Yes, I have these opinions

What Victory?

2010-12-23T16:22:00.000-08:00

Right now, big time media (which is to say, virtually everyone) is touting Barack Obama's asskicking of the supposedly ascendant Republican party. Six short weeks (have we heard this phrase often enough?) after he called his party's defeat in the November elections a "shellacking", here he is, getting all kinds of legislation passed out of a lame duck Congress which is traditionally incapable of accomplishing anything, other than prepping their own way into the lucrative ranks of Washington lobbyists.

Granted, the things they passed are notable, not only because of their formerly controversial nature, but just by the shear volume of bills flogged into law. And the GOP has helpfully called themselves out as losers who somehow couldn't maintain their focus long enough to deny the President any victory at all. After all, that has been their strategy, often stated, since November 2008. Do they really have a reason to be so downhearted?

Sadly, no.

Think about what they have lost; The START Treaty; Don't Ask Don't Tell; Bad Food protection; extension of Unemployment benefits. All worthy bills, and we're all better off for their being signed into law. But are they essential or are they peripheral? Don't Ask Don't Tell is Civil Rights for the 2000's, and way overdue, but is any Republican going to suffer for being in opposition to it? Do they really care that it is now a reality? Would any Republican of the last three quarters of a century really have a problem with START? No, and no.

They defied the Dream Act, and they were successful. That may cone back to haunt them, as the country grows increasingly Hispanic. Yet, that is a comeuppance for another day.

What did they get, as we limped down the stretch of lame duckdom? Why they got their wealthy friends their tax break, further piling on to the national debt that they were so disgusted with during the late campaign. They kept absolutely everything that they really care about, exactly as it was before these non-essential Democratic issues were given their day. And oh yes, they also got the estate tax, which would have continued to aid in reducing the deficit, and which also provided at least some leveling to the catastrophic swing in favor of the well-to do.

Okay, I like that these other things got passed. It's nice to see Barack win a couple. It's nice to see him strut a little, and for our side to flip off the bad guys. But make no mistake; they got the big wins. And they know that they will have the whip hand a just a few days. Then, things will get truly ugly and little mercy will be shown.

It Never Stops

2010-12-15T08:19:00.000-08:00

So I was driving today and heard this Republican on the radio decrying the Democrats' attempt to get the estate tax exemption out of the proposed tax bill. What it is, is that the bill as put forth by the Republicans would excuse the richest of the rich from having to pay the estate tax which has been their obligation for many decades. We're talking about one quarter of one percent of the population, about those whose wealth is mind-bogglingly, obscenely huge. They've amassed these staggering piles of loot, but it still isn't enough to pass on to their worthless, spoiled kids, who, even with the present estate tax, are still the equivalent of American royalty.

Anyway, this guy is saying that "studies" show that to apply the tax now would be "devastating" to the economy. Pray, what studies could these be? Who produced them, and who paid to have them produced? Remember, the tax was in place during each and every boom that we have experienced over many years. Why wasn't it devastating before? And why would it be devastating now?

He went on say (as Republicans so often do) that by further coddling the wealthy, we stand a much better chance of producing prosperity in the country. You know, like the way in which they kept so many jobs in the U.S., or how they keep the best interests of the middle class and the poor in mind. Like with this tax exemption. Why, of course they'll begin producing jobs in the millions if we make them even richer than they already are!

Of course, Obama likes this addendum to the bill just fine. Why not - he goes along with just about everything else they want. Only a few dedicated progressives in Congress continue to hold the line. I think principally of Bernie Sanders, who staged a wonderful "Mister Sanders Goes to Washington" revival on Friday, holding the floor for eight and a half hours in a one-man filibuster. Not merely quoting bullshit from the bible or phone book as so many hacks have done in the past, he talked about the bill itself, eloquently explaining how fundamentally wrong it would be.

It will probably be in vain. I suspect that the Republicans will be further emboldened, and press for ever more outrageous changes to the essence of what it once meant to be an American. I have a few modest suggestions which I'm sure they could get behind:

A Constitutional amendment to ban all manufacturing jobs in the United States
A "Make-Up" tax, so that the unwealthy pay a larger percentage of income to compensate for all the years that the super rich had to pay an estate tax
The restoration of prima notte, allowing the new nobility to have first shot at poor and middle class brides, before their wedding night with their commoner husbands
A law requiring special clothing for the unwashed multitudes: maybe something like short pants for the men and dirndls for women
A law requiring the poor and middle classes to throw themselves into the mud if they see an noble exiting from their limo, so that they will have a sturdy back to tread upon, rather than soil their brunos

Nobles will be easy to spot, as they will all sport monocles and top hats.

Home Fries

2010-11-23T13:27:00.000-08:00

Okay, in a few days you're going to have a lot of turkey hanging around, and the issue of what to have with it is going to come up. Well, here is one idea, and it happens to go well with a lot of things (all right, it goes best with eggs,but that's where turkeys come from).

I learned it at the Turtle Pier in St. Maarten, and it goes a little something like this:

Assume that there are four if you having this. You'll need:

five or six red skinned potatoes

3 Tbs unsalted butter

1 Tbs sweet onion or shallot, chopped

sweet paprika

tamari (or soy sauce)

salt & pepper to taste

Microwave the potatoes until nearly done. You don't want to cook them until completely done, because they will fall apart when you cook them and won't retain their shape in the pan. While you are cutting them into a large dice, get the skillet good and hot. You really want to use a cast iron one here, to get that good brown crust on the potatoes. If you don't have one, I suppose you could use a good quality skillet with a heavy bottom. If all you have is the non-stick kind, don't bother reading this. Go play a video game or something, and eat home fries in a restaurant. You don't deserve homemade home fries.

Put two Tbs butter in the pan and let it almost get brown, then put your potatoes in, making sure to have them in a single layer. Then LEAVE THEM ALONE, at lest for a few minutes, so that they can get brown on one side. While this is going on, chop the shallots. Sprinkle the shallots over the potatoes, then dot the pan with the remaining butter.

Now it's time to turn the home fries over (see what I did there? They're no longer merely potatoes, because they've picked up that crucial color). Once again, make sure that they are in a single layer. This is a good time to salt & pepper them. Remember, all potatoes love salt, so don't be shy. You can lower the eat to medium now.

You'll probably have to turn them at least one more time, and add some butter if necessary, but the entire cooking time in the skillet should be less than fifteen minutes. When there is only a minute or two left to cook them, give them a good dusting with the paprika and toss them about in the pan, allowing the spice to cook as well.

Once you have done that, turn the heat off and immediately splash a Tbs or two of the tamari over the home fries tossing them around so that they all get coated. This is the secret to these amazing little fellers.

enjoy

Are We Babies?

2010-11-12T15:03:00.000-08:00

Seriously, are we? If things aren't exactly the way we dreamed them, if they fall short in any way whatsoever, why is it that we throw a fit? Of course, I'm not talking about me, or you, hopefully.

Okay, the Dems got hammered in the mid term, as predicted here a couple of weeks ago. Did cracks actually open in the earth's surface, swallowing us all? Is not the Democratic Party still in control of both houses, and will be until January? Then why the hell don't they make hay while they can, and and pass some truly progressive legislation while they still have the whip hand? There is a lot to be accomplished in the weeks ahead, if only they tap into some courage. Then, for the next two years, they can and should hone their message, and relentlessly point out to the public every time the Republicans abandon the American people in order to further enrich the wealthy. Believe me, you won't have to wait long for examples to present themselves.

Meanwhile, the breast beating over Obama's performance continues to be way over the top. The guy can't win: If he admonishes someone on the Right, he is "punching down" when conventional wisdom says one should never attack someone weaker in politics, but always punch up. If he fails to correct one of his opponents, then he is accused of being weak or indecisive. Also, I'm as progressive as anyone I know, but I also live in a real world with real obstacles, that I recognize as real. With the blue dogs in his own party, and they mad dogs in the opposition, he was never going to get a single payor health plan, let alone a public option, never mind how much obvious sense it makes to thinking people. The fact is that he got Health Care Reform, something no other President has gotten in sight of.

He passed Financial Reform (albeit a gelded version), something unthinkable in business-friendly Washington. The guy has accomplished a lot. I know, we want more. But for Christ's sake, if you look at it objectively, the dude has done a lot. And he is holding firm (at least for now) to a Rich Guys' tax hike.

I would like to see Dennis Kucinich become President, but that's never going to happen. Not in this country. Realistically, the choice will come down to Obama or someone like Romney, Huckabee or Palin. Is there really any debate? In 2000 I voted for Ralph Nader because I was tired of voting for the lesser of two evils. I wasn't wrong, because if Gore had only won his own state, he would have won the election (for that matter, if he had won the President's state, or had kicked Bush's ass any any of the debates, as was so attainable). So, I don't regret my vote in that election.

However, now we know how perverted the Right Wing of the Republican Party can be. We know how far they are willing to go in order to pursue their neofacist agenda. A wasted vote is no longer a viable option. Let the Righties split the vote between a grey face like Romney and a tinfoil hat wearing Tea Partyer. We can't afford to do likewise.

If Obama gets a second term, it will be his opportunity to do some really progressive things as other second termers have done (I know, Clinton blew that premise big time). He's a pragmatic son of a bitch, but he's also a student of history. We can still hope. Think of the scorched earth policies we'd have to endure under a Republican.

For the last few days, we have been overwhelmed with nonstop news reports about the poor, fat Americans stuck on a cruise liner, denied hot showers and possibly forced to eat Spam (later denied - they were forced to eat hot dogs) for less than a week. Yes, this is far worse than living in a tent city in Port-au-Prince, or having to survive a tsunami, or volcano, or drought, or genocide. After all, these were Americans, forced to deny themselves the buffet. So, by all means let's focus on that as the only really important news item.

Meanwhile, we Americans continue to cry over the potential of a tax increase. When will you get it through your brain pan that 95% of you just experienced a tax reduction, and that no one is calling for an increase that would affect over 5% of the population? For that matter, I am OK with a tax increase. Go ahead, whack me, if it means that we get to keep Healthcare Reform and introduce other reforms that help Americans less advantaged than me. Isn't that what being a citizen means? Do we have to reject everything that helps others, if it means that have to sacrifice the least little bit? We never had to surrender anything in pursuit of two wars (other than those who actually served, along with their families). Are we really such big assholes? Thus, my titled question.

Answer: Yes, we are Babies.

What's Next?

2010-11-02T14:23:00.000-07:00

The pundits are racing to be (among) the first to predict how the minority (!) Obama administration will perform with the Elephants in charge of legislative initiative. In other words, since the House of Representatives will be Republican, and they are the ones who send new legislation to the Senate for their approval (and from there to Barack's desk for signature), how will he respond? With vetoes? With a lecture?

Some of the more prescient commentators have focussed on the pressure soon to be faced by the GOPs themselves.

Now, we know that they want to begin impeachment proceedings as of Day One. No, they don't have to have a legitimate reason - just something to kick them off, like Whitewater was under Clinton, and then go from there to the next thing, and then the next (like from WW to Troopergate, to Paula Jones, to Monica), until they've got the public focussed on salacious shit that doesn't have a thing to do with the real concerns of the American people. It worked, sort of, with Bill Clinton (although he was still popular despite all of the drama, yet nothing of significance was achieved on behalf of the American people).

Even as I speak, Darrell Issa is poised to become the next (semipermanent) Special Prosecutor, whose reason for existence will be to hound the President until he has been emasculated as a political force. The subtext there is fully intended, as any honest Republican or Tea Bagger would admit.

However, this could be a disastrous strategy for them. This is not 1998. The public has a much smaller appetite for Congressional bullshit than they did back then. They want results, and they better get it, or this group will out on their ass as well. Seeing the Black man on a spit may entertain the mob for a while, but most people will want something in return for our corporations' hard earned millions, spent on poorly qualified candidates.

Which brings me to my penultimate point. The Teabaggers who survive the public's common sense and actually get elected (a small minority, but a loud one), will have to produce for their tinfoil hat wearing fans. Expect them to act as though they have been in Congress for decades, presuming that they should call the tune for the other 95% of their colleagues. Can Boehner (the actual Brown Man in this scenario) herd this crew of crazy cats?

Finally, me & the Ms. spent Saturday on the National Mall, being entertained by John Stewart & 200,000 fans. We loved it, but we missed the biting commentary we have grown to love. Granted, he had made it clear that he was going to avoid overt mention of politics, but come on - you were a hundred yards in front of the Capitol building! And, conflating MSNBC with Fox just didn't work for me. One of these two does not lie. The other almost always does, and presents it as news. And... his name is Yusuf Islam. He has a LAST name too.

Anyway, if you ever do this again, you can sign me up.

Shmidterms

2010-10-18T16:33:00.001-07:00

So the midterms are upon us (at last, you might say - let’s get the fucking things over with already), and as most predictions predict, the R’s are going to win, and win big. The reasons for this are several, you’ve heard them all, and they’re all true:

Every mid-term after a big Presidential win goes against him - this is historically inevitable. It doesn’t matter how favorably he was viewed two years before. They’ve decided that they hate him now.

We’re going through the worst financial clusterfuck in eighty years. Do you really think that the party in power, regardless of their role in bringing about the said CF, are going to survive intact?

Media is bigger and more in your face than in all of recorded history. If they are uniformly in line with the kick-the-bastards-out scenario being played out nightly, is there any chance that the Dems could survive the midterms?

Finally, if the biggest dog in the media pound, Fox News (still calling out the so-called mainstream media, when they themselves continue to be the biggest, most-watched outlet, and therefore the pure definition of mainstream) is beating the biggest drum, and the public, stripped of all critical thinking for decades now is listening to them for its daily “news”, is anything other than a Congressional takeover even thinkable?

Okay, I hear you saying that, certainly such a collection of genetically challenged candidates as those pushed forward by the GOP, especially the litmus tested Tea Party folk, cannot win. Surely, they are too batshit crazy for normal people to elect? Maybe. Prizes like Christine O’Donnell seem too far behind in the polls to succeed.

But she and the rest of her ilk (Miller, Angle, Paul, et al) hew to a strategy that seems at least possible to bring them victory. First, they make crazy, unverifiable statements about their opponent, or the President, or the direction of the country that are so insane that you just have to wait for them to say “just kidding”. Only they don’t They never say anything qualifying their lunatic position, and no one from the press ever calls them on it.

After their initial flurry of Just Plain Crazy, they decide to hide from the press entirely, except of course when Fox comes a-callin’. Every other media outlet is accused of trying to play “gotcha”, and is viewed as hostile. Fox, of course, plays along.

They engage in no debates, unless they are so far behind in the polls that they need to get on TV to say how they’re being misrepresented by their satan-worshiping opponent and unfairly beaten up by the mean old media.

Once in the debate, they never answer any real questions, but instead reply with a mini speech, which may (but probably won’t) have anything to do with the original query. Palin perfected this approach in her laughable debate with Joe Biden, even announcing beforehand that she intended to reply with her own answers and “not necessarily what they had asked her about”. Sadly, there are also some Democrats who employ this shameful method.

As long as things look good for them in the polls, you can expect to see no more of your Tea Party favorites than this. Of course, you’ll see plenty of them in ads - far more than you will of their opponents. I don’t need to go into why that is. You’ve read enough to know that their war chests are bloated with corporate (thanks, Supreme Court!) and foreign funds. And that gets me to the last reason why they will win on Nov. 2: Whoever spends the most wins. It’s general but true. The electorate - never really educated on the issues - will vote for whomever they’ve become the most familiar with.

Tale From a Trunk, The Salt Mountain

2010-08-04T12:07:00.000-07:00

The good news is that a three part autobiography by Mark Twain will be published after one hundred years of silence, as he requested. The first of three installments comes this November.

It reminds me that I should go back to the trunk and see what else is in there.

This piece looks to be something that didn't make the cut when he submitted the manuscript for Roughing It. Maybe because of the guides.

Mountain of Salt

We had ten days before our carriage was to take us out west, and so some acquaintenances and I decided to visit a local oddity, called by some The Salt Mountain. I had never heard of such a thing. Our land is so vast and strange that its wonders cannot be catalogued, not to say glimpsed, in the lifetime of an ordinary man.

We hired as a guide Scripture Johnson, and his common-law wife, Patience. They were a ruffianly looking pair, and practically indistinguishable from one another, excepting that she had a shorter beard. Their filthy appearance was insult enough to decent society, but in addition they sought each other’s affections at regular intervals, and without the benefit of the saving cloak of night, or of a closed door. When this would happen (often while astride their mules), we set to with a groan of distaste which was matched by the braying protests of their beasts. “For pity’s sake”, they seemed to be saying, “Ride us into dust if you will, but spare us the sight of your unnatural coupling!”

They looked to all the world as a pair of twin brothers, slobbering over each other - the stuff of nightmares.

We found it necessary to ride upwind of them, which did not benefit the cause of their guiding, but we thought it better to take our chances than to endure their scent. Their beasts were denied this option, and so suffered greatly.

The object of our journey was supposed to be not more than forty miles south of St. Louis, but after three days we had not raised sight of its snowy prominence. Each morning we tested the air with our noses, hoping for a sea-tinged breeze signifying that the great salt promontory was within reach. For three mornings we were disappointed. By the fourth morning I was determined that our guide knew nothing of the famous mountain, and had taken us for fools. Scripture was satisfied that all would come out as foretold, but I grew increasingly annoyed by his incompetence. Perhaps I lacked patience.

That was what we call a groaner. The joke, if I may call it that, is a little frayed around the edges and will not stand on its own without visible support. The existence of such support only serves to identify the pun as weak and unable to remain fresh and upright on its own merit, and therefore ought to be retired or at least sent for a long vacation, where it may rest and gather its strength, until the public has forgotten its existence, and may be persuaded to enjoy it again many years in the future.

By the morning of the fourth day we were full of grumblings and of a mood to return to St. Louis, but Johnson assured us that we would raise the mountain early that day. We decided to give it another try.

The sky was gray and threatening. Dense flocks of black birds wound above us, crying in alarm. We were a mile or more from a river, traveling along its old course. Meandering ravines pulled one way and another. Thick cane breaks and old, vine-laden trees stretched over head and seemed to be following our slow progress. We talked little, then not at all. I imagine we each harbored dark thoughts as our mules carefully picked their way through the tangled growth all about us.

For an hour and a half we rode thus, until Scripture Johnson called a halt and pointed ahead, saying: “That way lies the mountain.” We leaned forward and strained our eyes seeking the snowy pinnacle, but all that greeted our gaze was more thicket. He happily explained that some quarter mile ahead the land rose steadily, culminating eventually in the looked-for salt mountain. ‘It’s wore down some,” he explained as we rode. “First Injuns, then regular folks, have been whittling at it for many a year. Deer too, they like to get their salt lick. Then again, the rains and the snows have had their go. It must have been something in its day, when you could see it from clear in St. Lou.”

We began to feel restive, and shifted in our saddles uncomfortably.

“But,” I ventured, “it’s still a mountain, isn’t it? All made of white salt?”

“Why, I guess some people still call it a mountain, so it don’t matter what some other people might say. It’s what the thing itself has come to be known as, what counts. Isn’t that right? Why, you were known by your name from the day of your birth, wasn’t you? But here you are, no longer a babe in arms, tall and strapping, full of whiskers, but still known by the same name. Isn’t that right?”

“Now see, I’m not much for philosophy. Can’t you tell me straight out - is it or is it not a mountain of salt, still?” He felt at his chin and shared a glance with Patience. I shuddered as she returned his look with a wink.

“It’s what’s left of a mountain. And there it is!” He gestured theatrically at the dense growth before us.

It looked no different than what we had been clawing through for the entirety of the morning, except that it was of a slightly higher elevation. As we approached the most impenetrable part of the thicket however, we saw that beyond the dry dead timber the ground was cleared. Finding that we could go no further while mounted we left our mules and picked our way through the bracken.

What we had thought was an impassable forest was in reality the ring of old rotten growth which surrounded the salt mountain like a protective wall. Nothing will grow on salt, but the force of nature crowded it closely, and sent exploratory vines, as thick as my wrist and as old as myself, across its surface like so many cracks in the surface of a frozen pond in March.

It was less a mountain, much less, than a dome. The open space created by the mound of hardened salt was little more than the amount of land required for a village green. And a small village, at that. It rose, and tapered from the ground where we stood to a promontory perhaps eight feet into the air. It was uniformly rounded, of rough texture, and gray or brown in color. Some of the vines had worn grooves into its surface. Dead leaves had also collected amid the arteries, which we brushed aside to better view this wonder. We chipped at it with our knives and put it on our tongues.

It was salt, but had an unpleasant taste of metal. “White folks stopped coming here a couple generations ago,” Johnson explained. “They found better salt somewheres else. Plus, some said it made your teeth blue.”

I imagined the place as it had once been, deep beneath the waters of the ocean. For uncounted eons it had lain there, quietly accumulating its layers of salt. Its only visitors then had been fish, or leviathan. There in the vast cold it had rested, surrounded by the dark and quiet. Then, some cataclysm had occurred, thrusting the sea bottom upward to the surface. Rivers and rains had cleansed the white peak, swelling rivers had cut remorselessly into its flanks. Its caustic matter repelled attempts by green growing things to inhabit its surface.

More eons passed, and finally men came. Savage Indians, they used the salt to cure their meat and to give it savor. A hundred generations of these men carved its sides, making it smaller. Each winter exacted a further price, melting it by degrees. When finally the White Man arrived, it was a mere suggestion of its former majesty. They too took its bounty, but soon found better sources for their salt. It was abandoned and forgotten, except by those few who rarely visited the lost mound, bringing with them a train of the curious.

We removed some large chips and placed them in our saddle bags, as souvenirs to enthrall our children. I had lost my piece before we began our journey west.

I'm Back and I'm Ranting!

2010-08-03T16:40:00.000-07:00

I have been quiet for a few months while I worked on the census, but a couple of things have happened which have convinced me to break my silence.

The first was an interview I heard on NPR, and the second was the marriage of Chelsea Clinton.

The interview was with Charles Bowden, who was discussing his book, Murder City, Cuidad Juarez and the Global Economy’s New Killing Fields. I have since bought his book, which is a horrific account of how the drug cartels, along with the local, state, and federal police, and the Mexican army, have turned Juarez and large parts of Mexico into something rather worse than Somalia.

In his interview, he told of how there are over 150,000 addicts crawling along the dusty streets of this town across the border from El Paso. The cartels and the aforementioned military organizations have undertaken a persistent program of massive murder, torture and rape. Anyone looking into the causes, or the perpetrators of these crimes, is quickly added to the numbers of the dead. No one asks about it. They chronicle the gruesome deaths, they count the number of bullets fired and their calibre, they describe the state of the mangled corpses, but they rarely identify the victim, and they never call out the killers. Maybe they once did. But the few brave reporters who did are long dead, and their survivors have learned not to question.

There are dozens of acknowledged murders committed each month.Dozens more are anonymous, because the bodies are never found or because they are too insignificant to report. The ongoing myth is that these are wars between the various cartels, but the innocent are as numerous as the guilty, women and children are as well represented as the thugs, and the element of random homicide is as prevalent as the purposeful contract killing.

This is like Warsaw in 1939, Nanking in 1937, Berlin in April 1945, or Rwanda in more recent times. The difference is that the U.S. is a willing participant in the lie. We are told that we are working alongside the army to defeat the drug cartels, and that the latter are solely responsible for the mayhem. Based on their numbers alone, the army probably accounts for the most deaths, and certainly has committed the most rapes. We have portrayed them as our partners, and as fighters in a nobel cause.

But that is not the only thing that we have done to put that bleeding country on the cross.

Shortly after he came into office, Bill Clinton brought NAFTA into existence. It introduced agribusiness on a large scale to Mexico. Over a million small family farms were wiped out, unable to compete with the economies of scale. Poor, displaced farmers and their families migrated north, either to try their luck as illegal migrant laborers or as day workers in factories across the border in El Paso, working for pennies. In their desperation, many became in thrall to the burgeoning drug trade, which became more deadly with each passing year.

At the same time that their life was being permanently shattered, Americans found that their own jobs were being effectively outsourced, also permanently, to cheaper overseas vendors. The winners were a small group of investors, wealth managers, and players in the stock market. If all you looked at was the market, you would have to agree that things had never been better. Of course, manufacturing jobs had, by this time, been reduced by 90%, but there were more millionaires than ever before in our history.

Know any of them?

I would like to think that, as the proud father walked his daughter down the aisle, he thought for just a moment about the new millions introduced to poverty, probably to remain there for the rest of their lives, as a result of NAFTA and other business-friendly legislation he oversaw. I wonder if he spared a thought for the dead of Cuidad Juarez.

Yay, History!

2010-04-16T10:11:00.001-07:00

A lot has been made recently of Virginia’s desire to push their Civil War history as a tourist draw, and the governor’s subsequent proclamation on the subject. At first he lauded their service in fighting against oppression in the form of a federal government which was trying to preserve the union. Then, when the public rightly condemned him for overlooking the detail of slavery, he made a hasty apology and inserted language asserting that the institution of human bondage may have been a bad thing after all. He was in keeping with the belief of many Southerners however, in that their deep denial features an understanding that slavery was only a peripheral issue, trailing “states rights” as the main cause of the conflict which cost over 600,000 American lives.

I say, let them have their fantasy. We can’t change them after all, any more than we can convince Tea Partyers that their motivation is really just that they’re racist. Let Virginians stew in their invention of a past. But let’s extoll our own past.

Connecticut enrolled 30 regiments in the Civil War. Most saw action, and a lot of it. I’ll take as example, just one of them, the 14th Connecticut Infantry Regiment. They fought in dozens of battles, including Antietam, Fredericksburg, Cancellorsville, Gettysburg, The Wilderness, Spotsylvania, Cold Harbor, Petersburg, and Appomattox. In other words, they kicked the Confederacy’s ass.

Vermont too, had many regiments which saw extensive service, and suffered losses of almost twenty percent. And don’t forget the 54th Massachusetts Infantry Regiment, roosting chickens in the Southland.

The North served and fought, and demonstrated bravery easily on a par with anything the South had to show, and they doubled down by doing it for a good and noble cause, something the South can never claim. Freeing millions of suffering people and preserving the union somehow sounds better than a contrived tale of the preservation of the way of life for a handful of slave owning aristocrats.

You know, I’m sure that the Wehrmacht had some good guys among its ranks. They were the best army in the world, and fought bravely and well. But by no stretch would they or their descendants say today that they fought a justifiable war. At least they have that advantage over some Americans.

Another Tale From a Trunk, conclusion

2010-04-13T12:18:00.001-07:00

It took just minutes to find the fellow, and he even spoke a few words of English. No doubt our Anglo Saxon cousins from across the channel made the crossing with some regularity in order to have laugh at the old corporal’s expense, and our guide had picked up some of their speech in consequence. Not much, as we quickly learned, but enough to amuse us.

The place was hushed under the great dome of Les Invalides as we approached the marble balustrade which loomed above the cavern in which the sarcophagus lay. All was dead still as we leaned over the smooth polished stone and gazed at the resting place of Napoleon the Great.

There was a structure the size and faintly like the shape of a small house, carved of red porphyry and sitting on top of a granite base. It was a fine piece if work, surrounded by gigantic statues of mourning deities. We watched it in respectful silence for some minutes, aware of the docent’s eye, and knowing that he was expecting due reverence.

Dan and I exchanged a surreptitious glance or two, and I could tell that he was holding something back. I wanted to kick him over the railing into the space below, but forbore, due to the gravity of the scene. This was akin to the tomb of Washington to them, I supposed, and I was loath to sacrilege it with a jest. But I could see Dan growing red with the strain, and knew that it was going to come.

Finally, he looked at our companion, and gesturing to the mass of red below said,

‘Is he - ah - is he dead?”

The fellow jumped backward as if shot. “What? What? L’Emperor - he mort!” He shook his head in bewilderment.

“Now see here,” Dan answered sternly. “We are mere travelers in your country, and aren’t especially fine, I suppose, but if it’s not asking too much, we would like to speak to the Emperor.”

“If he’s not too busy,” I added helpfully. This brought fresh protestations from the guide, and no small wringing of his hands.

“It’s only a word or two I’m asking,” Dan persisted. “If he’s too busy...”

I suggested that we knock on his door and see if we could rouse him. As fortune would have it there was a curved stairway nearby which led directly down to the sarcophagus itself. We raced down the stairs, the fearful guide on our heels. Dan began to rap against the side of the structure, additional guides arrived, joined by uniformed policemen, accompanied by soldiers, and we quickly found ourselves back on the street.

It was sad to leave Paris, just as we were enjoying ourselves so.

Treme

2010-04-13T09:41:00.000-07:00

I first visited New Orleans in the fall before the flood. The next time was 18 months afterwards. Those two occasions made me fall in love with its tattered, faded and resilient charm, and I was ready to resume the affair even before I watched HBO’s latest dramatic series,Treme (pronounced Tre-May).

The creators of The Wire, one of the best shows ever, have nailed it with this series, placed in the Crescent City three months after Katrina. Many veterans of that revered program populate this effort. If you have ever been to New Orleans, the opening scene will choke you up. A group of veteran jazz men gather to stage a mini parade through the cluttered, wasted streets of their city, perfectly symbolizing their pride and determination. They are belatedly joined by a trombone player, arriving via a taxi he is too poor to afford (a theme repeated throughout the show’s debut). The first notes you hear are enough to convince you that he is a master, albeit one with domestic issues.

There follows a montage over the credits, depicting scene after scene of cruddy walls, each with a telltale rim of back, smudgy mold, where the high water mark of the flood has been left. You can almost smell the city’s pain here. That introduction was possibly the best I have seen, providing a visceral sense of New Orleans, and made me an instant convert.

Treme follows the paths of several characters, some of whom have ridden out the worst of the storm and are trying with great difficultly to rebuild, and those who are returning after their diaspora, with the same goal. The trombone player visits his ex-wife in her bar after the parade. She is looking for her brother, who is among the missing. Assisting her is a lawyer, who has her issues with the police. Her husband, portrayed by John Goodman, channelling his best Walter Sobchak, is a conspiracy theorist convinced that federal animus has created the flood.

A local radio DJ, hearing the band parading down the street for the first time since the deluge, leaps from his bed to join the march, leaving his sometime girlfriend to find her way to work. She owns and cooks in a fairly upscale restaurant, struggling like everyone else to make it under difficult circumstances. Returning to the city around the same time is a Crewe Chief, one of those whose job it is to direct a group participating in one of the city’s many parades. His appearance late in the initial episode in full regalia is a sight to behold.

This series is all about the music, which permeates every scene and is of a very high order. It is also about the food, and the sorrow, and the hope that makes New Orleans the special place that it is. Do yourself a favor and watch Treme. Then do yourself another favor and visit the city.

Another Tale From a Trunk, pt. 1

2010-04-12T12:05:00.000-07:00

I found this fragment, and felt that it must have been something left out of Innocents Abroad. Parts of it were badly faded, and I may have gotten some of it wrong.

The Art of Paris

We were to depart on the morrow, and naturally feeling sad to leave that eternal city (just how many of the old continent’s cities are eternal?), Dan and I decided to enjoy a last stroll. We walked by the Isle de Citie, and I managed to refrain from making another visit to The Notre Dame, much to Dan’s dismay.

We strolled along the Seine, which is split by the island containing the old church. Much is made of that stream by the poets, but having piloted the grandfather of waters in my youth, I found it lacking. I told Dan that I could probably spit across the water, and let fly with one by way of demonstration. Nearly made it across too, and was rightly proud of myself - that is, until he pointed out a fellow a little down the bank, who was managing to do the same thing with his urine.

Dan then inquired what I wished to do on our last day in that great city, and I told him that I craved to peer at Napoleon’s tomb, for never had there been a more murderous man in all of European history, and that is going some. “It must be covered in sulfurous brimstone,” I opined.

“Why,’ I continued, “he left a million frenchmen dead on the plains of Russia, and on other fields, a few million more. Do you know, French men are shorter than their continental counterparts? You can look it up. He drafted all of the males of France into service, starting with the tallest.” When all of the seven footers were killed off, he drafted the six footers. When they were all used up, he moved on to the five footers. Eventually, there none left but dwarves. Since then, France has been trying to catch up to the rest of the world, size-wise. Until now, they’ve come up a bit short, if you’ll forgive me. The Emperor, Napoleon’s nephew, figures that he has to wait another hundred years before he’ll be ready to take on an opponent, due to the stature of the raw material that he has got to work with.

“Such an evil person has got to have an impressive, evil-looking tomb,” I reasoned. It would be a hundred feet tall, and guarded by trolls. Napoleon the younger had had the corpse carted back to Paris Years before, from his neglected grave on St. Helena.

Dan was convinced, and we hired a hack to take us to Les Invalides, which served as the great dictator’s latest address.

En route, our driver, through the means of Dan’s truly horrific French, deduced our mission. This was miraculous, because Dan’s abilities in the language were dire. He didn’t merely wound the thing. He killed it as dead as Napoleon himself, and into the eleventh generation. I suspected the driver of some mind-reading trick, and suggested to him that it were so. This seemed to upset him, so I let it go.

We arrived at the tumble of bricks and mortar that are Les Invalides, part museum and part old soldiers home. The last part is no longer true, but I wanted to say a good word for the place.

I was content to look over the martial artifacts which were there in abundance. One item struck with particular poignancy. It was a cuirass, or metal breastplate, worn by a dragoon at Waterloo. Over where the heart would have been, a jagged hole pushed outward, some four inches across. It must have been made by a piece of artillery shell, or perhaps by grapeshot. He would have been shot in the back, as he rode away from one of Wellington’s squares on the battlefield. And so a young man, full of ardor and pride, died before he realized his life’s ambitions, and before he knew what had struck him. This mangled bit of shining metal now resides in Les Invalides, mounted on a post. Its owner would have been an aged grandfather now, heavy with years and respect, telling his rapt audience of how he has once served under the immortal Napoleon.

As I was saying, I was quite content to wander amid these reminders of folly, but Dan was hot to get on with it, so we sought a docent to direct us to the object of our search.

TO BE continued...

Just Two Things, and Then I'll Go

2010-04-03T13:08:00.000-07:00

Here's a couple of things that have me wanting to mouth off.

I saw a note on the CNN site that reported how some Democrats are joining the Tea Party movement. They say that they liked Obama to begin with but now see he is really bad for the country. I'm going to go out on a limb and suggest that they are not among the 50 million or so who don't have health care coverage. I don't get it: if we are such a great country, what is it that makes us say fuck you to our fellow citizens, as long as we have what we want in our lives? Isn't it best if everyone has a chance? Doesn't that make for a stronger country overall?

Then you look closer at the CNN article and you see that 96% of Tea Partyers call themselves Republicans, and only 4% define themselves as Democrats. And if you look even further, you can see at least one "Democrat" saying that he eventually voted for John McCain. Just what kind if Republican is that? And what is CNN's angle? They couldn't come up with any real Democrats who dislike the administration enough to join an openly racist organization? Guess not.

The second thing that has gotten me a bit riled is the latest Roman Catholic pedophilia scandal. Of course, the acts resulting in the scandal go back decades, and continue to occur today, but let's not sweat the details. I saw a letter in Time magazine from a woman who said: "Pedophiles exist in all walks of life, yet Catholic priests get the headlines, even though just a tiny percentage have committed this shameful offense. Choosing to live the vow of chastity is a gift of one's total self to God and has no relevance whatsoever to pedophilia."

First, I would wonder what percentage of pedophiliacs in a religious organization, often left in charge of young children, is acceptable. Second, you miss the point if you think that the greater offense is in the acts of a sick individual. It is, by far, in the universal cover up committed by the Catholic Church in their delaying, obstructing, denying, and removal of the offender from retribution, and their placing of that offender in a position to commit the same crimes, without a hint of warning to the new community of victims. They haven't just driven the getaway car, they have loaded the gun, they have formulated the plan, they have held the victim down while the perpetrator raped them, again and again. They are just as guilty, and they should be made to pay. And when they are done, by which I mean when they have run out of money, they should be shut down, so that at long last a plague can be removed from the people.

The Good Guys Win One, Sort Of

2010-03-26T07:50:00.000-07:00

OK, Let's review:

The Dems passed Healthcare Reform last weekend. I watched hours of the "debate" on C-Span. The Democrats, knowing that they were going to win, were pretty happy go lucky and non-confrontational. The Republicans, knowing that their dreams of a Waterloo for Obama were turned into his Austerlitz, reverted to vituperation, essentially practicing their 2010 Fall campaign rhetoric.

It got pretty ugly, and in a "world turned upside down" vignette, Bart Stupak, that glory-seeking, control-your-bedroom throwback jerk, played the role of hero as he was viciously attacked while making his speech in support of the bill, Since then he has continued to be the target of scary threats from the Friends of Rush.

Verbal, bodily fluid and even more sinister attacks have continued to be the order of the day, perpetrated on the majority party while the minority stands by, cheering on the thuggish actions and decrying what they perceive as the "socialist" activities of the Democratic party for having provoked those actions. Seriously, the Democrats of today are more like the Republicans of the fifties than they are like any truly progressive organization.

And of course, media pundits continue to blame the inflamatory behavior of "both sides". I would really like to know what the Democrats have done or said that could be construed as inflamatory, particularly when compared with Republican talking points. Any instances of them saying that one who voted the other way would be "dead", or that they should be put in the cross hairs, that they should prepare to reload, or that their opponents should be crushed? Days after the worst of the outrages John Boehner finally pronounced a tepid denunciation of the hatred, but only to say how it had been justified. Meanwhile, Democratic congressmen and women are receiving scary death threats daily, directed at them and their families.

Then, in a Rovian twist, Eric Kantor claied that someone shot through his office window and left mean messages on his voice mail. Of course, he refused to release the messages because he didn't want to stir things up, and later police said that someone had shot into the air nearby his office. Hmm. How do you make a mistake like that? Remember in his first campaign as an advisor, back in Texas, when Karl Rove saw that his guy was trailing in the polls? He planted a listening device in his own office, called the police, and claimed that it had been placed there by the Democratic opponent. The tide turned and his man won. Later, the police found that the device had been installed just 15 MINUTES before they were called. I think that the cops should check Kantor's weapons to see of any of them had been field recently.

Finally, the next strategic move by the GOPs is to have Republican governors attempt to declare this new federal law unconstitutional. That is called nullification, and here is a very brief history lesson on the subject. In the first half of the nineteenth century southerners were worried that their rights (read: slaves) might be taken away from them by government fiat. South Carolina led the charge to defy the assumption of federal primacy, and announced their intention to exempt themselves from the Tariff law. This was called nullification, meaning that the states did not have to follow laws created by Congress. Andrew Jackson disagreed with this

contention, pointed out the lack of constitutional support for nullification, and threatened to invade the state with the federal army if they did not stand down. They did, for nearly thirty years, until they tried it again with a little thing I like to call the Civil War. You know how that turned out.

This latest attempt has all the constitutional credibility that those other ones did. It's time to tone it down and move on to other issues that need attention, such as immigration reform. Now there's something that should pass quietly.

Can It Really Happen?

2010-03-18T15:14:00.000-07:00

For almost a year now, I have thought that the finish line was in sight. I was wrong. It has taken this long to get to the point where we are ready to vote on Healthcare Reform, and we are ready to pass that motherfucker.

Now, I've likened this thing to a shit sandwich in the past, and I've not really changed my mind on that. It's a really flawed bill, with its gift of additional members to the insurance industry, its lack of significant restraints on those same companies, and its utter lack of a public option.

But when Bernie Sanders, the only avowed Socialist in the Congress, says that he will support it, then I have to consider its merits, such as they are. And when Dennis Kucinich, that brave iconoclast, says that he too will vote in favor, then I have to reconsider my position. The fact that it will stick it up the ass of a bunch of recalcitrant Republicans only sweetens the deal.

The overriding fact is that it will allow some 21 million (depending on who you talk to) currently uninsured Americans to obtain coverage. For me, that trumps every other consideration.

And as Bernie says, as soon as we pass it, we immediately begin to improve it. Now, I personally feel that this is a generational thing, and that it will probably take another 20 years for further change, but who knows? Maybe a collection of concerned elected officials will continue to work for the good of the American people and we'll get to see some real reform. Note, for example, that Rep. Grayson is pushing for an amendment to open Medicare to all comers who want to pay to play. A good idea that deserves some attention.

And oh yeah, the OBM says that it WILL save $billions, almost a $1 trillion over the next 20 years.

So there you have it. By this weekend we may have the first impactful social legislation to pass in decades. My only question is: what crazy, damn-the-people-who desperately-need-help strategy in the eleventh hour will the Republican haters spring on us this time?

This Was the Week That - um - Was

2010-03-06T13:47:00.000-08:00

Let’s review, shall we? Recently I said that, in the wake of Joe Stack’s suicide plunge into an IRS building and resulting attention to his rambling political memo, there would soon be imitators. Now, scant days later, we have John Bedell, shooting up a metro stop outside of the Pentagon. He leaves behind writings full of anti-government bile. Now do you believe that there will be another? And another? Glenn Becks and Rush Limbaughs of the world take notice: your responsibility is becoming clearer every day.

What else? Exaggerated importance has been given to Sarah Palin’s stand up routine on Leno. Since we first saw her at the Republican convention in August 2008, has she ever given a speech that was anything other than a collection of one-liners? Wouldn’t you think by now that she would be better than the halting, unsure performer we saw the other night? Everyone seems pretty giddy over a bit that was short on real wit and long on amateurism. Since she abandoned the governorship for the green pastures of punditry I have said that she is so much less interested in public office than she is in making a buck. See anything that’s changed?

Logan Airport in Boston got a set of the new body scanners this week. Any bets on how long it will take before someone leaks images of attractive females?

Speaking of leaks, that powerpoint slide of Republican donation strategies has gotten the media pretty excited. Seems like some over eager planner described how they should go after regular folks vs the wealthy, by stoking fear and reactionary panic among little folks like you and me, while stroking the rich while handing them cheap, GOP-branded souvenirs. That they suggest doing these things is not the scandal of course, only that they were stupid enough to put it in writing. These are exactly the talking points they have been following so effectively since the good old days of Lee Atwater in the 1980’s.

Barack Obama finally told the Grand Old Party that he was going to move ahead on Healthcare Reform, without them if necessary. He enumerated how many items on their wish list had made it into the bill, and not surprisingly it’s still not enough for them. I guess he finally realized that they’re just not that into him. Maybe he should take the ones who got him there (progressives, that is), to the dance. And since they really want the public option, maybe that could be their corsage. Okay, this metaphor is starting to creep me out.

Finally, Karl Rove has just released a book in the same week that Alice in Wonderland came out. One of these is a fairy tale complete with unbelievable characters acting weirdly. The other one was written by Lewis Carroll.

Democracy In action

2010-02-26T06:33:00.000-08:00

The big summit at Blair House has come and gone, and things remain as they were. Is anyone surprised by this? Predictably, the Republicans used it as a forum to speechify about how appalled they are by the proceedings thus far. Without asking any specific questions, or offering any detailed recommendations, they simply used the occasion to replay the past year in a series of speeches in which they continued to perfect their already superb rendition of fake outrage: “We can’t believe that you would put unrelated things in that bill! It’s pork, I tells ya, and we wouldn’t touch it with our dainty fingers! And just look at how big this thing is! Yuck!” Like they never put out a bill that wasn’t loaded with special favors, or massively larger than it neeed to be. Suddenly the age-old traditions of bill-processing catches them unawares, and it is just too much for their delicate sensibilities.

Eric Kantor predictably brought a copy of the bill (or else several reams of blank copy paper) as a prop. What’s next, a rubber chicken? Rep. Kyl actually lectured the President about the issue, which is like explaining the Theory of Relativity to Albert Einstein. After a full day of this kind of blather and posturing, Obama’s jaw was so tight from flexing that it began to resemble a bicep.

And the Democrats were scarcely better. Realizing that the entire event had turned into nothing more than another Republican campaign stop for the 2010 election, they became progressively less polite as the day wore on. Harry Reid looked (finally) as though he realized he should have crammed reconciliation down their throats months ago. Not too late, Harry. The GOPs continued to demonize the legislative tactic they were only too happy to use when it suited them, only to become belatedly fastidious when the opposition uses the same means.

We’re in a dangerous position here, and it extends beyond this one (albeit crucial) issue. Nourished by a repetitious media, the American public is increasingly despairing of the ability of Congress to function in any way, other than to protect special interests. This is nothing new of course. The lure of power and largess has turned many an honest man bad before. It was so bad during the Great Depression, that over 20% of the population turned towards Socialism or Communism as a preferred means of obtaining relief or redress.

What’s different now is that the drum beat of anger is being stirred up by so many more television and internet apostles of revolt. A population under severe economic stress, being told that Congress is irredeemably broken, that radical change is necessary and right, and with access to untold amounts of weaponry, is a dangerous thing indeed.

On a lighter note, Dick Cheney suffered his 67th heart attack recently. I’m not going to make the obvious joke that the doctor found nothing in there. In fact, I don’t even want Dick to die. Not yet. See, I’m still holding out hope that he will be called to account one day, that the hoped-for war crimes trial will be held, and that we will get to enjoy his perp walk to oblivion.Then, let nature take its course.

Keep smiling.

News From the Front

2010-02-19T07:10:00.000-08:00

So Joe Stack III banked his Piper Cherokee into an IRS building in Austin Texas and took two lives along with his own. He had fought for many years against the government and its tax policies and finally, in a Quixote-like gesture, charged the symbolic source of his woe. Like Quixote, he was deluded and unbalanced. And like the fictional hero, he will have his admirers.

Having done a quick check of reactions on the interweb I would say that he is receiving a 60% favorable response to his crime, calling him a patriot and making recommendations for a statue to be erected in his honor. And here’s the thing: an angry, bitter man in his life, his words are being read by millions following his death. Is there a lesson in this for any other would-be martyrs?

I read his so-called manifesto. There is nothing particularly political about it: he hated all politicians, and the government generally, and the IRS specifically. He did not appear, at least in this writing, to adhere to any particular group. But watch the right latch on to him. He will become one of their secular heroes. And Glen Beck will shed a tear or two. That’s right: he’ll say that it was unfortunate that he did what he did, but that he can understand how he was driven to this act. Make no mistake Glen. This murderer is one of your children. You have helped create the atmosphere where something like this is not only possible, but seems like a reasonable response. Yes, Joe Stack will be owned by the right.

The media will have its usual say, telling us that there are extremists on both sides, that violence is not limited to right wingnuts, that both are responsible for the breakdown in civil discourse. But remember: It is the right which violently attacks and kills, at abortion clinics, at homes, at churches.

It is the right that happily shuts down the work of government, without regard to their stand on the issues, only to serve a political end.

It is the right which vilifies government aid to struggling states publicly, while accepting the checks quietly.

It is the right which forms a new political movement in the name of tax reform, while it turns a blind eye to the virulent racism with which it is imbued.

It is the right which has perfected “blame the victim”.

It is the right which has created paramilitary groups armed to the teeth, with the avowed aim of overthrowing the democracy.

It is the right which has been busy stockpiling weapons and ammo for years, but especially since the last election, creating a much more dangerous environment, all the while clinging to a bogus reading of the second amendment.

So don’t tell me that there are extremists on both sides. Don’t tell me that the violence and evil intent is comparable, because the facts will not support you.

Joe Stack killed and died because he believed that the government was engaged in a nefarious plot against him. To the right I say: you can have him. We don’t want him.

Can I Get a Hero?

2010-02-13T12:01:00.000-08:00

What makes a hero?

It used to be a term reserved for unique individuals, those who sacrificed all on behalf of others. In ancient Greece, to be a hero was to be on a par with the gods. In Rome heroes excelled in war, often at the cost of their lives, and when the danger had passed, if they survived, they were expected to return to their regular lives. Or they might have sought high office, perhaps as Consul. As time went on, heroism was seen as a path to higher station, and not necessarily as an end in itself.

In later days we have heard countless tales of heroism, often in war time. The common assumption was that an individual did not seek glory, but did the hard thing. Maybe he was afraid, wishing he were somewhere else, but when bravery was called for, he stepped up. He didn’t brag about it. We usually heard about his courage from others. This was true throughout the Second World War, when “heroes” insisted that the truly brave ones were those who did not return.

Who are the heroes of today? Are they as rare, as special as they once were? Let’s see. I do know that you hear the word hero thrown around a lot more than ever.

For starters, every one who puts on a soldier’s uniform today is automatically called a hero. This is without regard to what they do, whether here in the U.S. or overseas. What would older generations of service men think, when they blushed at the thought of being referred to as heroic, knowing that they had done nothing to deserve it? You could sit on your ass in Ft. Dix for the duration, counting rations, but don’t worry, you’re a hero. Hey, that they sacrifice something for their country is not in question. It is notable, even special. But heroic?

This also goes for anyone who wears a uniform. Police or Fire, you’re a hero. Now, if you run into a burning tower believing that its collapse is imminent, knowing that you’re probably not going to survive, but running in anyway to possibly save a life, then not to worry brother, you are a hero, and you can have a statue erected in your honor. Hell, I’ll help to put it up.

So, to recap, anyone in uniform is a hero. Postal worker, boy scout, ticket taker, lunch lady. Heroes, one and all.

But just in case you think that the bar is still a little high, in this modern, no-effort life we have here in the U.S., think again. How many times have you heard children, when asked who their heroes are, cite their parents Yes, all you have to do is have a kid, and you too can be a hero. If you do the things a parent is supposed to do, you get patted on the back. What could be easier? None of that messy, dangerous stuff for you.

Maybe you don’t have kids. Maybe you’re a social disaster, or have problems with the ladies. That’s OK. There are millions of children who have been raised with an artificially lowered expectation of what should constitute a hero. Give them a candy bar, and they’ll probably think that you’re a hero! Yes, you don’t actually have to do anything!

And that’s not all. There is a new category of hero. One who not only doesn’t have to do anything, but has only to be alive. Yes, if you survive a terrible disease, you are considered a hero. For some reason, this only seems to work with cancer. If you have diabetes, or cholera, or rickets, you are just some schmuck who got sick, and then got lucky (on a count of you didn’t die). But, if you get cancer and come out of it, you are a survivor! You get a parade, and believe me, you are a hero. If you got cancer and died, it’s sad, but no matter how hard you fought, whatever spirit you showed, you’re not quite a hero.

Isn’t this a great country?

How Many Lumps?

2010-02-05T12:05:00.001-08:00

The inaugural Tea Party convention is this weekend, and I find myself wishing that I was there.

I want to walk among them, take pictures and video and interview them. I want to hear from individuals, what they want changed, and what they get out of the loose organization that is Tea Partydom. I want to do it until my head literally explodes, and the media story becomes one about the strange, exploding head guy, and not about Sarah Palin and whether or not the Republicans are trying to highjack the incipient movement.

See, I’ve been lying low, blogwise, while I’ve been trying to assess what my feelings ought to be regarding the Partyites. I’ve even stopped referring to them as teabaggers, as much fun as that was. I know that they are pissed off at the disfunction of Congress, the way big banks are getting no-conditions bailouts, and how the government has driven this country into a ditch. Those things piss me off too. There are some legitimate grievances here. So I thought, I’ll try to hear them out, get past the worst rhetoric and see what they really have to say.

Then I remembered that they take their talking points and inspiration from Glen Beck.

Many of them say that they hate Republicans as much as I do.

Then I remembered that their pin up girl is Sarah Palin, late nominee for the Vice Presidency.

They favor bettering the condition of the common man, and are sincerely populist in their views.

Then I remembered that I have never seen a black Tea Partyer, nor a Hispanic one, or heard any of them speak responsibly or rationally about immigration policies.

Then I listened to Tom Tancredo give the keynote address today at the Tea Party convention kickoff at Opryland (seriously, the event is being held at an Opryland site). The microphone had a bad buzz going, but what he had to say came across clearly. Much of it was virulently anti-immigrant, with one-liners about how a lot of them can’t spell ‘vote”, or at least not in English. The crowd, as they say, went wild. He denigrated Barrack “Hussein” Obama (another huge ovation), and, knowing his audience, took a lot of time to bash John McCain.

Then he asked for a commitment from the crowd to pass on “our Judeo-Christian culture”, since it’s what made our country great, again to rousing cheers. Anyone not liking it, he suggested, could go back home. I guess the folks who actually DID build Nashville, back in the good old antebellum days, were not representative of the Tea Folk as far as complexion is concerned, and came from somewhere south of the Judeo-Christian source, and under duress. He wound up his talk with praise for the American flag, and managed to summon up some real fake tears in the process. At least he’s been paying attention to Fox.

And then I figured that it’s something like this: If I were in some group, and a lot (okay, most) of them espoused values that were so far from mine - like racism, homophobia, the end of a woman’s control over her own reproductive rights, the embrace of pseudoscience,and a willingness to believe and support all manner of hate speech, then I guess I would not let myself be a part of that organization. It would be like saying Hitler was okay because autobahns are cool, even though I don’t hold with the rest of his program.

And that’s just one of the reasons that we part ways.

Bye, Howard

2010-01-28T09:57:00.000-08:00

R.I.P., Howard Zinn, a great American. He was a bombardier in WWII, and seeing what he had created, he dedicated the rest of his life to the aid of the helpless. He always told the truth, and in these times he will be sorely missed.

Turning Back the Clock

2010-01-22T12:11:00.000-08:00

As the various news stories of the week sink in it is becoming apparent that, as depressing as the news from Massachusetts may be, the real thunderclap is the decision by the Supreme Court to allow unlimited campaign contributions by corporations. You may be hearing that they cannot give directly to elected officials, but if they buy the ads themselves, it only serves to cut out the middle man.

This not only has the potential to skew key elections for the foreseeable future, but is riddled with faulty logic to boot. The Court has stated that corporations should have the same free speech rights as individuals. Since when, and why? Everybody should have free speech rights? Where is their compassion federal workers, the armed services or policemen? Who's crying for them? No one, and no one should, because it is a perfectly normal rule of law. Listen to this from Samuel Eliot Morrison on The Gilded Age: "The nation was fabulously rich but its wealth was gravitating rapidly into the hands of a small portion of its population, and the power of wealth threatened to undermine the political integrity of the Republic." Later, in 1957 Justice Frankfurter recalled that there had been a "popular feeling that aggregated capital unduly influenced politics, and influence not stopping short of corruption."

And so it was for corporations for over a century. In 1907 Teddy Roosevelt, as our first progressive president (at least in these things), made it illegal for special interests to control politics. In the previous election wealthy businessmen contributed over $6 million to the Republican candidate, while the Democratic opponent received $400,000. Roosevelt sought to curtail the ever-widening gap of influence between the rich and the not-so-rich. It was good enough for every Supreme Court since, and for every President and Congress, but no Court has been this politicized, this venal, this cavalier towards settled law. You have only to look at the Presidential "election" of 2000 for confirmation.

And who brought this bogus relief to the attention of the Court? None other than Citizens United, the same group of scumbags who brought you "Hillary: The Movie", a piece of poorly made propaganda which they wished to show as an actual documentary. They want to open the floodgates of monetary support for every spurious Riefenstahl-like piece of junk that they can dream up.

Now, you will hear a couple of lies about this in the coming days. The first one is that, since the ruling also mentions unions (who typically support Democratic candidates while national corporations favor Republicans), that things are somehow evened out. Do you think, for even a moment, that union pockets are remotely as deep as America's big corporations? Do you think that they will be operating on a level playing field? Exxon alone reported profits of over $45 billion last year. Could unions hope to compete in a money race with the energy companies, big insurance or Pharma? Not a chance.

The second thing you'll hear is that most companies are already contributing, and are unlikely to pony up more. But they don't have to, only for those campaigns that are of special interest to them, where the issues are most likely to affect them. Then, they can take over the airwaves, and the American people, like the good puppets they can be, will vote for whomever they see the most on TV, or against whomever the most attack ads attack.

Let me be real clear: this decision by the Supreme Court is very political in nature, and even blind justice could see that it favors one party substantially over the other. If this bothers you as much as it should, PLEASE call or write to your representatives, and let them know that you are appalled. Here is a link to a MoveOn petition that will also get the word out:

http://pol.moveon.org/fairelectionsnow/?r_by=18673-17427312-suFRapx&rc=confemail

The Gilded Age was not that cool for most people, really.

Take a Deep Breath

2010-01-15T13:12:00.000-08:00

One of the enduring myths of America is the hardiness of the American pioneer against the odds set by attacks of hostiles, fire, flood and famine. They were immigrants, many of them, and they got bad land to work, were shoved into unspeakable ghettoes in foetid tenements, forced by circumstance to work in hazardous jobs with no union to assist them, no cry of conscience in the American press to aid them. They were (and in many cases, still are) the first to enlist, to be sent away in a bad cause, left to waste from disease and neglect, too often forgotten in anonymous graves. Still, they persevered.

And today, what are we? We are a sad collection of chickenshit babies, cringing in fear from a handful of terrorists who can barely muster enough wherewithal to attempt an attack once every decade or so. Okay, I get it, they want to kill us. But other than getting through the one time that we had a president who wouldn’t read his briefings, how have they been doing? What do we think they are: supermen with special powers? I mean, they’ve had years to get together the resources and to fine tune their plan, and what are they able to come up with? A guy with a bomb in his underwear? That’s it? What does this suggest to you?

We’ve been after them hard for over eight years now, and not just by trying to kill them. We have also been attacking their source of funds, and I would say that it has put a serious dent in their terror-making abilities. We’re not dealing with Ming the Merciless here. Large scale attacks may be beyond them now. Yet we’re still panic stricken by the thought that we’re going to try them in NYC. Like, hordes of bloodthirsty, turban wearin’ Arabs are gonna descend on the city bringing Holy War. What are we, six? New York is the perfect pace to have the trials. That’s where they did the crime, stupid! Don’t New Yorkers deserve a front row seat to the show? Fucking Yes.

And while I’m at it, you might as well know, Osama bin Laden is dead. Has been for years. Look, he was a tall motherfucker, like six foot eight or something. Don’t you think we would have spotted him by now? He was also diabetic, and on dialysis. In 2001! How long do you think you can keep that shit up? And in a cave no less? Did you know that the last verified appearance by bin Laden was in 2002? That’s right. I’m talking about really verified, with all of the major senses taking place. What we have had is an occasional tape recording where some guy at CIA says, “Yeah, that sounds like it could be him.” But since 202, we haven’t had a definitive sighting. Draw your conclusions.

In the meantime America, nut up. We can handle a few trials here (there have already been many, only without the fear radio and Republican sound machine giving accompaniment). We can ship the bad guys over here from Gitmo. I mean, has there been some heavy leaking out of maximum security prisons over the last few years of which I am somehow unaware?

Try not to get the vapors. It might help to remember the trials of our pioneer forbears, and for Christ’s sake stop embarrassing yourselves.

Happy New Year - Now Let's Take Out the Trash

2009-12-31T09:39:00.000-08:00

I just heard that Rush Limbaugh was admitted to a hospital in Honolulu with chest pains. I want to wish him a speedy recovery, as he is so important for keeping progressives energized. I understand that a near tragedy was averted when vacationers were prevented from rolling him back into the ocean.

Anyway, this piece is all about what should have happened in 2009, and what I hope can still happen in 2010. It’s not too late, people.

1. Sarah Palin is apprehended by representatives of the Alaskan legislature and returned to that state in order to serve out the term to which she was elected. Ethical violations reviews are resumed, and she is found guilty of many. She is then kicked out of office.

2. The world gets to enjoy Dick Cheney being perp walked from his well-known location by federal officials following the open investigation of his unbelievably evil activities while Vice President. Too batshit crazy to go to regular lockup, he is incarcerated in a hospital for the criminally insane.

3. George W. Bush is tied to a tree in front of his library and is forced to watch as the keys to a brand new bulldozer are handed to Cindy Sheehan, who proceeds to knock that sucker over. A statue to Mollie Ivins is erected on the ruins.

4. Truth becomes the new black. An observer is assigned to Joe Wilson, whose sole purpose is to point out to him every time he is lying. Actually, a team of observers is assigned, since only one would grow hoarse before the first day was out. If the system works (and why wouldn’t it?), additional teams will be assigned to Michelle Bachman, John Boehner, Jim DeMint, most of talk radio, and all of Fox News. Full employment in the U.S. breaks out.

5. Congress realizes that in 2010 a kill-the-incumbents frenzy is about to take over. Seeing that they have nothing to lose, they decide to enact some actual progressive legislation:

a. Anyone carrying loaded weapons to public gatherings such as political rallies is subject to immediate arrest. Police are urged to tase the shit out of the perp.

b. Tough laws are enacted to bring finance CEOs & CFOs to justice. All of their possessions are auctioned off and the proceeds are adequate to return everyone one to their homes, fund Medicare and Social Security in perpetuity, and erase the national debt.

c. They pass a single payor option, thereby saving American businesses, large and small, eliminate 60% of all personal bankruptcies, and save 45,000 lives a year. The American people are so happy that they decide to leave them in office, after all.

6. Joe Lieberman, Ben Nelson, Mary Landrieu, Olympia Snowe and other blue dogs and fellow travelers are exiled to a distant island with all of the necessary amenities, but without any cameras. Also, there will be no health care.

7. The United States calls Rick Perry's bluff, and kicks Texas out of the union. All federal property must be returned, so among other things Ft. Hood will have to be relocated to another state. In addition, we’d like the billions we have spent building and repairing their roads and bridges, maintaining their national parks, and subsidizing their products, returned. I guess it also means that their NFL, NBA, and college teams will no longer be able to compete with American teams. Have fun being your own country. Can’t wait to see how your new constitution reinstates slavery.

8. The gate-crashing Salahis and the parents of the balloon boy are placed in a death match cage together. The survivors are interviewed by the national media. The interview never airs.

9. President Obama wakes up one day and realizes that maybe he ought to start following his principles, instead of the dead end pragmatism he has been practicing. The immediate closure of Guantanamo, end of rendition, end of don’t ask don’t tell, and the end of futile courting of Republicans follow, and the people get the guy they thought they voted for.

Those are my nine wishes. The tenth is for you. Enjoy. Happy New Year, one and all.

We're Not Going to Guam, Are We?

2009-12-20T09:30:00.000-08:00

First, let me say that if you are not a fan (or fanatic) for the series “Lost”, you should just skip this one. Don’t worry - I’ll be whining again about politics soon enough. I just wanted a break from it for a while.

We got season 5 a couple of days ago in order to refresh our recollections and get psyched for the final season to come, and have burned through the first seven episodes in two days. I continue to be impressed with the level of respect that J. J. Abrams, Damon Lindelhof and Carlton Cuse have for their viewers. Rather than spoon feed you with the obvious, they make you work a little to understand where they are going with the series. Last year’s offering raised the bar by throwing in multiple periods of time travel for different groups of characters, making you wonder who was where and when, Hints dropped one week may only become apparent a few episodes (or years) later.

Example: When Ben and Jack are in Eloise’s church discussing their pending flight to the Island, Ben talks about a print of Caravaggio’s Doubting Thomas (1602) hanging in the church and stresses resurrection. Yet, at the same time he is driving around in a van with Locke’s body inside and the words “Canton-Rainier” printed on the outside. That’s an anagram for Reincarnated. Until the last episode of season 5 you might think that Locke has been resurrected on the Island, but it becomes clear that he has been reincarnated as another being, the black counterpart to Jacob. That’s the kind of layered subtext that’s out there but only realized when you put in the effort to find it.

I also like their willingness to knock off pretty main characters: Boone, Shannon, Charlie, Clair, Michael, Charlotte, Faraday, Jacob. The list goes on.

The black/white dichotomy between Jacob and his eternal nemesis is played out by lesser beings as well: Ben and Locke, Ben and Jack, Young Ben and Mature Ben. Okay, Ben is a bad guy. But he’s also about the most compelling villain in television history. Here’s a bit of trivia for you (and Lost fans are nothing if not trivia-driven): who has had the shit beaten out of him more: Ben or Sawyer? And why is Sawyer, the most buff guy on the Island, getting knocked around so much?

Another prominent theme in the series (and there are scores of themes to choose from): sacrifice, up to and including martyrdom. Charlie dies so that the other survivors have a chance at escape from the Island. Kate gives up Aaron. Sawyer jumps out of the helicopter. Desmond turns the key. Locke dies in order to bring the others to the point of agreeing to return to their exile. Jack will give anyone anything. Anytime. Jacob becomes a willing sacrifice.

So many questions: When will Ben realize that he has been played? What is Jacob’s greater plan? Is his dark opposite in control, or is it only temporary? What changes will he wreak? Will Widmore get back to the Island? How will the final season begin? Will they all be back at the airport in Sydney, or in Los Angeles, as though nothing had happened? Will they not know each other? Will Richard Alpert run out of eyeliner? And who will be called upon for the ultimate sacrifice at the show’s conclusion, for someone must make it. My money is on Jack.

Though Egyptian symbology abounds on the show, so do Christ figures. Someone’s going to go out big as a martyr. Hell, it could even be Ben.

A final thought: Each of the last two seasons has ended with Locke in a box. Do you suppose that they're trying to tell us that Locke is dead?

A Modest Proposal

2009-12-16T12:23:00.000-08:00

I haven’t blogged in a while. It’s just been too depressing, with Healthcare Reform being picked apart until it no longer represents reform in any meaningful sense. Most disturbing about the whole circus has been the manipulative, self-serving performance of Joe Lieberman. His preening before the cameras, his convenient memory lapses (touting a Medicare buy-in in Sept., only to fight against it in December), his vicious vindictiveness, have all made it nearly impossible to watch this human train wreck in action, It certainly has made it tough to comment on his disgusting behavior.

It has been said by those who are close to him that, having lost the Democratic primary the last time out, he has been hell bent on revenge on progressives ever since.

It’s hard to deny it after witnessing his fawning over John McCain and the woefully under qualified and dangerously radical Sarah Palin. And he used to call himself a liberal Democrat. Virtually every position he has taken since 2006 has been far right of center, from war-mongering and torture-friendly, to denying the most basic of rights to the citizens he is supposed to represent. Having had it demonstrated to him convincingly that the Senatorial version of Healthcare Reform would actually reduce the deficit, he persisted in stating the opposite. Well, he seems to have learned well from his Republican masters.

Since Little Joe has been so instrumental in creating the anemic reform that is before us now, I would like to propose the following measure; that it be named the Joe Lieberman bill. That way, when the pathetic, meaningless, desiccated husk of a bill that is Healthcare Reform is passed, it will have an appropriate name attached to it, representing the one who, as much as anyone, is responsible for its existence.

Plenty of Blame, addendum

2009-12-07T17:47:00.000-08:00

What I hadn't heard yet when I wrote my previous post is that there is consideration being given to replacing the public option with an expansion of Medicare to folks over age 55.

Yes, this ignores those under that age, though older people have the most trouble getting covered (assuming they have jobs). But - it could be a bigger deal than the current, emasculated version of the public health option, because Medicare is better, people.

It will all depend on whether it is made available to all people over age 55, or just those who don't have coverage currently. It's my assumption that it will be the latter. The debate is being framed by the blue dogs, after all.

Plenty of Blame to Go Around

2009-12-07T15:13:00.000-08:00

We continue to see the evisceration of the public option by the Senate, and this time they are getting plenty of help.

First, the President gives them a "pep talk" behind closed doors and fails to mention either the public option itself, or the looming threat of the anti-abortion amendment movement in the bill.

Then, Ben Nelson compounds the danger of the Stupak amendment from the House by duplicating it on the Senate side. This is classic Republican strategy: introduce a wedge issue having nothing really to do with the issue at hand, and use it to distract people from what they are trying to accomplish. In most cases it has to do with trying to win election by addressing the issues. Here, it is trying to pass healthcare legislation that is about a century overdue. But no, instead we're debating abortion (which, by the way, is constitutionally guaranteed. But then, the Right is all about legislating away our rights, not in enhancing them).

You know, the right-to-lifers like to hold up pictures of dead fetuses at their rallies. If this abomination goes through, maybe the body of every woman who dies because she was compelled to get an illegal abortion (just like in the good old days) should be delivered to the office of Ben Nelson. No? Not enough room there for the expected mountain of coffins?

Finally, the so-called "public option" being touted these days (if Olympia Snowe deigns to come down from her mountain to give it her approval) looks like this: the fed gives buckets of money to the uninsured to allow them to buy coverage from the same old bloodsucking insurance companies at whatever rates they see fit to charge. This will be called a "nonprofit" plan, though how that will work out is profoundly unclear.

What it means in reality is that it will mean another sloppy wet kiss to the same companies who are the source of the problem. Their profits will reach even higher heights, allowing them to "donate" even more to their favorite whores, namely; Ben Nelson, Mary Landrieu, Blanche Lincoln, and of course, our little Joe, to ensure that real reform will not threaten them again for at least this generation, and probably the next.

Further Adventures in Central Asia, contd.

2009-12-02T10:38:00.000-08:00

So the decision has finally been made, the die cast. We’re going into Afghanistan with both feet. Well, with an additional 60,000 feet. And at a cost of $1 million per soldier per year. There is a lot of commentary afloat right now, falling about where you would expect it to fall.

The liberal side of Congress is opposed to our further involvement, and would like us to withdraw as soon as is seemly. The Right is saying that they applaud the commitment, but are upset that Obama has set a timetable to our escalation. So what are we to make of the President’s decision?

He continues to operate in a predictable pattern. Desperate not to outrage anyone, he attempts to hold to a middle course. The escalation seeks to appease the hawks, by increasing our effort. It wants to assure the doves, by stating that we have a plan to get out, and relatively soon. As with most hedged bets however, it accomplishes little and pleases no one. If you’re going to go in, go all in. If you’re going to leave, do so now and avoid further bloodshed and needless cost. He has satisfied no one with the possible exception Karzai, and even he must be pissed at being spoken to like a truant schoolboy. And did he refer to the recent Afghan election as flawed or a fraud?

Our President has major intellectual chops and despite his tendency to prevaricate, I have to say that I love the guy. I want him to be the leader we expected him to be. I want him to be a man of convictions, not a poster boy for pragmatism. Sometimes you have to hold to a position because it is the principled thing to do, regardless of the political fallout.

Because, let’s face it. The Republicans are going to cream him no matter what course he adopts, or what the outcome. They need to praise him faintly right now, in order to appear to be supportive of the troops, but will continue to condemn a scheduled pull out, and anything that goes awry (anything) will be blamed on him. There is no winning with a group who thinks that the surge as practiced in Iraq can be transplanted into Afghanistan. In the former country the surge met with success solely because we paid Sunni leaders who ran towns not to fight against us. There is no anomalous situation among a polyglot of hilltop, illiterate warlords scattered across numerous mountain ranges.

The fact is, Afghanistan no longer represents a haven for Al Qaeda. That would be in Pakistan. And if the Pakistani leadership gets real serous about evicting them, they’ll somewhere else. Like maybe to Saudi Arabia, where most of them are from. Why do we continue to pursue the insane policy of going after these people with a conventional army?

This is one of those times when a truly brave leader will do the very thing that is unpopular because it is the right thing to do. Contemporaries may criticize, but history would laud him for it. I’m afraid that instead, he will do the apparently expedient thing for which no one will thank him, leaving those of us who support him to wait that much longer for him to grow into greatness.

Lies I Was Told By My Right

2009-11-21T13:03:00.000-08:00

Before I get into the subject of this blog, let me just say that I called Sen. Joe (aka “little joe”, aka “the senator of the 51st state, Israel”) Lieberman to say that I was counting on his vote in the pending Healthcare Reform debate. The voice mail on his phone was full. The voice mail on his minions’ line was full. Oh well, at least I had a number to call at his Hartford office. Its voice mail was full. Well played Joe. CI guess you can’t say that your constituents are pleading with you to do the people’s business, can you?

Anyway, on to them lies. I won’t even get into the most egregious, most insane examples. Those have been covered by folks more eloquent than I. These are just a few that happen to grind my gears.

For instance, there is the oft-enforced belief that unions are bad for the country, and that their greed is one of the reasons why we are in such bad shape today. After all, if they hadn’t been able to negotiate their bloated wages and benefits packages, the American worker would have been more affordable, and all of those jobs wouldn’t have been shipped overseas. Explain Europe to me, then. They retain a strong manufacturing base, yet their workers have far better benefits, a month’s vacation every year, robust, government-sponsored healthcare that they like very much, thank you. What’s wrong with our unions?

Well, for starters the government has been openly hostile to them since Reagan came along, and sought every way to reduce their effectiveness while demonizing their very activity. People forget: unions created the middle class in this country. They caused a profound surge in the working man’s income, gave us the eight-hour day, eliminated child labor, made employers provide health insurance, and so on. Since the big roll back on union gains, we have seen almost all manufacturing jobs leave these shores, benefits have shrunk and/or become less affordable, and everybody is working longer hours for less pay, if they are working at all. Meanwhile, these same actions have created a monied elite who have gotten richer each year, further separating themselves from the rest of us peasants. Who is the enemy here?

Second lie: “There are extremists on both sides.” Really? We’ve seen teabaggers and TV and radio hate mongers, not to mention militia nuts and armed thugs in their thousands, on the Right. Just who are their counterparts on the Left? All they can give us is Rachel Maddow and Keith Olbermann. Extremists? They have opinions and are forthright about expressing them. Have they ever advocated the use of violence in the furtherance of their worldview? No. Have they been caught in lies? All they have done is use actual facts to make their points, something which is seldom used on the Right.Let’s stop trying to make this false comparison.

Next lie: “Our country is basically conservative to moderate.” Not as it ages. Every poll shows that the youth of our nation is more accepting than the last generation when it comes to social issues such as gay marriage, science vs. religion, a woman’s right to choose, comfort with minorities and their rights, etc., etc. Once the older generation dies off, these will cease to be issues at all. State by state, gay marriage is seeing greater tolerance. It’s only when special interest groups (read: churches and Republicans pursuing homophobia as a wedge issue) pump millions into television ad campaigns that the numbers migrate in the other direction. All it proves is that people are swayed by whatever they last watched on TV (surely a subject for another blog). I truly believe that we Americans are a live-and-let-live people who prefer that most find their own way to happiness, and that the government has no place in the bedroom.

Last lie (for today): “There’s a class war going on in America.” Actually, this one is partially true. But the war (undeclared) is being ferociously waged by the wealthy, on the poor and the middle class. You may define the wealthy as those who worship at the temple of Wall Street and who are served by their lapdogs in the Republican Party. Almost their every act is to enrich a small minority, shareholders, at the expense of the many. They started by taking most of the well-paying jobs and moving them out of the country, in the service of those shareholders, who did quite well in the bargain. (The Onion headline: “Everybody laid off - Wall St. reacts favorably”). As an increasing number of Americans became un-or-underemployed, they steadfastly refused to raise the minimum wage (it took a Democratic Congress to do that). Under Republican administrations (OK, Bill Clinton had a hand in some of this too), one tax cut after another was enacted, nearly every one benefiting the wealthy only. Meanwhile, the rich welcomed undocumented workers into the country to perform their jobs even more cheaply, accomplishing several things: they saved money on wages, did not have to pay a payroll tax or offer health benefits, and undercut unions. As an added bonus, they created an irrational fear of illegal aliens, providing an easy target for the working man to hate, rather than directing his anger at the real agent of his distress, the gilded class.

Yes, there is class warfare underway, but let’s not kid ourselves about who started it, or who’s been winning for the last few decades. The question is: why would anyone not already wealthy identify themselves with their heinous policies?

What's Your Excuse Now?

2009-11-18T15:07:00.001-08:00

Okay, Joe Lieberman, what's your excuse now?

The Congressional Budget Office has just announced their take on the Senate Healthcare Reform Bill, and they peg it at $849 billion over 10 years (less than Obama had said he was looking for), and state that it will REDUCE the budget by $127 billion over the same period. You know the CBO, don't you Joe? That same body you have been quoting for months now, as the primary reason why you won't support reform? Because you couldn't stand the thought of passing on a huge debt to your (embarrassed) grandchildren? Because Healthcare Reform would only add to the deficit? And used them (the CBO, I mean) to give credence to your obstructionist ways?

Whatever are you going to use now to hold back the tide of public support, which has been crying for years (decades, really) for relief? It seems that the bill would cover 94% of Americans, which is a big improvement though not the best solution (see my blog of Oct. 27). What are you going to say now? Maybe that Healthcare Reform causes warts? Or are you afraid that a public option will "undermine the private insurance market' as Mary Landrieu has said? Let's all cry some crocodile tears for the underprivileged, private insurance market.

Maybe it's time to get the insurance industry dick out of your mouth and say "yea" when the vote comes up.

I'm also talking to you, Mary Landrieu, Ben Nelson, and Blanche Lincoln.

How to Get Fooled Again

2009-11-10T10:23:00.001-08:00

In the late eighteenth century and halfway through the nineteenth, southern preferences took precedence over that of the majority of American people. While not sympathetic to the rights of enslaved Africans, most still thought of the institution as an evil unnatural practice, and in varying degrees wished it to be banished from our shores. Their opinion mattered not a bit, because Southerners and Southern principles held sway. Nine of the first twelve Presidents were Southerners, and slave owners.

Though the South had far fewer people, including people eligible to vote, than the Northern section of the country, Congress allowed them to treat slaves as three fifths of a white person, for purposes of representation. This gave them an outsized influence in determining the course of the country, despite the fact that more people, more industry, more railroads, more schools, more libraries, and more personal freedom, existed in the North. Laws were passed which made it impossible even to hear an antislavery discussion in Congress. The ruling class in the South became violently opposed to any accommodation in the sphere of slavery, even though their predecessors in the generation that sought freedom from Britain had hoped and expected that the peculiar institution would somehow fade away by the time of their grandchildren.

This privileged class, the aristocratic planters, shunned higher education (there were almost no legitimate universities in the Southern states), and held to a take-no-prisoners approach to any attempt, however indirect, to remedy the plight of the enslaved. Rather than face an unthinkable civil war, the North again and again gave in to the demands of the South, shamefully surrendering at the expense of the helpless, rather than chance that the rich planters would go through with their threats. In retrospect, it seems crazy that they remained so inflexible in the face of basic humanity.

Last week an amendment was rammed through as a last-minute dingleberry to the Healthcare reform bill of the House, denying coverage for voluntary abortions. They have told us that it is the same thing as the Hyde amendment, in place since the 70’s. That is a lie. It is a significant step backward for women’s reproductive rights, and will mean that many of the situations now covered by insurance companies will be outlawed going forward. It is a sneaky Trojan horse and no one should be fooled by it.

In their eagerness to reach accommodation and avoid an internecine fight, Democrats went long with this execrable amendment. Some have said that the Senate would not allow the bill to go forward with the amendment intact. Let us hope that they are right, rather than endure another surrender in the face of reaction, a surrender that would have to be paid for once again by the powerless.

One of Those Dreams

2009-11-04T10:04:00.000-08:00

“I had one of those death dreams last night.”

“What was that? Oh, you mean where you die at the end?”

“Yeah, except that you always wake up before death actually occurs.”

“I’m glad I never get those.”

“Anyway, it started with me driving, only I was still sort of asleep, so I was in a reclining position with the seat all of the way back, and I could barely reach the steering wheel. I tried to sit up, because I couldn’t see over the dashboard, and we were going really fast. It was on the highway, at night.”

“Was I yelling at you?”

“You’re always yelling at me when I drive, so yes. It was hard to sit up. It felt like trying to do sit ups with an anvil on your chest. I could finally see a little, but only a little, over the steering wheel, and it was very dark out, and the highway was wet. I wanted to stop but we needed to get off an exit first.”

“So then what happened?”

“I pulled off of the first exit that came along. We had to be doing eighty, and I could see that at the end of the exit was some kind of embankment, made of earth or stone. It was at least ten feet tall and right across our path, in back of a road that was perpendicular to the exit. I tried to apply the brakes, but the other thing about driving in a dream is that brakes only work when they’re pressed practically through the floor boards. I’m trying to get the car to slow down and it’s not really going slower at all, really like it’s speeding up.”

“Maybe you were like an old person who thinks that the gas is the brake.”

“Maybe, but I can see that I’m not going to make it. I’m going to go right into the embankment, so I turn hard to the right. The car fishtails, totally out of control. The driver’s side rear end hits a chain link fence that’s somehow there and we go right through. Now we’re going backwards, kicking up all of this dust and dragging chain link, and suddenly the car tilts backward with its nose in the air, and I can’t feel the ground any more.”

“Why?”

“Well, I realize that we’re falling, like we’ve gone over a cliff. A couple of seconds go by, and it hits me that we’re falling a long way and that we’re going to hit really hard. I say, my God, we’re going to die! I turn to you and I say, because I realize that it’s the last thing I’ll ever do or say, and I say, I love-, and then I woke up. I felt like I was actually starting to say the words, and the noise of the panic just woke me up.”

“You have some pretty fucked up dreams.”

“It has to be a real vivid one, like that, in order for me to remember them.”

“But it was nice, that you wanted to tell me you loved me, as your final thought.”

“Hey it’s the least I could do. After all, I killed you, right?”

“Yeah, that does take a little of the romance away. So, if you were to die before me, would you wait for me?”

Wait for you? Wait where?”

“You know, on the other side.

“Okay, first of all, I don’t believe in an “other side”. Second, even if there were one, how do I know what I would be capable of? How do I know if I still have free will, or the capacity to remember anything that happened in my prior life? I might not be able to “meet you”, or know who you are if I did.”

“You’re an asshole.”

“Look, Ben, all I’m saying is I can’t answer a hypothetical like that. I’d be lying if I gave you a definite answer on a hypothetical like that.”

“No, Jack. You’re an asshole, because I would wait for you, and now you’re making me think that you don’t love me like you say you do.”

“Jerk, I told you I loved you with my dying breath.”

“Yeah, right after you killed me. Asshole.”

Healthcare Reform?

2009-10-27T07:10:00.000-07:00

So we have the reform bill of the day, though this one seems closer to becoming a reality than any we have had to date. Just what are we getting? Should we be be glad?

The Insurance Industry is happy. They just got a valentine from Harry Reid. He's prepared to load them up with taxpayer money, force the currently uninsured to get coverage with them or face a penalty, block any restriction on what they can charge their customers (I'm not unusual - and I just got a 28% rate increase), and limit competition that a government-run program can give them. Silly me - I thought that insurance reform meant improvements on our behalf.

The tradeoff? They have to cover pre-existing conditions. I don't want to rain on anyone's parade, but the anecdotal examples of PE conditions that you've heard, while horrific, represent a tiny fraction of claims, and will be massively offset to the industry by all of the new bodies they'll be getting as they are forced to choose between coverage by one of these profit machines or pay the penalty.

Oh yes, there will also be a third choice - that of a public option. Okay, it's better than the ridiculous trigger approach so popular with the irrelevant Olympia Snowe. But it still won't kick in until 2013 at the earliest, meaning that there's plenty of time for it to be gutted by Republicans and Insurance industry whores like Max Baucus.

Then, individual states will have the option of refusing it! Got to admit, it could be fun watching Republican governors twist themselves into knots, turning it down while their in-state medical system chokes on the uninsured.

Which brings me to another point. This bill is expected to cover some 11 million folks who are currently not covered. What about the other 36 million? Are you kidding me?

OK, I'm an optimistic kind to guy. I want to believe that if we put in some kind of healthcare reform, any reform, that it's a foot in the door. Maybe the Insurance companies will not continue to pour in hundreds of millions of dollars trying to prevent additional reform. Maybe the public option will be successful and millions of other Americans will insist that they be allowed to give it a shot, generating so much political pressure that it will have to be opened up to everyone. Maybe Republicans and blue dogs will sense that political tides and history are against them and find some other cause to wreck.

But right now, the choice is yours - is this reform bill a shit sandwich, or a better-looking shit sandwich?

Tale From a Trunk, pt. 8

2009-10-26T09:23:00.000-07:00

“Before we commence with your quest,” the Captain said sternly, “perhaps we ought to review the remaining remains of the victim. They reside in a tub of turpentine within.” He gestured in the direction of his office. Memory of the foetid alley came upon me and I protested, but the rest of the group were eager for the thrill, and I reluctantly agreed.

Inside, it was as dark as a cat, and Captain Burnside had to light two lamps to shed enough light to see the large wooden tub which squatted in the otherwise unoccupied cell. We gathered round like schoolboys ready to see a two-headed frog, while our host took a metal hook from the lip of the rub and searched tentatively in the vaporous liquid. He held it above the strong smelling brew and hesitated. “Those interested citizens of the city have generously offered a nickel apiece to view what I am about to show you gentlemen.” His pointed hesitation continued, and continued further, until with an exasperated chorus of “for the love of Christ’” and so forth, the necessary coins were reluctantly dropped onto his outreached palm. Into the tub went the hook.

After a moment’s probing he pulled a long, awkward-looking object from the bath. It took a bit to recognize a curved backbone and a set of ribs, looking red and brown and shiny from the turpentine. It was an awful sight, and pitiful. Rafe Still fumbled in his coat for a sheaf of paper and charcoal, and emitted low purr.

“A bit of respect, if you don’t mind,” said the Captain meaningfully and looking at Still. And at us: “The turpentine bath seems to have eroded Mr. Slade somewhat. There was more meat on him when last I looked at the remains.”

“Does anyone else notice that there are two ribs missing?” Billy said softly in my ear.

“That is as they were discovered in the alleyway behind Mr. Spander’s establishment,” the Captain explained. “It would seem that Mr. Phoenix had a taste for them.”

The ensuing silence passed from one of respect to that of waiting for someone to break the deadlock.

Compliantly, I said, “This fascinating artifact, while an object of surefire interest, does not tie to my client. Someone, we’ll assume not Mr. Slade himself, has removed the ribs. Let us further assume that it was for the purpose of their consumption. To do that, one would have to have the wherewithal to pull the meat from the bone. Isn’t it so?” There was a general lack of comprehension. I let it go. I turned to Captain Burnside. “Have you examined the living quarters of Moses Phoenix?”

He shook his head. “He wasn’t at home.”

”Well, then, we should go there straightaway!” I admit that I had not been in a rush to reveal my discovery: namely, that Moses Phoenix lacked the teeth to devour human flesh, and could therefore not have been the villain in our story. I enjoyed having knowledge that others did not. I was willing to draw out their ignorance, as it seemed to me that the satisfaction it would give to me once revealed, would be that much the greater the longer it cured. Further, by waiting as long as I had, my audience had increased to a respectable size. Still, I felt that the time had come. It was fitting to exonerate Mr. Phoenix by making the announcement at his own home.

With a small amount of resistance the group agreed to make one last journey (it was but two hundred yards from the jail) to satisfy my whim. Our little parade attracted the attention of townsfolk, and some of them may have joined the procession. We reached the boarding house and with Captain Burnside in our group we were readily given admittance. I bounded up the stairs to his room and thrust open the door.

It was as I had pictured it. Modest furnishings, few pieces of homely furniture, a daguerrotype of Mother on the wall. I turned to look at my companions, tears welling in my eyes. Was this not a scene of domestic tranquility? Was Moses Phoenix not a paragon of sweet innocence? On one wall set a cupboard. Surely, it held a bible!

“See here,” I said solemnly. “This is the dwelling place of a man without natural enemies. Mr. Phoenix could not harm a soul, because he is too pure of heart and gentle of spirit to wish anyone ill. He could not do the terrible deed of which he is accused” - and here I paused meaningfully - “because the man has NO TEETH! He cannot chew meat! He is incapable of everything you accuse him of!” I strode to the cupboard, in order to fling it open and reveal the bible, as a last punctuation on my performance.

There, on a shelf in that cupboard rested a beautiful set of ivory choppers, still stained red with the unfortunate Slade’s blood.

This is where the fragment ends. I assume that it is where he intended to halt the tale, but I cannot be certain. Now I’m wondering whether I should start transcribing the rest of what I found in the trunk. I am open to suggestions on that front.

Tale From a Trunk, pt. 7

2009-10-20T12:42:00.001-07:00

There sat Captain Burnside, leaning precariously back in his chair with his feet against a rail. At nearly three hundred pounds, this was risk-taking of a high order. Considering that he was deeply drunk at this early hour, his bravado was breathtaking. His kepi was low over his eyes, and he was deep in thought or in sleep. We formed a semi-circle around him and waited respectfully.

Having given it a full thirty seconds I kicked his foot. He snatched his feet from the rail abruptly and teetered for a few thrilling seconds before his chair thundered to the boardwalk, safely.

“Jesus wept!” he cried. He was always using out of date phraseology, which was one of the reasons he was so popular. “What are you trying to do? Commit murder? Can’t a man, a man of the Law, take his rest without being the object of assault?”

I swept my hat from my head. “No offense meant Captain, but we are here to prevent an accident. The ship of justice is about to beach itself upon the reef of error. Everyone on board, Captain included, has been deluded into believing that the water runs deep and clean, but just beneath its surface lies the submerged tree that will stove her in, for sure. Without a rapid change of course, she’ll be sinking in no time at all.” I could sense the rolling eyes about me. If I occasionally lapsed into the talk of my previous occupation, it was only because I had been a man of means, of dignity. They could not help but scoff, with so little accomplishment, so much envy among them. I forgave them.

“God’s blood, young Clemens, what in the name of all that’s holy are you disputating upon?” I took a moment to absorb what he had said, then continued my course.

“All will be clear, Captain. You have been in pursuit of the murderer of Mr. Slade, who was once curator of the cuspidors at the Blue Gem.”

“I have had that honor.”

“And I have come to inform you that the object of your investigation, Mr. Moses Phoenix, is innocent of that crime. He is simply incapable of performing the deed. Your strenuous search (here, I applied a bit of gilt to the flower that was Captain Burnside), nobly acted upon, is misplaced. If my client is harmed in any way it will be a crime as foul as the one perpetrated on the unfortunate Mr. Slade.”

He rose to his full rotundity and pulled on his suspenders. “I am fully conscious of my rectitude, sir, and cannot be at fault. The facts are clear. The victim was slain by knife, then cut up like a Sunday roast. It wasn’t a crime of passion, necessarily, but mayhap more like one of hunger.”

“He was a Donner, Sam!” Stevie Gillis whispered loudly.

“And well accustomed to the craft,” Denis added, needlessly.

“Further,” Captain Burnside continued, “he has gone missing, ever since the crime was committed. The Rubicon is fairly crossed. He is the culprit for certain, and I shall not rest until he has been captured, quickly tried and found guilty, and strung up as he so richly deserves.”

“Preferably before his next meal,” Billy Stewart added.

I know had them exactly where I wanted them. The entire town, citizens, the Law and the Fourth Estate, all wanted Moses Phoenix caught and dead. There was only one man upright enough to save him. Only one man with the calm and commonsense to see through hysteria to the truth. A town can’t have too many heroes. They get in each other’s way and muddy up the narrative. I would have to do it on my own.

“If you’ll come with me to Mr. Phoenix’s abode, I’ll make all clear,” I said. “You’ll see in a flash why I am so certain.”

Miscellanea

2009-10-20T09:48:00.000-07:00

Sometimes you have to get these things off your chest...

A.G. Eric Holder is

telling states that they should back off marijuana arrests unless the perp is ‘profiting’ from its sale, excluding for medical use. Can this mean that, at long last, we are going to move away our insane drug policies of the last few decades? When Ronald Reagan took office in 1981 one in fourteen convicts was there for a drug bust. Now, it’s one in three.

Speaking of Reagan, is there anything you can legitimately attribute to his reign that wasn’t awful for the American people? A demented drug policy, the ravaging of American unions simultaneous with reckless deregulation, which combined to eliminate the middle class, the defunding and closing of hundreds of facilities including medical hospitals, thereby throwing tens of thousands of patients onto the streets and ballooning homeless numbers, the tacit connivance with corporations, to the extent that they began to (more overtly) run the government, the acceptance of racism once again (e.g., welfare queens), Iran/contra, and that barely scratches the surface. And yet with our propensity for national amnesia he is still considered a positive creature, instead of the second-worst president ever?

Does anyone else think that, even if the Heene’s are tried & convicted for their balloon boy stunt, they’ll still get their reality program? C’mon, TLC and VH1, ‘fess up. You’re already in negotiations, aren’t you?

Why is it that, when a photographer lies on his back, on the ground, to take a picture up a young woman’s skirt as she gets out if a car, public scorn is reserved for the woman?

Michael Moore’s latest film is out, with the predictable backlash already going strong. Sure, there are better documentary filmmakers around, but for putting all of the dirty truths out there, for reminding us (as if we all needed reminding) that there are malign forces placing short-term profits for a few, ahead of the public good, he’s hard to beat. The one legacy we’ll remember from Rage Against the Machine is their tag line: your anger is a gift.

Again, why is it that a couple can be arrested for wearing anti-Bush t-shirts, and yet someone else can carry a loaded, semi-automatic weapon to an Obama event without being bothered? Just wondering...

There, I feel better...

Tale From a Trunk, pt. 6

2009-10-15T11:11:00.000-07:00

“First,” I said, we must examine the scene where the ghastly crime unfolded.”

“Easy,” he replied. “It’s right out back, in the alley.” I stood aside and let him open the door for me, then I strolled past him into the narrow, dank pathway that separated his establishment from the whorehouse next door. It smelled foetid and foul, and I would have thought that it had been the place where the butchering of chickens or other beasts for dinner had taken place, except that I knew slaughter of another kind had occurred there.

I looked around, seeming to take in clues in order to satisfy my bilious friend. The ground was covered with litter, though the light was too dim to make out its character. The damp seemed to rise of its own accord and to clutch me about the throat. Feigning nonchalance, I took a cigar from my breast pocket and made a show of lighting it, holding the lit match aloft and looking about the alley. I could easily see the slash of dried blood on the wall of his saloon, then looked down to see that dried gore was sticking to my shoes.

Resisting a strong urge to vomit, I puffed furiously and said firmly, “Yes, yes, just as I thought!” In response to my friend Julius’ questions I merely stated that the scene was as I suspected and saw no need to delay there. I hurried out into the street, taking in great lungs full of air. Seeing through my distress he laughed.

“It’s just what’s left of Slade,” he informed me. “That, and what Moses has shat out.”

I scolded him. Had I not determined that Moses Phoenix was innocent?

“Not so’s I can tell,” he answered mildly. “How exactly are you certain?”

I made a show of immense patience. It was simply beyond the ken of the uneducated, I explained. The superior mind can detect hidden meanings in the mundane. What he failed to see in the alley was as clear as day to me. I needed only to peruse additional locations and it would even be clear to him. With a detailed explanation from me, of course.

“We’ve little time to waste,” I urged as I walked swiftly down the muddy thoroughfare. “A guiltless man is likely to fall victim to the mob, unless I can present the evidence to prove his innocence!” I strode purposefully, trailing the lumbering Spander in my wake.

It was only a diagonal journey to the offices of The Daily Times, and the daytime abode of my newly identified rival, Billy Stewart. Without introduction I burst into the room in which he sat, and came to an abrupt halt, hands on hips and a tower of cigar smoke issuing from the corner of my mouth. Julius struggled to keep from knocking me to the floor, so sudden was my stoppage and so close to my heels had he kept.

“Why Sam,” said Billy slowly, and looking over my shoulder to take in my companion, “are you carrying the bar with you today?”

“Not today,” I said sternly, waving my hand. “Today, I have deputized Mr. Spander, in order for him to be my witness as I reveal the results of your journalistic assassination against my client.” A fine turn of phrase I thought, as I listened to myself.

“Whatever are you on about, Sam?”

I explained rapidly that I had undertaken the rehabilitation of Moses Phoenix’s reputation, and let Billy know that he had gotten it all wrong. He sat up straighter and eyed me with greater interest.

“Do you say that you know the whereabouts of Mr. Phoenix? Why, all of Virginia City is looking for him, Sam, and you say you have him? That’s first rate work! Where is he, exactly?” I frowned at that. It wouldn’t do for a mob to take apart the offices of the Enterprise. Bill Wright might get it into his head that I was somehow responsible, and suggest that I pay for the damages.

“That’s not important, just yet. I can’t have a drunken throng stretching his neck, just because you’ve got them all stirred up. He’s in a safe place, until I can sort this all out and prove his innocence.”

“Well then,” he said, taking his hat from the rack by his chair and placing it on his head, “that’s something I have to see. Mind if I trail along?”

I did indeed. This had taken a course I had not foreseen, nor wished. Still, when a pilot comes upon an unfamiliar bend in the river, because some storm has changed its course, he finds his way. “It will be my pleasure,” I replied amiably. This way, I thought, I will have the enjoyment of seeing his chagrin, when I showed him how wrong he had been. As he stood to leave with us, he called out to one Rafe Still, an artist who worked with the paper, to join us. He wanted him to make sketches, if justified by our investigation. Magnanimity flowing within me now, I happily agreed. What was one more witness? Another member of the audience.

As we walked down the puddled thoroughfare, Still whispered mischievously in my ear: Did I know how badly cut up the remains had been? He had made sketches, but the editor refused to allow them to be printed, so hideous were they. Slade had been butchered with some skill, and the lesser cuts had been left behind in the alley. If the people of the city had seen Still’s (and the murderer’s) work, there would be no keeping them away from the killer. It would make no difference to Phoenix, I assured him, once I had proven him guiltless.

“How do you propose to do that?” Billy Stewart interrupted, concerned now, I could see, that I was on to something. His hasty reporting was about to be his comeuppance, I was certain.

“We’re going to Captain Burnside’s office,” I said happily. “I need only to determine the effects of his investigation, then I shall reveal all I know.”

Burnside was some specimen of law in Virginia City, having been appointed years previously by a long-forgotten eminence in the East. Now, his sole function seemed to be to drink from eight in the morning to four in the afternoon, to eat from four to eight in the evening, and to sleep the rest of the time. Still, he was inoffensive. He let people kill themselves regularly without meddling, and kept his lone cell free from the detritus of prisoners. It left him with a good place to nap, once he was through with his daily repose.

Before we arrived at the jail however, we happened upon Denis McCarthy and Stevie Gillis, who were standing at a bar, taking in the morning along with a few bracing glasses. Stevie was a printer at the Enterprise, a diminutive bantam. Though scarcely rising to my shoulder, his fists were deadly. I always treated him cautiously and courteously. Denis was co-owner of the same paper, so I obligingly lifted my hat to them both.

“Join us, Sam?” Denis inquired. “Steve won me a hundred in a bout not more than half an hour ago, and we were just starting to celebrate.

I explained my business as quickly as possible, but there was no use to it. They no sooner heard my tale than they determined that they must accompany me, to serve as both bodyguard and reportorial back up. So we continued until we reached the jail.

Tale From a trunk, pt. 5

2009-10-13T10:23:00.001-07:00

It was a cloudy day, even so I had need to adjust my eyesight once entering the Gem. It was nearly black as the inside of a lawyer’s heart, not in respect to the departed, but because the activities pursued within were almost always best practiced in the dark. I took a moment to acclimate my vision. There were a couple of whale oil lamps which shed what little illumination there was to be had, and they let me know that besides me, there were three characters seated around a tilting, round table, and a tender behind the bar. This was Julius Spander, made newly famous by the slanderous article recently printed in The Daily Times.

“Hello Sam,” he greeted me as I felt my way to the bar, really just a plank set on two barrels. “It’s a little late for your eye opener. It’s nearly ten.” I told him that I was all business that morning, and was maintaining my sharp senses. However, not wanting to antagonize a potential news source, I accepted a glass from him, and drained it off. I had known Julius for six months, and knew him as a man to befriend when drunk, and avoid when he was sober. He topped six feet by several inches, and a prize hog by several pounds. Peering in I could see that he was clear eyed, and accordingly I took my stance at the far end of his bar.

“Have one on me, Julius,” I said companionably. He squinted in my direction warily.

“And add it to your tab?”

“Not at all,” I replied, slapping a dollar onto the bar top. “I’m feeling fine today, and wish to share my good fortune. Especially with those who have stood me well in the past.” He continued to regard me suspiciously, but poured himself a drink and swilled it. I pointed out that the change would get him another two drinks at least, and he became more agreeable.

“What accounts for your good mood?” he asked.

“I am often thus,” I said happily, “when on to a good story.” He sipped his third drink and pretended to dust the bar at his end, but I could tell that the hook was already in. “Have another,” I said cheerfully, replacing the lost dollar with the same. “And another.”

He grunted a grudging thanks and did not hesitate. He dusted closer to me, making small talk the way a bar man does. After half a dozen whiskeys he was in a mood to match my own, and dusting the bar especially for me.

“So, what sort of ‘good story’ are you on about?”

“Why none other than the true story the Virginia City cannibal.” He snorted loudly.

“That story’s ripe!” he laughed. “It got done days ago, by that reporter for The Times. Don’t you know that, Sam?”

I made a show of my disappointment. My face dragged close to the splintery surface of the bar. I shook my head slowly, in profound disgust. “You mean to tell me,” I finally said, “that someone already figured out that Mr. Phoenix, late of the Donner party, isn’t the culprit?” He squinted more fiercely than before, and, resting his elbows on the bar his chin on his hands, leaned closely.

“What’s this your sayin’? I ain’t served you but one drink that morning. You been drinkin’ at home, Sam?”

“Not a bit,” said I. He rubbed his chin in concentrated thought.

“Then why are you sayin’ that Phoenix ain’t the one?”

I made a show of disgust, and shook my head. “Now Julius, there’s no cause to go and have fun at my expense. Just because somebody else got to the truth of the matter before I did, it’s no reason to mock me. There’s many, probably, who didn’t suspect that Moses Phoenix was not guilty of this horrible crime.”

At that he straightened up and made a show of wiping down the bar. I had him, I could tell. I had him good, and he wouldn’t want to be the last one to be in the know. He was already imagining himself lording it over the less fortunate, the gullible fools who had jumped to the false assumption. He pretended to ask his question casually.

“Now, I’m not sayin’ you were the last to know,” he allowed. “I’m only interested in how you came by your conclusion. You know, what was your method?”

“Well then, if you’re sure you’re not still making fun.” He swore he wasn’t. I told him that I would be glad to take him through every step of my process, but that it could best be done by showing him, just as I had deduced it myself. First though, I would have to have his solemn vow not to reveal my means until I had published them for the world to see. Once they had caught the drift of my genius, he could bather about it ll he wished. Eager to witness the superior mind in action, he readily agreed.

Airily, I waved him towards the back door of his establishment. He chased the few drunken customers out of the front door and quickly locked it. Assuming a pose of complicit mystery,he crept to my side and awaited my instruction.

Tale From a trunk, pt.4

2009-10-07T13:37:00.000-07:00

I sat in silence for a moment, dismayed that they had gotten the drop on me like this. It should have been me writing this juicy, sordid tale. And to beaten by our rival, The Daily Times, hurt like the devil himself. I was a regular drinking partner with Billy Stewart, a reporter at the times, and we enjoyed a friendly animosity. Why, we had sipped and supped on at least three occasions since the murder, and not one word of the deed had passed his lips. Still, Moses Phoenix may not have been an inspirational subject for rebuttal, but he was all mine. So I made him a fine speech.

Why, here he was a beleaguered immigrant to our fair city, a man struggling, and succeeding, to make good under difficult circumstances, Against the odds he had prevailed, only to be thrust back into oblivion by the evil press. Why oh why would they pursue him, unsatisfied hounds of hell, their thirst for his blood never slaked until, he had either been driven from town or strung up by a citizenry maddened and provoked by the bloodlust of the Times? Would no one take his side, would no one listen to mild reason, would no one stay the crude mob and shine the light of justice? Why yes, there was someone.Someone who knew better than the lurching, unthinking crowd. Better than the slinking, hate-filled, ignorant and conniving newspaper, the Daily Times. There was Sam Clemens. And what a hero I would be!

Full of fire, I shook his hand, which proved to be remarkably strong, and assured him that he was as good as vindicated. I would write a vivid rebuttal to the slanders of the Times and in short order have the people of Virginia City begging his forgiveness. It was as plain as day, but first I needed to ascertain some of the facts. I would have to peruse the scene of the crime, the better to provide my readers of the base nature of the murder (after all, they oughtn’t to be deprived of the gory details). Then I would describe the scene of the non-crime, that is, Mr. Phoenix’s abode, where I would prove that nothing untoward could possibly have occurred. I would be, I assured him, his personal savior. Those iceberg eyes filled with tears, not cold but warm with gratitude. He took both of my hands in those crushers of his and professed his undying thanks.

“Not a bit of it,” I said modestly, as only true heros know how. “It is only what one does, to see that justice is done.” I left off the fact that I would destroy Billy’s standing as a credible reporter and deliver an exclusive interview with a surviving member of the Donner group in the bargain. Not bad for a day’s work.

But first I had to gather the detail for my story. I grew excited as I considered how I would insert actual, verifiable truth into my reporting (a usual story would be pieced together from random, amusing thoughts that occurred to me whilst I nursed a hangover from the previous night’s debauch). This would be something new, something entirely novel for me, and I found myself becoming more and more proud of myself. I was quite the prince.

My new friend wanted to accompany me, to show me where the various crimes against his good name had taken place, but I would have none of it. He must protect himself, and remain hidden from public view while I visited the scene of carnage. There was what called itself the law in that city to be considered, to say nothing of what an aroused citizenry might do to him, if they were to act before receiving my golden words of reasonableness. No, he would have to remain in my little office, and not show his sad face about town. With a show of reluctance he agreed to my plan. Planting my slouch hat upon my head and stuffing cigars in one pocket and some papers and a nub of pencil in another, I left him there.

Fairly skipping down the stairs I left the Enterprise building disappeared down the alley which brought me to the street on which the Blue Gem was located. I found it wedged between a brothel called the Golden Gully and another saloon, The Rye Expression. I had had some familiarity with both establishments, by way of my study of the nether world of the city. Nothing too intimate, just enough to recognize the devil’s tools if ever I should find myself in need of them.

To be continued...

Eight Years On

2009-10-07T10:43:00.000-07:00

In the fall of 2002, along with 20,000 concerned citizens, I attended a demonstration in New York’s Central Park to protest what looked like an imminent, needless war against Iraq. You may not have heard about it, since most of the media decided not to tell the people that millions of Americans were on to the machinations of the Bush/Cheney cabal, and were taking to the streets to make their disgust and alarm known.

One of the themes of the daylong event dealt with how poorly things were already going in Afghanistan. While you could make a case for why we were there in the first place (Tim Robbins spoke of his anger after 9/11, and acceptance of the incursion by U.S. forces), it seemed that we were going to replace one questionable war with one that unquestionably wrong, and were poised to substitute Osama bin Laden with Saddam Hussein.

Eight years on, here we are, still in Afghanistan. The “war” is not close to won (close to being lost, rather), Osama bin Laden is free (or dead for several years - my personal opinion), and the Taliban is resurgent. Why are we still there? What do we hope to gain? Does anyone have a clue how to win the conflict? Don’t know, nothing and no.

Everyone knows how the Soviet Union had their asses handed to them by the mujahideen. We like to give ourselves credit, because of the timely intervention of stinger missles put into the hands of the proto-Taliban. They helped, but without a determined, fanatical force willing to use them, and to die in the thousands while using them, no amount of technology would have been successful. These same fanatics, hardened by decades of battle and by centuries of dealing with foreign incursion, are stepping up to the plate once more.

The Soviets were by no means the first invader to meet their demise there. In 1841 the British occupied Kabul and set up their hand-picked puppet to lead the country. To support him were 4,500 British and Indian troops. Where the Afghans are concerned however, to control a city is to control nothing. Temporarily putting aside their own internecine quarrels (which are legion, and endless), rebel tribesmen turned out in force and soon had them surrounded in their garrison. Skirmishing ensued, with the advantage teetering from one side to the other. Eventually however, the British found themselves outnumbered by more than seven to one and were compelled to arrange a truce, contingent upon their agreeing to quit the country.

This they did, along with all of their soldiers, 12,000 camp followers and three dozen wives, children and nannies of the military. The rebels did not keep to their side of the bargain. Once the retreating army entered the mountain passes leading down into India, they were attacked in a never-ending series of ambushes, lasting days. One man, a Dr. Brydon, emerged safely but badly wounded. Other then him, the entire company perished.

I refer to this incident because little has changed in over a century and a half. The tribesmen are still as ferocious, still as intractable. They are still as suspicious of the foreign, still able to pull together, however temporarily, in the pursuit of expelling that foreigner. What are we trying to accomplish? How do we define victory? When a stable government has been created? Right now we are settling for a clearly corrupt leader, who can’t win an election without resorting to fraud. When Al Quaeda is eliminated? We’ve been paying whack a mole with them for eight years, and they seem to be real good at turning up in another country to pursue their ends. Besides, an army makes a poor mallet for such a small target. How many lives, how much treasure, has to be wasted before we realize that this, like the other, war, is not the right one to be fought? When they have better roads, better schools, better lives? By all means, let’s make their lives better if we can. And dropping bombs on innocents seems counterintuitive. And remember their illiteracy rate is at nine-five percent. Do we have the stomach for decades-long commitment with scant chance of success?

Here’s an idea: let’s continue to do a better job of protecting ourselves at the point of entry into our country. That’s something we can control. Let’s support the Afghan people with all of the humanitarian aid we surely owe after we wrecked their country. And as long as we can keep Republicans out of office and lobbyists away from this important work, we may be all right.

Tales From a Trunk, pt.3

2009-10-05T07:30:00.000-07:00

Old Moses (though he could not have been much older than forty-five or fifty) had been on the ill fated caravan, sure enough, had seen terrible things, things that he did not want to revisit. Through God’s mercy he had come out alive, saved by the rescuers after that dire winter. But knowing that regular folks would look at him in fear, ever though he had refused forbidden meat, he had kept his story a secret.

Still, every few years someone would get wind of the truth, discover that he had been a member of that tragic party, and the whispers would begin. With the stiff wind of condemnation at his back, he would pull up stakes and move to another town. A dozen times he had been forced to leave a prosperous business (for he was an astonishing industrious fellow), and more than once a family, and find him a new home, a new livelihood. Like the biblical Moses he had wandered the deserts of the American West, seeking his home, never knowing if it would be his final destination, or whether some fresh discovery would send him into exile yet again. I misted up, hearing his wrenching tale. What a stalwart, suffering man. Under the care of a skilled scribe, what citizen would not weep a heavy tear for his story?

Now, he explained, though he had made a success of his suttler’s business, had even become a pillar of the community and a man of some wealth, he had been found out. Someone had been rumor-mongering about his supposed nighttime habits, suggesting that he was up to his old culinary preferences. And to back them up, there were even suspected cases of cannibalism right here, in Virginia City! Naturally, all eyes would look to him, who was as innocent as on his birth day.

“Now now,” I interrupted, “but surely there is no proof. Why should you fear if there is no evidence to attach the crime to you?” Here he shook his head sadly, as he would to a simpleton. But of course he would be suspected. He was of the evil Donners, and the citizenry would make their assumptions as they always had. No one would give a second’s thought to the possibility that anyone else could have done it. It was the way it had gione in town after town, and would again in Virginia City.

Now, I had to admit, he did look the part, all scrawny and skeletal, dark and angry. Why, I bet he could tear through a club of spinsters for lunch, and have room left over for a lawyer or two. And he was a Donner, was he not? Still, he had aroused my sympathies, which I felt were keener than the average newsman’s, and I wasn’t ready to give the up just yet. Didn’t he, I asked, have some sort of alibi for the time that the dire murder was supposed to have occurred?

He flushed redly at that, and struggled for his words. “I don’t have many acquaintances,” he said, his eyes downcast. “Even them that doesn’t know my full history, they tend to shy away from me, like maybe they know something.” Then he looked up at me fiercely, his eyes which I could now see were the palest blue, sparked. “No, I don’t have anyone who will vouch for me. I was at home alone, as I am most every night. But I couldn’t have done it, don’t you see?” And with that, he open wide his foul-smelling mouth and pointed at the open, near-toothless maw. Of course, he was right. A fine cannibal he would have made, gumming his victims to death. Plainly, he was not the man for this crime. Once again I was filled with crusading zeal.

“So, tell me, Mr. Phoenix. Who has slandered you so foully?”

With a sneer of contempt, he pulled a soiled, heavily creased sheaf of papers from his jacket pocket. I recognized at once the work of our rival newspaper, scant yards down the street from the Territorial Enterprise. Dastardly rag I called it, even before he had carefully unfolded the document and offered it to me, solemnly pointing a long bony finger at the offending article. Puffing furiously on my cigar, I prepared myself to be outraged. The story read as follows:

A Heinous Crime!

Cannibalism in Virginia City!

In a city already suffering from a variety of social ills: namely gambling, public drunkeness,

loose morals, official corruption and the threat of Chinese influence, is it too much to ask

that we be spared the indignity of cannibalism as well? Apparently not, as evidence of this latest

evil have been thrust upon our community. Thursday last, a defamed corpse, once belonging

to a Mr. Slade, lately employed as a bootblack and spittoon carrier for the Blue Gem saloon,

was discovered behind that same building in a condition best described as rendered for dinner.

Deprived of his human chops, steaks and tenderloin, Mr. Slade was left for the four-legged vermin

to finish. They were chased off when the proprietor of the Gem, the hon. Julius Spander, found

him around eight o’clock on the following morning.

A Perpetrator Suspected!

And who, Virginia Citians want to know, is responsible for this heinous crime, this Aetrian

feast? It has come to our attention that for the last nine months, a Mr. Moses Phoenix, lately

a member of the Donner party of 1846, has been a resident of this city. Is it such a leap to

suppose that there is a connection here? Where was he on the night that Mr. Slade was

transformed into roast? What has he to say for himself? Has he returned to his depraved ways?

Others who survived that tragic expedition have also refused to swear off eating their

neighbors. It appears that he has joined that camp.

And, since constable Martens has not seen fit to pursue this suspicion, this newspaper will ask

the questions of Mr. Phoenix, and will get the answers.

To be continued...

Tale From a trunk, pt.2

2009-10-03T06:22:00.000-07:00

Dinner in Virginia City

It was 1862 or 3, and I was a freshly minted reporter for the Territorial Enterprise. My editor, Bill Wright, known to many by his pen name Dan DeQuill, had departed east to visit his wife and children in Iowa. They were sick, but he went anyway. This left me alone to sort out the many possibilities for stories that arose on a daily basis.

There were usually fatal gunfights to report, and nonfatal ones as well. The latter lacked the drama that the reading public thirsted for, but with a bit of license I could usually amend the outcome to produce a corpse. This upset more than one breathing citizen, who awoke to find himself deceased. He would confront me with his existence and demand a retraction, and it was then up to me to point out the benefits of his demise. In this way I acquired some of the creative skills which continue to hold me in good stead.

Another source of stories which called upon my dexterity as a writer involved Virginia City’s bars and brothels, located on a a street just behind that of the newspaper office. This was convenient, both for material gathering and after work entertainment. With over four dozen establishments to choose from, I was hard pressed to explore them all, but I applied myself diligently.

In addition I was responsible for writing articles pertaining to local businesses, civic organizations, and politics, but as these produced a paltry count of cadavers, and so interested me very little, I was forced to add to the record in order to make the copy readable.

I was slaving over just such an article when I was visited by a spectral character. He was tall, lean, and dressed all in black. I judged him to be about forty-five years of age, spare as a rail, and thin of hair, what little of it I could see poking from his black hat. His face was twisted in some variety of intestinal distress, I thought. Or an injury that had lodged itself there, for the world to enjoy. I continued to write, pretending not to notice his arrival, while I slyly took him in. He stood there patiently. I could see that he was not a manual laborer, as his hands were soft. The quality of his clothing suggested some success in business, but not over much. I chanced a glance upward and saw that his teeth had long departed, save for an incisor and a molar or two, his sunken cheeks making that clear. His overhanging brow showed intense worry and old suffering.

Having ascertained that he was worse off than me, I greeted him and asked his business.

“My name is Moses Phoenix,” he announced. “I am a suttler. I own a store further down C Street,” the very street where I worked. Relieved to gain my attention, he got right into it. “I want the record put straight. I want it printed in the Enterprise. I have been slandered, and I want it put right.”

I put my cigar down and appraised him anew. Airily, I waved him into a chair. He coiled himself into a sitting position and leaned towards me. Halitosis swept over me like a malign cloud and I recommenced puffing on my smoke, putting volumes of tobacco between us. “What sort of slander?” I inquired. His face darkened and he looked at me intensely.

“I survived the Donner party in ’46,” he said firmly, “and someone is accusing me of cannibalism. Here in Virginia City!”

Halitosis be damned. I could have kissed him right then and there. Here was a story to beat every other story I had fabricated since coming to Virginia City. Oh, I thought, this story will put me on the map. It was a solid 14 carat story. And the reaction that old Bill would have when he found that I had gotten the credit instead of him, why that would be 24 carats at least. I could envision his dismay that I had gotten to the story before him. He would positively eat this spleen. But, I thought, how could there be a case of cannibalism in Virginia City which could have escaped my notice? Then I recalled that there had been a victim of a knife fight a week previously. There were many such in that lawless town, and nothing much had been made of it, but now I remembered that the loser had been literally butchered, with several choice cuts removed. The perpetrator had not been found.

Composing myself and adopting as professional an attitude as the circumstances would allow, I asked him to tell all, sparing no details. I licked the tip of my pencil and began to write the glorious words.

To be continued...

Gimme Fiction - Tale From a Trunk

2009-10-02T12:24:00.000-07:00

While traveling through the Midwest to visit an old friend, I happened upon an estate sale taking place in an old Victorian in Galesburg, Iowa. I usually pass these things by, but I had the time and, more than once I've been rewarded by curiosity. So I stopped in to browse.

The only item that struck me was a dilapidated steamer trunk, bound tightly with cracked leather straps. Intent on selling heavy, ugly, sure-to-be-overpriced furniture, the estate curator (is that the right term?) waved me off when I asked if I could see the contents. A tentative hoist of the corner of the case told me that it weighed no more than twenty or thirty pounds - no family jewels here. Still, I hung around, and after three quarters of an hour he was willing to let me take it away for a modest price.

When I got it to the motel where I was staying, I eagerly pried it open. The brittle straps gave way with a reluctance that told me it had been untried in many decades. Inside was a moldering pile of clothes, too ruined to be of any use. Beneath them was a caved-in floor which must have been meant to be secret, when new.

Within the false bottom was a thick roll of papers, tied in old twine. Using my pocketknife I released them, and saw that on the top of them was this letter:

September 1891

Keokuck, Ia.

Orion Clemens

Dear Orion,

How are you and Mollie? Our tribe manages, despite the financial difficulties I wrote of earlier. The Paige Typesetter has had its last cruel swipe at us. Soon we leave for England, where I will attempt to regain our fortune, providing the deity is through toying with me. Leaving Hartford and our friends and loved ones is painful, terribly so, but what must be done, must, etc.

You will have noted that this letter is in an envelope attached to a large packet of papers. To you I entrust their care. You have always been a great ass, but you are my brother, and incorruptible in your own, incompetent way. The packet contains writings: jottings, stories, thoughts and sketches I have begun and mainly left unfinished for the last near thirty years. I have carried them with me around the world, always keeping them from the incurious eyes of my darling Livy. At Nook Farm they were sequestered in a number of secure hiding places, where neither she nor our daughters ever caught sight of them.

Now that we are relocating, the option for their concealment is to be greatly reduced. I fear that she will find them, and believe me that they were not meant for her eyes.

Almost without exception, they are vile, profane, execrable and scatological. I had the best time writing them. However, they are also unpublishable, at least in their present form. Perhaps one day, when tastes change, they may prove more palatable to the world. They are as old as my days as a reporter in Virginia City, and as recent as two years ago. I fear that I have been unable to part with or burn them, at the same time as I acknowledge that they are unworthy of being read by the general public. Mostly, they cry for extensive rewriting, and some are perhaps best left for the ash bin.

In the meantime, I ask that you keep them safe and hidden, at least as well as I have done these long years. Above all, I bind you to the promise that they not be shared with innocent eyes. I need hardly add that that includes you.

Once our fortunes are restored and permanent residence resumed (pray that it be in Hartford!), I will request their return.

Until then, fondest regards from Livy, the girls, and of course,

Your devoted Brother,

Sam

In my next blog I'll reveal the contents appended to this letter.

A Shell Game

2009-09-30T12:40:00.000-07:00

I was at a county fair this weekend, and in one of the animal barns I saw something that reminded me to Max Baucus and his relationship with the Insurance lobby (see photo). He and his cronies are so attached to the Great Insurance teat that they will never enact serious reform. That is not news. Two amendments introducing the option (something the majority of regular, non-lobbied Americans, and doctors, want) were shot down in Baucus’ finance committee yesterday. Dems favoring real reform played down their disappointment, while Max continued to play hide the walnut by saying that he had seen some attractive things in some of the proposals. Really?

What will create some stir is when you see the headline: Insurance Companies Back Public Option. Why would they do that? The groundwork is already laid. First, one of the proposed so-called public options would not kick in until a trigger is squeezed.That is, under an arcane set of circumstances, if the Insurance companies are not performing up to a determined level of expectation, the public option is enabled. This doesn’t even happen until 2013, under the proposed approach.

Then, people who are in another insurance option at the time, are not allowed to avail themselves of the government-sponsored plan. What kind of option is that? It will be defined so tightly that only a small number will allowed to participate, and they will be very sick indeed. A guaranteed death spiral will commence on the very day that the option becomes operable, ensuring its early demise. By 2016 it will be history.

However, its brief life will allow Max, other blue dogs, and the Insurance giants to say that they did in fact support a public option, but gosh darn it, the government just can’t run anything! Score another one for the private sector, which never fucked up anything, ever.

And where are the Republicans during all of this? I mean, beside laughing their asses off? Well, to a large extent the various bills are already their handiwork. They just keep complaining about this and that detail, and Harry “the weasel” Reid sees to it that the changes get put in. Then, they criticize it and vote against it. That’s their job in this scenario. Does anyone doubt that if they wrote the entire thing, I mean every word, every punctuation mark, and that if it matched in every respect their legislative wet dreams, but that it was supported by Barack Obama, that they would unanimously vote against it?

We Never Did It

2009-09-24T05:50:00.000-07:00

During war, terrible things happen. People are at their worst, acting worse than animals. Once, this country was invaded. The army included mercenaries who thought the slaughter of surrendering soldiers was acceptable. Towns were burned to the ground. Fellow citizens betrayed their neighbors and atrocities abounded. The fledgling nation teetered close to obliteration, much closer than it has ever been since. Yet, George Washington and the new Congress never considered the use of torture, either as a means of obtaining information, or in the pursuit of revenge.

Three decades later, we were invaded again, by the same nation. Our capitol was burned to ashes. And yet the idea of initiating torture as a policy was never discussed.

It is common wisdom that the worst sort of war is civil war. We suffered the most war deaths, 600,000, in that contest, that this country has ever experienced. Innumerable evil deeds were perpetrated by both sides, extending for years before and after the conflict. Individual soldiers and commanders used loathsome means to pursue their ends. It took a campaign though the heart of the South to end that war. Still, the use of torture never became policy. It was simply unthinkable. We never did it.

In the First World War, whatever our soldiers may have done in the heat of battle, however misguided or ignorant our policies may have been, at least the stated intention of our involvement was the hope that the world would be made a better place for our effort.

For America, the Second World War began because we were attacked in the Hawaiian Islands. Over three thousand men were killed in a surprise assault. People literally believed that another attack on our west coast was imminent. The Japanese seemed to be everywhere, and there were many false reports of invasions sightings, which many people held to be true. And there were over one hundred thousand American citizens of Japanese descent living among them. They did the cowardly, unnecessary thing. They sent them off to camps to live out the war. Even then, they never considered the use of torture. As scared as they were, as infused with racial hatred of the kind that contemplates all manner of atrocity, they never resorted to torture as a policy against their enemy. It was against our core beliefs. It was what the other side did. It was something that set us apart, and something we would never do.

Even in Viet Nam, where we shamed ourselves, torture was off the table, at least as far as what was allowable by our government. In fact, a soldier who waterboarded a Viet Cong suspect, was tried and convicted of a war crime.

Then, in September of 2001, nineteen men of Saudi, Egyptian and Yemeni descent, flew planes into buildings and over three thousand people died. Our government immediately panicked, or allowed themselves to be consumed by their impotent rage, or decided to put into place what had been in their black hearts all along. They made torture American policy. And with that, they blithely tossed aside centuries of honor and rectitude. They felt that it was necessary, that it worked, that it was good.

We may never be able to wash away the stain. But we can hold them accountable. We can drag them howling from their dark little holes and hold them up to the light of scrutiny, make them reveal all of their wickedness.

Because it’s in the past doesn’t mean that it is over. We do not do these things. We do not agree with them. But they were done in our name. We can’t distract them away with the scandal of today. We must address them clear-eyed and make the amends that history requires. To do less perpetuates the shame.

Eat It

2009-09-18T11:37:00.000-07:00

Now, I’m not someone who thinks that high fructose corn syrup is deadly and evil, though it is largely unnecessary and pretty bad for you. I mean, is it just coincidental that the rise of easily affordable, cheap food heavily laden with the stuff has tracked along with a stunning growth in obesity over the last few decades? Do you know how many food items have it in there? Seriously, check out the label sometimes. Ingredients are listed from top to bottom, beginning with the highest percentage present in the item, then the second highest, etc. So for example, if you look at ingredient list in a box of cereal, the first is usually corn, wheat or rice, followed by sugar or fructose corn syrup.

Perhaps that is to be expected, for a cereal. But check out how high on the list syrup is in other, supposedly savory products. Why is it in there at all? Do we really need to have corn syrup in a potato chip, a vegetable, or in spaghetti sauce? Well, no, but it’s there. We’ve been trained to expect both salt and sugar in most of our foods. And our collective waistlines are showing the results. I’m not even talking about all of the other additives, such as human growth hormone, steroids, heroin, and enough salt to start your own lick out back. OK, one of those ingredients may not be found in large quantities.

But do we really need to eat them at all, just because producers put them in? Is there an alternative (this is not the time to get into the economic and political reasons for their being there at all - that’s for another posting)? I happen to think there is.

Now, the most often given reason for buying pre-made food products is because there is not enough time to do it the old fashioned way - from scratch. I respectfully disagree. There is never a good reason for purchasing a bottled pasta sauce, That junk is so loaded with sweeteners, it’s almost like liquid candy. Even in some restaurants, you can detect the telltale taste of sugar where none ought to be. No self-respecting Italian grandmother would be caught dead eating a syrupy sauce (for that matter she wouldn’t be caught eating someone else’s sauce, or be in a restaurant - not when she knows that she can make it better herself).

So I’m going to make it easy for you. This is going to be a quick and awesome pasta sauce that has only what you want in it, with absolutely no sugar or syrup added, and can be made in 45 minutes or less.

If 45 minutes is still too long for you to allot to meal preparation, if you don’t particularly care what you put down your neck, if you can’t tear yourself away from the TV for even that long, go read Perez Hilton or something, and come back when I’m blogging something else.

OK, is it just us now? OK then, here’s what you do (and by the way, you can still turn on the TV you have in your kitchen, because that’s what I do when I’m cooking). First thing, go to the market and buy these things:

a single 1/2 lb. piece of pancetta - it’s Italian cured bacon, not smoked.

an onion

some fresh garlic

crushed tomatoes in a can - get good quality ones - I happen to like Pomi in a box.

a can of tomato paste

a decent, dry red wine

dried oregano

red pepper flakes

a chunk of parmesan cheese

any kind of pasta that you like

Set up a heavy bottomed skillet on the stove and get it hot. Start a pot of salted water boiling on the burner in back of the skillet. With a sharp knife, cut 2 1/4” slices from the pancetta and dice it. Save the remaining pancetta, because you can use it (like bacon) in a hundred ways to make things taste better! Put the pancetta into the skillet and render out the fat. While that is happening, dice about 1/2 cup of onion and mince one clove of garlic. Once the fat is rendered and the pancetta is looking like little pieces of bacon, put the onion and garlic right in here with it, and give it a good stir. Doesn’t that smell amazing?

When the onion has become translucent, add the tomatoes. Then, add the oregano and red pepper flakes - according to your own taste. If your taste hasn’t encompassed something like this yet, I would suggest a tablespoon of oregano and 2 or 3 shakes of flakes. Then pour in a half cup or more of wine. Give it a good stir and if it seems a bit thin, add some tomato paste.Tomato paste is one of the great ingredients. It can rescue dishes that have otherwise gone wrong, and give a nice depth of flavor. Check the label though. Sometimes the bastards sneak some hight fructose corn syrup into it.

By this time the water is beginning to boil. If your sauce has been cooking for 20 minutes or more, you can go ahead and drop the pasta (into the water, that is). While the pasta is cooking, feel free to check your sauce for taste, Add whatever will make it taste better. Maybe some more wine. Have a glass yourself while you’re waiting. Isn’t this better than opening a jar of mystery sauce?

When your pasta is nearly done (like, 3-4 minutes before normally done), use a pasta fork or tongs to remove the pasta and put it directly into the skillet with the sauce. Let it finish cooking in the sauce, so that the flavor of the sauce permeates the pasta. When done, pile it into 2 plates, grate lots of cheese on top, and have another glass of wine, congratulating yourself on having produced a satisfying, delicious, no-additives added meal.

You can do this!

Why Shine a Light

2009-09-11T06:11:00.000-07:00

Barely 36 hours have passed since Rep. Joe Wilson’s shout out to the President during his speech on healthcare reform. He has been vilified in the media and by the general public, and has made a speedy apology to the subject of his outburst. Now, the same media urges us to move on. He has been punished in the court of public opinion. He did the right thing afterward, and any continued examination of his action takes away from the real issue, which is how to resolve the healthcare mess. He has paid for his mistake, and we should not dwell on what he did, or why he did it.

FUCK HIM. I say, let’s kick the can down the road some more.

First, his apology was a non-apology. He said that he had been told by his overlords to say that his statement had been ill-considered. He never said that he agreed that they were wrong. Then, he went on to justify his remarks, citing non-existent portions of the proposed bill to support his contention. There is no remorse in him, no suggestion that he had been an unpardonable ass. Why is this? What kind of climate could there be that would make this hunnish antics acceptable in his eyes?

Just look at the behavior we’ve seen in the Republican party since the election. Hell, it started way before then. There you have Eric Kantor, twittering away while his President speaks. You have another congressman getting up and stalking out of the chamber to show his fake disgust. Since Wilson’s outburst, with the exception of McCain’s condemnation right after the speech (and before the right’s talking points were solidified), EVERY Republican has defended Wilson, continuing the myth that somehow the bill would allow for coverage of illegal aliens. Many have even suggested that the President is somehow to blame for the congressman’s actions. Not a one, after Wednesday night, said that this is unacceptable. But this is not an isolated incident.

Scant days before, their panties were in a twist because he dared to speak to the nation’s schoolchildren about the importance of staying in school. How outrageous! To expose their innocent ears to the unspeakable notions of their elected leader. Of course, most of the truly vitriolic spewings came from their pack of hyenas, Hannity, Limbaugh, Beck, Malkin, Ingalls, et al, with their apocalyptic, end of civilization, eeek-a-mouse rantings. And no Republican repudiated them, when they said these things against their President.

No Republican has (bravely) stood up to condemn the incessant references to the President as being a socialist, or a communist, or a fascist (don’t they know that a communist and a fascist are, you know, opposite things?).

No Republican has stood up to say, just stop it already with the lunatic birther junk! Who is writing their talking points? The Daily Star?

Their entire goal has been to delegitimize this President by any means necessary. They are trying to cobble together a scenario whereby the American people can say, “Yes, this man whom we elected with an overwhelming majority, and supported over and over again in public polls, and provided with a majority in both houses of congress, so that he could do the job of changing the direction of the country, and whom we have told must enact healthcare reform as a priority, must have come by his election via some form of fluke. He’s in there, but he couldn’t have gotten there legitimately. It’s just unthinkable. I mean, look at him.

And there it is. They look at him, and they see a black man in the highest office the country has to offer. They may wrap it in the garb of policy differences, or of ideological conflict, but it comes down to Joe Wilson, that son of a Confederate soldier, and his antebellum longings.

So, let’s not move on just yet. Let’s not be too hasty to play nice, because you know they won’t. Rather, let’s shine a light on what they’re really up to, until the vermin scuttle back under the sink.

Hungry, Mother?

2009-09-09T07:47:00.000-07:00

My wife & I are what you'd call foodies, if you wanted to put a name to it. I prefer to think that we have well-developed tastes, honed after years of close study. Our favorite people to experience good food and wine with are our son and daughter-in-law, who get it like we do. We recently dined at a place called Hungry Mother, a new establishment in Cambridge, to celebrate the table and their third anniversary. It's a place featuring a Southern sensibility with a heavy reliance on local products and solid French techniques.

We entered and were immediately, pleasantly assaulted by the warm, ham and bacon and sorghum-like aromas of the kitchen. So inviting were they that I easily overlooked the somewhat trite use of mason jars as water glasses, in an otherwise fine dining establishment. Believe me, that's the last criticism you'll hear from me.

We ordered drinks and a pre-appetizer bite while running down the menu. I had a smoked beef tongue canape served on a toast with pickled ramps, a juicy and not overly smoked morsel that got me ready for some serious eating. A plate of boiled and salted peanuts remained on the tale after the first plates were removed, as we continued to pick at them throughout the dinner.

For the appetizer course, along with my son and daughter-in-law, I had a perfectly poached egg atop hominy, fresh roasted corn kernels and wild mushrooms recently picked in Maine. The whole thing was wisely thought out and perfectly executed. Usually, in a restaurant, when you see "wild mushrooms" on a menu, they mean shitake and cremini. Not bad, but not what I think of when I hear "wild". This had what I felt were wood ear and chanterelles, along with the usual suspects. Simply outstanding. My wife had a beautifully presented deviled egg with a cup of tomato aspic. The aspic was light, bright and crisp, like you leaned over a plant full of ripe tomatoes and inhaled deeply. By this point we were all looking at each other happily, like we had discovered something special.

It often happens in a good restaurant that the main course fails to rise to the challenge of a really fine appetizer. I think I even voiced this concern before the next plate arrived. Not to worry. My French gnocchi with summer squashes, corn, and cherry tomatoes was amazing in its simplicity and execution, with a suggestion of some citrus and shaved parmesan. It was light, as a proper gnocchi must be. I don't recall sampling my daughter-in-law's scallops, which may say something about how good they were. It was the only thing I failed to taste that evening. The star of the course, however, may have been the meatloaf, which Amy and Jesse both ordered. A smoky, mostly veal slab (referred to by our waitress as "our secret gem") was staggering. I ate a bite and decided that one would have to be enough. So assertive was the flavor that I knew any more and my gnocchi's taste would be entirely lost. More statements like "one of the nest things I ever eaten" were heard.

Neither my son nor I eat desserts, as a rule, when eating out. However, having experienced three courses of such skill, we felt obligated to take this thing to its logical conclusion. This time we took care to order four different items, and tried them all. My pot de creme, of chamomile and honey, with a toasted benne seed tuile, was light and so subtle. Leah had a peach cobbler with creme fresh, a perfect conclusion to the night's fare, while my son enjoyed a chocolate bundt cake with chocolate ice cream. Nothing like its dry namesake, this was moist and rich. This time, though, Amy's green tomato layer cake with cinnamon cream cheese frosting, took the, you'll excuse me, cake.

I have said little of the service, because it was unobtrusive, though always responsive, as it should be. If you're going to Boston, or live there, you can do worse, though probably not better, than eating at Hungry Mother. It's though to get a table, so reserve your well in advance.

2009-09-04T10:29:00.000-07:00

These are frustrating times. Morons insist on their relevance, gobble up all available media attention, and set the agenda. Common sense has been replaced by public whining.

Why, when the majority of Americans want actual, substantial healthcare reform (have, in fact, elected a corps of officials specifically to enact such) are we pandering to the losers of Fall '08? Why do we allow them to dominate the message? Can it be that their sincerity is so profound that their position must blow all others away?

That's a joke, of course. There is nothing sincere about abject cynicism. They don't even really care about healthcare per se. It's really all about beating Obama. I swear, if he were to push for renaming every major public facility Reagan something-or-other, they would unanimously fight against it. They don't care about healthcare, just like they don't care about the people they are supposed to represent. If they did, they would damn sure try to get them adequate protection against the ravages of a catastrophic medical event, which many millions in this country lack.

And their supporters (other than the monied interests), the blue collar screamers we get to enjoy every night at fake town hall meetings? As is usual for their ilk, they continue to fight hard against their own best interest. Unless I'm mistaken, a lot of them do not appear to be wealthy people. Nothing wrong with that, but they are just the type of people who might be one little auto accident or one outsourced job away from financial hell.

It's really simple, when someone wants to get into it with you and throws a lot of numbers around to support their position (and there are a lot of numbers out there). There's only one number that matters, only one number that settles the debate and underlines the looming social catastrophy waiting for us all.

47 million and rising.

Get it done. Get it done soon, and do it right.