12.30.2006

A Hanging

~
For the record, in general I am against capital punishment. I think it is barbaric and diminishes man's sense of decency.

But what disgusts me even more is the sad fact that, throughout the miserable history of man, there have been so many bastards whose deeds are so reprehensible they force the rest of us to take such drastic measures. Because, in the end, no other form of punishment seems satisfactory.

We often hear that it is not for men to judge other men; that this is the prerogative of God. But in certain cases, we need to be sure. Perhaps we don't trust God's judgment in these cases. Perhaps we think that His mercy will extend to these bastards. Perhaps we think this kind of mercy is misplaced. So we take justice into our human hands and in effect we tell God we're sorry Lord, judge us harshly if you must, but these bastards need killing.

Saddam was a member of this special club. You know the litany of his crimes. Had we heard that he himself had shown the slightest mercy towards any of his adversaries, perhaps we might have felt differently. But he didn't, and so we don't. And because he was warned, not once but many times, to cease his dangerous actions - and because each and every time he gave us the finger - he pushed an American president one step too far. He believed America would not intervene because former presidents gave him every reason to believe. He caused an intervention which has the death toll of Americans about to reach 3,000.

For all these things and more, hanging is not punishment enough. But it will have to do. And perhaps it will cause a few other bastards around the world to reconsider their own actions. Because even though I am not in favor of the death penalty, in these special cases, I say kill all the evil bastards. The sooner the better.

Happy New Year, world.
~

12.10.2006

The Brightest Christmas Light

~
He was born in a stable.
A common man
Who roused those like him.
So despised by the powerful,
They crucified him.

He never asked that it be done,
But he was crowned king
And religions were born in his name.
He never asked that it be done,
But countless wars were fought
and legions slaughtered 'neath his banner.
He never asked that it be done,
But empires and civilizations
were overturned
And a New World was consecrated in his name.

1,973 years later,
He is still being crucified.

He never asked that it be done,
But an army of soulless preachers,
Corrupt politicians,
Causes and charities
Take in his name.

What he did ask be done,
To overcome our animus
Toward one another,
We have yet been unable to do.

He never asked that it be done,
But this simple man's birth is celebrated
In one of the happiest seasons of the year.
While profiting greatly from the season,
Those who despise him
Try to strip his name from the day
As if to re-crucify him.
He is buried again
In an orgy of lights and gifts.
Those who truly love him
Shake their heads in quiet sadness.

But take solice.
In nearly two thousand years
Of despising him,
Deriding his divinity,
Discrediting his teachings,
Denying his very existance,
Mocking his followers,
Burning his written words,
Tearing down his symbols,
Profiting in his name,
Belittling him with plastic figurines,
Even beheading his followers,
No one has been able to extinguish his light.
For in him is something bigger
And stronger than all these other things,
Something brighter than all the season's lights,
A gift more precious than all those fancy wrappings.
Not everyone understands it
Or is able to feel this joy,
But those who do
Ensure his birth will be celebrated
Forever.

May the true Light of Christmas be upon you.
~

12.03.2006

A Christmas Story

~
During a long and (if I may say so) successful career as a creative director, I wrote and produced many, many tv campaigns for all kinds of corporations and products. One of the most (unintentionally) hilarious phases of commercial or film production is the "pre-pre-production" casting session. This is a meeting held after the creative idea is agreed to by agency and client, but before actual production begins. At this meeting the writer, art director, producer, account exec and other agency individuals sit at a large table with representatives of the client/corporation for whom the particular commercial is being produced. Usually, the way I did it, was to have the film director and some of his people also present at the meeting so they could add their input.

This type of meeting is usually very informal; everyone including normally stuffy types will roll up their sleeves, loosen their ties and kick off their heels, and proceed to say the stupidest things imaginable. A meeting might go something like this:

JIM (the Creative Director): "Okay folks, we're here to discuss casting for the Z-Y-X commercial. Let's begin with scene two on your storyboards, where we have a married couple driving their car to the Z-Y-X store for the big Christmas Tree sale. They decide to take their neighbors along, another couple, because they are all interested in all those the great deals on holiday decorations. Any thoughts?"

ROG (Roger, the Z-Y-X advertising director): "Y'know, I was thinkin' on the way down here..." (the thought of Rog thinking frightens the agency creatives as well as the film director) ..."We need to include more minorities in our commercials. So I was thinking we should have the neighbors be African-Americans."

PAULA (the agency account exec): "Splendid idea, Rog!"

BRUCE: (The Z-Y-X public relations director): "I don't know, Rog... I don't know how to put this delicately..." He glances over at ARN, an agency guy who happens to be black. "But it really looks bad from a PR angle to have the African-Americans, y'know... like... sitting in the back of the car..." Everybody but PAULA nods, ARN spits up his coffee.

PAULA: "Okay, okay, how about they're not African-Americans, they're Muslims. Or maybe one of them is Muslim and the other is a Latino to cover more bases."

JIM: "Jesus, Paula, what are you saying? The Muslim and the... what? ...Mexican? ...are a married couple? How in hell is the viewer supposed to digest that?"

FRED (the film director): "I hate to tell you, Paula, but the Muslims probably aren't going to be hanging Christmas decorations up on their house unless we're selling Osanta bin Clause dolls. They're Muslim for Christ's sake."

PAULA (embarrassed but angry at being mocked): "Well maybe one of them converted to, you know, whatever the Mexican is."

BRUCE: "That's ridiculous. But it's not a 'Christmas' sale anyway. It's a 'holiday' sale. So a Muslim could work, right, Fred?"

JIM: "Holiday sale! Baloney! We all agreed at the last meeting it would be a Christmas sale. Christmas! Santa, Christmas carolers, the whole nine yards."

ARN (the black guy): "Hey! Who says the couple driving the car has to be white? They could be black. The crackers could be in the back of the bus... I mean... car." Dead silence comes over the room. "Yeh, what's wrong with that?"

FRED: "Nothing, Arn. Nothing." Trying to be sarcastic, Fred adds, "Maybe the couple in back should be like Korean, or Pakistani, or even better... both."

BRUCE: "Good thinking, Fred! But let's think about this. If we made the couple in back, say, a handicapped couple... wow... we'd really be 'inclooosive.' That'd score us a lot of points with the African-American, Asian, Pakistani and the handicap markets, wouldn't it? I mean they shop at Z-Y-X, too. That's why we have all those special handicap car parking spots."

FRED (not able to believe his ears): "Maybe they shouldn't be in a car. Maybe they should be riding in a rickshaw... pulled by a white midget who is a nun... they shop at your place too don't they?"

PAULA: "Now, Fred, let's be serious. How can they be in a rick-whatever-you-call-it? Where would they put the Christmas tree they're going to buy at Z-Y-X?" Fred stares at Paula, wishing he was drunk.

JIM: "See! You said 'Christmas' tree. How can you not call it a Christmas sale when you're selling Christmas trees, Christmas decorations, Christmas gifts, Christmas cards, with people going around singing Christmas carols in the stores?"

PAULA (sniffing and turning her nose upward): "It's a holiday tree."

JIM (virtually pulling his hair out): "What holiday!? Columbus Day!?"

ARN: "Say, bro, y'all know Columbus was a homeboy?"

FRED: "Oh great. Maybe he can be driving the car then."

ARN (getting snitty): "Oh, very cute, El Directore."

ROG: "Uh-oh. I just thought of something..." Everyone glares at him, knowing whatever it is they are not going to like it. "The storyboard indicates that they get lost on the way to the store because the driver is a dumbass, right?"

PAULA: "Oh jesus, you're right..."

JIM: "What?"

ROG: "Well, c'mon, Jim... we can't have the black guy be the dumbass. Everybody knows the black person in a commercial has to be a computer wiz who solves the world's problems, right? Otherwise we'll offend our African-American customers who after a hundred and fifty years of no slavery still get offended by anything that will result in a lawsuit and free money."

JIM: "What? It's okay to offend our white customers by making them the perennial butt of the joke?"

ARN: "Damn straight, honkeys are butts." Everybody bursts out laughing.

ROG: "No biggie. We'll make the driver a dumb white guy who's wife is a lovely African-American woman. Then we've got all our bases covered."

PAULA: "Rog, that's brilliant!" Rog glows with pride. Arn makes a kissing sound directed from Paula's face to Rog's ample ass.

ARN (mutters to himself): "Ain't no lovely chocolatta 'ho gonna let a cracker drive her around in a ugly set o' wheels like the honkey got."

FRED: "Let's see if I got this straight... a dopey white guy and his black wife are driving their neighbors, a Korean-Pakistani couple - one handicapped, the other maybe a midget - to buy non-Christmas tree stuff at a Z-Y-X Holiday Sale, and they get lost on the way..."

ARN: "But the black 'ho quickly solves the problem, making her honkey hubby the not-so-insignificant butt of the joke." Everyone laughs again.

FRED: "This black woman... she's, what? Like a Rhodes Scholar? Sitting in a car with a dopey honkey, a Korean midget and a Pakistani with a club foot? Maybe one of them should be gay... you know... just to cover all the bases."

BRUCE (indignant): "Are you making fun of me, Fred, darling?"

FRED: "Huh? Are you gay or something?"

BRUCE (pointing a finger on the end of a somewhat limp wrist at FRED): "You're the kind of bigot racist who assumes anybody named Bruce is automatically gay."

FRED: "Whoa! I'm sorry, man. Are you like...?" (FRED makes a limp hand gesture as if ringing a little [tinker] bell.)

BRUCE: "That's beside the point!" Arn makes a kissing sound at Bruce.

ROG: "Settle down, gays... I mean guys. Geez, now you got me doing it. Maybe Fred has an idea there. What if the Korean/Pakistani handicapped couple is two guys? Think of the terrific publicity! It'd be like a Target commercial."

JIM: "Everybody's gay in a Target commercial, even the straights."

PAULA: "I like the idea, Fred. But how do we know the two guys in the back of the car are gay and not just two brothers or something?"

JIM: "Korean and Pakistani brothers? Now that's rich."

ARN: "I'm no expert on gayness, but they could be tongue-kissing in the back of the car. You know, workin' their way up to a little poon-tang. If they were two lesbos I'd watch that commercial."

PAULA: "Poon- what? is that some kind of African-American Christmas food?"

FRED (laughing): "I guess you could call it that..." FRED and ARN high-five one another.

ROG: "I'm a little troubled by the name 'Holiday Sale' to be honest."

JIM: "Aha! Finally somebody agrees with me."

ROG: "No, not exactly, Jim. If you really think about it, the word 'holiday' is a contraction of 'holy day.' Since we're trying to get away from religious connotations in our advertising, shouldn't we avoid saying 'holy day'?" Fred and Jim's jaws drop. Paula's eyes go wide.

ARN: "Damn, Rog, your mind's like a steel trap. Ain't nobody gonna put one over on you, dude. So we could call it a Kwaanza Sale. Huh? Got a ring to it. Kwaaaaaan-zah!"

JIM: "Then what do we call Santa Claus? I mean he's jolly ol' Saint Nick. He's a freakin' saint! How can you have saints in your goddamned non-religious store!?"

ROG: "No need to get hostile, Jim. We don't actually call him Santa Claus at Z-Y-X, He's known as Mr. Presents. Sometimes we call him Bigg-o The Chimney Man."

JIM (resigned to another politically correct failure of a tv campaign): "Okay, a goofy white guy and his Rhodes scholar African-American wife are driving a gay Korean/Pakistani midget couple with club feet to Z-Y-X to the Kwaanza Sale to buy Christmas trees. On the way, the dumbass white guy is so distracted by the Korean/Pakistani couple getting it on in the back of his car that he misses a turn and gets lost..."

FRED: (the director holds up his two hands as if "framing" a shot in his imagination) "I'm starting to see it now... but to add more spice they could stop to pick up a hitch-hiker who happens to also be headed for the Kwaanza Sale. This way we get to introduce another type into the casting, make it a little edgier, maybe just the hint of danger."

PAULA: "Neat-o! We could make the hitcher a Jew. They shop at Z-Y-X... hell, they own Z-Y-X."

JIM: "And we know he's Jewish, how...?"

ARN: "His yamulkah... yeh, the dude's wearing a Christmas yamulkah! Maybe Rudolph with a red nose crochetted on the top. The red nose could light up and blink. Now that's hip!"

JIM: "Jesus, Arn, he's a Jew! He's not wearing any blinking lights on his freakin' beanie."

FRED: "You'd know he was a Jew if he was Hassidic... you know long beard, braids, black suit, white shirt, carrying a small Torah and rocking back and forth while he submits to God."

JIM: "He might look like an Amish guy who needs a shave..."

ARN: "Jim, Jim, check it out... this'd be an award-winning commercial if the hitchhiker was a serial killer, y'know... on his way to the Kwaanza thing to pick up a hockey mask, chain saw, maybe lift some bling."

ROG: "No serial killers, Arn, no shop-lifters. This is a family store. But I really like the idea of the Hassidic hitch-hiker... but unfortunately it's a Saturday Sale."

FRED: "So?"

ROG: "He wouldn't be permitted to ride in a car on his Sabbath... a car is an electro-mechanical device."

BRUCE: "But he could ride in a rickshaw, right...?"
~

11.30.2006

86ing the '60s

~
This is a confession.

For forty years now, I have harbored a deep resentment bordering on hatred for the so-called '60's Generation. Oh, of course I don't mean each and every member of that bunch. But I do mean those who did their best to destroy America as I knew it, those who proved to be big public pains in the ass - and there are an awful lot of them. My confession isn't that I resent or hate them... no... no. My confession is something quite more nefarious than that.

For forty years, I have detested the endless spitting-up of their own self-serving, egotistical bile. My stomach churned at their anti-culture tunes and films. My guts clenched at each new anti-American book and tv special. It has been forty years of gagging over the government programs they pushed on the rest of us. They made America suffer in stifling silent pain as they shredded whatever might have been decent about our country. I did my share of swimming against this tidal wave... it's not my nature to be quiet in the face of obvious wrong-doing. But to raise your voice against their rantings back then automatically put you in the category of a Richard Nixon or a racist or a bigot or some sort of party-pooping cretan of some kind or another.

Now the '60's generation is getting long in the tooth. Let me make it very clear that, being born early in the year WWII erupted, I am a bit older than many, though not all, of the '60's crowd. Witnessing their demise gives me another reason to live.

You can tell it's happening because you see it in some of the current tv shows. Specials dedicated to how that generation "refuses to get old." Ha-ha-ha! You pathetic idiots. It's still all about you isn't it? I love watching you appear on talk shows now, faces aged to the point where no operation or medication yet known to man can cover the wrinkles and sags. This actually brings smiles to my own face and seems to actually keep me from getting as badly wrinkled.

Oh. You expect me to name names. No, I don't think so. The list would take pages and pages. Besides, you know who they are. They are men and women who started out as hippies, created the drug culture in America, then grew to be writers, actors, singers, entertainers, politicians, professors, stock brokers, and yes, even Supreme Court Justices.

All through the debacle called "The '60s," those of us conservatively inclined resisted their cries to "Bring it all down, baby." We simply carried on with life, pursuing our careers, raising our own families and in general doing our best to avoid becoming corrupted by the perverted habits of their secular world. As a tribute to the soft-headedness of many Americans, many of the '60's Big-Mouths had very successful and lengthy runs. Many became household names. Made fortunes. They are not without considerable talent, this group. But what do you call talent which is used in such a perverted way?

Now their runs are coming to an end. Surely you've heard the rock stars who've lost their voices. The old entertainers trying too hard to be hip, who look as terrible on-camera as off. The journalists who no longer have viable tv gigs to preach their progressive pap at us. Badly aging politicians still spouting the same bullshit they did in the '60's - so worn out they seem to be propped up in front of the cameras like dummies, reciting their puppet-master's scripts.

A few of the '60's crowd have turned from the dark side and now prance around pretending to be new paragons of virtue, preaching the yin to the yang of their previous lives.

Yeh, soon they will all be joining the ranks of already-departed '60's icons like Timothy Leary, Andy Warhol and Alan Ginsberg. I savored each and every one of these departures, and I plan to celebrate a lot more in the months and years ahead. While some will be placing flowers and Teddy Bears on their make-shift memorials, I will be doing a little jig as I check their names off my list. Sure there will be new assholes to replace the old. As Warhol himself noted, "Everyone will have fifteen minutes of fame." But each successive generation's number of minutes shrinks as media time accelerates and the world shrinks.

This may not be poetic justice or payback exactly, but for me, well... in a perverse sort of way, I'm finally getting my fifteen minutes. Not of fame, but of satisfaction.
~

11.21.2006

Clay


     God made Adam and Eve out of it. But this is not about that kind of clay.
     Politicians’ feet are made of it. But that’s not what this is about.
     This is about a little soul that came out of the woods one day and captured my heart.

     At the time, my wife and I were living in the heart of Mendocino County, in Northern California. Our house was deep in the old forests of Redwoods and Doug Firs, near the old “Skunk train” line some of you might know about. There are a lot of snaggle-tooth people in the area who refuse to spend the time or money to have their cats “fixed.” As a result, these people find themselves with unwanted litters on their hands. Their solution is to drive the kittens out somewhere away from their home and drop them off at the side of some out-of-the way road. Thus, one day I heard the feeble mewing of a kitten, but couldn’t locate it.
     Next day, I was doing some work in the garden and spotted a tiny fur ball hiding under my deck. We had two grown cats of our own, Fuzz and Yeti; the starving kitten must have been drawn to their food.
     For reasons not even clear to me, the appearance of this kitten was propitious. One look into his big blue eyes and I was hooked. Now you have to understand something – I like cats but I'm no cat nut. We have adult children – our cats were not substitutes for children as they are for some. Anyway, I managed to get him to cozy up to me by offering him some vittles which he happily accepted. Eventually I was able to pick him up for inspection. He took to me right away. He was some sort of Siamese mix, didn’t much look Siamese; had nice plump features and shorter legs than you find on a Siamese. He had beautiful thick fur running from a creamy white to a warmer tan and dark grey mask and ears... and those beautiful riveting blue eyes. He reminded me of sculpting clay, so I named him Clay. Fuzz and Yeti didn’t appreciate him. They were used to being the center of attention, and let’s face it, these old pampered pusses couldn’t compete for my heart... not with this little fur ball who had come into this world unwanted, and whose earliest days consisted of being dumped out of a pick-up truck, hiding from coyotes and scrounging for food.
     Fuzz and Yeti were typically spoiled semi-indoor cats. We had built them a nice cozy house in our garage. It was plush, and heated in the cold months. They had access through a pet door, so came and went at their leisure. They had more food than they knew what to do with. They were so well fed that they lay near their food bowls and watched unperturbed as Steller Jays by day and raccoons by night came by and ate their dinner. Clay quickly learned the routine. With three squares a day, his fur grew thicker and shinier, he got stronger and lost his fears and shyness.
     Clay was playful and loved to tease the older, much larger cats. They did their best to ignore him but he often wound up jumping on top of their heads in his show of affection. The little guy strutted around like he was a big boy. I loved watching his over-sized paws as he ran circles around Fuzz and Yeti. Best of all, we’d sometimes catch him go nose-to-nose with the beautiful fawns ushered into our backyard by mama does to feed on our grass – grown thick and juicy from Northern California rains. We almost never had to mow the lawn. They kept it as perfectly trimmed as a putting green on any of Donald Trump's golf courses.

     One day, I noticed all that vitality was draining out of Clay. A trip to the vet revealed he had inherited Feline Leukemia and was not going to get better. We took him home and did what we could to make him comfortable. I think Fuzz and Yeti instinctively understood. They softened toward him. One night, Clay rolled up into a ball and drew his last breath.
     I buried Clay in the shade of a canyon oak at a high spot on our property. I often visited the spot, and when we decided to move I went to say goodbye. We lived with quite a few cats over the years. Clay was not with us very long, but he is my favorite. I like to think he was an angel sent to lift my spirits at a time I needed it. His mission completed, he was called back by Whoever sent him, undoubtedly receiving a reward for a job well done.
     That was almost 15 years ago. I often think of the little guy. It was an honor knowing you, Clay.

11.15.2006

HEARTS OF STONE

~
The Fontane Sisters’ 1955 #1 hit tune, “Hearts of Stone” was about as catchy as tunes got back then. Of course, the girls were singing about love, and how a heart armored against rejection will never break. Which is certainly true. But the hearts I’m referring to here are not just hardened toward love. 

Stone cold hearts are developed over a lifetime. Those of us who have been around the block a few times have seen enough liars, cheats, con men, and BS artists of every stripe that we may become inured to the woes of others. I’ve been around that block enough times to have worn a groove into the sidewalk.

We are born with soft hearts, it’s the nature of youngsters. We like furry, feathered friends, nature, and anything as innocent as we are at that tender age. The hardening started a long, long time ago in my case, when friendly neighborhood bullies were older white kids who threatened us kids with their fists. For a dime. Then there were black kids who threatened with switchblades for fityy cent. Later yet, in Manhattan, came the panhandlers of all colors who hit on us with sad-sack stories about needing money to get across the River to their granny’s deathbed. There were poor unfortunates who “just needed a job” to get back on their feet. Then sad sack employees hanging on your neck like albatrosses. Car repairmen who couldn’t fix a glass of water. Contractors who demand up-front payment and never complete the job. Doctors who misdiagnose, make your life even more miserable and still demand full payment. Best friends and relatives who turn on you like coyotes in the dark. Business partners who do you in. Your telephone message recorder and your e-mail inbox is daily filled with missives of crooks, scam artists, cheaters, liars and every sort of bunko trickster from your own town all the way to the farthest reaches of Siberia and deepest Africa. I know each of you has your own list of heart-hardening episodes.

Is it any wonder we become cynical? How many politicians have we cheered, only to be terribly disappointed as they succeed to elected office only to make a mess of things with their feet of clay? How many presidents have we watched betray their promises and the very people who put them in office?

Should we feel guilty that we are skeptical of foreign nations who demand our aid today, after we have seen what so many corrupt leaders have done with our tax dollars? How many charities have used your hard-earned money to line the silk pockets of their over-fed leaders? How about people caught in disaster, those in government and those in our lands, who didn’t have enough sense to get out of the way of whatever was rushing toward them? I am out of sympathy for them all. My heart has become granite. I’m not proud of it. That’s just the way it is. Once hardened, even God has a difficult time softening a heart.

Going back three generations I am aware of, my family never asked for help from outside. Not for anything. Believe me, they could have used it! Like many of yours, my ancestors came to America from Europe. They came legally. There was no one here, no government “program” or department yet invented to give them a hand. They were simply processed through Ellis Island, deposited on the shore, and forced to fend for themselves at the turn of the 1900’s, when times were very tough for many in America.

My folks never received or asked for help during the Great Depression. To these generations, the very idea of welfare – indeed any kind of handout – was degrading. They had something called pride. Like many of you, I never had any kind of financial assistance to complete my schooling. It was school by day, work by night, and get through it somehow. Somehow I did.

These are just some of the more obvious experiences which turn our hearts to stone over the years. The net result is many of us are sick and tired of hearing all the whiners today. We cringe at whining millionaire entertainers who want our sympathy for how they screw up their lives. And they get it from soft-hearted devotees! We are outraged at politicians who screw up and offer pathetic excuses for one failure after another as they are defended to the end by soft-headed followers. We despise those who try to sue anybody and everybody when they themselves are at fault. Yet soft-hearted juries award them prizes. Does that driver in the car behind me expect my sympathy when he rear-ends my car, or one who runs down some innocent kid because she is busy “chatting” on her cell phone about something “really important”? Does that drunk driving his pickup on the wrong side of the road expect my sympathy when he wipes out an entire innocent family? I can’t give him something I don’t have. Cold? Welcome to America’s heartlessland.

But one tiny corner of my heart still beats soft and warm, and I reserve that little corner for the innocents of this world, most of whom are pets, my fine feathered friends, and children under the age of seven.
~

11.12.2006

What Does it All Mean?

~
This seems to be the question every political pundit is asking and answering about last week's election results.

As far as this observer can tell, it means the American voter is... I hate to use words like stupid, empty-headed or pathetic... so I'll stick with the somewhat more polite hapless and hopeless.

If it's true, as many pundits suggest, that independent voters - "those in the center" - and true-blue conservatives were angry at the failure of Republican elected officials to do much in the last few years, why on Earth would these voters cast votes for Democrats? This is daft. If Republicans were too corrupt for these "sensitive" voters, is their memory so short they have forgotten corruption on the other side of the aisle?

If these same voters were unhappy with the Republican's lack of fiscal responsibility, do they actually believe the Democrats will do better? Have they forgotten it was a Republican Congress under Gingrich which forced Democrats to control spending?

If these same voters were unhappy with the war in Iraq, do they actually think Kerry, Murtha et al. will make things any better over there? Do they actually think our boys and girls will be coming home sooner with Pelosi steering the House?

If these same voters were unhappy with the lack of progress in controlling our borders, do they actually believe the Democrats will build that fence any faster? Will go after illegal aliens any harder? Will face down the ACLU? Will clean up the drug gangs? Any voter who believes this is beyond hopeless. He is delusional.

We are told these unhappy voters were "sending a message" to President Bush. "We are unhappy with you and your people Mr Bush, so we are making Congress change hands." Somehow this is supposed to make President Bush see the light. Quite frankly, President Bush no longer cares about this. He has been acting as a "war president" and so knows his damnable "legacy" is dependent upon success or failure in Iraq and the general Middle East. "Success" in that arena, if it is to come at all, will take ten years if not more. Two years isn't going to cut it. So President Bush will have to declare some kind of made-up victory and pull many if not most of the troops out by 2008, well before the end of his term. James Baker will help him find his way out of the morass. At least Baker is a bright man. He and his cohorts will come up with a plan to do this - probably the same plan you or I would come up with around the kitchen table - and Pelosi and her Nancy Boys will go along with it.

Now I have to ask the embarrassing question no one else is asking as far as I can tell. Why is no one contesting this election? We all know there are hundreds of thousands of Democrat votes cast by the dead, the illegal, and the otherwise ineligible. A difference in only a few thousand votes in several close and important races would have changed the results dramatically. Had the shoe been on the other foot, had the Republicans retained control of both Houses by such narrowly-won races, there would be an army of "hanging chad" counters, touch-screen weenies and paid lawyers combing over the results like a horde of locusts from now until January First in order to overturn the election. Could it be that these things are all pre-determined anyway?

In the end, yes, I think the general American voter is hopeless. He couldn't figure out that a vote against a Republican doesn't have to be a vote for a Democrat - a party no more worthy to run Congress than Republicans. Those protest votes could have been cast for write-in candidates of their own choosing, or third party candidates where available. That would have been a better way to protest. That would have been a clear and unambiguous signal to both parties that we are not very happy with either of you and we want more choices.

"Choice" we are told, is a good thing. "Competition" we are told, is a good thing. Dictatorships, we don't need to be told are a bad thing, because they only get one choice of leader - the one with the guns. But here in "free" America we get more choice of ice cream flavors, more choices of credit card companies, more choices of auto makers, breakfast cereal, cell phone plans, sports programs, shoe styles, and cable stations - things that don't really matter much - but we get just a couple of candidate choices at the polls. The choice between tweedle-dum and tweedle-dumber isn't much better than we'd get in an oligarchy - for that is essentially what we have become. Are two choices much better than one when both are in cahoots?

We need more choices at the polls. In 2008, in this great nation there must be more than two viable candidates to run for President. In order to get better choices, we must somehow find a way to break the stranglehold the two party system has on democracy. We have no choice.
~

11.01.2006

Kerry's Confession

~
For those of you who aren't familiar with the term, "Freudian slip", or parapraxia, is a very real phenomenon. One example would be an error in speech caused by the unconscious mind. Some errors - a husband accidentally calling his wife by the name of the woman with whom he is cheating - are obvious cases of Freudian slips. In other cases, the error might appear to be trivial but shows some deeper significance on analysis.

It begins with something which you have locked in your subconscious, often because it is something you are ashamed of. If you are not careful with your words, the embarrassing idea will squirt out in conversation.

This is exactly what happened to John Kerry when he said "...You know education, if you make the most of it, you study hard, you do your homework and you make an effort to be smart, you can do well. And if you don't, you get stuck in Iraq."

Of course we understand he was TRYING to say it was George Bush who is the poor ill-educated dummy who got stuck in Iraq. Nevermind that George was by far the better scholar of the two. All that doesn't matter now. Kerry's subconscious twisted his tongue so his guilt slipped out - he accidentally said what, deep down, he actually believes. In effect this is Kerry's confession. His party is angry. He embarrassed his liberal Democrat friends because, well golly gee, this is what they secretly all believe. They look down their pseudo-aristocratic noses at the military (not to mention the police and anyone else the rest of us describe as "The Good Guys").

Kerry's past behavior belies his pathetic claim that he, as a medaled veteran himself, respects the military. Videotape recording of his testimony before Congress, after his Viet Nam experience, wherein he trashes those he served with, is extremely painful to listen to. It literally drips with his pseudo-aristocratic arrogance. The phony patrician accent, the supercilious attitude, the calculated graphic phrases. It is crystal clear that he detests the military, and yes he detests all the rest of us, "the unwashed." In his failed Presidential campaign for 2004, he goes on to claim our troops in Iraq are breaking down doors in the middle of the night to slaughter innocent women and children. Does this sound like a man who has any regard for the men and women who serve our country?

With his Freudian slip, Kerry re-focused the debate in the last week of this current Congressional campaign away from Iraqi and back to the disdain he and many in his party feel toward the military and any extention of power the US exerts. The elite liberal Democrats, the likes of Kerry, Pelosi, Murtha, Rangel et al. despise the fact that the US military - whether or not they are succeeding - is out there on a noble mission, getting attention, getting the funding, while they, the smarter-than-the-rest-of-us liberal Democrats, are sucking hind teat.

John Kerry, in my opinion, is a despicable boy, running a close second behind Ted Kennedy. Kennedy's name, position and fortune was inherited. Kerry's was carefully and scandalously manipulated. His past qualifies him to lead nobody - except perhaps a school for gigilos. He represents that class of phony wealthy politician who wants you to believe they have sympatico with the poor they supposedly represent. He and other wealthy Democrats, Pelosi being one of the wealthiest in Congress, prance about declaring Bush's tax-cuts only benefit wealthy Americans... but you can bet these wealthy Democrats are reaping the benefits and stashing it in off-shore banks to avoid paying their fair share. This is the height of hypocracy. Is it any wonder Kerry's subconscious appears to be burdened by guilt?

America intuitively knows these weasels will do anything, say anything, deal with any devil, including America's declared enemies, just to get back into leadership roles. Are the Republicans any better? In many ways they are not. But at least in terms of who embraces the idea of a traditional America and what it means, they stand heads above the many Democrats in Congress who subscribe to a progressive America. "Progressive" of course is Marxist-speak for let's have an "id par-tay!" where the elite are free to let it all hang out and anyone who criticizes their behavior is "re-educated."

If the blame-America-first, military-hating "progressive" Democrats are the kind of people you trust to run our nation and protect what remains of our culture, go ahead, give them your vote. You will get exactly what you deserve. Unfortunately, the rest of us will be stuck watching the chaos, and paying the piper.
~

10.13.2006

WHY PRESIDENTS SCREW UP



I have experienced the terms of thirteen different U.S. presidents – starting with FDR. Troubling observation: each new president spends a good deal of his term attempting to right what his predecessor did wrong. The remainder of his term is spent making his own mistakes. His successor inherits the mess, and the cycle repeats.

Among other things this suggests there are few if any presidents wise enough to actually know, in the broadest sense, what in hell they are doing. When viewed dispassionately, the primary reason becomes obvious. Presidents are figureheads, enslaved by their own ideology, or that of their own close advisers, donors, and fellow travelers; hacks elected and appointed.

If a president doesn’t even have enough sense to gather the best, or at least competent, people around him, he or she is doomed to fail – a victim of consequences which hacks and journeymen have no foresight to anticipate. If ideology and political debt, rather than intelligent foresight (or at least clever chessmanship) guide a president’s decisions, these decisions are bound to produce unforeseen and unintended consequences of the worst kind, ultimately leading to failure. Most of the thirteen presidents I have seen have failed in this regard.

Of course, there are few decisions in this life which won’t lead to at least some unforeseen and unintended consequences. It’s a matter of how dire the consequences. Even smart advisers, those not ideologically driven, may fail to foresee the long-term consequences of what, at the time, at least to them, seemed like prudent decisions.

Critical decisions. Truman’s WWII-ending tactic. On the plus side, it brought WWII in the Pacific Theater to a quick end. On the other hand, it ushered in the horrors and fears of the Atomic Age. JFK’s decision as to how to handle the Cuban Missile Crisis? Reagan’s strategy in ending The Cold War? Perhaps Nixon’s opening up of relations with China seemed like a great decision at the time – but today’s China makes me think Nixon opened up a Trojan Horse.

Presidents before my time have brought about some terrible consequences. Instead of heeding Churchill’s admonition to “Love the Hun and kill the Bolshevik,” Woodrow Wilson inadvertently helped the Marxist take-over of Russia, which in turn brought the Iron Curtain thudding down on the USSR. Communist ideology spread like wildfire across the grasslands of the world, causing the deaths of tens of millions. FDR brought us his own vision, or perhaps the vision of someone close to him, of socialism; a somewhat unique American brand of welfare. Expanded dramatically by Lyndon Johnson, it changed Americans’ culture of self-reliance from what it was to what it is now; a quasi-socialist state in which a majority of voters would prefer subsidization to self-reliance, and are okay with submission to their government’s whims in return for subsistence and empty promises.

Which explains why President Bill Clinton made the kinds of popular decisions he did. And why George W. Bush made those he did, and why Barack Obama is still making the kind of decisions he is making.

But now we have this very serious situation involving Iran and nukes, which calls for decisions dictated not by a president’s ideology but by his and his advisers’ ability to foresee the full consequences of his decisions. Of course there will be some, unintended for sure, no matter which decision he makes. But as suggested earlier, it’s a matter of how dire the consequences might be. Decision “A” may work short-term, but may result in far worse consequences down the road than if the president went with plan “B.” Or “C” or “D.” For if anyone in the thrall of caliphate dreams is soulless, with the steely nerve of Harry Truman, the world may wake up one terrible morning to more Hiroshimas. One consequence of our President’s stubborn, ideological decision to essentially “do nothing” by kicking the can further down the road, leaving an even more impossible situation for his successor, may be a mushroom cloud over an American city, and a swath of radioactive death spreading across our land. Maybe across the city you live in.

Have you ever faced a bully? Let me ask you this; did “do nothing” ever work in dealing with a bully? If you haven’t, the answer is no. Bullies beg for confrontation. If you don’t want to get your ass handed to you by the bully, you must hand his ass to him. With prejudice. That bully will think twice, next time. And one unforeseen consequence may be that you actually gain his, and others’ respect.

President Obama is not likely to stop listening to whomever is advising him. He is not likely to set aside his hackneyed ideology. He is not likely to confront any of our enemies, or any of the crime and rebelliousness erupting on our own inner-city streets. His nature is to dread rejection. Bad press in England and Germany. Scorn from France. Humiliation in the eyes of UN “elites.” Anger toward him and his decisions by the muslim world. But at this point, regardless of which way he decides, he will get it all anyway. So he might as well do what needs to be done. After all, what’s the worst the rest of “the world” is going to do? Shake its trembling fingers at the U.S.? But Obama won’t do what needs to be done. He is unable. He doesn’t know how, and doesn’t have advisers who will tell him. He is on the glide path to be judged by history among the worst of our presidents; his only claim to immortality his election as America’s first black president.

If all negotiations fail to stop this nuclear weaponization, our next president, whoever he or she may be, does have a powerful military-diplomatic tool at their disposal. Plausible deniability. A terrible “accident” in the nuclear facilities of a nation warned about its efforts to become a nuclear power. Catastrophic. Messy.

When the alignment of our antagonists see (to quote Condi Rice) this “regrettable accident,” when they see the advancing of the evil cloud caused by their own illicit experiments, when the bullies see other irradiated leaders with blistered faces and singed hair glowing in the dark, you can count on one thing... without any physical proof they will know who made it happen, and they will rethink their ways.

Undoubtedly there will be many unintended and unknowable consequences to such a decision, but they are likely to be far less harmful to America than Obama’s strategy of loudly and proudly doing nothing.

10.10.2006

Daffy Duck

~
Let's get away from politics for awhile, shall we?

I don't watch a lot of tv, I haven't for many years. But recently I have had cause to see a lot of cable tv shows - those endless, endless home improvement type shows, the girls' make-overs and that sort of vomitous pap some call entertainment. I am struck by a couple of things.

First, with regard to men, it seems these cheap cable shows are overrun by homosexuals. Okay, it's a whole new genre, a whole world of employment previously unheard of. Bob Vila and Norm from "This Old House" would probably not be real comfortable letting these guys anywhere near their tools.

Well, since men are hopeless anyway, let's just go to my personal favorite; girls. And by that I mean females. I can no longer call them women. Yes, there it is, that's just the point. They may be over 18, they may be fully grown and fully employed, maybe even wealthy. But somewhere along the way, the female gender underwent a strange, almost alien change.

I still remember the graceful women of yesteryear, with their slow moves and sultry voices. What we seem to have today is an entire generation of adult little girls. Their speaking voices have moved from their throats up into their sinuses. They all - and I mean all -sound like they went to the Daffy Duck Voice Coaching School. Add to this the bizarre "modern girl speaking style" where every sentence ends with a question mark - "I came in the front door?" - "The make-up I use?" - "The guys who installed my kitchen?" It's enough to make you scream? Add to this the almost-whisper, where the amount of air they push through their voice box is just barely enough to produce a sound, so it trails off at the end of a sentence with a sound that reminds me of a death rattle.

Since I was a kid, I've been in awe of gracious, intelligent, good-looking women. It's in my blood. But today's chicks!? Today, with all their discretional income, and all that's available in fashion, almost any woman can make herself more than attractive. Downright sexy. But they seem to think attractiveness ends with fashion. It doesn't. An elegantly dressed, beautifully coiff'd, exquisitely made-up woman may be a feast for the eyes, but when she opens her mouth and that nasal Bugs Bunny "aaaya" assaults your senses, it's enough to make a man's ears hurt and his testicles shrivel like California raisins.

And what's with the gargoyle Rosie O'Donnell types!? They dress in lesbo brown jackets with collared blouses, make themselves up like mortician cosmeticians, and everything they say and do is as ugly as their faces. No doubt it's their inner ugliness, the ugliness of the mind, oozing up through their endodermis and finding its expression in their faces. I see it in Hillary Clinton for example. Here was a really beautiful young woman, bright, ambitious - but her ambition, her twisted philosophy - her inner self - finally made its way up and out and now shows on her face like a twisted witch's mask. No, don't give me that baloney about women lose their looks when they get older. That's total bull. Many mature women never lose their attractiveness, because their inner beauty shines through and makes them glow. Only immature men can't see it.

If you are old enough to remember how women were in the 1940s and 1950s, you'll know what I mean. Oh sure, for every Arlene Dahl or Kate Hepburn or Julie London or Janet Leigh there was a ditzy Lucille Ball or a Marilyn Monroe (both of whom, by the way, were real "dolls" when they were younger). By and large the girls in those years were emulating the Hepburns and Sandra Dee types. Ever since Cindy Lauper made it fashionable with "Girls just wanna have fun," and Madonna taught the sleaze factor to grammar school girls twenty years ago, we have grown a generation of lacey-edged, midriff-baring tarts with annoying voices. I dare you, just listen to average schoolgirls today. Your neighbor's kids, the kids in any mall, kids on tv, scurrying up and down the supermarket aisles with cell phones. Those Bugs Bunny voices would be considered torture by the Islamoes down in Gitmo.

If you are a mother of a young girl, don't get upset with me, ma'm. Your energy will be better spent looking at who your daughter is emulating. Paris? Jessica? Is this all we have left in America for young girls? To want to grow up to be like THEM? Ma'm, your girls need to be sent to charm school. No wonder American boys are the way they are. They'd rather get themselves a mail order mate from Tailand or Manila, or even walk on the wild side with a guaranteed-to-have-sex gay boy, than to have to put up with these girls and their whiny, nasal demands.

I don't know... maybe you know... eh, what's up doc?
~

10.05.2006

Foley, Foley, Foley

~
Okay, what can I say?

What you are witnessing here is the complete meltdown of Congress.
Good. I for one am happy.

Representatives and Senators get away with murder, grand larceny, treason and no one makes a big deal about it. But some prancing fop gets caught with his hand in the cookie jar of a boy intern (who I am sure exhudes the same snow white innocence as Anna Nicole Smith) and the Democrats and their lap dog liberal media go off like a rocketful of Viagra. How boring these clock-work October surprises have become. Of course, being clueless as usual, the Republicans reel in horror - Oh my God, he's gay! I let him drink out of my mineral water bottle! - trying to distance themselves from Foley and the inconvenient facts. "I was too busy fixing the Katrina thing down in New Orleans." Yeh, and a nice job you did down there, too.

But keep this in mind. To know who is responsible for all this mess - or for that matter any political or financial machinations - look to who profits most from it. Aha.

But who among us is surprised? No one.
Who among us doesn't think Foley was "October Surprised?" No one.
Who among us doesn't think Foley deserves to have his well-greased butt handed to him? No one.
Who among us doesn't think this is the tip of a very very smarmy iceberg? No one.
Who among us thinks there are still "honest" and moral leaders in Washington DC? No one.
Who among us doesn't think Conress is the greediest bunch of corrupt self-infatuated shits this country has ever spawned? No one.
Who among us doesn't want them all to be tarred, feather and rode out on their fat pampered arses? No one.
Who among us doesn't want a third party to break up the monopoly this bunch of hypocrites has had on the system for as long as we can remember? Well?

If you vote for anyone in either of these two parties, you are perpetuating their game of three-card monty. The American voter is being played for a sap. If there is no alternative, then it doesn't matter which of them gets elected. They are reflections in a mirror - opposite but exactly the same. Two flavors of poison. Take your pick.

Somewhere in this big wonderful country there must a handful of good people who can lead us out of this mess. Where are you? Certainly not in politics! Please, come forward and let us see you. Your nation cries out for you. We can't take these dimwit high school class presidents and Marxist high school newspaper editors anymore. It's not funny anymore. They have gone amok and the country is plunging into a hell where government corruption is no longer measured in the tens of thousands, but in the tens of billions. Like, who will profit most from this 700-mile border fence that won't stop anybody? The fence builder? The fence material supplier. The manufacturer? Or the politician getting 15% of the cost funneled to him under the table?

It is time to clean house on both sides of the aisle.
~

9.26.2006

The Home of the Brave?

~
I heard an interesting interview on tv recently, where-in the guest, an author and "expert" on international affairs - this was a very knowledgeable and bright man - was asked what do we do about Iran?

His answer was troubling to the interviewer and to me. Essentially, he said there are no good options. His point was that no matter what we do, we more or less play into the hands of the Iranian leaders. If we put severe sanctions on Iran, the people will suffer, the leaders won't, and it will instill even stronger hatred for the US. If we (or Israel) bomb their nuclear facilities, we will at best slow them down for a few years, make their population hate us more, and the problem will come back worse. If we bomb other targets in Iran, such as the petroleum industry, we will cause another terrible oil shortage and cause pain not only in the US but around the world. If we try to support the anti-Iranian forces within the country, it will probably take too long, get many of them killed, and not work in the end. He said there are some very smart people in our government who are working on this problem and to date have found no "good" options.

Here's one I'd recommend if I were advising the NSC. Update the stupid rule barring us from carrying out covert political assassinations. Or just circumvent it. Take out the three or four top leaders in Iran, just as Lee Harvey Oswald (or whoever it was) took out JFK. There is always plausible deniability when these things are done with enough Machiavellian deception. This is the only option that puts the ball in their court and doesn't make cannon-fooder of our troops. (It seems this is one of the few things I and Pat Robertson agree on, although he was suggesting this approach to neutralize Hugo Chavez).

What are the Iranians going to do about it? Their country will descend into political chaos where the rebels might have a chance to oust the religious fanatics. What can the remains of the current Iranian leadership do? Appoint themselves as the new fanatical leaders? Take them out too. Keep doing it until "they get it" and the Iranians get some sane leadership. Compared to the other options, assassin's bullets or poison is cheaper both in dollars as well as in lives.

If they point their finger at us, we might claim that just as the Holocaust "never happened," we do not believe these assasinations ever happened - they were just unfortunate accidents.

Is there any morality in doing this? Of course there is. The Iranian leadership has made it plain. They intend to eradicate Israel. They intend to destroy the West. They support terrorists worldwide and join an international conspiracy to overthrow America. Is not the taking of these treacherous few lives not a just cost for saving the thousands or millions they threaten? Is there any morality to spending billions more of very-needed dollars sending hundreds of thousands of our troops somewhere to face death in order to do a job a few well-trained "hit-men" can do for a fraction of the cost in treasure and lives? How can there be any question?

If you ask me, I say today's Western leaders - including and perhaps especially our own - are among history's worst cowards. Why in hell else would they believe "their" lives are more valuable than their military or anyone else's? Of course they are not!

We had Ahmedinijad right here in New York City last week. It wouldn't have been the best place to take him out. Better to do it in his own country and with the greatest amount of plausible deniability. But, to illustrate, one well-trained "lunatic" in the crowd or across the street in an office building could have done it. Or an unfortunate manhole explosion under his car as it passed by would have done the job. These things happen.

Taking out a few of these leaders will send a powerfully loud and clear message to the rest of the world's tinhorn tyrants (of which there are far too many anyway). The Message: Keep screwing with us and you're next.

Recently, Christopher Hitchens, a fellow I respect, waxed about the concept of pre-emptive strikes. They are good, he opined, because while they can be very destructive they can save many, many more innocent lives than the miscreant lives they take. It's an old and good argument. But if pre-emptive strikes are good, pre-emptive assassinations are even better. For example, had the Europeans had the foresight to take out Hitler and a dozen of his top people before they went on their rampage, we might have saved the lives of fifty million people who were slaughtered in the lead-up and course of WWII.

There is no way a sane person can argue that saving fifty million innocent lives is not worth the killing of a few madmen. Who needs these people? The world would be so much better off without them.

Of course the question of where do we stop comes up. I'll leave that debate for another day. For now, we have a short list that few would disagree with.

There are all kinds of reasons our government doesn't consider this elegant solution. None of their reasons are smart. They say, for example, if we do it so will they. Well, you know fellas, that's the price of leadership. You want all the glory and gain attendant to your Washington DC jobs? In these dangerous times you also have to assume some risk. It's immoral to expect our young men in the military to assume it all for you. Somebody has to show some old fashioned American courage in DC. Is there no testosterone in Washington? Isn't this "the home of the brave?" Or is bravery another politically incorrect notion?

GW or Dick Cheney or somebody... save the lives of countless innocent men, women and children. Eradicate the crazy new Hitlers. Take 'em out NOW, before it's too late. History will vindicate this action.

9.21.2006

I Won't Give an Inch

~
I don't care if they call me a dinosaur, an ol' fogey, a misanthrope or codger. I ain't gonna give an inch to any self-destructive "progressive" fool.

I know the difference between right and wrong, and my beliefs are unshakeable despite 40 years of didactic, misguided lectures from Norman Lear, Jimmy Carter, Walter Cronkite, Madonna, Oprah, a bunch of 16th Century imams, and millions of other America-haters. Their heads are screwed up.

I don't need Jimmy, the peanut farmer (no insult meant to good peanut farmers everywhere), and his anti-American foreign-leader friends from Venezuela and Iran, and Walter to tell me America is always wrong. We're not. Where is Rosiland when we need her? Roz, baby, your hubby needs to be in a home. Maybe he can get his Habitat people to build him one... with padded walls. Jimmy's head is screwed up.

America is God's gift to the civilized world. It is the freest country in the world. America, at least as it was, is worth defending. It has given the world more good and more wonders than it has asked in return. American traditionalism is the world's only hope - unless your head is messed up and descending into a Marxist-Islamic world is your idea of fun. In that case you'd better get yourself fitted for turbans and burqas. I'll not be joining you, if that's okay with you.

I don't need Catholic priests (from whom I learned my sense of morality many years ago) to tell me it's God's Will to allow every law-breaker from every poor country in the world to pour unrestrained and unregulated into America just because they need more donations to their diocese. They are wrong and I am right. No amount of passionate rhetoric will make it right. It's wrong. Forgive me fathers but your heads are screwed up.

I don't need holier-than-thou native Americans and their Caucasian corporate crooks telling me it's good for America to have a casino on every corner. It's not. It's worse than having a gin mill on every corner. People who can't afford it spend even more at a casino than they did at the gin mill. My native American friends ought to find a more "spiritual" way to wealth. Their heads are screwed up. They should be soaring with their eagle totems and not pecking in the mud with turkeys.

I don't need Norman, Oprah and the ex-governor of NJ to tell me man laying with man is "A gift from God." It's not. It's an abomination. How do I know? If these people want to tell me what God says they ought to quote accurately from His Good Book. I don't need to be lectured by enabling psychologists that these people have no choice, that they are "born that way." They are not. At some point they chose to be that way. Why? I should think the answer would be obvious by now. Their heads are screwed up.

Progressives argue that we need to tolerate everyone's proclivities in this "progressive" age. By that reasoning, I'm sure they will tolerate my "need" to whack them in the head with my 34" Louisville Slugger with the lead core. But as six thousand years passage hasn't changed murder from being a capital sin, it hasn't changed man-laying-with-man into a blessing. The ancient rules for living on this planet don't change just because the unclean, who in the past were forced to live in the shadows, are now allowed to prance in the sunlight and twitter about their "God-given right" to do what "feels good."

Is this what "Endowed by their Creator" with the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness means? I'll grant everyone has the right to life and liberty. But it's the "pursuit of happiness" part that confuses us. It is unfortunately vague. The terms life and liberty are essentially unchanged by time and custom. We all know what they mean. But "happiness?" Did the Founding Fathers mean you can be a child predator if that's what makes you "happy?" Did they mean you can put drugs into unsuspecting women's drinks to make them more agreeable for your "happiness?" Did they mean you can have relations with your cat? That you can have 72 wives and abuse them all? Did they mean you can grow, sell and take drugs to your heart's content? That you can abandon your own countrymen if your business will profit more by out-sourcing the work? Or to idolize make-believe people such as actors and entertainers. To make sports take the place of the Sabbath and the old Sunday-go-to-meeting rituals? Did they mean it would be okay for men to make the pursuit of other men the central focus of their lives? To the point of wearing their STD's as a badge of honor? That the education system should be made into a breeding ground for another generation of "progressives" with their heads screwed up?

In the name of "progress," every generation spawns more people whose heads are screwed up, people who push the envelope, push the definition of the "pursuit of happiness" closer to the abyss. Closer to the Pit.

Some days seem to be worse than others. Some days we seem to be held captive to these "progressives," unable to do much but sit by, shake our heads sadly, and watch the suicide. Perhaps one day they will fall over the edge and somebody will need to re-teach the world about right and wrong and the real meaning of happiness. Meanwhile I will not give an inch.

9.07.2006

The Dead Hearts of Politicians

Truth be told, I have never felt a compelling interest in politics. I am like most Americans in that regard. We are interested in results, not machinations.

We don’t expect our elected officials to be rocket scientists. If they were, they’d be doing something more useful. We expect little more from DC politicians than that they fix what needs fixing, protect the nation’s interests, and at least be loyal to America. In return, most turn a blind eye or shake their heads in frustration at the almost inevitable corruption of electees in their own Party – you know – those who steal as much as they can get away with, hit on young Washington DC interns, and speechify on tv on the 4th of July while the rest of us eat hot dogs, and burp heartily at the blathering pols, causing everyone around the tv to laugh – that sort of thing.

Unfortunately today’s brand of politician seems less interested in opportunities for good results but very interested in opportunities for good corruption. Think about it; you only hear about it when they get caught. Feeble apologies. Why else would someone spend millions and millions of dollars, giving passionate stump speeches in places they’ve never even heard of, to get elected to a job that pays so much less? If elected, the passion suddenly turns to their own economic interests. Worse, many don’t even seem to be loyal to our nation.

Progressive liberals may ask What do you mean “your America?”

It’s the land and culture I grew up in. I was raised and schooled during what I believe were the best years this nation ever experienced – the 1940s-1950s – a time when we happily pledged our allegiance to Old Glory; and to the nation for which it stands. This was before “Under God” was inserted into The Pledge. I don’t personally care if they leave that in or take it out. It’s not the operative phrase in The Pledge.

“I pledge allegiance to...the nation...”

That’s what’s important.

To our politicians I say don’t give us claptrap about following The Constitution. The Constitution is the foundation for our nation’s laws, but there is nothing there that demands their loyalty to the “idea” of an America in which we – including most of our politicians – grew up. How can someone who grew up in a country where farmers rise at dawn to feed a world, a country with rodeos, Boy Scout troops, National Parks, stock car racing, grand baseball stadiums, sandy beaches with sailboats, fishermen and surfers, a culture that spawned Elvis, Lucy, Mickey Mantle, Mickey Mouse and the Beachboys, the likes of Neil Armstrong, George Patton and Joe DiMaggio; a culture that built the Golden Gate Bridge, the Empire State Building and carved the faces on Mount Rushmore – how could somebody who grew up among all this go to Washington and suddenly put the welfare of a foreign nation before his own? Become virtual spokesperson for some adversarial nation or value system? How can anyone who is honored by his own countrymen with election to the highest offices turn his or her back on all that he or she held dear as a child? Somewhere along the way, they somehow seem to have lost their soul. Explain that.

There is only one explanation. The heart of a politician beats to a different drummer. He has no soul. Under the guise of “protecting The Constitution” he will sell out all that makes America unique among the countries of this planet. Only a mentally-disturbed politician could argue for NOT protecting our borders during a time he claims “We are facing an enemy who wants to kill us.” Only a mentally-disturbed politician could give away our military secrets to our adversaries. Or our jobs. Or our very sovereignty.

We have heard Michael Savage describe (very aptly I might add) that liberalism is a mental disorder. But if the Democrat Party, taken over by leftist liberals is a sanitarium for the mentally disordered, what is the Republican Party? I do not see this bunch of Brooks Brothers happy-boys protecting our America any more than the grubby Democrats. If the Democrats can rightly be charged with shoveling trillions of our tax dollars into the bottomless pit of social engineering, the Republicans are pouring similar amounts into the bottomless pockets of the business school club of CEOs. Big oil CEOs. War-supply CEOs. Big Pharma CEOs. Wall Street CEOs, and on and on. How does this protect my America? Just the opposite is true.

America produces fewer and fewer things at home. Our politicians shed crocodile tears. We are just borrowing, playing with and printing money that is worth less and less each year. Like a family deeply in debt, a nation deeply in debt is vulnerable. Especially when its creditors are not its friends. Eventually, the family will be forced to pawn its heritage just to stay afloat. It sucks up to anyone with cash, no matter how unseemly. It takes in boarders whose backgrounds and motives are unknown. Most disgusting are the family members who try to convince the others to leave the doors open so strangers can come in and cause the havoc.

As a child, I once lived in just such a house in just such a neighborhood. I will never forget the fear, palpable as it was in my family and in that house and neighborhood. But whereas my family had enough drive and smarts to climb into the middle class, eventually moving to a better neighborhood, those options seem impossibly limited in a nation. Rats sense when a ship is in trouble and begin scurrying off along the mooring lines. Here in our ship of state the bilge is rapidly filling with brackish water, but we are at sea and there is nowhere to escape. It is up to us rats to save our ship.

If nothing else, I would urge every decent law-biding citizen to go out and buy a legal gun. If you already own one, buy another. This is the home of Colt and Springfield and Winchester. Even if you never unpack your new gun – a sudden surge of weapon sales to average Americans will send a very hard metal signal to our politicians and officials; their constituants are frustrated to a boiling point and no longer trust them to protect America or Americans. And our enemies, including those already among us, all of whom follow our media so closely? It should give them some pause.

Or maybe you would rather go down with the ship?
~

9.03.2006

The Divine Fire

~
So what are we to do with Iran?

We can't just attack their nuclear facilities. The cunning snakes who lead that land have planted them right among the populace of the country. If we do any kind of bombing, many innocent men, women and children will be killed and many more will be maimed. George Bush will rank right up there with Hitler, Stalin and Khan. As hawkish as I am, I do not want to see that.

So I will once again turn to "diplomacy by other means."

I understand one of the weapons we have been developing at Area 51, or China Lake or Groom Lake or some other damnable deep dark place is a high-intensity particle beam generator. Cool!

So here's the plan. Iranian President Ahmedanutjob is so infatuated with his nuclear program that he visits the facility regularly, sometimes accompanied by the Supreme Leader, the Ayatolla. Ever notice the news video they love to broadcast on Al Jezera where some poor nuclear scientist shows his latest experiment and a giant hot flame shoots out, nearly searing everyone's beards and turbans? That's the key.

Next time Ahmedanutjob and the Supremes visit this location, our particle beam gun will be poised high overhead on a military satellite. There will be a spy on the Iran science team (there's always a spy on the science team... ask Robert Oppenheimer). The spy will have planted a tiny camera in the lab. The camera image will be broadcast up to our satellite which will co-ordinate with the particle gun.

When the poor scientist sap opens the lab equipment to show Ahmedanutjob the Divine Fire, at the very instant the flame shoots up, the particle beam gun will fire a powerful burst of undetectible neutrinos - or fermions or bosons or tachyons or whatever they're cooking up these days - at the lab. The ultra-high-energy beam will pass right through the thick lab walls and strike the lab equipment, interacting with the nuclear fuel there-in which will instantly reach critical mass. The entire lab contents and all its occupants will be dissolved in a bright flash of radiation which will be contained inside the thick lab walls, thereby saving the lives of all who are outside the walls.

By some miraculous coincidence, all of Iran's fanatical religious leaders will be struck down that same day by a Divine Fire. The God of Abraham and Isaac and Jacob will be blamed for all this because everyone knows George Bush isn't clever enough to come up with an idea like this.

After the usual number of days of denial, Al Jezera will broadcast the news to the world: Iran's leading party has been dissolved... literally... in an unfortunate accident which also set back Iran's nuclear program by at least ten years. The cause of the accident will appear to be a miscalculation by Iran's nuclear physicists. Unfortunately these men cannot be punished properly because they have gone on to claim their 72 mansions with 72 rooms with 72 virgins in each room.

Condi Rice will again address the UN General Assembly. She will declare Iranian's President and Supreme leader are martyrs. There will be a moment of silence. The Israeli ambassador will pump his arm in silent joy. Iran's remaining governing body will declare new elections to be held as soon as possible.

With the help of our CIA (which is looking for a way to redeem itself) the Iranian people will be emboldened to elect non-religious-fanatic leaders - they'll want leaders like ours, leaders whose only fanaticism is motivated by good old-fashioned personal greed. Thus we just might have a few years of peace in this world. Until China starts acting up.

I'll be working on a solution for that one next.

8.29.2006

Ooops!

Here's more "diplomacy by other means."

Next time North Korea's Diminutive Dictator decides to test launch one of his little phallic Dong missiles, we fire off a few of ours as if we are trying and shoot down his Dong. But since we know his Dong doesn't point straight, we don't even bother really trying to shoot it down since it's going to go flaccid on him anyway. Rather, we allow our missiles to continue on to the Dim Dic's missile launch sites, his nuclear manufacturing sites and save one for his big fat ass.

Then Condi Rice goes to the UN and apologizes. "Oops... sorry. A terrible accident. No harm was intended. We merely meant to intercept the Dong but we were using those cheap Chinese missle guidance chips we bought at Wal-Mart and completely missed, instead hitting the late dictator Eel. President Bush sends his condolences to the family. We'll try to get this problem fixed soon." In the middle of the UN General Assembly, Condi looks directly at the Iranian Ambassador, flashes her little sly smile and adds, "We certainly don't want this to happen again."

8.26.2006

The Folly of the Faithless

 



Our anxiety does not empty tomorrow of its sorrows,
but only empties today
of its strengths.
                     ~Charles H. Spurgeon





      Hardly a day passes when we are not treated to the ramblings of some lost soul who tries to convince us – too often through the courts – that there is no place for “God” in the public square, in law, or even in public discourse. They would have us believe it’s totally obvious that the Founding Fathers created our Constitution to protect atheists from the very notion that humanity could believe there is a greater power guiding our Nation through the stormy seas of history.

      Why do we need a God, the atheist argues; Modern Man and Science have the answers. But Man is, if anything, fallible. When it comes to issues of the conscience, or of life and death, even the most degreed men and women, (why, MENSA men and women!) have no idea how or why human destiny unfolds as it does. Unforeseen circumstances and unrestrained appetites will rot the humanity of even the most intelligent and successful among us.

      The simple fact, demonstrated every day in the news, is that we cannot count on our fellow man, no matter how degreed or pedigreed, to have the right answers to anything. Should we accept what they offer us with blind faith when their solutions just fizzle? Can we, indeed, be sure about anything? For all of Mankind’s history, he has turned for advice to the “force” he calls God... a metaphor for the celestial library built by man over thousands of years, a mythic receptacle for all the knowledge and experience of the human race, consolidated, from thirteen thousand years of trial-and-error, into one place.

       Instructed and guided by the ancient gods, Inscribed in ancient manuscripts, Man translates  what he has learned into an owner's manual for the human race; a grand perspective of life, of what works and what doesn't work, in matters of leadership and judgment, in matters of the heart, and of life and death. It predicts and warns of the consequences of making this choice or that choice, of doing this or doing that. It illustrates for us the consequences of our predisposition to the haughty. It acknowledges and warns of the contempt many have for the rules of decency and consequences. Are we now so certain of our own ability to avoid the pitfalls of our decisions that we spit in the face of two-hundred-and-fifty generations of our forebears?

       Liberal philosophers declare that God is dead; that “Modern Man” need not feel beholden to follow the wisdom passed down by his progenitors. Warm, breathing people like those we know today, who lived to pass along humanity’s unique genome, and then died, so you and I could have our turn. Liberals, caught in the thrall of progressive philosophy, seem to think themselves above their forebears, believing their new moral decisions are intellectually superior to traditional values. Some prefer to skip morality altogether – doing “what feels good” – to hell with consequences.

       Atheists seem to believe the faithful are hung up on the notion of a Cosmic force sitting in judgment over them. They think Christians, Jews and Muslims behave because they fear punishment, or believe they will get a reward in some imagined heavenly afterlife. But faith in their God has less to do with fear of punishment and more to do with the inner strength and joy that humility and supplication brings to the faithful.

       We have seen the consequence of the philosophy of the faithless here in our Nation. Our culture has become corrupt. Our narcissistic leaders cater to the wretched, bow to a lower common denominator, telegraphing to all that the nation’s faithful are no longer relevant. Transforming our once great education system into institutions for indoctrination. Children are taught how to put a condom on a cucumber but receive no moral wisdom about what to do with the cucumber. In one generation, the godless have reduced a once confident Nation to one rejecting its own goodness, its history and its Founding Principles. They lead us into a house of mirrors where normalcy is distorted; enemies are embraced, men marry men, wife and baby killers are celebrities, teachers are predators, the very military which protects the nation is intentionally weakened and/or treated like cold-blooded killers, and flag wavers are considered extremists.

       A future stripped of God may be guided by law, but it cannot, by definition, be guided by morality.

       Next time someone suggests God is no longer relevant, ask; if you find yourself waiting for some critical test results from your doctor’s lab – will it be good for you, or will it be very bad – what will you turn to to make the outcome a good one? Or when the airliner you’re on is going down. Or when a loved one is in the ICU. Or when the jury on your capital case is in deliberation. Among all these, God knows, you find few atheists.

8.24.2006

Cruisin'

~
At first glance, I thought the current Tom Cruise Hollwood episode was another Mel Gibson sort of thing. You know, Hollywood getting down on somebody for reasons only Hollyweirdos could come up with. I mean, here's a guy who's made millions upon millions for Paramount. Here's a guy who's been a #1 box office draw for years. Okay, not a consummate actor the likes of, say, a Gregory Peck; but surely not a Kevin Costner either.

But on reflection, I think I was wrong.

Whereas Mel could be forgiven because he was drunk as a skunk at the time he crossed the line, Tom... well... he is just high on life. I think there are several reasons that Tom got the royal - and very public - boot. The first are financial. If there is anything that motivates Hollywood, it's the bottom line. And Tom's was becoming a problem for Paramount. Tom's hat size got so big, he demanded more than they were willing to give. He was one of the very few actor/franchises so powerful he could demand, and get, payment "up front," meaning essentially that he got paid before the studios did! If his film tanked, he still had his, and the studio was left holding the empty money bag.

Okay, let's assume this is all true. There was no reason to make this separation public in the big way it was done. It could have been resolved quietly between the parties. You know, come up with some positive spin about why they both agreed to part amicably. No. There is something adversarial here. There has to be some other, some more personal reason.

There's Tom's annoying proselytizing of Scientology and his unseemly criticism of Brooke Shields (In May 2005, Cruise, her former co-star, a Scientologist whose religion frowns on psychiatry, excoriated Shields for both using and speaking in favor of the antidepressant drug Paxil to help relieve depression and other postpartum effects. By extention he was accusing all mothers of overdoing the postpartum blues thing). Now, if it was just that, I'd be 100% on Tom's side. Hell, this is America. He has the right to praise his belief system, even if I wouldn't. If muslims can go on with their anti-American rants in mosques all over America, surely Tom can rant about his religion. And if he has an opinion about post-partum blues, what the hell, he may not be a pharmacologist, but he still has First Amendment Rights to bloviate. So I'd be telling Tom he should hire himself the meanest pit bull lawyers he can get to go up against those mean bulldog studio execs, and sue them for one billion (with a "b") dollars. He'd have plenty of ammo on his side, and those Hollywood types need a good cleansing.

But Tom went farther. It's my understanding (though unconfirmed) that he began to insist if foreign theater chains wanted him to come to their countries to promote his films, if they wanted his and his group's support, why the motion picture people from those countries would just have to get themselves indoctrinated in Scientology. Well now. That's quite another thing, isn't it? That's sort of like a Japanese auto maker insisting its dealership owners in America brush up on Buddhism before they could sell Hondas in America.

Perhaps Cruise felt he could get away with it because - to make things even more complicated - his film company partner, Paula Wagner, is married to a Paramount exec!

But it seems the head of one of Paramount's major foreign distribution firms wasn't buying any of it. He was put off enough to write a strong letter of protest to Paramount. That's not the kind of letter a company enjoys receiving. It begs to be acted upon. On top of this, it's not difficult to imagine there was at least one recent mother either exec'ing at the studio, or a spouse of one of the execs, who expressed her own views on Cruise's postpartum prattling.

As an action hero, Tom is in his mid-to-late forties, an age past which few actors can manage the demanding physical work. And as a purely dramatic actor, while his million-dollar-smile and face can still handle those extreme close-ups, his acting ability might not be enough to bring in the kind of return on investment the studio expects. Couple that with Tom doing his best to alienate his most loyal fans, women; when Paramount weighed his profit potential against his deficit potention, Tom came out short.

But fear not, loyal Cruise fans, Tom and Paula Wagner have enough projects in the hopper to cruise along for years to come. Long enough for Tom to become the next aging, balding, bloated William Shatner.
~

8.19.2006

Terrorism: The Cost of Freedom




“Those who expect to reap
the blessings of freedom,
must, like men,
undergo the fatigue
of supporting it.”
~Thomas Paine


        It would seem we in the West, have but two choices in the 21st Century.
        If we place world peace above all else, we will eventually capitulate to the tyranny of a One World government. We may have peace but few freedoms granted to us by a handful of plutocrats.
       On the other hand, if we choose to keep our freedoms, we may also be forced to accept terrorism as a fact of life. Because in a free capitalistic society, as long as there are "haves" there will be "have nots." Thus there will always be discord. Wealth by definition is concentrated in the hands of the few, and can only be built on the backs of the many. Thus the "have nots" will always outnumber the "haves," and the "haves" will always exploit the "have nots." Eventually, the "have nots" will have had enough. They will rebel.
       But out-and-out revolution is unlikely in a modern nation possessed of powerful means to control the masses of “have nots.” Therefore the “have nots” are left only with the techniques of terrorism to make their voices heard. "Haves" in adversarial nations will secretly fund and supply the “have nots” with weapons to gain advantages and to assuage anger among their own "have nots." This is a time-tested formula. 
       Sadly, at this stage of human evolution, there are no other realistic choices.
       Those who believe an end to terrorism can be achieved, believe in a pipe dream. Perhaps modern-day terrorism might have been preventable had our past and present political leaders had any foresight; more importantly, had they had any backbone. But they continue to be slaves to their own greed, and bend to the will of the One World socialist movement (ie: Marxists – are you understanding the real enemy is not Islam? Islamic terrorists are simply the willing “have not” henchmen for the real enemy, Marxism) and that most insidious weapon of mass destruction – Political Correctness.
       As a result of the PC infection, America has so many terrorist sympathizers in its own midst that terrorism eventually will become, as it has most notably in Israel and now in Europe, part of America's everyday reality. It will be here to stay. Our governmental agencies, charged with the defense of the nation, are so hamstrung by PC that, while they may foil one plot in one city, another will soon be born in another city.

       Looking at it coldly, you can't have your cake and eat it too. Just as the price of your freedom to travel freely on the Interstates is a certain number of traffic deaths per year – a price we pay and hardly mention anymore – the price of Western freedom is a certain number of deaths per year attributable to terrorism.
       Wait, I hear you say, these traffic deaths are "accidents" and unavoidable. Rubbish! If the kind of draconian driving laws which would be imposed by a One World government (including the types of cars and how they are powered) were ever implemented, highway death tolls would be drastically reduced. But nobody in America would tolerate such laws. Therefore, we accept higher rates of traffic deaths as part of the price of living the way we want to.
       Restated, the price of your freedom to travel freely on the Interstate is a certain number of traffic deaths per year. The price of maintaining America’s free life style is a certain number of lives per year lost to terrorism.
        Americans who know anything about our history and the price this nation paid in its most precious blood, are not willing to capitulate to world Marxism. Aside from its abject failure, it is bleak, discourages inventiveness, and suffocates the human spirit.

       So how many casualties per year – both military and civilian – is America willing to accept to maintain its freedoms? 100? 1,000? How about 10,000 terror deaths per year? More than three 9/11's. Does that sound horrible? Far too excessive? I don't want to shock you, but here in America, just for the freedom to drive 65+ mph, we turn a blind eye to well over 40,000 deaths per year. 40,000!

          (According to NHTSA statistics, in one recent 
          year there were over 6.8 million major accidents
          on America's highways alone, in which over 41,000
          were killed and another 3.5 million were injured.)
 
       Since you can't have your cake and eat it too, are 10,000 deaths per year for America's freedoms really too much? That's 200 deaths per State. About 17 per month. In many of America’s largest cities, there are more than 17 deaths per month caused by gangs – deaths which don't buy freedom or anything else. I don't hear many Americans squawking about that either.