Frank Rich, David Barstow...And a Nutty World

As usual, the New York Times op/ed column by Frank Rich this morning (“The Axis of the Obsessed and Deranged”) was easy reading. It was about the Republican Tea Party. And because Rich mentioned David Barstow’s “chilling” investigation of the Tea Party--Barstow’s NYT article (“Tea Party Lights Fuse for Rebellion on Right”) was printed in the NYT on February 16th—I downloaded the Barstow piece. It was not easy reading. Not because the writing is turgid...quite the opposite, the writing is clear and a very good read. But the subject matter is hard to get through. Although there are, of course, sane and thoughtful people who have allied themselves with the Tea Party because of frustration with the current lack of leadership and disorganization in the Republican Party. But a majority of the Tea Party constituents are (as Dorothy Rabinowitz noted in the Wall Street Journal) “conspiracy theorists, anti-government zealots, 9/11 truthers and other cadres of the obsessed and deranged”. And that’s hard to read about. Barstow says, “the Tea Party movement has become a platform for conservative populist discontent”. But it’s also a lunatic fringe dump site where proponents of militias taking over Washington, DC meet with “No Government Whatsoever” nutcases and talk about the morality and beauty of dying for one’s country and say things like, “I’m cleaning my guns and getting ready for the big show”, “you’re either with us or you’re the enemy”, and they chew over the possibility of fighting “another civil war”. And underneath all the rhetoric and bombast, under all the gun-totin’ bluster and ill-thought-out mechanics of getting rid of all government agencies is the very real racism that still exists in the United States. One faction of the Tea Party is a core of folks who despise Barack Obama just because he is black and who want to have done with all government because we now have a black president who has tainted our government forever. It’s not as though the Tea Party has co-opted the Republican Party and has an agenda for a plan to democratically change things. The Tea Party's point is that they have guns, they are pissed and they will use their arms to make their point if given half the chance. Recently, Louis Menand noted in an article in the “The New Yorker” magazine about mental illness and the trend of mental health professionals toward pathologizing depression, that being depressed is not a disease but a very sane response to a crazy world. The emergence of the Tea Party is major evidence of how crazy our world is.

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.”