I Want To Be On Top

I was thinking that the Ol' Lament is in need of a makeover.  Perhaps feeling the need to do this has been motivated in part by being left in the dust by a "competitor's" blog site.  And yes, he wrote something very touching and it meant something to all that know him, but blogging is a tough business (without pay) and I have a bit of a competitive streak in me (in case you haven't noticed).

So I am taking suggestions from my readers about new colors, new features, the kinds of posts you'd like to see more of and posts you'd like to see less of.  Do you want more photos?  More photos of me in a fish net top?  How about new and improved links?  Whatever your comments, let me know so my blog can remain on top of that other guy I won't name whose name begins with Sladed.  

Yes, usually I complain that his blog doesn't get the comments and attention it deserves, but we're in a ratings' war and I need to win!  And, while noting the need for other blogs to get the recognition for putting out good stuff, please check out The Boy's blog and post some comments.  You may not agree with all that he writes about, but he makes you think.  Meanwhile, I am aware The Girl is creating her own blog and I look forward to her first post and will let you know when that occurs.

Finally, I think Lazlo's Lament needs a new name. To be honest, I came up with that name in about 30 seconds and didn't know I would be stuck with it for life or at least for the three years it's be out there.  Has it been three years?  What have I been doing with my life?  So here is an idea for a new name; see what you think:  how about Laz's Blah Blah Blog or just the Blah Blah Blog?  Thoughts and comments?  Let's see if we can get more than 26.  Ha, that would be ironic, wouldn't it?

Thinking About Getting Away To NZ Again

It can really be a pain in the ass to pay attention these days. If ignorance is bliss, give me a lobotomy or make me watch hours of MTV programming.

While most of the social and political nausea happens in the U.S., this week’s loony award goes to the British Prime Minister. While Gordon Brown was attending the G-8 Summit, he attempted to shame the world to reduce the "unnecessary demand" for food and called on British families to cut back on their wasteful use of food. A few hours later, he and his G-8 brethren were served 24 different dishes during his first day at the summit. No wonder his approval rating in England is at 17 percent. Hopefully the Brits can still eat their cake.

On this side of the pond, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid was making me sick by urging Americans to stop using coal and oil. Reid made the following rant in front of television cameras: “Coal makes us sick, oil makes us sick, it’s global warming, it’s ruining our country and ruining our world” and “we’ve got to stop using fossil fuels.” All I can say to the dem’s fearless leader: you first Harry. Turn off your office lights, get out of your chauffeured Towne Car and buy a bicycle and ride to work, turn off your computers, toss out your refrigerator, your microwave, your oven, your television, your Blackberry, your washer and dryer and, especially, shut off your microphone. See how well you live without electricity. Lead by example and maybe we’ll follow. Maybe.

And if we're into this whole leading by example thing, why don't we have wealthy congressional leaders who believe wealthy Americans don't pay enough in taxes start paying more of their own money in taxes? C'mon Senator Kennedy, nothing in the tax code says you can't pay more than you owe. Toss in a few million more for America's downtrodden.

Speaking of global warming, did anyone see China and India flipping the bird to the rest of us on reducing carbon emissions? Back at the G-8 Summit, there was a lot of hand-wringing on global warming between rounds of food tasting (Organic, no doubt). While the most developed countries – Germany, UK, France, the US, among others – were busy surrendering their economies at the altar of climate change, India and China were throwing cold water on limiting greenhouse gases by rejecting the G-8’s curbs on carbon emissions. That’s bad news for the acolytes of global warming, but here’s a good point: if every person living in China and India threw some cold water on anything, wouldn’t that start another Ice Age?

How can the developed world that has spent so much time, money and energy cleaning up its polluted rivers and air (remember LA in the Sixties?) unilaterally give up human progress and allow 25 percent of the earth’s population to pollute full speed ahead? Is it just me or do global warming alarmists just believe climate change happens over the U.S. and other developed countries, sparing the developing world? Do only carbon emissions originating in the developed world shrink the polar caps, or is it possible that something happening in China and India has an impact? Of course, the bigger joke is the polar caps have as much ice today as they did 100 years ago. Doubters can look that up if they want.

Of course the price of oil is grabbing all the headlines these days. What burns my cookies to a crisp is the reason oil prices have gone up didn’t just happen yesterday. If you believe in the mystery of supply and demand, you would note the growing economies of India, China and Southeast Asia and surmise it would have an impact on oil usage. If you were paying attention and really focused, you might notice that oil producing countries are in volatile regions of the world such as the Middle East where even the camels can’t get along. You may even note that our military adventurism might stir up a bit of dust and create uncertainty in the oil markets.

So if all of these things were occurring over the past few decades, where were our elected officials on this? We actually elect these people to pay attention to these kinds of details so we can work the first six months of the year to pay for the government they are supposed to be running. Why didn’t someone in Congress see this coming and have committees created, reports written and solutions promoted? It seems all they did was make sure they had a scapegoat at the ready.

We’re being told now that there is no point in drilling anywhere because new wells won’t produce oil for 7-10 years. Are they trying to tell us we won’t need oil in 7-10 years? What would have happened if Members read the tea leaves better and drilled 7-10 years ago?

The best idea on oil I’ve head lately is from Newt Gringrich, who I am beginning to believe should be running the country right now. Check out his American Solutions website and read what an intelligent leader comes up with when he doesn’t have to please various voting blocs.

One of Newt’s ideas is to sell half of the U.S. Strategic Petroleum Reserve at current market prices. That would dump 350 million barrels of oil on the market at $140 per barrel.

If my calculator can correctly handle numbers this large, a sale of 350 million barrels would bring in the tidy sum of $49 billion. Newt believes this amount of oil suddenly dumped on the market would drop oil prices by $50 per barrel and anger a few sheiks and despots (and to keep the dems happy, cause a few speculators to lose their shirts).

Newt’s idea doesn’t end with a simple sale. Once oil drops down to $90 per barrel, he says buy it all back, rake in the savings and re-fill the petroleum reserve. That would turn a profit of $17.5 billion which could be used to spend on research for alternative energy programs. If the price of oil began to inch up later on, we’d only have to toss out the notion of dumping our reserve on the market again to keep OPEC and others honest. Leave it up to capitalism to find a cure for …. well … capitalism.

But if all this is getting you down, watch this funny parody on the panic over oil.

The Best Part Was "Everything"

So the kids got hitched and it was indescribable to see your son getting married – but I will try to describe it anyway.

First, we couldn’t have asked for better weather when you’re standing on the beach at sunset in the midst of the “June Gloom” season. The sun had been obscured by clouds – no Pink Floyd references, Sladed – for perhaps the previous (and subsequent) 10-12 days. But not on June 30. It was perfect; no clouds, a gentle breeze, a bright blue ocean, and a beautiful setting sun. Just perfection for an outdoor, beach wedding. The Boy decided on a high bluff above the beach, which had a wonderful view of the ocean below. It had been a location previously scouted and one the bride and groom thought would be the best place.

The ceremony was attended by just the Ber’s parents, the Mrs. and I and the Girl. The women folk started getting ready at 10 a.m. while the guys got ready about 5:45 p.m. Not sure what this says about the sexes. When the women arrived in the limo driven by Wrong-Way Warren, they all looked like they had been getting ready for the previous nine hours, which is to say they all looked marvelous. The Ber looked beautiful in her sleek wedding dress; the work of many hands, but finished to perfection. The Boy looked dashing in an off-white linen suit and white shirt.

The reverend did a very nice job of keeping the vows simple and fitting the personalities of the bride and groom. Daisy, the photographer, climbed lamp posts, hung off of cliffs and rolled around on the ground to get perfect photos – we think.

The kids did their repeating after the reverend, each parent gave away their child and a good smooch sealed the deal. This was followed by more trapeze work by Daisy for additional photos as the sun set.

After the wedding ceremony and with the two officially married, it was back into the limo with Wrong-Way Warren and off to the Four Seasons Hotel where there was a private room arranged with a private balcony area for Champagne toasting and tasty hors d'oeuvres. The dinner menu was created just for the couple and our group and had their names on it and the words “Just Meant to Be,” the wedding slogan.

The food was incredible, on nobody’s diet and so rich that I think we all groaned when they brought the unlawfully-good tasting wedding cake. Naturally I, along with the others, ate through the pain. While many stomachs yummed through the meal, the conversation was more like a merged family sitting around a big dining room table and was so nice and pleasant. We each had a little to say about the couple, including me after the censors stepped in and had their thumbs on the 7-second button. The dinner couldn’t have been better or more relaxing and it was superbly put together by Ronald the Efficient Austrian following specific orders delivered by the Girl (perhaps the perfect wedding or corporate merger should happen between these two). What seemed simple to us was well planned by the Girl to the desires of the bride and groom. By 10:30 the adorable couple was sent off to a room and spa day at the La Costa Resort and my guess was there was a lot of pay-for-view movie watching (I'm guessing something with Mathew McConaughey and Kate Hudson) and then off to bed.

It was such a great family event and everyone helped to make it a special day for the Boy and the Ber, who now must spell her last name as a matter of course just for marrying into our family. Special kudos goes out to the Girl for taking her Maid Of Honor responsibilities to a professional level and to Alison as part of Team Bride. Of course none of it would have been as great had we not been able to share it with Dan and Jo Jo and me with my lovely bride. As the Ber said when asked what was the best part, simply announced, “Everything.” I couldn’t agree more.

Bad Taste

So this is what now passes for journalistic excellence. This “cartoon ,” drawn by Lee Judge of the Kansas City Star, a formally well-respected newspaper, is in such poor taste that it is amazing it made it to print. While the media frets about what Don Imus meant about two-bit loser Pac Man Jones, this special editorial comment slips by all of them.

There can be no mistake in the cartoonist’s message: if God was being fair, Rush Limbaugh would have died of a sudden heart attack instead of Tim Russert.

Why is it such fashion to attack right-wing pundits with such elementary school taunts? It seems if someone wants to say something about a conservative, they can get away with whatever they want. Say something like this about a liberal and wait for the riots to start.

When Al Franken wrote a book bemoaning Limbaugh, he entitled it “Rush Limbaugh Is a Big Fat Idiot.” Limbaugh has 20 million listeners and Franken couldn’t keep his show on the air and ended up owing a huge amount in back payroll taxes to his employees. Really now, who’s the idiot?

Politics and punditry are messy affairs, but it sure would be nice if the discourse could at least reach junior high school level. Just disgraceful.

Stupid Is As Stupid Does

The democrats, especially those damned democrats, think the American public is stupid. And they’re betting on the fact they’re correct in their assessment.

Please follow their logic on energy policy. Their approach to solving our current, but neither first nor last, energy crisis is to do the following:

1. Place a “windfall” profits tax on oil companies that are mostly foreign now.
2. Go after “speculators” who invest their money in oil futures.
3. Encourage greater use of windmills and solar energy.
4. Block all drilling for oil in the U.S. and keep our nuke plants shut down.

The windfall profits tax they are peddling to America is the same that was peddled by Jimmy Carter in 1976 when gas prices were *gasp* surging past $1.00 per gallon. We were assured then, and we are now, that these taxes would not be passed along to the consumer. Now, what corporation does not pass all their costs, including taxes, on to the consumers? If you believe this, I have a Social Security “Lock Box” I’d like to sell you.

The only windfall that will occur in the passage of this shameless tax is to the government which is raking in a windfall off the doubling of the price at the pump. I can’t see how taxing, or even “punishing,” the oil companies does anything to alleviate the cost of filling up our cars even if the oil company executives take a vacation from their corporate responsibilities and eat the tax. But this move by democrats is intended for the public to feel better about getting even with those billion dollar evil corporations that are producing something we are ridiculously addicted too, and not to actually do anything to fix the problem. Now, do you feel better or just stupid?

After they have taxed us, err…. I mean the oil companies, they want to go after the heartless “speculators,” as they are called. An oil speculator is just like any other investor who risks their money betting which way the market will fluctuate. This is done for all sorts of commodities including just about everything we eat. Some days these investors win and some days they loose.

Those who are betting on oil prices to rise have been winning lately because they can read the newspapers and they realize that Washington is paralyzed. If nothing changes and demand continues for oil as does the unrest in the Middle East, they believe the price of oil will go up. If they thought politicians in Washington were acting as grown-ups, they may begin to speculate that the price will go down. But they have nothing to base that assumption on, so they will continue to bet on higher oil costs.

The democrats demeaning the speculators and offering really no solution to the crisis is feeding the speculation that prices will rise. I wonder if democrats actually are aware of their role in this and have investments in oil futures or if they area really that stupid. The jury is out.

Speculators exist across the board. They are betting gold will rise, they bet corn and sugar beets would rise when Congress placed mandates on ethanol mixes and even one of the democrats’ big heroes, George Soros, made nearly $1 billion speculating that the price of the Pound would drop and then did all he could to talk down the currency.

I’m not sure what they have planned for the speculators, but I’m speculating it will do nothing to address our long or short term energy problem. However, they area certainly expecting you to believe meting out punishment to investors will make you feel better.

Which brings us to their brilliant idea of getting more of our energy from windmills and solar. Only people who gave us ethanol and the ensuing food shortages and food riots could expect us to believe this is a logical way to replace fossil fuels. Based on the Department of Energy’s own statistics, we get less than 2 percent of our electricity from solar and wind and, mind you, none of this moves our cars around.

It would be wonderful to be able to get our energy from such things, but the technology is not where it needs to be to make this realistic. It would be great to have more funding for alternative fuels and energy and I fault Bush and his predecessors for doing absolutely nothing to encourage development of other reliable sources. We’re the most technologically advanced society but we seem to be sitting on our thumbs when it comes to real and practical innovation. For now, solar and wind only produce a needed counterbalance to the hot air coming our way from Washington and you’d have to be tilting at your own windmills to believe it will save us.

Finally, the issue of drilling and nukes. Yeah, I know, the caribou will be pissed. I was a lot more worried about how the caribou felt when gas was at $2 per gallon, but I am sufficiently bothered now that I don’t care what the caribou think. Round them all up and put them in a caribou show at Sea World, I don’t care, but let them know we’re moving into the neighborhood and we’re bringing unsightly drills.

We hear all the debate that places like ANWR won’t produce a drop of oil for 10 years or it won’t produce enough to make a difference. Well, that’s a great way to look at thing, isn’t it? In 10 years when gas and home heating are 10 times what they are now, will we still be saying we can’t drill for oil in ANWR or in the Gulf because it’s 10 years away? Maybe if we had begun drilling 10 years ago, we wouldn’t be having this crisis and I wouldn’t be up so late writing this shrill post.

If you are an environmentalist, please explain this to me: Why is it OK for every other country to be drilling for oil all over the world and it’s not OK for America to be doing the same? I really don’t see the outrage when they decide to drill in Brazil (in the Rain Forest, no less), off the coast of Viet Nam, all over the artic in Russia and Scandinavia, and even off the coast of Cuba. All this means is that we have to get all our oil from places that don’t much care for us and it has to be delivered to us on ships that have a lot more problems with spills than do the pipelines – pipeline technology, by the way, that American companies have perfected for foreign oil companies so that the current spill rate is non-existent.

As long as I have you environmentalists handy, what’s the deal with the nukes? It’s clean energy, especially when compared to coal, and it’s cheap. France does it, producing 85 percent of its electricity from nuclear plants, and you enviros love the French. Frankly the only problem I see with investing in nuclear fuel is that we haven’t graduated a nuclear engineer capable of running a plant in 10 years because there was no job market. We’ll have to import our engineers from France and our immigration problem is bad enough.

While I am aware that hundreds of republicans have done nothing to solve our energy crisis, including the current occupant of the White House, I still have to hand it to the democrats to come up with the least effective ways to deal with the problem. The trouble is, they, along with their supporters in the environmental movement, have been shoveling this crap at us since, well since gas prices were at 50 cent per gallon, and we’re living in a country they think is gullible enough to still believe them. And maybe they’re right, judging from polls. However, I think their rhetoric becomes more difficult to accept when oil costs are driving our airlines out of business, killing us at the super market and hurting those who can least afford to pay double for getting to work each day. I think it’s time to find a new movement for you environmentalists to get behind and let’s get our hands dirty digging for buried dinosaur juice.

June 13

Well The Boy wrote about (click here to visit his blog and see what he wrote) what I didn't seem able to write about this day. Three years ago today my brother died and a part of me died with him. (I get annoyed when people say they "lost" someone. What, did they misplace him?). Yeah, I am surviving and moving on and enjoying my life and my family, but it would sure be better with him in our lives and still around us.

Thanks to The Boy for writing how we all feel and for his touching reminder of who his uncle was and what he meant and continues to mean to all of us. He was, in fact, a warrior prince and one of these days we need to build a statue.

Will Prozac Help This Depression?

As we get near an election, all news about the incumbent party is spun as bad news by the party out of power. Wars get deadlier, global warming gets hotter, government spending is higher and the economy becomes the worst of a generation. I can generally ignore the pre-election blather and write it off to campaign worms living on four hours of sleep, cigarettes and vitamin C. But I am not so sure about the last one; are we in fact on the verge of an economic collapse or just in another normal up/down business cycle? Since I could only read a few pages of Samuelson before wanting to poke my eyes out, I flunked Econ 1 so it’s difficult for those of us who don’t know the difference between classical, neo-classical, Austrian School or Keynesian theories of economics to know if we’re, basically, screwed.

To confess, I have been thinking more about The Great Depression lately because I have been re-reading The Razor’s Edge. (An interesting sidebar to the novel: I saw the Bill Murray Razor’s Edge before Tyrone Power’s Razor’s Edge before reading the W. Somerset Maugham novel that each movie was based on. While I am certain I would draw the wrath of literary and film critics alike, I preferred the Bill Murray version. Or at least it stuck with me because I saw it first.) At any rate, the novel uses The Great Depression as a backdrop to the excess of America during the Roaring Twenties and how it was generally believed at the time that the great American engine could never be broken.

There are some frightening similarities to The Great Depression and today, most notably the rise in personal debt due to low interest rates and the loss of manufacturing jobs. I know today’s economy is global and far more complex than it was 80 years ago, but it seems to me the current credit crunch that is taking down banks and lending institutions coupled with odd monetary policy could sink a financial ship that is already listing.

Rather than be a downer, I am hoping there are those out there who know how this financial stuff works and can put my mind at ease. But, give me something that makes sound logic and is easy for the untrained mind to understand, because I have to admit, I am a bit nervous that all that is out there are reasonable differences based on economic theory.

Admittedly there is a part of me that wants to sell our house, collect all our money and invest in gold, rent a house in a safe and inexpensive small town and ride it out. Most Realtors, stock brokers and other heretics will tell you that home and stock values have their ups and downs and the best investor is the patient investor. Thank goodness my shirt was lost during the stock market bubble, but what if my home value drops in half and it takes the rest of my working life before it works its way back to the current market value? Wouldn’t we be wiser with cash than equity in this situation?

Do we really have to wait for John McCain to get elected and take us to a war with Iran before we would see an economic upswing, or will our future leaders find a prescription to what ails us economically? Put in that context, does anyone out there have confidence that Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid and Obama/McCain will keep us from falling over the cliff? Hell, none of them has ever held a real job, little alone run an economy. Or do we trust today’s captains of industry – business leaders who gave us Enron, World Com and oil at $138 per barrel – to keep the current sputtering economic engine running? Seems to me we’re faced with a Morton’s Fork (look that one up).

Well, don’t just sit there anxiously agreeing with me with your diapers in need of a change, give me some good advice on what to do; what we all should do. I know that the run on the banks during The Great Depression had to do with confidence in the economy and people behaving as sheep, but, as they say down on the farm, the sheep are nervous.

About Love and Other Good Things

Let us be grateful to people who make us happy, they are the charming gardeners who make our souls blossom. -- Marcel Proust

There is something I haven’t written about yet, but it is constantly on my mind. The reason I haven’t written about this subject – one that is very meaningful to me – has nothing to do with writer’s cramp or lack of interest. Rather, it is an issue with such a profound effect on my family and me that I want to make sure I put the right mix of words together because anything less just wouldn’t suit the circumstance.

As most of you know, my son is marrying the lovely Amber on June 30 in a quiet ceremony at sunset on a beautiful stretch of beach in Carlsbad. Driving around today in a misty rain and looking up at clouds that look more full and menacing than they really were, I was struck with the thought that we are in the midst of June Gloom in San Diego. Naturally this led me to the glass-half-empty thought that the weather will not cooperate to make their day more beautiful.

Just as I was having these thoughts, and having them on a spot of the freeway that just happened to be near the exact area where they plan to exchange vows, two weak clouds separated at just the right moment and a beam of stunning white sunshine burst through. And so now I know, San Diego will do its duty and provide a perfect backdrop for a perfect day in the life of my family and in Amber’s family. Aside from our house looking like a dress shop and having several thousand dollars worth of silk and taffeta charged to various credit cards and ready for return, it has been a huge honor to be part of the engagement and the wedding plans. The Boy came to me first to discuss the best way to go about finding and affording the perfect engagement ring. I took it as a hint that something was brewing.

Because I can’t keep any news, good or bad, to myself, I told Mrs. Laz who told The Girl who instantly went looking online for rings. She took it a step further the next day and went ring shopping on her own all over town. Within hours, she had found what she thought was a ring that suited Amber and had negotiated the price down to an acceptable range. She took a photograph of it and e-mailed it to The Boy who had to admit it was exactly what he was looking for and was sure it would be what Amber would want.

Only The Boy knows what was going on in his head, but what began as a finance and search query became a purchase so quickly that none of us know if he was just beginning to do one of his typical thoughtful research projects but got caught up by his family members so excited that they all wanted him to pop the question that afternoon. One thing I can report is when he and The Girl met me for breakfast and he opened a magnificent wood box to show me the ring, I have never seen such a proud and happy look on his face. I think he wanted to pop the question that afternoon, too.

He waited until he was able to do it his way and, needless to say, she said “yes.”

Our whole family could not be more happy that we will be welcoming Amber into our lives and even get the bonus of Dan and Jo-Jo, our soon-to-be in-laws. Amber lights up any room the moment she enters, is full of energy – the good kind of kinetic and infectious energy – and is full of love that she is so generous with to every member of our extended family and our friends. If I was ever going to do an evil genius imitation and draw up plans for a perfect partner for The Boy, she would look just like Amber.

I couldn’t be happier for both of them and count my blessings that the Cosmos sent such a perfect person into our lives. Live long, always stay in love and be well you two!

I'm 16 Inches Smaller!

I've been on a diet for two weeks and all I've lost is two weeks. – Totie Fields

Let me first start by pointing out that I am still fat. But with a little hard work over the past six weeks, I am a little less fat and I am pretty happy with that.

My fitness club offered a six-week total body makeover class that met twice each week and offered training tips and nutritional information and meal suggestions. It was run by a woman named Jessica and, for the moment, I would like thank her for changing so many poor habits and giving me a much-needed nudge to better health. I use the “for the moment” part in the last sentence as a mere qualifier because anyone who knows me knows I have difficulty sustaining things. The proof is in my weight which has fluctuated wildly over the past 10-15 years.

Having made that qualifier, I should also tell you that I view the recent change in my eating and exercise regime as something that needs to be life-changing or I won’t have as much of a life to change later on. A number of my diet and exercise pushes have seemed easier than this one and I suspect the ravages of age and poor health has caught up to me and has made this last go-round, particularly the additional exercise, more difficult. In other words, I view this as something of a last stand to better my health and I really need to stick with it this time.

During the course we were given increasingly more difficult workouts and had our menu diaries reviewed by Jessica. Fortunately Mrs. Laz read Jessica’s menus so I just had to ask her what to eat. If only I could have gotten her to do the workouts for me I would be a lot less sore today.

The offshoot of the program is that I came in second place in my group with 14 pounds lost in the six weeks. My own scale had me losing more like 18 pounds but I’ll take an official 14 pounds in such a short time any day of the week. My body fat dropped from 25.7 percent to 21.3 percent and I lost a total of 16 inches off of various parts of my body (no, not there). The number of inches lost was the most in the group of about 20 participants and included four inches off my waist.

I think I could have lost more during the six weeks because I was in Latin America for one week and took two separate trips to Ohio so I missed five of the 12 meetings. I am continuing on with keeping a good log of my diet and exercising every day (or nearly every day). I am getting great encouragement from my family and from Sladed who even came to cheer me on for my final weigh-in; which was nice, but ultimately his cheering on was going to have no affect on the outcome. However I did get to "out" him while he was there. One thing is clear, it’s great to know so many people are pulling for me.

I would post the before and after photos except the after photo still has a little more of me than I am willing to share – especially if a certain Diane happens to take a look at this blog and learns a startling truth that could cause my chances with her to drop.

Hey!

This is my two-hundreth post. Of course it took much longer to reach my second 100 posts than it did my first 100 posts, but perhaps I can say the quality of the posts have improved (sans this one). Of course none of this matters because of my lack of respect for round numbers. But, for those who like zeros, maybe this is interesting...

Obama's Foreign Policy Naiveté

I took a good deal of grief from two intelligent people over President Bush’s comments about “appeasement” as a dig directed, some think, at Senator Obama’s rather naïve view of meeting with anti-American world leaders with no preconditions. Upon having the time I did my research so I could at least match their intellect with facts. So, to The Boy and Reid-Doh, eat my shorts!

While the Bush comment was likely directed at former President Carter, members of Congress and also Obama, it was Obama who squealed the loudest, likely as an opportunity to showcase his proposed “engagement” dance with any and all despots should he be elected president. By way of predicting the success of his policy, he answered President Bush’s challenge by saying President Kennedy had met with Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev in Vienna in 1961 without preconditions.

Kennedy did indeed meet with Khrushchev and it directly led to the building of the Berlin Wall and the Cuban missile crisis, nearly causing World War III with nukes. Even Kennedy admitted he was out of his depth in the meeting and worried that he had performed so weakly that it gave the Soviets carte blanche to make mischief around the world. When the Wall went up a few months later, dividing Berlin for 27 years, Kennedy remarked that a “wall was better than a war.” Not exactly a Lincoln at Gettysburg moment.

At the meeting in Vienna, Khrushchev used the opportunity of a face-to-face meeting to show case the growing strength of the Soviet Union for both domestic and international consumption and to serve as a warning to Kennedy that his country could not be intimidated. Khrushchev’s popularity at home soared and many unaligned countries took notice of a weaker appearing America. It ended up being a huge propaganda victory for Khrushchev and demonstrated that giving an equal stage to problematic world leaders is what concerns Bush as it had previous presidents. It should also concern Obama, but he has painted himself in a corner by his pledge that was made on the spur of the moment during a debate.

Kennedy too should have known better to meet with Khrushchev since his Harvard thesis was entitled “Appeasement at Munich,” a reference to Neville Chamberlain’s ill-advised meeting with Hitler and his declaration of “peace in our time.” Kennedy was warned by old diplomatic hands George Keenan and Dean Rusk that it was a mistake to meet with the Soviet leader without pre-arranged accommodations and a clear strategy of what such a summit would achieve. Ignoring the advice, Kennedy believed his personal charm, on a par with Obama, was enough to win the day. But he was sadly mistaken and spent his remaining presidency trying to show latent strength to the Soviets just to break even following the Wall and missile threat in Cuba.

If Obama wants to challenge the approach of all past presidents – except Kennedy – in how to deal with those who wish us ill, he’ll have to rely on more than his charisma. As good as it sounds to solve all of our problems with nice talk, the purpose of such a meeting would be to negotiate in advance and have each party hope to get something out of such a meeting. It’s not as if Bush and other world leaders haven’t offered plenty of incentives to Iran and North Korea to stop their advanced weapons planning. But if Obama traveled to Tehran or Pyongyang offering nothing more than has been offered and expecting nothing more than talk talk, what would be the point? We’d likely just end up giving a huge propaganda victory to our adversaries who, despite Obama’s rhetorical oratory ability, will still be our adversaries when he steps back on Air Force One and heads home.

If Barack Obama wants to follow in Kennedy's footsteps, he should heed the lesson that Kennedy learned in his first year in office: sometimes there is good reason to show strength in a hostile world.

Panama As a Birthday Present

Well, I know there is much to write about, but I thought I would first write about my recent trip to Panama and Colombia. The Boy and I left on my birthday and a number of people seemed to feel badly for me that I had to travel on my birthday. Since I have had a lot of birthdays, my taste in what constitutes a good day is relative. Taking a journey to a new experience – my son with me – was a great birthday present. Besides, I still got all the loot I wanted, including a Body Bugg™ from the Mrs. that has been very helpful in tracking my exercise and giving me important data on my nutrition. It was, in fact, a great birthday, so no need for concern.

I had one other memorable gift from Sladed: an 8 X 10 glossy of Diane Lane! I think it’s a good idea to mention this gift just in case she or her lawyers are monitoring my site.

Panama was completely unexpected. I have been to other cities in Latin America before (far less than the Boy) and was shocked by the difference in how quickly and how impressive Panama City has developed in such a short time. There are hundreds of buildings taller than 20 stories and hundreds more planned including a 107-story building being built by The Donald.

None of this is to say that there isn’t the kind of poverty in the country that exists in much of Latin America. We were told that within the city, in the shadows of these tall buildings, lives 250,000 Panamanians without water. It must be especially dispiriting to these people that Panama is one of the few countries with hundreds of reservoirs filled with an abundant source of clean drinking water (even we weak-stomached Americans can drink out of the tap) and hydro-electric power. So, like much of Latin America, there is a huge disparity between the Haves and the Have Nots. We mostly met with the Haves.

Taking into consideration our limited sample of Panamanians, we found them to be highly sophisticated and seemingly more European than traditional Latin Americans. Many of the people we met had Ivy League educations and spoke perfect English. We met a number of locals who had more money then we could imagine, including a new friend who just sent his son to Portsmouth Priory School, the same Rhode Island prep school attended by Robert Kennedy. To be able to have a place to stay when visiting his son, our friend purchased a Manhattan penthouse – something I am sure we would all do.

Where does all this money come from? There is huge investment in Panama because of the Panama Canal and a free trade zone that has made Panama so,ething like a Latin American Hong Kong. The Canal takes in transport fees at the rate of $3.5 million per day, about half of which goes to various government officials, so we are told, and the balance to the people of Panama.

The Boy and I watched a ship go through the Canal and it was quite an amazing thing to see. A huge container ship, nearly 1,000 feet long and 40 feet wide, went through the Canal with 24 inches to spare on either side. The ship was lowered through two docks that each dropped 27 feet to take it from the Pacific to the Atlantic. All in all, it’s an incredible feat of engineering and a huge savings in time and money for the tons and tons of products that are delivered all over the world.

We heard one interesting story with some historical significance. We were invited to the shop of a highly-respected French fashion designer. The shop was clearly the place where one of our hosts had her clothing made by well-treated and talented Cuna Indians who stitched together the French woman’s designs. As a quick aside, our host usually wore three very fashionable and unique outfits each day, explaining that the humidity and heat in Panama required her to make the changes to stay fresh. I can only confirm that my undershorts got a bit uncomfortable after too much walking around in the weather.

I was instantly bored in the shop because not only was the designer's taste not of my liking, I liked even less the price tags – blouses, though pretty, for $400. I can’t imagine that Mrs. Laz would have wanted me to spend so lavishly on her. The Boy and I followed our host and the designer into her office so she could show us an old photo of Rosalyn Carter who had purchased items at her shop, no doubt when her husband was signing over the pink slip to the Canal.

She showed other photos of her long career and one in particular struck my curiosity. It was a photo of a pretty young runway model having a wardrobe malfunction. Of course there is a better story to it than just a glimpse of something you can see on HBO any night of the week. The photo was shot at a fashion show at the height of rebellion against military strongman Manuel Noriega. Protests were common at the time and the protestors wore only white, I suspect to make the blood following the beatings show up better.

Because white clothing became synonymous with opposition to Noriega, most intelligent people wore other colors. Now I heard her say that Noriega had outlawed wearing white but the Boy heard it that wearing white clothes only cast suspicion on the wearer and was like a sign asking for a beating. Whatever the reason, the French designer was holding a high-brow fashion show one evening and had flown in a famous French model. While she never told us the background behind her design for the finale that night, we all guessed she was not a huge fan of General Noriega.

I first heard Noriega called “Pineapple Face” on Rush Limbaugh’s show but it is possible he got the name elsewhere. Wherever it started, the nickname stuck to Noriega back home and he was none too pleased, banning the use of his infamous nickname and frowning on anything that looked like a pineapple. Of course at the night of the fashion show the designer had made the finale dress all in white except for a large pineapple in the center of the dress and two pineapple leafs on the shoulders of the dress, looking quite a bit like military garb. The people attending the fashion show were at first holding their breath when they saw the model walking quickly down the runway until she turned and the wardrobe malfunction caused her dress and the attached pineapple to fall. The crowd stood up and cheered the Spanish version of “The Pineapple has fallen, the pineapple has fallen.”

The designer went home that night assuming the police would be at her door the next morning to arrest and beat her. To her surprise the U.S. marines had arrived in Panama at dawn and taken Noriega, without habeas corpus I might add, and Pineapple Face’s regime had come to an inglorious conclusion. So, the designer added with simplicity, she was responsible for the coup.

Speaking of the marines and the coup, the Boy and I were given a great tour of the city by a young man named Sirhan who completely understood his rather unfortunate name when he was hanging out with Americans. Name aside he was a great and knowledgeable guy who shuttled us through the old center of Panama, which had a decidedly different look and feel to the multiple high rises in the distance. Much of the colonial architecture was still prevalent in the old town and the life there seemed more vibrant. On the day the U.S. Marines landed they came ashore in the center of the old town, fought their way to Noriega and left shortly thereafter.

At the time, President Bush’s Defense Secretary, Dick Cheney, was pleased with the ease of the operation and relative small loss of life; a mere 19 Panamanian civilians by his count. Sirhan had a different figure, telling us without trying to cause us discomfort that the number was probably closer to 2,000 Panamanians killed during the liberation and many more from what he explained were chemical weapons fired into the city as the marines came ashore.

Not sure where the truth lies, but I did ask Sirhan why he and most Panamanians like Americans. After all we had not been invited to nab Noriega, we fought hard and with little mercy to keep the Canal and likely had our CIA murder President Torrijos (the father of the current Panamanian president who approaches Americans a bit more warily) over the fact that that he wasn’t as compliant on giving us the Canal back as we wanted. Sirhan told us that Americans were always liked in Panama because we are always happy and we helped them win their independence from Colombia in 1903. So goofy-looking Americans in cheap Panama hats with a dumb smile and the fact Panamanians don’t have a “yeah, what have you done for me lately” attitude keep us welcome down there. And, I guess, that’s a good thing.

Next, I will write about our travels up above the clouds in Bogotá. Assuming something doesn’t strike my fancy first.

Missed Extra Points

It's Mrs. Laz's birthday today (yesterday, really) and I got upstaged by the Girl by not listening to her and getting the present she told me Mrs. Laz really wanted. Instead I got her some techmology that was probably more of an interest to me than to her. She may like it, but I should have listened and bought her the Tory Birch shoes she strongly hinted she wanted. Fortunately, the Boy and the Ber came through and bought the overpriced pair of ballet slippers.

Lately I have been sucking at birthdays. Last year, I took her at her word and gave her a simple birthday when it was a milestone birthday. We did very little and I did as she requested and didn't buy her a present. After living among women for half a century, I should know better than to believe they are actually telling the truth and they really don't want a present. A new car may have been more appropriate than a hearty handshake and pat on the back on getting to the milestone.

I also failed this year to prepare her a HallMike Card in which I beat the local card shop out of $3 and write my own. It's always more personal and direct and it just slipped my very slippery mind this year.

Rather than try to write one up at this hour -- and her birthday is now behind us -- I will just say to her: I love you dearly and may you have a lot more birthdays to come and, should you have more birthdays than me, may you find a new man who has a better sense of how to treat his woman on her birthday.

Bill O'Reilly Is A Big Fat Idiot!

I just need to get this off my chest: the supposedly conservative Bill O’Reilly is nothing but a loud-mouthed, self-important windbag. He’s also more of a Socialist than a conservative.
Yes, I know, I shouldn’t be listening to talk radio, but his show happened to be on and I was caught up in a debate he was having over the high price of gas at the pump. He was complaining that oil companies were raping the world’s users of their product by making an obscene profit of nine percent of sales. He suggested that oil companies’ profits should be limited to three percent, a number he just happened to pull out of thin air.

This isn’t to say that raping by the oil companies isn’t going on and affecting all of our pocketbooks, but O’Reilly’s solution is naïve, moronic and far too simplistic. I am sure he shed few tears when a barrel of oil was $12 back in the 1980s and oil company executives’ largest use of gas cans was to torch their own homes because they couldn’t afford to live in them anymore. There have been, of course, cycles in the oil industry and there will be another downturn coming.

O'Reilly said he supports Hillary Clinton’s position on a “windfall profits” tax. For those who remember, we got a windfall profits tax in the 1970s and it was tacked on to the price we consumers pay at the pump and is still there to this day. Another tax will not affect the profits of the oil companies, it will just be passed along and add more cost to consumers and be a profit center, if one can look at government as an appropriate place for a profit center, to the federal slush fund.

Think about it, the largest windfall to the increase in gas prices is at all levels of government, not the oil companies. First, there is a state sales tax on fuel of about 8 percent. When gas was at $2.00 per gallon, the state of California took in about $.16 per gallon. At $4, the intake is doubled. This does not include the 18 percent excise tax charged by the state and all the taxes that California used to charge the refineries in California, only they don’t charge the refineries anymore because refiners left the state due to over-regulation and higher costs. The price you pay at the pump also does not include an additional 18.3 percent federal excise tax. All added up, you are paying various governments 44.3 percent of the price of each gallon of gas you purchase. In the last two years, this means revenue to the state and federal government has doubled.

If government cared more about consumers paying high prices at the pump, why don’t our elected officials suggest cutting the cost of taxes in half and cuttings their windfall? Why wouldn’t that be fair as they are getting twice the revenue? Government does not take any of the risk in brining gas to your car. They don’t drill for it, they don’t build and maintain the pipelines for it, they don’t refine it, they don’t ship it, they don’t insure it, and they don’t truck it to the filling station. They just sit back and let the cash roll in and then have the unmitigated arrogance to suggest, like O’Reilly does, that oil companies are making too much money.

O’Reilly further showed his ignorance by saying the price of gas is only set by commodity brokers speculating on oil futures and has nothing to do with supply and demand. Absolute rubbish. Oil prices have everything to do with supply and demand. Emerging economies in India and China are more than doubling the demand for oil, which necessarily means there is a bidding war for a finite amount of oil. Further, unrest in the Middle East – caused by our government’s actions, not the actions of the oil companies – has damaged supply as has unrest in oil producing countries like Nigeria, Angola and many places in Latin America.

Policy established by the Fed, and supported by our government, lowering interest rates to such a degree is also having a real impact on the cost of fuel and all other products. The decision by the Fed to keep interests low and hope to inflate our way out of economic stagnation is, to borrow a line from our favorite reverend, like having our chickens coming home to roost. We shouldn’t be shocked when their plan is working, we should simply just ask, “What the hell are you doing to us?”

Finally, all those enviros who want us in a Prius must share in the responsibility of the high cost of fuel. There is ample oil deposits off the Gulf Coast, the coast of California and in the Alaska wilderness to have the U.S. be a net exporter of oil, not the largest importer. All attempts to drill in these areas have been halted by various governments to appease environmentalists. Yes, I know , this is a sensitive subject as we must maintain the delicate balance as stewards of nature, but why don’t we hear any howls of complaints when the drilling is done in the Iranian desert? Could our problem with drilling for oil be more about “not-in-my-backyard” than protecting the global environment? What about nuclear power? The beloved Europeans use it extensively as a means to light up the grid that powers the continent’s homes and businesses. Why not fire up a few nuke plants here? Add to the supply and the cost will go down.

This is all simple Adam Smith economics. Perhaps O’Reilly could pick up a copy of Wealth of Nations and read a chapter or two and, as 441 loves to say, then he can pop off.

Angst In My Pants

“I saw a werewolf with a Chinese menu in his hand, walking through Soho in the rain” – Warren Zevon.

Kellen and Sladed have been adding quotes representing the deep thoughts of others to their blogs so I will join in and add a good quote before each post. Mine could be more obscure, I must warn.

I quite nearly put another Zevon quote to this post that may have added more to the theme but it could be construed as a bit negative, although it would not have been intended that way. It goes “she’s hanging on to half a heart, but she can’t have the restless part. So she tells him to hasten down the wind.”

The “she” in that case would have implied the misses and I don’t want her to hasten my way down the wind. But the thought does go to the larger question: why do I appear to have this restless heart?

As long as I can remember – and there are those who believe I can’t remember things from five minutes ago so that may not be that long ago – I have lived my life with a rampant restlessness. The weird part is, I really haven’t been that fond of being restless. I’d like to be settled, even if it meant settling for less than the elaborate and warped life plan I have dished up for myself.

Despite all the time I spend mapping out my goals and expectations, I never seem to get where I want to go. Too often I fall far short, make a u-turn, try something new and the new thing ultimately falls short as well. These string of mini-failures (at worse) or tough breaks (in the middle) or minor successes (a good spin) add up and make me wonder what the hell I am up to; what’s my life plan anyway?

The bigger fear I have had lately is that my disease is a bit contagious. I see glimpses of the early stages of torment in the Boy and Girl. While both seem to be far more focused on who they are and what pleases them, I worry that life will continue to fall short of their expectations. Mind you, having lofty goals is what everyone should have, but I suspect there should also be a defense mechanism implanted that allows us all to fall down and skin our knees without having it become such a rough landing.

I may be wrong and the kids have developed better coping skills than I have managed. I just wouldn’t wish my case of anxiety on others; especially those I care most about.

The good ending to the story is that I am on to a new twist in my life and feeling that freedom that only comes from wrapping up one chapter to open a new one. So I am once again excited about the future and the promises it always makes to me. This time, however, I hope to plan better and to stop relying on my seat-of-the-pants method of trying to make things happen in a good way. I will also seek the advice and counsel of others who I have grown to trust (The Boy, The Girl, Mrs. Laz, Sladed and LP).

I was talking to Italiphil today and we both arrived at the fact that we are in the last quarter of our working life and still trying to find our way. We made something of a blood oath to make the next 25 years be our best and reach our goals. Hope it happens because, after all, it is the final stage of our working years. For my offspring and younger readers, may you be sailing by no later than the end of the first quarter of your working life. That would make us all happy.

Marley And Me

Who knows why we do certain things. For the past several months, I have secretly wanted my own dog. Watching the Mrs. and The Girl with their two dogs in their laps only made me want one of my own fluffy things in my lap. (I wonder if I should rephrase that. Naw, that looks OK to me).

Gradually I made it known what I was thinking and when the idea didn’t get shot down completely, I began one of my quiet and steady lobby campaigns.

The Girl was a pushover. I only needed to mention there was a possibility of a new pet joining the family and I knew it wouldn’t be long before she would begin looking at http://www.petfinder.com/, a great site that allows people to look at several shelters for just about any dog imaginable. To get her total support, the dog had to come from a shelter, preferably a “kill shelter” so we could actually rescue a dog from the grips of death. I could get extra support from The Girl if the dog was missing an eye or a leg or was functionally dead since she is a sucker for tough luck cases. But I also know she is a sucker for any cute little puppy so I had some room to find a pet with all its limbs intact.

As for Mrs. Laz, all I needed to do to get her to see it my way was make a lot of impassioned statements about never being allowed to have my own dog. This I did with conviction and great feeling. Of course I also had to agree to pull my own weight and feed and walk the dog and clean up after it if it happened to make a mistake on our new carpet. For a new puppy, I would agree to almost anything, so this was easy.

With such a great advocacy plan, how could I miss? Last Saturday we decided to go to our local shelter and see if any dog – preferably a puppy – made a connection with us. But let’s be honest here, there is absolutely no way you can go to a shelter, find any dog that is remotely cute, hold it in your hands and then walk away. Fortunately we were very lucky to find a young female spaniel mix (who knows what she’s mixed with) that was young – at 7 months a bit younger than I wanted – and truly loveable. I knew the moment I saw her I would go home with her and this was even after we had a little competition from a woman who had spotted her first but, as it turned out, didn’t connect.

We had to bring our two dogs to meet our hoped for new puppy, who was named Krispy Crème by the shelter. I am not sure why we needed to bring our dogs into a weird environment to be able to take a dog off their hands. Dogs may not like each other at first, but they always work things out. The dogs ended up doing fine, even crazy Spooner acted semi-normal.

We took her home and she seemed very much at ease but the name Krispy just didn’t seem right. We tossed out a number of names and, after 24 hours, I threw out Marley after the dog in the book Marley and Me. Little did I know that The Boy wanted to name his eventual puppy Marley after the Reggae singer, but tough noogies, I got the name first.

Since she’s been home, Marley has been the perfect angel, sleeping between me and Mrs. Laz just like she’s been there forever. She loves to run as fast as she can at the park and wants desperately to play with Missy but Spooner, ever the boss, lets her know that she has not yet been cleared to play with her young charge.

I admit to being nervous making the decision to bring her home, but couldn’t be happier I have her in our home. I know I won’t live up to my promises, but it really feels good that I have my own dog, even if she likes Mrs. Laz the best. Thanks to my family for letting me have Marley and I hope she ends up being a great addition to the Hollyfelds.

The Truth About Hillary

Anyone who follows politics knows the Clintons have difficulty with telling the truth. Perhaps that’s a polite way of just saying the Clintons are known liars. The weird part is that they often get caught in their lies, face some nominal and momentary embarrassment, then go out and tell another lie later on.

With Hillary Clinton on the center stage now, she has assumed the role of Liar In Chief. Before becoming a contender for the presidency, Hillary’s lies had been overshadowed by her husband, a much more gifted and forgiven liar. Hillary has been working at perfecting bending the truth during her campaign, I suspect to demonstrate to the voting public she has the kind of experience people look for in a president – at least the kind of president her husband was.

My favorite Hillary-caught-in-a-lie episode happened just after she became First lady and has been mentioned in an earlier post. When she was being questioned on how she turned a $1,000 investment into a $100,000 profit in the rough-and-tumble cattle futures business, she feigned surprise at her luck but told the media that it was too much stress as she was pregnant with Chelsea at the time and decided to sell her futures rather than double-down. The next day it was quickly pointed out that she sold the futures before she was pregnant. Bill Clinton’s press spokeswoman Dee Dee Myers was sent out to explain. When the press asked about the obvious inconsistency in the answer, Myers responded that the earlier answer “was no longer operative.”

And that’s the way it is with the Clintons; they don’t actually believe they lie. The “misspeak,” things are “taken out of context,” there are stories that “are very old” and they have answers that are no longer “operative.” In the real world and not in politics, these are just called lies.

Hillary’s story about landing in Tuzla amidst sniper fire during the Bosnian war was eventually dispelled by press footage of her not ducking anything except a salute from a soldier. She’s been telling this story so long, a story meant to demonstrate that she’s had experience in the line of fire, that she may have actually believed it. I’m sorry, but even if she was under fire, it’s difficult to believe anyone would think this gives her the executive experience she so sorely lacks. Bill had to dodge a firing squad of dishes thrown by her when he was president, but I doubt it made him a better leader.

Her response to this flap was even more telling about the way the Clintons operate. First her hatchet men rallied around her, saying she was subject to viscous press attacks (another example of executive leadership under her definition, I suspect). When more and more evidence came out, including statements by people on the same trip (some of them laughing at her account), the new official campaign response was that she merely “misspoke,” and then it was put off to her being tired and therefore forgetful. If I was shot at and doing barrel rolls on a transport plane into Bosnia, I am not sure I would forget it, but I’ll give her the benefit of the doubt and assume she has irrational connections to events when tired.

Of course this forgetfulness when tired does not bode well for her 3 a.m. phone call ads that are supposed to put people at ease that she would be there to answer the phone to handle important events instead of other, less-experienced, pretenders to the presidency. I’d hate to think she would be so tired that she would think the Russians are nuking us and order a retaliatory response. I guess the next day, after half the population was wiped out, she’d have a good chuckle while explaining she misunderstood events because she was tired.

Her latest lie is being billed as not a lie at all, just a story that was told to her by someone she trusted and began repeating over and over on the campaign trail. It was a story about a young pregnant woman who had complications and went to a hospital in Ohio. The story goes that the pregnant woman was turned away because she didn’t have insurance or $100 to cover the cost of medical attention. When turned away, the baby died. She was sent to a different hospital but had the same problem and, while trying to sort things out, the women died at the hospital. It’s a perfect story to support Hillary’s belief in universal health care and the callousness of the medical profession. The problem is, key parts of the story turned out not to be true.

The hospital in question, not mentioned by name in her stump speeches, has been receiving angry letters from people around the country. Administrators looked into the matter and discovered the woman was a patient, had died, but did have insurance and was not turned away at all. The Clinton campaign has announced the candidate will discontinue telling the story, but still mentioned that what didn’t happen is still evidence that something has to be done about healthcare in the country. This was again sloughed off as not a lie, just an unfortunate misunderstanding of a story told by someone they trusted. When asked why they didn’t vet the story better, they told the press that they couldn’t look into the matter further due to patient privacy. So they had no problem using this poor woman as a prop for their misguided campaign pledge, but they do respect her medical privacy, so all is good.

In the world the Clintons live in, these are not lies but unfortunate lost opportunities. She’d still be telling the Tuzla story if Sinbad hadn’t spoken up about it, and I am sure she would still be offering her sympathies to the poor woman who wasn’t killed because she lacked government-backed medical insurance if only the hospital hadn’t meddled into her privacy. I think what is becoming clear with the mountain of lies that have built up over the years is that this is not about telling tall tales, it’s become pathological.

Saying Something Stupid

I hate to be writing too often but there is a certain craziness in the air these days. The latest nut case is the former news mogul Ted Turner who created CNN for the Clintons and 1,000 of their best friends – at least based on recent Nielsen Ratings.

Turner was a guest on Charlie Rose the other night and was rambling on about global warming. I know global warming deserves a decent debate but I am not sure it ends up where Turner was taking it. He appeared to guarantee that the world will be “eight degrees hotter in 30 or 40 years and basically none of the crops will grow.” He said most people will have died by then and those who hadn’t would be cannibals, and then said the world would be one giant failed state like Sudan and Somalia.

OK, Sudan and Somalia are failed states but not because of global warming but because of greed and racism of its class of warlords. Maybe we will be eight degrees warmer in 30-40 years, but perhaps Turner would be willing to put some of his energy into suggesting ways to improve conditions in Sudan and Somalia and do it now. CNN has cameras in both spots. Why not use the money they are spending on keeping reporters alive and on the ground in these places on a few thousand pounds of rice and dried milk? Instead of filming the starving victims, feed them!

He went on to add, "We're too many people; that's why we have global warming…. Too many people are using too much stuff." He then pointed out he has a tendency to put his foot in his mouth before saying, “I've gotten a lot better, though. It's been a long time since anybody caught me saying something stupid." Consider yourself caught, Ted. After all the stupid things he said leading up to that, he lasted only moments between stupid statements by suggesting all countries of the world have just one or two children; voluntarily, of course. Turner’s three marriages have produced five children so, taking his suggestion, we’re sorry to inform him he has to toss a few back.

Finally he railed on about the war in Iraq, calling the insurgents “patriots.” His reasoning is they are patriots because their country has been invaded. Think about that for a moment. If they are “insurgents,” it means they are from somewhere else and not Iraq. Therefore, the “insurgent's” countries have not been invaded, they lose patriot status and are merely invaders themselves joining in on the killing of Iraqis and Americans.

It would be best for Ted Turner to carry a tape recorder around all day and listen to the things he says. He may find that very helpful. And, yes, I am watching too much Arrested Development.

Sleeper Agents

Something worth pondering, not on the basis of what we learned, but on the basis of what we don’t know. Over the course of the past few months, a half dozen people have been sentenced on espionage charges over selling military and other secrets to the Chinese government. In the most damaging case, the Chinese government sent Chi Mak to the U.S. in the 1970s to embed himself in the defense industry, win promotions and higher security clearances and then send highly classified military secrets to Beijing.

The good news is he was caught and sentenced to 24 years in prison in what the sentencing judge described as a tough message to send to the Chinese government so they will keep their spies home. The bad news is that the Chinese government doesn’t care about Mak, other than the loss of one of its many pipelines of security theft, and that Mak is hardly alone in his efforts to steal military secrets and conduct industrial espionage on behalf of China.

Our own Justice Department believes that the recent arrests and convictions represent only a small faction of the Chinese government’s network in the U.S. The department believes we have been infiltrated by students, consultants, and employees at sensitive U.S. government sites and they seem to be overwhelmed determining who is a spy and who is a legitimate worker. The very fact that Mak had been sent here 30 years ago as a “sleeper agent” should demonstrate the patience of the Chinese government and the lengths it will go in getting the goods on us. If only they had sent people here to learn how not to make toys that poison our kids.

Of course there is a simple solution, although not a pretty one. Until China comes clean and removes its agents, we should not allow any student or work visas to Chinese nationals and should either revoke the security clearance of any workers born in China or give them all polygraph exams, something they agree to accept on a random basis when given the clearance. This effort, while extreme, may stem the tide a little and keep what few secrets we have left in the U.S.

Two other issues of note in this story: Some of those convicted were Americans willing to sell their country out for cash payments, which doesn’t say much about American workers. Also, assuming the Chinese government has been this successful in infiltrating our security network, what about the presence of other sleeper agents from parts of the world that are stealing our secrets with greater malicious intent? We are a free and open society that allows far too easy access to our borders and our national security institutions. We should be far more careful.

KK B Day

There are a few things worth celebrating today. First and foremost, it is The Boy’s 26th birthday and, while we no longer stock up on Thunder Cats and airplane pants, the memory of the joy he has brought us all these years is more than worth noting.

I only ruined one of his birthdays. In 2002, something in my body told my head to take a time out. Technically the doctors called it a Transient Ischemic Attack (or a TIA or mini-stroke as it is often referred). While my closest action to playing a doctor was literally playing doctor with my cousin (female), I disagree with the medical conclusion and think it was just stress forcing its will on me and telling me to “chill out” as Bill Clinton screams these days (there’s a guy headed for the Big One). Anyway, whatever it was, I am six years beyond that episode and I am told by doctors – who I believe this time – that the passage of time without another event is a good thing. So, rather than look back on this day that ordinarily belongs to The Boy with any kind of blemish, I will celebrate my disease-free brain.

The only part of this day that has an added emotional attachment is that this is the final birthday that will exclusively belong to us as his parents. Assuming nobody gets the wiser and The Boy and The Ber tie the knot this year, we will be handing over his birthday duties to his wife-to-be. I know future birthdays will be in good hands and we offer The Ber the following advice: when he makes a birthday suggestion, go out and buy it that day and give it to him, even if it’s a month early. Happy birthday Sonny!

Starting Over

This should come as no surprise to anyone who knew I was traipsing around the country, but I gained back all the weight I lost for the year -- 7 pounds -- in just two weeks. It doesn't surprise me, either. I ate poorly, exercised just twice, had a poor sleep habit and even had a decent amount of alcohol at various beer halls.

I tried looking around for someone else to blame but, in the end, I know I alone must accept the responsibility. I was in a pretty good exercise and eating routine before leaving and I think I believed I was more immune from the temptation of rich food and better prepared to exercise regardless of my circumstances. Instead, the two weeks I was gone were a complete disaster.

So now I am beginning my long path back to where I started. I went to the gym today and will get back into the practice of working up a sweat and embarrassing myself in front of shapely women in the abs class (women who don't look like they need an abs class) before slinking out the door and earning my nickname of "Jumper." Heaven help us all.

The Boy And The Blog

The Boy has a new blog and is off to a pretty good start. He had another blog a while ago but life and not having a clear objective of where he wanted his blog to go kept him from making a go of it. I suspect writer's cramp also had a role, a problem I know something about, by god I do.

His new blog is different in a few ways. For one, he emerges out of the shadow and goes by his real name. As you know, I, along with fellow blogger Sladed, have remained anonymous except to a few of our friends that we are willing to share our weird little thoughts with. The Boy figures if he has something to say, he wants people to know who's saying it. Tough to argue with that logic.

So he has outed himself and is loud and proud -- not that there is anything wrong with that -- about a variety of subjects. By outing himself and me linking to his blog, I will ultimately out myself, but I think that's OK. Perhaps it's time for me to be more out there. What do I care if people know who's writing this crap? I was actually thinking about starting a new blog and calling it "Mike's Blah Blog" as sort of a reminder that I write a lot of "blah blah."

I encourage you to read his blog; it's called "Mientras Vacilando (and is also listed under my "links" section to the right). He has a different, generational take on many issues and some great links that don't show up here. I actually hope it scratches his writing funnybone and leads him to writing an historical novel or something else that interests him. If he gets really good, I will be able to take credit for his success and maybe earn a buck or two selling dirty secrets about him to various tabloids.

Good luck with it Kel .... er, I mean, The Boy.

Putting On The Pounds

Forgive me Sladed for I have sinned. It had been six days since I last exercised.

All too true. Traveling, as I have found, sucks when it comes to keeping up with one's exercise routine. I switched to working out in ways that can easily be done in any hotel (treadmill, elliptical machine, stationary bikes) and even took classes to learn how to work my abs and strengthen my core (new word application in my dictionary). All the same, between a few airline journeys and running around a bit too much, I was either too tired or too overwhelmed to feel like exercising at the end of the day.

The downside is I feel heavier again and likely have gained back the seven pounds I have worked so hard to rid my flabbiness of. Tonight I took a brisk walk and ran some and feel better, but it is too little and, it would appear, too late.

I feel like a contestant on Biggest Loser who goes home and can't keep up with what he's learned at the campus. So I have too choices, please vote for what you believe to be the best idea: One, I suck it up and exercise twice each day and get into a rhythm of working out so that it feels weird not to, or, two, gain an extra 30-40 pound to make me eligible to be on the Biggest Loser so I can get into that six-hour-a-day workout regimen, get on TV, and have a shot at the grand prize. From what I know of the show from paying attention real, real, hard is that to be on the Biggest Loser Couples show, I need to divorce and go with my ex-wife or have a partner who is not my girlfriend. At least that's as I understand it from the two women in my life.

I wonder, openly, if Diane Lane would put on a few extra pounds to be on the show with me? Actresses are always gaining weight so they can play a role with greater honesty. Being on TV with me would be one of Diane's most challenging roles. I think she should do it. Where is her publicist's number? I know I have it somewhere.

Great Website

I found a very good website that I wanted to share with you all. It’s called Hulu and it looks like it’s NBC and Fox networks teaming together to offer streaming video of some of their most popular TV shows. There is no cost to watch shows like The Office, Arrested Development, The Simpsons, 30 Rock, and even some older shows like WKRP in Cincinnati (Sladed, remember that one?), Married With Children and the Mary Tyler Moore Show.

The shows are free to watch, you only have to wait through one commercial during the normal break for several commercials (and, no, you can’t fast-forward through them, I already tried).

It was a bit confusing when I first saw this website advertised on Yahoo! I couldn’t figure out why they were making at least the current shows available in such a manner. Putting them online must run counter to their desire to sell packaged seasons of shows on DVDs. Then it occurred to me that there is no cost to put these up other than to host the site. No need to produce the DVDs and create and pay for packaging and no reason to split the profits with distributors and retailers (or e-tailers). And, perhaps most of all, I suspect there is no need to share the wealth with actors, writers, producers and crew either. It essentially is just another bite at the apple for us to watch the shows again with new advertising revenue.

I hope the idea works for them because it has been great to watch while away from home. I can only imagine how great it is for people on extended trips out of the country. If you get the chance, check it out (but not at work).

Barack and White

I wasn’t going to blog too much tonight. Hey, I did my five for the month so I could have saved this for next month and been one ahead of my goal. But when you have something to say, you have to say it. OK, so I cheated and waited until after midnight so it shows up in March.

I read a rather pithy article in the Washington Post about how insensitive Saturday Night Live was to have a white man play the part of Barack Obama in one of its shows. The writer said it was reminiscent of putting on the black shoe polish. Give me a break!

First of all, cast member Fred Armisen auditioned for the role and was chosen from five others and I thought did a pretty good imitation of the Senator. Second, and this is really getting to grate on me, Obama’s background is only half black. Does this mean Armisen only needed half the black shoe polish?

As noted in a recent post, Obama was born to a white woman and a Kenyan man. He was raised by an Indonesian step-father. His roots are not exactly out of an Alex Haley novel. Since he was raised in a home mixed with American and Asian cultures, he has more in common with Armisen than he does with any other black actor since Armisen is half white and half Asian.

When Halle Berry won an Oscar, she was usually mentioned as the first African American to win the Best Actress award. Putting it this way is a bit disingenuous and not exactly accurate. Berry was born to a white British mother and an African American father. The father divorced her mother when she was four years old and was subsequently raised by her mother. Her father had little to do with her.

The media places a lot of pressure on Tiger Woods to be a racial icon when I think he’d rather just be a golfing icon, thank you. It makes no more difference that he is Thai and African American than it does if he is just African American, but it seems it does to various writers of race-related politics. Tiger’s father certainly helped him be the man and the golfer he has become and his death deeply affected Tiger’s life. Does it really matter that his father was black? He is just Tiger’s father and let it go at that.

This isn’t to say all of these people's African American heritage means nothing or Obama's, Berry’s and Wood’s father’s genetic code means nothing. It’s just that it always seems we’re so ready to label that we forget that our entire American culture is hyphenated. One of my friends is Sicilian-American, another is Irish-American. They consider themselves American and these friends are first generation Americans.

Let’s hope if Obama become president we can get past the racial descriptions and just have someone representing all of America. I would never vote for or against anyone because of their heritage and can’t understand why anyone else would. I don’t know where these prejudicial thoughts come from. Personally, I think the French started it.

Resolving Things

OK, so this is the first month of weight loss progress. I had made my rather tardy New Year's Resolutions last month that included the goal of losing 60 pounds this year at a meager rate of five pounds per month. I know what you're saying, "Laz, you don't need to lose 60 pounds, you look marvelous." To quote Cartman, "I'm not fat, I'm big-boned" and I need to shed a few pounds off my bones.

Last month was a dismal failure as I lost no weight (although I have a bit of an excuse as I vacationed at the all-you-can-eat buffet with a great deal of zeal). This month I joined a gym and have only missed a few days. I have been using the elliptical machine, the tread mill, playing some basketball (a lot of running, very little scoring) and even did a little boxing and tried ten minutes of an ab class but had to sulk out with a towel over my head while the instructor -- and The Ber -- called me a "Jumper" for leaving the class.

The bottom line is, I lost five pounds this month, most of it in the last 8-10 days. No big drop like they do in the Biggest Loser TV show. I even gained one pound during my "last chance workout" last night. Oh well, I'm happy I am losing and I feel better exercising. Hopefully I can lose another five in March and keep that up for the rest of the year. Thanks for listening.

Death Of A Blogger

The Boy sent this to me a few days ago. It's about a soldier stationed in Iraq who kept up a blog on what was going on around him. He kept a final post in his back pocket in the event of his untimely death while in Iraq. Sadly that day came and his posthumous report is both powerful and sad. It also has it's moments of humor and shares some of his deep insight. It is really worth a read if you have the time.

A Closer Look

Hey, I just noticed, I am getting closer!

Missing On A Promise

I am not sure, but at the present rate, I will not get to five blog posts this month as I resolved in my New Year's promises. I may fall short, but it may be too early to tell. I'll keep you posted.

Democracy Part Deux

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?

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.