Four Years Ago We Stood on the Cliff

If we've learned anything in this election cycle it's that people have learned nothing, incapable of complex considerations of fact that might provide contrast to their expectations of reality.

President Obama remains in a tight race--that he will ultimately win-with Mitt Romney, and despite considerable achievements across several areas of political and social endeavor. But the battle continues because of three factors:

A) Conservative and religious voters cannot see beyond their legitimate religious belief that both abortion and homosexuality pose special threats to society and raising children.

B) That people believe economic change can come somewhat instantly, and anything that takes longer smacks of incompetence or corruption.

C) A general willingness in some voters to believe lies that conform to certain conscious or subconscious perceptions about the capabilities, motivations, and worthiness of black people.

The President has tried to counter both (B) and (C), while largely concluding that he will not convince those with social issues in group (A). He likely calculated that he could offset the ultra conservative religious vote with more animated support from women, progressives and gay individuals.

The tendency on the left is to dismiss those concerned about social issues (or the "wrong side" of social issues) as being largely inferior if not outright wrong. We are always sure that such dismissal--the trivialization of the other--does nobody any good. Everyone's concerns need to be considered, and some decent compromise found within the law.

However, if we are to look at the policies centered around broader American life and the struggling economy, it's hard to dismiss Obama's efforts as inadequate. Even today just days before the election on November 6th we see signs of continued economic health. It is not robust, and the indicated job growth, like in the ADP report released today, certainly is not enough to make people feel secure. And yet when combined with upticks in consumer confidence and increases in manufacturing, it's hard to ignore the positive trends.

We are better off than we were four years ago. Primarily because we set on the edge of worldwide financial collapse that could have brought down our entire way of financing life and paying for those things that we need.

The assumption from many in the population at large is that asset values (in their homes) should have remained as they were, inflated, and the thus the deflation now is somehow a sign of things not being quite right or normal. The belief is that you can take a major financial collapse and work out the kinks in a year or two, or that such things can be quickly resolved via lowering tax rates, prosecuting bankers or letting various sectors of the economy (cars/banks) collapse under their own weight.

Reality reveals otherwise, and that the choices thus made were the right ones, with an economy slowly coming out of the doldrums. Concurrent with the economic effort came the implementation of healthcare reform, which, despite critiques, actually exists as an additional initiative that will prove long terms gains in encouraging both mental security and entrepreneurial freedom down the road.  The spread of economic efficiency and innovation in that sector, while improving people's access to life affirming healthcare, represents a massive focus on moving the economy into robust growth. When you are not worried about your health coverage, or keeping some job merely because it provides the best insurance, then you are free to travel, to try new things, to take more ambitious economic actions. Taking different approaches to healthcare opens doors and moves us all forward.

Four years ago we were headed off a cliff. Now we are not. President Obama has spent four years trying to mend the tear in our economic and social fabric. He has been hampered most robustly by those in group (C) who have sought diversion and untruth and hate as weapons of combat. And yet, forward we go. The President has gone out of his way to ignore the cheap tricks and Trump cards and those who would seek to suck him into some perceived racial or ethnic battle. He has approached policies that benefit all Americans, and from a variety of angles and approaches.

That broad and focused look forward is what will continue to serve us well.

Peasant Feast

It's been a simple, ordinary way for me, despite my possibly vain imagining that my life will turn out quite different: more active, unconventional or writerly, death or life by adventure or courageous choices. There are no great achievements that I can confidently embrace as "great achievements."

Some write brilliant novels, all the while worshiped in life and then death, their remains a whisper in the minds of their friends, family, fans and followers, a David Foster Wallace signature tattooed onto the heart. Wild bunches of marauders in faraway places run for their lives with their borgnine-faced buds, facing death at every turn of the horse.

I've had moments of joy, rather than expressions of major achievement, and I don't know how much of that joy manifested into other's hearts. Usually in going through life you want to achieve something great, or bring joy to others, if not both, receiving your own joy as byproduct.

Below are a few moments that brought me joy, among many that I will recount later if I am not too bogged down by laziness (ah, perhaps that explains the achievement thing).

Charlene lived on the 6th floor or so of our twenty story building, one of four buildings that surrounded the playground, red rink, and "country club" in the rapidly changing Lefrak City. She was also in one of my classes. We boys went through a S.W.AT. phase, recreating the police show by making our own little training obstacle run as we scrambled to be first and thus chief badass. (We didn't use words like "badass" back then, despite already having learned a shady little rhyme that involved the name of Batman as chorus and the body progressing from "taking to the movies" to various sexual activities and eventual pregnancy).

On another floor the girlfriend of my best friend's older brother would blast the theme song and off we went, running up a short wall topped by a fence, dashing through a parking lot and around, returning to the fence and leaping down, then through the playground (up the monkey bars), and then down and across to another short fence where we bent over and grabbed the other side, lifting our legs into the air to fly over; the weaker ones among us climbed over traditional style, losing much time.

I was never last, and occasionally near first. Charlene stood on her balcony with little boxes of cereal, flinging them down. It didn't fully occur to us that her dad probably thought better than to allow his very young white daughter to hang downstairs with a largely black and largely male group of kids. We were in the same class, likely second grade because we moved right after that year. Looking back, and looking at kids today, it's hard to fathom half the stuff we were allowed to do, and half the stuff we did.

Eventually my father joined in the Jewish flight, we left Egypt and moved further east to Fresh Meadows, the mere name of which signified upwards and onwards.  But seeing my favorite Charlene toss down boxes of my favorite cereals made S.W.A.T. worth it.  I be remiss if I neglected to mention the bologna and American cheese sandwiches my mother made for lunch each day. Some simple things are quite memorable. These will be warm memories on a future deathbed.

From the time I first realized super heroes were real (yea they are!), Batman was my ideal. He was a real man, without ridiculous powers, able to be defeated if not careful. He was mere man with money and training, so quite replicable by us all, versus someone like Aquaman where moving to the sea and learning to communicate with moron animals seemed more implausible than attaining money, training and awesome crime fighting technology.

Back then I watched Adam West and Burt Ward in the comic Batman television show every day after school, same time and channel, perking in excitement when I realized that it was the day for the second half of the cliffhanger. Better yet was when Batman arrived at my house in doll form, and not even for a birthday or Christmas!!!! (Exclamation points provided by 6 year old me).

The euphoria was almost impossible to contain and the son of my mother's best friend got a Robin doll, though it was hard to make him do my bidding, Kevin being spoiled and a bit too competitive to play the proper subordinate role.

At that time I had two sidekicks myself; there was Jason, a timid (meaning more respectful of all our parents) Korean kid and Robert, christened "Robert the Snobbert" by his own older brother due to his constantly running nose, the contents of which often decorated the sleeves of his shirts and jackets  in gauzy wet/dry fashion. They followed instructions and I sometimes led them from the shadows into evil (teasing others, stealing, kid mayhem), never getting caught myself. This would be President Obama's "lead from behind," accept for nefarious purposes. Sidekicks are awesome, as are superheroes. They are glorified good friends, and I remember warmly all those who were loyal till life forced us in different directions.

Much later I worked at a Christian family summer camp, after staying as a guest for several summers with my mom and sister. On occasion my dad would come, but generally he considered most of their weekly visiting ministers mere babes in the Christian woods and not worthy of him taking off from his financial firm employment.

The reason I took the job at all was that my best friend at the time worked/hung out there each summer, but also, I wanted to reconnect with a tall attractive wide faced girl named Debbie. We spent the year before the work year writing innocent letters back and forth, though she was not particularly focused on me in any romantic sense. When I met her I was eighteen, too shy to have meaningfully extended conversations with her or any female, yet well aware I was not her type beyond being an okay, respectful kind of guy that enough people seemed to know and like.

The beginning of our work year began with delight at the sight of her and the beginning of some timid, casual conversations. I tried to bump into her during every free moment and my heart would shake the cage with both hands at the sight of her approach. Of course that lasted about a week into the summer schedule.

I found out that she was in fact really interested, like really, really, interested, in my roommate Brett. He was from Ohio, a great athlete, rosy cheeked and tall. He had a swagger, as did his father, both sharing commanding mustaches, blond and black respectively. It occurred to me that I would never sway her heart away from his Rhett Butler Brett head. That was the sensible pessimistic half of my brain. The optimistic half that woke up each morning believing I could have any woman on earth told me she was still winnable.

A couple of weeks of living with Brett made me realize that he was not so bright, and further, that he was in a tight relationship--parent approved and waiting for engagement--with a girl back home. Me and my buddy stepped in to remind him of Christian principles like duty, honor, loyalty and the always handy what will your parents and coreligionists think. The task was to make him conflicted over any type of summer indulgences with my Debbie. We knew his mind was not capable of handling too much disapproval from his folks and that his emotional facilities lacked the mechanics for creative and morally nuanced thinking regarding summer fun.

Despite these efforts, he and Debbie seemed to be hitting it off, sending my emotions downhill. What was worse, it was not just Brett. Down near the waterhole a hippie type older guy with a ridiculously melodious guitar style managed to lure single, wide eyed women to his tent. Debbie was one of them.

She and a friend asked a couple of us staff guys if we wanted to go down to the river to hear this man. I declined, then showed up briefly, mentally spewed at the sight of everyone fawning over his fingerstylings, and promptly left after a due effort of five minutes or so. They begged me to stay, but I determined it was a pity or sympathy beg, or, a "we better cover our butts by having male staff here" beg. The senior staff would not have been thrilled at a couple of its female youngsters down by the lake on their own with a grown male guest. Frankly I suspected he was a bucket of seething inappropriate lust, penis larger than his Christianity and smoother than his guitar playing. I was not in entirely rational mode, given the many other families camping out nearby, but it was night, and night makes anything possible (ask Batman).

Somewhere near that time I ended up in my duplex (before they moved all us guys in together), lights out, crying and talking to God, begging him to make Debbie "into me".  I really laid out a framework, with a bit of pleading, and a bit of promising. That very night my buddy came around and mentioned that he thought Debbie was looking for me. Later she appeared and we chatted. She gave me a note of vague affection and smiled shyly. Then off she went to the female dorms and I tucked into the bed, tears again rolling down my face and thanking God for having my back. It was a pure moment of heaven, if not really an actual romantic achievement.

As these things turn out, just as she seemed to warm to me a little, and as Brett was cooling to her with each call from his faraway girlfriend (and the arrival of his parents), it occurred to me that Brett and Debbie were exactly matched in mental telepathy. And by that I don't mean the Star Trek style of silently communicating, but rather, their intellects and simplistic views of things seemed to work in trivial lockstep. Me and Debbie had nothing to talk about once we started actually trying to talk. I was soon giving her Brett advice, alternating between sabotage, good advice, and encouragement depending on my daily heart flickerings. For while I realized she was not interesting, she was still sweet, and I often debated whether sending her into Brett's romantic mustache was really doing her any good, or if urging her away was doing her some evil.

Eventually too, someone else started attracting my attention, and a couple of other females started stalking me. The manager's underage daughter started appearing everywhere I happened to be, and asking me questions about why I thought Debbie, or this new girl were so special. She eventually stole some jewelry from me, which her mother found when the wash was done. "You were probably looking for this," she said with a smile in front of most of the staff that was hanging out in front of the ice cream shop.

"How did she get that?" I asked incredulously and her mother said, "Oh don't worry, she has her ways and we had a little chat with her." My other stalker was a guest and between working, playing sports, avoiding the stalkers and chatting up the new girl, my interest in Debbie's romantic outcomes wavered to disinterest. Brett eventually abandoned ship as well when his own parents called in his girlfriend to the scene.

But that night when Debbie suddenly appeared out of the blue, seemingly affirmed and transported there by God himself, that was golden despite my eventual lack of enthusiasm. Sometimes God seems to give you what you think you want, so you can enlighten yourself to the reality of the opposite.

When all four of us guys moved into the same suite we made an awesome time of it. The television in the room my buddy and I shared even had cable remaining from the previous staff occupant. That was eventually and mysteriously turned off.  I devoted my third week's paycheck (somewhere around $65) to visiting the local rural supermarket and buying steaks, spaghetti, cake supplies, and homemade tomato sauce ingredients so that we could have an all guy staff feast... no females allowed.

We allowed Joe from the permanent staff to take a plate to his wife, but mainly because he was such a cool guy and reliable to show up at volleyball and basketball games.  Others got "to-go" plates as well, which we knew they would give to the wives back in their units. Word had gotten around about our discriminatory manfest and eventually the woman followed up with their own (Debbie brought us plates).

That event (along with the reciprocation) spread conversation and joy.  I was actually too stressed at the time, knowing nothing about how to cook a good steak and wondering why the well done had turned into dry as a dead well. Growing up in my household, rare or medium steaks were like "Whah?"

With food and a mock battle of the sexes, everyone seemed to have a great time and the memory makes my brain smile.

There are other moments in my life that serve as giant adventures in terms of the affect on my daily happiness, although largely duplicated as small insignificant happenings in the lives of millions of others who go on to have great small moments AND huge achievements, like building Apple computer or becoming president or being the first person to jump the farthest from space to earth.  I've had moments of pure happiness, but I don't know that I've achieved anything substantive, or at minimum dumped a worthy amount of joy and memory into others.

I like to think that I've left some joy and memories, and that if I were to die young without my adventures, I will be buried by weeping minds (mostly female) filled with a pleasant remembrance.

(Note: I often post at first draft, under night fog, and double back later to correct grammar, typos or structure. So if something reads odd, feel free to mentally adjust it and jump to what you think I was trying to say.)

All Blacks Are Racist Voters, All Conservatives Whistle Dixie

Choosing Dark Skinned Beer

Yesterday the streets in the vicinity of the St. Patrick's Day Parade here in Phoenix were flooded with color... green.

We didn't catch the parade ourselves , and like most things in Arizona, it's a pale comparison to what real cities (NY, San Fran, Boston, Chicago) can pull off in their sleep. When in high school in Manhattan, we blew off classes one year to catch the parade and photograph politicians. We ended up with Mayor Ed Koch, Police Commissioner Bradley, and Mario Cuomo. I think there was a Pat Moynihan shot in there as well.  Back then politicians had a lot of personality. It's one of the things that makes Obama popular in his more casual moments when not looking aloof or bored to death by trivialities.

But the enthusiastic support of all things Irish got us thinking about the 2008 election, where blacks were accused of supporting Obama because he was "black". This accusation, which is still often reshaped and repeated, reduces black voter participation to one of racist loyalty, and serves to support the falsehood that Obama was unprepared and surely the beneficiary of blind enthusiasm by simple people. Indeed, that actual accusation is racist.

We would offer this assertion: In the same way that people are out there celebrating St. Patrick's Day, in part, because it's related to Irishness, so too, many blacks supported President Obama, in part, due to his blackness. Of course many people celebrate St. Patrick's Day because it's fun and for a host of other reasons having nothing to do with Irishness (as in "beer"), and so too, did blacks support Obama for reasons having nothing to do with skin.

Many conservatives that support the blacks as racist sheep theory of voting fail to allow for a complexity in voter choice. Reducing the black voter down to one sole goal allows them a comfort and greater vantage point to take shots at a president they don't like. They can climb on the backs of the perceived "racist" voting choice, and from atop the black mass, take better aim at Barack Obama with slings that would assert his deficiency. After all, if we can rationalize that blacks ONLY voted for him because he was black, that would negate him having any good qualities. Or rather, he has no good qualities, so blacks must have voted for him because he was black.  There is no other reason.

But people vote for multiple reasons in the same manner that they make life choices in multiple ways.

Nobody holds the average white conservative voter to account for the fact that they probably are not pushing a black boyfriend for their daughter, that they are not choosing to move into a black neighborhood, that they are not excited about all black schools for their kids, that some choose to support church congregations that are minimally black, or that, unlike blacks, most conservative whites have never, ever voted for black politicians. Nobody denies the white conservative his joy at downing a pint on St. Patrick's day either. We assume that in every choice, there are reasons beyond mere avoidance of blackness. (The level of whiteness in the average white life is accidental, uhm, right?)

Oh, oh, but that's different, goes the argument. You can't compare choosing white friends, or a white school, or a white boyfriend to choosing a black president. Choosing a president is of utmost importance. "I would never allow racial or ethnic considerations cloud my vote, it's about principals I support and our constitutional obligations" said one conservative pseudo friend of mine. That's a paraphrase, and something I've heard from others as well.

This assumes that blacks are disproportionately, and completely, oblivious to issues like health care reform, war, taxes, and assorted other things of constitutional importance. It also assumes that black voters would support a black candidate who was conservative over a white candidate who was liberal, but we know good and well that actual election results usually prove that construct ridiculous.

There is no problem if conservatives railed at the 90% plus of blacks who always vote Democrat. Amen to that travesty. Blacks need to periodically shift their vote, even if it's for a Klan member, just to show politicians, "Hey, we can do that too, and even vote stupidly, so don't neglect us."  That is the real issue and problem. The black voter is not quick to seek alternatives, though in part because alternatives and their delivery are not presented properly by conservatives or libertarians. You can't expect blacks to rise to your whistle when you are at the same time whistling dixie to your dogs. Blacks are not dogs.

In 2008 blacks were faced with Hillary Clinton and Obama. McCain was a non factor by virtue of his party, positions, and methods, not his race. The space between Clinton and Obama as far as policy was concerned was nearly zero. You pretty much would expect that either one would do those typical Democrat things.

Policy not being a deciding factor, and yet, with Obama pushing hard and specific on many issues, like ending the Iraq War, like saving the economy, like reforming health care, it was not a huge leap for many blacks to say, "Hey, after all these years, let's give this black guy a shot. He seems atop the issues that matter.  Further, because he is black, he just might understand a few things that your average white person doesn't." Whites make the same calculation constantly, subconsciously, and without grief or guilt.

The entire Republican campaign against Barack Obama has been to paint him as different, and essentially, as, not white.  If you can permute him into a Kenyan, or a radical black activist, a thinner Al Sharpton with Marxist tendencies, you've moved him as far from the average white American mental stance as possible. The voter need only say, "Oh man, he is so not like me."

Which may be true if Obama was actually Kenyan, not part white, a Marxist, and proposing policies that had never been proposed before, or doing things that have never been done. But when you strip away the lies that would allow that agitated white conservative to say he is against Obama on "policy", you find out that it is the exact opposite. Because the policies had been done by whites, and in the same Republican party, and, supported.

Romney does a mandated health plan. Republicans propose national plans just like Obama's. It's okay. Obama proposes plan, it's the end of American life. Reagan has higher tax rates. Fine. Reagan and Clapton are God. Obama might allow a temporary tax cut to expire to rates way below Reagan's. Oh no, it's class warfare! Bush increases deficit and voices are muted. Obama increases deficit during major collapse and he is deliberately trying to destroy America. (And mind you, any increased spending at all is largely to deal with pre-Obama issues, but lets not force the details).

There are more than a few social issues that Obama has supported that one would imagine the legitimate conservative, of either race, would be angry over. But in nearly every other area the critiques by white conservatives against Obama amount to a heavily veiled discomfort with race. Obama has transposed any number of ideas from previous politicians and conservative politicians into his own, but a good Republican idea wrapped up in blackface is abhorrent to those who can't really fathom a black face, a black person, as doing anything remotely constructive or complex. (It's how the majority of conservatives can ignore Obama holding his own against a room full of Republicans, and swap in the teleprompter meme instead). And if they are hitting the point where are starting to realize the effort against Obama is futile, you begin to hear the comments about "Well he is not really black anyway." (Ignorance atop ignorance, for the majority of blacks are not really black anyway either, mixed and matched).

Regardless when we hear this nonsense that all blacks voted for Obama because he was black,we bristle, both because it dismisses the policy considerations that blacks make, and, it demeans recognition of black experience. If you ran black and white lives back through a 200 year blender, blacks would come out shredded for worse, and by an entirely different set of experiences. Past racism collectivized the black experience to the point where there is always an assumption (and sometimes wrong) that fellow blacks are like fellow marines, and understanding of the grind. Part of the black vote was a Semper Fi moment due to shared experience, but balanced on the policies that shared experience might create. The minute the policies change, the moment and bond loses strength.

Was a McCain talking gun rights or mocking the black candidate ever really going to beat the black candidate talking health care reform (to a population under-served by good health care)? Or if Obama were Irish and white, would McCain have gotten the black vote?  It all comes down to perceived policy issues.

Foreign Babies Enjoy U.S. Oil, While Domestic Gas Prices Rise!

Young Swede Enjoying US Oil

After nearly touching the $3.00 level a few months back, gas prices here in the U.S. have roared upwards,with fanciful talk of prices hitting an unlikely $5.00 by summer. Of course such talk happened last year as well, so we tend to dismiss it. The chatter is driven by Republicans, who are hoping that some sort of event creates the type of negative impact that could knock President Obama out of office in a way that their own candidates cannot. A rising gas price is a perennial giver of hope to the few who want a new president at any cost. The President has argued for alternatives to oil, and Republicans have argued for the status quo, but more of it. Which makes this article in U.S.A. Today an eye opener.

For the first time since 1949, the United States exported more gasoline, heating oil and diesel fuel last year than it imported, the Energy Department reported today. Bloomberg writes that to offset weak U.S. demand, refiners exported 439,000 barrels a day more than were imported the year before.

(USA Today)

Notice the reference to "weak demand" in the United States. One would think there would be raging hunger pushing prices up, no? Are rising prices weakening demand? Or should weak demand cause prices to fall domestically? At what point do sustained elevated gas prices drop demand, and at what point does that falling demand cause prices to drop? It's all very chicken and egg, with speculators, manipulative refiners/oil companies, and world demand muddying the rationality of the market.

The article also quotes from a 24/7 Wall Street article that states, "The secret to making a profit in refining these days is for refiners to source crude oil domestically and then sell the refined products to US consumers at prices based on imported oil."

If anything, we seriously need some congressional action and study in terms of how domestic pricing is structured, but we can be pretty sure that won't happen soon. Domestic production is at an eight year high, and yet street prices rise in tandem, and Republicans will continue to give aid and comfort to the status quo. Clearly, more oil, is not the solution, when the market is manipulated, complex, and international. But at minimum the prices we pay should reflect the reality of the ample supply.

Newt Wants Cars Big Enough For Your Gun Rack

Newt Energy Policy

Newt Gingrich, the Republican presidential candidate and proxy deep thinker, arrived at Oral Roberts University's Maybee Center on February 20th  to speak to a crowd of enthusiastic students and supporters. The very school I wanted to attend back in the day was probably a good choice for him, given that the entire evangelical world has lost its moorings, substituting a stale and immoral rhetorical politics for the love and concern that a supposed follower of Christ is supposed to show.

Newt began by contrasting economic numbers when he left office with those of today, absent any clarification regarding inflation, the changing world, contributions by Democrats or fiscal destruction by Republicans.

Newt went on to divide the world in two and without nuance: un-American liberals on one side, and morally focused constitutionally loyal conservatives on the other.  He mentions American Exceptionalism, and goes on to suggest that a secular Obama is waging an unconstitutional war on religion. Newt barges forward, saying that he will undue every act of religious bigotry by the President, who is essentially labeled a hedonist, a religious bigot, and a radical. Newt is a master at associative name calling, where he tosses out negative imagery in one sentence and Obama's name in separate sentence, letting your mind do the mental link and subsequent evil thinking.

He goes on. "Arrogant Obama" is trying to redistribute and portion out the pursuit of happiness.  The President's energy policy is anti-American and best defined by his suggestion that we buy smaller cars. Newt draws a huge laugh, from Christians, about the inability to fit one's shotguns inside a small vehicle.  We can thus reduce Newt's own reductions down to "Energy big enough for your car and its gun rack."

According to Maureen Dowd of the N.Y. Times, Newt goes on to declare Obama "the most dangerous president in modern American history." Coming from someone outside of Osama Bin Laden's family, or the random Aghani, such hyperbole borders on

But I didn't listen that far. Because I got lost at the point where an audience of ostensible Christians took moral advice and flagrant distortion with equal vigor, and from a man who is as marginal a Christian as he is presidential material. Not that I think Obama is anything more than casual, cultural Christian himself. But Obama is not out pontificating on morality as much as he is out there pushing policy remedies for difficult problems.

I am of late confounded by the fact that the very same school that produced Michelle Bachmann and that blindly supports every word that flows from the mouth of Gingrich, is a school I was accepted into and eagerly hoping to attend. It was the Wall Street and big city inspired belligerence of my father that led him to refuse my request to attend. Back then he said, "Nobody will respect your degree, and Wall Street certainly won't."  (He had already mapped out my career in his head, and fortunately he is not alive to see how far I am from his life's goals for me.)

While my father migh have overstated his disdain--for ORU has produced many talented, hardworking and capable grads-- I am saddened that the idea of a degree from O.R.U. now brings me a certain amount of disgust.

Big Girls, Little Kids, and Men Who Don't Love Them

We live in a relatively free country, where the state rarely imposes in a way that interferes with the day to day of our lives, and despite what various online malcontents (aka Ron Paul supporters) suggest. It amazes that people get all worked up over policies like NDAA, the National Defense Authorization Act (and its detainee provisions), while people ignore larger trends and choices that can destabilize the country or people's lives.

It always amazes what we work ourselves into a frenzy over, substituting unlikelihoods for clear and present dangers. We see the speck, while ignoring the monsoon. We see this even in the immediate societal conclusion that raising kids without the direct input of both sexes won't, years from now, turn out to be a massive boon of instability and confusion and misbegotten social aims.

The New York Times has a short piece about the rise of unwed mothers among the under-30 female set, with the number of children being born to that group rising to 50%.

Further:

"73 percent of black children are born outside marriage, compared with 53 percent of Latinos and 29 percent of whites. And educational differences are growing. About 92 percent of college-educated women are married when they give birth, compared with 62 percent of women with some post-secondary schooling and 43 percent of women with a high school diploma or less"

(N.Y. Times)

While some of these kids do have males in the home, often it's a temporary presence.  Many of the women don't seem compelled or able to marry. This situation poses both present and future costs. Present costs when women mask their household income and remain single in order to obtain benefits from the government, and future costs when these children fail to prosper in the way that those kids in stable homes do.

And yet, we are quite free to replicate this activity over and over. Woe to those who come down on anyone for being shortsighted or selfish. We could blame men for their hand in this, and they are surely worthy of blame, but ultimately children don't grow in everyone's internals. Women's priorities and ability to assess situations are wanting.

***

In a distantly related matter, a female and I began watching a movie on BET, a station I normally won't go near. But I was trying to get more involved in women's television and be supportive. It was the story of a fat woman who wants a man, goes to Africa with a friend and cousin, and finds a model gorgeous man who accepts her as she is. In the process of rediscovering her own inner fat beauty, she comes up with a clothing line for fat women that is instantly a worldwide success. She also learns to accept that she too is worthy of the love of a model gorgeous man because she is beautiful. (Using no known set of measurable and objective parameters).

What was laughable to me was the ability of the movie to affirm one message (of accepting your own fat self as is, flaws and all), while simultaneously reaffirming to women that they could have it all, including thin, buff, model status men with abs of steel and cheekbones constructed by Michelangelo.

"Where are the fat guys who they should be going out with, lessons having been learned that all are worthy of love, including guys with beer bellies or fat heads?"

Near the end of the film, but before the return to Africa where the Nigerian stud (doctor stud at that) proposes marriage, the three women end up in a club where two relatively attractive and thin women refer to them as "fat bitches".  The main character turns around and dismisses their diss with her new found positive identity and suggests that those women need to bring others down in order for them to feel good. Everyone in the club applauds her moxie and sides and dances with the fat girls.

While taking a rest from the dance floor, a new set of guys, all thin and good looking, offer the women free drinks.

I told the woman next to me that it was absurd. She said, in response, "Oh no, that happens. When guys  see you all positive and putting out positive energy, they get attracted to that."

"That's nonsense," I said.

I started to elaborate, but then otherwise. A strikingly beautiful man, or any man, will hook up with an overweight woman, to the extent her face is cute, her butt is round and big (if he is a butt man), or she has breasts that are not merely due to weight and will retain size after she loses. And, if by way of the physical attributes, she also has a decent personality, he may... MAY, take a gander. He may sleep with her, or he may make her his friend.  He may remotely go beyond that, but there must be some inherent and "typical" feature that excites him, beyond fat and her new found "I am a Queen" confidence.

In this movie, the central character had no figure and was quite flat chested, unlike her less plump, but plump and bookish friend who was rocking a chest.

The point here though, is that women delude themselves. They carry a great amount of power in terms of the men they date, or even the children they decide to have or not have. Society has changed and granted freedom.

Unfortunately wisdom is not being doled out by God or the government, and women remain in difficult situations when they fail to take into account that men are vastly different in how they process things, and what they value.

We Are Spartacus!

NJ Casino Applicants

We are against term limits for politicians, believing it somewhat anti-democratic at best; it's like running your NBA team with rookies and then wondering why nobody can remember the plays and you are not winning championships. There is something to be said for apprenticeships, time spent learning, and skills built up on the job.

So we are even more appalled that a new casino in Atlantic City, New Jersey (beloved city of dreams) will impose term limits of four to six years on its employees. Not all employees. Certainly not management, just the front line staff. Those lucky folks will be forced to reapply for their positions, continually and presumably against younger fresher faces at the end of each period. Invariably by virtue of resetting employment, Revel (the ridiculous casino) is suggesting that skills on the job do not in fact matter. Why? Because you are firing all workers regardless of skill, and letting them Spartacus their way back into the job ring.

But again, not management. They will be fine, and on the job as long as necessary.

From bellhops to dealers, employees of the new casino — called Revel — will be hired for terms from four to six years. After that, they have to reapply for their jobs and compete against other candidates. Revel declined to make anyone available for an interview. In a written statement, the company asserts that its employment policy will help it "attract the most highly professional people who are inspired by a highly competitive work environment. 

(NPR)

It's these types of moves and made by those executives at the top that leave you just steaming as the workforce is turned into a united state of serfdom.

Arizona White Women Go Black to Obama

God is Love

It's January. Normally we like to come up with some predictions about the year, but we are not going to bother this time around, other than to say that President Obama will win in November.

It's a political year, and the Republicans are busy fighting it out over irrelevancies. Newt Gingrich, the come from behind triple divorce threat (and time will get him to that third one), has proposed rebuilding the moon in our own image, without exactly saying how he would finance such hubris.

The establishment leader, Mitt Romney, is between a rock (Mormonism) and a hard place (massive amounts of wealth) that make it rather difficult for him to know which way to pivot each day in order to get the support of the massively poorer Christian conservatives he so needs during the primary season.

Meanwhile President Obama continues on, proposing ideas that will go nowhere. He knows that they will be shot down, but puts up the good frontal effort. In his mind he has probably written off getting anything done this year that involves congressional support. He will legislate from the White House, and largely focus on political issues.

God is Love

Nevertheless, he can never escape the pointed fingers of his enemies, who like to use every instance to frame him in a way that defies reality. In this case it's Governor Jan Brewer of Arizona (our beloved Gov) doing the framing. She confronted him over something, handed him an envelope, and pointed a lot, and otherwise used the President's visit as an opportunity to inflame her supporters and pump up meager book sales. She went on to tell people that she felt threatened by the President.

We contrast that close face to face with another face to face moment during the President's State of the Union address the night before. Gabby Giffords was on hand to spend her last moment in Congress before a hopefully temporary retirement, where she will work on recovering from the wounds she received at the hands of a gunman. She embraced the President warmly.

Which leaves us all confused. Two Arizona women. Both politicians. One black man. President. Two completely different encounters.  One encounter will be used to spread the lie, to slander, to bear false witness. And some conservative Christians will join in this, or let it stand, or make room for the lie. The other encounter shouts back at the lie, speaking truth.

Small Business Dies for Customers, Not Obamanomics

Small, Honest, Businessmen

We are at the beginning of 2012 and the political climate is heating up. Once the Republicans pick a candidate to face President Obama, the argument will center around economic issues. We can sum up the Republican positions as follows: that Obama has done nothing to improve economic conditions and has in fact made them worse via indecisiveness, increased spending, and his basic evilness.  The antidote to all things Obama is generally such broad generalities as "freedom," "empowering small business," and creating the type of economic certainty that up until now Republicans have been content to sabotage.

The biggest mantra is that Obama's policies have hurt employment, and small employers have been frozen in uncertainty and fear, and battered by regulations and rising taxes. It's a false mantra by all means, but you can repeat anything long enough and and it becomes certified doctrine, sanctified by God.

And as we say here... nonsense. The New York Times begins a profile of five small businesses (and their failures) with this factoid:

"One in four, according to the National Federation of Independent Business, believes thevbiggest problem is weak sales. No matter what other challenges they face, said William Dunkelberg, the federation’s chief economist, “the key to everything is cash coming in the front door.”

(N.Y. Times)

We have always known that people like to blame someone, especially someone they don't like, for their problems. We do it all the time. The convenient doctrine is to say that Obama regulation, or Obama healthcare reform (largely not in full effect) or Obama income tax hikes (non-existent), or Obama inspired uncertainty (Republican obstinacy ignored) is the cause of our current unemployment rate.

Meanwhile in their focus on deficits and spending, Republicans have raced to cut jobs across government levels, opting to have the pain concentrated in those fired, as opposed to a lesser pain spread across the population via any sort of tax. So while the private sector now creates jobs, and GDP is positive, states on the back-end are dumping workers into the streets, depressing the economy.

All due to the sudden Republican and Tea Party inspired wisdom that the best time to deal with the long term problem of high national debt is during a short term disaster financial collapse. It's like deciding to remodel your house while on sick leave from work and in the hospital. Idiocy.

Our economy functions on demand, on people spending. Fire enough people and spending falls and small business gets crushed. They got tax cuts from Obama. They got no major regulations that would affect their books. What they didn't get was a steady supply of customers with ready cash to spend.

Because the uncertainty is all around who will get laid off next via Republican inspired cuts to budgets.

Going back to the article, let's take a look at two of these entrepreneurs.

The first business was a bed and breakfast. They refinanced their mortgage in 2007 with a 10 year interest only loan that ballooned their mortgage payment by $1700, and just as customers began to slack off and the economy began to tank.  The refinancing was to redo their kitchen. So they took a ridiculously structured loan in the middle of a housing bubble.

Now what part of that is Obama's fault? Yea zero part.

Another business sold crown molding, one of the non-necessities when it comes to home upgrades. They also decided to incur the legal and liability costs of franchising, again, right before a recession kicked in. As late at 2010 sales were up 20%, which tells you that it was not the economy that actually did them in (since the economy has only improved since then). It was their franchising apparatus eating up cash. Further, they were in a mortgage related business which, of course, was the business that collapsed and caused the 2008 financial crisis. Who in the housing business, worldwide, did not suffer?

Now what part of that is Obama's fault?

The other three businesses are hardly worth mentioning--frozen dog food sold to pet stores without refrigeration--because the underlying business principles were not well conceived to begin with.

The point, is that during this election cycle we will hear a lot of attempts to pin every conceivable failure to Obama with false cause and effect assertions. We will hear that just cutting taxes and regulation will get the economy going, despite the Republican pushed tax cuts of 2010 that did not spur a sudden boom and boon to the economy. We won't hear about the impact of job cuts at the state level that have depressed economies across the country, working at odds from the hiring and profits in the private sector.

Don't be snookered into believing false cause and effect arguments that will leave most problems unsolved and the middle class hurting.

Mel Gibson Brutally Robbed by Housewife

Mel Gibson spent the last two years working out the details of his divorce with his former wife of 28 years. With a fortune measured at around $850 million, she ended up with half. His interim woman also received a settlement when he fathered a child with her.

I debated the merits of this settlement with a female, who took the wife's position. The argument went along the usual lines: That the wife spent years of her life both supporting his career, submerging her own life, and becoming accustomed to a certain lifestyle in the process. So why not give her half for her 28 years of support.

But this is nonsense. Giving a wife half of a man's money assumes a number of things. It assumes that the talent or skill that the one party has would not exist on the same scales, sans the other party. In other words, Mel Gibson would not have acted in The Road Warrior or directed Apocalypto without the support of his ex.

The split in the settlement essentially pins personal property, creativity and ambition against the wall and shoots. The bottom line assumption is that without a wife, Mel Gibson would not have been able to do all he has done. "Who would take care of the many kids while he is off making movies?" some say, supporting the wife. Hmmm, let's see how that works. Take the wife away, and how many kids does he have? Yea, no wife, no kids, no household duties to add to life's complexity.

Ambitious men tend to get prenuptial agreements but that is usually only after they have begun to taste the fruits of their own labor. Mel Gibson married early in the process of his own career, with his wife along for most of that ride. It would have been difficult to bring up a legal document five or ten years into a marriage when you both started from scratch. Indeed that would be inappropriate.

But the fact that she was "there" does not automatically imply equal achievement on her part or some moral equivalence in economic outcome. It's kind of like the argument you hear around Columbus Day, where the detractors of European discovery of the Americas assert, "Well the Native Americans already knew where they were, ha ha." This dubious statement is made in response to the fact that European explorers got their directions wrong, and reached places in the world they were not originally trying to reach, as in looking for India, but finding America.

But the critique is absurd. European explorers had the curiosity, the science, and the ambition to document the world beyond where they lived. That is an achievement undiminished by the fact that they may not have known where they were going. The knowledge gained through their curiosity created a better understanding of the world, versus a population--Native Americans in the United States--who might have just stayed put roaming the plains, and not seeking to understand the world beyond their immediate needs or document it.

The Gibson settlement is saying, "She was there, so she deserved equal reward." But she was the observer. You might be able to argue that her housework was equivalent to his outside work, and thus was the offset making her deserving of a payday. That is true to a point. But was her performance of housework the equivalent in quality with his execution of creating massive income with his skills? By all indicators Mel Gibson is outstanding at his job,when you consider the universe of actors who largely struggle. Was his wife the Van Gogh of housework? Was her housekeeping or child rearing on the level of a paid professional?

And while she was not rewarded with salary for keeping the household, she was rewarded with free rent, food, and support in ever escalating levels of quality. She likely got money and rewards along the way and received far more than her talents and career as a nurse would have rewarded her. One can also assume that any perk the Mel enjoyed, she enjoyed. One can also assume that if we grant her 50% of the fruit of Mel's work, Mel in turn should be rewarded 50% of the fruit of her work.

So if you could put a value on her work, and have Mel Gibson pay her, then fully half of that should come back to him. So let's say it's $50K a year for a top nanny, another $50K for a top housekeeper, and another $50K a year for the services of an escort. Right there you have the basic functions of a wife, and you can purchase top versions of those functions for about $150,000 a year. Over 10 years you are paying $1.5 million. Over 30 years you are paying $4.5 million.

See how that works? The high end commercial value of her work over a period of 30 years is $5 million tops. You could even add in another $30 million for intangibles--a million for each year. (And realizing that for $1 million a year you could hire a staff of 4 to 8 people easily).

Now having valued her work, does Mel Gibson get a share of half of that $35 million, leaving her with a more than adequate $17.5 million? If we assume she had a hand in half of Mel's success, did he not have a hand in half her success? Did not his millions make her job so much easier? She was not raising his many sons in a ghetto or struggling with them on the bus, or worrying where the clothing money would come from. She didn't have to do what many mothers do, and also work in order to create a two income household. At a certain point her life got really easy. Maybe that was in year two, or year 5, and certainly by year ten.

And yet, at the end of the day, Mel Gibson's wife gets half, or $425 million, for being there.

Obama & Healthcare: Less Imposition, More Choice

If there is any question at this political hour whether or not President Obama is a reasonable man, we need only look at the latest news from his health department.

"In a major surprise on the politically charged new health care law, the Obama administration said Friday that it would not define a single uniform set of “essential health benefits” that must be provided by insurers for tens of millions of Americans. Instead, it will allow each state to specify the benefits within broad categories."
(N.Y. Times)

Ahead of any health care rulings next year by the Supreme Court and the elections to follow, Obama is preparing the ground to counter any suggestion that he has imposed any sort of rigid ideologically driven program on Americans.  As we've long argued, he is far more interested in leaving a legacy than in undertaking a noble fight of purity that leaves him empty handed.

History will actually serve him well, even at this non-historical vantage point, given what has already been accomplished. Nobody will argue over perfection of implementation when the choice is one of imperfect policy or no policy. The Republicans have made sure that imperfect policy will always be the result, and until the public matches wisdom to outrage and supplies him with suitable support in Congress,  that won't change.

That said, if you were a soldier in Iraq, you are happy to be home. If you are starting to get some preexisting conditions or preventative care covered on your health policy, you are better off. If you are an Al Qaeda leader, you are likely enjoying the painful joy of your afterlife. And if you are headed to the ATM to pull out cash to finish your Christmas shopping, you are likely pulling an apple off the fruit tree of Obama economic sensibleness, where banks were rightly deemed important enough not to let fail in a manner that would lead to more bananas, less republic. If you are in Detroit making cars, you are for the moment relieved, and if you are buying a car, you have more choice than you might have had.

None of this was brought to you by his opponents, though we can thank George Bush for the offsetting visionary achievements of creating the economic collapse through blindness, and seeing the reasonable and quick partial solution via the TARP program. It's become common to criticize TARP from high (academic) and low (masses) vantage points, but in a bank run you don't fart around and your band aids don't come perfectly sized.

We assume the stark differences in achievement between the President and Congress, the President and the previous administration, and the President and his presidential opponent, will be made with some force next year. We hope people will be listening to actions, rather than reacting to words.

Obama Tells Iran to Return Trojan Horse

Iranian General points out tiny chipmunks

We could take this late night moment to talk about something important. Newt Gingrich, renaissance man of yesteryear, is challenging GOP leader Romney, taking him down to the undergarments in recent polls. And over there is our president, Mr. Obama, meeting with the leader of Iraq, while reinforcing a campaign promise kept (which was easier done than said given Bush's already set withdrawal timeline, but whatevs).

Instead we want to talk to you about drones. Nothing technical or deeply philosophical. According to news reports, a drone of ours, a kind of unmanned plane perfectly sized for chipmunk vacations, opted through magic, Iranian cunning, bad electronics or voodoo to land in Iran. Not crash land. Not shot out of sky into a million bits. But land, comfortable and apparently intact. 

The Iranians were glad to display this acquisition as it no doubt reinforced the truth that the Great Satan (that would be us, as in U.S.A) was not so satanically powerful after all. "We got your drone" they said via display, with further threats to take it apart, rebuild it with Iranian sauce, and wreak stealthic havoc back on us. 

President Obama eventually got around to requesting the plane back, though the general delay and all around casualness should make Iranians a bit skeptical about saying the inevitable "No, you can't have it back, Sons of Satan!"

"We have asked for it back," Obama said Monday at a news conference in Washington with Iraqi Prime MinisterNouri Maliki"We'll see how the Iranians respond." 

His comments marked the first public confirmation that the RQ-170 Sentinel drone now in Iranian hands is a U.S. aircraft, though U.S. officials privately acknowledged that in recent days. Iran has claimed it downed the stealthy surveillance drone, but U.S. officials say it malfunctioned.

(LA Times)

Now we don't want to be Obama fan boys and imply that this whole implausible situation is merely a diabolical plot concocted by the President and his administration to land a homing device inside of Iranian research facilities, because that would be mental hyperbole. It would be the same type of thought pattern that allows extreme conservatives to place Obama at the center of all and variable diabolical evils.

And yet,. the utter casualness in the official responses the past few days is almost comical, culminating in an almost ridiculous request to have the drone returned. Let's pretend the United States is Greece. Let's pretend Iran is Troy. Let's pretend horses can fly, like unicorns, and call them drones. Now let's pretend we land one or allow one to get captured. Now let's pretend certain components inside the flying horse are deeply locked and will take years to open and define. Now let's pretend Troy really gets on our nerves. And finally, let's pretend we turn the homing device on, and unload mega bombs on whatever high security research site is trying to backward engineer the horse.

Which is why if I were Iran, I would send it back and make a huge public relations gesture out of it.

While we strive to not get toasted and go conspiratorial here, hating the tendency in others, we nevertheless can't help but imagine what spy versus spy shenanigans might be going on between Iran and the United States. There is mystery in the belly of beast. 

Saveur Magazine Serves Up Holiday Wampum

One of my guilty pleasures is reading Saveur magazine. In my mind it is one of the best produced food magazines around, filled with lengthy centerpiece articles, beautiful photos and a fair amount of recipes. I don't actually cook all that much, so I don't get it for the recipes. I get it more for articles that usually drop you in the middle of some region or culture, highlighting the unique facets of their relationship with all things food.

And of course, I look forward to the holiday issues, even though the pantheon of holiday food is pretty set and there are only so many ways to cook a turkey or make mashed potatoes stand out. But I was not ready for my November and December issues, where Saveur editors opted to be decidedly agnostic as far as any sort of holiday fair. Not completely agnostic, but indifferent enough to the specifics of American Thanksgiving to render the issues a complete letdown.

The November issue does have "28 Great Holiday Sides" splashed across the front, but not much else to give the meat loving festive person a spark. The December issue gives us "Italian Christmas" with pasta on the cover; it's less a about Italians and Christmas than it is a retrospective of the influence of Italian cooking across the United States. The other main article "Puerto Rican Feast" sort of fits the bill, but the pictures lack any true festive appearance. No families round the dinner table, no tables, no Christmas lights, no Jesus, no religion at all.

Apparently the lead editor must have hit a severe patch of holiday blues and political expediency, deciding to forgo any traditional imagery or foods in both issues.  I don't really read Saveur to get my longings for standard American fare continually reaffirmed, but you do like to see a spot of the familiar mixed in with articles about how "other people do it" or, don't do it, during the holidays.

In place of my turkey or how to make a killer stuffing, and pictures of same, I get a vegetarian who has decided in this issue, MY ISSUE, that she will not even allow her guests to bring the turkey they usually offer to bring. Her ethics are her hero and my bane as she slips us wheat berry pilaf (in place of stuffing) and autumn vegetable patties (in place of meat).

I actually have no problem with that. It makes for interesting reading to see how other people eat and live and adapt a tradition to fit their own style. But when I am offered nothing else, and thus forced to dine on peas with orange and mint, sans turkey, ham, roast beef, or anything remotely familiar like baked mac and cheese, sweet potato pie or mashed potatoes, well, I get a bit peeved. You can't exclude the majority while including the minority as some project in equality or mind control.

It's disconcerting. I don't like all my holidays "disappeared" and replaced by meaningless otherness and commercial considerations. Thanksgiving itself is being sacrificed itself to corporate interests, with Black Friday dominating the news, while we are encouraged to give thanks to the Native Americans. There is so little now that is fun or authentically focused on the holiday's original intent.

I sat through the Thanksgiving Day parade in general annoyance and horror. The two hosts blabbed on and on, as the child who was watching the parade with me asked, "When is the news going off?". I told her "This is the parade, and those are the hosts."

There was more focus on those hosts and boring guests than on the parade itself.  Even the balloons were no treat, flying lower each year to avoid liability should a wind come and make things interesting. And at the very end, right before Santa, we had a Native American float called, "The True Spirit of Thanksgiving," because apparently for all these years we have all been getting it completely wrong.

Oh Saveur, how I know thee not, this holiday season. I don't want yuppie totalitarian vegetarians from comfortable Lawrenceville, New Jersey standing in for actual Thanksgiving. Take thy literary food wampom elsewhere, and given me something true.

Frankenstein Monster Candidates: Republicans Debate Bonus Wars

Robin (on left) with Batman

In case you were thinking that our military adventures (necessary and otherwise) are on the wane, with troops leaving Iraq, and Afghanistan looking more dubious by the hour after the death of Darth Bin Laden, rethink.

In  tonight's debate with the Republican presidential candidates, we are assured of one more war. Both the  front runner and the hind quarters of the political presidential race have come on in favor of attacking Iran IF they prove to be building nuclear stuff. And human nature being what it is, we can be pretty assured that Iran believes it has the right to build whatever we Americans gave ourselves the right to build. We don't mean to suggest any sort of equivalence between American and Iranian nuclear purposes, but then again, a bit of hypocrisy can be seen blowing from our end of the national possiblity pipe.

Romney said that if "crippling sanctions" and other strategies fail, military action would be on the table because it is "unacceptable" to Iran to become a nuclear power. Gingrich agreed, saying that if "maximum covert operations" and other strategies failed there would be no other choice. 

Ron Paul strongly disagreed, stressing the need to go to Congress before military action and saying it isn't worthwhile to use military force against Iran. "I'm afraid what's going on right now is similar to the war propaganda that went on against Iraq," he said. 

(CBS News)

Sometimes Mr. Paul is the most sensible voice amongst the insensitive and unstable, although his sensibility tends to deteriorate the closer he gets to diagnosing a solution for economic problems. There are moments when you want to take components of each of the Republicans and yank out that one specific part, and meld it together with the other parts to make a more ideal Frankenstein monster candidate.

Eventual U.S. Reality Show Contestants

All these candidates have serious flaws that make them incomplete packages. Because of their inability to push forward with a cogent identity, they are reaching for anything that might push them forward and help them nail their own brand down in the public's mind. If necessary, bombing Iran is just the sort of positive pick me up that's needed to make it clear that they are in fact the man for the job.

But this sort of tough talk does nothing for solving issues and the underlying policy that assumes that no country should have what you have needs serious re-examination.  But it would take a truly bold candidate to try to redefine long assumed prerogatives.

Washington Post's Expert Misread of 2012 Election

The White House

The press is always behind the curve. When housing prices are rising, they are not writing articles warning you to back off from the frenzy. When things are at their worst, they are not encouraging you to be a buyer. When the sun is on the verge of rising, the press will usually be making the hard case for permanent inexplicable darkness. 

This applies no matter the subject. In this case we have the Washington Post warning that Obama may have a difficult and unlikely path to a second term. While that argument can seem plausible at various junctures of Republican stubbornness and confrontational stalling, we tend to be underwhelmed by the idea that Obama will actually lose in 2012. In fact, enough factors are piling up to suggest his win will be solid. 

The Post points out the "dark electorate mood," and the continued battered economy, quoting different political folks, including one representative of Romney who makes the false claim that Obama has worsened the economic situation (which is entirely plausible if we throw out measurable economic statistics and speak from our imagination). 

The truth of the matter is that the Republicans don't have a working candidate that can actually counter the truth of Obama's record. Perry, what with his job growth stories, can be compared to the man with a one person company, who hires a second person and brags of 100% job growth. Fast job growth can be particularly meaningless when your overall unemployment rate is high, or the jobs are meaningfully piddling in pay. 

Romney, the only Republican remotely capable of capturing a broad swathe of the voting public, cannot reliably counter the record of Obama. He can't critique the health care plan, and actually, as features of that plan kick in, it will not likely be the albatross the pundits imagine. The foreign policy can't be knocked, what with arms treaties, the death of dictators, the support of democracy (however selectively), and the killing of terrorist enemies. 

Romney is the numbers guy, but if you get into a real numbers debate on the economy, you lose. Job growth and GDP and corporate profits moved positive under Obama. You can even make an argument that the 10.1% unemployment peak was reduced due to Obama's stimulus package. That rate was already high when Obama walked into the office. If it drops another tenth of a point or two between now and 2012, Obama might even be able to argue that unemployment has not increased on his watch.

Which is why the Republicans have relentlessly focused on the debt issue. They know all too well that Obama has been quite successful in a number of areas, moving legislation and transforming parts of society while remaining solid in foreign policy execution. What better way to stop your opponent than to hang on him a problem created over many years, and a problem that defies instantaneous resolution. They know that. It was a brilliant pivot by the Republican strategists to get the masses (via the Tea Party structure) to focus on that which cannot be easily fixed, and blame it all on Obama for its mere existence. 

Thus when you are using your rare budget dollars to shore up the economy, you can be hit from the right by the accusation that you are spending frivolously, destroying the country and its future. 

That is the sole message that might resonate, red herring that it is, but unfortunately the Republicans lack a symbiotic relationship between their best candidates and their most activist voters. And by best candidates we mean Huntsman and Romney. They have a mountain of mistrust to overcome, and even then, the residue of distrust will spill over to the wider voter. The Mormon superstructure is not your average church, and its reach is vast. 

However benign and vague the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints hopes to be, it nevertheless is even now working toward creating an environment conducive to a Romney win with its advertising campaign. (That campaign centers on a bunch of non-stereotypical Mormon types proclaiming that they are exactly like you and I, but Mormon, which rather defies any distinctions of Mormon faith, and especially if "you and I" happen to be fornicators, killers, or coffee drinkers). 

No, in the end this campaign will be a lot easier in 2012 than it appears today. The economy is already sending numerous signals of improvement and the numbers will be better heading into 2012. Barring some entirely normal Republican with an exceedingly well thought out economic plan, Obama will have no trouble sparring against Romney or the many lesser aspirants out there. 

Obama Calls Iraq Bluff, Republicans Want More Groveling

"Rock on left, Hard Place on Right"

The title of this article in the Miami Herald, "As U.S.-Iraqi troop talks faltered, Obama didn't pick up the phone" is one of those tricky bits of wording that means a bit more than it says. It haphazardly alludes back to the time when Hillary Clinton was running against Obama in the Democratic primary. Way back then (we were so much older then, we are younger than that now) she suggested that Obama might have trouble picking up the phone at 3 A.M. when something major was happening... you know, like whether to send special forces to take out a Bin Laden, or deciding whether to back a haphazard revolution in places like Libya, or even merely hunting down killers in Central Africa. The wording of the piece is an implication and an allusion wrapped up together in one myopic piece of reporting.

It goes on to point out the general distance that Obama and Vice President Biden kept from the negotiating table for the past year.

A listing of direct conversations provided by the embassy - drawn, the embassy said, from the White House website - indicates that Obama had no direct contact with Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki between Feb. 13, when he telephoned the prime minister, until Friday, when he called al-Maliki to tell him U.S. troops would be withdrawn by Dec. 31. 

(Miami Herald)

Let's think this through. Obama was against the war from the start. He ran for president saying he would bring troops home. Bush did the work for him by agreeing to a deadline this year, but failed to work out immunity for any remaining forces. If you are Obama, do you expend political capital, during domestic and worldwide economic disaster, to argue with Iraqi politicians that they should 1) let troops stay and 2) give them immunity, and for a war you never believed should have been launched? Do you really dance that ridiculous dance?

That's the dance Republicans wanted Obama to engage in. To push to keep troops on the ground, working around the Iraqi parliament (which Obama preferred a deal with) to form an agreement with the arguably shady Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki . What possible good comes out of that effort?

And related, what possible point comes out of the Herald's title, with its allusions to dithering and uncertainty. Obama has managed to have the most solid foreign policy of any recent leader. While washing his hands of the war he didn't want and allowing the troops to come home and rest, he has actively engaged other areas of trouble. He killed the man who justified our attack on Afghanistan, and arguably, we can leave that situation as well, revenge exacted. He took it on the chin for not leading the Libya effort, well aware that the United States is big enough, and strong enough, to lead in multiple ways. Different tact, better result: short war, no American loss of life, greater respect for American restraint and diplomacy, less cash out the door, and a Middle East that is closer to democracy if they choose to accept the gift.

Obama is a smart man, and the last thing he wants to do it prolong a policy he feels was inappropriate.

We here always supported the invasion of Iraq, not for WMD, but for the type of potential democracy we now see spreading. The revolutions in Tunisia, Egypt and Libya somehow simultaneously reaffirm the invasion of Iraq, and renounce it, since sourcing the variables that lead people to courage is near impossible. Who gets credit for the emerging democracies? It's not clear.

What is clear is that Obama does not want to expend effort on something he does not believe in, and further something he was elected to end. If you had wanted troops in Iraq indefinitely, you would have voted for the guy who wanted troops in Iraq indefinitely.

For Conservatives, Cain More Able Than Romney

It's a pretty much a forgone conclusion that we here will be voting for Obama come November 2012. He has done far too much, and with dignity, to let his efforts go for naught. Whether it's supporting Bush's saving of the American banking system, trying to find a reasonable approach to improving health care coverage, to beginning the process of bringing troops home from Iraq while handling international terrorists, the man has been firing on all cylinders. His detractors detract, because either they (the right) are caught believing or making lies about the man due to various versions of hate or they (the left) were never, and are not, clear on who he is.  He is his own man.

If Romney becomes the Republican candidate, and if he runs a clean campaign, we will not be overwhelmed in grief if he wins. He is capable. But we suspect he has his own burdens to overcome. Those most interested in Christianity are not easily swayed that Mormonism, with its additions, secrets, and collectivism, is that exact same thing that Christ laid out. Mormonism spirals in many directions, and no amount of commercials showing regular folks doing good will convince Christian conservatives that Joseph Smith didn't put a little something odd of himself into the theology. The unusual set of new Mormon commercials running now make people wonder about the scope and interconnected dealings between the Church of Latter Day Saints and those it supports. It's not a coincidence that the commercials are on now, laying the thought paths in 2011, so that they will be settled thought patterns later in 2012.

Ultimately Romney has to win the votes and we suspect it will be a tough battle, with activists of a conservative stripe leading the way. That's why someone like Herman Cain is having such a strong appeal at the moment. We  don't know if he can address all the issues that need to be addressed; Romney can. But Cain's his laser-like focus on economics in a year when economics is everything may prove hard to beat.

We actually like Herman Cain. We like the bigness of his economic plan which is wrapped in a seemingly simple package. "9-9-9" he reminds us over and over, referring to the tax rates for individuals and corporations, along with a tax on spending. We also think it's workable with a few tweaks. It may not be progressive, and it might force more people onto the tax rolls who currently can deduct their way out of taxes: that might be a good thing. I know people who actually don't marry to suppress reported income, seek help from the state and from federal tax credits, and thus live fairly well between the wife's paycheck, the "husband's" paycheck, and the additional government support.

It would be an oddball election if we ended up with Obama against Cain. It would be the only election where one race or another could be said to be voting based solely on race. That might be a good outcome, but don't hold your breath. You can only stir things up and raise cain so much, before forces sit you down.

Steve Jobs, the Rich Life, and Fresh & Easy

I was riding home when I got a brief announcement of His death via National Public Radio. I was on my way to Fresh & Easy for sausages and cranberry orange scones. "An icon. A modern day Edison," said the voice over the radio.

My mind drifted back. Back a few days. He was born on May 19th, 1964 and now he was dead. I remember the television being on late nights, flicking through channels,  and landing on the smiling, animated face of Don Lapre.  America produces great businessmen and entrepreneurs, and Lapre will not go down in history as one of them. He was a scam artist, preying on people's hopes of making outsized amounts of money with little effort. But oh his enthusiasm as he urged people that the road to great riches could be had by placing tiny little advertisements in newspapers.

Jump back to today. The reverent voice on the radio announced that Steve Jobs was dead. He was a man of unique vision who managed to transform the way society entertains itself and communicates. By all accounts he was a difficult person, but brilliance is often like that, lest some scully of a soul come along and mess up your vision. He created Apple Computer and Pixar Studios, among other endeavors, but will be known for his creativity.

In this great country we often have multiple paths we can choose. We are all gifted in certain ways, and we can use our gifts, our powers, toward transformation or destruction. Don Lapre was a man of talent, in that he could pitch a product enthusiastically, even though the products were junk. According to Wikipedia, he bilked over 200,000 people out of some $50 million plus dollars. He had an ability to make people--likely desperate or gullible or hopeful folks--perk up in the middle of the night and think that they too could live the good life. He could make people believe, but trashed their faith.

Steven Jobs literally gave us the good life. I've never had an Apple product and avoid them in part because of the trendy factor and not wanting to join "the cult." But my android touch screen is a derivative of his genius. And despite my fickle posturing, his products have rolled across society transforming how we listen to music, learn, read, watch video, talk, and process data. He lead in so many areas, leaving his competitors to follow in haphazard, not quite Apple, fashion. We are blessed by his focused vision, and by those who worked with him to carry out, refine, enhance, and build those ideas into physical products.

Lapre was indicted this year, and arrested in a gym in Tempe with wounds from suicide attempts. When he died earlier this week on October 2nd, it was from a suicide in police custody.  Steve Jobs died today, three days after Dupre, from pancreatic cancer. Lapre took himself out in a cowardly desperate act, avoiding responsibility. Circumstances beyond his control took Steve Jobs out, and away. But he leaves us with the example and products of his unique vision, and every area of life is left with his handprint.

Oddly I am saddened by both deaths. Between the two men is the spectrum of American life and achievement. We all have daily choices we can make where we can ask ourselves about the quality of our pursuit of happiness, and whether that pursuit is inclusive of those around us. Are we in it just to transform our own personal situation and get the rich life quick, or, are we in it because we believe in a vision that can bring a rich life to everyone else.

Life is so short. So short. Then we fade. "What are you doing?" I thought to myself again, as that thought pops into my head whenever someone dies. "Well, I am coming home from work, driving down a street in Phoenix, headed to Fresh & Easy for sausages and some cranberry and orange scones, and maybe some Coke Zero, and I don't know that I've touched anyone at all."

Would that we all bless someone while we have the time. Thank you Steve Jobs, and may heaven and grace exist for all.