Not Writing, Eating, and Other News: A Leisurely Sunday

The Vancouver Olympics are nearly done, and I've abandoned the television. The U.S. came close but could not hold off a last overtime goal by the Canadian hockey team, and will now have, "only silver".

In actuality I should have been writing something, but even moved to the computer I'm still diverted: I've constructed a mesquite turkey and jalapeno jack cheese sandwich on wheat, with some dill pickle and celery seeds; I've contemplated the correct spelling of jalapeno and looked it up because the spell check is lying to me; I've flipped on the computer's music player to my classical file, and drifted across websites and back, and on into the kitchen to pull off a square of 70% dark chocolate; I've sat contemplating whether I should drink that last liter of Coca Cola now, or save it for three hours from now when all is dark and thirst and greater procrastination lurk.

I've also managed to come across an article on the writing life. It's filled with lists and pointers, short and concise, and numbered 1 to 10 for each contributor. I pause from my non-writing and procrastination to read and reflect on the writing habits of Zadie Smith, Joyce Carol Oates, Jonathan Franzen and about 10 others. So true, write every day, my mind says, as my hands reach to the sandwich and my mouth anticipates the clean taste of turkey. If only I could eat this standard "diet" meal each day. I happen to love turkey on wheat, and pickle, and spinach, but I happen to love purely evil foods a great deal more. I also happen to love eating more than writing. Reading about writing makes me feel like I am almost writing.

The comments that follow the article are mostly from those wanting to be writers themselves. One person points out the inanity of one particular Zadie Smith suggestion. JohnBarnesOnToast posts a response (2/22, 12:18pm) that I find highly amusing:

Brilliant tip from Zadie Smith to read lots whilst still a child.What was her 2nd tip? Be born to middle class parents?

(Guardian, U.K.)

Had Ms.Smith the space for an eleventh tip, she might have instructed us to keep our time machines well oiled and up to date, in order to replicate her first tip retroactively.

I cannot be too critical, for at least she writes, and comes up with lists for editors at newspapers who call requesting them. Writing is her craft and job and, likely, her daily enjoyment.

I've turned on some classical music to put my head in the right space, but am still not really writing. Now it's Debussy. Two seconds before it was the London Symphony Orchestra doing "Stairway to Heaven." Before that Faure... something about a dead princess. I've only been inspired to get up and get another chocolate square (yes right now, right as I type this, within this parenthetical statement) and fish the soda out of the freezer where I had placed it to chill up a bit. And back now, I am reminded that I still have some lemon sorbet up there and maybe it will be good while watching a mystery on PBS. I am new to sorbet, this being my first, so have detoured and wiki'd the definition. I am wiser now, and need not worry about any lactose inspired moments. It would be bad to start my work week with a a stomach churning and pushing for disposal.

The wider world is all the shakes, with Chile hit with a quake, and talk of tsunamis and with my religiously superstitious sister calling my mom to point out that doom is about and a sign for us all to perhaps stock some extra food in the cupboards. Maybe the can of Chunky Soup will be of great comfort when the earthquake, giant wave, flood or terrorist bomb are otherwise destroying everything else around you.

My sister obsesses over such things, while ignoring more personal directly apocalyptic day to day events. She can't see how much she is like my father, who worried daily, and read daily, about the end of the world and Armageddon and the collapse of the world economic order. The world to come was his thing. He did this while eating a lot of bacon fat and grease and fried foods and ignoring his doctor. My sister has gotten just like him, except she is unhinged from any overall philosophical arc, and thus she can find wisdom in the words of any stranger with tongues of doom.  "That  must be from God," she says, worrying while saying she is not worrying. She's a pip. And we each have our flaws, us children of our deceased father, whom the end of the world came to quite suddenly at a time and place he could not divine. "You are just like daddy," I tell her, and she says, "No I am not." Then she calls my mom and shares her perceptions of my flaws too numerous to recount here.

Other News:

• If you've wondered what it's like to be part of a top hedge fund, head over to Dealbreaker and follow the links to the actual Bloomberg article. (Which is more serious than the amusingly foul, tongue in cheek approach at Dealbreaker). 

• First Haiti. Now Chile. I hope that people do not take to panic and rash thoughts and darkness and extremism. The end will be nigh, when it is nigh, and until then (and as we have said before) do justly, love mercy and walk humbly before God or your fellow man. That's what he has shown us. 

• 37 medals for the United States, but Canada takes the gold in hockey. They have the land, they have universal healthcare, they have the gold. (Invasion anyone?)

• In a bid to have something instead of nothing, NBC signs on with Jerry Seinfeld. Never mind his lack of accomplishment over the past decade. His new marital show might just be interesting to the extent they can get real people on there, and don't take a p.c. turn with the advice they give to the fighting couples. With its rotating cast of judges, we think this could be a hit to the extent spouses can use it as further ammunition in their own private disputes. 

• Teshuvah. A former Polish skinhead becomes born again, a student of Torah. Light in the darkness, a long walk home, a look in the mirror. Teshuvah.  

• Copper prices up with quake in Chile, world's number one producer. Thus, off their "correct" price. Short copper? 

• Finally, finally, Democrats are starting to act like voters elected them into a position to actually make policy. Republicans are not going to give an inch on the issue of health care reform; their position is to do it their way, and not compromise. But since when do you lose the presidency and control of Congress, and get your way in full? Since never. Any legislation should be biased to the options proposed by Democrats by sheer reflection of the vote. Democrats need to man up, push it, vote it, work it, and verbally beat down those who want to do nothing. Then, once passed in current form, improve it. That way we wont be sitting on our butts till 2012 waiting for the next person to come along and do nothing. 

Glen Beck's Shutter Island: Amy Bishop, Joseph Stack...Welcome...Tea Party at 8pm!

Recently a coworker we admire gave us a copy of Glen Beck's Common Sense, though we suspect her present world view is in part shaped by her cowboy loving boyfriend. The book was next up in our reading list, us feeling like it was timely, political, and most importantly, a gift and that one should never let a gift book go unread no matter the content or how much you might think you will disagree. The giver is sometimes trying to impart some vital information and when not, one can usually gleam a bit of psychological insight on the giver anyway.

Here's a passage from the start of the book:

"America has been slowly pulled off the course chartered for us in Philadelphia more than two centuries ago. Through legitimate "emergencies" involving war, terror, and economic crisis, politicians on both sides have gathered illegitimate new powers--playing on our fears and desire for security and economic stability--at the expense of our freedoms. And now, after supposedly massive change, not only are we still on the wrong track, bu it feels as though our new conductor has just increased the speed at which our misdirected train is traveling." (p.9)

and a couple of pages later:

"It is clear the so-called political experts in Washington, the business experts on Wall Street, and the self-anointed experts of education and society have gotten it wrong for a very long time. They rely on their Ivy League educations, family connections, and misplaced egos instead of listening to the cabdrivers, mothers, or plumbers. They pay us lip service while stuffing their pockets with our money--content in their belief that average Americans are too dumb to notice." (p.11)

The book starts by pointing out some important facts, including the danger of a nation that spends beyond its means. But while accusing others of class warfare and division, it begins and continues with a theme of us versus them, with the "them" often centered around what we would broadly call ruling elites. Beck calls out to aggrieved souls to stand up in righteous anger, be a true patriot, and change the direction of the country.

It's almost laughable, because he tends to gloss over the sins of the "us", while heaping scorn and broadly inflated and inaccurate motive to the "them". A not very religious Beck goes on to describe both President Obama and Vice-President Biden as ungenerous, Godless hypocrites.

And now there is a whole army, a whole party, a Tea Party of folks that have flocked to the inconsistent rants of people like Beck, and voices like Rush Limbaugh, and to people and writings further down stream. The conclusion: a sudden realization that all is not right in America. Many of these people did not have this anger and sudden epiphany during the 8 years of Republican rule, where taxes were cut (reducing revenue), two wars were started (increasing costs) and deficit spending continued without much concern.

These supposed ubber patriots, the Joe the Plumbers and Beck's hyper intuitive cabdrivers and bakers, came to their sudden outrage during a current near recession, fostered by the president they probably voted for (Bush), and have directed their darts and venom to the anomaly of a black president who has been progressive in tone, but largely duplicative of his predecessor in the areas most likely to be of concern to conservative folk (that issue largely being national security, since Republicans pretty much ignored all else when in power).

When you read enough Beck or listen to enough Limbaugh, it causes a bit of a jolt when you see someone like Joseph Stack waking up one morning and deciding to fly his plane into an IRS office to vent his frustration with the system. Ostensibly just killing yourself is not sufficient protest.

Slate has an article showing the "Seven Deadly Traits" of people like Stack, and when you read them, you can't help but see the same framing in the words and directive admonitions of Glen Beck. Under "Superiority masking self-loathing" Slate writes:

Stack lashes out at "the incredible stupidity of the American public": "brainwashed" "zombies" who follow along dutifully, incapable of his keen insights to look right through the horror of "the real American nightmare." It's a feeble claim of superiority, when the entire treatise reeks of self-loathing. Stark ends with an attack on capitalism—"From each according to his gullibility, to each according to his greed."

Under narcissism/egocentricity we get:

Joseph Stack ended his life with a supreme act of narcissism, and that quality leaps out of every line of his rationalization. It's all about him. Through 30 years of his torture, "thieves, liars and self-serving scumbags" in Congress continually targeted Stack personally. The IRS and his own accountant joined in to make him their personal whipping boy. When the Senate redrew the tax code in 1986, "they may as well have put my name right in the text of section (d)," Stack writes.

The Slate piece goes on, and while we don't accept their entire rubric word for word, we can see interesting parallels that can be found in people like Stark, voices like Beck, and movements like the Tea Party.

Commonalities:

• An appeal to some sort of authentic patriotism, which has the convenient ability to transform people who disagree with you into into, well, non-patriots or Anti-Americans. This allows you to get away with calling your opponents evil, and thus reduce the due diligence required by using your brain and analyzing actual facts. 

• A deep dislike of intellectual achievement or expertise. Never mind that most of these elites who have done the university thing have excelled in some extremely difficult disciplines. Never you mind that most of these people graduating from elite schools like Harvard, MIT or Stanford worked harder while many of us "average Americans" were busy goofing, cutting class, dropping out, being "cool, jaded, or gothic." So the same group of people who would tend to make claims about the dumbing down of education, or the lack of academic achievement of ethnics, simultaneously follow a movement and line of reasoning that portrays the hyper educated as misguided, and more than that, pure evil.

• A distrust and dislike for government. They talk the rhetoric of 1776 and of fighting for freedom and being willing at the drop of a beer to fight to take America back from the various socialists, Fascists, and boogeymen taking the U.S. down the road to perdition. Never mind that people of that time were rebelling against taxation without representation and the system was not an elective leadership. England ruled. Today we have an elected government, and a government made less efficient by its very democratic essence. If you truly want stuff done, and fast, you have a dictatorship. The founding fathers created a system that insured a certain amount of gridlock, and a gridlock that is compounded by the complexity of the times we are in. For every lobbyist in Washington trying to sway policy, there is probably a family of four in some city or leafy suburb who will benefit from that action. Odd how lobbyists never seem to represent us, always some evil unidentified other. Same with our politicians. We love our own, and put them in office, but realize with 100% certainty that Senator Rhode Island is the corrupt one. 

The Tea Party types go several steps further, mixing and matching every theory and conspiracy to justify and expand on their own world. Hell, throw in the John Birch society at recent conservative conferences and all is well. Just one more facet--a historically racist one--of the group of disgruntled patriots who were asleep until exactly the moment a black, slightly progressive man became president.

Which also reminds me of Shutter Island, which we found ourselves watching Saturday night. Normally we try to avoid opening week, preferring to have ample space in the theater and not be subject to the slightly late arriving person who spots the two seats between your group and others, and climbs into them from the row behind, then spends the next few minutes calling and texting the even later arriving companion.

At the end the audience seemed muted, even disappointed, and we assume that this was because they walked in expecting a police procedural but were served up a psychological drama that rendered the entire very long movie a figment of boy-man actor DiCaprio's mental state. Martin Scorsese crafted a very visually stunning and moody picture, but the ending was a let down.

You sit for two hours only to learn that you are in the mind of a man gone loony. You are dropped into his head and are subject to government conspiracies, whispered secret knowledge from people equally bonkers, oppressively authoritative police, white suited negroes who are "in" on the conspiracy, Fascism run amok, the death of innocent family, secret holding pens, experiments on people, and crazy evil elites in the form of psychiatrists who listen to Mahler and drink wine and reside in fancy taxpayer financed digs.

We couldn't help but see Teddy Daniels, the decorated U.S. marshal, as a type of Glen Beckian Patriot that he imagines his readers and listeners think they are. Except that they are loons, have blood on their hands, and lack the self knowledge to see that. They are too wrapped up in blaming others, and seeing conspiratorial evil in everyone else, refusing to recognize, unable to see clearly or make sense of facts that are actually beyond their understanding. (Often, because truly understanding takes education, it takes reading boring things, it takes empathy and trying to see the good in your opponents, it takes recognizing organizational parallels and the reason for their existence).

(Scorsese was probably slumming, or hoping for a Clint Eastwood-Mystic River type moment by reproducing another book by Dennis Lehane. We were disappointed in the plot transition from real world to fictive DiCaprio world, but then again, how else do you get inside the crazy moments in someone's head and show it on film? We are mixed then, cutting him some slack but wanting to slap him just the same.)

That is the Tea Party radical conservative world--they see a Shutter Island of conspiracy and evil doers seeking to take away your free will and freedom and transform you into a zombie via lobotomy in a lighthouse of darkness. But only you true Patriot are aware of this evil, and are vigilant.

You may have been a pill popper in the past (Rush), or an alcoholic or divorced (Beck, Newt), but you are fine now, and concerned about morals and America. Never mind you have no economic expertise really (Palin) in a world where our problems coagulate into a largely economic issue. You are Beck's cabdriver or working guy, Joe the Plumber or Joseph Stack, just trying to get an honest days work for an honest days wages (give or take paying taxes).

In actuality these people, these pseudo patriots have a Bishop sized sense of entitlement. You know Bishop: Amy Bishop, the Harvard trained, University of Alabama Ph.D who felt aggrieved to the point of killing several of her coworkers because she did not get the job she so rightfully (in her mind) deserved. Oh yes, even the elites are getting their crazy on, and while not politically motivated, the same motivational ethic is at play.

She yelled at playing children, neighbors said, and rarely kept her opinions to herself. She rejected criticism and fudged her résumé. Her scientific work was not as impressive as she made it seem, according to independent neurobiologists, some of whom said she would have been unlikely to even get the opportunity to try for tenure at major universities.

(N.Y. Times)

It's this lack of self-awareness that will doom the efforts of many of those on the right. With Glen Beck telling them that the solution to all our problems is a return to "common sense" and that the problem is an "out of control government," the true problem then goes unexamined. When it's the conspiracy, or cabal, or Obama the Socialist, or the psychiatrist of Shutter Island or the system, then we are never looking to see where we are causing the problem, or hindering authentic solutions.

Are you paying your taxes? Are you getting involved politically? If you are a moral or religious husband, are you "loving your wife as Christ loved the church"... which means dying to self for her? (Yea you don't hear that part preached as much, mostly the women obey part). Are you pushing your children to get the best education they can (and simultaneously glorifying stupidity by denigrating Obama or exalting beyond her state Palin)? Did you buy a home you can't afford now, blaming it all on the realtor or mortgage guy (but didn't read the fine print, assuming the sales people were economic geniuses)? Are you complaining because you finally got refinanced (as you had been complaining about "when will the little guy get it help"), only to whine when your credit score takes a hit saying, "Well if I had known I would have not requested this Obama-modification" (a modification designed to be for true emergencies)? Did you graduate from college? Do you read the Economist or other standard economic publicans? Do you watch C-SPAN or take a gander at foreign political news so you can make comparative studies of the possible and impossible? Do you vote during  every election, with the knowledge that the guy running for school board today might be running for senator or president ten years from now? Do you listen to people lie, and accept the lie, or dismiss the lie, by shifting to some other fact that also turns out to be a lie, or do you accept truth in every appearance?

Or do you sit around listening to Beck, and watching him weave an island of mystery and evil inside your head, to the point where you don't know whether you are coming or going, and don't even know that you don't know?

Can Republicans and Dems Be Siskel and Ebert?

Movie critic Roger Ebert likes Leonard Cohen, which is probably the reason I have usually respected his taste in films. His long time former partner Gene Siskel has been dead for about 11 years now, and Ebert--in the past referred to as "the fat one"--has gone through some brutal operations in dealing with cancer in his neck and throat. According to Wikipedia, Siskel died from complications with throat cancer.

I had no idea Ebert was now dealing with cancer until stumbling on a his profile in Esquire, and it just reminds you of how delicate life is, and how some people, even strangers, touch you in ways you might think impossible. Siskel lived a year longer than my own father, who died at 52. Ebert is still productive, and writing reviews, and while he is disfigured and not the man he appeared to be in the past, he is still the man he is... alive, passionate and still with us.

In 2006, the cancer surfaced yet again, this time in his jaw. A section of his lower jaw was removed; Ebert listened to Leonard Cohen. Two weeks later, he was in his hospital room packing his bags, the doctors and nurses paying one last visit, listening to a few last songs. That's when his carotid artery, invisibly damaged by the earlier radiation and the most recent jaw surgery, burst. Blood began pouring out of Ebert's mouth and formed a great pool on the polished floor. The doctors and nurses leapt up to stop the bleeding and barely saved his life. Had he made it out of his hospital room and been on his way home — had his artery waited just a few more songs to burst — Ebert would have bled to death on Lake Shore Drive. Instead, following more surgery to stop a relentless bloodletting, he was left without much of his mandible, his chin hanging loosely like a drawn curtain, and behind his chin there was a hole the size of a plum. He also underwent a tracheostomy, because there was still a risk that he could drown in his own blood. When Ebert woke up and looked in the mirror in his hospital room, he could see through his open mouth and the hole clear to the bandages that had been wrapped around his neck to protect his exposed windpipe and his new breathing tube. He could no longer eat or drink, and he had lost his voice entirely. That was more than three years ago.

(Esquire)

Of course when you are a Christian, and not an atheist, and you watch an atheist approaching death, you are tempted to shake them. You want to dump Jesus or God into their laps and say, "Wake up...it's almost the hour of the great feast and God is inviting you in, sent you an invitation, but you won't come down that street, to his house, or ring the door and be welcomed in because you don't believe the messengers, or that the house exists, or that you will be welcomed there, and will wander down the road forever, wherever unbelief takes you."  Atheists say nonsense to all that. The joy is in the journey, which is what Ebert seems to suggest now. That whole circle of life ethic I so despise, which, if true, could create equivalence between a worm journeying forever through the wet mud to the surface, and his reaching the surface. The worm knows the difference and is happy to avoid drowning in the mud. (Though, as the case may be, such journeys also often ended with said worm drying out on the pavement, or picked up by a youngster--me--and placed into a jar with deadly ants to suffer a true death moment).

I know it is coming, and I do not fear it, because I believe there is nothing on the other side of death to fear,;he writes in a journal entry titled "Go Gently into That Good Night." I hope to be spared as much pain as possible on the approach path. I was perfectly content before I was born, and I think of death as the same state. What I am grateful for is the gift of intelligence, and for life, love, wonder, and laughter. You can't say it wasn't interesting. My lifetime's memories are what I have brought home from the trip. I will require them for eternity no more than that little souvenir of the Eiffel Tower I brought home from Paris.

CNN follows up with a piece on neck and head cancer, and the particular indignities of that form of cancer.

What was nice about Sneak Previews, then At the Movies was that we saw two smart guys arguing over movies, debating even. Each had valid points, even though they differed. Between the two of them you got a fair assessment of the quality of a film, and each was able to acknowledge quality in films they did not particularly like. When they were united, you knew a film was pretty much worth seeing. They could disagree without demonization, and with opinions based on angles of the truth.

Would that certain sectors of our political world had that same ability. Democrats and Republicans, and especially Republicans of late, have a hard time presenting their critiques of certain issues without killing the other side, and in many cases constructive criticism is actually lacking. When the theme of every "movie" is about a freedom loving, tax cutting patriot, then you just know someone is not getting the picture. 


Other News:

• Conservatives embrace the John Birch Society. Rather shocking, no? Coincides with having a black president. Must be pure coincidence.

• Billionaire Mayor Bruce Wayne moves this money from his buddy into new firm. We understand. Sometimes it's so hard to know who to trust with your $5 billion. Sometimes I sit there wondering should I put my extra $10 into my credit union account, or leave it in the ever dubious hands of Bank of America. We feel your pain Mayor Bloomberg.

• Billionaire Warren Buffet's best wealthy buddy tells us a parable about Basicland, and its collapse. But I'll be darned if I know what country he is talking about, so I think I will do the typical American thing and project; I just assume he is talking about Iceland and Greece. Yep.                                                   

• Remember when we wrote (we think, but are too lazy to look back) about a Belgian man who was thought to be in a coma but could communicate. It made news around the world. Well, it seems he still cannot communicate. It was wishful thinking on someone's part. The method was a type of assisted communication using a "facilitator." As usual with people who facilitate, they cannot help but want some sort of success in the act of facilitating. Sans facilitator, logical communication stopped. Let that be a lesson to you optimists and believers in things unseen. (We place ourselves in that group). 

Dick Cheney Wallows in the Mud, And Slings It

When former president George Bush picked Dick Cheney as his running mate, we were pleased with the choice. If we doubted that the young Bush would be able to handle everything that might come his way, Cheney's presence was reassuring. He seemed, then, reasonable, practical, and experienced.

In retrospect he was probably the single largest reason why the Bush administration did not accomplish more, and accomplish more, better. If Iraq took so long, or if Afghanistan was ignored, we can largely lay those difficulties at the feet of Cheney.

Now that he is retired, he has taken it upon himself to attack the current administration, worried as he seems to be by how the record books will acquit him. He pops out of his hole every few months, takes a gander at the lay of the land, decides he isn't liking it one bit, and announces rain, calamity, danger and disaster upon America. This is not the voice of a man concerned about the country; it is the voice of a man concerned with draping his own mental world view atop the present reality. Contradictions abound, and the lying and doublespeak never cease.

If we have observed anything, it's the clear and obvious fact that Obama is no dove as far as military action is concerned. You would have a hard time finding progressives who supported Obama who happy with the  new president's ability to continue lay down the fight, or even kill innocents accidentally via drone and other methods. You can't up the troop count in Afghanistan and be accused of not understanding we are at war.

You can't do exactly what the previous administration has done, except with more coherent philosophy, and be accused of slack when it comes to safeguarding the United States.

How many terrorists did the Bush/Cheney administration bring before military tribunals? Three. And only one of them was sentenced to life in prison. The other two were allowed to serve out their sentences at home—one in Australia, the other in Yemen—both while Bush was still president.

In other words, the vast bulk of terrorist cases were handled by the civilian criminal courts—in the Bush and Obama administrations—in part because they have proved much more successful than the still-fledgling system of military tribunals.

(Slate)

Cheney's rants are kind of inexplicable, but Fred Kaplan in Slate frames it as Cheney's attempt to continue the battle that he actually fought within the Bush administration. Except that we have a new president, and Cheney really should be in Shady Acres, retiring, or playing golf or writing his own fictive memoirs.

People like Cheney, and Rumsfeld (and General Franks) represent the apex of poor thought, bad planning, and obstinate incompetence. There were no WMD. Iraqis were not just "letting off steam" in looting out the country and using looted weapons to kill Americans later. Using local Afghani forces to "seal off" Tora Bora was not the most rational battle plan. Any one of these actions alone is not such a big thing--human error--but the combination of these mistakes and cumulative others do not allow Cheney the right now to predict rain when there is sun, or that the earth is flat. (And pretty much any argument you hear from the irresponsible right is akin to that very thing).

Cheney has been responsible for a certain amount of wasted and misguided effort in the past, and spends his time now disrespecting the current president in an effort to justify his own bad judgment. Never have so many people proclaiming ties to patriotism and Washington and "original intent" demonstrated such a vast disregard for the presidency and the United States. It would be interesting to wonder how much Obama's race plays into this show of disrespect and dishonesty, but we don't even need to venture in that direction to know that Cheney should be ashamed of himself, but never will be.

Love Soccer, Be European, Embrace Your Inner Racist... It's Fun!

Sometimes things that you thought might have changed for the better have not.  We remember reading about the problems of dark skinned soccer players in Europe years ago, and how they were generally mocked and put through a hard time and without much recourse. Unfortunately Italy (and other European locales) have not lost that racism feeling.

It's easy to understand the thinking of the average person in nations across Europe; they often feel like they are being culturally overrun by ungrateful people from other nations who are changing the existing culture. You cannot fault them if they pursued these feeling via political action in the form of immigration reform. What is truly foul  is modifying those feelings into the type of personal attack that reduces a fellow human into a mere target for animus.

"Mario Balotelli - or Super Mario, as he is known by fans of Inter Milan - knows that as well as anyone. The black striker, who is an Italian citizen, has become a target of racist abuse wherever he plays. Juventus fans taunted him so viciously the club was fined and forced to play a match behind closed doors.

"Racist hooligans have a problem with themselves and with society, it's not Mario's problem," says Cristina Balotelli, the 19-year-old striker's older sister.

(B.B.C.)

Will we ever change? It's as though it's all overlooked because this is "just sports" or Italians are just "that way."  Sad really.

Other News:

• Here is a really simplistic and optimistic argument in Slate as to why America is not so bad off. Take it as the grain of nonsense it is. For example, the author dismisses the idea of Dubai being the next Vegas, while probably ignoring the reality that Macau has in fact become the next Vegas in terms of gambling revenue. It's really easy to be selectively optimistic, in the same way all women are beautiful if you squint and stare only at their breasts. (That's hyperbole of course). 

Happy New Year of Lying Republican Liars

We can leave you with a pleasant Happy New Year, it being the Year of the Tiger, and let it rest. But by all indications the Chinese have it wrong, and this will prove to be the Year of the Liar, with politicians twisting the truth into taffies long and sweet for an ever belligerently infantile group of voters to chew on. The lies we shall see in this looming election year will boggle the mind of those with ears to hear and wisdom to discern.

This process got started early, back in 2007 and 2008, when Obama campaigned against an aging John McCain, who used every contortion of the truth to try to claim the presidency he thought he deserved. Enough voters were smarter then, though still under the sway of the idea that all problems could be resolved quickly and without effort if the right man was in office. That lack of patience has caused a falling away among middle of the road independents, and lots of "just do it" grumbling among progressives who imagine that Obama can just make all things happen without having the numbers to actually pass any legislation. He should force votes, take the loss, and presumably rail in anger at Republican intransigence.

To insure electoral success, the liars should be out early, and in force, and if this little speech by Representative Michelle Bachman is any indication, we can also conclude that there is no lie a relatively attractive brunette can tell and not get away with it. The heads in her audience were no doubt bobbing in agreement with her every utterance.  Talking Points Memo takes us there:

"As a matter of fact, President Obama spent so much money that if you took all the debt that we accumulated from George Washington, every president up until Barack Obama, President Obama accumulated more debt in eight months than all previous presidents combined. Combined. That gives you context for the times we're living in." 

(TPM)

The above quote from a Minnesota speech she gave is entirely incorrect, but we have seen in recent days and weeks that the truth is not a necessary ingredient when making and scoring political points. By way of knocking Obama for his financial unsoundness, she demonstrated her inability to do basic addition, among other things. How can Bachman understand the times we are living in if she has trouble with the math we are living in. Read the article itself to find out how bad that math is. No time for the nonsense here.

*

Hey remember how conservatives were all against raising the minimum wage anywhere because businesses would suffer? Eventually wages got raised and small businesses didn't really suffer. (Turns out things like lowering the interest rate and causing a housing bubble leading to losses in bank revenues and thus reduced lending has a much huger effect, but that's kinda off topic.)

Now we have Dick Cheney announcing that he feels that the "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" policy on gays in the military should be scrapped. Why? No reason other than a few people in the military have shifted their positions and most conservatives are so used to sucking up to the military (in order to appear patriotic) that when that same military comes out with something new, they then have to go with the program.

In essence everything that conservatives were telling you was bad about gays is in fact, no so bad after all, and will no longer be an issue. Same as with raising the minimum wage. You rarely hear a peep about that now.

Cheney told ABC’s “This Week” that 20 years ago when he was secretary of defense, the military was a strong advocate of the policy that bans gays from openly serving in the military, but that “things have changed significantly since then” and he anticipates that ultimately “the policy will be changed.”

“I think society has moved on,” Cheney said the policy shift is partly “a generational question.”

(Politico.com) 

Thanks for telling us this huge issue is now a non-issue. Wonder if healthcare reform will turn out to be one of those things that conservatives think differently about ten minutes from now.

Other News:

• "Don't Copy Me,"should be the lesson we all learn from the most recent plagiarism scandal involving the N.Y. Times.  Sometimes it's just not enough to have a job, or have a job as a writer, or have a job as a writer at one of the nation's top newspapers, or have a job as a writer at the nation's top newspaper in the best city in the world. You wake up feeling a little empty sometimes, and needing other people's words to fill your void.

Sarah Palin's "Talk To The Hand" Job

Sarah Palin's big fluffy head full of hair is back in the news, sneering at President Obama in ways infantile, amusing, and entirely untruthful. But what else is to be expected. The Tea Party movement which seems to have spontaneously arisen not from the appearance of national debt and bad policy, but from the appearance of a black president, was the perfect platform for Palin to demonstrate once again that a true fool, unlike the jester, is internally blind, deaf, and dumb.

And if you are one of the blind mice being led, or if you are one of the cynically astute defending her political finger painting and giving support to such nonsense, then you will deserve the eventual outcome that comes with fluffing her head with thousands of dollars.

"Now, a year later, I've got to ask supporters of all that," she told tea partiers, "How's that hopey, changey stuff working out for you?" sing song-ed Sarah, amusing herself and the sheep in the fields, whose money was in her pocket.

To see someone so intellectually vapid given such adoration by an equally simpleminded populace is annoying, but will turn entertaining when Palin goes on to fight tooth and nail come 2012 to take her prize-the presidency. All of which is why Obama is perhaps a bit too passive in his approach to actually achieving any of his major legislative goals. Undoubtedly he realizes that Palin will gum up the Republican machine and make for much merriment. But he shouldn't assume that he cannot be blindsided by someone in-house, posing a takeover. We doubt Hillary Clinton is inclined to just watch from the sidelines if an opportunity presents itself.

In any case Palin has her hand firmly around the simple units of her followers, and wherever she pulls and tugs, they will surely follow in rigid formation.

 (Sarah's Policy Pimp Hand: Talk To It, Read It, Remember It)

Here, if we talk to the hand (of Palin), we can see how she plans to solve the myriad problems facing our country: tax cuts, energy (reforms?), lift American spirits. Okay, not exactly her solutions, just the talking or bullet points. But can we really expect realistic, detailed solutions from a woman who literally has to look at her hand to remember her three talking points? This woman who imagines herself the equal of Obama, a man who stood and faced a room full of the opposition, sans teleprompter, and faced them down.

Nobody has yet found the way to force her to sit down and answer any questions in detail, and solutions in her head, like tax cuts, have nothing to do with the problems we face. Cutting taxes does not solve financial collapse. Nor does it stop health care companies, like Anthem Blue Cross in California, from suddenly getting the delusional fortitude to attempt to raise the prices on private insurance premiums by 30-39%.

Palin would need a hand as big as her head to fit an adequate analysis of health reform issues, but unfortunately we are only guaranteed that her head, sans filling, will keep growing to the point of unbearable loftiness.

Other News:

• Wall Street is peeved. How dare you bail us out, then say nasty things about us, and then try to keep us from destabilizing the economy again. Take that Democrat! No money for you! Republicans are smugly enjoying this, although, the average supporter of smug Republican politicians does not seem to realize their party is speaking populism with one tongue, and fellating the industry with the other. Perhaps Obama needs to tone down the rhetoric, while at the same time pointing out Republican lack of regulatory action. 

•  Senator Shelby, Republican of Alabama, holds people and country at gunpoint. Eventually this type of thing has to stop, or Obama has to make it painfully embarrassing for someone to pull this off. 

• Lovers of the status quo need to understand the implications of doing nothing on health care reform. But they won't. And hospitals will suffer. And costs will continue to rise. And Palin will be elected in 2012. And China will invade. And we will all be killed. So please, please realize that doing nothing is actually worse than doing something. (No really, we will all be killed by Chinese death panels if nothing is done).  

Obama, Outlandishly Normative (And Not The Radical You Dreamed Or Feared He Was)

When Obama recently did his question and answer with Republicans last week, he pointed out to them that if the opposition joins in demonizing him with outlandish inaccuracy, that it would make it impossible for them to do necessary compromises to reach a deal. The adjacent but obvious point was that the Republicans ought not to nix every piece of legislation just because they don't get everything they want, especially given the reality that they are the minority and that the Democrats have accepted Republican proposals they themselves did not favor.

My guess is that Republicans will learn nothing from the exchange, just as they learn nothing from the ridiculousness of beginning a meeting with the the black president they have demonized, by reading a letter from a little black child. (The one in a million black child whose family may have voted Republican. And while we think more blacks should be voting Republican, this episode speaks to the nonsense that Republicans are far too adept at pulling off).

Even the idea that Obama is some left wing person intent on destroying the United States and unwilling to stand up for American interests is absurd. He has taken the fight to Afghanistan and other regions as hard or harder than the previous Republican administration. He has called for more nuclear power in addition to offshore drilling and has met weapons commitments from the Bush administration.

Ignoring the question of whether we should be selling weapons to Taiwan, the fact is that we are, and it speaks to Obama not being the person Republicans like to claim he is.

(It's also interesting reading comments by Americans to various articles, with their certainty that Taiwan ought not to be part of China, and despite the fact that using the same logic you could make an argument that Hawaii ought not to be part of the U.S. if they so chose to stray.  In both cases you have land areas largely controlled and populated by peoples from a larger land mass. It's also important to remember that aborigines aside, the people who moved into Taiwan (ROC led by Chiang Kai-shek) and controlled it, worked under the assumption that China proper and China Taiwan were all one one part.)

Even Obama's support for increased nuclear weapons funding is his attempt to compromise with Republicans by making sure our arsenal is modern and secure, while simultaneously seeking Republican support for upcoming nuclear arms reduction deals with the Russians. This tightrope, as Jonathan Landay of McClatchy calls it, is not the work of a man hell bent on pushing the country radically left.

Nor does the arming of certain countries in the Middle East with Patiot Missile systems or adding permanent patrols of Aegis cruisers suggest that Obama is any less concerned with American security than any other president.

Even the President's talk of a spending freeze is reflected in a budget that does not seem the work of a radical. He cuts where he can, leaving entitlements, including defense spending, alone.

The Republicans have painted, and worked the oils on the canvas, and have used grand hyperbole and outright untruth in order to allow themselves to do nothing. The reason they want to do nothing is to preserve the power of action and progress for when they are again in control. That is supreme cynicism and one usually expects, or hopes, that the majority of people in a party can find enough compelling reasons to step out of tactician mode and into the role of governing.

Republicans should be seeking to get their names behind some legislation, accepting joint victory, rather than handing us all total loss.

Other News:

• Jeb is out of the bushes, making noises and sounding presidential. Since we actually like a portion of what the Bush's have done, or hoped to do, we will give him a look when that time comes.

• A British look at why people are stupid, and vote against their own interests. Left out though, are certain liberal tendencies to condescend and dismiss closely held beliefs of many Americans.

• Elective Death movement on the move. Now this is what Palin really should be paying attention to, but since she doesn't really read, it may sneak up on her.

• RINO (Republican In Name Only) Scott Brown supports abortion rights. Maybe Massachusetts voters did know what they were getting. Not sure Republicans did, in praising him and tossing him into robo-calls (thank you McCain).

• Here, the SEC, under Bush, allows investment banks to increase debt, and they do, using it for some rather risky speculations that we are crying over today. Slate argues that allowing partnerships to go public and increase debt were root causes of our problems. Yea that and people not paying their mortgages.