Steve Fey's Live From Las Vegas!

"Since we have come to the place, it does not appear to be foreign to our subject to lay before the reader an account of the manners of Gaul and Germany, and wherein these nations differ from each other. In Gaul there are factions not only in all the states, and in all the cantons and their divisions, but almost in each family, and of these factions those are the leaders who are considered according to their judgment to possess the greatest influence, upon whose will and determination the management of all affairs and measures depends. And that seems to have been instituted in ancient times with this view, that no one of the common people should be in want of support against one more powerful; for, none [of those leaders] suffers his party to be oppressed and defrauded, and if he do otherwise, he has no influence among his party. This same policy exists throughout the whole of Gaul; for all the states are divided into two factions." -- Caius Julius Caesar, 58BCE

Available at University of Virginia online library (click the title of this post); taken from Caesar's Commentaries on the Gallic and Civil Wars: with the Supplementary Books attributed to Hirtius; Including the Alexandrian, African and Spanish Wars.
Julius Caesar
Translator W. A. McDevitte Translator W. S. Bohn  
1st Edition.
Harper & Brothers
New York
1869 Harper's New Classical Library

I draw some conclusions from that quote from Caesar. For one thing, he was a pretty good writer. Beyond that, apparently we use  a Gallic political system in this country. In Gaul I imagine that there were liberals and conservatives, with the aim being that neither ever really get the upper hand. Caesar actually liked this two-faction system, as he called it, enough to write about it. Mostly Caesar didn't like much but Caesar, but this Gallic invention was one of the exceptions.

Before somebody gets all bent out of shape about the "Damned French," I need to point out that the Franks (French) moved into Gaul four-hundred years after Caesar wrote his Commentaries, and that the Gauls were more closely related to the Welsh, Irish and Scots than to the Franks. The two-party system was a Celtic invention, actually.

Now in the USA we see the truth of what Caesar wrote. When one faction (party) gets too powerful the people restore some sort of balance. Recently, that election in Massachusetts, which should have been a shoe-in for the Democrat, instead became a referendum on unbalanced party power and hey, shazam, no more supermajority in the Senate. For the same reason that Obama got in last year (too many people not feeling like they were being heard) Obama got a new headache this year. And on we go. For the record, the winner will serve exactly one term. Massachusetts is what it is, after all.

Of course, it is amusing to watch the Democrats scurry about, I'll give it that. Will Rogers said it: "I'm not a member of an organized political party. I'm a Democrat." Yep. I imagine that Caesar would be amused.

Steve

Labels: Politics

The President of the United States has to be the most thankless job in the known universe. I heard someone on the radio say the other day that Obama is "destroying the very fabric of the America that we grew up in." Wow. I'll bet he wishes he had that sort of power. Actually, of course, the President can't hardly go to the bathroom without somebody following him in and keeping him safe. How the hell you're supposed to do anything at all creative when nobody will ever leave you the heck alone is beyond me. And of course, the most recent past prez, you know, Shrubby the Bush as I like to call him, was vilified far beyond what his level of incompetence called for. He did not, contrary to what I've heard, cancel the constitution or institute a police state. I bet he wished he could do some of that, but thanks to the fact that any idiot, including present company, can pretty much say whatever he wants to, nobody can do such a thing in this country. I could say similar things about Clinton and Bush the Elder (the one with a brain) but I think I've done enough damage to individual presidents for one day.

The reason I mention all that is that I'd like to propose that we amend the way we select presidents. Instead of an interminable election, how about every six years, or eight, or whatever seems fair, we draft one eligible citizen, and that poor schmuck or schmuckette is stuck with the job. I would cap eligibility for the draft at seventy, though. I'd hate to think we killed anyone outright. Just think of the benefits we'd accrue. For one thing, instead of somebody crazy enough to actually volunteer for the job, we'd get someone sane enough to avoid it. Of course, the truly sane might just emigrate to Canada. In the middle of the night. With their headlights off. But still, we'd have a president who was truly one of the people at last. Think of it: we could get a new Lincoln, or Daniel Webster, or FDR or JFK or Homer Simpson!

Really, just think it over. I'm sure you'll come around to my way of seeing things.

Steve

Labels: Humor, Politics, Social Commentary

I'm going to write this once again, since somehow people who really like Ms. Palin don't think it's fair that some people hate her. Well, I don't speak for anyone but me, but here's my issue with the woman, not that I hate her. I have to meet someone before I can feel that strongly about them.


I live in an urban area on a coast. The West Coast, to be precise. Don't believe me? No less an authority than Mark Twain, in Roughing It, called Nevada the West Coast. Certainly, in terms of attitude, we, for example, drive more like people in Los Angeles than people in Omaha or Dallas. I don't call that good or bad, it's just the way it is. Also I don't see anything at all wrong with people living in Omaha or Ft. Worth or Wasilia, Alaska, for that matter. I don't even care if somebody from Alaska wants to shoot wolves out of a helicopter. I mean, there are lots of wolves in Alaska, and even though I wouldn't do that, it's fine with me if somebody does. I don't think it makes her any less an American because she doesn't live like I do.

But, and this is the big-old but folks, she bills herself as a "typical American," which is just a gratuitous insult to the majority of the citizens of this great country who live, as I do, in an urbanized area on one coast or another. I'm less of an American because I live in a city, and have city problems to deal with, than somebody who does things that almost nobody in America does, and who lives in a place where almost no Americans live, and who has a husband who has advocated secession from the Union for Alaska? Oh, really? That's why Sarah Palin frosts my shorts. I don't give a hoot about her political positions, because I doubt that they'll get much traction with most of us, who live in, well, you know it by now. Just calling herself "typical" is a slap in the face to those of us who actually are. And for the record, insulting a majority of Americans is no way to get your point across, no matter how loudly Glen Beck shouts it out for you.

I don't go around bad-mouthing solid conservatives from Texas or Alaska or Idaho, even though they take tax money from those of us on the coasts and never give it back. A country works by people helping each other out. If Alaska needs extra help, that's okay. I do not appreciate, however, being told that I'm less of an American because I live in a "blue" state that actually pays more than its share.

There you have the reason I have an issue with Sarah Palin. Thank you.

Steve

Labels: Politics, Social Commentary

The thing about Vegas is that it's always election season. I don't remember a time in five years that I haven't seen "vote for me" signs cluttering up the available public land near intersections. And the media blitz is close to never ending.

For instance, the House just passed some sort of health care reform bill, which is now in the hands and feet of the Senate. Everybody knows that. We have a representative (well, some of us do, actually mine is somebody else) named Dina Titus, who almost beat out our Junior Senator during the last Senate race. She's controversial, possibly because she's never completely lost her Georgia accent. She was therewith accused of being from (gasp!) Texas, which to some ways of thinking is apparently like being from Hell, only not so honorable.

Immediately upon passage of that bill, ads appeared saying that we should all "thank Dina Titus" for saving civilization as we know it. Then more ads appeared saying that we should all contact Dina and tell her that she's a traitor to the Great State of Nevada. Both of these ads have been running all of the bleeding time! And, of course, we do have an influential Senator from Nevada. You may have heard of him. The one, of course, not involved in any sex scandals (that we know of,) the Majority Leader hisself, Harry Reid. More ads have appeared telling us how wonderful Harry is and what a swell job he's done for Nevada. (If he could get people to pronounce it correctly he'd get my vote for sure!) And other ads of course telling us how Harry and the other fifth-circle demons are conspiring to convert us into Soviet-style health-care addicts.

Well, that's my point. It's a free country and anybody can buy air time that has the cash. So I'm not complaining, just reporting. It's gonna be a long campaign season in Nevăda for 2010. Can't hardly wait for 2012, boy. Yee-Haw!

Steve

Labels: Info, Politics, Social Commentary

Guess I'm in a political mood this week. Here goes another foray, but this time it's longer. It's also into a more discrete topic: health insurance. I am reminded of the need for the debate by the fact that one of my prescriptions is not, I found out by getting a phone call from a computer yesterday, available without prior approval. Never mind that I've gotten oodles of the stuff in the past, or that several competent medical doctors have declared the medication to be necessary. We changed insurance plans, so we need prior approval. De facto, insurance companies are allowed to make medical decisions.

Okay, for the record, I know that I could simply pay for the stuff with my own money and cut them out. That's the reasoning behind letting an HMO make medical decisions without meeting the patient: that they have a right to protect their financial interest in the situation. And, you know what? They're right, that they do. My issue is with the nature of the insurer's financial interest.

Most insurance companies, outside of Minnesota at least, who provide health coverage, are common stock corporations. In Minnesota, when HMOs first appeared, they made it illegal for an HMO to be for profit. That meant that HMO Minnesota, which I had while living there, was sort of like a free clinic for members. I never saw a bill, never had a hassle, got whatever treatment the doctor said I needed and no questions asked. Try that anywhere else, I dare you. The difference is due to the nature of common stock corporations.

Do not get me wrong here: I own common stock. A couple of gaming companies, Ford Motor Company, a sub-penny stock outfit called China Nuvo that we own enough of to influence the stock price if we wanted to, and some mutual funds as well. I like common stock companies, both in principle and in practice. Spreading the risk is a great way to get people to fund ventures they'd be crazy to put money into otherwise. Now, in a common stock corporation, you, as a responsible employee or executive, are required by law and ethics to maximize the value of the stock for the stockholders. That is entirely right, and proper, and for the most part, the way things are run. (I'm going to ignore things like that Enron scandal for today.)

If you are a common stock corporation offering health insurance then you are going to hire at least one person known as an actuary. An actuary is highly skilled in statistical analysis and accounting, and extremely valuable to anyone trying to minimize risk. The actuaries are the people who analyze the various risk factors of would-be policyholders and decide which factors deserve a higher premium, and which factors indicate that you should even get coverage. It's an actuarial decision to require prior approval for a medication. Or to decide that grandma doesn't get the aggressive cancer treatment that might save her life. That sounds like what some alarmist commentators are saying government health care would be like, but in fact that is precisely what private insurance is today, at least outside of Minnesota. The reason being that, in a common stock corporation, you are always looking to maximize value (read: make a profit) for your stockholders. The stockholders are mostly faceless and unknown to you, but you cater to them because legally and ethically that's what you have to do. If it were not for the legal and ethical requirements attached to a common stock corporation, the actuarial facts could be replaced, legitimately, with an overall view of probability, and the overall risk calculated, then spread amongst all policyholders, just the way insurance company ads suggest things are done today even though they aren't.

If anyone is suggesting that a public option for health insurance would be worse than what we've got, they're selling something. Probably something you don't need, in fact. A few pertinent facts include the Veteran's Administration health system, which most vets like, which is a government option from the start; plus, as others have pointed out, the simple fact that, for instance, Ohio State University has not put private colleges out of business. The private ones cost more, and maybe they provide a better education (don't get me started, please.) But my point is that Harvard and Yale and the others continue to exist, even thrive, with a great deal of "public option" education competing away with them. Just think which has more cachet: Ohio State or Yale? I can tell you that not many parents in Vegas worry about getting their kids into Ohio State. Or the University of Nevada, for that matter.

One alarmist threat about health insurance reform is that it will drive up the premiums for those who already have insurance. Sure, and it will, too. Unless we have a public option. See? So take some appropriate action, already. You have one Representative and two Senators. They need to get re-elected. You don't need to be an actuary to see where I'm going with this.

Thanks!

Steve

Labels: Politics, Social Commentary

Hey, it's a hot topic. And on the topic, I have two opinions.

1. The Obama people who say Fox is opinion masquerading as news are pretty much correct.
2. The only thing worse is CNN. Honest.

There, I've said my bit. Now go out there and carp!

Steve

Labels: Politics

One of the signs I see flashed at protests in the last month or so is one reading "I want my America back!" Bill Maher and others I have noted saying "America never went anywhere, what the f*** are they talking about?" (Bill Maher talks like that, unlike myself, who would never use a blue word out loud. And I sell bridges.) The thing is, Bill's America never went anywhere. For that matter, my America never went anywhere. But, in truth, a lot of people's idea of America has been blasted badly in recent years, and it isn't likely to return, ever. Rather than scorn them, I think it would be a good idea to help those poor folks through a difficult time.

This is the flip side of a post I put up last November about why the Sarah Palin conservatives lost the election. Read it here. They really are a minority, which of course they never have been before. That can't be easy. And I'd be an idiot if I didn't think there were some racist overtones to it. Some people can't be anything but upset by having a "picaninny mau mau coon nigger" (their words) in the White House. And, they can't even say those things out loud any more. Oh, the agony. Mostly, though, there is a huge complex set of unspoken assumptions about America that people took for granted for a very long time that no longer hold true.

California is an all-minority state. No ethnic or racial group constitutes a majority of Californians. Here in Southern Nevada we good old white folks have until 2020, roughly, to enjoy our majority status. After that, we join California. To me, that's just the way it is. I upgraded my Spanish skills, learned not to prejudge anybody by appearances, and I'm getting on with life. I'm a smart guy, or so the tests tell me. I'm good at languages. Not everybody is smart. In fact, the average American is simply average. Half of Americans are below Average in intelligence, and we're all below average in something. My point is that, for me, a guy who does that sort of thing relatively easily, it wasn't the easiest thing I've ever done to shift my world view to include all these strange people as being "my" people. For an average person, it must seem just about impossible. Why, if you haven't had the experience dealing with lots of different people, you could think that somebody has stolen your country! Yeah, like that.

Well, the truth is that our founding fathers set up a country that, sooner or later, will include absolutely everybody as worthy of respect. You could argue that that's a bad thing, but it's the thing we've got. The fruits of our founding fathers' labors are becoming obvious as California leads the nation in feeling the effects of an actually multi-cultural society. It isn't easy, but there's no real alternative but to get on with it. And of course, it's bad enough that the children of children of slaves can now aspire to high office, but there are all these other people, who don't even speak English sometimes, with their Spanish TV, and their Spanish newspapers, and their odd foods and all the rest. How do you cope with all that?

Well, once you get over the hump, it's easy. They're just trying to get by, like the rest of us. Previous waves of immigrants have met with the same sort of attitude from the people already here. The Italians, for example, brought all sorts of strangeness with them. The food was especially foreign to most Americans. Now, spaghetti isn't even considered an ethnic food: it's mainstream America. The Irish were roundly condemned when they first arrived. Irish? Yeah, green beer notwithstanding, people hated the damned Irish. Well, consider the taco. I remember when you couldn't buy Mexican food anywhere. Now, you ever been to Taco Bell? Del Taco? A neighborhood Mexican place? See? Already they're blending into society. Someday being Mexican will mean about what being Italian does now: good food, great times.

Well, it's easy for me to write that, but my real point is that instead of just laughing off the demonstrators as nut cases or ignorant fools (although probably some of them are) it would be better to be sympathetic and helpful. Nobody who isn't a nut case really expects things to go back to how they used to be, but everybody wants to think that they've been taken seriously. So, the best way for those who don't like the demonstrators to get them to stop and go home is by simply listening to them. You don't necessarily have to do a thing other than that, but just really take them seriously.

That's not too much to ask.

Steve

Labels: Politics, Social Commentary

I've been reading that our President has taken America straight into Socialism. Wow. That's bad, huh? Of course, I doubt that anyone saying that has ever read a socialist document, like maybe The Communist Manifesto. I have read the thing. It's long, tedious, and pedantic. Also Utopian. That's all well and good, but no Utopia ever seems to work out, not even Marx's one.

For the record, Communism, per Marx, is when the workers own the means of production. Eventually the State will wither away. There has never, so far as I know, been a Communist country in the world. Ever. The Soviet Union was just State-owned Capitalism. A perfect monopoly, if you will. Companies that offer stock option plans are closer to being Communist than the Soviet Union ever dreamed of being. I wouldn't worry about Communism if I were you because I really don't think it will ever happen. Honest.

Socialism, per Marx, is a transitional stage toward the Utopia of Communism. The workers, in the form of the State, which they have come to control, own increasingly large shares of the means of production. That's "means of production" as in automobile plants and such. So I see where the alarmists are coming from. But, here's the thing. We, the People own less than a tenth of one percent of the means of production in this country, and we're trying to get out of that ownership share as soon as possible. Less than a tenth of one percent is not socialism (although one can argue that it's misguided, but that's another story.)

We have had Socialism in this country, though, and big time. When the railroads needed to build a way to California, the government gave them not only the land for the tracks, but also a lot of other land that they then sold to settlers who would be their customers. That, friends, is government handouts on a grand scale. Then there are the homesteaders who got their forty acres by setting up camp on the land. And let's not forget the miners who got the rights to incredible fortunes for the princely sum of $3.50 per year per claim. And the grazing rights for the ranchers all over the American West, well they're worth billions, and they cost $2.50 a cow/calf. I'm not making this up. It's government handouts all over the place, folks!

Back East it was even simpler. All you had to do is run off the local population, nasty things really, and set up your town. The government didn't even require homesteading. Just be the first one to set up, and you were in! The entire country, from Ohio (State #17) on has been subdivided into township and range just so people could take advantage of government largess. Socialism? It pales beside what Americans have gotten for free from their government over the centuries.

So really, folks, taking over a couple of car companies that have, apparently, been run by Daffy Duck for the last few decades, and providing health care added on, are a drop in the bucket compared to the Socialist paradise America has been from the beginning. I'm really surprised that more people don't see it.

Steve

Labels: Politics, Social Commentary

I don't always recommend Wikipedia as a source of all knowledge. However, the definition I found there of empathy is as good as any I've seen. (Hey, I was a Sociology minor once.) It is:

Empathy is the capability to share your feelings and understand another's emotion and feelings. It is often characterized as the ability to "put oneself into another's shoes," or in some way experience what the other person is feeling. Empathy does not necessarily imply compassion, sympathy, or empathic concern because this capacity can be present in context of compassionate or cruel behavior.

I read a columnist recently claiming that current conservatives don't have any empathy. Maybe that's so. The thing is, and you could ask Patton if he were still alive and he'd agree, you must have empathy with your enemy in order to defeat him. Without empathy, you are alone, which is just about the worst position for a human being. I honestly don't know about the current conservative voices. Certainly, some of them lack empathy, but tarring all conservatives seems a mite harsh. I have empathy for conservatives, and liberals, and even guys like Hitler, who got better than he deserved. Still, I understand his position.

One thing the current administration has been stressing is empathy. Empathy not just in court, but empathy with the poor suckers who get sucked into being suicide bombers and terrorists working against America. Unless we honestly understand them, we can never defeat them. That's all empathy means, after all. I think maybe some people are confusing empathy with sympathy, which is feeling the same as another person. It ain't that at all, bubba. For the record, those radical muslims don't "hate us for our freedom." They live terribly oppressed lives, usually due to the policies of their own leaders, who manage to convince them to blame us for their problems. It's that oppression we should be going after. Their leaders, maybe, many of whom are our allies one way or another (the sell us petroleum, so how could they be bad?)

Want to hear the advice from a different quarter? Well, Jesus did say to love thine enemy, didn't he?

Steve

Labels: Politics, Social Commentary

I went to a high school Senior Honors Assembly the other day. The ceremony was touching in many ways, but the thing that struck me the hardest about things was the makeup of the students receiving the awards. No, not how the girls did their eyeliner, which is often bad enough in high school. I mean the ethnic mix of the students.

Not to sound like Chris Rock (too much) but the Asians really did have a lot of representation. But, and this is more important to what I'm writing about, so did the Latinos, the Phillipinos, the African-Americans (who call themselves black, by the way,) and even a few kids that mom and pop might have called "regular." Las Vegas has no majority ethnic group. We're like Southern California that way, and like the entire country is going to be in twenty years. If you find that vexing, well, there isn't much I can say to make you feel better. And, unfortunately for some theorists, nobody is accusing Ms. Wong or Mr. Aquino of being here illegally.

My students are Sophomores and Freshmen, but the mix is similar. Here are descriptions of a few of them. There is the boy from Central America who's Spanish, English and French are all pretty good. There's the girl from Samoa, who hopes to go back home after graduation (it's still in America, by the way.) I have the kid from Cambodia who is not that hot at English, but who is even worse at Spanish, except for the bad words. I have a Mexican boy who warns me never to trust a Mexican. A real joker, that one. I have the tall blond kid who only wants to study guitar but who will probably pass out of the ninth-grade science course anyway. I have quite a few kids of Mexican heritage who insist that I use their Anglicized names. And I have about a hundred and fifty more just like those, boys and girls alike.

So, to get to the point about politics, maybe you think it odd that a vital looking black dude names Obama beat out a stiff old white guy named McCain, but I don't. The mix of the rising generation is just about the same as the mix of my students. Even the white kids (that's what the students call them, so don't write me about it) prefer a guy like Obama to old gray white dudes. And, unlike the current crop of people moving into middle age, young folks like to vote. For the record, people in my cohort, the older Boomers, like to vote, too. For those younger than me but older than Obama's base, your failure to participate is largely responsible for the sorry state of our government. So screw you, okay?

To give another word of advice to the Republicans, they're going to have to come to grips with a new, multi ethnic America. In fact, one of my black students told me that "Obama isn't black." She's right. He calls himself a "mutt." Well, most of us are, and most of the country is going to come out of the "mutt" closet in the near future. If the Grand Old Party will stop arguing amongst it's few remaining stalwarts and take a look at reality, it may yet regain its strength. If not, somebody else will have to do it, because the old, "white" America just isn't around any more. Sorry about that, old cracker!

Steve

Labels: Politics, Social Commentary

It's popular amongst the libertarian whiner crowd in Nevada to point to California and mention the fiscal mess that state is in, and to blame said mess on greed head California politicians, who in their entrenched positions of glory and power have decided to buy support by supplying the citizens of California with every possible "nanny state" endowment, and who now wish to pay for all that largess with heavy taxes. Whew.

It's true that California does a lot of things (on paper) that other states do not attempt. There are special programs for the poor displaced moss lost on the South side of a tree in the forest, or so it seems. But, the thing that the critics in Nevada are missing is that these special programs are all mandated, or nearly all at least, by citizen approved initiative-produced laws. That is, the citizens of the great state of California have, in their wisdom, insisted that California provide extra protection for blue-headed boobies on Alcatraz island (there aren't any, I'm making that example up) but have failed utterly to provide for any means of funding the effort. So when the legislature tries to raise taxes to balance the state budget, they are simply trying to comply with the laws enacted by the people of California in an open example of direct democracy called the initiative process.

Nevada has initiative, too. Special interest groups simply hire a bunch of otherwise apparently unemployable people to accost citizens outside of grocery stores and get them to sign a petition for whatever law the special interest group is trying to get passed. Perhaps the legislature, having as they do to come up with money to fund all these things, might decline to enact one or more laws that some group or other (and that's a "special interest" by definition, incidentally) wants to see enacted. Sending those petition gatherers out circumvents the reluctance of the legislature to "make government serve the people" by making laws without bothering the people elected to do just that. It's an example of democracy in action, and a tribute to the people of America.

Or, as I prefer to call it, it's pure bullshit.

California is in the mess it's in directly as a result of the initiative process. The state of Colorado was in a similar mess a few years back for the same reason. There, the people had mandated ever increasing spending on education, hamstrung the property tax collection process, and forbidden the legislature from doing anything about it, which resulted in the state being unable to function at all. The folks in Colorado suspended their mandates for five years to let the state get back on its feet. Better they should have ditched initiative all together.

The initiative process reflects the will of "the people." Groups that have done a lot of talking about the will of the people include the Bolsheviks, who in nineteen-seventeen overthrew an elected government in Russia because "the people" demanded it. Communists have always talked about the will of "the people," and in fact North Korea is known legally as "The People's Democratic Republic of Korea." Not sure what people that name is talking about, but that's the way it is: "The people" is an easily manipulated idiot. That's why the people who wrote the government of the United States made sure we had a republican form of government, not a democracy. Another guy who appealed very broadly to "the people" was Julius Caesar. You know, the guy who brought down the Republic of Rome? Brought down the republic by appealing to and delivering on the will of the people. Caesar knew where to turn to destroy a country. I imagine it would still work today.

Frankly, the only initiative I'm willing to sign would be one to forbid all future initiative efforts. Of course, to pass the law, you'd have to convince "the people" to agree that it's an idiot, which could be a tough sell. But I think we ought to try. We have nothing to lose, and sane government to gain.

There, the person has spoken!

Steve

Labels: Politics, Social Commentary

I'm not a Democrat, whatever it may look like if you follow my posts from the past four years. I just knew before W. Bush got elected that he was dumb as a post, and I was so frustrated that I finally gave in to the urge to badmouth the man. Normally I don't badmouth a sitting President, because it's not a job you could give me. I think I'd move to Nepal before I took it, and I'm not kidding. So forgive me if I've seemed to lean Democrat the last few years. The attraction was that they weren't Bush. I swear, almost anyone would have been better than Kerry, but I voted for him because Bush isn't almost anyone, is he?

So anyhow, I'm amused to see that the Democrats, particularly Pelosi, are getting into hot water so deeply. Yee-haw, it goes on. But I'm more concerned about the Republicans, because there is almost nothing left of them. Idiots like Limbaugh talk about ideological purity or some such claptrap (and regular readers know what I think of high ideals.) Idealogical purity? What happened to the "party of the big tent?" You don't want anyone who disagrees with your little world view? That's pretty much what's wrong with idealism, in a nutshell. Unfortunately for the party, but fortunately for the rest of us, the inevitable destruction that rises from a position of pure idealism has been falling entirely on the Republicans. There are, I believe, two moderate Republicans left in Congress. And the core of the party wishes they'd convert like Specter did, or so they say.

Day was that I always split my ticket. Oh, sure, my first election I went Democrat because my parents were hard-core Republican, but that's no way to decide an election. I voted for Nixon, even, in my first Presidential election. I doubt that Nixon passes the purity test of the Ann Coulter wing either, by the way. Any more, though, I vote for Democrats because I can't stomach the holier than thou attitude of the group that took over, and seemingly destroyed, the Republican party beginning in the seventies. No, that's wrong. Those people are leaving as well, leaving the field to the, er, racist, homophobic, xenophobic, scaredy-cat, elbows who used to like to go to Klan meetings for fun. Maybe still do, even. That, I am sure, is not what the Republican party is all about.

Conservativism in America means liberalism applied in a corporate way. That's the way it's always been, from Hamilton and Adams right up to, and I do mean this, W. Bush. The "base" of the Republicans finally turned on W. because he was, well, being too Republican for them. Liberalism in America means liberalism applied to individuals, as in trying for equality and fairness. Those are the poles that America rotates on. To the rest of the world, we're all a bunch of raving liberals. I'm not kidding, we really are. To most people we are arguing over what it means to be liberal. To ourselves, of course, we are simply arguing.

The former cross-burning Dixiecrats who snuck into the party with the evangelicals now have the place to themselves, apparently. They surely don't like American Liberalism, because it has empowered a guy like Obama to be (gasp!) President. But they don't like traditional Conservativism either because business, and the Republicans, are after all the group that won the Civil War. Ouch, huh? That leaves those benighted souls with themselves. I guess they deserve it.

I hope that the Republican party survives, even thrives again. But honestly this time. It's not illegal to be a racist bigot on your own time, but those people are growing very tiresome and not worth the electricity to listen to.

They're worse than Democrats, and that's saying a whole lot.

Steve

Labels: Politics, Social Commentary

I just read a news analysis that suggested that the Democrats are trying to have a bit of fun and keep the Republican party divided against itself by going after that bastion of reasonable and thoughtful dialogue, Rush Limbaugh.

Gee, do you think so?

Know what? I'll bet they're trying to groom new people to get elected in the '10 off-year elections, too, and probably wondering who will be ready to run for the White House in '16. Darn those guys! Actually acting like a political party? How dare they?

Or, better question: what color is the sky in the world of anyone who expects politics to be any different? I mean, really.

Steve

Labels: Politics

Vegas voted for our President big time, and look how he thanks us! You can't go to Las Vegas on taxpayer money? Why, you'd think this was a den of iniquity rather than the premier convention site in the country! How on earth could anyone have gotten that idea?

In fact, Las Vegas is the premier convention site in the country. More conventions here than anywhere except maybe New York, and I do mean maybe. One reason Vegas went for Obama is because Bush's Homeland Security took a look at Las Vegas and said that there were "no significant convention facilities" here. Crackheads, I guess.

But, hey, could it have anything to do with that "What happens in Vegas stays in Vegas" campaign? Nah, nobody's stupid enough to believe a line like that!

Steve

Labels: Politics, Social Commentary

I'm glad I'm not the only one who feels the way I do. When you finish with this article, click on the title to be taken to an article from a Chicago Sun-Times columnist that says pretty much the same thing, only maybe better.

So, Micheal Phelps smoked a bit of pot? Oh, gasp! The only thing that bothers me about the incident is the way he caved. Folks, everybody in their twenties either smokes pot, or ends up a loser. I can't for the life of me figure out why you can go out and get as drunk as you want, a provably dangerous thing for yourself and the rest of us, but it's highly illegal to smoke a bit of weed, even if your doctor says it can help your medical condition.

(Oh, I forgot, science doesn't matter according to our most recently departed president. Good riddance.)

Empathy aside, smoking pot may make you go to sleep, or endanger your Doritos, but it never made anyone do anything nearly as stupid as the stuff alcohol makes people do every day. I live in Vegas, so believe me I see the results of alcohol overuse all the time. Mostly on the news about car crashes, but also in the slack faces of tourists staggering from casino to casino. (No, not most of them, but some people figure you can't do Vegas if you remember it when you get home.)

Pot was made illegal to help W.R. Hearst control his Mexican laborers. The campaign was stirred on by such things as the (really funny) movie Reefer Madness, which pretty much demonstrated everything that smoking pot won't do to the user. Don't get me wrong, I'm not advocating smoking pot. It's a waste of time, in the end. But, like somebody once said, no time is wasted if you enjoyed wasting it. If you're an adult, and smoking a little pot helps you feel better and get by, then it harms nobody but you (and that's just the lung damage -- you could bake it or drink it in tea to avoid that.)

Really, folks, some drugs really are evil, but marijuana? Give me a break!

Steve

Labels: Politics, Social Commentary

To begin with, you can blame George W. Bush on Lyndon B. Johnson. They’re both from Texas, so maybe there’s some connection from that direction. I doubt it, though. Still, odder things have happened. George W. Bush, for instance, is a descendant of Franklin Pierce, who got to be president due to the efforts of an old college buddy. Go figure.

It isn’t that LBJ worked on W’s behalf, of course. He’s too dead to do such a thing. But LBJ is the guy who so pissed off the Southern wing of the Democratic party, then known as “Dixiecrats” for lack of a better term (and there probably is no better term.) The Dixiecrats were represented by people such as George Wallace (not the Vegas comedian, the other one) who blocked the schoolhouse door and shouted “Segregation Forever!” Wallace changed his mind before he died, but a lot of people stayed true to their segregationist principles for all of their lives. And those folks felt betrayed beyond belief by the Southerner who pushed through the Voting Rights Act and other bits of law they found dangerous to their way of life.

Well, if the Democrats were through with them, and at that time nobody wanted to actually admit that they were racist enough to support the good-old Dixiecrat constituency, then they knew that they had to get sneaky. You remember the “Moral Majority” back in the day? Well, they may or may not have been either moral or in the majority, but they presented the old segregation forever crowd with an opportunity. By linking with religious conservatives who were bothered by what they saw as the moral decay of American society, the folks who brought you back of the bus segregation could hide their anger, and their true agenda, while getting influence back in Washington. It worked, as can be seen by the political scene since Reagan.

Reagan was a great speaker who was recruited because, well darn it, people liked him. He certainly wasn’t one to support overt racism, but he did like to talk about smaller government (which was, in fact, not what he gave us.) Smaller government meant a government that would allow a public school to open the day with a prayer, or so hoped the religious Reagan backers. To the Dixiecrats it might mean a chance to get back to keeping some people in their place. Particularly Washington people, who had no business telling honest, hard-working Southern people how to run their state.

Reagan begat George HW Bush, a far better President than I gave him credit for at the time. George HW got elected by promising famously not to raise taxes. Finding the government broke, however, meant that he had to propose, and sign, a tax increase. So in came the man from Hope, William Jefferson Clinton.

Clinton angered people in a way that no other president I’ve lived with ever has. Something about the story of the poor trailer boy from Hope who made it all the way to the White House really frosts some people’s shorts. I think it might have been due to his refusal to cater to the good-old-Dixiecrat crowd that started the rumors that led him to be so publicly reviled. To bad for them, all they could catch him at was cheating on his wife with one of his employees. A sad and sordid tale, but hardly criminal. They did, however, manage to get him impeached.

That is because the alliance of religious conservatives and old-time Southerners united in using morality as an issue. Plenty of Presidents have done worse things to their marriage than Clinton, but the Moral Majority wasn’t backing the opposition at the time. The Republican Party found itself, maybe not for the first time, proclaiming itself as the protector of public morality in the United States. That is questionable, but not as questionable as the supposed history of the Republican party as a champion of smaller government and states’ rights. Egads, has no one ever heard of Lincoln, the poster boy if there ever was one for large, central government at the expense of the states? Six percent of the men of military age in the country died in a war to ensure that the big-government party, the Republicans, prevailed in their effort to save the union.

The states’ rights plank was tacked on by the old Southern contingent, with the backing of the religious conservatives, for the reasons listed above. Less government meant less interference, right? Well, not to hear the complaints about W. Bush that have been sounding out in the past couple of years. The amusing part, for someone who knows some history, is that the complainers are actually surprised that the Republican party has expanded, not shrunk, the Federal government. Folks, I hate to burst your bubble, but that’s what Republicans have always done. It’s not bad, it’s debatable, but it’s Republican and that’s all there is to it.

So how did all this misinformation get spread around? By faith, of course. Faith is, so they say, a wonderful thing. It can move mountains. Well, horse hockey I say, but that’s just about the moving mountains part. The trouble with true belief is that the believer’s view of the world is distorted by the belief until the poor sod doesn’t know reality any more. In the mind of a true believer, a fundamental Christian world view is the majority view, and no amount of objective statistics will convince the true believer otherwise. Former President W. Bush has returned to Texas with his “values intact.” Great. So long as you’re not deciding the fate of the world, you go. But when belief rather than objective reality influences national policy both foreign and domestic, you end up with some very stupid things getting done. Like invading a country at a time when we really needed to be catching a terrorist, or like abstinence-only sex education, which results in more, not less, promiscuous and unprotected sex amongst teenagers. Faith may be wonderful, but not as the basis for national policy.

So that’s what happened: LBJ pissed off some segregationists who then used some religious folks in a successful effort to temporarily hijack the government. This resulted in record debt, economic doldrums, and thousands of dead soldiers. Somebody may like that, but not I. All the faith in the world doesn’t change reality one little bit. And lying to another constituency in order to sneak your way back into power is about as low as American politics gets. I feel sorry for the religious conservatives, I feel sorry for George HW Bush. I feel sorry for the Republican party, and I feel sorry for Ronald Reagan, even. And most of all, I feel sorry for the country I love so much.

Please, old Dixiecrat guys, just dry up, okay?

Steve

Labels: Politics, Religion, Social Commentary

Long time readers will recall that I rate Presidents by speaking ability. That means that, for instance, Kennedy, Reagan, and Clinton count as good ones in my ratings, while Nixon, Ford, and (gasp) W. Bush count as bad ones. Oh, there are other criteria of course, but right now I'm talking about speaking ability.

I was working at my job teaching the youth of Las Vegas when Barak was sworn in, so I read his speech during a break and thought it was a pretty good one. Then I came home and took advantage of my DVR to watch the proceedings in living high-definition. Well, I think we may actually have a new all-time winner for good Presidential speaker. Holy cats, the man has a way with words. 'Course, I never heard FDR live, nor TR, nor Lincoln, all of whom were reputedly excellent behind the podium. But of the ones I've heard, Obama wins the cup, hands down. I hope that this is an auspicious thing, I really do.

Steve

Labels: Politics, Reviews

Nevada is faced with a nasty budget crisis. The governor’s proposals don’t include any obvious tax increases to deal with the situation, except the one voters in Clark County approved recently. He said no new taxes and he meant it. Probably he’s remembering Bush the First’s change of mind and the consequences that had for the presidency. Not to mention Monica Lewinsky. But really, when he says he wants to knock 38 percent off of the budget for higher education in Nevada, while also saying that he wants us to be a leader in alternative energy, he apparently found an old stash of Maui Wowie from his college days.

Without any college graduates in the state, who does he think is going to develop alternative energy sources? Why does he think any company would relocate to a state full of ignorant fools? Low taxes are fine up to a point, but there are about a gazillion high tech companies in California, in spite of what the rightie-tighties like to call California’s “tax and spend” mentality. Some of what the people of California spend on, of course, is facilities to train people to do things like design high tech equipment and software. The state is very friendly to people with more brains than an artichoke. Not that California artichokes aren’t perfectly fine as well, of course. Maybe it’s the seventy-year history of getting money simply by vacuuming it out of visitors’ pockets that makes it impossible for some people in Nevada to see an obvious point. That is, you get what you pay for.

What the governor wants to pay for is, well, nothing. And that’s just what he’ll get. If you cut salaries to save money, then those workers will spend less. Money is worthless if it isn’t spent, after all, so by simply cutting government expenditures all we’d be doing is choking off the economy even more. There are some things that government really can do better than private enterprise, whether or not the R-J’s chief pundit likes it. One of those things is education. UCLA has been the source of great amounts of talent for California business over the years. It’s publicly funded. Same with the entire University of California system, for that matter. We could use the higher education system of Nevada to produce people who can build the infrastructure, diversify the economy, and revitalize the state’s economy. Or we can do what the governor wants and just lock the door behind us as we leave.

Come to think of it, we don’t even have enough roads, and the Gov wants to ensure that there’s nobody around that knows how to build one. Yep, great idea, Governor. You’re the man!

Labels: Politics, Social Commentary

There are two things about Sarah Palin complaining that Caroline Kennedy is being treated better than her in the media. First is, that's an example of why Sarah Palin hurt McCain more than she helped him. As I said in an earlier post, most of us actually are urbanites and have an urban perspective on life, so insulting urbanites is probably not the way to win elections. It just makes her sound like a whiner, which was a funny skit on SNL a long time ago, but not much else.

The second thing is that she's right. Just as I don't think it's fair for rural people to bad mouth urbanites, I also don't think that being an urbanite makes you necessarily better. In fact, it only puts you in the majority, and I have trouble with the majority often enough. The fact is, Kennedy ought to be fair game for some jokes about her effort to replace Clinton. How about, "Why, her husband's never even been caught cheating on her!" for starters? Or, "Kennedy? I thought he was dead!" Nothing untrue, just a few things that might be considered unkind. But, Kennedy is an urbanite, and that means that most of the country, including most reporting media, won't be as eager to make jokes about her. Sorry, Sarah, that's just the way it is. Even when you win, you lose.

But, to be fair to the media, running for national office and questioning the other side's patriotism when your husband's been advocating secession is, well, a bit over the top, don't you think?

Looking forward to 2012, I remain,

Steve

Labels: Politics, Social Commentary

Ralph Bellamy wrote a book published in the 1890s about the year 2000. He foresaw people ordering items from a central store using pneumatic tubes to convey their orders. The store would then deliver right to your door. If only he'd known how close he came, huh?

Well, I'm not talking about 2100; I'm talking about 2008. A wonderful year all around. Since I want to make one last post this (that) year, here it is, my look at 2008 in review.

The year began early in January when people watched things explode and yelled out their encouragement. Away from Iraq we watched fireworks and oohed and aahed a lot. People were glad that this was going to be almost the last year where we say "two-thousand-and." One more to go, then it's "twenty-ten" and good for it!

By a little later in January we were all oohing and aahing at the political situation. Hillary was obviously going to win the nomination for the democrats. On the Republican side of things, it wasn't as clear. There was some guy that wasn't from Utah but polled well there, along with a couple of other guys, but most people knew that McCain, nice as it would be, was just too darned old to run. Most people can't be wrong, right?

The economy was slipping a bit early in the year, but it wasn't anything to worry about because the fundamentals of our economy were strong. Of course, the fundamentals of Pompeii were made of solid rock, but that's another story. Much like Pompeii, the nation was swamped with hot economic news later in the year. We're looking forward to drawing and quartering the executives at GM after they fail to repay our loans. Maybe we can repossess a local dealership while we're at it and turn it into a handball court or something.

On a personal note I became a staff writer for an online magazine, which of course shows how desperate some online magazines are for staff writers. They actually pay me for writing, which is a nice change from what happens to my fiction. I'd tell you what happens to my fiction, but there are no age controls on this site. Sorry.

By April or so it became apparent that Hillary wasn't going to win the nomination. Unlikely as it seems, a person who could never ever have stood a chance at mid-century actually became the front runner. That's right, an Hawaiian looked good to take it all. Not only that, but there's a rumor that his father might have been from Africa. Heavens! And on the other side of the contest, old John and his "Straight Talk Express" made it all the way to the convention, at which point the famous bus was pulled in for service and not seen again until after the election. That might have been okay except that he stood up Dave Letterman. Better you insult your mother if you're running for office. Katie Couric, of course, liked the interview a lot.

Of course the economy continued to make news over the summer as the price of gasoline rose to new heights. Highways emptied of oversize, unnecessary hardware, leaving drivers of ordinary sized cars somewhat dazed and confused. Meantime, as the price of oil rose, so did the price of everything else. In fact, by October, Everything Else was selling for record high prices, while the price of oil was dropping like a rock. The airlines, typically unaware that they might need to explain a price policy to someone wanting to, oh I don't know, fly on an airplane, redoubled their efforts to extract extra money out of passengers even as their expenses fell.

With all due respect to business schools everywhere, and that ain't much, I must confess that I am confused how somebody can work for a month overseeing a company's demise, and walk away with twenty-five million dollars! No kidding, there's been a lot of that sort of thing going on this year. It seems especially bad when you consider that I offered, publicly, to do the same job for only three million on my funny pages a few years ago. What ever happened to saving the stockholders' money? I tell you, ethics is just a word, huh? Well, I'll repeat the offer now, although inflation has upped the price to five million dollars. I will take your company in any condition and run it into the ground within two years. Half up front, half upon liquidation/acquisition. Call today before the twenty-teens are all booked up!

Tonight, in the first seconds of 2009, they're going to blow up the Strip again. They have lowered the launch points, which might make it interesting for those on the ground. It will also make it harder to see the show from anywhere but the strip. Downtown there will be a show on Fremont Street featuring tributes to performers from the last century who for the most part simply refuse to die. Well, this century is young. We've hardly had time to make any meaningful mistakes yet. One or two maybe, right George? Yeah.

So anyway, I hope you enjoy 2009 as much as you've enjoyed 2008, maybe even more. One thing, though, I am not asking if it can get any worse! Oh, it can, it can, and I don't want to be the one to spit in fate's eye. 2009 will be wonderful, just you wait and see!

Write you next year!

Steve

Labels: Politics, Reviews, Social Commentary

Yes, I did correctly predict the outcome of this presidential election on June 18th. The link under the title of this post will take you to my unedited prediction. So, I really did tell you so. So there!

And now, as a service to those who just can't stand the thought of a President Obama, I offer the following. As in the late 1860s, when some people left the country for another country to the south, some of you may wish to do that yourselves. If so, here's a link to a Wikipedia article that you may find useful:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Immigration_to_Mexico

Now, if you're serious, here's a link to actual information and resources to set the process in motion:

http://www.mexconnect.com/mex_/fqimig.html

Now, why would I be so snide? Well, it has to do with the casual way that some folks calling themselves "conservatives" have dismissed people like myself. Here are some sad facts, if that includes you.

Most of the country lives in cities. True, we don't know the difficulties of rural living, but then neither do most Americans. We have, for example, African-American citizens who we see, and work with, every day. Nothing in particular happens as a result. Know what else? We have people who primarily know a language other than English, and they're common as anything. In the really up-and-coming parts of the country, Latino people are not a minority. They're sometimes even a plurality, which is the most any ethnic group gets in our part of America these days. Yes, my country friends, there is no majority ethnicity where I live. We're stuck finding ways to get along with people no matter where they or their ancestors came from.

It is not normal to live in Alaska. At all. There are fewer people in Alaska than in the city of Las Vegas Nevada. And Las Vegas is only a bit over a quarter of the people in Clark County. Alaska is a beautiful place, but it isn't typical in any sense of the word. If it were, it wouldn't be special. They do take more tax money than they contribute on a Federal level, so of course they hate us urbanites who pay for their roads and bridges. Why shouldn't they? (Go ahead, I dare you to answer that one.)

The rising generation believes in working together for a common cause. That's not a boomer thing, but it's a sensible thing. Frankly, the boomer day was mercifully short. Clinton, then Bush. I'd have hated to slip any further, if you get my drift.

So, once again, I told you so!

Steve

Labels: Politics, Social Commentary

.
As noted much earlier, I gave up on trying to pick at the campaign ads. I'm just glad that they're almost over. I voted a couple of weeks ago, myself, the second day I could do so in Nevada. I didn't think it would work, but the political calls almost stopped after I voted. Apparently the various campaigns get a list of who isn't worth bothering any more. I did get a call from somebody today urging me to vote on Tuesday, but I told her that they wouldn't let me do it again.

So, thanks to some amazingly bad tactics by McCain, the worst of which has to be thinking that Governor Palin would attract Clinton supporters (Hillary not Bill,) and a smooth, glitch-free, genuine sounding two-years and more effort by Obama, I believe that my prediction from last summer is safe. Well, that's okay with me. I did my part. I've never been a party joiner by temperament, but the total volume of personal lies and misinformation coming from the red side of the campaigns in the past couple of decades finally choked me to the point where I couldn't continue. Great Googley Moogley, attacking Kerry's war record? Give me a break, please! Now Obama is a terrorist Muslim extremist bent on destroying America?

And there are people who believe that crap. If you don't like what Obama is saying, by all means don't vote for him, but please be aware that all the negative crap you hear about him is being pulled from the collective, er, ears of the Republican presidential campaign advising staff.

Frankly, the way they've let the party bullhorn be taken over by states rights (!) and religious nuts, the Republican party deserves to disintegrate so that it can be reborn in a more reasonable form.

The other day John Stewart had the Socialist candidate for president on as a guest. Yes, there is a candidate from the Socialist party. That man, the avowed socialist, called Obama just another capitalist, which is of course what he is.

As near as I can tell, since the days of Reagan, the Republican cause has been increasingly hijacked by a rough coalition of religious wackos, greed-head Libertarian wannabes, and left overs from what used to be the Dixicrat contingent of the Democratic party. The only way such a rag-tag collection can appear coherent is to lie. Not just to the public, but to themselves. They've lied so much that they are convinced that they're right.

I've met a few Muslims in America. Oddly, they have jobs, or businesses, they're students in school (most of the girls wear the scarves where I teach,) and they would do just about anything for America, because, like any sane capitalist, they love this country. Not the picture painted by that idiot Palin, I know, but my version has the virtue of being true.

Once more, here's a quick guide to whether somebody is trying to flim-flam you with a bad argument.

If the explanation they offer is simple and easy to understand, and it feels good to believe that it's true, it almost certainly is wrong.

Think of how many times in the past few decades the Republican argument has been simple and easy to understand, and it felt good to believe that it was true. That, in a nutshell, is why I voted for the other guy.

Not that I trust the Democrats. See, I figure they are going to win, and probably win big, and they, just like the Republicans did, will start to think that they own the truth. They will, over the next ten to twenty years, begin to flim-flam themselves with explanations that are simple and easy to understand, and that feel good to believe are true. Happens every time.

But, just now, it's time to clean out the old idiots and install some new ones. It's what we do every so often, and every time the republic survives. It'll survive this. I promise.

Steve

Labels: Politics, Social Commentary

Last evening I was at the final performance of the fall season of the Shakespearean festival in Cedar City (Utah.) It was a production of Shakespeare's Julius Caesar, set in the 1960s. I read Brutus in the eighth grade, so I was anxious to see the play produced, which I never had before.

In the play, as in history, a group of conspirators beguiles Brutus, who is a friend of Caesar, into helping them assassinate Caesar lest he be made king. Brutus did it for Rome, his country, and in the end Shakespeare has Marc Antony refer to Brutus as "The noblest Roman of them all" because his motives were pure. The result of the assassination was, in real history, a bloody civil war and the end of the Roman republic. Brutus's involvement ended up completely reversing what he had set out to do.

Caesar, for his part, had been undoing some of the damage done when rich landowners took over the fields owned by soldiers out fighting for their country. He had been giving the land back to the soldiers. The rich landowners, as you might expect, didn't much like that, and they comprised the core of the conspiracy that murdered Caesar.

In the play there are funerary speeches by Brutus and Marc Antony. Antony's is the more famous, as it is the "Friends, Romans, Countrymen" speech that almost everyone in the English speaking world has heard at least once or twice. The core of Brutus's speech, which Shakespeare wrote in prose instead of his usual poetry, follows (for the whole speech, click on the title of this post.)

Who is here so base that would be a
bondman? If any, speak; for him have I offended.
Who is here so rude that would not be a Roman? If
any, speak; for him have I offended. Who is here so
vile that will not love his country? If any, speak;
for him have I offended.

Substitute "American" for "Roman" as you read that excerpt and see if it looks familiar. It sounds similar to the recent words of an idiot congresswoman from Minnesota, as echoed by an idiot governor from Alaska. (I would never badmouth another state's officials, but she put herself forth as more than that, so she's fair game.) In the case of "the noble Brutus," those words helped end the republic. In this case, they're just idiocy masquerading as political speech, but they still piss me off something terrible.

Someone is less patriotic because they don't follow our American leaders without complaint? Really? And why, again, did we overthrow His Majesty King George III? It's unpatriotic to live in a blue state? When did that start? Blue states contribute the bulk of the federal budget, including the handouts that go to Alaska, amongst others. It's unpatriotic to give you guys money? Okay, then, let us have it so we can do evil things with it like fund day care and health insurance. Better yet, how about all the red states secede and we let you this time? You have no money, no significant industry, and you depend on handouts from those of us who would be free to ignore you forever more. Sounds like a plan to me.

Or wait, wouldn't secession be unpatriotic? If you're not sure, ask Alaska's "first dude." I'm sure he has some words of wisdom on the subject.

Labels: Politics

My strongest impression of this evening's debate between McCain and Obama was that I was watching Nixon vs Kennedy all over again. (Yes, I did watch the first time, I'm old, get used to it.) What I mean is that the issues and all may have been a tie. Actually, both candidates just kept on saying what they've been saying, which seems odd in McCain's case, except that maybe he really is sincere. The issues may have been a tie, but the debate went to Obama. Why? Because McCain looked like hell, is why.

I've always sort of liked John McCain, so frankly I feel sorry for the man. He looked stiff, unable to sit, almost frozen in his posture, and he didn't walk around very well either. It reminds me of the way TV commercials sometimes project a completely different message when you watch them with the sound off.

But, as an educator, I know something that many do not. We remember a whole lot more of what we see than what we hear. A whole lot, like 50 percent to 14 percent, something like that. (I haven't looked that up in a while, but the ratio is in that neighborhood.) So, since the speech was pretty much forgettable, heck I could have written it for them, the visuals are bound to be what sways people. And visually, Obama looked relaxed, at ease with himself, in control, and McCain looked stiff, pained, and a bit inept. Too bad, but it does make my initial prognostication look better than ever. Thanks, guys!

Steve

Labels: Politics

Economics in college starts with a course numbered 101. Since apparently those in charge of some of our largest financial institutions never had that course, I offer herewith a short overview of the topic. And no, economics isn't really dismal at all. It's fairly simple. I give you Economics 001.

The link under the title of this post takes you to the Amazon listing for the newest edition of the famous book Securities Analysis, by Benjamin Graham and David Dodd. There was no field called "Securities Analysis" before this book appeared. That there now is speaks volumes for how influential this volume has been. (Amazon has special re-issues of older editions for collectors, by the way.)

The book includes a long-term analysis of real value increase for various types of investment, tracked over a period of seventy-five years. This is real increase in value, not simply stuff that costs more dollars to buy.

Hey, you'll say, real estate, right? No, sorry. Real Estate, long term, appreciates a teensy-tiny bit, but not very much.

Oh, then bonds and other debt, right? No, actually, over the long term, if you want to lose money, then debt is the way to go. Not giving other people loans directly, like a bank, but investing in debt securities, like Wall Street has been doing so much of the recent decades. In a word, neither debt securities or real estate will do much for you long term.

Real estate will preserve value, but not increase it. Debt won't even do that.

What has been going on during this wonderful "Ownership" decade? Speculation in real estate and debt! Wowie! Can there be a connection between that fact and our current economic problems? Maybe? Could be? The book Securities Analysis came out in 1940. Maybe the war took people's mind off of the simple facts it presents. I couldn't say, but obviously the business schools aren't using this volume for anything more serious than a doorstop these days.

I'm not entirely kidding when I say we should consider shutting down Harvard and Yale and other prominent business colleges. Just look at the damage they do!

But, back to the topic at hand, you might ask, "What does appreciate in terms of real value over the long term?" The answer is productive industries. That is, factories that make things that people want to buy. Automobiles, for instance, or steel, or lines notebook paper, or corn chips or any thing that someone is willing to pay for. How much do stocks in manufacturing appreciate? Over seventy-five years the total gain in value was twenty-five percent. Put another way, over three-quarters of a century, making things people want to buy returned 125% of the investment it took to start the enterprise in the first place.

[That may sound like a small amount, but remember that over those decades many, many people made a good living producing the manufactured goods.]

So, if you want to make money and keep on making money, the thing to do is to produce something that people want to buy and keep selling it to them. Great googley-moogley, General Motors can't even seem to figure out how to make an automobile that people want to buy! How in heck can we expect to make money off of General Motor's debt? We can't, that's how. There's no way, no how, nada to be gotten from a company that has forgotten how to make items of value.

Oh, they can sell them. The automakers convinced Americans to buy SUVs because the SUVs are cheaper to make (fewer regulations for safety and fuel economy) and more profitable. Unfortunately, compared to most foreign automotive products, the average US-made SUV is like a poor cousin that looks like a car, but is so poorly put together that, sooner or later, and these days it's sooner, people are going to quit buying them. Still, the success of marketing SUVs and other products of, really, questionable value, led GM and others to put money into marketing and promotion that should have gone into making the product better and better. That, in short, is why GM is in trouble, and why Toyota sells so many pickup trucks these days.

GM's troubles are a part of the larger problem of not sticking to the fundamentals of a sound economy. Those fundamentals are, according to the guys who literally wrote the book, producing things of value and selling them for more than it cost you to produce them. All the slick marketing in the world won't overcome a cheaply made truck. And, all the wishful thinking in the world won't turn a debt security into a good investment.

Got all that? Okay, then.

Class dismissed!

Labels: Politics, Reviews, Social Commentary

I'd love to do this rant myself, but instead, just click here and read a better writer's take on this issue.

S.

Labels: Politics, Social Commentary

Believe it or not, I'm not Tina Fey's biggest fan. We might even be related for all I know, but there are comedians I like better. However, I did watch her portrayal of Sarah Palin on SNL, and I was amazed at how well she channeled the appearance and mannerisms of the Governor.

As for the commentary from both sides, screw 'em. It's really funny, and for the record it hits Hillary just as hard. "I didn't want a woman to be president, I wanted me to be president!"

The link in the title is a Google search. There are many places to view this video. Pick one. You'll be glad you did.

Steve

Labels: Politics, Reviews

The US economy is a pretty hot topic right now. Recent events have given a boost to Obama and caused McCain to scramble. Well, that's all well and good for the game they're playing, but it doesn't get at any solutions.

The reason that government can't get at the solution is that government isn't the root of the problem, whatever "I fight Republicans" McCain might say. The enemy, as a famous cartoonist once liked to say, is us.

Economics is all voodoo, really. If everybody thinks things are going well, then things are going well. If money is circulating freely, then it's easy to think things are going well. When the flow of money gets interrupted, it gets harder to believe in prosperity. Money, in case you didn't know, has to move around to be of any use, which is a tenet of Economics 101. What happened recently was that there was a bubble in real estate prices, caused, as are all bubbles, by unbridled enthusiasm causing undue speculation. The government can hardly be expected to tell people how to feel, so getting a bubble under control is a problem. In fact, bubbles, like the dot com bubble in the nineties, and like the real estate bubble in the, what are these years, two-thousands maybe, tend to expand until they burst. Then sometimes the government is called in to clean up the mess.

In the current case, you'll note that the agencies set up to help people buy houses, which had worked well for decades, suddenly found themselves overburdened. Prior to those agencies being created, it was almost impossible for a would-be homeowner to get a mortgage, and if you did it had a huge balloon payment after five or ten years. Essentially, you had five to ten years to pay off the place, or you were out the door. How much better it has been for everyone after Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac were created during the Great Depression. Home ownership has become the norm, and quite a few people, as I read today, actually pay off their mortgages and own their homes outright. Over thirty percent, according to an article in today's paper. That's fantastic, compared to the way things used to be.

Unfortunately, the people, always a dicey group when it comes to common sense, managed to find a way to abuse the system set up to help people buy homes. When it worked for a few the ideas on how to do it spread until too many people were abusing the system, buying things they really never would be able to pay off. Lately we've seen the results.

My point, then, is that McCain and Obama are having a good time saying nasty things about each other over the credit crisis. ("Worst financial crisis since the Depression!") But that's all it is, just two guys who for some pathological reason want the world's worst job, sniping at each other. The truth, while less glamorous, is that we all caused the current financial mess, and we'll all have to fix it. That is the case no matter who wins this upcoming election.

I guess that moving seven-hundred billion dollars all of a sudden should have some sort of effect, huh?

S.

Labels: Politics, Social Commentary

I mean something about the local races in my area. We have two Senators, neither of which is up for re-election this year. Good for them. One of them is Harry Reid. In case you think he's Satan in a suit, he's got at least four more years. Sorry about that.

But there is one race of interest. My district is represented by John Porter. He's been doing that for a while now. The Democratic challenger is Dina Titus, who we last saw almost beating the embarrassment that is our governor two years ago. She runs a good race, but objectively she has one or two things working against her. She has a southern accent, and she's a Democrat. I don't mind either of those things, but a lot of people do. Still, it's apparently a close race.

I say that because Porter has attack ads running demonstrating that Titus is "out for herself," as opposed as being for "us," and Titus of course is answering with her own version of the truth. Some of what they say is true, some is borderline, some is pulled out of somebody's, um, ear. But my point is that it is a close enough race to engender that sort of thing, which is a novelty for Southern Nevada. Apparently, around Clark County we are becoming more liberal, which must be consternating to our friends up in Elko County, to say the least. (I'll worry more about that when they reject our tax contributions, but that's another story.)

In any event, I really don't think Porter has done a bad job at all, but he has some real competition. This is the lady who almost beat out the Republican for governor, and there are those, mostly those who don't like to see Nevada laughed at, who now wish that she had. Porter, who I'd have thought had his district sewed up pretty well, is fighting for his job.

Just goes to show, you never know.

S.

Labels: Politics

One of the issues McCain has been raising is the one about Earmarks and Pork Barrel Spending. His running mate, in particular, has been making hay with that "Bridge to Nowhere" issue. They both are, of course, blowing smoke all over the place.

That is because the United States Senate is composed of one-hundred people who each represent a State, not the interests of the United States, and not the interests of any particular district. It's a great thing when your state gets that new army base, highway, research institute, testing ground, or bridge. I don't fault Palin at all for seeking and accepting Federal money for Alaska. That's what the Governor ought to do, and when one of her Senators was working to do just that, everything was working as designed. I do wonder why she's denying what was, after all, simply doing her job.

Okay, no I don't. McCain is trying to say that he'll cut out such earmarked spending. Horse Hockey! He will do no such thing. As the Senator from Arizona he's been working on behalf of Arizona for years, and doing a decent job of it. As President he has absolutely no power to stop the Senate from doing a single thing that the Senate wants to do. The House of Representatives, maybe, can slow down Senatorial proceedings, if they get organized enough. The President, though, hasn't got a snowball's chance.

So, McCain, quitcher lyin' about that, willya?

But, while we're on the subject, here's a link to check out. It's from the Tax Foundation. It's a chart showing Federal Taxes Paid vs. Federal Spending Received by State, 1981-2005. Alaska is right up near the top, so it is easy to see that in 2005, the last year reported, that State collected $1.84 in Federal aid for every dollar it paid in. That puts it at the third-highest reimbursed State in the nation. Just because it's handy, I can report that Alabama, another famously "Red" state that hates the Federal Government (Heart of Dixie and all that) received $1.66 for every dollar it paid in that same year. Alabama was #7.

I had to check my state. We received $0.49 for every dollar we paid, which makes us #49 in the nation for receiving earmarked spending. Just wanted you to know that I know whereof I speak.

To pull a few more out of my ear, South Dakota ranked #8, Montana #11, Maine #13. Amongst "Blue" states where those dangerous Liberals hold sway, California ranked #43 ($.78 per dollar), Massachusetts was #40, ($.82 per dollar), and New York #42 ($.79 per dollar.)

Not to put too fine a point on it, but the current people calling themselves "conservatives" should be ashamed of themselves. Whiny and spoiled children is more like it. All that, and they put us into the deepest financial hole that the country's been in in many decades. And that after that damned, horrid, evil, anti-christian, how can I come up with a bad enough adjective, Bill Clinton saddled us with not only eight years of peace and prosperity, but a budgetary surplus to boot! No wonder the Conservative base is upset: They think that their livelihood of sucking at the public teat is endangered by an Obama candidacy!

And as for Nevada. #49? Harry Reid, what have you been up to?

Steve

Labels: Politics, Social Commentary

I just got a copy of this video from my brother in Ohio. Besides getting the brunt of the brutal campaign ads this year, Ohio is fighting a nasty economic downturn, so anyone living there can use some entertainment. Click the title of this post, or this link, to see an Australian politician talking about an oil tanker. One of which "the front fell off." It was towed . . . oh, well, just click the link and you'll see. It's a funny one, for sure!

Labels: Info, Politics, Reviews, Social Commentary

Mostly I agree with Obama that family isn't a part of politics. And I don't think any more or less about Governor Palin because her daughter is pregnant, either. Her business. But it does illustrate the problem with an inflexible approach to a complex problem. Telling a teenager to "just not have sex" is like telling them "just don't eat anything at all." It may make you feel better, but it won't stop them. I don't imagine that a social conservative ever really told her children how sex works, because, well, it may make them want to try it out. Trouble is, sex is an instinct, not exactly a choice, although some people claim to have chosen against doing it. Teenagers are squirrely, at the best of times, though, and expecting one to behave just because you taught "abstinence" is pretty damned silly.

The only way to get them to control their behavior is to be straight about the consequences, and to tell them how to go about it without ruining their futures. Maybe Palin's daughter wanted to marry that guy, maybe she would've anyway, but I'm thinking that is unlikely. Now she's stuck with the results of a lapse of what little reason she had as a teenager, sort of condemned by her own ignorance.

And, sorry, Obama, but that isn't the sort of thinking I want going on in a high-ranking official. Maybe McCain should've put some more thought into his choice. Or not. His campaign, his problem.

S.

Labels: Politics, Social Commentary

Well, okay then, I had intended, and tried a few times, to critique individual efforts as seen on TeeVee in Nevada. I can't do it like that. It's just too much.

First, both candidates are talking about the other candidate. No better way to lower yourself than to talk about your competition. Remember those funny Pepsi ads where the Coke delivery guy sneaked a Pepsi? Sure. Did they make you buy Pepsi? Didn't think so. Pepsi has more problems than simply making a joke about Coke could possibly cure.

(Coke and Pepsi are trademarked by their manufacturers. And don't you hate reading this legal BS?)

In my opinion, Obama's chief recommendation is that he's not a boomer. He's not an idealist at all, so far as I can tell, so that's one thing. One thing.

The problem I have with McCain is all that "leadership" hoo-hah. I mean, a lot of people flew missions over Vietnam and managed not to get shot down and imprisoned. Who would you rather have been following in 'Nam? The guy who got you imprisoned in a hell-hole for years or the guy who landed back at the base outside of Saigon? Leadership? Anybody can lead, I suppose. Hell, Bush led us quite decisively until everyone finally caught on to his lack of anything approaching the brains of a rutabaga. Was that a good thing? McCain led right to a North Vietnamese prison. He behaved wonderfully while there, but a leader?

On the other hand, what can Obama lead? Well, we don't know, and that's a problem.

So, instead of talking about anything substantive, these two quite honorable and likable guys are sniping at each other. Well, what can you do? The plan to get us out of this economic mess is apparently fairly simple, since Bill Clinton figured it out sixteen years ago. Maybe we should elect him again. There are worse things than eight years of peace and prosperity, as it turns out. Failing that, I haven't heard anything but hot air from either candidate concerning what should be done. Besides, as the recipient of criticism of Presidential policy always points out, Congress passes the laws in the first place.

The worst negatives about both candidates? McCain is too easy to tie to Bush, plain as that. And Obama? Well, crimony, folks, he's a black guy. PC or not, that's still a drawback on the public stage.

Well, I still think the black guy's gonna win over the old white dude. Conventions start directly. Stay tuned for the show.

Steve

Labels: Politics

There is a problem with this one in that I can't find it on the Internet. If I do, I'll come back and add a link here. Otherwise, this ad ran during the Olympics, so maybe you saw it. It ends with a feminine voice saying that "Obama will protect our families."

I mean, gag me with a spoon! From what? And how, for heaven's sake? The way we're protected from illegal drugs? The way being humiliated in airports keeps us safe from people using airplanes to blow up buildings? How?

Barak, give me a break, okay?

Steve

Labels: Politics, Reviews

The thing about Jesse Jackson and his big mouth getting caught dissing Barak Obama is that it really doesn't matter much to the current situation. What I mean is, Obama doesn't need endorsed by Jackson, and the litany of apoligies from Jesse is sort of funny.

Jesse is old school in terms of race. He cut his teeth, so to speak, during the era of Martin Luther King, Junior. Doctor King walked the walk right into a national holiday (sick joke there) but Jesse was just a titch too late for that. Still, he did what he thought was right, which is more than a lot of people do. But, the mere fact that Barak Obama is doing what he is doing suggests that the world in which Jesse Jackson developed his view of Black and White relations is no longer operating, at least not full-tilt and everywhere like it was in 1964. I know, there are idiots out there who want to kill Obama to save the purity of "White, Christian America," but on the other hand, pundits are favoring Obama to win in November. Last I checked, Barak Obama was, technically at least, a black man. Too bad for the racist crowd, but there it is.

While Jesse is probably sincere, he's also representative of the same old era that, well, Bush represents. In everything from the price of motor fuel to the response to terrorist threats, I read and hear people who are reacting as they would have in 1955, and then I also hear people who think maybe they can think up a better way to confront current realities. Jesse is one of the former. Barak Obama claims to speak for the latter. Since the latter are politicised in a way no one has been since before the Boomers took over, and since the Liberals amongst us won't vote for McCain if he gets an endorsement from God, I have one more reason to join other prognosticators in once again saying that I think Barak is gonna win. Tum-te-tum.

Jesse is stuck in a mindset from the middle of the previous century. To him what the young politically active are saying makes no sense. Maybe it makes no sense to you, either, which makes sense to me. Really, every generation grows up in a world different from the one its parents grew up in. And every group of parents screws up somehow. They have to, because that's what parents do. Then the old fossils don't see the world that the youngsters are living in, and it bothers the old ones. Well, that's life. Unfortunately for the old dudes and dudettes, every year there are fewer of them and more of those darned kids! (Which explains why the old guys never, ultimately, get away with it. Right, Raggy?)

My point in this rambling is that Jesse may be sincere and maybe did a lot to advance the cause of racial justice in the past. Now, though, I'll bet a lot of younger voters wish he would just dry up.

Steve

Labels: Politics, Social Commentary

[Click the title of this post to view the video about which I write.]

Campaign videos make me tired. Advertising for products is bad enough (do you really think that new truck makes you less of a wimp?) But political ads achieve new heights of misinformation and tedium. So, I'm going to alternate between McCain and Obama ads and give my fully biased opinion of the claims and content. 'Kay?

First, the Barack Obama ad from June 30th. It is nationwide. I do not see the regional ads for regions in which I do not live. Sorry. I'll try to find some on the web, and probably succeed, but for now I'm going to concentrate on ads with national distribution.

The link, by the way, goes to Huffington Post. She's a born-again Liberal, and so likes Obama. My intent is to give you a way to see the ad if you don't have a television, not to endorse Ariana. (She was pretty funny on Bill Maher's show about twelve years ago, though.)

Now, to the ad. I shall quote, and respond in places. Quoted lines start with ">".

> SCRIPT - "Dignity"

> OBAMA: I'm Barack Obama, and I approve this message.

> Announcer: He worked his way through college and Harvard Law.

> Turned down big money offers, and helped lift neighborhoods stung by job loss. Fought for workers' rights.

Up to here, it's just hyperbole. Anyone can do that. Check out Apple Computer.

> He passed a law to move people from welfare to work, slashed the rolls by eighty percent. Passed tax cuts for workers; health care for kids.

What? Excuse me? How did he pass a law all by himself? Was he king of some place? Did he threaten to blow up the Statehouse, or whatever. And where was this law supposedly passed in the first place. He passed tax cuts? Wowzers, what a guy! Same with the health care for kids.

> As president, he'll end tax breaks for companies that export jobs, reward those that create jobs in America.

All by himself again, I suppose?

> And never forget the dignity that comes from work.

That line reminds me that people who don't work much always come up with glowing praise for people who do. Not much in the way of salary, but plenty of glowing praise.

Okay, that's my first critique of a campaign ad. I picked on Obama because I gave McCain some grief last week about how being a POW doesn't qualify you for the presidency. I'll come back to him and his latest ad that's showing nationwide anon. Until then, thanks for your attention.

Steve

Labels: Politics

Sometimes things just tick me off. For example, when General Clark said that being held prisoner of war doesn't qualify somebody to be the President, he was simply stating a fact. All sorts of people have been prisoners of war, some of them probably borderline idiots, some of them geniuses. Either way, having been shot down and held prisoner does not in any way involve any skills or activities that you need to be the President. That is nothing against Mr. McCain, either. He's not disqualified because of that experience either. It simply has nothing to do with whether he'd be a good President. It shows that he can take a tough situation and come out smiling, which is good, but hardly sufficient for running the country.

Well, that isn't what ticks me off. What ticks me off was the media reaction, as if it was terribly politically incorrect to suggest such a thing, followed by Barak Obama repudiating Clark. Why? Obama didn't say it in the first place, and besides, it's true. If you're really a new voice, Mr. Obama, how about sticking to the facts as they are and not tending to the spin so much?

That sounds flip, but consider if you will, Al Gore. If you've seen him at all since he lost to that other guy in 2000, you'll have noticed that he seems different now that he's not running for office. He looks happier, for one thing (an Oscar and a Nobel Prize will do that, I suppose.) And also he seems personable, funny, and at ease with himself. Imagine if, in his campaign, he had ditched his spin-loving advisers and just spoken the way he speaks in his appearances today. Why, we'd know for sure what would have happened if Gore had been President on 9/11. Either total disaster, or it wouldn't have happened in the first place, according to the fringes. But my point is, Mr. Gore would have been elected, and the past seven years would have unfolded differently.

So, if you're listening Mr. Obama, and Mr. McCain too for that matter, if you want my vote, ditch those fools telling you how to manipulate the press and speak plainly and honestly, the way Americans are supposed to talk. That would be a breath of fresh air, no matter what your politics might be.

Labels: Politics, Social Commentary

I said I wouldn't go into politics until after the conventions, but the ad from McCain I just saw sewed it up for me. It's a good ad, don't get me wrong. Not the one about how his grandfather came home from the war and died the next day (what a bite, huh?) I mean the one that says, and I think I'm quoting here, at least it's close: "John McCain opposed Bush and sounded the alarm on global warming. Five years ago." So far as I know, that's true, and I put it to McCain's credit.

However, Bush has enough supporters left (thirty percent is a lot of Americans) and many of them plain don't believe in that global warming stuff, as they might say. McCain just alienated enough supporters that I figure Obama is going to have to get caught with an intern to lose. Or maybe not even then, as Bubba Clinton's ratings stayed surprisingly strong throughout his adventures.

And that got me thinking about generational politics. I've said before that Obama is not a boomer, which I consider a plus. Well, McCain shares that plus because he's not a boomer either. Unfortunately, McCain is a member of the "silent generation," a generation that never did much of anything except invent rock and roll, protest the war in Vietnam, push for and support the Civil Rights Act of 1964, little nothings like that for which they get zero credit. Invent rock and roll and still get called "silent?" It boggles the mind. But, as a member of that generation, McCain is not going to be taken as seriously as he ought to be by boomers, who are a large and influential voting bloc. Add that bit of weakness to the Obama charismatic appeal to the young, and poof, we have another President from Illinois.

So I'm going away out on a shaky limb and saying that Barak Obama is going to win in November. Remember, you read it here first.

Labels: Politics

Sure it does, and you know it. That is, they settled it before the convention and Obama won. See, I told you.

Truth is, I'm a bit surprised, but popular sentiment sometimes turns into a flood and there you are.

So the lines are drawn for fall, sort of. Of course, there's the issue of who Obama will get as a running mate. Hillary on the ticket would create a juggernaut. Then we'd see, wouldn't we, who would and would not move to Canada.

Of course, this is all due to a vast left-wing conspiracy. The one that arose in response to the vast right-wing conspiracy that was complaining about Mr. Bill and the Intern. Yowsah!

So, now we have a major party nominee who is a black man (wink wink, eh?) Anyway, for what it's worth, here we are and the fun is about to start. After the conventions I'll do some more prognosticating. Until then, I'm tired of politics for now. Back to chasing kids off of my lawn . . .

Labels: Politics

And writing legal briefs from Carson City, apparently. My wife sent this to me. She's an appellate lawyer in Las Vegas, so she sees these things more easily than most of us. First, some quick background.

We have a die-hard, I won't raise taxes, family values are important, white bread governor in Jim Gibbons. Jim filed for divorce from his wife about six weeks ago, and vowed to keep the proceedings private. His wife, Dawn, has other ideas. She hired an attorney who just loves publicity, and he filed this motion, posted by Las Vegas Sun reporter John Ralston. It is the most over-the-top bit of prose I've read since the W. W. News went away. If there were aliens in it, it would be perfect. Do check it out. My wife, on her blog, discusses the appropriateness of the document as a legal instrument. That's fine for the lawyers, but for writers, this is almost as entertaining as that "Dark and Stormy Night" contest.

No adjective is too outrageous! No verb is too over-the-top! No noun is safe! And, the governor better watch his chitlins, too, is all I can say after reading this juicy bit.

I expect I'll be seeing it in line in the grocery store by next week. But for now, you can click the title of this post if you wish, and check it out for yourself.

Oh, okay, here's a short excerpt:



Mrs. Gibbons is entitled to her day in Court, in an open court, not in a secret proceeding, but a public one that will provide her with a forum in which to be publicly exonerated, and in which she can fix blame where it belongs, on the shoulders of the woman who the has, for years, stalked the man who could give her the public persona and prestige, that, apparently, she craves, and, for which she is willing to, concurrently, abandon her husband.


That's one sentence from page six. Now do you believe me?

Labels: Politics, Writing