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.