Signs of the Times

News headline:

Cell Phone in Man's Chest Pocket Stops Bullet
Associated Press, Nov. 20, 2008

It used to be that pocket New Testaments did that. My how times have changed.

Oh No, Barack, Not That!

Most of the time I agree with Barama on issues and have defended him even when he is a pure politician, i. e., have recognized pragmatically that idealistic purists win only moral victories and never get elected. But now he has gone too far. He has endorsed a playoff system for college football and says he will throw his weight around to bring it about. Terrible, terrible!

A playoff system to be fair must include more than eight teams. Basketball starts with sixty-four. It would extend the football season even further into the New Year. Who says we have to determine a number one anyway? Better to have something to argue about over the winter. Besides one game does not necessarily decide which is the better team. Too many things can happen to determine who wins on a given day.

I will throw my weight around to return to the good old days when the major bowl games were on January 1, and we were done with it after such a major overdose on one day. Today's money-driven system is crazy, beyond redemption.

College football is thoroughly corrupt anyway. Consider the salaries and perks of the big-time coaches compared to that of the best professors and presidents of those schools. Utterly absurd. It is a sport driven by money and fat TV contracts, an abomination for educational institutions.

So Barama, get real. If you really want to do something worthy of your office, denounce it for the corrupt system it has become.

OK, OK, I know supporting a playoff system will get you lots of plaudits with thousands of fans who are beset with the same delusions you apparently share. So much for new politics.

Post-Election Reflection

1. Some of us remember a song from World War II -- When the Lights Go on Again all Over the World. Well, they went on about 11 PM, November 4, 2008. when the TV announcers said that Barack Obama had been elected President of the United States.

2. I cried twice on election night, once when I first knew that Barack Obama had won and thought how wonderful and again when I first knew that Barack Obama had won and thought how awful it was to have the job given the mess we're in. As The Onion put it in a headline, Black Man Given the Worst Job in the World.

White House Tour: Toilet in Lincoln Bedroom

When Laura was showing Michelle around the WH, I hope she warned her that you have to jiggle the handle in the toilet in the Lincoln Bedroom after every use to keep the water from overflowing. That always annoyed me when I was there.

And I thought that handwritten note that Rosalyn Carter had taped on it in 1979 reminding everyone to jiggle after flushing was a little tacky.

Maybe with all the books Barack is selling since his election, he could afford to bring in a plumber to fix it. Actually, I would do it free if they wanted, just to save taxpayers a little money, what with the deficit and the economic crisis and all.

Famous But Fatuous Political Statement

Some of the most famous statements in recent political history are bull biscuits.

In 1933 Franklin Delano Roosevelt said, "We have nothing to fear but fear itself." Nonsense. People had a lot to fear, during the Great Depression, things like unemployment, poverty, homelessness, hunger, and the like. Just ask my Dad, who lived through it.

In his campaign for VP with Michael Dukakis in 1988 against George the Elder Bush, Lloyd Bentsen said to Dan Quayle, the Republican candidate, "I know Jack Kennedy . . . and, Senator, you are no Jack Kennedy." That statement was mean, gratuitous, insulting, vacuous, obvious, just to get started.

In 1961, John Kennedy said, "Ask not your country can do for you but what you can do for your country." Nice rhetoric, has a nice sound to it, clever to use the reverse images, etc. But the statement is empty without some specifics to give it content.

And not universally applicable, e. g., those who were sent to Iraq to fight this senseless war have every right to ask what their country can do for them when they return -- if they do.

Kennedy's speech to the Baptist preachers in Houston in 1960 is lauded as a clear-headed statement on church and state, but it is actually shallow and confused regarding the difference between church and state and between religiion and politics.

http://www.americanrhetoric.com/speeches/jfkhoustonministers.html

Maria Cumo and Obama have a much better and more profound grasp of the issues.

See my article:
http://www.frontiernet.net/~kenc/presidentialreligionpolitics.html

Why, then, are they so famous and so often repeated? Beats the heck out of me.

Trust Obama, Oh Ye of Little Faith

Some are already criticizing Obama for designating Rahm Emanuel as his Chief of Staff -- one of his very first choices -- because of his close Israeli ties.

Here is my theory about Rahm Emanuel. First, it is a gesture to the Jewish community that will help him to get tougher on Israel later on. Second, he knows that to get stuff done, he has to pass legislation through Congress. RE is just the kind of tough SOB who can help with that.

Whether my theory is right, you can be sure that Obama had clear purposes in mind that had been thoroughly thought through when he chose RE. I trust him. He succeeded in the primaries and in the election by ignoring the advice I gave him.

BO will certainly make choices that will make those of us on the idealistic left squirm. We should not hesitate to criticize him when we think he is wrong. He plays a tough political game. He obviously catered (pandered?) to farmers in Iowa and Illinois in supporting ethanol subsidies. He broke his promise on public campaign finance. He has been quiet on Israel's sins, etc., etc. Jack Kennedy's father bought West Virginia for him in the primaries by paying off the country sheriffs in 1960, as I understand it.

He could not survive politically if he tried to satisfy my tendency toward democratic socialism, even if he shared my views. The question is how does Obama balance realism and idealism, pragmatism and principle, in the long run, especially on the big issues.

For the moment, I trust BO more than I do the people so eager to criticize him so early. I think we should give him a break and allow him some time, but when appropriate we need to be critical as necessary, and I think he would want that.

Cloning Extinct Species

I read in the paper this morning that scientists hope to clone extinct species. My understanding is that their first effort will focus on the Republican Party.

Ten Reasons Why John McCain Could Still Win the Election

Watch the video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U2XgR10u_Mk

10. Sarah Palin climbs on a big rock in her back yard to get a better view of Russia, and when it rolls over discovers a new oil field that has more oil than Saudi Arabia.

9. Michelle confesses that her secret wish is to start a madrassa in the White House and teach Wahhabism to black kids from the D. C. ghetto.

8. Barack acknowledges that a spell has been cast on him such that if he even glances at a full moon, he will turn into Dick Cheney and look like Alan Greenspan.

7. The Pope puts Sarah on the fast track to become a saint.

6. Bill Gates and Warren Buffet agree to pay off the national debt if Sarah Palin with go with them on a 10 day moose hunt in Alaska with only a very small tent to sleep in while Todd stays home with the kids.

5. Michelle admits that she slept with Bill Clinton to get him to campaign for Barack.

4. Obama admits that McCain has found him out and confesses to being a terrorist, a socialist, and a Muslim cousin of Saddam Hussein, from whom he got his middle name.

3. An angel appears on Mt. Sinai with irrefutable proof that McCain was born of a virgin.

2. Osama bin Laden helicopters into the middle of a rally in Ohio and personally surrenders to McCain.

1. President George W. Bush endorses Obama.

McCain-Palin -- a Poetic Reflection

See the video:
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=2030649403297420759

Have no fear. All is well.
McCain's chances have gone to hell.

He chose to go with a beauty-queen hottie.
Now his hopes are in the potty.

A bridge to nowhere: Sarah Palin.
M's gimmick -- deservedly failin'.

Let them throw their dirty dirt.
It will not Obama hurt.

Will be seen for what it is:
A final, desperate, worthless fizz.

Socialist, terrorist -- it didn't work.
Just showed M to be a jerk

Have no fear. All is well.
McCain's chances have gone to hell.

Still we wait, dreading the worst.
Surely our bubble yet will burst.

Yet on we go trembling with hope.
Please ruthless fate don't say NOPE.

Nader Revisited and Obama Praised

My first blog was about Ralph Nader (April 19, 2004). The main point of it was Nader is a secular prophet and saint, a political idiot, and a massive ego burdened by self-righteousness.

I was reminded of this last night when I heard him on the NPR News Hour. He is right on all the issues from my point of view.

He pointed out, for example, that both candidates speak always of the middle class, never of the poor. That simply indicates that a presidential candidacy based on Nader's ideas has a zero chance of success in the prevailing political and cultural climate. This morning on NPR Kevin Phillips repeated some of Nader's themes.

I fervently hope that Barack Obama is elected president. That for me will be a day of great rejoicing. I think he will be as good a president a political reality will allow to be.

The problem is that both parties are ruled, or at least constrained, by the wealthy and the corporate class. They provide the money without which political success is impossible, but it is a corrupt system. Obama is the victim and perpetrator of it. He received in 2008 693 thousand dollars from Goldman Sachs alone and hundreds of thousands more from similar institutions.

The cultural reactionaries, among whom are many Protestants, and the plutocracy have far too much influence.

White Protestants have helped elect Republicans for decades since the era of FDR and the southern embrace of Republicans since the Civil Rights era. White Protestants gave us Nixon, Regan, and two Bushes.

Obama will be less bad, even much better than McCain, but from the perspective of this democratic socialist, he cannot be a good president because the system will not allow him to be even if he wanted to be, and I am not sure of the latter.

Until we have a radical social, political, and cultural transformation, improvements in justice for the poor, the working class, and the middle class will be at the margins. However, as Reinhold Niebuhr pointed out decades ago, even minimal advances toward justice can make a great deal of positive difference in the lives of large numbers of people.

That is why I fervently hope that Obama will be elected president.

What Do You Mean, Who Won?

After every debate the great question is, Who Won? But nobody ever defines what winning means. Therefore, any answer is meaningless. I can think of several possibilities:

1. X was the better debater -- better informed, all factual claims were accurate, more articulate, logically compelling arguments, and the like.

2. X had the sharp zingers that will dominate the news the next day.

3. X won more voters for his/her candidate than the other.

4. X was more personally engaging, made better contact with the audience.

5. I preferred candidate X for my own reasons.

6. A combination of some or all of the above.

7. None of the above.

Next question: Are we safer now than before 9-11? Adapt the above argument to this one, i. e., meaningless without definition.

Selah!

In Praise of Sarah Palin and all the Unqualified

I'll tell you, I am just sick and tired of hearing people say that Sarah Palin is not qualified to be Vice President. Of course, she is not, but so what?

There are millions and millions of people in this country, including myself, who are not qualified to be Vice President. The unqualified deserve to be represented just like everybody else. She is one of the unqualified, so who better to represent the unqualified than she?

On Getting Sick Enough to Vomit: The Discipline of a Good Depression

We all know that you feel better after you vomit, but nobody wants to get that sick.

It is horrible to think about it, and I feel guilty for even letting the idea surface. But I will proceed anyway. Would a serious economic depression be good for us in the long run? It might.

Could a good depression revive the prudence, discipline, and caution that the Great Depression reinforced in the generation represented by my parents and grandparents.? If so, America might be the better for it.

In recent decades we have developed some toxic cultural habits -- runaway consumerism, an unrestrained self-indulgent hedonism promoted by corporate advertising, disdain for delayed gratification, greed for bigger houses, cars, and the latest gadgets, a pattern of living beyond our means, a careless attitude toward debt aided and abetted by the easy availability of credit and credit cards, failure to consider the consequences of our reckless extravagance, and the like.

To revive an old phrase, the "Protestant ethic" has died. Even many of the churches that are growing rapidly are preaching a gospel of prosperity that a shocked Calvin would have abhorred. Paradoxically, it was the disciplined style of life that valued work and thrift as a divinely-approved virtues that helped generate the widespread prosperity subsequent generations enjoyed. In capitalism individual self-interest was supposed to produce universal welfare. Sadly we find in the current generation a bastardized form of culture that lacks the self-restraint and prudence of the stringent ethic of the past and retains only the desire and expectation of the unlimited possession of material goods in a life of self-indulgent gratification.

No, I don't wish another Great Depression on myself, my children, and grandchildren along with the whole lot of us. I just wish that we could recover the ethic strengthened by it for a generation badly in need of repentance and newness of life. But sometimes we need to get very sick before we can vomit and feel better.

Damnation by Designation: the "Bailout"

What's in a name? A heck of a lot.

The rescue plan that was defeated today was damned from the start once it became known as a "bailout of Wall Street by taxpayers." Of course, we all hate that.

But that's about all that got through apparently. The dire consequences of not rescuing the financial industry was only a echo of the original ear-splitting blast.

Once the idea of a bailout of Wall Street became the way most people thought about it, proponents failed to make the point that the "bailout" was the means. The end was to save us all -- Wall Street and Main Street. In the glare of a"bailout" of the very financial geniuses of Wall Street who caused it (forgetting about all the greedy people who foolishly bought houses and cars, etc., etc. etc., and got themselves into unsustainable debt) the little glimmer of light that failure to do so would sink us all never got into the public mind, despite all the warnings from all sides.

My understanding from the economists I trust is that while the rescue plan was badly constructed and probably not the best way to accomplish the objective -- saving the financial system -- it was better than doing nothing and was the bill before us.
http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/09/30/where-will-the-money-come-from/

Once the serious consequences of a failure to get credit flowing again begins to hurt masses of people, maybe some constructive action will follow.

Now if only the politicians would stop trying to exploit the issue for partisan purposes, but, uh oh, I am dreaming again.

Quasi-Acerbic Oddities for the Day

I am now convinced that Bill Clinton wants Obama to lose, so Hillary can run in 2012. He is oozing with enthusiastic praise for McCain and Palin and damning Obama with "Oh, he's nice too" remarks. I take back the nice things I said about him after his Convention speech.

Sarah Palin is self-destructing. She has been knocked off her lofty perch, has lost confidence, and is giving 10th grade answers to simple questions, and looking like a simpleton. Can she recover? Maybe.

Sinister Scheme to Make McCain the Economic Savior

I smell a rat. I suspect that the mother of all Rovian plots is about to appear that will make McCain the brave hero who saves the nation from economic disaster just in time for him to make the debate tonight on foreign policy on which he already has an advantage.

It can take several paths. He scares the daylights out of House Republicans, convincing them that if that don't come to his aid right now, Obama will become president and appoint liberal judges to the Supreme Court, bring in a reign of government control, spend great sums on social programs, and so on. They agree to hold their nose and support a bi-partisan Rescue Package enabling the revised Paulson plan to pass.

McCain gets Democrats to accept enough of the House Republican modifications to persuade everybody to go along. Democrats will either have to accept the changes to get a deal, or they will have to refuse and take blame for the failure. Or Democrats can pass it on their own and risk ruin if the plan fails.

Combinations and variations of all the above or some new possibilities emerge -- all designed to make McCain the hero who rode into town and took charge.

It could be worked so that failure still looms until Obama leaves for Oxford. Then the McCain-engineered plan could be worked out and announced just as Obama begins his town hall meeting before the nation, thus stealing the spotlight from him.

I tell you that some nefarious scheme is underfoot to make McCain look good as the Great Leader and Obama to look weak and ineffectual in times of crisis -- more willing to hold a silly old debate than to save the nation from disaster. We have reports already that McCain was working the phones all night.

Can the Democrats spoil the conspiracy and save Obama's hide? Maybe. Am I paranoid? Maybe, but just because you are paranoid does not mean they are not after you.

If I am wrong, I will repent and confess my lack of faith. If I am right, I will not enjoy my prescient vision of Democrats once again blowing the presidency by being outsmarted by the forces of darkness.

Deep Thinker Palin or I Can't Believe She Really Said That

With thanks to Ruth Marcus of The Washington Post.

In a recent interview Sean Hannity of Fox News tossed Sarah Palin the following softball (slow pitch):

Hannity: What is our role as a country as it relates to national security?

Palin: Yes. That's a great question, and being an optimist I see our role in the world as one of being a force for good, and one of being the leader of the world when it comes to the values that -- it seems that just human kind embraces the values that -- encompass life and liberty and the pursuit of happiness, and that's just -- not just in America, that is in our world.

And America is in a position because we care for so many people to be able to lead and to be able to have a strong diplomacy and a strong military also at the same time to defend not only our freedoms, but to help these rising smaller democratic countries that are just -- you know, they're putting themselves on the map right now, and they're going to be looking to America as that leader.

We being used as a force for good is how I see our country.

http://voices.washingtonpost.com
/postpartisan/2008/09/palin_on_thin_ice.html

Gee, Sarah, I bet you made an A in that 6th grade civics class.
You what? You want to be a heartbeat away from being President of the United States.

Geography is Everything, Well Almost

I did the interactive electoral map at RealClear Politics and chose the states (blue) I thought Obama could put in his column and thus win the election.

The geographical elements were so strong that it reminded me of a previous blog in which I set forth a geographical theory of politics. It is so prescient and so brilliant (ha ha) that I dare to repeat it here.

Thursday, November 18, 2004

A Geographical Theory of Winning in 2008

Look at the electoral maps of 2000 and 2004. The geographical pattern is striking, allowing for minor exceptions. The blue Democratic states are the Northeast, the upper Midwest, and the states bordering the Pacific. The red Republican states are the Southeast, Southwest, lower Midwest, mountain and plains states. A pre-Civil War map showing free (blue) and slave (red) states and territories almost exactly matches the electoral map of 2004.

While electoral maps of many other years would not be this striking, a geographical factor is present, except in blowout years like 1936, 1972, and 1984. Look at it another way. Democrats won the large cities, while Republicans won the small towns and rural areas, with the suburbs split. Divisions are also noticeable with regard to income, education,, religion, race and ethnicity, age, marital status, and gender, but geography is relevant to many of these as well. Zip code is an important clue all by itself.

Since this is a blog and not a book, what can we learn from this? Geography is a useful clue to many other things -- history, economics, religion, and culture. The geography of the South, e. g., was conducive to cotton growing and therefore slavery, which has deeply affected its entire history. Geographical factors account in part for immigration patterns and the Protestant domination of the South.

Geography is a component of, if not clue to, how things worked out in other areas with regard to economics, culture, and religion. So what does this mean for 2008? Assuming that the situation will remain much like it is now in terms of red and blues states as is probable, ask how the blue states can be preserved for the Democrats while reaching out to enough other states that can be likely won to win the election. Some decisions are easy. Massachusetts is probably a safe bet if the Democrats don't do something crazy, but forget Utah for a while. Either Florida or Ohio is probably a must, remembering that a shift of only 70,000 votes in Ohio in 2004 would have given the victory to Kerry.

Looking toward 2008, Democrats live in tension between holding true to their values and getting elected. How to win without losing your soul -- that is the question. With Gov. Mark Warner of Virginia, we risk losing our soul. With Sen. Hillary Clinton, we risk losing the election. My sentimental favorites at the moment are John Edwards and Barack Obama, but time may question the wisdom of one or both. But to begin with candidates, issues, and values is to get the cart before the horse. We need to start with geographical, historical-cultural factors and make a structural analysis of where enough more votes can come from next time to enlarge the number of blue states. Then we can match messenger and message to that purpose.

Semi-Acerbic Oddities on a Night of Upset Tummy

Will somebody please explain to me the difference between "moral" and "ethical" when used together to speak of issues or problems. Thesis: one or the other should be dropped.

Time to retire the following terms: campaign trail, populist, Wall Street and Main Street, bailout

I would suggest the two words most needing retirement -- well and you know -- but, well, I am aware that, you know, that is impossible since it would paralyze most speakers.

Time to quit having the following on TV news shows: political strategists of all denomination -- Democratic, Republican, or whatever. They offer nothing valuable and are boring time fillers, a waste of time.

Politicians should be allowed to speak only when attached to a polygraph machine and after a shot of truth serum. Any lie detected should generate an electric shock in the _________ (fill in the blank).

Medical wonders occur every day. But remember, doctors don't do it alone. They do it with nurses.

No More Sexism Please

I think the sexism expressed in regard to Gov. Sarah Palin is terrible. Those who are guilty of it should be ashamed. An apology is owed to the Governor by those delegates at the Republican Convention who wore badges that said, "Hoosiers for the hot chick."