I share some things that wouldn't show up on a political poll. My preference is, naturally, that he show himself a person of principles, foresight, wisdom and inspiration. I waited through the '08 campaign for him to say things that spoke to ME, his fellow Latter-Day Saint, but never got much. Sometimes Mitt, I must say, seems no deeper than a deep dish pizza, albeit one topped with precious metals and cash.
This week I fear he passed the point of no return. As recently as June, Mitt was committed to the union-busting strategy employed by certain new GOP governors, particularly in voter-rich Ohio. There's been a public uproar over public unions' rights to organize and conduct collective bargaining. The Governor, Mr. Kasich, rammed through legislation greatly restricting public
union stature, but then opponents have put on the state's ballot a measure to rescind the anti-union policies. The measure seems to have the edge in current Ohio polls.
Mitt came to the Buckeye State earlier this week and spent time at a party-run phone center drumming up opposition to the ballot measure, but then, when asked about it on camera, said he had no real dog in this local issue fight, backing off his earlier (earlier THIS year) stance to one of feigned neutrality. THEN, when others cited his stance of just the past summer, he tried to rescue the fiasco by claiming to be "110%" with the guv, the position he originally held but tried to sneak away from.
You just can't do this kind of thing by accident, and so even though I could give you any number of Mitt opinions on theology, the raising of sons and dozens of other things, I have absolutely crossed him off my list of people worthy of a vote, EVEN if he seems more level-headed than the kooks who surround him as GOP presidential wannabes. If you think you can get away with this type of poll-driven cynical flip flop as a candidate, think of the blank canvas you then bring to the Oval Office. I'll see you at church, Brother Romney, but politically, I've kissed you off.

HWJ Benched

2011-10-17T15:29:00.000-07:00

Does anyone remember a TV program with Bill Maher - "Politically Incorrect"? Someone thought it would be fun to get the opinions (mostly political) of people who were famous for reasons OTHER then their associations with the political/news media world. I tried watching it a few times, but really just couldn't stomach the idea of people, famous though they might be, being rich in spite of their, shall we say, poorly thought out conclusions. I even AGREED with some of them, but their reasoning often wouldn't have earned a C- in some of my old classes.
Still, there seems to be no shortage of faces and names we know being asked, and GIVING their opinions, sometimes with surprising consequences.
Take, for instance, this month's flap over Hank Williams Jr.'s intemperate remarks about the president, comparing him to Hitler. I went to the original footage to see three Fox News folks on a morning show of some kind, who probably don't get three serious comments from guests in a month, but on this day they have HWJ hooked to a studio in Nashville.
He looks a little angry, and seems to be in no mood to suffer fools for long. Maybe it's too early, or the traffic was bad. Who knows? But there he is, trademark sunglasses in place, wearing some kind of shapeless sweatsuit and what looks like a deer hunter's hat.
It doesn't take him long to take the Foxsters to task for not seeing things exactly the way he does. He's deeply offended that John Boehner would play golf with the President, who he not only compares to Hitler, but, a la Rush, calls "the enemy". It's clear that probably every opinion he has is from the "redneck" handbook, though HWJ has more reason to feel that way because, unlike most of the tea party crowd, he has money.
But then, actions have consequences, and it wasn't long before ESPN and THEIR owners had made the decision to dump HWJ from the Monday Night Football package (doing the opening song), a gig he had held for many years. It's hard to know what he really felt, but his parting response (done electronically, of course) included the accusation that the TV folks had trampled on his "freedom of speech".
It's hard for me to overstate the ignorance of that last HWJ verbal salvo. Freedom of Speech means that a person can legally say plenty of offensive things without retaliation by the government. It DOESN"T protect the speaker from bad reaction from employers, news media or the general public. Nor is there a guarantee that like-thinking media will simply hide offending remarks, given casually or seriously. Surely HWJ has access to lawyers who could confirm all this, which they probably learned the first week in law school.
No, like others before him, the big guy has no one to blame but himself for coming on like a "durn fool" when he had no obligation to even talk to the Fox trio. But they (no doubt) knew he had a record of blurting things out, and people in that business live for the "big quote". Who could have foreseen it would put a hit on HWJ's bottom line? Will the NFL, ESPN, ABC or the Disney company also suffer a post-Hank dip? Evidently they don't think so.

A "Mormon" Term

2011-10-13T15:21:00.000-07:00

Every church has its own special jargon, understood by the faithful but often opaque to outsiders. The Christian churches are not exempt from the practice, which regrettably often adds to confusion and misunderstanding. Some of the misunderstanding seems to be almost deliberate, as we feign amazement, throw our hands in the air and wonder, having received a murky explanation of someone else's doctrines, who could ever believe all this stuff?
With the Mormons, it's there from the start. The church's only official name is the admittedly cumbersome The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. The term Mormon has reference to one of the Church's four books of scripture, The Book of Mormon. Mormon himself, according to the record, was its chief compiler. The Church is not fond of being called The Mormon Church, but does not resent members being called Mormons. As the saying goes, we've been called much worse. The church even uses Mormon for one of its websites.
Confused yet? If not, here's a term that, as far as I know, is a Latter-Day Saint exclusive. Ready? It's priestcraft. It sounds benign enough, but it actually has a more sinister meaning - the deliberate misleading of religious followers for personal gain. It is found in the Book of Mormon, describing the technique of setting oneself up as connected to God, but functioning strictly for power and gain.
But this term, too, deserves a little clarification. If your all day, every day effort is in religious teaching, then it's no sin to be paid. We all have bills, right? Even Jesus, traveling with the twelve disciples received donations from sympathetic folks, and Judas, it is said, had the job of handling the group's funds. Most ministers, priests, nuns or church employees of some kind, it follows, are not the people the term refers to.
But given today's range of religious entrepreneurs, priestcraft isn't hard to spot. Jim Jones? Yup. David Koresh? No doubt. Benny Hinn? Jim Baaker? Jerry Falwell? Pat Robertson? Ralph Reed? The host of gay-bashing clergy, many of whom turn out to be gay? Yes, yes and yes.
Now, to finally make a point. Last week was the annual Washington convention of Values Voters, a regular orgy of priestcraft which attracts candidates for office like a new banking rule attracts lawyers. Texas Governor Perry was there, and was introduced by Rev. Robert Jeffrees, a Southern Baptist bigshot who made it clear that he believes that "Mormonism" to be "a cult". The regular news media, reluctant to appear to be bullying a man of the cloth, did little to push back, and Perry's spokesperson was notably tepid in saying that "he (Perry) does not believe it (Mormonism) is a cult." A pretty neat trick, giving something to both sides while not risking anything, except perhaps Mitt Romney's good will, which he probably cares nothing about, or else why would he be running at all?
Democrats are not invulnerable to priestcraft, but it's the GOP that's shot through with the stuff. There's no religious requirement of any kind for any office described in the Constitution, but these guys loudly insist on political leaders who look, think and say pretty much the same as they do. Priestcraft may be a Mormon term originating before Christ, but it's as current as today's headlines.

Demo Dissent

2011-10-02T21:24:00.000-07:00

This isn't exactly a town that's famous for cars. Of course, there are plenty of old guys with too much money who sink it into antique vehicles which they rebuild and then show off at certain events. But that happens in lots of places.
Anyway, last week I noticed, parked a few blocks from our place, one of those Chrysler 300 cars, the kind I associate with "gangstas". This one seemed unique, in that it was painted dark purple, a color I came to appreciate back in high school, but had never seen on that model.
I knew my Sweetheart would have seen the car, and asked what she thought of it. This has been the start to many short conversations over the years. "What do you think of that color. You like it?" The response is almost always negative, because, for reasons I don't get, she usually just wears shades of black and white. Think I'm going to argue? No sir.
I don't recall every word she used in describing the car in question, but I'm pretty sure the word "pimp" came up. Maybe this was not its original color anyway, but I learned my lesson. No purple cars, Dude. For the record, I do own a purple necktie or two.

Before diving headlong into this week's subject, let's recall for a minute,....George Washington. Of course, Washington had no predecessor, but, much more than later presidents, he took the long view of the future. He knew that both things he did and, perhaps more importantly, didn't do would be regarded as precedents. Being someone who felt no need for heavy-handed government and with no personal goal beyond that of helping the new nation get off on the right foot, he governed carefully, deliberately and lightly, and was correct, in his time, to do so.
Other presidents have used power differently, not always successfully. The problem in being the first to do something is that your political opponents, when given the chance, might use your tactic against you or your allies. Nixon, for instance, was not the first president to use offices of the executive branch of government against his personal enemies, but he did it in such a ruthless manor that he caused public faith in American government to drop, perhaps never again to hit the high numbers enjoyed by Eisenhower or Kennedy.
So I'm not crazy about the reported assassination last week of the radical Muslim cleric, Mr al Awlaki. It's not that I will grieve over Mr. A's loss. The man was no angel, and given certain tools, might have found a way to do real harm to innocent people. I can't pretend that these guys are just movie stereotypes, or that they don't deserve plenty of attention devoted to stopping them.
But that's not the whole story, either. Mr. A. was born in this country. He was a US citizen. He hadn't been convicted of a crime, was not a prisoner, had had no judgments against him. He was killed pretty much on the say so of one man - the president.
And that last part makes me uncomfortable. It's not that I think Barack Obama is a cold-blooded thug, or that ruthless things can't be done during a war. Sending an unmanned drone after someone? I'm all for it IF it protects innocent people, and is aimed at aomeone who's not.
There's the politics, too. A Democratic president is under more pressure to whack a would-be enemy, lest someone from the other side (and, of course, they'll do this anyway) labels him as "soft on (name of whatever terrifies you)". But what about when the Republicans regain the White House? Would you trust Rick Santorum or Michelle Bachmann or Rick Perry to only go after a real enemy?
And, sure, the cold war brought to death to people on both sides in large numbers, with totals that we'll probably never know. Does that mean it was right? All of it?
I'm normally with Obama on his decisions, and I expect I'll be with him more often than against him in the future. A president, as I have written before, makes so many decisions that they can't ALL be right. But the precedent concerns me. All I can say is that this is one time a Democrat has to dissent.

A Contrast

2011-09-28T08:59:00.000-07:00

If there is an organization that prospers from fear and suspicion, it's the NRA, those self-appointed guardians of the 2nd Amendment. The NRA has grown to be the model of successful one-issue special interest groups, learning in the process that pounding the drum of dread can never be overdone - not when your business is ADVOCACY! In fact, to the NRA even good news is not to be entirely trusted. This is WAR!
Not satisfied that the US leads the world in private firearms ownership, NRA bigshot Wayne LaPierre recently had an explanation as to why the Obama administration has not so far turned into a vicious gun-confiscating tyranny. Oh, it's still coming, opined Mr. P. It just hasn't STARTED yet. All the more reason to help the NRA in its fight to evict all gun opponents by upping your membership dues, and throwing in a little more if you can.
LaPierre even has a place he feels is under-armed compared to the rest of the country - colleges and universities. A setting which already features not-quite-mature individuals, plenty of drugs, both legal and not, armed security forces and a large potential for real time misunderstandings between parties needs just one thing to achieve full peace - more guns. Maybe I should ask Mitt for the cost of a lifetime NRA membership. Maybe not.

I have no problem, however, bringing up the recent reaching of a milestone by Mariano Rivera. Who's Rivera? According to one statistical criterium, he's the greatest relief pitcher who ever lived. Rivera is a native of Panama, but his baseball home is still the New York Yankees, for whom he has practiced his craft for a full 17 years. He's now 41 years old.
Perhaps a word of explanation is needed here. You may know that relief pitchers are the ones who don't start the game, but may be called upon later to come out of the "bullpen". Relief pitchers can also become specialists. The best-known kind of reliever is the "closer", whose job it is to keep the other team from scoring when your team leads, and finish as the team's final pitcher. The closer then gets credit for a "save". It goes without saying that "closers" are important guys, whether it's the Yankees or anyone else.
Rivera just broke the record for saves in a career, topping 600 times he has ended the game smiling. Remarkably, he relies on just one pitch, a fastball variation that he controls with deadly accuracy. Everyone knows it's coming, but he still leaves opposing batters lunging, baffled and muttering to themselves while making the long walk back to the dugout. It's not true that no one ever hits one of his pitches, but the guy is famous for getting even better in the biggest games, notably the World Series.
Things get over-watched, over-analyzed and over-hyped in New York City, but Rivera's life off the field is wonderfully dull. He's never been in any trouble that I can recall, though the pressure on him to succeed must be enormous.
I'm probably the only one anywhere making this odd comparison between a pressure group and a relief pitcher. One must, owing to umpires and sportswriters, do his job honestly. The other - not so much. The truth of accomplishment is contrasted to the temporary spoils of hype. If Rivera were my neighbor, I'd have a reason to take up Spanish again. If LaPierre moved in, I wouldn't waste a Christmas card on him. What a contrast!

Thinking Big Thoughts

2011-09-19T15:50:00.000-07:00

No, it's not me doing the big thinking. I would immediately be exposed as a fraud. Watching my old home boys play (they came back to win after looking bad early), and my alma mater stink up the field (0-40 the second half) to the team just up the road 40 miles or so, I would have been confused trying to think anything worth retaining. Let's just say that the ball takes funny bounces, and that having thirty-some bowls means that even the not-so-pretty girls get a chance to show their stuff after it's all played out. Anyway, my real favorite team plays women's tennis, and is a very respectable 6-1 so far.

Now, imagine, as I suppose we've all done in the past, what's going through someone else's mind, specifically Mitt Romney's. The inner dialog may go a bit like this: "Well, this campaign is generating a few ragged moments, but I'm the only one who's been through this before, and, over all, I can start to see things going my way.
"In fact, not to seem vain, but it may be time to think a little bit (just a little, mind you) about a running mate for the stretch run next year. Boy, if I learned anything during the last campaign, it was that this is a decision that can help or hurt your chances for the big prize. Even McCain, who's normally a guy who makes very few bonehead plays, sure put his foot in it when he rescued Sarah Palin from obscurity. It all hit her so fast and hard that she couldn't stop being obscure, undereducated, underprepared - just a bad choice. Poor guy probably lost the election right there, although he no doubt felt he had to hit a home run with her to win the election anyway. But I was just like everyone else. I winced every time her lips moved. Man, I can't make that kind of clunker decision. All this hanging out with either hicks or millionaires has to pay off better than what McCain got, no question.
"But what about the person I choose? He (and I can't forget that it could be a woman - anyway that's what Goldman Sachs tells me) first off has to be honest. No plotting. No screaming just to try to make the other side look bad, no making things up and no personal vendettas out of the VP's office. Whatever I put him in charge of, he'll have to know at least as much about as I do. Heck, nobody knows everything, and so he could be a very valuable person.
"In fact, he should know about some very specific things that an investment banker/New England governor may not have had to deal with before. Things like weapons, agricultural subsidies, immigration, terrorism, and our international standing. Sure, I spent two years meeting folks in France, but that was almost fifty years ago. There sure weren't any black French tennis pros then, I can tell you that.
"But the guy will have to be straight with me. A president has opponents around every corner. Heck, half of Washington thinks they could do the job better than me. So the last thing I need is a guy with his own secret agenda, who's looking out first for himself or his friends. The Constitution gives the VP very little power for a reason - the country has to speak with one voice - MINE. If a former VP writes a book, it had better refer more often to the president than to himself. Otherwise we know it's his own plans that are going to be top of the list.
"The country has to have faith in the VP. He can't be a hack or someone out to make a market killing. When I tell him to go to a state funeral somewhere, that's IT! He's going, even if it's a fourteen-hour plane ride.
"So he's got to be honest, loyal, hardworking, preferably younger than me, though not as good-looking. And he can't be found to be a guy who's been watching porn, either. I won't stand for that. R-rated movies, OK, but only if they get the "R" for violence. Not that other stuff."

Of course, only Mitt himself knows what he's really thinking. But he did have a word or two to say on the VP thing just last week in Arizona. He said he'd pick a VP like....Dick Cheney, whom he described as a person of "wisdom and judgment." Oy. If someone I know was to say that, I'd check out his back to see if the dementia hooks were already dragging him to the last roundup. After all, shouldn't big thoughts lead us away from tiny conclusions?

Mass Psychosis

2011-09-14T20:42:00.000-07:00

Plenty of things to examine this week. There's the already mixed outlook of several football teams, the incomprehensible reaction by Serena Williams to an umpire's call in a championship match, and Dick Cheney's latest attempt to change money from our accounts to his with a new book designed (surprise!) to show him in the most positive light during his VP years, which I would have thought he would have preferred to forget altogether. Let's consider something else.

I once read that a person's reaction to a new situation might be influenced by the reaction of others in the same situation. You see a person on the street who needs help of some kind, but you also notice that no one seems to be paying much attention. It's unlikely, according to this theory, that you'll do something much different from everyone else.
Perhaps the theory helps us understand the reactions of "blood oath" Republican audiences to certain moments in the still-young campaign debates. First, I don't think I'm the only one to notice that the Republican Party seems less like a political party these days and more like some kind of snooty, overconfident fraternity whose members think of themselves as equal parts Oliver Cromwell, John Wayne, Dirty Harry and Ted Nugent. Their fists (or is it just a digit?) are raised, their attitude defiant, and their negative emotions are much stronger than the positive ones. Obama? Yer kiddin', right? The master of manipulation, Rush Limbaugh, now refers to the president as a "man-child", a term just far enough removed from "boy" to avoid broad censure from the real public.
So the debates, such as they are, are attended by a mean-spirited crowd that doesn't mind showing how it really feels. A question was asked of the candidates if they could accept a tax raise/spending cut combination ratio that ran 1:9 in order to balance the federal budget. The candidates, knowing their audience, ALL showed their hands to declare that, sorry partner, 1:9 just wouldn't cut it. Never mind that someone with real courage would have said those numbers would be great, at least in theory.
And on it goes. Governor Perry got unexpected applause because his questioner mentioned the 200 plus capital punishment recipients during Perry's term, and the audience reacted as if they wished they had been handling the fatal injection personally.
A question relating to health care raised the audience's hackles in this week's Tea party debate. The question was a little involved, but included, for rhetorical purposes, the option of letting someone die from lack of insurance. Taking on the role of the pharisees before Pilate, the crowd shouted their approval of the death of someone not pulling their own wight. "Right on, man!! Why should I have to pay for this bum's taking up space on earth? I got college tuition to pay, AND payments on my Lexus, too!"
Answers to the nation's problems? They just don't care. The only problem they see is getting enough people to think they should unite themselves in voting with the interests of millionaires. It's still almost 14 months till Election Day, but there's no question you're going to find out what the millionaires want you to do when the big day comes. It's just that they are not likely to use the term "mass psychosis".

What Were They Thinking?

2011-09-05T15:41:00.000-07:00

Labor Day is one of those holidays which has almost totally lost its original meaning. We mark it now as the end of summer, and with a nod towards "working", usually for someone else. There's nothing wrong with working, of course, but the holiday was originally meant to salute organized labor. You know - unions that protect their members from unfair treatment and go mano a mano with management when the current collective bargaining agreement nears expiration. There's much less of all that now. The Congress, the Department of Labor and the courts have all pretty much sided with management, and so both organizing and striking have dried to a trickle in the last 30 years or so. Celebrating the organized American worker has given way to another holiday tradition - taking the name of the holiday and adding in huge letters the word "SALE!!". The people ringing the cash registers probably aren't even getting extra pay for working a holiday. "Eight bucks an hour? Is there any way to pay 'em less?"

Pima County, Arizona, I read, takes in both urban and rural territory in the nation's great Southwestern desert. Naturally, both major political parties are there, and so they both do things that they hope will bring in cash. The local Republicans have used raffles to swell the coffers, exploiting the little urge to gamble which we all feel from time to time.
Pima County is also near the site in Tuscon at which a man used a hand gun to open fire at a crowd of people gathered at a strip mall to hear Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords. The speaking stopped when the bullets started flying. Before they could get the shooter under control, six people were dead and another 15 were injured, including Congresswoman Giffords, who was shot in the head, an injury from which she is still recovering eight months later. Good luck to her and her (now retired) astronaut husband.
What's the connection here? Merely this. The prize for the Pima County GOP fundraiser raffle is not a set of golf clubs, a free trip to Las Vegas, a marriage enrichment weekend or season tickets to the Phoenix Cardinals. No, it's.....a handgun. A Glock 23 to be precise, similar in most ways to the Glock 19 used at the Tucson shooting.
If I were a Republican bigshot, I would try to do things that would not remind the voting public of what happened on that January day. But the bigshots themselves don't seem to be bothered at all with this little coincidence. "We've been doing this for years" they say, "and no one has complained." Well, sure. Lots of things have long histories, but that doesn't make them right, nor does it mean that something couldn't be changed from time to time if circumstances change.
Where are all those smart job creator types when they're needed most? Maybe such affairs are left to junior interns who tend to blame the victims for getting in the line of fire and forgot to pack their own pieces at the Tucson event, though it was run by their Democratic enemies. But they had plenty of time to change the raffle, yet didn't. What, I ask, could they have been thinking?

Up the "Crazy" Spiral

2011-08-31T09:30:00.000-07:00

You get more chances to watch tennis this week and next than any other time of the year, during the US Open. The chance of seeing some less prominent players are also much higher. Tennis Channel commentator Mary Carillo described one of the women players, at just five feet tall and barely a hundred lb., as a "hood ornament of a player". She lost in the first round, so we just had one chance to see her.

Our readers theater group was planning to perform this week at the birthday party of one of the group's founders, an older lady. The plan, however, was canceled - by the Grim Reaper himself. I'm told we might still fill a slot at the memorial service. And why not, since we always wear black?

It was just about exactly three years ago that we (us non-Alaskans) were first introduced to Sarah Palin. Some liked her, some didn't, and that continues to be the case. What we could not have known at the time was that she would become something of a role model for 21st century Republican candidates for high office.
The "babble first, explain later with more babble" school of electioneering was an immediate hit with the Tea Party crowd. Their candidates didn't all win, but all of a sudden the blurters seemed to outnumber the thoughtful responders, and by a large margin.
Take a look at the GOP candidates for president. Ron Paul almost seems quaint by leaping on FEMA, a federal agency which has not only been needed this year, but has done pretty well according to those at disaster sites. What would replace it, and how? Paul is a libertarian, so we assume the answer is "the market". Well, it's easy to see why certain businesses would love to sell water at $10/gallon or housing at a nightly fee in the mid- three figures. You don't like it? Walk to a new home.
And it gets worse. Newcomer and alleged current "leader" Rick Perry published a book which advocated the removal of the 16th amendment (income tax), and wants US senators to once again be elected by state legislatures. Calling Social Security a "Ponzi scheme" in the book, he says he's not backing off. His PR guy says differently, but so what? It was only a couple of years ago Perry was cozying up to a group backing Texas' secession from the union!
But Perry's not the only loose cannon in the field. Michele Bachmann emits something goofy almost every day. She says she'd "consider" proposals to drill for oil in the Florida Everglades (perhaps for a minute or two), and in Iowa last week she jumped right into the slippery slope of speaking for God when she claimed He was behind the latest eastern earthquake and Hurricane Irene. Just a joke, she later said. In case you've wondered, Bachmann's very first political campaign was only eleven years ago.
I don't know where the crazy spiral ends. Herman Cain demands a loyalty oath from any possible government employee who happens to also be a Muslim. Has anyone brought up the possibility that any real terrorist would be happy to take, then ignore, any oath anyone could come up with? And he's unwilling to talk about Mitt Romney's Mormon faith - unless someone asks.
Could it be that Mitt invented this whole Tea Party thing in order to seem more moderate, instead of just the quasi-official candidate of Wall Street? Maybe not. The Party has already completely demonized the word "moderate".

A New News Source

2011-08-23T09:06:00.000-07:00

We had eight house guests over the weekend, all of them family, five of them under the age of eight. A couple of things were broken, but not enough to stimulate the economy all by ourselves. And we come away with a built-in excuse (those dang kids!) for anything that's missing or not working correctly. How lucky for us!

I was a little surprised when I found out in June that one of my Fathers Day gifts was...a subscription to the New Yorker. Excluding Hawaii, we are almost as far as you can get from New York. Still, the magazine doesn't confine its coverage to the five boroughs, and I have to say that each issue seems to include something pretty interesting, either current or past.
For instance, there was a review of a book about the relationship between the European powers, particularly the British, and both sides during our own Civil War. Before that conflict, Europe simply didn't concern itself much with the new nation in America, having seen little from it other than its great natural resources.
But the war changed all that. When they were able to read about the level of violence taking place, with the new ways being used to destroy the enemy, Europeans took notice. Any society capable of producing such mayhem was clearly a serious nation, and deserved to be treated seriously. There was some tendency to sympathize with the Confederacy, but the existence of slavery, which Europe had already resolved, prevented more help or recognition to the South.
I also enjoyed the article fleshing out the intellectual background of Michele Bachmann. Her personal involvement in politics goes back just over a decade, but her connection to the 'culture wars" goes back much further. Today, she presents herself with little or no mention of early influences on her thinking, which I would describe as "scary Christian Right." Even so, the article wasn't a complete hack job of Bachmann and husband. It refers to some good things they did in their frequent role as foster parents for a number of teenage girls. Her role as a part of the IRS? Way overplayed in the campaign, as is her record in founding a charter school in Minnesota that now operates under much different conditions than when she pushed its whole orientation hard to the Christian Right in violation of its own charter.
Just lately the magazine included a long article on the background of, and then the hour-by-hour experience of the Seal team sent to Pakistan to take out Osama bin Laden. Nothing that big, of course, happens without the President's involvement, and that part was also described, along with the relationship between the CIA and regular armed forces. An interesting sidelight was the forced destruction of a helicopter crippled by a crash landing within the bin Laden compound. To some it was an acceptable tradeoff made worthwhile by the fact that such evidence would give the lie to any bogus versions of who had been there. There is only one force capable of landing, and then destroying a US helicopter, and leaving it as evidence. Though OBL's remains were disposed of at sea to deny any kind of rallying point for the next generation of terrorists, there was still evidence that we are not at war with all of Islam - wives and underage children were spared, left to the care of the huge (and rich) bin Laden family.
It's true I'm not much good at small talk anymore. Where to get groceries or what sites to use for low prices, quick delivery, whatever. I'm no longer much of a consumer, but I do enjoy knowing important stuff as a result of having read something. So thanks, Dane.

Collaborating With Elvis

2011-08-14T19:48:00.000-07:00

I watched the Republicans go at it in their pre-straw poll debate last Thursday. The poll, which means nothing in terms of votes or delegates, is mainly the Iowa Republican method of shaking down the candidates by charging $30 a head while suggesting strongly that all the candidates show up. There will be plenty of other debates, but none will include Tim Pawlenty, gone from the campaign already. That's almost not long enough to be considered a "journalist" by FOX News.
I could go on about the debate, but let's just leave it at this: a moderate has about as much chance of being the next Republican nominee as a vegetarian campaigning to be elected King of the Vampires.

A combination of work obligations and vacations resulted in my being in an unaccustomed spot last week - the local congregation's "go to" guy. It meant I was first in a very short line to run the funeral of a ninety-one year old woman who I didn't know, dealing with her family, none of whom I had met and preparing for an event the size of which I had no clue.
So I tried to make sure that my little sermon was ready, and not too long. I went to the funeral home an hour before things were scheduled to start, hoping for no surprises. The family began to dribble in - no one over seventy, but with children and grandchildren of their own. I met with a daughter (the family's "go to" gal), and began to be surprised. No one had thought of a eulogy, nor was anyone willing to try it on the fly. OK. Well, let's collect some facts in order to put this life into some kind of context. Putting on one more hat could be managed. The dedication of the grave (an LDS ordinance)? That would also be - me.
The time came, and I observed a total of 40-50 people. They seemed nice enough, but when did people stop dressing up for funerals? Were they all afraid that they'd have to speak if they had a tie on? Mine was the only one except for the funeral director's, and he was as calm as a banker doing a foreclosure. Everyday meat and potatoes.
The sister I had planned to call on to give the invocation hadn't yet arrived, but I stood up and began. Why was the pulpit too little? Where could I put my scriptures without fearing they'd fall?
I called on another sister, our bishop's wife toting a two week-old baby, the latest of nine, to give the prayer, and she did. The one I had asked came in about three minutes too late. I pieced together the eulogy, realizing only afterward that either my facts were off or the deceased woman had married at age 11. No one complained.
I opened the floor to anyone who wished to make an expression or relate a memory. Precious few did, and we pressed forward. Only others could judge the quality of my sermon, though it seemed less impressive to me than it did when I practiced it.
We had a closing prayer less than half an hour after beginning, after which the director dismissed the group starting from the back rows to give them an up close look at his profession's handiwork. I kept a respectful distance.
The formal events of the day ended when we went to the other side of town to dedicate the grave. The printed program referred to me as an "officiate". Does that sound like a guy in a striped shirt with a whistle? I hope not.
But what about Elvis? Well, he did his bit by providing all the pre- and post-ceremony music, backed up by the Jordanaires and an ensemble of white Gospel players. I can't say he stole the show, but I have no problem saying it's great working with the King. Thankyeew.

People Are Strange

2011-08-08T13:21:00.000-07:00

We didn't crowd in to see the latest "Planet of the Apes" movie that debuted this past weekend, but if the trailers on TV are any indication, I think the viewer will get more than his share of two things - bad science and tough (really tough) monkeys.

I knew getting cable would change things here, but I didn't know if it would be for the better or not. There's lots of tennis, sports highlights on the hour and movies around the clock, many of them shown (and I admit I don't know how they do this) commercial-free. I saw more gangsters traveling in more huge cars and carrying out more "whacks" last week than you could see on the average month of Sicilian TV news. One channel one day showed nothing but movies featuring the late John Garfield (whose original name was Garfinkel), all in glorious black and white.
The political guys go at it pretty hard and heavy, of course. They kind of show the news, but then quickly get down to business - making you hate the other side, even though you probably hate them already.
There are stations that feature Christianity, shopping for bargains, fighting crime, remodeling, business, the business of Congress, and a dozen or so other specialties, and that doesn't include the fifty or so music-only stations, the HD channels or the PPV outfits with two big draws - sex and violence.
So far, it seems to me the weirdest stuff involves people in strange occupations or with sad disabilities of one kind or another. There's the guys who go after antiques in old garages around the country looking for things to resell and turn a buck, the crab fishermen up in the Arctic Ocean, ice road truckers, wild boar hunters, snake chasers, and even a guy who travels the world throwing hooks out for very dangerous fish. There are the crazy moms trying to fulfill their own dreams by turning their little girls (babies, even!) into beauty queens. The girls struggle to keep up, not realizing that not everyone has to go through this before they turn six. Why do they all seem to live in Texas?
If I had to pick one show that seems the creepiest, it might be Hoarders, in which we meet people whose homes and lives have collapsed around them simply because they can't get themselves to throw anything away. It's pretty bizarre. All the accumulated stuff, which usually has no value of its own, chokes the life out of families and leaves people in grief when they realize that it's just a matter of chance that made their own lives so hellish. Cleaning things up, hard as it is, isn't even the whole solution, because the hoarders may just return to their old ways without some serious counseling, and so that's part of the show, too. No, the counseling isn't done in a nice, clean office, but in odd moments when the "customers" are surrounded by heaps of repellent garbage. You're going to turn around habits that have been there for decades, which the hoarders are usually perfectly comfortable with? Best of luck, because, as the song says, "people are strange".

Face to Face With Mother Nature

2011-08-01T09:07:00.000-07:00

The early evaluations of the debt/spending bill negotiations which took place over the weekend have arrived. Everyone, to no one's surprise, hates it. I guess that's inevitable when you have two sides forced to hammer something out or face even more universal scorn.

A granddaughter had a little accident last week. It wasn't anything too awful, but I sent along the following poem, which explains what transpired:
Poor Claire
(July, 2011)

I hope I can live
With this giant disgrace.
I fell, and then landed
On rocks - with my face!

At church they might laugh
And the neighbors might gawk
To see how I landed
On rocks - in the park.

It wasn't too pretty
But nothing was broken.
The rest of me's fine
And my brain's not cracked open.

Just be sure to hold on
When you climb up a tree.
'Cause you don't want to suffer
And bleed like poor me!

I understand Claire, a kindergartner to be, is healing on schedule. Yay.

For the six years we've been living in California, I've tried to figure out how we could see - a whale. As great a place as Iowa is, there's nothing that answers to that description. Large carp and catfish are about as big as they come. Then we heard an odd thing, a mother whale and calf had somehow traveled up the Klamath River to a spot directly under the Highway 101 bridge. You can find it on a map, WAY north of the Bay Area. The calf turned back toward the ocean, but the mother remains, slowly going back and forth on both sides of the bridge.
As you might imagine, this has become a big draw in the area, about an hour north of where we live. We decided it was worth trying to get a look, figuring that watching a live whale beats seeing a dead one, and that the smell would be better, too.
On Friday, we headed North arriving with the sun still up. The whale, while just of middling size for this species (a 45-foot California Grey whale, we're told), is certainly the biggest thing in the river. It didn't do anything dramatic, but blew out the blow hole, as whales do, and gave us a good look from the bridge, maybe 60 feet above the river. Success!
But wait, as they say on TV, there's more! Upon leaving, we looked down and saw some otters playing in the river, then on the return trip saw several of a well-known local herd of Roosevelt elk. They are sort of red in color, and look like regular elk on steroids. The road took us within a few feet of them, so we were careful. To me they looked big enough to have our puny local deer for lunch - if they were meat eaters. Luckily, they didn't seem to mind us passing by. They, of course, go anywhere they want.
No one knows just what brought the whales this way. I wondered if they hadn't been hired by the nearby tribal-run casino to increase traffic to the area. If so, it's working. But, city dwellers that we are, it's great to get up close with Nature once in awhile, face to face.

Let's Make a Deal

2011-07-28T09:24:00.000-07:00

In June, the people of China celebrated something that had never happened before. A Chinese woman, Li Na, won the French Open, one of the four major tennis tournaments held each year.
Ms. Li is a veteran player, but she's not especially well-known, and her win was a surprise. Attempting to piggyback the big news, a Chinese official (something that country has LOTS of) issued a statement in which he pointed to Chinese socialism as a factor in Li's success.
That got me wondering. Since the People's Republic of China came into existence, they've played almost 250 major tournaments - double that number when you include men. Why didn't the Chinese system produce a champion until now? Ms. Li, not surprisingly, has nothing to say on the subject.

This summer seems to feature more than the normal amount of big league bargaining. The NFL just settled on a collective bargaining agreement with their players, and they're keeping the lights on at night making player exchanges, free agent signings and the like. The players who have the chance are also hustling to find new employers who can offer a good balance of pay and playing time. The season is set to start at the usual time, so when you tune in the HD-TV to check out your team, don't be surprised to see new names on the uniforms. There's no problem with the TV color - it's just that lots of changes are being made on the fly.
The NBA lockout of players (that's the opposite of a strike, you know) continues, but there are plenty of new possibilities there, too. In this case, the players have the option of playing in leagues based in a number of other countries. Kobe Bryant back in his childhood home, Italy? Derron Williams toiling in Turkey? You can't blame the players for looking. Their careers only last a few years, and there's no guarantee that the team will keep you on the payroll when your playing days are done. I just hope for their sake that smoking in Turkish arenas isn't mandatory.
But the best example of bargaining brinksmanship is the negotiations over how and if the nation can raise its debt ceiling. This was done without any hassle 18 times under Reagan, and 7 more times under GWB, but now is different, not because the world's financial situation is different, but because the Republicans now have a majority in the House, where the procedure to raise the debt ceiling has to begin. It's time, they have thought, to use their new found leverage to put the squeeze on government, or at least on the people government serves TOO MUCH, in their view. Are they willing to reverse tax breaks intended to be temporary under Bush? Nope. Restore the estate tax? Nope. Close loopholes for various industries, including oil companies who are doing just fine, thanks? Never. Cut off a hundred different varieties of corporate welfare? You're kidding, right?
We only have a few days to come to some agreement here, or else the nation's credit gets downgraded from "rock solid" to "better than Greece", so the shelf life of this entry is pretty short. It isn't hard to find expenditures that don't give the nation much return, and some of those are going to be eliminated or cut. But we can't do this JUST on the backs of those getting Social Security, Medicare or Medicaid. The fortunate folks on the top end are paying a lower rate than they have had for decades. It's time for them to step up and resume their share of the nation's expenses. Some of those poor folks are customers, after all, and you want to keep them, right? Hurry up, please. Let's make a deal.

As Previously Noted

2011-07-17T19:46:00.000-07:00

My brother's experience as a cyclist goes way back to the 70's. He even owned his own shop at one time. After watching a little of the broadcast of this year's Tour de France (on our new cable setup, which might be another story) I sent him an e-mail asking, as a tiny joke, how you could tell who the cheaters are. His reply was frank, if a bit cynical. "Easy. They're the ones who are pedaling." Ouch.

Our oldest grandchild had some work done that's mentioned in a little verse we sent:

The day came that
I came to dread.
With baby teeth
Yanked from my head.

I'm now in pain
My mouth's so tender
Before each meal
I use the blender.

I think it was five or six teeth, so it's not the kind of thing that calls for a party. I trust she's doing better.

When the Obama administration began, right wing radio bully Rush Limbaugh drew some attention by saying he hoped that Obama would fail, implying in those words that winning the next election was more important than getting out of the messes, foreign and domestic, left over from the Bush administration.
To many Americans at the time, now two and a half years back, those words seemed awfully partisan. Wouldn't we all want the new administration to succeed even if we hadn't voted for it? It turns out that Limbaugh's words were prophetic in that the today's crowd of firebreathing GOP Congress members will openly say that winning back the White House and Senate are their only priorities. They are not only not willing to compromise on the level of the nation's debt ceiling (which was raised 19 times without objection during Reagan's eight years and 7 more times during GWB), they would literally oppose it even if it included the abolishment of the IRS, the issuance of free guns to anyone with a "USA" tattoo, and a cure for cancer. Rush leads the way. Politics first, middle and last. What about default on our financial obligations and what that would mean? They could not care less.
But they absolutely, as I say, care about the next election. Here's one thing they want to do, though it's not a new idea, as today's title suggests. In this and every other society, there are more little people than big ones. Since it's the latter's "mission statement" that the GOP have chosen to serve, it follows that a large voter turnout is bad news, especially in places with large minority, immigrant or young voter populations.
So here's what they want. Legislatures in 40 states have proposed laws which could take registered voters off the list. It's done in the name of preventing "voter fraud", a crime they say needs to be stopped at the polls. They want voters to show an I.D. in order to be able to vote. The proposals vary from state to state, but are aimed at people seeking to register and vote at the same time, and people who, for whatever reason, don't normally feel the need to carry proof of who they are.
How prevalent is voter fraud as a crime? If ever there was a crime without a payoff, this is it. Kansas looked and found 6 instances of people (statewide) doubling up their vote at different polls - during a period of 13 years! Wouldn't you need thousands of would-be criminals to make such a scheme work? And who would do it for free? It's already a crime. And how would having an I.D. prevent the crime? Where's the payoff?
No, the only payoff is in convincing lots of people that trying to vote just isn't worth it, and that they're better off staying home. Who wants to stand in a long line (in some neighborhoods), when they close at a certain time, line or no line? That's what they evidently want in Kansas, because it's now the law. No I.D.? Hit the road, go home and watch us roll over you on TV. You'll thank us - later.

Tragedy and Triumph in the Big Show

2011-07-11T09:26:00.000-07:00

Let's see if I have this straight. The countries of the world have a competition every year to see who has the best tennis players and the winner gets the Davis Cup. And there was a quarterfinal match which ended yesterday between the U.S. and Spain. We got to pick the city (Austin, TX), and the surface (fast indoor). We have 99% of the fan support, while Spain has to play without their top guy, Nadal, who can beat anyone on the planet on a given day. But he's too tired from the last big event (Wimbledon) to travel to Texas, so he stays in Majorca, where he lives.
They get down to business and play some furious matches, but when it's all over, the Spaniards have somehow throttled the Yanks by a score of 3 matches to 1. I have two suggestions based on this experience. First, don't dust off the spot where the Cup should go because we won't be seeing it for quite a while. Secondly, why not just forget you ever heard the term "Davis Cup"?

Baseball players refer to the Major Leagues as "The Big Show", partly because big, often unexpected things happen there all the time. This past week was especially eventful, both for good and bad.
Josh Hamilton was the Most Valuable Player in the American League last year. He's a big, powerful guy who is, of course, respected but also quite popular in Texas, where he plays the outfield for the Texas Rangers, a team based near Dallas in Arlington.
There was a big crowd on hand last week, but somehow a local firefighter and his son seated near the outfield got Hamilton's attention, asking nicely for any foul balls that might come Hamilton's way. He nodded back, saying in effect that he'd try to honor the request.
Sure enough, a foul later came rolling around the left field corner where Hamilton fielded it casually, then turned towards the bleacher seats and tossed it toward the dad. That's where something went horribly wrong, because the father, 29 year old Shannon Stone, caught the ball, but lost his balance and toppled over a 3 foot high railing, falling about 20 feet onto exposed concrete. He died of his injuries within the hour at a nearby hospital.
There was no negligence, no unlocked doors or careless ushers, and no one was diminished by alcohol. It was just a tragic accident, perhaps completely avoidable, but completely shocking. Hamilton, too, was shook up, but declined the team's offer of time off, at least for the time being. The next day he hit a "walk off" (which ends the game) home run that traveled over 450 feet. Stone's funeral services are scheduled for this week.
Big things are done by big names in New York, and when the week was over, Derek Jeter had earned a seat alongside the other Yankee greats. A year or so after surpassing Lew Gehrig as the all-time Yankee leader in hits, Jeter reached the next goal, gaining his 3,000th career major league hit last Saturday, during his 16th season as a player. This, folks, does not happen very often. In over a hundred years of play, less than 30 hitters have reached this level, which is considered overwhelming evidence to election to basball's Hall of Fame.
Over the decades, all kinds of people play the game. They all have certain physical gifts, but not all are leaders or keep their focus where it belongs - finding ways to (fairly) win close games by using the tools of anticipation, exploiting (again, fairly) or simply leading in order to make your teammates better. Jeter is well known for these qualities, and has always seemed to be at his best under pressure situations.
The 3,000th hit was a home run, something not expected much from shortstops, and it was his second of five hits for the game, another rarity. His achievement comes just as baseball pauses to celebrate itself during the annual All-Star break.
There was some doubt during the off season that Jeter could come to contract terms with the Yankees, who were reluctant to pay the big bucks to a shortstop past 35 years old. But for now, EVERYONE is glad they did. Maybe even the Red Sox.

Road Frogs

2011-07-05T10:19:00.000-07:00

This week's title comes from a trip just finished to Portland, where our now three-years-married baby lives. More on that later.

I saw a cartoon poking a little fun at the recent non-apocalypse. A bearded man dressed in a robe holds a homemade sign which reads "The End Was Near".

You might have missed the action at soccer's Women's World Cup being held in Germany. Among the competitors is the team from North Korea. They haven't played so well, but they have the greatest excuse of all time. The coach explained that the blame goes to the team getting struck by lightning in a pre-Cup practice. Maybe the team members' memories were zapped too, because none of them has said anything about it.

Portland is a seven-hour drive from here through forests and mountain ranges. There's lots of scenery and plenty of sharp curves to keep you awake. The wife, who's a relentless driver, got us there on time.
It was really just a weekend/holiday trip, but there's lots to do in Portland, as we found out. Our first evening plan included a little train ride to see the Portland Timbers, a soccer team, in action.Upon arriving, we made the shocking discovery that the game was sold out. A few minutes later we boarded the return trip on what we dubbed the "Train O' Shame". I did see a goal from the game - on Yahoo! via home computer. Doh!
We had some other stops: a massive local bookstore, a restaurant that serves Cuban food, and church services in a building built on the 1920's. The meeting we attended included short expressions of faith from people born in three different foreign countries. We stopped in at the "Peculiarium", an odd little four-room museum that had on hand a 10-foot high statue of Sasquatch and a small kit for conducting exorcisms. Free admission, too.Our daughter's husband, who seems to have an eye for these things, had assembled and mounted a life-size deer head made only of cardboard on the living room wall. It had a very satirical quality, because no one would have thought it was the real thing, but the form was unmistakeable. They hadn't settled on a name for it, though it would be hard to top the name on the original package - "Bucky".
Hopping around the city was great fun. Portland has a tradition of mixing residential and commercial space on certain streets so completely that you have to check which door you're opening. I saw what looked like some kind of store announcing the future tenant - UBAD Auto Detailing. Could this guy use a new marketing man? To me it seemed a little too much like "UBAD. Me.....good!!"

Revisiting a Tough One

2011-06-27T09:23:00.000-07:00

In what sounds like a preemptive grab at some kind of divine endorsement for president, Michelle Bachmann, while announcing her candidacy in good ole' Waterloo, Iowa, took the time to speak about her own religious beliefs. She wasn't so bold as to say that God is a straight ticket GOP guy, but I suppose that in some ways he qualifies: He's old, He's (at least in most paintings) white, and He has no need of health care benefits from the government. He's rich, too.

Now, at the risk of getting too grim, I'm going to revisit a subject that I have not written about for several years - abortion. Nobody's really asking, but my personal views would, I think, guarantee rejection from both major opinion camps. If asked to counsel a woman on the subject, I would be on the side of trying to encourage a live birth, perhaps adoption by a third party, and some sort of reimbursement of medical expenses and (perhaps) work time lost to the birth mother. At the same time, I would dread the involvement of state or federal police power in the cause of preventing abortions or punishing those involved in them. I oppose amending the Constitution on this issue, which surely would put us over the line of "establishing religion". I may be the sole advocate of "Pro choose life", a position with no lobbyists, religious backing or secularist support. That's OK, since minority opinions in this country are free and usually legal.
With all that in mind, I point to two trends my GOP friends seem compelled to follow, and where I can't go. In South Dakota, the state stretches to do all in its power to prevent abortions by establishing "centers" which offer help, but will never mention the word "abortion". I'm a little fuzzy as to who pays for this, but believe it should not be the state trying to prevent what is, after all, a legal procedure. The screen this system's advocates hide behind is "education", claiming to aid the woman's decision by "educating" the would-be criminal, I mean, mother. The trouble is, all other kinds of education which might have made this last decision unnecessary, are staunchly opposed, especially in public schools. Nope, it's "abstinance only", a strategy which works poorly in the states where it has been tried.
The other trend is a kind of naked use of legislative and executive power to trump judicial power. In Kansas, someone discovered that the legislature had both the votes and a governor eager to help make abortion legal, but unavailable. A law was pushed through the legislature requiring added restrooms and more recovery space in the state's three abortion-performing facilities. The three will be inspected at the end of the month, and if they fail the new requirements, they will all be closed. In this case, the hiding screen is "health", as in "These poor women cannot be made to suffer without these extra requirements." To me, it sounds much more like "Honey, you're going to have to go out of state to get what you want. Our side had the votes, and the governor, and we shut all those places down because we could. 'Bye now". I can imagine the Kansans celebrating their success now, congratulating one another on the success of 'small government". Meanwhile, ther's someone off in a corner making sure things stay the way they are by drafting legislation that would require solid gold doors on any future abortion clinics.

Points of View

2011-06-21T15:43:00.000-07:00

How we see things depends quite a bit on our vantage point. The same circumstances can make us feel very differently depending on who we are and how we see ourselves in relations to everyone else.
There's the man you might have read about, for instance, in North Carolina whose physical problems just became to great to bear. Without a job, he concocted a plan, which you and I might think of as drastic, in order to get medical treatment. He walked into a local bank, handed a teller a note demanding $1, then took a seat to await police. They came, he was arrested and his physical treatment soon began - in jail. "Only in America"? Maybe.
There's Serena Williams, trying to come back from almost a year of tough physical problems of her own. Her comeback effort began today in the 1st round of Wimbledon today, which she won. Then, in a rare emotional moment, she broke down in tears describing her last year to the tennis press. I would think this would make her a more sympathetic figure, though she's young enough to still make mistakes that make her less appealing. I wish her well.
Suppose you're one of the winners in life's lottery, whose only job is to monitor the family fortune earned some time back. Suppose it's been drilled into your pampered head that you should only vote your pocket book, and you always have. Now you have your favorite for the next presidential election, Congresswoman Michelle Bachmann, who says that as president she will end long term capital gains taxes. Who makes up for this major loss to the U.S. Treasury? That would be, ah, everyone else. Yes, the rich have suffered enough.
John Huntsman, Jr., former GOP governor of Utah and, until recently, our ambassador to China, is now running for his old boss's job, president. He's known as a thoughtful problem-solving type who gets along well with those from the other political side. His worst nightmare is no doubt the decision facing him when the campaign staffers deliver the news that he will have to get meaner on the daily stump, and that there must be no words in speeches longer than three syllables in order to fit the Party's current demographic. Of course, he always has the option of retiring to the life of the coupon-clipping rich described above. And it won't cost much to endorse Bachmann, right?
Finally, there's the viewpoint of our three oldest (11, 9 and 6 years old) granddaughters, who came from Iowa to visit for a couple of weeks, ending just yesterday. Let's hope that their view is: Grandma and Grandma are kind of old, but they took us to the beach, the zoo, to see the big trees and to the harbor. Grandpa even tried to teach us tennis. We got to peddle the little surrey in one town, and watched Grandpa and his friends do some stories and poems, which was funny. Someday, we'll go back, hopefully before we become insufferable adolescents.

The Big Picture?

2011-06-14T20:58:00.000-07:00

Last week, I was noting the number of movie sequels set to hit the marketplace soon. It turns out I left out a couple. First, there's the continuing saga, which I guess is finally ending, of the Harry Potter movies. I guess our hero will finally be known as "Mr. Potter". And the original movie that introduced Americans to the future governor of California, Arnold Schwarzenegger, "Conan the Barbarian" has been redone and is awaiting release. Maybe it's not a sequel, but it might as well be. "Yaahhh!"

I have a healthy suspicion for anyone who claims to understand economics and the business trends which affect our lives so deeply. Nevertheless, I'm trying to get a handle on this stuff just because it is so important.
I think, for instance, that all Americans should not only know what happened three years ago as the economy was brought to a literal standstill, but why. Following that, we should be able to sort through today's winners and losers, if for no other reason than to know whose statements are less truthful come the real election campaign next year.
The 2008 meltdown was a bit too late to figure much in the election, but we can now look backwards to get an idea of what went wrong. My friends from the Right informed enough to have an opinion will try to claim that certain members of Congress pushed the nation's banks to make loans to less than creditworthy borrowers for home purchases. This is not true.
What is true is that deregulating the financial system allowed commercial banks, investment banks and credit rating agencies to pass extra risk on to unwary institutional customers who had no idea that the mortgages making up their securites were not only subject to default, but sometimes set up in such a way as to make a profit for the investment banks when defaults happened! Yes, it's complex, but informed citizens should come to know just what a credit default swap is, and how this totally unregulated market came to be the cause of the fall of some of the nation's best known investment banks. Sadly, this stuff is unlikely to be in the news again, because the Obama administration has evidently concluded that this debacle had so much guilt spread around that no one will ever be brought to trial. Gee, at least when the much smaller savings and loan scandal hit the fan there were indictments, trials and actual jail terms. I guess it's a case of "the greater the crime, the taller the statue."
I saw a chart today. It measured the relative share of the total business revenue pie taken in wages by employees. The measures started in the late 1940s, a pretty long time back, as my aging body would attest. The shocking part is that right now is the lowest point on the entire chart. In other words, complaints about stagnant wages or jobs shipped overseas are not just union-invented whines. In all that time, being a well-paid boss has never been more attractive, and never has being a working stiff offered less. And the cure for this malaise? In many GOP-controlled states, the answer lies in cutting off unemployment benefits. That's how Arizona voted yesterday, and it was federal money they were declining in order to (I guess) get the unemployed off the couches and into resume writing class. I did not see the GOP presidential candidate debate from New Hampshire last night, but I was told that the term "middle class" was mentioned - not once.

Planet of the Sequels

2011-06-08T18:42:00.000-07:00

This week's entry is, ah, late. We're hosting some family (a daughter and three granddaughters, the daughter's nieces), and while they're good kids, they kind of like to get your personal involvement in things that may use up time. All three, for instance, insist that they want to learn to play tennis during this trip. That's a challenge, considering that none of them are yet twelve, nor have any of them ever played before.
But that hasn't stopped me from doing certain things, like watching the NBA Finals. I have lots of respect for the players, and don't really care if they are overpaid. When they succeed, of course, everyone sees it, but the opposite is also true. When a player fouls up, every non-athlete sofa jockey anywhere is free to mercilessly mock the guy.
The commercials, I find, are either getting more interesting, or my attention span is getting shorter. Anyway, I seem to notice more of them. For instance, did you know that the NBA has an "official car"? No, the League doesn't need an official car any more than the Olympic Games needed an official soup (Chinese boil-up noodles) a few games back. And you'd never guess the car, but, for what it's worth, it's the KIA Sorento, made in Korea, carrying an Italian-ish name and sold in the USA. Since the average NBA player is something like 6"7", I kind of doubt that many could fit into a Sorento, but I suppose the teams all have shorter employees, too. How did the Sorento earn the honor? I presume in the usual way - outbidding the competition.
Then there's the movies they're hoping to show to packed houses this summer. If you can sum them up with one word, that word would be - sequel. Think about it. There's the X-Men sequel, the Hangover sequel, and others: Kung Fu Panda, Pirates of the Caribbean and another Transformers on the way. They've even got a new sequel for a series that goes back to the sixties - Planet of the Apes.
I have a theory or two why sequels are done so often, but then I'm talking about business, a subject which has baffled me throughout my life. There's even a movie coming, though I'm not sure this is really a sequel, but it would certainly cover some old ground, entitled Cowboys and Aliens. I suppose we're all going to root for the cowboys since they 1. have to somehow save the planet for humanity, and 2. are usually better actors than aliens. But explain to me if you can, why they recruited Daniel Craig, a good welterweight actor (as James Bond), but about as American as mu shoo pork, as one of the cowboys. Maybe the studio's hoping that people will buy tickets with that very question in mind.

The Land O' Plenty

2011-05-30T09:13:00.000-07:00

GOP presidential candidate Herman Cain was doing what Republicans seem to enjoy, which is scolding everyone else for their lack of knowledge, skipping over the fact that a good part of his knowledge came from the pizza industry. Anyway, he was urging the public to read the Constitution. Well, no argument there - we should know all about the country's main governing document, right? The problem was, Mr. Cain went on to reveal his own lack of expertise by citing statements from the Declaration of Independence. Yes, they're both from the eighteenth century, and contain some of the same ideals, but mistaking one for the other isn't something that inspires faith in a candidate, is it?

This takes place before my own life got underway, but I've seen plenty of pics depicting the western plains of the Dust Bowl Days during the Great Depression. The movie that told the story best was "The Grapes of Wrath", which included a certain image we associate with the time - a Model A or Model T auto jammed with family belongings and the family itself as they head west to California to start over. As often as not, the house is simply left unlocked, empty, open to the elements.
Consider the subsequent life of the baby of such a family. He's a toddler by the time the family catches a break - World War II begins, and there is finally demand for workers again. They still don't have much, and may lose an older brother in the war itself, but things seem to be getting better as the 1950's begin. The baby, now a teenager, enters high school. The family discovers, to their surprise, that he has an aptitude for certain kinds of work which will be in high demand in coming decades.
Before anyone is familiar with the name "Vietnam", his career has begun, and there is plenty of work. His own family comes along, and there are problems with his children, but this is pretty common among his coworkers, and things overall are pretty good as times marches through the 70's, 80's and 90's.
Time passes into the new century, and he and his wife no longer have children at home. After long deliberation, they decide it's time to move closer to the grandkids, though they can't be close to all the kids because they live in different states, all of them well-paid for work they trained for in college.
So now it's time to move again. The family shows up in big numbers to get the job done, which they all know won't be easy. Sure, there are friends to leave behind, but the hard part is simply getting everything into a huge truck trailer. This, mind you, is after an effort to get some things to the new home and three yard sales designed to lighten the load. It takes more than 20 people most of a day just to load it all, and even then some things have to be taken in other vehicles. There must be over 100 taped up cardboard boxes which will never need to be reopened. Some of this great bounty, which includes nuts, bolts, screws, pieces of wood, hardware devices, kitchen gadgets, books, fruit preserves, toys, clothing of every size short of "giant", about 15 chairs, a monstrous TV and the ubiquitous Mormon food storage, about half a ton or so, will find its way to the new growth industry - storing the things you own, but don't have room for. ALL this - for two people.
This was my experience last Saturday, as one of the movers. I don't want to sound as though the folks involved were odd or compulsive hoarders. They just happened to live in a time and place that provided unbelievable bounty under certain conditions. Hooray for these good folks, and may their remaining years bring them nothing but happiness.

On Your Marks, Get Set,.......

2011-05-23T09:49:00.000-07:00

Can you stand one more crazy roller derby name? I was told about a woman who wanted to honor her Jewish heritage, choosing the name "Mazel Tov Cocktail" for RD competition. BTW, is everyone out there aware that there's a major league ballplayer named Coco Crisp? No, really. And for good measure, there's a woman tennis pro named CoCo Vandeweghe, whose father is former NBA player KiKi Vandeweghe. Maybe having a president named Barack Obama isn't so odd after all.

Of course, it's still too early to tell, but we could have four more years to adapt to Mr. Obama if the early race for his Republican replacement is any indication. Indiana Governor Mitch Daniels and family took a long look at the prospects and decided to pass on running for president. To no one's surprise, Tim ("No, I'm not Scandinavian") Pawlenty, the former Minnesota governor, decided his time to run is NOW, as did former pizza king Herman Cain. No declaration either way yet from the Twisted Sisters, Palin and Bachman. Count Mitt Romney as all but declared, with Newt Gingrich, Ron Paul and former New Mexico governor Johnson all declared.
My perspective is this: many or all these folks have some ability, even if it's just to raise funds or generate headlines. And I'm sure more than a couple actually have the capacity to operate a coherent government if they had the right supporting players in place.
What drags down the chances of this pack is that the party demands that they say stupid- sounding things in order to be nominated, by which time it's too late to reverse field and say what they're really thinking.
Take health care as an example. The nation as a whole has moved to change the system, though the changes won't come quickly or all at once. Republicans, however, are stuck with about five lines - all that the opponents of change can comprehend. Anything more sounds too much like change itself, and since changing almost anything has to be seen as a disaster in the making, they're stuck with cliches that don't inform anyone or even allow the candidates to make distinctions between each other. The party has effectively put a cloture rule on itself.
Here's another. The Bush efforts to wiggle out of the charge of "torture" were so weak that they were largely ignored. Now the GOP is trying to re-brand themselves as having been pro-torture in order to try to get some credit for the recent whacking of OBL. It ends up sounding like "No, we don't torture, but whatever we did do sure made 'em squeal." Pathetic. Even McCain is back to his natural anti-torture stance.
Even the tea party guys, who were supposed to be such pro-little guy flamethrowers, have been bought pretty cheaply by big money interests, and can no longer be distinguished from the GOP regulars hanging out with lobbyists and rich donors. They were corrupted in about 10 minutes. Look for them, following whoever is the candidate, to be sounding like the old broken record: "Lower taxes, no estate tax, less regulation whatever becomes of the air and water, and more restrictions on tax users - like public school teachers."
I don't think Reagan himself could run successfully after being painted into such small corners. Just remember - They've done it to themselves, and deserve the results they will get.

The Business of America is...

2011-05-17T13:20:00.000-07:00

I have mentioned our local roller derby before. I can't fully explains what makes it a hit, no pun intended, around here, but they always draw full crowds. Perhaps it has to do with the fact that, while they take the sport seriously, they are a bit less serious about themselves. The most evident sign of this little quirk is that the women don't use their real names in competing, but make up new ones, which are often quite clever. Last weekend's action, for example, featured roller babes Ms. B. Haven, Avi N. Flew and Russ T. Machete. Mess with them and you'll soon be in Sir E. S. Payne.

No one should kid themselves that running a campaign for president is not a long, difficult, brutal, complicated and mostly unfun undertaking. I don't blame anyone for considering the effort, then backing off. That's a growing list, by the way, and it now includes Mike Huckabee, Donald Trump (which I predicted, though not exclusively) and Mississippi governor Haley Barbour. I sometimes think that if you run a campaign all the way through to the party convention you should get a special designation to add to your name, something like O.P.C. for Onetime Presidential Contender. The first caucus is in eight months.

Another thing you can't blame candidates for is putting their strengths out front. It's someone else's job to scout out your weaknesses, which is fair, though people don't want to be seen peeking into corners looking for another candidate's dirty laundry. The Republican Party these days has some candidates whose main prior experience is in business. This isn't anything new, but you can expect to hear again how candidate X excels at "creating jobs, building wealth, provided opportunity and has balanced the books of a large business" and therefore "brings real world experience" to the White House." Does this sound familiar to anyone? It should.
And perhaps we'll have a moment in which the perfect holder of the office of President is a former business tycoon of some sort. We have had a number of wealthy presidents, but you could not seriously say that FDR or Kennedy or either Bush was someone who woke every day thinking of how to make an extra buck. The point is, the businessmen-presidents we have had don't seem to have great records as presidents.
And there really aren't that many of them. Truman once ran a little store (unsuccessfully), but you have to go back to Hoover to find someone who came from nowhere to somewhere as a business guy. He turned his degree in mining engineering (awarded by Stanford U's first graduating class) to a series of lucrative jobs all over the world. He had great foresight as Secretary of Commerce, too. But he also had the misfortune of being flattened by the Great Depression, an event so huge that no president could have done much better.
In fact, I could be wrong, but the closest to businessmen as we know the term today would boil down to Polk, Jefferson and Washington, all gentlemen farmers, and all of them slave owners. I will admit to being a bit hazy on the professions of some of the bearded presidents of the 19th century. More than a couple, I'm thinking, were Civil War veterans who were GOP party hacks from Ohio. Harding was the last Ohioan.
That's a bit surprising, isn't it? We trust businesses at some level every day to do or supply what they promise, and, mostly, they do. So the appeal is a natural one, but somehow when it gets down to voting, we're more likely to trust the governor or former general than the butcher, baker or chain store operator. Republicans could take either Mitt Romney, a practitioner of slash-and-burn capitalism and a huge success, or Mr. Cain, he of the million plus pizzas made by Godfather's. Either one, if nominated, will be looking uphill, however, at the former community organizer from Chicago, Mr. Obama. Go figure.

Proper Decorum

2011-05-10T10:03:00.000-07:00

There were two blog entries last week, but neither touched on the big issue of the day - the death by unnatural causes of Osama bin Laden. As the week progressed, some raised the question as to how we, as a nation, should take this news. I think that's a worthy question, because the option to literally dance in the streets over something in the news doesn't come along too often, even including the years when your favorite team conquers the entire world.
I even think it's worth considering whether believers, who often try to set the behavior bar a bit higher, should react differently from those who attend funerals to hear bawdy stories about the deceased and ignore the minister.
As for the end of OBL, it's pretty hard to imagine that there wouldn't be dancing, singing, drinking, congratulating and overblown claims of "justice", as if some are so evil that our only defense is to lock and load. Yes, the president himself referred to "justice", but tried to straddle the line a bit by avoiding the celebrations except to meet with and thank the military for their role. He knows we're stuck with some kind of terror threat for the forseeable future and doesn't want to give the next generation of scary guys the visual of something like the "Mission Accomplished" banner. Even the disposal of bin Laden's remains at sea was meant to provoke as little anger as possible while also denying radicals the chance to mourn together. It was done, I read, with the intent of showing the world's billion plus Muslims that, NO, the U.S. is not at war with Islam. It certainly won't work with everyone, but it shows forethought, and was done with little extra expense.
But I digress. Does scripture offer to believers any model regarding the death of a perceived villain? David's reaction to the death of his old persecutor Saul was genuine sadness, but most recorded deaths in scripture have little detail of the reaction. Moses slays the Egyptian, Samuel the prophet dismembers a king taken prisoner in battle, the entire tribe of Benjamin is almost annihilated by the other eleven tribes, Joshua is commanded to clear the land of Canaan of all non-Israelites by any means necessary and even Peter in the New Testament pulls the plug on a couple who had withheld assets from the church, then lied about it. A man is zapped instantly for attempting to steady the Ark of the Covenant without the proper authority. David is celebrated to this day as a military leader. The dead in all these cases get little or no remembrance.
Of course, planning and carrying out the 9/11 attacks was horrific, and there's no sign of OBL ever having regrets. Still, the man had a (pretty big) family. In some ways he came across as a modern day John Brown, our native terrorist. I guess I have no real reason to expect the future to be less violent than the recent past, but finally let me say that I have some sympathy for the family he left, and wish for some happiness for the innocent.

Bonus! Bonus!

2011-05-03T14:49:00.000-07:00

I got to thinking a little about the blog already published this week, and felt I could add to it without rotten veggies being thrown my way. I'm happy to say that it in no way connects to people who were alive last week, and now aren't. Just think of it as a tiny Mothers Day present, though there's no connection with that, either. Finally, you should read last Sunday's blog before this one. It'll make more sense that way.

Picture a couple of guys drying off following their weekly tennis match at the club. The conversation takes place in the locker room.
"Man, you were tough today, Burt."
"Thanks, Ernie. You know how some days things just seem to work better."
"Right. But, your serve. It was moving around today in ways I just don't remember! C'mon, man. You're getting some help, right?"
"Well, yes. I've been in on a few lessons."
"Really? From who?"
"Gosh, do I have to tell you? After all, we're competitors, right?"
"Right. But we're also teammates when we take on your in-laws in doubles. Really, I won't tell."
"Well, here's a clue. Who's the most unlikely guy you'd think could help my game out?"
"You don't mean-"
"Do I have to spell it out? I've had some lessons with the Insane Pro."
"Wow. I've heard about that guy. But isn't he kind of, ah,...crazy?"
"Well, aren't we all, Big Guy? I admit he was a little tough to get used to at first. There was the screaming at his imaginary opponent, and there was the time he slammed a ball at a noisy baby. But the ball missed. Hey, you can get used to almost anything if you want to, man."
"Yeah, I hear you. I used to feel bad at the brokerage office when people came in crying over their losses. Who knew things were going to crater, right? I don't even notice them anymore."
"That's exactly how it is with Insane Pro. In fact, we just call him 'I.P'"
"Is he trying to get you to change any other parts of your game?"
"We had one workout when he wanted me to hit forehands with my back to the net between the legs."
"You're kidding, right?"
"No. Actually, I hit some pretty good shots, but viewing the court from upside down means you have to make some adjustments with your footwork."
"Hmm. Yeah. I could see how that might be tough."
"Given what the guy charges, I'm already way ahead. So, over all I'm pretty happy with the decision to work with him."
"Well, if you don't mind one more nosy question, just how much does he charge?"
"If you must know, it's...two dollars a lesson."
"TWO DOLLARS!? But that's--"
"I know. It's insane (chuckle)."

Names of the Week

2011-05-01T15:34:00.000-07:00

I get a magazine which is all about tennis, including showing you the advertisers' latest racquets, shoes, bags, etc. Is there a conflict of interest here? Sure, but you're supposed to know that when the magazine arrives, and, hey, the new gear might actually be better than the old stuff you've been using.
Anyway, the Head Co., a major supplier in this sport, now has a shoe model with an odd name. I can't decide if it's very cool or a bit scary. Could you see putting on a pair of "Insane Pro" models before your next match? They don't have any wild graphics or unnatural colors - just a name that might make you want to steer clear. I think I would have to try them on before buying.

There's been a long string of athletes with snappy first names to go along with "Jones", though none stranger than actress January Jones, the actress from TV's "Madmen". There's football's Ed ("Too Tall") Jones, Lo Lo Jones, the woman hurdler, and "Pacman" Jones, a football player who always seems to be around whenever there's trouble at the striptease club. The latest Jones the rest of the NFL might have to keep up with is Taiwan Jones, a running back from Eastern Washington who will get a chance to win a roster spot with the Oakland Raiders. To the best of my knowledge, he has no Chinese relatives.

Are you familiar with one of those tricky maneuvers that pro sports teams make to increase their bottom line? I'm speaking of the stadium name change gambit, in which you ask new companies to outbid the old company for "naming rights", a euphemism for splashing your corporate name and logo all over the place to remind the suckers who to call when they need some kind of goods or services. Trying to take over the Oakland Coliseum right now is just such a company - Overstock.com.
This presents, as I see it, two new problems. The first is that Overstock gets more sales of its products to women that men. Just how can you promote bedsheets and patio furniture at a football game? Maybe one end zone could be full of linens and table lamps while the other one is reserved for guys in ugly pirate gear, the normal Raider fan ensemble. It's just hard to see these two names (Overstock, Raiders) together in a way that makes any sense.
Which brings us to the second problem, which is that Overstock itself wants to be known simply as "O". I don't think that has happened yet, but I'm afraid the other 25 letters might bring a class action suit against their oval outlaw fellow letter. If that weren't enough, from April to September the stadium is the home of the Oakland "A"s. A Battle of the vowels could be E-P-I-C. I guess this is why you pay big bucks every year to a hive of man-eating lawyers who, as long as they're well-paid, concentrate on devouring the other guy instead of you.

On a lighter, though completely true, note, I pass along something that just happened in a Sunday School class I attended. The teacher, attempting to show some humility, referred to himself as a "schmuck". From the back of the room came a female voice, that of the teacher's wife, asking "Could I have that in writing?"

The Donald

2011-04-25T09:28:00.000-07:00

Last week they gathered to mark the 105th anniversary of the San Francisco earthquake of 1905. Of course there are next to no survivors still, ah, surviving, but I was a little surprised to learn something else. Even then, there was international aid sent to help dig out from various disasters. The largest donor following that major quake? Japan, which sent around $250,000.

I suppose the majority of people, if asked, would guess that Donald Trump is the most wealthy presidential GOP wannabe this time around. I'm not sure about this, but I think Mitt Romney is richer, though not as high profile.
But let's assume that Trunp is a pretty rich guy even though it's clear he spends time every day trying to get even more cash in his well-manicured hands. Why would such a guy want to run, or at least pretend to run for president, given that running requires millions of dollars, is far from a sure bet, and carries a salary less than the Sultan of Brunei would carry in his back pocket if he weren't wearing robes.
So what makes The Donald run, assuming he's not possessed by an uncontrollable urge to selflessly serve the country that made him as well known as Heinz ketchup?
If we took Trump to be the same guy we see on TV, we'd simply attribute it to the man's massive ego. Who hasn't thrilled to his TV signature line "You're fired" and then wondered if running the country isn't really as simple as having a real man in charge, willing to send the corrupt bureaucrats packing to make room for a collection of testosterone-driven super patriots willing to carry out the boss' wishes, no questions asked.
The truth, something compels me to think, is more subtle. The real Trump, I'm thinking, is more nuanced than the TV character. Surely someone he trusts must have told him that the rest of the country is not like New York, and that having dumped two or three wives might dent one's credibility in certain states. In addition, the electorate might not feel comfortable getting behind someone as litigious as Trump, let alone his up-and-down business career. He has to know you can't fire Congress or the Supreme Court just to make sure you get your own way. Would he really like being followed and second-guessed every day over big and small issues by a million bloggers?
But then, just what is the Trump Master Plan that has him continuing to whip a dead horse issue (the birthers) even though the facts show him wrong every day? Maybe it's not so complicated after all. Maybe he needs the money. No, not the money paid to presidents- chump change in the circles Trump and spouse du jour like to be in. It's the TV money that may keep the big guy afloat while other assets are tied up in litigation of various kinds. Maybe more people will watch the Miss Universe Pageant (Trump-owned) or The Apprentice looking for a chance to see Trump declare something that sounds political behind the power of a solid pink tie.
All right. Maybe I don't know so much either, but I somehow think that Trump is clever enough to give himself a chance to come out looking smarter (and, more importantly, richer) than he did going in. After all, he's still holding back on the ultimate question: What about that hair, dude?

A Clash of Methods

2011-04-18T08:32:00.000-07:00

First this week, two little stories that almost touch on tennis. We have a doubles game started up last Saturday after pushing all the water off the courts we could. On the street just outside the courts comes an older vehicle, from which appears a battery-powered bullhorn. An amplified voice asks if we have seen a dog running loose. We reply that we have not seen the dog, and the car moves on. Being a liberal who's been suspicious of anyone wielding a bullhorn in an official capacity before, I now see it in an entirely new light. In fact, I even have the urge to buy a bullhorn - and I don't even own a dog!

I just can't stop writing about Serena Williams. You might have heard that she's been hurt lately, and hasn't actually played in competition since last summer. There's no date set for her return yet, either, but that didn't stop her from going out last week to hit a few balls for reasons best known to her. I suppose it was to see just what parts of her well-paid body are still hurting.
But with Serena, nothing is done halfway. She stepped onto the court dressed in a single piece body suit made of fabric of a rare color. It would have to be described as neon electric hot pink. I'm guessing she could have been spotted from outer space. Hey, good luck to her. You hate to see the great ones go down, And the rest of the world should see the outfit on her before it gets shipped off to the fashion museum.

Three years ago, the Church (You know. The Mormons.) got involved in trying to stop legal gay marriage in California. For complicated reasons, I admit to having been a poor soldier in the cause.
But now I realize better one of the things that kept me from being more gung ho on Prop 8. The religious model is so different from the political one that you (at least I) have a hard time operating in both spheres at the same time.
Peoples' religious convictions can wander all over the map as time goes on, and so can their political convictions. One difference is that in the political realm, there is always an election being decided, which carries a date (Election Day) requiring your action. And a vote count does not take into account the depth of one's convictions, their veracity or even whether they make sense. In fact, you can climb on a soapbox to declare that voting for candidate XYZ is vital in order for us to avoid alien invasion. No one will take your vote away, and it counts just as much as any Poli Sci professor's vote.
The religious model works very differently, as we make the effort to do the right things for the right reasons, lest we prove ourselves to be vapid fools before (gulp) deity. Will He give us credit for having done the right thing, even when it's for the wrong reason? Maybe, but I wouldn't count on it. And there's no deadline, as we ponder mightily the truths of eternity, while local party organizations offer to take us to the polls on Election Day, or even to pick up and deliver our absentee ballot in order to make sure it's right (?) No, COUNTED!
Don't get me wrong. The political model works pretty well in this "get it done' kind of world, and some things just have to be decided now, including who's going to represent us or lead us in coming years. As for religious truth, I can mainly hope that I get wiser year by year, and that when that process reverses, that someone tells me in order to allow me to stop pondering altogether.

When in Paris...

2011-04-12T09:34:00.000-07:00

Mapleton is a small town in western Iowa which now is known for something - it was almost completely destroyed by an early season tornado last week. Of course, as they say, it could have been worse. You see, Iowans know that tornadoes will threaten from time to time, but the usual area of destruction is small compared to, say, a major flood or earthquake, so the locals simply hope the twisters will spin themselves out harmlessly in the corn and soybean fields which dominate the countryside rather than hit the towns. That strategy usually works.
This time, though, the town itself took the hit. Even so, a statewide system of warning sirens clicked into action at the right moment, and Mapleton was spared any fatalities. Was it a miracle? I don't know, but it gives the lie to those perpetual grouches who keep insisting that government can't do anything right. BTW, this complaint is usually voiced by those who expect (and get) their Social Security checks right on time every month.

Did you notice the law that went into effect in France over the weekend? It's now illegal to wear a veil that covers your face. It doesn't apply to motorcycle helmets or holiday costumes, but it's not restricted to women, either. The target, though the term "Muslim" also does not appear in the legislation, is clearly Middle Eastern immigrants, which France has had many of for decades following its colonial past.
If the US had such a law, no doubt it could only have been passed with the use of scare terms like "terrorist" or "sharia law", but the French evidently don't see it that way. A high government official cited two factors behind the law: the preservation of "secularism" and the "equality of men and women". Having never set foot in Europe, I don't know if these terms are meant to be 'code speak" among the French, but the law seems to have backing by both sides of the French political spectrum. For what it's worth, violators of the new law get hit with a $200 fine.
What should we think of all this. or is it just none of our business? Some folks of our Right will no doubt decide to ignore that we are supposed to (according to their last dictum) hate the French (from their lack of cooperation in our Iraq fiasco) in favor of the even more current doctrine of hating the A-rabs. Forgotten in their black-and-white vision is our own tradition of permitting all sorts of dress, particularly if it's connected to a religious tradition. Even today, picking Hasidic Jews or Amish from the crowd is easy, and no one seems to mind. And isn't the Right's job to keep reminding us that government is "too big" and that opposing it all the time is our only choice if liberty is to be preserved? I guess it's a little like how they see abortion - big government is OK as long as it's leaving ME alone and preventing YOU from doing something I don't like.
Perhaps the best answer to the question in the previous paragraph is "none of our business". With that in mind, I shall remember to leave all veils at home the next time we're headed to Paree.

The Geezerpalooza Show

2011-04-05T09:50:00.000-07:00

If last night's NCAA basketball championship game had been a person, he would have been known as Quasimodo - ugly. One team barely made 30% of their shots - and they were the winners! The losers shot an anemic 19%, helping generate a combined 100 rebounds. Next thing you know, they'll have to start issuing helmets to protect player brains from all the misses.

I've described before in this space my unlikely connection to the local barbershop music chorus. I spend a day or two per year traipsing around town helping raise scholarship money by joining a quartet singing musical Valentines. Of course, this involves some preparation, because fouling up this music results in sounds no one wants to hear.
But I never have joined the chorus itself. I did go to their big annual show last Saturday (paying for my ticket, mind you), which was held in the city's nice-but-not-big theater. This year, the chorus (The Humboldt Harmonaires) marked 50 years of existence, not only bringing in outside talent, but reuniting quartets who originally showed their stuff during the Eisenhower administration. The audience, as you might have guessed, was mainly made up of some seriously old people.
But I was surprised by the music. I thought I'd be hearing songs that made the hit parade at the turn of the century (the 20th century). There were some of those, but somewhere along the way, barbershop has morphed itself into a kind of latter-day burlesque in which the chord resolutions that the genre was built on seem to take a back seat to getting cheap laughs with some borderline vulgar stuff. Do you remember the barbershop hit "I Just Don't Look Good Naked Anymore"? No? Me either. I suppose you can only do "Let Me Call you Sweetheart" so many times before things get a little dull. And I personally have no desire to hear barbershop versions of Christmas songs, but I wonder what could be done with Lennon/McCartney or Johnny Cash material. Bob Dylan? That too.
I guess my position in the barbershop scene is about right. Not being a regular, I won't get tired of the stuff, nor am I obliged to officially declare myself "old". I don't have to sell ads for a massive printed program or confuse comedy with embarrassment. And I'm still free to be part of the local white guy Temptations tribute group - if it ever comes into existence.

A Quandry

2011-03-28T10:06:00.000-07:00

I wouldn't expect anyone to know this. Heck, I wouldn't know unless the blogography button on my computer hadn't said so, but this, today, is supposed to be my 250th entry under this space and name.
So, here's the quandry: What topic is worthy for this big occasion? There's the possible dialog between Lindsay Lohan and the corporate name change wizard on what her next name should be (she says she's changing it). I could spend a whole entry examining the merits of "Puff Mommy", "Ln-Z" or the Blackwater update "XE". But somehow the topic itself seems a little...fluffy. No sale.
There's the determined GOP governor in Maine who's so opposed to organized labor that he's having the state's Department of Labor Building's murals, which feature scenes of collecting bargaining, removed from the building entirely. Did you catch that? He's even against unions in artistic form. But I think he's already received his share of my attention.
Or, I could dip into history again. I decided that watching the Ken Burns documentary of the Civil War again is a good use of time. Here's my favorite quote from the era so far: a member of Congress and fellow southerner once described CSA President Jefferson Davis as "as cold as a serpent, and as ambitious as Lucifer." Ouch. Who says those folks didn't have a way with words?
I could describe in detail what qualifies all the possible Republican presidential candidates as "second stringers". Maybe I'll keep that one on the shelf awhile yet. Anyway. it was the exact same phenomenon that left the door open a crack for the 1992 Bill Clinton campaign to enter the race.
There's that organization first in the hearts of almost all Americans - not Medicare, but the NFL and its current labor troubles. I could use it as an excuse to explain how a strike differs from a lockout, and why the players don't really have the world by the tail as much as we might think.
I could even comment on the NCAA Basketball tournament, how you fill out a bracket, and why Richmond, VA is lucky enough to have TWO teams chosen to play for the title. Or I could explain why I found it impossible to find a team to support when North Carolina played Kentucky.
Japanese reactor meltdown, Elizabeth Taylor, Geraldine Ferraro, Warren Christopher, the end of spring training, the torrential local rains, my new barber and why we didn't go to Medford Saturday, even though we had planned to for weeks. All (sort of) worthy subjects for the 250th blog. Alas, my space is squandered. Perhaps #251 will actually be interesting.

A Moment or Two

2011-03-22T10:04:00.000-07:00

How many people do you think will be confused at the Chrysler ad which actually features down-and-nearly-out Detroit in its commercials, then refers its cars as "imported"? I wish the Motor City well, but, last I knew, it was still part of Michigan, right in Midwestern USA. Maybe the ad's purpose is to get you to forget that Chrysler's actual owners now live in Europe.

And have you seen the ad for The Hartford which features a one-legged woman swimmer? Evidently, she lost a leg serving in one of our never-ending wars, but now is determined to be successful as a member of a group of athletes with various disabilities. She must be very powerful in her upper body. If I had such a condition, I think I would simply...sink.

We have a member of our extended family who spends his time working with the elderly in a care home. It won't be his last job, but he has a good attitude about the people he serves, appreciating them as people, not just collections of symptoms. Whenever we see him, he has new stories about them, which even include impersonations. Pretty funny.
My own mother has now been gone for almost eighteen years, a victim of the big "C". I mention this because I now have a church assignment visiting a woman in a nearby care facility who was born at about the same time as Mom. One of the features of such visits is that you pretty much have to take people the way they are. Seeing them monthly isn't likely to change anyone's life very much, though most appreciate the effort.
My visits with Kay don't go very long. She has already been in the facility, she says, for about seven years, and is 86 years old. She doesn't walk, and her hearing is poor, which may be a good thing where she lives. Nothing is liable to change much except when her body finally gives out. But we were sitting in her half-room last week, pretty close together so that she could hear better. Then she reached over in just the most nonchalant way and put her finger on my eyebrow in an attempt to straighten something out. It surprised me a little, but I didn't object, or mind. I knew right away that her intention was just to help me a little, so I sat still. When it came time to go, I asked if there was anything she needed. She just said that she hoped I wouldn't forget to keep visiting. I assured her that I would remember. See you next month, Sister.

Where Style and Substance Meet

2011-03-15T13:19:00.000-07:00

This week marks another birthday. I'm not really on borrowed time yet, though the length of departed high school chums gets longer. Staying up to date is pretty much a losing cause, but I can concentrate on not saying or writing anything that's patently stupid. Something could go wrong with the body, though, so it's still a good idea to get on the courts as often as possible. Exercise is great when you can also give yourself a chance to put up the "W" for the day.

I just don't think I can get my hands around the force set loose in Japan last week. Energy from that disaster traveled by water to create damage here, thousands of miles away, at a tsunami-plagued town up the coast. According to a local paper, 16 boats were sunk and 47 more were damaged. I read that the total energy released was 1.000 times greater than the quake centered in Northridge, CA a few years ago. Do we need more evidence that things done in one part of the world can have an effect in another?

So, now to our title subject, before I break the "stupid" rule I just set above. Our congregation, for complicated reasons, has no choir these days. I was asked just a few weeks ago to gather a group of men to sing in one of our Sunday meetings. I had thought I had seven lined up, but one had to stay home with a sick little brother, so we performed with six.
It's surprising all the things that have to go right in order to achieve the desired effect for something like this. We had a song, but had to change the key and print the words larger. I had to compose and print an introduction, which was slightly botched by the man conducting the service. I had to decide who would handle each of five short solos, though deciding on who wouldn't get a solo was pretty easy - a guy with severely challenged musicality. I let him pretend to sing bass.
We had several short practices, with just one or two including all the members of the group. I also had the delicate task of telling the accompanist to back off the tempo. The delicate part is that it was the Mrs., who was patient with me. We had to also decide whether or not solos would be accompanied, where to stand and in what order. Lots of potential things to foul up.
The song's message was that serving one's fellow man is important in life - not a new message. My thought was to match our performance to the slightly folky nature of the music, while letting the words stand out. The final ensemble included a teenager, a man in his eighties, the teenager's father and a tennis playing friend now in his seventies. We may have created some musical keys which don't occur in nature, but got through the four verses (skipping three others) without dissolving into either laughter or tears. A few people said they liked the performance, and the ones who hated it were kind enough not to say so out loud.
Perhaps all this indicates is that my high school days spent in the not-so-manly art of speech and debate might have been better spent in the choir, which met at the same hour. I can't change that, but can say I enjoyed debate, but also look forward to the next chance to sing, though perhaps in a more supporting role. Let's hope future style meets the substance of religious music in a way that makes everyone happy they attended.

Strange Days

2011-03-07T19:35:00.000-08:00

Many, maybe all of you, are busy people who like writers like me to quit dawdling around and get right to the thesis. So here it is: Today's Republicans do some awfully strange things to prove they should run our government. And here are two examples, if you're willing to read some more.
It's common for the GOP these days to oppose any kind of government policy that results in more revenue, with the possible exception of seeing a natural increase from a broader base of workers, all paying taxes at about the same rate. So far so good, but what about simply getting more revenue through better enforcement of tax laws on the books? Our IRS, not the most popular of institutions, nevertheless now returns $10 for every dollar spent. Shouldn't that appeal to most folks? Spend the money- catch the cheaters?
To our Republican leaders, though, this idea is a "no sale". They have, in fact cut the IRS budget by around $600 million for this year, and seek even deeper cuts next year. I just can't see how this makes sense. Yes the 10:1 ratio in benefits breaks down at some higher point, but wouldn't it be smart to have some idea of what that point is?
And who wants the IRS watchdogs put on shorter leashes? Only one answer makes sense - "tax cheats." Even people who hate all taxes, but pay them anyway, should despise the idea of someone else getting off without paying their fair share. The news that the IRS is operating on a cheese sandwich budget will no doubt encourage more people to try cheating to see if it can be done. That's a slippery slope we don't want to be on, but that's exactly where the Republican Party wants us to be. Who do you suppose gave them this idea? I don't think it was regular working people.

Mike Huckabee should know quite a bit about interviewing with the broadcast media, and plenty about running for president. He did it four years ago, and lasted far longer than most thought he would. He's no babe in the woods even if he did, like Bill Clinton, start his career in Arkansas.
He said some strange things on the radio last week. In fact they were so strange that you have to wonder who his real intended audience was, along with his real message. President Obama, the former governor Huckabee claims, gets his world view from his father who raised him in Kenya and made sure he was indoctrinated with an anti-colonial, anti-British attitude. This, in turn, caused him to do awful things, such as remove the bust of Winston Churchill from the Oval Office. How terrible, Mr. H. moaned.
When reminded later that Obama had actually first seen Kenya as an adult, Huckabee brushed it all off by saying he had meant to say "Indonesia". But in order to be accurate, he would have also had to change "father" to "mother" and "British" to "Dutch", the former colonists of Indonesia. What Huckabee may have actually been stretching for was a way to connect Obama to another buzzword in the making - "Mau Mau", a former group of anti-colonialist African rebels dating from the 1950s. He had no comment on our own revolution against those same British.
What this all seems to say is that today's GOP bigshots don't even seem to care how roughly they treat the truth. If they're caught fibbing, well, it was just that awful liberal press picking on them again, trying to stymie their message. Either way, the appeal is to the (sob!) unfairness of it all. This way you can whine your way to the top. By the way, that Churchill bust? It's still in the White House, but its former spot in the Oval Office was taken over by the bust of a Republican - Abraham Lincoln.

Did You Catch These?

2011-02-28T07:33:00.000-08:00

They handed out the Oscars last night. I admit to seeing more than my share of movies, but I don't pretend to know what deserves an award and what doesn't. I'm one of those grimy millions who, when he sees a movie he likes, falls back on the phrase praising it as "well done", hoping that will suffice. No, they aren't really making movies for people in their sixties (though gosh knows there are plenty of would-be geezers around), but I can still recognize that it's a real industry, with lots of people working hard to get the final product out in theaters. Is all the awarding out of proportion to the industry's importance to the economy? Sure, but who really cares about businesses that make carpets or soup? And who could put on a better show? No, I didn't watch it, but I reserve the right to. So there!

I was amazed to read last week about an item coming up for auction soon in New York. Before the Soviet Union sent a manned orbiting vehicle into space in the early 1960s, they sent one up containing only a dog - no pilot. This same space capsule somehow got into private hands during the lean post-Soviet days, and could be yours for a bid perhaps in the range of $2-5 million.
This blows my mind. It's a little like finding Lincoln's stove-pipe hat for sale at the local junk store, or having a guy sidle up to you and offer a "great deal on Washington's false teeth" with the proof that they're real! I once read that Yeltsin-era Russian pilots could only get flying time by selling rides to tourists, who paid enough to keep the jets fueled. For what it's worth, the capsule these days shows its age. It looks like something that's been the centerpiece of the city's roughest playground for a couple of decades, so its never going to fly again, but, who knows? With the right setting and decor it could be quite a conversation piece for some techno-nerd collector. Good luck getting it home.

Finally, there's the story of the young woman who has already fulfilled her lifelong dream - she's pitching batting practice at a big league spring training camp. It's an unusual ambition for pitchers of any gender because the job involves helping the batters succeed instead of trying to fool them. I presume the job requires modest power and maximum control in order to give the hitters plenty of quality swings.
But of course the guy doing the interview just had to ask if she could foresee the day that women will play/pitch alongside men on equal terms. She must get this question a dozen times a day, so she had some thought behind the answer - She thinks that the first woman baseball player in the big leagues will be a left-handed knuckleball specialist. Hitting the knuckler is a little like trying to make solid contact with a butterfly fluttering around home plate. The pitcher deliberately offers a knuckle ball with a minimal effort, so power isn't a factor. I guess the whole prospect is only worth considering if your daughter wants to drop the ballet lessons in favor of daily baseball games, but this could be the answer for some frustrated parents somewhere.

Minor Holidays

2011-02-21T21:51:00.000-08:00

February features two very different days to celebrate. First, there's Valentine's Day, when even the desperate get a shot at romance. I spent the day the same as with the last several - singing the high notes in a barbershop quartet in order to raise scholarship funds. We made around 15 stops in the day, finding our way to a supermarket, a laundry, a medical office or two and the local newspaper, as well as to private homes. We broke in a new lead singer this year, and I wasn't sure we'd make the musical grade, but we ended, I think, with fewer clinkers than I had expected. You know you're getting it done when there are tears, and I'm happy to say that happened a few times. I just hope they weren't shed on behalf of any mangled music.

Then there's Presidents Day, the compromise made after someone noticed that Washington and Lincoln had both been born in February. Historians, normally ignored the rest of the year, get the chance to opine about presidential administrations, both successes and failures. About half the population can't go backwards naming presidents beyond Reagan, but we should still put out the flag with the energy we would normally spend fetching the mail. As to who's over or underrated as president, I have enough opinions to guarantee that if I wrote them all down, you'd never read this blog again. Let's just keep it short and say Truman was a success after taking over from FDR. Buchanan was a failure, barely even trying to head off the Civil War.

And it's possible, though not likely, that future generations will pause to recall the events in Madison, WI happening as we speak. The state has a newly-elected GOP tough guy governor determined to balance the state's books on the backs of public unions, particularly teachers. It's not just a matter of givebacks, which the teachers have done before and say they would do again. It's retaining the legal right of collective bargaining. The Guv and the state GOP majority want to turn the clock back to the days of "take it or leave it" for teachers. Their level of concern for retaining or recruiting future good teachers for today's young people? They're too young to vote yet, right?

Don't Get Fooled Again

2011-02-15T17:05:00.000-08:00

I got a little chuckle from someone who described a possible GOP presidential pairing of Sarah Palin and Congresswoman Michele Bachmann as the "Twisted Sister" ticket.

Well, President Hosni Mubarak has gone, not to the next life, but towards the scrap heap of history, leaving office as Egypt's president a full day after having been convinced by his son to NOT leave. I looked it up, and President M. was born in 1928, making him a minimum of 82 years old. Did you ever notice that he never (his entire LIFE!) had a single gray hair? I thought for a second that his departure might ruin the male hair coloring industry. Admittedly, there could be a downturn in that part of the world, though I think most men there feel just fine about going gray. In this country there's a role model who should keep the shelves full of whatever they call the stuff these days - Mitt Romney, who's in his early sixties but only shows a bit of gray around the temples. There are others, mostly Hollywood types, who might do as well, but Romney figures to be on TV just about every day for the next year plus, so he gets the nod as dark hair successor to Reagan. What is it the Bible records - "Vanity of vanities" - something like that?

OK, now let's be serious. Egypt got what no one even knew was in the works a few months ago - a shot at democracy. Perhaps ousting the old tyrant will turn out to be the easiest part of the process. They could tell you all about that in France, Iran, Italy, Haiti, Chile, Argentina, Cuba, China and even Russia. Moving forward to something better while counting on the unselfishness of those who hold temporary power can be tricky. But hey, the Czechs, Filipinos, Slovaks, and some others could tell you that it can be done. Our own country did something similar, though different in some important ways, too. The goal is, of course, getting what you wanted when your necks were on the line, and not some watered-down imitation that leaves you with the refrain from The Who, from whom this week's title is borrowed.
Right now, the army is in charge. Normally, that's not the best way to begin, but this group showed themselves worthy of a little trust when they showed considerable patience with the original Cairo protesters. The legislature's been dissolved, also not ideal, but it was probably full of Mubarak suck ups anyway.
There are some other good signs. The revolutionary use of technology means it could be done again, and that the Egyptians are no clueless rabble up for sale to the biggest talker. The country isn't at war with anyone, The local group with the scariest name, the Muslim Brotherhood, may not be as benign as Boy Scouts, but they officially gave up arms decades ago and also stayed out of this latest crisis. The new guys will, we hope, realize that our old friendship with the dictator doesn't mean we can't make new friends if our interests don't clash too violently.
No, there are no guarantees here. The Israelis will no doubt step up their spying on Egypt and the guys with the petrodollars might be reluctant to share any secrets they night have, but nothing here prohibits the country's moving forward to try to give a little more opportunity to their poorest, least free citizens. Good luck to them.

Reagan Lives!

2011-02-07T19:06:00.000-08:00

Today, everyone is justified in being sick of "seams in the zone", advances to the "red zone" and calculations of quarterback efficiency. They've played the last football game until July. I was too caught up in the commercials to actually watch it. Anybody know who won?
Here's my favorite sports story from the past weekend. One of the high schools of the area, a pretty small school, took their girls basketball team on a road trip. The first half didn't go so well, but a second half rally enabled them to dig all the way out of a 13-point deficit to force overtime. But there was a problem. All the varsity players who had taken the trip except three had already fouled out, so they were forced to go three-on-five for the entire overtime. It would be nice to say that they triumphed against all odds, but, not this time. The home team ran off with the overtime period by 20-0, winning the final score by, yes, 20 points. I guess it's one of those stories you can tell your kids and feel good knowing it's actually true.

In the years following the Civil War, the Republican Party had no qualms about what became known as "waving the bloody shirt" to remind folks that "every rebel" had been a Democrat during the war, and that it was Republican leaders who had preserved the Union, earning in the process the right to continue in office. I'm not saying this was wrong, although elections are supposed to be about the future. What the tactic was was - very effective.
Today's GOP has to reach back pretty far to try to replicate this tactic. We saw that this weekend, which marked the 100th anniversary of the birth of Ronald Reagan. On hand to join the party were the Beach Boys, two of whom Reagan actually outlived, and whose remaining performers must be pushing 70 years old unless they've got a deeper bench than the basketball team referred to above. Sarah Palin was there adjusting the spotlight to show her best side while she pretended to be an historian. Any real historians, who could have shown any number of ways The Gipper was unlike those dopey Tea Party slobs incapable of holding more than one thought in their heads at a time, had to check their credentials at the door and swear an oath of ignorance so as to keep the TPers minds uncluttered
Yes, it's a little unfair to attack Mr. Reagan. We have the advantage of hindsight, while he had to depend on his business pals to assure him that only good could come from deregulating a stuffy industry like saving and loans or starting up a plan called "Star Wars" that would "shield" us from incoming nuclear warheads. Ditto for selling missiles to Iranian "moderates", then using the proceeds to finance an illegal revolution in Nicaragua. Heck, the man's own Secretary of the Interior told him that improving the quality of the air and water was a waste of time since Jesus was coming back soon, and He would set all that right. Reagan wasn't really a churchgoer, but he made it a point to wave on camera to antiabortion activists gathered each year.
Oops. Did I get off on a rant of some kind? Well, there I go again.

On the Tightrope

2011-02-03T10:20:00.000-08:00

First, an explanation and a correction. We've been doing some traveling, and it's a bit impolite to use up your time as a guest trying to beat together a blog for the entire world (in theory). Now we're back. And the song I referred to last week isn't "Swing, Swing, Swing", but "Sing, Sing, Sing". There are so many dancing baby elephant commercials on these days that I want to avoid any confusion.

Oh, and there's the matter of the Superbowl. This year, the NFL has managed to sell some tickets that are at the stadium (in Dallas), but do not afford the ticket holder an actual view of the game. These little ducats go for $200 each! They must fit under the category of "How NOT to impress your date". I think I'll pass.

But this week's main spectator sport centers on Egypt and its future government. We begin with the question "What starts a revolution?" It's not an easy one to answer. The North American British colonies were both lightly taxed and lightly governed, but had a revolution anyway. Iraq had a dictator, as do many other countries today who still see no real need to change things, or at least not enough to risk their own neck in the effort.
The proof that this is a tricky business comes from places like Cuba. We were sure that a little invasion from ex-locals would bring down the Castro government. The result? The disastrous Bay of Pigs invasion, an old Eisenhower era plot that Kennedy failed to squash. Half a century later, Fidel Castro is headed for a soft landing to his lifelong legacy.
Why does Mubarek's one-party democracy in Egypt go along pretty smoothly for almost thirty years, and only then break down in the face of lightly armed but determined opposition? We pay enormous dollars to the CIA (and other spook agencies) to get us answers to questions like this, but they don't know, either.
One thing I notice is that when these revolts finally start rolling, they're almost impossible to stop. The Czar couldn't stop the Bolsheviks, the Shah of Iran couldn't stop the Islamists, and even French royalty was no match for the ragtag forces of the French Revolution, who correctly realized that they had literally nothing to lose by reaching for their pitchforks and clubs. Someone might have told Mubarek that naming a vice president and offering to NOT run for reelection wouldn't be enough to get the folks back in line. Now he can't even depend on his army to dependably slaughter the rebels in Cairo.
The situation is pretty fluid, and the US, on the tightrope between standing up for real democracy and losing an ally in a difficult part of the world, has to be content just observing, dealing with whoever comes out the winner, as we did when the Filipinos decided that they had finally had enough of Marcos and his family. Egypt has no oil to speak of, but they do have close to 100 million people and some status as a center of Islamic culture. They deserve better than what they've had. Maybe we could do our part by offering Mubarek a retirement home in the US. Think he'd like Nevada?

Winter Blahs

2011-01-24T09:18:00.000-08:00

All right, I admit it. Winter here is barely distinguishable from summer except that it rains some in the winter. Heck, we've had some good tennis days lately, which I know won't be the case in the Midwest until at least April. Now if I could just win a few more...

Japan has it. So do Russia and various countries in Central and South America. But nowhere else seems to set them up as a kind of cultural icon for books and movies. I'm referring, naturally, to organized crime, those tough guys with their own unique style. The FBI swooped in and rounded up over a hundred suspected gangsters last week, so we can look forward to years of ratting, snitching, whacking and guys with nicknames like Greasy Tony or Hammerhead Guido. The screenwriters are standing by waiting for the literary crumbs to start falling their way.

Our Target store isn't the biggest, though it's probably bigger than some. I was walking around it the other day, doing what I frequently do in such places. I went looking for the neckties. No question I have way too many of them already, adding two at Christmas, but I think of them as some sort of cultural canary in the coalmine. It took awhile to find them, and I was shocked to discover that in a store that size, there weren't more than a couple of dozen neckties total. This made me think that they could disappear entirely if just given some kind of unforseen push. I've read, for instance, that t-shirts almost disappeared as underwear when Clak Gable was shown not wearing one in a movie made back in the 1930s.

We have a granddaughter, Claire, whose birthday happens to fall on Inauguration Day, Jan. 20th. She's now five years old. Yay! No inauguration this year, but, for what it's worth, it's been exactly 50 years since Kennedy took office, and 30 years since Reagan took the oath. George W. Bush got the job 10 years ago after getting the final green light from the Supreme Court. I seem to recall that Kennedy's inauguration was on a very cold day, but that JFK declined to wear a top hat, dealing an inadvertent blow to the menswear industry from which it has yet to recover. Well, the guy did have pretty good hair.

The Question of the Week: Why did former dictator Jean Claude ("Baby Doc") Duvalier return to Haiti last week after 25 years of exile in France? And don't enough Haitians remember him to put the guy under arrest? Seems as though the whole country's a bit - star-struck.

Finally, I think I have a new favorite TV commercial. This one's for G.E., the industrial giant. The spot has scenes of great commercial activity taking place, but the scenes are stolen by a dancing animated baby elephant using all four legs to show his stuff to the big band classic "Swing, Swing, Swing". At least that's what I think it is. For cuteness, the elephant is right up there with those Coke-drinking polar bears that always made me laugh.

New Blood for the GOP

2011-01-17T11:14:00.000-08:00

I think I got it right last week. I mean, about the post-shooting political shots taken back and forth in the effort to get the American public to see the accused Mr. Loughner in a certain way. At any rate, the Arizona legislature seems to feel that the state's citizens have waited long enough. They're ready to adopt even LESS strict laws for would-be gun owners. I guess they see the state as a giant circle of upstanding citizens, all packing heat, with each gun stuck into the back of the next person in the circle. See? Everybody's safe now.

I see the Reagan half brothers, Michael and Ron, are on opposite sides of a new controversy dating back to the Gipper's days in the White House. Ron thinks he saw hints of dementia when his father was still president. Mike, ever the conservative, replies by calling Ron "an embarrassment" who's trying to boost sales of his new book. All I know is that Reagan wasn't indicted over Iran-Contra partly because the judge saw the president as losing the ability to speak in his own defense.

Michael Steele, the chairman of the Republican National Committee, found out what his fellow 'pubs thought of his efforts. Even though the party regained control of the House, Steele, the Party's first black chairman, couldn't get the votes to retain office. Maybe he'll be the next semi-famous FOX News correspondent.
The new blood taking over the job is Reince Priebus of Wisconsin. No, I don't know how the name is pronounced, but they do in the Badger State, where his efforts helped defeat Senator Russ Feingold in last fall's election. The new chairman is only 38 years old and looks young enough to be a contestant on American Idol.
Mr. Priebus may be a terrific guy, for all I know, but he's already done one thing that irritated me a little. Almost immediately after getting the nod from the RNC, he publicly thanked, not his wife, parents, professors or political mentors (of which Steele was one) , but - "Jesus".
Yes, it's a bit like the boxer who thanks the Big Guy after beating his opponent into a bloody pulp. If Jesus is a Republican, then where was He in '06 or '08? And if He was present in this last weekend's party meeting, then WHO was on Steele's side? And if Priebus is the man, why not just make him president, or world emperor and skip all the stops in between so as to put the good guys in charge again right away - permanently!
Sure, it seems like a little thing, but why do only Republicans get to talk as though they're in tight with the Almighty? If anyone ever caught Obama saying (as George W. Bush reportedly did) "God wants me to be president.", he'd be screamed at every day for that ALONE. Best of luck to Mr. P. in his new job, really. But, as I find myself sometimes saying to my fellow tennis players, let's keep Jesus out of it.

Behind the Headlines

2011-01-10T09:04:00.000-08:00

I have found over the years that when one attempts to interpret the news as it is happening, the chances of being wrong are much greater. Commenting on the shooting of this last Saturday, therefore, is a somewhat risky venture.
I could be wrong, but I know the tug of war between political left and right is interrupted by very few events, and this one, as sad and violent as it was, still carries political implications which people are working to determine as I write, though they work mostly in secret.
Our political left has for some time accused the right of courting violence with the use of certain imagery in campaigns. And they have plenty of examples: Sarah Palin urging followers to not "retreat, but reload". Another candidate (a woman!) speaks of "second amendment remedies". A candidate invites people to bring and fire their guns at rallies. The radio right bases an entire industry on stirring anger from their listeners, while leaving others to have to deal with any violence they may generate.
Here's what's happening today. The left could profit if it were to successfully tie shooter Jared Loughlin to Sarah Palin, Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck. Congresswoman Giffords' last opponent or someone else in the GOP right. So they look for a written message, or a Loughlin statement, or e-mail or website to turn this into a political "smoking gun" as well as a literal one. The right, by contrast, needs a firewall between themselves and Loughlin which depends on Loughlin's insanity, or at least his lack of contact with the mainstream conservatives in order to keep doing what has worked so well for them the past two years.
To me, Loughlin seems to be such an unusual, unstable, repellent person that I doubt that the Democrats can really identify him simply as a follower of the GOP "shoot first and shoot later" strategy. Close, maybe, but no cigar.
But what about the GOP themselves? There certainly should be a voice of moderation somewhere saying "Fellows, we may not be so lucky next time. The next shooter could be someone they can tie directly to us, and we can't have that. We have to dial down the imagery. We're a nation with millions of guns, most just sitting in a closet, ready for someone to decide it's time to load, aim and fire. We can't have the next shooting on our heads."
But for now, that's still a minority voice. What you'll hear instead (maybe this week) will be things like: "Have you heard what the Dems are planning to do in order to get your guns?" "The Democrat Party is desperate, and they'll say anything to win the next election!" "Those people are willing to have the blood of innocent people put on your hands! Will you let that happen?" "Have you all heard that Loughlin's favorite book is 'The Communist Manifesto?'"
Am I over-dramatizing this? I don't know. The trouble is, no one ever organizes parades or marches behind a banner that says "MODERATION IN ALL THINGS", and no one shouts "Compromise Now!" Behind the headlines, people are working to control just what that headline will say.

Under Pressure

2011-01-03T20:01:00.001-08:00

When it comes to tennis, the answer to the question "Who's counting?" is "Me". I got in over 250 sets, almost all of them doubles, in 2010. The winning percentage was .52. If I was an NBA team, that kind of record gets you into the playoffs - where you're expected to lose in the first round. Play in 2011 starts today.

Just for fun, I ordered up some old episodes of "The Twilight Zone" from Netflix and watched them last week. TV sure has changed in the almost 50 years since these little gems first hit the screen in the 1960's, and not just because the original "Zones" were done in black and white. I knew people smoked more then, but was still amazed to see one scene that had actors lighting up in a hospital!

Last week had lots of semi-big events: visiting with family members, including a daughter who lives in Ohio, visiting San Francisco and marking our beloved Iowa win vs. the ranked Missouri Tigers in the Insight Bowl. We also marked 38 years of wedded bliss, though mainly by driving back and forth from the Bay area, five hours plus each way.
But, really, the biggest test of the week came yesterday in church. Everyone who serves there is a volunteer, but inevitably the assignments change, and new folks get the old assignments. Our congregation has had the same organist for many years, a very capable woman. Her new assignment, however, means that we need a new organist.We knew it was a possibility, but the wife finally was asked (on Friday evening!) to fill in at yesterday's (Sunday) meeting.
Being a capable organist is one of many things that are harder than they first appear, and the wife knew this already. She was understandably reluctant to be under pressure, even with a congregation coming up short of a hundred people. You see, she has plenty of piano experience, but almost none on the organ.
With one day to put it together, we went to an empty church on Saturday to practice. She worked on the music, since we finally had the hymn numbers for the next day, while I tried to give advice on things like volume and which of the organ stops to use or avoid.
We even went early on Sunday morning to put in a little more practice. She's calculating the chances of a complete rookie organist meltdown while I'm trying to remember the advice Rocky's trainer Mickey gave him before the fight against Mr. T.
There was the prelude (before the meeting), three hymns in the meeting itself, then a short postlude after the final "amen" before scurrying off to her regular assignment playing the piano for the under-12 set. Over all things went...pretty well. She might have hit a clinker or two along the way, but not enough for anyone to notice. We don't know if they will ask her to take on the job every week, but she was smiling all through the rest of the day, so I did, too.

Celebrating Secession

2010-12-28T10:57:00.000-08:00

The Chrysler Corporation still makes cars, but it's no longer American-owned. This last little fact doesn't get in the way of one of their latest TV commercials. A group of formidable-looking British redcoats are lined up waiting to open fire on a group of American rebels. Their plans are forgotten, however, when the Yanks hit the battlefield behind some brand-new Dodge Challengers, one of them driven by George Washington himself. The Brits are quickly routed, then a voice breaks in, declaring "Some things America got right. Cars - and freedom." It's a bit tongue-in-cheek, of course, but I wonder what our first president would think of this use of his persona. Maybe he'd think it was funny.

Charleston, S.C. is one of those places that is so historic than when the phrase "after the war" is used, it's assumed that the war referred to is the Civil War. You could say the same of a few other places: Richmond, Gettysburg, Vicksburg. I've never been to Charleston, but I understand it's quite a beautiful city, war and hurricanes notwithstanding. No doubt it has plenty of friendly people anxious to point out the city's chief attractions.
These days Charleston is hopping with events marking 150 years since the conflict started, beginning with South Carolina's secession from the Union and the siege of Fort Sumpter, just off the S.C. coast. But what's the proper way to observe such an event - one that lead directly to our country's worst prolonged disaster? Do you gather to hear a speech? Play Mozart's Requiem? Hold a shooting contest using vintage rifles?
A group of Charlestonians, organized by the Confederate Heritage Trust and sponsored by the Sons of Confederate Veterans, decided to mark the anniversary with - a ball, complete with vintage costumes. Charleston mayor Joe Riley described the event as "the opposite of unifying."
I think it's right to remember your ancestors, and I think Confederate soldiers, though on the losing side of the war, could be admired for those soldierly virtues we honor three or four times a year now. But holding a ball? That pushes me towards the mayor's side of this controversy. I can't help wondering: Who served the appetizers? Who played the music? Who got the tips at the hat check window? Did they dance the Virginia Reel? My head spins trying to think of all the ways this gathering of slavery opposers (which is supposed to be all of us since the war ended) could have gone very wrong.
The NAACP led a protest against the ball, but they didn't come out looking so great. The partiers simply ignored the protest, then self-righteously claimed that they hadn't bothered anyone and expected, in turn, to be left alone to party, thus neatly managing to equalize their status with the protesters. Too bad no one at the NAACP office had the idea to buy up all the tickets and hire local rappers to tell the Rebel wannabes where they could go. Now that, as they say, would have been epic.

I Love It....

2010-12-24T09:06:00.000-08:00

As promised, two things here that are unprecedented (almost) - a bonus blog in the form of a poem! The poem has no connection to Christmas, but, hey, you can't have everything. It may find some use in our readers theater bunch, but that remains to be seen. You, today represent the very first audience for this outside our home. So there.

I Love It When It's Dirty
by Mark Bailey

I love it when it's dirty, 'cause
It's then I get to see
How grime and grit builds up around
My tummy, ears and knees.

I try to be real careful as
I look and make a check
To see if there is mud around
My tummy, ears or neck.

And when I reach up carefully to
Neatly comb my hair,
I'm later real surprised to find
What filth there is up there!

My mom gets hold of me sometimes
When playing time is through.
She looks me over, sniffs, then makes
A face and says "pee-yew!"

I know I'm dirty, sure, but why
Won't people cut me slack?
I get the dirt from earth, but then
I wash and send it back.

If dirt was good I'd be (I think)
The bestest kid in town.
But 'till it is, I'll have to scrub
Before the sun goes down.

There it is. Thank you very much for taking the time, and I hope to hear from you soon with regard to your opening in the tongue-in-cheek poetry division of Agglomorated Consolidated Industrial Applicational Analyticals, Inc.

Even Buildings Come and Go

2010-12-20T11:01:00.000-08:00

Once a year or so, someone comments that I should include more things of a personal nature on this blog. Here goes. We somehow collected a surplus of Christmas trees over the years, and this year the wife gave away the biggest one, leaving us with (and none of these are real) one that's between three and four feet, a pair with lights only, both about three feet tall and kept outside, and a kind of bush that's also in the four foot range, but thin enough to get your hands around top to bottom. Just for fun we departed from the usual decoration scheme for the tree mentioned first and decorated it with little plastic animals, which could also be used when little kids come. So the tree has fish, chickens, dogs, penguins, panthers, dinosaurs, elephants and even a whale, all in natural colors. So there's the personal item. I never said it was interesting.

About ninety years ago, the Eureka Inn was built and went into business as the largest hotel facility (100 rooms on four floors) between San Francisco and Portland. The Inn was known for its unique design and striking appearance and served as the center of downtown for a long time, hosting many famous people while serving as a dining/entertainment/meeting center. I'm not sure it ever reached the stage of dilapidation, but for reasons pertaining to both profitability and the cost of upkeep, it was closed six years ago.
But the story doesn't end there. New ownership was found (a couple from China), work was performed on the most important facilities, and the inn was reopened earlier this year. The wife and I went last week to hear both a local choir and a well-known brass jazz ensemble. It was fun, though I wish they had deployed more chairs. We could also see why the place had such renown through much of the 20th century.

That's the happy side of this entry. The sad side begins with the construction in the early 1880's of the Provo Tabernacle, Provo, UT. Most people, when hearing the word "tabernacle" think of the structure in Salt Lake City which holds 6,000 people or so and serves as the official home of the Mormon Tabernacle Choir. But other such buildings, all smaller than Salt Lake City's, exist in other Mormon-built cities in the West, and carry that same name. They were built, and are still owned by, the LDS ("Mormon") Church. They are larger than regular buildings used for meetings, and are often used for meetings of a larger administrative unit ("stakes"). Over the years, local tabernacles, which, unlike LDS temples, require no special certification to enter, have been used for concerts and even political events when large indoor crowds are anticipated. They are what we'd now call multiple-use buildings, although they wouldn't be used for trade shows or sports events.
This last week, the Provo Tabernacle, a building I have been inside a dozen times or more, suffered a major fire, cause so far unknown, which left the outside walls standing, but not much else. It's a big loss, especially to local Mormons, but also to the greater community.
Either replacing or rebuilding the Tabernacle will cost millions and take a long time to accomplish. I don't know which alternative church leaders will take, although I believe they have the resources to do either without having to borrow.
So, there we are. Merry Christmas to all, and let's hope the loud repetition of seasonal
music doesn't cause anyone to go nuts.

Fire in the Hole!

2010-12-14T13:13:00.000-08:00

Before continuing on to the title item of this week's entry, we pause to mark an anniversary. Ten years ago this past weekend, the Supreme Court handed down its decision in the case of Bush v. Gore, the final decisive moment of the post-election struggle in Florida, 2000.
I guess there's no keeping this event from becoming just another understudied moment in U.S. history. Current and future students will get the short version of how Mr. Bush took office under the slimmest of all possible electoral margins. Future teachers may even neglect to mention that the actual popular vote went to Gore, though that is not, as we should know, the deciding factor in presidential elections.
But getting the full story in this case requires a whole book or two. Like the maze of public and private actions we now just call "Watergate", there was a cast of dozens of people with a role in the outcome in 2000. Some of these remain prominent while others have returned to relative obscurity. I once used almost a half hour of Toastmaster club meeting time to give my version of the whole post-election story. The club members hated it.
So I can't do that again. Let's just conclude that the legal basis for Bush v. Gore was so convoluted that the Supreme Court itself (!) pointedly stated that the decision was not to be cited in future cases. I think that was the best part of the decision. As for the whole event (which started in Florida even before the election took place), I suggest doing something old fashioned - going to a library and getting a book.

Now, in California, one thing we seem to have plenty of is suburbs with Spanish names. I might not be able to find Escondido even with one of those talking car place finder thingies. It's somewhere WAY South of here.
The folks in the city noticed something unusual last week. Right in the middle of suburbia there was a house loaded with explosives. The fellow who lived there I presume had a reason for this unusual behavior, but we don't know that yet. The man, for what it's worth, is a native of Serbia in his 50's.
Back to the house itself. How do you deal with such a danger, one rarely encountered anywhere before, and certainly never in Escondido? The city officials gathered and consulted, knowing that a solution had to be found quickly. Simply unloading the house, it was felt, would be too dangerous, so the best option would be burning it down, making sure that neighbors were evacuated and that any explosive forces would be directed up, away from other homes and a nearby freeway, which I guess every Southern California suburb has.
Without (as far as I know) leaning on state or federal authorities for any real help, the city put its fairly comprehensive plan into action. People took up watching points from their own roofs, binoculars and telescopes in hand, since no one was allowed within 400 yards or so from the home. At the moment when winds were thought to be least dangerous, the house was ignited by remote control.
The results? Better than anyone had a right to expect. Some explosions inside the home, and a long, nasty-looking cloud curling up from the cite were about all that could be observed. No injuries, damage to neighbors' homes or flying hunks of cement, just - a sigh of relief.
I don't know if Escondido was lucky enough to have specially trained firefighters or haz-mat folks on the payroll, but they deserve local thanks and our recognition that government entities can do things well even in unfamiliar circumstances. Given the scary randomness of this kind of danger in recent years, that's a good thing to know. Let's put up one little "w" for California.

Pick Your Bowl

2010-12-07T10:46:00.000-08:00

Just a few days ago, the matches for all 35 college football bowls were announced. You didn't know there were 35 of them? Chances are you live within 2-300 miles of one of the schools with a team involved. My alma mater's in a bowl, though just barely at 6-6, paired against another team with the same record, and so is the team I lend my psychic energy to every week, though the energy only helped produce a 7-5 record.
A reasonable person might ask how we came to have 35 bowls, when no one not paid to do it could keep track of such an array of athleticism. I think the answer to that question is a common one in our society. Someone felt that there was money to be made by putting on a show, in this case a football game.
Here's an illustration. Iowa plays the team from a neighboring state, Missouri. The game, however, doesn't take place in Keokuk, Council Bluffs or somewhere in the greater Kansas City area, but in Tempe, AZ, easily a thousand miles from either school. This might not be great news for those wanting to see the game live (though any excuse to get out of late December cold in Iowa is a good one), but it's great news if you run an airline, or rent cars or provide limos, hotel rooms, booze, meals or any number of other services. The chief sponsor, Insight, a website of some kind that I have no knowledge of whatsoever, puts up big money to put the game on in exchange for plastering its name all over Tempe and friendly TV outlets in Tempe, Iowa and Missouri.
And that, folks, isn't even the whole story. You have to get two major college bands to the game in order to perform a halftime show which will probably be ignored by most of the crown. Then there's a boatload of "journalists" paid to opine on things like the various defensive schemes and the chances of so-and-so entering the NFL draft a year early. Both schools will bring a boatload of administrators, athletic and otherwise, to see the school's big moment in the sun since the work of medical labs and computer applications is not really meant for crowds.
Amidst all this economic stimulation, does anyone risk coming out a loser? Ah, sure. There's the odd player who might suffer a career-ending injury, but that's a risk that's taken on every play all season, even in practice. And someone else will get an opportunity to show his stuff when anyone goes down. Then there's the chance of a student (or an alum, for that matter) losing his or her self-respect over some alcohol-fueled indiscretion, but of course there are plenty of chances for that in life - even at home.
Will they all be great games? Not a chance. There may be a few games so bad that they should let you in for free, then charge you when you want to leave. Sometimes a matchup of middling teams on a neutral field just produces more mediocrity. I observed a prediction of all 35 bowls within 24 hours of their having been announced. Some, according to this sagely written piece, will have the halftime show as a highlight. Skip those no matter how many channels you get.

Mysteries of the Unknown

2010-11-29T15:15:00.000-08:00

I admit that this week's goofy (If we DO know something, then it can't be a mystery, right?) title comes from some cheesy TV show from long ago. But the things written about are the latest in a long series of things I just don't get.
First, there's the football team. Which team, you ask? Why, the Iowa team - the same one that made Michigan State look like New Mexico State just a few weeks ago. This year's outfit finishes the regular season at 7-5, losing 4th quarter leads in four of the five losses. Total up the margins of ALL the losses, and you get - 18 points. That's it. The saddest part was the regular season final, lost to (gag!) Minnesota, which had already fired their coach and started the game with a desultory 2-9 record. As they say up North about such things, Uff Da! So what caused things to slide downhill so sadly? I dunno. It's a mystery. At least they get one more chance at winning a bowl game - probably the Fish Bowl.

The North Koreans are at it again, wrecking havoc on their southern neighbors without any easy motive or goal. And it wasn't just one or two planes coming in to strafe the locals, either. That means there had to be some kind of reason. To me it's funny that when there's an international incident of some kind, the folks who seem most sure of their own theories are the ones who've not only never been to another country, they haven't had to negotiate anything more serious than a spat on the local playground. Anyway, I read one theory that says the North Koreans are essentially holding their own people hostage, shouting at the world something like "I'm desperate! Give me food now or these people get it between the eyes - from YOU!" If the rest of the world were to reply by saying "Yeah, pal. We've all got problems. Right now, mine is deciding which wide screen TV I need most. Talk to me after Christmas and we'll see." Then what would the Koreans do? Pitch a fit by lobbing shells over to Seoul? It's another mystery, but I have to admit wondering just whose job it is to keep that little peninsula as peaceful as possible. Our turn has now gone on for over 50 years. Any volunteers? Mexico? Nigeria? Singapore?

Finally, there's the Wikileaks thing. This outfit is not American in any way, so our ability to threaten them is pretty limited. They've gone ahead with their plan to release a quarter million or so diplomatic communications sent over the years to and from Washington. Our current government is doing just what the last one would have done, howling that these releases put American lives in danger. The trouble is that we've heard it all before, and are less inclined, whoever sits in the White House, to simply take "This doesn't concern you. Go away" as an adequate answer. The tendency of governments, whatever their political alignment, is to paper over mistakes by keeping them secret for about a thousand years while gleefully leaking successes as quickly as possible. Are people now lining up at the State Department seeking new identities in places like Shreveport, LA because of some sardonic crack about a local strongman in a telegram sent ten years ago? Once again, you heard it here first. I don't know.

According to Sarah...

2010-11-23T10:48:00.000-08:00

Nine and a half years ago, a young congressional staffer, Chandra Levy, disappeared. Her murdered body wasn't found until many months after the crime. In the meantime, it was disclosed that she had carried on a romantic relationship with her married boss, Congressman Gary Condit, then a Democratic congressman from Colorado. The FOX News network did all it could to tie Condit to the crime, presumably because he was a (D). I recall attending a large extended family dinner in Utah that Thanksgiving. As sometimes happens at these events, discussion of the affair teetered on the edge of control. I insisted to a sister-in-law that even though I didn't know who had murdered Ms. Levy, I was pretty sure that she ( the sister-in-law) didn't either, even though she had her heart set on slipping Condit the execution injection needle.
I bring this up now because I note that another man was tried for the crime and convicted yesterday. So, I can now declare to the world in self-satisfied glee - I told you so! I'm also confident that she (name starts with D) is not among the six or seven worldwide readers of this blog. So, no harm done, right?

If we hear a young person make a declaration of some kind which includes an error of fact, we might offer a correction in the spirit of helpfulness. When Grandma gets her facts tangled over something, we could try to straighten her out or just let it go in the interest of family harmony.
But what if the erring party is your peer, someone who should know certain facts but muddies the water with errors that might or might not be deliberate? And what if the mis-speaker has lots of devoted followers who don't worry much about facts? What should we do then?
Sarah Palin is making lots of speeches these days. It seems that she feels that she could be our president, having served as both a small-town mayor and one half term as governor of Alaska. Her speeches get people riled up, but some bad interpretations are now appearing. In her latest book, for instance, she takes John Kennedy to task for declaring in the 1960 campaign that he would not, as president, be taking orders from the Vatican just because of his status as a Roman Catholic. Palin sees this as "running away" from his Catholicism.
Kennedy's actual goal in the speech was to reassure (mostly Southern) voters that their Protestant institutions would have nothing to fear from a Catholic president.
And poor Reagan gets made over all the time by Palin, leaving out the subtleties of his decisions as well as the long transition he took to becoming a Republican, as well as the years (eight) he put in as governor of California before stepping up to the national stage. It wasn't as though he went from B-movie list star to president overnight, One columnist I read contrasted the two this way: Reagan used his fame as a celebrity to succeed in politics while Palin used her political experience in order to become a celebrity.
I can even envision other Sarah-isms about past politicos:
Nixon: I am not a crook
SP: Crooks employ a lot of people, and should be given tax breaks as long as they don't break any legs.
Clinton: I feel your pain
SP: The Bible had lots of people in pain, but Obama wants to take our God-given pain away with government-controlled health care. I say spare the rod and spoil the child!
Eisenhower: I will go to Korea
SP: Vacations are OK, but we should see our own country first. What was Ike thinking?
Carter: Life is unfair
SP: That's right. Rich people pay a bigger share of their income in taxes. They need a break!
GWB: Bring it on!
SP: Thanksgiving is almost here, and then comes Christmas, which is God's gift to all Americans. Thanks, Lord!

All About Me (sort of)

2010-11-15T16:28:00.000-08:00

Not long ago I mentioned that I had a physical problem keeping me from playing tennis. I didn't play at all for over a month, then slowly resumed. I'm a ways yet from 100%. My serve, which could once be measured by a stopwatch, is down to egg timer speed. My level of play is OK, as long as you don't check the scoreboard. Oy.

In happier news, my efforts with the readers theater are finally paying off. I don't mean the pay, which is like pay, but smaller. But reading for children is fun, they forgive you when you flub something up, and some even laugh when they're supposed to. It's the best new thing I've started all year.

And I'm still in Toastmasters, though my role there has changed. Most folks join in hopes of getting a career boost from the skills they get at TM, which is fine. But I'm kind of past that stage of life, and so find myself in more of a coaching role. Even so, I get to give a couple of speeches a year, and my turn came around earlier this month.
Thankfulness/Gratitude is not a trendy virtue, nor is its holiday (Thanksgiving) a terribly big event since it's preceded by Halloween and followed by Christmas. Even so, we should look for things to be thankful for all the time. That's how I began, speaking many more words than I'm writing.
Here are some things we should be thankful for. Mother Nature smiles on us as upon few others. We live among the world's greatest trees, and within a few blocks of the world's greatest ocean and within a few minutes we can drive to some decent-sized mountains in search of a better view of the other two, It never gets over 80 degrees, and almost never gets under thirty. We get more than our share of rain, a good thing in the western US, and the earthquakes are generally modest compared to some places.
We should be thankful for the USA. Living here may not give us quite the boost over other people than it once did, but we still have things others don't: The rule of law, diversity and all that provides just to everyday life, living in a competitive society in which you can buy shoes (for example) made in many places, in many styles, and which fit almost any size. We even have competition in the political world, which prevents one side from dominating, as in many countries.
We should be thankful for faith, and the hope it offers of a life beyond this one, which in turn gives meaning to everything we do of a moral nature. It's great knowing from experience that people can change for the better. We are not the captives of our genes or personal chemistry, but have the means to make choices from which all may benefit.
Every day in every way we enjoy the fruits of the labors of others. This enjoyment is not without cost, but just knowing that we can contribute to others' lives should make our own happier. Anyway, that, including a few little jokes, was my speech thesis at Toastmasters. I hope the members liked it.

Coming and Going

2010-11-10T18:57:00.000-08:00

Elena Dementieva retired about a week and a half ago. Don't worry. Her name won't be on the test. Ms. D. was a tennis pro from Russia, a pretty common thing these days, and her hanging up the racquet takes place as she approaches age thirty, also pretty common in this hyper-youth occupation.
Dementieva isn't really a candidate for the Tennis Hall of Fame. She was a tough opponent who did well in lots of tournaments, but never won one of the major ones. In fact, at one point in her career she was best known for having a serve that was awkward looking and offered chances for opponents to pile up easy points.
But some surprising things happened along the way. Dementieva had some things in her favor (speed and good strokes) that made her formidable. She didn't quit or complain, and became popular among the women players, a group not always known for kindness to rivals. And she worked on correcting the serve, though it was never much of a weapon.
She received awards for her sportsmanship, never looked to exploit her looks, which she certainly could have, and when she made her retirement announcement following a loss in a year-ending tournament in a city in the Middle East, players drifted in from the dressing room to offer their best wishes. Naturally, tears were shed. I saw a series of "good bye" messages taped by players, who even had nice things to say about Dementieva's mother, who often accompanied her around the world. Some, naturally, spoke in Russian, which, if the rest of the world doesn't take notice, may some day become the official language of women's tennis. Anyway, you could do a lot worse looking for a role model. Stay focused. Work hard. Treat others with respect and kindness. Keep smiling. Leave things better than when you came. Thanks, Elena.

George W. Bush would also be a candidate for the "going" side of this week's title, except that he's now in a position that many used-to-be-bigshots find themselves in - trying to drum up interest in a book about their experiences at the top. He has a perfect right to set out his version of things, in the same way that his father chose not to rehash his White House years in a book. I read that almost a quarter million copies of the new book went out the door on the first day, but I honestly can't say what that means for truthseekers ten or twenty years from now. I couldn't even guarantee that he didn't have help putting it all together, though he has a perfect right to hire help for that, too.
So Bush has been doing interviews about the book, though I can't imagine he enjoys this much. Every job has its downside, right? But this process is a little like campaigning. The longer things go, the more likely it becomes that something you'd rather not reveal sort of oozes out anyway.
Here's what I mean. What would you guess Bush sees as the worst moment of his two terms in the White House? Getting caught unprepared on 9/11? Getting accusations of abuse of the Constitution? The revelations of prisoner abuse? The non-discovery of WMDs following the invasion of Iraq? Having to pull Harriet Miers as a Supreme Court nominee? The Wilson/Plame/Cheney/Libby debacle? Getting caught using the word "crusade" as a term for the so-called Global War On Terror?
No, no and no. Mr. Bush said last week that the lowest moment of his administration came when rapper Kanye West made some mean spirited accusations against him following the Katrina disaster. Really? A rapper from a minority almost totally associated with Bush's political opponents has the power to hurt him just by making some unprovable allegations? I think there's a term to describe Bush's reaction. That term is - "small". It's a little like moping through your day because someone makes fun of your serviceable but ugly car. It just shouldn't matter, but somehow it does anyway. It says more about you than the other guy. It shows that you're - small.
Someone no doubt well paid to notice such things evidently got the word to the former CIC, who just today said that he and West are back on good terms, so perhaps we've heard the last of this, though just where the truth lies is hard to say. What is no doubt true is that people who like rap music can buy books, too.

Highlights From the World of...

2010-11-01T21:12:00.000-07:00

Well, it's Election Day. They say the GOP is in for a big night, though you'd have to know the statistics on hundreds of races to be sure. They also say it has been an especially "mean" year in terms of things said and written about opponents. We got one of those oversize letters today that was so angry at Sen Barbara Boxer that it not only never mentioned her opponent (Carly Fiorina), but demanded voters do something which cannot be done - "vote NO on Barbara Boxer for U.S. Senate". It came from "Americans For Limited Government". I guess they want to start limiting government by holding Senate membership to 99.

Oh, it feels so good when my Hawkeyes take on a good opponent and lay waste to them. Unbeaten Michigan State came to Iowa City last Saturday and left on the short end of a 37-6 torching. Heck, it was 30-0 at halftime. This moved our boys up in the polls exactly three spots. I guess the voters are waiting to see what happens vs. Ohio State.

I couldn't tell you whether the World Series, concluded tonight, drew big numbers of viewers, but I had fun watching, and not just the game. Here are some things I noticed: Tim McCarver and Joe Buck do the game for FOX, and they have a tendency to talk too much, sometimes trying to turn some statistical quirk into something of importance. Even so, McCarver, a onetime big league catcher, is pretty good at reading the minds of the pitchers and pointing out the managerial options. Tonight's game was a pitching duel, and I thought he was especially good at making the pitching part of the action. I noticed something odd. One of the dugout coaches was wearing one of those outsize watches that look like they're sold by the pound. Would anyone have less reason to know the time? I can't think of anyone, though I guess it's possible that someone paid him to wear it. And why not? Tennis players do it. The Chevrolet people have a new ad slogan - "Chevy runs deep". I think that's pretty good. It's a bit like saying "Yes, we've had troubles at GM, and you can't get an Oldsmobile or a Pontiac (or a Hummer) anymore, but we at Chevy plan to be around forever." And they have old factory footage and pics of bygone models to back them up. I notice, too, that the earth is about to come under attack again from some nasty-looking alien aircraft in an upcoming movie. Looks as though many of us will not survive. Finally, the wearing of beards has lost any meaning beyond hair. As a young person, I almost never saw a beard, then it was associated with counter-culture liberal types for a long time. But now they pop up just about everywhere on pitchers and hitters, especially the smaller chin-and-lower-jaw models. The Giant "closer" pitcher has a big beard blackened by shoe polish I guess, and the fans sometimes wear ridiculous copies as a kind of humorous tribute. No one asks him about his feelings on the war. Maybe in another 20 or 30 years they'll allow them again at good old BYU. But I won't hold my breath.

Good 'Pub, Bad 'Pub

2010-10-26T10:17:00.001-07:00

Before launching into this blog's subject, the always fascinating Republican ("Pub") Party, let's throw out a shout first uttered 59 years and 3,000 miles ago - "The Giants win the pennant! The Giants win the pennant!" I won't bother with the historical context. Let's just say that this year's outfit seems to win just one way - with gritty pitching and an offense described as "torture". The World Series begins tomorrow.

Just because I sneer at Republicans from time to time doesn't mean I can't have respect for individuals in the GOP. Lately I've been reading the book by Henry Paulson, Bush 43's Secretary of the Treasury, which describes the events of his tenure, especially the near total Wall Street meltdown two years ago which required drastic government response.
What surprises me is that Paulson himself seems to be a fairly likable fellow. Of course, I know that no one is going to look like a villain in their own book, but Paulson has good things to say about some members of Congress who usually get only the back of Republican hands. Can you imagine Karl Rove saying nice things about about Barney Frank or Barack Obama? I can't, but that's exactly what Paulson does. Maybe I'm guilty of stereotyping, but Paulson's background makes it even more surprising that he would seem so bipartisan. We're talking about a guy who had been CEO of Goldman Sachs before taking the Treasury position. Heck, I'd be scared to shake hands with those guys for fear of pulling back nothing but a bloody stump.
I'm not through with the book, but I'm finding it easier to sympathize with the guy, given the nature and speed of that crisis. It's almost enough to make you feel some sympathy for Bush - but not quite.

So if Henry Paulson is this week's "good 'Pub", who does that leave as the bad one? There's plenty of fertile ground among candidates making wild last minute accusations, but pointing at those is like shooting fish in a barrel, not to mention that Democrats don't all have clean hands in this area either.
No, but let's point to, as our legal system has, one of the villains from a few years back. Remember Tom "The Hammer" DeLay, once the #2 ranking 'Pub in the House? The man was a cash collecting wonder in the Bush days, and he wasn't afraid to move it around to the pocket from which he thought it would do the most "good". But now, at long last, a full five years after being indicted for money laundering in an effort to make Texas safe for the GOP forever, DeLay's trial is about to begin.
I can't say how the trial will be resolved, but DeLay himself is an easy person to dislike. He's a small person, once self-employed in the pest control business in the Houston area. He seems to want things both ways, claiming the white evangelicals as his kind of folks while using money that had once belonged to native American tribes, which came his way through the notorious Jack Abramoff, to travel the world doing research on the world's best golf courses. He was constantly a guest on FOX News, who conveniently forgot to mention he was under indictment. He even took a spin on Dancing With the Stars before hobbling off with what was no doubt NOT a war wound. He's what the Tea Party folks should have nothing but hate for, except for the fact that he's a 'Pub. I hope he rots in jail.

You Heard it Here First

2010-10-19T10:18:00.000-07:00

Several months ago, someone added "How to Train Your Dragon" to our Netflix list. This represented a new release of the animated feature and, sure enough, it arrived right on the day it was supposed to.
I think I would lose my worldwide readership if I tried to review all the movies I see. As for this one, it had its moments, though it also borrowed freely from "Avatar","Dances With Wolves", "Little Big Man" and some others. One thing kind of puzzled me. The human race in the movie was represented by a group of big, tough-looking Vikings, complete with the usual red beards, horned helmets and hefty weaponry. So far, so good, but weren't the Vikings from Scandinavia? Norway? Sweden? If that's the case, why did all the adult Vikings speak with Scottish brogues? The kids, of course, were as American as Beaver Cleaver.

Election Day is in two weeks, and if the polls are to be believed, the Democrats' turn running Congress could be cut short by a combined assault of GOP regulars and Tea Party flame throwers doing what they do best - rip down the other guy with a collection of right wing code words that come just short of saying "Mah 'ponent is nuttin' but a dang turrist dressed up in a suit soes he can fool you inta thinkin' he's Amurkin lahk me." Of course, with two weeks left, I could be giving the TPers too much credit.
What they've found, to no one's surprise, is that the more often these lines gets repeated, the more reasonable they seem. That being the case, you might have heard that the Right has increased its spending in certain races exponentially, forcing the Democrats to abandon certain candidates in some races in order to save incumbents in others.
Not to brag, but I predicted the money part of this little conundrum back in January when the Supreme Court issued the "Citizens United" decision. Remember it? The one that says since corporations are, from a certain perspective, regarded as "people", that meant that one hundred years of precedents restricting direct advertising in political races would be out the window? Sure enough, there's money popping up from all sorts of new sources, many of whom don't even have to be identified. The Right likes to say that since labor unions could throw their financial muscle towards Democrats, that it all "evens out". That's downright comical when you see that Goldman Sachs managed to clear something close to $2 billion in just the last quarter. That amount alone would enable GS to buy most unions outright and operated them as loss leaders.
As for me, I'll believe that corporations are legally "people" when I see one sent to jail for breaking the law, or witness one erased from the earth by corporate capital punishment enabled by the criminal, not the financial, courts.

Mid Season

2010-10-12T14:13:00.000-07:00

This week's title derives not just from the calendar, but also from the fact that, by now, your team should have all the early kinks worked out and, barring injury, should be playing as well as they can. And it's not just football teams, either. Volleyball teams and soccer sides should all be hitting their stride unless they're hopelessly overmatched. My guys still have a shot at the Rose Bowl, but the road is full of peril.

In the meantime, it's political season, too. I had to laugh at a cartoon that showed Bill Clinton sitting with President Obama, offering a little remedial course in "poli-speak". "Repeat after me", said Clinton, "I.. feel.. your... pain." All Obama could muster in return was a mouthful of policy wonk-ese guaranteed to inspire no one. Personally, I still like the president, and look forward to good news.
And you don't have to look that far. Ask the average Tea Party guy why he signed up and he's probably going to mention the bank bail out (TARP) appropriation of two years ago. The amount was a pretty memorable number - $700 billion. It turns out, however, that only about half of that was actually spent, and that the NET cost of the whole deal may be no more than $50 billion. That's still a load of money, but I think it's better than 15 or 20% unemployment, don't you? By the way, don't look for these figures to get much play on FOX News.
I must admit these Tea Party candidates have (many of them) gotten further than I thought they would. Some are going to make it to Washington, though one wonders about their possible impact there. As individuals, they seem like people who dropped out of Reagan's old college, and they say the goofiest things!
Maybe, for instance, all Nevadans expect from Sharron Angle is to defeat the Senate Majority leader, then sit back and take orders from the local gaming industry lobbyists, but last week she cut loose with the oddest accusation I think I've heard in quite a while. In so many words she claimed that Dearborn, MI and Frankfurd, TX are governed by Islamic Sharia law - today! I heard the recording of her claim, which sounded as though she was listening with one ear, then speaking in a way that made me wonder if she'd even heard of either place.
For the record, there no longer is a Frankfurd, TX. It was annexed by Dallas - in 1975! Dearborn does have a large minority Muslim population, but there's been no change in their legal system, at least according to Mayor John O'Reilly. How many Irish-American Muslims can there be, after all? Angle must hope no one noticed all this, because she hasn't followed up with the names of other cities under Sharia, and also hasn't mentioned the first two again. At least she hasn't claimed to be able to see Iran from Vegas yet, though I suppose she could speculate on why Nevada has the same climate as Yemen. The TP'ers are waiting, Ma'am.

The SEC Whiffs

2010-10-05T10:06:00.000-07:00

It's easy to get the impression that the pro golfers of the PGA are a bloodless group, comfortable playing under lots of pressure for lots of money week after week, almost indistinguishable from one another under their sponsor hats. But you would have had a different impression yesterday as the bi-annual matches of the Ryder Cup (the US vs. Europe) were finished and the US lost the Cup by the margin of a single match. Millionaire players clustered around one of their own to block the picture of Hunter Mahan crying while trying to explain what went wrong on the 17th hole. Several sought to take the blame from Mahan, pointing out how other team members, including themselves, simply came up short when they were needed most. There was no blood in evidence, but plenty, I'm guessing, of internal bleeding.

I contend that our news media often does its job poorly. For instance, how many people are familiar with the latest in the lives of Lindsay Lohan or Paris Hilton but have no idea who Harry Markopolos is, or what he ever did to deserve any public attention?
Before echoing "Who?", let me back up a bit. Do you recall the financial meltdown suffered by some our best known institutions almost precisely two years ago? Does the name Bernie Madoff ("made off") sound familiar?
The Madoff story broke at about the same time as the meltdown. Mr. Madoff pled guilty, even though he was not even suspected at the time, of operating the largest Ponzi Scheme in history, losing something like $50 billion of investments in the monster fraud. A Ponzi Scheme, just to remind, uses funds from new investors to pay off old ones giving the false impression of superior investment performance. The name comes from a notorious Wall Street con man from the 1920's.
Markopolos never worked for, or even met Madoff. He worked in the middle management of a Boston-based investment firm as a self-described quant - someone concerned almost exclusively with the mathematical aspects of investing.As early as the late 1990's he became familiar with the Madoff organization and the returns he claimed to produce. The more Markopolos found out about the organization, the more doubtful he was of its legitimacy.
The trouble was, as Markopolo's recent book on the scandal is titled, No One Would Listen. Not other financial pros, some of whom Markopolos thinks must have been suspicious, not the financial press, who should have been anxious to break such a huge story, not investors from either the US or Europe, and especially not our own SEC, the agency specifically charged with protecting investors from fraud.
In fact, since Markopolos writes strictly from his own viewpoint in this book, it is the Bush 43 era SEC which comes in for the harshest rebukes. He was careful to document the almost 10-year effort he and a handful of colleagues spent trying to get the agency to act or at least, to investigate. Instead, he kept bumping into bureaucrats who served rather than oversaw the financial industry. It was typical for SEC employees to take employment applications from what were supposed to be auditing visits at Wall Street firms. The agency even installed a "hot line" for Street firms to call in and complain if they felt they were being pressured or bothered by investigations done in the name of the people of the United States!
Madoff turned himself in when he couldn't meet the redemption demands from his customers any longer, which is the way all Ponzi schemes finally end. The agency belatedly tried to take credit for catching him, but the truth finally came out when Markopolos testified before a Congressional committee. Madoff was sent to prison, sentenced for something over 100 years, and others will follow. The main silver lining to this dark cloud story is that a new administration with a new attitude seems to be reforming the SEC into something worthy of the expense taxpayers undertake for its existence. For myself, I believe that not only is Greed not good, but that it is such a common human temptation that Wall Street and all private business needs to be carefully overseen for the public's good.

Around the Horn of Current Stuff

2010-09-30T09:30:00.000-07:00

It's fall. It's an election year. Most of my favorite teams are either in action, or are about to be. There are are new TV shows which might merit attention beyond casual.There is, in fact, an abundance of things to write about.
Since this blog mainly owes its existence to my personal desire to unload opinions that relate to political things, here is a partial list of things in this area that are of current interest:
Control of the US House of Representatives in the next term
The impact of Tea Party candidates
Possible future GOP presidential candidates
Polarization of Congress and of Society in general
How a Republican minority can keep the majority from reaching its legislative goals
The blog's other main pillar is sports. Take your pick:
My alma mater BYU changes leagues for the second time since my graduation
Is Federer the greatest of all time, or could it be Nadal?
Will my Iowa Hawkeyes have what it takes to play in the Rose Bowl?
The most memorable events of the almost finished baseball season?
Will my current injury keep me off the tennis courts much longer?

Given all that, let's start with something noteworthy from the weather, the facts of which are unarguable. It has been very nice here lately in this tiny corner of California. But the majority of Golden Staters can't say that. Just the other day it was a full 50 degrees hotter in downtown LA than here, where it was 63 for a high. No wonder we feel more than a little detached from the Angelinos.

Carl Paladino is the official Republican candidate for governor of New York. His nomination was secured in the new old fashioned way, being a favorite of that cutting edge group, the Tea Party. His campaign, however, looks like a loser at this point, as he trails Democrat Andrew Cuomo by something like 30 points in polls. Just yesterday Paladino threatened a reporter whose paper based in Albany has evidently attempted to get material on Paladino's ten year-old daughter born out of wedlock. His words, caught on cell phone camera as these things now tend to be, included the threat to have the reporter "taken out" if his daughter were not left alone. Who says family values are out of fashion?

And, in a completely unrelated matter, we got our first look this week at the latest Ken Burns epic, this one a four hour extension of the memorable work "Baseball". The ground covered includes the 1990's and the current decade. As expected, there are portraits of individual players who both were are now prominent, with the inevitable statistical highlights scattered among the observations of journalists and intellectuals, many of them quite personal. The piano background, so common in Burns' documentaries, is still there, and the highlights are great, as one would expect. Naturally, Burns can just barely resist making all of recent baseball the mere backdrop for the struggle of the Yankees vs. the Boston Red Sox. It is noted, for instance, that Sox faithful went to cemeteries to leave the good news (WE WON the SERIES!) on the graves of dear departed fans.
But the really big story of the time was the use of illegal steroids by MLB players and that scandal's legacy to the whole game. The usual big name suspects are named for the record, none more so than the enigmatic home run career champion Barry Bonds. Barry gets, and no doubt deserves, WAY more attention than just about everyone else, though it's not the kind of attention one would normally desire. So - is the production worth four hours of your time to sit and watch? Absolutely.

Mostly Tiny Stuff

2010-09-21T20:49:00.000-07:00

I was a little surprised to notice that, two months ago. I passed the milestone of four years writing this blog. Some opinions were and are bigger than others, but I hope I never run out of them.

Do you recall the mention of Vania King, one half of the Wimbledon Ladies Doubles Championship team despite her diminutive (5'5", 130 lb.) size? Darned if she, with the same partner, didn't repeat the feat, winning the U.S. Open concluded earlier this month.

And while we're recognizing tennis players, lets give some love to Mardy Fish, who lead the US to a Davis Cup victory over Columbia last weekend. Before you sneer, I should mention that Fish won all three matches he played in as many days totaling eleven hours of action in a refitted bullring in Bogota, a city with an altitude of 8,700 feet. Fish has also become a hero to weight loss enthusiasts following his dropping thirty pounds after surgery less than a year ago. If that's not enough, Mr. Fish is hardly a kid in terms of pro tennis. He's pushing thirty. Well done, amigo.

I caught a piece of evidence that supports the theory that the vampires are now hot stuff. Sure, there's the books and the movies - they could be turning up on school lunch boxes for all I know - but what got my attention was an ad for a Revlon product. I didn't catch what it is actually supposed to do, but it's called "Little Bites". I guess I should slather on lots of sun block every day now just to stay trendy.

Finally, the US military policy of "don't ask, don't tell" with regard to sexual preference of new volunteers is in the news again. You would think that the Republican Party, recognizing that, like it or not, we're still in at least one war, with plenty of uncertainties before us, would want to encourage all the qualified help for the military we can get, right? Not quite. Playing to their "not so big tent" base again, the GOP decided to oppose change to the current policy, which maintains the fantasy that OUR boys/girls are all heterosexual, even though there are no doubt people who AREN"T in probably every army, navy and air force in the world. The Senate vote to simply let every qualified person who wants to join up do so went down today. Maybe they can now pass a resolution of some kind that declares that there simply ARE no gays - anywhere.

Under Our Noses

2010-09-14T11:38:00.000-07:00

I've written before in defense of the regular old daily newspaper, but I never said it was the only place you could find out new things. Just poking around Yahoo the other day, I happened on an item regarding Lady Gaga and her former boyfriend. This in itself was surprising because I had never thought of Lady Gaga as actually having a real life. What I know of her, which is none too much, had me putting her in the same class as Mr. T or Alice Cooper - characters, really, more than real people. This got me wondering if Ms. G. had a real name, and so I looked some more. Does she ever! She was once Stefani Joanne Angelina Germanotta, which explains a little about her showbiz persona. I couldn't find out whether her former boyfriend called her "Stef". Maybe that's what caused the breakup.

Looking further on line, I made an ugly discovery. My recent inability to play tennis is evidently due to a pinched nerve. So, for awhile it looks like I'll be off the courts and on the local streets, walking for exercise. Oy.

David Pouffle had an important role in the 2008 Obama presidential campaign, but he didn't go on to serve in the White House, mostly for personal reasons. He wrote a book about the campaign, The Audacity to Win, which I just finished reading.
The book's story begins at the end of 2006, with Democrats regaining control of Congress for the final two years of the Bush 43 presidency. This is traditionally the time, almost two full years before the presidential election, when possible candidates take a hard look at their plans in order to decide whether or not to become announced candidates.
At the time, the Obama campaign really didn't exist at all in two uber-important ways - organization and money. Some campaigns don't succeed even with both these basics in place, and, win or lose, running is a grueling test of mind and body, and of the candidate's family. Whatever one may hear about how easy life as a politician is, all that is out the window when it comes to running for the most influential position on the planet, president of the U.S.A.
Those gathered to counsel Obama thought there might be one chance to take his campaign out of the ranks of "short and forgotten". He would have to do very well in the January 2008 Iowa Party caucuses in order to have any hope of surviving into spring.
Well, you know some of the rest of what happened during the next 20 months, but the book was quite revealing on the subject of how to run such an undertaking. The know-nothings who still like to sneer at Obama as a "community organizer" just don't get it. One of the greatest campaigns in American presidential history took place right under our noses as the little-known senator with the funny name from Illinois wrestled the nomination from perhaps the best known woman in the nation, a former First Lady, a current U.S. senator and wife of one of our best political operators (meant in the positive sense) ever. Yes, the Obama campaign made mistakes along the way, but also prevailed over John McCain, nominee of the Republican Party, a senator known for decades all over the country. The Party's image had suffered under Bush/Cheney, but not so much that the campaign could not have reversed with just an error or two by the Democrats.
Maybe no one reads books anymore. I see a current trend of shorter articles even in magazines. And gosh knows a hefty slice of any group of Americans will take on an air of superiority just at the mention of the word "politics". Personally, I continue to think the American electorate made the right decision in 2008, and that one day we'll know it. This book did nothing to make me think otherwise.

The 1st Amendment - Still In Force

2010-09-07T20:00:00.000-07:00

All tennis players make mistakes, which we call "errors". Naturally some errors are more egregious and harder to make excuses for than others. I decided today that I would start referring to my worst errors with an acronym - UBB, standing for "ugly beyond belief". How should I pronounce it - "uhb"?

Have you heard about the upcoming doin's in Gainesville, FL? For once it isn't a football game or some other U of F-related event, but a bonfire. A local pastor together with a very outspoken flock of fifty or so believers are planning to burn all the copies of the Koran they can get their hands on to show Jesus just what they think of it. Warnings from Pentagon brass and the DOD itself are so far being ignored as plans go forward for Saturday's (9/11) burn fest. No word yet on Divine approval, so that part is, I guess, assumed. It seems like a classic example of something that everyone agrees is legal, which doesn't make it appropriate, except as a means to make the pastor, whose name I think I will skip, famous.

Which brings us to a little weightier subject - the Islamic Cultural Center/Mosque to be erected on privately-owned land in Manhattan, about 1000 feet from what we've come to call Ground Zero. The neighborhood, I read, could use a little religion given its concentration of tattoo parlors and adult-related businesses. In fact, the right-leaning pundits seemed to have no objection to the center until the final legal hurdle had been cleared to revamp the former Burlington Coat Factory into a multipurpose center which would include a room for Islamic religious observance.
At that point, as you may know, all hell broke loose in opposition of what's now called by some the "victory mosque". You don't even have to ask victory by who over whom. As if offering help, the punditocracy suggested, as if they knew, that it was "too far" from where local Muslims lived, and that it could serve as a "recruitment center" for future terrorists, or that, at the very least it was "insensitive" to the locals and should therefore be elsewhere. No one seems to make a specific suggestion or seems to care what happens to money already invested in the project. But all this time, the pundits insist that it "isn't a matter of religion". My Republican fellow believers instinctively take the line of least resistance, which is to oh-so-politely infer that "those" folks just aren't like "us", whatever that means in New York, and that therefore the Center should be erected atop a flaming oil platform in the Gulf of Mexico.
Evidently they want to conceal the fact that thorny building permit fights are everyday events in Manhattan, and that this one is already over. In addition, if I were recruiting future bomb throwers, wouldn't I do it in a place that's a little more low profile than a $100 million facility that's liable to draw G-men watching who goes in every day?
Insensitive? Maybe, although the Pentagon itself has a room set aside for Muslims. But what really matters is whether we are willing to throw out our own founding law regarding the right to worship. That right, I submit, trumps all the clatter about what's appropriate, or sufficiently "sensitive" to 9/11 victim families. They bought the site, they got the permits, they followed the law and they (which is to say "all of us", because we are talking about Americans here) should go right ahead improving the neighborhood and helping young people stay out of trouble. When the Center is built and functioning, we'll forget there ever was a problem, the same way most have forgotten the trouble with those odd "Mormons" a hundred years or so ago.

An Aging Rookie

2010-08-31T19:40:00.000-07:00

Movie quote of the week: Alan Alda as an attorney explaining how not all errors have the same consequences - "Some mistakes are like wearing white after Labor Day, but others are like invading Russia in the middle of the winter."

Which is less likely - That a kid your son knew in high school would one day be married to Demi Moore, or that a local quarterback would go on to the NFL, have a fine career, and then be named as a competitor on the wildly popular Dancing With the Stars? Since there's only one Ms. Moore, I guess that points us to the answer, but it's true that Ashton Kutcher (then known as "Chris") went to good old Washington High School in Cedar Rapids before he met her, and Kurt Warner once flung passes for the no longer existent Regis High School less than a mile away. Pretty exciting, no?

Most of the "things I plan to do in life" items that are on the list when you're past sixty will probably still be there when you shuffle off to the next life, but I now have a chance to scratch off "Read stories to school children" because of my inclusion in a group that does just that. We haven't performed any gigs yet, but we're spending lots of time in practice, trying to act a little while reading the parts of various stories and poems. The group now numbers six, including our director.
I'm a rookie at this, notwithstanding having read a mountain of bedtime stories, mostly to our kids, but also for their younguns, too. So I've "played" different animals, kings, queens, princes and princesses before. But getting the group's timing, clarity and volume just right is, like many things, harder than it looks. I've been told, for instance, to be especially careful when the word "funky" appears. Good advice. I've also been told that it's almost impossible to overact when the audience averages about eight years old.
This last item opens the door to all sorts of individual hamming. We have pieces that involve Spanish, U.S. southern and British accents, and we do characters that include amphibians (Toad and Frog), canines (dogs and coyotes), bovines, cats, foxes, dragons, fairies, evil beings and even royalty and Deity. Is it tough to keep everyone straight? Sometimes it is, especially when you play more than one part in the same story.
OK, maybe it ain't brain surgery, but it takes work to get it all right and we're getting better day by day. By the time we're ready to go I'm confident of being a better "readers' theater" performer than I am as a tennis player. I think that says something about my game, and it's not a compliment.

Late Summer Pickin's

2010-08-26T09:19:00.000-07:00

We had a visit from a daughter and grandsons that ended just yesterday. One of the grandsons, I've mentioned before, is someone who, at five and a half, can ask LOTS of questions. Our coastal location and household collection of plastic animals got him thinking about marine life: "Do sharks have tongues?" (Yes, sort of.) "Can sharks hug?" (Hmm.) "Why am I not making a shadow?" When this last one was answered, he gave us a preview of his future self with the words "That's not fair." Yikes.

Every place has its charming "localisms", and one of ours is not taking sports so seriously as to make it a life or death kind of thing. Our paper, for instance, took advantage of the lack of a major event last weekend to feature a roller derby bout in the Sunday sports section. The visitors (the Silicon Valley Killabytes) "rolled" over the locals, but so what? Just the idea of sweaty feminine struggle, with one team featuring fishnet stockings in its official ensemble, should have been enough to get the attention of even non-fans. Anyway, I noticed.

If you had to learn the English language, how would you decipher a radio commercial for a local pharmacy which offers "test drives' for new meds to make sure there's a "good fit" for your condition? Maybe the radio stations should hire grammarians to insure against things like mixed metaphors. On the other hand, they don't need anyone to check for spelling errors. That would be a problem the TV guys would have to deal with.

I've mentioned before the capitalism creed "Find a need and fill it." which is supposed to help ambitious people do good for their societies while making good financially. This week has given us a little reminder of how quickly that little principle can be brought into play. You might have read about the epic traffic jam in northern China that has left travelers stranded on the road for days. This should first be a reminder that we would seldom be willing to trade our problems for those of another country. It also points out that countries that appear to be well-prepared for the unexpected can be caught off-guard. I remember being very impressed with the Japanese system in the 1990's until they had an earthquake in Kyoto. The government response was so bad that it changed my whole thinking on the country itself. But to return to the China thing, a minor event brought on by nothing but heavy traffic and inadequate highways, is being dealt with mile by mile by instant capitalists who offer things like bottled water at ten times the usual price or hot water for boil-up noodles at a cost to the marooned motorists way over the normal level. Think about it. Today, someone with a little vision and organization has begun a family fortune by offering $5 tuna salad sandwiches to people with no other eating option. Viva el capitalista!

Shaking My Head in Disbelief

2010-08-16T19:04:00.000-07:00

A couple of things I have commented on recently need a bit of updating. First, there's the Target thing, in which the giant retailer sought to take advantage of its new legal status in political campaigns (thanks to SCOTUS) to actually endorse the Republican candidate for governor in Minnesota, where the company is headquartered. It hasn't work so well for Target, whose stores are now frequently used as protest sites. You'd think a "person" of Target's age and experience would remember the lessons of Sunday School: you can make any choice you like, but you can't control the consequences.

It turns out that Levi Johnston, well documented non-relative of Sarah Palin does have a manager after all, and he's not the comic figure named Sol Overtown (ha ha) who I invented. The real guy is named - Tank Jones. Really. I don't know Mr. Jones' background, but he looks a little like an ex-NFL player who crossed over into management, three piece suit and all. Anyway, the Levi-Bristol Palin wedding is off, since it seems LJ has impregnated another young lady since the two broke up. Last I knew, Johnston and Jones were talking about taking it all off for Playgirl AND running for public office in, of course, Wasilla, AK, where it all began. Jones expects the latter effort to generate plenty of material for a "reality" TV show. Whatever he does, I hope he's a success, because babies don't come cheap. Good thing he's so well connected to the party of "family values".

Kellogg, ID is a town of about 2500 people in the state's northern panhandle. It was once known as a mining center, Now it's claim to fame is as a Superfund cleanup site. About 200 people work there for the EPA, which has been trying to undo the mining operation's damage to the local environment now for 20 years. Without going into great detail, there has been considerable progress, however EPA officials feel that to completely finish the job they will need an additional 150 people working full time for as long as 60 to 90 years.
What has me shaking my head is this: a considerable number of locals want the EPA to simply pack up and leave. One resident is quoted saying, "They've got their environmental science degree from some place like Berkeley and they drive their Prius to the back hills of Idaho and here are a bunch of miners and they want to do what they think is best for us." They fellow who said that - he's a lawyer. Idaho's governor, the interestingly-named Butch Otter, also wants the feds out of town on the next bus.
Aren't people interesting? The folks of Kellogg of course don't pay the EPA, and are, in fact, the main beneficiaries of their work, but some folks would evidently rather die of cancer from mining residue toxic glop than admit that somebody sent from Washington, D.C. had actually helped them. I hope if I lived in Kellogg that I'd at least have the decency to say "thanks".

TWO Happy Endings

2010-08-09T09:37:00.000-07:00

Some stories are local and some aren't, but just about everyone likes a story with a happy ending. Today, stories from both categories are included, with the local one first.

I now know it was not a good idea to be moving furniture around on Sunday morning. That being said, the Mrs. is always looking for a new look for our furniture and decorations, and when the urge strikes her, it's pretty hard to effectively slow the process.
The family piano, probably older than me, had stood in the same spot from the time we moved in five years ago. High time, she thought, to try something else. But on its way to the other side of the room the instrument seemed to balk, then it crashed to the floor. No doubt the local seismographs noted the landing. The noise alone was great enough to wake any local late sleepers.
The Sabbath was kind of a sad one as we pondered through our church meetings how to go forward while minimizing our pain. I knew we lacked the power to get it upright, and the cabinetry appeared to have taken some hits. It was a little like a replay of the earthquake, but more emotional. After all, her church volunteer assignment involves playing the piano every week in our children's meeting.
But the Age of Miracles is evidently still with us. A pair of church brothers had heard of the disaster and came over to lend a hand in the early evening. Together we righted the poor thing and we surveyed the actual damage. The patient was upgraded from "endangered" to "curable with a little TLC", where it stands today, D (disaster) Day plus one. Next step - glue, clamps and a little patience. The keys and pedals, thank heaven, are still operable.

Now, imagine you've gone to a meeting, and hear the following, word for word, from the main speaker: "You could even argue whether that being a Muslim is actually a religion, or is it a nationality, a way of life, cult or whatever you want to call it?"
The shaky grammar aside, I'd be thinking where the guy has been all his life. Islam ain't new, and if this guy has lived anywhere near a library, he could have formulated some kind of answer to his own question, especially since, at fifty-five years of age, he's no kid. Is this guy a leader, a person who is able to help people settle differences or at least someone who looks forward to the future? None of them, based on this groping, clueless question.
So.. who is the guy? He's Ron Ramsey, GOP candidate for governor of Tennessee speaking last month after already running for governor for eighteen months.
Mr. Ramsey went to college and received a BS degree, and professionally has worked in real estate as well as part of the Tennessee state legislature. He is the current Lt. Governor.
Hearing his little rant in its proper context answers all the questions. He's not looking for answers, but to pander to a puzzled group of voters fearful of Sharia (Islamic) Law becoming the Tennessee standard. Why the fear? Ramsey himself brought the issue up, as if a division of Taliban cutthroats were camped across the river from Memphis intent on capturing the state by violent overthrow. Sharia Law? Puh-leeze.
Ramsey, in fact, seems to be the opposite of what people should want in a governor, but he isn't alone. Fearmongering by the national Republican Party went so well during the unlamented Bush years that southern candidates in particular see pandering instead of appealing to the best in voters as the real path to success. So Ramsey here is just trying to sound like the poor man's Dick Cheney.
What's that? I promised TWO happy ending today? Oh, right. Here it is. Ramsey lost the GOP governor nomination, so don't look for his name on the TN ballot. Yay.

Our Back-to-School Sale!

2010-08-03T15:11:00.000-07:00

All right, I know no one's going to school for two or three weeks, but the phrase just somehow got stuck in my head. Can you stand one last World Cup laugh? I saw a cartoon with a scene at the "Home for Retired Soccer Players", who were being entertained by the Vuvuzela Trio. As the abusive triple monotone sounds filled the air, one of the aging strikers was thinking "Please. Just shoot me."

One grandson, age five, asks so many questions that his poor mother has given him permission to call ME for answers. Naturally, I'm thrilled with this, though I'm finding that communicating over the generations can be tricky. He called once wanting to know "what Darth Vader eats". I sent him an e-mail. He can't read yet, but the answer I gave was a little complicated, and I felt that this would be the best way to deliver the answer, with a little parental help. It turns out that I misunderstood his question, which was really "How does Darth Vader get food through the helmet he wears and into his mouth?" I want to try this again before he becomes a teenager.

I hope someone recalls my stated opposition to the Supreme Court decision which allows a corporate "person" to make unlimited ad contributions on behalf of a political candidate. It didn't take long for "Mr." Target, through a fuzzy-named subsidiary, to decide that "he" favors the Republican for the governor of Minnesota. I can't wait to hear how the oil, coal and other sometime polluters think about this and I may not vote at all unless I'm sure of where the two wise men, Goldman and Sachs, stand. You can trust them because they'll never ask for contributions, even if they run themselves!

Finally, I pose the following not-completely-theoretical question: If your old party had been turned out of office and seemed unsure of its tactics, undecided about its keaders and disunited about most things except to declare that anything new is "wrong for America", would you consider going...on vacation? I don't mean a real trip, but an ideological one that brings you to the door marked "Tea Party"? You could pretend to be bipartisan, even though there are next to no Democrats within the T.P. group, and you could be a little self- righteous as you called for voters to throw out ALL those "career politicians" who seem to inhabit their seats for life. You could call agin for "term limits", then forget you ever supported the idea once your guy gets safely "in". You could leave all that phoning and mailing to someone else for a change until you came back from your "trip" in another month or so. Then, if the GOP has a big day, you could say that it was the T.P. group that made the difference. If it has a lousy day, you could say it proves the "moral bankruptcy" of the two party system. Yup, this "vacation" stuff is a sure winner, and you'll have plenty left for anything you need for "back to school".

The Pioneers

2010-07-25T21:24:00.000-07:00

It's late July, when everyone else is scrambling for shade, ducking into the Mall or just going under water to keep the sun from searing them into a greasy sweat pool. Us? No problem. The morning fog protects us, and we don't even have to spend any time cutting grass, since it finally quit raining. The real local cash crop, officially grouped with the "controlled substances," grows in the usual spots, which, I hasten to say, I know nothing about. Life's pretty good.

It's a good time, too, to honor a certain group, those Mormon pioneers that your History teacher might have spent ten minutes total talking about unless you grew up in The Beehive State. The first pioneers arrived in what became Utah in 1847, when Salt Lake City did not exist, the natives outnumbered the newcomers and the territory wasn't even technically part of the United States. It was July 24th when Brigham Young said it was time to stop traveling and really get to work.
You see, the history of the Mormons around any neighbors at that point was so bad that it finally required a 1200 mile trip to the far stretches of Nowhere to find a place where these folks might be left alone. New York, Ohio, Missouri and Illinois had all failed to protect the First Amendment rights of the Mormons, with the latter being the site of the ultimate social rejection - the assassination of the Mormon Prophet Joseph Smith and his brother Hyrum in 1844 by a mob which charged a jail in which the brothers and others were being kept.
The world watched to see "Mormonism" disappear in leaderless confusion, but instead, a new group of leaders headed by Brigham Young kept the Church together, though they were forced to leave their homes again, this time for a land few knew anything about and even fewer coveted for themselves.
The pioneers were well organized, and the first ones used oxen and horses to pull covered wagons West. The hardest part of the journey turned out to be the first leg through Iowa. It was winter, which, then and now, can be pretty tough going through mud or over ice when your only source of warmth is a campfire. The Iowa side of the Missouri River near where Omaha is today was a stopping place where the travelers awaited better conditions.
When travel resumed, the Mormons took a route that followed the Platte River, but, in an effort to avoid trouble with other pioneer groups, they generally took the less-traveled bank.
The part of this story that has always impressed me most was that upon arrival, the Mormons really just had their leaders' word that anything could grow in this desert, that the area could be turned into not just one but many cities, or that life could ever be as good as that which they had left behind. Everything from schools, houses of worship, municipal facilities, running water, homes, farms and so forth had to be built by them if they were to exist at all. True, they had skills which they employed in this work, but it's hard to envision an easy day then, unless it was forced by sickness.
The work finally spread in all directions for hundreds of miles. Brigham Young, by this time serving as both Church President and territorial governor, would assign a group to "colonize" an area which had been empty. Some became cities, while others never did produce the crops or products required for self sufficiency. A look at today's map of Utah and some surrounding areas reveals names taken from scripture, a bit like reading through Moby Dick.
Settlers in subsequent years came all the way from Europe and the British Isles to make this new society part of their own future. Many didn't have the money for a covered wagon and pulled handcarts all the way from eastern Iowa, where the railroad tracks ended. Others later borrowed from what was called the Perpetual Immigration Fund to help them arrive by easier means. Charles Dickens once visited a ship filled with Mormon converts leaving England and commented that he had been surprised at the quality of the people, having expected something less favorable than the sensible, well-organized group he saw.
We are far enough removed from the days of the Mormon pioneers to be understandably unfamiliar with them as people. I'm sure they had their faults, as have all people at all times. But some deeds left to us today tower so highly over the generations that we are, I think, justified in simply knowing who did certain great things and why. While it would seem that the Mormon pioneers received little for all their pains other than the chance to simply be left alone for a time, I, and many who know this story better, are simply awed by their selfless dedication and perseverance. Seeing what they did answers anything I could possibly ask about how they felt about things. Would that we all should be so blessed by a such a sense of purpose in our lives.

Behind Closed Doors

2010-07-20T15:55:00.000-07:00

Sometimes there is more than one explanation as to how something came to be a certain way. And, not to be cynical, but sometimes the public explanation seems less likely than an alternative. I wasn't in either place, but here are a couple of possibilities outside the official explanations:

Man with large gavel presiding over a gathering of perhaps 100 or so people: "Welcome, y'all. This here's the very first meeting of the Tea Party Group, dedicated to better government and better value for the taxes they make us pay. If I may, first.."
Interruption from the floor: "Mr. Chairman, I move we take a minute to tell some racial jokes in order to get them out of the way so's we can move on to the agenda."
Chairman: "You're outa order, Cowboy. Sit down. Wait a minute." (after consulting) "Before continuing, I need to know, first, if there are any minorities here." (laughter) "I take that as a 'no.' I also need to know if we have any mainstream, drive-by media representatives present, besides, of course, our friends at FOX News. None? OK, here's the way it is. We can tell racial jokes, but only for half an hour, and not to anyone you see wearing a press pass, got it? OK, now y'all heard the one about Obama walkin' down the street, and up comes a rabbi wearin' a beard and a big ole' black hat......."

Levi Johnston, father of Sarah Palin's grandson is on the phone to his manager, Sol Overtown, top PR guy at Pro Claim Industries, provider of management services and self-proclaimed inventor of "hyper hype marketing".
LJ: "Yo, Sol. You're a tough guy to reach sometimes. How's it coming for some new work, huh?"
SO: "Levi, my man! Great to hear your voice, kid. You been workin' on that line like I asked?"
LJ: "What are you talking about?"
SO: "Yeah, that's the one, but faster. 'Whatchyou talkin' bout?' Remember?"
LJ: "Got it, Sol. But what's cookin' here?"
SO: "Well, we had plans to slide you into the Gary Coleman slot on a deal, but we can't get you top dollar for it."
LJ: "Why #$% not?"
SO: "Hey, they want a guy who can say the line AND who's under four foot six. What can I say? Of course we could go back to those seal hunting boots guys if you like and tell them you'll do it, but I'm just not sure they think your feet are unique enough for the money we're talking."
LJ: (sigh) "I hear you, man. You'd think being famous would be enough, wouldn't you? But I'm twenty now, so I've got some experience, y'know? I'm not just another pretty face."
SO: "I'm with you, LJ. You know, we did get a feeler on something, but I'm just not sure it's for you."
LJ: "Really? Well what is it?"
SO: "Well, it's from Sarah. I wouldn't even mention it, but this is one deal only you could be in on, if you know what I mean."
LJ: "Geez, what does SHE want? Isn't it enough I made her a grandma?"
SO: "Let me cut right to the chase. You're a smart kid and you can see the value of something in a second. Ever heard of a job called Postmaster General?"
LJ: "All the postmaster does around here is sell stamps all day. But the 'general" part sounds interesting. Does it mean I get to order guys to blow things up? Hey, could I blow something up?"
SO: "Ah, I'm not sure about the 'blowing up' part, but you could go all over the country and check out the postal operations. You know - Vegas, Boise, Miami, New York, Anchorage..."
LJ: "Wow. Anchorage. But wait. I bet Sarah wants me to do something, right?"
SO: "Like I say. You're a smart one, kiddo. There's two things that have to happen to get you in the job. First, Sarah's got to get elected president. She'll probably ask you to help get out the youth vote. Shouldn't be too hard. All she has to do is get more votes than ah, what's his name - the guy in there now."
LJ: "Yeah, that doesn't seem too hard. Anything else?"
SO: "One more thing. You gotta marry Bristol."
LJ: "Hmm. I see. OK, but she's gotta get down to her high school weight or it's off. AND I'm not taking her on these postmaster trips. That's a deal breaker."
SO: "You're the boss, kid. Hey, I do happen to have Bristol's number here."
LJ: "Hang on. Let me get a pencil."

Still Competing

2010-07-12T09:05:00.000-07:00

A funny thing happened on my way to dominating our little in-home competition for World Cup picks. My teams stopped winning. I doubt they had anything against me personally, but they kept losing, including, of course, games that they played against each other. Someone had to lose, right?
So last week I was left with Germany playing for third while the Mrs. had both finalists. You don't need a report on how those games turned out, but our household competition got mighty tight at the end. How tight? Within 3% of each other. So we'll call it a tie and wonder why neither of us had the brains to take Uruguay with 10 picks each. Where was that winner-picking octopus I read about in the paper when I needed it?

It's a thrill to still be competing past age 60 in any sport. Lucky for me we have both the good weather and a supply of willing competitors that allow me to get test my skills four or five times a week, normally for less than two hours.
A few months ago I started thinking about traveling to Iowa to play in a tournament I had both watched and played in before. But then I did the math: about 4,500 miles of driving, a strong chance of brutally hot weather, plus the fact that the division I might have entered (in the doubles) only had five competing teams last year. I shelved the plan.
But I still wanted to find a place to show our stuff, and so looked for events nearby that fit our criteria. Turns out that "nearby" in terms of tennis tournaments means "at least 200 miles"- each way. So that didn't seem to fit in too well with the family finances nor my religious duties. Plan "B" went into the scrap heap.
Then, a summer miracle. A town just down the road, "friendly" Fortuna (not to be confused with other CA burgs Fontana or Tarzana) announced a series of one-day events taking place through August that would include both doubles and singles. Partner "Skip" and I took the plunge, payed the $10 apiece entry fee and showed up last Saturday to test our skills.
The weather was good - cool, but not windy: the courts, if uneven and breaking up, were the same for everyone: and the competition seemed just about right for our skill level.
I won't bore you with details of our matches, but we ended up playing over 50 games total, winning just over half of them. We found a way to edge the best girl player in the county (two years ago) and her partner by concentrating on hitting the ball to him. We lost the final to pair of big guys, one all the way from New Zealand. The guy in charge promised us trophies (probably charm bracelet-size). He also said the nicest thing I heard from anyone during the day - that we looked like a real doubles team in action. Sign us up again, coach.

A Diminutive Hero

2010-07-06T19:49:00.000-07:00

I wasn't aware of the King family when they immigrated to this country in the early 1980's from Taiwan. I would guess they had plenty of hopes, but maybe few guarantees. It's a well-worn path that has worked for millions before, but you never know.
Things actually have worked out pretty well for the Kings, who settled in California. The three older children got educations, and somewhere in the gene pool they discovered the ability to play tennis at a high level. The youngest child, Vania, turned pro at the age of seventeen and has since won over a million dollars in prize money, though she's not yet 25. It should be noted, of course, that tennis professionals incur high expenses for things like traveling all over the world, but it still works well for just a tiny number of gifted people.
This past weekend marks the high point in Vania's career thus far. She teamed up with Yaroslava Shvedova of Kazakhstan (say that ten times) to win the Wimbledon Women's Doubles competition. Lest one get the impression that doubles is for less-gifted, non-singles players, the American Williams sisters were entered in the doubles and lost to the pair that King/Shvedova beat in the finals.
Here's another surprising fact: Vania's only 5'5", and 130 lb. This goes in the face of the trend that shows women tennis pros getting taller while retaining their speed and quickness. I'd guess being normal-size allows Vania to buy her own groceries without anyone even noticing that they're rubbing elbows with a Wimbledon champion.
So Vania King's life isn't much like that of the late Manute Bol, recently referred to in this space as the tallest man to ever play in the NBA. I do have a point here, though not an original one. Our society benefits in a thousand ways from immigrants and their descendants. We sent an army battalion made up of Japanese Americans to help liberate Italy. We sent soldiers who could speak the local language to assure Haitians of our good intentions. We take in an entire group of German rocket scientists, who simply continue what they've been working on. We get the boldest, most ambitious, most talented people from over a hundred other places to come here for a chance to be their best. And all we have to do is make sure this takes place in an orderly fashion, allow for some cultural differences from these new citizens, perfectly legal, but a little different from what we're used to, and make sure, as much as we can, that the best opportunities continue to be HERE, and not somewhere else. That shouldn't be hard, whether we want our heroes large, or, in the case of Vania King, diminutive.

Diagnosis, Please

2010-06-28T15:46:00.000-07:00

Nobody at our place contracted World Cup fever, exactly, but it's still fun to wake up where we live and think there's already a score to check, then to ponder its meaning. How is it, for instance, that some of the world's most populous countries don't amount to much when it comes to soccer? Russia, China, India, Indonesia, Pakistan - all W.C. no-shows. Both finalists from four years ago (Italy and France) are flops this year. What's up with that? And what do they put in the water in some countries, small ones like Uruguay or Ghana, that enables them to outperform their proper fifteen minutes of fame? And why only one Muslim nation, the forgettable Algeria? North Korea may not have looked very good, but they had to beat someone to qualify, right?
Anyway, it's fun to throw around terms like "group of death" and "own goal" while they're still relevant. It'll all be over soon enough. If anyone cares, my picks have an edge over the Mrs.' She has the Dutch and Spain, while I have South American heavies Brazil and Argentina, backed by the Deutsch, I mean, Germany. We both had some non-achievers, too.

My ecclesiastical duties take me each month to a home dominated by unwed moms, though none are teens anymore. The product of one dubious union is a three year-old boy named Draven (Who thinks these up?) who doesn't talk much, though he seems to be a happy enough kid. He naturally has only a fuzzy idea of what "Daddy" is, and I couldn't really make predictions about his future. He's happy and healthy, so it could be worse.
I found out something about him last week that really surprised me. He's really good at...assembling puzzles. I saw him put together one with about 50 pieces, all about the size of my thumbnail, featuring Mickey Mouse and pals. I was told he helped put together one behemoth puzzle of about a thousand pieces, something I could never do at a comparable age.
So, here's my question. Is there a name for this kind of kid, and what is it? Has anyone famous ever answered to this description? Is he doomed to sorting parts in the Service Department of a local car dealer, or could he aspire to becoming an engineer who still doesn't say much, but provides answers that help things go smoother? Perhaps there's no clinical name for this kind of little boy at just yet. Nevertheless, I'm asking for a diagnosis, please.

Serve Somebody

2010-06-22T16:35:00.000-07:00

I have heard it said that women, for reasons going back to the Stone Age, are better than men at that oh-so-hip skill we call "multitasking". All I know is, I was observing the Mrs. a few nights ago. In her left hand was one of those fruity drinks, from which she would occasionally sip while she employed her right hand in a game of computer solitaire. At the same time she listened to a prerecorded book through an ear plug. If that weren't enough, classical music was coming through the computer speakers. Romantic piano, I think it was. And no, she didn't seem stressed at all. No wonder they like her so much at work, where she has now rolled up five years of service.

Today's title is taken from a Bob Dylan song. Let's look at a couple of examples of just who is serving whom. You might have seen or read about Rep. Joe Barton (R-TX), who, we have to say, bungled his fifteen minutes of fame last week. At a congressional hearing Mr. Barton apologized to BP for the "shakedown" by the government on the company (setting aside $20 billion for damages to people and businesses in or near the Gulf) as it tries to stop the big oil leak continuing there. It's true that the company has been one of Mr. Barton's biggest campaign donors, but technically he represents ALL the people of his district, not BP itself. His lame attempt to apologize for the apology fell flat. We see here a congressman for who he really is - someone bought and paid for by a rich and powerful entity whose corporate mission statement could be summed up in the words "Can we do it cheaper?" The answer is "Perhaps, but buying a congressman is so ridiculously cheap now, why even try?"

Then there's the story of Manute Bol, the tallest man to ever play in the NBA, at 7'7". The onetime "Sudanese Swatter", another of those awful made up nicknames, passed away at age 47 from complications of a skin disease.
At this point we should pause and try to get a little perspective on just what it's like to be over seven feet tall. I'm sure it's often unpleasant to try to fold up your body into a space meant for someone two feet shorter. And it's not as though you can pass in a crowd unnoticed, which I'm sure can get annoying. Wilt Chamberlain, normally a friendly enough guy, heard someone ask "How's the weather up there?" once too often and answered by leaning over and spitting on the questioner with the reply "It's raining."
Sudan has more than its share of tall people, but Bol had no choice to be anything but famous there. In the last few years he became a humanitarian, using his celebrity to bring things like schools to a country with little or no natural assets. All this the big guy took on with a smile. He enjoyed the good life as much as anyone, I'm sure, but not so much that he forgot what it was like to have nothing. I don't know about his religious background, but I salute him for following the advice of Jesus - "Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me."

Summer, Summer, Summer!

2010-06-13T20:35:00.000-07:00

There was an ugly moment at the local tennis courts last week. A guy was yelling at his doubles partner over something with no meaning beyond the moment itself. No swearing, but it was loud enough to be disturbing. The most disturbing part is that it was me doing the yelling, which was worse than any I had actually heard there in almost five years of playing at the park. I managed a half sincere apology, but only really suffered when the other guy's play improved during the week and he beat me with another partner.

The KIA Soul is kind of an odd-looking vehicle, and so it can't be sold in the usual way. For some reason, the ad agency handling the TV ads has a group of hip hop, people-size rodents (Rats? Maybe.) showing off the Soul while posing a rapper's choice: "You can go with this "(the Soul) " or you can go with that" (a toaster on wheels). I can't just say why, but it's so over-the-top that it's pretty funny. Funny enough to consider buying the car? Well, funny enough to make you read read about the commercials, anyway.

Most people by now have read something about the BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, but one thing I guarantee is that you haven't read anything Dick Cheney has had to say on the subject. Doesn't that seem odd? Wasn't one of Cheney's claims to fame a reputation as a one time sharpie in the oil business? We're talking about a guy who had no qualms defending torture in public. All I can conclude is that he knows someone else knows he helped open some doors for BP as vice president, and that he'd rather now walk away quietly from the whole stinking situation.

Finally, the FIFA World Cup competition has begun. In a light-hearted effort to prove we're aren't just a pair of rural American rubes, the wife and I had a draft of ten teams each to see who's the better judge of the "beautiful game" as it's played on the world's biggest stage. I won't give the whole lists for each of us, but she has her hopes on Italy, England, Spain and the Netherlands. I counter with Brazil, Germany, France, Argentina and the USA. I like my chances, though it's really just pretending to be experts that's fun. We'll never be more than outsiders in soccer, wondering how that Latin guy manages to make his "Gooooaaaallll" call last most of a minute. Hey, how does he do that?

On the Road - Again

2010-06-08T15:19:00.000-07:00

Why "Senior Jeopardy" will never be a hit: Contestant to the M.C., "Hold on a second, there, Alan. Wait just a dad gum minute. It's right on the tip of my tongue. It was, ah,...ah...Could you repeat the question, I mean, the answer?"

We went traveling again, this time all the way to Utah, where it's so dry that sandwiches shrivel up before you can even get them to your mouth. Still, there are things worth noting there, though in no special order of importance.
We have a two year-old granddaughter there. She isn't much bigger than one of those economy-sized geese that fly around here each year, but when she's unhappy she can let out a shriek that can just about paralyze you. She's not even crying. It has the effect of making her almost radioactive in terms of me wanting to offer comfort. If she cuts loose while I'm holding her, I may not survive, or at least wished I hadn't. No doubt she'll grow out of it, and of course she has good moments, too. Just don't confuse her mood, because that could be brutal.
One morning on our trip was given to go to the local weekend farmer's market. Because of the early date, there wasn't a much on hand that actually came from farms, but the shady location was great and the crowd wasn't overwhelming. The sellers were international in a good way: taco-istas, items from Africa, Thailand and other places. A booth featuring upscale birdhouses turned out to be operated by business students taking a course in entrepreneurship. We agreed on the need for a course that deals with crazy bosses. I asked a guitar player how much to hear his version of Hotel California only to be told he didn't know it. I kind of thought that a farmers market taking place in a community in which Republicans outnumber Democrats about 12 to 1 would be different from others somehow, but no parties were represented. Perhaps they've come to view the imbalance as so great as to be permanent. Maybe the election's just too far off. I was wise, I think, to pass on the tie-dye t-shirts. My torso's almost big enough to make them look like another planet.
Another grandchild, the first of four born to different family branches during 2004, has just learned to ride a bike. He'll be great with a little practice since he lives on a wide street with light traffic. We were careful not to mention that he has a younger cousin who's been riding for over a year. They're both far ahead of me at the same age. My father purposely bought a bike that was too big for me because he thought age eight was too early to learn. We did live on a steep hill at the time.
Finally, I've noticed over the years that expectant moms react differently to this condition. Some are noticeably slowed and experience sickness and pain in places they had never had discomfort before. Others seem so excited with the whole prospect that they seem to fairly glow. We met one of the latter category, a great niece from another branch of the wife's large extended family whose duty this year is to gestate twins through the hot Utah summer while her husband continues his medical education. If she had glowed any more intensely, we would have all had to put on sunglasses. Things could be different this time next year, of course, but let's hope all four of the family are glowing then, and that they never stop.

In Da News

2010-06-01T07:48:00.000-07:00

Once in awhile we do some traveling, and this often leads us to pullovers at truck stops. There you can find some of the world's ugliest t-shirts and baseball caps. They must sell or something else would be on the shelves, but why do truck drivers, good and capable people though they nay be, feel that the hats and shirts will suddenly look good on THEM?

If someone put a gun to my head and demanded that I tell everything I know about heavy metal music, I'm sure I couldn't come up with much. Guys like me just aren't the target market. In fact, if it ever came out that a certain heavy metal group was a hit with older folks, it would no doubt be the end of their existence.
What I could sputter out to the above-mentioned gun wielder would be that there is a famous heavy metal group from Des Moines, Iowa called Slipknot, who always perform wearing scary-looking masks.
You might have heard that the band lost their bassist last week, the victim of a probable suicide. The bad news, picked up by our local paper, read like a list of celebrity suicide cliches made old by Jimi Hendryx, Janis Joplin, Curt Cobain and others. What can we say? Rest in peace, Paul.
But there is a point to this, at which we have a little laugh. The article was actually dominated by a picture of the late bassist, although he was wearing one of those old-fashoined eyes-only plastic hockey goalie masks. You literally can't tell whether someone wearing such a mask is Pee Wee, Shaq or Angelina Jolie, so the picture actually serves no purpose at all.
What's even MORE odd is that whoever's behind the mask in the picture is also wearing a sportcoat, dress shirt and necktie, giving a message along the lines of "Sure, I'm demonic, but I'M NO SLOB!!"
Papers get published every day, and it's hard to say if anything in all this was deliberate, or whether we're just left with this little chuckle as a result of someone unintentionally slappping it together with a picture, weird though it may have been. To me, it's one more reason to read the daily paper in order to be up to speed with "da news".

More Danger

2010-05-25T13:00:00.000-07:00

Before proceeding to this week's possibly gloomy prediction, here are a few "micro-news" items that are certain to generate blank looks from those on the receiving end. First, try to name the two TV drama series with the longest on-air tenure. If you are old enough to remember "Gun Smoke", well, that's one. The other is just wrapping up. If you guessed "Law and Order" you'd be right, but you've probably also spent too much time on front of the telly. I think I could do a whole blog on this, but it might be, ah, boring. What's unique about next month's FIFA World Cup competition? It's the first to be played in Africa. Good luck to the Republic of South Africa, the event's official host. What member of the Warren Commission (which investigated the Kennedy assassination) is finally set to leave his current job? Senator Arlen Specter, whose ploy of switching to become a Democrat didn't pay off in the recent primary. The guy's now 80 years old, so it's not as though he's been cheated. Have you acquired the old guy habit of monitoring precipitation? I have, and we have now topped 40 inches since last July. That's a lot of emptying the rain gauge. Finally. The Fab One (Italy's own coolly-named tennis player Fabio Fognini) won his first round match at the French Open. No predictions about the second round.

Bill Clinton once said that the DMZ dividing North and South Korea was the scariest place he had ever been. I haven't been there, but I find Clinton's statement easy to believe. It's not just a holdover from the Cold War. It's a place in which real soldiers in real uniforms strap on real weapons to prepare for real war EVERY day. And the fact that war hasn't resumed yet after over fifty years doesn't make it any more amicable. Both sides look for guards tall and nasty enough to intimidate their potential foes.
Sure, the PRK (the North) is a financial weakling incapable of carrying out any lengthy conflict, but that's not the whole story. A geographical quirk puts the other side's capital, Seoul, within range of the North's conventional artillery, to say nothing of their small nuclear weapons collection. What's more scary is that no one in the West has much first hand knowledge of the country's Stalinist-style dictator, Kim Jong Il. We do know that the North has no qualms about shorting their own people on things as basic as food. Refugees are willing to risk a long, dangerous route that ends in China. If that's your destination, you must want to get out pretty badly.
Given this setup, it's a little hard to see just how the West can effectively punish the north for sinking a ROK (the South) ship with 46 sailors aboard using a mini-submarine earlier this year. As I write, the North has broken all ties to the South in retaliation for the South cutting all commercial ties.
It's a small peninsula, and no one wants to be seen backing down. Perhaps this is the time we thank Richard Nixon for opening the doors to China, who, though not really our friends, nevertheless have an interest in avoiding being dragged into another Korean Conflict. I can hear the knocks at diplomatic back doors all over the world as we seek to keep the Koreans alive even if they don't care so much about themselves. This is where the expenses that go into the State Department seem like nickels IF they can keep the peace.

Gripin' isn't Changin'

2010-05-20T15:55:00.000-07:00

To gripe is as American as apple pie. It's right there in the Constitution, though not under the word "gripe". Griping is easy, it's fun, it might even be truthful, though it might not be entertaining to every audience every time it's done. It relieves stress, and is no doubt part of the reason behind the existence of griping blogs out there in cyberspace, including, sometimes, this one.
But we can all agree, too, that griping alone gets little or nothing accomplished except perhaps to call needed attention to a problem.
Take, for example, our relationship to Iran. These two societies, it seems, are almost meant to misunderstand one another. We gripe about their country's militarization, especially the nuclear weapons we can't help but think they are intent on getting. They, in turn, don't trust us because of past meddling in their governments, toppling some while supporting others, and failing to see them as the heirs of the old Persian Empire, a term which still sounds good to them.
But war with Iran still seems like a bad idea, and so we gripe, getting other countries to join in the griping to the extent that new economic sanctions against Iran will probably be
enacted soon. Of course, the last fifty years of history teach us that such sanctions don't work, at least not in the way intended. The average Cuban, for instance, is so accustomed to economic sanctions that it seems to him like normal life. If a third-rate country like Cuba can muddle through with sanctions, certainly Iran can. The results? THEIR gripes against us unite them behind a bad (and getting worse) government, positions harden and war becomes more likely.
We gripe like crazy about people who appear to be working scams that hurt us, but never seem to be held accountable for it. Executives get called before Congress, but are well-versed in finger pointing that lead the gripes, they hope, to go against someone else. The underlings are just following the company "Mission Statement", while the top people had no knowledge of what was happening "on the ground". Now that they ARE made aware of lower level disasters, the bosses are determined - to make sure that as little as possible is paid out to provide any kind of remedy. Otherwise their stock options lose value. The profits get kept, but the losses are shared with taxpayers. Taxes? Only paid by the little people. So our gripes get ignored in the interest of deregulation, a multi-decade failure to anyone who's been paying attention.
When you watch TV from long-gone times, you understand what the guy meant who called it a "vast wasteland". That would apply to most other entertainment and news media as well. At any rate, we're still griping, though our gripes have bifurcated. Republicans sneer at the "liberal media", while Democrats call it the "corporate media". Nobody's happy. Personally I think it's better, and glory in the choice of 2-3oo channels. Of course, we don't actually get them, being determined to live humble, thrifty lives from here on in. And that's another thing I'd like to gripe about, but on another day.

Lefty Gives in to Vanity

2010-05-15T17:21:00.000-07:00

I've been missing for a week, traveling North on another grandchild inspection trip. The two little boys we saw are doing fine, and so is our baby, a young wife, but on her way, with her almost-as-young husband, to worldly success. Among other things, we went to the Aquarium in Seattle, now the home of every fish featured in "Finding Nemo".

I warned last week that I might give in to pure vanity this week by marking two hundred blog entries and picking out a few personal favorites. This would not have been possible without George W. Bush and Dick Cheney, my chief inspirational villains, along with some of the Bush administration Cabinet members, who've made the past four years, or at least the first three of those years, to be so great. Really, fellas. It couldn't have happened without you.

I searched through the record and decided to divide my favorites into three categories. The first is, no surprise, political:
"Could it Happen?" - The Texas Board of Education shows who's in charge of what the kids will hear in school about a great many subjects.
"SCOTUS Reveals Itself" - The meaning of the Court's latest ruling on corporate "persons" and their "right" to free speech in an election campaign.
"Big Guys Collide" - Senate Republicans make clear the price for allowing Obama's choice for Attorney General to take office.
"The Party Party" - An unusual conversation following certain visitors' call on the US Department of the Interior in Denver.
"There They Go Again!" - Republicans ponder making a change in how electoral votes are counted in the Golden State.
"I Surprise Myself" - I write an angry letter in support of - Mitt Romney?
"The Speech No One Gave" - Words NOT said by the Bush (or, thus far, the Obama) administration.
"In Baghdad" - Two Al Qaeda foot soldiers try to fix an American election.

The second category is - local observations:
"Ask the Right Questions" - Lessons learned in teaching a group of elderly men.
"On a Role" - I get a chance to be St. Nicholas at a church dinner.
"Dialogue With the Demented" - A man in his nineties reaches some conclusions about life.
"Let's Put on a Show" - Starts out describing a group of children, but somehow ends up on the subject of neckties.
"My Day as an Old Guy" - I'm recruited into a barbershop quartet.
"An Oval Adventure" - I witness the breaking of a world endurance record.

Here's the last category, in which I lose all originality and label - "other":
"Good Luck, Your Majesty" - A regular fellow in Pennsylvania turns out to be African royalty.
"Big Guy Comes up Short of His Dream" - Money can't buy everything, even for Rush.
"We Get Together" - What happens when the family meets in an overcrowded house.
"Three Olympic Snapshots" - The thrill of victory, and the agony of defeat.
"Flying Over the Fair" - The closest I'll ever get to the Human Cannonball.
"Street Ball" - We succeed in leading an activity by not being TOO organized.
"A Driveway Moment" - A new skill set is acquired by necessity.
"Caucus Night" - Where I've been that most others haven't.
"The Museum Trip" - The obvious message isn't the only one on display with all the vintage aircraft.

No one's required to read any one of these, and I probably picked too many. But I'll send you the date it appeared to help follow up on any you can't find. It sure was fun writing them, and I hope you've enjoyed reading them, too.

Underwater Uncomfort

2010-05-06T19:06:00.000-07:00

The tiny little man inside the computer tells me that this blog now has 200 entries. They got there in just under four years, so it works out to once a week during that time. I was a little behind this week and was thinking of shamelessly pointing to some personal favorites from the 200 for those who'd rather not go through ALL of them. Maybe I'll do it next week.

THIS week it's a target-rich environment, as the bomber pilots used to say about Iraq. There's the destruction of the Gulf of Mexico underway courtesy of a sunken BP oil drilling platform, the almost-repeated NY mass bombing that didn't happen, and the ruination of Boston's drinking water, which did. All worthy subjects.

Do you recall a few weeks ago when I talked about a conversation I'd had with a teenage girl, mostly about basketball? I concluded at the time that it was very dangerous to forget that the two genders (two MAJOR genders, anyway) frequently see things differently. This week I read that the US Navy is preparing to begin training women for duty on submarines. This has me, ah, concerned.
I'm not prepared to turn in my liberal credentials yet, and I have no doubt that the Navy has plenty of women who can measure up to this assignment. I'll even bet that they've been thinking about this little change for awhile and can rattle off ten problems, complete with solutions, for every one I could timidly raise. But I'm still concerned.
I think life in a submarine is about as unnatural as anything you can imagine. Spend weeks at a time below the waves living in quarters so tight that you can probably identify your shipmates by the sound of their footsteps, or even by smell. Add to that the fact that you're a young adult in the prime of your natural mating life. Plus, you could endanger lives with a single on board foul-up. My head swims considering all the ways these things change by adding ambitious, capable, physically fit women to the mix. With all due respect, we're not talking mixed doubles here, but a billion dollar weapons/espionage system surrounded by salt water, sharks, killer whales and a potential enemy or two.
It doesn't prove anything, but I'm not the only one to look at this and think "Yikes!" Groups of submariner spouses have also raised similar concerns, using terms that are less nuanced. Heck, I even wonder if they're asking the right question. Instead of preparing for mixed gender crews, I wonder if we can't in fact get all the information we need from around the globe and leave the subs in port. I know that building them employs lots of people who no doubt all vote, as do all the families of all the potential submarine service women. I understand that war's here to stay, but just can't help asking, "Does it have to be this way?"

Thinking Globally AND Locally

2010-04-26T09:44:00.000-07:00

Today's question: In what context do you see ugly baseball caps together with nice looking men's suits? The answer? Twice a year - the NFL draft and the NBA draft. The young men selected come to the draft venue dressed to kill, then, when their names are announced, they put on the hats provided by the drafting teams for a predictable but strange effect.
This past weekend it was football's turn. I don't think I'd watch the draft if I only had one channel coming in with a blizzard going on outside. But it struck me that this ensemble actually carries a message from the otherwise not-too-articulate young men. "Yes," (pointing to the hat) "I choose this sport as my profession and will dedicate myself to it. But in return, you (pointing to the suit) must be prepared to pay an exorbitant salary, even if I'm hurt in your service." The average NFL career goes all of four years, so this year's group of future stars had better be "ready for some football."

There are talents we can recognize in others, but sadly lack ourselves. What's perplexing is when the gifted ones try to explain how it is that they do the things they do. I rented a surfing video recently. It is a subject in which I have zero personal experience, though watching those guys on the big waves combined with the gnarly (Is that still a term?) music is pretty darn exciting, even if it's just a DVD. This particular one had a scene in which one of the surfers explains how it's done. I listened hard, but the guy just made no sense to me. It was a little like hearing my father explain how he played the piano by ear, creating extemporaneous full arrangements while knowing only the melody. I never understood how that was done, either.

The world's airways were shut down over a good part of the world last week, and, for once, there was no one to blame. Nope, it was the fault of that unpronounceable Icelandic volcano, spewing ash which blew all over Europe, causing airports to shut down. A group of madrigal singers from one of our high schools was delayed for a week in Italy. Considering the alternatives just in Europe, I guess it could have been a lot worse. Ciao!

The Real Message, Part II

2010-04-21T09:26:00.000-07:00

In this space I once poked fun at our health care system by writing about a local plan to give away a colonoscopy exam as a prize for a drawing. This year I was shocked to discover that I was entered in the exact same lottery by a certain family member. The good/bad news? Someone else actually won. Readers here also win, because who cares about what getting your colon tested is like until it's your turn?

It's true that last week's title didn't have "Part I" attached to it, but these things keep turning up. And that's the case, I believe, because of the success of a certain political style of communicating called "staying on message". In part, it means everyone on "our" side says the same thing, using the exact same words, until the media and regular folks are also using them, perhaps without even knowing it. Did you ever refer to GWB with the phrase "He kept us safe"? You might have thought this was the product of your own brain. Sorry.
But I digress. This time around it's banking regulatory reform. You might think this would be a slam-dunk given the catastrophic economic meltdown of two years ago, but the Republican members of the Senate do not agree. Hard as it seems to believe, they would prefer no new regulations at all. Truth be told, they'd like to junk some of the ones already in place, but that's another story.
Senator Mitch ("McChinless") McConnell, having been tutored in the official company line by a GOP wordmeister, issed a statement in which he seemed to say that the proper response to such disasters in the future would be...to do nothing and let troubled banks disappear altogether. And he's willing, he swears, to meet with Democrats on the issue, presumably to tell them why he feels this way, but not to join in the actual process of re-regulation. The depositors? Customers? Stockholders? I guess the market giveth and the market, well, McConnell doesn't say. Nor does he mention that the whole nasty mess came to us via...the Bush Administration, in which dedicated free marketers like Henry Paulson found that their faith in deregulation was closer to hubris.
Gosh knows I'm no economist, and my past experience in guessing future corporate earnings could be described as "professional" in only the broadest way, but over and over I see that deregulation of almost anything brings short term glee and ling term sorrow. And if the pros don't see these disasters looming, and they evidently do not, then the solution to the problem must lie not in members of Congress bought and paid for by banking interests, but by firm treatment from their opponents, most of whom turn out to be, yes, Democrats.

The REAL Message

2010-04-12T09:07:00.000-07:00

Boy, lots of fascinating things going on in my life these days. Which do I tackle? What it's like to be the only tenor in the choir? The highlights of last weekend's antique show? My progress (or lack of same) as a tennis player? And some of the audience of this blog thinks these things are interesting? No wonder I find it more fun to pretend to be a pundit, writing about things that are a little,,,bigger.

For instance, there's the latest on our nation's Supreme Court. You probably heard that the Court's chief liberal, Justice John Paul Stevens, has announced just short of his ninetieth birthday that he plans to hang up his robe and retire. You might not have heard of Senator Orrin Hatch's announcement, made the same day.
Senator Hatch evidently still yearns for the time when he was chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee and swung a lot of weight in such matters. That's no longer the case, but the Senator still feels comfortable issuing a warning to President Obama. "Don't", he said in so many words, "try to put an activist on the Court. We (me and my forty GOP sidekicks) won't stand for that. Get what I'm a-sayin', Mister?"
Let's consider the whole situation for a moment. Does Hatch think that the President has given no thought to this matter since the ratification of Justice Sonja Sotomayor last year? That's not likely. Does Hatch believe Obama could win his support by nominating a "non-activist"? The term has no defined meaning, so that's pretty unlikely, too. Is Hatch really scared that a Senate filibuster opposing the nominee could hurt the country? I guess he wouldn't make threats unless he was willing to carry them out, right? So, what's Hatch really saying here, and who is his real audience?
The answer starts with the buzzword, "activist" judge. It's been used so much since the Nixon days that it has a built-in payoff. It supposedly refers to judges who overstep their judicial bounds by trying to enforce their will vs. Congress, but for easy purposes, it really just refers to judges who make rulings "we" (white religious folks who hate criminals and don't mind seeing them suffer, but kind of like anti-union corporations) oppose. So Hatch uses the code term, and to what end? Why, reminding the faithful folks back in Utah that old Orrin has their backs on this issue and will do everything he can to support "our" side against those awful liberals. After all, if he had really wanted to send a message to the President, there are a hundred ways to get it done without elbowing your way in front of the cameras and shaking your finger at POTUS. No, Hatch wasn't thinking of the next nominee at all, who won't be named for a few weeks anyway. Whoever he/she is, the Senator will be among the "nays". But thirty some years in the Senate teaches a guy how to deliver a message even when you appear to be doing something else.
I don't really object to Hatch's ploy here. Football coaches and executives do this kind of thing all the time. And there's nothing to keep Democrats from using it, either. It isn't illegal or unethical. I just want someone to know that I see it happening, and am not fooled.

Spring Surprises

2010-04-05T22:04:00.000-07:00

The season is barely two weeks old and already there are things happening that most folks could not have predicted.

First, there's the President's little switch on the plans for more offshore drilling for oil. Evidently he's now more sure that the process can be done safely, even in a hurricane-prone region. I hope he's right.

Then there's the news that over one hundred Chinese coal miners were rescued after over a week of being trapped underground. Considering the way most trapped Chinese miners seem to end up, that's good news indeed, though I wonder how many of them are willing to go back down. My future wish for them is a real union - one with some authority, and the desire to put its members' interest ahead of production schedules and "cutting costs".

The NCAA would prefer that Bob Huggins NOT be the face of college basketball. His teams win, but he looks more like a member of the Russian mob than an "educator". He wears a black sweatsuit at games instead of a suit, and his reputation isn't squeeky clean. But in last Saturday's NCAA semifinal game between the Huggins-coached West Virginia and Duke, something happened that revealed a completely different side of the coach, at least to me. The WV star, Da'Sean Butler took the ball inside, where there was a collision. A second later, Butler was on the floor screaming in pain. Huggins was quickly at his side, trying to reassure his player in a manner that could only be called "tender" as he took his player's head in his arms and put his own face next to Butler's. Once again, I'm reminded that we can't really know people well just by seeing them perform on TV.

Finally, try to imagine a graph. This one starts with a single horizontal line representing the passage of time. Columns representing national job losses in a given month go DOWN from the line, with the length of the column determined by the number of jobs lost. A net positive jobs added is represented by a column going UP from the line, in the same fashion.
The last year of the Bush administration was brutal for jobs lost, as the downward monthly columns got longer as the year progressed. In January, 2009, the new administration takes office, and job losses continue near the same rate for a few months, but then the trend reverses itself to show fewer job losses (shorter columns). Finally, last month the economy actually ADDS jobs, and the column has a line going UP for the first time in about 30 months. The graph now looks like an upside-down pyramid, and if you are looking for work, you're now on the preferred side of the graph. Is it surprising? Yes it is, if you are a Republican who thinks tax cuts is the the answer to every economic woe. Of course, these folks are also surprised that they're wrong - again.

What They Say!

2010-04-01T14:56:00.000-07:00

I read something this week that gives new meaning to the phrase "raising the bar". A couple of years ago, one of the nearby high schools had a girl pole vaulter who was one of the state's best. She's still at it, competing for one of the large state universities in another part of the state. But what made my eyes pop was reading that she had given birth to a baby during the time in between. I'm not sure I can think of two activities less alike. Who was it that said that life sometimes can interfere? Oh yes, it was me. My best wishes go to both the vaulter/mom and her little son. If he has her athletic genes, well, the sky's the limit.

One of the issues being reconsidered these days is a leftover from the Clinton administration. It's the practice which says in effect, that our armed forces still prohibit gays or lesbians from serving, but that the services won't go out of their way to find out this little piece of information. It's known by its less formal name, "Don't ask. Don't tell".
A change requires the consent of Congress, who have called hearings to question those "in the know" as to whether we should change or keep the policy. We have allies on both sides..
I think I know the arguments here, but after centuries of warfare accompanied by at least as many centuries of gay individuals, shouldn't there be some solid evidence somewhere supporting the theory that inclusion of gay soldiers makes some kind of difference? Wouldn't this be especially true if the policy clearly hurt the troops' effectiveness? And wouldn't the lack of such evidence argue for a change in policy towards greater inclusion?
Enter retired U.S. Army General John J. Sheehan, called on to answer just these kinds of questions by Congress. Our country has many retired generals, but Sheehan not that long ago was involved in running NATO, a job you just don't get without being a formidable guy. At any rate, Sheehan gave it as his opinion that having gay soldiers is a bad idea.
And he had an example to cite. During the European conflicts of the 1990's involving the former Yugoslav republics, a detachment of Dutch soldiers was assigned to protect the city of Srebrenica. In the war's greatest bloodletting, the Dutch were outnumbered and forced to stand aside as the Serbian forces simply slaughtered all the Muslim men they could find. This tragedy was laid by General Sheehan directly at the feet of the Dutch army's practice of including "gays and liberals".
Well, there it is. No proof, statistical OR anecdotal, just a flat accusation which, by the way, the government of the Netherlands, who've been part of NATO now for a long time, did not take well. It boggles the mind what Sheehan as military supervisor would have done to set straight any subordinate willing to leap to such conclusions without some kind of evidence. Someone must have concluded that his audience, though members of Congress, wouldn't be as demanding in looking for the truth as he himself would have been.
Of course, Sheehan now is a private citizen and can say whatever he wants without being concerned about losing what must be a sizable pension. Does he feel that making this kind of statement makes him better known in this country? He could be right. Is it possible that his speaking fees just took a large leap up? Could be, since he no doubt thinks of himself as a better speaker than, say, Sarah Palin or Karl Rove. It could be that he just concluded that a little push back from the media would serve his cause well, as long as he and his potential audiences regard the news media as an enemy.

Another Ward

2010-03-30T09:54:00.000-07:00

I realize that there was no blog entry last week. My excuse is that we were involved in eight days of child care of three grandchildren, the oldest only five. We had a few tough moments, but got through it OK. There could be a bonus blog this week.

The Church (the same one I always write about) from time to time looks around and notices a large number of single members in a certain area. In an effort to let these folks know they are known and appreciated, the Church will sometimes sponsor a local "conference" for singles for a couple of days. If attending members should meet and become attracted to one another, well, that's not a bad thing, is it?
A family member attended one of these wingdings in the Midwest. She's under 35 years old, and turned out to be the youngest person there by 10 years or more. What was even more surprising was to be outnumbered by people using walkers (2), and to see at least one attendee pulling one of those little portable oxygen tanks. Hearing that, I don't know whether to shake my head in sympathy or take my hat off in recognition of their unfailing optimism. Maybe both.

And while we're on the subject, after the return of the parents Saturday evening, we were free on Sunday to attend one of the local congregations, known as "wards". The closest one is in an upscale community on the East side of the San Francisco Bay area.
Everyone is welcome at these meetings, which are intended to be operated in pretty much in the same way throughout the world. Still, you can't help noticing these these are folks, let's face it, are pretty well off. Otherwise, they would be members somewhere else, since this church is about the only one that's organized geographically based on the members' home addresses.
Ward members don't build their church buildings themselves, but you could easily tell a thing or two just by observing the parking lot. Minivans, large SUV's and luxury cars predominated. A motorcycle or dune buggy would have stuck out like lobster at a bar mitzvah. The ward members weren't all white, but I don't recall any hispanic faces, either. All the men wore dress shirts and ties, with suits outnumbering sport coats. The women wore dresses and skirts, and the children, and there were plenty of them, were nicely done up in imitation of their parents.
As in wards everywhere, the ward members performed musical selections and provided the sermons in a meeting that went just over an hour. The messages given were not untypical, but little personal stories used to illustrate revealed a little about the lives of the speakers. "When we were in Europe going through the art museums there..." began one story. Another speaker recalled that on the morning of 9/11/01, he was commuting to his job at the Northern Trust in Chicago. He wasn't bragging. He was just setting the scene for his story, which later somehow connected to Jesus.
I noticed a couple of other things that were new to me. Our ward has weekly printed programs, but this one included little bios of the speakers, and also listed the postlude musical selection (Bach), which was sadly ignored by the ward members. I guess they get old J.S. Bach every week.
I don't know these folks personally. And I have no reason to think that they weren't perfectly fine people, or that I wouldn't be proud to know any of them. Dropping in to visit two or three times a year, we may never know them very well. Still, sometimes it's the little, unintended things that tell you more about people than they might intend.

Could it Happen?

2010-03-16T21:35:00.000-07:00

From the days of my youth, I've heard the message of the American political Right. "We'll give you small government, which will never interfere with your lives as long as you keep the law, which we guarantee won't be anything complicated or oppressive. We promise not to be like Democrats, who want to take over your whole life."
The message was there even through the Bush years, which should have revealed to anyone with half a brain that the days of simple, unobtrusive, easygoing government were gone forever.
How do I know they're gone? You get little glimpses into the thinking of the Right just by observing. Last week, for instance, the conservative members of the Texas State Board of Education noted that they had the power to dictate school text contents over a wide range of social science issues.They proceeded, using a straight party line majority, to ignore even the idea of small government, except as applied to, as Texans say, "bidness." Future students from Texas (and plenty of other states, too) will get special material on hundreds of subjects ranging from "American Exceptionalism", the proper workings of the free enterprise system, the great Conservative resurgence of the 1980's and 90's, proper Second Amendment interpretation, Phyllis Schlafly, the Moral Majority and the NRA. Not everything is changed - the largely discontinued terms "B.C." and "A.D." are retained. All this from the "small government" guys. Why go to such lengths to slant the message in public schools? The short answer - because they can.
Here's the real message from the Right, though it's not the one they want you to hear. "Small or no government for whatever I'm doing, but maximum government for whatever you have in mind." In fact, I've wondered how things would change if a virus that only killed liberals were to infect the land, leaving only the "small government" faithful of the GOP to remake all the government policies we've come to know.
Assuming no effective death bed repentance, the population would immediately become more masculine, white and "Christian" (a term which I realize is subject to interpretation). Some things would disappear pretty quickly. Abortions could only be obtained in a far corner of Montana, sports for women would be retained strictly on a "pay your own way" basis, and Congress would try to pound rap music into extinction by pointing at its "anti-American" image. Trade unions would disappear, and the term "Democratic" would become as rare as "Whig".
Foreign policy would be based on a simple list of five "Principles of Freedom", the breaking of any one of which by another nation would invite nuclear destruction. Other nations would be invited to join our "New Awakening", but only as junior partners. At least one of the five Principles would involve making threats, overt or covert, as judged by POTUS alone, against Israel. GITMO would triple in size and the CIA director's name would become secret, though he would be a member of the Cabinet. Torture would receive yet another name - "Christian Re-education". Anyone who died from it would be assumed to have converted after successful deathbed repentance.
Eventually, the Republican Party would face factions. The dope-using, tattoo-sporting, Sabbath-ignoring, leave-me-alone types would be known as Freedom Republicans or "Freppies", and would be the smaller branch of the Party, while corporate interests and their followers would make up the National Republicans or "Nats", who would constantly lobby for more defense spending and less for the environment. Corporations would pay no taxes, and the difference would be made up by surcharges on movie tickets and alcoholic drinks. Smoking would be more popular, while the ensuing spike in the death rate would be blamed on "poor parenting". A possible final split between these two GOP groups could revolve around the question "Should concealed handguns be merely legal or, to save on local law enforcement and discourage crime, should they be made compulsory for those over 15 years old who could pass a simple eye exam?"
Of course, you know I'm only speculating here based on what I've observed. But could it happen? Oh, sure.

Shame on Them

2010-03-10T09:01:00.000-08:00

I found myself in an actual conversation with a teenage girl last weekend. That's pretty rare, not, I hope, because they all dislike me, but because they just seldom have any real reason to talk with me. To them, I'm just another old guy. I understand.
This particular teenage girl is a crack student, as well as an athlete. She plays on her school's varsity basketball team even though she's only a sophomore and not yet 16 years old. I asked about the team and got a surprising answer, one that gave out some gossipy details describing which teammates are friends and which aren't. This was in the conversation's first two minutes. We were in a large noisy arena, and so our time was limited, but it reminded me of something I should never forget: males and females see things differently, and heaven help the coach/teacher/church leader who forgets it.

I have stated before in this space that not all the good guys in our political world come from one side, and that the nature of a "one winner" system means that both sides are tempted to bend the truth. It's a "tough old business", no question. When you throw in things like the radio right, the "punditocracy", TV's talking heads and even a comedy show or two, the lines can become very blurry.
Having so stated, I still have to shake my head in disbelief over the recent disclosures regarding the next GOP campaign plans. Through the ineptitude of one attendee at a strategy meeting in Boca Raton, FL (in winter these events seldom take place in Fargo or Camden), we learned that President Obama, Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid are all in line for caricature treatment as cartoon characters, and that the GOP battle cry will be something like "Save the country from socialism!"
When this was disclosed, Republican leaders started backing away from the specifics, though not completely. A Party strategist named John Feehery attempted to do a kind of "end justifies means" play by stating "If you can't scare the hell out of donors, you're not going to get any money." Is that meant to be reassuring? Should we just take for granted that anything coming from the Republican National Committee (which this did) is short on truth, while long on "truthiness"? Why not just leave the real nasty stuff to the radio guys or Congressmen with safe seats in places like Oklahoma or Georgia?
I think we have to realize something: the Republican Party has stopped thinking of itself as being for much of anything. Their legacy going back to Lincoln isn't going to win the next one, they seem to be saying, and so why not just think of ourselves from now on as the "not Democrats" and put a "caveat emptor" sticker on our candidates' foreheads? That way we could scream that Democrats AREN'T using stickers. Heck, that could be good for a few votes, don'tcha think?
When one of our two major Parties gives itself over to this kind of thinking, I think they deserve to be publicly shamed. It's one thing to have some shady ally out there spreading garbage on the land, but quite another to have the Party itself doing it. Shame on them.