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.

New Year's Revolutions

Well I didn’t quite get this in before the end of the year, but at least it can be noted it was posted before the end of the month. In what is an annual ritual of mixing hope and repentance, I hereby offer my New Year’s resolutions. First, however, forgive me Father, for I have failed to live up to most of my previous resolutions. Let’s hope this year brings greater discipline and focus on meeting my goals, or at least getting close in the areas I can control.

1. Isn’t this always the first one? We all promise to lose weight and when you are writing that you want to lose a total of 60 pounds in 12 months (five pounds per month, a little more than one pound each week) it doesn’t seem so overwhelming. So why can’t I ever reach this one? Two words, perhaps: cookies and candy. I guess it’s a few more words because I have not been that reliable in exercising away the caloric intake caused by my frequent detours of munching on a chocolate Payday when nobody’s looking. Of course at the beginning of a long journey comes the first step so I am looking at the 60-pound figure as a marathon and not a sprint. Since my weight loss for January is 0.00, I have a bit more pressure on me to catch up, but I think I am ready to lose the flabbiness that has come to define me. But, hey, be kind to me if I don’t make this and, for god’s sake, don’t give me that look when you see me sneaking a warm chocolate donut for breakfast. Dooooooonut.

2. Having moved to San Diego, ostensibly, to be more near my friends, I would like to be less ostensible about it and spend more time with them. And I don’t mean more time just because one of my friends is down the hall at my office, I mean more fun time like going to the beach or swimming laps at the YMCA – assuming I can get my membership back.

3. I want to blog more but I also want more comments. Hmmm, how does one do this? I think we have all learned that the famous Free IPod Giveaway post was a bit of a desperate cry for attention. I’ll try to stay away from those kinds of gimmicks. I also may cut back on the political commentary. Lord knows my political observations get very little comment as evidenced by my recent – and I think one of my best – posts that was something of a primer on how to live in another Clinton regime. My goal will be to have five posts each month. I have catching up in this area too, but should be able to squeeze in a few more to make the cut.

4. Here is my usual quixotic quest to alter the way in which I earn a living; even in just small and simple ways. I’d be very grateful to keep my name out of the paper this year unless I am rescuing a little kid named Timmy out of a well. I want what I do to mean something and for me to mean something to somebody for what I am doing. What do they call that word again? Charity? Not sure I am that acquainted with doing things for a purpose other than money so some serious retraining will be necessary. Still, I’ll have my eye out for that elusive greener pasture.

5. This annual pledge is as predictable as the swallows returning to wherever it is they swallow (don’t mean that in a dirty way, Agent 69). I pledge to finish my unfinished novel. The good news is I have a viable beginning middle and an end. The bad news is I have to put the words in the right order so it all makes sense and carries the brooding, interesting story I have imagined. All I have to do is re-write most of the 425 pages and remember the names of my characters. Can’t remember where I heard this, but someone said an “outline” would be helpful in this endeavor. Hmmmm….outline…..

6. This one is counter-intuitive, I suppose. I want to travel more and travel more to interesting places. I really enjoy the experience of walking in and around different cultures and navigating how to say “you give me massage” in numerous unfamiliar languages (OK, Agent 69, that was meant to be dirty). Traveling to faraway places also means I am likely being paid to lounge among the locals so that is also another super secret reason for this mention.

7. On the flip side of Resolution #6 is the goal to be a better husband, parent and friend; something of a trick if I am 11 hours away eating a chocolate Payday. I guess these qualities can be managed together as long as I continue to remember what it is to love someone completely and to meet them as they want to be met. I think it’s about understanding what friends and family want out of life, understanding better their needs and being a safe place for them to land if required. Perhaps it’s quality over volume and, including learning to love myself more, maybe we’ll have something good going in 2008.

8. Even though this is similar to the weight loss promise with my fingers behind crossed behind my back, I want to be more active athletically. I’d like to feel comfortable swimming 3,500 yards per day and have no difficulty walking at a brisk pace for at least an hour. I don’t want to include things like that Sladed character has up his sleeve like running in a marathon or swimming the Channel, and I especially don’t want to commit to having my eyes gouged out and being fish bait in swimming the La Jolla Rough Water. Although I will try to look good enough in a Speedo by September to give it fair thought.

9. I getting near the end, so be patient. This one is a bit subtle and abstract, but I want to have fewer fears. My vacation was partly burdened by fear of not accomplishing a task expected by a client. All was well in the end and my gut told me it was going to be OK, but I still let the irrational fear side of me dictate my mood and outlook. Fear can be debilitating and I have to learn to roll better with the ups and downs of my business life, and life in general. I think I am already seeing signs that I am making strides in this area.

10. And, there is always a silly one in the end. I want to attend a wedding this year that includes people I really care about. Can that be done? Can it?

A Word About A Would-Be Queen

Returning from a trip to Texas with dreams of independent candidates shaking up the two-party cartel dancing in my head, New Hampshire voters are offering their own independent minded statement by making Hillary the second coming of the Comeback Kid. While disappointing to me and most of normal thinking Americans, it should make a serious independent bid for the presidency much more likely. And I think that’s a good thing.

Instinct should have dictated that the polls, the pols and news creatures are not to be believed as they were busy working the engine room of the Obama Express; especially when it’s about a Clinton because it’s always about them, and they should have learned that by now. As a result, the prediction of 12-point margins of victory by the man from Jakarta (at least not from Hope) looks more and more like a set-up for a bad actor to steal the show.

Perhaps New Hampshire voters took Clinton’s tears over Obama’s “O” factor. In a world of feelings over thought, it wouldn’t surprise me. But in an electorate that seems to be demanding change – at least I think we are – how did a tantrum and a sad face trump change? If one were to check Lexus Nexus I suspect we would find slightly more than 1 billion uses of the word “change” over the last several months. Nobody is quite sure what it means, naturally, so it’s a great campaigning tool and allows the candidates to put fluff over substance. No need to connect change to a particular policy or have to define the term to the least intellectually curious news media since the Hair-Spray Pavilion was invented.

The message is mixed from New Hampshire as Granite Staters proved hard-headed and stubborn yet again by rejecting one outsider (Obama) for an insider (Hillary) and then accepting a decidedly independent John McCain by larger margins than ever imagined. In the real world, New Hampshire means very little – just three measly Electoral Votes – but in the world of spin it knocks Obama out of the spotlight, costs him donors and loses the momentum that seemed so solid only a week ago. If one can get by the smirk on Hillary’s face, we’ll have to admit she may well be back in the driver’s seat. And I am sure this is a bad thing.

Hillary is the only candidate running on the mantra of change who believes we must find that change in our past. Nobody should expect the slogan “It was morning in America” to resonate, but it seemed to have done just that in New Hampshire (leaving Dixville Notch out of it because they had the good sense to give her no votes).

For those old enough to remember, the Clinton years that Hillary loves to take situational credit for, i.e. taking the good, ignoring the bad, were not exactly the best in American history. She never misses the opportunity to talk about her eight years in the White House and how it gives her the experience to be president. As Dick Morris said, she did spend eight years in the White House, but “so did the pastry chef” and that doesn’t make him capable of running the country.

By any measure Bill was a political savant; intelligent, a quick read on a wide variety of issues and exceptionally charismatic. He was also a highly flawed man with governance ADD and no core and no soul. His chief political strategies James Carville once took a piece of paper and drew a square and pointing in the box remarked, “Where is the hallowed ground?” Hillary appears to be lacking the same slice of hallowed ground due in large part that she got very little of her husband’s attributes and all of his flaws including, indelicately I admit, the part about being a flawed man.

But because we may find ourselves living under a another Clinton administration, we should at least examine what that would look like. It’s not difficult to see who would be joining her administration when you see who’s standing behind her on stage: a veritable who’s who of Bill Clinton has-beens. People like Richard Holbrooke, Madeline Albright and Sandy Berger were in over their heads 16 years ago and there is nothing that has occurred since to demonstrate they have learned anything. While candidates love to run on it’s the economy, stupid (and the economy’s looking pretty stupid at the moment), they end up be being defined and judged on foreign events. Or as Hillary recently noted and by means of demonstrating both her ability to predict and her penchant for stealing good lines, this one from Mario Cuomo, “You campaign with poetry, but you govern with prose.” I suspect she will be ambushed by the prose of knowing nothing about foreign policy.

This is the part that scares me: Holbrooke gave us the war in Serbia, Albright inflamed an already burning situation in Somalia by backing a criminally stupid Boutrous Boutrous-Ghali (why would anyone trust a man with two first names, anyway?) in his personal vendetta against Aidid, leading to an America looking so weak it produced Rwanda and bin Laden’s view that America was a paper tiger, and, finally, Berger who gave men new ideas on how to impress women with things stuffed in their briefs – say, is that a national security document in your pants or are you just glad to see me?

The Clinton gang, particularly in the area of foreign policy, was not ready to lead from Day One and, based on Hillary’s insistance that she is, only makes a stronger case that if she is elected, we will be turning our government over to those who did not learn from earlier on-the-job training. And I am very certain that is a bad thing, particularly in this very dangerous world.

Obviously the primary battle is not over between Obama and Hillary and it is even possible Edwards will have something to say about who becomes the democratic nominee since their primaries don’t engage in winner–take-all voting as is the case with republicans. But I suspect Hillary can taste the power of winning the White House and two things are certain about that fact: anyone who gets in the way of Hillary and her manic lust for power better watch their back (Obama: "Hillary, what are you doing with a shovel and duct tape in your trunk?"); and the more progress she makes toward wrapping up the nomination the more certain a third party candidate will emerge. Mr. Mayor, we could use another hero. Hope you’re listening.

P.S. I know I owe a New Year's resolution post, but one of my resolutions is to go on vacation and write more on my blog. Tonight I wrote this for the blog and tomorrow I go on vacation. That's two down!

Wither Democracy?

OK, I am probably out of my depth here and running the risk of Google Blog searches sending many unwanted viewers to my sleepy little Blog, but I may as well spout off anyway. This post is about the naïve view of democracy as practiced and shoved at the world by the Bush Administration and others who have turned into political pushers of this drug of majority rule.

The most recent evidence that democracy isn’t for everyone just occurred in Pakistan – or nuclear-armed Pakistan, as the media prefers. Of course we all know about the recent assassination of former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto. Her reason for coming out of exile was due to a grand plan hatched by Condoleezza Rice and the President that was supposed to put a power sharing arrangement in place with Pakistan’s current president, Pervez Musharraf who arrived as president in the decidedly non-democratic manner of leading a military coup and naming himself the leader of the government.

Of course this is where things get dicey because Musharraf is an enemy or our enemy (Al-Qaida) and, as a leader of a huge military, he is seen as something of a stopgap of growth of the terror group. Although he has not been altogether as successful as we would like, he does just enough to keep Washington’s billions headed his way. His willingness to hold elections gained him even more support.

Enter former Prime Minister Bhutto, who became a “former prime minister” after being sent into exile on corruption charges, leaving a mostly hostile country behind but not without at least $20 million to avoid living in exile on a skimpy budget.
American and European meddling forced Musharraf to hold “free and fair” election – a wonderful catch-phrase that doesn’t even work in our own country – and he won a sizeable majority of sitting lawmakers. An independent Supreme Court in Pakistan attempted to nullify the election but Musharraf fired the court and suspended the Constitution for several weeks. It is believed Bhutto declined to run for president because of the power-sharing agreement that was being worked out between her and Musharraf and pushed principally by the U.S. Naturally any agreement put in place that appears to exclude the voters, no matter the amount of international symmetry, was bound to smell to everyday Pakistanis and they viewed it as a deal between a corrupt former prime minister working in concert with a corrupt president. Of course they were likely correct.

All this set the stage for Bhutto to make a triumphant return to Pakistan for what was supposed to be a coronation. Everything seemed to be aligned; the international press, full of press kits from huge PR firms such as the U.S.’s Burson Marsteller (you can’t have a PR firm or a press without press kits), cleaned up her image outside of Pakistan while world leaders rejoiced at their own progressiveness of backing a woman in a male-dominated culture. Someone forgot to include the one million suspects who wanted her stopped at all costs and we had what most real analysts would say was a predictable result. Not only was her murder the second attempt on her life, Musharraf too has been a target, narrowly escaping two assassination attempts, all in Rawalpindi, coincidentally, which happens to be the head of the Pakistani military apparatus. This would be the equivalent of attempting to assassinate a sitting president in the U.S. in the middle of Fort Bragg.

So we have one sacrificed at the altar of democracy and this didn’t need to happen. Bhutto shouldn’t have believed her international press clippings and should have stayed in England as a permanent opposition group, and we shouldn’t have forced democracy on a people who are neither ready for such a form of governance nor ready to be governed, for that matter. I head one Pakistani say the killing of Bhutto was the same as the Kennedy assassination. Maybe to him it was, but I don’t remember a riot breaking out in the streets after Kennedy was shot and I don’t recall 50 people being killed from the civil unrest that’s been pushed by Bhutto supporters. Pakistan, with all its tribal factions among 170 million diverse people probably needs more of a dictator than someone promising a newest pro-democracy phrase, “rule of law.”

Why is what happened in Pakistan so important, I hear you ask before giving up on this messy post? Mainly because pushing democracy on an unsuspecting people has been done before and will be done again, and our Western leadership seems to have learned nothing from it. The Lebanese were pushed into voting for new leadership and the voters gave us a power struggle between two warring terror organizations, Hezbollah and Hamas. The moderates we supported came in third. We wanted free and fair elections in Nicaragua and because of American intervention, we got Daniel Ortega back in power with only 37 percent of the vote. What we was fought with bullets in the Eighties was turned around 20 years later with ballots.

The new weapon of choice of over-the-hill lefties is democracy, not armed conflict. In the past five years, voters have elected Socialist leaders in Venezuela, Bolivia, Ecuador and Mexico. These four countries make up more than 70 percent of our oil imports so we have to be nice even if we don’t like them.

In case you think this is a Bush Administration problem – and it is a big one – this happened under President Clinton too. How many remember the reason we sent the military to Haiti? Jean-Bertrand Aristide won what some say was the first democratic election, which ended the regime of the Duvalier family. Actually the younger Duvalier was, in fact, elected but immediately named himself ruler for life, a good job if you can get it. A well-armed American military re-installed Aristide who quickly lived down to most Haitian leaders, was re-elected in what is largely viewed as a Chicago-style, vote-counting scandal, only to be voted out by a former ally because he had done little to improve the Western Hemisphere’s poorest country. Makes one wonder why we helped in the first place.

Clinton also decided to become indirectly involved in internal Israeli politics by sending U.S. tax dollars to his politicos James Carville and Paul Begala to make sure Ehuad Barak was voted in instead of the strong-willed Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. It seems Clinton couldn’t work a deal between the Israelis and Palestinians and it was having a negative impact on his Nobel Peace Prize chances so he made sure the dance cards were re-arranged. A wimpy Barak eventually made a deal with the devil with the Oslo Peace Accords which ultimately resulted in peace in our time as evidenced by the First and Second Intifada.

Clinton also let Richard Holbrooke try his hand at dictatorship in the Balkans when the spoils of bombing former allies in Serbia allowed us to dictate who held the pink slip on Bosnia, the center of ethnic cleansing from all sides. Holbrooke’s idea – with a lot of help from other idiots – took place in the drafting of the Dayton Accords which said Bosnia would be trifurcated into a Muslim area, a Serb area and a split Muslim and Croat area. Leadership would be supplied by interested Europeans in what is called the Office of the High Representative, which can remove elected leaders from office and pretty much do what he or she wants. It is the only dictatorship in Europe, but don’t ask and don’t tell on that one as nobody involved likes to admit it.

Also out of the Balkans sprang up Kosovo. A district of the former Yugoslav Republic and strongly viewed by Serbs as a historic region of greater Serbia (strong as in willing to go to war to keep it from going independent). The Western world feels sorry for the ethnic Muslim Albanians who lead this tiny region that has no economy and no ability to survive on its own, so it’s forcing independence down the throats of unhappy Serbs. This has led to other breakaway republics around the world anxiously raising their hands and saying, “me too,” despite the fact that wankers like Holbrooke insist Kosovo is not a precedent. Fortunately his involvement in any future government is not a precedent either.

Bush doesn’t have clean hands in ensuring dummies get elected either. We spent what some will admit to be $160 million (probably twice that) to elect leadership-challenged Victor Yushchenko as president merely because he was not pro-Russian. I was there and I am certain that the U.S. government and its European allies stole the election from Viktor Yanukovich, thereby splitting the nation down the middle. All Yushchenko has done since elected is name is 22-year-old son as his economic minister and head for the office around noon where he paints for four hours before returning home. Meanwhile, the country is in the tank. The democracy pushers are very good at fixing elections but fall well-short when help is needed to actually lead a country. It should be no surprise that his approval rating is at 12 percent, up from nine percent after a number of Americans came on the scene to improve his image.

When the U.S. wishes to scold countries around the world for not being democratic enough, it likes to pick on Russia and its neighbor Belarus. We all hear about the evils of Russian President Vladimir Putin, whose personal approval rating is nearly four times that of President Bush. We read in self-important journals that the great former chess players Gary Kasparov has been marching to stem the rolling back of democracy in Russia and his travails are well-chronicled. What is not so well-chronicled is that when he marches, he has fewer than 1,000 supporters and it only looks like more because he marches alongside the neo-Bolsheviks who believe Putin isn’t autocratic enough.

In poor Belarus, where life is relatively safe and stable, U.S. leaders don’t like their president in Alexander Lukaschenko, who has won recent election in Castro-style with almost 90 percent of the vote (strangely American leftists don’t mind such lop-sided elections in Cuba). A New Jersey Congressman named Chris Smith got the “Belarus Democracy Act” passed, which essentially ends economic relations with the country and making them even more dependent on Russia for survival. Essentially a Congressman from a state like New Jersey has told the Belarusian people to vote out their president if they want to do business with us and become a nice puppet for future NATO expansion.

This seems like a good place to finalize the endless sham of democracy. While we do have this Belarus Democracy Act and thunderous media denunciation of President Putin, we seemed to have missed putting in place the Saudi Arabia Democracy Act or the Chinese Democracy Act or even the Azerbaijan Democracy Act. I guess if you sell us oil, give us space to put air bases and produce lead-based toys for our children, you can skip right beyond the need for democracy. And if we Americans don’t like that, we can always have a vote. I think there is one here next November. I wonder if the computer voting screens will be in place by then.

Airing Grievances

Demands were made by some kid (Agent 69) to write a Christmas post. I suppose I haven’t felt as much in the Christmas spirit as years past, so I have put it off until the actual day is almost upon us. But with our Christmas lights and ornaments in a box somewhere, I still haven’t been able to muster up enough holiday cheer – despite a gallon of eggnog – to write a post worthy of the day.

Part of my grumpiness has come from a number of irritating events that has turned me more Grinch than giving. Then it occurred to me there is another holiday that is practiced on December 23 where we get to air our grievances. What a better way to spend the holidays then to air grievances?

According to Wikipedia (which is almost always accurate unless it’s about me), the holiday of Festivus is a real holiday created by a Reader’s Digest editor who happened to have a son who became a writer for the Seinfeld Show. Hence the holiday wormed into our popular culture thanks to Frank Costanza. As invented, there really is a Festivus Pole, an “Airing of Grievances” and, following a Festivus dinner, a “Feats of Strength” involving a wrestling match between the head of the household (me, I guess) with other revelers. The last part should be fun.

But I want to focus, for the sake of the holiday, on the Airing of Grievances. Let’s begin in the bathroom. You folks with your Bluetooth headsets have got to stop your conversations upon entering the men’s room. Not only do I not want to hear you carrying on about nothing important while on the throne, I don’t want the person you’re talking to listening in on one of my private moments. In fact, I doubt they want to hear my private moments, along with the private moments of several others who went into the bathroom for its highest and best use.

Keeping in the bathroom, can we do something about the water-saving, low-flush toilets? I have a real problem with tossing a Kleenex into one and needing a plunger to get it down the drain. It’s designed to save precious water, but it ordinarily takes three flushes to complete the job. How does that save water?

In the shower the do-gooders from environmental central want you to save water with a shower nozzle that drips on you rather than cascades. It’s a real problem for me to take the nozzle off the shower head just to drill out a larger hole so I can get that luxurious shower I deserve in the morning. Sure the hot water runs out faster, but I can still get in a good 35-minute shower every morning.

Here’s another grievance: smart people who make stupid predictions, mainly those in the news media’s polling division. First we were told we wouldn’t spend as much this holiday season based on minimum-wage employees calling a few hundred people out of 300 million. This tidbit, sold as fact, made every headline in the country. The other 299 million defied the polls and went out and bought up the GI Joe and Barbie Doll as usual. Polls as news must always be correct so it was explained that while we purchased as many items, we didn’t spend as much since the prices were lower because everything is made out of lead in China. Please infer from their reporting that our economy teeters on the brink of a depression.

I heard a pundit today explain that Big Saturday (today) needed to be a big bang so the retailers wouldn’t all go out of business. However, another smart guy opined that we buyers wouldn’t purchase today because the retailers were only desperate and we’d wait until Sunday when they were panicked and then wait again on Monday until they were suicidal enough to give away a TV set with every purchase of a pack of chewing gum.

Pollsters and those who confuse the art of polling for news, is also worth complaining about on this great night of Festivus. It used to be that reporters covered elections by actually focusing on positions taken by candidates and what was good and bad in speeches they made. It’s true! I’ve read about it in books.

Today, reporters only write about which candidate is ahead in the daily polls – polls that appear to change based on a story about the polls. But polling has seemingly become too complicated for most political observers, so now they write about which candidate has the most money. As I understand it, having squeezed the most money out of special interest groups now best prepares a candidate to become president. And to think some are still stuck on the quaint notion that a president should have a certain set of what we call “positions,” “values,” and “experience.” Oh, and they must not have the last name of Clinton too, although that’s a grievance for another post.

My final grievance is referring to the season and the “holidays.” We can’t say Merry Christmas anymore for fear of offending someone who happens to celebrate something other than Christmas, such as Festivus. I tell friends to have a “happy birthday” even though most people who can hear me make this pronouncement are not having a birthday. I don’t get complaints about that unless it’s at one of those restaurants that makes the person having the birthday wear a big hat. I also have been known to say “Happy Thanksgiving” and “have a happy Independence Day” when I know full well that foreigners could be within ear shot. I don’t think this makes me insensitive to others, does it?

So, for the kid who asked for this post, I have the following politically correct plea: Please accept with no obligation, implied or implicit, my best wishes for an environmentally conscious, socially responsible, low-stress, non-addictive, gender-neutral celebration of the winter solstice holiday, practiced within the most enjoyable traditions of the religious persuasion of your choice, or secular practices of your choice, with respect for the religious/secular persuasion and/or traditions of others, or their choice not to practice religious or secular traditions at all. I also wish you a fiscally successful, personally fulfilling and medically uncomplicated recognition of the onset of the generally accepted calendar year 2008, but not without due respect for the calendars of choice of other cultures whose contributions to society have helped make America great. Not to imply that America is necessarily greater than any other country or the only America in the Western Hemisphere. Also, this wish is made without regard to the race, creed, color, age, physical ability, religious faith or sexual preference of the wish.

To my friends and relatives: Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!