Evan Bayh Tells Why

Frank Rich was off yesterday so I opted for reading Evan Bayh’s (D-IN), “Why I’m Leaving the Senate” in the New York Times Op/Ed page. It was not nearly as amusing and incisive as a Rich report, and I pretty much knew what he was going to say: Times have changed, the Senate has changed, the Senators have changed, nothing is good and trustworthy anymore, the Senate needs to be reformed, the Senators need to be reformed, there’s no honest dialogue anymore. And yeah, that’s what he said. One line actually made me laugh out loud: “In my final 11 months,” Bayh said, “I will advocate for the reforms that will help Congress function as it once did, so that our generation can do what Americans have always done: convey to our children, and our children’s children, an America that is stronger, more prosperous, more decent and more just.” Well Evan, that’s going to be tough, because thanks to the Bush administration, America is not stronger, more prosperous, more decent or more just. But after 12 years of service to your country, it’s understandable that you just want to get gone. And I am sincerely sorry to see you go. (Expect a major digression here.) While reading the Bayh-Why, I was reminded of another Why-I-Left article. The two writers have little in common except their need to put distance between themselves and a political party they held dear. Back in the middle 1950’s, I was working for a Mutual Funds outfit in New York run by Gabriel Gladstone. Oddly, there are quite a few Gabriel Gladstones in the world, but this one would be in his 80’s, if he’s still alive. I was the office secretary and sometime-Assistant Trader in the Over-the-Counter stocks department. The Assistant Trader part was a joke. The Trader was a young hotshot named Jerry Kohn. He took me down to the floor of the New York Stock Exchange one time and I could not believe the shouting and yelling and shenanigans of the stock traders on the floor. Oh my! What fun! It was thrilling! But our little operation merely had a tiny room for the OTC trades which was equipped with six toggle switches connecting us with six big Wall Street firms. I can remember only one of them: Kidder, Peabody. Jerry was awesome, I watched him making trades and working the toggles like piano keys and I marveled. But Jerry couldn’t man the toggles all the time, so when he needed a break, I was elected to sit in the hot-seat. I didn’t know anything about buying and selling stocks, but I loved the drama. One time I bought when I should have sold. There were specific things you had to say to the big-guys down on Wall Street (or there were, I have no idea what it’s like now) depending on whether you were buying or selling. I got it turned around. Jerry came back from lunch just in time to save my sorry ass. We also had a few mutual funds salesmen who weren’t in the office much. One of them was a guy named Bernie—I was always relieved when he’d go out on sales calls because he was annoying. He was in his late twenties but acted like an eager, ingratiating nervous little shmo. He gave me agita. I think he and Gabe had known each other years before in Brooklyn. Gabe had the most wonderful speaking voice. He sounded like actor Malachi Throne or maybe José Ferrer. He could have made a living with his voice. Gabe was full of ideas. He had one idea I thought was grand. He decided we should start a monthly magazine about current affairs, mutual funds and OTC stocks. In memory, it seems the idea became fact in the blink of an eye. I remember Gabe talking about starting a magazine he wanted to call Prospectus and all of a sudden we had a dummy copy in our hands. Gabe wasn’t worried about what would go in the first issue because he was turning over the whole issue to an article by one man. The title of this mega-piece was, “Why I Left the Communist Party”, to be written by Howard Fast. This was a blockbuster. It was the first article by Fast appearing anywhere explaining his decision to leave the Communist Party. My memory is that Fast came up to the office a number of times and at least once was on a Saturday. I remember doing a lot of typing and listening to him talk. I think we did the article by him speaking into a Dictaphone and my transcribing it. I thought Fast was very impressive and a really nice guy. Impressive, he was. He had been an important member of the Communist Party. He had written novels and screenplays and he’d been blacklisted by the House Un-American Activities gang. AND, he hadn’t named names—I loved him for that. So I typed this mega-piece—25,000 words—into existence. And the first issue came out with a cover screaming WHY I LEFT THE COMMUNIST PARTY by HOWARD FAST. And then the ceiling fell in. The SEC (Securities Exchange Commission) got wind of the magazine and they came in to investigate. It turned out Gabe had used over 50% of his capital for this magazine that had nothing to do with operating a mutual funds venture, which was a big no-no. We were shut down overnight. Sometime in the 1960’s Bernie came back into my life. Well, his name came back into my life. The first time I read gossip about Bernie Cornfeld, I plotzed. I had to sit down and take deep breaths. I knew Bernie had taken off for Paris sometime in 1955 and I was tickled to see him go. But, OMG! He had moved to Geneva, started a mutual funds company called Investors Overseas Services and he had gotten very rich. I began to see pictures of Bernie Cornfeld in magazines. Sure enough, it was my Bernie, a little older but my Bernie none-the-less. I had the feeling he was still annoying, ingratiating and a shmo, but when you’re rich, those things don’t matter as much. When IOS was flying high, it had over 25,000 salesmen. About Bernie Cornfeld, Wiki says: “Cornfeld owned a villa in Geneva, a 12th-century chateau in France, a house in Belgravia, London, and a mansion in Hollywood, as well as a permanent suite in a New York City hotel and his own fleet of private planes. He is quoted as saying, "I had mansions all over the world, I threw extravagant parties. And I lived with ten or twelve girls at a time." He had romances with Victoria Principal; Heidi Fleiss; Alana Hamilton (née Collins - a model and former spouse of George Hamilton who subsequently married Rod Stewart); and Princess Ira of Fürstenberg. “Cornfeld settled in Beverly Hills and moved in a circle of movie industry people. He lived in the Grayhall mansion, built in 1909 and at one time leased by Douglas Fairbanks. Known for his playboy lifestyle, Cornfeld numbered among his acquaintances Victor Lownes, Tony Curtis, and Hugh Hefner, at whose Playboy Mansion he visited and attended parties.” Who in the world would have thought!? By 1967 I was looking to find a new way to make a living. Working as a secretary at magazines like Interiors, Show and Holiday had lost its luster. I still had friends who were connected with Wall Street. One of them who worked at Kidder was amused to give me a WATs tie-line number (now, it would be an 800-number) that was a direct connection to Bernie Cornfeld in Geneva. I thought, what the hell, maybe he can help me get a stockbroker’s license. So one fine day in the beginning of June 1967 I dialed the number and within seconds I heard Bernie say, “Hello”. I said Hello back and identified myself. There was some crackling on the line, then Bernie said, “Hey! How you doin’? What’s up?“ I told him I was thinking of getting back in the Wall Street biz, so I was giving him a call. He said, “You know what? It’s really great to talk to you, but the phones are going nuts here, everything is going nuts here. A war just started in Israel.” Then we lost our connection. It was the first day of the Six Day War. That’s the last time I spoke to Bernie Cornfeld. He was an early version of our Bernie Madoff. In 1969 there were complaints that he’d pocketed funds from IOS and in 1973 he was charged with fraud. Wiki says, “Cornfeld returned to Beverly Hills, living less ostentatiously than in his previous years. He developed an obsession for health foods and vitamins, renounced red meat and seldom drank alcohol. In his last years he was a chairman of a land development firm in Arizona and also owned a real estate company in Los Angeles. He died in 1995.” Howard Fast lived to the age of 89 and died in 2003. I have no memory at all of why Howard Fast had left the Communist Party. And I’m not going to remember why Evan Bayh is quitting the Senate, I’ll only remember that their parties of choice had become onerous and weren’t fulfilling their dreams anymore. If Evan Bayh would be offended by being in the same sentence with Howard Fast, that’s unfortunate. I can only say I would rather be in the same room with Howard Fast than with anyone in the Tea Party or with Sarah Palin.

All These Self-Serving Apologies, Do I Care?

Public figures screw around, then they call a news conference on TV and say, “I am soooo sorry!” Or sports figures use forbidden drugs, are caught and go on TV and say “It wasn’t illegal when I used it, but I’m sooooo sorry I did it!” For 13 minutes, the unparalleled golfer Tiger Woods publicly apologized on TV last night for the indiscretions that have ruined his life. Why do these folks apologize to us? Actually, I cannot get enough of the gossip! When famous, rich, and/or famously rich assholes are caught doing juicy things that either are illegal or immoral or just plain tacky it’s delicious. I will pretty much watch the debacle unfold before my eyes on TV and glory in it. But what’s with the public apologies? They haven’t done anything personal to me. Do they think I really care? I do not care. And what do these morons expect will happen after a public apology? They want their pre-fall-from-grace lifestyle back, which includes product endorsements, idolatrous love from supporters, perks such as the ability to run for higher political office than the one they currently enjoy, and sports figures want to play their game at their level of competence before the sky fell in. Will the public apology do the trick? Will these idiots get their former lives back? No. In an inverse ratio, as much fun as the public airing of the dirty laundry was, the apology is just as boring. So why do they do it? Because people living off the money generated by these apologees want their lives back too and they are giving their sullied clients profoundly bad advice. It’s not that I want to see Tiger Woods’ life go down the toilet because he couldn’t keep his pants zipped. It’s that I don’t care. Woods and all the other apologees were willingly complicit in marketing themselves as entertainment. And now they have broken the rule for entertainers: You can’t entertain if you are boring. Apologizing is boring. Tiger Woods has bored me to tears since the day after the car crash. The moment Senator John Edwards got caught sneaking a visit to his secret baby-mommy was wonderful entertainment. But then it all went downhill. Hearing details of an indiscretion is boring. I don’t care how or why an assignation is made. I only care about the moment the idiot is caught out. Apologies are boring. Don’t tell me you’re sorry. I don’t care. Just go out and hit home runs. Go out and make impossible putts. Go out and wow your constituents with your oratory. But do not bore me. And if your handlers and agents don’t believe they can sell your ass for endorsements, well gee! That’s tough! But I don’t care. If you can no longer entertain me in the way you used to entertain me, then make room for the next guy. The point is, I don’t care about your personal life. I only care about being entertained. And after the reality show of your public disgrace is over, I don’t care about how or whether you can cope. I don’t care about how or whether you are being rehabilitated. I don’t care about how or whether you have ruined your life. Entertain me or don't. BUT DO NOT BORE ME!!!!!

So Sick of the God-Whiners

Why is God doing this to me? What did I do to deserve this? If there is a God, how can he make innocent people suffer? Whimper...moan. Listen up! All the suffering in the world is caused either by random acts of nature and/or mankind’s stupid and cruel tendencies. And now that we’ve gotten so smart about being able to influence nature, many of nature’s random acts of destruction are aided and abetted by mankind’s malfeasance. Who released radiation into the atmosphere without knowing what the effects would be? It surely was not God. Who keeps testing nuclear weapons even though we know it causes cancer and creates havoc with our auto-immune system? Not God. Who has been using virus- and germ-killers willy-nilly without realizing that by killing one virulent strain of disease another will take its place? Most assuredly it was not God. Who lets every idiot who has mayhem in his heart have a weapon that is capable of destroying hundreds of people? Not God. Who lets the pharmaceutical firms peddle killer-drugs like candy? Not God. When a child is maimed or killed by a drunk driver it is the act of a human being at the height of his or her wantonness and ignorance, not God. If it makes you feel better to blame God for your suffering, or if it’s nice to think He has singled you out for special favors, go ahead...the positive force in our lives that is God doesn’t really care. But the one thing you can be assured God won’t do is reach into your life and personally manipulate it like a puppet on a string. Because the way you handle your life and its demands is your job, not God’s. The other irritatingly silly thing to listen to is nonsense about the devil. The devil didn’t make anyone do anything, ever. The devil is a convenient construct to explain mankind’s tendency to be callow, mean and malicious. But our own nastiness has sufficed since the beginning of time to create mischief and malevolence. We never have needed the machinations of an überbastard to inflict pain. And here’s one more nauseating and absurd question from the God-whiners: Why doesn’t God stop all the horror and pain on earth? The answer is: We have the God-given human-kindness, compassion and smarts to end much of the suffering on our planet. It’s our job, not God’s. If we don’t want our world anymore, it’s not God’s job to save it.

Frank Rich Is Right and He’s Wrong

Frank Rich was right on January 31 when he said we must never forget (and consequently, we must ever remind) that the Bush administration caused all the problems the United States and the world is battling now and for decades to come. Therefore, I will constantly remind, like right now: DO NOT FORGET, the Repubs caused every problem President Barack Obama is having to deal with. And additionally, the Repubs have no right whatsoever to blame anything on Obama. And they have no right to complain about one single thing...the Republican Party caused ALL of our problems. That done, I must point out that today Frank Rich is ignoring a conspicuous element of the Sarah Palin phenomena in his New York Times op/ed piece--"Palin's Cunning Sleight of Hand". Rich said, “Liberals had a blast mocking Sarah Palin last weekend when she was caught addressing the Tea Party Convention with a cheat sheet scrawled on her hand. Even the president’s press secretary, Robert Gibbs, couldn’t resist getting into the act and treated a White House briefing to a Palin hand gag of his own. “Yet the laughter rang hollow. You had to wonder if Palin, who is nothing if not cunning, had sprung a trap. She knows all too well that the more the so-called elites lampoon her, the more she cements her cred with the third of the country that is her base. Her hand hieroglyphics may not have been speaking aids but bait.” That is no doubt true. I’m not persuaded that Palin could have come up with the idea, but she surely is canny enough to have latched onto the ploy once it was presented to her. Rich went on to say, “The Palin shtick has now become the Republican catechism, parroted by every party leader in Washington... Incredibly enough, this message is gaining traction...The GOP populism is all bunk, of course. Republicans in office now, as well as Palin during her furtive public service in Alaska, have feasted on federal pork, catered to special interests, and pursued policies indifferent to recession-battered Americans. And yet they’re getting away with their populist masquerade.” Rich seems to think that Palin, with the backing of the Republican Tea Party, is a force to be reckoned with, even though she and the Tea Party have no substance. Rich quoted David Broder to back up his fear: ”The Dean of the Beltway press corps, the columnist David Broder, cited Palin’s “pitch-perfect populism” in hailing her as “a public figure at the top of her game” in Thursday’s Washington Post.” Calm down guys. Take a deep breath. Rich noted that in her question-and-answer session last weekend, Palin’s “only concrete program for dealing with America’s pressing problems” was to say, “It would be wise of us to start seeking some divine intervention again in this country so that we can be safe and secure and prosperous again.” Oddly, that may be exactly what has happened--a divine intervention. Rich and many other politicians, writers and commentators have apparently forgotten that Sarah Palin--the populist paragon the Republicans are placing stage-center as the embodiment of all things GOP, past and present--is incapable of hewing to any ideology except her own self-interest. If God has picked Sarah Palin to lead the Republican party, as she herself has declared, then God has chosen someone who will inevitably betray her minders, her writers, her party and her supporters because it is her nature to do so. Sarah Palin is this era’s “Face in the Crowd”. She is our Arthur Godfrey. She is Joe McCarthy and OJ Simpson. Sarah Palin is fatally flawed and she is powerless against these flaws. She must break faith and desert, she must foul her nest, she must implode and destroy everything in her path. It's her nature.

Parsing Mary Matalin

Describing the form, part of speech and function of the word matalin. Matalin is the feminine form of the noun gasbag. However, matalin can be verbized, as in: matalined. As a verb, matalined is used in much the same way as scorned, derided, or disrespected. The function of the noun matalin is as the subject of a sentence: “A prominent Bush administration matalin was on CNN last night pooh-poohing global warming.” The function of the verbized form of matalin is to express the action in a sentence: “Mary Matilan matalined the entire idea of global warming last night on CNN, as is her wont.” However, to parse is not necessarily to understand. And I will never understand Mary Matalin. As a Republican strategist, as a colleague of Karl Rove’s and member of the ultra-conservative war-mongering WHIG (White House Iraq Group) which lied the Iraq War into being, as the editor of the Swift Boat Veterans book that maligned John Kerry, and as the far-right virulently-biased political contributor on CNN who toes the Cheney partyline, I will never understand Mary Matalin. How did she get to be the mendacious Bush administration-apologist gasbag that she is? I can only imagine she was infected with a toxic Lee Atwater virus in 1987 and never recovered.

Palin Faction Charmed By Hubris and Ignorance

Granted, seeing a rube outsmart city slickers can be satisfying. But how long will it be before Sarah Palin publicly turns on her newfound Tea Party supporters to show she’s slyer and more canny than they are. Perhaps Palin thought she’d be seen as cute and naive when, inevitably, the cameras would show she had used her left hand as a crib sheet during her speech at the Tea Party Convention last Saturday night. And sure enough, we’re being treated to pics and videos of Palin glancing down at her left hand where she had scrawled the words “energy”, “tax cuts” and “lift American spirits”. We’ll never know if Palin thought this ploy through and decided to use it as a gimmick to enhance the ”lovable hick” character she likes to portray; or was she so arrogant as to think no one would notice because she was playing her “dazzling personality” role? In the end, it really doesn’t matter, because today she’s put on her “gutsy Sarah against the mean media” face and she says she will fight them by mocking them. There are things we know about Sarah Palin by observing her. She will never become thoroughly knowledgeable about the economy and foreign policy because she can’t. She cannot study and bone up in any real way, just as George W. Bush was incapable of deep thought, study or analysis. And just as GWB knew he wouldn’t have to do any of the heavy lifting involved in being president because others would do it for him, so Sarah Palin assumes she will get by on her looks, quick-study-and-forget-it performances and that the wonks will forcefeed whatever information she needs. Sarah Palin is sure in her bones that all the really powerful people in Washington, DC are also faking it. What would be the point of studying and learning and keeping all that info in your head if you didn’t have to? That would be absurd. To paraphrase a line in “A Thousand Clowns”: Sarah Palin’s superficiality runs deep. Fortunately, time is on the side of the folks who view the possibility of a Sarah Palin presidential candidacy as a monumental disaster. In time, Sarah Palin betrays everyone--husband, family, friends, political allies, running mates, voters, minders. It's a character flaw and she's powerless in its thrall. It's her nature. Who among her supporters today will be in her camp in six months? A year? My guess--few, if any.

Palin Says She May Run for Prez in 2012

Saturday night, just before giving the keynote speech at the National Tea Party Convention in Nashville, TN, Sarah Palin told Chris Wallace on Fox News regarding her run for president in 2012, “If I believe that that is the right thing to do for our country and for the Palin family...it would be absurd to not consider what it is that I can potentially do to help our country...I won’t close the door that perhaps could be open for me in the future.” Here’s what is bad about that idea. It’s not so much that Palin is ignorant. It’s not so much that Palin has never for one minute thought about what’s good for the country and always puts her desires of the moment first and foremost, it’s not so much that Palin is self-absorbed and childish, it’s not so much that Palin can’t run her own life intelligently, let alone run the most powerful country in the world. Although all of above is important, what is bad about the Tea Party giving Sarah Palin any credence whatsoever is that she is a willing tool. The United States has already been through eight years of having another ignorant, narcissistic, immature, ego-driven willing tool as President in the person of George W. Bush. And the biggest problem with his presidency was not his personality quirks; it was that he was an ignorant know-nothing loser wanna-be and he had to be advised and controlled by a cadre of advisers who drove the USA into bankruptcy, wrongly pushed the country into an unnecessary war, and gave extraordinary powers to themselves. It is astonishing that yet another group of Republicans is courting yet another, attractive, intelligence-challenged, arrogant, vain, puppet who will read prepared speeches and do as the advisers say or else. Else? Else be put on medications that will ensure compliance. One can only wonder WHY? Are there no knowledgeable, intelligent, thoughtful, trustworthy, reliable, steady, honest persons in the Republican Party? What’s with the attraction to uninformed, grandiose, borderline sociopaths like George W. Bush and Sarah Palin?

More Blackwater Crimes and Misdemeanors

First, let it be said that yesterday Frank Rich wrote in his Sunday Op/Ed piece that it is ridiculous for President Obama to adhere to, and I quote, “the Beltway’s unquestioned cliché that one year after a new president takes office he is required to stop blaming his predecessor for the calamities left behind...who dreamed up that canard?” Amen! Who did dream that up? And for sure...I will NEVER stop blaming the George W. Bush administration for the mess the whole world is in and will be in for years and years to come. One of those messes is the unnecessary BushWar in Iraq and all of its fallout, one example of which is the disaster caused by the US Department of Defense’s use of Blackwater mercenaries. The New York Times reported this morning: “The Justice Department is investigating whether officials of Blackwater Worldwide tried to bribe Iraqi government officials in hopes of retaining the firm’s security work in Iraq after a deadly shooting episode in 2007, according to current and former government officials.” The NYT’s “so-what” paragraph (which is the retelling of what we already know for the benefit of morons who don’t read the news) reported that, “A federal judge in December dismissed criminal charges against five former Blackwater guards implicated in the episode, but Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. recently announced that the Obama administration would appeal that decision.” Regarding the latest inquiry into Blackwater shenanigans, the Justice Department has obtained two documents from the State Department regarding alleged Blackwater bribes. Document One is a handwritten note in which a Blackwater representative tells a senior official at the American Embassy that Blackwater had hired an Iraqi lawyer to make “compensation payments” to the 2007 shooting victims. The other document is an email response from a senior Embassy official warning Blackwater not to bribe the Iraqi government. The Iraqi lawyer in question is Jaafar al-Mousawi, who was the chief prosecutor in the trial of Saddam Hussein. According to the NYT, Mousawi said that in February 2008 he had worked with top Blackwater officials to spend up to $1 million to compensate the Nisour Square victim’s families and that he had consulted with Iraq Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki about the payments. The NYT also said: “According to the document, as described by the two government officials, the Blackwater official said the firm had hired the lawyer hoping that the lawyer’s close ties to top Iraqi officials, including Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki, would help Blackwater obtain a license to continue operating in Iraq." Oh yes, indeedy! Yummy stuff! And may Blackwater (now known as Xe Services) and its religious zealot founder Erik Prince and his far-right religious nut pal, James Dobson, who was a spiritual mentor to George W. Bush, all rot in hell!

Will “Why a Saint?” Beat Out “Game Change”?

I tried to buy the new political tell-all “Game Change” at Borders yesterday and they were sold out. Maybe I’ll lower my sights (or raise them, depending on your view) and buy “Why a Saint?” I give you saint-watcher, intimate of popes and writer Monsignor Slawomir Oder. Today, Reuters tells us a thing or two about Pope John Paul II (the current Pope’s predecessor), according to Oder. “'Pope John Paul II flagellated himself regularly to imitate Christ’s suffering', according to a book published Tuesday by the Vatican official in charge of the process that could lead to the pope’s sainthood. The book says that John Paul, who died in 2005, engaged in a practice known as mortification, the self-infliction of pain in order to feel closer to God, whipping himself with a belt that he kept in his closet.” Monsignor Slawomir Oder, the chief honcho of the cause for John Paul’s canonization, says that whipping yourself is “an instrument of God’s perfection”. So, all you guys who thought my posts about “Opus Dei” were nonsense, listen up. “Opus Dei” (God’s work), is the cult founded in 1928 by Jose Maria Escriva, a monsignor in Spain who, among other esoteric beliefs promoted the practices of beating oneself and wearing a hairshirt (cilice) to show how much one loved God. “Opus Dei” has roughly 85,000 lay members worldwide and about 3,000 in the United States. Pope John Paul II thought the “Opus Dei”cult was so marvelous and so filled with pious people who exemplified the Christian ideal that he canonized Jose Maria Escriva in 2002--an act which, by me, was as insane as Escriva. We are told by Oder that, “Pope John Paul II whipped himself with a belt, even on vacation, and slept on the floor as acts of penitence and to bring him closer to Christian perfection”. Well, here’s my point: If these religious guys want to feel Christ’s pain on the cross (which, of course, they can’t because they are not Christ), but if that’s what this crapola is all about, then I would not question their religious zeal in going out and being crucified. But whipping and hairshirts? Please! It’s too close to autoeroticism for me to equate it with Christian perfection. And as to that, has any research been done on whether all this whipping leads to the perfection of an awesome orgasm? But back to the current Pope Benedict XVI who was called Pope John Paul’s “Enforcer”. Pope Benedict wants to canonize the guy who canonized the nutjob Escriva. I know it’s mean to find humor in the crazy acts of crazy people, but this latest pronouncement from the Vatican has me ROTFLMFAO!

Biden and the Blackwater Appeal

On Saturday, January 23rd, Vice President Joe Biden assured Iraqi leaders that the dismissal of manslaughter charges against Blackwater mercenaries for their violent and unjustified attack against Iraqi civilians in 2007 would be appealed. On January 2nd, Federal District Court Judge Ricardo M. Urbina had dismissed all charges against the Blackwater thugs in an unusually detailed and critical ruling, which teachers of criminal law say makes an appeal highly unlikely. Judge Urbina’s ruling came about, he said, because there had been a “reckless violation of the defendants’ constitutional rights”. Ugh! Can of worms! The judge may well have felt he had no choice but to rule as he did in the matter. And Biden may well have been advised to pledge that the judge’s ruling would be appealed in order to pave the way to withdraw combat troops in August after the March 7th parliamentary elections in Iraq. But I am fairly sure there will be no appeal. Well, no appeal as such. A lot of rhetoric will be spewed...I mean, we’re talking Joe Biden here...of course rhetoric will be spewed. And Iraq’s Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki is a formidable bullshitter who, out of one side of his mouth decries any interference by the Americans in Iraq, while out of the other side of his mouth, cries and begs for help, aid and justice from the Americans when situations become difficult to control. But I will bet (and I would like to be wrong) that no legal appeal will be brought and that the ruling will not be reversed. But what with the current Republican Tea Party assholes feeling they now have a clear and unimpeded path to controlling American politics because the Dems lost an important election in Massachusetts recently, I would like to remind the TP folks about a few things in the Republican recent past. The entire financial crisis the US is currently experiencing was brought about by the Republicans. The stupid and unnecessary war in Iraq, which has bankrupted the US and sullied its reputation throughout the world, was brought about by the Republicans. And it was the Republicans who decided that George W. Bush--a ne’er-do-well, alcoholic loser with a messianic belief that he was sent by God-- should be president of the United States. And it was this same narcissistic silly twat, known as “Dubya”, who welcomed and received spiritual counseling from James Dobson, the founder of “Focus on the Family”. And it was this spiritual advisor of GWB who was a close pal of Erik Prince, the wealthy far-right Christian fanatic and former Navy SEAL who built a training camp for mercenaries in Camden County, North Carolina, called Blackwater. Dobson and Prince had a vision for the course Christians would need to take. Dobson said, “I stand in a long tradition of Christians who believe that rulers may forfeit their divine mandate when they systematically contravene the divine moral law. We may be rapidly approaching the sort of Rubicon that our spiritual forebears faced Choose Caesar or God. I take no pleasure in this prospect, I pray against it. But it is worth noting that such times have historically been rejuvenating for the faith.” Dobson wrote and Prince agreed that the United States was heading for “a showdown between church and state” and a “morally justified revolution”. So when the Bush administration couldn’t interest enough people to go to Iraq to fight its BushWar, they suited up the Blackwater mercenaries to make up for our lack of troops and they sent Blackwater hoodlums to fight beside our soldiers and be representatives of the United States. In that circumstance, the Blackwater enforcers marauded, murdered and created mayhem. The above is by way of saying: LEST WE FORGET. And now that the Tea Party faction of the Republican Party is bloviating and bragging and in general sounding like Dick Cheney, Karl Rove, Condoleezza Rice, George W. Bush, Erik Prince and James Dobson at their deluded worst and lying best, one wonders, where are Condi and Dubya and what are they up to? And how is Blackwater doing under its new name, Xe? Have you war-mongering morons got any new wars to sell? Or as William Kristol said in his 1997 Project for the New American Century manifesto--which gave credence to starting wars in little countries where the US wanted to usurp resources--are there any “regimes hostile to our interests and values” you guys would like to invade and overrun for the good of the Republican Tea Party?

Dems “Caught Napping”? Not The Problem

The New York Times reports this morning that Obama’s senior advisor David Axelrod said the Dems “got caught napping” regarding Republican Scott Brown’s win in the Massachusetts election to replace Senator Edward Kennedy. That’s not the problem. The problem was the Democrat candidate Massachusetts Attorney General Martha Coakley. Why the Dems would run an idiot like Coakley in an important election like this one is a total mystery. She barely campaigned and because she is an idiot no one wanted to back her and she had no money in her war chest. Therefore, she ran no polls to see how she was faring against her opponent. Not that she would have done anything remotely intelligent had she known she was losing so badly. Because whenever she was given the chance she made stupid remarks about Scott Brown and ridiculed his campaign. The problem is that the Dems never have considered the effect of the racist backlash, because they think if they don’t admit there is one, there won’t be one. Note to the Democratic Party: The United States is still a very racist country and millions of people cannot wait to vote against our black president in whatever way they can. The problem is that health care reform is NOT the main issue in most people’s minds today. The main issues are jobs and housing and keeping food on the table. How Obama and the Democratic Party could be so wrong about the main focus of the Democratic Party is beyond me. The young don’t worry about health care because they don’t get sick. The impoverished old and impoverished minorities figure they will get what they need by either going to the hospital and not paying their bill or going to an emergency room. That leaves the chronically ill and the rich who don’t want their coverage pared down. And those two demographics do not form a majority in the United States. Why is it that the top people in both the Republican and Democratic Parties have not got a clue about what the majority of people in the United States want? And why is it that when the top people in both the Republican and Democratic Parties hear rumbles from their constituents about what the voters want, they decide the people don’t know what’s good for them? Now that the people in Massachusetts have clearly said they would rather have a smart Republican Senator than a moronic Democrat, now that they have said they do not want another Kennedy Dynasty, now that they have said they want to give a black president a hint: they are not color blind, and now that they have said health care reform is not a top issue, IS ANYONE LISTENING?!

Ah! How Prudent Was I!

A few months ago, when it seemed a foregone conclusion that Sarah Palin would be a constant presence on TV, a friend of mine offered me a purple and green Power Popper multi-shot no-nonsense foam ball action gun so that I could safely shoot my TV set whenever the Palin visage appeared. I eagerly accepted the gift. And yesterday, Reuters confirmed that my preemptive act was very sensible indeed. A Reuters aviso announced that “Republican Sarah Palin is coming to your television -- as long as it's tuned to the Fox News Channel.” Palin has signed a multi-year deal to serve as a Fox News contributor. Reuters reported: “The move will help give Palin a large audience for her views as she mulls whether to run for president in 2012.” University of Virginia political analyst Larry Sabato said, "She can always resign the position to run for office." Palin confirmed that she has not ruled out a 2012 assault on the presidency. Former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee is also on Fox News and also has not ruled out running for Prez in 2012. Although it would be an interesting coupling, I am assuming Palin would not again accept a VP slot in any candidacy ever again. I don't watch Fox News very often. But still, now that Palin has signed a TV contract, chances are that bits and snippets of her will be seen often on many channels and I will need my Power Popper to defend my liberal self.

Tiny Blackwater Payback But It’s Something

Last Thursday, the Associated Press reported that two former Blackwater contractors had been arrested on murder charges. This was not about the Nisour Square incident in which unarmed civilians were fired on and killed by Blackwater mercenaries in 2007 and which charges were dropped by Federal District Court Judge Ricardo M. Urbina on January 1, 2010. This was about a shooting of two Afghans in a traffic accident in Kabul last year. The FBI arrested Justin Cannon and Chris Drotleff, charging them with attempted murder of two people and injuring at least one other person in this recent episode of unwarranted violence by Blackwater employees. The AP also reported that federal prosecutors intend to charge another Blackwater contractor in the murder of an Iraqi guard in 2006. The North Carolina right-wing religious zealot training camp for mercenaries has changed its name from Blackwater to “Xe Services”.

Spare Me!

This morning, The New York Times has this headline: “Seeing Old Age as a Never-Ending Adventure”, accompanied by this teaser: “The limitations of age are being tossed aside by active men and women as the global travel and leisure industry races to keep up.” Then we read about a 90-year-old who sprained her ankle hiking in Africa and an 89-year-old who wing-walks. We are told, “Intensely active older men and women who have the means and see the twilight years as just another stage of exploration are pushing further and harder, tossing aside presumed limitations. And the global travel and leisure industry, long focused on youth, is racing to keep up.” Ah! There you go...”older men and women who have the means...” and “the global travel and leisure industry”--a marriage made in Shangri-la-la-la. The rest of us who don’t have the means...okay...MOST of the rest of us, see being in our 70’s and 80’s as a great trial and challenge. And not the least of the annoyances of being old is listening to the chatter that comes from old people. We fall into two main categories: The complainers about aches, pains, unloving children and grandchildren, and the determined Pollyannas who thank Jesus every five minutes for allowing them to live and chastise the complainers the other 55 minutes of every hour. A complainer-subset is the knot of elders that competes with each other to tell the most horrible story about hospital or caregiver abuses. And a thank-you-Jesus subset is the clot that competes with the aches-and-pains competers but end their horror stories with a smile and a testament that “God is good!” Although the upbeat and sunny article in the NYT doesn’t say so, you can trust me that the elders of means who are taking these daring and brave jaunts into the unknown also fall into the two major categories of old folks. They either complain like bloody hell or they smile bravely and cast sunny rays of shame on those who don’t smile bravely at infirmity and aging. And you can also trust me that these elders of means who are providing a nice profit to the global travel and leisure industry are also causing their travel keepers to load up themselves on antacids, mood elevators and blood pressure medicine because of the worry caused by the old folks. No matter how dimly I view this cheerleader view of the super-aged and their adventuring spirit, there is a golden lining. For the few weeks great-granny is tramping across the frozen Arctic, she’s out of her children’s and grandchildren’s hair and they are ecstatic. And for those same few weeks that some travel outfit has to pack medications in coolers, tend to throwing away adult diapers and search for lost dentures in snow drifts, the travel minders are making a very good living.

Good Question.

“What’s the Point of Leaving Things The Way They Are?” Murray Burns asks. I watched “A Thousand Clowns” for the umpteenth time last night. It’s the 1965 movie version of Herb Gardiner’s 1962 play about Murray Burns (Jason Robards), an affable and funny oddball who is raising his twelve-year-old genius nephew in New York City. But Murray has quit his job writing for the “Chuckles the Chipmunk” show and the Child Welfare Bureau has come to investigate his lifestyle. The movie is also about who is the bigger fool in this life—the shlemiel (jerk who always spills the soup) or the shlimazl (putz who always gets soup spilled on himself). And it’s about the balancing act between conforming but not losing our identity. Murray’s commentaries on life and interactions with people on the street are reminiscent of Jean Shepherd’s old 1950’s WOR radio show. Gardiner acknowledged he based Murray on Shepherd. It’s said Shepherd was not pleased. In any case, “A Thousand Clowns” has some very funny stuff even 50 years later. And the answer to Murray's question, “What’s the Point of Leaving Things The Way They Are?”? There is no point. We can’t leave things the way they are because they are always changing. But at least we can have the fun of shaking people up a little.

The Blackwater Travesty Lives On

A New York Times headline this morning: “Judge Drops Charges From Blackwater Deaths in Iraq”. And I’m not saying that Judge Ricardo M. Urbina of the Federal District Court in DC didn’t have good and proper reasons to drop the charges. Nor am I saying he was morally right. He may have had no choice. He wrote in a 90-page opinion that “the government’s mishandling of the case requires dismissal of the indictment against all the defendants.” What I’m saying is: these fuckups (aka mishandling) started when the Bush administration used a bunch of thugs from a camp of mercenaries trained at an outpost of religious fanatics in North Carolina because the Bush administration couldn’t get enough bonafide recruits to fight their bogus war in Iraq. And these fuckups have been so monumental that if there were a medal given for amoral behavior and bad decisions, medals would have to be presented to Blackwater’s Erik Prince/Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld/President George W. Bush. That’s all I’m saying. To recap this particular case and to quote from this morning’s article in the NYT, this ruling is about an incident in Iraq. “A shooting at Nisour Square (in Baghdad) frayed relations between the Iraqi government and the Bush administration and put a spotlight on the United States’ growing reliance on private security contractors in war zones. “Investigators concluded that the guards had indiscriminately fired on unarmed civilians in an unprovoked and unjustified assault near the crowded traffic circle on Sept. 16, 2007. The guards contended that they had been ambushed by insurgents and fired in self-defense. “A trial on manslaughter and firearm offenses was planned for February, and the preliminary proceedings had been closely watched in the United States and Iraq.” And now, because of what Judge Urbina has ruled as the government’s mishandling, he has dropped all charges. Daniel C. Richman, a former federal prosecutor who teaches criminal law at Columbia University, said it’s rare for a judge to issue such a long opinion at this early stage and since this opinion was based on factual findings not on interpretation, it would be hard to challenge on appeal. The religious zealot assholes at the North Carolina camp are overjoyed, of course. And please note, they have changed the name of their camp from Blackwater to “Xe Services”. The families of the people in Iraq who were murdered are furious. (Oh yeah...murdered! You bet! They were murdered!) Ali Khalaf, a traffic police officer who was on duty in Nisour Square when the Blackwater guards opened fire said, “There has been a cover-up since the very start. What can we say? They killed people. They probably gave a bribe to get released. This is their own American court system. “Some of the victims had been burned so badly, he said, that he and others had to use shovels to scoop their remains out of their vehicles. ‘I ask you, if this had happened to Americans, what would be the result? But these were Iraqis.’” Now that the whole world knows and recognizes the extent of the crimes and misdemeanors of the Bush administration, we would like to see Bush, Cheney, Rove, Rumsfeld and the various Attorneys General rounded up and put in jail for the senseless war in Iraq, for the financial meltdown, for the arrogant corrupting of our justice system, for the trampling on the Constitution. But failing that, we would like to see the prosecution of someone or some group that symbolizes these wrongs. Such a symbol is Blackwater. Using Blackwater thugs as mercenaries fighting next to our brave soldiers and subverting our military system by their presence in Iraq and by their mindless violence, symbolizes all that was wrong about the war in Iraq, and all that was wrong in the Bush administration. And now, we won’t even get to see Blackwater, AKA XE Services brought to justice. Fah!

Something to Think About Next Christmas

On December 24th, the New York Times ran an article by Hilary Stout titled “No, No, No to the Ho-Ho-Ho”. It was about people who had decided to op out of the Christmas frenzy. Or, as Richard Laermer said, “WWBJD (What would Baby Jesus Do)? Sit it out.” This isn’t a new idea, but it hit a nerve this year with money so tight, credit card interest rates sky-high, and people in a cold sweat about how long they might have a job...if they had a job at all. Dan Nainan said getting a tree was the first problem, “You cut down a tree and you’re going to throw it out in three weeks. If you get a plastic tree, you’re wasting petroleum.” Then came the gifts. Nainan said, “I think it’s great that people are going out and buying things and helping the economy, but when a Wal-Mart employee can be trampled to death in a manic dash for holiday bargains, as happened last year, that kind of crystallized everything for me.” Some people said they had decided to skip all of the Christmas nuttiness and “take a holiday from the holiday”. They were driving to the mountains to go for a hike. It’s something to think about. Is the holiday whirl a lot fun? Is it costing more than we can afford? Does the birth of Jesus Christ have a lot to do with our Christmas festivities? Does Christ have anything to do with Christmas? Pepper Hill, a 50-year-old voice-over actress, said she wondered if she’d have the nerve to say no to the whole holiday. She had only been going through the motions for the past several years, she said. Could she have done with it? No tree, no carols, none of “the whole nine yards”? She did. It was very liberating, she said. Probably avoiding the whole holiday scene is easier than just cutting back. What do you cut back on? Who do you cut out? Where do you draw the line? For starters, making December 10th the beginning of the Christmas season instead of the day after Labor Day would be a good first step to saying no-n0-no to the ho-ho-ho.

Okay...I Don’t Get This

Category: What The Fuck! This morning, The New York Times reported “Fearing that millions of illegal immigrants may not be counted in the 2010 census, Latino leaders are mobilizing a nationwide drive to urge Hispanics to participate in the survey, including an intense push this week in evangelical Christian churches.” Oh yeah, I get that ALL ethnic groups need to be counted in the US Census. What I don’t get is the “Illegal immigrants” part. It’s the illegal immigrants who are mounting protests. “Many illegal immigrants are likely to be reluctant to fill out a government form that asks for their names, birthdates and telephone numbers,” the NYT said. No kidding! The NYT article goes on to say, “Latino groups contend that there was an undercount of nearly one million Latinos in the 2000 census, affecting the drawing of Congressional districts and the distribution of federal money. Hispanic organizations are far better organized for next year’s census, but they say that if illegal immigrants — an estimated eight million of whom are Latino — are not included, the undercount could be much greater.” So, people who are in the US illegally are pissed off that they are not able to affect the distribution of federal money. And they say that our Constitution says “all residents” are to be counted in the US census. Well, not exactly. In 1790 the Constitution said “an enumeration” was to be made every ten years. Later on, this enumeration was elaborated as “of the population”. Still...it’s a little vague. But I just don’t see how it makes sense that a group in our population who could be tossed in jail and/or tossed out of the US if they filled out a form and gave their names, birthdates and telephone numbers and actually participated in the taking of the census, I don’t understand how this group is righteously indignant and complaining that they aren’t being treated fairly because they aren’t part of the census taking. Plus, this group is saying they should be able to affect how our Congressional districts are formed and they should be able to have a say-so in how federal money is handed out. Except that, were they actually to do what is required of all persons who are legally in this country when the Census is taken, they could be jailed or tossed out. Um...am I missing something, or is this insane?

Frank Rich Nails It (Again)

Decrying the stupidity of Time Mag’s naming “shnook” Ben Bernanke “Person of the Year”, this morning the New York Times op-ed columnist Frank Rich says: “If there’s been a consistent narrative to this year and every other in this decade, it’s that most of us, Bernanke included, have been so easily bamboozled...that’s why the obvious person of the year is Tiger Woods. His sham beatific image, questioned by almost no one until it collapsed, is nothing if not the farcical reductio ad absurdum of the decade’s flimflams, from the cancerous (the subprime mortgage) to the inane (balloon boy).” Rich goes on to say, “As of Friday, the Tiger saga had appeared on 20 consecutive New York Post covers. For The Post, his calamity has become as big a story as 9/11. And the paper may well have it right. We’ve rarely questioned our assumption that 9/11, ‘the day that changed everything,’ was the decade’s defining event. But in retrospect it may not have been. A con like Tiger’s may be more typical of our time than a one-off domestic terrorist attack, however devastating.” Rich says we keep on being led down the garden path by leaders in all areas of all our lives. Like, former Senator John Edwards (D-NC), steroid user MLB outfielder Barry Bonds, Senator Larry Craig (R-ID), actor and former Senator Fred Thompson (R-TN), Karl Rove, former NY Police Commissioner Bernie Kerik, former NY Gov. Eliot Spitzer, ponzi-scammer Bernie Madoff, Ken Lay and Enron. I would have to add George W. Bush, Sarah Palin, the Pope, Roman Catholic priests who molest children, and the biggest conman in the Senate, as well as biggest jerk-asshole in Connecticut, Joe Lieberman. We’ve all been too eager to go along for the ride, Rich says. “After a decade in which two true national catastrophes, a wasteful war and a near-ruinous financial collapse, were both in part byproducts of the ease with which our leaders bamboozled us, we can’t so easily move on”, Rich says. And then he lays it on us...and I find it hard to agree with him on this point. But who can say he’s downright wrong that maybe “Obama’s presidential campaign was as hollow as Tiger’s public image”. “After a decade of being spun silly,” Rich says, “Americans can’t be blamed for being cynical about any leader trying to sell anything. As we say goodbye to the year of Tiger Woods, it is the country, sad to say, that is left mired in a sand trap with no obvious way out.”

Oral Roberts Called Home For Real

Oral Roberts was the kind of evangelist who turned me off, so I don’t know that much about him. He was born in Bebee, California on January 24, 1918 and was named Granville Oral Roberts. He was healed, miraculously, so he said, of tuberculosis at the age of 17 and his ministry started then. He founded Oral Roberts University in 1963. No one has ever explained to me why he used his middle name Oral rather than Granville or why in the world anyone would name a kid Oral. I’ve always thought it was a misspelling of the name Orel that means golden. Like born-again former Dodger pitcher Orel Hersheiser. But I don’t know. The one thing I remember about Oral Roberts is, in 1987 he announced to the world that if he did not receive $8 million bucks from his donors by March 31, God would call him home. The weird logic of the threat must have made sense to a lot of his devotees because he got the money. Nevertheless, twenty-two years later on October 15, 2009 when Granville Oral Roberts was 91, God called him home.

Thomson Illinois Prison to House Detainees

The New York Times reported this morning: “The Obama administration is expected to announce on Tuesday that it has selected a prison in northwestern Illinois to house terrorism suspects now being held at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, in a major step toward shutting down that military detention facility.” So where is Thomson, Illinois? You might well ask. Thomson is so far west in Illinois it’s almost in Iowa--right on the Mississippi River, about 30 miles north and east of the quad-city area of Rock Island-Moline-Davenport-Bettendorf. Thomson is home to the Thomson Correctional Center, has a population of maybe 600 and the folks are not happy to be targeted to receive the Gitmo detainees. Well, I guess not! The NYT says, “When talk of bringing Guantánamo detainees to Thomson first surfaced in late November, both Mr. Quinn (Democrat Gov. Patrick J. Quinn) and Mr. Durbin (Democrat senior senator Richard J. Durbin) held a series of news conferences to promote the idea of turning over the empty state prison, which was built in 2001 at a cost to Illinois taxpayers of about $120 million, to the federal penal system. “Top Illinois Republicans — including Representatives Donald Manzullo, whose district includes the prison, and Mark Steven Kirk, a candidate for the United States Senate seat once held by Mr. Obama — have denounced previous talk of such a move, saying it could make Illinois a target for terrorist attacks. “Under the proposal for Thomson, the Bureau of Prisons would buy the facility and improve its security. Most of the prison would house ordinary high-security inmates, but a part would be leased to the Defense Department to hold terror suspects.” Howsomever, if you want to hear a geshrei, wait until the folks in Brooklyn hear that Qaeda detainees are to be tried in that part of NYC. But both stories are small potatoes, by me, to the news that Hideki Matsui is leaving the Yankees and going to the Angels. OH NO! Say it's not so!!!!

No One Remembers the Khyber Pass North Bar

And now, to a reporter checking me out, I’m sounding like I’ve made it all up. Ugh! Anyone out there remember the Khyber Pass North bar from 1984? It was between 17th and 18th on Callowhill Street and wasn’t too far from the Rose Tattoo bar, but was light-years less fashionable. Even certain well-known reporters from the Philadelphia Inquirer (who shall remain nameless) and who no longer live here are saying they don’t remember the bar. Shit! She used to come in all the time to see her girlfriend...oh all right! her alleged girlfriend, Serrill Headley. The “Little Judge” used to come in all the time. Anyone remember him? He’s probably dead. But the first day I was working, I was cleaning up for the night guy (Daood) and I hadn’t been paying attention to the newcomers at the bar. And when I looked up, there suddenly were a bunch of well-dressed men (obviously Family Court had just let out on Vine Street) sitting at the bar. One of them was an extremely handsome man, as in, VERY good-looking. And then, he disappeared. I mean...disappeared. It was the “Little Judge”, he’d hopped off his stool and I realized he was a dwarf. Ring a bell, anyone? Well, he was a regular, for as long as the Khyber Pass on Callowhill existed. And now I’m finding out Daood never went to Princeton or Rutgers and he had to be 24 back then, not 21. I wonder whatever happened to his 40-year-old girlfriend, Ginger. She’d be a senior-citizen now. Oh what a funny thought.

Here You Go...the Daood I Remember

I changed names for this story, so the key is: Kas: Daood Gallagher’s: Khyber Pass North Mary Gallagher: Serrill Headley December, 1997

The Day The Raiders Won

They can’t fix the Super Bowl, can they? They wouldn’t, would they? Every year about this time, I start to wonder again about Super Bowl XVIII. Kas had been so sure. “Put every cent you’ve got on the Raiders,” he’d said. “Bet your rent. Your paycheck. Rob a bank. Put it all on the Raiders.” That was Kassim, twenty-one and cock-sure. He had one blue eye and one brown eye and bragged about his arsenal of guns. He seemed like any other six-foot gorgeous Ivy-Leaguer at Princeton until he opened his mouth and the most mind-numbing fanatic nonsense came out dressed up in a vaguely British accent. He claimed to be a Shiite. It’s certain he had been raised in the Middle East by his father’s relatives until his mother decided enough was enough. But his reasons for no longer attending class were various and changed from day to day. Perhaps he suddenly realized caliphs didn’t have much cachet at Princeton. In any case, he’d taken on the night-shift at his mother’s bar, Gallagher’s, at 17th and Callowhill in Philadelphia. I worked the day-shift. “This is one fucking sure thing,” he said while I cashed out. “Believe it. You are a fool if you don’t do it.” The rowdy Saturday night crowd was already pushing and shoving at the bar. “You American women act so take-charge. But you lack courage. Particularly you older ones. You are afraid.” “Damn right I’m afraid. Who’s going to pay my rent when the Redskins win. You?” “They won’t win. I promise you. The Raiders are a sure thing. Trust me.” “Right. There’s a little missy who comes here every night who trusts you and God help her. And there’s that forty-something who drinks too much because of the little missy and she trusts you. And there’s your mother who’s always picking up the pieces. Trust you and get fucked is what I say.” “What the hell. I am a man. You’re just women. You’re ninnies, the pack of you. And here are your magnificent weekly wages.” He reached into his shirt pocket and handed me a little yellow envelope. “How did you do on tips this week?” “Rotten. Day-shift gets stiffed as you know.” “All the more reason. Give me back the envelope. I assure you, I will give you double on Monday.” “Tell you what I’m gonna do, slick. I’ll give you fifty bucks. Put it on the Raiders. But I’ll personally run your ass back to Baghdad if they lose.” I drew two twenties and a ten out of the envelope and handed them over. “Why not the whole thing?” “Because I think you are full of crap.” “Yes. I am. That is surely true.” He smiled his dazzling behold-I-am-God smile and patted my hand. “But about this, I promise you. It’s a sure thing.” By the time I had my end-of-shift drink and figured out--was I short, long or for once had the right amount in the till, Kas was collecting wads of cash from a clot of admirers at the end of the bar and ranting about spreads and his sure thing. I figured it would be worth fifty bucks to have an interest in the game. Raiders, Redskins, who cared? Now I cared. I planned to watch it with the choir from my church. St. Mark’s Episcopal Church, Center City, Philadelphia. So famous. So beautiful. Such a magnificent choir. Most of the members were closer to rich than poor. And a particularly salient feature was that St. Mark’s had always been tolerant of gays. Which meant three-quarters of the communicants were not saddled with screaming infants. As a matter of fact, the clergy, as far back as anyone could remember, had been carefully selected for being quietly but definitely in the closet. It was a well-dressed crowd, a literate crowd, a witty crowd. A crowd that was well-mannered even when utterly and totally shit-faced. And any Sunday afternoon, it was a crowd devoted to getting snockered from end of mass to dinner-time. The Super Bowl lent a slightly more festive air to this solemn Sunday tradition. A motley assortment of tenors and basses, a couple of unrequited altos and at least two borderline-alcoholic sopranos gathered in George Whitcomb’s living room to watch the game and get gloriously drunk. Connie was unrequited and I was one of the borderlines. I was nearly the last to arrive. Connie and Martin had come directly from church to set up the buffet, tableware and ice chests. Not that George cooked. He made telephone calls and mountains of food showed up at the door. When I walked in Martin was berating George for being parsimonious, mean and ungracious. “I don’t see why you don’t uncork the good stuff, George. You’re rich. We’re your friends.” George was rich, it was true. He lived on the tenth floor of a big apartment building at 12th and Chestnut where drunks and panhandlers sat on the front steps. But when you got inside (after frantically buzzing the concierge to open the door before the havenots got impatient and helped themselves), it was obvious the lobby was well-kept. And the elevator worked. George’s two-bedroom apartment had high ceilings and huge rooms. And he’d filled them with comfortable though wildly expensive antiques. Connie sat in a base-rocker covered in tapestry. Martin sat on the floor at her feet, seemingly enthralled by her wit and charm. Connie was in paradise. The tableau made me cringe. I don’t know what Connie saw when she looked in the mirror. But I thought she looked like a woman in a Renoir painting. Connie apparently didn’t think she deserved anything better than a self-absorbed narcissist like Martin. I found a bottle of generic booze on the sideboard. It said bourbon. I sloshed some in a glass and sat on the floor near the buffet of food. “Okay, you tightfisted SOB, you leave me no choice.” Martin said to George and stood up. No question, Martin was attractive. He had a little too much weight around the middle but he turned himself out like a fashion ad. Connie drained her wineglass and watched him thread his way through the drinkers, the munchers, the sleepy, the bored. He stood in front of George with his hand outstretched. “I’ll have the liquor-cabinet key, Ebenezer, and be quick about it.” It was their game. George the passive, Martin the masterbastard. Connie liked to play the game too since it was Martin’s favorite. “No. No key.” George shook his head like a stubborn little boy. George might have pulled off his naive-youth routine at one time, but his gray beard and baggy eyes made it ludicrous and sad now. Martin pulled him out of his easy chair by his jacket lapels and gripped his shoulder with one hand while reaching into his jacket pocket with the other. Then he let him drop back into his chair. “No more cheap shit, guys.” Martin jingled George’s keys. “We’ve got Chivas.” He unlocked the bottom double-doors on a corner cupboard, left it standing open and offered refills all around. “You’re a nasty brute, Martin.” George slumped in his chair. “Is anybody watching this?” Charlie yelled from across the room. He sat in front of a huge television set. The pregame show was over. “Yeah, me.” I butt-bumped across the carpet to Charlie and the TV. “I’ve got fifty bucks on the Raiders.” “You haven’t.” “Oh yeah. Got it down with Kassim.” Charlie was a sweet elegant man with a rich baritone voice. And he was one of a handful of my friends who had actually been to Gallagher’s. He worked nearby at the main library and occasionally brought his fellow librarians over for lunch. We served burgers and hotdogs and sausages with the shots and beer. The cook was an old friend of Kassim’s mom, an alcoholic retired sailor who religiously went into detox once a year courtesy of the Veteran’s Administration. But he was a great short-order cook. And he got Kassim out of more scrapes than even Mary Gallagher knew about. The lunch crowd was a mixed-bag. Construction workers from a nearby site, a gormless regular who sat at the end of the bar and played with himself, a few pissed-off guys who had lost a round at Family Court (which stood next to the Library and looked so like the Library that both wife-beaters and bookworms were confused), and sometimes Charlie and the librarians. We all watched General Hospital as though it were Moses reading from the tablets. “That Kassim is really beautiful,” Charlie said. The big game had finally started. Charlie loved football. “Yeah, well. He’s poison. Godforbid you ever make a move on him. He’d have your balls for souvenirs. You’re an infidel. I’m an infidel. We’re sewer sludge. I also think he runs dope.” “And you gave him fifty bucks?” “You betcha! He knows something. He says he’ll double it. Maybe the game is fixed! You think it could be fixed? Kas is so sure about the Raiders. Maybe it’s fixed.” “Pulleeze! Fix the Super Bowl? Nobody’s going to fix the Super Bowl. That’s ridiculous.” “Ohmigod! Lookit that!” The ball had taken a very weird bounce into the endzone and Jensen had fallen on it. The extra point kick was good and The Raiders were off and away. Not many of the people around the TV were Raiders fans. The Redskins were closer to home. Charlie’s hometown was Washington and when the score got really one-sided in the third quarter, he lost interest. But I was elated. No one else cared much. Conversation was loud and silly. Martin enjoyed abusing George more than watching football. And now Connie sat at Martin’s feet and kept his glass filled. She also had switched to Chivas. I rarely drank anything but Jack Daniels. But when someone put a Manhattan in my hand I realized I’d been missing heaven. It was wee-hours before I felt I’d properly celebrated my riches with my new favorite drink. I stood up to go to the bathroom and fell down. “Oh my!” Heaven had its downside. “George, can you make some coffee so’s I can go home?” I sat where I had landed for a moment. “Let’s switch to Champagne,” Martin stood at a window which looked down on Chestnut Street. He had just popped the cork on a bottle of Dom Perignon. “Coffee,” I said and slowly stood up and moved toward the bathroom. “Me too,” Connie said as she rolled over on the floor and pulled on George’s trouser leg. “George, we need coffee.” “Forget George, Con,” Martin said. “He’s down for the count. You make the coffee.” When I came out of the bathroom, I joined Martin at the window. He offered me the bottle. “No more. Where’s the coffee?” “ Connie’s doing it. Look! Isn’t that fabulous!” Snow was falling steadily and all the street lamps had halos. Martin put his arm around me. We watched the snow. I too had thought Martin was a great catch at one time. He encouraged that sort of thing. He was very attentive and complimentary. But I knew he never had and never would go to bed with a woman. He kissed the top of my head. “How are you getting home?” “Walking.” “Now?” “Now.” “It’s after two.” “So.” “It’s dangerous.” “I have a plan.” The coffee smelled wonderful. I went into the kitchen to see how Connie was doing. George was asleep in his chair with his mouth open. Everyone else had left. “Let’s hear your plan,” Martin said from the kitchen doorway. “The three of us walk me home to Fifteenth and Pine and we incidentally get sober in the bracing snowy air. Then Martin walks Connie up to Walnut and 19th and calls a cab for himself from her place.” “Or stays over, as the case may be,” Connie said. “Or stays over,” I echoed. “You kidding me? I’d never get out alive.” “You’d never come out the same.” “Whatever. Okay. It’s a plan. I see nothing wrong with its basic premise,” Martin drained the bottle of Champagne. “Come on Con, where’s the coffee?” George stirred in his chair. “I want you all to leave. You’re awful people and I hate you.” “Right. By the way, George,” Martin threw the keyring onto his lap. “What about you giving a Valentine’s party? We can talk about it at choir practice.” Connie handed around coffee cups. George declined. “I despise you all, Go to hell,” he mumbled and nodded off again. It was three o’clock when we struggled into our coats. Connie tried to put a scarf around Martin’s neck. “No, by God! No scarf. What am I? A sissy? What are you? My mother? Get away from me Con. You smell like an absolute brewery.” “Me? I smell? You really are a vicious hopeless old faggot! Why are you so mean?” “What I do, sweetheart, is treat people the way they want to be treated. You and George want to be humiliated. I do it for you. For you. You want me to.” “Come on. Let’s go.” I pushed Martin and Connie toward the door. They could trade insults for hours. The coffee had helped. Or, as they say, I was still drunk but very alert. Connie fussed with Martin about his hat, his scarf, the buttons on his coat. George remained in his chair. No wave. No goodbye. No acknowledgment we were leaving other than to give us the finger. When we got outside, it was as though the town had transformed itself. At least five inches of snow lay on the ground. It was an undisturbed virgin expanse of white. Martin scooped up handfuls of snow and tossed them in the air. “Whee!” We walked and threw snowballs and giggled and slipped and slid. Our street shoes turned the snow into glass. We hadn’t quite gotten to Broad Street, not even two blocks when Martin slipped and fell. He went down with a thud. I walked on ahead, leaving Connie to help him stand up. “Hey! Come back! He’s hurt! He’s hurt bad,” she yelled. By the time I had walked back, carefully picking my way, Connie was sitting in the snow with Martin’s head in her lap. He had fallen face first and his nose gushed blood. Blood was all over the snow and on Connie’s coat. His upper lip was raw and oozing blood. Martin was out cold. “Oh God! What’ll we do? I can’t lift him up,” Connie was in tears. A man across the street hurried toward us. “Can I help?” “Oh yes! Thank you. Our friend fell down.” Martin opened his eyes. “Jesus! What happened!” “You fell, my friend,” the man said. “Wait until your head clears. Here, let me help you.” The man easily hoisted Martin to his feet and handed him a handkerchief to hold to his nose. “Where are you going?” “Back to the Wharton Apartment building,” I said. Connie and I offered to help but the man had no trouble guiding Martin along the way. The concierge took one look at us standing at the door and ran to open it. “We had an accident. Call George Whitcomb and tell him we’re coming up,” I said. Our Good Sam stood outside until we were safely in. Then he smiled and waved and headed back uptown. George was standing at his door when we got out of the elevator. “What happened?” He was cold sober. “Martin fell and got knocked out,” I said. George helped Martin out of his coat. His nose had stopped bleeding but his lip was puffed up to twice its size. “Oh dear! Come in here. Oh poor Martin. I’ll get a towel. You just lie down right in there on the bed.” George led Martin to the guest room and helped him lie down on the four-poster. It had a featherbed on top. He went to the bathroom for a wet towel and gently bathed Martin’s face. Connie had climbed up on the bed and sat by Martin. I stood at the foot of the bed. “You’ll just stay here tonight, Martin,” George said. “No problem. I’ll get a cab for the girls.” “What in the world time is it?” Martin raised his left hand to look at his watch. “Oh shit! That fucker took my watch!” He frantically reached into his pants pocket. “He got my wallet. That son of a bitch! He ripped me off!” Martin started to cry and leaned against Connie. I crawled up on the bed and began crying too. Connie put her arms around Martin and tears fell down her face. George stood in the doorway, sobbing. Very shortly we all fell asleep. George curled up on the floor. The deep pile on the rug kept it from being the act of self-denial that sleeping on my floor would have been. About noon the next day I called the bar. Kas answered. “Where in bloody hell are you? I had to come in myself. It’s Monday. People were lined up at eight ayem.” “Had some trouble last night.” “You could have called.” “No. Actually I couldn’t. Sorry. I’ll be in later to pick up my winnings.” “Fine. You do that.” “Fine.” Kas did pay off, which I knew he would. And he also fired me. So I had a hundred bucks instead of fifty and no job. I survived. So did Gallagher’s. But I’m still wondering. The Super Bowl couldn’t be fixed, could it?

Well, I Am SHOCKED!!!!

Turns out, I knew David (Daood) C. Headley, the accused mastermind of the Mumbai 2008 attack. But then, so did everyone else who chanced to come into either of Miss Headley’s Khyber Pass bars in Philadelphia back in 1984. Daood was (is) Serrill Headley’s son and he bartended at both the up-scale bar on North Second Street and the considerably less tony shot-and-a-beer saloon on Callowhill. I tended bar in Miss Headley’s newly-opened saloon at 17th and Callowhill. It was called Khyber Pass North. It got really busy around four in the afternoon when the judges, attorneys, and assorted other low-lifes and parolees lurched out of the Family Court at 19th and Vine --which is the building that is the twin of the main Library next door. As a matter of fact, folks looking for books and folks looking for their courtroom used to go into the wrong building all the time. Maybe still do. Daood was a piece of work. Back then, he was in his early twenties, He was absolutely gorgeous. He was over six feet tall and looked liked a typical American college student (he was enrolled at Princeton, but rarely went to classes). He had one brown eye and one blue-green eye. At that time, the story circulating the two bars was that Daood’s mother had married a high-ranking Iranian official, had two children, a boy and girl by him and then started an affair with his brother...a huge no-no. So she grabbed her son and fled to America. These days, one reads in the papers that Daood’s father was Pakistani. I guess Serrill got a divorce because when I was tending bar at Khyber Pass North she was married to an editor at the Inquirer. I forget his name. Dick something. He was a really nice guy. Rumor also had it that she was having an affair with Inquirer writer Dorothy Storck. I had to deliver something to Daood one time. He lived in a second-floor apartment in Olde City. The place was chock-a-block with weapons of all kinds and there were posters on all the walls showing Shiite soldiers. Daood was very proud of being a Shiite. I thought he was just an arrogant, slogan-spouting pisser. Guess I was wrong. After I was no longer working at the bar, I heard that Serrill had to go to Iran and get Daood out of prison for smuggling drugs. How she did it, I don’t know...lots of money exchanged hands I have no doubt. But she did manage to get him back to the US. Daood was a babe-magnet at Khyber Pass. He had a very young and pretty girlfriend, and also had a stunning 40-year-old mistress who sat alone in a booth waiting for him to get off work and cried bitter tears because of the sweet young thing. Tomorrow, for your delectation, I will post the story I wrote back in the day about Daood called “The Day the Raiders Won”. And no, it never got published. But tomorrow is the day.

Good News, Bad News and Off-the-Wall News

First, the good news. Lou Dobbs has decided to quit CNN. Yay! What an idiot he became after a bit of fame. Last night he made an announcement that he’s leaving CNN in order to vent on radio and talk shows. How is he going to do this? He didn’t say. The bad news. George W. Bush is coming out of self-imposed political hibernation—so called, by the New York Times. The NYT said, “In a speech at Southern Methodist University, home of his future library and museum, the former president will kick off the new George W. Bush Institute as a forum for study and advocacy in four main areas: education, global health, human freedom and economic growth. Advisers said he hoped his institute would be more focused on producing results than many research organizations are.” Obviously, if GWB is going to be more visible, so will Ratbang. I can’t resist him. And the Off-the-Wall news? Remember when the Army credited Pfc. Jessica Lynch with being a superhero Rambo in Iraq in 2003, when in fact, she was out of action and being cared for by the Iraqis all the while? It’s happened again. Sgt. Kimberly D. Munley was hailed as the hero in the shooting of Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan when he committed mayhem at Fort Hood last week. But apparently, Munley had already been shot and was lying on the floor when Senior Sgt. Mark Todd came around the corner of the building. He saw that Hasan was fumbling around with his weapon and he’s the one who shot him. The PR folks at Fort Hood also said Hasan was dead when he was in a coma in the hospital. What’s with these military folks? The real story is always absolutely fine and always has absolutely plenty of blood, gore and heroism.

What Is It With Ben Connable?

This morning I received two more emails from the man. Email No. 1—(The Veiled Threat) "How sad. You will be contacted." Email No. 2—(The Put-Down) "Ms. Tomme - On second thought, knock yourself out. I did a bit of research on your website and I do not believe you have a big enough audience of rational readers to do my reputation any damage. I wish you the best of luck." Well, he’s right about that. Who am I? And who is this Ben Connable, the constantly commenting Bush-administration Iraq War apologist and propagandist from almost five years ago, the purported “GOP tool”? Who is this man, and why has he concerned himself with the Ratbang blog? I have no idea.

Elusive Ben Connable Surfaces, (Maybe)

Of course, one does not know if the email I received this morning is really from Ben Connable or if the email was a joke being perpetrated on Mr. Connable. Almost five years ago, a man named Ben Connable was having articles printed all over the mainstream media and the Internet. They were all Bush administration propagandistic in tone about the Iraq war. At that time, Connable was being called “elusive” because he could not be tracked down, and substantive, in-depth info on him could not be found. Following, if you choose to respond that way, is your morning hoo-hah! giggle and my response. “Request to Remove Post August 19, 2009 Ms. Tomme, I am Ben Connable, a retired Marine Corps officer and author of several articles on the Iraq war. In your December 14, 2005 column on the website, "Ratbang Diary" at blogspot.com you refer to me as a "GOP tool" and state that I have been writing propaganda pieces for the Pentagon since I was a Captain. While you are free to comment on the substance of my articles, I ask that you either produce proof that I am, or have been a member of the GOP since the Iraq war began in 2003, that I have been directed or coaxed to write articles for the GOP, or that my writings have in any way been directed by an official in the Pentagon. (In fact, none of these things are true.) If you cannot produce such proof, I formally request that you remove this libelous post from your website. It appears in the first page of a Google search of my name and therefore affects my reputation as an author. This in turn directly affects my livelihood. Thank you. - Ben Connable” “Re: Request to Remove Post Good morning Mr. Connable, No. I cannot remove my December 14, 2005 Ratbang post. It is not libelous, since it does not fall under the definition of libel, which is: "a false and malicious publication printed for the purpose of defaming a living person". The purpose of the article was to reprint the truth as it was being reported at the time. I do not now nor have I ever had the purpose of defaming anyone, and certainly not you. What I will do is reprint your email to me today in a Ratbang post today. And I will also reprint my answer to you. I will do this because I think your apparently sudden desire to reinvent yourself after four-and-a-half-years is hilariously funny. By the way, know that I do not engage in dialogues with commenters to Ratbang and I do delete comments that are long and/or offensive. Sincerely, Joy Tomme”

The Philadelphia Eagles Disgrace Itself

The guys who run the Eagles pro-football team have just come out with the biggest load of baloney to defend their decision to sign ex-con, animal abuser Michael Vick as an Eagles quarterback. As a matter of fact, the NFL mavens should never have lifted Vick’s suspension, which allowed him to get back into pro-football. Eagles head coach Andy Reid says Vick deserves a second chance. That is a silly and spurious argument. When convicts have served their sentences they do deserve to come back into society and they do deserve to lead their lives as rehabilitated persons. But society also deserves to put limits on how it allows ex-cons to make a living and how it allows certain ex-cons back into its embrace. Convicted bank robbers do not deserve to be hired by banks when they come out of jail; parents who have been convicted of abusing their children do not deserve to once again live with their children; priests who have been convicted of molesting children do not deserve to work with children, and a convicted Enron executive does not deserve to make millions again as a corporate mogul. The above examples are only a few instances of wisdom overriding the second-chance adage. And trotting out second-chance piety about ex-con animal abuser Michael Vick is specious and hollow. Michael Vick lost his right (or, he should have lost his right) to play professional football when he dishonored the game by getting involved in a dogfighting ring. Dogfighting is so low and reprehensible that participants can be jailed for engaging in the offense, as Vick was. If the NFL chose to allow Vick to get back in the game, that is a bad decision by the NFL. But for the Eagles management to then compound that bad decision and have so little moral fiber as to allow Coach Andy Reid to hire Vick is beyond low and reprehensible. The Eagles hiring of Michael Vick is depraved, repugnant and vile.

“Making of Legislative Sausage Is Never Pretty”

That was one of Frank Rich’s sentences in his Sunday morning New York Times Op-Ed column today (“Is Obama Punking Us?”) and it needs to be remembered. How come everyone (and the most flagrantly-forgetting offenders are the news media)...how come EVERYONE forgets that THE MAKING OF LEGISLATIVE SAUSAGE IS NEVER PRETTY? How come everyone conveniently forgets that all legislators trade horses...including Presidents of these United States and oh my! DO THEY EVER!!! Rich’s column was about how President Obama is facing REALITY. The reality being that the world is looking at the promises Barack Obama made as a Presidential candidate as opposed to the actuality of Barack Obama as President. What is striking me at this moment is the bullshit parading in so-called news stories as “What Americans Value”. I am reminded of my hometown, Paxton, Illinois. All those staunch male Republicans who ran that small town in the 1940’s and 1950’s valued the high price of corn, the belief that women needed to obey men, the belief that teen-age girls didn’t know (as in, the Biblical understanding of “know”) about sex and if they did, they were whores and that the boys who knew about sex were normal young men who should be applauded. The truth of the matter was that boys and girls were having sex and enjoying it; some were getting embroiled in the reality of sex leading to pregnancy, shotgun weddings were happening all over the lot, women were making the best of a bad situation, bad laws and a male-dominated understanding of religion, and the price of corn was very important. And, all during the ‘40’s and ‘50’s, as now, we kept hearing that Americans value honesty, purity, and God. Which, of course, always was, is now, and no doubt will be into the foreseeable future a HUGE CROCK OF CRAP! Yes, Barack Obama is trading horses. He has to. He has to, because this is the way our government and our society are set up. Were we a country that valued honesty in all things, it probably wouldn’t be necessary for a President to trade horses and engage in the making of stinky legislative sausage. But given that this country values an untrue and impossible-to-live-up-to image of itself, we are stuck with WHAT IS as opposed to WHAT-WE-WISH-WERE-TRUE. And, I am not ranting about what results from all this BULLSHIT. What results actually works out fairly well. And it usually is not a bad deal for the majority of people in this land. What I am ranting against is the pain that is inflicted on all of us by the hypocrites and assholes who demand that we live up to a cheesy, sham, deceptive, fake, deceitful ideal that the political charlatans selling all this phony purity, honesty and love of God can’t live up to themselves. So...what else did Frank Rich say today? His last paragraph is quotable: “The best political news for the president remains the Republicans. It’s a measure of how out of touch G.O.P. leaders like Mitch McConnell and John Boehner are that they keep trying to scare voters by calling Obama a socialist. They have it backward. The larger fear is that Obama might be just another corporatist, punking voters much as the Republicans do when they claim to be all for the common guy. If anything, the most unexpected — and challenging — event that could rock the White House this August would be if the opposition actually woke up.”

A Face in the Alaska Crowd

The parallel between Sarah Palin’s antics and the Andy Griffith movie, “A Face in the Crowd”, is stunning. In the 1957 movie made from a Budd Schulberg story, Griffith was a guitar playing, boozing drifter who was plucked out of the throng by TV-exec Patricia Neal who saw in him an attractive crowd-pleasing quality. And she made him into a star. His trajectory was like a skyrocket. The problem was, he became so powerful and corrupt, he had to be brought down. And the comeuppance was made possible by his hubris and addiction to fame. This morning we hear that Sarah and Todd Palin are getting a divorce due to multiple affairs on both sides. We hear that she’s hotfooting it out of Alaska with the kids and moving to Montana. We hear that she’s shopping herself as a radio talk-show host and the radio execs are not saying NO. We hear she took off her wedding ring in a fit of pique after her July 31 official announcement she was quitting her Alaska Governor gig. We hear she stormed off with her kids leaving Todd standing in the wake of her dust. We hear her plan to publish a ghostwritten book and make millions is going full-steam ahead. And we hear that the Palin’s reluctant and no-longer-future son-in-law-baby-maker Levi Johnson has taped a tell-all interview (without his handlers) for “Vanity Fair” which will appear in October. So...is this the meltdown that was bound to come, ala “A Face in The Crowd”? No. Palin has no self-awareness. She has no internal monitor to warn her she’s off-track and headed for disaster. The big meltdown is yet to come. And, as fun as it’s been to watch this classic allegory come to life warning us about the dangers of power and fame, the BIG Palin Showdown-Meltdown is yet to come. And it will be painful to see.

Here’s The Thing

First, Michael Steele, the Chairman of the Republican National Committee, is an IDIOT. Last night on CNN’s Situation Room, Wolf Blitzer said to Michael Steele: “Let's talk a little bit about Sarah Palin, the governor of Alaska. She stunned all of us a couple weeks ago by announcing she was resigning. Peggy Noonan, who was one of the chief speechwriters for Ronald Reagan, Republican, wrote in the Wall Street Journal, ‘Sarah Palin's resignation gives Republicans a new opportunity to see her plain --to review the bidding, see her strengths, acknowledge her limits and let go of her drama. It is an opportunity they should take.’ Pretty strong words from Peggy Noonan.” Steele weighed in, “Well, I think you know -- the story on Sarah Palin is simply this: she made a very difficult choice to give up the governorship to focus on her family, to focus on other things. I respect that choice. I admire that choice because it's very tough to do. And so, if you feel that in your leadership that other things are distracting from your ability to lead...” Blitzter responded, “You don't have a problem that it looks like she quit in the middle of her term?” Steele answered, “No, she didn't. That's a wonderful Democrat talking point that she's a quitter. What she was, she made a judgment about whether or not she could continue to be effective in her leadership there. Whether or not there were other things that were more important to deal with, with her family and her young son that she has to care for. She made a personal and political decision. The brain trust here in Washington and around the country that's second guessing her, that think they know Sarah Palin better than she does, you know, have no understanding or appreciation for what she's going through and why she made that decision. “You have to take her at face value, why she made that decision when she did, and then let's wait and see what Sarah does next. Because then that would begin to give you some idea of how that story will unfold. All the pontificating, stop it; wait and see what she does.” CRAP! Here’s what it is, Michael Steele. Sarah Palin is a self-absorbed narcissist who cannot, will not and is incapable of thinking in terms of another human being before thinking of herself. She did not quit being Governor of Alaska in order to hand off the job to someone who will do it better. She did not quit being Governor of Alaska in order to be with her family. Sarah Palin quit her job so that she could better position herself in the limelight. She quit In order that Sarah Palin could write a book with a ghostwriter about the Sarah Palin that Sarah Palin envisions herself to be, which has nothing to do with the reality of who Sarah Palin is. Palin is the classic ego-centered diva who says, “But enough about me, let’s talk about how you feel about me.” Michael Steele says I should take Palin at face value. I AM TAKING PALIN AT FACE VALUE. The value of the Palin face is that it is so totally obvious, unmitigated and undisguised. Palin’s virtual reality perception of herself is Palin at face value. There is nothing in this world that is important to Sarah Palin except Sarah Palin’s skewed idea that Sarah Palin and her childish desire of the moment is the thing that the world should be interested in. And as far as Palin is concerned, The Sarah Palin Show is the only thing the world is actually interested in. Sarah Palin looks in the mirror and says, “Screw Alaska and its problems, screw my children and their problems, screw my whole family, screw John McCain, screw the Republicans, screw any ideology unless it can further Sarah Palin...and tomorrow the world." Michael Steele, says we should “wait and see what Palin does next”. Which, of course, is proof Steele is an idiot. If Steele had half a brain, he would realize that whatever Palin does next is going to be an even bigger embarrassment to the Republican Party than what Palin has already done, and it should frighten him silly. But maybe that’s his problem. He already has been frightened silly by a glimpse of Palin’sWorld 24-7, and that’s why he acts and sounds like a fool.

About Sarah Palin, Here’s What I Get

I get that watching her on TV is irresistible, because one can no more turn away from Palin on TV than one can turn away from a train wreck. I get that guys like her perky, ditsy persona. I get that people think she’s attractive. I get that at first she seemed to be a refreshing presence on the political scene. But here’s what I don’t get: I don’t get that a whole clot of people who have been presented with incontrovertible truths about her--both by what she has said herself and by the duly-reported observations of others—have not understood that she is a self-absorbed, lying narcissist who is dangerously deluded and probably insane. I don’t get that a whole clot of people choose to ignore the plain, bald, irrefutable, indisputable facts about Sarah Palin. Like, she is vindictive and malicious and when in a position of even the tiniest amount of power, she exacts revenge on anyone who crosses her or anyone she favors, and she cannot abide even the slightest criticism. Like, she blatently lies and then assumes that her personality will make people forget the truth. Like, she does what she wants to do no matter what her handlers advise, even when it has the worst possible consequences for the people she works for. Like, she cannot stay on-message for her constituents and her party to save her soul. She says and does whatever comes to her mind at any moment, not unlike a four-year-old child that wants what it wants when it wants it. Like, she sees herself as the point, the main point and the only point. She serves no cause, no ideology, no policy, no administration, no party except to promote herself. I don’t get that even though the above traits spell DISASTER for a politician, there is a whole clot of people who would like to see her run for president. I don’t get that even though Sarah Palin is a female George W. Bush, and George W. Bush should be convicted of treason for what he and his administration did to the United States of America, still, there is a faction here in the United States who would willingly vote for Sarah Palin to be our president. I don’t get that. It is simply beyond my ken.

PC Expectations For a Supreme Are Doomed

The Washington Post said today, “Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor once told a group of minority lawyers that she believed a delay in her confirmation as a federal appeals judge a decade ago was driven partly by Republican lawmakers' ethnic stereotypes of her, suggesting that the tensions surrounding her current nomination are hardly new to the New York jurist.” And the NYT said, “In speech after speech over the years, Judge Sonia Sotomayor has returned to the themes of diversity, struggle, heritage and alienation that have both powered and complicated her nomination to the Supreme Court. “She has lamented the dearth of Hispanics on the federal bench. She has exhorted young people to value immigration. She has mulled over the ‘deeply confused image’ America has of its own racial identity. And she has used on more than one occasion a version of the ‘wise Latina’ line that she has spent much of this week trying to explain.” Deeply imbedded in the minds of those who comment and write about such things in the mainstream media is an ideal image of the perfect Democrat nominee and/or perfect Republican nominee for the Supreme Court. Which, at first blush, sounds like a sensible approach to use for picking someone who will have lifetime tenure and will be making monumentally important decisions that affect everyone in the United States. And yet, of course, any ideal image is totally unreasonable. Like the absurdly incorporeal ideal the Roman Catholic Church holds up as the only acceptable Christian, perfection is a standard against which all human beings must fail. The Law itself uses a much better model than either The Church or the political talking heads that bloviate, strike poses and rant. And that model is “the reasonable man”. The Reasonable Person is not and never will be politically correct because the politically correct posture is false, pretentious and unreasonable. What we know is, a Democrat will back a Supreme Court judge he hopes will rule like a Democrat. A Republican will back a Supreme Court judge he hopes will rule like a Republican. And no matter how much the public and the press demand political correctness from Supreme Court nominees from the age of five, they will not be politically correct and they will not rule like a bloodless, impartial, incorporeal, spirit being invoked at a Judging Seminar Séance. Supreme Court nominees are human beings with all the flaws the rest of us have. The very best we can hope for is that a Supreme Court judge will rule like a reasonable person.

God Forbid The Truth Be Stated

In a 2001 lecture, Supreme Court nominee, Judge Sonia Sotomayor said,” I would hope that a wise Latina woman with the richness of her experiences would more often than not reach a better conclusion than a white male who hasn't lived that life." I would hope so too. It’s a simple unvarnished statement. I would also hope that a black male who has been the target of racism would know more about being a black male target of racism than a white male who has not lived that life. That too is a simple unvarnished statement. But our black male President Obama said about Sotomayor’s statement from eight years ago, "I'm sure she would have restated it." Why? Tell me that! Why on earth would Sotomayor have restated her statement? It’s the God’s honest truth. Then and now, it is not racist, it’s not ill considered, it’s not mean-spirited, it’s not immoral, unfair, untrue or wrong. It is and it was a FACT. I, Joy Tomme would hope that a 78-year old female knows more about being an old lady than a 25-year-old male. Is this geriatric nonsense? Is this age baiting? Is this a wild and insane idea? Ah, but the Dems caved in to the Republican Right's white male hysteria and it wasn't long before demands were being made for Sotomayor to apologize for an honest, true and factual statement she had made in 2001. And then, as though the Republican Party needed a talking-out-its-ass icon, on May 27, the day after Sotomayor’s nomination, Mark Krikorian of the right-wing Center for Immigration Studies said, “Deferring to people’s own pronunciation of their names should obviously be our first inclination, but there ought to be limits. Putting the emphasis on the final syllable of Sotomayor is unnatural in English...and insisting on an unnatural pronunciation is something we shouldn’t be giving in to.” Cripes! But...come to that...how did Jon Kyl (R-AZ) get into the Senate without Krikorian’s pronunciation imprimatur, or Joe Lavigne (R-LA), Gil Gutknecht (R MN) and Rodney Frelinghuysen (R-NJ) of the House of Representatives? Or GWB’s supreme court nominee Harriet Miers. Until we were given instructions, those names didn’t exactly roll off the tongue trippingly. Of course, if the Cheney (pronounced Chain-ey)-Limbaugh (pronounced LIM-baw) ticket gets any traction, they could solve the problem and change everyone’s name to Smith. Um...how is Krikorian pronounced? Crick-OR-ree-an? Or Cricker-REEK-an?

A TV Ad Honoring Our Soldiers Is a Travesty

And it’s enough to make one retch when you know what and who is behind it. First, it talks about how all the people in the armed forces and particularly those who have died ensuring our freedoms are always in the hearts and minds of the sponsor of the ad. Okay...that sounds very upright and righteous. But the sponsor of the ad is Lockheed Martin. Lockheed Martin is owned by the Carlyle Group. The Carlyle Group is the biggest war-profiteer the US has ever known. And if you don’t know about the Carlyle Group, read the Ratbang post of May 15th.

Good Job, NY AG Cuomo, But It’s Just a Start

This morning, the New York Times reports that New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo’s inquiry into the Carlyle Group’s shenanigans in public pension funds will end because the Carlyle Group has agreed to pay a $20 million settlement and make broad changes to its practices in order to end the inquiry. Need we say that the Carlyle Group’s practices of bribery, extortion and war-profiteering have been farshtunken for years and all persons connected with The Carlyle Group are lucky they are not in jail. Chief Person-of-Interest, of course, being Dick Cheney. Let me reprint a Ratbang column from Sunday November 21, 2004. It was titled: “Is It Okay That the Carlyle Group Owns the GOP? Filmmaker Michael Moore (Fahrenheit 9/11) and author Craig Unger (House of Bush House of Saud) have fully documented the number of government officials--present and former--who are involved in the management of the Carlyle Group and that the Carlyle Group runs the United States. But let me recap, in case you’ve forgotten. The Carlyle Group provides investment capital for companies, it is the brains behind management-led buyouts (MBO’s) and it pimps the sales of weapons between defense contractors and governments all over the world. Its directors and advisors have been former President George Herbert Walker Bush, former UK Prime Minister John Major, former US Secretary of Defense Frank Carlucci (now Chairman Emeritus), former Jimmy Carter policy adviser, David Rubinstein (now Carlyle managing director), former White House chief of staff, James A. Baker, former head of the Office of Management and Budget Richard Darmen, recently resigned Secretary of State Colin Powell, former head of the SEC and the American Stock Exchange, Arthur Levitt and the ubiquitous Bin Laden brothers. This is disturbing because anyone connected with the Carlyle Group is in a position to profit from its weapons contracts between companies like Halliburton and the US government (and other governments). Not to mention the ugly thought that shareholders and directors profit from medical supplies of anti-chemical warfare inoculations which are pimped between manufacturer and the US government by the Carlyle Group. It was the Carlyle Group that acquired Caterair, a catering company for airlines. And it was David Rubinstein who talked to Caterair about a ne’er-do-well rich kid whose name would be an asset for Caterair’s management. The rich kid was George W. Bush. The kid never did anything for the company but tell bad jokes, goldbrick and collect a salary. Finally Rubinstein told him he should probably find another career. But the Bush name has never done the Carlyle Group any harm. And the rich kid did find something else to do. We can thank the Carlyle Group and Daddywarbucks Bush. Throw a dart at the map and you will find a Carlyle Group company in that region distributing arms, selling weapons, buying defense companies and in general, affecting the economy and safety (or ensuring the lack thereof) of that region. The Carlyle Group effectively runs the GOP and GOP policy. And it is not Okay. It is monstrous and it is corrupt. War is just another business to the Carlyle Group, but war is its biggest profit-making business. And the business of war is putting a lot of money in GOP pockets. The Big Three is not George W. Bush, Dick Cheney and Condi Rice. The Big Three is Karl Rove, Dick Cheney and the Carlyle Group.” And from Ratbang’s January 29, 2005 post: GOP Bows to Carlyle Group, USA Screwed (Again). "Yesterday, the Lockheed Martin Corporation, whose web site calls itself “an advanced technology company” beat out Connecticut-based Sikorsky Aircraft for a $6.1 billion Navy contract for 23 security helicopters for the President's presidential fleet. So what...that’s business. The so what is that Lockheed's partners are based in Europe and the main transmission, the rotor blades and several other components for the helicopters will be built in Europe. The so what is that the Bush administration has out-sourced a six billion dollar contract to a company that has never built a helicopter in its long defense contract life. In January, 2004 Sikorsky proudly announced its bid for the helicopter contract. Sikorsky listed its “all-American team” and said, “Our company has a 45-year track record of safe and outstanding service to the President of the United States, and these are the American companies we have selected to help us extend that record for another generation." Sikorsky Aircraft has built the presidential fleet since 1957. Ah yes, but Sikorsky didn’t count on the clout of The Carlyle Group. Some of the most powerful figures in Washington have worked for The Carlyle Group, including former Secretary of State James Baker, former President George H.W. Bush, former Secretary of Defense Frank Carlucci and former FCC Chairman William Kennard. The Center for Public Integrity investigation into Department of Defense contracts found that the Carlyle Group, a Washington, D.C.-based private equity firm was the ninth largest Pentagon contractor between 1998 and 2003. The Carlyle Group doesn’t manufacture anything. It offers no services directly to the Pentagon, and has no defense contracts. It manages investments. According to its web site, it has more than $18.9 billion under management from 600 individuals and entities in 55 countries. The Carlyle Group was founded in 1987 when it began investing in defense and national security companies. By taking over companies with billions of dollars in defense contracts, it became a top US military vendor. After September 11, it cashed-out many investments when the price of stock of defense companies rose. The Carlyle Group also made huge profits from the defense buildups for the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. It other words, the Carlyle Group is a war profiteer. It was former Defense Secretary Frank Carlucci (Carlyle Group managing director from 1989 to 1993 and chairman from 1993 to 2003) who made the small private equity firm a mega-force among defense contractors. It’s interesting that Carlucci and Donald Rumsfeld went to college together. And here’s some dandy info about the Carlyle Group’s Thomas A. (Tom) Corcoran, straight from the Carlyle web site. “Thomas A. Corcoran is a Senior Advisor to the aeropsace and defense group. Mr.Corcoran assists Carlyle in developing strategy and identifying investments in Washington, DC. In addition to his role as a Carlyle Senior Advisor, Mr. Corcoran is President of Corcoran Enterprises, LLC, a management-consulting firm. Prior to joining Carlyle, Mr. Corcoran served as President & Chief Executive Officer of Gemini Air Cargo where he led a successful business restructuring. Before Gemini, Mr. Corcoran was President and Chief Executive Officer of Allegheny Teledyne Incorporated. Prior to that, he was President and Chief Operating Officer of Lockheed Martin’s Electronics Sector from 1995 to October 1999. Prior to the 1995 merger of Lockheed Corporation and Martin Marietta Corporation, he was President of the Electronics Group of Martin Marietta, a position he assumed in 1993 following the sale of GE Aerospace to Martin Marietta. He began his career in 1967 at General Electric Company where held various senior management positions. He joined GE Aerospace in 1983 and, in 1990, he was elected as corporate officer and rose to the number two position as Vice President and General Manager of GE Aerospace Operations.” Thanks to investigative reporter Leuen Morel, a wonderful factoid appeared in the San Francisco Bay View on November 7, 2004. “Lockheed Martin Marietta is 70% owned by the Carlyle Group”. The stench coming out of the Bush administration is becoming overpowering. This latest collusion between the Carlyle Group and the Carlyle-bought-and-paid-for GOP would be beyond belief if the proof weren’t so blatant and damning.” UGH! And Double-UGH!! So...way to go, Andrew Cuomo, but the mother lode is still under the surface.