The first Thanksgiving was at our house, 7 Maple St. in a shoreline town in Connecticut. Even without presents it was our favorite holiday. The right time of year with one last football contest between the two rivals. Cider from Ziggy York’s fruit farm and the thrill-seeking joy of zinging horse chestnuts at cars from behind a tree. The big deal though was the cousins coming down from Hartford which made for a houseful. Lots of cooking which my mother was up to. Great food. Great fun.
My mother died before I went in the army and my father a year after I got out. We had moved to North Conway before that and it is where I wanted to be. Still do. But there was a tug to the old sod and especially around turkey day. My older sister and her husband who still lived in Milford had become sort of surrogate parents in that we younger Cases could always crash at their house, sponge their booze and get laundry done. They had four kids and invited some of the orphans to join them for some turkey. I had a not yet one year old and my high school brother. Wife-one thought we should bring him up after the pere passed. My sister Mary was preggers and she and Brian came down with us. I borrowed Tommy Mulkern’s Plymmie station wagon for the six hour trip.
The only rule I remember was you could only spark up a new one when we hit a new highway. I made it all the way to Dover, maybe sixty miles, before I got popped for speeding with this comical gaggle of hippies at a time when the pigs were not cool with that scene. I had to go to the police station to sort things out. Quelle trip.
Some of the wine brought for the big day managed to survive the trip but we were a little bit giddy when we got to the house. I hatched a plan to surprise our hosts and when my sister opened the front door there was Taffy, Brian and I wearing only the ties we had brought to wear at dinner. As hoped for Giggy freaked out and I remember her saying she hadn’t seen me or Taff naked since she changed our diapers.
That set the tone for the next twenty five years. The group got bigger and included cousins, more and more spouses and once in a while some outside guests. I remember before we headed off to the Milford–Stratford hundred year old football contest, hearing my baby brother pop a cork on a bottle of Wild Turkey with his teeth. He spit it across the drive way and said casually, “I guess I won’t be needing that any more.” He was wearing roller skates.
We seldom sat less than 25 to dinner. My brother-in-law was a genius at turning the living room into a banquet hall with tables he had cadged from the private school where he taught. The neighbors were also into the bacchanalia that decended on them every fourth Wednesday in November. Thanksgiving eve, my young nepot Pete, who now owns all the music in NYC, would lead revelers around the neighborhood singing turkey carols which consisted largely of “gobble gobble gobble” to the tune of jingle bells. With his back up group (BUG) of twenty or so he would lead us in a song of his own creation. PETE: “I saw your hiney. BUG: boomp boomp boomp boomp. PETE: it’s white and shiny. REPEAT CHORUS. PETE: You’d better hide it. CHORUS and PETE again: before I bite it.” Well-wishers in the door ways of the neighborhood would raise an appreciative glass and wipe the tears from their eyes.
One year while we were making our bibulous rounds, a brightly painted papier mache turkey with a yellow bathing cap, a red rubber glove for a wattle, and wearing green tights, came out of the bushes doing more of a chicken walk than a turkey strut while holding up a sign that read EAT ME! He said he had stayed up the whole night before (wink, wink) fabricating this fabulous Melleagris Gallipolis and some how managed to pull the bit off without anyone knowing ahead of time. It topped the top. He also brought an album, one of those big round black plastic thingys that when properly spun will play music. None of us had yet heard of Bruce Springsteen. That has now changed. Thanks, Paulie.
On the twentieth anniversary we decided to do a black tie dinner. I came up from DC, folks came down from VT and NH. Doc flew in from AZ and Mike from AK. One year Taffy came in from Paris but I don’t think that was the year. Anygate, the grown-ups towed the line in traditional garb. The college girls thought it was a hookers ho down or something and showed up looking like Miss Kitty or Madeleine Kahn in Blazing Saddles. I’m looking at the group photo right now (back when only Gig was gray) and I’m almost sure that some where Federico Fellini is smiling.
The kids grew up and got married and had to start sharing their Thanksgiving with complete strangers. Bob and Gig retired to VT and we tried to keep up the Hunter Thompson pace over there but it fizzled. Yet the tradition lives on in each of our own homes. We will be having twenty this year including two of us who were at the first Thanksgiving ever.
Tuesday, November 25, 2008
Friday, November 21, 2008
Let me try this again
If everybody in this fair land got health care, which would be run on the excellent model that the Veterans Administration uses, that could be the stimulus package the country needs right now. People wouldn’t have to pay for premiums and small business and large wouldn’t. That is cash in the pocket and that goes into the economy and investment for growth. Congress, teachers, state employees, unions, veterans, people over 65 all get some kind of insurance most of them paid for with tax dollars.
Preventive medicine saves money for the country. The poor use the ER for their primary care. Taxpayers pick up the tab. These same people tend to consider something “free” as having no value. They never consider preventive measures for whatever reasons, but that is not for us to speculate here.
My friend Dr. Malvesta (mal means sick in French) says it won’t work. But I would offer this explanation from the group, Physicians for a National Health Program:
“The U.S. spends twice as much as other industrialized nations on health care, $7,129 per capita. Yet our system performs poorly in comparison and still leaves 47 million without health coverage and millions more inadequately covered.
This is because private insurance bureaucracy and paperwork consume one-third (31 percent) of every health care dollar. Streamlining payment through a single nonprofit payer would save more than $350 billion per year, enough to provide comprehensive, high-quality coverage for all Americans."
"Policies that work means that everyone must be included, and that risk must be distributed in an equitable manner, based on ability to pay," says a group member. Or as Karl Marx might have it, “From each according to their ability, to each according to his need.” Yes, it’s redistribution of wealth (like all taxes) and yes, using the term Marxism isn’t that popular with anybody. Get Over It! It’s just a tag on an economic theory which in the proper environment works. And is working right here in the good ol’ US of A. If you make more money in this country, then you get noodged into a higher tax bracket. While you may not like it, you accept it. Your higher taxes go to helping crack babies get a better shot at life, educating any and everyone, and bailing out fat cats who have been scamming the system since they got their MBAs. It’s just the way it works.
To quote one of my favorite philosophers, “Let me make myself crystal clear” (that would be Nixon, Henney): We invest speculative dollars in a proven system to save big time on government handouts. We also improve the quality of health in the nation which means we spend less on life’s losers. Also too, and this is the point right now, people on national health care and businesses of all sizes will have more resources for the things they need. And businesses in particular can be more competitive on a world scale because they won’t have the onerous “benefit packages” that include in large part health bennies.
Postscriptum: Even if the (formerly Big) Three get the $25 B, they have already stated that it will not be for investment in 100 mpg vehicles. It will go for “on-going costs.” This is chump change to them. Last quarter, GM alone lost $39 B. You’d think that would be a record. Nope. The record belongs to AOL Time Warner back in 2002, $45 B. They didn’t get a bailout and now they are trading at about eight bucks a share. GM is at $2.88 Time to buy, I’d say.
Preventive medicine saves money for the country. The poor use the ER for their primary care. Taxpayers pick up the tab. These same people tend to consider something “free” as having no value. They never consider preventive measures for whatever reasons, but that is not for us to speculate here.
My friend Dr. Malvesta (mal means sick in French) says it won’t work. But I would offer this explanation from the group, Physicians for a National Health Program:
“The U.S. spends twice as much as other industrialized nations on health care, $7,129 per capita. Yet our system performs poorly in comparison and still leaves 47 million without health coverage and millions more inadequately covered.
This is because private insurance bureaucracy and paperwork consume one-third (31 percent) of every health care dollar. Streamlining payment through a single nonprofit payer would save more than $350 billion per year, enough to provide comprehensive, high-quality coverage for all Americans."
"Policies that work means that everyone must be included, and that risk must be distributed in an equitable manner, based on ability to pay," says a group member. Or as Karl Marx might have it, “From each according to their ability, to each according to his need.” Yes, it’s redistribution of wealth (like all taxes) and yes, using the term Marxism isn’t that popular with anybody. Get Over It! It’s just a tag on an economic theory which in the proper environment works. And is working right here in the good ol’ US of A. If you make more money in this country, then you get noodged into a higher tax bracket. While you may not like it, you accept it. Your higher taxes go to helping crack babies get a better shot at life, educating any and everyone, and bailing out fat cats who have been scamming the system since they got their MBAs. It’s just the way it works.
To quote one of my favorite philosophers, “Let me make myself crystal clear” (that would be Nixon, Henney): We invest speculative dollars in a proven system to save big time on government handouts. We also improve the quality of health in the nation which means we spend less on life’s losers. Also too, and this is the point right now, people on national health care and businesses of all sizes will have more resources for the things they need. And businesses in particular can be more competitive on a world scale because they won’t have the onerous “benefit packages” that include in large part health bennies.
Postscriptum: Even if the (formerly Big) Three get the $25 B, they have already stated that it will not be for investment in 100 mpg vehicles. It will go for “on-going costs.” This is chump change to them. Last quarter, GM alone lost $39 B. You’d think that would be a record. Nope. The record belongs to AOL Time Warner back in 2002, $45 B. They didn’t get a bailout and now they are trading at about eight bucks a share. GM is at $2.88 Time to buy, I’d say.
Wednesday, November 19, 2008
An idea for the bailout bucks
Let’s do a little ranting. There’s nothing else to be done because no one seems to have a real idea what can be done about the bailout. Yesterday, Hank Paulson who couldn’t explain a bus schedule, tried to convince Barney Frank the Commerce Chair, that it didn’t matter what Congress had legislated for rules in the $700 billion dollar handout to the finance sector because, “that was not our original intent.”
Frank cut him off three times as Hank tried to obfuscate the point by wandering way off from the reason he was there. Barney was actually waving the printed words of the stipulation at the insincere secretary which clearly states how the money could be spent, but Paulson was having none of it. He continued to bluster his way to the end of Frank’s time who finally threw up his hands in disgust. Hank had done his job. He had no intention of addressing the actual question or responding to the people’s representatives, and he didn’t. The frustration and arrogance in the room made for squeamish watching.
And it brings up the question that I had from the beginning of bandying about the $700B number. Who will be spending the money, and on what, and where does it all come from?
Our federal budget is $2.65 trillion as in - 000,000,000,000.00 - and $700 B may not sound like that much to Hank Paulson but here’s what the gummint was able to fund for this year with only 789 billion:
• Health/Human Services
• Soc. Sec. Administration
• Education Dept.
• Food/Nutrition programs
• Housing & Urban Dev.
• Labor Dept.
• other human resources
Next year the budget will be at three trill. Fourteen percent of that, or $420 billion will go for Medicare payments. That’s only for people over 65. How about taking the bailout billions (wherever that comes from) and finance a national health program like every other modern country has so that all citizens are covered the way federal and state employees, veterans, congress people and anyone else on the government teat is. That way the big three auto industries wouldn’t have that huge number for health benefits while the workers are working and even after they are retired.
That supposedly is the reason that the big three can’t compete with their foreign-owned competitors who, of course, build their cars in the U.S. Same kind of workers, same pay, but with no legacy funds eating up the profits. I guess that we are supposed to ignore the fact that America has been building the wrong kinds of cars and paying lobbyists obscene amounts of money to get away with it. Cars with lousy mileage fueling needless horsepower. Why do we build V-8s that go twice the top speed limit? Only in the last couple of years Jeep (Chrysler) came up with a competing model for the Hummer. We need more Hummer’s? Now these dubs come crawling to Capitol Hill wringing their hands while holding out their collective hat.
Mitt Romney, whose dad used to run American Motors and brought it out of a crisis similar to what we are seeing today, says in today’s NYT, screw ‘em. Well, not exactly those words, but he did say let them go into chapter 11 which is a vehicle (groan) for allowing these companies to hold off paying their creditors till they can get back on their feet, simply put. Not so simple will be restructuring the very complex labor agreements, specifically what the unions have perpetuated since there have been unions. Mitt says get rid of the old management. Bring in new truly creative people from unlike industries to get at real innovation. Set up for the future with an eye towards energy independence. I like it. Let him run it if he’s so sure it can happen.
The main thing going on here is business as usual. The greed heads are tripping over themselves trying to get their schemes through so they can get a taste of the $700,000,000,000 pie. There was even a bunch of plumbing contractors who formed a group asking for a chunk so they could rehab houses to get them back on the market. You can just imagine how the Treasury is being inundated with scams of all sizes. I don’t trust Paulson to do the right thing and if brash Barney can’t get him to answer a straightforward question, how is he or anyone else going to get a strict accounting of who is going to get some of this money? And oh, you flat-ass know they will be back for more.
Frank cut him off three times as Hank tried to obfuscate the point by wandering way off from the reason he was there. Barney was actually waving the printed words of the stipulation at the insincere secretary which clearly states how the money could be spent, but Paulson was having none of it. He continued to bluster his way to the end of Frank’s time who finally threw up his hands in disgust. Hank had done his job. He had no intention of addressing the actual question or responding to the people’s representatives, and he didn’t. The frustration and arrogance in the room made for squeamish watching.
And it brings up the question that I had from the beginning of bandying about the $700B number. Who will be spending the money, and on what, and where does it all come from?
Our federal budget is $2.65 trillion as in - 000,000,000,000.00 - and $700 B may not sound like that much to Hank Paulson but here’s what the gummint was able to fund for this year with only 789 billion:
• Health/Human Services
• Soc. Sec. Administration
• Education Dept.
• Food/Nutrition programs
• Housing & Urban Dev.
• Labor Dept.
• other human resources
Next year the budget will be at three trill. Fourteen percent of that, or $420 billion will go for Medicare payments. That’s only for people over 65. How about taking the bailout billions (wherever that comes from) and finance a national health program like every other modern country has so that all citizens are covered the way federal and state employees, veterans, congress people and anyone else on the government teat is. That way the big three auto industries wouldn’t have that huge number for health benefits while the workers are working and even after they are retired.
That supposedly is the reason that the big three can’t compete with their foreign-owned competitors who, of course, build their cars in the U.S. Same kind of workers, same pay, but with no legacy funds eating up the profits. I guess that we are supposed to ignore the fact that America has been building the wrong kinds of cars and paying lobbyists obscene amounts of money to get away with it. Cars with lousy mileage fueling needless horsepower. Why do we build V-8s that go twice the top speed limit? Only in the last couple of years Jeep (Chrysler) came up with a competing model for the Hummer. We need more Hummer’s? Now these dubs come crawling to Capitol Hill wringing their hands while holding out their collective hat.
Mitt Romney, whose dad used to run American Motors and brought it out of a crisis similar to what we are seeing today, says in today’s NYT, screw ‘em. Well, not exactly those words, but he did say let them go into chapter 11 which is a vehicle (groan) for allowing these companies to hold off paying their creditors till they can get back on their feet, simply put. Not so simple will be restructuring the very complex labor agreements, specifically what the unions have perpetuated since there have been unions. Mitt says get rid of the old management. Bring in new truly creative people from unlike industries to get at real innovation. Set up for the future with an eye towards energy independence. I like it. Let him run it if he’s so sure it can happen.
The main thing going on here is business as usual. The greed heads are tripping over themselves trying to get their schemes through so they can get a taste of the $700,000,000,000 pie. There was even a bunch of plumbing contractors who formed a group asking for a chunk so they could rehab houses to get them back on the market. You can just imagine how the Treasury is being inundated with scams of all sizes. I don’t trust Paulson to do the right thing and if brash Barney can’t get him to answer a straightforward question, how is he or anyone else going to get a strict accounting of who is going to get some of this money? And oh, you flat-ass know they will be back for more.
Friday, November 14, 2008
The greedy will always be with us
“You must remember this/stable economies are such bliss.” You can play that again Sam. If we know, and I know that you all do, economies ebb and flow almost as predictably as the tides, what is it in the whacky human psyche that does not understand that to ignore history is to repeat the disasters that it offers up on a regular and predictable wave pattern?
We had a doozy of a recession with depression statistics at the end of the Carter and beginning of the Reagan administrations. I pulled the following from Wikipedia: “The unemployment rate in the U.S. reached 10.8% in December 1982—higher than at any time in post-war era. Job cutbacks were particularly severe in housing, steel and automobiles. By September 1982, the jobless rate reached 10.8%. Twelve million people were unemployed, an increase of 4.2 million people since July 1981.
“The recession came at a particularly bad time for banks due to a recent wave of deregulation. The Depository Institutions Deregulation and Monetary Control Act of 1980 (DIDMCA) had phased out a number of restrictions on banks' financial practices, broadened their lending powers, and raised the deposit insurance limit from $40,000 to $100,000 (raising the problem of moral hazard). Banks rushed into real estate lending, speculative lending, and other ventures just as the economy soured.
“The FSLIC pushed mergers as a way to avoid insolvency. From 1980 to 1982, there were 493 voluntary mergers and 259 forced mergers of savings and loans overseen by the agency. Despite these failures and mergers, there were still 415 S&Ls at the end of 1982 that were insolvent.
“Pressured to counteract the increased deficit caused by the recession, Reagan agreed to a corporate tax increase in 1982. [He did WHAT??] However, he refused to raise income taxes or cut defense spending. The Tax Equity and Fiscal Responsibility Act of 1982 instituted a three-year, $100 billion tax hike—the largest tax increase since World War II.”
Mind you, this was twenty-five years ago when a new Volvo wagon was $7,000, the average price of a home in Greenwich, CT was $151,000 and KKR bought RJR/Nabisco for almost the same amount we just so casually gave to the auto industry to kind of help them through a rough patch so they could stay afloat till the real bailout bucks come in.
Reagan lowered interest rates rates from around 20 percent and by the time he was up for reelection the jobless number was down to 7.2 percent or just a little higher than it is now. Things turned around. That was then, but in between now was the 1991 recession. What, we didn’t learn our lesson? Hell no! People were greedy and we all saw lots of it everywhere. Why then the surprise when (Gee shock!) the housing bubble burst? Why the reprise of surprise when it happened again in ‘2001? And how could we be in this mess now?
BarackO said so many times on the campaign trail: “The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different outcome.” When the stock market dropped 23 percent on October 19, 1987 new regs were put in to make sure that trading would stop at a certain point if that were to happen again. Taking preventative measures seemed like a good idea to me. So if we know now what we know about housing bubbles and their predictable burstings, shouldn’t we be working on a solution to that?
But, nooooooo. The government and both houses decided that some un-named economic benefit derived to the country in the notion that the more people that live in their own homes the better it is for everyone. Really? How about all those taxes they don’t pay on the interest portion of their mortgage? Consider also too that most people move every seven years. I feel another eye ache coming on.
Consider this factoid when the Reagan recession started to recede: “Some of the most dramatic improvements came in industries hardest hit by the recession, such as paper and forest products, rubber, airlines, and the auto industry.” (italics mine.) I am inclined to say, no more bailouts and put a hold on handing out money to banks that only want to buy up more banks. It’s more greed no matter the spin they put on it. If money of this magnitude is up for grabs, the grabby will get it. The Russians are probably lobbying like a bastid for a piece and Curtis Sliwa is salivating for a couple of bills to bail out the Guardian Angels. I bet Ted Stevens is kicking his own butt that he can’t be in on the mother of all handouts, owing to the delicateness of his situation.
Democracy is such a pain in the ass. It’s nothing short of mind boggling that it actually works.
We had a doozy of a recession with depression statistics at the end of the Carter and beginning of the Reagan administrations. I pulled the following from Wikipedia: “The unemployment rate in the U.S. reached 10.8% in December 1982—higher than at any time in post-war era. Job cutbacks were particularly severe in housing, steel and automobiles. By September 1982, the jobless rate reached 10.8%. Twelve million people were unemployed, an increase of 4.2 million people since July 1981.
“The recession came at a particularly bad time for banks due to a recent wave of deregulation. The Depository Institutions Deregulation and Monetary Control Act of 1980 (DIDMCA) had phased out a number of restrictions on banks' financial practices, broadened their lending powers, and raised the deposit insurance limit from $40,000 to $100,000 (raising the problem of moral hazard). Banks rushed into real estate lending, speculative lending, and other ventures just as the economy soured.
“The FSLIC pushed mergers as a way to avoid insolvency. From 1980 to 1982, there were 493 voluntary mergers and 259 forced mergers of savings and loans overseen by the agency. Despite these failures and mergers, there were still 415 S&Ls at the end of 1982 that were insolvent.
“Pressured to counteract the increased deficit caused by the recession, Reagan agreed to a corporate tax increase in 1982. [He did WHAT??] However, he refused to raise income taxes or cut defense spending. The Tax Equity and Fiscal Responsibility Act of 1982 instituted a three-year, $100 billion tax hike—the largest tax increase since World War II.”
Mind you, this was twenty-five years ago when a new Volvo wagon was $7,000, the average price of a home in Greenwich, CT was $151,000 and KKR bought RJR/Nabisco for almost the same amount we just so casually gave to the auto industry to kind of help them through a rough patch so they could stay afloat till the real bailout bucks come in.
Reagan lowered interest rates rates from around 20 percent and by the time he was up for reelection the jobless number was down to 7.2 percent or just a little higher than it is now. Things turned around. That was then, but in between now was the 1991 recession. What, we didn’t learn our lesson? Hell no! People were greedy and we all saw lots of it everywhere. Why then the surprise when (Gee shock!) the housing bubble burst? Why the reprise of surprise when it happened again in ‘2001? And how could we be in this mess now?
BarackO said so many times on the campaign trail: “The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different outcome.” When the stock market dropped 23 percent on October 19, 1987 new regs were put in to make sure that trading would stop at a certain point if that were to happen again. Taking preventative measures seemed like a good idea to me. So if we know now what we know about housing bubbles and their predictable burstings, shouldn’t we be working on a solution to that?
But, nooooooo. The government and both houses decided that some un-named economic benefit derived to the country in the notion that the more people that live in their own homes the better it is for everyone. Really? How about all those taxes they don’t pay on the interest portion of their mortgage? Consider also too that most people move every seven years. I feel another eye ache coming on.
Consider this factoid when the Reagan recession started to recede: “Some of the most dramatic improvements came in industries hardest hit by the recession, such as paper and forest products, rubber, airlines, and the auto industry.” (italics mine.) I am inclined to say, no more bailouts and put a hold on handing out money to banks that only want to buy up more banks. It’s more greed no matter the spin they put on it. If money of this magnitude is up for grabs, the grabby will get it. The Russians are probably lobbying like a bastid for a piece and Curtis Sliwa is salivating for a couple of bills to bail out the Guardian Angels. I bet Ted Stevens is kicking his own butt that he can’t be in on the mother of all handouts, owing to the delicateness of his situation.
Democracy is such a pain in the ass. It’s nothing short of mind boggling that it actually works.
Tuesday, November 11, 2008
To: Robert Lyon Treat, ex-PFC, SFTG and 82nd Airborne (ret.)
Abn Bobby,
Does one wish one a “happy” Veterans Day? Mais non, maybe. It’s kind of a solemn occasion and instead of thinking about getting drunk on jug wine strung up with IV tubing in our BAMC barracks, I will concentrate on the real heroes like my Dad who rode a horse in parades down in Hartford during the first Great War. Also, too, I think very much of Captain Doc who lost his eye to Charlie and has never found it or the reason he was there. Here’s to good old Great Gran’pa (Charles Humphrey) Case who lost his health to dysentery while interred in Andersonville, a nasty residence that did not kill his enthusiasm for his country or fond feeling for fellow veterans. And there’s Captain Daniel Case who fucked over the Indians in a land grab that went horribly wrong for the wrong side. Then his son went after the Brits so we could have lower taxes, and white land owners could vote.
This morning I left a message for Jonesy on his ans. mac. He is most assuredly off to some parade with his beret verde ancien. He actually gave it to me one C’mas eve, long after he’d gotten sober. He and Maisly were in Rye with Jame and me. I sneaked it back to Maise so she could give it back to her father someday. I never got to wear one, since back in that day, the year Mustang came out with that frabjous convertible, one had to earn the hat. “Get your three” before you don the green beanie. Anyway, as you know, I went to Deutschland to help mop up the Marshall plan and check out the frauleins, but that’s for another time.
I remember that you went down to the Dom Rep for a little sun and some hot action. Even got to see some shooting and sew some sorry suckers back up. Good job being a medic, well for me anyway. Wearing whites every day as I walked (not friggin’ marched) to the ER for my 9 to 5 with occasional weekend CQ. Johnny Jones didn’t have it like that y’ know. Well actually, I didn’t know either till about ten years ago when he started to show me some pics and tell some stories about working with the ‘Yards’ and running a small hospital in the mountains somewhere. Let it suffice to say he buried way too many people for the experience not to own his soul from then till now.
Remember how whacked he was when we got back to State U.? I always thought he was a little outré but he shocked even me. He was like a little Che Gueverra riding around campus on his ten speed. I had no idea what he had seen and even if he had told me there is no way that anyone can recreate the horror of combat and indiscriminate death so that we could feel what they felt. Thank Cryce. He told me of one particular incident that gave me the heebies, and later I wondered (I still kind of do) why he didn’t break down at the memory. I also wonder if he has told anyone else about this stuff. How much good can it be to keep it in? How awful to have to relive it in the telling.
I don’t know what his dreams are like but I do know that the problems that plague him now are the same as everybody who has to pay bills, worry about children and be nagged forever about what might have been if he hadn’t witness the insidiousness of man’s ultimate struggle with man.
I think of Johnny, and my brother, and their buds on this day. I think of the guys we knew who did not come back and the one’s who came back like Bob Kerrey and Max Cleland. I think of that big black “V” in the ground at the mall. I can never look at that fucker Kissinger without thinking of his secret pact with Le Duc Tho to hold off on a peace agreement so that Stinkin’ Dick Nixon could get elected only to draw out the war for another five years with a death total of 5 to 6,000,000 Southeast Asians and 58,159 Americans. Thanks, you Dick!
I watched Wes Clark (it’s okay, he calls me Pete) on TV this morning and he said that he was happy that Veteran’s are now allowed to salute the flag instead of having to do the hand over the heart thing like civvies. It was a simple statement, but really emotionally charged for me. Then I laughed a little because I’ve always done that. One thing even my thousand and seventy-seven days in the Army couldn’t ruin for me is my own heart felt sense of small “p” patriotism.
Does one wish one a “happy” Veterans Day? Mais non, maybe. It’s kind of a solemn occasion and instead of thinking about getting drunk on jug wine strung up with IV tubing in our BAMC barracks, I will concentrate on the real heroes like my Dad who rode a horse in parades down in Hartford during the first Great War. Also, too, I think very much of Captain Doc who lost his eye to Charlie and has never found it or the reason he was there. Here’s to good old Great Gran’pa (Charles Humphrey) Case who lost his health to dysentery while interred in Andersonville, a nasty residence that did not kill his enthusiasm for his country or fond feeling for fellow veterans. And there’s Captain Daniel Case who fucked over the Indians in a land grab that went horribly wrong for the wrong side. Then his son went after the Brits so we could have lower taxes, and white land owners could vote.
This morning I left a message for Jonesy on his ans. mac. He is most assuredly off to some parade with his beret verde ancien. He actually gave it to me one C’mas eve, long after he’d gotten sober. He and Maisly were in Rye with Jame and me. I sneaked it back to Maise so she could give it back to her father someday. I never got to wear one, since back in that day, the year Mustang came out with that frabjous convertible, one had to earn the hat. “Get your three” before you don the green beanie. Anyway, as you know, I went to Deutschland to help mop up the Marshall plan and check out the frauleins, but that’s for another time.
I remember that you went down to the Dom Rep for a little sun and some hot action. Even got to see some shooting and sew some sorry suckers back up. Good job being a medic, well for me anyway. Wearing whites every day as I walked (not friggin’ marched) to the ER for my 9 to 5 with occasional weekend CQ. Johnny Jones didn’t have it like that y’ know. Well actually, I didn’t know either till about ten years ago when he started to show me some pics and tell some stories about working with the ‘Yards’ and running a small hospital in the mountains somewhere. Let it suffice to say he buried way too many people for the experience not to own his soul from then till now.
Remember how whacked he was when we got back to State U.? I always thought he was a little outré but he shocked even me. He was like a little Che Gueverra riding around campus on his ten speed. I had no idea what he had seen and even if he had told me there is no way that anyone can recreate the horror of combat and indiscriminate death so that we could feel what they felt. Thank Cryce. He told me of one particular incident that gave me the heebies, and later I wondered (I still kind of do) why he didn’t break down at the memory. I also wonder if he has told anyone else about this stuff. How much good can it be to keep it in? How awful to have to relive it in the telling.
I don’t know what his dreams are like but I do know that the problems that plague him now are the same as everybody who has to pay bills, worry about children and be nagged forever about what might have been if he hadn’t witness the insidiousness of man’s ultimate struggle with man.
I think of Johnny, and my brother, and their buds on this day. I think of the guys we knew who did not come back and the one’s who came back like Bob Kerrey and Max Cleland. I think of that big black “V” in the ground at the mall. I can never look at that fucker Kissinger without thinking of his secret pact with Le Duc Tho to hold off on a peace agreement so that Stinkin’ Dick Nixon could get elected only to draw out the war for another five years with a death total of 5 to 6,000,000 Southeast Asians and 58,159 Americans. Thanks, you Dick!
I watched Wes Clark (it’s okay, he calls me Pete) on TV this morning and he said that he was happy that Veteran’s are now allowed to salute the flag instead of having to do the hand over the heart thing like civvies. It was a simple statement, but really emotionally charged for me. Then I laughed a little because I’ve always done that. One thing even my thousand and seventy-seven days in the Army couldn’t ruin for me is my own heart felt sense of small “p” patriotism.
Friday, November 7, 2008
oBAM!a
“Our long national nightmare is over,” Jerry Ford famously said when the Trickster flew off to sunny San Clemente for a well deserved rest. Those are the words that came to me election night and then again in the morning. Some TV talker said this that George Bush’s approval rating is the lowest since they started keeping track. My friends, let there be no mistake, the fundamentals of democracy are sound. We will turn this turkey around and do what needs to be done to some day fix the ills that beleaguer us so badly. Your President-elect is already asking for “a new spirit of service and sacrifice.” I hope he is right. We need this change. These two words no longer seem like just a lexiconical leitmotif to be implanted on the back of the eyeballs of the witless electorate.
But! The first thing we need to do is shove this victory down the throats of the defeated. Really grind it in. Make sure they know there is a new sheriff in town. Have ten times more inaugural balls than the Bushies did. All the staff at the WH will be lily whites. Draw mustaches on W’s portrait. Because, you know the “O”s are coming off the White House keyboards and the silverware is already on a truck to Crawford. Rahm Emanuel needs to strap on his jack boots and boot around some booty.
O wait a minute. That’s not what got this guy elected. This is the man, they said up here in the White Mountains a year ago, that is “too cool for school.” I don’t know how many times I have heard the likes of Pat Buchannan and Joe Scarboring say, “Barack needs to punch back. This isn’t the way politics works. Politics is a blood sport.” What say you now Joe Blowhard? Playing tough works for you because you’re a bleedin’ bully. You think maybe it’s time to turn that page? You're old hat at 45. There’s a new breeze blowing and it is going to change the way people get elected and the sliming will only be for slime balls and ye shall know them by that name.
I even saw Michelle Bachman (the bad Michelle) who called for a “media investigation” of whether BarackO and some others of his ilk were patriotic enough. I assume she means her standard of good enough. Chris Mathews jumped all over her ass and did himself a huge favor in the process, gee shock. Now, Bachman, who has the political courage of Joe Lieberman, is saying what a great day this is and that she is so proud of this nation because, as she somewhat ineptly put it, "In my district, I don't sense racism [she’s in Minnesota], and that's why I'm thankful that hopefully this will send a national signal across our country that America is not a nation made up of racists... On the same hand, I hope that the national media will not confuse disagreement with Obama's policy positions with being consumed [by] racism." In the seventh grade I was pretty good at diagraming sentences. But I couldn’t parse that one with a gun to my head. My dream ticket for 2012, Palin-Bachman, “We’re right because we are waaay right.” I would add, and out of touch with the new reality.
Speaking of pickin’ on Palin (which, Dear Reader, you know I am loathe to do), what up with what we are guessing is the highest echelons of the McCain camp trashin’ the Gov.? I mean, that ain’t right dawg. They plucked her out of obscurity. They told her what to say, how to dress, where to be. And now they are blaming her for being a “maverick” and goin’ all rogue on 'em?
Let’s pick on Johnny Boy instead. Raise your hand if you thought the guy who “has been fighting for his country since [he] was seventeen” ran a really good campaign. Keep in mind that a president has to be a good manager. My man Mac was a spoiled little shit all the way up, his nightmare at the HH, not included or to be trifled with. When you look at all his advantages he should have been a shoo in. I won’t retrash the guy, at this particular moment, but I do want to point out the way his “people” are behaving about their/his loss.
Most people agree with me (about this one thing anyway) that Almost Admiral McCain gave his best performance of his shitty campaign in his concession speech. Sort of like Teddy K when he lost to (OMG!) Jimmy Carter in ’80. Well, if that was Mac being Mac, how could Steve Schmidt not have known that is what people wanted to see and hear? No, Bullet Head wanted to tightly script the “maverick” candidate to hit all the talking points as he has done in all the other campaigns he has run, in the past.
Schmidt surely had to be scratching his shiny pate when he saw Mr. Too Cool for School gliding past the Clinton machine with everybody talking about the tenor of the Obama message and the smooth operation of their own machine. But he was out of gas. He had reached the full height of his own incompetence (which to be fair, we all do at some point). But he did it at the beginning of his tenure as head of the campaign.
There’s a new day dawnin’ my peoples. Don’t forget to sign up to serve and sacrifice.
But! The first thing we need to do is shove this victory down the throats of the defeated. Really grind it in. Make sure they know there is a new sheriff in town. Have ten times more inaugural balls than the Bushies did. All the staff at the WH will be lily whites. Draw mustaches on W’s portrait. Because, you know the “O”s are coming off the White House keyboards and the silverware is already on a truck to Crawford. Rahm Emanuel needs to strap on his jack boots and boot around some booty.
O wait a minute. That’s not what got this guy elected. This is the man, they said up here in the White Mountains a year ago, that is “too cool for school.” I don’t know how many times I have heard the likes of Pat Buchannan and Joe Scarboring say, “Barack needs to punch back. This isn’t the way politics works. Politics is a blood sport.” What say you now Joe Blowhard? Playing tough works for you because you’re a bleedin’ bully. You think maybe it’s time to turn that page? You're old hat at 45. There’s a new breeze blowing and it is going to change the way people get elected and the sliming will only be for slime balls and ye shall know them by that name.
I even saw Michelle Bachman (the bad Michelle) who called for a “media investigation” of whether BarackO and some others of his ilk were patriotic enough. I assume she means her standard of good enough. Chris Mathews jumped all over her ass and did himself a huge favor in the process, gee shock. Now, Bachman, who has the political courage of Joe Lieberman, is saying what a great day this is and that she is so proud of this nation because, as she somewhat ineptly put it, "In my district, I don't sense racism [she’s in Minnesota], and that's why I'm thankful that hopefully this will send a national signal across our country that America is not a nation made up of racists... On the same hand, I hope that the national media will not confuse disagreement with Obama's policy positions with being consumed [by] racism." In the seventh grade I was pretty good at diagraming sentences. But I couldn’t parse that one with a gun to my head. My dream ticket for 2012, Palin-Bachman, “We’re right because we are waaay right.” I would add, and out of touch with the new reality.
Speaking of pickin’ on Palin (which, Dear Reader, you know I am loathe to do), what up with what we are guessing is the highest echelons of the McCain camp trashin’ the Gov.? I mean, that ain’t right dawg. They plucked her out of obscurity. They told her what to say, how to dress, where to be. And now they are blaming her for being a “maverick” and goin’ all rogue on 'em?
Let’s pick on Johnny Boy instead. Raise your hand if you thought the guy who “has been fighting for his country since [he] was seventeen” ran a really good campaign. Keep in mind that a president has to be a good manager. My man Mac was a spoiled little shit all the way up, his nightmare at the HH, not included or to be trifled with. When you look at all his advantages he should have been a shoo in. I won’t retrash the guy, at this particular moment, but I do want to point out the way his “people” are behaving about their/his loss.
Most people agree with me (about this one thing anyway) that Almost Admiral McCain gave his best performance of his shitty campaign in his concession speech. Sort of like Teddy K when he lost to (OMG!) Jimmy Carter in ’80. Well, if that was Mac being Mac, how could Steve Schmidt not have known that is what people wanted to see and hear? No, Bullet Head wanted to tightly script the “maverick” candidate to hit all the talking points as he has done in all the other campaigns he has run, in the past.
Schmidt surely had to be scratching his shiny pate when he saw Mr. Too Cool for School gliding past the Clinton machine with everybody talking about the tenor of the Obama message and the smooth operation of their own machine. But he was out of gas. He had reached the full height of his own incompetence (which to be fair, we all do at some point). But he did it at the beginning of his tenure as head of the campaign.
There’s a new day dawnin’ my peoples. Don’t forget to sign up to serve and sacrifice.
Tuesday, November 4, 2008
Been wrong so long it looks like up to me
The first time I voted it was against Dick Nixon but then I got to do it again and the taste was sour. The first time was in my apartment in North Conway in 1968. A gaggle of us watched the tube and comically commentated while sucking down suds and spliffs. One of my old high school buddies was the only one pulling for the Trickster. He’s now a Federal Appellate Judge in D.C. who mentions Bush in his Christmas letter. The counting dragged out late into the night and I passed out thinking the old Happy Warrior (Hubert Horatio Humprhrey, for any of you not old enough) had won.
Four years later I remember fairly running along the streets of Georgetown after work heading to an election eve party no less tame than the one just mentioned. I had been working for McGovern in Maryland and California and was a volunteer for the DNC at the Watergate during the time it was robbed. My friends had bought a Nixon candle which had a wick on the top and was alit when I arrived. Cathy Medd said, “There calling it a landslide with 6 percent of the vote in.” I was crushed.
I voted for Carter but without enthusiasm. I voted against the Gipper cheerfully, twice, but I went for his veep against the Duke. Clinton was a no brainer. But then I got my ass handed to me when Antonin Scalia elected poor George Bush. Four years later I went to bed thinking John Kerry would be reporting for duty at 1600 PA Ave. I woke up at one in the morning being told by the scary visage of James Carville that there would be four more years of the nincompoop-in-chief.
A year ago I would have bet anybody that I would be voting for a pant-suit presidency on this very day. That did not happen. Although I had said that I wouldn’t have to hold my nose to vote for Hil, I wanted the skinny kid. I liked his easy grace and obvious intelligence. I thought, “Hell, I’d vote for him even if he was white.” And today I did just that.
My friend Billy Richards couldn’t even get a hair cut in the same leafy town in Connecticut where we lived when we were in High School. Nor was he going to be asked to join the Yacht Club. I wonder how he felt today when he filled in that teeny little oval that will choose an African-American to be the next president of the United States.
Four years later I remember fairly running along the streets of Georgetown after work heading to an election eve party no less tame than the one just mentioned. I had been working for McGovern in Maryland and California and was a volunteer for the DNC at the Watergate during the time it was robbed. My friends had bought a Nixon candle which had a wick on the top and was alit when I arrived. Cathy Medd said, “There calling it a landslide with 6 percent of the vote in.” I was crushed.
I voted for Carter but without enthusiasm. I voted against the Gipper cheerfully, twice, but I went for his veep against the Duke. Clinton was a no brainer. But then I got my ass handed to me when Antonin Scalia elected poor George Bush. Four years later I went to bed thinking John Kerry would be reporting for duty at 1600 PA Ave. I woke up at one in the morning being told by the scary visage of James Carville that there would be four more years of the nincompoop-in-chief.
A year ago I would have bet anybody that I would be voting for a pant-suit presidency on this very day. That did not happen. Although I had said that I wouldn’t have to hold my nose to vote for Hil, I wanted the skinny kid. I liked his easy grace and obvious intelligence. I thought, “Hell, I’d vote for him even if he was white.” And today I did just that.
My friend Billy Richards couldn’t even get a hair cut in the same leafy town in Connecticut where we lived when we were in High School. Nor was he going to be asked to join the Yacht Club. I wonder how he felt today when he filled in that teeny little oval that will choose an African-American to be the next president of the United States.
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