Give The People What They Want

As our no-longer-governable, no-longer-sane nation continues its long slide toward collapse, I've adopted a new political philosophy. That philosophy can be summed up in two words: Fuck it.

So, in light of that new worldview, I say, in all seriousness, let's give the idiots what they want. They want the hands of the Federal government off of their health care? Fine by me.

Let's get rid of Medicare, Medicaid and SCHIP. Let's stop the antitrust exemption for health-insurance companies. And, most of all, let's end the taxpayer subsidy of employer-provided health insurance in America.

And then we can sit back and watch, our mirth meters maxed out, as those same morons whine endlessly about their elderly parents suddenly becoming their financial responsibility, about their actual, full compensation from work being taxed, about the exponential increases in the costs of care. It would be sublimely amusing to hear the Becks and Limbaughs of the world tell them that this GOP dream-come-true is all the fault of the evil libruls. And to watch them believe it.

Hell, such policy changes wouldn't affect me. I'd still be a working-class schlub who can't afford insurance. My parents are both dead, and I won't live long enough to worry about Medicare anyway.

That's what it's all about in today's America, right? It's all I, me, mine, and to hell with the common good.

Let's do it.

Democracy In America: It Was Nice While It Lasted

Democracy in the United States of America is now finished. Done. Kaput.

The radical right Thursday succeeded in their ultimate goal: Destroying the America in which I grew up, the America that I proudly served and loved. They did so through the beyond-merely-conservative judicial nominations of the last thirty years, in the person of the Supreme Court's decision concerning Citizens United v. FEC.

Activist Justices Roberts, Alito, Scalia, Thomas and Kennedy have broken entirely with precedent in unleashing the full capacity of corporations, be they American or not, be they criminal or not, to spend their general funds upon influencing elections within this country.

The clerical error of the 1886 Santa Clara County v. Southern Pacific Railroad decision -- the SCOTUS decision that is claimed to have granted corporations personhood -- has been taken to its illogical conclusion, and in so doing the High Court has effectively diminished the rights of actual persons to the point that they may as well no longer exist.

In the end, the radical right believes that the costs of government should be borne by the working class while its benefits should accrue only to the wealthy. With this decision, that twisted "dream" is one very large step closer to sad reality.

The effects of this ruling may not be apparent to us immediately, perhaps, but they will eventually erode away the fabric of true democracy. Despite the natural tendency of America's electorate to resist concentrated power (either political or monetary), this new class of Supercitizens can count upon the pusillanimous and self-serving nature of the American political class.

Think about the prospective corporate attack apparatus that will face any incumbent in a potentially vulnerable seat that resists falling into line with the desired agenda, the threat to his or her reelection. The change in our political process will be much more about intimidation -- the threat of action -- than outright, overt action. This revolution will not be televised, if the powerful have their way, and we will be none the wiser until it is far too late.

And that's it. Goodbye America. Game over. Fritos, man.

Maybe It's Time To Give Up

Are we a serious people?

That question has repeatedly been posed by Bill Maher on Real Time in the past year; I think it's a good one. And I fear that the answer is a resounding, "No."

We are a people who believes that we can get something for nothing. We believe that we can simultaneously have both increased government services and lower taxes. We decry government "pork-barrel" spending, yet ferociously defend any program, agency or policy that directly benefits us individually. We shed crocodile tears about the burdens our current policies will place upon future generations, yet refuse to do anything to change those policies.

The politics of our day is a stunning exercise in self-delusion and cognitive dissonance. I encounter many liberals, people who supported Barack Obama's Presidential bid, who are in many cases absolutely enraged that the President is enacting exactly the policies that he promulgated during the campaign. And conservatives who nodded heartily in agreement when Vice President Cheney intoned, "Deficits don't matter," who cheered as the Bush Administration went about the business of squandering the budget surpluses left them by the Clinton Administration, now unselfconsciously clothe themselves in the ill-fitting robe of fiscal responsibility.

Today's political parties, to a greater degree than since the Gilded Age, serve narrowly-defined constituencies; the corrosive influence of special-interest monies has eaten away at the notion of a "public good." Good policy no longer matters, only the exigencies of the permanent election cycle. And, most disturbing, we actually embrace this notion of politics-as-gladiatorial-theater; we root for our chosen "leaders" and their insincere, insubstantial, bought-and-paid-for ideologies as though they were players for our favorite sports team.

This can be seen even in America's pop culture. A new class of celebrity has emerged: people who are famous just for being famous. Lack of talent, ability or intelligence is no longer an issue, as long as one is determined enough to force one's way into the popular consciousness. We have Paris, Jon, Kate, OctoMom, Balloon Boy, and the list goes on, and on, and on.

This is not the manner in which a serious people behaves. It is the behavior, rather, of an empire in decline. One can't help but think that we have reached the point as a nation where we are essentially ungovernable; we have lost the self-discipline and perspective to forestall our eventual, inevitable collapse as a society.

And so I sadly say: Perhaps it is time for the serious-minded among us to give simply up and join in America's death-throe party. Though we may be well-meaning, the pearls we cast before swine just don't matter.

Making Up Their Own Facts

Yesterday I had an interesting conversation with a Conservative acquaintance, one in which he claimed that one's political affiliation determines which "facts" one chooses to believe. We were speaking in particular about the current health-care-reform debate, and, essentially, his assertion was that there is somehow an equivalence between the latest Glenn (The University of I Don't Remember) Beck fabrication and actual, real-world statistics compiled by organizations such as WHO.

And so it goes with the Radical Right. If reality is too difficult or inconvenient, then they truly believe that they can simply make up an alternative set of facts that better fit the way they want to see the world.


Just look back to those heady days of the Bush Administration's first term, when the Neocons so arrogantly proclaimed that "...we create our own reality." Those of us in the "reality-based community" were passe, hopelessly mired in a non-fantasy-based past.

I think we all can recall how that worked itself out in Mister Bush's second term.

Because, no matter how much one might want want to believe, say, that America's health-care system provides the best results in the world... well, that pesky reality does keep getting in the way. We don't cover as large a percentage of our population as, get worse results than, and still rack up more money spent per capita than, any other Western democracy. And no amount of made-up drivel about "Death Panels" or "Socialism" is going to change that.

A Picture Worth A Thousand Words

This says more about the teabaggers than I ever could.

The Crazy Lady Who "Represents" Me

Yes, the one and only, certifiably insane Michelle Bachmann, "my" U.S. Representative, is at it again. The most recent crazy quote:

The steps that are being taken by the current Administration have more in line with the Weimar Republic in the 1920s.

Setting aside that she mispronounces "Weimar," it's still quite entertaining that Bachmann would compare the Obama Administration to the democratically-elected government of Germany in the period of 1919-1933. After all, since she wants to supplant the current government, wouldn't that make her, and those allied with her, the historical equivalent of Hitler and the Nazis?

Of course, I'm not really suggesting that she and her ilk are the equivalent of fascists. (I, unlike them, am too well-enough grounded in both reality and human decency to sink to such lows.) But it is hilarious that Bachmann is so historically illiterate that she does not see the obvious logical extension of her assertion.

One way or another, it's just pretty damn funny. And telling.

Welcome Back, Michael Vick?

Thursday night, news came that quarterback and NFL pariah Michael Vick has returned to the league, signed by the Philadelphia Eagles to bolster their chances of making it to the Super Bowl. And this development leaves me feeling deeply ambivalent.

Does a man like Vick -- a felon convicted of Federal charges stemming from his involvement in a horrific dogfighting ring, yet also a man who has paid his proverbial "debt to society" -- now deserve another chance to pursue a very, very lucrative football career?

I just don't know.

In a press conference Friday, he said, "I know I've done some terrible things, made a horrible mistake... We all have issues, we all deal with certain things..." But what he did to land behind bars was no mistake, no garden-variety accident. His actions, though truly difficult to fathom, were willful and deliberate. The brutality that Vick displayed in pitting his unwilling canine minions against each other in fights to the death, as well as in executing many of them, indicates a cruelty, a lack of empathy that is often found in incipient serial killers, not in your average citizen.

And such language makes me feel as though he really hasn't come to grips with what he did; instead, it seems as though he is sorry only that he got caught and had to pay the price.

Nonetheless, he has paid the price -- a terrible price that cost him years of his life in prison, years of his career and millions upon millions of dollars, driving him to bankruptcy. Should we now deprive him of the opportunity to make a future living, too?

Were veterinary medicine or animal husbandry his chosen work, perhaps we would be right in doing so. But now, I fear, we must simply hope that Michael Vick is able to live up to his own professions of rehabilitation. I wish him the best; perhaps he can actually get his life straightened out.

But I'm surely glad that he isn't trying to do so as a member of my beloved Vikings.

So Much For Health Care Reform

At this point, I think I can officially announce that health care reform in the United States is again dead. It will not happen; millions will continue to lack coverage, with millions more under-covered, and the costs to our nation will keep escalating. And the fault belongs entirely to the majority Democratic Party.

Let's start with President Obama, for it was he who, out of hand, rejected the notion of a single-payer system, thus immediately shifting the debate rightward and eliminating as a possibility the surest method to expand coverage, control costs and improve outcomes.

Mister Obama, as President, has given up thinking big for some hope of bipartisanship. But the Republicans have no interest in being bipartisan; they wish only to muddy the waters and score inside-the-beltway political points. So why give up policy for a pipe dream? And isn't making good policy really what politics is all about?

And then there are the conservative Democrats, the Blue Dogs. Whether you consider it fortunate or unfortunate, as the G.O.P. has devolved into a party at the margins of political thought, the Democratic Party has become the refuge of serious politicians, be they liberal, moderate or conservative. At this point, the debate within the party has come to matter far more than the debate between parties.

And the Blue Dogs are very concerned about the cost of health care reform. What they fail to deal with, though, is the cost of failing to enact serious change. At this point health care eats up over 17% of GDP -- that's more than $2.7 trillion -- and those costs are going to continue rising exponentially if we do nothing. We already pay the costs of health care, and will continue to do so; it is just a matter of how, and how intelligently, we decide to do so.

Also telling is the amount of money that is flowing into our lawmaking process from the health insurance and pharmaceutical industries, and the results that it buys. That political finance in the U.S. is nothing more than a system of legalized bribery can no longer be reasonably argued -- but this is an issue that neither party seems particularly interested in addressing (I guess that is where you can find true bipartisanship in Washington).

This mess, caused by the corruption that is Washington, D.C., means that our elected representatives will essentially do nothing to meaningfully change our current broken system, even if a bill somehow makes it through the process. What I fear is that we will end up with an individual mandate for insurance while failing to control costs or improve care -- in other words, a massive giveaway to insurance and drug providers at public expense.

And if it happens, the fault will lay directly at the feet of the Democrats.

Franklin Henry Means, 1922-2009

Long ago, when my wife Barb and I were in the nascent, getting-to-know-each-other phase of our relationship, she one day asked me, "Who are your heroes?" I was able to reply without hesitation: "John Lennon and my Dad." She was suitably impressed.

Suitably, I say, because it really had nothing to do with me. Instead, it was a testament to what kind of man my father was; his character was so evident that even that stupid, cocky, know-it-all teenage boy could see it.

Frank Means, my Dad, died today at age 86.

Dad's story was, in many ways, the common story of his generation: His childhood was shaped by the cruelties of the Great Depression; his young adulthood was spent in the service of his country during the Second World War and as part of the Army of Occupation of Japan; he returned home to marry the woman he loved, to build a family and a life (and, in so doing, to help rebuild our nation) through hard work, thrift and patience.

But to reduce the life of Frank Means to something so trite as a mere demographic exercise would be a great disservice. He was not a man of means, nor power, nor wide acclaim. Yet in that supposedly "ordinary" life, he was an extraordinary man.

In a world where simple, common decency is far too uncommon, Dad was the embodiment of the notion. He saw other people as human beings -- not as tools to be manipulated toward his ends, not as obstacles to be overcome, not as merely the money with which they might be parted nor as the sum total of their possessions, but as people endowed with human dignity and deserving of a basic respect.

When I was a child of perhaps ten, I found a five-dollar bill on the floor of the local dime store; when I brought it to the attention of the cashier, an elderly woman immediately claimed it as money that she had lost, and, though it was clearly not actually hers, I gave it to her. This bothered me, and I told Dad about it later. He thought about it for moment, and then said, "Well, she must have needed that money a lot more than you did."

Looking back now, of course, I know that Dad was right. The woman was clearly not well-off; that five dollars that might have bought me a few packs of baseball cards or a treat instead probably bought her a couple of meals. It was a lasting lesson that Dad managed to impart in thirteen simple words.

Outstanding, too, about Dad was his sense of humor. His smile was always at the ready, his laughter a big, booming affair that carried across the largest of rooms. We often joked that in order to find Dad, all you had to do was follow the sound of that laugh.

There was an enduring love of baseball that ran deep in him, a love that he also imparted to his children. As a young man, he played the game. Constantly, and well enough that he was actually offered a minor-league contract by the Milwaukee Braves. Dad, then with a young family, had to say no to that offer, to the vagaries and uncertainties of the minor-league life, but it certainly was evidence of the skill and joy that he brought to the sport.

By the time that I was old enough to be part of it, he was in his mid-fifties and had moved on to managing (along with his friend and brother-in-law, Chuck) Spooner's city league baseball team. I was only able to see Dad play once, when the team was so shorthanded that it pressed him into service. Even at age 54, he went 3 for 4 with an RBI against a pitcher less than half his age. I don't know if I ever saw him smile so broadly as he did that day.

There was Dad's tender, affectionate nature, which, too, lives on in his children. Having lost his own father to cancer when he was only twelve years old, he endeavored to give his family the paternal love that he had missed for much of his life. I don't think that a day went by in my childhood during which I was not told that I was loved. Dad taught me that a man could be masculine while still being warm-hearted, loving, even sentimental.

And of course no recollection of Frank Means would be complete without mention of the greatest love of his life: his wife, his partner, Kathleen Means. He said that he fell for her the first time he saw her, Chuck's little sister, when she was just thirteen years old. That love endured for more than half a century; his devotion to, and respect for, Mom was extraordinary, deep and abiding, lasting far beyond her death in January of 1999. He was always patient with her, kind, gentle, indulgent. A gentleman in the finest sense of the word.

As much as anything, that has shaped the man that I am today, the relationship that I have with Barb. He taught me to honor women and womanhood, to see as precious the bond between the two of us, as partners, as lovers, as friends.

In recent years, much of what made Dad who he was began to slowly, and then more precipitously, fade. The laughter came less and less often; the humor became less apparent. There were still glimpses of the real Dad, but he was gradually robbed from us, and, worse, from himself. That he has now rejoined Mom is only right. But that doesn't make it any easier for those of us who must go on without him, without his smile and love and wisdom.

My failings and failures in this world are my own. But most of the little good that I manage to achieve in this world is due to Frank Means.

I miss you, Dad, and I love you.

Ignorance Is Not Virtue

The culture wars continue, with now-well-known idiot (and Arizona Republican State Senator) Sylvia Allen exhibiting her vast knowledge of both geology and cosmology. That such a display of ignorance is essentially required to win a primary as a member of the GOP is a sad commentary upon the state of both the party and our nation.

In my dark hours, I fear that we are truly in a cosmic war, one that will determine whether mankind continues forward toward a true planetary civilization or sinks back into the darkness of its past, withering to eventual extinction. It is a fight between those of us who can embrace modernity and those who cling to callowness, superstition and prejudice.

In this fight, the likes of Osama bin Laden and Ali Khamenei are allied with the Sam Brownbacks and Pat Robertsons and James Inhofes of the world, each of them trying to stamp out rational thought in the name of his own version of fundamentalist purity, each of them certain that he is the true servant of the one true god, each ready to murder any and all who don't see the world as he does.

I've said it before, and I'll say it again: If it wishes to survive, humanity had better hope that my side wins.

This Is Just Wrong

Professional attention whore (and part-time NFL quarterback) Brett Favre in a Minnesota Vikings uniform? I've hoped against hope that it wouldn't happen.

After Monday's HBO premiere of Joe Buck Live, however, it seems to be a sad inevitability. In his interview with Buck, Favre essentially said that, as long as his arm heals as expected from recent surgery, he will be a member of my beloved Vikings. And nothing could be more wrong.

Roger Staubach didn't end his career as a Redskin; Kirby Puckett didn't go play for Tony LaRussa in Oakland; Ernie Banks didn't migrate to the South Side of Chicago.

So why does the Hillbilly Gunslinger torment us so? To see him in purple and gold will be nothing short of an abomination. Rooting for the Favre-led Vikings will be virtually impossible, and, should he actually take us to football's promised land, the entire experience will be tainted so much as to make it utterly miserable.

Favre must surely be aware of the tarnish that he is putting upon his reputation. His gift sack for Michael Strahan, his endless "will-I-retire-or-won't-I?" off-season dramas, his forced trade to the Jets, and now this... Do yourself, and all of us, a favor, Brett. Stay retired.

And This Is Why I Can't Be A Democrat

Over the last week or so, details have begun to emerge concerning the knowledge that Congressional Democratic leadership -- and particularly Nancy Pelosi -- had about America's use of "enhanced interrogation techniques" (read: torture) in the period immediately following September 11, 2001.

Sadly, after much dissembling and backtracking by the Speaker, it has become apparent that, at the very least (and despite her knowledge), she failed to raise any meaningful objections to these techniques until it became politically expedient for her to do so. Or, as 2004 candidate John Kerry might have said, Pelosi was "for torture before she was against it."

This is exactly why I can never be a member of the Democratic Party, why I could not bring myself to vote for John Kerry, nor for Al Gore before him, nor for Bill Clinton before him. Too often, too many Democrats (even on occasions when their inclinations may be correct) tend to take the path of least political resistance and ignore their principles. Or what should be their principles, were they not almost as corrupted by power and special interests as are their Republican rivals.

And what I find almost as disturbing is the willingness of many on the left to act as mere shills, to be apologists for the dereliction of duty practiced by Pelosi and her ilk. If she failed in her responsibilities to America, then let her face the consequences. She -- and all Democrats -- must be made to understand that enduring American ideals matter far more than the latest opinion poll, far more than the fleeting popularity of a Republican administration, far more than the next electoral cycle.

And, if they cannot understand this, then they do not deserve to maintain their current positions of power.

*****

That said, let us take a look at a point of emphasis about which the Left is currently obsessing: torture investigations and prosecutions. To me, there could be no worse idea. The President is correct; there is little of value that can come from such an endeavor.

Yes, I recognize that the Bush Administration lost sight of the ideals that make our nation extraordinary, and, yes, they may have violated both U.S. law and our international treaty obligations. But, I beg you, let us look back to the days after 9/11, to the desperate fear that gripped much of the country. Another attack was inevitable, went the conventional wisdom -- and soon. (And, many feared, in their own backyards. You narcissists know who you are.)

Was the Bush Administration torture policy morally right? No, I do not believe so. But was it borne of a sadistic desire to break the law -- or of a fervent inclination to protect America from further catastrophe? I must conclude that it was the latter.

We must learn from the pseudo-legal darkness into which we, as a nation, willingly descended. But to further descend into a spiral of retribution and bitterness could serve no good of which I can conceive.

Second-Guessing Everyone But Themselves

For the last week, we've had the opportunity to listen to the idea-deprived right wing bash President Obama for "not standing up to terrorists." Which, apparently, pirates who are in it entirely for the money qualify as, if you really, really want to paint a Democrat in a bad light. (Seriously, who pays attention to actual definitions of words?)

Then came this weekend's rescue, approved by the President himself, should it become necessary. Former hostage Captain Richard Phillips is fine now... and the vapid Fox News chicken-hawks are just as impotent and empty-headed as ever, even if there is slightly more egg upon their faces.

Do you think they'll actually say anything about it, fully admit how wrong they were? Or will they just move on to nit-picking about the next manufactured pseudo-scandal, such as whether or not the Obamas' new dog actually qualifies as a rescue animal?

I'm betting on the latter.

The Language Of Irrationalism

Lately, I've been trying to gain some sort of understanding of just what it is that drives those of the right-wing stripe. It seems as though there are two mutually unintelligible political languages being spoken in this nation, as though there is an unbridgeable chasm between the far right and the rest of us.

Certainly, there are aspects of modern conservatism of which I have at least some comprehension: The affluent being in favor of policies that further enrich them is easily understandable; The pro-life movement I have some sympathy for, though I feel that they are being led down the primrose path by the G.O.P.; Right-wing racism, nativism, xenophobia and homophobia, though I find them to be reprehensible, are readily grasped.

But just what is it that drives an otherwise normal working-class person to act consistently against his or her own self-interest (and, as it turns out, the interests of the nation as a whole)?

This quest led, in the past week, to a rather interesting exchange with a conservative co-worker, the impetus being a bumper-sticker that read, "Obama: Keep the change. I'll keep my guns, my money and my freedom." It led me to muse aloud why so many people, despite the Administration's policy proposals, were so eager to believe the Republican Party's implication that Barack Obama wants to, in essence, disarm them, take their hard-earned money and give it to a bunch of shiftless Negroes.

My co-worker's ever-so-eloquent reply? "Because we're not liberal commies." I laughed, then ironically thanked him for being so helpful. His rejoinder: "It may be blunt, but it's true."

At this point, I realized that he was not attempting to amuse, in the manner that I might when jokingly calling him a fascist. Instead, he was dead serious; his mindless, and ultimately meaningless, iteration of hate-radio talking points was, in his own mind, a decisive bon mot.

I proceeded to ask him numerous questions about his beliefs. He refused to answer questions about actual public policy, instead preferring to engage in ad hominem attacks against the President; he repeatedly regurgitated the right-wing talking point concerning Obama's use of a teleprompter. Apparently not realizing that Reagan, Bush 41, Clinton and Bush 43 had also extensively used such devices, he was only too ready to embrace the notion that a black man, as he put it, "can't speak well without his teleprompter."

In addition, he blamed the President for numerous perceived misdeeds that had, in fact, been perpetrated by others (or that were simply the product of the right-wing imagination). It became increasingly clear that he had no affirmative beliefs. His focus was only upon what he hated; Barack Obama was symbolic for him, a convenient focal point for his copious and otherwise-incoherent rage. He had been fed by the likes of Rush and Sean and Billo, for the entirety of his life, a simple explanation for every problem that he faced, for every injustice that he discerned in the world: blame the evil libruls.

It saddened me that this was all there was to it, that there was not some greater, overarching philosophical basis for my co-worker's beliefs. But, in the end, that is what conservatism is: an appeal to our baser instincts, to the lesser angels of our natures, to anger, to hatred, to irrationalism.

And that is the chasm that separates us, in our nation and in the world: The thoughtful versus the superstitious, the modern versus the medieval, the rational versus the irrational.

And God help humanity if my side loses this battle.

Why So Angry?

I get the feeling that I may be the only person in the U.S. that is not freaking out about the AIG bonuses, considering the near-universal pseudo-populist outcry currently facing our friends in the credit default swap market. But that may be because I've actually been paying attention for the last thirty years.

This Wall Street attitude of entitlement is unsurprisingly pro forma. It is nothing new; it is part and parcel of the "Greed Is Good," "the market is God" mentality that has dominated conservative economic "thought" since the Reagan Era. The basic premise of that ideology is that the market's "invisible hand" will always lead individual actors in the direction of the collective good, and that government can serve only as an impediment to the betterment of mankind.

And now, as during the Great Depression, that economic religiosity has been shown to be utterly lacking.

That doesn't stop Republicans from claiming be appalled by the greed of AIG. But let me say this loud and clear: THIS IS EXACTLY THE SAME BEHAVIOR THAT YOU HAVE BEEN LAUDING FOR THE PAST 28 YEARS! This is its logical consequence, and if you are incapable of recognizing that reality, you have absolutely no place in the current public-policy debate. You are part of the problem, so stop pretending that your empty talking points are solutions.

It is time for conservatives to repent their sins or face political exile. There can be no in-between.

I Guess I Hate America

Today I had the chance to watch "Erin Brockovich" on one of our movie channels, for the first time in a few years. This is one of those films that (as the right-wingers tell us) shows that Hollywood hates America. I enjoyed it immensely.

If you don't recall, the film recounts the title character's participation in a lawsuit involving the pollution of groundwater with hexavalent chromium by the energy company, Pacific Gas & Electric. It resulted in a tort settlement of over $300 million.

Now, I've heard many conservatives whine that hating corporations equals hating America, and movies like "Erin Brockovich" hate corporations. Thus, they are anti-American.

But why is it that disliking a corporation that breaks the law makes a person "anti-corporation," any more than disliking a person who breaks the law makes one a misanthrope? And why is it that the Right thinks that individuals are so much less important than corporations, as though we all have no purpose other than to serve as cogs in the industrial wheel?

Of course, what it really comes down to is a right-wing love affair with power. They kowtow to it, they worship it... and they believe that we all should merely hope to live off the table scraps that the powerful deign to give us. And if we all die from chromium poisoning, we should be grateful.

Me? I have nothing against corporations, but I feel that following the law is as incumbent upon them as it is upon me or you.

The difference between me and the Right, in the end, is that they are happy to be lap dogs, while I continue to be an independent human being.

Been A Long Time Since I Rock 'N' Rolled

Last month I was lucky enough to get onstage for a reunion gig of the old band, Julio Goldstein -- the first time I'd performed musically in almost a year. Finally got photos of the evening in question: Massive crowd, drunken bar owner, many old fans; it was great fun. Makes me very glad that Jim and I are putting together a new band for the new year.

Rock on, my friends!

Wingnuts On Parade

Yesterday was a red-letter day: this year's Conservative Political Action Conference, or CPAC, convened in Washington, D.C. Billed as "the Largest Annual Gathering of Conservative Students, Activists and Policymakers," it is the right's lunatic fringe on full, proud and open display.

By all accounts, it's pretty much the nonsense you'd expect: Conservatives are the real Americans, Obama is taking us to hell in a handcart, science and rationalism are naughty, victimizing the powerless=Good, empowering the powerless=Evil, that sort of thing.

But one bit of reportage really caught my eye, this from Christopher Beam of slate.com:

...the next speaker, John Bolton... recalls the time during the campaign when Obama said Iran was just a "tiny" threat. "Is the loss of one American city picked at random—Chicago—is that a 'tiny' threat?" He delivers this line like Kevin Nealon's Subliminal Man. This brings the house down.

Let's, for the moment, disregard the fact that Bolton has misquoted President Obama on the "tiny threat" reference, and let's also disregard the apparent glee that "real Americans" feel at the thought of Chicago being destroyed, Sodom-and-Gomorrah-style. Instead, because it's been sticking in my craw for a while, let's focus upon the current right-wing monomania concerning Iran.

To the heart of the matter: Even assuming that Iran possessed both nuclear weapons and ballistic missiles capable of reliably delivering them to any given city in the U.S., why in the world would they launch said attack? It is a certainty that any such attack would result in the total annihilation of Iran, its reduction to a charred radioactive cinder, the deaths of a huge percentage of its populace. I find it hard to believe that this is what the leadership of Iran desires, and I am supremely confident that they are capable of "doing the math," so to speak.

"But, Wade," you say, "their President, Ahmadinejad, is a crazy fundamentalist and says terrible things about destroying Israel!" True enough... and he has about as much power in Iran as does John Bolton in the United States. The Presidency of Iran exists only to provide a certain amount of "democratic" sheen to what is a de facto dictatorship.

No, the real power in Iran resides in the person of the Supreme Leader, Ali Khamenei. The military, the press and the judiciary all answer to Khamenei and are dependent upon him for their positions. And, though he is a despot, he is also a rational actor who wishes to retain his power, just as did the many Soviet Premiers who did not launch nuclear attacks upon the U.S. -- and for the same reason: their assured destruction, should they do so.

Though Iran is, indeed, a major regional power -- one that has been further empowered by the ill-advised U.S. invasion of Iraq -- and poses a direct threat to certain aspects of American policy in the Middle East, it is not about to start a nuclear war with the world's sole superpower. Either the right-wing wackos are too stupid to recognize this reality, or they are baselessly fear-mongering concerning Iran.

In either case, why would anyone listen to them?

Why Sports Matter To Us

A couple weeks ago, Sports Illustrated reported that perennial baseball all-star Alex Rodriguez had used steroids earlier in this decade. Since then, the sports reporting establishment (especially the ESPN Hype Machine) has been going nuts, examining the story and every tiresomely conceivable repercussion of it, ad nauseum.

Why so much teeth-gnashing and garment-rending when most people take the availability and use of performance-enhancing drugs to be a matter of fact in the entertainment industry known as sports? I think that it has everything to do with how we Americans see sports in relation to ourselves and our own lives.

We are all familiar with the great American myth: Work hard, be honest, have a better idea (or realize an old idea in a better way), keep trying and everything will work out for you. The level playing field of America's marketplace will see that you rise to the top.

But, of course, that myth is nonsense, pure hokum. We have all seen cheaters prosper, have seen well-connected incompetents rewarded, have seen capable people discounted or discarded because they are from the wrong side of the tracks, are from the wrong family, are the wrong sex, or race, or age, or sexual orientation. That supposed "level playing field" is easily distorted by social prejudices and by the power that great accumulated wealth wields.

In harsh truth, you can strive all you want. Whether or not you succeed is, to a great degree, completely out of your hands.

But, in sport, we Americans like to believe that the great American myth still survives as an actuality. We want to believe that if you have done the hard work that enables you to hit a pitched ball consistently well, to adeptly shoot a basketball through a hoop, to throw a football with pinpoint accuracy, then your utility as a player will be obvious and you will be rewarded.

At its best, sport is an idealized version of America, in which the rules are the same for everyone once they step onto the playing field -- just as they are supposed to be (but never are) in our everyday lives.

And so when players (or coaches or officials) cheat, conspire with gamblers, take illicit performance-enhancing drugs, they are not merely breaking the rules of the game or the laws of the nation; they are betraying our own finely-constructed fantasy version of the nation. They are destroying our house-of-cards view of the United States of America.

Nothing can be so jolting as coming face-to-face with reality. No wonder we react so badly.

Jocularity, Jocularity

Nope, not Photoshopped; it seems that hackers in several different places have taken to messing with road warning signs, alerting motorists to such looming dangers as raptors and zombies. Transportation officials have their undies in a bunch over it, of course, but I'd be willing to bet that these signs grab the attention of motorists to a far greater degree than do ones containing run-of-the-mill traffic messages.

What can I say? This just makes me deeply happy.