Over the last several years, I have been ranting about a hypocritical and superior view of democracy as forwarded by members of our government and the major media. It’s been something of a private rant, but a rant nonetheless. Because I have a little time on my hands and feel a bit like ranting, I will share these views and maybe there can be a short test at the end to see what we’ve learned.
I started to notice a pattern of American democracy promotion after the collapse of the Berlin Wall and perhaps even before then with the shipyard protests led by Lech Walesa. It took me until recently while in Ukraine to recognize that our push to democratize others was more about using a political weapon then helping out people yearning to be free.
In 1983 President Reagan helped create a new agency call National Endowment for Democracy. To keep everyone in our democracy happy, funding for this agency was to be split among U.S. trade unions, the Democratic Party and the Republican Party. The agency was designed for the promotion of democracy in countries where we thought the citizens could use a little nudging to our side. Not surprisingly much of this early money went to Eastern European countries and places that had oil. Walesa got plenty of democracy training under these grants, which he used to pester the pro-Soviet Polish government and to have them respond by turning water hoses on Lech and his supporters without regard to political party affiliation.
Prior to the creation of the NED was the United States Agency for International Development, formed as part of the Marshall Plan at the end of World War II. Its mission, as stated on its website is to "extend a helping hand to those people overseas struggling to make a better life, recover from a disaster or striving to live in a free and democratic country..." Just to demonstrate the effectiveness of its push for democracy, the largest recipients of USAID funds, in order, are Iraq, Israel, Egypt, Afghanistan, Colombia, Jordan, Pakistan, Liberia, Peru, Ethiopia, Bolivia, Turkey and Uganda. Strangely, only a handful of these countries are democratic and the others are rather dubious in their practice of democracy.
Nowadays USAID and NED are funded from the same sources and overlap a great deal. In fact, USAID oversees a lot of NED-funded projects. I must admit that I have taken some of the taxpayer’s hard earned money and worked on a USAID-funded project or two. While working in an Eastern European country, I ran into an old friend who worked for another U.S. agency with well-known initials. He was quite impressed by my agency’s success at turning former adversaries away from the old Soviet sphere of influence. In fact he said if his agency had the kind of funding my agency did, we would have ended the Cold War much earlier. Indeed, a number of USAID workers have either been thrown out of the country for spying or, in some cases, been murdered for being spies. I guess it’s important and acceptable to break a few rules to encourage participation in the American form of democracy.
Hopefully this background puts today’s rhetoric in perspective. It shouldn’t take you long to read about the evil countries not practicing democracy, particularly the American form of democracy. Excluded in this debate are countries that are led by monarchs and dictators and have the common denominator of having loads of oil or countries that make our consumer products for $1 per day or less. If a country does not fall into one of these two categories, we can get very cross with them, indeed.
One country that is the subject of official government scorn is Russia with the free and diligent U.S. press always ready to carry the message of Russia’s failing democracy. Not that Russia ever had much in the way of a democracy unless you count the drunken years that Boris Yeltsin allowed various mafia dons to rule his country. No, it seems that Russia fails in our definition of democracy and, according to many, is the worst example of a free nation in the world, quickly sliding to the dark days of the Soviet Union. As an aside, those who pushed Détente with the Soviets to ensure world peace are the same people shaking their fingers at the Russians today. Their reason for Détente years ago was the assumption that the Soviet Empire was too powerful to defeat and really not all that bad so why fight them. Now there are howls by the same people that Russia is rediscovering its Soviet roots. Please, make up your mind.
Our official government position is that Russia fails the test of true democracy because Russian President Vladimir Putin controls the press, suppresses his political opponents and gives favors out to his favorite industrialists. This is all true. Of course this is also true in the U.S., with the only difference being our controls are engineered by two political parties instead of just one. So, I guess, the real definition of democracy is when you get two political parties controlling the system and screwing the masses. A dictatorship is when only one party leader screws the masses.
Both Russian and American leaders are elected but in the case of Russia, the choices are limited to one main political party pitted against whoever is the permanent opposition of the day. In the U.S. we get to choose from two parties! All other people interested in putting their ideas out there are given an impossible task of fleecing special interest for money to run for office, getting airtime (ask Mike Gravel and Duncan Hunter about that) and not having the support of a political party machine and their allies -- trade unions, trial lawyers, wealthy Hungarians, pharmaceutical companies, insurance companies, casinos, corporate polluters and the like.
And what do we get for our form of democracy? We get a 71-year-old nutcase who naturally the press loves because he gave them more power with the passage of his bill on campaign finance reform. Like all star-crossed lovers, however, the press demonstrated it can yank his chain back when it wants when the NY Times published an eight-year-old story on Page One about him cozying up to a lobbyist in more ways than one. Reporting on lobbyists trying to influence influential senators is akin to the NY Times reporting that gaming is going on at Rick’s. Naturally the NY Times, in a very free and fair way, reported his denial on Page Eight.
U.S. democracy has also produced one of the most ridiculous and intellectually insulting primaries in my lifetime. We have an angry and petty white woman running for president along with an equally petty and temperament-challenged white man. We also have the first black candidate to get this far in our quadrennial political beauty pageant. Of course, if we’re being totally honest and attempting to act race-neutral, it should be noted that only the candidate’s father is black and his mother is white so I am not sure which part of his heritage people are voting for if, in fact, his heritage is really that important.
Each of the candidates has had their difficulties playing at the democracy game. When things have been at their darkest, Hillary turns to the dark side and unloads all the political dirt she has on her opponents. The dirt has been accumulated through very undemocratic practices such as holding on to 1,200 raw FBI files (1,200 federal offenses) and hiring sleazy private investigators. Her latest trick has been to make sure we remember her opponent for the democratic primary, Barack Obama, once lived in a Muslim country (although he lived there as a Christian) by pushing a photo that looked like Senator Obama had just returned from a Toga party. To Obama’s discredit, it was not very flattering or politically intelligent to dress up in such garb and violates an old political adage: if you don’t want to look silly wearing a stupid hat, don’t wear a stupid hat. Of course Obama is driving Hillary nuts because he has what she wants: votes and popularity. Not that he is really running a political campaign so much as he is running a movement, which means that no position on any issue is relevant to any of his supporters.
John McCain, for his part, seems very keen on getting to hell. He has announced that he will see bin Laden in hell and Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad there too. He also wanted to let the voting public know that Cuban leader Fidel Castro will soon be joining Karl Marx in hell – presumably with bin Laden, Ahmadinejad and McCain. Perhaps the quickest way for McCain to get to hell would be for him to follow through with his plan to invade Iran and North Korea.
So this is what democracy in the U.S. has become: a hollow contest without the mention of any issue that a future president will face. We’re still getting questions about “boxers or briefs?” and “who would you like to meet in heaven (or hell in the case of McCain)?” This isn’t democracy, this is idiocracy and does nothing more than demonstrate how our country has devolved into a celebrity culture.
I think it would be good for America if we spent a bit more time tidying up our democracy standards rather than picking on others who haven’t been at it for the past 230 years. Certainly we’re not getting it right at more than two centuries, how can we expect others to have it down in two decades?
Thursday, February 28, 2008
Saturday, February 16, 2008
A Happy Day
Well, we are a blessed family today. The Boy gave the Ber a lovely engagement ring, the Ber gave him the answer he wanted, and we were given a new daughter. We couldn’t ask for a happier day or a better woman to welcome into our family. We also couldn’t ask for a better family that will be merged into ours by the joining of these two bright souls.
Not much in the way of wedding details and all signs point to a very small gathering. They are getting wedding planning "help" by the Girl who I think desires a budget that is the approximate value of the U.S. deficit. I do have to hand it to the Girl, she’d be pretty good as a wedding planner. If you have contacts in the business, pass her name along....
It’s been quite a month for the Boy. He earned admission into University of San Diego Law School and they were pleased enough with his academic record that they offered him a substantial scholarship. While the world barely needs another lawyer, I think he will be different and will use the law to be a better businessman, scholar, partner or advocate for those who are denied access to redress through the legal system. Any way one slices it, he will be one of the few who will give the profession a better name.
The month could be a home run for our family if the Girl is able to get what looks like a really good job for a well-financed charity in the Bay Area. Aside from wedding planning, she’d be great at managing the public relations for a company that is giving back some of the wealth it earned in the Dot Com industry.
This is the kind of news we always want to hear in our family. Generally I am writing about somone dying in our family or complaining about why the world doesn’t give me everthing I want (maybe because I want everything?). For today, I have everything I need (except Diane Lane). Muah, as the Ber says.
Not much in the way of wedding details and all signs point to a very small gathering. They are getting wedding planning "help" by the Girl who I think desires a budget that is the approximate value of the U.S. deficit. I do have to hand it to the Girl, she’d be pretty good as a wedding planner. If you have contacts in the business, pass her name along....
It’s been quite a month for the Boy. He earned admission into University of San Diego Law School and they were pleased enough with his academic record that they offered him a substantial scholarship. While the world barely needs another lawyer, I think he will be different and will use the law to be a better businessman, scholar, partner or advocate for those who are denied access to redress through the legal system. Any way one slices it, he will be one of the few who will give the profession a better name.
The month could be a home run for our family if the Girl is able to get what looks like a really good job for a well-financed charity in the Bay Area. Aside from wedding planning, she’d be great at managing the public relations for a company that is giving back some of the wealth it earned in the Dot Com industry.
This is the kind of news we always want to hear in our family. Generally I am writing about somone dying in our family or complaining about why the world doesn’t give me everthing I want (maybe because I want everything?). For today, I have everything I need (except Diane Lane). Muah, as the Ber says.
Wednesday, January 30, 2008
New Year's Revolutions
Well I didn’t quite get this in before the end of the year, but at least it can be noted it was posted before the end of the month. In what is an annual ritual of mixing hope and repentance, I hereby offer my New Year’s resolutions. First, however, forgive me Father, for I have failed to live up to most of my previous resolutions. Let’s hope this year brings greater discipline and focus on meeting my goals, or at least getting close in the areas I can control.
1. Isn’t this always the first one? We all promise to lose weight and when you are writing that you want to lose a total of 60 pounds in 12 months (five pounds per month, a little more than one pound each week) it doesn’t seem so overwhelming. So why can’t I ever reach this one? Two words, perhaps: cookies and candy. I guess it’s a few more words because I have not been that reliable in exercising away the caloric intake caused by my frequent detours of munching on a chocolate Payday when nobody’s looking. Of course at the beginning of a long journey comes the first step so I am looking at the 60-pound figure as a marathon and not a sprint. Since my weight loss for January is 0.00, I have a bit more pressure on me to catch up, but I think I am ready to lose the flabbiness that has come to define me. But, hey, be kind to me if I don’t make this and, for god’s sake, don’t give me that look when you see me sneaking a warm chocolate donut for breakfast. Dooooooonut.
2. Having moved to San Diego, ostensibly, to be more near my friends, I would like to be less ostensible about it and spend more time with them. And I don’t mean more time just because one of my friends is down the hall at my office, I mean more fun time like going to the beach or swimming laps at the YMCA – assuming I can get my membership back.
3. I want to blog more but I also want more comments. Hmmm, how does one do this? I think we have all learned that the famous Free IPod Giveaway post was a bit of a desperate cry for attention. I’ll try to stay away from those kinds of gimmicks. I also may cut back on the political commentary. Lord knows my political observations get very little comment as evidenced by my recent – and I think one of my best – posts that was something of a primer on how to live in another Clinton regime. My goal will be to have five posts each month. I have catching up in this area too, but should be able to squeeze in a few more to make the cut.
4. Here is my usual quixotic quest to alter the way in which I earn a living; even in just small and simple ways. I’d be very grateful to keep my name out of the paper this year unless I am rescuing a little kid named Timmy out of a well. I want what I do to mean something and for me to mean something to somebody for what I am doing. What do they call that word again? Charity? Not sure I am that acquainted with doing things for a purpose other than money so some serious retraining will be necessary. Still, I’ll have my eye out for that elusive greener pasture.
5. This annual pledge is as predictable as the swallows returning to wherever it is they swallow (don’t mean that in a dirty way, Agent 69). I pledge to finish my unfinished novel. The good news is I have a viable beginning middle and an end. The bad news is I have to put the words in the right order so it all makes sense and carries the brooding, interesting story I have imagined. All I have to do is re-write most of the 425 pages and remember the names of my characters. Can’t remember where I heard this, but someone said an “outline” would be helpful in this endeavor. Hmmmm….outline…..
6. This one is counter-intuitive, I suppose. I want to travel more and travel more to interesting places. I really enjoy the experience of walking in and around different cultures and navigating how to say “you give me massage” in numerous unfamiliar languages (OK, Agent 69, that was meant to be dirty). Traveling to faraway places also means I am likely being paid to lounge among the locals so that is also another super secret reason for this mention.
7. On the flip side of Resolution #6 is the goal to be a better husband, parent and friend; something of a trick if I am 11 hours away eating a chocolate Payday. I guess these qualities can be managed together as long as I continue to remember what it is to love someone completely and to meet them as they want to be met. I think it’s about understanding what friends and family want out of life, understanding better their needs and being a safe place for them to land if required. Perhaps it’s quality over volume and, including learning to love myself more, maybe we’ll have something good going in 2008.
8. Even though this is similar to the weight loss promise with my fingers behind crossed behind my back, I want to be more active athletically. I’d like to feel comfortable swimming 3,500 yards per day and have no difficulty walking at a brisk pace for at least an hour. I don’t want to include things like that Sladed character has up his sleeve like running in a marathon or swimming the Channel, and I especially don’t want to commit to having my eyes gouged out and being fish bait in swimming the La Jolla Rough Water. Although I will try to look good enough in a Speedo by September to give it fair thought.
9. I getting near the end, so be patient. This one is a bit subtle and abstract, but I want to have fewer fears. My vacation was partly burdened by fear of not accomplishing a task expected by a client. All was well in the end and my gut told me it was going to be OK, but I still let the irrational fear side of me dictate my mood and outlook. Fear can be debilitating and I have to learn to roll better with the ups and downs of my business life, and life in general. I think I am already seeing signs that I am making strides in this area.
10. And, there is always a silly one in the end. I want to attend a wedding this year that includes people I really care about. Can that be done? Can it?
1. Isn’t this always the first one? We all promise to lose weight and when you are writing that you want to lose a total of 60 pounds in 12 months (five pounds per month, a little more than one pound each week) it doesn’t seem so overwhelming. So why can’t I ever reach this one? Two words, perhaps: cookies and candy. I guess it’s a few more words because I have not been that reliable in exercising away the caloric intake caused by my frequent detours of munching on a chocolate Payday when nobody’s looking. Of course at the beginning of a long journey comes the first step so I am looking at the 60-pound figure as a marathon and not a sprint. Since my weight loss for January is 0.00, I have a bit more pressure on me to catch up, but I think I am ready to lose the flabbiness that has come to define me. But, hey, be kind to me if I don’t make this and, for god’s sake, don’t give me that look when you see me sneaking a warm chocolate donut for breakfast. Dooooooonut.
2. Having moved to San Diego, ostensibly, to be more near my friends, I would like to be less ostensible about it and spend more time with them. And I don’t mean more time just because one of my friends is down the hall at my office, I mean more fun time like going to the beach or swimming laps at the YMCA – assuming I can get my membership back.
3. I want to blog more but I also want more comments. Hmmm, how does one do this? I think we have all learned that the famous Free IPod Giveaway post was a bit of a desperate cry for attention. I’ll try to stay away from those kinds of gimmicks. I also may cut back on the political commentary. Lord knows my political observations get very little comment as evidenced by my recent – and I think one of my best – posts that was something of a primer on how to live in another Clinton regime. My goal will be to have five posts each month. I have catching up in this area too, but should be able to squeeze in a few more to make the cut.
4. Here is my usual quixotic quest to alter the way in which I earn a living; even in just small and simple ways. I’d be very grateful to keep my name out of the paper this year unless I am rescuing a little kid named Timmy out of a well. I want what I do to mean something and for me to mean something to somebody for what I am doing. What do they call that word again? Charity? Not sure I am that acquainted with doing things for a purpose other than money so some serious retraining will be necessary. Still, I’ll have my eye out for that elusive greener pasture.
5. This annual pledge is as predictable as the swallows returning to wherever it is they swallow (don’t mean that in a dirty way, Agent 69). I pledge to finish my unfinished novel. The good news is I have a viable beginning middle and an end. The bad news is I have to put the words in the right order so it all makes sense and carries the brooding, interesting story I have imagined. All I have to do is re-write most of the 425 pages and remember the names of my characters. Can’t remember where I heard this, but someone said an “outline” would be helpful in this endeavor. Hmmmm….outline…..
6. This one is counter-intuitive, I suppose. I want to travel more and travel more to interesting places. I really enjoy the experience of walking in and around different cultures and navigating how to say “you give me massage” in numerous unfamiliar languages (OK, Agent 69, that was meant to be dirty). Traveling to faraway places also means I am likely being paid to lounge among the locals so that is also another super secret reason for this mention.
7. On the flip side of Resolution #6 is the goal to be a better husband, parent and friend; something of a trick if I am 11 hours away eating a chocolate Payday. I guess these qualities can be managed together as long as I continue to remember what it is to love someone completely and to meet them as they want to be met. I think it’s about understanding what friends and family want out of life, understanding better their needs and being a safe place for them to land if required. Perhaps it’s quality over volume and, including learning to love myself more, maybe we’ll have something good going in 2008.
8. Even though this is similar to the weight loss promise with my fingers behind crossed behind my back, I want to be more active athletically. I’d like to feel comfortable swimming 3,500 yards per day and have no difficulty walking at a brisk pace for at least an hour. I don’t want to include things like that Sladed character has up his sleeve like running in a marathon or swimming the Channel, and I especially don’t want to commit to having my eyes gouged out and being fish bait in swimming the La Jolla Rough Water. Although I will try to look good enough in a Speedo by September to give it fair thought.
9. I getting near the end, so be patient. This one is a bit subtle and abstract, but I want to have fewer fears. My vacation was partly burdened by fear of not accomplishing a task expected by a client. All was well in the end and my gut told me it was going to be OK, but I still let the irrational fear side of me dictate my mood and outlook. Fear can be debilitating and I have to learn to roll better with the ups and downs of my business life, and life in general. I think I am already seeing signs that I am making strides in this area.
10. And, there is always a silly one in the end. I want to attend a wedding this year that includes people I really care about. Can that be done? Can it?
Tuesday, January 08, 2008
A Word About A Would-Be Queen
Returning from a trip to Texas with dreams of independent candidates shaking up the two-party cartel dancing in my head, New Hampshire voters are offering their own independent minded statement by making Hillary the second coming of the Comeback Kid. While disappointing to me and most of normal thinking Americans, it should make a serious independent bid for the presidency much more likely. And I think that’s a good thing.
Instinct should have dictated that the polls, the pols and news creatures are not to be believed as they were busy working the engine room of the Obama Express; especially when it’s about a Clinton because it’s always about them, and they should have learned that by now. As a result, the prediction of 12-point margins of victory by the man from Jakarta (at least not from Hope) looks more and more like a set-up for a bad actor to steal the show.
Perhaps New Hampshire voters took Clinton’s tears over Obama’s “O” factor. In a world of feelings over thought, it wouldn’t surprise me. But in an electorate that seems to be demanding change – at least I think we are – how did a tantrum and a sad face trump change? If one were to check Lexus Nexus I suspect we would find slightly more than 1 billion uses of the word “change” over the last several months. Nobody is quite sure what it means, naturally, so it’s a great campaigning tool and allows the candidates to put fluff over substance. No need to connect change to a particular policy or have to define the term to the least intellectually curious news media since the Hair-Spray Pavilion was invented.
The message is mixed from New Hampshire as Granite Staters proved hard-headed and stubborn yet again by rejecting one outsider (Obama) for an insider (Hillary) and then accepting a decidedly independent John McCain by larger margins than ever imagined. In the real world, New Hampshire means very little – just three measly Electoral Votes – but in the world of spin it knocks Obama out of the spotlight, costs him donors and loses the momentum that seemed so solid only a week ago. If one can get by the smirk on Hillary’s face, we’ll have to admit she may well be back in the driver’s seat. And I am sure this is a bad thing.
Hillary is the only candidate running on the mantra of change who believes we must find that change in our past. Nobody should expect the slogan “It was morning in America” to resonate, but it seemed to have done just that in New Hampshire (leaving Dixville Notch out of it because they had the good sense to give her no votes).
For those old enough to remember, the Clinton years that Hillary loves to take situational credit for, i.e. taking the good, ignoring the bad, were not exactly the best in American history. She never misses the opportunity to talk about her eight years in the White House and how it gives her the experience to be president. As Dick Morris said, she did spend eight years in the White House, but “so did the pastry chef” and that doesn’t make him capable of running the country.
By any measure Bill was a political savant; intelligent, a quick read on a wide variety of issues and exceptionally charismatic. He was also a highly flawed man with governance ADD and no core and no soul. His chief political strategies James Carville once took a piece of paper and drew a square and pointing in the box remarked, “Where is the hallowed ground?” Hillary appears to be lacking the same slice of hallowed ground due in large part that she got very little of her husband’s attributes and all of his flaws including, indelicately I admit, the part about being a flawed man.
But because we may find ourselves living under a another Clinton administration, we should at least examine what that would look like. It’s not difficult to see who would be joining her administration when you see who’s standing behind her on stage: a veritable who’s who of Bill Clinton has-beens. People like Richard Holbrooke, Madeline Albright and Sandy Berger were in over their heads 16 years ago and there is nothing that has occurred since to demonstrate they have learned anything. While candidates love to run on it’s the economy, stupid (and the economy’s looking pretty stupid at the moment), they end up be being defined and judged on foreign events. Or as Hillary recently noted and by means of demonstrating both her ability to predict and her penchant for stealing good lines, this one from Mario Cuomo, “You campaign with poetry, but you govern with prose.” I suspect she will be ambushed by the prose of knowing nothing about foreign policy.
This is the part that scares me: Holbrooke gave us the war in Serbia, Albright inflamed an already burning situation in Somalia by backing a criminally stupid Boutrous Boutrous-Ghali (why would anyone trust a man with two first names, anyway?) in his personal vendetta against Aidid, leading to an America looking so weak it produced Rwanda and bin Laden’s view that America was a paper tiger, and, finally, Berger who gave men new ideas on how to impress women with things stuffed in their briefs – say, is that a national security document in your pants or are you just glad to see me?
The Clinton gang, particularly in the area of foreign policy, was not ready to lead from Day One and, based on Hillary’s insistance that she is, only makes a stronger case that if she is elected, we will be turning our government over to those who did not learn from earlier on-the-job training. And I am very certain that is a bad thing, particularly in this very dangerous world.
Obviously the primary battle is not over between Obama and Hillary and it is even possible Edwards will have something to say about who becomes the democratic nominee since their primaries don’t engage in winner–take-all voting as is the case with republicans. But I suspect Hillary can taste the power of winning the White House and two things are certain about that fact: anyone who gets in the way of Hillary and her manic lust for power better watch their back (Obama: "Hillary, what are you doing with a shovel and duct tape in your trunk?"); and the more progress she makes toward wrapping up the nomination the more certain a third party candidate will emerge. Mr. Mayor, we could use another hero. Hope you’re listening.
P.S. I know I owe a New Year's resolution post, but one of my resolutions is to go on vacation and write more on my blog. Tonight I wrote this for the blog and tomorrow I go on vacation. That's two down!
Instinct should have dictated that the polls, the pols and news creatures are not to be believed as they were busy working the engine room of the Obama Express; especially when it’s about a Clinton because it’s always about them, and they should have learned that by now. As a result, the prediction of 12-point margins of victory by the man from Jakarta (at least not from Hope) looks more and more like a set-up for a bad actor to steal the show.
Perhaps New Hampshire voters took Clinton’s tears over Obama’s “O” factor. In a world of feelings over thought, it wouldn’t surprise me. But in an electorate that seems to be demanding change – at least I think we are – how did a tantrum and a sad face trump change? If one were to check Lexus Nexus I suspect we would find slightly more than 1 billion uses of the word “change” over the last several months. Nobody is quite sure what it means, naturally, so it’s a great campaigning tool and allows the candidates to put fluff over substance. No need to connect change to a particular policy or have to define the term to the least intellectually curious news media since the Hair-Spray Pavilion was invented.
The message is mixed from New Hampshire as Granite Staters proved hard-headed and stubborn yet again by rejecting one outsider (Obama) for an insider (Hillary) and then accepting a decidedly independent John McCain by larger margins than ever imagined. In the real world, New Hampshire means very little – just three measly Electoral Votes – but in the world of spin it knocks Obama out of the spotlight, costs him donors and loses the momentum that seemed so solid only a week ago. If one can get by the smirk on Hillary’s face, we’ll have to admit she may well be back in the driver’s seat. And I am sure this is a bad thing.
Hillary is the only candidate running on the mantra of change who believes we must find that change in our past. Nobody should expect the slogan “It was morning in America” to resonate, but it seemed to have done just that in New Hampshire (leaving Dixville Notch out of it because they had the good sense to give her no votes).
For those old enough to remember, the Clinton years that Hillary loves to take situational credit for, i.e. taking the good, ignoring the bad, were not exactly the best in American history. She never misses the opportunity to talk about her eight years in the White House and how it gives her the experience to be president. As Dick Morris said, she did spend eight years in the White House, but “so did the pastry chef” and that doesn’t make him capable of running the country.
By any measure Bill was a political savant; intelligent, a quick read on a wide variety of issues and exceptionally charismatic. He was also a highly flawed man with governance ADD and no core and no soul. His chief political strategies James Carville once took a piece of paper and drew a square and pointing in the box remarked, “Where is the hallowed ground?” Hillary appears to be lacking the same slice of hallowed ground due in large part that she got very little of her husband’s attributes and all of his flaws including, indelicately I admit, the part about being a flawed man.
But because we may find ourselves living under a another Clinton administration, we should at least examine what that would look like. It’s not difficult to see who would be joining her administration when you see who’s standing behind her on stage: a veritable who’s who of Bill Clinton has-beens. People like Richard Holbrooke, Madeline Albright and Sandy Berger were in over their heads 16 years ago and there is nothing that has occurred since to demonstrate they have learned anything. While candidates love to run on it’s the economy, stupid (and the economy’s looking pretty stupid at the moment), they end up be being defined and judged on foreign events. Or as Hillary recently noted and by means of demonstrating both her ability to predict and her penchant for stealing good lines, this one from Mario Cuomo, “You campaign with poetry, but you govern with prose.” I suspect she will be ambushed by the prose of knowing nothing about foreign policy.
This is the part that scares me: Holbrooke gave us the war in Serbia, Albright inflamed an already burning situation in Somalia by backing a criminally stupid Boutrous Boutrous-Ghali (why would anyone trust a man with two first names, anyway?) in his personal vendetta against Aidid, leading to an America looking so weak it produced Rwanda and bin Laden’s view that America was a paper tiger, and, finally, Berger who gave men new ideas on how to impress women with things stuffed in their briefs – say, is that a national security document in your pants or are you just glad to see me?
The Clinton gang, particularly in the area of foreign policy, was not ready to lead from Day One and, based on Hillary’s insistance that she is, only makes a stronger case that if she is elected, we will be turning our government over to those who did not learn from earlier on-the-job training. And I am very certain that is a bad thing, particularly in this very dangerous world.
Obviously the primary battle is not over between Obama and Hillary and it is even possible Edwards will have something to say about who becomes the democratic nominee since their primaries don’t engage in winner–take-all voting as is the case with republicans. But I suspect Hillary can taste the power of winning the White House and two things are certain about that fact: anyone who gets in the way of Hillary and her manic lust for power better watch their back (Obama: "Hillary, what are you doing with a shovel and duct tape in your trunk?"); and the more progress she makes toward wrapping up the nomination the more certain a third party candidate will emerge. Mr. Mayor, we could use another hero. Hope you’re listening.
P.S. I know I owe a New Year's resolution post, but one of my resolutions is to go on vacation and write more on my blog. Tonight I wrote this for the blog and tomorrow I go on vacation. That's two down!
Monday, December 31, 2007
Wither Democracy?
OK, I am probably out of my depth here and running the risk of Google Blog searches sending many unwanted viewers to my sleepy little Blog, but I may as well spout off anyway. This post is about the naïve view of democracy as practiced and shoved at the world by the Bush Administration and others who have turned into political pushers of this drug of majority rule.
The most recent evidence that democracy isn’t for everyone just occurred in Pakistan – or nuclear-armed Pakistan, as the media prefers. Of course we all know about the recent assassination of former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto. Her reason for coming out of exile was due to a grand plan hatched by Condoleezza Rice and the President that was supposed to put a power sharing arrangement in place with Pakistan’s current president, Pervez Musharraf who arrived as president in the decidedly non-democratic manner of leading a military coup and naming himself the leader of the government.
Of course this is where things get dicey because Musharraf is an enemy or our enemy (Al-Qaida) and, as a leader of a huge military, he is seen as something of a stopgap of growth of the terror group. Although he has not been altogether as successful as we would like, he does just enough to keep Washington’s billions headed his way. His willingness to hold elections gained him even more support.
Enter former Prime Minister Bhutto, who became a “former prime minister” after being sent into exile on corruption charges, leaving a mostly hostile country behind but not without at least $20 million to avoid living in exile on a skimpy budget.
American and European meddling forced Musharraf to hold “free and fair” election – a wonderful catch-phrase that doesn’t even work in our own country – and he won a sizeable majority of sitting lawmakers. An independent Supreme Court in Pakistan attempted to nullify the election but Musharraf fired the court and suspended the Constitution for several weeks. It is believed Bhutto declined to run for president because of the power-sharing agreement that was being worked out between her and Musharraf and pushed principally by the U.S. Naturally any agreement put in place that appears to exclude the voters, no matter the amount of international symmetry, was bound to smell to everyday Pakistanis and they viewed it as a deal between a corrupt former prime minister working in concert with a corrupt president. Of course they were likely correct.
All this set the stage for Bhutto to make a triumphant return to Pakistan for what was supposed to be a coronation. Everything seemed to be aligned; the international press, full of press kits from huge PR firms such as the U.S.’s Burson Marsteller (you can’t have a PR firm or a press without press kits), cleaned up her image outside of Pakistan while world leaders rejoiced at their own progressiveness of backing a woman in a male-dominated culture. Someone forgot to include the one million suspects who wanted her stopped at all costs and we had what most real analysts would say was a predictable result. Not only was her murder the second attempt on her life, Musharraf too has been a target, narrowly escaping two assassination attempts, all in Rawalpindi, coincidentally, which happens to be the head of the Pakistani military apparatus. This would be the equivalent of attempting to assassinate a sitting president in the U.S. in the middle of Fort Bragg.
So we have one sacrificed at the altar of democracy and this didn’t need to happen. Bhutto shouldn’t have believed her international press clippings and should have stayed in England as a permanent opposition group, and we shouldn’t have forced democracy on a people who are neither ready for such a form of governance nor ready to be governed, for that matter. I head one Pakistani say the killing of Bhutto was the same as the Kennedy assassination. Maybe to him it was, but I don’t remember a riot breaking out in the streets after Kennedy was shot and I don’t recall 50 people being killed from the civil unrest that’s been pushed by Bhutto supporters. Pakistan, with all its tribal factions among 170 million diverse people probably needs more of a dictator than someone promising a newest pro-democracy phrase, “rule of law.”
Why is what happened in Pakistan so important, I hear you ask before giving up on this messy post? Mainly because pushing democracy on an unsuspecting people has been done before and will be done again, and our Western leadership seems to have learned nothing from it. The Lebanese were pushed into voting for new leadership and the voters gave us a power struggle between two warring terror organizations, Hezbollah and Hamas. The moderates we supported came in third. We wanted free and fair elections in Nicaragua and because of American intervention, we got Daniel Ortega back in power with only 37 percent of the vote. What we was fought with bullets in the Eighties was turned around 20 years later with ballots.
The new weapon of choice of over-the-hill lefties is democracy, not armed conflict. In the past five years, voters have elected Socialist leaders in Venezuela, Bolivia, Ecuador and Mexico. These four countries make up more than 70 percent of our oil imports so we have to be nice even if we don’t like them.
In case you think this is a Bush Administration problem – and it is a big one – this happened under President Clinton too. How many remember the reason we sent the military to Haiti? Jean-Bertrand Aristide won what some say was the first democratic election, which ended the regime of the Duvalier family. Actually the younger Duvalier was, in fact, elected but immediately named himself ruler for life, a good job if you can get it. A well-armed American military re-installed Aristide who quickly lived down to most Haitian leaders, was re-elected in what is largely viewed as a Chicago-style, vote-counting scandal, only to be voted out by a former ally because he had done little to improve the Western Hemisphere’s poorest country. Makes one wonder why we helped in the first place.
Clinton also decided to become indirectly involved in internal Israeli politics by sending U.S. tax dollars to his politicos James Carville and Paul Begala to make sure Ehuad Barak was voted in instead of the strong-willed Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. It seems Clinton couldn’t work a deal between the Israelis and Palestinians and it was having a negative impact on his Nobel Peace Prize chances so he made sure the dance cards were re-arranged. A wimpy Barak eventually made a deal with the devil with the Oslo Peace Accords which ultimately resulted in peace in our time as evidenced by the First and Second Intifada.
Clinton also let Richard Holbrooke try his hand at dictatorship in the Balkans when the spoils of bombing former allies in Serbia allowed us to dictate who held the pink slip on Bosnia, the center of ethnic cleansing from all sides. Holbrooke’s idea – with a lot of help from other idiots – took place in the drafting of the Dayton Accords which said Bosnia would be trifurcated into a Muslim area, a Serb area and a split Muslim and Croat area. Leadership would be supplied by interested Europeans in what is called the Office of the High Representative, which can remove elected leaders from office and pretty much do what he or she wants. It is the only dictatorship in Europe, but don’t ask and don’t tell on that one as nobody involved likes to admit it.
Also out of the Balkans sprang up Kosovo. A district of the former Yugoslav Republic and strongly viewed by Serbs as a historic region of greater Serbia (strong as in willing to go to war to keep it from going independent). The Western world feels sorry for the ethnic Muslim Albanians who lead this tiny region that has no economy and no ability to survive on its own, so it’s forcing independence down the throats of unhappy Serbs. This has led to other breakaway republics around the world anxiously raising their hands and saying, “me too,” despite the fact that wankers like Holbrooke insist Kosovo is not a precedent. Fortunately his involvement in any future government is not a precedent either.
Bush doesn’t have clean hands in ensuring dummies get elected either. We spent what some will admit to be $160 million (probably twice that) to elect leadership-challenged Victor Yushchenko as president merely because he was not pro-Russian. I was there and I am certain that the U.S. government and its European allies stole the election from Viktor Yanukovich, thereby splitting the nation down the middle. All Yushchenko has done since elected is name is 22-year-old son as his economic minister and head for the office around noon where he paints for four hours before returning home. Meanwhile, the country is in the tank. The democracy pushers are very good at fixing elections but fall well-short when help is needed to actually lead a country. It should be no surprise that his approval rating is at 12 percent, up from nine percent after a number of Americans came on the scene to improve his image.
When the U.S. wishes to scold countries around the world for not being democratic enough, it likes to pick on Russia and its neighbor Belarus. We all hear about the evils of Russian President Vladimir Putin, whose personal approval rating is nearly four times that of President Bush. We read in self-important journals that the great former chess players Gary Kasparov has been marching to stem the rolling back of democracy in Russia and his travails are well-chronicled. What is not so well-chronicled is that when he marches, he has fewer than 1,000 supporters and it only looks like more because he marches alongside the neo-Bolsheviks who believe Putin isn’t autocratic enough.
In poor Belarus, where life is relatively safe and stable, U.S. leaders don’t like their president in Alexander Lukaschenko, who has won recent election in Castro-style with almost 90 percent of the vote (strangely American leftists don’t mind such lop-sided elections in Cuba). A New Jersey Congressman named Chris Smith got the “Belarus Democracy Act” passed, which essentially ends economic relations with the country and making them even more dependent on Russia for survival. Essentially a Congressman from a state like New Jersey has told the Belarusian people to vote out their president if they want to do business with us and become a nice puppet for future NATO expansion.
This seems like a good place to finalize the endless sham of democracy. While we do have this Belarus Democracy Act and thunderous media denunciation of President Putin, we seemed to have missed putting in place the Saudi Arabia Democracy Act or the Chinese Democracy Act or even the Azerbaijan Democracy Act. I guess if you sell us oil, give us space to put air bases and produce lead-based toys for our children, you can skip right beyond the need for democracy. And if we Americans don’t like that, we can always have a vote. I think there is one here next November. I wonder if the computer voting screens will be in place by then.
The most recent evidence that democracy isn’t for everyone just occurred in Pakistan – or nuclear-armed Pakistan, as the media prefers. Of course we all know about the recent assassination of former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto. Her reason for coming out of exile was due to a grand plan hatched by Condoleezza Rice and the President that was supposed to put a power sharing arrangement in place with Pakistan’s current president, Pervez Musharraf who arrived as president in the decidedly non-democratic manner of leading a military coup and naming himself the leader of the government.
Of course this is where things get dicey because Musharraf is an enemy or our enemy (Al-Qaida) and, as a leader of a huge military, he is seen as something of a stopgap of growth of the terror group. Although he has not been altogether as successful as we would like, he does just enough to keep Washington’s billions headed his way. His willingness to hold elections gained him even more support.
Enter former Prime Minister Bhutto, who became a “former prime minister” after being sent into exile on corruption charges, leaving a mostly hostile country behind but not without at least $20 million to avoid living in exile on a skimpy budget.
American and European meddling forced Musharraf to hold “free and fair” election – a wonderful catch-phrase that doesn’t even work in our own country – and he won a sizeable majority of sitting lawmakers. An independent Supreme Court in Pakistan attempted to nullify the election but Musharraf fired the court and suspended the Constitution for several weeks. It is believed Bhutto declined to run for president because of the power-sharing agreement that was being worked out between her and Musharraf and pushed principally by the U.S. Naturally any agreement put in place that appears to exclude the voters, no matter the amount of international symmetry, was bound to smell to everyday Pakistanis and they viewed it as a deal between a corrupt former prime minister working in concert with a corrupt president. Of course they were likely correct.
All this set the stage for Bhutto to make a triumphant return to Pakistan for what was supposed to be a coronation. Everything seemed to be aligned; the international press, full of press kits from huge PR firms such as the U.S.’s Burson Marsteller (you can’t have a PR firm or a press without press kits), cleaned up her image outside of Pakistan while world leaders rejoiced at their own progressiveness of backing a woman in a male-dominated culture. Someone forgot to include the one million suspects who wanted her stopped at all costs and we had what most real analysts would say was a predictable result. Not only was her murder the second attempt on her life, Musharraf too has been a target, narrowly escaping two assassination attempts, all in Rawalpindi, coincidentally, which happens to be the head of the Pakistani military apparatus. This would be the equivalent of attempting to assassinate a sitting president in the U.S. in the middle of Fort Bragg.
So we have one sacrificed at the altar of democracy and this didn’t need to happen. Bhutto shouldn’t have believed her international press clippings and should have stayed in England as a permanent opposition group, and we shouldn’t have forced democracy on a people who are neither ready for such a form of governance nor ready to be governed, for that matter. I head one Pakistani say the killing of Bhutto was the same as the Kennedy assassination. Maybe to him it was, but I don’t remember a riot breaking out in the streets after Kennedy was shot and I don’t recall 50 people being killed from the civil unrest that’s been pushed by Bhutto supporters. Pakistan, with all its tribal factions among 170 million diverse people probably needs more of a dictator than someone promising a newest pro-democracy phrase, “rule of law.”
Why is what happened in Pakistan so important, I hear you ask before giving up on this messy post? Mainly because pushing democracy on an unsuspecting people has been done before and will be done again, and our Western leadership seems to have learned nothing from it. The Lebanese were pushed into voting for new leadership and the voters gave us a power struggle between two warring terror organizations, Hezbollah and Hamas. The moderates we supported came in third. We wanted free and fair elections in Nicaragua and because of American intervention, we got Daniel Ortega back in power with only 37 percent of the vote. What we was fought with bullets in the Eighties was turned around 20 years later with ballots.
The new weapon of choice of over-the-hill lefties is democracy, not armed conflict. In the past five years, voters have elected Socialist leaders in Venezuela, Bolivia, Ecuador and Mexico. These four countries make up more than 70 percent of our oil imports so we have to be nice even if we don’t like them.
In case you think this is a Bush Administration problem – and it is a big one – this happened under President Clinton too. How many remember the reason we sent the military to Haiti? Jean-Bertrand Aristide won what some say was the first democratic election, which ended the regime of the Duvalier family. Actually the younger Duvalier was, in fact, elected but immediately named himself ruler for life, a good job if you can get it. A well-armed American military re-installed Aristide who quickly lived down to most Haitian leaders, was re-elected in what is largely viewed as a Chicago-style, vote-counting scandal, only to be voted out by a former ally because he had done little to improve the Western Hemisphere’s poorest country. Makes one wonder why we helped in the first place.
Clinton also decided to become indirectly involved in internal Israeli politics by sending U.S. tax dollars to his politicos James Carville and Paul Begala to make sure Ehuad Barak was voted in instead of the strong-willed Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. It seems Clinton couldn’t work a deal between the Israelis and Palestinians and it was having a negative impact on his Nobel Peace Prize chances so he made sure the dance cards were re-arranged. A wimpy Barak eventually made a deal with the devil with the Oslo Peace Accords which ultimately resulted in peace in our time as evidenced by the First and Second Intifada.
Clinton also let Richard Holbrooke try his hand at dictatorship in the Balkans when the spoils of bombing former allies in Serbia allowed us to dictate who held the pink slip on Bosnia, the center of ethnic cleansing from all sides. Holbrooke’s idea – with a lot of help from other idiots – took place in the drafting of the Dayton Accords which said Bosnia would be trifurcated into a Muslim area, a Serb area and a split Muslim and Croat area. Leadership would be supplied by interested Europeans in what is called the Office of the High Representative, which can remove elected leaders from office and pretty much do what he or she wants. It is the only dictatorship in Europe, but don’t ask and don’t tell on that one as nobody involved likes to admit it.
Also out of the Balkans sprang up Kosovo. A district of the former Yugoslav Republic and strongly viewed by Serbs as a historic region of greater Serbia (strong as in willing to go to war to keep it from going independent). The Western world feels sorry for the ethnic Muslim Albanians who lead this tiny region that has no economy and no ability to survive on its own, so it’s forcing independence down the throats of unhappy Serbs. This has led to other breakaway republics around the world anxiously raising their hands and saying, “me too,” despite the fact that wankers like Holbrooke insist Kosovo is not a precedent. Fortunately his involvement in any future government is not a precedent either.
Bush doesn’t have clean hands in ensuring dummies get elected either. We spent what some will admit to be $160 million (probably twice that) to elect leadership-challenged Victor Yushchenko as president merely because he was not pro-Russian. I was there and I am certain that the U.S. government and its European allies stole the election from Viktor Yanukovich, thereby splitting the nation down the middle. All Yushchenko has done since elected is name is 22-year-old son as his economic minister and head for the office around noon where he paints for four hours before returning home. Meanwhile, the country is in the tank. The democracy pushers are very good at fixing elections but fall well-short when help is needed to actually lead a country. It should be no surprise that his approval rating is at 12 percent, up from nine percent after a number of Americans came on the scene to improve his image.
When the U.S. wishes to scold countries around the world for not being democratic enough, it likes to pick on Russia and its neighbor Belarus. We all hear about the evils of Russian President Vladimir Putin, whose personal approval rating is nearly four times that of President Bush. We read in self-important journals that the great former chess players Gary Kasparov has been marching to stem the rolling back of democracy in Russia and his travails are well-chronicled. What is not so well-chronicled is that when he marches, he has fewer than 1,000 supporters and it only looks like more because he marches alongside the neo-Bolsheviks who believe Putin isn’t autocratic enough.
In poor Belarus, where life is relatively safe and stable, U.S. leaders don’t like their president in Alexander Lukaschenko, who has won recent election in Castro-style with almost 90 percent of the vote (strangely American leftists don’t mind such lop-sided elections in Cuba). A New Jersey Congressman named Chris Smith got the “Belarus Democracy Act” passed, which essentially ends economic relations with the country and making them even more dependent on Russia for survival. Essentially a Congressman from a state like New Jersey has told the Belarusian people to vote out their president if they want to do business with us and become a nice puppet for future NATO expansion.
This seems like a good place to finalize the endless sham of democracy. While we do have this Belarus Democracy Act and thunderous media denunciation of President Putin, we seemed to have missed putting in place the Saudi Arabia Democracy Act or the Chinese Democracy Act or even the Azerbaijan Democracy Act. I guess if you sell us oil, give us space to put air bases and produce lead-based toys for our children, you can skip right beyond the need for democracy. And if we Americans don’t like that, we can always have a vote. I think there is one here next November. I wonder if the computer voting screens will be in place by then.
Monday, December 24, 2007
Airing Grievances
Demands were made by some kid (Agent 69) to write a Christmas post. I suppose I haven’t felt as much in the Christmas spirit as years past, so I have put it off until the actual day is almost upon us. But with our Christmas lights and ornaments in a box somewhere, I still haven’t been able to muster up enough holiday cheer – despite a gallon of eggnog – to write a post worthy of the day.
Part of my grumpiness has come from a number of irritating events that has turned me more Grinch than giving. Then it occurred to me there is another holiday that is practiced on December 23 where we get to air our grievances. What a better way to spend the holidays then to air grievances?
According to Wikipedia (which is almost always accurate unless it’s about me), the holiday of Festivus is a real holiday created by a Reader’s Digest editor who happened to have a son who became a writer for the Seinfeld Show. Hence the holiday wormed into our popular culture thanks to Frank Costanza. As invented, there really is a Festivus Pole, an “Airing of Grievances” and, following a Festivus dinner, a “Feats of Strength” involving a wrestling match between the head of the household (me, I guess) with other revelers. The last part should be fun.
But I want to focus, for the sake of the holiday, on the Airing of Grievances. Let’s begin in the bathroom. You folks with your Bluetooth headsets have got to stop your conversations upon entering the men’s room. Not only do I not want to hear you carrying on about nothing important while on the throne, I don’t want the person you’re talking to listening in on one of my private moments. In fact, I doubt they want to hear my private moments, along with the private moments of several others who went into the bathroom for its highest and best use.
Keeping in the bathroom, can we do something about the water-saving, low-flush toilets? I have a real problem with tossing a Kleenex into one and needing a plunger to get it down the drain. It’s designed to save precious water, but it ordinarily takes three flushes to complete the job. How does that save water?
In the shower the do-gooders from environmental central want you to save water with a shower nozzle that drips on you rather than cascades. It’s a real problem for me to take the nozzle off the shower head just to drill out a larger hole so I can get that luxurious shower I deserve in the morning. Sure the hot water runs out faster, but I can still get in a good 35-minute shower every morning.
Here’s another grievance: smart people who make stupid predictions, mainly those in the news media’s polling division. First we were told we wouldn’t spend as much this holiday season based on minimum-wage employees calling a few hundred people out of 300 million. This tidbit, sold as fact, made every headline in the country. The other 299 million defied the polls and went out and bought up the GI Joe and Barbie Doll as usual. Polls as news must always be correct so it was explained that while we purchased as many items, we didn’t spend as much since the prices were lower because everything is made out of lead in China. Please infer from their reporting that our economy teeters on the brink of a depression.
I heard a pundit today explain that Big Saturday (today) needed to be a big bang so the retailers wouldn’t all go out of business. However, another smart guy opined that we buyers wouldn’t purchase today because the retailers were only desperate and we’d wait until Sunday when they were panicked and then wait again on Monday until they were suicidal enough to give away a TV set with every purchase of a pack of chewing gum.
Pollsters and those who confuse the art of polling for news, is also worth complaining about on this great night of Festivus. It used to be that reporters covered elections by actually focusing on positions taken by candidates and what was good and bad in speeches they made. It’s true! I’ve read about it in books.
Today, reporters only write about which candidate is ahead in the daily polls – polls that appear to change based on a story about the polls. But polling has seemingly become too complicated for most political observers, so now they write about which candidate has the most money. As I understand it, having squeezed the most money out of special interest groups now best prepares a candidate to become president. And to think some are still stuck on the quaint notion that a president should have a certain set of what we call “positions,” “values,” and “experience.” Oh, and they must not have the last name of Clinton too, although that’s a grievance for another post.
My final grievance is referring to the season and the “holidays.” We can’t say Merry Christmas anymore for fear of offending someone who happens to celebrate something other than Christmas, such as Festivus. I tell friends to have a “happy birthday” even though most people who can hear me make this pronouncement are not having a birthday. I don’t get complaints about that unless it’s at one of those restaurants that makes the person having the birthday wear a big hat. I also have been known to say “Happy Thanksgiving” and “have a happy Independence Day” when I know full well that foreigners could be within ear shot. I don’t think this makes me insensitive to others, does it?
So, for the kid who asked for this post, I have the following politically correct plea: Please accept with no obligation, implied or implicit, my best wishes for an environmentally conscious, socially responsible, low-stress, non-addictive, gender-neutral celebration of the winter solstice holiday, practiced within the most enjoyable traditions of the religious persuasion of your choice, or secular practices of your choice, with respect for the religious/secular persuasion and/or traditions of others, or their choice not to practice religious or secular traditions at all. I also wish you a fiscally successful, personally fulfilling and medically uncomplicated recognition of the onset of the generally accepted calendar year 2008, but not without due respect for the calendars of choice of other cultures whose contributions to society have helped make America great. Not to imply that America is necessarily greater than any other country or the only America in the Western Hemisphere. Also, this wish is made without regard to the race, creed, color, age, physical ability, religious faith or sexual preference of the wish.
To my friends and relatives: Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!
Part of my grumpiness has come from a number of irritating events that has turned me more Grinch than giving. Then it occurred to me there is another holiday that is practiced on December 23 where we get to air our grievances. What a better way to spend the holidays then to air grievances?
According to Wikipedia (which is almost always accurate unless it’s about me), the holiday of Festivus is a real holiday created by a Reader’s Digest editor who happened to have a son who became a writer for the Seinfeld Show. Hence the holiday wormed into our popular culture thanks to Frank Costanza. As invented, there really is a Festivus Pole, an “Airing of Grievances” and, following a Festivus dinner, a “Feats of Strength” involving a wrestling match between the head of the household (me, I guess) with other revelers. The last part should be fun.
But I want to focus, for the sake of the holiday, on the Airing of Grievances. Let’s begin in the bathroom. You folks with your Bluetooth headsets have got to stop your conversations upon entering the men’s room. Not only do I not want to hear you carrying on about nothing important while on the throne, I don’t want the person you’re talking to listening in on one of my private moments. In fact, I doubt they want to hear my private moments, along with the private moments of several others who went into the bathroom for its highest and best use.
Keeping in the bathroom, can we do something about the water-saving, low-flush toilets? I have a real problem with tossing a Kleenex into one and needing a plunger to get it down the drain. It’s designed to save precious water, but it ordinarily takes three flushes to complete the job. How does that save water?
In the shower the do-gooders from environmental central want you to save water with a shower nozzle that drips on you rather than cascades. It’s a real problem for me to take the nozzle off the shower head just to drill out a larger hole so I can get that luxurious shower I deserve in the morning. Sure the hot water runs out faster, but I can still get in a good 35-minute shower every morning.
Here’s another grievance: smart people who make stupid predictions, mainly those in the news media’s polling division. First we were told we wouldn’t spend as much this holiday season based on minimum-wage employees calling a few hundred people out of 300 million. This tidbit, sold as fact, made every headline in the country. The other 299 million defied the polls and went out and bought up the GI Joe and Barbie Doll as usual. Polls as news must always be correct so it was explained that while we purchased as many items, we didn’t spend as much since the prices were lower because everything is made out of lead in China. Please infer from their reporting that our economy teeters on the brink of a depression.
I heard a pundit today explain that Big Saturday (today) needed to be a big bang so the retailers wouldn’t all go out of business. However, another smart guy opined that we buyers wouldn’t purchase today because the retailers were only desperate and we’d wait until Sunday when they were panicked and then wait again on Monday until they were suicidal enough to give away a TV set with every purchase of a pack of chewing gum.
Pollsters and those who confuse the art of polling for news, is also worth complaining about on this great night of Festivus. It used to be that reporters covered elections by actually focusing on positions taken by candidates and what was good and bad in speeches they made. It’s true! I’ve read about it in books.
Today, reporters only write about which candidate is ahead in the daily polls – polls that appear to change based on a story about the polls. But polling has seemingly become too complicated for most political observers, so now they write about which candidate has the most money. As I understand it, having squeezed the most money out of special interest groups now best prepares a candidate to become president. And to think some are still stuck on the quaint notion that a president should have a certain set of what we call “positions,” “values,” and “experience.” Oh, and they must not have the last name of Clinton too, although that’s a grievance for another post.
My final grievance is referring to the season and the “holidays.” We can’t say Merry Christmas anymore for fear of offending someone who happens to celebrate something other than Christmas, such as Festivus. I tell friends to have a “happy birthday” even though most people who can hear me make this pronouncement are not having a birthday. I don’t get complaints about that unless it’s at one of those restaurants that makes the person having the birthday wear a big hat. I also have been known to say “Happy Thanksgiving” and “have a happy Independence Day” when I know full well that foreigners could be within ear shot. I don’t think this makes me insensitive to others, does it?
So, for the kid who asked for this post, I have the following politically correct plea: Please accept with no obligation, implied or implicit, my best wishes for an environmentally conscious, socially responsible, low-stress, non-addictive, gender-neutral celebration of the winter solstice holiday, practiced within the most enjoyable traditions of the religious persuasion of your choice, or secular practices of your choice, with respect for the religious/secular persuasion and/or traditions of others, or their choice not to practice religious or secular traditions at all. I also wish you a fiscally successful, personally fulfilling and medically uncomplicated recognition of the onset of the generally accepted calendar year 2008, but not without due respect for the calendars of choice of other cultures whose contributions to society have helped make America great. Not to imply that America is necessarily greater than any other country or the only America in the Western Hemisphere. Also, this wish is made without regard to the race, creed, color, age, physical ability, religious faith or sexual preference of the wish.
To my friends and relatives: Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!
Tuesday, November 06, 2007
Eccentric Ideas
I thought I would try this out on you all before kicking this as far upstairs as people are willing to listen. To get to the meat of what I hope will happen, there are a few things that must be accepted.
For the people who are roughly my age, we remember how we felt as Americans at the end of the Seventies and the “malaise” that had settled over most of us. At the time, we were facing inflation above 14 percent, unemployment more than 10 percent in most states and as much as 15 percent in some areas. Interest rates on mortgages got as high as 21 percent for a brief time but were always up in the high teens (imagine people complaining about 7 percent mortgage rates these days). In addition, Iranian student revolutionaries held 66 Americans captive, 52 of them for 444 days. In effect, this held America captive and made us all feel powerless, especially so after a botched attempt to rescue them failed miserably. Of course the crisis in the oil rich region caused gas prices to rise dramatically and shortages to occur.
All of the negativity that seemed to swallow us whole during that time was within five or six years of the U.S. military retreating in defeat from Vietnam and from the embarrassment of a president and vice president resigning in disgrace. For you younger folks, I think you had to live during that time to understand how small we felt as Americans. Perhaps only during the Depression 50 years earlier did America suffer from such collective anxiety.
The rough news to this story is that I think we are headed down the same path as we were 30 years ago. America is deep in the middle of a downward spiral with no real expectation of pulling out before we crash. We have no faith in our political leadership, we’re mired in a war with no real way to declare a victory, our dollar has become a joke with no corresponding benefit because our country produces very little worth selling to the world, having shipped that work out to the Developing World. We’ve had two bubbles burst due to avarice and the expectation that the stock market and housing market are required to rise at 20 percent per year, we’re viewed by many others around the world as, let’s face it, losers, and with the rise of Russia, Europe and China, we’re looking less like the world’s only superpower and more like a paper tiger. Again, malaise has settled in and nobody seems to have a prescription.
When Reagan was elected in 1980 he did very little from a policy perspective to change things. All he really did was make Americans walk a little taller and convince people that we are a great nation with great personal strengths and we needed to get out there and get the economy going again. I remember him telling the nation during one of his press conferences to go out and buy that washing machine and new car because there was no reason not to. And people did and the economy grew at the fastest and longest pace in U.S. history. It didn’t take Congress to enact new laws – although the tax cuts didn’t hurt – or any great change to the fundamental way our economy was structured. It took a grandfatherly man to tell us things were OK and for us to believe him.
This brings me to my grand idea, which is really not a grand idea at all, just an opportunity for nationwide redemption and something positive for us as Americans to be judged. The sad part is, we have been wearing the Ruby Slippers to accomplish this goal for years, but we’ve been programmed by many to believe it to be impossible.
While Reagan improved the American psyche, he ratcheted up the rhetoric against our enemies both real and imagined. Russia, or the Evil Empire as he noted, took most of the brunt, but there was plenty left for others who were considered our mortal enemies. In the end, the Russian Knight had been dead for years and was just waiting for the coroner’s report on the time of death. We did a little to help out, but mostly we kicked them while they were down.
In 2000, in the middle of the Russian economic meltdown, I attended a World Economic Forum summit which generally focused on what a mess Russia was. I sat next to a man I considered a friend for a number of years who happened to be the leader of the Duma at the time. The Russians were hit hard by every speaker and virtually blamed for all the ills of the world. I asked my friend how he could stand by silently while his country was trashed so thoroughly. He told me his country deserved the criticism but added they were learning from their mistakes and would be well again soon. He also warned that the tide will turn and America will face the same condemnation from the rest of the world. All of his predictions have come true as Russia is indeed well and we are facing worldwide scorn for our economic and foreign policy transgression.
All of this long-winded blather is to say we need to change our ways and reach out to others to become relevant again and regain our prestige. And the benefit to this relevance will send a message to Americans and the rest of the world that we are not bad people and we still matter.
President Bush is about as lame as any lame duck president has ever been. He has no hope of passing any sponsored legislation and is left merely as a caretaker for a war he started but will not be able to finish. Nobody even thinks about him much anymore unless it’s as a punchline for a joke. The only power he has as president that can help America, and not coincidentally his own image, is to reshape foreign policy and our place in the world. While he shows no sign of making any positive changes, the good news is the changes I want to recommend would be playing from his strong suit.
The President’s current Secretary of State and former National Security Advisor, Condi Rice, is an original Russophile. She was a Fellow at the Hoover Institute on Russian affairs and was a key advisor to Bush 41 on the delicate issue of how to deal with a collapsing adversary with thousands of nuclear weapons. She’s been forced into on-the-job training to learn the ways of the Muslim world, something that hasn’t come easy for her. So why not go back to what she knows and go to work with the Russians and solve problems that can actually be solved? It also wouldn’t hurt to change the public debate away from war in Iraq and escalating rhetoric of future wars.
We haven’t had a real summit with real goals with the Russians since 1991. This is puzzling because we still have not reached an agreement on short range nuclear missiles and the thorny issue of a missile shield, especially one in Eastern Europe. Russian President Vladimir Putin is on record suggesting an end to the missiles – the only real potential mass destructive weapon that could get in the wrong hands – but is understandably bothered by a missile shield in Eastern Europe, especially when the reason given is to protect the Poles, et al, from an attack from a rogue nation like Iran. That doesn’t pass anyone’s smell test.
Putin, to his own detriment, has been using his short term energy supply to bully his neighbors, sells military hardware to Iran and North Korea and other undependable states that could turn them on his country some day. Like Bush, Putin needs to leave a better legacy, in his case a legacy other than presiding over an economy fueled by petrol-dollars, and his time to do so is running out as he is forced to leave office next April. The good news is he has amassed such power that the ability to make changes rest solely in his hands.
While Bush needs Congress to ratify any treaty he makes, changing the dialogue will throw off his adversaries, and who would want to oppose a reduction in the nuclear threat, especially in an election year?
So let’s get together and make a deal on nukes. While we’re at it, let’s work on dealing with our shared threat posed by radical Islam, the looming problem in Pakistan, poverty in Africa and the flailing dollar. In the end, success will make both our countries feel better about ourselves and put us back in the same position we have occupied for 70 years as the only two superpowers. Together we can do more than we can do alone and working with each other will push back the European smugness and China’s petulance.
Bush has been surrounded by people who are used to a Cold War approach and most of official Washington is negative on Putin. The Russians are nervous about a uni-polar, one superpower world and are still understandably a bit prickly over our actions in Ukraine and NATO’s advancement to their borders. Having said this, Russia has a need to be reinstated as a legitimate superpower and Americans need to believe we are still capable of doing good in the world. It won’t take much to begin this process, just the desire for the two leaders to do what’s right and good for each of them. Hopefully they will see the value for what’s in it for themselves and be satisfied that it will have the ancillary benefit of helping those they lead walk with a little lighter step. At least one can hope, can we?
For the people who are roughly my age, we remember how we felt as Americans at the end of the Seventies and the “malaise” that had settled over most of us. At the time, we were facing inflation above 14 percent, unemployment more than 10 percent in most states and as much as 15 percent in some areas. Interest rates on mortgages got as high as 21 percent for a brief time but were always up in the high teens (imagine people complaining about 7 percent mortgage rates these days). In addition, Iranian student revolutionaries held 66 Americans captive, 52 of them for 444 days. In effect, this held America captive and made us all feel powerless, especially so after a botched attempt to rescue them failed miserably. Of course the crisis in the oil rich region caused gas prices to rise dramatically and shortages to occur.
All of the negativity that seemed to swallow us whole during that time was within five or six years of the U.S. military retreating in defeat from Vietnam and from the embarrassment of a president and vice president resigning in disgrace. For you younger folks, I think you had to live during that time to understand how small we felt as Americans. Perhaps only during the Depression 50 years earlier did America suffer from such collective anxiety.
The rough news to this story is that I think we are headed down the same path as we were 30 years ago. America is deep in the middle of a downward spiral with no real expectation of pulling out before we crash. We have no faith in our political leadership, we’re mired in a war with no real way to declare a victory, our dollar has become a joke with no corresponding benefit because our country produces very little worth selling to the world, having shipped that work out to the Developing World. We’ve had two bubbles burst due to avarice and the expectation that the stock market and housing market are required to rise at 20 percent per year, we’re viewed by many others around the world as, let’s face it, losers, and with the rise of Russia, Europe and China, we’re looking less like the world’s only superpower and more like a paper tiger. Again, malaise has settled in and nobody seems to have a prescription.
When Reagan was elected in 1980 he did very little from a policy perspective to change things. All he really did was make Americans walk a little taller and convince people that we are a great nation with great personal strengths and we needed to get out there and get the economy going again. I remember him telling the nation during one of his press conferences to go out and buy that washing machine and new car because there was no reason not to. And people did and the economy grew at the fastest and longest pace in U.S. history. It didn’t take Congress to enact new laws – although the tax cuts didn’t hurt – or any great change to the fundamental way our economy was structured. It took a grandfatherly man to tell us things were OK and for us to believe him.
This brings me to my grand idea, which is really not a grand idea at all, just an opportunity for nationwide redemption and something positive for us as Americans to be judged. The sad part is, we have been wearing the Ruby Slippers to accomplish this goal for years, but we’ve been programmed by many to believe it to be impossible.
While Reagan improved the American psyche, he ratcheted up the rhetoric against our enemies both real and imagined. Russia, or the Evil Empire as he noted, took most of the brunt, but there was plenty left for others who were considered our mortal enemies. In the end, the Russian Knight had been dead for years and was just waiting for the coroner’s report on the time of death. We did a little to help out, but mostly we kicked them while they were down.
In 2000, in the middle of the Russian economic meltdown, I attended a World Economic Forum summit which generally focused on what a mess Russia was. I sat next to a man I considered a friend for a number of years who happened to be the leader of the Duma at the time. The Russians were hit hard by every speaker and virtually blamed for all the ills of the world. I asked my friend how he could stand by silently while his country was trashed so thoroughly. He told me his country deserved the criticism but added they were learning from their mistakes and would be well again soon. He also warned that the tide will turn and America will face the same condemnation from the rest of the world. All of his predictions have come true as Russia is indeed well and we are facing worldwide scorn for our economic and foreign policy transgression.
All of this long-winded blather is to say we need to change our ways and reach out to others to become relevant again and regain our prestige. And the benefit to this relevance will send a message to Americans and the rest of the world that we are not bad people and we still matter.
President Bush is about as lame as any lame duck president has ever been. He has no hope of passing any sponsored legislation and is left merely as a caretaker for a war he started but will not be able to finish. Nobody even thinks about him much anymore unless it’s as a punchline for a joke. The only power he has as president that can help America, and not coincidentally his own image, is to reshape foreign policy and our place in the world. While he shows no sign of making any positive changes, the good news is the changes I want to recommend would be playing from his strong suit.
The President’s current Secretary of State and former National Security Advisor, Condi Rice, is an original Russophile. She was a Fellow at the Hoover Institute on Russian affairs and was a key advisor to Bush 41 on the delicate issue of how to deal with a collapsing adversary with thousands of nuclear weapons. She’s been forced into on-the-job training to learn the ways of the Muslim world, something that hasn’t come easy for her. So why not go back to what she knows and go to work with the Russians and solve problems that can actually be solved? It also wouldn’t hurt to change the public debate away from war in Iraq and escalating rhetoric of future wars.
We haven’t had a real summit with real goals with the Russians since 1991. This is puzzling because we still have not reached an agreement on short range nuclear missiles and the thorny issue of a missile shield, especially one in Eastern Europe. Russian President Vladimir Putin is on record suggesting an end to the missiles – the only real potential mass destructive weapon that could get in the wrong hands – but is understandably bothered by a missile shield in Eastern Europe, especially when the reason given is to protect the Poles, et al, from an attack from a rogue nation like Iran. That doesn’t pass anyone’s smell test.
Putin, to his own detriment, has been using his short term energy supply to bully his neighbors, sells military hardware to Iran and North Korea and other undependable states that could turn them on his country some day. Like Bush, Putin needs to leave a better legacy, in his case a legacy other than presiding over an economy fueled by petrol-dollars, and his time to do so is running out as he is forced to leave office next April. The good news is he has amassed such power that the ability to make changes rest solely in his hands.
While Bush needs Congress to ratify any treaty he makes, changing the dialogue will throw off his adversaries, and who would want to oppose a reduction in the nuclear threat, especially in an election year?
So let’s get together and make a deal on nukes. While we’re at it, let’s work on dealing with our shared threat posed by radical Islam, the looming problem in Pakistan, poverty in Africa and the flailing dollar. In the end, success will make both our countries feel better about ourselves and put us back in the same position we have occupied for 70 years as the only two superpowers. Together we can do more than we can do alone and working with each other will push back the European smugness and China’s petulance.
Bush has been surrounded by people who are used to a Cold War approach and most of official Washington is negative on Putin. The Russians are nervous about a uni-polar, one superpower world and are still understandably a bit prickly over our actions in Ukraine and NATO’s advancement to their borders. Having said this, Russia has a need to be reinstated as a legitimate superpower and Americans need to believe we are still capable of doing good in the world. It won’t take much to begin this process, just the desire for the two leaders to do what’s right and good for each of them. Hopefully they will see the value for what’s in it for themselves and be satisfied that it will have the ancillary benefit of helping those they lead walk with a little lighter step. At least one can hope, can we?
Friday, October 12, 2007
All Is Well
When we last left our heroes, we were just arriving in San Diego. Some of us were full of angst and feeling a bit sorry for ourselves for having to leave friends and memories behind in Sacramento. OK, it was mostly me, but there’s no need to dwell on those character defects.
The family seems to be settling in fine: The Boy found a very nice condo in Encinitas and shares it with The Ber;
Emily moved into our humble condo and immediately took over the remote control; and Mrs. Laz and I, after an exhaustive search, found a home worth buying (see photo) and we’re waiting for escrow to close the end of the month.
In the end, I guess we managed our transition down here with aplomb and even a bit of grace – words not usually associated with the greater Lazlo family.
The Big Deal that was mentioned in earlier posts did come through and kept most of us occupied to the point we had little sleep and little time to think of much else but the work at hand. Consequently I have been a non-existent friend to a few people who reached out and were ignored by me. Apologies go to Miss E, who made several valiant attempts to visit and converse only to be treated rudely by me; to Susan, who never reads this Blog anyway; and the Big Wopper, who probably needed me to be a better friend these past weeks.
One person who got snagged up by the Big Deal was Sladed, who started working with me and probably now wonders why I have been doing what I have been doing for lo these many years. Trust me, he saw things at their worse and, in a business that’s generally not a pretty sight, he saw it at its ugliest. Working together leaves less time for joint blogging and swimming, but we’ll figure out how to make time for each of these important parts of our lives. Also we have a lot of catching up on Guitar Hero.
So, finally a post filled with a reasonable amount of happiness and contentment; something we haven’t seen in these parts for a while. Maybe it’s in the air?
The family seems to be settling in fine: The Boy found a very nice condo in Encinitas and shares it with The Ber;
Emily moved into our humble condo and immediately took over the remote control; and Mrs. Laz and I, after an exhaustive search, found a home worth buying (see photo) and we’re waiting for escrow to close the end of the month. In the end, I guess we managed our transition down here with aplomb and even a bit of grace – words not usually associated with the greater Lazlo family.
The Big Deal that was mentioned in earlier posts did come through and kept most of us occupied to the point we had little sleep and little time to think of much else but the work at hand. Consequently I have been a non-existent friend to a few people who reached out and were ignored by me. Apologies go to Miss E, who made several valiant attempts to visit and converse only to be treated rudely by me; to Susan, who never reads this Blog anyway; and the Big Wopper, who probably needed me to be a better friend these past weeks.
One person who got snagged up by the Big Deal was Sladed, who started working with me and probably now wonders why I have been doing what I have been doing for lo these many years. Trust me, he saw things at their worse and, in a business that’s generally not a pretty sight, he saw it at its ugliest. Working together leaves less time for joint blogging and swimming, but we’ll figure out how to make time for each of these important parts of our lives. Also we have a lot of catching up on Guitar Hero.
So, finally a post filled with a reasonable amount of happiness and contentment; something we haven’t seen in these parts for a while. Maybe it’s in the air?
Sunday, September 02, 2007
Of Selling Homes and Family Pets
Our house is a very, very, very fine house. With two cats in the yard, life used to be so hard." -- CSNY
Well, I’m a San Diegan now despite living in temporary quarters. My arrival has carried with it more of a permanence as we close on our estates in Virginia next week and we are now in that delightfully nerve-racking escrow period on our home in Sacramento. I think these are both good things.
The sale of the home in Sacramento carries with it some amusement. We got an offer, we countered, she accepted. That was simple and happened over a 24-hour period. Seems as though she wanted the house and didn’t want to dicker like the dickering that was done to us in Virginia. However, our buyer in Sacramento had four items she wanted included in the purchase price: our spa, our refrigerator, our barbeque and the family cat. Yes, the cat.
Now some truth: the cat was not loved in our family, despite being with us for 10 years. It was rescued as a malnourished kitten by a soft-hearted and, as it turns out, soft-headed Mrs. Laz, and was appropriately named at the time, Bones. Over the years Bones developed decidedly unfriendly characteristics. She swipes at you as you walk by, loves to stare down small dogs and let them taste “the claw” when she’s feeling particularly feisty. If you decide you want to get near her and scratch her on the chin, you have about 30 seconds before she bites or claws you. She also enjoyed torturing mice, birds and lizards and bringing their dying and mauled bodies into our house just in case we wanted to watch the final fatal blows.
So when our counter offer was returned, our realtor wrote “refrigerator, spa, barbeque and cat convey with no warranties and no value.” Couldn’t have said it better myself. I hope our buyer loves our house and the cat. The house is certainly worth loving; can’t say the same for the cat. Bye Bones!
Well, I’m a San Diegan now despite living in temporary quarters. My arrival has carried with it more of a permanence as we close on our estates in Virginia next week and we are now in that delightfully nerve-racking escrow period on our home in Sacramento. I think these are both good things.
The sale of the home in Sacramento carries with it some amusement. We got an offer, we countered, she accepted. That was simple and happened over a 24-hour period. Seems as though she wanted the house and didn’t want to dicker like the dickering that was done to us in Virginia. However, our buyer in Sacramento had four items she wanted included in the purchase price: our spa, our refrigerator, our barbeque and the family cat. Yes, the cat.
Now some truth: the cat was not loved in our family, despite being with us for 10 years. It was rescued as a malnourished kitten by a soft-hearted and, as it turns out, soft-headed Mrs. Laz, and was appropriately named at the time, Bones. Over the years Bones developed decidedly unfriendly characteristics. She swipes at you as you walk by, loves to stare down small dogs and let them taste “the claw” when she’s feeling particularly feisty. If you decide you want to get near her and scratch her on the chin, you have about 30 seconds before she bites or claws you. She also enjoyed torturing mice, birds and lizards and bringing their dying and mauled bodies into our house just in case we wanted to watch the final fatal blows.
So when our counter offer was returned, our realtor wrote “refrigerator, spa, barbeque and cat convey with no warranties and no value.” Couldn’t have said it better myself. I hope our buyer loves our house and the cat. The house is certainly worth loving; can’t say the same for the cat. Bye Bones!
Thursday, August 23, 2007
All My Friends Are Going To Be Strangers
A wiser philosopher than me (Georg Hegel, I think, although if I could remember this kind of detail I would have made it out of college with a piece of paper other than a reminder not to return for the next semester) once observed, “the owl of Minerva spreads its wings only with the falling of the dusk.” I think this means we often miss the signs that important things are going to happen after it’s already too late to do anything about them. I think I may have missed my owl taking off.
There has been a growing realization that I am the first to know about something and the last to act on it. While I wasn’t the original instigator – that role belongs to the Boy – I think I was the first one to figure out the snowbell was heading downhill and we were meeting up with it in San Diego.
To be clear, we’re not leaving Sacramento because it is an absolutely awful place to live; we’d lived in worse places. But San Diego is viewed as a lifestyle change; the ability to live in what most call near-perfect weather, well equipped for 365 days of outside activity, and to live near my two best friends, in no particular order, Mr. Sladed and Italiphil.
Mrs. Laz has been there for the better part of the past two months and the Boy just arrived with Ber in the past two weeks. The Girl, who has decided to take a dip in this familial experiment as the Control Group, is not far behind, perhaps three or four weeks away. It seems everything is in place for me to make my move and join my family in what feels like nothing short of Manifest Destiny. Instead I am stuck with one foot out the door and the other foot with my remaining heel clearly dug in and I am hoping someone can tell me why this is the case.
I can offer up a few theories:
1. I have been someplace other than what I call home for the past several weeks and the thought of packing up a car in the next 72 hours and driving 10 hours sounds exhausting. But I have to do it sometime and better sooner than later as I am beginning to forget what the Mrs. looks like (and the dogs, too).
2. While we were willing to get filleted in Virginia in selling all our land holdings there, we have no interest or ability in doing the same in Sacramento. Therefore we have a beautiful albatross draped around our necks and it doesn’t feel right to leave it unattended with nothing more than the silly hope that we will find a buyer who hasn’t read a newspaper in the last six months and still believes property values in California are at an all-time high. Since this person would be in the same basket as Santa Claus, unicorns and real estate agents that don’t lie and cheat, I don’t think I will hold my breath.
While I am concerned about our real estate curse, we can likely rent our home and hope for a later rebound in the market. Of course this carries the risk of a still larger “correction” and the fact that I will have to pack up an entire house full of furniture and memories and stick it on a moving van that will have to circle around San Diego until we can afford to buy a house there. More exhaustion but I may have a few tricks up my sleeve on this front and will discuss them with Mrs. Laz assuming we are in the same city for more than a few hours.
3. I happen to love sports and, frankly, I may need a larger pull than the Chargers and Padres to tickle my sports fancy. Trevor Hoffman can’t save a game these days and the Pads are languishing. As of this writing, they are not headed for the playoffs unless the bullpen remembers how to pitch again. The Chargers looked great last year until a playoff meltdown was extended into a front office meltdown. This led to the hiring of a gypsy NFL coach with a spotty record who will implement a new system in a situation that screams, if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. Also, I prefer the NBA to these other minor sports and despite the Kings turning into a League joke with its own front office meltdown, I still get more excited about watching and following the NBA than any other sport short of nude volleyball. Let’s see how the home teams in San Diego perform before passing final judgment, but for now, they’re suspect.
4. Another thought is that I have a practice of making friends with nearly every acquaintance. My friends don’t become best friends – that job was already taken by, in no particular order, Italiphil and Sladed – but I have come to enjoy their company just the same. I worry about what becomes of this collection of misfits who reciprocate their friendship, or at least ask to borrow money. Am I destined to burn through friendships no matter how close a relationship I have with them? Or will settling in one place allow me to build better and longer-lasting friendships and push the other two “best friend” knuckleheads to start giving me a little more respect lest I drop their best-friend status in favor of an outsider?
As mentioned in a previous post I have been saying my good-byes. I have learned that I am not particularly good at it as I don’t like the lonely feeling that I will never see someone again. While no plans exist to never again see any friends we made up in Sacramento, I know there is a possibility our paths may never have the chance to cross. Distance in miles and time are not the best tonic in maintaining friendships as I have found many times in my life. I know each member of our family has to go through this, including Mrs. Laz saying fare-thee-well to Judy, her best friend and soul mate, but I think it affects me more, or perhaps I just complain the loudest about it. I just know I don’t find any joy in this part of moving to a new city. And I also know I have moved away from parents, friends and relatives before and survived, this time it just hits me a little later in life when the twilight for making friends may be slipping away.
Certainly there are other reasons out there to examine, but perhaps my list is more comprehensive than I at first thought. I guess, in the end, I am just dealing with a lot of crap and working through it at a time my mind and body needs to be elsewhere. Or maybe I can bring in another great thinker, Emerson this time, (and of this I am certain and I also know that his partners, Lake and Palmer, were pretty good too). He once wrote that “events are in the saddle and ride mankind.” Maybe he was warning us that it is useless to fight things we can do nothing about, like the fact that I am just listening to Janis Joplin and I continue to be amazed how awful her band the Holding Company truly was. I want to listen to Janis’ raspy voice but her band can’t keep a beat. “Man,” as she would say.
In the end I know I’ll do what Jackson advises. I will go and pack my sorrow, knowing the trashman comes tomorrow, leave it at the curb, and just roll away. Maybe I’ll even do that on that elusive windy day.
There has been a growing realization that I am the first to know about something and the last to act on it. While I wasn’t the original instigator – that role belongs to the Boy – I think I was the first one to figure out the snowbell was heading downhill and we were meeting up with it in San Diego.
To be clear, we’re not leaving Sacramento because it is an absolutely awful place to live; we’d lived in worse places. But San Diego is viewed as a lifestyle change; the ability to live in what most call near-perfect weather, well equipped for 365 days of outside activity, and to live near my two best friends, in no particular order, Mr. Sladed and Italiphil.
Mrs. Laz has been there for the better part of the past two months and the Boy just arrived with Ber in the past two weeks. The Girl, who has decided to take a dip in this familial experiment as the Control Group, is not far behind, perhaps three or four weeks away. It seems everything is in place for me to make my move and join my family in what feels like nothing short of Manifest Destiny. Instead I am stuck with one foot out the door and the other foot with my remaining heel clearly dug in and I am hoping someone can tell me why this is the case.
I can offer up a few theories:
1. I have been someplace other than what I call home for the past several weeks and the thought of packing up a car in the next 72 hours and driving 10 hours sounds exhausting. But I have to do it sometime and better sooner than later as I am beginning to forget what the Mrs. looks like (and the dogs, too).
2. While we were willing to get filleted in Virginia in selling all our land holdings there, we have no interest or ability in doing the same in Sacramento. Therefore we have a beautiful albatross draped around our necks and it doesn’t feel right to leave it unattended with nothing more than the silly hope that we will find a buyer who hasn’t read a newspaper in the last six months and still believes property values in California are at an all-time high. Since this person would be in the same basket as Santa Claus, unicorns and real estate agents that don’t lie and cheat, I don’t think I will hold my breath.
While I am concerned about our real estate curse, we can likely rent our home and hope for a later rebound in the market. Of course this carries the risk of a still larger “correction” and the fact that I will have to pack up an entire house full of furniture and memories and stick it on a moving van that will have to circle around San Diego until we can afford to buy a house there. More exhaustion but I may have a few tricks up my sleeve on this front and will discuss them with Mrs. Laz assuming we are in the same city for more than a few hours.
3. I happen to love sports and, frankly, I may need a larger pull than the Chargers and Padres to tickle my sports fancy. Trevor Hoffman can’t save a game these days and the Pads are languishing. As of this writing, they are not headed for the playoffs unless the bullpen remembers how to pitch again. The Chargers looked great last year until a playoff meltdown was extended into a front office meltdown. This led to the hiring of a gypsy NFL coach with a spotty record who will implement a new system in a situation that screams, if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. Also, I prefer the NBA to these other minor sports and despite the Kings turning into a League joke with its own front office meltdown, I still get more excited about watching and following the NBA than any other sport short of nude volleyball. Let’s see how the home teams in San Diego perform before passing final judgment, but for now, they’re suspect.
4. Another thought is that I have a practice of making friends with nearly every acquaintance. My friends don’t become best friends – that job was already taken by, in no particular order, Italiphil and Sladed – but I have come to enjoy their company just the same. I worry about what becomes of this collection of misfits who reciprocate their friendship, or at least ask to borrow money. Am I destined to burn through friendships no matter how close a relationship I have with them? Or will settling in one place allow me to build better and longer-lasting friendships and push the other two “best friend” knuckleheads to start giving me a little more respect lest I drop their best-friend status in favor of an outsider?
As mentioned in a previous post I have been saying my good-byes. I have learned that I am not particularly good at it as I don’t like the lonely feeling that I will never see someone again. While no plans exist to never again see any friends we made up in Sacramento, I know there is a possibility our paths may never have the chance to cross. Distance in miles and time are not the best tonic in maintaining friendships as I have found many times in my life. I know each member of our family has to go through this, including Mrs. Laz saying fare-thee-well to Judy, her best friend and soul mate, but I think it affects me more, or perhaps I just complain the loudest about it. I just know I don’t find any joy in this part of moving to a new city. And I also know I have moved away from parents, friends and relatives before and survived, this time it just hits me a little later in life when the twilight for making friends may be slipping away.
Certainly there are other reasons out there to examine, but perhaps my list is more comprehensive than I at first thought. I guess, in the end, I am just dealing with a lot of crap and working through it at a time my mind and body needs to be elsewhere. Or maybe I can bring in another great thinker, Emerson this time, (and of this I am certain and I also know that his partners, Lake and Palmer, were pretty good too). He once wrote that “events are in the saddle and ride mankind.” Maybe he was warning us that it is useless to fight things we can do nothing about, like the fact that I am just listening to Janis Joplin and I continue to be amazed how awful her band the Holding Company truly was. I want to listen to Janis’ raspy voice but her band can’t keep a beat. “Man,” as she would say.
In the end I know I’ll do what Jackson advises. I will go and pack my sorrow, knowing the trashman comes tomorrow, leave it at the curb, and just roll away. Maybe I’ll even do that on that elusive windy day.
Wednesday, August 08, 2007
The Perils Of A Roller Coaster Life
Funny how plans can change so suddenly and have such a ubiquitous effect on so many parts of life, and on so many lives. Those who are close to me know I was working on a “big deal.” It’s not unusual for me to be working on a big deal as my business life is nothing more than chasing one big deal after another. Like most big deals, they tend to be elusive and you lose far more than you get. Well, it looks like the latest big deal isn’t going to happen, although that could change again before I finish this post, such has been the roller coaster ride on this one.
It’s not the fact that this latest big deal hasn’t come trough that bothers me, it’s the recent string of perhaps dozens of big deals that haven’t come through that is shaking my confidence. I’ve been on a roll of bad luck, broken promises and bad choices of people I have trusted. It makes me want to take stock of the whole “big deal” way of doing business and look for a simpler way to earn a living. But, of course, that’s not really my personality.
I am a person of faith who believes things happen for a reason and that we are to learn lessons from each disappointment and success. But I am sort of stuck at the moment trying to understand what the two-year streak of “bad luck” is all about. Could it be as simple as just learning how to endure? In my most calm moments, I can see it that way or see it as a way to toughen me up or even just be smarter about the people I deal with. In my more maudlin times, I question my hopes and dreams and if they are meant for others.
Don’t get me totally wrong, I have enjoyed a successful business life by most standards and I couldn’t have wished for or expected a more complete family life. I am more bothered by the fact that I have reached a point in my business where success should be more frequent and reliable and where I should be making better choices in my side ventures.
Last year, in one of my never-ending searches to better my financial position, I started a business with a very close friend. The friend turned out to be not as close as I would have imagined, lied a great deal, chased his own hugely unrealistic dreams and cost me a bundle of money and our friendship. What’s the lesson in this one; not to trust even your closest friends? Not to work with friends? I will likely never know the answer to that. I have made more mistakes in trusting others lately, but this one is a very deep and profound disappointment that makes me question things on many different levels and I have not yet put it in a forum like this except in an abstract way. Now, I suppose, it needs to be said.
It is difficult to convey the ripple effect in these up and down moments (and as of this paragraph, my “big deal” is back on again) and what it means to my family life and current transitory lifestyle. For the moment I am the proverbial man without a country – or a home or home life at least. I have one foot stuck in the mud in Sacramento, I have my wife and my love in San Diego and my dreams for a more complete professional life in faraway places. I had my own plans (kept largely to myself) on a series of moves, but they were dependent on the most recent “big deal.” Without it, I am short a plan.
My mother almost marveled at my ability to cope with diversity. Perhaps because she said it so often I tried all that much harder to live up to her expectation. It could be, however, that I am beginning to reach my limit on things that require me to cope. At my age, I should be coasting more and having to cope less. Finding comfort and peace in my turbulent head seems to be the answer, getting there looks like the challenge.
It’s not the fact that this latest big deal hasn’t come trough that bothers me, it’s the recent string of perhaps dozens of big deals that haven’t come through that is shaking my confidence. I’ve been on a roll of bad luck, broken promises and bad choices of people I have trusted. It makes me want to take stock of the whole “big deal” way of doing business and look for a simpler way to earn a living. But, of course, that’s not really my personality.
I am a person of faith who believes things happen for a reason and that we are to learn lessons from each disappointment and success. But I am sort of stuck at the moment trying to understand what the two-year streak of “bad luck” is all about. Could it be as simple as just learning how to endure? In my most calm moments, I can see it that way or see it as a way to toughen me up or even just be smarter about the people I deal with. In my more maudlin times, I question my hopes and dreams and if they are meant for others.
Don’t get me totally wrong, I have enjoyed a successful business life by most standards and I couldn’t have wished for or expected a more complete family life. I am more bothered by the fact that I have reached a point in my business where success should be more frequent and reliable and where I should be making better choices in my side ventures.
Last year, in one of my never-ending searches to better my financial position, I started a business with a very close friend. The friend turned out to be not as close as I would have imagined, lied a great deal, chased his own hugely unrealistic dreams and cost me a bundle of money and our friendship. What’s the lesson in this one; not to trust even your closest friends? Not to work with friends? I will likely never know the answer to that. I have made more mistakes in trusting others lately, but this one is a very deep and profound disappointment that makes me question things on many different levels and I have not yet put it in a forum like this except in an abstract way. Now, I suppose, it needs to be said.
It is difficult to convey the ripple effect in these up and down moments (and as of this paragraph, my “big deal” is back on again) and what it means to my family life and current transitory lifestyle. For the moment I am the proverbial man without a country – or a home or home life at least. I have one foot stuck in the mud in Sacramento, I have my wife and my love in San Diego and my dreams for a more complete professional life in faraway places. I had my own plans (kept largely to myself) on a series of moves, but they were dependent on the most recent “big deal.” Without it, I am short a plan.
My mother almost marveled at my ability to cope with diversity. Perhaps because she said it so often I tried all that much harder to live up to her expectation. It could be, however, that I am beginning to reach my limit on things that require me to cope. At my age, I should be coasting more and having to cope less. Finding comfort and peace in my turbulent head seems to be the answer, getting there looks like the challenge.
Friday, July 27, 2007
Raped By Realtors
There is an old lawyer joke that is in need of update. It used to go something like, “what do you call one million lawyers at the bottom of the ocean? A good start.” I think the time has come to amend this slightly to include Realtors.
We just got so utterly squeezed by the buyer’s criminal agent and our part-time real estate agent on the sale of our estates in Virginia, that one wonders if any laws were broken. Just being told every day that “it’s a buyer’s market” and doing to us what Clinton had been doing to Monica is no way to earn a 6% sales commission. At least that’s my opinion. In fact, you’d have to have little pride in your industry to look someone straight in the face and say your industry deserves this commission – a supposedly negotiable percentage.
On second thought, there may be laws being broken by the agents. Take a look at the current housing market. We hear at least one story every day that the market is slowing and values are plummeting. Who says so? Realtors, of course. And what do Realtors have to benefit by a market in full plunge? Faster sales. So these so-called experts tell us what price to market our house and then let offers come in 20 percent below asking price and urge us to take it. I think there is collusion going on and should be investigated. It's tough being a commissioned sales agent, but have some respect and collectively advise your sellers to hold the line, not drop the price through the basement.
This is not just the comments of someone who ended up on a bad end of transaction, but someone who is seriously challenging whether or not agents are purposely driving down the price of housing to ensure more and faster real estate sales. Yes, I know there are people who made bad investments and got teased with teaser interest rates who unfortunately need to sell. But that is just more of the ginned-up sales cycle that real estate agents urged us to buy into. “Interest rates are the lowest in 40 years,” one ad would say, implying that if you don’t buy now and buy often, you’re a moron. And, naturally, let a Realtor navigate the tricky waters of buying something that ended up at the top of the market.
Whatever happened to the old investment advice of buying low and selling high? And whatever happened to real estate agents advising their buyers that they were purchasing at the top of the market? I suspect they were too busy trying to catch a quick wave that they didn’t pay attention to the sales figures.
Using the Virginia Estates as an example of the chicanery in the industry, we agreed upon a list price that was below our tax assessment. We were told up front that it was a good price. When we entered the market there were two other similar homes for sale and their asking price was about the same as ours. Within days of us entering the market, each dropped their price $30,000, no doubt urged by their agent to do so to make their properties more attractive. I sneered at their willingness to drop so readily, but after several months of no activity, we lowered our price to match them. Once again, within days, they dropped their prices another $20,000, again no doubt at the urging of their “it’s a soft-headed-market” real state agents.
So we have a running of the bears in the real estate market fueled by the chutzpah of real estate agents and the frayed nerves of the people to whom they provide counsel. In unison, it seems, we all became nervous that the value of our homes was plummeting and it would be years when the current value would return. Sell now or face worse choices, we were told.
When we finally got an illusive offer – from a young woman whose mother happened to be an agent – it was so depressing that we nearly rejected it without a counter-offer. Our part-time agents suggested a counter-offer that we normally would never consider. But we did and it barely budged them from their initial offer. To make a long story short, we did reach an agreement, but there is no joy in the end result. Sadly, when we go to buy in San Diego, we will find the meanest, nastiest buyer’s agent possible and do to others what has been done to us. Of course we will probably be told by our agent that it is now a seller’s market. Seems to be our dumb luck, anyway.
We just got so utterly squeezed by the buyer’s criminal agent and our part-time real estate agent on the sale of our estates in Virginia, that one wonders if any laws were broken. Just being told every day that “it’s a buyer’s market” and doing to us what Clinton had been doing to Monica is no way to earn a 6% sales commission. At least that’s my opinion. In fact, you’d have to have little pride in your industry to look someone straight in the face and say your industry deserves this commission – a supposedly negotiable percentage.
On second thought, there may be laws being broken by the agents. Take a look at the current housing market. We hear at least one story every day that the market is slowing and values are plummeting. Who says so? Realtors, of course. And what do Realtors have to benefit by a market in full plunge? Faster sales. So these so-called experts tell us what price to market our house and then let offers come in 20 percent below asking price and urge us to take it. I think there is collusion going on and should be investigated. It's tough being a commissioned sales agent, but have some respect and collectively advise your sellers to hold the line, not drop the price through the basement.
This is not just the comments of someone who ended up on a bad end of transaction, but someone who is seriously challenging whether or not agents are purposely driving down the price of housing to ensure more and faster real estate sales. Yes, I know there are people who made bad investments and got teased with teaser interest rates who unfortunately need to sell. But that is just more of the ginned-up sales cycle that real estate agents urged us to buy into. “Interest rates are the lowest in 40 years,” one ad would say, implying that if you don’t buy now and buy often, you’re a moron. And, naturally, let a Realtor navigate the tricky waters of buying something that ended up at the top of the market.
Whatever happened to the old investment advice of buying low and selling high? And whatever happened to real estate agents advising their buyers that they were purchasing at the top of the market? I suspect they were too busy trying to catch a quick wave that they didn’t pay attention to the sales figures.
Using the Virginia Estates as an example of the chicanery in the industry, we agreed upon a list price that was below our tax assessment. We were told up front that it was a good price. When we entered the market there were two other similar homes for sale and their asking price was about the same as ours. Within days of us entering the market, each dropped their price $30,000, no doubt urged by their agent to do so to make their properties more attractive. I sneered at their willingness to drop so readily, but after several months of no activity, we lowered our price to match them. Once again, within days, they dropped their prices another $20,000, again no doubt at the urging of their “it’s a soft-headed-market” real state agents.
So we have a running of the bears in the real estate market fueled by the chutzpah of real estate agents and the frayed nerves of the people to whom they provide counsel. In unison, it seems, we all became nervous that the value of our homes was plummeting and it would be years when the current value would return. Sell now or face worse choices, we were told.
When we finally got an illusive offer – from a young woman whose mother happened to be an agent – it was so depressing that we nearly rejected it without a counter-offer. Our part-time agents suggested a counter-offer that we normally would never consider. But we did and it barely budged them from their initial offer. To make a long story short, we did reach an agreement, but there is no joy in the end result. Sadly, when we go to buy in San Diego, we will find the meanest, nastiest buyer’s agent possible and do to others what has been done to us. Of course we will probably be told by our agent that it is now a seller’s market. Seems to be our dumb luck, anyway.
Thursday, July 19, 2007
100 Choices
Over the years I have had a number of grandiose ideas for novels. They usually lack a beginning, a middle or an end or, sometimes, all three. But they are ideas nonetheless, and some of them aren’t so bad.
A while back I had at least a good beginning with a novel about an amalgam of people I have known who make poor choices in life. The book was to be titled “100 Choices.”
Essentially the theory of the novel is that we are all given approximately 100 important choices to make in our lives and the number of times we make reasonably good choices will dictate the success of our lives. Assuming life to work along the lines of the Bell Curve, one could expect a fairly fulfilling life by making 50 essentially good choices. On one end, Bill Gates may have made 95 out of 100 correctly – although who knows if his billions make him happy – and perhaps Jeffrey Dahmer (and his parents) made fewer than 10 good choices during his brutal life.
This theory also requires a variant because it is important when the choices are made and how significant they may be. Melinda Gates made a good choice in who she married but this obviously differs from person to person. Michael Vick appeared to have made many good choices during his life, but he is about to nullify those good choices with his recent choice to kill and maim dogs.
While the above assumptions must be taken into account, my theory is aimed more for the average person being asked to make the average choices such as a decision to finish high school, to go to college, who to chose to be your friends, the job you choose, the mate you choose, where you live, buying real estate or not buying real estate, making a choice to drink to excess or use illegal drugs, how to spend your money, investments made, vacations taken, job changes, spousal changes, choices at moments when your integrity is on the line, deciding to work in politics instead of following your dreams, etc. I am sure there are dozens more if I am making the decision to keep thinking about this rather than send out an invoice and actually get a check faster (not sure how important that decision is).
There are also decisions that are very personal that stem from other decisions that you make. For example, I have made decisions in one or more of my businesses that have become important in other areas of my life – some good, some bad. And, of course, we always make decisions in our relationships and how we tend to them and this can amount to a good or a bad decision.
In my bad decision to not write my unwritten novel, my protagonist was going to be a person who basically was on a 0 for 100 run. Yes, the protagonist would have been based on people I know and, yes, they are still pitching a shutout. The only question remaining is, will they ever make a good choice and turn around their lives? The odds appear to be against it.
A while back I had at least a good beginning with a novel about an amalgam of people I have known who make poor choices in life. The book was to be titled “100 Choices.”
Essentially the theory of the novel is that we are all given approximately 100 important choices to make in our lives and the number of times we make reasonably good choices will dictate the success of our lives. Assuming life to work along the lines of the Bell Curve, one could expect a fairly fulfilling life by making 50 essentially good choices. On one end, Bill Gates may have made 95 out of 100 correctly – although who knows if his billions make him happy – and perhaps Jeffrey Dahmer (and his parents) made fewer than 10 good choices during his brutal life.
This theory also requires a variant because it is important when the choices are made and how significant they may be. Melinda Gates made a good choice in who she married but this obviously differs from person to person. Michael Vick appeared to have made many good choices during his life, but he is about to nullify those good choices with his recent choice to kill and maim dogs.
While the above assumptions must be taken into account, my theory is aimed more for the average person being asked to make the average choices such as a decision to finish high school, to go to college, who to chose to be your friends, the job you choose, the mate you choose, where you live, buying real estate or not buying real estate, making a choice to drink to excess or use illegal drugs, how to spend your money, investments made, vacations taken, job changes, spousal changes, choices at moments when your integrity is on the line, deciding to work in politics instead of following your dreams, etc. I am sure there are dozens more if I am making the decision to keep thinking about this rather than send out an invoice and actually get a check faster (not sure how important that decision is).
There are also decisions that are very personal that stem from other decisions that you make. For example, I have made decisions in one or more of my businesses that have become important in other areas of my life – some good, some bad. And, of course, we always make decisions in our relationships and how we tend to them and this can amount to a good or a bad decision.
In my bad decision to not write my unwritten novel, my protagonist was going to be a person who basically was on a 0 for 100 run. Yes, the protagonist would have been based on people I know and, yes, they are still pitching a shutout. The only question remaining is, will they ever make a good choice and turn around their lives? The odds appear to be against it.
Saturday, July 07, 2007
Going Home
Could be that I am slow on the uptake, but it is just occurring to me that the Mrs. and I are moving to San Diego. The early signal that I missed is Mrs. Laz has been offered and accepted a job in San Diego and began working there about a month ago. This, coupled with the fact that we are actively looking for a house, are strong indicators that a move is in the works.
I don’t know why this moving business is sneaking up on me since it was first put out as a point of discussion a year ago. But it seemed to go from chin-scratching theory to gaining its own momentum while I wasn’t paying attention.
It’s actually an open secret that nobody in my family likes Sacramento so it should not be that big of a surprise that we have all sought to move elsewhere. I don’t want to say too much that would appear negative about Sacramento because I have plenty of friends who will continue to live here and what I may say will only accentuate the notion that I am a snob.
One thing that can be said that nobody can quarrel with is that Sacramento is hot. When it is 108 degrees, folks around here like to mention that it is a “dry heat.” Well, Hell may be a dry heat too, but it doesn’t mean it’s comfortable. Give me a good ol’ fashioned “night and morning low clouds” situation in San Diego any day of the week over dry heat.
Sacramento has an eclectic population; an odd mixture of farmers, state workers and Bay Area transplants. This makes driving between tomato trucks, 1972 Fords and the occasional Hummer a very interesting and dangerous activity. Fortunately for many there is plenty of room to park their cars in their front lawns – I guess because they can’t navigate past the collection of washing machines and rusted-out refrigerators to get in their garage (assuming the garage has not be converted to a family room).
OK, I got personal, but I guess I am trying to reassure myself that the brown grass in San Diego is greener. Or, better put, denigrating my relationship with Sacramento to ease the pain of separation.
I didn’t think of this until this morning, but I have lived here longer than any other place in my life, which is really quite strange because I have never thought of it as home. I have been here for nearly 20 years but still think of myself as being raised in Michigan (first 14 years) and going through my formative years in San Diego (the next 14 years). Absent a two-year sentence in Texas and two years of breathing hot air in Washington, DC, the rest of my life my home has been here in Sacramento.
The truth about any place you live is you choose to stay because of the people you have come to be friends with. That part is just sinking in as I have been gradually saying goodbye to friends and acquaintances the past several days.
Mind you this should not shock anyone, but I am overly-sentimental about people, places and things. I remember the last few days before moving from Michigan to California where every step I took on the sidewalk I cried a bit knowing I would never step on that section of sidewalk again. It wasn’t because I had so much affection for concrete that I cried; it was more because I didn’t give in to the deceit that my parents were peddling that we would be coming back to Michigan often and that we’d see our friends whenever we liked. It doesn’t work that way and it didn’t take long to learn that Thomas Wolfe was right about going home. When we leave, time leaves with us and we never quite know what we have lost until we take a trip back and realize the distance between us and our friends. People change in small, indecipherable ways that is difficult to notice when we’re together often. But when it’s been a few years, or even months, between visits, you notice the small changes even more.
While it should be easy to be going “home” again, I know there are people and parts of Sacramento I will miss. There is one person I will miss the most and we have done a pretty good job so far of pretending we’re not heading in separate directions. You see, unlike the Boy, the Girl has no interest in coming to San Diego. While she has no great love for the oven of Sacramento, she is working here and until she finds the job she is looking for in another city, she will be too far away for my tastes. I have said a few good-byes with a kiss or hearty handshake already, but saying goodbye to Em is an impossible thought at the moment. A kiss goodbye will never be enough as I can’t picture her not sitting in our family room hogging the remote control. But we will try to say goodbye with a kiss knowing that it may not be the truth, but it is what we wish were true.
I don’t know why this moving business is sneaking up on me since it was first put out as a point of discussion a year ago. But it seemed to go from chin-scratching theory to gaining its own momentum while I wasn’t paying attention.
It’s actually an open secret that nobody in my family likes Sacramento so it should not be that big of a surprise that we have all sought to move elsewhere. I don’t want to say too much that would appear negative about Sacramento because I have plenty of friends who will continue to live here and what I may say will only accentuate the notion that I am a snob.
One thing that can be said that nobody can quarrel with is that Sacramento is hot. When it is 108 degrees, folks around here like to mention that it is a “dry heat.” Well, Hell may be a dry heat too, but it doesn’t mean it’s comfortable. Give me a good ol’ fashioned “night and morning low clouds” situation in San Diego any day of the week over dry heat.
Sacramento has an eclectic population; an odd mixture of farmers, state workers and Bay Area transplants. This makes driving between tomato trucks, 1972 Fords and the occasional Hummer a very interesting and dangerous activity. Fortunately for many there is plenty of room to park their cars in their front lawns – I guess because they can’t navigate past the collection of washing machines and rusted-out refrigerators to get in their garage (assuming the garage has not be converted to a family room).
OK, I got personal, but I guess I am trying to reassure myself that the brown grass in San Diego is greener. Or, better put, denigrating my relationship with Sacramento to ease the pain of separation.
I didn’t think of this until this morning, but I have lived here longer than any other place in my life, which is really quite strange because I have never thought of it as home. I have been here for nearly 20 years but still think of myself as being raised in Michigan (first 14 years) and going through my formative years in San Diego (the next 14 years). Absent a two-year sentence in Texas and two years of breathing hot air in Washington, DC, the rest of my life my home has been here in Sacramento.
The truth about any place you live is you choose to stay because of the people you have come to be friends with. That part is just sinking in as I have been gradually saying goodbye to friends and acquaintances the past several days.
Mind you this should not shock anyone, but I am overly-sentimental about people, places and things. I remember the last few days before moving from Michigan to California where every step I took on the sidewalk I cried a bit knowing I would never step on that section of sidewalk again. It wasn’t because I had so much affection for concrete that I cried; it was more because I didn’t give in to the deceit that my parents were peddling that we would be coming back to Michigan often and that we’d see our friends whenever we liked. It doesn’t work that way and it didn’t take long to learn that Thomas Wolfe was right about going home. When we leave, time leaves with us and we never quite know what we have lost until we take a trip back and realize the distance between us and our friends. People change in small, indecipherable ways that is difficult to notice when we’re together often. But when it’s been a few years, or even months, between visits, you notice the small changes even more.
While it should be easy to be going “home” again, I know there are people and parts of Sacramento I will miss. There is one person I will miss the most and we have done a pretty good job so far of pretending we’re not heading in separate directions. You see, unlike the Boy, the Girl has no interest in coming to San Diego. While she has no great love for the oven of Sacramento, she is working here and until she finds the job she is looking for in another city, she will be too far away for my tastes. I have said a few good-byes with a kiss or hearty handshake already, but saying goodbye to Em is an impossible thought at the moment. A kiss goodbye will never be enough as I can’t picture her not sitting in our family room hogging the remote control. But we will try to say goodbye with a kiss knowing that it may not be the truth, but it is what we wish were true.
Tuesday, June 26, 2007
We Need Another Hero
Some of you may read this and think, “Oh crap, he’s writing about sports.” But this is about more than sports; it’s about the intrusion of sports into modern culture and taking a look back at how professional athletes used to fit into our society.
Barry Bonds is chasing a milestone that up until 1974 was believed to be unreachable. That year Hank Aaron surpassed Babe Ruth’s career home run record of 714 dingers. Now Bonds is within six homers of tying Hank Aaron’s record of 755 and there simply isn’t any excitement out there. At least there isn’t the excitement Aaron generated – both good and bad – in his run at the record in 1973 and 1974.
During the end of the 1973 season, the news media hounded Aaron and television cameras were everywhere to record the record-breaking home run. An America still steeped in racial bigotry was also present as Aaron received thousands of letters of hate mail because a black man dared to break a white legend’s record – never mind the fact that the white legend was a legendary cad.
Now that Bonds is nearing the record, it seems there is a collective ho-hum from the media and fans. It could be because the old Roger Maris record of 61 home runs was shattered three times by supposed steroid-filled hitters Mark McGuire, Sammy Sosa and then Bonds with 73 home runs. Or it could be that Bonds is not liked by fellow players and is silent to the media. Perhaps it is the swirl of controversy emanating from the BALCO scandal that implicates steroid use by Bonds, though he has never admitted using steroids nor been found guilty of their use. For all his current 749 home runs, nobody knows how many were hit before his alleged use of steroids, how many during or how many after, so we’ll always wonder where his legitimate talent ended and was overtaken by performance enhancing substances.
It’s likely baseball fans are yawning at what should be a major achievement for all of these reasons. And that’s what’s wrong with athletes and sports these days. Putting aside all the arguments that Babe Ruth and Hank Aaron hit in smaller ball parks, batted against pitchers whose arms were dead from overuse and never had to face a split-finger fastball or a slider that fell off the plate, Aaron was easy to celebrate because he endured the attention and handled it all like a gentleman. One gets the feeling Bonds has become driven to break the record simply because he can and gets no enjoyment out of it. He knows once he breaks the record it will forever come with an asterisk, which will say more about the man than the towering home runs and his remarkable baseball longevity.
In many ways, it’s too bad Bonds is the bad guy in this. However much he has been rumored to be pumped up on steroids, he is hitting against pitchers who are likely steroid users and that’s only when they actually pitch to him. He draws a walk nearly twice as often as the next hitter and nobody is saying it takes steroids to have a good eye. This means he gets half as many attempts to hit a home run and even fewer good pitches to take a swing. Basically, he gets a home run every time a pitcher makes a mistake by throwing near the plate. Still, all is not right in Mudville.
I was talking to The Boy the other day and was lamenting (yes, Lazlo does lament) that he never got the chance to see Magic and Bird, the old Knicks and Lakers from the 1970s, Jim Brown, Gayle Sayers and the Bears and the Lombardi Packers. I wish he could have seen the old baseball players like Bob Gibson, Carl Yastrzemski and Al Kaline, the first Major League player to be paid $100,000 per season. Perhaps it’s just faded memories, but it seemed like they all played for the joy of the game and not the fame that has suddenly become greater in importance off the field and off the court than on them.
Much of the problem lies in the money today’s athletes earn. Outside of Paris Hilton and Lindsey Lohan, nowhere does someone get paid more for having so little talent. Third rate short stops are earning $10 million per year, aging point guards $18 million per year and pot-bellied golfers (sorry Ber) are getting millions in endorsements to stretch into their stretch pants. But what they are paid is not everything. It’s the whole illusion of fame and the fact they have it thrust upon them at such a young age. You can find a website today that will tell you who the best 5th graders are at basketball and a 14-year-old basketball player just verbally committed to USC before he decided which high school to play for (hat tip to Nicholas on these tidbits before he desecrated my cell phone).
Sports is also covered differently today than it was in the past. We now have ESPN 1-8 with 24-hours of news to fill and a magazine to fill what’s left. Flip on any sports show tomorrow and you’ll hear more about the NBA draft than you ever heard about the military draft. Sure, I enjoy watching ESPN more than I do CNN, but all the coverage seems to go to the athlete’s heads, making sports more about the “bling” and $4,000 suits than getting the privilege to play a sport that most of us would do for minimum wage.
There was a time (sadly, during my time), that sports writers were the stars. Everyone knew and worshiped Red Smith, Ring Lardner, Grantland Rice and Jim Murray. Their stars were bigger and brighter than the players they covered and they were beloved because they too could do things few mere mortals could: bring the color and texture to sports before it was on television. These writers were paid more than most, if not all, of the sports figures they covered and the players looked up to them and hoped to get a mention in their columns.
After Curt Flood’s legal test brought about free agency and players salaries began to rise to 10 and 20 times that of the average sports writer, a certain economic and social status began to separate the two. Players and writers were no longer invited to the same parties and what they did have in common – the love of the game – began to fade away as the disparity in economic conditions drove a wedge between them. Today sports writers are often overly cynical of athletes and athletes do much to confirm an image of a coddled and protected super class of the modern star. When a minor football player like Pac Man Jones gets nearly as much air time for his third arrest as Paris Hilton did for hers, it’s saddening to see where sports has crossed over to the worst of our modern culture. And while film stars would love to get Paris et al off the cover of the tabloids, so we sports fans look for a throwback to a time when we looked up to our athletes both on and off the field. I suppose in both cases Tina Turner was wrong – we do need another hero.
Barry Bonds is chasing a milestone that up until 1974 was believed to be unreachable. That year Hank Aaron surpassed Babe Ruth’s career home run record of 714 dingers. Now Bonds is within six homers of tying Hank Aaron’s record of 755 and there simply isn’t any excitement out there. At least there isn’t the excitement Aaron generated – both good and bad – in his run at the record in 1973 and 1974.
During the end of the 1973 season, the news media hounded Aaron and television cameras were everywhere to record the record-breaking home run. An America still steeped in racial bigotry was also present as Aaron received thousands of letters of hate mail because a black man dared to break a white legend’s record – never mind the fact that the white legend was a legendary cad.
Now that Bonds is nearing the record, it seems there is a collective ho-hum from the media and fans. It could be because the old Roger Maris record of 61 home runs was shattered three times by supposed steroid-filled hitters Mark McGuire, Sammy Sosa and then Bonds with 73 home runs. Or it could be that Bonds is not liked by fellow players and is silent to the media. Perhaps it is the swirl of controversy emanating from the BALCO scandal that implicates steroid use by Bonds, though he has never admitted using steroids nor been found guilty of their use. For all his current 749 home runs, nobody knows how many were hit before his alleged use of steroids, how many during or how many after, so we’ll always wonder where his legitimate talent ended and was overtaken by performance enhancing substances.
It’s likely baseball fans are yawning at what should be a major achievement for all of these reasons. And that’s what’s wrong with athletes and sports these days. Putting aside all the arguments that Babe Ruth and Hank Aaron hit in smaller ball parks, batted against pitchers whose arms were dead from overuse and never had to face a split-finger fastball or a slider that fell off the plate, Aaron was easy to celebrate because he endured the attention and handled it all like a gentleman. One gets the feeling Bonds has become driven to break the record simply because he can and gets no enjoyment out of it. He knows once he breaks the record it will forever come with an asterisk, which will say more about the man than the towering home runs and his remarkable baseball longevity.
In many ways, it’s too bad Bonds is the bad guy in this. However much he has been rumored to be pumped up on steroids, he is hitting against pitchers who are likely steroid users and that’s only when they actually pitch to him. He draws a walk nearly twice as often as the next hitter and nobody is saying it takes steroids to have a good eye. This means he gets half as many attempts to hit a home run and even fewer good pitches to take a swing. Basically, he gets a home run every time a pitcher makes a mistake by throwing near the plate. Still, all is not right in Mudville.
I was talking to The Boy the other day and was lamenting (yes, Lazlo does lament) that he never got the chance to see Magic and Bird, the old Knicks and Lakers from the 1970s, Jim Brown, Gayle Sayers and the Bears and the Lombardi Packers. I wish he could have seen the old baseball players like Bob Gibson, Carl Yastrzemski and Al Kaline, the first Major League player to be paid $100,000 per season. Perhaps it’s just faded memories, but it seemed like they all played for the joy of the game and not the fame that has suddenly become greater in importance off the field and off the court than on them.
Much of the problem lies in the money today’s athletes earn. Outside of Paris Hilton and Lindsey Lohan, nowhere does someone get paid more for having so little talent. Third rate short stops are earning $10 million per year, aging point guards $18 million per year and pot-bellied golfers (sorry Ber) are getting millions in endorsements to stretch into their stretch pants. But what they are paid is not everything. It’s the whole illusion of fame and the fact they have it thrust upon them at such a young age. You can find a website today that will tell you who the best 5th graders are at basketball and a 14-year-old basketball player just verbally committed to USC before he decided which high school to play for (hat tip to Nicholas on these tidbits before he desecrated my cell phone).
Sports is also covered differently today than it was in the past. We now have ESPN 1-8 with 24-hours of news to fill and a magazine to fill what’s left. Flip on any sports show tomorrow and you’ll hear more about the NBA draft than you ever heard about the military draft. Sure, I enjoy watching ESPN more than I do CNN, but all the coverage seems to go to the athlete’s heads, making sports more about the “bling” and $4,000 suits than getting the privilege to play a sport that most of us would do for minimum wage.
There was a time (sadly, during my time), that sports writers were the stars. Everyone knew and worshiped Red Smith, Ring Lardner, Grantland Rice and Jim Murray. Their stars were bigger and brighter than the players they covered and they were beloved because they too could do things few mere mortals could: bring the color and texture to sports before it was on television. These writers were paid more than most, if not all, of the sports figures they covered and the players looked up to them and hoped to get a mention in their columns.
After Curt Flood’s legal test brought about free agency and players salaries began to rise to 10 and 20 times that of the average sports writer, a certain economic and social status began to separate the two. Players and writers were no longer invited to the same parties and what they did have in common – the love of the game – began to fade away as the disparity in economic conditions drove a wedge between them. Today sports writers are often overly cynical of athletes and athletes do much to confirm an image of a coddled and protected super class of the modern star. When a minor football player like Pac Man Jones gets nearly as much air time for his third arrest as Paris Hilton did for hers, it’s saddening to see where sports has crossed over to the worst of our modern culture. And while film stars would love to get Paris et al off the cover of the tabloids, so we sports fans look for a throwback to a time when we looked up to our athletes both on and off the field. I suppose in both cases Tina Turner was wrong – we do need another hero.
Wednesday, June 13, 2007
Two Years Since
Well, Bill, it’s been two years but it seems like 20. A lot has changed since you left the stage. I sold half of our business to two decent guys. You knew one of them and I think you liked him. I needed some help in replacing you; who would have thought it would take two people? It’s taken some burden off my shoulders but I do have a bit of on-the-job training going on.
We got a chance to see your family a few weeks back for what was a rare family event (something that brought us all together that was about fun and celebration – much better than a funeral, I can report). Willdabeast got married to a Brazilian family and now what is left of our family has grown in size twenty-fold. Willser was a happy man and I am sure you would not be surprised to know that your son was by his side as the Best Man. He gave a great Best Man’s speech which included a few words about missing you, had a big ol’ grin on his face all night and, perhaps, hung out with Mr. Patron a bit too much. But who didn’t?
You daughter looked lovely and older than her years. She also looks a bit like Suey at the age the two of you fell for each other. She danced, smiled at all of Nick’s awful jokes and I think even she met up with Mr. Patron.
Suey looked great. It was the first time I have seen her so happy over the last two years. I know she missed you but it also seemed she got to revel in the laughter of others. You would have been proud of her, your nephew and his cousins. They all did a great job and we have finally been blessed with a real reason to celebrate.
There’s much more to tell you, but I figure you know it all anyway. I just wanted you to know I was especially thinking of you today and all the good we once had and all that we miss. We’ll meet again someday and I hope we will all be judged favorably by the way we have dealt with your loss and yet still kept our eyes looking forward in a positive way. Some days the wave breaks in front of you and sometimes you catch the ride of your life. You’d be happy to know we’re all watching out for the big set.
We got a chance to see your family a few weeks back for what was a rare family event (something that brought us all together that was about fun and celebration – much better than a funeral, I can report). Willdabeast got married to a Brazilian family and now what is left of our family has grown in size twenty-fold. Willser was a happy man and I am sure you would not be surprised to know that your son was by his side as the Best Man. He gave a great Best Man’s speech which included a few words about missing you, had a big ol’ grin on his face all night and, perhaps, hung out with Mr. Patron a bit too much. But who didn’t?
You daughter looked lovely and older than her years. She also looks a bit like Suey at the age the two of you fell for each other. She danced, smiled at all of Nick’s awful jokes and I think even she met up with Mr. Patron.
Suey looked great. It was the first time I have seen her so happy over the last two years. I know she missed you but it also seemed she got to revel in the laughter of others. You would have been proud of her, your nephew and his cousins. They all did a great job and we have finally been blessed with a real reason to celebrate.
There’s much more to tell you, but I figure you know it all anyway. I just wanted you to know I was especially thinking of you today and all the good we once had and all that we miss. We’ll meet again someday and I hope we will all be judged favorably by the way we have dealt with your loss and yet still kept our eyes looking forward in a positive way. Some days the wave breaks in front of you and sometimes you catch the ride of your life. You’d be happy to know we’re all watching out for the big set.
Tuesday, June 05, 2007
Taking The Easy Road
There is an oft-used trick that musicians and writers of essays apply when they've run out of fresh ideas, reached a writing block or lost a muse. They compile. And if compiling doesn't work, they do a "best of" to re-package what they were able to accomplish when they had ideas, lived without blocks and were amused by a muse.
I don't suffer from a lack of ideas but I have been having a bit of a writer's block -- or, perhaps better said -- a completion problem. As for having a muse, well, let's say I'm interviewing. Geez, I hope Mrs. Laz has forgotten to check this site on a regular basis.
Somewhere on this hard drive is a treatise on all the hot spots in the world, perfectly researched, highly opinionated and completely boring. It’s unfinished, to boot. I also take a humorous stab at explaining modern culture, but it is without consistent wit and is missing the required ending. I’ve thought about it for a while, too, and there is simply no way to kill off the main character to wiggle my way through the final paragraph because I am the main character.
Worse, and perhaps something that could soon produce my death, I have an unfinished tome to Mrs. Laz on the occasion of her __ birthday. I write her HallMike Cards every holiday as a means of personalizing my feelings and saving $2.99 at the local Hall Mark store. It runs several pages now, but not ready to give and now lagging far behind her birthday. Of course there is always our __ wedding anniversary coming up in a few months.
So, to fill something in this space that has remained untouched for 49 days, I am presenting a “Best of Lazlo’s Lament.” You can comment on your favorites if you like, or just point out that whatever I had in writing skill at one time is now lost. While the words will not be new, they will have been forgotten so it will seem new to what is likely a dwindling readership (which was dwindled to begin with). Sure hope I get a little readership on this as perhaps it will push me to finish the unfinished (or find a muse – geez, I hope Mrs. Laz forgot her glasses today).
Peace On Earth
Adrift On An Ocean Of Lonliness
Happy Birthday To Me
A Blessed Day
For A Gentle Warrior
No More I Love Yous
Laz Logic
My Favorite Places
On Sadness and Other Bothersome Things
That's probably way too much for the average reader to read -- especially when you can't take your computer into the bathroom. Anyway, if you find the time, you may learn something about the ravages of a man who was, and is, unhinged.
I don't suffer from a lack of ideas but I have been having a bit of a writer's block -- or, perhaps better said -- a completion problem. As for having a muse, well, let's say I'm interviewing. Geez, I hope Mrs. Laz has forgotten to check this site on a regular basis.
Somewhere on this hard drive is a treatise on all the hot spots in the world, perfectly researched, highly opinionated and completely boring. It’s unfinished, to boot. I also take a humorous stab at explaining modern culture, but it is without consistent wit and is missing the required ending. I’ve thought about it for a while, too, and there is simply no way to kill off the main character to wiggle my way through the final paragraph because I am the main character.
Worse, and perhaps something that could soon produce my death, I have an unfinished tome to Mrs. Laz on the occasion of her __ birthday. I write her HallMike Cards every holiday as a means of personalizing my feelings and saving $2.99 at the local Hall Mark store. It runs several pages now, but not ready to give and now lagging far behind her birthday. Of course there is always our __ wedding anniversary coming up in a few months.
So, to fill something in this space that has remained untouched for 49 days, I am presenting a “Best of Lazlo’s Lament.” You can comment on your favorites if you like, or just point out that whatever I had in writing skill at one time is now lost. While the words will not be new, they will have been forgotten so it will seem new to what is likely a dwindling readership (which was dwindled to begin with). Sure hope I get a little readership on this as perhaps it will push me to finish the unfinished (or find a muse – geez, I hope Mrs. Laz forgot her glasses today).
Peace On Earth
Adrift On An Ocean Of Lonliness
Happy Birthday To Me
A Blessed Day
For A Gentle Warrior
No More I Love Yous
Laz Logic
My Favorite Places
On Sadness and Other Bothersome Things
That's probably way too much for the average reader to read -- especially when you can't take your computer into the bathroom. Anyway, if you find the time, you may learn something about the ravages of a man who was, and is, unhinged.
Tuesday, April 17, 2007
A Tragedy In Search of a Stereotype
When the dust settles and the TV cameras go to film another tragedy, all that will be remembered will be the young lives cut short, a handful of professors who died by their sides and the image of a lunatic who brought on this unspeakable carnage. And this is the way it should be.
For now, though, there is a human need to package this senseless bloody morning into something we can all understand. We do this because deep down inside all of us there is a need to put our normal thought process into the mind of a lunatic. We should all just stop because there is nothing normal and nothing sane about what the gunman did, and all the TV experts and resident psychologists getting airtime can just spare us their opinions. This was a kid consumed by evil who carried out the most despicable act of turning his evil on innocents.
Naturally it is difficult for the news media to come to grips with a simple and practical explanation. They want to say we live in a culture of guns; we do. They want to tell us our gun laws are too lax; they are. They want us to know he was a loner, a freak; and he was. They want us to examine the fact he was a South Korean immigrant; of course he was. They feel the need to question the administration and the campus police for their lack of premonition; but nobody could have predicted what would happen. They can’t understand why this kid wasn’t watched more closely based on his past behavior; there are hundreds like him on every campus.
What can be done to prevent this kind of sick event from happening again? Probably nothing, but we can learn from the things that aren’t so apparent and stop searching for the perfect stereotype to fit our preconceived biases. We’re much better off leaving this crazed kid in the same category as all mass murderers and mourn those who died. We’ll all sleep better knowing this particular mass murderer is a genetic mutant and in no way resembles 99.99 percent of the rest of us. Rest in peace to the victims.
For now, though, there is a human need to package this senseless bloody morning into something we can all understand. We do this because deep down inside all of us there is a need to put our normal thought process into the mind of a lunatic. We should all just stop because there is nothing normal and nothing sane about what the gunman did, and all the TV experts and resident psychologists getting airtime can just spare us their opinions. This was a kid consumed by evil who carried out the most despicable act of turning his evil on innocents.
Naturally it is difficult for the news media to come to grips with a simple and practical explanation. They want to say we live in a culture of guns; we do. They want to tell us our gun laws are too lax; they are. They want us to know he was a loner, a freak; and he was. They want us to examine the fact he was a South Korean immigrant; of course he was. They feel the need to question the administration and the campus police for their lack of premonition; but nobody could have predicted what would happen. They can’t understand why this kid wasn’t watched more closely based on his past behavior; there are hundreds like him on every campus.
What can be done to prevent this kind of sick event from happening again? Probably nothing, but we can learn from the things that aren’t so apparent and stop searching for the perfect stereotype to fit our preconceived biases. We’re much better off leaving this crazed kid in the same category as all mass murderers and mourn those who died. We’ll all sleep better knowing this particular mass murderer is a genetic mutant and in no way resembles 99.99 percent of the rest of us. Rest in peace to the victims.
Monday, April 16, 2007
Sorry I Forgot, Diane
Sorry Mrs. Laz, but I haven't been fair to Diane in this space for a while. It has been several months since I have placed a photo of her, and since I believe she is monitoring this site (along with her lawyers), I didn't want to disappoint.
Sunday, April 15, 2007
A Nation Of Whores
I’m real sorry about the content of this post. The words are not mine; I don’t even know what half of them mean. These are the lyrics of three different rap artists and what they have in common is they are all produced under CBS’s Columbia Record label. As we all now know, this is the same CBS which fired the always less-than-polite Don Imus from his radio show for boorishly referring to the Rutgers woman’s basketball team as “Nappy-headed hoes.” If you want to skip past the lyrics, I don’t blame you. But, for those who want to hear what passes for music – at least to CBS executives – please feel free to read on:
The words of Three 6-Mafia:
Yeah, run bitch. Run hoe! Ya nice motherfuckas!
Y'all jealous ass bitches!
You know what I'ma call y'all? Some Jello niggas.
Cuz y'all jealous of us, bitch.
Every motherfucker in our camp ridin clean, nigga.
Y'all know the motherfuckin score.
And this one right here is dedicated to you [censor beep].
It's dedicated to you, nigga.
More from Three Six Mafia:
Well all them hoes that used to be down with me
I signed a deal, made some money, now you bitches downin me?
Bitches tryin ta blast at me,
or am I dreamin the motherfuckers be after me?
Why you tryin ta be like me? You labelled as a wanna-be.
You ghetto hoes, you need to read a bonus Gangsta Boo
Cuz you might find a tip, bitch, that can help you.
I'm a down chick
Niggas be wantin ta crown chick
Stay around chick
Whenever, however, it's goin down, bitch.
Pearls from Lyfe Jennings:
Im from a place where them niggas dont talk a lot
License suspended so we walk a lot Always been a thug since i was a young cat
Breast fed by Godzilla mix my Similac with cognac whoa
Now i cant even pray no more
Cuz i done did so much dirt and smoked so much dro
Im afraid God will be like what you calling here for
Dont be tying my line up asking me for shit no more, whoa.
DMX at their best:
Song titled What These Bitches Want
Aiyyo!! Dog, I meet bitches, discrete bitches
Street bitches, slash, Cocoa Puff sweet bitches (WHAT?)
Make you wanna eat bitches, but not me
Y'all niggaz eat off the plate all you want but not D (UHH)
I fuck with these hoes from a distance
The instant they start to catch feelings
I start to stealin they shit
then I'm out just like a thief in the night
I sink my teeth in to bite
You thinkin life, I'm thinkin more like - whassup tonight?
Come on ma, you know I got a wife
and even though that pussy tight I'm not gon' jeapordize my life (aight?)
Now, back to something resembling normalcy by comparison. Over the years I have listened to Don Imus. He’s sometimes pretty funny, sometimes not. After a few years and several fruitless searches on my local radio dial for his show, I gave up on him. I never thought of him until the recent flap and predictable hypocrisy pushed him into the limelight.
It didn’t take long for those in the race trade to inject themselves into the middle of this show of bad taste, and the cameras followed. Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton, who each have uttered enough racial slurs to begin their own rap group, demanded Imus and any other white bigot pay a price; cash in a suitcase preferred. Sharpton even got Imus to make a trip to kiss his ring in the hope of absolution that wouldn’t come.
What has our sense of perspective in this country come to? CBS throws a fading radio talent under the bus in the name of racial sensitivity and then rakes in millions off the misogynistic rap artists it produces. Jackson and Sharpton have been working off the same tired script for years, setting themselves up as the racial arbiters of our time and yet don’t have an ounce of the moral authority to lead a congregation, little alone a nation.
These two men are the real whores in this story, doing anything to move their own agenda forward. It just so happens that their agenda is the same as their plantation owners, the democrats. The debate will surely shift to the coarseness of words on talk radio and it won't be long before the Fairness Doctrine will be invoked and a movement started to put an end to talk radio (or at least conservative talk radio). Words don't usually scare the average person, but it can scare a democrat if the words cost them an election. Sure, Imus is nominally a liberal, but he can be sacrificed if he serves a larger purpose.
Rather than helping salve the wounds of racial tension, the hypocrisy and hidden agenda are so overwhelming and obvious that it will have the opposite effect. And that will end up being the sad ending of this story.
Tuesday, April 03, 2007
Quiet Birthdays
Today was The Boy's 25th birthday; a quarter century milestone. We had a fairly quiet evening with just family and The Ber and her mom, and it made me think about the fact that it won't be long before these kinds of celebrations fade away.
During the kids' younger years, the birthdays were celebrated like national holidays and Christmas all rolled into one. The gifts were almost entirely toys or whatever fad they were into at the moment and for reasons I will never be happy about, some assembly was always required. Then comes the electronic birthdays in which everything needs an outlet followed by the years when it was okay to buy clothes providing it was the right kind of clothes -- a tricky bit of shopping required.
Now we're just happy to be part of the celebration of their birthdays and even though we will always celebrate this day and November 9, it may be as secondary revelers as they go about building their own families. It's natural and normal for them to go from birthday hats and horns to quiet nights, but it does serve as a reminder that they are growing up and there isn't a damn thing we can do about it.
During the kids' younger years, the birthdays were celebrated like national holidays and Christmas all rolled into one. The gifts were almost entirely toys or whatever fad they were into at the moment and for reasons I will never be happy about, some assembly was always required. Then comes the electronic birthdays in which everything needs an outlet followed by the years when it was okay to buy clothes providing it was the right kind of clothes -- a tricky bit of shopping required.
Now we're just happy to be part of the celebration of their birthdays and even though we will always celebrate this day and November 9, it may be as secondary revelers as they go about building their own families. It's natural and normal for them to go from birthday hats and horns to quiet nights, but it does serve as a reminder that they are growing up and there isn't a damn thing we can do about it.
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