papadablogger

The Greatest Emerging Threat To Freedom

2010-07-08T11:12:00.002-04:00

What is an emerging threat to freedom and why is it critical to address it in today’s society?

The greatest emerging threat to freedom is the persistent insistence that we face an emerging threat or even multiple emerging threats to freedom coupled with the various, odious, un-American proposals supposedly designed to avoid or defeat it or them. Our failure to address and answer this question insures the the threat will continue to grow.

Thus, the most dangerous emerging threat to freedom is - us.

This post is an entry in the blog contest responding to the new book, New Threats to Freedom edited by Adam Bellow. The contest is open to all and further information can be found here. http://newthreatstofreedom.com/contests/

Virginia's Shame Continues: Salute To Treason

2010-04-15T10:05:00.001-04:00

The new Governor of Virginia’s salute to the treasonous Confederacy shines a bright light on the historical litany of Virginia’s shame.

The Civil War in America began in South Carolina, on April 12th, on Sullivan’s Island at Ft. Sumter. That was 1861 – 149 years ago. But that conflict’s root cause - the shame of Virginia - began long before then. In April 1607, the first English Christian colonists arrived on this continent. They established their settlement in Virginia and called it Jamestown. That spring, 403 years ago, marked the beginning of the end for the native population of North America. The Indians, however, were not the only ones destined to suffer the consequences of European Christian expansion. Only a dozen passed before these original white Christian Virginians decided to adopt racial slavery as their preferred mode of manual labor and as the means of accumulating personal fortune. Slaves would become, legally, just another form of real property in Virginia, another measure of a man’s wealth. The first Negro slaves were forcibly brought to Jamestown 391 years ago, in 1619. The importance of Christianity in the history of slavery in America cannot be underestimated.

Virginia’s everlasting shame was codified in 1705, 305 years ago. Here is part of what the 1705 Virginia Slave Code said:

"All servants imported and brought into the Country...who were not Christians in their native Country...shall be accounted and be slaves. All Negro, mulatto and Indian slaves within this dominion...shall be held to be real estate. If any slave resist his master...correcting such slave, and shall happen to be killed in such correction...the master shall be free of all punishment...as if such accident never happened."

Modern Americans may need to read that twice. Note the designation that servants “… who were not Christians in their native Country…” become slaves, once in Virginia. Notice too the legal codification of “All Negro, mulatto and Indian slaves” as real estate. Virginia law thus made no distinction between a Negro slave and… a barn or a stable or a cabin or a grand manor house – human beings, already personal property, now regarded as real estate.

Take note also that the Virginia Slave Code of 1705 gave a malevolent double legal protection to slave owners. First, it specifically exempted them from all sanctions for any action they took in “correcting” a slave considered to “resist his master.” It even detailed the ultimate such “correction” - the actual killing of such a slave - putting this murder beyond the purview of the law. For the Virginia slave, his master was now his God. Second, the lawmakers of Virginia, not content to safely place slave owners outside any jurisdiction of the law, felt compelled to classify a slave owners corrective action – even to the point of murder – as just an “accident” – literally, “as if (it) never happened.”

Of the original 13 United States none had a larger slave population than Virginia. The first official count of slaves was in 1790. The initial US Census, mandated by the new Constitution, showed Virginia’s slave population had grown from a tiny boatload in 1619 to a total of 292,627 in 171 years. Already, 29 Virginia counties had more slaves than free white people and 17 more counties had nearly as many slaves as they did free, Christian whites. In April 1861 Virginia was still the state with the most slaves. In only 70 years, the total of slaves in Virginia had zoomed to 490,865, an amazing growth rate in light of the then 50-year ban on the importation of new slaves. In fact, the entire South had somehow managed to explode its slave population despite the half-century since the slave trade was legally ended. The US Census of 1790 showed the total number of slaves in the new United States to be 694,000. Seventy-one years later, at the start of The Civil War, according to the 1860 US Census there were almost 4 million Negro slaves in the seditious states that treasonously seceded from the Union.

Throughout the history of Negro slavery in North America – first in the colonies and then in the United States of America – Virginia led the way. They were the first to have slavery. Then, the first to declare human beings to be real property. Then, to have the most slaves at the birth of this republic. And finally, to have the most slaves when the issue of slavery broke the United States of America to pieces. The Civil War remains to this day our most costly war. It dwarfs two World Wars, and numerous other conflicts, with more than 600,000 killed.

Today, Virginia’s new Governor either doesn’t know the history of his state and his nation or he purposely, perhaps seditiously, chooses to deny it. To acknowledge and honor rebellious terrorists he only adds to Virginia’s shame.

Obama: End The Supreme Court's Conservative Shift

2010-04-12T09:14:00.000-04:00

The time is now to nominate a strong, decidedly liberal Justice to the Supreme Court. Unlike Congress and the Chief Executive, the makeup of the Court does not change every two, four or six years. The Supreme Court is a co-equal branch of our government. The Presidential responsibility for making nominations may be the most lasting aspect of any President's time in office. Surely President Obama knows, a failure to grasp that opportunity, to be true to the principles of those who elected him because they believed he shared those principles, is plainly unacceptable. Especially now, after the disciplined, unanimous and fiercely partisan opposition of the Republican Party to practically every legislative and policy position of this administration, any effort to placate Republicans on a new Supreme Court appointee would be a betrayal of the 70 million Americans who voted for Barack Obama to be President.

This President has the opportunity and the responsibility to stop the historical shift of the Supreme Court farther and farther to the right. This movement toward a more conservative membership is not a new development for the Supreme Court.

Here's a question: Who was the last newly appointed Justice who was more liberal than the Justice he or she replaced? Take a minute to think about that.

Byron White is the answer. White was named to replace Charles Evans Whittaker, a Justice who was so far to the right he would outflank even today's most conservative Justices. Whittaker resigned after an emotional breakdown and White was named to take that seat. When was this? Byron White was nominated by President John F. Kennedy and confirmed by the Senate in April 1962. Since then, 48 years ago to the month, each and every new Justice named to the Supreme Court has been more conservative than the one replaced. A half-century of inexorable conservative shift. The time to put an end to this is now.

After White's 1962 confirmation there have been 25 other Supreme Court nominees, resulting in 18 new Justices. Included among them have been 3 new Chief Justices. Each of the Chiefs has been successively more conservative. Warren Burger succeeded Earl Warren and was subsequently succeeded by William Rehnquist. As openly conservative as Chief Justice Rehnquist was, in his short tenure thus far his successor, the current Chief Justice John Roberts, has been dramatically more so. There are no umpires in the Chief's seat.

You might point to Justice White's successor to refute the Court's rightward move. Ruth Bader Ginzburg, a stalwart on this Court's liberal side, succeeded Byron White. But, as with all politics, time and distance influence measurement. By contemporary standards Justice White would be the most liberal judge on today's high court. So, Ginzburg, although a liberal herself, has actually been more conservative than her predecessor. Even the Court's first black Justice, the renowned Thurgood Marshall, did not make his seat on the Court any more liberal than it had been before him. Marshall replaced Justice Tom Clark, the man President Truman called, "My biggest mistake." If you can't imagine a Justice more liberal than Thurgood Marshall, remember that Justice Clark wrote the majority opinions in the Court's landmark decisions to ban Bible reading in public schools and to extend the exclusionary protections of the 4th Amendment to the states. How many votes on today's Supreme Court would either of those opinions manage to get?

Since Kennedy named Byron White to the Court, 7 nominees have failed to gain a seat there. Some nominations were withdrawn after the nominating President saw that confirmation would be impossible. Others were voted down in the Senate. A failed nomination is also nothing new in our history. There have been 29 failed Presidential nominees to the Supreme Court beginning with William Paterson, nominated by George Washington in 1793, and going all the way to Harriet Miers who was unsuccessfully nominated by George W. Bush in 2005. Of these nominees who failed to enter the Court, 15 were either withdrawn or the Senate took no action on them. But 14 nominees have gone all the way to a vote in the Senate where they were rejected. The first was John Rutledge in 1795 and the last to meet such a fate was Robert Bork in 1987. It is important to take note that perhaps the two most popular Presidents ever, George Washington and Ronald Reagan, both had Supreme Court nominees rejected by the Senate.

President Barack Obama has an historic opportunity to halt the nearly 50 year conservative shift in the Supreme Court. He was elected by voters who expect him to do just that. The last two Republican Presidents, Bush the Elder and Bush the Younger each nominated the most openly right-wing Justices available. The Elder's legacy will be forever linked to Clarence Thomas and the Younger is responsible for Justice Alito and the Chief Justice John Roberts. The Presidents Bush took principled stands. We expect nothing less from this President.

If we are to really get a change we can believe in, it must come in the Supreme Court. President Barack Obama needs to stand up and proudly nominate a strong, decidedly liberal nominee to replace Justice Stevens. Any nominee who is less should not be confirmed.

"Media Entertainers" - Small Audience, Little Influence

2010-04-12T09:12:00.001-04:00

A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away... I was in the broadcasting business. I have some experience with ratings for radio and television. I know something about the size of audiences for media personalities and their influence on public life and policy -- or lack of it.

I am amused and puzzled at how much attention is paid these days to entertainers like Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck, and Keith Olbermann. The crew at MSNBC -- really only Olbermann and Rachel Maddow, since the others on that NBC owned channel can hardly be said to be politically off-center by any reasonable ideological measurement -- actually has an historically small viewing audience and is not seen as a real threat even by its right-wing competitors. Of course, those same right-wing entertainers, mainly found on the FOX NEWS cable channel and various radio stations, have similarly small audiences when measured against the industry as a whole and particularly past broadcasting personalities who put on similar type programs.

Numbers can be boring, but you can look them up. Yes, Olbermann and Maddow have more than a million viewers and the FOX NEWS group grabs about two to four times that many. By far the biggest audience for political entertainment belongs to Rush Limbaugh. Although his ratings change from time to time, it is generally agreed that Rush Limbaugh has between 16 and 20 million listeners. However, instead of boasting about "talent on loan from God" and some of his other frequent and adolescent self-worth estimates, Limbaugh ought to be humbled at his historical irrelevance in his own field. That assessment may surprise and upset some people -- "Dittoheads" they're called. But, giving Rush Limbaugh every one of his 20 million listeners, rather than the smaller numbers often reported, that means he reaches at most 6% of the American people. I think its fair to say that God might want to do a little better, especially considering His past experience on-the-air.

More than 70 years ago, back in the 1930s when the United States had only 122 million people, less than 40% of its current 308 million, a priest named Charles Caughlin (a priest long before that designation carried the negative weight of recent revelations) had twice the number of radio listeners Rush Limbaugh has now. Father Caughlin regularly reached some 40 million Americans. That's hardly a contest: Caughlin 33% of the American people, Rush Limbaugh 6%. Check Caughlin out. You'll find his show business style quite different from Limbaugh, but their content and approach to those in political power is strikingly similar. While Caughlin was sure Franklin Roosevelt meant the end of Western Civilization, as we know it, Rush Limbaugh feels the same way about Barack Obama. If Obama is really worried about the effect of right wing entertainers, especially Limbaugh, he might want to remember that FDR was elected President of the United States four times in a row from 1932 to 1944.

Another long ago favorite, Walter Winchell, also had many more listeners 60 years ago than Rush Limbaugh has in 2010. Plus, in his later years Winchell, with his trademark hat, was a TV hit -- quite the opposite of Limbaugh's failed attempt to make it on television. Walter Winchell was also in more than 2000 newspapers, at a time when newspapers were the major source for Americans to get their news and information. In terms of political leaning and ideology, Rush Limbaugh, Charles Caughlin and Walter Winchell are three peas in a pod. The right wing radio entertainers have been warning us of impending socialism for nearly 80 years. So, what separates these men besides the size of their listening audience? The answer is, the attention paid to them by others especially other media. In their day nobody, particularly other media, except those who tuned-in cared one way or the other about Caughlin or Winchell.

This same question applies to all the modern right wing media entertainers -- Beck, O'Reilly, Hannity, and the lesser-known but equally outlandish performers who populate the radio airwaves -- people like Michael Savage, Laura Ingram and Neal Boortz. These are all great entertainers, excellent "air personalities" and performers. But the question is: Why does anyone pay serious attention to anything they say? For that, I have no quick answer. My guess is we are easily bored and just as easily, albeit temporarily, entertained. That doesn't say much for those who invest themselves in entertaining us with what are often factually incorrect or entirely made-up political positions. And, let's face it -- that doesn't say much for us either.

The Commander-In-Chief Test: Failed?

2010-03-19T16:12:00.001-04:00

The American Revolution was inspired and led by civilians, not by Generals. Later, our Constitution was likewise conceived and written by civilians. We have no history of military control over our political institutions. The Founders entrusted the President with the power to command the entire military of the United States because they realized it was - and always would be - essential to a free representative republic that there be absolute civilian control of the violent potential of the state. This ideal separated the new United States from all past empires and all contemporary Great Powers of the Eighteenth Century. A President leading armies in the field was never the vision of the Constitution. But a republic free from the threat of tyranny required a heavy civilian hand hard upon the neck of the armed forces. The primary responsibility of the Commander-in-Chief is to lend weight to that hand, to firmly apply pressure, never giving the beast a chance to run wild.

Contrary to popular belief, and recent Executive custom, the Constitution conveys only three powers to the President of the United States that are entirely his and not subject to review or reversal. They are: Commander-in-Chief; oversight of members of the cabinet; and the issuance of pardons. These specific yet diverse authorities are all included in a single sentence, in Article II Section 2: "The President shall be Commander in Chief of the Army and Navy of the United States, and of the Militia of the several States, when called into the actual Service of the United States; he may require the Opinion, in writing, of the principal Officer in each of the executive Departments, upon any Subject relating to the Duties of their respective Offices, and he shall have Power to grant Reprieves and Pardons for Offences against the United States, except in Cases of Impeachment."

Some might say that the Executive Order should be counted here as well. However, no such Executive authority is granted by the Constitution. Such a power will not be found anywhere within the document. Andrew Jackson invented it to continue his punishment of those Cherokee Indians who suffered the misfortune to remain alive while he was President. When the Supreme Court ruled Jackson's order out of order, his only response was to mock the Court's helpless inability to enforce its decision. Pity the poor Cherokee. Ever since, the Executive Order has been a source of continued Presidential shame. Lincoln fairly gutted the Constitution during The Civil War via the Executive Order. Woodrow Wilson and later FDR used them to defy recalcitrant Congresses during their war years, much the same as Lincoln had. The Executive Order might better be called what it is - rule by decree.

As to those three powers a President does legally have, no one has ever sought to challenge the power of the pardon although many have questioned the worthiness of its beneficiaries. Lincoln's successor, President Andrew Johnson was impeached for his exercise of oversight of his cabinet. After the Senate failed to convict him, no President since Johnson has needed to worry about that again. Over time these two Presidential powers have come to be seen as absolute.

The Commander-in-Chief designation is quite another matter. While we have had many Presidents who served in the military; some in combat and some who were Generals; only two Presidents have led American forces into battle as Commander-in-Chief. George Washington donned his old uniform and personally commanded 12,000 federal troops in Western Pennsylvania, as they put down the Whiskey Rebellion in the late summer of 1794. Ironically, our first President then pardoned the rebellion's leader, a man known as Tom The Tinker.

Twenty years later, on August 24, 1814, James Madison briefly commanded about 5,000 US soldiers against the invading British army at the battle of Bladensburg. While Washington's stint in the field had been a success, Madison was humiliated in defeat. The British went on to burn down the Capital and the White House before finally losing the war for many of the same reasons they lost the American Revolution almost 40 years before.

No one has posed a challenge to an American President as Commander-in-Chief since 1814 unless you count the occasional insubordinate General officer. Despite this longtime acceptance of Executive authority many have questioned the Commander-in-Chief credentials of those who sought the Presidency. In fact, some candidates have been declared to be outright incompetent. In the election of 2008 much was made about the so-called "Commander-in-Chief test." The Constitution was of no help in that debate. There is nothing in that document - certainly nothing about a 3am phone call - that guides us in even recognizing the qualities needed for the job. We are left to make that judgment ourselves. Nevertheless, Barack Obama's principle opponents in that election, Hillary Clinton and then John McCain, both claimed a special knowledge that Obama had failed this nonexistent exam. The American people overwhelmingly disagreed.

While in principle no Commander-in-Chief test may exist for candidates, the President of the United States, once in office, is most certainly faced with one. Wars are matter of policy, but civilian control over the military is a matter of high principle. The foundation of America's freedom is civilian control and the President is the sole guardian of that sacred trust. No task he faces is of greater consequence.

It is with great disappointment that I have unexpectedly come to see the sad truth that President Barack Obama is failing the Commander-in-Chief test.

Recent events in Afghanistan now highlight how badly our current Commander-in-Chief has loosened the bridle. The stampede begins. Reports are widespread, from many sources around the world, that General Stanley McCrystal has lost control of the American Special Forces in Afghanistan. Our own men in uniform are not following the commander's Rules of Engagement. Substantial elements of American fighting forces, plus private soldiers who are hired assassins in the direct employ of the United States government, and are unknown and unaccountable to the public, are now apparently operating beyond the effective control of the Commander-in-Chief. The chain of command in Afghanistan is broken. That means the constitutional chain of command, which Harry Truman dramatically demonstrated ends in the White House not in the Pentagon, no longer exists. The Commander-in-Chief is not in command.

If absolute civilian control over the world's mightiest military machine has been lost, whether surrendered voluntarily or involuntarily, the Constitution will have been abridged in a manner even Andrew Jackson or Abraham Lincoln could not have imagined. There is still time for repair. Barack Obama's term of office is four years. We are barely a quarter way through. But his current failure conjures up the worst fears of our Founding Fathers. Without a stout, firm, unflinching Commander-in-Chief who is without doubt in complete control of the US military complex, we stand in jeopardy - as Benjamin Franklin painfully predicted - of losing our republic and our freedom.

SINGLE-WING FORMATION

2010-02-09T11:25:00.002-05:00

Gore Vidal has probably been misquoted more times than anyone since Jesus. Nevertheless, and no matter how he said it exactly, it was Vidal’s opinion that the United States has only one political party, and that that party has two right wings. One wing may be less right than the other, but still both swing and flap from the same side. Thus the Vidal quote (or misquote) – “We have a one-party system with two right wings.”

Actually, we have a no-party system in the United States running from an obsolete single-wing formation.

The elected portion of the federal government consists of 435 Members of the House of Representatives, 100 Senators and a President and Vice-President. Of these 537 office holders none are actually chosen by state and local party organizations that have anything at all resembling a disciplined, central connection to a similarly organized and disciplined national political party. You may think they do – because across the country they call themselves Democrats and Republicans while a compliant media agrees - but they don’t and they know it.

In this 111th Congress all 435 seats in the House are filled by candidates who were elected as either Democrats or Republicans. Nowhere in America did a single Congressional district think to send an Independent or minor party candidate to Congress. Parties must mean a lot then, right? Well, actually not. You see, not one of these Congressmen – male and female alike - got to be candidates as the appointed choice of a national political party. Most of these Congressional hopefuls were not put up by their parties for election, but rather they were elected by primary voters who in many places did not even have to be registered party members to vote in those primaries. Neither party officials nor actual party members chose them.

As a result, many Members of Congress from the same party hold differing views on the same issues. Nationwide, neither Democrats nor Republicans running for Congress supported the national party line because no such party line existed. Congressional candidates answer to no national party leadership until after they are elected and seated in the House. And for many, who are by then Members of Congress, it’s too late to impose meaningful party discipline. As sitting Members they owe nothing to any national party organization, especially their election.

In the House of Representatives, both Democrats and Republicans are far more likely to be loyal to self-appointed cliques; semi-official caucuses or even undisclosed, hidden personal alliances than they are to be willingly subservient to any national party or Congressional leader. In effect, in the House of Representatives, the national parties serve at the pleasure of their membership, not the other way around.

It’s far worse in the Senate. In that body sits 100 senators each with a personal and permanent, statewide constituency, a local organization of the sort that used to be known as “machines.” Each senator has been at some point an individual primary election winner and – rather than represent their affiliated political party in their state – they often become that party simply by virtue of their position as a senator. With a six-year term, serving longer than even a President, to whom then do these US senators owe political allegiance? To themselves.

And our quadrennial Presidential candidates are all the winners of long and bitter campaigns capped by vicious primary battles. These mainly independent, individual personalities enter the race for President for personal reasons not necessarily having any ideological or party application. Most plan and raise funds for their election race years in advance. They are certainly not the handpicked representatives of any national party organization. Not since the days of Franklin Roosevelt and Dwight D. Eisenhower have the Democrats and Republicans picked their Presidential candidates in the storied smoke filled backrooms. Party bigwigs do not choose our Presidential candidates. They are determined by a series of state primaries, separate elections decided on separate issues, with some so personal as to be completely non-political.

So it has been for more than half a century that when the Presidential candidates finally emerge from the pack of those seeking the nomination, both of our major political parties become mirrors for that particular candidate rather than having that winner represent the already well-established views of that party. It’s the party that changes from election to election to fit the candidate. The definition of the party awaits the winner. Which is the chicken and which the egg? In some years the parties’ choices are radically different and the results are as unlikely as going to a steakhouse and ending up eating a veggie plate.

In the end, we get an elected federal government made up of Democrats and Republicans who for the most part disagree with each other as often as they disagree with the other party. And frequently, in Congress, we have small groups of Representatives and Senators from different parties who actually have more in common with each other than they do with any sense of what is supposed to be their own national party. It can be these blocks of cross-party votes that often control key legislation – all of it outside the so-called, accepted two-party party system. And usually, as Gore Vidal envisioned, both wings wave decidedly to the right in a single-wing formation.

On top of all this we inevitably have a President and Vice-President who are just as much in disagreement with many of the members of their own party in Congress as those members may be with themselves. We find ourselves with a government of Alfonse & Gaston, Laurel & Hardy, Martin & Lewis, all searching for the Marx Brothers.

While we like to think it is so, our two major political parties do not run our federal government. That government is in the hands of people with at best a loose affiliation to whatever they call their national political party. In the starkest of realities this accounts for why the current huge Democratic Party majority in the House and a super-majority of Democrats in the Senate means very little in terms of getting anything done. A Democrat in the White House apparently makes no difference at all. Our no-party system seems ideally designed to produce no-government.

It doesn’t have to be this way and it isn’t elsewhere. Here’s how the British do it. To be a candidate for Parliament in Britain you must be chosen by the official party organization in a Parliamentary district. After such a selection has been made, the national party organization has a binding veto. They must approve each and every candidate selection. When a British political party issues a platform, a statement of its beliefs and programs, a promise of what it will do if it forms a government, all its Parliamentary candidates support all of it without exception. If they don’t, they never get to run for election.

Unlike our Democrats and Republicans, there are no moderates or radicals in the same British parties. There are no conservatives and liberals within the same party. No blue-dogs, yellow-dogs or “mavericks” in England. Of course independents can and do run for Parliament in Britain, but never as a candidate of the established political parties. When a Parliamentary leader wants to rally his members there are no questions that all of them will vote the party line. Because there really is a party line and everyone knows full well what it is. If they disobey they risk severe punishment even expulsion from the party and from Parliament. Imagine that in our Congress. How could a Joe Lieberman earn a living?

We, in the United States, have no real party line, no actual party ideology, because we have no real national political parties. The overriding political ideology at work here seems to be little more than – “In The Grand Scheme Of The Universe, We Get What We Deserve.” What we get is a Congress – in fact an entire federal government – that too often just doesn’t work.

You don’t have to be Gore Vidal to know that in a single-wing formation, a bird with two right wings can’t fly.

WE HAVE A CRISIS, MISTER VICE PRESIDENT

2010-02-06T17:51:00.002-05:00

Nearly 100 years ago President Woodrow Wilson pegged the Senate filibuster for exactly what it was. Wilson asserted that the filibuster served only to enable "a little group of willful men, representing no opinion but their own," to debase the Senate and turn it into "the only legislative body in the world which cannot act when its majority is ready for action."

Who is to blame for the filibuster? The answer is: those who are the Senators. A glance in the mirror is all it takes to see the enemy of democracy, the obstructionists, those who would willingly disable the Constitution. The filibuster is a creature of the Senate; wholly its own creation; thriving only at the pleasure of those who sit in that chamber today. Nothing in the Constitution mentions the filibuster or for that matter any rule or regulation governing the proceedings of Congress. Those who are the Members make their own rules. The Constitution is clear on that. They may change them at any time. And the procedure allowed for that change is really quite simple.

If you are being told that decades of Senate tradition are difficult to overcome, you are being purposely misled.

Here is exactly what the Constitution says about proceedings in the Senate. Article I, Section 5: “Each House may determine the Rules of its Proceedings, punish its Members for disorderly Behaviour, and, with the Concurrence of two thirds, expel a Member.”

That’s it. Nothing more. Not a single word. Filibuster? Invented by Senators for Senators.

In March of 1975, the second appointed Vice-President of the United States, the never elected Nelson Rockefeller, made a courageous ruling from the Chair in his constitutionally mandated position as President of the Senate. Here is how the Constitution makes this designation in Article I, Section 3: “The Vice President of the United States shall be President of the Senate, but shall have no Vote, unless they be equally divided.”

Rockefeller ruled that each Senate – which is to say each meeting of this body following an election or every two years - is a separate body and is not bound by the rules of previous Senates. That means that each new Senate must either pass a complete set of procedural rules for itself or take affirmative action to subscribe to previous rules previously established. Further, Rockefeller ruled specifically that Senate Rule 22 – which is the filibuster rule – could be overruled, could be changed, could be altered or even eliminated altogether by a simple majority vote of those senators voting. He was the President of the Senate. Such was his perfectly constitutional ruling. Rockefeller’s dramatic declaration was indeed challenged, by senators from the right and from the left, by Republicans and by Democrats, by conservatives and liberals, by Southerners and those from other parts of the country as well. But when it came to a vote, the forces of reform – those who supported the Rockefeller ruling - won the day by a vote of 56-27.

However, the very same victorious senators then immediately turned around and agreed to negotiate with the defeated forces of the filibuster. Why? Why would the winner offer to settle? Losers settle. Winners celebrate, don't they? After all, they had already won the procedural battle. The President of the Senate was on their side. Game over. Who is to say why, but its true - they did. And so a modification to Rule 22 was passed reducing the number of votes necessary to stop a filibuster from two-thirds of all senators to three-fifths. In essence, after March 1975 it now took 60 senators to halt a filibuster instead of 67. And yet the Rockefeller ruling remained – and remains to this day – in place. A majority of senators may – at their pleasure – send the filibuster flying full force into the fires of Hell. The filibuster could be, as Chuck Berry might say: “Gone like a cool breeze.” All thanks to the legacy of Nelson Rockefeller.

That was 35 years ago. Now, in 2010, we see a federal government stymied by obstructionism in a Senate where using Rule 22 brings the entire Congressional system to a grinding halt. The Congress has been rendered impotent. Nothing the House passes matters because no bill can avoid Rule 22 when it reaches the Senate. And so, no legislation actually gets passed by the Congress as a whole and nothing at all gets sent to the President for signature. Also, the Executive branch cannot operate at full capacity because so many of its appointees require Senate approval and those appointments, like all other procedural matters, cannot reach the floor for a vote… because of Rule 22. Yes, that "little group of willful men."

It is time for the current Vice President of the United States, Joe Biden, to rise up from his decades of legislative slumber – himself a nearly lifelong Member of the Senate – and his more recent Executive depression and take the Chair in the United States Senate – which is his constitutional duty – and, in the spirit of Vice President Rockefeller, Biden must declare Rule 22 as void. Pitch it into the dust bin of history. The Vice President should stand for the Constitution. A procedural rule that eliminates the possibility of tie vote in the Senate must be unconstitutional in the first place. How could the Constitution entrust the breaking of a tie vote - “…unless they be equally divided.” - to the Vice President if no such vote total is allowed?
Mister Vice President, we have a crisis. Step up and be counted. Take the mantle of Rockefeller and the myth from Jimmy Stewart. Its time to be the man!

SUPER BOWL/CBS UPDATE: ADVOCACY AD REJECTED

2010-01-31T13:52:00.002-05:00

The Supreme Court has ruled that corporations - even non-profit corporations - can spend any amount of money they want to try to influence national attitudes on issues of public interest, most particularly in elections. The result of this sort of unleashing of third-party advocacy ads - advertisements that have nothing to do with selling any products or services to anyone - can be seen in the decision of CBS to sell a commercial in the Super Bowl telecast to a corporation called Focus On The Family. Their commercial message features a popular college football player, Tim Tibow, and is openly anti-abortion rights. To sway public thinking on abortion rights - that's the only purpose for this non-profit organization to pay $2.5 million or more for this commercial. Focus On The Family has nothing - let me repeat that - they have NOTHING to sell to the American people. No burgers, no fries, no beer, no stocks, bonds or mutual funds, no cars or computers. And Focus On The Family certainly isn't in the dating business.

The Court has ruled. The "right to spend" has been established. But the "right to buy" is still somewhere off in the distance floating, adrift in the unknown. CBS is not required by law or regulation to sell time to Focus On The Family - or to any advertiser... not Coke, Apple, E-Trade, MacDonald's... not anyone. It's entirely up to them. An advocacy ad is treated like any other at CBS - or so they say - and somehow, without comment, this anti-abortion ad seems quite acceptable for CBS on Super Bowl Sunday.

CBS didn't accept everyone who wanted to buy a commercial in the Super Bowl. They refused an ad from a gay male dating service. I've seen the ad. It's pretty funny. Three guys are watching what we are to assume is the Super Bowl. One team scores a touchdown and two of them react as any fans might - jumping up and down, arms raised in the air, shouting, smiling... you've seen it all before. But then, they reach for the chips and their hands touch. Kaboom! Magic strikes. The next thing you know they're locked in an embrace, kissing (although we do not see their faces or lips)... and the third guy in the room is in obvious shock. It is a funny commercial, well within the tradition of funny Super Bowl commercials. Finally we see the corporate logo and ID and we, the viewers, discover this is an advertisement for a gay male dating service.

CBS won't run this commercial. They turned it down. It doesn't meet their standards. We don't know what those standards are. CBS has not made them public. But, talking babies who sell stock... well, they're just fine. And a famous college football player who thinks abortion is against God's wishes (how do he know?)... as far as CBS is concerned that's also a good commercial to broadcast.

I have no dog in this silly race - the one pitting Focus On The Family against a gay male dating service. I'm not in the target market for whatever either of them has to offer. I only want to point out that an absence of a "right to buy" can make a "right to spend" meaningless.

Perhaps you don't care about this one. But what happens when CBS, or any of the networks or any of the thousands of radio and television stations across the United States, decides which corporate ads supporting certain candidates for public office they will run and which they will reject? Take a look at who owns the media and tell me if you don't know already that this will happen and if you can't figure out whose ads will get on the air and whose will never see the light of day.

BURGERS, BEER, BREASTS... AND ABORTION AT THE SUPER BOWL

2010-01-27T10:18:00.002-05:00

CBS has sold commercial time in the Super Bowl to fast food companies selling hamburgers, companies who sell beer, and a Christian advocacy group called Focus On The Family. What could they be selling? The content of the Focus On The Family ad is openly anti-abortion rights and features a famous college football player, Tim Tibow of the University of Florida, previously best known for wearing Bible citations prominently displayed on his glare protectors – those little black pasties some players wear on their cheeks under their eyes to keep the sunshine out. It is estimated that the cost for this 30-second commercial will be at least $2.5 million. Who is really paying for this? The buyer is saying that “a handful of generous friends” are making this ad possible. Focus On The Family is, naturally, a tax exempt, non-profit religious organization. So, in a very real sense you can say that you are helping to pay for this little piece of television propaganda. Since your taxes have to make up for the taxes Focus On The Family doesn’t pay, yes you are footing the bill for them and adding to the revenue at CBS.

As a former broadcaster, I do not feel that advocacy ads (that’s the phrase now in vogue for what is otherwise “propaganda”) have any place in commercial broadcasting. When I was the General Manager of a radio station I had a strict policy that all advertisers had to use their commercial time to sell whatever product or service they offered to the public. The only exception I made was at Christmas when advertisers were allowed to use their time to extend holiday wishes to the listening audience. Other than that – if you sold burgers, your commercials had to be about burgers; if you sold cars, they had to be about your cars… you could say anything you wanted about your business and nothing about anything else… you get the idea.

There were times when certain advertisers wanted to “hitch a ride” on timely issues of public interest. For example, years ago we had a series of terrible child murders and a large, chain operated fast-food company wanted to use its commercials to advertise their donations to a fund for the affected families. I rejected this idea. In the spirit of disclosure, I should add that my station was alone in my city in refusing to run these commercials. I didn’t reject this company making donations. I applauded their good intentions. I just wouldn’t let them use their “generosity” as part of their commercials to influence my station’s listeners. They were selling food – not charity. Some people disagreed with me. I thought I was right then, and I still do.

In 2004 CBS rejected an ad for that year’s Super Bowl from another advocacy group, MoveOn.org. The fact that they’ve sold time this year to Focus On The Family seems to show that CBS approves of anti-abortion ads – although the legal right to an abortion is the law of the land according to the Supreme Court – but they object to ads critical of the President (if the President is George W. Bush as he was in 2004) – although criticism of the President (no matter who he may be) is also perfectly legal and constitutionally protected, just like the right to an abortion.

CBS made a choice, twice. Good for them. That is what a responsible broadcaster should do. However, it is not CBS alone who is legally charged with making these decisions. Broadcasting on the public airwaves has been regulated by the federal government since 1934. There's nothing new here. Commercial regulation rightly belongs with the federal government. That is what a responsible FCC and Congress should do. It's the law.

The Supreme Court has declared that just about anyone can spend just about any amount of money they wish to express just about any opinion they happen to favor or to oppose any they don’t like. The Court has ruled that there is indeed a constitutional right “to spend.” Money talks. Freedom of speech. Someday, soon perhaps, you may see an advocacy ad supporting or attacking a candidate for public office, a bit of TV propaganda with a disclosure statement saying... "paid for by a few generous friends."Just like Focus On The Family. Maybe "a few generous friends" can swing an election. How will you feel about that?

There may be a right "to spend" but, as yet there is no constitutional right “to buy.” Just ask MoveOn.org. They had millions in cash ready to hand over to CBS for 30 little seconds. CBS said, “No. You’re not welcome.” Now, Focus On The Family wants the very same exact access to the very same program, to the largest television audience in America, on the Super Bowl, and CBS said, “Yes. Show me the money!”

It’s time for the FCC, or if necessary for Congress itself, to prohibit all third-party, non-commercial, so-called advocacy ads. The airwaves still belong to the public, despite the fact that we “license” them and persist in calling those “licenses” ownership. The FCC regulates many things on-the-air. Remember Janet Jackson at the Super Bowl? There were fines - big fines - for that mishap. The FCC bans pornography. I think “advocacy ads” or social propaganda – are more pornographic than an all too brief look at Janet Jackson's beautiful breast.

"THE SKY IS FALLING!"

2010-01-21T19:23:00.002-05:00

Nobody ever said the Constitution was right about everything, Remember human slavery? It took 76 years to get an amendment to the Constitution ending that. It’s too easy to forget that from 1789 until 1865 owning another human being as a piece of property was perfectly legal and entirely constitutional.

Now, many people are up in arms that the Supreme Court has ended limits on political spending by corporations, unions and just about anyone else. Check the 1st Amendment. If it protects your speech, doesn’t it also protect the other guy’s speech?

And, if a political contribution isn’t speech – protected by the 1st Amendment – what is it? The Court has ruled that nude dancing in a nightclub is speech. Isn’t spending your money to influence public discourse just as much an expression as pole dancing? Actually, that question has been rendered just as irrelevant as is any remaining strip club controversy. The Supreme Court has just ruled that Congress cannot limit political expenditures. As a result some people are crying out like Chicken Little – “THE SKY IS FALLING.” Of course they mean its democracy that’s falling. Corporations will now overwhelm political advertising, won’t they - perhaps, to the exclusion of the candidates themselves? Is the democratic sky really falling?

Maybe. Maybe not.

Federal election laws require that broadcast media, which the Federal Communications Commission regulates, is required to sell time to candidates and when they do sell that advertising they must offer the same amount of time, at the same cost, to all candidates for the same office. What the law does not cover is third-party political advertising – the sort the Supreme Court just ruled could not be financially limited. They may not be financially constrained, but who says Radio & TV has to run these political commercials?

Some of papa’s readers know papa once owned radio stations. There were times when I refused to sell time to advertisers – for various reasons. And there were times when those who were refused access to papa’s radio stations threatened to sue. Naturally they claimed I was interfering with their “1st Amendment rights.” They were wrong. There are no “constitutional rights” to buy advertising.

There is nothing in any FCC ruling that requires a radio or television station to sell time to anyone… except candidates for public office.

So, forget about the Supreme Court ruling. There is nothing to be afraid of. Democracy is not in danger. All we need to do to keep “the sky from falling” is for broadcasters to refuse to sell political time to anyone except a registered candidate for public office.

Or how about a 28th Amendment covering limitations on political spending? Our Constitution is still subject to amendment, isn’t it? So, start one rolling!

Anyone want to bet any of that stands a chance of happening?

THE FILIBUSTER - UNCONSTITUTIONAL?

2010-01-20T18:22:00.002-05:00

What are we to make of this thing called the filibuster? Neither the idea of it nor the word itself can be found anywhere in the US Constitution. The filibuster is a creation of the Senate, and perhaps its curse as well. They have only themselves to blame for it and the trouble it presents to democratic majority rule. From the very 1st Congress through the 64th Congress, the Senate had no rules whatsoever regarding the length of debate. Unlike the House of Representatives, debate in the Senate was unregulated as to its duration. Any Senator “with the floor” could hold it for as long as they liked.

On March 8, 1917, during the 65th Congress, in which the Senate had 52 Democrats, 43 Republicans and 1 Independent, the Senate adopted Rule 22, otherwise known as the filibuster rule. It established a two-thirds vote as the number necessary to invoke cloture or to shut down a filibuster. The two-thirds requirement remained in effect until the 104th Congress in 1975 when Rule 22 was amended to reduce that vote to three-fifths. The 104th Congress had 52 Republican Senators and 48 Democrats. Nevertheless, two-thirds of them cooperated in reducing the number of votes needed to shut-off debate in the Senate chamber. It’s been that way ever since.

It is interesting to note that of the 111 sessions of Congress in the history of the United States of America only one – the 89th Congress – had a political party breakdown capable of stopping the minority from launching a filibuster. The assassination of JFK combined with the Republican Party’s nomination of Barry Goldwater resulted in the 89th Congress with 68 Democrats and 32 Republicans. It served from 1965-1967. Perhaps it’s only a coincidence that this Congress managed to pass the Civil Rights Bill of 1964, the Voting Rights Act of 1965 and they created Medicare as well. No other Congress, of all the 111 that have served the country can lay claim to such radical or revolutionary legislation.

The question naturally arises – Is the filibuster, and Senate Rule 22, constitutional? Yes, the Constitution does give the Senate the authority to set its own rules. But, can those rules violate the Constitution itself? What if the Senate passed a rule making only white Senators eligible to serve? Sure, only Senator Roland Burris of Illinois would be affected today, but still… would such a Senate rule be constitutional? Could they do that? Could, for example, a future Senate vote to exclude Senators of a certain religion, or sexual orientation? If the Senate can "determine the rules of its proceedings…” couldn’t it do that?

It’s doubtful that any legal expert would agree that such a Senate rule could survive a constitutional test in the Supreme Court.

So, what about the filibuster rule, Rule 22, and its obvious conflict with the powers of the Vice President as expressly written in the US Constitution?

The powers and duties of the Vice President are only mentioned in two places in the Constitution. In Article II, Section 1 the document details the succession of the Vice President to the Presidency when the President can no longer fulfill that position. However, it is what is written in Article I, Section 3 pertaining to the more mundane duties assigned to the Vice President of the United States that is of importance regarding the filibuster. The Constitution says: “The Vice President of the United States shall be the President of the Senate, but shall have no vote, unless they be equally divided.” That’s it – the Vice President breaks tie votes in the Senate. The Constitution actually says this in clear and unambiguous wording – “…no vote, unless they be equally divided.” Can there be any question about what that means?

The Constitution doesn’t just envision the possibility of a tie vote in the Senate. It recognizes the certainty of it and it further recognizes a one-vote majority as carrying the issue, one way or the other. A majority carries the issue at hand. No mention of any “super-majority.” Whatever the exact vote total may be, if “they be equally divided” the Vice President’s tie-breaking vote is the deciding one. How can the Senate pass a rule – such as Rule 22 – that eliminates the possibility of a tie vote? A Senate rule to the contrary, one making it impossible to have a tie vote seems to violate the constitutional duties and powers granted the Vice President. How else could the Vice President break a tie if no tie vote is possible?

Anything greater than a simple majority essentially robs the Vice President of his or her constitutionally designated power and authority. Thus, the whole idea of needing 67 or 60 or any number of votes greater than a numerical majority to get something passed – even to invoke cloture and call a vote to order – seems to be unconstitutional.

The US Constitution has real meaning. No court has ever said anything like… “Well that doesn’t really matter.” Even the most obscure provision still holds sway. When discussing the Congress and its separation from the Executive branch, America’s founding document states the following: “No Senator or Representative shall, during the Time for which he was elected, be appointed to any civil Office under the Authority of the United States, which shall have been created, or the Emoluments whereof shall have been encreased [sic] during such time; and no Person holding any Office under the United States, shall be a Member of either House during his Continuance in Office.”

A little on the obscure side, but the intent there is simple enough to determine. No sitting member of the House of Representatives and/or no currently serving member of the Senate may be appointed to a job in the Executive branch which was either created by or had its compensation increased by the very same Congress of which that member was part of. Who could not understand this detailed and specific prohibition? Should Congress create an executive position or increase the pay of an existing executive position, no member of that Congress may take that job. Additionally, if a current member of either house of Congress does take a job in the administration, they must give up their seat in Congress. No one can serve in both jobs at the same time.

The Constitution – on this point - is clear, unambiguous and not subject to any esoteric interpretation.

So it was when Hillary Clinton, then a sitting Senator from New York, agreed to become the Secretary of State in the new Obama administration, she had to both resign from the Senate and the position she was taking, namely that of Secretary of State, had to have its salary rolled back because Senator Clinton was a member of the same Senate that had previously increased the Secretary’s compensation. Check it out… it says, “…or the Emoluments whereof shall have been encreased(sic) during such time…” Sure, the increase was meant for Secretary Condoleezza Rice, but that doesn’t matter. The wording of the Constitution is explicit. No one thought to disregard this when Senator Clinton became Secretary of State Clinton. The pay for the position was indeed rolled back.

The wording of the Constitution is equally clear and equally unambiguous about how Congress goes about deciding to operate on a daily basis. Here is exactly what the Constitution says: “Each House may determine the rules of its proceedings…” It’s simple and straightforward. The Senate can make up any rules at all for its own operation. Are they limited to reasonable rules? How silly or strange might they possibly be? For example: the Senate could require all Senators to stand on one leg when they speak, or require them to speak from a prone position, or sitting down, or while doing a handstand, or with a finger stuck in their ear… or anything? Yes, they could do anything even as foolish as that. If the Senate can “…determine the rules of its proceedings…” then it can do anything, right?

Well, almost anything. No reasonable person would assert that the Senate might promulgate rules that violate the Constitution. Even the constitutional rights of Congress have limits. Hardly any portion of the Constitution is without some limitation.

The First Amendment guarantees freedom of speech, but everyone agrees – especially the Supreme Court – that this freedom does not extend to crying “Fire!” in a crowded theater, or for that matter, engaging in libel or slander. But, if you want to call the President of the United States a Marxist, a Leninist, a socialist, an illegal alien born in Kenya, or even a fucking idiot – go right ahead – that is Constitutionally protected speech.

The question remains, however, is Senate Rule 22 constitutional?

The Majority Leader of the Senate – right now that would be Harry Reid of Nevada – has the authority to declare, from his desk as Presiding Officer, that Rule 22 is unconstitutional and therefore no longer in effect. If a simple majority of Senators voting agreed with such a ruling from the Chair, the filibuster would become a thing of the past.

"BIG WATER" FLOODS "SMALL TOWN"

2010-01-16T12:20:00.002-05:00

“Big Water” floods “small town” every time.

The closer the Republican Party gets to Sarah Palin, the closer the Republican Party gets to electoral oblivion. That’s not an opinion. That’s a fact.

So long as the Democrats run a “Big Water” strategy, they will win every Presidential election for the foreseeable future. That also is not an opinion. That’s a fact.

The combination of a Democratic “Big Water” strategy coupled with the meteoric, pop-culture, Twitter-Facebook rise to prominence of Sarah Palin will be a virtual guarantee of more Democratic Presidents and the eventual demise, perhaps disappearance of the Republican Party. When the Grand Old Party is no more, the historical blame will be properly laid right at the feet of the one-time, half-term Governor of Alaska, Sarah Palin.

Palin first…

Whether or not you like her, agree wither policy positions (or even believe she has policy positions), respect her as a political figure of national stature, consider her qualified or not to hold national elective office – none of that matters. Just look at what she actually has to say, what she’s actually proud of, in fact what she’s determined to establish as her political signature. There’s no disagreement about this. Sarah Palin runs against the coastal elites, the big city liberals and the entire value system of the modern major metropolitan area. She is small town, old-time, “I Want My County Back!” America running hard against the ungodly, evil “domestic terrorists” in the big city. She stands for “real Americans” – meaning small town, small state, rural folks - against whatever the rest of us are, wherever the rest of us live. That is how she ran her campaign for Vice President and that’s how she’s campaigned on behalf of her book. That will be how she runs for President. You betcha!

All of Sarah Palin’s appearances have been in small towns and small cities. She has never campaigned in or tried to sell her books in, say… New York City, Los Angeles, Boston, Philadelphia, Chicago, Detroit… or even in places like Atlanta, Birmingham, Houston, Dallas or St. Louis – all big cities in states carried by McCain/Palin but also big cities she and John McCain lost to the Democrats even while carrying those states.

Sarah Palin appears to relish the conflict between small and big America. And as long as the Republican Party buys into this view, they are certain to be defeated. Like the stars in the night sky in “Dances With Wolves” there are just too many Big City Americans for Sarah Palin to ever win a national election. You can even “pal around with domestic terrorists” and still beat her hands down.

Why does a “Big Water” strategy guarantee a Democratic victory? Look at the numbers. The coastal elite lives in 3 states on the West Coast with 73 electoral votes. Obama carried all 3 and received all 73 “Big Water” Pacific Electoral College votes. The coastal elite on the East Coast lives in 14 states, which border on the Atlantic Ocean. These 14 states have 136 electoral votes. The Democrats under Obama carried 12 of the 14 “Big Water” Atlantic states receiving 113 of these Electoral College votes leaving the Republicans with only Georgia and South Carolina, with only 23 Electoral College votes.

The same big city elites clustered along America’s ocean coasts are also found in the 8 “Big Water” states with shorelines along the Great Lakes. Obama carried every one of the 8 states for a total of 141 more Electoral College votes. All told the “Big Water” states have 350 Electoral College votes. If a major American political party is going to base its appeal on running against these American people and the American lifestyle of these states, how could they ever hope to win a national election?

In the 2008 Presidential election the Democrats won 327 of the Electoral College votes in the “Big Water” states. Worse yet for the Republicans, in only 3 of these 23 states was the result even close – Indiana, Virginia and North Carolina. These states have 39 electoral votes. If the Republicans somehow won them all, Obama still would have been elected with 288 electoral votes. And this doesn’t begin to count the 4 additional states won by the Democrats that have no “Big Water” connections at all – Nevada, New Mexico, Iowa and 1 electoral vote in Nebraska.

If Sarah Palin wants to do battle – Small Town v. Big City - look at it this way… McCain/Palin managed to win only 1 city in the Top 27 metro areas. That city was Phoenix, Arizona. Look it up. From #1 New York, NY through #27 Orlando, FL, every major metropolitan area voted Democratic except Phoenix. How can you hope to win a national election like that?

Of the Top 100 metro areas in the United States the 2008 Republican Party, with Sarah Palin as the star of their ticket, could only win in 19 of them. And while these 19 are in the Top 100, keep in mind among them are places like Greenville SC, Knoxville TN, Provo UT, Ogden UT, McAllen TX… not exactly the kind of major population centers you need to win a national election contest. And that’s why McCain/Palin lost.

In the electoral fight pitting Big City “elites” against Small Town “real Americans” starting with Metro Area #1 New York NY and going all the way to #150 Naples FL, the Republicans with John McCain and Sarah Palin managed to get more votes in only 30 of these places. If you lose in 120 of the Top 150, are you really a serious contender?

If the Republican Party follows Sarah Palin in 2012 and 2016 that political party may well continue to carry population centers like Naples FL, Boise ID, Wichita KS, Springfield MO and Anchorage AK – but the Electoral College prizes that are in “Big Water” America will hardly know there is a Republican Party. If the Republicans persist in making Sarah Palin the cover girl of their national appeal, whomever the Democrats run will simply waltz into the White House leaving the ghost of the GOP a lonely “first runner-up” in their wake.

THE AMERICAN WAY

2010-01-04T09:03:00.004-05:00

The Next Big Thing in the War On Terror and airport security is the full-body scanner. You’ve heard about it. This is the machine that will expose everyone – you, me, everybody who passes through it – as if we were naked. You may think that’s a good idea. A highly trained security expert would be able to spot hidden explosives and other such terrorist dangers. Who will examine and interpret our full-body scans? Who will look at our exposed bodies with an eye to making the American People safer? You know who. Our nakedness will be seen by and interpreted by at least one and perhaps a whole group of minimum wage TSA employees. Real security experts, right? If you have been in an airport lately you know exactly who I’m talking about. Do you think those new full-body scans will make you feel more comfortable flying? More secure? Safer? Sure they will.

Did you know that President Obama’s Dept. of Homeland Security has already purchased more than $50 million worth of these new airport machines, and that they have ordered another $25 million more, which are yet to come? You didn't hear about Congress approving this? That's because they never did. They took the money right out of the Stimulus Package. Exactly what you thought that program was meant for wasn't it?

Guess who the most vocal supporter of this new technology is. How about Michael Chertoff, the former head of The Dept. of Homeland Security under George W. Bush. That fact, I’m sure, makes you feel better, doesn’t it? Chertoff is a security expert. He knows what works and what doesn’t. Right? He has your safety and your interest as his personal goal, doesn’t he? Why else would he be on every television show he can find talking up the need for these full-body scanners at every airport in America and all around the world? Chertoff wouldn't have a personal, private agenda, a special interest here - would he?

Well, maybe. It’s called The American Way.

Michael Chertoff served his country – and now his country is damn well going to serve him. Isn’t that The American Way? Sure it is. Chertoff is now part of the "private sector." Ever hear of The Chertoff Group? Here is what they have to say about themselves. These are their words. This is how Michael Chertoff is selling his services today.

Read carefully.
_____________________________________________________________
"For deals in the security industry, Chertoff Group offers unparalleled subject matter expertise and contacts to give you the competitive advantage."

"We have overseen billions of dollars of technology development and acquisition for the Department of Defense, the Department of Homeland Security, the Department of Justice, the National Security Agency, and the CIA. We have keen insight into which new technologies are likely to transform the landscape, and our experience allows us to predict which ones may be headed for obsolescence."

"We have proven success, not only in the domestic U.S. market; members of our team have years of experience in completing international transactions, as well."

"The security and risk management market is large, growing and resilient, even in this economic downturn. Despite its potential value of over $200 billion per year, the market is highly fragmented. Together, these realities provide many opportunities to leverage economies of scale and enhance returns through operational improvements."

"The Chertoff Group partners with compatible private equity firms across the investment spectrum, by providing our sector knowledge to help monitor and manage target companies during periods of transition. Regardless of our role, we are committed experts at aligning interests and maximizing value for our clients."
_______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Impressive, isn't it? So, exactly who are The Chertoff Group?

Michael Chertoff is a Co-Founder and Managing Principal of The Chertoff Group. No surprise there. As they say, it’s his name on the door. Who are some of his partners and colleagues? Take a look.

Charles E. Allen: Formerly at The Dept. of Homeland Security along with Chertoff and before that, 40 years at CIA - the Central Intelligence Agency.

Larry Castro: 44 years at the NSA - the National Security Agency.

Jay M. Cohen: Former Chief of Naval Research at the Dept. of the Navy under George W. Bush.

Michael Hayden: General US Army. Former Director of NSA and former Director of the CIA under George W. Bush.

Nathaniel T. G. Fogg: Top executive at FEMA under George W. Bush.

Paul Schneider: Senior Acquisitions Executive at the National Security Agency under George W. Bush.

Chad Sweet: Former Chief of Staff at The Dept. of Homeland Security under George W. Bush. Previously, a top executive at both Morgan Stanley and Goldman-Sachs.

Imagine having your "interests aligned" and your "values maximized" by such a group.

Now, take a wild guess. Who do you think represents the company that manufactures and sells the full-body scanner? Did you say, The Chertoff Group?

It’s called The American Way.

HEALTHCARE REFORM AND THE DEMOCRATS

2009-12-16T16:42:00.000-05:00

Will Rogers was right.

AFGHANISTAN Q&A

2009-12-04T10:50:00.002-05:00

-How many US plus NATO and other nation’s troops are in Afghanistan right now?
ANSWER: 65,000 US + 38,000 NATO and other nations

-How many more US troops has President Obama committed to send there?
ANSWER: 30,000

-How many more NATO and other nations troops have been committed to Afghanistan?
ANSWER: 7,500

-What will be the total troop strength of US/NATO and other nations in Afghanistan?
ANSWER: 140,500

-How many fighters does the Taliban have in Afghanistan?
ANSWER: 25,000 (US Govt. report 10/2009)

-Say again?
ANSWER: 25,000

-What are the main weapons of the 25,000 Taliban?
ANSWER: small arms (rifles) and IEDs

-What exactly are IEDs?
ANSWER: homemade bombs

-What are the main weapons of the US and NATO forces?
ANSWER: a full range of all the most modern and most expensive weapons of war including advanced technology, artillery and the latest in fighter aircraft, both fixed-wing and helicopters, plus unmanned drones capable of dropping bombs computer/satellite guided in real-time from US bases 8,000 miles from the target.

-How much does all this cost the US?
ANSWER: billions of dollars a year

-How much does it cost the Taliban to keep its fighters in the field?
ANSWER: nobody knows

-How long have we (the US & NATO) been training the Afghans to defend themselves?
ANSWER: 8 years

-How much money has the US spent training the Afghans to “stand up”?
ANSWER: tens of billions

-Are the Afghans ready yet to “stand up” and defend themselves?
ANSWER: no

-When will the Afghans be ready?
ANSWER: nobody knows

-How much money does the Taliban spend training its forces?
ANSWER: there is no record or evidence of any Taliban training

- If the US has been funding and training the Afghans, which nations have been funding and training the Taliban fighters and where do they do this?
ANSWER: there is no record or evidence of any Taliban training or any funding

-Without a nation/sponsor or known funding, how then are the Taliban able to conduct a war for 8 years against the US and NATO?
ANSWER: nobody knows

-How much does it cost the Taliban to fight every year?
ANSWER: nobody knows

-Where does the Taliban get its money? (It has to have some money, doesn't it?)
ANSWER: supposedly from the Afghan drug trade - heroin

-But… isn’t the biggest “drug lord” in Afghanistan the President’s own brother?
ANSWER: yes

-Is President Karzai’s brother or perhaps President Karzai himself helping the Taliban?
ANSWER: good question

-What about the "real enemy" al Queda – how many of them are in Afghanistan?
ANSWER: according to the US Government there are maybe 100 of them there

-Wait a minute! Did I miss some zeros in the last answer? 100? Really?
ANSWER: no missing zeros – only about 100 al Queda still in Afghanistan

-Why can’t 140,500 of the world's best-equipped military troops defeat 100 al Queda and 25,000 Taliban insurgents armed with rifles and homemade bombs who use donkeys, not helicopters, for transportation?
ANSWER: you tell me… nobody seems to know

-Why are we still in Afghanistan – and increasing our multi-billion dollar military presence there?
ANSWER: according to President Obama, we are there to stabilize Pakistan

-What? Are you sure that’s what he said?
ANSWER: yes, that’s what he said

-When will the last US soldier die in Afghanistan and all US troops come home?
ANSWER: nobody knows

GEORGE ORWELL AND THE BCS

2009-11-30T12:56:00.002-05:00

In his 1945 novel “Animal Farm” George Orwell wrote: “All animals are created equal, but some animals are more equal than others…”

Today this is the guiding principle behind the National Championship of College Football’s Division I FBS. Div I FBS consists of the schools in 11 conferences plus 3 independents making a total of 131 colleges and universities that have Division I FBS football programs. None of the 11 conferences is designated as being better or deserving of higher ranking than any other and no individual school is predetermined to be a lesser member of Div I FBS than any other member institution. Nevertheless, some college football teams are apparently created more equal than others.

No other organized sport has such a consideration when it comes to naming its championship team. In the last Baseball World Series the Yankees were not diminished by their regular season victories over the American League’s weaker teams like Baltimore, Kansas City or Cleveland and neither were the Phillies downgraded after beating up on the National League’s lowly Washington Nationals or the Pittsburgh Pirates. Any win over a Major League opponent is equal to any other win. Likewise in the National Football League, the NBA and even in the NHL, no team is ranked as better or worse based upon which other teams they scored victories over during their regular season schedules.

But somehow this sense of fair play – not to mention reason - just doesn’t apply to college football. This season, of the 131 Division I FBS teams only 6 have played their season undefeated. All 6 have won every game they played. None of the remaining 125 teams have only 1 loss. The best record outside the undefeated teams is 2 losses. Thus, it would appear reasonable to say that only these 6 all-winning teams should have a shot at being crowned National Champion. Yet, since there is no playoff system, only 2 of the 6 can be matched in the so-called and self-proclaimed National Championship Game. What then of the other 4? What is the best way to pick the 2 teams to vie for the title and eliminate from consideration 4 others?

The 6 undefeated teams are: Florida, Alabama, Texas, TCU, Cincinnati and Boise State. This is the order in which these teams are now ranked by the BCS, which is the official ranking body that picks the 2 teams to play in the National Championship Game. Since the BCS ranks the Top 25 teams each week, how do the schedules of the 6 undefeated teams look against other ranked opponents?

Of the top 6, only 2 have played more than 1 opponent that also ranked in the Top 25. Texas (ranked #3) played and of course defeated 4 ranked teams – Texas Tech, Oklahoma State, Nebraska, Oklahoma – while TCU (ranked #4) played and beat 2 ranked opponents – Clemson and BYU.

The #1 and #2 teams, Florida and Alabama only played 1 ranked team each. Both of them played and beat the same team, LSU. Still, Florida is ranked #1 and Alabama is #2. The #5 ranked team, Cincinnati, has only a single ranked team on its schedule, West Virginia.

The most alarming schedule analysis has to be that of #6 Boise State. While Boise State only met 1 other team ranked in the Top 25, how important should it be that the 1 team was the #7 ranked team, Oregon? After the 6 undefeated teams, the official college football rankings list Oregon as the next best team in the whole country. And Boise State beat them. If Boise State beat Oregon, and none of the other 5 undefeated teams has beaten any team so highly ranked, why is Boise State #6 behind all 5 of the others? That doesn’t seem to make a lot of sense, does it?

Some analysts say that many teams prop up their record by playing weak teams outside their conference – and that’s been true. This year, Boise State played Bowling Green and it is fair to hold that up when evaluating them. Cincinnati also played a game against a very weak non-conference team, Southeast Missouri State. TCU, however, did not pad its schedule with any of the weaker non-conference teams, not one of them. Texas (remember they also played 4 ranked teams) only had one game against a traditional weak team, Central Florida.

But, look at the schedules for the #1 and #2 Florida and Alabama teams. Not only did they each play their only ranked opponent against the same LSU team, but also each of them added multiple weak teams to their non-conference schedules. Alabama, the #2 team in the nation, played and beat teams from Florida International and Tennessee-Chattanooga. The #1 ranked team, Florida, did even worse than that. Like Alabama, they also scheduled Florida International, plus they added outrageous patsies like Charleston-Southern and some school no one's ever heard of called Troy.

So, Florida the #1 ranked team played 25% of its games against the worst teams in college football. That would be like the Yankees, who won 103 games and lost only 59, playing 40 of their regular season games against Washington, which won only 59 and lost 103. Of course, the Yankees did not play any games at all against Washington, but had that actually happened, it’s unlikely anyone would have seriously considered the Yankees as the #1 team in baseball.

In the real world, #1 Florida Gaitors and #2 Alabama Crimson Tide meet next week in their own conference championship game and the winner of that game will play against Texas in the BCS National Championship Game. Based on who and how these teams have played this season, it doesn’t matter who wins. Texas should easily beat either one, Florida or Alabama. But that will still leave probably the best team in the nation, the real #1 college football team, Boise State, out in the cold.

All Div I FBS teams are created equal, but some teams are more equal than others…

GO YANKEES! "HOW MUCH DID YOU SAY THAT IS?"

2009-11-06T15:34:00.002-05:00

Wait a second. Isn’t the astronomical increase in costs, seemingly unstoppable over time, one of the biggest problems we face in healthcare? Aren’t doctors and other service providers clamoring for higher reimbursement agreements, complaining about low payments from Medicare and insurance companies? Don’t we keep hearing the drug companies and medical equipment manufacturers warning us that a national healthcare program – apparently any kind of national healthcare at all – will drive them either into market-share disaster or outright bankruptcy?

Has anyone seen a hospital bill lately? Have you visited an Emergency Room? Have you been admitted, sent to a regular room on a regular hospital floor? Have you spent a couple of days as an in-patient? If you have you know how quick and easy it is to run up a hospital bill of $10,000 or $20,000. And if you’ve been really sick, you certainly are familiar with how fast those charges add up to a hospital bill of $100,000 plus, even $500,000 or more. Not sure I'm right? Go ahead, get cancer – have a heart attack or heart surgery. You’ll see.

Meanwhile these same hospitals call themselves non-profit organizations and constantly talk about the difficulties they face in terms of their costs – not yours – but theirs.

So, explain this - In today’s national edition of The New York Times, the full-page that follows the end of Section B – the part of the paper with the Sports section – is completely taken up with an advertisement saluting the World Series Champion New York Yankees – and that full-page ad is sponsored and paid for by “New York-Presbyterian OFFICIAL HOSPITAL OF THE YANKEES.” Imagine that, the Yankees have an “official hospital.” That’s not some kind of socialism, is it? I sure hope not.

No one can be absolutely sure what the cost of ad space is in The New York Times. The newspaper has fallen on hard times. Who knows what they’ll take for an ad these days? Things are so bad they’re even talking about bankruptcy. They must be starving, right? Ad revenue reported for The Times’ latest quarter is down from last year. This year it was only $570 million. Don’t you wonder how they managed to make it on about three-quarters of a million dollars – a day?

Most industry reports indicate that the full-page ad they bought probably cost about $189,000. Of course, New York-Presbyterian made a point – an expensive one too since it costs extra – of buying the “national edition” rather than just the local New York City edition of the paper.

What were they thinking? More out-of-town patients? Perhaps they’re counting on me telling the next ambulance that picks me up in an emergency to… “take me to New York-Presbyterian, and step on it, buddy!”

Last year, New York-Presbyterian Hospital, a non-profit, tax exempt 501 C-3 entity with multiple websites showing how many ways you and I can give them our tax deductible “gifts” – in 2008, this hospital pulled in $2,833,500,000 in patient revenue. Count the zeros. That’s more than $77 million dollars a day, 365 days a year. Puts The New York Times to shame. Cha-ching! Cha-ching!

Hey, what’s a measly hundred and eighty-nine grand to congratulate “Our Yankees”?

And one more question – What do you suppose it means to be the OFFICIAL HOSPITAL OF THE YANKEES?

I don’t know about you, but I sure feel better knowing we don’t have any sort of universal, socialized national healthcare. And I’m sure all the tax-exempt 501 C-3 doctors at New York-Presbyterian are doing a wonderful job treating all patients who are in need of medical services, right? Well, I don’t want to be one to tell you, but consider this – a report today in the publication American Thinker says that of the 93 doctors affiliated with New York-Presbyterian in the specialty of Internal Medicine, only 37 of them accept Medicare. Maybe the other 56 internists have to find a way to pay for their season tickets.

Go Yankees!

"THE ONLY THING WE HAVE TO FEAR..."

2009-10-23T11:26:00.002-04:00

Copied below is an amazingly arrogant assessment of Iran's current nuclear situation. It comes from official Israeli governmental sources, Defense Minister, Ehud Barak. Basically, Israel would deny Iran any nuclear rights whatsoever. This, from a country which is not a signatory to the Non-Proliferation Treaty; a country that does not allow international nuclear inspectors, or abide by IAEA policies.

Is there a serious person anywhere in the world who does not acknowledge that Israel not only has nuclear weapons but also a nuclear weapons arsenal? Western intelligence sources - backed by Israelis themselves who have worked on their country's nuclear facilities - estimate the size of Israel's nuclear arsenal at between a low of 150 weapons and a high of 500. Compare this with the estimate most experts have for North Korea - 4 to 6 weapons, or Pakistan - about 20, or India - approximately 50. Yes, none of these nations, even Israel, matches the tens of thousands of nuclear weapons possessed by the United States or Russia, or the sizable amounts - though way fewer than tens of thousands - thought to be held by England, France and China.

Nevertheless, Israel is an unquestioned nuclear world power - and Iran has no nuclear weapons at all. None. Not a single one. In fact, no one has yet produced anything more than a “fear” that Iran even has a nuclear weapons program. No proof at all. And still, Israel (fundamentally a nuclear outlaw nation) demands that Iran halt all enrichment of uranium. Why? Because they “fear” an Iranian nuclear weapons program - a fear they and others express without a shred of evidence that such a program exists. Does Iran enrich uranium? Yes. And they do so - just like some dozen and a-half other countries do around the world - for the purpose of supplying fuel for atomic reactors - reactors designed not to blow anything up but to provide electric power.

There is nothing new or unique about this. The world already has some 531 such reactors in use or under active construction and they are spread across the globe, located in 31 different countries. We, here in the US, have 104 nuclear power reactors and not a single one of them is connected to our nuclear weapons program. France has 59. Japan has 53 -and no one’s accused the Japanese of having nuclear weapons. In fact, there has never been any claim that any of the world's 500+ electricity generating nuclear reactors is a threat to the nuclear weapons peace. All they make is - electricity!

If nuclear power plants presented a weapons threat, the world’s major powers would not be the United States, Russia and China. Instead they would be ABB Construction Engineering, General Electric and Westinghouse.

Why is nuclear electric power not a threat to world peace? It's simple. Uranium enriched for use in making electric power cannot be used to manufacture nuclear weapons. It just can't. Much as your Honda or Subaru doesn’t scare the folks at NASCAR, so too nobody is going to make bombs from uranium enriched in Brazil, Australia or any of the 31 nations with nuclear power reactors.

It is exactly like nuclear medicine. We've all seen the signs in hospital corridors – “Nuclear Medicine.” Are you afraid? Of course not. Nothing used in nuclear medicine has any applicable usage in nuclear weapons. So, go ahead - do all the heart scans you wish. Nobody's in danger of being blown-up.

My opinion is that no reasonable and rational person would, ipso facto, deny nuclear electric power to anyone. Why would they? Would they deny food or water? Clean sanitation? Roads, dams, tunnels, airports? Of course not. Isn't everyone - no matter where they live - entitled to the use of modern technology for a better life? Can we enjoy all this and refuse to let others do the same?

And yet now officially, Israel would deny Iran any nuclear capacity of any sort whatsoever. Yes, a country that stockpiles nuclear weapons, with contempt for all world nuclear accords, is demanding that another country be denied modern electric power. Draw your own conclusions.
______________________________________________________
THE NEW YORK TIMES
October 23, 2009

Israel Signals Concern on Iran Talks
By ISABEL KERSHNER
JERUSALEM — The Israeli defense minister, Ehud Barak, said on Thursday that Iran must cease all uranium enrichment, a statement that reflected Israeli concern over a draft agreement taking shape in Vienna, where earlier this week Iran took part in nuclear talks with the United States, Russia and France.
Under the agreement, about three-quarters of Iran’s known stockpile of nuclear fuel would be shipped to Russia for enrichment to levels suitable for a peaceful nuclear reactor but too low for weapons. Such a deal would delay Iran’s ability to build a nuclear weapon for about a year, buying more time for President Obama to search for a diplomatic solution to the nuclear standoff.
In the first response by a senior Israeli leader, Mr. Barak said what was necessary was “the cessation of enrichment by Iran, and not just the removal of the enriched material.” Speaking at a conference hosted by Israel’s president, Shimon Peres, in Jerusalem, Mr. Barak urged “all the players” that “under no circumstances should any option be removed from the table,” meaning that the threats of tougher sanctions and military action should remain.
The emerging deal with Iran, while not yet approved, is generally being treated here with caution and suspicion
One former Israeli official with intimate knowledge of the nuclear issue said that it was better to have the fuel shipped out than left in Iran, but that there may be more nuclear fuel reserves in covert facilities in Iran.
Iran is openly and vehemently hostile to Israel, but insists that its nuclear program is intended for civilian purposes only. Israel is believed to have a large nuclear arsenal but maintains a policy of nuclear ambiguity, neither confirming nor denying its status as a nuclear power.
Earlier Thursday, Israeli officials confirmed that Israeli and Iranian envoys participated in discussions at a recent multilateral forum on nuclear issues in Cairo, but they said the two representatives held no private meetings and played down the significance of the event.
A spokesman for Iran’s Atomic Energy Organization also denied that any separate meetings took place between the Iranian and Israeli delegations on the sidelines of the gathering, according to the Web site of Iran’s state broadcasting authority.
The regional meeting took place over two days in the Egyptian capital from Sept. 28 under the auspices of the International Commission on Nuclear Non-proliferation and Disarmament, a forum of experts established at the initiative of the Australian and Japanese governments. Israel was represented by Meirav Zafary-Odiz, director of policy and arms control for the Israel Atomic Energy Commission, and Iran by Ali Asghar Soltanieh, ambassador to the International Atomic Energy Agency.
“There was a conference,” said Yael Doron, a spokeswoman for the Israel Atomic Energy Commission. “She was there and he was there, but there was no direct contact or dialog between them.”
Several other Middle Eastern countries took part in the discussions, including Saudi Arabia, which, like Iran, has no diplomatic relations with Israel.
The gathering was held behind closed doors, but details emerged last week in the Australian newspaper The Age.
The paper reported breathlessly that Australia had “helped accomplish the seemingly impossible — bringing Israel and Iran into the same room for high-level talks on nuclear weapons.”
The Web site of the Israeli newspaper Haaretz on Thursday published more details of the meeting.
But Israeli officials said it was not unusual for Israeli and Iranian officials to be in the same room and present their positions at international bodies and forums. The Iranian delegate, Mr. Soltanieh, has attended at least one such informal gathering with Israelis in the past.
The timing of the Cairo meeting may have added import, however, with the growing concern both in Israel and internationally over Iran’s nuclear program and a sense in Israel that time to stop Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons may be running out.
In a separate development, Israel’s Supreme Court ruled for the first time Thursday in a case regarding a West Bank road where Palestinian traffic is prohibited by military order. Saying the measure caused disproportionate harm to the local Palestinian population, the court instructed the state to come up with alternative arrangements for the road — a thoroughfare south of Hebron — in the next three months.
The state argued that Palestinians were barred from using the road for the past eight years for security reasons, to protect the 150 or so Israeli residents of a Jewish settlement and an unauthorized outpost in the area. An Israeli human rights organization, the Association for Civil Rights in Israel, petitioned the court in 2006 on behalf of 22 Palestinian villages with a combined population of some 45,000.
Several cases involving other so-called segregated roads in the West Bank are pending in the Israeli court.
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IS THIS A JOKE?

2009-10-14T23:07:00.002-04:00

Is this a joke?

Where is Barack Obama? Where is the mandate he won at the polls last November? Where is the Presidential leadership on healthcare reform? Why has Barack Obama abandoned his campaign pledges and promises on single payer, universal healthcare reform?

Four questions – all with the same perplexing answer: “I don’t know.”

Barack Obama got almost 70 million votes from the American people. He received more votes for President of the United States than any candidate who has ever run for that office. His personal mandate is both unquestioned and politically secure. This is especially true following a President who actually lost the popular vote in his first election and won a second term with questionable results. On top of Obama’s personal victory in 2008, his political party won huge majorities in both the House and Senate. In a partisan political system, the partisan debate has been settled. The Democrats won. The Republicans lost. Didn’t they?

Barack Obama and the Democratic Party have an obligation to those who voted them into office. They have a duty to lead not to conciliate.

If Obama and the Democratic Party are nowhere to be found on healthcare reform, who then is driving this policy question, forming this legislation, forging the future direction for the entire country on this literally life and death public issue?

That answer is sadly obvious: Senator Max Baucus and Senator Olympia Snowe. A senator from Montana. And another one from Maine. What about the rest of the United States of America? What about the will of the people as expressed in the democratic act of electing a President and a Congress?

The President represents all the states and all the people. The senators from Montana and Maine represent a tiny constituency. Baucus and Snowe each received fewer votes than Fernando Ferrer. Who’s he, you ask? Ferrer ran for Mayor of New York City – and LOST! But he got 503,219 votes. The winner in New York’s Mayoral election received more votes than Senators Baucus and Snowe combined. Why not let Bloomberg and Ferrer decide what sort of national healthcare we should have. All in favor raise your hands.

Again, I ask – Is this a joke?

Take a look at Obama’s mandate and compare it with the electoral voice Senators Baucus and Snowe speak with:

President Barack Obama 69,456,897
Senator Max Baucus 348,289
Senator Olympia Snowe 402,598

If this is a joke, the joke’s on us.

PROPAGANDA

2009-10-13T15:59:00.001-04:00

Propaganda was invented by the Catholic Church. Yes, it was. It was a long time ago - 387 years to be exact - in1622, when then Pope Gregory XV decided the Church needed a special section, a unit or body to institutionalize the dissemination of the “message,” to handle training of foreign missions. Five years later, Pope Urban VIII created the Collegium de Propaganda. A lot has happened in the last 400 or so years, but propaganda hasn’t changed much. Those in power use public information – that which we now generally refer to as “the media” – to further their agenda via the spreading of false or misleading information. The power of propaganda is unchallenged. It can be employed to murder millions or to shape the thinking of hundreds of millions – all with little or no regard for the facts.

In the last couple of centuries we have seen how the American Indians, European Jews and Gypsies, and various ethnic groups in the old Soviet Union have suffered the effects of propaganda campaigns. Many others have suffered too, albeit away from the attention of most Americans. Today it appears that propaganda is being employed on a widespread basis against Muslims in particular and others who have been cast as enemies – temporary or long-term – of entrenched western powers – the Axis of Evil threatening western civilization.

For example: Although there are nearly 1.5 billion Muslims in the world, the actions of only 19 of them on a single day, September 11, 2001, have thrown the western world into two wars and a fit that has already lasted more than 8 years. The West has entered into a never ending “War on Terror.” We are afraid of shadows, if those shadows have the glint of Islam about them. By comparison, no one seems at all concerned about young, blonde, white men – despite Oklahoma City, April 19, 1995. Most recent news reports are all about a supposed nuclear weapons program feverishly underway in Iran… dangerously, even precariously close to fruition. Condoleezza Rice’s vision of “a mushroom cloud” virtually haunts the airways.

Another example: In today’s newspapers, and on TV around the western world, we are being dealt the propaganda about North Korea testing missiles. Oh, my God! You can see the images on television – not of the missile tests in question (because no one has TV footage of those!) but stock video of awful and dangerous missiles being fired from… somewhere and of course designed to hit… something.

Propaganda.

Remember, propaganda is false and/or misleading information. Consider the nuclear “situation” in Iran. No one has produced or presented any evidence or proof that Iran really has a nuclear weapons program or that any structural facilities Iran may have or may be building are intended for that purpose. What we have instead are claims, accusations and fearful conclusions – i.e., propaganda.

There is a story in today’s New York Times about the current budget crisis in the Iranian Parliament. Did you think we were the only country fallen on hard economic times? While we spend our tax dollars bailing out Wall Street and the banks, Iran is faced with spending 30% of its national budget on fuel subsidies so people can heat their homes this winter! That’s almost one-third of all their money just to keep themselves alive through the coming cold months. What’s left to spend on nukes? Don’t ask because that doesn’t fit the model for our newest campaign of propaganda.

And what to make of North Korea, you ask? No one denies they did fire a total of 5 test missiles the other day. We know they did because like other nations that also test missiles, the North Koreans issued an international advisory telling naval ships to avoid the area where the missiles were being fired. No secrets here. There are no laws against testing missiles. Many countries do it. And, you’re supposed to warn naval traffic – just like the North Koreans did. The question is: just how “dangerous” were these missiles? Why would we be so worried? Why would we even report it? You had to read through all the propaganda to find out. The range of the North Korean test missiles was… 75 miles. Yes, 75 miles. No, not 7,500 or even 750 miles. Only 75!

If the North Koreans mean to attack New York City with this equipment they better find a way to stack-up their rockets across the bay somewhere on the Connecticut shore or maybe launch them from someplace out in the Hamptons on Long Island. How likely is that?

Be afraid! Be very afraid! And while you’re at it – watch out for the propaganda.

THE CULT OF PERSONALITY... "AND THE WINNER IS-"

2009-10-10T18:04:00.002-04:00

Know who any of these guys are? Ever hear of any of them?

Charles Gobat – Ernesto Moneta – Alfred Fried – Fridtjof Nansen – Arthur Henderson – John Mott – Arthur Lutuli – David Trimble

Can’t say that you have? Well, they’re all men, aren’t they? How about a woman? Okay, let’s throw in Betty Williams? You know her, don’t you?

Still nothing?

They’re all Nobel Peace Prize winners. Every one of them. Sure, some of them won their Prize many years ago, but not David Trimble. He won the Prize in 1998. Almost yesterday, and he’s English too. Looks like us. Speaks our language. But you don’t know who he is or who they are. Some prize, huh? Really important. Marks a man’s life forever, right? Hey, it is the Nobel Peace Prize.

How much do you know about the 2008 Nobel Peace Prize winner, Martti Ahtisaari? Not much? Maybe nothing at all? Ahtisaari, who’s from Finland, was the key negotiator in the Namibian independence agreement from South Africa in 1990. In 1999, Ahtisaari was credited with convincing the Serbian leadership to call it quits in Kosovo. And six years later, in 2005, he successfully negotiated a settlement between Indonesia and the rebels in Aceh Province. He won the Nobel Prize – now you know why - and you’ve still never heard of him.

Perhaps you are familiar with these men - Henry Kissinger and Le Duc Tho. Who hasn’t heard of the likes of Russia’s Gorbachev, the Israelis Rabin and Peres, and of course Palestinian leader Yassir Arafat? A fine group of dictators, terrorists, insurrectionists, warmongers… even an international war criminal in this bunch. Surely none of them could be a Nobel Peace Prize winner. It is a "peace" prize. Right? Wrong. They all are. Everyone’s a winner. And only Le Duc Tho, from North Vietnam, had the good manners and common decency to decline the honor.

So, what’s the “Big Deal” about Barack Obama winning the Nobel Peace Prize this year? The Golden Globes are just around the corner. Can the Oscars be far behind? Don’t they have something called the Teen Spirit Award? Doesn't country music have some kind of winners? When is the Miss America Pageant?

THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN GOOD REPORTING AND HARDLY REPORTING AT ALL

2009-09-26T13:18:00.002-04:00

What’s the difference between good reporting and hardly reporting at all? Look at this comparison of two different reports from the same newspaper printed on the same day – The New York Times for Saturday, September 26, 2009:

In The Arts Section, there is a review of the new ABC-TV drama “FlashForward.” No, that’s not a typo. ABC wants it printed as a single word despite the double capitalization. This is a futuristic, science fiction thriller, a drama with many more questions than answers, a plot rife with ambiguity and subject to varying interpretations from reasonably intelligent people with reasonably different points of view. As a brand new TV show the main question about it is – Will viewers be shown the answers by the season’s end? Look carefully at how The Times’ reviewer writes about this.

“… the producers (of “FlashForward”) have said repeatedly that almost all of the questions posed in the first episode – “virtually” all of them, Mr. Goyer said – will be answered by the end of the first season. Virtually? It is an important caveat.”

Now, that’s good reporting. Why? Because the reporter recognizes a caveat, a qualification when he hears one. And furthermore, the reporter clearly understands his obligation to point out the implications of such a statement. There is doubt there – about the show’s outcome - and the reader knows it because The New York Times has done a good job of reporting.

So much for popular culture.

What about the really important stuff? What about the life-and-death matters of today’s perilous world situation? How does The New York Times report on such weighty affairs of state?

The #1 issue of the day – today’s front-page story - is the disclosure of Iran’s newest uranium enrichment plant. “Deception” cries The Times’ 5-column wide headline, together with a photo of the US President backed by the serious faces of the French President and the British Prime Minister. The New York Times story begins its second paragraph this way:

“In a day of high drama…”

No reader could possibly doubt the seriousness of the situation, which is to say the nuclear threat posed by Iran. After all – no nuclear threat… no “day of high drama” … no frowning faces from the traditional Great Western Powers.

Then… buried a little deeper in the article we find this tidbit:

“American intelligence officials say it will take at least a year, perhaps five, for Iran to develop the full ability to make a nuclear weapon.”

Unlike the reviewer of ABC’s “FlashForward” The Times’ front-page reporter fails to see the caveat, the qualification or the possibility for doubt. Anytime someone uses the phrase “at least” don’t they lose the high ground when measurement is in question? What does “at least” mean? Not to mention the inclusion of “perhaps five (years).”

Which is it – one year or five? That’s some “at least,” some leeway don’t you think. Four years! And if not one, “perhaps five” - why not six or seven or eight or nine… or fifteen? How many years must pass before any reasonable focus is completely lost? We’ll never know because The New York Times doesn’t bother to mention it.

And what do they mean by “full ability to make a nuclear weapon” – huh? What exactly is “full ability?” And does the phrase “to make” mean they “will” make? Does it mean they already “have made?” … or what? If some 31 nations already have operating nuclear power plants and some 14-18 countries openly admit to enriching uranium, right now, today – does that means that they all have the “full ability to make a nuclear weapon” while Iran does not?

Later in the same story, The Times reports this questionable logic about the Iranian enrichment plant’s supposed purpose:

“Moreover, its location (the enrichment plant still under construction), deep inside an Iranian Revolutionary Guards base about 20 miles from the religious center of Qum, strongly suggested it was designed for covert use in weapons, they (intelligence officials) said.”

Where’s the caveat here? Where is the qualification or the reasonable explanation?

Imagine that you were about to build something – something beneficial to yourself but harmless to others – something that many others all around the world already have in operation without controversy – and imagine that the Vice President of the most powerful country on earth publicly favored bombing you and the “something” you wanted to build. Imagine too that your near-neighbor (itself a nuclear power!) also wanted to launch a “preemptive attack” against you. Now, imagine where you might decide to build this “something.”

Does deep underground, perhaps even on a military base, begin to make any sense?

Does that “strongly suggest” a weapons use? Or does it just suggest you might want to keep your “something” from being blasted to smithereens by the mightiest military power on the planet, a country that was already bombing and occupying your most immediate neighbors on both sides of you? If you didn’t put your “something” underground, you’d be pretty stupid, wouldn’t you?

Imagine one more thing – imagine if the front-page story about Iran had been written by the reporter who reviewed the new television show “FlashForward” while the TV review had been written by the front-page reporters for The New York Times.

Then you would know the difference between good reporting and hardly reporting at all.

NUCLEAR POWER - THE DOUBLE STANDARD

2009-09-25T14:08:00.002-04:00

The Western/Christian/Jewish fear of nuclear power in the hands of Muslims is a great threat to world peace and an offense against reason and clear thinking.

The Presidents of the United States and France, together with the Prime Minister of Great Britain, appeared this morning to admonish and warn Iran about something they called Iran’s “secret nuclear facility.” But, it was hardly a secret. Everyone knew about it already. The US and other western intelligence agencies are quoted freely in today’s press and on worldwide TV about their knowledge of the this “secret Iranian nuclear facility” - for as long as three years – or since construction of it was commenced. So, apparently it wasn’t a secret at all. Not ever.

As well, the Iranians themselves advised the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) of the facility in a letter on Monday, four days before the Presidents and the PM made their dramatic TV appearance this morning from Pittsburgh.

Let’s set the record straight – so far as we know it. The Iranians are presently building this facility to enrich uranium. They have been constructing it for at least three years and completion is “at least” another year away. Who knows how long “at least” means or how long it will be before the enrichment facility is ready to actually produce enriched uranium? It seems nobody knows? But, then, despite this morning’s dire warnings, nobody is claiming this nuclear plant is anywhere near ready, or will be finished anytime in the near future.

President Obama did say that the facility’s “configuration and size” were not consistent with the peaceful use of atomic energy. What evidence did he produce regarding the facility’s “configuration and size”? – none, absolutely nothing. I am not saying President Obama is wrong. I am only asking for some proof. If he’s right, he should have such proof, shouldn’t he? How else could he make such a charge? If Iran has any capability to make weapons-grade enriched uranium, let’s see some evidence of it.

Has Iran violated the IAEA rules about disclosure? It seems they have. If they began construction three years ago, they were obliged to disclose that. They failed to do so. Is Iran unique in this failure? Have other countries done the same thing Iran has done? Sure, we all know about Israel, but forget about them for a moment. You might be surprised at who else rejects their legal obligations to the UN and to the IAEA. Countries you may never think of have failed to comply. But the response to those nations was nothing like it is today.

For example… On October 22, 2004 Brazil refused entry to IAEA inspectors at their nuclear construction site in Brazil. Did George Bush and Tony Blair go on worldwide TV to warn Brazil? What was Brazil building? A nuclear facility to enrich uranium. Did Brazil eventually allow the IAEA in? Of course they did. So, they gave in, right? And when did they do this? When did Brazil allow the IAEA inspectors inside?

In February 2009.

It took Brazil four and a-half years to comply with the IAEA rules for inspection. Do you recall the Presidents of the United States, France and the Prime Minister of Britain holding a press briefing in October 2004 to admonish and warn Brazil? No? I didn’t think so. What about 2005 or 2006 or the year after that? Or 2008? Or ever?

About a dozen and a-half countries openly enrich uranium to feed their nuclear reactors and those of other nations as well, reactors that make electricity for consumer and commercial consumption. The latest figures show there are currently 484 working nuclear power reactors in the world producing electricity in 31 different countries around the world. 104 of them are in the United States. France is second with 59. Japan has 53. Russia has 31 and South Korea has 20. A total of 26 other nations also have working nuclear reactors. There are also 47 nuclear reactors now under construction. China, which has 11 active reactors, is building 13 new ones. India, which has 17 active nuclear reactors, is building 6 more. In the years to come, China and India will have as many nuclear facilities as France and someday they will rival the number here in the United States. Almost a third of the world’s people live in China and India. Barely 5% live in the US. So, it makes sense that someday – maybe soon – they will have more nuclear power plants than we do.

Although more than 21% of the world’s population lives in Muslim countries, instead of those nations having about 100 nuclear power reactors (which would equate to statistical equality), they only have 2, both in Pakistan – That’s only 2 of 484. The IAEA is on record showing that 1 nuclear power reactor, for the purpose of producing electricity, is under construction in Iran. It has been under constant monitoring and evaluation. Iran has cooperated with the IAEA on this.

Of the total of 531 nuclear plants, active and/or under construction around the world, the new one being built in Iran would bring the total in the Muslim world to 3, or about one-half of one percent of all the world’s nuclear reactors. There are almost 1.5 billion Muslims. How long can they be denied the benefits of nuclear power?

The irrational fear of peaceful nuclear power – for the purpose of making electricity – in the hands of Muslims has gripped the non-Muslim western world – the Christian and Jewish western world – It holds tight like a powerful wrench ready to turn on a tiny screw. Except we are not talking about a wrench or a screw. We are talking about the mightiest nations on earth preparing a possibly violent reaction to something that seems so normal and so acceptable in 30 other – non-Muslim – countries.

The nuclear power double standard is more than simple hypocrisy. It is a danger to world stability; to peace among nations; and it is an affront to common sense.

THE EVILS OF SOCIALIZED MEDICINE... A SHORT LESSON IN COSTS

2009-09-18T11:51:00.004-04:00

I have a heart transplant. Yes, the cost of the transplant itself was enormous. And yes - here in America many people who need one can't get one because they simply have no way to pay for it. The Internet is full of "bake sales" and other fundraisers trying to raise enough cash to get people on the waiting list for a heart transplant. You see... you can't even get on the waiting list unless you can prove - in advance - that you can pay for the operation. The US is the only place in the civilized world where this happens.

And then, what is often neglected, hardly reported on at all in our national press, is the plight of those who actually get a new heart and later die because they cannot afford the lifesaving immunosuppressant drugs they must take daily for the rest of their lives. Yes, after paying hundreds of thousands of dollars for a heart transplant, some successful transplant patients suffer and die without the necessary maintenance drugs. I take two such drugs. They are Cellcept and Prograf. Cellcept is manufactured by Roche Pharmaceuticals, a company based in Switzerland. Prograf is made by Astellas Pharma Inc., a Japanese corporation.

A 90-day supply at my dosage level costs more than $5,400 for Cellcept and a mere ten bucks less than $7,300 for Prograf. A small price to pay for staying alive - if you have it. A $12,700 death warrant for those who don't.

In England - where they also do heart transplants and where they have socialized medicine - a 90 day supply of Cellcept costs less than $100 US or 1/54th the cost for a patient here in America. You read it correctly - less than a hundred dollars for three months. In France where they also do heart transplant operations and where they still have private doctors and hospitals but a highly regulated healthcare system, the same 90-day supply of Cellcept costs half of what the English pay - only $51 US.

So, that's $5,400 here in the US. $100 in England. Only $51 in France. Makes you want to stand up and cheer, doesn't it? USA! USA!

Prograf, the other immunosuppressant drug I take every day costs $7,291.22 in the United States for a 90-day supply. The same prescription in England costs $517.50 and in France it only costs $284.62.

Neither Roche nor Astellas refuse to sell their products in the countries where universal, highly regulated or outright socialized medicine exists. Nor do they claim to lose money there. Look closely at those dollar costs again and decide for yourself if the cost of selling these drugs in America can possibly be so much more than they are in England and France.

Numbers can be dull and boring... unless your life depends upon them. Regardless of income or assets, a citizen of France can get a heart transplant when and if they require one, and the cost of staying alve afterward is $3.72 per day. In the United States of America only those who can prove in advance they can pay for it get a heart transplant and then their cost of survival is about $141.02 per day. That's a hundred and fifty bucks yesterday, today, tomorrow and every day for the rest of their lives.*

* If there was the usual small print disclaimer here - the kind often seen in drug company print advertising - it would have to say that these prices are based on today's costs in 2009 and are not guaranteed to remain the same - because we all know drug prices never remain the same. They go up. They increase in price. They do not - ever - go down. So, who can say what it will cost to stay alive next year and the year after that, and the year after that? Every heart transplant patient in the US worries about this. Our compatriots in the Rest of the Civilized World live under no such stress.

PROMISES... FORGOTTEN

2009-09-16T20:18:00.002-04:00

A couple of weeks before the Presidential election of 1964 - on October 21, 1964 - I heard the Accidental President, Lyndon B. Johnson, say this:

“We are not about to send American boys nine or ten thousand miles away from home to do what Asian boys ought to be doing for themselves.”

I voted for Johnson. He won. He did exactly the opposite of what he said he would do. It would be ten more years, 57,000 dead Americans and a number best estimated at 4 million dead Vietnamese before the damage of that unfulfilled promise was halted.

Four years later, in 1968, I refused to vote for the nominee of the Democratic Party for President of the United States. He had been Johnson’s Vice President. How could I believe anything he said?

Forty years later I voted for Barack Obama for President largely because of his position on healthcare reform legislation. In 2003, while campaigning for John Kerry in New Hampshire, then Senator Barack Obama said this:

“I happen to be a proponent of a single payer universal health care program.” That’s what he said. I was glad to hear it because that is what I want too. He was also savvy enough to understand what was required in order to get a single payer universal health care program. In the same speech, he also said this:

“We may not get there immediately.”

Now, why did he say that? What’s the explanation? What did we need to accomplish first? Here’s the rest of that statement:

“Because first we have to take back the White House, we have to take back the Senate, and we have to take back the House.”

You got that? Obama understood. Take back the Presidency and the Congress and then what? Then we can have a single payer universal health care program.

Those were the words of Barack Obama. He repeated that pledge in his campaign for the Presidency in 2008. He promised Change We Can Believe In. I supported him and voted for him. He won. Democrats also won the House with a wide majority. They also won a numerical super-majority in the Senate.

So, we’re getting a single payer universal health care program, right?

No. All we are getting now is the Second Coming of LBJ. We never even got a shot at a single payer universal health care program and the so-called “public option” has now been scuttled too. The Change We Can Believe In has turned into either No Change At All or worse - a bill designed to further enrich the healthcare insurance industry, the pharmaceutical manufacturers, doctors, hospitals, private laboratories and all the other associated special interests that comprise the health care segment of our economy.

If the point of partisan politics is to win public office – as Obama pointed out so well himself – what then is the point of winning if you never get what was promised?

I understand you may not be able to get 100% of everything immediately. For me, 100% means a single payer universal health care system, or Medicare-for-all. I am ready to achieve that in steps. But if this Obama administration fails to pass a health care bill with at least a viable public option for health insurance, I will not vote for a Democrat for the House or Senate in 2010 and I will not vote to reelect Barack Obama in 2012. Why should I? What difference does it make?

Looking back, I’m not so sure Hubert Humphrey would have been any different than Richard Nixon and it sure looks like this country may end up no better off with Obama/Biden than had John McCain and Sarah Whatshername won.

FREE RIDE FOR THE CRAZIES

2009-09-14T11:49:00.002-04:00

Isn't it bad enough that a tiny percentage of the 300 million+ Americans get such massive TV coverage when they show how crazy and stupid they are... "Keep the Federal Government out of my Medicare!" "I want my country back!" "Obama's just like Hitler!" "Socialist!" "Communist!" "African Muslims are taking over!" They are free to say what they please - I don't want to stop them - but do we have to treat these morons as if they represent a serious segment of the American people?

And now... a Member of Congress can go nuts and nothing happens? We have three coequal branches of government - technically. When a President speaks to a joint session of Congress, he is the guest of the Congress. Even small children know how to treat a guest in your house. But it seems a Congressman can do anything without any penalty at all - nothing. Well... nothing except he too, like the Town Hall nutcases, the "birthers" and the bigots, gets famous by being on TV constantly telling everyone why he didn't really mean to apologize and how he was right all along. And then he raises more than a $1 million from fellow traveler-crazies who think he's the New Hero Of The South, a true Son Of The Confederacy, come Home to wave the flag once again. If "the South will rise again!" I suppose it will look like Rep. Joe Wilson.

It always has. Why change now?

My question is: Doesn't the House of Representatives have any Security? Why didn't The Speaker, Nancy Pelosi use her microphone to instruct the Sgt. At Arms to physically remove Wilson from the House? After his outburst, why did the Leader of the Congress just let him sit there?

I have been in the House chamber. Perhaps you have been there too. I am positive that had you or I been there that same evening and either of us shouted "You lie!" from the gallery seats, we would have been ejected before you could say... "Joe Wilson."

It looks like it's a free ride for the crazies in this country... and if you don't know how dangerous that is, you're not paying attention.

DO WE KNOW WHO"S IN CHARGE... REALLY?

2009-08-29T15:59:00.002-04:00

If healthcare reform will have a personal effect on 304 million Americans and if it is so important it must be bipartisan, why have we abandoned any pretense of representative government in the making of this legislation?

The truth about “representative government” in our “democratic republic” is this:

We are being screwed because the healthcare bill – if there is to be one at all – is being negotiated by people who represent the tiniest fraction of Americans, none of whom live anywhere near anyplace that would be called a major city or even a large metropolitan area.

We have put our medical futures in the hands of people most of us wouldn’t elect to a city council or a Homeowners Association board. Instead of making use of the best and the brightest, we have selected the weakest of the weak – and no one seems to care.

We are a nation of more than 304 million and we are letting our most important domestic agenda be set by… the guy who lives in the middle of nowhere, someplace you need one of those GPS systems to even find it.

The top 5 metro areas in the United States have a total population of 53,585,000. These places are well known to us all. They are: New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, Dallas and Philadelphia. No elected official from any of these cities or metro areas is drafting the healthcare bill.

The next 5 most populated metro areas have a population of 26,408,000. They include Atlanta, Washington DC, Miami, Houston and Boston. No official representing any of these places is on the so-called “Gang of Six,” who are actually writing the bill.

That means that 80 million Americans who live in the top ten metropolitan areas are depending on strangers from small towns thousands of miles away for their medical care and their lives, plus the lives of their loved ones.

How many metropolitan areas in these United States have a population greater than 1 million people? Many. The answer is – 53 – ranging from #1 New York with 19.006 million people to #53 Tucson with 1.012 million residents.

Why is this important?

Because not one of these 53 million-plus metro areas has a single senator involved in the negotiations for the healthcare reform bill currently being worked out by the US Congress.

The “Gang of Six” can hardly be said to be representing all of America.

Among the 3 Republicans who hold the fate of this legislation in their hands – Grassley of Iowa, Snowe of Maine and Enzi of Wyoming – they have the following as the largest metro areas that they actually represent and from which they have been elected to the US Senate:

#243 Waterloo, Iowa, represented by Grassley
#269 Bangor, Maine, represented by Snowe
#421 Cheyenne, Wyoming, represented by Enzi

Let’s be serious about this. Mike Enzi of Wyoming – a senator who doesn’t have constituents who live anywhere near the top 420 most populated areas in this country – is deciding exactly what your healthcare will be! That’s plain crazy. Under normal circumstances you wouldn’t put him in charge of your grocery shopping.

The 3 top GOP represented metropolitan areas – Waterloo, Bangor and Cheyenne - have a total population of 397,000 people. Let’s put this in a meaningful perspective. Port St. Luci, Florida has a population of 400,121. What do mean you don’t know where Port St. Luci Florida is… or you’re not sure you’ve ever even heard of it before? Well, three senators who represent less people than live there are deciding your future healthcare.

But… you say… at least the Democrats have a majority on the committee debating this bill and they really do represent America – don’t they? Take a look and don’t hold your breath. The 3 Democrats selected to “make the deal” are – Max Baucus of Montana, Kent Conrad of North Dakota and Jeff Bingaman from New Mexico.

The largest metro areas these Democrats represent are:

#59 Albuquerque, New Mexico, represented by Bingaman
#214 Fargo, North Dakota, represented by Conrad
#266 Billings, Montana, represented by Baucus

These metro areas have a total population of 1,185,000 people. More than the Republicans’ 397,000… but really… is this the best we can do?

So, maybe this tiny fraction of Americans who have been tasked with this job are there because the committee hasn’t got any members from more populated states? Could that be so?

Yeah, sure!

Senator Charles Schumer from New York is a committee member. He represents 19.3 million New Yorkers – every one of them an American citizen – every one of them having a need for and an interest in healthcare. Also on the committee is Senator Bill Nelson of Florida. He represents 18.1 million Floridians. I’ve heard that the millions of people living in Florida occasionally go to a doctor. On the GOP side, there is Senator John Cornyn of Texas who represents 23.5 million Texans. Wait a minute. You mean to tell me the Republicans had a Texan at their disposal and they turned instead to a guy from Wyoming? Yes they did.

And yes, you are right – do the math – the same committee that selects six of its members to negotiate the healthcare bill – six who represent a combined total of only 10.3 million Americans, overlooked three other senators on the same committee who represent more than 61 million people! Half as many senators – six times as many people – who needs them?

And, the US Senate as a whole is not off the hook here. In all its legislative wisdom it neglected to include on this committee any senator from the states of California, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Michigan or Illinois. The senators from these states only represent some 83 million American citizens.

What is going on here?

If you listed the ten most important things you have to do in your life, you would not allow a single one of these “Gang of Six” to handle any of them – not by choice you wouldn’t. But America’s healthcare? Sure, why not? Hand all that over to Max Baucus, Chuck Grassley, Mike Enzi and Kent Conrad.

What have we done? What will we have to say for ouselves when these guys give us exactly what we deserve?

Where is the public outcry against this obscenity perpetrated upon representative, democratic government? There is no outcry, no outrage, no protest. None I’ve seen.

Call it “Change We Can Believe In” or call it what it more likely seems to be – Bullshit! – But c’mon now. Isn’t it silly to let senators from Iowa, North Dakota, Montana, Wyoming, Maine and New Mexico determine the future of healthcare for everybody who lives in the United States of America?

4 YEARS SINCE KATRINA

2009-08-28T15:29:00.002-04:00

To mark the date - August 29th - four years now since Katrina hit New Orleans resulting in the ruin of one of the world's great cities, I am re-posting something from earlier this year. As Americans we should all be ashamed to have allowed this to happen. We should be horrified that we have spent more money rebuilding cities in Iraq than taking care of our own.
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NEW ORLEANS IS "ALMOST WALKING" (from May 18, 2009)

Car dealers have a word for it – a term that accurately describes what New Orleans has become. “Almost walking” is what they call it. When a customer drives onto a car lot in an automobile obviously on its last legs, that’s what the salesmen say – “He’s almost walking.”

You can’t see it from the air. The path into New Orleans’ Louis Armstrong Airport takes you over the northern portion of Lake Pontchartrain, so you get no view at all from above the city of New Orleans. And the cab ride into town from the airport has also been arranged to block any sight of blight, disrepair, abandonment or damage of any sort. All along Interstate 10 they’ve built high walls of beautifully contoured, richly toned cement complete with the famous Fleur De Lais logo. You’ve seen walls like these before on highways in residential neighborhoods. They are usually constructed to block the roadway noise from local residents. In this case, it’s pretty obvious. They’re designed to hide the results of the recent unpleasantness, the ugly residue of Katrina. They have to do that because if you could see it, you’d know.

New Orleans is “almost walking.”

Our first morning there we went to the Café Du Monde down on Decatur Street, along the river, for your traditional New Orleans breakfast – beignets and coffee. If you’ve ever been there you know the Café Du Monde is a huge place, open aired with a roof but no sides, no walls – just a mass of small tables, a bunch of waitresses running around in constant chaos, and a jazz band to liven the atmosphere. The coffee is pure Louisiana – with a hint of chicory, lightened with heavy cream and sweetened just a little too much. The beignets are special – hot from the deep fryer, overwhelmed with powdered sugar, three to a plate. It’s a breakfast fit for kings.

We never even sat down. You didn’t have to be or even remember Doris Troy. Just one look was all it took. What you saw was the dinning room in a nursing home. Walkers, wheelchairs and the “almost walking” themselves were everywhere – to the exclusion of everyone else. At first glance, we thought we had stumbled into an outdoor, early morning Bingo game. So, we hightailed it across the street and up a couple of blocks to a tiny joint I’d been in years before called simply, Café Beignet. The coffee was just as good. The beignets were even better and if there were a dozen people in the place that was a lot. Perhaps, I thought, the Café Du Monde was an anomaly. Could the remnants of the John McCain campaign be holding a reunion? Maybe it was a Billy Graham meeting. But it wasn’t.

All over New Orleans, no matter where we went, it looked like a field trip, an excursion for the nursing home set. In the hotels. In the restaurants. On the riverboat jazz dinner cruise. In the French Market. Everywhere we went. there was the Social Security crowd. Where, I wondered, had all the young people gone? Even the middle-aged were missing.

Among the great sights in New Orleans has always been the young people – drunk, high, smiling, laughing, parading up and down Bourbon Street with painted faces, bare midriffs, halter-tops and scary T-shirts. Not this time out. Bourbon Street was still crowded. They still don’t allow any cars on it. But, the walking wounded looked angry, frustrated, sick and tired, and some just plain mean. The happiness and joy was all sucked out of them. Bourbon Street was noisy with music, but it wasn’t alive; it was different. The music was recorded and most of it was hip-hop. The old joints with their own local bands – the brass bands and jazz quartets, the horn players and blues guitars – all gone. Sure, the sixteen-ounce beers, at three bucks a pop, were still there. The sex-show barkers were still pitching hard. But the context that made it all so attractive once was missing. It was Bourbon Street and yes, it was The French Quarter, but it might just as well have been Pittsburgh or Buffalo, Boise or Tacoma, Little Rock or Albany.

The French Quarter is “almost walking.”

The hotels are open. The lovely, elegant place we stayed at, in The Quarter, had weddings both nights we were there. Two receptions. Two bands in the courtyard. Not a black musician in either band and not a single player under the age of fifty, or so it seemed. The restaurants too are open. The famous ones – Antoine’s, Commander’s Palace, Brennans’s, The Rib Room at the Royal Orleans – they’re all full. But The Quarter is also full of Realtor’s For Sale Signs and hand lettered posters in windows saying For Rent. After a while you begin to notice the enormous number of abandoned residential buildings and when you gaze through the gates back to the courtyards, you see the grass hasn’t been cut and the fountains aren’t working. Nobody’s home. The people who lived there are gone. A truly American culture has been dispersed, perhaps destroyed.

We saw no street musicians, no dancers, no jugglers, no mimes, no painted people, walking works of art, no happiness and no joy. Even the horses fronting the carriages lined up in front of Jackson Square looked like they’d rather be elsewhere, out to pasture than lined up to pull the nursing home crowd around the narrow streets of the French Quarter.

We stayed the weekend. We ate well. No doubt about it. We bought a couple of T-shirts for the grandchildren – realizing as we did that we were as old as most of the others around us. We don’t feel like it – and maybe the other oldsters trotting around New Orleans think of themselves as their younger selves too. I did hear one old man ask the old woman he was with, as they finished their lunch, “Are we ready to rock ‘n roll?” She said, “Yes,” but I’m not sure.

Ernie K. Doe is gone. So is The Fat Man. Donna’s Bar & Grill is closed. You might hear “Stagger Lee” but it’s some fifty-five year old white guy singing it, not Lloyd Price.

I was hoping to see Old Charlie on N. Ramparts and maybe catch some Sunday Cajun square dancing at Tipatina’s. No more. Ain’t it a shame.

New Orleans is “almost walking.”

PRO SPORTS IS ALL ABOUT MONEY & WINNING - WHY NOT GOLF?

2009-08-27T11:52:00.002-04:00

The two most important aspects of organized sports - money & winning - separates professional golf from the four major pro sports – baseball, football, basketball and hockey.

The first aspect is a plus for golf – an underappreciated and under promoted plus. There are no “overpaid” players in professional golf. Why? Because there are no paid players at all! They all start from nothing – even Tiger Woods. Every dollar a pro golfer makes – he earns. On the PGA Tour it’s all about: play well, earn well. Play poorly and you might walk away from a tournament with nothing you didn’t bring with you. If you fail to make the cut on Friday, you don’t even get to tee it up on the weekend and you leave town without a nickel to show for your efforts. Appearance money – payments to top players just to enter a tournament – is forbidden by the PGA. A pro golfer makes his money the old fashioned way. He earns it.

Can you imagine a Major League Baseball player – say, Alex Rodriquez of the Yankees – being paid that way? A-Rod’s contract pays him $27,500,000 per season guaranteed. That’s his salary. He gets it whether he hits or not, whether he plays or not. So, he is earning $169,753 for every game the Yankees play – even if he doesn’t – even for those contests he sits out because he or his manager thinks he needs “a rest.” A rest? For that kind of guaranteed money, who needs a rest? A-Rod has averaged 4 at-bats per game over his career, including walks. That works out to $42,438 for every time he steps into the batter’s box. If he hits a home run - $42,438. If he grounds into a double play or strikes out – the same $42,438. What kind of pressure is that?

In professional golf every swing of the club means actual money in the pocket of the player taking that stroke. A good shot means more money. A bad shot can cost thousands, sometimes hundreds of thousands. One poorly played hole can make a million dollar difference. Imagine how well A-Rod (or any MLB player) would hit under that kind of pressure!

The second is a distinct minus for PGA golf. It has no definitive, season-ending playoff to determine the unchallenged winner, the acknowledged Champion player for that season. In the other major sports, the second best team always loses its last game and is rarely remembered as “second best.” Lose a World Series or a Super Bowl, the Finals in the NBA or get beaten in the Stanley Cup and your season is a disappointment to most of your fans – and also to most of the losing players.

What has golf got to match that? Some nonsense grouping of a few otherwise meaningless September tournaments they call the FEDEX Cup. Who cares? Can anyone tell me how a player gets into these so-called “playoff tournaments?” Can you tell me how the ultimate winner of the FEDEX Cup is determined? Of course not. Not even passionate golf fans can understand (or care about) this foolish FEDEX Cup nonsense.

If the PGA wanted to make its FEDEX Cup really mean something – to the fans and especially to the players who are the participants – they would set it up this way:

1. Okay, still play your regular season with golfers earning points each week according to their finish in the last tournament.

2. Have the top 100 golfers in the points play the first Playoff Tournament with only the top 50 qualifying for the next one. No prize money at all for Round One.

3. When the top 50 compete in the second Playoff tournament, only the top 25 move on to the next week. Again, no prize money is awarded for Round Two.

4. In Playoff tournament #3 only the top 4 make it to the Final Championship. Yes, only 4 players survive! And yes, there is no prize money given for Round Three.

5. Play the Finals as a foursome (just the way most of the millions of golfers play their golf) and play it on a Winner-Take-All basis. Yes, give all of it - the entire $35 million prize to the winner!

The TV ratings for a weekend of the four top PGA golfers playing for this kind of Winner-Take-All, $35,000,000 prize would be amazing. And the golf would be like nothing we’ve ever seen. There’s no point to playing safe – none at all – unless you’re leading… and if you are in front you’ve obviously not played safe to get there. Instead of a golfer hitting 20 or 30 feet into the middle of the green to avoid a hazard or a difficult pin placement, you’ll see them all taking direct aim at the flag on every hole! Can you see the back nine of Sunday? How hard would it be to pull that putter back if you were stroking a 10-foot putt… for $35 million dollars... and absolutely nothing if you missed?

No team plays safe in the World Series or in the Super Bowl. Safe is the same as second place, and second place is worth… nothing. Most fans don’t realize that baseball, football and basketball players actually make less money in the playoffs than they do for their regular season paychecks. For the top paid players, they're almost playing for nothing. Thus, in the playoffs, they only play to win.

But, last season on the PGA Tour, the Runner-Up prize in the FEDEX Cup was $3 million. That’s three million dollars for failing to win, for finishing second. Even the fifth place finisher took home a check for $1 million. As a player, if you were anywhere near the top five, would you be hitting the hard shots, taking the chances necessary to finish First? Not with that kind of money still available if you only made to fifth place. Why, the last place FEDEX Cup finisher made more money than most Americans earn in a whole year of work.

If the PGA wants to take pro golf to the very highest level, for the fans, for the players and for TV, do it my way. I’d bet all $35 million in the FEDEX Cup kitty that these playoffs would rival those of the other major sports – and maybe even beat them in the TV ratings.

LIBERAL PIPE DREAM INTELLECTUALISM

2009-08-21T13:50:00.002-04:00

"Our freedoms rest on a moral consensus, enshrined in law, that in a democratic republic we work out our differences through reasoned, and sometimes raucous, argument. Free elections and open debate are not rooted in violence or the threat of violence." - E.J. Dionne Jr. in The Washington Post 8/20/2009
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You think so?

If, as Papa’s co-contributor Valentine Marofsky “Himself” has proclaimed – “It is better to be uninformed than misinformed.” - There can be no better example of this than that of Mr. Dionne Jr. If he really believes that "our freedoms rest on..." anything that bears any resemblance whatsoever to the rest of his sentence, or the assertions in his second statement, then Papa must ask – “Where has E.J. Dionne Jr. been all his life?”

First of all... when have we ever had a "moral consensus" on anything in America? Slavery? The Constitutional deprivation of rights from Americans who are female? The annihilation of the East Cost and then the Great Plains Indians? The mass imprisonment of innocent American citizens of Japanese heritage? The use of nuclear weapons? The rape of the world's resources? Not to mention more recent events. Has any or all of this sprung from a "moral consensus"?

Second... we do not live in a "democratic republic." Just isn't so. In fact, the two terms are antithetical. A democracy is no republic and neither is a republic, democratic. This sort of liberal, nonsense-intellectualism is as stupid as the right-wing nut cases who scream and shout, "I want my country back." Neither knows what they're talking about.

Third... "We work out our differences through reasoned, and sometimes raucous, argument." Really? Has Mr. Dionne Jr. never heard of The Civil War? 600,000 dead (in what was then a tiny country) dwarfs our casualties in any foreign war or armed conflict this nation has ever participated in... And all we were doing 150 years ago was killing ourselves. Hardly what could be called reasoned argument by any rational definition and how silly is it to say that such widespread death and destruction was merely raucous?

Fourth... what exactly is our American history when it comes to "free elections and open debate...?" Is further elaboration necessary?

Without regard to the merits of the right-wing's, anti-Obama, anti-healthcare, anti-everything/government movement, their open love of and packing of firearms IS what the American tradition is really all about. There is little if any distinction to be made between early American vigilante law enforcement and the empowerment of the frontier "bad guys" as the official authority for law & order, and today's Blackwater contractors who make war around the globe in the name of and in the pay of this American government.

And as for guns and Presidents.... quick.... list all those Presidents who were shot at! Quite a list, wouldn't you say? That's what our history is — like it or not. Not much reason. Hardly any real debate. Few and far between when it comes to free elections. But... lots of guns and lots of violence.

The E. J. Dionne Jr.'s and the Obama-Loving-Upper West Side-Soy Eating-Liberals have it all wrong if they think that a reasoned, democratic approach to their opposition will win out in the end. They need to stop pretending.

Papa thinks that those who actually want to get something done are coming to believe that we might be better off if Rham Emanuel (or the ghost of LBJ) and not Barack Obama was in charge.

"JUST DO IT!"

2009-08-19T11:23:00.001-04:00

Here’s the thing about voting – elections have meaning.

Here’s a fact – A majority of American voters voted for a federal government to be run by the Democratic Party. Here’s another fact – Nobody voted for “bipartisanship.” It wasn’t on the ballot – not in any state, not in any Congressional district, not for President or Vice President. Our political system is “partisan” not “bipartisan.” We have winners and losers, not group hugs.

You need proof? The Democrats have wide majorities in both houses of Congress and there is a Democrat in the White House too. The Legislative and Executive branches are both controlled by the Democrats. That’s the government, folks!

Sure, the Democrats may not control the lobbyists. More likely, it’s the other way around. Perhaps they don’t control these so-called “town meetings” or whatever they are. But, where the proverbial rubber hits the road – where the power is and the votes are taken – where actual laws and regulations are made, the Democrats are solidly in charge.

A reminder – They are in charge because a majority of voters put them there.

Now is the time for all good Democrats to come to aid of their party. By good Democrats I mean the President, the Democratic members of the House of Representatives and those Democrats in the Senate. If they do not mean to govern, why in hell did we vote for them? And if they will not govern, we will not vote for them again. No one else will either.

If the only goal of the Obama administration and the Congressional Democrats is to compromise in an effort to appease and attract a few possibly willing Republicans to vote with them – then all is lost. We voted to put the Democrats in charge of things. And those who ran as Democrats – starting with Barack Obama – promised to govern if elected. They did not campaign on a platform of kissing Republican ass once in office. A majority and a mandate are one in the same. More specifically, Obama and all of the other Democrats who ran for President promised they would introduce and pass into law a national healthcare program.

The time has come to make good on that promise. No excuses. No deals with aging Republicans from tiny states who have no sincere desire to cooperate in the first place. No bullshit about the virtues of bipartisanship.

The Democrats got elected. Now they have a job to do. Barack Obama, Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid ought to take a lesson from the folks at Nike.

“Just do it!”

GET OUT! GET OUT! GET OUT!

2009-08-18T11:25:00.002-04:00

This Thursday Afghanistan will have its second “democratic” election under Western occupation. In recent years we Americans have lost track of what it means to occupy someone else’s country. Some Americans have even come to believe that occupiers are the same as liberators. Seventy years ago, many Germans labored under similar delusions.

Right now, there are forces from 9 foreign countries stationed in Afghanistan. They are occupiers. They include the nations of NATO in Europe – the same major powers involved in World War II (Britain, Germany and Italy). Strange as it may be, even Singapore has people in Afghanistan. Of course, the largest fighting force there comes from the United States.

No country under foreign occupation has ever conducted an election that had any historical international credibility. How could they? Just as the German army was in charge of French elections in Nazi occupied France, so too the US military conducted the Iraqi elections and is now in charge of “security” for the elections in Afghanistan. In Iraq, even the ballots themselves were printed in the United States.

In the first occupied Afghan election, in 2004, 15 of the 16 candidates for President actually withdrew claiming widespread election fraud – before the votes were cast! Guess who stayed and then guess who won. Now guess who is running for “re-election.” Guess who’s going to win again.

Russia’s Stalin said it was not “who voted” that mattered so much. In any election, Stalin said, the important people are those “…who count the votes.” According to reports broadcast on the BBC today, the votes in Afghanistan have already been counted – 2 days before the election takes place. Look it up. The BBC is online, on the Internet. Anyone can access it. Don’t waste your time looking for this BBC investigation in the US press or on US television. Although, to their great credit, there was a small mention of it on the CBS website.

Did we invade and occupy Afghanistan so we could hold corrupt elections? Is that really why we went there and why we’re still there? Have Americans died for this?

Do you know how long we’ve been there? Can you remember when this Afghan “war” began? The date was October 7, 2001. That’s almost 8 years ago. This war in Afghanistan is now the longest foreign war ever fought by the United States. Has it been worth it? Is it still worth it? Do you remember why we went there in the first place?

To catch and kill Osama bin Laden.

Have we done that, yet? Yeah, sure. In fact, we don’t talk about it anymore. Osama bin Laden? Who’s he? He was just the one who attacked the United States on 9/11. No, it wasn’t anyone from Iraq or from Iran who flew airplanes into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. It was a bunch of terrorists (most of whom were from Saudi Arabia!) who were headquartered in Afghanistan. We had every right to go after them – there and then… in Afghanistan, in October 2001.

Bush never caught them. He said he would. He said he’d get Osama “Dead or Alive!” He said he would “dig him out of his hole!” Have you forgotten that? That’s why we went there.

So, what the hell are we doing there today? What is the point?

On this one, Obama sounds just like Bush. New boss – just like the old boss. Only yesterday our new, Democratic President said we had an obligation to give the people of Afghanistan the chance to decide for themselves what kind of government they were going to have.

Excuse me? We do? Why?

Obama didn’t say a word yesterday about catching or killing Osama bin Laden. Even George Bush never said we were invading Afghanistan to give anybody who lived there a chance to decide for themselves what kind of government they wanted.

Barack Obama campaigned saying he would get us out of Iraq. He hasn’t done that yet. He also said we had lost focus on the real objective and that, as President, he would “win” in Afghanistan. He said he would go after Osama bin Laden, even if that meant chasing him into Pakistan. He hasn’t done that either.

During his campaign, Barack Obama often said that he wanted to be “the President of the United States of America.” And then he would say why. He told us what he wanted to accomplish in that office. I was impressed. I voted for him. However, I do not recall Obama ever saying that he wanted that job so he could obligate American lives and American treasure to the task of bringing Afghans whatever sort of government they wanted.

If he had said that – or anything remotely like that – I wouldn’t have voted for him.

HEALTHCARE REFORM IS SIMPLE

2009-08-17T14:13:00.002-04:00

If it's really reform of American healthcare we want, that reform is really very simple. There's no bullshit, no complications and no socialized medicine. Keep your doctor - keep your hospital - keep your prescription drugs - keep all your present healthcare providers and suppliers, if you wish.

Just change the law to allow anyone - yes, anyone! - to buy into the existing Medicare program. The key word here is "allow." Don't make it mandatory. Just make it possible.

Single-payer (which is exactly what Medicare is!) does not equal socialism. To actually have socialized medicine, you must have government provided medical care. The providers must either work for or be completely under the control of the government. This is hardly the case with Medicare. Medicare does not "provide" any healthcare. It pays for it. All Medicare is, is a single-payer program. It is not a single-provider program.

So, pass a simple chan ge in the Medicare law. Change Medicare eligibility to include anyone below age 65 who wishes to buy into the system. That's all. Healthcare reform accomplished.

A TWO STATE SOLUTION... IN PERSPECTIVE

2009-08-13T13:39:00.002-04:00

Recent op-ed pieces in The New York Times have discussed the difficulties facing Israel and the Palestinians with regard to reaching a two state solution. One state, Israel, is already there. But there are many stumbling blocks to the establishment of a Palestinian state, and by far the greatest obstacle is the totality of Israeli settlements on the West Bank and in East Jerusalem.

It is often hard for Americans to put this problem in an understandable perspective. Many Americans, particularly American Jews oppose the settlements – in principle – and are not in any manner of speaking Zionists themselves. They do not believe in or support the Zionist concept of a Greater Israel. They fervently support Israel but within its internationally accepted borders. However, many look at existing Israeli settlements and tend to favor a gradual or partial reduction. And some do not support any reduction at all, only a cessation of future construction.

Such a position completely disregards Article 49 of the Geneva Convention that forbids an occupying power from moving civilians onto occupied lands as permanent residents. Both Israel and the United States have signed these Geneva Accords.

What are the true mathematical implications of the Israeli settlements?

Official Israeli figures show that 304,569 Israeli Jews are now living in settlements on the West Bank – land that is not part of the State of Israel. Additionally, although no official figure is made public by Israel, it is generally believed that another 190,000 Israeli Jews live in East Jerusalem – in the Arab section – in housing that was forcibly constructed after removing existing Arab residents. These unofficial Jerusalem settlements bring the total of Israeli Jews living outside the borders of Israel, in occupied Arab territory, to almost 500,000.

How can we, as Americans, comprehend the meaning of this number? After all, remember we are paying for it.

There are 5,593,000 Israeli Jews. About 8.84% of them are now living on land that does not belong to them or to their country. What if we, as Americans, were doing something similar?

The US Census says there are 304,059,724 people living in the United States. Imagine, if you can, that 26,878,900 citizens of the United States decided to move and go live in housing projects built on Canadian land – against the wishes of the Canadians – and then imagine that the US government took the position that all or nearly all of them should remain in Canada – forever – not as new Canadians, but as Americans! How would you feel about that – if you were a Canadian?

And now think about what is called “natural growth.” Human populations are not constant. People die and new people are born. In Israel the growth rate is currently 1.8% per year. However, in the settlements the rate is much higher. It is 5.7%. The settlers are younger and more determined to increase their strength of numbers. They are having babies on purpose for reasons that go way beyond family planning. Their rapid growth is religiously political.

That means by next year there will be almost 30,000 more Israeli Jews added to the existing settlers in the West Bank and East Jerusalem - all without a single new settler moving in.

If you have a mortgage with a rate anywhere near 5.7% you already know that means the actual price of your home will be about 3 to 4 times the original loan amount within 20 or 30 years. So, if we had a Palestinian state established today, and if no more Israeli Jews moved into this new state – but those already there were allowed to remain and reproduce at their current rate – there would be a million and half to two million Israeli citizens – Jews not Arabs, Israelis not Palestinians – living in a Palestinian state in less than a generation.

That is the consequence of “natural growth.”

Do youthink the Canadians would like to have 100,000,000 US citizens living in their country in 2040.

Ask yourself a simple question: If you were a Palestinian Arab, could you start your own nation in 2009 or 2010 while having 500,000 citizens of another country occupy your land while actively growing themselves to almost two million in number by 2040?

When viewed properly, the math seems simple enough. There can never be a two state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian problem so long as any Israelis continue to occupy the West Bank and East Jerusalem. Let Israel be Israel – but also let Palestine not be Israel too.

LOST IN TRANSLATION

2009-08-11T20:44:00.002-04:00

No, not Scarlett Johansson. Hillary Rodham Clinton, the US Secretary of State.

For the second time in only six months, Secretary Clinton has gotten herself lost in translation. It’s embarrassing and worse – it’s a sign of real incompetence and a serious lack of attention to detail. Plus, it defeats the very idea of diplomacy.

In March, when she was still brand new on the job, Secy. Clinton visited Russia. The purpose of her Russian trip was to “reset” relations between the two great powers. She said that – not me. And that’s just fine. Nothing wrong with that as a diplomatic objective. As a symbolic gesture in that direction she gave the Russian Foreign Minister, Sergei Lavrov, a gimmick gift. It was a button – a red button somewhat reminiscent perhaps of a nuclear launch button – only this one said, in English beneath the button - “RESET.” Just above the button was supposed to be the same word in Russian. That’s what they thought anyway. This official present, from the United States Secretary of State, used the wrong Russian word for “reset.”

Foreign Minister Levrov looked at the gift and promptly told Secretary Clinton that the Russian word she used was incorrect. It was actually the Russian word for “overcharge” as in paying too much. What Mrs. Clinton had actually done was tell the Russians that while we were “resetting” our approach to them, they would find this new diplomacy very costly. Not exactly what she had in mind.

Mr. Levrov, thankfully, spoke perfect English and did not require the services of a translator to notice this error or to realize it was a mistake. Secy. Clinton, like all her predecessors, spoke no Russian at all. Her attempt at humor had been undercut at best and turned into a diplomatic disaster at worst by whoever had been entrusted with the translation. The moment, naturally, was ruined. Lost in translation.

Another such moment was ruined yesterday in Congo in West Africa when Secretary Clinton – who also speaks zero French – thought an African student had asked her a question about her husband, President Bill Clinton, when in fact he had not – he had asked about the current President, Mr. Obama, not the former one. As Secretary of State, Mrs. Clinton is the spokesperson for the current President and therefore such a question was perfectly in order and completely appropriate. However, since the Secretary received a bad translation, she ended up losing her composure and scolding the student for asking about husband. If you’ve seen the video, you know she also ripped her translation earphones from her ears and was thus unable to hear if the translator made the proper correction. We can hear the student trying to do that, but he was not speaking English so how could we expect Mrs. Clinton to understand? Instead, she blew her cool.

“My husband is not the Secretary of State,” she angrily barked. “I am.”

It was embarrassing… again. Lost in translation.

The fact that Americans, especially those in sensitive international positions, rarely if ever speak any language except English is not a new development and translation problems, as a result, are also not new.

Remember Khrushchev’s famous 1956 rant in the UN General Assembly, “We will bury you!” He didn’t really say that. Instead he used a very familiar Russian idiom, one any Russian would have recognized, as “We will outlive you!” Under the circumstances of the Cold War and the superpower nuclear standoff, that’s a pretty big difference. Lost in translation.

When President John F. Kennedy made his stirring speech in defense of West Germany's Berlin – he too was mistranslated. He did not shout out, with gallant defiance, “I am a Berliner!” He did not signal his oneness with the adoring German crowd. That’s not what he said at all. The proper German translation would have been – “I am a jelly doughnut!” Forget the American media myth. That’s the truth. You could look it up. Good thing he wasn't in Hamburg. Lost in translation.

Or, how about President Jimmy Carter’s faux paus in December 1977 when he arrived on a State Visit to Poland. Carter had wanted to say, “I am excited to be here in Poland.” But of course, he spoke not a word of Polish. He relied totally upon his translator. Rather than bring along a Polish language expert from the State Department – assuming we had one – President Carter gave the Polish translator job to the young son of a family friend. I’m not kidding. He really did. Yes, he did.

So, in his Polish airport arrival remarks, the President of the United States said – according to the correct Polish translation – that he was so “excited” to be in Poland he stood before them with an erection, a hard-on, a woody of diplomatic proportions. It was all in the choice of Polish words for “excited.” Lost in translation.

American business has no better record than do our diplomats or Presidents. General Motors was unable to sell its Buick LaCrosse sedan in Quebec, Canada because the French word “LaCrosse” was commonly used in that French-speaking province by young men to signify their desire to jerk-off. Buick scampered to withdraw the brand from showrooms across Quebec, but not until it had been lost in translation.

Similarly, the corporation selling the toothbrush substitute, Waterpik, tried to market it in Denmark with devastating effect. Why? The Danish translation they employed was Vandpik, a literal choice of the Danish word for water – vand – together with their own pik. Unfortunately for them, to the Danes the word vandpik referred to the kind of erection men commonly have when they first wakeup in the morning. It was very funny – to the Danes – but they didn’t run out and buy the product. They were not eager to put the Vandpik in their mouths. Lost in translation.

Perhaps you’ve seen the nerdy Frank Perdue who serves as the ad spokesman for his family’s chicken business. The company slogan was “It takes a tough man to make a tender chicken.” They banked on the rough-edged slogan and the high nerd-quality of Mr. Perdue to produce the necessary irony. Worked just fine where consumers spoke English. But, in Mexico irony has a different name and the translation that appeared on their television and on billboards across the Mexican landscape said, “It takes a hard man to get a chicken aroused.” Lost in translation.

Perhaps the most arrogant of all such examples is the Nike television ad – shown here the United States – in which a bunch of Sambura tribesmen from Kenya are shown running in the Kenyan hills – as the Kenyans are world famous for – all of them wearing Nike running shoes. As the group of Kenyans runs past the cameras, one of the runners shouts out something in his native language. Nike left that piece of audio in the TV spot they ran on American television. What did the African runner yell out? “I do not like these shoes,” he said. “Give me my own shoes!” Nike, of course, figured no one seeing the ad here in the USA would ever know what the man really said. Lost, more like vanished, in translation.

Our Secretary of State – currently Hillary Rodham Clinton – has an obligation to get it right. She is traveling around the world representing us. The least she can do is make sure she brings along an adequate translator. Otherwise, American diplomacy and – in this instance – her own personal dignity gets lost in translation.

THE TIM CLARK FAN CLUB

2009-08-09T10:26:00.002-04:00

Put me down as #1 in the Tim Clark fan club.

After yesterday's round at the World Golf Championship at Firestone Country Club was completed — scorecards were signed, accepted and tallied to set-up pairings for Sunday's final round, Tim Clark was in 3rd place and in plain view of a very big payday. He had at least a fighting shot at the $1 million+ first prize money and certainly figured to be in the thick of things for a check of $300,000-$600,000. However, after reflecting on his round, Clark remembered he made a placement mistake with his ball on the 16th green. He moved it legally but failed to replace - which is against the rules. Nobody else saw him do it or knew about it and no one but he could have reported it.

He did report it to tournament officials. He called in his own 2-shot penalty... after the fact... and now he begins today's final round in 14th place. No doubt now he will have to battle his way to earn anything near 6 figures. We'll never be able to say exactly how much this voluntary act of honesty will have cost him... but hundreds of thousands of dollars is easily in the balance.

And let's not forget — they call them professional golfers for a reason. They do play the game for money! The nonsense you so often hear from sportscasters about how they "play to win" is just that - nonsense. This is how these men make a living This is how they pay the mortgage, put their kids through school, eat! They don't hand out prize money at PGA events as an afterthought. And they pay a lot more for Third Place than they do for Fourteenth Place.

Following this demonstration of personal integrity, I started thinking about the new NFL season already beginning with all the fuss about training camps opening and the nerve wracking decisions among ownership about which just released felons and newly indicted criminals to put on their rosters and which of them to shun. Talk about personal integrity - the NFL wouldn't recognize integrity if it blindsided them, rolled over a league meeting like a bulldozer. One of the doctrines of pro football has always been "If you ain't cheating — you ain't trying!" How many wide receivers trap a ball and then jump up celebrating like they caught it - when they KNOW they didn't? How many great runs from scrimmage owe their gains to teammates' holding and illegal blocks? "If you ain't cheating..."

In baseball too there are many such examples - the phantom touch of a shortstop's toe on second base during a double play... the just as nonexistent tag on a steal of second base... the trapped ball on the outfield grass... the swing that's pulled back and the hitter's act which follows to show he didn't REALLY swing - when he knows he did... or the catcher who quickly pulls in an outside pitch to fool the umpire and get the called strike.

How about the NBA... if you counted the double-dribbles, palming the ball violations and the steps - Oh, my God .. THE STEPS! Walking is a regular play now in professional basketball. All the best players seem to get 3 steps to the basket before anyone even thinks to call a traveling violation.

Golf is the only sport played on a major level with big, big prize money at stake where total fidelity to the rules of play is honored by the players themselves, often at great personal cost. No real golfer WANTS to win by cheating. Just look at what Tim Clark did. His action isn't much different from someone who finds... say a quarter of million dollars lying on the ground somewhere and rather than take it home they bring it to a police station. How many people would really do that?

So, I'll be rooting for Tim Clark this afternoon. I hope he shoots 60 and wins, but of course that's not likely to happen. But I will remember his integrity and his strength of character a lot longer than I'll remember whoever does win and I'll be pulling for Tim Clark the next time I see him tee it up in a golf tournament.

Sotomayor, Si! GOP, no!

2009-08-06T16:38:00.002-04:00

Judge Sonia Sotomayor was easily confirmed by the US Senate for her seat on the Supreme Court. The outcome was never in doubt. Democrats have 60 votes and all 59 healthy Democratic Senators voted to confirm, including 91 year-old West Virginia Senator Byrd. Only Ted Kennedy, who is too ill, was unable to cast his vote. It wasn't needed. A tiny handful of Republicans joined the Democratic majority, but 31 Republican Senators went on record by voting against Judge Sotomayor.

That's great news for Democrats. In politics, you may run but you cannot hide from your record. Every Republican Senator running for reelection in 2010 voted against the first Hispanic and only the third female to become an Associate Justice on the nation's highest court.

The GOP "Death Wish" has never been more apparent. For Democrats - who could ask for more?

THE RACIAL BEER SUMMIT

2009-07-30T12:23:00.003-04:00

The Racial Beer Summit at the White House is enough to make me queasy.

At a time when our economy is falling in upon itself, a quarter of a million homes a month are being foreclosed on, healthcare is in crisis, we are (although we seem to simply ignore it) still fighting two wars, and doing piss-poorly in both of them, our cities and states are running out of money for basic public services and everything sort of seems to be diving headlong into the proverbial shitter – In times like these the President of the United States is having a Harvard professor and a local cop over for beer and a chat. Why?

Because of this… Like it or not, these are the facts, just the facts, sans all the interpretations:

1. In broad daylight, a fifty-seven year old man, a man who needs a cane to walk upright, returning from a visit to China, was seen “pushing” his way through a door that was apparently stuck. He made no attempt to hide or disguise his efforts. He was trying to get into his own home – not yours, not mine and not someone else’s – his own home!

2. Somebody called the cops.

3. When a policeman arrived on the scene the old man was already inside his home. For him, whatever difficulty and drama the situation had presented was over.

4. The policeman announced himself and asked for some identification from the professor – who was, remember, inside his own home by now.

5. The old man showed the cop two pieces of identification, at least one containing his photograph. The ID clearly showed that the house he was in belonged to him – He lived there! One of the IDs told the cop the old man was a teacher at the local neighborhood school – Harvard.

6. The cop called for six backup cops to assist him. Six! The professor was then arrested for violating a local Disorderly Conduct statute. He was placed in handcuffs and taken into custody.

Those are the facts. Yes, other things happened as well – allegedly – not necessarily and perhaps not ever to be established as facts. Unkind words may have been exchanged between the professor and the policeman. Someone’s “Mama” may, or may not, have been mentioned. The professor, from within his own home, may or may not have been “cooperative” with the policeman.

If we allow – for the purpose of discussion – that all of the claims by the policeman regarding the behavior of the professor are accurate, might that have justified his eventual arrest? Let’s say the professor spoke in a nasty manner to the cop. Let’s also say he refused, at first, to cooperate. Let’s also remember – he was inside his own home and the cop was an uninvited visitor. Could the cop have still arrested him? Well, only if the policeman in question didn’t know anything about Disorderly Conduct laws he was enforcing, only if you believe that a cop’s “personal reasons” why somebody ought to be arrested should be applied to the official enforcement of law and order.

Let’s look at just a couple of additional facts – facts that are well known to those who work in law enforcement.

- It is not illegal to talk unkindly to policemen. “Yes sir – No sir” is not required by law when communicating with cops.

- One cannot be disorderly in a manner that violates the law when one is in one’s own home. There is no Disorderly Conduct law in effect anywhere that allows for an arrest in this situation.

- According to the facts as we know them, the professor could not have committed any behavior legally considered to be disorderly so long as the only people present were the professor and the policeman and so long as they were inside the professor’s home.

Since that is the law, how then did this escalate to where the cop arrested the professor? Why did he do it?

One final fact to consider:
The professor is a black man. The cop is not. He is white.

Some people think that doesn’t matter. Some think that race plays no role in these situations. Some believe it’s only the media that plays up the racial angle. Some people – including the cop involved here – have denied that race was ever a factor.

Fair enough – What do you think? Try asking yourself this question:

If the Harvard professor had been an old white man with a cane, and the cop had been black… do you think events would have developed as they did and do you really believe that the two of them would be having a beer in the White House with the President of the United States?

WE KNOW "WHAT REALLY MATTERS."

2009-07-15T09:59:00.002-04:00

We are driven to be informed. To know what’s going on in the world.

We have it all, don’t we? Newspapers, magazines, cable television, the vast Internet... And yet, what is the point?

What's the point to all this when there is my own work to do – my latest novel and my next (and certainly not forever to do it...) - and so much that I haven't read that would really be worthwhile reading?

Am I spending my time (do we have anything else?) well?

For example - this morning I woke up at 6:30, went downstairs and put on a pot of coffee, then walked out to the driveway to pickup my home delivery copy of The New York Times. So, here I was with The Times, the TV (Morning Joe on MSNBC) and a fresh brewed cup of Dunkin Donuts coffee. How good is that? Pretty good, but not as good as you might think.

The news was all about Sonia Sotomayor (who is a dead-lock to be confirmed… so where’s the “news” part?), last night's MLB All-Star game (a meaningless and silly exhibition), some feeble attempt by the GOP to introduce their own healthcare plan, and a mention or two of Dick Cheney's maybe/maybe not-coup he cooked up with the CIA… eight years ago!

Of course, all of this was presented as being "VERY IMPORTANT STUFF."

And then it happened. I saw “What Really Matters.”

I read where Goldman-Sachs turned in a Second Quarter profit of $3.44 billion. $3.44 BILLION! Yes, this is the same Goldman-Sachs that was about to "go under" last fall and about to take the Civilized World with it plummeting into a deep, dark hole, flushing ourselves and “Life As We Know It” down the cosmic toilet. To prevent such a catastrophe, billions upon billions of taxpayer dollars were funneled to the Overlords at Goldman-Sachs to "save them." Aren't we all glad we did that? Whew! My God, what might have happened? Some of them might have lost their jobs, their healthcare coverage, even their homes. We couldn’t let that happen. Who do we think they are – those wonderful Americans who are Goldman-Sachs – autoworkers?

Thank The Lord we took our money and instead of saving it for our retirement or our kid’s college, we gave it to them, to save them. Now the good folks at Goldman-Sachs tell us that in the 65 working days of April-May-June 2009... a period of economic disaster for so many Americans, times so bad they have been unknown since the Great Depression more than 75 years ago... in those 65 days Goldman-Sachs pulled themselves up by their bootstraps and made a profit of $3.44 billions. Do you know what that means in terms of the kind of money we can understand and relate to?

Look at it this way -

Goldman-Sachs made an average of $53,000,000 in profits EVERY DAY.

That's the same as $6,625,000 an hour (more than you make in sixty minutes?) or $110,000.00+ for every minute... EVERY SINGLE MINUTE OF EVERY SINGLE HOUR. Go ahead… count to sixty. Do it now. One, two, three, four… There goes another 110 grand to the boys at Goldman-Sachs!

Every “working” hour means the hour you spent on your private email, the hour you spent looking at porn sites, the hour you spent talking to your wife, your kids, your mother, or whomever, the hour you spent eating lunch, even the hour you left early on a couple of days. I know you did. It didn’t make any difference. It didn’t put a dent in their moneymaking machine. The wheels at Goldman-Sachs never stopped turning... at six figures plus for every one of those hours.

How many of us have ever had $110,000.00 in our hands at any one moment? So, let's put this $3.44 BILLION profit into an amount of money we can deal with realistically, something as they say we can get our hands around.

How about - $1,840.00 a SECOND! If it took you three seconds to read that line... Goldman-Sachs made another $5,520.00 bucks. If you’re a slow reader, they made $7,360.00 or maybe $9,200.00. If it shocked you and you read it twice? Don’t ask. Don’t worry. It’s not your fault.

Iraq? Afghanistan? North Korean or Iranian nukes? Nationwide foreclosures? Widespread unemployment? Poor healthcare - and the lack of it for fifty million of us? A vacancy on the Supreme Court? Baseball? Apple pie? Chevrolet? Really, it's all about the BILLIONS isn't it? We know “What Really Matters.”

None of the other shit means anything. $$$$$$$$ - Yikes! We’re fucking helpless aren’t we?

Time is all we have. How we use it is all that matters. I want to spend mine as well as possible. I hope Valentine Marofsky will share his reading list with me.

THE TRUTH ABOUT SARAH'S SUCCESS

2009-07-09T10:54:00.002-04:00

Sarah Palin is not well informed. She’s not well educated. She’s not well spoken, extemporaneously (although she gives a terrific prepared speech!). And it would be difficult to make a case that she demonstrates either a keen intelligence or even an adequate analytical mind. So, how then do we explain her meteoric rise to national prominence as a serious political leader?

Here’s the Truth – not the Ugly Truth – far from it. Here’s the Attractive Truth.

Deal with it… There is a big, big difference between men and women. It’s all about sex – S-E-X! It is the crucial factor in most behaviors involving human beings. Age has little to do with it, except perhaps to overstate it among younger people and, more recently, the reinvigorated, sexually liberated older folks. Class, race, socio-economic status, education… you name the qualifier – the difference between the sexes overwhelms it.

This morning, in a distinctly unscientific study, I checked The New York Times, the nine major television networks (ABC, CBS, NBC plus CNBC, CNN, ESPN, FOX NEWS, HLN and MSNBC), the four network affiliate stations where I live, and for good measure I even tuned into two channels on my cable package I’ve probably never looked at before – a Canadian news channel and the BBC American feed. I saw the same thing on all sixteen media outlets. I saw both men and women – BUT – while the men represented a fairly accurate cross-section of what men really look like, ALL the women were very attractive. In fact, they were so much more attractive than any group or collection of women would be anywhere else, it was striking.

In The New York Times, I took note that 100% of the ads with women in them had only good looking, sexy women in them – that’s beautiful women in every single newspaper ad. On the nine television stations, every woman who appeared on camera – which is to say every anchor, reporter or correspondent – with the possible exception of Andrea Mitchell on MSNBC, was an attractive woman, attractively presented.

Ms. Mitchell (or more accurately, Mrs. Greenspan) aside, not all women in the world are as beautiful or as well prepared as those who are on television. These TV women do not look like the women you run into everyday in real life. And yet, the men on the same TV shows do more closely reflect the average look of men everywhere.

I bring this fact to the forefront only to emphasize the difference between men and women… the big, big difference and the role this difference plays in our perception of people. Now, let me just say it – get it out in the open – the straight Truth.

Sarah Palin’s success – 100% of it – is due to this: Men want to fuck her. Women want to be her. A+B=C. That’s how she got to be Governor of Alaska and that’s the only reason she was picked to be the Republican candidate for Vice President.

Is there any need to prove the first point? If looks were not everything, why else would the Republican National Committee spend more money in two weeks dressing her up than 99% of women spend on clothes and makeup in their whole lifetime? On the second point – that women want to be like her – look around you the next time you’re in public, the next time you’re in a supermarket or in Wal-Mart or on a train or a bus or simply walking down a crowded street. Most women are not anywhere near as good-looking as Sarah Palin is. And yet we know - they want to be.

However, in public life, and certainly in public office, the range of men you will see look to be representative of the range of men everywhere else in our society. Tall, short, thin, fat, bald, hairy – you name it. If you watch the news channels with any regularity you already know that these men – Congressmen, Senators, Governors and the like – are not the best dressed or the most finely groomed men you will ever see. Why not? It’s not necessary.

Then… there’s Sarah Palin.

Forget for now, if you can, whether or not you agree with anything she says she stands for. But ask yourself this – honestly – If Sarah Palin didn’t look the way she does would anyone have ever taken her seriously? And now that we’ve heard her as well as seen her, why does anyone continue to?

Men want to fuck her. Women want to be her. A+B=C. That’s how Sarah Palin got to be the Governor of Alaska and the Republican candidate for Vice President. That’s also why 2012 is the year for her – the end of the line. By 2016, that which makes her so appealing now will probably have withered and died.

WE ARE A DYSFUNCTIONAL PEOPLE

2009-07-05T13:09:00.000-04:00

Just this week…

1. The people of Minnesota have certified the election of a comedian to the US Senate. A nice Jewish boy from New York City (Al Franken) replaces another nice Jewish boy from New York City (yes, Norm Coleman is Jewish and he’s from Brooklyn). No complaints on this. The citizens of Minnesota – a bedrock state of America’s Midwest – have an absolute right to elect anyone they want. Those who view Franken’s election as weird are wrong. The choice of Al Franken is truly in the American mainstream, not an exception. California elected two movie actors to high office, one as Governor, another as US Senator. The actor who became Governor later became President as well, our first divorced President.

Who can say? Maybe someday Al Franken will be America’s first Jewish President.

Our history is replete with elected officials – Governors, Congressmen, Senators - who “moved into” their states and then their official positions. In recent years alone, Hawaii’s Barack Obama became a Senator from Illinois; Hillary Clinton of Arkansas (and before that Illinois and before that Pennsylvania) was elected to the same New York Senate seat once occupied by Massachusetts’ Robert F. Kennedy; Bill Bradley of Missouri and New York became a US Senator… from New Jersey. Today, the Governor of America’s largest state, California, is an Austrian. Michigan’s Governor is from Canada.

I could go on and on… the term “carpetbagger” itself comes from the Reconstruction period following the Civil War some 140 years ago.

Also, this week…

2. The MILF “hottie” from the Far North, Sarah Palin, up and quit! That alone, while unusual, is not especially dysfunctional. What is, however, is her amazing ascension in national politics. And yet, Palin – like Franken – is also well within the American political and social mainstream. We have a long, long history of choosing highly questionable individuals with little or no governing background credentials for specifically difficult and important public positions of power. How far back do you want to go?

Remember Ulysses Grant? He was a washed-up (actually quite unwashed) ex-general; a notorious drunk; a man with no discernible qualifications to be anything once he left the military. Naturally, we elected him President – twice! And during his eight years the first wave of rapacious Wall Street businessmen stole everything they could get their hands and his signature on. The Grant administration was the most corrupt in our history until… Bush the Younger brought the oil companies and the modern thieves of finance from Wall Street into the White House, the Pentagon and the Treasury. In eight years we were looted to the tune of trillions. And it continues…

How did we ever elect the alcoholic, drug using, military service evading, intellectually disinterested Bush the Younger? He was the son of Bush the Elder. Is there anyone, anywhere who would make the argument that George W. Bush would have been Governor of Texas or President of the United States had his father been… anyone else?

How far back do you want to go? Remember John Q. Adams? He too was the son of former President. He too (like Bush the Younger) finished second in his Presidential election; and he too was inaugurated anyway becoming President after the 1824 election. Like I said, in the mainstream…

So, back to Sarah Palin… how did she ever get elected Governor, even in a state with fewer people than your average sized small city anywhere else in the United States? Name the Mayor of the second or third or fourth largest city in your state and ask yourself – Would I take that person and put them a heartbeat from the Presidency? Particularly when the President is an old man – older than any US President ever – who has already had cancer more than once? You don’t really have to answer that one.

And finally this week…

3. Michael Jackson died. The most likely cause of death appears to be an overdose of a drug used to place surgical patients in a chemical coma, a drug not even available by prescription, a drug available only to doctors, for use only in a hospital setting. Sound like the sort of drug you want to take “recreationally” at home? Well, “Ask a man who knows.” I speak from experience and the answer is a resounding – NO!

Culturally dysfunctional – Michael Jackson dying as he did? Not quite. Aren’t we used to show business personalities dying from the misuse of drugs, both illegal drugs and prescription ones too. After all, what’s the difference between a drug dealer and a doctor? Sometimes, only a license, that’s all.

What is dysfunctional about Michael Jackson needs no mention from me – does it? But isn’t the real dysfunction in our culture obvious from the reaction to his death? Of course, I don’t mean the reaction to the greatness of his music or the phenomenon he was as a performer. Both are unrivaled and unquestioned – however, realistically speaking, he will not be missed. No, he won’t. Why not? Because everything Michael Jackson did still exists – it’s all still here – on record, on iTunes and YouTube, DVD, on DVR, on film and tape. His artistry is not gone. In fact, his death sort of allows us to once more enjoy his work without embarrassment or explanation, without feelings of discomfort or images of young boys and middle-aged men. Fortunately for us, we will never be without Michael’s music or his performances.

The cultural dysfunctional here is the strange, near-psychotic reverence with which Jackson is suddenly being treated by the black community. In the last 50 years – the very years of his lifetime – there is no black American of note I can think of who did more to reject his racial identification than Michael Jackson. Yet he is mourned as if he were… someone special to and for his race. Why?

We are a dysfunctional people. This past week didn’t prove it. It simply illuminated it – again.

THE RIGHT-WING LOVES DEMOCRACY - IN IRAN!

2009-06-18T13:27:00.002-04:00

The right-wing in America, led loudly and proudly by the Republican Party, has fallen head over heels in love with democracy – in of all places- Iran! The GOP’s last candidate for President, the loser John McCain, himself a lifelong warhawk, a supporter of every dictatorship ever created or propped up by the US military-industrial complex - the man who gleefully sang “Bomb Iran” to the Beach Boy’s tune, “Barbara Ann” – McCain's the one calling out President Obama demanding he lend aid and comfort to the Iranians protesting a “fixed election.”

The right-wing is outraged at a “fixed election!” Reminiscent of the radical 60's SDS, Senator McCain is manning the barricades for Democracy Now! Where was Senator McCain in Florida in 2000? Where were the Republican Party and the foam-at-the-mouth rabid right-wing radio talk hosts in 2004 when the “official vote count” in Ohio said that only 7% of Cleveland’s black voters bothered to turn out and vote in that election? In their love of democracy did they scream for a recount in Ohio? How come these guys never fall in love with democracy over here?

Does nobody remember? The last time the United States involved itself in Iranian electoral politics it was 1953. Working hand in glove with our British allies, in lockstep support of BP Oil and later Mobil, Exxon, Texaco and the rest, we stepped in and overthrew the elected Iranian government – the guys who wanted to actually nationalize their own oil resources - and installed, in their place, the vicious, violent rule of the Shah of Iran. Remember him? He was our point man for democracy in Iran when the great democrat (small “d”) Dwight David Eisenhower was President of the United States. Ike saved democracy in Europe – why not Iran too?

Back then, in 1953, under the direction of General Norman Schwarzkopf (whose son, Norm Jr. would one day lead a US invasion of another Muslim nation in the Middle East), we did exactly what today’s right-wing wants us to do again in Iran – decide which side we like and impose it upon the Iranian people.

We have collectively, conveniently forgotten 1953. Despite President Obama’s admission of the facts, some still insist upon denial. The Iranians have never forgotten. There must be something wrong with them, right?

Imagine – if you can – if some foreign nation had come into the United States in November or December of 2000 and, by force of arms, imposed Al Gore as the new President. Would you have forgotten? Would we ever forget?

And now, in 2009, Iran has held another election and they seem to have fucked it up royally –beyond anyone's wildest dreams. The votes were apparently counted and the results announced even before the voters had cast all their ballots. The greatest fixer of them all, Mayor Richard Daley – the man who man who robbed Nixon and made JFK President - was never able to do that in Chicago.

The Iranian election was a joke. But it was an Iranian election. It's their joke and the mess belongs to them. We are neither the world's policeman nor are we the maid.

They are not children. The Persian culture is thousands of years old. They are not without their own capable leaders. As we pleaded for Poland once – now we should all let Iran be Iran. Let the Iranian people work this out for themselves. For once, let’s us stay out of someone else’s business.

A TALE OF TWO COUNTRIES... inspired by a comment made by Valentine Marofsky

2009-06-15T21:13:00.001-04:00

Two headlines today….

“IRAN PROTESTOR SLAIN AMID MASSIVE RALLY”
and…
“MADOFF VICTIMS VENT THEIR ANGER.”
A tale of two countries.

It seems likely that the people of Iran have been boldly screwed over by their own government. The Iranian Presidential candidate supported by the apparent majority, Mousavi, was declared to be not just the loser, but a pitiful, pathetic loser. Mousavi – according to the “official” vote count was roundly and soundly trounced, humiliated and ground into the electoral dirt like a bug beneath the Shoe of Iran. We are told he even lost the popular vote in his own hometown, in his own province, among his own clan or tribe, so to speak. Of course he did.

In the spirit that brought more than a million Ukrainians out in the -20 below zero cold when their Presidential election was rigged; and with the fervor that inspired hundreds of thousands of Poles to rise up against their Soviet masters in support of Solidarity, now we see Iranians – by the hundreds of thousands – young and old – men and women – in the streets protesting the bogus outcome of their election.

And who is it we see at the head of the protesting crowd – microphone in hand – demanding freedom and justice? Why it’s the candidate himself – Mousavi! The people vote and now they protest. They voted for him and he stands with them!

Over here, in the comfort of the richest society ever to exist on this planet – the United States of America - we have “victims” venting their outrage. But, have they the courage of the Iranians? Do they hold the ethical high ground? Or do they stand on squishier stuff? When I see the Madoff protestors I am reminded of drug dealers stealing from one another. And who are these victims? Looks to me like the aggrieved drug dealers – in this case the poor “victims” of Bernie Madoff – are demanding retribution from the more successful, surviving thief. The greedy have been fleeced by the even greedier.

My heart is with the Iranians.

I wonder what the Iranian people have that we lack? Where were we in 2000, after Florida? Where was Al Gore? Where were we – again – in 2004, after Ohio? Where was John Kerry?

In those elections we showed our true American colors, and so too did our candidates.

Were we ever a match for the Iranians?

In 1824 Andrew Jackson won the general election for President. In a four-way race, he finished a convincing first. But he was denied the necessary Electoral Votes and the US Congress voted to make the son of a former President – a man with the same name as his father, made slightly different only by the addition of an extra initial – Congress made him the new President. They did this despite the fact that John Q. Adams was beaten by Andrew Jackson and finished second to Jackson in the voting.

Like Mousavi has done in Iran, and most unlike what either Al Gore or John Kerry did, Andrew Jackson denied the credibility of the Adams’ administration. He took his case to the people. He spent the next four years telling anyone who would listen – and there were many who were eager to hear him – that their vote had been corrupted, denied, destroyed and rejected. Jackson ran again in 1828 and this time he won a landslide victory. He served two terms as US President and many of us see him now, perhaps everyday – staring at us from the middle of the twenty-dollar bill. A hundred and eighty-five years after his bitter defeat, Andrew Jackson is still an American hero

Do you think anyone will even know who Al Gore or John Kerry were a hundred and eighty-five years from now? We can only imagine what the future holds for Mr. Mousavi?

Good luck to the brave Iranians who risk life and limb to claim the full value of their vote. As for the Americans and their outrage over the swindler Bernie Madoff? For me they seem very much like that hot mustard you get when you order Chinese food. You know, the stuff that leaves a bitter taste in your mouth.

IRANIAN DEMOCRACY AT WORK

2009-06-13T13:01:00.002-04:00

Iranian electoral democracy at work may have much in common with our own here in the United States.

We don’t live there – in Iran. We don’t vote in their elections. We are not privy to what’s going on, in person, as it happens. We have zero firsthand information about the Iranian election. We depend on news reports. Those news reports have shown us the apparent massive support for the anti-Ahmadinejad candidate. Of course, all we know is what we’re told… so, in truth we don’t really “KNOW” anything at all. We’re dependant upon the news reports to be credible. The US media tells us the truth, doesn’t it? They are credible.

Maybe they are. Maybe they’re not. Ask yourself again: What do we know… I mean, what do we “KNOW?”

Look at it from this perspective –

Let’s say Ahmadinejad managed to defeat Mousavi because of the votes he received from a single district. That is where the election turned in his favor. Let’s also say that this district was controlled by Ahmadinejad’s very close friend, a lifelong associate… perhaps even his brother – a blood relative, a tribal intimate. And, let us say that his opponent, Mousavi, hotly contested this local result and blamed the “brother” for fixing the count. Let us say that Mousavi claimed he actually won the district in question just as he was credited with winning the country as a whole.

Let’s say Mousavi demanded a recount in the “brother’s” district.

Now, go to the extreme. Let’s say the Iranian election was finally and conclusively decided by a vote of a special High Court that ruled there could be no independent recount of the district’s ballots and, in effect, declared Ahmadinejad the victor. Add one last element to this by stipulating that some of the members of this High Court had been named by Ahmadinejad’s closest tribal sponsor – by his father!

How do you think the US news media would report that? Would they report that Iran had held a fair and honest election? Would the result be presented to us as a symbol of what democracy is supposed to be all about? Or, maybe, don’t you think, it would be universally seen – by our own media – as the dishonest, corrupt violation of the public will that it surely was – an inside, family-job, a put up deal, FIXED!

Now - take it one final unthinkable step beyond: What if that happened here, right here in the United States of America, God’s gift to the world as its Best Hope for mankind on this planet – the home of the brave and the land of the free?

No need to worry. Such a travesty could never happen here.

By the way, did I tell you how furious I am with the Iranian sham election, their hoax upon democracy? They don’t deserve the time of day from a people as noble and honest and democratic and free as us.

God bless the USA!

CHANGE WE CAN BELIEVE IN

2009-06-13T08:52:00.002-04:00

Change We Can Believe In! Where do you think we might see such change? Not just something a little different from past policies, but real, meaningful, dramatic, significant change? How about healthcare?

The Obama campaign said he would. YES WE CAN! And his administration is promising exactly that. They say we’ll emerge from the Dark Ages of western civilization and no longer be the only industrialized country without a system of healthcare that provides for universal coverage. That would be change in anybody’s book.

Harry Truman was the first American President to call for a national healthcare policy that guaranteed coverage to all Americans – more than 60 years ago! Since then, JFK favored it; so did Lyndon Johnson – even Richard Nixon – as well as some other presidents, Democrats and Republicans. Clinton made a real effort early in his first term. But nothing happened.

Why? For each failed attempt there was a reason, or reasons. For example, perhaps if President Clinton had put a professional in charge of the health plan instead of… his wife! ... But, the real reason we’ve seen the same system remain intact and grow and grow and grow until healthcare has become the largest segment of the largest economy in the world is – the power and influence of the private interests that comprise the healthcare industry. There are many of them, but basically we’re talking about the pharmaceutical manufacturers, the insurance companies and the HMOs, the hospital and service provider corporations, the medical supply and equipment manufacturers and the equity investment firms with a financial stake in our sicknesses, our treatments, and the maintenance of our wellbeing. As always – follow the money.

On the one hand – seeking change - we have the desire of the people for universal healthcare. On the other hand – there’s the mountain of money that is the enormous fortune of the healthcare industry. Thus far, it hasn’t been a fair or close fight.

We have gone the distance, 12 Presidents from Truman to Obama, with our For-Profit Only system and no national program of any kind designed to ensure actual healthcare coverage for all the people of the United States. And now – FINALLY! – Obama is saying he’ll bring us the change Truman first spoke of. Change We Can Believe In. How will he do it?

Obama has appointed a Healthcare Czar! Wow, someone who will spearhead the effort, direct the administration’s troops in the field, work with the Congress – someone who can get this Change We Can Believe In off the ground. For once, a professional will be in charge.

The Healthcare Czar’s name is Nancy-Ann DeParle. I’m sure many of you are thinking – A woman! Terrific.

Czar DeParle is on our side, right? Sure she is. Where did Obama find her? Where does she come from?

In the last 3 years Czar DeParle has served on the Boards of a number of healthcare industry corporations. And she’s been rewarded to the tune of – are you sitting down? - $5.8 million. Yes, I’m afraid so - $5,800,000 paid to her from the very industry she’s the Czar of. They must really be scared, huh?

Here’s a partial list: Cerner, Medco Health Systems, Boston Scientific, CareMore Health Plan, Legacy Hospital Partners. Czar DeParle also served as a Managing Director of another healthcare company, called Davita. This plum spot paid her $685,000. Add to this the $1 million investment stake Czar DeParle owned in CCMP. No, that’s not a part of the old Soviet Union. It’s an equity capital company heavily invested in – you guessed it - the healthcare industry.

Conflict of interest? C’mon now – She’s been appointed by Obama.

Perhaps you’ve never heard of Cerner, one of the companies on whose Board she served. Cerner is in the medical-computer business. So, how did the founder of Cerner, Neal Patterson react when Nancy-Ann DeParle was appointed Healthcare Czar and the Obama stimulus plan included $19 billion – yes, that’s BILLION – for computerized medical files? Mr. Patterson understandably called these developments “…the largest opportunity in the history of our industry!” I’ll bet it is too.

Nancy-Ann DeParle is on our side, right? She’ll bring us Change We Can Believe In… won’t she?

Of course, no Czar will be writing the legislation. And she won’t have a vote in the Congress. And we can trust our Congressional leaders to be on our side for Change We Can Believe In. Can’t we?

Thankfully, Senate Leader Harry Reid is no problem. He’s only got $50,000 in healthcare investments. Whew! A pittance. That’s good. What about the other key legislators involved in writing the healthcare bill? We’ll take fifty-grand as a good sign anytime, won’t we? We have such low standards.

Sorry. Republican Senator Judd Gregg, who’ll sit on the committee, has $560,000 of personal money invested in healthcare corporations.

But he’s a Republican – Who cares about him? It’s the Democrats who run the show. What about the key Democrats in the House? They’re sure to be on our side, right? Yeah, sure they are.

A key House committee member, Rep. Jane Harman from California, is not only married to one of the richest men in the country, she personally has – are you still sitting down? – Congresswoman Harman personally owns $3.2 million of healthcare industry corporate investments.

In fact, the 11 key members of the House and Senate have a total of $27 million in healthcare corporate investments. And they will write the bill? Are you feeling sick yet?

Looking for a silver lining among all these dark clouds? Look no farther than Sen. Chris Dodd who will be in charge of the Senate committee, in the absence of the ill Sen. Ted Kennedy. Just like we’ve always figured, Sen. Dodd is clean as a whistle. We’re saved! Well, not so quickly. You know how they do things in Washington, don’t you?

Jackie Dodd – the WIFE of Senator Dodd – just happens to sit on the Board of Directors of 4 major healthcare corporations. Your company should be so lucky. She’s the Big Earner in her family.

Like Bogart and Bergman had Paris, we’ll always have Sen. John Kerry. Too bad he didn’t win. We might have gotten universal healthcare already, right? Well, maybe not. Kerry’s financial disclosure lists some $5.2 million of his money invested in healthcare corporations.

But they’re all on our side, aren’t they? They say they are. Obama says so too. I guess they are – even if their money is stacked up against us, higher than Jack’s beanstalk. After all, what’s more influential – the wishes of the people or the power of invested capital? You don’t have to answer that.

When it comes to healthcare, don’t be holding your breath waiting for anything like… Change We Can Believe In.

RANDY JOHNSON: GOOD, NOT GREAT

2009-06-07T02:47:00.003-04:00

Randy Johnson recently won his 300th game. To accumulate 300 wins is a major achievement. Most baseball fans think of Johnson as a great pitcher and include him on any list of the all-time greatest. If asked, most fans would probably point to his 300 career wins as proof of Johnson’s greatness. Others will talk about the time he won 3 games in one World Series.

Every pitcher who has won 300 or more games is in the Hall of Fame. Someday Johnson will be too. The tall left-hander is a lock to be elected, almost certainly on the first ballot. Nevertheless, he’ll be the oldest ever first ballot inductee, past his 50th birthday when he does finally join the immortals in the Hall. You see, he’s still pitching at age 46 and a player must be retired for 5 years before he becomes eligible to be voted in.

Baseball is a game of statistics and standards, yardsticks that remain forever constant. The mark of excellence for pitchers has always been to win 20 games in a single season. Randy Johnson has done that. He’s been a 20 game winner three times. Johnson has won 20 games or more in 3 different seasons. That means in 19 other seasons he did not win 20 games.

As for the one World Series in which he was the winning pitcher 3 times – if you think that should get you into the Hall of Fame what do you say to this list of pitchers, each of whom like Johnson, won 3 games in a single World Series – but they never made it to Cooperstown: Bill Dineen, Deacon Phillippe, Babe Adams, Joe Wood, Red Farber, Harry Brecheen, Lew Burdette and Mickey Lolich?

Since he’s played for 22 years and won 300 times, it will come as no surprise that in nearly half the seasons in which he competed he failed to win as many as 15 games. Do the math. While 20 wins is a mark of excellence, the measure of a “good pitcher” is pegged at 15 wins a season. So, in 10 separate seasons Randy Johnson was not only not “excellent,” he was something less than “good.”

In 4 different seasons Johnson actually lost more games than he won. That’s “bad.” In his last season pitching for Seattle his record was 1-10. That's right - he won only once and was the losing pitcher for his team ten times. Hall of Fame?

In the history of Major League Baseball 369 pitchers have won 20 games in a single season. That is remarkable since almost 6,000 pitchers have played on Major League teams. How does Randy Johnson stack up against the other 20 game winners?

Okay – but certainly he’s not up there among the greatest of the game.

There are 23 pitchers who’ve had more 20 game seasons – consecutively – than Randy Johnson has had in his entire 22-year career. Four of those pitchers – Wes Ferrell, Dave McNally, Urban Shocker and Dave Stewart – won 20 or more games 4 seasons in a row and none of them is in the Hall of Fame. Johnson won 20 games 3 times in his whole career, not in consecutive seasons.

How about the three 20 game seasons Johnson did put together? How does that number look?

Wes Ferrell (a household name?) won 20 games in 6 different seasons – that’s twice as many times as Randy Johnson. And for the games really greatest – well, there is no comparison. Johnson’s three 20 game seasons seem hardly worth a mention against Christy Mathewson and Warren Spahn who won 20 games 13 times each; or Walter Johnson’s 12 times. Ferguson Jenkins, the great Cubs right-hander, won 20 games in a season 7 different times- 7 times! - and look how long it took for him to be elected into the Hall of Fame.

How does Randy Johnson’s record of 3 times compare with these 5 time 20 game winners: Carl Mays, George Mullin, Deacon Phillippe and Hugo Vaughn? You probably never heard of any of them. None are anywhere near being in the Hall of Fame.

The Hall of Fame is for greatness, not goodness. Here’s what greatness looks like: Christy Mathewson won 20 games in 12 straight seasons; Walter Johnson had 10 consecutive 20 game seasons; Lefty Grove did it 7 straight times. Jim Palmer won 20 games or more 4 times in a row – twice! It was only 1974 that kept Palmer from registering 8 straight 20 win seasons.

Randy Johnson is a good pitcher – maybe a very good pitcher – one who managed to hang on long enough to rack up 300 wins. He may end up pitching in 4 different decades. Longevity is interesting, but it doesn’t make you one of the all-time greats, unless your list is very long.

THE GREATEST INVENTION EVER!

2009-05-27T10:20:00.002-04:00

Is it the wheel? Or fire? Maybe you think it’s the printing press. Lots of people are positive the prize, almost automatically, goes to the flush toilet.

What is the greatest invention ever?

The debate is finally over. It’s settled once and for all.

The greatest thing ever invented by mankind is Batter Blaster. For those too far behind the cultural curve for their own good – those who’ve never heard of Batter Blaster - for you I have the only two words that matter, the key to your future delight: Instant pancakes.

You can now buy a can – yes, the same sort of refrigerated pressurized can that whipped cream comes in – and out of its nozzle springs… Instant pancakes!

It’s so simple and so quick. Walk into the kitchen, put a frying pan on the stove, turn up the flame, press the plastic nozzle and – out comes pancake batter!

In a matter of moments, what do you have? You have just the very thing you’ve always wanted – instant, homemade, hot, light, golden brown, crisp around the edges PANCAKES! Please, please, hold your applause.

Life is good. The Patent Office has served its purpose. You don’t have to mix the ingredients, measure the flour, add an egg, pour the milk, shake it up or mix the bowl. You don’t have to worry about making too much batter. You don’t have to watch carefully how much you pour into the frying pan. Oh, no. Batter Blaster. Just point and shoot, so to speak.

And the best part – It takes no time at all. Before you’ve scratched your still sleepy eyes, you’re eating them.

I'll have another, thank you.

LIZ CHENEY - THE GOOD DAUGHTER

2009-05-23T12:22:00.001-04:00

Why was Liz Cheney all over television last week?

A week has 168 hours. That’s 10,080 minutes. There’s no way you can make it shorter.

For you and me, we may not care. Life goes on. But, if you’re running a cable news operation, you face an unending, ceaseless demand for “programming.” Ten thousand and eighty minutes divided into program segments of approximately seven minutes each means you must be prepared to deliver some sort of on-air content to cover 1,440 segments – this week, next week, the week after, and… every week until you shut it down, turn it off, or blow your brains out.

Thus, in answer to this oppressing necessity, there has been created in modern American culture the “Talking Head.” These are the faces and mouths, the eyes, ears and hair, which fill the screen and add the audio. Their real purpose - treading water until… the next segment. For the Programming Department, the “Talking Head” is the tiny rat on the spinning wheel – you know, the wheel that turns and turns but never goes anywhere.

If you’re a baseball fan, you’ll immediately understand. The “Talking Head” is the television equivalent of the middle-reliever, someone brought in from the bullpen in the third inning, somebody who can “give you some innings.” No crying baseball? Well, there’s no “mercy rule” in television. No time-out. Every minute is sixty-seconds and you must fill them up – each and every one - with something to look at and something that makes noise. You can never reach the next segment without completing the current one.

Obviously, the qualifications for who can be a “Talking Head” is either very liberally interpreted or totally ignored. “Any port in a storm” has been replaced in the daily world of today’s cable news networks with “Any face, Anytime.” In a moment of panic – when catastrophe strikes – the only known escape is to hit the control room button and bring up Billy Mays’ stain remover rant or the saving grace of the “Sham-Wow.”

“Talking Heads” feed the televised tapeworm. And, there is never enough food.

This explains why we have been lately subjected to former Vice President Dick Cheney’s daughter Liz. She’s out there for Daddy. Were she a few years younger this would easily be labeled child-abuse. Of course, as a father, I appreciate the loyalty and love of a daughter. I have three and I am positive each of them would do for me what Cheney’s daughter has done for him. What greater gift can a daughter give than to publicly embarrass herself to protect her father from the consequences of his action?

So, let us praise Liz Cheney for her devotion to family and her willingness to humiliate herself for her Dad – and now let’s ask the only questions she should have been confronted with while she was on television, but of course she wasn’t.

Question #1: Do you have any idea what you’re talking about?

This is not a frivolous question. She’s defending her father and quite specifically attacking President Obama. Based on what? Her opinion? Her unquestioning love for her father? Or does she have some facts on which to base her opinion that her father’s torture policies were both legal and productive and Obama’s stopping them is wrong and damaging to the nation? Since this is what she said – shouldn’t she be asked - how does she know this?

If Liz Cheney only has opinions – well, we all have opinions. She’s only giving the cable programmers “some innings.” More meat for the monster. Here today, gone tomorrow. If we’re dumb enough to watch, that’s our problem.

But, if she has some real information, some facts, some data to back-up her assertions – well, if she does, where did she get this information, these facts, this data? After all, she’s only Dick Cheney’s daughter. She possesses no other qualifications; she has no official resume or background or experience – and for damn sure – Liz Cheney has no national security clearance. As far as we can tell, she has no first-hand capacity to know anything that you or I don’t know.

Unless, she’s spoken with her father about this issue – about the run-up to the Iraq War and the use of torture and rendition by the CIA and other American agencies and operatives, private, public, secret and foreign.

This leads right into the next question Liz Cheney should have been asked on television.

Question #2: Have you ever discussed this topic with your father?

Maybe she says, “No.” Okay, in that case – why is she on the air?

Maybe she says, “Yes.” In that case isn’t she admitting that her father, the former Vice President of the United States, has violated a number of federal laws regarding the use and dissemination of classified information?

Liz Cheney appeared on every cable news network last week. She also was seen on each of the traditional over-the-air networks. They all covered her remarks. Did anyone, at any of these television operations, ask her these questions?

Perhaps, the next time she sticks her head above the mud, somebody with a microphone will ask her how she got so dirty.

NEW ORLEANS IS "ALMOST WALKING"

2009-05-18T12:00:00.001-04:00

Car dealers have a word for it – a term that accurately describes what New Orleans has become. “Almost walking” is what they call it. When a customer drives onto a car lot in an automobile obviously on its last legs, that’s what the salesmen say – “He’s almost walking.”

You can’t see it from the air. The path into New Orleans’ Louis Armstrong Airport takes you over the northern portion of Lake Pontchartrain, so you get no view at all from above the city of New Orleans. And the cab ride into town from the airport has also been arranged to block any sight of blight, disrepair, abandonment or damage of any sort. All along Interstate 10 they’ve built high walls of beautifully contoured, richly toned cement complete with the famous Fleur De Lais logo. You’ve seen walls like these before on highways in residential neighborhoods. They are usually constructed to block the roadway noise from local residents. In this case, it’s pretty obvious. They’re designed to hide the results of the recent unpleasantness, the ugly residue of Katrina. They have to do that because if you could see it, you’d know.

New Orleans is “almost walking.”

Our first morning there we went to the Café Du Monde down on Decatur Street, along the river, for your traditional New Orleans breakfast – beignets and coffee. If you’ve ever been there you know the Café Du Monde is a huge place, open aired with a roof but no sides, no walls – just a mass of small tables, a bunch of waitresses running around in constant chaos, and a jazz band to liven the atmosphere. The coffee is pure Louisiana – with a hint of chicory, lightened with heavy cream and sweetened just a little too much. The beignets are special – hot from the deep fryer, overwhelmed with powdered sugar, three to a plate. It’s a breakfast fit for kings.

We never even sat down. You didn’t have to be or even remember Doris Troy. Just one look was all it took. What you saw was the dinning room in a nursing home. Walkers, wheelchairs and the “almost walking” themselves were everywhere – to the exclusion of everyone else. At first glance, we thought we had stumbled into an outdoor, early morning Bingo game. So, we hightailed it across the street and up a couple of blocks to a tiny joint I’d been in years before called simply, Café Beignet. The coffee was just as good. The beignets were even better and if there were a dozen people in the place that was a lot. Perhaps, I thought, the Café Du Monde was an anomaly. Could the remnants of the John McCain campaign be holding a reunion? Maybe it was a Billy Graham meeting. But it wasn’t.

All over New Orleans, no matter where we went, it looked like a field trip, an excursion for the nursing home set. In the hotels. In the restaurants. On the riverboat jazz dinner cruise. In the French Market. Everywhere we went. there was the Social Security crowd. Where, I wondered, had all the young people gone? Even the middle-aged were missing.

Among the great sights in New Orleans has always been the young people – drunk, high, smiling, laughing, parading up and down Bourbon Street with painted faces, bare midriffs, halter-tops and scary T-shirts. Not this time out. Bourbon Street was still crowded. They still don’t allow any cars on it. But, the walking wounded looked angry, frustrated, sick and tired, and some just plain mean. The happiness and joy was all sucked out of them. Bourbon Street was noisy with music, but it wasn’t alive; it was different. The music was recorded and most of it was hip-hop. The old joints with their own local bands – the brass bands and jazz quartets, the horn players and blues guitars – all gone. Sure, the sixteen-ounce beers, at three bucks a pop, were still there. The sex-show barkers were still pitching hard. But the context that made it all so attractive once was missing. It was Bourbon Street and yes, it was The French Quarter, but it might just as well have been Pittsburgh or Buffalo, Boise or Tacoma, Little Rock or Albany.

The French Quarter is “almost walking.”

The hotels are open. The lovely, elegant place we stayed at, in The Quarter, had weddings both nights we were there. Two receptions. Two bands in the courtyard. Not a black musician in either band and not a single player under the age of fifty, or so it seemed. The restaurants too are open. The famous ones – Antoine’s, Commander’s Palace, Brennans’s, The Rib Room at the Royal Orleans – they’re all full. But The Quarter is also full of Realtor’s For Sale Signs and hand lettered posters in windows saying For Rent. After a while you begin to notice the enormous number of abandoned residential buildings and when you gaze through the gates back to the courtyards, you see the grass hasn’t been cut and the fountains aren’t working. Nobody’s home. The people who lived there are gone. A truly American culture has been dispersed, perhaps destroyed.

We saw no street musicians, no dancers, no jugglers, no mimes, no painted people, walking works of art, no happiness and no joy. Even the horses fronting the carriages lined up in front of Jackson Square looked like they’d rather be elsewhere, out to pasture than lined up to pull the nursing home crowd around the narrow streets of the French Quarter.

We stayed the weekend. We ate well. No doubt about it. We bought a couple of T-shirts for the grandchildren – realizing as we did that we were as old as most of the others around us. We don’t feel like it – and maybe the other oldsters trotting around New Orleans think of themselves as their younger selves too. I did hear one old man ask the old woman he was with, as they finished their lunch, “Are we ready to rock ‘n roll?” She said, “Yes,” but I’m not sure.

Ernie K. Doe is gone. So is The Fat Man. Donna’s Bar & Grill is closed. You might hear “Stagger Lee” but it’s some fifty-five year old white guy singing it, not Lloyd Price.

I was hoping to see Old Charlie on N. Ramparts and maybe catch some Sunday Cajun square dancing at Tipatina’s. No more. Ain’t it a shame.

New Orleans is “almost walking.”

LES KEITER

2009-04-18T08:41:00.002-04:00

The most exciting baseball games I ever saw were some I never saw at all. I heard them. As a kid, I was a devoted Brooklyn Dodger fan and a follower of all things baseball including New York’s other major league teams, the Giants and yes, the hated Yankees too. I got my baseball from my radio. The voices of my youth were those of Red Barber, Russ Hodges and Mel Allen.

Ballentine Beer, a local New York brewing company, sponsored the Yankees and every time a Yankee hitter smacked one into the seats, Mel Allen would yell into his microphone - “It’s going, going, GONE! A Ballentine blast!” I hated it – hated him – and made a point of never drinking Ballentine Beer either. Schaefer Beer sponsored the Dodgers and, although I couldn’t stand the taste of it, Schaefer was my beer, damnit!

Nothing compared with baseball on the radio on a summer evening. Of course, in those long ago days, baseball games were not regularly televised. And even if they had been we didn’t get our first television set in my house until I was already twelve years old.

Then, in 1957 the baseball world was knocked off its axis.

Greedy owner Walter O’Malley spirited the beloved Dodgers out of Brooklyn and took them completely across the continent to Los Angeles. He couldn’t go alone. One team, separated from all the others by thousands of miles would never have been workable. So, the creep O’Malley talked his friend Horace Stoneham into picking up his New York Giants and moving them to San Francisco. Both of New York’s National League teams disappeared overnight. The pain of it was like a knife to the midsection. It wasn’t California’s fault. No one from the west had come east to steal these iconic organizations. The Devil himself, O’Malley, and his compliant piss-ant servant, Stoneham, were the culprits.

I thought the world, as I knew it, had come to an end.

I was saved by a man named Les Keiter.

The next season began with my National League teams 3000 miles away, but one of them – the Giants – remained as close as my radio dial. No, they didn’t have the technology we take for granted today. There were no satellites to relay the games back to New York City. So, how was I able to hear these games? Les Keiter.

Les Keiter sat in a broadcast studio in New York City – at Radio Station WINS – and broadcast what was called a “recreation” of the games from the reports taken off a Western Union wire tape. Of course, it wasn’t a recreation – it was an original creation. In order to recreate, you need to know the exact specifics of the original. Then you recreate them. Les Keiter had none of this information. All he had was what appeared on the ticker tape.

And the Western Union ticker gave him only the barest of data.

For example, as it came across the ticker, a typical 7-pitch at-bat could look like this:

STRIKE

BALL

BALL

STRIKE

FOUL BALL

BALL

FOUL BALL

GROUND OUT

What kind of strike? A swing and miss, or a called strike? Was the pitch a fastball or a curve, a slider or a changeup? Did the ball bounce in front of the plate? Was a foul ball simply a grounder off to the right or left? Or maybe a long fly – nearly a home run – but turning foul at the last moment?

Les Keiter had none of this to work with. And often the Western Union ticker might delay the report of the next pitch for thirty seconds or a minute or even longer. Keiter had nothing to work with but his imagination.

When a hitter did hit the ball in play, sometimes the Western Union ticker would indicate where the ground ball was hit. Sometimes it wouldn’t. The same thing with a fly ball. From these bare bones, Les Keiter, working alone, with no sidekick, no color analyst, no second announcer, made a complete broadcast.

He had a wide variety of sound effects - the crowd noises, the crack of the bat, the thump of the ball hitting the catcher’s mitt, the muted cry of an umpire’s “You’re out!” But everything about the game itself, Les Keiter made it up as he went along. From the meeting of the managers and the umpires at home plate before the game began, to the first pitch, to the last at bat. Yes, he made it up.

For instance…

Western Union ticker: FLY BALL OUT
might have sounded like this…

“Here’s the pitch.”
(SFX/ Crack of Bat)
“There’s a long fly to left center.
(SFX/Crowd noise rising)
“The left fielder takes off, but it looks like he can’t run it down. It’s in the gap, all the way to wall.”
(SFX/Crowd noise louder)
“Here comes Willies Mays! Mays races back. He reaches out.”
(SFX/Crowd noise loudest)
“Willie makes the catch!”
(SFX/Crowd noise deafening)

What had actually, really happened? Who knew? Certainly not Les Keiter or anyone else at the WINS studios. Perhaps it had been just a little pop fly to the right fielder. Maybe the second baseman had to be called off. Willie Mays might have stayed put way out there in center field. But, what really happened didn’t matter because whatever Les Keiter said – that’s what really happened. I believed it. And so did a lot of other people.

Time and technology ended this wonderful experiment, this amazing moment when fans, listeners and Keiter himself accepted fantasy as reality. Major League Baseball put the Mets in New York. The Giants and the Dodgers and Les Keiter were replaced and forgotten.

But we all know, don’t we, some things cannot be forgotten, not forever.

Les Keiter died this week. He was 89. The New York Times obituary didn’t say anything about his funeral – where it was or when. So, I can’t know the details, but if I think hard enough, back far enough, I’m sure, in the theater of my mind, I can recreate them, sound effects and all.

PROTECT AND DEFEND...

2009-04-14T13:12:00.001-04:00

Norm Coleman won’t give up. Why should he?

It’s too easy for those who support Al Franken to question Coleman’s motives, to wonder what his “end-game” might be, or to assume that some kind of Republican conspiracy is at work here to deprive the Senate Democrats of another seat and to limit the citizens of Minnesota to a single sitting Senator.

Says who? If there is proof of Coleman’s insincerity, let’s have it!

However, if Norm Coleman really believes he won the election last November – and also believes the recount is laden with errors, omissions and misinterpretations – and if he also believes that by following the rules and laws set-up to provide candidates like him access to the courts, he will emerge victorious once all legal proceedings have been exhausted – If he really believes all of these things, who is to say he ought to give up, give in and concede?

If you had run and thought you had won, would you?

It’s a fair assumption that most of Franken’s supporters (who were old enough) supported Al Gore for President in 2000. They no doubt also supported John Kerry in 2004. Papa wonders how those people would have felt about Gore and Kerry showing the same determination to “win” that Norm Coleman exhibits. Haven’t you ever asked yourself why Al Gore acquiesced in a “stolen” election, or why Kerry didn’t use every legal avenue open to him to challenge the Ohio vote count?

If you were upset with John Kerry for not persisting, how can you be critical of Norm Coleman now?

We can’t have it both ways. We can’t pick and choose which elections we’ll fight to the bitter end, and which we’ll just let slide.

A Senate term is 6 years. Al Franken’s missing vote isn’t making the difference on a single piece of legislation. If the United States is a nation of laws, not of men, shouldn’t we all support Coleman’s right to use those laws?

And, Papa has a word of advice for the eventual Senator Franken.

When you do win – when you take your oath of office – when you stand on the floor of the US Senate representing the people of Minnesota – you will do so with greater honor and without any reasonable detractors if your opponent has exercised the full scope of his legal rights under our Constitution.

Isn’t protecting and defending the Constitution what a US Senator pledges to do?

WE'RE #1, RIGHT?

2009-04-07T14:21:00.002-04:00

Have you seen those really big, foam I’m #1 faux-hands? You know, the ones with the huge index finger pointing straight up. Watch just about any sporting event on TV and you’ll spot zillions of them. Well, it’s not just for sports. Americans really believe that shit – We’re #1 in anything and everything.

For example, don’t we absolutely believe we have the very best, state-of-the-art medical care right here in the USA? You bet we do. And we do, don’t we? No we don’t. We’re not even close. And the real information never seems to make its way into the mainstream of public discourse. Why not? Perhaps, because of things like today’s New York Times. In today’s edition there is a story about a CDC report on infant mortality. It’s devastating – or it should be –to the American psyche. But it’s stuck away, deep within the paper’s Science Section. I’d bet it’s on the least read page of today’s newspaper.

What’s it say that’s so vital?

Not only are we not #1 in the world in infant mortality – the USA is way down the list at #29. Okay, you might say… #29 ain’t so bad. After all there must be a couple of hundred countries in the world, right? Aren’t there 180 or so members of the UN General Assembly? Something like that…

The CDC report only ranks the top 36 nations. We’re #29. You still think that ain’t bad?

Among the world’s ten safest places for newborns, the Top 3 are all where? Go ahead, take a guess.

They’re in Asia.

At the top spot, #1 is Singapore; #2 is Hong Kong (Oh, my God, a communist controlled country!); and #3 is Japan. The next top 3 are all nations in Western Europe with (Oh, my God… Socialized medicine!) Sweden, Norway and Finland. Worse yet, all the remaining countries in the Top Ten, including a 4-way tie for #10, are also European countries with universal national health programs: Spain, Czech Republic, France, Portugal, Netherlands, Germany, Greece and Italy.

In fact, all the remaining nations with better infant mortality rates than the United States of America, they all have universal national healthcare, taxpayer funded, single-payer systems that leave no one out – no one.

All the countries we like to make fun of are all ahead of us… France, Canada, England, and even Cuba. Yes, CUBA! And we both thought –for sure! – that the Cuban commies damn near ate their newborns, didn’t we?

You still think our USA healthcare is so great? Which countries do you think we did manage to beat? How about Slovakia and Poland, Russia, Bulgaria and Romania. We beat everyone in Africa, didn't we? I suppose, if the USA was in Africa, we would be #1! Makes you proud, doesn’t it?

So, what’s left to defend about rapacious, capitalist, private, for-profit US healthcare? You got anything to say? Wait a minute… I hear you. Infant mortality, you’re shouting, isn’t that big a problem. It’s not a large enough public health issue for us to worry about or to use as a measuring rod for overall medical care quality.

You really believe that, don’t you? That’s all right. Don’t blame yourself – a lot of Americans probably would say that.

So… how many Americans – newborns and babies - actually die in the United States of America every year during their first year of life (the CDC worldwide measure of infant mortality statistics)? How many? Take a guess. Don’t be hesitant. Guess.

According to the CDC report, 28,000 American children under the age of 1 die every year right here in the USA. That is the equivalent of a 9/11 every 5 weeks! Can you imagine how we would react if we had a 9/11 event 10 times a year? Every year!

It’s been almost 8 years since 9/11/2001. In that time, about 225,000 American babies have died on our watch. The War On Terror altered our Constitution, trashed our civil liberties and ruined our national budget. What about the War on Infant Mortality?

The next time you are forced to take off your shoes at the airport, open your purse or attaché case or other carry-on for a hands-on, detailed inspection of your private belongings; the next time you go through a metal detector in a public building or at a concert or sporting event – go ahead, ask yourself: What are we doing in America to save the lives of 28,000 newborn infants? Don’t we have a multi-billion dollar bureaucracy called The Homeland Security Agency? Do we have an Infant Mortality Agency?

These are the questions. I can’t guarantee you’ll like the answers. Maybe you don't even like the questions. Feel a little uncomfortable, huh?

Perhaps, The New York Times should have printed their story on page 1, above the fold, in a large, bold font across the entire FrontPage.

"NUCLEAR PROLIFERATION SYNDROME"

2009-04-05T11:49:00.002-04:00

North Korea has fired a missile and some people are scared to death.

This fear is a symptom of “Nuclear Proliferation Syndrome.” This is a condition urgently requiring a psychiatric code. Anyone suffering from it needs to have a “time-out.”

Those concerned about New Members coming into the Nuclear Weapons Club are like youngsters in college who discover “Romeo And Juliet” or Thucydides’ “Peloponnesian War” – write a 2500 word paper on it - and suddenly think they are experts on the subject. They aren’t, but they would never know it. Why? Because they lack perspective.

The same is true for those who quake at the thought of the Nuclear Club’s newest member, North Korea, or a possible future member, Iran, or whoever else might someday be getting nuclear weapons. Those who forecast nuclear doomsday lack a nuclear perspective and thus they subject themselves to irrational fears.

Let’s establish the necessary perspective regarding the actual threat of nuclear weapons. Here are the nuclear facts:

1. Any nuclear attack on the West immediately triggers the complete and utter destruction of the attacking nation.
2. Any nuclear attack on China or Japan or South Korea likewise triggers the same devastating response upon the attacking nation.
3. Any nuclear attack on Israel also triggers an immediate, totally destructive response upon the attacking nation.
4. Any nuclear attack elsewhere (targets not mentioned in the above examples) may have the potential for success in that no immediate nuclear response upon the attacker is guaranteed – Why? Face the truth… nobody really cares about anyplace else.

--- THINK ABOUT IT ---

Who would retaliate for a nuclear attack on a target that was not a Western power, a major Asian power, or Israel? Who? Nobody, that’s who. Of course, ask yourself also – Who wants to attack such a target? Nobody, that’s who.

More nuclear facts:

5. Not one of the 9 existing nuclear powers – The United States, Russia, Britain, France, China, India, Pakistan, Israel and North Korea – has given ANY INDICATION WHATSOEVER that they have any agenda (except self-defense) that includes the actual use of their nuclear weapons against any nation listed in #1, #2 or #3 above.
6. Thus, for the United States and the West, there is NOTHING TO FEAR from any of the existing nuclear nations.
7. Iran has a long and glorious national history – older than Western Civilization – and no one can point to anything in Iranian policy or Iranian action that would show any suicidal wish on the part of the Persian Empire.
8. The world is chuck-full of Enriched Uranium – some 14 countries currently have enrichment programs actually operating – and any nation can build nuclear weapons if they realy want to – If they have the money and the national will. Nuclear science is not a secret. Nuclear resources are available to anyone who can afford them. In time, there will be additional members of the Nuclear Weapons Club. There’s no way to stop it - except for...
9. The only way to actually enforce non-proliferation is to kill anyone who decides to make a nuclear weapon and do it before they have one. There is no other way. Yes, dead men don’t wear plaid, don’t talk and don’t make nuclear bombs. But they’re the only ones.

FINALLY ---

There are at least 4 countries with submarines constantly at sea equipped with multi-warhead nuclear missiles – The US, Russia, Britain and France. China may soon have this capacity and nobody knows if Israel already has one or more such subs already in service. This fact alone means nobody can attack countries in #1-#3 above without assuring their own absolute and complete destruction.

Can nuclear powers be negated? The United States has somewhere between 25,000-40,000 nuclear weapons. The Russians have about 12,000, maybe thousands more. The British, the French and the Chinese too have substantial supplies as well. Israel is said to have as many as 400-500 nuclear bombs. The nuclear capacity of these countries cannot be completely destroyed. Therefore, none of these countries is vulnerable to nuclear attack without the certainty of devastating retaliation to the attacker, even if the initial attack is successful.

India, Pakistan and North Korea do not have a large number of operational weapons. Combined, they probably don’t have more than a tiny handful of nuclear weapons and none of them have the money needed to build an indestructible working arsenal. Thus, they hardly represent a meaningful threat… to any nation, anywhere… except perhaps themselves.

To believe that any nation would launch a nuclear attack requires you to also believe that such a nation is fully prepared for its own total, irreversible destruction. What country fits that category?

WHAT'S IT ALL MEAN?

2009-03-22T17:21:00.001-04:00

Everitt Dirksen, the late senator from Illinois, was famous for once remarking, “A billion here and a billion there, and before you know it, we’re talking about real money.” He should only have lived to see what’s happening today.

We need to put the amazing numbers floating around in some rational perspective. A billion here… a trillion there… what’s it all mean?

For example, we all know what $100,000 is. Many of us make that much or more in a single year, or we know someone who does. It’s not abstract. A hundred grand is a number we understand. So, do the math - how many years do you have to work to make a million bucks? Ten. Okay, you say – I can handle that. But, we are now giving away billions – not millions. Let’s try to get a grasp on exactly what this means. How long must you work, if you’re making a 100 grand a year, to make - not a million - but a billion? The answer is… ten thousand years. Yes, that right! It’ll take you that long. A word to the wise – you don’t have it in you, sorry.

If we just gave AIG $170 billion, what does the “we” part really amount to? Who are “we”? How many of “us” does it take to equal this so-called “we”?

The average household income in the United States is $53,100 – and for the most part it takes 2 wage earners to accumulate that much. That’s roughly half the 100 grand we’ve been talking about. For the average American household, instead of ten, it will take about 20 years to earn a million dollars. If you figure a lifetime of working at about 40 years, and you count two people healthy enough and skilled enough to manage that kind of effort, then your average American household will bring in about $2,000,000 in a lifetime. Of course, odds are they’ll need to spend every penny of that money – after taxes of course - just to stay alive… pay the mortgage, buy food, run the family car, send the kids to college… you know, that kind of stuff.

How much was it we just gave to AIG? Oh, yeah - $170 billion.

Remember, each billion dollars is a million dollars, a thousand times over!

And, each $1,000,000 represents the lifetime earnings of 2 American workers… multiplied by 1,000 - in order to make a billion - and then multiplied again by 170 to reach the $170,000,000,000… Or you could say it equals 340,000 working Americans.

So, we have given to one company – AIG – an amount of money equal to the lifetime earnings of 340,000 Americans… every single cent they’ll ever earn in their entire lives!

In order for a tiny group of men and women who have owned and operated AIG – and run it literally into the toilet - not to suffer the consequences of their enormous ineptitude and phenomenal incompetence, the results of 13,600,000 years of labor by 340,000 individuals have been gifted to the least deserving among us.

Why are we doing this? Does anyone know? Can you explain – specifically and exactly – what terrible things would happen if we allowed all these gangsters and their criminal enterprises to collapse inward upon themselves and fail? Don’t give me platitudes like… “The banking system will fail…” or, “The world’s financial systems will come tumbling down.” Tell me exactly what that means – exactly what will happen - How When, Where and Who.

Can you do that? Is any of what we’re doing worth what it's costing?

Can you tell me how “we” the taxpayers will ever get our money back?

And, if it’s not coming from your pocket and from mine, can you tell me where (besides a printing press) all this money is coming from?

HOW STUPID DO THEY THINK WE ARE?

2009-03-20T12:22:00.002-04:00

How stupid do they think we are? And - be honest - how stupid are we… really?

Answer these six questions:

1. Who knew all about the AIG bonus payments, long ago, not just in the last week or two?
A) President Obama and his top economic advisors and Cabinet members.
B) The members of Congress, House and Senate, who are on the Banking Committee.
C) Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid, George W. Bush and Henry Paulson.
D) All of the above.

2. Who knew – long ago – that mortgage based derivatives and credit swaps were destined to collapse and bring down the credit markets and the banking industry?
A) Nobody.
B) Only a tiny handful of very smart economists.
C) Lots of people in a number of US companies in the mortgage, banking and investment industries.
D) Thousands and thousands of people around the world in a host of companies involved in banking, hedge funds, mortgages and investments.

3. Who knows how to solve the economic mess we are all in now?
A) President Obama and his top economic advisors, including academics and Cabinet Officers.
B) Members of Congress.
C) Highly paid professionals still working in the world’s leading investment banking companies.
D) Nobody.

4. Why has the American dollar gained strength through all this crisis and chaos?
A) The fundamentals of our economy are sound.
B) The productivity of the American worker will assert itself eventually.
C) The vitality and integrity of the American business model is the envy of the world.
D) Forty-thousand nuclear weapons together with a worldwide air and naval force.

5. Why isn’t President Obama doing the right thing?
A) He is doing the right thing.
B) He’s trying to do the right thing.
C) It’s too early to know if he’s doing the right thing.
D) He hasn’t the slightest idea what the right thing is.

6. How screwed are we?
A) Blued.
B) Tattooed.
C) Royally.
D) All of the above.

PAPA'S BRACKETOLOGY

2009-03-19T11:46:00.001-04:00

America loves “March Madness.” We like college basketball – but not really that much. But, never underestimate the power of gambling. Everyone loves to bet on something. We’ve chosen the annual tournament matching some of the best college basketball teams against one another, with a handful of undeserving, but handsomely paid, patsies thrown into the mix.

I mean, really… Binghamton is playing Duke? I beg your pardon. Isn’t that like the Little Sisters of the Poor playing the Pittsburgh Steelers, or you teeing it up against Tiger Woods? At least the powerhouse team from North Carolina will be properly tested, right? Wrong. They get to play a team from an institution of Higher Learning called Radford. Anyone ever heard of it? I didn’t think so.

If the match-ups aren’t immediately indicative of legitimate competitive action, why do we go so crazy about this? It’s all about the money. All across America, even Claude Raines knows BRACTETOLOGY is the word. Grease ain’t nothin’. Americans will bet more money on the NCAA College Basketball Tournament than on any event including the Super Bowl.

Papa wants to help. So, for all you devotees of P.T. Barnum, here are the NCAA First Round winners:

In the Midwest Region – LOUISVILLE, SIENA, ARIZONA, WAKE FOREST, DAYTON, NORTH DAKOTA STATE, USC and MICHIGAN STATE

In the East Region – PITTSBURGH, TENNESSEE, FLORIDA STATE, PORTLAND STATE, UCLA, VILLANOVA, TEXAS and DUKE.

In the South Region – NORTH CAROLINA, BUTLER, WESTERN KENTUCKY, GONZAGA, TEMPLE, SYRACUSE, CLEMSON and OKLAHOMA.

In the West Region – CONNECTICUT, TEXAS A&M, PURDUE, WASHINGTON, UTAH STATE, MISSOURI, MARYLAND and MEMPHIS.

Are there some upsets in there? Sure. Anyone can bet the chalk. As they say in the sports shoe biz – just do it! That should be enough to hold you for a while. But, for those too anxious to wait it all out, here’s your Final Four:

LOUISVILLE v MEMPHIS – and – NORTH CAROLINA v OKLAHOMA

The winner? The National Champion? --- MEMPHIS over NORTH CAROLINA 79-73!

Now, go out and make some big bucks.

PEGGY NOONAN HAS TOO MANY MIRRORS

2009-02-27T09:27:00.002-05:00

Papa thinks Peggy Noonan, who came to prominence working for Ronald Reagan, “The Great Communicator” - by putting her words in his mouth - has too many mirrors in her house.

Ms. Noonan somehow believes it is she who confers credibility on American Presidents. I suppose, since she thinks she did it for one of them, with his approval, she has a license to pontificate forevermore.

In The Wall Street Journal, she proclaims that Barack Obama, in an instant of self-realization, “became” the President during a moment in his speech to Congress – a moment naturally of her choosing. She doesn’t add, but - in order for that to be true - we must assume Mr. Obama failed to comprehend his victory in the election we had last November. You almost wonder what he was doing in Grant Park that night thanking a quarter of a million people gathered to hear him speak. Likewise, he also missed out on understanding what the transition was all about. I wonder why he even bothered? And, of course, Mr. Obama completely lost track of the significance of his inauguration. Perhaps, the confusion between him and the Chief Justice was because Obama didn’t realize it was he who was taking the Oath of Office. We’ll have to ask Peggy.

According to Ms. Noonan, it was only last Tuesday, while on television, standing before a joint session of Congress, that Obama finally understood that he was indeed the President of the United States.

The difficulty I have with Ms. Noonan, and the entire panoply of conservative pundits, is — they feel that until they declare the legitimacy of a President, he has none. Until she casts it aside, he is only a doubtful Chief Executive. Where was her analysis for our last doubtful POTUS? The 2000 election was as corrupt and destructive of honor, dignity and whatever it is we are fond of calling “democracy,” as any since 1824 or 1876. History has taught us little or nothing.

In January 2001, we inaugurated the loser of our election — and we never lifted a finger to object, except perhaps to order another glass of wine. If she had her legitimacy concerns about Bush 43 then, as she seems to indicate she did, now - Peggy Noonan kept them to herself — for eight long years.

Today, while announcing Obama’s newfound Presidential legitimacy, Noonan compares it to her old favorite and trumpets the Reagan victory in 1980 conveniently overlooking his despicable and near traitorous secret and illegal interference with Iran, during that campaign, urging them not to make a deal on the American hostages with Jimmy Carter. Nor does Ms. Noonan make any mention of her hero’s payback to Iran’s ruling clerics via arms shipments engineered in the White House by the bottom-dwelling Col. Oliver North. That’s legitimacy? For Peggy Noonan, it appears to qualify.

She goes on to praise Bush 41 as a symbol of the only other legitimate Presidency in recent times. Again she forgets. Of all the American Presidents who ever ran for a second term, Bush 41 received the smallest percentage of the vote in our national electoral history. Where Papa comes from, that equals a thunderous rejection of his Presidency by the American people. That’s a far cry from legitimacy.

And, yes, Peggy Noonan asserts that Bill Clinton, who actually won his election and then actually won his reelection too, was not a legitimate President. Reagan, YES – Clinton, NO. Like Papa said, too many mirrors in her house.

If I may once more associate myself favorably with a cinematic bunch of Mexican gold bandits... I don't need no Peggy Noonan to tell me who my President is.

BASEBALL & STEROID STATISTICS: WHAT A MESS

2009-02-14T12:32:00.000-05:00

With this A-Rod steroid business there's a lot of new talk about the statistics compiled by steroid users. What do we do with Barry Bonds, McGuire, Sosa and the others? Do we reestablish Henry Aaron as Home Run leader? Babe Ruth?

The problem: baseball is a team sport, and every play, every ground ball, every hit, every piece of strategy involves the statistics of many ballplayers simultaneously. For example, do we take away Roger Clemens victories, or even some of them? If we do - if we don't count the games he pitched in his later years - what do we do with the statistics of the hitters who batted against him? If you take away a Win from Clemens what about taking the Loss from the pitcher who lost that game?

What if a player batted .298 in a season in which he was 0-6 against Clemens - what do we do? Take away those 6 hitless at-bats and refigure his batting average which would now be over .300? How do we make up the extra money that hitter did not get paid that he might have as a .300 hitter?

What about the pitchers who faced Bonds? Do we take away the home runs given up, refigure the wins and losses and reevaluate the ERA? If you take away Bonds' RBIs, do you also take away the Runs Scored for the players on base when he homered? Eliminate Bonds' intentional walks and then what - take away all the RBIs of the hitters who followed him and knocked in runs?

How about all the games Bonds, McGuire, Sosa and the others (do we even know who these others are?) were responsible for winning? If you take away their statistics, do we change the wins and losses for the games they personally influenced and alter the season standings? How about changing the World Series results?

There seems to be no workable solution other than to just "take it all into consideration" when coming to an opinion. If you don't accept Bonds, then Aaron is your Home Run champ. If you vote for the Hall of Fame, you can decide not to induct any steroid user. But when it comes to game statistics, you can't make it good... for all concerned, can you?

PRESIDENT OBAMA - TAKE A LESSON FROM FRED C. DOBBS

2009-02-03T07:37:00.002-05:00

Why is everyone so worried about how the Congressional Republicans feel, what they think, why they don’t like the stimulus plan now before Congress and what they might want in return for their votes?

Has Papa missed something? Didn’t we have elections? Didn’t the Democrats win – in the House – in the Senate – and the White House too? Have the Democrats forgotten what winning means?

Haven’t we just finished 8 years of a Republican administration that didn’t give a rat’s ass what the Democrats felt or thought or what they might have wanted? What was it the right-wing’s radio drug-fatty said about bending over and grabbing your ankles?

The President and the Congressional Democrats need to stand up – straight up.

As far as Papa is concerned, we didn’t vote for Obama – and we didn’t provide him with solid majorities in both houses of Congress – so he could sit down with the GOP and grovel for their unnecessary votes. If the Republicans want to get something, in terms of legislation, let them go out and elect majorities in the House of Representatives and in the Senate. Until they manage that electoral challenge, let them learn the meaning of being in the minority.

We elected Obama based on what he promised, and I have no recollection of any speeches he gave during that stirring campaign in which he said he would cow-tow to the Old Guard in the Republican Party before sending new legislation to Congress.

Papa’s advice to President Obama – send your plan to Congress and make sure your own party votes for it. That’s all you need to do to make it law. I know you’re not really old enough to remember the great American movie, “The Treasure of the Sierra Madre.” Too bad… because right now – at this moment in political history – you don’t need no stinkin’ Republicans. And it would be nice if you could see Humphrey Bogart warning his opposition: “Any more lip out of you and I’ll haul off and let you have it. If you know what’s good for you, you won’t monkey around with Fred C. Dobbs.” Mr. President – try that line on the GOP the next time they start yapping.

Papa’s word to media – stop already with all the stuff about the Republicans in Congress. To the children who serve as TV producers - you need to look up the meaning of the word: irrelevant. In our system, you can’t have a legislative controversy, and a bill is never in question, unless there are two possible outcomes. Since every Republican in both the House and Senate can vote against every bill introduced by the Democratic leadership – and every bill will still pass anyway – when will the media realize that the Congressional Republicans simply don’t matter anymore.

JEWISH DISEASE

2009-01-27T20:23:00.005-05:00

For fifty years, I have been struck by the transformation which grips so many liberal, secular, humane American Jews – and I have known plenty -- when talk turns to Israel.

Recently, I think of the phenomenon as a condition of mind, an emotional affliction. Possibly something akin to William Kunstler’s highly debatable “Black Rage” syndrome, at least in its intensity and ethnic peculiarity. Sometimes I think of it as “Jewish Disease.”

By which I mean -- what?

In a word, “Israel.” In a phrase, “An emotional attachment to Israel and its perceived interests.”

The term describes a set of connected feelings, thought patterns, and behaviors -- in this case mainly verbal and expressive behaviors, except where emigrant settlers from Philadelphia and Brooklyn are involved.

I would not label Armenian-Americans’ historic sentiments this way, or Japanese-Americans’ fascination with Hawaii, or Italian-American braggadocio or Boston’s weakness for the IRA. This in a class by itself because of the involved feelings, ideation, and consequences.

Feelings Associated with Jewish Disease

This condition is distinguished by loyalty and anger.

The intensity of the sufferer’s loyalty may influence his or her susceptibility to rage. More likely, anger levels will reflect the individual’s general emotional equilibrium.

Loyalty has probably been with us from our pack days.

At the national level, it is conventionally awarded to one’s own country, native or adopted. Divided loyalties have been all too frequently attributed to “foreign” communities -- East African Hindus, Indonesian Chinese, European Jews. Such communities have been persecuted -- in at least two of these cases, genocidally -- for alleged lack of national loyalty.

Many American Jews experience deep loyalty to Israel. Even those nominally critical of Israel’s expansionist behavior or ad hoc theology identify themselves fiercely with its prerogatives. I have asked J. D. sufferers which country would command their loyalty should the two become antagonistic -- and heard a range of answers.

Most Americans do not regard Israeli loyalties as a fault. More often, Zionist sentiments are considered admirable by Jews and non-Jews alike. This will probably continue until Israel is popularly perceived as causing more trouble than it is worth.

Loyalty cannot be considered pathological, except when wrongly attached, i.e. to a criminal organization, destructive person, or wrong-headed cause. Then it may contribute to a social or political pathology. Patriotism is one good example. Many progressive J.D. sufferers reject bellicose American flag-waving for the horrors it enables. They will not renounce the other nearly so quickly.

Anger has a more distinctly harmful profile. Symptomatic of other psychiatric conditions, anger causes violence. Symptomatic of Jewish Disease, anger impedes clear thought and disrupts friendly gatherings. Get these people started and they cannot let it alone.

Some yell. Some leave the room. Some seethe. All interrupt. It is a compulsive, abiding anger. It suggests inner conflict. The people I know -- know better. I know that. They see footage of babies blown apart and think … I can’t imagine what.

But they behave as though impelled to defend the practice. Often as not, the defense become enraged.

Thought Patterns Associated with Jewish Disease

The condition permits harmonious persistence of these two fundamentally contradictory ideas: 1. Israel serves as a refuge and safe haven for all Jews, and 2. Jews face graver danger in Israel than anywhere else.

Sufferers defend this paradox largely by ignoring or denying it. They address other factual and moral contradictions with an array of well-known, vigorously asserted ideas.

Grounding all these ideas is the proposition that hostile Muslim behavior must always be seen in its worst light, and all hostile Israeli behavior in its best light. This master conceit enables:

An opportunistic attachment to the word: “terrorist.”

This arrangement of syllables has come a long way since Ariel Sharon used it to describe any unappreciative person or suspect action in occupied Lebanon twenty five years ago. It got a mighty boost on 9/11. Some think that’s why Israelis jumped for joy on the Jersey side of the Hudson as they watched the towers tumble.

Since then, it has become a sacrament for hundreds of millions. J.D. sufferers pronounce it compulsively during any discussion of the Middle East. It’s used to describe all active resistance to the hostile occupation of Palestine.

The phrase operates like a drug in bucking up outrage and short-circuiting errant focus on contravening facts or reasons.

It dominates the vast rattle of talking head opinion in print, and on radio, network, and cable TV – where the condition is endemic in its core form and its non-Jewish variation: Jewish Disease by Proxy.

Emphasis on hostile thoughts.

Hostile thoughts include belief systems and verbalizations written or spoken – real, imagined, or mistranslated for the purpose.

Often, hostile expressions and beliefs are presented as requiring a decisive physical response. For example, the Israelis must impose a devastating blockade on Gaza because Hamas denies Israel’s right to exist. Iran may need to be bombed because its leaders aspire to nuclear weapons and Ahmedinjad wants to wipe Israel off the map. The Jewish state is justified in bombing houses as long as Jew Hatred prevails because they all want to kill Jews and teach their children that Jews are bad.

Jewish Disease rules out consideration of whether or not the hostile words and thoughts suggest ability to do harm. The words are the problem; thoughts pose threats; intent equates to danger.

Listen to the language. The theme predominates.

Here, Jewish Disease resembles other paranoid formations by confusing real or imagined hostile wishes with material threats. Of course, it is the rare paranoid who gets to level the neighborhood.

The deeply held conviction that Israel faces an existential threat from the Muslim world.

The word “existential” denotes a threat to existence – in this case to the existence of the state of Israel. It has no other reasonable meaning. With regard to the existence of the Jewish state:
Israel has dominated the region militarily since 1967, when its attack on three Arab nations demonstrated invulnerability to military defeat. Its only reversal came in Israeli-occupied Egypt in 1973, from which embarrassment Israel was rescued by the United States -- then as now reliably influenced by the Israeli interest – using the arguably dangerous tactic of nuclear threat against the Soviet Union.

Since 1973 Israel has repeatedly invaded Lebanon without a hint of intervention from other Muslim lands. Israelis have overflown, invaded, and wiped out Lebanese and Palestinians at will and whim -- in ways that other nations rarely do – with fully merited confidence in their ability to do so without risk. They have bombed Syria and Iraq with equal impunity. They have meddled directly in the politics of Iran, Lebanon, and Iraq without fear of consequence.
They have occupied and exploited Syrian and Lebanese territory for decades and presently – without any physical challenge whatsoever from Syria, and only small-arms, local resistance from Hezbollah.

Having attacked Lebanon in 2006, Israel experienced only slight damage and limited casualties from the best rockets which Iran-supplied Hezbollah had available. The Gaza massacre of 1/09 encountered no respectable military resistance.

Israel has, for many years, been at formal, functioning peace with Egypt and Jordan. Currently, it enjoys tacit alliance with Saudi Arabia against Hamas and Hezbollah. Fatah maintain this alliance explicitly.

Israel’s military is described as the world’s fourth most powerful. It has a huge atomic arsenal. It confronts two non-state militias lacking heavy equipment of any kind – supplied by a beleaguered Iran which itself has slight military significance outside its borders.

Further, Iran’s alleged nuclear aspirations, even if fully realized, could never constitute a threat to Israel’s existence – unless one sees Iran willing to annihilate as many Shia and Sunni Muslims as Jews, and eager to experience its own annihilation within minutes.

Rarely have a single year’s suicide bombing deaths approached the number of innocent Israeli men, women, and children slaughtered by other Israelis in traffic accidents. Since 1983, the ratio is about ten to one. The most successful violent killers of Jews in Israel are its notoriously homocidal and suicidal drivers. Yet even they prompt no existential uncertainty.

No hostile army has set foot on present-day Israeli soil since 1948.

Still, Jewish Disease reduces its victims to jabbering robotically about the ongoing Muslim threat to Israel’s existence.

The tactical elevation of explicit, announced intent as the sole criterion for moral culpability.

Israel has, over the years, killed and wounded many times more Palestinians than the number of Israelis killed and wounded by Palestinians.

According to the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs, just over two thousand Israeli civilians and military have been killed by Arab terrorists from 1920 to 2008. Since 2000, the IDF identifies 431. Within weeks, the IDF killed almost 1400 Gazans and wounded another six thousand including many children. In the 2006 war, another thousand Lebanese civilians died. Over time, and with military deaths included, the disparity grows dramatically.

J.D. ideation dictates that one crucial difference offsets this imbalance: most of the dead Gazans – like the dead Lebanese and other Arabs -- were not intended targets. (For these purposes we leave aside the many Palestinian children shot through the head and upper torso - arguably odd endings for individuals not marked as intended targets.)

Conversely, the far lesser numbers of Israelis slaughtered and maimed weigh more heavily on the scale of moral judgment because their deaths were intended.

This distinction recognizes only first degree murder as a crime. Murder in the second gets a pass. Reckless disregard has no meaning in this context. Neither does predictability of outcome. What makes homicide a culpable act is the specific, overtly avowed intention to kill civilians. Absent that single, announced intent, homicide is readily justifiable -- certainly when performed by the IDF.

This view effectively equates harm to very, very few Jews – with harm to many, many Palestinians.

The intentional deaths and woundings of tens – again, tens -- of Jews by rocket fire (and the psychological burdens imposed on thousands more) is rendered by the prism of Jewish Disease more egregious and less tolerable than the wholly predictable killing, maiming, traumatizing, and stunting of thousands of Palestinian and Lebanese civilians – although that behavior itself drives additional killings and woundings of Jews – which in turn sinks the Palestinian or Lebanese force deeper into moral culpability -- from which Israelis are excused because, in the words of the adorable scamp of an elder brother who has mutilated the younger yet again, “It was only an accident, Ma.”

This exclusive recognition of specific, first-degree intent is increasingly used to trump the notion of proportionality – the idea that you cannot invade and destroy Poland because of a border incident, or devastate Gaza within a week because toy rockets without guidance systems have killed and wounded a handful of Israelis over several years.

Proportionality is a fundamental provision of international law. Yet it is denounced as irrelevant by the noted J.D. sufferer Tom Friedman, who duly notes that only Palestinians intentionally target civilians.

I do not know Tom Friedman. But the people I do know would not allow themselves within miles of such depraved thinking – were it applied to any other set of actors in the world.

The abiding presence of anti-Semitism.

Where would J.D. sufferers be without it? In fairness, the tactic of scare-calling is as old as the Judean hills, or the Hittite plains. There have always been magical words and they have always been used to disqualify opposing ideas.

Jewish Disease is notable for its attachment to the associated beliefs that: 1. Serious criticism of Israel or frank anti-Zionism indicates hostility to Jews, or “Jewishness” 2. Hostility to Jews disqualifies the source as fair, objective, or moral, and 3. This applies to Jews as well as anyone else.

The fragrant term “self-hating Jew” has always been a red flag for the condition. This is important because Jewish Zionists and anti-Zionists lead attempts to resist the Israeli agenda – here and in Israel. As American Jews fling back the charge of self-hatred with increased vigor and public notice, the discussion opens up.

Jewish Disease also implies acceptance of anti-Semitism on the part of Israel’s friends. Most notably, whack evangelists leeringly anticipate the annihilation of unconverted Jews as they strut beside Israeli leaders and enjoy the affection of Jews skilled at spotting self-haters at fifty yards.

Billy Graham set the tone years ago, noting on the Nixon tapes that although he condemns Jewish media shennanigans (as did Nixon) Jews love him anyway because all they care about is his support for Israel.

Anti-Semitism is a dangerous sentiment with ongoing potential for great harm. It is also a social fact susceptible of rational inquiry. Jewish Disease tends to deny such analysis.

J.D. thinking extends a broad Western reluctance to analyze anti-Semitism as resulting in any way from culpable Jewish behavior (which line of inquiry has been attempted by Israeli scholars.)

Fair enough. I can understand why we decline to explore the economic impact of carpet-bagging Jewish interests on property relations in Austria after World War I as a factor shaping the direction of anti-Semitism in Vienna in the ‘20s. This may or may not represent a useful area of study – but even if it does, it seems creepy to me.

Not so the impact of Israeli behavior on feelings toward Jews. I don’t think there’s much rational question about this: Zionism and its consequences ignite most of the anti-Semitism with which Europe, Asia, and Africa are currently afflicted. Israeli behavior and global Jewish support for that behavior trip anti-Jewish outrage among Algerians in France, Indonesians in Amsterdam, Shia and Sunni in Baghdad, Greeks and Turks together.

In terms of practical harm alleged, the worst of the old-fashioned anti-Semitic canards fail to cover what has transpired in Palestine 1947-1948, in Lebanon in 1982, 1996, and 2006, in the West Bank and Gaza, 2009 – the disappeared villages, cluster bombs, white phosphorous, self-righteous war on ambulances and schools. What blood liable approaches this scale of dispossession and carnage?

This is certainly how most of the Muslim world and many elsewhere feel about it.
Who can calculate the spread of anger loosed by these activities? Repeatedly and relentlessly, Israeli behavior creates anti-Semitism. Since World War II anti-Semitic feeling can be reasonably viewed as a cost of the Zionist project increasingly more consequential than any antidote offered by it.

However, J.D.’s symptomatic formula casts anti-Semitism as: 1. The cause of anti-Zionist and anti-Israel animus, 2. An apparently irreducible aspect of human nature, and 3. A peril faced by all Israelis and Diaspora Jews -- regardless of individual circumstance.

The unmanageable threat of anti-Semitism serves as a persistent justification for all the moral deformities we have seen. The mystique of primordial, uncaused anti-Semitism is a prominent feature of Jewish Disease.

Consequences of Jewish Disease

The Israeli interest helps shape American policy. To do so, it draws on the money and genius of powerful American Jews backed by the reliable support of most ordinary Jews, adaptive politicians, and right-wing Christian allies (in the grip of Jewish Disease by Proxy cum Religious Mania.)

The prevalence of J.D. unifies the powerful and the ordinary, the circumcised and the goyim behind the Israeli interest – which usually asserts a right wing perspective, regardless of the Israeli party in power.

To the extent that Jewish Disease continues to dominate these groups, it will continue to enable Israel by compelling Congressional support for Israeli preferences. To the extent that J.D.’s influence retreats, the Israeli interest’s grip on American policy will be weakened, and Israel’s behavior will necessarily modify.

The Future of Jewish Disease

I believe that the main factor working to limit Jewish Disease is generational. Polls suggest that younger Jews are, on average, less afflicted than their elders. Most J-boomers grew up with Israel front and center. Many of their children did not. Now, many Jewish kids think of Israel as just another country. Increasing numbers are learning to stand against it.

Jewish Disease may undergo gradual modification as more left-leaning friends of Israel compete for influence with the entrenched rightist leadership – and as the massacres continue. As J-Street and more radical outfits offer attractive alternatives to the described ideology, some relaxation may occur.

Should these trends attenuate the impact of Jewish Disease, voices and dollars may drift from the traditional leadership and mass indifference may mitigate support for the old agenda. Liberal heroes may crawl out from under rocks to honor their finer instincts.

Then, American policy may desert Israel’s expansionist project. The Jewish State will have to accept a now gasping Geneva/Arab League solution predicated on 1967 borders, and accept the risk of civil war -- or face real pain at the hands of a fed-up world.

If this country experiences a 9/11 encore – and especially if the perpetrators identify American support for Israel as a precipitating cause – pro-Israel feeling may quicken. Jewish Disease fattens on reactive American hysteria so another attack could well give J.D. a secure and expanding place in the frightened American heart.

On the other hand, Americans might decide that continuing to underwrite the Zionist dream is no longer worth the loss of buildings, neighborhoods, or business districts in Chicago or L.A.

Bombing rice paddies is how John McCain hoped to turn Vietnam against Ho. Leveling homes and civic buildings is how Ehud Barak hoped to pry Gaza loose from Hamas. Ditto Hitler and London. It hasn’t worked yet.

But America is, by its own definition, always the great exception.

HELL FREEZES OVER... TODAY, AT NOON!

2009-01-20T09:32:00.002-05:00

On this special day, Papa wishes he were still in the broadcasting business. There are times when nothing compares to running a radio station – especially a black radio station – when it comes to political satire, irony and just plain good-natured silliness.

Back in the day… at WAOK Radio in Atlanta, Georgia, we had things like “Commander Neville DuPree’s Fighter Jet Traffic Reports” – always flying too high and going too fast to ever see any traffic jams down below – and our locally famous series of “Celebrity Interviews” minus, of course, the actual celebrity we were supposed to be interviewing. Yes, we made it all up. Yes, you were supposed to figure that out if you were listening. Yes, sometimes there were a few listeners who… missed it… And no, we never got sued.

What would I be doing today, if I still could? I would have news reporters – live! – all across the southern states, broadcasting from the gravesites of people like Governors Wallace and Faubus of Alabama and Arkansas, Senators Strom Thurmond and Herman Talmadge of South Carolina and Georgia… and any one of a dozen or more places you could name. We’d call it “Earthquake Watch ’09,” and we would be looking for the ground to start shaking and the bodies to begin rolling over. And, yes we would – we would have the radio station’s Science Reporter (we'd have to make that up too) on full alert to report on "Hell Freezing Over" today - at the stroke of noon.

Today, in America, a black man will be sworn-in as President of the United States.

MADNESS

2009-01-19T17:41:00.002-05:00

The Times of 1/19/09 includes these two articles about Gaza.

Page 6 carries the headline: “Shocked and Grieving Gazans Find Bodies Under the Rubble of Homes.” It pictures and describes some of the horrors experienced by civilians, with appropriate emphasis on dead and wounded children.

The first page carries a News Analysis above the fold which is headed: “Parsing Gains of Gaza War” with the subhead, “Israel Cannot Be Sure of Lasting Deterrence.”

The last paragraph on the first page reads as follows: “The Israeli theory of what it tried to do here is summed up in a Hebrew phrase heard across Israel and throughout the military in the past weeks: ‘baal habayit hisdtageya’ or ‘the boss has lost it.’ It evokes the madman who cannot be controlled.”

The currency of this phenomenon is reported and acidly condemned by Uri Avnery, the great Israeli leftist, in a Counterpunch article today.

The Israeli’s crazy boss theory mimics Richard Nixon’s madman logic; the crazier they think we are, the less likely they are to resist us.

An Israeli “former national security advisor” is quoted as follows: “The phrase means that if our civilians are attacked by you, we are not going to respond in proportion, but will use all means we have to cause you such damage that you will think twice in the future.”

The corollary seems to me this: “We may therefore do whatever we like to you without fear that you will respond by attacking our civilians. As our military is entirely beyond your reach, you will have no means of retaliating, which will allow us to operate entirely as we choose.”

The article continued directly below the national security advisor’s quote (re Shock and Ruin) substantiates what the phrase “all means” comes down to in practice.

“All means” include economic blockade leading to malnutrition and medically preventable deaths; the widespread slaughter and maiming of civilians; the systematic destruction of private and public property including civic and government buildings, universities, refugee facilities, food depots; the repeated killing of medics and shooting of ambulances, etc.

Routinely, these events have been described as collateral damage unavoidably caused by legitimate pursuit of military targets. The “crazy boss” idea suggests something quite different – a strategic philosophy applicable not only to Gaza but to Lebanon, Jenin, and wherever else the results have been similar.

The “crazy boss” mindset suggests the purposeful creation of horrors so intense as to paralyze the enemy’s ability to resist. It suggests the imposition of sufficient pain on civilians to frustrate any and all attacks and counter-attacks. In other words, it defines “terror” in the most explicit and unequivocal use of that widely misapplied word. It evokes Lidice.

The charge of “state terror” is hardly new, especially in this context. But it is a choice rarity to have all the elements so frankly displayed on the front and inner pages of the New York Times.

The newspaper of record shows us general depravity -- prevalent popular indifference to, and support for, the destruction of civilians in large numbers, and the reduction of civilian life to rubble. This much is now writ large in the public square – unpainted by euphemism, naked as flesh.

Not all of us find this a revelation. In our view, it carries forward quite naturally Israeli history and the history of resistance to Israeli expansions and occupations – from the start.

Nor is this kind of thing unique to the neighborhood. It thrives today in Congo and Sudan, and on a far grander scale than anything Israelis or Palestinians have ever contemplated. It once defined the history of Europe, and the Americas. It recently devastated East Timor, Southeast Asia, South Asia.

The struggle against mass depravity seems always to have been an uphill effort.

What is currently unique about Israel’s situation is the Jewish state’s ability to involve nearly the whole of the West in its generous use of massively applied terror as an instrument of national, and in this case mini-imperial, policy. The Tamil Tigers, Russian Army, Sudanese militias, Rwandan business agents, Zimbabwean police, Khmer Rouge, CIA, Taliban, Al Quaeda, Indonesian military … all have excited widespread Ministerial and Presidential condemnation of their dreadful tactics.

Even the United States has been obliged to denounce and deny the military and informal terrorism it has sponsored here, there, and everywhere.

Where the Holy Land is concerned, the American government – right, left, and center – vigorously asserts Israel’s right to do whatever it wants, when and for whatever reason it wants to do it. Comrades Sanders and Feingold vote “yes” in full knowledge of the mayhem they are blessing and the justifications offered.

The Europeans, who sometimes show at least the fragmental decency required to look embarrassed by their own moral decrepitude, dare not speak aloud in responsible tones.

Alone in the West, Venezuela and Bolivia object unequivocally.

The madman theory is, of course, the psychological underpinning of all terror – whether feebly implemented by slaves under lash or more robustly by colonizers maintaining order.

When strong, armed-to-the teeth nations put the madman theory to work on a massive scale with compulsive regularity, we are at least tempted to consider how the violently insane are, and must be, treated in other circumstances -- confined when possible, or, in rare and tragic circumstances, put down.

Anti-Semitism in The Sun Also Rises

2009-01-19T02:59:00.002-05:00

I just finished The Sun Also Rises, again, although it was so long since I first read it that this might have been the first time. Re-reading something good is like meeting up with an old friend and realizing that you didn’t really know them.
One thing I had forgotten was that Anti-Semitism is a character in the story, as important as any other. It was directed at Robert Cohn by all -- Jake, Brett, Bill and Michael. “The Jew,” “the morose Jew,” “the damned Jew,” “doesn’t he know he’s not wanted,” “don’t you know that you’re not wanted,” “don’t you know that Brett doesn’t want you here,” “why don’t you just get the hell out of here and leave us” – over and over again like a drum beat so regular that you forget about the headache it gives.
But Jake, while he succumbs to the rant at times, hates Cohn not for being Jewish but for having been with Brett. I could not help feeling that Hemingway was drawing the picture of Anti-Semitism as an odious character, and Cohn as a sad but heroic person. Certainly, it is not anti-Semitic that Cohn was a boxing champion at Princeton and then have Cohn thrash Jake and Michael (together) when he could no longer bear their insults, and go on to beat Romero, the bull fighter, to a bloody pulp when he finds him and Brett together.
Cohn is treated with contempt by Jake's friends with some justification. Yet I found myself recoiling from the anti-Semitism that supported their contempt and finding it repulsive in these otherwise exceptional and amusing characters. I give Hemingway too much credit to believe that my revulsion at their anti-Semitism was unintended. Hemingway’s own distaste is revealed when Michael, a Scotsman and Brett’s fiancé, tells Jake that the Jews take their interest up-front when they advance to Brett her allowance each month, and then Michael says, “They are not really Jews, they’re actually Scots -- we just call them Jews.”
Perhaps I identify with Cohn because our names are Robert, we are Jews, we boxed at Ivy League colleges, we hung-out with people more interesting than ourselves and we could be humiliated by a beautiful woman who cared nothing for us. Nevertheless, I take comfort in my view that Hemingway preferred Cohn to Anti-Semitism. (We take comfort where we can find it.)

The Philadelphia Address

2009-01-17T11:57:00.001-05:00

January 17, 2009
Transcript
Obama in Philadelphia
The following are the prepared remarks by President-elect Barack Obama in Philadelphia during his inaugural train tour, as provided by the Presidential Inaugural Committee.

We are here to mark the beginning of our journey to Washington. This is fitting because it was here, in this city, that our American journey began. It was here that a group of farmers and lawyers, merchants and soldiers, gathered to declare their independence and lay claim to a destiny that they were being denied.
It was a risky thing, meeting as they did in that summer of 1776. There was no guarantee that their fragile experiment would find success. More than once in those early years did the odds seem insurmountable. More than once did the fishermen, laborers, and craftsmen who called themselves an army face the prospect of defeat.
And yet, they were willing to put all they were and all they had on the line - their lives, their fortunes, and their sacred honor - for a set of ideals that continue to light the world. That we are equal. That our rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness come not from our laws, but from our maker. And that a government of, by, and for the people can endure. It was these ideals that led us to declare independence, and craft our constitution, producing documents that were imperfect but had within them, like our nation itself, the capacity to be made more perfect.
We are here today not simply to pay tribute to our first patriots but to take up the work that they began. The trials we face are very different now, but severe in their own right. Only a handful of times in our history has a generation been confronted with challenges so vast. An economy that is faltering. Two wars, one that needs to be ended responsibly, one that needs to be waged wisely. A planet that is warming from our unsustainable dependence on oil.
And yet while our problems may be new, what is required to overcome them is not. What is required is the same perseverance and idealism that our founders displayed. What is required is a new declaration of independence, not just in our nation, but in our own lives - from ideology and small thinking, prejudice and bigotry - an appeal not to our easy instincts but to our better angels.
That is the reason I launched my campaign for the presidency nearly two years ago. I did so in the belief that the most fundamental American ideal, that a better life is in store for all those willing to work for it, was slipping out of reach. That Washington was serving the interests of the few, not the many. And that our politics had grown too small for the scale of the challenges we faced.
But I also believed something else. I believed that our future is our choice, and that if we could just recognize ourselves in one another and bring everyone together - Democrats, Republicans, and Independents, north, south, east and west, black, white, Latino, Asian, and Native American, gay and straight, disabled and not - then not only would we restore hope and opportunity in places that yearned for both, but maybe, just maybe, we might perfect our union in the process.
This is what I believed, but you made this belief real. You proved once more that people who love this country can change it. And as I prepare to leave for Washington on a trip that you made possible, know that I will not be traveling alone. I will be taking with me some of the men and women I met along the way, Americans from every corner of this country, whose hopes and heartaches were the core of our cause; whose dreams and struggles have become my own.
Theirs are the voices I will carry with me every day in the White House. Theirs are the stories I will be thinking of when we deliver the changes you elected me to make. When Americans are returning to work and sleeping easier at night knowing their jobs are secure, I will be thinking of people like Mark Dowell, who's worried his job at Ford will be the next one cut, a devastating prospect with the teenage daughters he has back home.
When affordable health care is no longer something we hope for, but something we can count on, I will be thinking of working moms like Shandra Jackson, who was diagnosed with an illness, and is now burdened with higher medical bills on top of child care for her eleven year-old son.
When we are welcoming back our loved ones from a war in Iraq that we've brought to an end, I will be thinking of our brave servicemen and women sacrificing around the world, of veterans like Tony Fischer, who served two tours in Iraq, and all those returning home, unable to find a job.
These are the stories that will drive me in the days ahead. They are different stories, told by men and women whose journeys may seem separate. And yet, what you showed me time and again is that no matter who we are or what we look like, no matter where we come from or what faith we practice, we are a people of common hopes and common dreams, who ask only for what was promised us as Americans - that we might make of our lives what we will and see our children climb higher than we did.
We recognize that such enormous challenges will not be solved quickly. There will be false starts and setbacks, frustrations and disappointments. And we will be called to show patience even as we act with fierce urgency.
But we should never forget that we are the heirs of that first band of patriots, ordinary men and women who refused to give up when it all seemed so improbable; and who somehow believed that they had the power to make the world anew. That is the spirit that we must reclaim today.
For the American Revolution did not end when British guns fell silent. It was never something to be won only on a battlefield or fulfilled only in our founding documents. It was not simply a struggle to break free from empire and declare independence. The American Revolution was - and remains - an ongoing struggle "in the minds and hearts of the people" to live up to our founding creed.
Starting now, let's take up in our own lives the work of perfecting our union.
Let's build a government that is responsible to the people, and accept our own responsibilities as citizens to hold our government accountable.
Let's all of us do our part to rebuild this country.
Let's make sure this election is not the end of what we do to change America, but the beginning.
Join me in this effort. Join one another in this effort. And together, mindful of our proud history, hopeful for the future, let's seek a better world in our time. Thank you.

Sweet Honey in the Rock

2009-01-10T23:23:00.001-05:00

Bring Me Little Water Sylvie
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c-YGzsUc2iE

PAPA ASKS: WHAT'S THE MOST PROFITABLE SPORT?

2009-01-10T12:34:00.002-05:00

What is the most profitable sport in America? Think about it before answering. It’s not as easy as you might think. You probably won’t figure it out from checking the media. In the newspapers, sports-talk radio, the 24-hour cycle non-stop TV coverage, almost every story about professional baseball, football and basketball – in fact about almost all sports – starts with money. How big and how long are the contracts? How much are the players getting? How much does it cost to buy season tickets? What about the fifty bucks you have to shell out for a hotdog, fries and a beer? But, for America’s richest sport, the media gives them a free pass when it comes to $$$$. Go figure.

Thanks to FORBES annual assessment, we know the so-called value of every professional sports franchise. The most valuable sports business in America is the Dallas Cowboys with a listed worth of $1.612 billion. Based on this prospective sales price, the National Football League is far and away the richest of all sports, but not the most profitable. Of the 32 NFL teams, FORBES has 17 of them worth more than a billion dollars. Of course, how they figure these numbers is a mystery. The Cowboys show a profit of $30.6 million which mean FORBES says they are worth about 53 times one-year earnings. Pretty fancy multiples. Make sense to you? Not if you look at the Seattle Seahawks franchise. That team shows a profit of only $8.9 million, yet it has a value of $1.010 billion - that’s nearly a multiple of 115 times one-year profit. Why is Seattle’s profit margin worth more than twice that for the Cowboys? Your guess is as good as mine.

Overall, the NFL is pro sports most consistently profitable enterprise. Only one NFL team (surprise! The Detroit Lions) operates at a loss, and despite losing $3.1 million last year, FORBES says that team would still sell for $917 million. Almost a billion dollars for a losing enterprise? Only in America. God bless capitalism.

In the National Basketball Association, after the profits of the Chicago Bulls and the Los Angeles Lakers, the pickings get pretty slim and fully a third of all NBA teams lose money. The picture is Dickensian for the National Hockey League. For them it’s the best of times and the worst, all at the same time. The single most profitable sports team in North America is the Toronto Maple Leafs. That team made $66.4 million last year. But, almost half the teams in the NHL can’t break even and the league, as an entity, is constantly in jeopardy of either contracting drastically or closing up altogether. I suppose the Toronto Maple Leafs could suit up and skate against the Little Sisters Of The Poor, or a pick-up team from the local 7-11, and the good folks of Toronto would pay big Canadian bucks to watch.

Major League Baseball is the most difficult sport in which to assess value. They keep their numbers to themselves and they have always spent like there is no tomorrow. The Supreme Court, in 1922, ruled that Baseball is not a business – it’s a sport, and thereby granted them an exemption from anti-trust laws no other sports league enjoys. One may well argue that Baseball’s owners have taken that ruling to heart in the way they operate their teams. Both costs and revenues vary wildly for MLB. FORBES places a value on the New York Yankees of $1.306 billion, although the team probably loses money – on paper anyway. Revenue for the Yankees is listed at $327 million, or about three times that for the Florida Marlins, who are among the most profitable MLB teams. Go figure.

Outside the US, only soccer has any financial success, and it has quite a lot. Following the Dallas Cowboys $1.612 billion, on the FORBES list, is the British soccer team, Manchester United at $1.4 billion – yes, a soccer team in a city you’ll never set foot in (and can’t find on a map) is worth more than the New York Yankees.

FORBES cannot judge some sports because there are no teams, no franchises, only individuals. In this category there are three standouts including the richest athlete in the world. Tiger Woods, all by himself, is the sporting world’s only $100 million a-year producer. Second and third on that list might surprise you – you might not recognize at least one of them. Number 2 is the boxer, Oscar De La Hoya. You may have heard of him, but did you think he made $43 million last year? And number 3 is an automobile racer named Kimi Raikkonen (Who?), who made $42.2 million last year…. doing what, where?

So, have you decided yet – what is the most profitable sport in the country? The answer is – American college football. That’s right. Division 1A – which is big-time college football – a supposedly non-professional enterprise - produces more profit than any other sports activity in America. According to FORBES, here are last year’s profits – that is the net revenue after all expenses – for the Top Ten college football teams.

1. University of Texas $46.2 million
2. Notre Dame 45.8
3. Georgia 43.5
4. Florida 38.2
5. Michigan 36.2
6. Auburn 33.9
7. Alabama 31.8
8. LSU 31.7
9. Penn State 29.4
10. South Carolina 28.9

Is it any wonder that six of them are in the South where college football challenges Christianity as the dominant belief system?

There are 119 colleges and universities playing Division I football and they all make money. Outside of their conference games, colleges schedule all their games separately. There is no organization – its every school for themselves. To get another team to come to your stadium and play a football game, you have to pay them, and probably return the favor next year or the year after at their place. Gee, that’s a shocker, isn’t it? How much do you have to pay? Depends upon which team you want. Try to get Notre Dame on your schedule and be prepared to pay millions – yes, millions. Even schools you don’t think of as football powers, or perhaps schools you’ve never heard of and have no idea where they are, charge a fancy fee to show up and play football for a couple of hours. The Air Force Academy, a government facility training future pilots, got $850,000 to go to Knoxville to play the University of Tennessee. The University of Louisiana-Monroe (Huh? Who? Where?) received $700,000 to play football against Kansas. C’mon, Kansas? And, Florida-Atlantic University (does anyone know who they are or where this school is? I thought they were on the Internet.), they got paid $900,000 to show-up in Austin, Texas to take the field against the team from the University of Texas. Almost a million bucks, for who?

In college football you don’t even have to be good to make big money. In 2007, the University of Syracuse, a small city in upstate New York, won only 2 football games. Nevertheless, they made $29.6 million that season. The same year, the University of Minnesota managed only 1 victory all season while making a profit of $17.3 million. The list of schools with teams that won 1, 2, or only 3 games yet showed profits in the millions is very long.

But, doesn’t all this money serve a noble purpose? Doesn’t it go to academics? Isn’t football the key to funding chemistry labs, paying the salaries of poetry professors, paying the costs of the Music Department and contributing to all academic disciplines within the university community? No. It doesn’t work that way at all – with a single notable exception.

Little known to most observers, big-time college football teams are NOT the property of the schools whose names they bear. Instead they are owned by corporate entities, private companies that appear to be school-related, but are not, such as The University of Georgia Athletic Association, Inc. – not part of the public university known as the University of Georgia, but rather a separate corporate entity altogether. Most Georgians have no idea.

Remember the $46.2 million “profit” made by the football team at the University of Texas? Only $4.7 million of it went to the university. The rest - $41.5 million! – was retained by the corporate entity controlling the team. Pennies for test tubes, books, schoolrooms and dorms – millions for coaches and millions more for recruiting new players – plane tickets, hotels, and God only knows what else.

The sole exception – the University of Notre Dame – unique - a football team owned and operated by the university itself, its program produced $22.1 million for academic use – more than the next half-dozen top programs combined.

The reason college football is so financially rewarding is simple – labor costs, or the lack of them. As a comparison, the National Football League, which employs the highest paid unionized workers in the world, pays out about $4.5 billion (that’s billion with a B, each year to its players. That equals about 60% of total league revenue.) College football pays… nothing, not a cent. And, they’re proud of it. What do they provide? A free “education.” Sure, they do. Do you know their graduation rates?Have you seen the majors for many big-time college football players? Did you know, for example, that the National Champion Florida Gators have players who major in something called “Recreation Event Management?” What the hell is that? College football is more professional than college, more business than sport, and more private than public.

And finally, here is FORBES’ list of the 10 most profitable sports teams:

TEAM 2007 PROFIT
1. Toronto Maple Leafs NHL $ 66.4 million
2. Washington Redskins NFL 58.1
3. Chicago Bulls NBA 55.4
4. Los Angeles Lakers NBA 47.9
5. Univ. of Texas (college) 46.2
6. Notre Dame (college) 45.8
7. Houston Texans NFL 43.9
8. Washington Nationals MLB 43.8
9. Univ. of Georgia (college) 43.5
10. New York Giants NFL 41.2

The Catcher in the Rye

2009-01-09T09:50:00.003-05:00

I just finished reading The Catcher in the Rye, again. I probably read it about a thousand years ago and I didn't get it. This time I was crying at the end. Maybe because I got kicked out of school too. Anyway, it's about the best book ever written. I think that if I ever wrote a book like that, I'd never write anything again. How the hell could you?

LAST CHANCE HARVEY

2009-01-05T19:33:00.000-05:00

The first hour of this drama details the vocational and familial humiliations of a strikingly short, round-faced Dustin Hoffman, who writes jingles for a living.

One’s discomfort is not eased by a building distaste for his fidgety, garrulous character. Dustin’s evisceration intercuts the dating misadventures of Emma Thompson, for whom one feels no distaste at all. On the contrary, one wonders what’s wrong with the male population of England – as if one doesn’t know.

They meet halfway through the picture. Shortly thereafter, Emma persuades Dustin to return to his daughter’s London wedding, from which he has been all but explicitly excluded. There, they are seated at the children’s table.

Dustin makes a very nice toast and thanks to Emma’s cheery influence, is warmly accepted at last. Dustin and Emma agree to meet the following day. He does not show up because of a minor arrhythmia which lands him in the hospital absent the pills he left home in Cleveland or somewhere. They soon get it all straightened out. The end.

This movie raises an interesting question: What does one do when one’s significant other -- the very inventive and discriminating person to whom one so frequently turns for fresh ideas and telling phrases, upon whom one relies for inspiration and guidance in the production of cinematic observations and other literary works -- reveals self as well satisfied with the described sequence, viewing it as romantic in a good way?

Does one find a different room – perhaps inadvertently implying distain for the other’s predilections? Does one uncork a snappy rat-tat-tat of smart cracks or merely punctuate a strained silence with non-committal sighs?

None of the above. One remains in place, resists the urge to self-expression, and thinks of other things. For what is accomplished by slinking away, mitigating another’s joy, or affecting superior wisdom?

Nothing is.

By rising to the requirements of one’s better self, one will often wrest ultimate advantage from banal, tawdry, even borderline-degrading experiences. And, looking back, one will never have anything to be ashamed of.

PAPA ASKS... YOU WANNA BET?

2009-01-05T16:00:00.002-05:00

In a few weeks billions of dollars will be bet – some legally, some not – on a single sports event, the Super Bowl. This football game is the crown jewel of the sports betting industry. It generates more action – the largest amount wagered – than anything people bet on all year. The enormous amount of money bet on this one football game is testimony to the long history of gambling by human beings. Among the basic drives in life… food, clothing, shelter, sex and television… gambling is as strong as any.

The oldest gambling paraphernalia, a pair of dice-like gizmos, date back some 40,000 years. “So easy, even a caveman can do it.” Every civilization ever studied shows signs of gambling, games of chance, lotteries and other forms of social wagering. The ancient Chinese, the Egyptians, the Greeks… they all gambled. The Roman soldiers who put Jesus up on the cross were said to have gambled over his clothing.

In more recent times, in the year 1020, the Kings of Sweden and Norway (both named Olaf) actually rolled dice to settle a dispute over a land area known as Hising. Both Kings are said to have rolled double-sixes on their first try and then, when one King tossed another double sixes, the other was instantly declared the winning Olaf when his dice came up a six and a one. Thus, the derivation of the winning roll - seven. Here we are, nearly a thousand years later and I’m sure, somewhere, right now, somebody is rolling a seven and reaching out to collect his winnings!

People will bet on practically anything. Make a statement; chances are somebody will challenge you to back it up with a bet. In England, during the middle ages, gambling was already a national obsession. Historical records show that in the 14th century, when Henry VIII put Anne Boleyn on trial for her head, the public made the lovely, albeit ill-fated Anne a 10-1 choice for acquittal. Imagine the shock. I’m sure that wasn’t the first time the public guessed wrong and was cleaned out by the bookmakers, beaten into the ground by the odds makers, and it certainly wasn’t the last time. The whole history of betting is the story of short-term wins followed by long-term loses. Who do you think pays for all those billion-dollar hotels in Las Vegas?

While an early form of playing cards first appeared in 11th century Turkistan, they were developed into today’s style 200 years later in France. Blackjack became a French favorite in the late 1700s and the game of roulette was also created in France around the time of the French Revolution. Each has done quite well, thank you – for the house, not for the player.

In America, lotteries were used to finance a major portion of our own Revolution and gambling, especially card playing, thrived throughout the expansion of the American territories during the 19th century.

Sports’ betting begins, of course, with horse racing. As long as men have tamed and ridden horses, there have been horse races and as long as there have been horse races, there has been betting on their outcome. In the early years of the 20th century, there were more than 300 horse tracks operating in the United States.

Betting on professional baseball began in the 1880s. It continues to this day despite various and frequent scandals involving fixed games and insiders who have been caught betting on games over which they exerted influence. The urge of the player cannot be repressed, even by the knowledge that the result might be manipulated. In the 1920s college football became a profitable betting enterprise and during the Depression college basketball also became a national betting favorite.

In 1931 the state of Nevada made gambling legal. Las Vegas is the result, or perhaps more accurately, the cause. But, sports betting did not take hold in Las Vegas for another 45 years. Then, in 1976, Frank “Lefty” Rosenthal, the inspiration for the Robert DiNiro character in the movie “Casino,” almost single-handedly invented casino-based sports gambling. Rosenthal opened the first modern sportsbook at the Stardust Hotel. Papa was there, back then. Free drinks, too! It’s been nothing but continuous, unlimited growth since.

The “house” soon developed 2 strategies to insure for themselves a stable profit base. First, they introduced the point spread. It was no longer enough just to pick the winner of a game, the bettor had to correctly gage the minimum number of points by which the winning team would prevail. This alone eliminated the possibility that the house might take a catastrophic loss on a single game. It worked and it’s still working.

Second, the house added what is called the 11/10 "vig," which means a losing bet pays an eleventh dollar for every $10 wagered. This extra, or “vig” goes straight to the house. This system requires that a sports bettor must win 52.38% of his bets in order to break even. Thus, if a bettor makes 100 bets, each of an equal amount, he has to win 53 of them or he is a loser. When you have millions of bettors making hundreds of millions of bets, this slight advantage for the house is enough to guarantee enormous profits. Actually, the house doesn’t much care who wins what. The “vig” is plenty, and besides, most betters bet wrong.

Now, with the advent of the Internet, we have added online betting to the mix. Gamblers can place their wagers online – and offshore – with instant payoffs either deducted from or added to their credit card or cash account. No one really knows how much money is bet on sporting events in the United States every year, but most estimates, including casino wagers and online bets, exceed $100 billion. There is still an underground, illegal sports betting market, especially for the high rollers. Most casinos in Las Vegas have a maximum of $100,000 per bet on a sports event. Caesar’s Palace will take up to $300,000, but that’s the highest. So, where does the really big-time bettor go for really big-money action? Where there’s a market, there’s a vendor, somewhere offering the opportunity.

How many Americans bet on organized sports? Too many to count. Do you include the office pools on something like college basketball’s “March Madness?” Why do so many Americans bet on sports? That one’s easy. Everyone has an opinion and everyone thinks they “know” who will win this event or that event, this game or that game. Sports is one of those areas in life where so many think they have special knowledge. In reality, what they have is an opinion, a favorite, a preference, a rooting interest and a hope. But “special knowledge?” No, they don’t have any, because there isn’t any such thing. Of course, nobody wants to believe that. That’s why Lefty Rosenthal and all who have followed in his footsteps have made out like bandits.

Still, the opinions never die. The certainty with which so many people say – this game is a lock! – thrives and grows, despite losses and more losses. People have their dreams and their illusions. The bookmaker will never want for customers.

And… by the way, a my personal favor to you, Papa says take Oklahoma plus the points against the Florida Gators in the BCS Championship game. It’s a sure thing. Bet the mortgage – cash in your kids college fund – redeem your 401k – The Sooners will lead you to Easy Street! You wanna bet?

PAPA... ON THE ILLINOIS SENATE SEAT

2009-01-04T13:15:00.002-05:00

Long before he became Vice President or President (the only man to hold both offices without ever being elected to either one of them!), Gerald Ford was asked for his definition of “an impeachable offense” for a President. The question was a good one, and since Ford was a Congressional leader he was an appropriate person to ask. The Constitution specifies only that a President may be impeached for “Treason, Bribery, or other high Crimes and Misdemeanors.” Except for Treason and Bribery, the Constitution is silent on “other high Crimes and Misdemeanors.”

Ford said, “An impeachable offense is anything a majority of the House says it is.” He was not joking. Technically, the Senate must act upon any bill of impeachment voted by the House. The Senate has no authority to reject an impeachment without a trial or ignore it altogether. The House will send a team of lawyers to press their impeachment, and the Senate must entertain them. Ford’s plainspoken, unambiguous answer is relevant today, not for impeachment, but with respect to the actual exercise of Congressional power. There is the real possibility of the Senate refusing to seat Roland Burris, the new, interim Senator from Illinois. Can the Senate refuse to seat a legally appointed member? The power of the Congress to accept or reject its own membership is as simply stated in the Constitution, as is the power of impeachment. Both powers are granted… but neither has proper grounds specifically delineated, defined or distinguished from possibly improper, even illegal reasons for exercising either authority.

So, was Ford right? Could the House impeach a President… for any reason, simply by calling whatever their reason of choice might be “a high Crime or Misdemeanor?” Can the Senate refuse to accept the certificate of appointment from the State of Illinois? The answer is: Sure. Why not? Who’s going to stop them? One might say, “Hey, they can’t do that!” But – again – who will stop them?

In 1966 the House refused to seat Rep. Adam Clayton Powell of New York. The reasons, and the merit of them, or lack of same, are not important here. It’s enough that Powell was indeed denied his seat in Congress. He sued. The House sits for only 2 years, and then an entire new House is elected, so Powell asked the federal courts for an expedited hearing. They refused. His lawsuit, therefore, followed normal procedure, at normal speed. It was still in the courts, unresolved, when Powell won a new election in 1968. The new Congress, in January 1969, voted to accept him. Nevertheless, his lawsuit against the previous Congress continued.

The Supreme Court eventually heard the case and voted in Powell’s favor (7-1 with one Justice not voting) – but it took 3 ½ years to get the decision. Since the Congress from which Powell had been excluded had ended already, he received no actual relief from his court victory.

This time around, should the Senate balk at seating Burris, there is nothing to make the Senate leadership justify their refusal. All they need to do is… do it. Once done, Burris will not become a Senator. He won’t get credentials, an office, a desk, a salary… nothing. He may well sue – as Adam Powell did. And he may well win – as Adam Powell did. And it may well take Roland Burris 3 to 4 years to get his vindication – as it took Rep, Powell. And, what will Burris get from such a victory – if and when it comes? He’ll get the same relief Powell got… nothing. So, what’s the point?

Illinois will hold another election in 2010 to fill the same Senate seat. While a legal case initiated by Burris may not be ruled moot (the Supreme Court refused to dismiss the Powell case as moot) in the real political world the issue will be meaningless because a newly, duly elected Illinois Senator will take his or her seat in January 2011.

What’s all the fuss about then? Nothing, really.

Marley & Me

2009-01-04T08:41:00.003-05:00

Wanting escape, we tried Marely & Me with Owen Wilson and Jennifer Aniston. They are beautiful and charming. The dog Marley, played by several dog actors portraying different stages in his life, was a total pain in the ass at every stage and very not charming. The movie is not for kids and not about a family coping with a dog. It is about coping with the challenges of employment in a marriage with two working adults while raising three kids and trying to live fulfilling lives. There is no dramatic conflict except between hope and reality. Interesting and engaging, but whoever decided to market it as a movie about a dog to take the kids to see, should have worked for the Bush administration selling a war.

PAPA'S INDIVIDUAL SELF-DEFENSE

2009-01-03T11:37:00.002-05:00

Years ago, I bought a gun, a handgun, a revolver, a Smith & Wesson that fires .38 magnum ammunition, the ones called hollow-point bullets that are designed to explode upon impact, spin randomly and disperse their charge wildly inside the body of the person you have shot. It’s a particularly damaging kind of ammunition, deadly in more cases than not. I selected a .38 revolver over a .9 mm because it is easier to shoot accurately and simple to load. The ease with which people appear to be shot with a .9 mm pistol – in the movies – is a trick of the cinema, a device of entertainment. If you went to shooting range with a .9 mm and fired it (as I have), aiming with one hand, shooting round after round without stopping, and your target was only fifteen feet away, you would be lucky to hit that target at all, even once. A revolver is much easier to fire effectively. A revolver is also always ready to fire while a .9 mm has to have a bullet in the chamber or else you’ll pull the trigger and nothing will happen.

When you own a gun for self-defense for self-protection and to ensure the safety of your loved ones, you need to be able to use it immediately, as you grab it. Preparation is something you may have no time for. You must, however, be prepared. You must learn how to operate a gun and you must become proficient as a shooter. I do not hunt, and never have. I have no interest in target shooting, although I admit the experience at a shooting range can be quite exciting and invigorating. There is a bit of a high to be had from firing a gun. Some people even like the smell of gunpowder. I do.

Before I purchased my weapon, a friend of mine who owned multiple guns and was an expert marksman gave me a harsh lecture. A man with a biting sense of humor, all pretense of comedy was gone when he spoke about this. “Owning a gun is not fucking around,” he said. He turned popular, conventional wisdom on its head. “People don’t kill people,” he told me. “Guns do.” He went on to say that nothing you might yell at anyone, especially in a moment of intense anger, could kill them. What I remember most is when he gave this example: “I’ll kill you, you mutherfucker!” he shouted, and then added quickly, “That never hurt anybody.” But, he pointed out, a calm and silent person with a loaded gun could pull the trigger and whomever the gun was pointed at might end up dead. No anger, no yelling, but a well-placed bullet to the face or chest… and the result is death. “It ain’t like the movies,” he said. “It’s not clean and, for the most part, when you get shot, on purpose, by someone who knows what they’re doing, you don’t recover.”

“Don’t buy a gun,” my friend told me, “until you have come to terms with the idea that you will kill someone.” Then he told me, “That’s why you’re buying one, isn’t it – to kill someone?” Guns are not meant as a deterrent to violence. Waving a weapon will not stop an aggressor. And the idea of shooting somebody in the hand or foot or leg just to wound them and thereby end the encounter is the kind of nonsense seen only in movies or on TV. In real life, when you point a loaded weapon at a person, you must mean to kill them. “If you can’t do that,” my friend said, “don’t buy a gun.”

I live in the suburbs of major city, a city that has a long history of violent home invasions. Once, those home invasions were unheard of outside the city. That’s no longer true. The suburbs are not immune from this sort of crime. I wouldn’t call it a public safety problem, not where I live, but what was unthinkable thirty years ago, now actually happens even if it is still unusual. Buy a gun – me? I was thinking about protecting my family, my property and myself. I make no excuses for that. If somebody is forcibly entering your home, at four in the morning or four in the afternoon, there’s no time to call the local police and wait for them to respond. If the criminals are armed, you or members of your family may be killed. Even if they are not armed, you or your family may be badly hurt.

Having a loaded gun available if I needed it, made me feel safer, more comfortable, more secure. It still does.

In our legal system we have a fundamental principle regarding the use of deadly force. It’s quite simple. You may use deadly force only when faced with it. Yes, that’s right. In most states, even if somebody breaks into your home in the middle of the night and you confront them – and they are unarmed – you cannot use deadly force without facing legal charges yourself. I know, most people who are awakened and discover a stranger in their bedroom would like to grab a handy gun shoot the sonofabitch and think they would be justified, both morally and legally. But that just isn’t the case. If your life isn’t in danger, you can’t kill someone no matter what law the intruder might have broken first.

Where I live, most people would gladly put their faith in a jury of their peers. I would. Once my friend gave me the parameters for gun ownership, I was ready. Think about it, if you woke up one night and an intruder, a home invader was in your home – in your bedroom - wouldn’t you shot them if you had a handgun immediately available? If you’ve answered “No,” I think you’re not being honest.

For the individual, survival is not only morally justified, it is a prime directive of human behavior, even if it involves killing somebody who you reasonably believe is a threat to your life. Armed or not, a home invader, especially one who is confronted by the homeowner, can and may well kill you. If you, as the victim have a gun, are you really going to take the time to consider the weaponry of your invader before shooing him? I won’t, and I doubt you would either, no matter what you say now, in the light of day, when you face no threat. This sort of reflection is an intellectual luxury reserved only to the safe and secure.

I know the law in my state requires that I use deadly force only when threatened by deadly force. I, however, trust the reasonable thinking of the average person to arrive at the conclusion that anyone who is inside my house, having entered forcibly and uninvited, is indeed a threat to my life and to the lives of my family. I will shoot, and as you would be taught, if you took shooting lessons, I will aim for the center of the torso, the largest part of the body. Miss high, you’ll hit the chest or the head. Miss low and your bullet probably strikes the groin area or the legs. A hit, directly where you aim, in the abdomen, will result in the most painful of all wounds. The chances of disabling the invader are excellent, and as my friend warned me in the beginning, the more you know how to use your gun, the better the odds are you will kill whomever you are shooting. That’s what the gun is for, isn’t it?

Some people I know have guns that they keep locked up. They even sell things called gun-safes. Others have special trigger locks. Before you can use such a weapon, you need a key and the time to unlock the trigger. I know some people who make a point of keeping their ammunition in a different place than where they keep their gun, and some never keep their gun loaded. It’s impolite to ask them, but I always wonder – why have a gun at all?

I keep my revolver in a place where I’m certain small children cannot get to it. Yet, it is immediately accessible to me, especially in the middle of the night. And it is always loaded. Extra bullets are right there, next to it. It has no trigger lock and I purposely bought a gun that has no safety mechanism. I believe my gun is essential to my individual self-defense. I believe a gun is meant to kill people, not to be turned off, and mine is ready to do so if needed.

REVOLUTIONARY ROAD

2009-01-03T09:58:00.001-05:00

If you enjoy watching unpleasant people saying and doing predictable things, this may be the flick for you. We lasted fifteen minutes.

DOUBT

2008-12-31T10:40:00.001-05:00

“Doubt” portrays the moral and emotional struggle arising between a priest suspected of pederasty and the nun who suspects him. A younger nun embodies the good conscience and competing moral impulses of the audience, for which the antagonists compete.

What I’m about to say blows the plot line, so those who do not want to skip the first-level tensions of initial encounter -- ought probably read no further.

The promotional clips imply a convent western; St. Francis vs. Bloody Mary, Big Nurse down on the lovable loonies. This, together with Meryl Streep and Phillip Seymour Hoffman in costume and harness is how you build some kind of a gate.

But I expect that the movie will not do much business. It is not made for our C+ culture and D+ national mentality. It is an anti-western. It is a difficult, spiky lesson in moral philosophy.

Formally, the plot moves in grim parody of Tomesian logic: thesis (He did it), antithesis (No, I didn’t) synthesis (In that case …) But in this case, the young nun arrives at no satisfactory, reconcilliatory judgments. She tacks with the wind. As do we. That’s because the arguments acquire and lose force continuously. They tend, but never conclude.

More than religious professionals are at war here. Sentiment defies logic. Intuition thwarts evidence. Sympathy confounds obligation. Integrity repels kindness. Right and wrong switch habits.

Sermon over, we’re navigating personality traits, hierarchical privilege, child psychology, racial tragedy, domestic abuse, institutional corruption, authoritarian pathology, male prerogative, dismayingly rare roast beef – a red and yellow basket of more-and-less poisoned apples and oranges. No picnic.

The fun of the movie is being drawn in through ingenious craft and emotional power, being tempted to indulge this or that emotion or bias, then getting smacked up side your conscience with the consequence of your self-indulgence. Do you want to do the right thing or enjoy your popcorn? Turns out you can’t do both for more than a couple of minutes. That’s why I don’t think Americans will find much here to recommend.

I have worked the same basic formula in writing case study exercises for clients including the Army National Guard (before it became a combat force), an aluminum can manufacturer in Chicago, and a couple of others.

In one case, a supervisor is required to report a plainly bogus sexual harassment claim to HR – with predictably bad outcomes for all concerned. In another, a Guard recruiter is driven by honorable motives to use unapproved methods.

Of all the corporate goop I have written over twenty-odd years, nothing has come remotely close to these ethical-dilemma activities for exciting participant interest – not to mention impassioned, often angry debate. Frame a job-related conflict between immediate decency and longer term imperatives and you’ll create involvement second only to sex – in my professional experience.

But Doubt is not likely to stimulate this kind of debate. That’s because it layers the impulses so subtly, divides and arranges the moral and sympathetic qualities so evenly – that wherever you start out, you will find at least part of yourself lined up against you. I guarantee it. The aftermath will best be experienced internally, or in slower conversation. Or, as in my case, through an unpleasant dream.

The movie opens with Hoffman delivering an admirable sermon as Steep stalks the pews like a predatory stork, eyes alert for inattentive young heads to back-smack. After a few seconds, I told Joan that I feared we were in for a twisty ride because it couldn’t possibly be that simple and where the thing would lead I could not imagine.

I was, for a change, entirely right.

GLBT

2008-12-29T21:21:00.001-05:00

The non-heterosexual community (or most of it) is increasingly designated by the initials GLBT – Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, Transgender. The term pertains to persons at-risk for discrimination and abuse by virtue of gender orientation and behavior.

Needless to say, I support the squashing of all gender discrimination and abuse. Not only is there nothing wrong with being GLBT, but I believe that same-sexers have much to contribute from their special vantages. I hope they are encouraged to express themselves fully and often -- as equally advantaged citizens. Certainly, one hopes to hear more from this group than from, say, Italo-Americans.

However, I don’t know why Bisexuals get equal billing. Gays surely merit recognition for the many at-risk aspects of being Gay. Lesbians the same. Transgenders may need our sympathy and protection most of all.

But Bisexuals? People are not persecuted because they are Bisexuals. They are persecuted because they are part-time homosexuals. It’s not as though gay bashers get on them for crossing over and poaching our women or gentlemen. No, as long as they do opposites, they are pretty much all right. It’s only when they go same-wise that they catch it.

True at-risk communities get in trouble because of: 1. characteristics they cannot shed such as physical features, national origin, or swishing, 2. beliefs they should not have to relinquish however distasteful these beliefs are to the rest of us: deep religious convictions, political preferences, or 3. voluntary group behavior which does not harm others, like dressing up funny.

Most Gays, Lesbians, and Transgenders fit snugly into category One; they face risk because of how God made them. Some may locate themselves in category 2, having made purely personal choices to look or be G. or L., especially while still in college. In Gay Pride parades, category 3. takes the stage.

The same broad scheme covers B’s operating in Q. mode – functioning as G’s and L’s. Otherwise, they are not at risk. They simply wind up with more options than most people. This is no curse which hangs about their necks like an hormonal/genetic albatross, attracting arrows. We should all be so lucky.

I remember a brief period decades ago when light skinned African-Americans were represented as seeking their own identity – as mulattoes. A couple of people wrote articles about it and then it blew over. The mulatto identity idea suggested an impulse to duck the more reviled darker identity. As I remember, this attracted little support except from the M’s who wrote the articles.

I’m not judging. In the face of actual, physical anti-Semitism, I might very well suggest that blue-eyed atheistic Jews get a category of their own. When fascism comes, who knows what I will pretend to have been doing all my life? I try to have no illusions.

Nor do I consider myself an expert on same-sex politics or resistance strategies. But in this case I remain curious.

Do Bisexuals really require their own designation? If so, how come?

Do B’s really wish to separate themselves from their wholly fish and wholly fowl fellows? If so, why can’t they be happy as part-time G’s and L’s?

Do they consider Bisexuality especially snappy?

Has the B been added to GLBT not by B’s themselves – but by 100% G’s, L’s, and T’s as a means of building the base with or without the Two-Way community’s consent?

I know that some of Papadablogger’s readers may have more important things to do than think about this. Still, I’m on the lookout for those who have thoughts on the subject, or better yet, answers to the questions above. In this spirit, I will return filled with hope to the Comments box in the days ahead.

Two Jean Shepherd Stories

2008-12-25T06:56:00.000-05:00

TWO JEAN SHEPHERD STORIES (Contained in an email correspondence between Fang Harrison and Valentine Marofsky)

STORY NUMBER 1 (sent by Fang Harrison to Valentine Marofsky)

The Man Who Told A Christmas Story
What I learned from Jean Shepherd.
By Donald Fagen [a New York City musician and co-founder of Steely Dan.]

Updated Monday, Dec. 22, 2008, at 10:04 AM ET

If you know Jean Shepherd's name, it's probably in connection with the now-classic film A Christmas Story, which is based on a couple of stories in his book In God We Trust: All Others Pay Cash. He also does the compelling voice-over narration. On Christmas, TBS will continue its tradition of presenting a 24-hour Christmas Story marathon. There are annual fan conventions devoted to the film—released 25 years ago this Thanksgiving—and the original location in Cleveland has been turned into a museum. But long before A Christmas Story was made, Shepherd did a nightly radio broadcast on WOR out of Manhattan that enthralled a generation of alienated young people within range of the station's powerful transmitter. Including me: I was a spy for Jean Shepherd.

In the late '50s, while Lenny Bruce was beginning his climb to holy infamy in jazz clubs on the West Coast, Shepherd's all-night monologues on WOR had already gained him an intensely loyal cult of listeners. Unlike Bruce's provocative nightclub act, which had its origins in the "schpritz" of the Catskills comics, Shepherd's improvised routines were more in the tradition of Midwestern storytellers like Mark Twain, but with a contemporary urban twist: say, Mark Twain after he'd been dating Elaine May for a year and a half. Where Bruce's antics made headlines, Shepherd, with his warm, charismatic voice and folksy style, could perform his most subversive routines with the bosses in the WOR front office and the FCC being none the wiser. At least most of the time.

I was introduced to Shep, as his fans called him, by my weird uncle Dave. Dave, who was a bit of a hipster, used to crash on our sofa when he was between jobs. Being a bookish and somewhat imperious 12-year-old, already desperately weary of life in suburban New Jersey and appalled by Hoss and Little Joe and Mitch Miller and the heinous Bachelor Father, I figured Dave was my man. One night, after ruthlessly beating me at rummy, he put down the cards and said, "Now we're gonna listen to Shepherd—this guy's great." The Zenith table model in the kitchen came to life midway through Shepherd's theme music, a kitschy, galloping Eduard Strauss piece called the "Bahn Frei" polka. And then there was that voice, cozy, yet abounding with jest.

He was definitely a grown-up but he was talking to me—I mean straight to me, with my 12-year-old sensibility, as if some version of myself with 25 more years worth of life experience had magically crawled into the radio, sat down, and loosened his tie. I was hooked. From then on, like legions of other sorry-ass misfits throughout the Northeast, I tuned in every weeknight at 11:15 and let Shep put me under his spell. Afterward, I'd switch to an all-night jazz station and dig the sounds until I conked out. Eventually, this practice started to affect my grades and I almost didn't graduate from high school.

Listening to Shep, I learned about social observation and human types: how to parse modern rituals (like dating and sports); the omnipresence of hierarchy; joy in struggle; "slobism"; "creeping meatballism"; 19th-century panoramic painting; the primitive, violent nature of man; Nelson Algren, Brecht, Beckett, the fables of George Ade; ; the codes inherent in "trivia," bliss in art; fishing for crappies; and the transience of desire. He told you what to expect from life (loss and betrayal) and made you feel that you were not alone.

Shepherd's talk usually fell into one of four categories. Fans of A Christmas Story will be familiar with the basic comic tone of his Depression-era tales, elaborations on his experience growing up in Hammond, Ind., a Chicago suburb in the shadow of the U.S. Steel Works on Lake Michigan. These stories featured his manic father ("the old man"); his mother (always standing over the sink in "a yellow rump-sprung chenille bathrobe with bits of dried egg on the lapel"); his kid brother, Randy, and , bullies, beauties, and other neighborhood types. While the film preserves much of the flavor of Shep's humor, not much remains of the acid edge that characterized his on-air performances. In the film, the general effect is one of bittersweet nostalgia; on the radio, the true horror of helpless childhood came through.

Then there were the stories culled from his three years in the stateside Army during World War II (a juvenile ham radio and electronics freak, he was assigned to the Signal Corps). The third hunk of material was informed by his adventures in postwar radio and TV. He seems to have done every possible job, from engineer to sportscaster to hosting live cowboy music broadcasts. Finally, there was the contemporary stuff, comments on the passing scene.

In between, he'd sing along to noisy old records, play the kazoo and the nose flute, brutally sabotage the commercials, and get his listeners—the "night people," the "gang"—to help him pull goofy public pranks on the unwitting squares that populated most of Manhattan. In one famous experiment in the power of hype, Shepherd asked his listeners to go to bookstores and make requests for I, Libertine, a nonexistent novel by a nonexistent author, Frederick R. Ewing. The hoax quickly snowballed and several weeks later I, Libertine was on best-seller lists. (Shep and sci-fi author Theodore Sturgeon eventually codged together an actual novel for Ballantine Books. I owned a copy.)

Hilarious as Shep's tales could be, one sensed a tough realism about life that ran counter to the agitprop for the Leisure Revolution that the media were serving up in those years. With the Soviets flexing their muscles and the constant specter of global nuclear war, the government was going to fantastic lengths to convince everyone that things were just peachy. From Bert the Turtle's exhortations to "duck and cover" in the face of an atomic blast to the endless parade of new products hawked on the tube by Madison Avenue, Americans were feeding themselves a line of hooey that was no less absurd than the most hard-core Maoist brainwash. "Relax, life is good," we were told. "Your government and Walt Disney have got the future well in hand." To skeptical Mad magazine-reading little stinkers like myself, it was this mendacity on the part of adults that was the most sinister enemy of all.

Because Shep made it clear he was just as dazed, enraged, and amused as you were, that he noticed what you noticed, he established himself as one of a handful of adults you could trust. (Others were Mailer, Ginsberg, Vonnegut, and Realist publisher Paul Krassner.) Night after night, Shepherd forged the inchoate thoughts and feelings of a whole generation of fans into an axiom that went something like: "The language of our culture no longer describes real life and, pretty soon, something's gonna blow."

Toward the beginning of the show, Shepherd frequently read news clippings that listeners, his "spies," had sent in. These were mostly odd little fillers he called "straws in the wind," indicators of the prevailing mood. Once I mailed Shep an article from our local Central Jersey paper about a guy who, after being fired for some petty infraction, got loaded and tossed a Coke bottle through every store window in the local shopping mall. A couple of nights later, I'm listening to the show and Shep does his usual bit: "So, this kid sent me a piece ..." and ACTUALLY READ MY CLIP ON THE AIR! Wham: I had connected. My life as an independent consciousness had begun. I remember scurrying down to the "TV room" and announcing this amazing event to my parents. Having always considered both Shepherd and my uncle Dave to be half-cracked, they were greatly underwhelmed.

As grateful as I am that Shep was there for me during those crucial years, my idealization of Shepherd the Man was not to survive much longer. In December of 1965, I came home from my first year of college for Christmas break and noticed that Shepherd was going to be appearing at nearby Rutgers University. On a frosty night, I drove my used Ford Galaxy to New Brunswick, where I sat on the floor with a congregation of Rutgers students and watched Shep walk into the spotlight to enthusiastic applause. He had neat but stylishly long hair and was wearing a green corduroy sports coat with the collar up over a black turtleneck T.

Onstage for almost two hours, he had the young audience in his pocket from the downbeat. But, for me, something wasn't right. On the radio, speaking close to the mic, he was able to use vocal nuances and changes in intensity to communicate the most intimate shadings of thought and feeling, not unlike what Miles Davis could achieve in a recording studio. Live onstage, he spoke as though he'd never seen a microphone in his life, trying to project to the back of the room. Moreover, he blared and blustered like a carnival barker, as if he had the scent of failure in his nostrils and was ready to do anything to get the crowd on his side. It was obvious that the guy I thought was so cool had a desperate need to impress all these people, whom I assumed to be casual listeners at best.

In truth, even at home, listening on the radio, I'd noticed a strain of grandiosity creeping into Shepherd's routines. Apparently, he'd originally come to New York with the idea of being a stage actor or making it big on network TV. But it's easy to imagine mainstream producers and network execs being put off by Shepherd's contrariness and intrinsic marginality. Supposedly, when Steve Allen retired as host of The Tonight Show, he'd suggested Shepherd as a replacement. NBC ended up giving the job to the eccentric but more cuddly Jack Paar. In any case, as the years rolled by, Shepherd rankled at being confined to the ghetto of radio and must have come to see his crown as King of the Hipsters as a crown of thorns.

What I saw that night at Rutgers wasn't pretty. In the studio, his occasional abuse of the lone engineer on the other side of the glass could be seen as the petulance of an artist trying to make things work on the fly. But, incandescent under the gaze of all those kids, his self-indulgences looked more like straight-up narcissism and his "hipness" was revealed as something closer to contempt. By the end of the show, he'd crossed the line between artist and showman and then some. No longer wanting to meet the great man, I left before the reception, scraped the ice off my windshield, and drove home. Anyway, the cool early '60s were over and the boiling, psychedelic late '60s had begun. Shepherd was no longer part of my world.

Not long ago, in the absence of any books, films, music, etc., that seemed to give off any light, I started looking back at some of the things that used to inspire me as a kid, including some of Shep's old shows, now available on the Internet. Hearing them almost a half-century down the line has been a trip. Despite the tendencies I've already mentioned (plus the gaffes one might expect from a wild man like Shep ad-libbing before the age of political correctness), much of the stuff is simply amazing: The guy is a dynamo, brimming with curiosity and ideas and fun. Working from a few written notes at most, Shepherd is intense, manic, alive, the first and only true practitioner of spontaneous word jazz.

I've done a little catch-up research: Shepherd stayed on at WOR until 1977, when the station did a makeover. His books, collections of stories based on the same material he used on the air, sold well. He had a successful career on public television and continued to do his bit on stage into the '90s. And, of course, there was the collaboration with director Bob Clark on A Christmas Story. But I'm sorry to report that the narcissism thing kept getting worse as he got older.

Like a lot of fine-tuned performing artists, Shepherd increasingly exhibited the whole range of symptoms common to the aging diva. He became paranoid and resentful of imagined rivals, whether they were old ones like Mort Sahl or upstarts like Garrison Keillor. At the same time, he disavowed all his radio work, claiming that it was just a temporary gig on his way to some fanciful glory on the stage and screen. He even seemed to want to kill off his childhood, insisting that all those stories and characters were pulled clean out of his imagination. Old fans, for whom he had been almost like a surrogate father or big brother, were often met with derision when they approached him.

He didn't drink himself to death like his pal Jack Kerouac or OD like Lenny Bruce but gradually succumbed to that very real disease of self-loathing and its accompanying defenses. Disappointed in the way the world had treated him, he retired to Florida's west coast and died in 1999.

Although Shepherd almost never divulged details about his private life, he wasn't shy about giving us a bit of unflattering self-analysis, as this attests:

Protective coloration is extremely important in our lives. ... [W]e are in the weeds all the time because we find it better down here in the weeds. ...

Look at me. ... I am not at all what I appear to be. ... [T]his is merely a mask ... that more or less covers up the real me that's underneath. The real me is a saber-toothed tiger. I couldn't dare go down the street the way I really am. I'd get shot in five minutes. They'd have me in a wagon with a bunch of Doberman pinschers.

To an adolescent back then, long before a therapeutic vernacular had entered the language, this was reassuring news. It's possible that Shep's greatest lesson to the gang wasn't just "things are not what they seem" but rather "things are not what they seem—including me."

Copyright 2007 Washingtonpost.Newsweek Interactive Co. LLC

STORY NUMBER 2 (Sent by Valentine Marofsky to Fang Harrison)

Victor’s Story:

I just had lunch with Victor who told a wonderful story about Jean Shepherd.
Victor was a fan in the 1950s much as you and Don Fagen were. It was adolescent idolization.
Years later Victor was an associate Dean of Continuing Education, Liberal Arts Division at NYU. There he inherited Richard Brown who ran a course on theater. Brown was supposed to bring famous names as a draw for the course, but thought that he was more interesting than Robert Redford, etc. The strange this was, Brown was more interesting than his guests. After looking at Robert Redford for a few moments, what else is there.
As part of the program Victor was trying to find other personalities who could draw famous people from different walks of life to give courses similar to Richard Brown's. One day Brown or some other course giver told Victor that Jean Shepherd was scheduled to be the evening's guest speaker. Victor was invited to dinner with the host and Shepherd prior to the course being given. Victor was going to ask Shepherd to host another such a course, and Shepherd (who had been told of Victor's coming invitation of employment) was very much in favor.
The problem arose as soon as Victor joined Shepherd and the host at dinner because it was apparent that Shepherd in person was a boor (see Dan Fagen's similar impression at Rutgers). Even worse, at the course given that evening, which Victor was obligated to attend after the dinner, Shepherd alienated the audience almost immediately and did nothing to remedy his awful impression. He was so full of himself that he was unbearable on stage. After about an hour, the audience could take no more of Shepherd and an insurrection was brewing.
Then someone from the audience shouted out, "Do your ....... routine."
Shepherd, knowing that the audience was hostile and restive (he was not stupid) gladly agreed and launched into his bit from the radio show.
After that was finished someone else shouted out, "Jean, do your ........... routine."
Shepherd happily complied and the audience enjoyed the final hour of the presentation in excellent humor.
This, I'm sure you will agree, is such a better story than Fagen's at Rutgers.
P.S. - Shepherd did not get the job as a host at NYU School of Continuing Education, Liberal Arts Division.

RELAPSING AND REMITTING

2008-12-23T10:56:00.001-05:00

How about: Relapsing and Remitting Narcissistic Empathy Deficit Disorder?

Say you’re trying to give directions over the phone. A third person interrupts repeatedly. She wants you to suggest a different route – not knowing that the other party has reasons for avoiding this alternative route.

After you hang up, she says, “How come nobody ever listens to me?”

This individual suffers from RRNEDD. In other words:

In the press of the moment (Relapsing and Remitting) the self-involved (Narcissistic) third person fails to understand 1. The direction-seeker’s priorities, and 2. The bad impression she has made on you (Empathy Deficit Disorder.)

I mention this in connection with an article in last week’s New York Times: Psychiatry’s Struggle to Revise the Book of Human Troubles.

It’s struggling, all right.

Psychiatry faces many challenges as it attempts to update the DSM, or Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders. The new edition, DSM-V, is a guaranteed best seller, so that, at least, is not among Psychiatry’s problems.
But a plateful remain.

According to the article, Psychiatry must fend off drug companies bent on bribing contributors and editors to hype conditions ripe for treatment by patented medicines. Otherwise, the DSM-V will come out with Prozac Deprivation Syndrome and Hypovaliumism.

Another challenge reflects Psychiatry’s ignorance of its subject matter. It does not know exactly what anything is, or what causes it, or more often than not, what to do about it. As the article points out in the words of a perceptive actual psychiatrist, “ … this is not cardiology or nephrology.”

However, the DSM does serve as a means of getting people paid. It does so by attaching a number to each diagnostic label, such as RRNEDD. This number, say 897.9, triggers the insurance company’s reimbursement (or denial) mechanism, allowing mental health care to function.

The New York Times article explores the skeptical view of the above-quoted doctor who has authored a book which summarizes Western Civilization under the title, “ Before Prozac.” He’s concerned that identifying people as having “obsessive-compulsive” disorder may impose a negative impact on their self-perception if and when they hear about it.

Also, the current approach may not give some gender permutations the encouragement they deserve.

I could see that this article was no mere exercise in industry cheerleading. That’s probably why it wasn’t in the Science section. Still, for another objective viewpoint I visited Iris, my childhood chum and on-call psychiatrist. Not having cracked the DSM for a long time, I asked her to fetch hers and together we vetted.

I was quickly reminded that Psychiatry has set itself a noble task in attempting to categorize the whole of human experience for purposes of reimbursement. This is one of its most daunting challenges -- struggling to encapsulate every facet of what goes on day by day.

My eye fell quickly on the pot section. I read sadly about Cannabis Dependency, with its compulsive and destructive aspects. “But what,” I wondered, “is meant by 305.20 Cannabis Abuse?” Turns out, this condition comprises driving high, getting busted, smoking at work, arguing about smoking dope with spouse or parents, and toking up in the presence of minors.

Nor does Psychiatry go easy on legal agents, as evidenced by 292.89, Caffeine Induced Sleep Disorder. Armed with a degree and a number, you can get reimbursed for telling people to cut down.

Oppositional Defiant Disorder involves arguing with adults, disregarding authority, blaming others for your own fuck-ups, being annoyed and annoying, and showing an angry, resentful, or vindictive side. To qualify your psychiatrist for reimbursement, these tendencies must get in your way.

The same goes for 312.89 Impulse Control Disorder, 301.50 Histrionic Personality Disorder, and 302.89, Frotteurism, or touching people on the subway. My favorite is Factitious Disorder, or making up disorders.

Psychiatry is struggling to do its best. With all the challenges it faces, it can use some help. I don’t intend to stop with RRNEDD. I’m taking notes on other troublesome manifestations, too.

I urge readers to join me in this practice and send your notes to Pappa. When we have enough, I’ll give them all numbers and forward the whole batch to Psychiatry.

Leo Durocher's Bid Was Foul

2008-12-23T08:20:00.002-05:00

Sometimes There Was Magic

NYTimes.com - December 23, 2008
On Old Cassette, Barber’s Voice Brings to Life Game He Missed
By RICHARD SANDOMIR
No one broadcast Johnny Vander Meer’s second consecutive no-hitter in June 1938, but that did not deter fans from telling Red Barber years later how much they enjoyed his call.
Barber should have called it, at least for symmetry’s sake.
He was then in his final season with the Cincinnati Reds (his storied run with the Brooklyn Dodgers started the next season) and behind the Crosley Field radio microphone for Vander Meer’s first no-hitter on June 11 against the Boston Bees.
But because the Dodgers, Giants and Yankees were in the last season of a five-year ban on radio broadcasts from their stadiums, Vander Meer’s no-hitter at Ebbets Field on June 15 was a witness-only event, unheard on any airwave. So while Vander Meer was making history in Brooklyn, Barber was home in Cincinnati, being called by exhilarated fans who knew that his home number was listed under his wife’s name.
Forty-one years later, Barber came to the annual meeting of the Florida Association of Broadcasters. They presented him with their Gold Medal. He recalled a prayer about the “changes and chances of time,” then offered his listeners the gift of time passed.
“Something no one has,” he said. He later added, “It’s going to be yours.”
Rome Hartman attended the broadcasters’ conference, which he recalled being held in Orlando, Fla.
“It was so extemporaneous that everyone was in awe,” said Hartman, a former sportscaster who was then general manager of a radio station in West Palm Beach. “He had it in his mind because he didn’t read it off any script. It came out of his memory.”
The first part of his gift, preserved in a cassette tape bought by Hartman after the conference but forgotten in a box of memorabilia for many years, was Barber’s vivid recap of the first eight innings. “Suddenly, this thing became alive,” Barber said.
Barber’s recapitulation of the game is a reminder that Vander Meer, no matter the sensation he caused with his first no-hitter, was an afterthought early on in the Brooklyn game. It was the first night game at Ebbets Field, and 38,748 fans, well beyond capacity, had jammed in. “They must have been in the aisles and hanging from the rafters,” Barber said.
The second part, which lasts just over three minutes, is Barber live — yet 41 years late. He calls the bottom half of the ninth as if it were being played before him, with Vander Meer facing the bases full of Brooks with one out.
“Now,” Barber said, “on the brink of greatness, unprecedented greatness, he’s gone wild.” With Reds Manager Bill McKechnie at the mound trying to calm Vander Meer, Barber said: “There’s no one warming up in the bullpen. It’s going to be Vander Meer going all the way. It has to be. He pitched a no-hitter four days ago at Cincinnati against Boston, and tonight is his night. His father and mother are here. The girl he’s going to marry. They’re all here. And this crowd is now for him. They’ve turned their backs on their ball club, the Dodgers. They want him to do it.”
Barber, who died in 1992, was 71 at the time, 13 years past his firing by the Yankees. His lyrical voice rose excitedly during the half-inning and sometimes lowered as if he were telling Cub Scouts a ghost story. He spoke rapidly and clearly, describing the runners on base and the Reds’ defensive setup. And when he said Vander Meer’s name, the syllables were transformed by Barber’s Mississippi roots into the gentler-sounding “Van-da-me-ah.”
“Ernie Lombardi, ‘Big Schnozz,’ sitting back of the plate, ready to give the sign,” he said. “Koy up. Vander Meer pitches. It’s a strike. No balls, one strike. The score is six to nothing in favor of the Reds. But the score is not the story. The story is Vander Meer!”
Bob Edwards, a Sirius XM talk show host, talked to Barber every Friday for 12 years on National Public Radio’s “Morning Edition”; he remembered Monday that at a public radio conference in 1983, Barber surprised attendees by recreating the bottom of the ninth of Game 4 of the 1947 World Series. Brooklyn’s Cookie Lavagetto broke up a no-hitter by the Yankees’ Bill Bevens with a pinch-hit double and won the game for the Dodgers.
“It was the only good thing that happened at that conference,” Edwards said, adding, “He was a showman. When he was a kid, he wanted to be in vaudeville.”
With two outs and shortstop Leo Durocher facing Vander Meer, the tinkling glasses in the banquet room were muted. His audience of broadcasters was quiet.
“Durocher swings, and it’s a hard line-drive going down the right field and it’s foul just by a couple of feet in the right-field corner,” he said and his audience exhaled loudly — “You had to catch your breath,” Hartman said — and applauded. (The New York Times article the next day said Durocher’s foul went into the right-field stands.)
Then, the conclusion: “It’s no balls, two strikes, three on,” the old Redhead said. “It’s a high fly ball going to medium center field. Harry Craft comes under it, sets, and takes it, and it’s a double no-hitter for Vander Meer.” A brief pause, and, finally: “Thank you.”

Obama, Science and Religion

2008-12-22T15:48:00.002-05:00

Valentine Marofsky says:
In support of my previously expressed view that Obama's choice of a bible thumping pastor to pray for us at the Inauguration is a political gambit, and his political core supports science over religion or any fundamentalist form thereof, see the NYTimes editorial pasted below:

December 22, 2008
NYTimes Editorial
A New Respect for Science
Though Barack Obama’s cabinet appointments have received the big headlines, it is worth noting two important sub-cabinet choices. Both are scientists, committed to using rather than abusing science to address issues like climate change, and a welcome departure from the many ideologues and lobbyists that Dick Cheney assembled to advise President Bush on environmental matters.
The first of these choices is Jane Lubchenco, a marine biologist at Oregon State University, to run the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, a division of the Commerce Department responsible for the health of the atmosphere and the oceans.
Ms. Lubchenco is an expert on two grave threats to the oceans, both linked to global warming. One is acidification, which is destroying coral reefs, the other hypoxia, a condition that robs fish of the oxygen they need to survive. She has also been a powerful advocate for stronger federal and international efforts to protect declining fish species.
We are also heartened by Mr. Obama’s choice of John Holdren, a Harvard physicist, as his science adviser. Mr. Holdren has served as chairman of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, as has Ms. Lubchenco. Both have argued strongly and repeatedly for a mandatory limit on greenhouse gases to avoid catastrophic climate change.
Like Mr. Obama’s earlier appointments — in particular Steven Chu, a Nobel laureate in physics, to run the Department of Energy — these choices solidly affirm Mr. Obama’s commitment to aggressively address the challenges of energy independence and global warming.
The broader point, though, is what they say about his appreciation for the processes of science. That was not much in evidence in the Bush administration, some of whose appointees edited and suppressed scientific documents to serve the administration’s political agenda.
As Ms. Lubchenco observes, identifying a problem is not synonymous with solving it. But Mr. Obama has at least surrounded himself with serious scholars of some of the most critical issues of our times.

Let Doubt Enter

2008-12-19T20:46:00.003-05:00

Obama is attempting to rise above ideology in choosing someone from the far right to lead the invocation prayer at his inauguration.

If the right feels included and the left gets over it, we may be on our way to reconciliation.
The left may still think the right is stupid and the right may still think the left is immoral,
But the point of his choice is that we can live together and disagree in harmony.
Then, maybe, Doubt will enter the lives of those on both sides who suffer from moral certainty.

Valentine Marofsky Has Spoken