Unlike the president I have waited till I have at least 70 percent of the information (see the Colie Powell doctrine for when to act) before I go running my pen off about the imbroglio twixt the Harvard Professor and the Cantabridgian cop.
If you saw Jim Crowley’s interview on the tube, you saw a very in control, articulate and I would say thoughtful guy who explained the situation to my satisfaction. It sounded very much like he did his job the way it was supposed to be done and that the ballyhooed brouhaha had nothing to do with race between the white officer and the black teacher. Until, “Skip,” tired from a long journey, and cranky for any number of reasons that are none of our business, decided to do what we think he has not done before, threw a nutty because he thinks a person of his stature should not have to deal with uniformed police unless he really needs them, as we all surely will at some point.
There were too many witnesses for Crowley to have said anything that should have made Gates respond with, “Why, because I am a black man in my own (ugly-yellow) house?” And there is no report of Crowley saying anything stronger that, “Please step out onto the porch, sir.” Crowley says that he did give his name and badge number when asked but claims the Harvard Professor was so noisy that he never heard it or didn’t really care. There was no reason whatsoever to arrest the guy once the pertinent facts to the 911 call had been satisfied.
So what happened? I know something about having that big blue light show up in your rear view mirror like it was a super-bowl plasma TV on LSD. Very sobering. I see a cop and I stand up a little straighter, start searching my pockets for gum. I could be going the other way and see the blue lights of an extra duty black & white just sitting behind a utility truck but I slow RTF down. So I ask myself, why would Skippy be so imprudent as to mouth off to the point where he is lead away from his own house in cuffs when we already know what went down? He done messed up.
And now none of the clever commentators have the sand to tell it like it most likely is. Instead of saying the guy screwed up, they are trying to hide behind the “larger conversation that Americans needs to have about race relations.” Being so old school, I believe that we cannot have that conversation enough, but what we are talking about here is Skip’s fragile ego or even more likely, his handling this whole thing so stupidly. I think he should man up and apologize to the nation for trying to use race in the most inappropriate way that only someone of his stature could pull off in the first place.
I look at Skip and I don’t see color (except that hideous house hue). I see a Yalie, Oxford, Harvardy, Cambridge, Martha’s Vineyard, the President-calls-me-Skip, kind of elitist, who having a little jet lag and possibly the teeniest bit hung-over from free drinks in first class, doing what any of us might do and tried to pull rank on the man in blue responding to a nuttin’ burger call. This is so not about race in the typical sense. It is about this pint sized-putz of a prof having a bad day. Basta.
Now, can we please get back to serious stuff like Sarah Palin’s nail polish color?
Some of you may have noticed that the Smoking Jacket has been off line for a well deserved vacation. Honest, I was not in jail. If any of you actually missed TSJ, it is my sincere wish that you get a life.
Tuesday, July 28, 2009
Wednesday, May 13, 2009
The Healthy Stimulus
I was raising a jar with a traveling salesman in a pub in St. Boswell, Scotland. The guy was a Brit who had had as much to drink as I and he was going off on the National/”Socialist” Health System in his country and how shitty it was and how high taxes were to pay for it. His dudgeon too was high. After a while I thought to ask if his taxes were more than the pound equivalent of five or six thousand dollars a year for one person’s health insurance in the US. He was appalled. “You have to buy your own insurance?” he queried incredulously. “Oh no,” says I, “It’s a free country. You don’t HAVE to buy anything. You can just go without, as many millions do who could never ever afford it. For some though, their employers pay a good portion of it though the individual has to chip in a co-pay each month and is of course responsible for the deductible which can be crippling indeed,” I explained. “Good Lord!” he exploded.
We are possibly about to enter earnest arguments at the highest level of government which will address the kind of national health care that Canada and most of Europe have had for decades. It seems to me that the timing of this push couldn’t be more advantageous for the pros. My chief thought here is that reducing health care costs for all Americans will act as a stimulus package of a kind in that it will mean extra money for folks to put food on their families, get new tires for the tired old beach wagon, allow parents to let little Susie go on the class trip to the Bridgeport Zoo with the rich kids. And if you believe that an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure you will want to pay particular attention to the argument that the most neglected and important segment of prospective beneficiaries of this program will be the zero to three year olds.
Even if you don’t feel like throwing tax money at the problems of the people who contribute least to society, from a practical point of view, it is better to get the little buggers a fresh start with proper nutrition and medical attention than wait until they are older with myriad more problems and attendant higher costs. And you will pay. You are now. Why not manage those costs? If the cost of managing is more, the cost of paying for inattention is worse. If the cost of getting a kid off on the right foot improves their chances of making a go of it in the real world seems high to you now, think about likely paying for his or her being in prison at $22 grand a year for minimum security and $60 K for maximum security. For every dollar spent on higher education, New Hampshire spent 73 cents on corrections. O yeah, we got crack babies in one of the prettiest places in the world and they got daddies and mommies in jail which we pay for even as we do for the life long medical bills and foster care of the babies. National Health can’t cure all that and maybe it is only an OUNCE of prevention but the consequences of not dealing with it up front, are, and will remain fruminous.
One of the less than sincere arguments is that you won’t be able to pick the kind of health care you want. What, you think insurance companies are gonna take this sitting down? Of course there will be red carpet service for people who want it and can afford it and the doctors that provide it will thrive. Just ask our veterinarian who you have to wait a month to see even though you’ve spent thousands with him just in the last year. And what if you do have to wait a little? It’s free (sort of). I use the VA system and they tell me who to see, when to see them, what meds they will pay for. When I had to have an operation I went where I was told and I had a couple of guys in the business from Dartmouth-Hitchcock bending over me who would have, in their private practice, charged 30 to 40 times what I paid. The VA system will be likely be the model for the ineluctable system that this nation will go towards. It has already been tried and tested. The wrinkles are being worked out. I have zero complaints. And did I mention the price?
This is the time to do this thing. Just yesterday, doctors, hospitals, drug makers and insurance companies voluntarily offered $2 trillion in cost reductions over 10 years by taking a one and a half percent cut in something. Dude! Why not save THREE percent and solve the whole economic crisis. No wait, SIX percent!
We are possibly about to enter earnest arguments at the highest level of government which will address the kind of national health care that Canada and most of Europe have had for decades. It seems to me that the timing of this push couldn’t be more advantageous for the pros. My chief thought here is that reducing health care costs for all Americans will act as a stimulus package of a kind in that it will mean extra money for folks to put food on their families, get new tires for the tired old beach wagon, allow parents to let little Susie go on the class trip to the Bridgeport Zoo with the rich kids. And if you believe that an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure you will want to pay particular attention to the argument that the most neglected and important segment of prospective beneficiaries of this program will be the zero to three year olds.
Even if you don’t feel like throwing tax money at the problems of the people who contribute least to society, from a practical point of view, it is better to get the little buggers a fresh start with proper nutrition and medical attention than wait until they are older with myriad more problems and attendant higher costs. And you will pay. You are now. Why not manage those costs? If the cost of managing is more, the cost of paying for inattention is worse. If the cost of getting a kid off on the right foot improves their chances of making a go of it in the real world seems high to you now, think about likely paying for his or her being in prison at $22 grand a year for minimum security and $60 K for maximum security. For every dollar spent on higher education, New Hampshire spent 73 cents on corrections. O yeah, we got crack babies in one of the prettiest places in the world and they got daddies and mommies in jail which we pay for even as we do for the life long medical bills and foster care of the babies. National Health can’t cure all that and maybe it is only an OUNCE of prevention but the consequences of not dealing with it up front, are, and will remain fruminous.
One of the less than sincere arguments is that you won’t be able to pick the kind of health care you want. What, you think insurance companies are gonna take this sitting down? Of course there will be red carpet service for people who want it and can afford it and the doctors that provide it will thrive. Just ask our veterinarian who you have to wait a month to see even though you’ve spent thousands with him just in the last year. And what if you do have to wait a little? It’s free (sort of). I use the VA system and they tell me who to see, when to see them, what meds they will pay for. When I had to have an operation I went where I was told and I had a couple of guys in the business from Dartmouth-Hitchcock bending over me who would have, in their private practice, charged 30 to 40 times what I paid. The VA system will be likely be the model for the ineluctable system that this nation will go towards. It has already been tried and tested. The wrinkles are being worked out. I have zero complaints. And did I mention the price?
This is the time to do this thing. Just yesterday, doctors, hospitals, drug makers and insurance companies voluntarily offered $2 trillion in cost reductions over 10 years by taking a one and a half percent cut in something. Dude! Why not save THREE percent and solve the whole economic crisis. No wait, SIX percent!
Friday, April 17, 2009
Heroic heroism in a real hero
Okay, up front, I know Richard Phillips well enough to punch him in the arm. Not that I will be able to get close enough to him in the next year to effect that sign of affection in the mano a mano sense. He is now TODAY show fodder. He’s frigged. He will be hounded by all the wrong people till he wishes he was back on that life boat having only to deal with bloody pirates.
As the world is about to find out, Richard is one funny dude. There is already talk about a movie and it is keen speculation as to who will play him with his great grin and Bawston aaccent. My brother T-Bone shot a video this past Christmas where Richard and his wife Andrea, also a hoot, are clowning around with friends from a Burlington bar. Take a not so exclusive look.
This is a great story. The hero places himself in the front of hostile forces with instructions to the crew of what to do. The crew itself has already acted bravely by grabbing and stabbing with an ice pick one of the pirates down in the 130 degree engine room. The stabee is then swapped for the Captain who has been, shall we say, “detained,” by the ruffians with AKs.
It is not clear at this writing as to what took place except that Richard was put aboard a 30 foot covered life boat with four of the Somalis and tried once to make a swim for it. Wisely considering that the bullets being fired at him might find their mark, he returned to the life boat and was held there four days while an anxious world looked on in dread. Perhaps not as anxious as Richard who had been seen with an AcK in his back during this time. I’m certain that would spoil my appetite even though I once faced down a BB gun when I was 12.
Richard is to the USA what Susan Boyle is to Scotland right now. The press will plump up and then pillory and then be conciliatory and finally fade away having put, as they almost always do, these and any other celebrities through the wringer. I actually saw an article trying to make Sully Sullenberg look like a jerk because the writer claimed he had safer choices than ditching his plane in the Hudson.
Though I’ve hung with Richard only sporadically over the last 20 years, and mostly at raucous occasions where alcohol was involved, I have the sense that he and Andrea will pull this off and come out smelling like a rose. She is an ER nurse with lots of personality and it is unlikely that she will be flabbergasted by all the hoopla and pushing and pulling. Just being married to her will afford him the fortitude he will likely need for the coming ordeal.
T-bone and I were speculating on who will play whom in the movie. Only Scarlett Johansson will do for madame, and we thought Billy Connelly, the profanely funny as hell Glaswegian, would be a good choice for Richard, except for the Scottish accent and a dozen years difference in age. (YouTube Connelly if you’re nae squeamish.) We had no thoughts on who might play the pirates and of course not much is known about their personalities as it would be hard to interview them now with there heads missing and all.
I think in this country we go on a bit too much with the hero business. The TV loves to use the word so they throw it around like so much rice at a wedding. But a hero is more than being in the right place at the right time, and yet you don’t have to be some muscley mythical god who led armies to conquer evil in the field of battle. A real hero chooses the right thing to do regardless of the costs to him or her self. They have the wit to assess a given situation and act in a manner that would produce the best possible outcome. That kind of action comes from within who we are. It would be hard to teach. If what we heard is true, that Richard made a command decision to put himself at risk to assure the safety of 19 others, he is a true hero and a rara avis. This is better than “the Captain goes down with his ship.” It feels good to know that kind of heroism is real.
A hero, in some cultures, is also a sandwich.
As the world is about to find out, Richard is one funny dude. There is already talk about a movie and it is keen speculation as to who will play him with his great grin and Bawston aaccent. My brother T-Bone shot a video this past Christmas where Richard and his wife Andrea, also a hoot, are clowning around with friends from a Burlington bar. Take a not so exclusive look.
This is a great story. The hero places himself in the front of hostile forces with instructions to the crew of what to do. The crew itself has already acted bravely by grabbing and stabbing with an ice pick one of the pirates down in the 130 degree engine room. The stabee is then swapped for the Captain who has been, shall we say, “detained,” by the ruffians with AKs.
It is not clear at this writing as to what took place except that Richard was put aboard a 30 foot covered life boat with four of the Somalis and tried once to make a swim for it. Wisely considering that the bullets being fired at him might find their mark, he returned to the life boat and was held there four days while an anxious world looked on in dread. Perhaps not as anxious as Richard who had been seen with an AcK in his back during this time. I’m certain that would spoil my appetite even though I once faced down a BB gun when I was 12.
Richard is to the USA what Susan Boyle is to Scotland right now. The press will plump up and then pillory and then be conciliatory and finally fade away having put, as they almost always do, these and any other celebrities through the wringer. I actually saw an article trying to make Sully Sullenberg look like a jerk because the writer claimed he had safer choices than ditching his plane in the Hudson.
Though I’ve hung with Richard only sporadically over the last 20 years, and mostly at raucous occasions where alcohol was involved, I have the sense that he and Andrea will pull this off and come out smelling like a rose. She is an ER nurse with lots of personality and it is unlikely that she will be flabbergasted by all the hoopla and pushing and pulling. Just being married to her will afford him the fortitude he will likely need for the coming ordeal.
T-bone and I were speculating on who will play whom in the movie. Only Scarlett Johansson will do for madame, and we thought Billy Connelly, the profanely funny as hell Glaswegian, would be a good choice for Richard, except for the Scottish accent and a dozen years difference in age. (YouTube Connelly if you’re nae squeamish.) We had no thoughts on who might play the pirates and of course not much is known about their personalities as it would be hard to interview them now with there heads missing and all.
I think in this country we go on a bit too much with the hero business. The TV loves to use the word so they throw it around like so much rice at a wedding. But a hero is more than being in the right place at the right time, and yet you don’t have to be some muscley mythical god who led armies to conquer evil in the field of battle. A real hero chooses the right thing to do regardless of the costs to him or her self. They have the wit to assess a given situation and act in a manner that would produce the best possible outcome. That kind of action comes from within who we are. It would be hard to teach. If what we heard is true, that Richard made a command decision to put himself at risk to assure the safety of 19 others, he is a true hero and a rara avis. This is better than “the Captain goes down with his ship.” It feels good to know that kind of heroism is real.
A hero, in some cultures, is also a sandwich.
Friday, March 27, 2009
Just say no
I know Judd Greg well enough to have punched him in the arm. “Good t’ see ya’ Judd,” I sarcastically sneered. I don’t much care for the fellow primarily because he’s a nerd but secondarily because he beat the draft during the Vietnam War because he had acne. ACNE! I knew guys in the army who had acne. Did they have to get special permission to be drafted because of a non contagious skin disease? I don’t think so. Was Judd a wuss who was too precious to go or does… and I know this is a stretch, it make any sense that his father was the governor and maybe helped his Exeter and Ivy League scion to keep from having to fulfill his duty. Judd said no to his country then and no to the country now.
Anygate, he’s a dickwad and is now decrying the administration’s plan to try to turn the world economy around. He said in so many words, even if the economy recovers in four or five years we will be stuck with a tremendous debt. And he agrees with the others who have absolutely no plan on what to do, that this administration is “just kicking the can down the road.” They might even, sometimes, allow that the previous prez was FUBAR in regards to his spending this country half unto death. But the hackneyed acneed Senator who almost joined the opposition until he figured out that it would be hard work (like serving in Vietnam) decided to defer that honor too. I am so glad he did because we really don’t need gutless phlegmatic do-nothings right now.
We need brains and leadership. Nobody really knows what the right answer is to solving this fiasco. What we do know (or think we do) is that doing nothing is not an option. I think that if someone had predicted the mess we find ourselves in a year ago, we would have thought that they were nuts. Now we can’t imagine what would happen if the world banking system should collapse. I know it is not going to happen because I just got an increase on my credit without even asking for it. They have to know something we don’t. The goofy grumbling about the Wall Street goons has almost already died down. There is a glimmer of action in new housing and there are indicators that are now turning up a little instead of free falling. The middle may well hold and if it does than we have to give the credit to the people who came up with a plan, got congress to pass it, and thank them for freaking doing something. If Mitch McConnell had it his way the Dems would fail and we all would suffer. Now you are starting to see all of these scalawags trying to get ahead of the action, almost like they know it’s going to work, to say “Yeah, but. Look at how much it cost! Damn those tax and spend socialists.”
If there really was fairness or karma in the world, the Obama team should be able to accomplish what they have set out to do with the most positive results just like W had eight years to do what he wanted largely unfettered. But I don’t really believe in that stuff and I know that too many people would rather see him flame out than have to admit that they were wrong. And it will kill me to have to listen to the geniuses who had absolutely no plan but will be telling us they told us so and now we have this monumental debt and it’s all Big Ears’ fault.
It’s all a gamble. Not a reckless one and not a wreck-less one. It requires that good thinking gets concentrated and strategies are devised and gone over. That computer models are worked and re-worked till you have at least 70 percent of the information (the Powell Doctrine) you need to make a decision. Then you implement and tweak with your fingers crossed and your breath held.
The risible response of the Republican innumeratti, whose “budget plan” had no numbers other than those to count the pages, will hardly do anything to advance their cause, which is... Well, I guess I am not sure what the heck it is. It’s kind of ethereal like a budget without numbers or the logic of protesting going to war because you have a skin problem. If you can believe that kind of thinking, the thought of a President Palin should gladden your heart.
Anygate, he’s a dickwad and is now decrying the administration’s plan to try to turn the world economy around. He said in so many words, even if the economy recovers in four or five years we will be stuck with a tremendous debt. And he agrees with the others who have absolutely no plan on what to do, that this administration is “just kicking the can down the road.” They might even, sometimes, allow that the previous prez was FUBAR in regards to his spending this country half unto death. But the hackneyed acneed Senator who almost joined the opposition until he figured out that it would be hard work (like serving in Vietnam) decided to defer that honor too. I am so glad he did because we really don’t need gutless phlegmatic do-nothings right now.
We need brains and leadership. Nobody really knows what the right answer is to solving this fiasco. What we do know (or think we do) is that doing nothing is not an option. I think that if someone had predicted the mess we find ourselves in a year ago, we would have thought that they were nuts. Now we can’t imagine what would happen if the world banking system should collapse. I know it is not going to happen because I just got an increase on my credit without even asking for it. They have to know something we don’t. The goofy grumbling about the Wall Street goons has almost already died down. There is a glimmer of action in new housing and there are indicators that are now turning up a little instead of free falling. The middle may well hold and if it does than we have to give the credit to the people who came up with a plan, got congress to pass it, and thank them for freaking doing something. If Mitch McConnell had it his way the Dems would fail and we all would suffer. Now you are starting to see all of these scalawags trying to get ahead of the action, almost like they know it’s going to work, to say “Yeah, but. Look at how much it cost! Damn those tax and spend socialists.”
If there really was fairness or karma in the world, the Obama team should be able to accomplish what they have set out to do with the most positive results just like W had eight years to do what he wanted largely unfettered. But I don’t really believe in that stuff and I know that too many people would rather see him flame out than have to admit that they were wrong. And it will kill me to have to listen to the geniuses who had absolutely no plan but will be telling us they told us so and now we have this monumental debt and it’s all Big Ears’ fault.
It’s all a gamble. Not a reckless one and not a wreck-less one. It requires that good thinking gets concentrated and strategies are devised and gone over. That computer models are worked and re-worked till you have at least 70 percent of the information (the Powell Doctrine) you need to make a decision. Then you implement and tweak with your fingers crossed and your breath held.
The risible response of the Republican innumeratti, whose “budget plan” had no numbers other than those to count the pages, will hardly do anything to advance their cause, which is... Well, I guess I am not sure what the heck it is. It’s kind of ethereal like a budget without numbers or the logic of protesting going to war because you have a skin problem. If you can believe that kind of thinking, the thought of a President Palin should gladden your heart.
Wednesday, March 18, 2009
Let me count the ways
I have been having way too much fun writing stuff I actually know something about lately. But it’s time to get back to the serious situations that confront this nation. However, rather than dredge up the Cramer v Stewart dust up I want you to know that I am all over the latest confrontation which pits the lovely cross-in-her-cleavage Laura Ingraham against the “curvy” Meghan McCain, the twenty-something daughter of the seventy-something Senator with the same name.
Just kiddin’.
I would be quite happy to never hear the word “transparency” again and most especially in connection with the behemoth, mind-boggling boondoggle that is our economic nightmare right now. It’s the numbers. The media throws them around the way weather channel chicks talk about temperatures across the country. La di dah, $50 bazillion here. Ho hum $700 billion for this. $Who cares, 168 B for them. What gets my goat about that last number which is what the chatterers are saying that AIG has already paid out in bonuses with at least seven execs getting over 3 million each for “performing”* so well, is: they freakin’ lost $41 billion! How cool is that by the way. Your bonus is tied to how much you lose. To my point, MoveOn has an email circulating that says the bonus amount for AIG is $450 million. O well.
Of course we know that AIG is scheduled to get about 1,000 times the 168 number in bailout relief. No less a reliable source than Chuck Todd thought that amount is 1 percent rather than the .001 percent it is. People in that biz just don’t care and then they try to come off as caring so much by saying “BBBBillion” with an omigod look on their face like they can hardly believe it. Then on Monday morning BarackO spoke to small-business types in the White House and iterated Secretary Geithner’s sucking-up statement about how wonderful small businesses are and that they are the backbone of the economy and held out an injection of $386 million to facilitate loans to them. Whoopdy freakin’ do. That means they will get a little more than half of what the AIG crooks are getting. One third of a Billion dollars. We spill that amount in Iraq every month. It gives me an eye ache.
In his most excellent book, “Inside the Emerald City”, Rajiv Sandrasekaran details what a disaster the Viceroyalty of Jerry Bremmer was in the Green Zone of Baghdad during the early years of this hideously unpopular war. The pompous and dictatorial Bremmer replaced career professionals with party loyalists and flunkies in the same way that he was picked. The amount of money that was wasted, lost and pilfered is measured in the tens of billions and in one instance palates of 100 dollar bills wound up “missing” and of course was never found. But the point is that nobody knows what the numbers are. Iraq costs “between 10 and 12 B per month.” Wouldn’t you think that the pentagon with all their resources could figure out where every dollar goes and not have to guess with in a couple of billion what the monthly tab is? I would think after 6 years of this war they would have it down. I can’t get over how comparatively paltry that number for helping small businesses is, and yet very specific. Perhaps the Admirals and Generals could sharpen their pencils and help us with this one.
And what was the real amount that Bernie Madoff made off with, $50 B or $65 B? It’s no big deal unless you’re a small business guy and you look at the difference between the first number and the second and realize that it’s FORTY-FIVE times the size of the help being offered for honest loans for SBA loans. Wifey Ruth’s independently earned fortune has gone from 68 to 100 million according to the sneering punditry who justify the new tally by throwing in a couple yachts, a $39,000 rug (big deal) and some “fine silverware” (amount not disclosed). She had the sand to say that she earned that money as the bookkeeper for the family ponzi business and salted it away. Doing the math it actually does make sense that the bookkeeper would only make a hundred mill for a company raking in 50 to 65 billion.
In a society where high school kids don’t count their change, can’t add simple fractions or do common multiplications tasks, it shouldn’t surprise any of us that the general public doesn’t seem to care about numbers. They may be thinking, let the liars lie. There’s nothing I can do about it.
*AIG says the money is a “retention bonus,” to keep these good people on the job to “wind down” (ever what the hell that means) various units and that these people are under non-negotiable contracts. We now know 53 of them left anyway and got bonuses anyway. This is definitely a pants-on-fire moment.
Just kiddin’.
I would be quite happy to never hear the word “transparency” again and most especially in connection with the behemoth, mind-boggling boondoggle that is our economic nightmare right now. It’s the numbers. The media throws them around the way weather channel chicks talk about temperatures across the country. La di dah, $50 bazillion here. Ho hum $700 billion for this. $Who cares, 168 B for them. What gets my goat about that last number which is what the chatterers are saying that AIG has already paid out in bonuses with at least seven execs getting over 3 million each for “performing”* so well, is: they freakin’ lost $41 billion! How cool is that by the way. Your bonus is tied to how much you lose. To my point, MoveOn has an email circulating that says the bonus amount for AIG is $450 million. O well.
Of course we know that AIG is scheduled to get about 1,000 times the 168 number in bailout relief. No less a reliable source than Chuck Todd thought that amount is 1 percent rather than the .001 percent it is. People in that biz just don’t care and then they try to come off as caring so much by saying “BBBBillion” with an omigod look on their face like they can hardly believe it. Then on Monday morning BarackO spoke to small-business types in the White House and iterated Secretary Geithner’s sucking-up statement about how wonderful small businesses are and that they are the backbone of the economy and held out an injection of $386 million to facilitate loans to them. Whoopdy freakin’ do. That means they will get a little more than half of what the AIG crooks are getting. One third of a Billion dollars. We spill that amount in Iraq every month. It gives me an eye ache.
In his most excellent book, “Inside the Emerald City”, Rajiv Sandrasekaran details what a disaster the Viceroyalty of Jerry Bremmer was in the Green Zone of Baghdad during the early years of this hideously unpopular war. The pompous and dictatorial Bremmer replaced career professionals with party loyalists and flunkies in the same way that he was picked. The amount of money that was wasted, lost and pilfered is measured in the tens of billions and in one instance palates of 100 dollar bills wound up “missing” and of course was never found. But the point is that nobody knows what the numbers are. Iraq costs “between 10 and 12 B per month.” Wouldn’t you think that the pentagon with all their resources could figure out where every dollar goes and not have to guess with in a couple of billion what the monthly tab is? I would think after 6 years of this war they would have it down. I can’t get over how comparatively paltry that number for helping small businesses is, and yet very specific. Perhaps the Admirals and Generals could sharpen their pencils and help us with this one.
And what was the real amount that Bernie Madoff made off with, $50 B or $65 B? It’s no big deal unless you’re a small business guy and you look at the difference between the first number and the second and realize that it’s FORTY-FIVE times the size of the help being offered for honest loans for SBA loans. Wifey Ruth’s independently earned fortune has gone from 68 to 100 million according to the sneering punditry who justify the new tally by throwing in a couple yachts, a $39,000 rug (big deal) and some “fine silverware” (amount not disclosed). She had the sand to say that she earned that money as the bookkeeper for the family ponzi business and salted it away. Doing the math it actually does make sense that the bookkeeper would only make a hundred mill for a company raking in 50 to 65 billion.
In a society where high school kids don’t count their change, can’t add simple fractions or do common multiplications tasks, it shouldn’t surprise any of us that the general public doesn’t seem to care about numbers. They may be thinking, let the liars lie. There’s nothing I can do about it.
*AIG says the money is a “retention bonus,” to keep these good people on the job to “wind down” (ever what the hell that means) various units and that these people are under non-negotiable contracts. We now know 53 of them left anyway and got bonuses anyway. This is definitely a pants-on-fire moment.
Wednesday, March 4, 2009
LXV
O woe is me. I’m not 23. I’m not even 25. I’m almost older than dirt and yet lucky to be whinnying amongst you all. As I reflect on my three score and five I wonder at how fate didn’t take me out long before this. How did I last longer than me own sainted mither? The answer has to be: clean living and a fortunate gene pool. If you throw in a downhill paper route and a Kevlar liver it begins to tie together the unfair inequities of life.
I bet luck is what it’s all about. I have done all the things that I taught my children not to, and yet I don’t have a limp and the only prosthetic device are my bifocals. I’ve got most of my own teeth and hair that’s unfair. The family thing, without boring details, is fabulous. I’ve been from here to there and lots of places in between and one of my only regrets is that there are so many places left to see but not nearly enough time.
It is interesting to ponder just how much time there is. We of course don’t know and only our own individual minds can attempt the calculus of how long our progenitors lived and in what kind of shape. Did I quit smoking soon enough? Will that old skiing injury take its toll as the arthritis gallops in to take control of my body? Is it a good thing that my older sibs are hanging in valiantly and that we will die off in order, or will I become the sacrificial goat?
I always tended to do things that should have done me in. I had a Harley down in Texas that I spent as much time under as on top. I bought my single lunger BMer 250 when I was still in a full length cast from a skiing mishap. I used to strap my crutches on the back with a bungee cord when I was down at State U. I’ve skied from the top of Mt. Washington and the top of Pike’s Peak, which it turns out, isn’t any easier when you’re straight.
There’s a lot more that now embarrasses and makes me wonder what possessed me, for surely the dibble himself must have been behind some of the idiocy and daring do. I like to think that I developed some skill along the way which may have helped. After crashing or rolling a half dozen cars before I got out of my twenties, I’ve been accident free these many but fleeting years. I’ve even survived Woods Hole (more luck than skill) but I plan to go back and that just can’t be very smart. Not so much a death wish as a Russian roulette kind of thrill. Sailing into hurricanes is a thing of the past.
What I worry about is an humiliating end. The dragged out disease that ends me up in the long-term care center of the VA hours from here. Or discovering and trying to cope with Alzheimer’s before it sucks me into the vortex from where no wise cracks will be heard from these lips again. I think I beat the chances of a stroke when I had my cheese choked carotids rotor-rootered, but you never know. An aneurysm suggests itself if only because the delicious irony of not being able to speak again would give so many of y’all a chuckle.
But the surer bet is that I’ll probably still be teaching the first time skiers from the local grammar school how to make turns on the slopes when I do hit my biblically touted 70. And, god knows I hope not, but there really shouldn’t be any reason not to be still flipping burgers at Phil’s if the building outlasts us. By that time Owen will be riding a bike and JP will be driving. Of course I want to see if he really does get into Yale and if Josephine can kick his butt in Karate by then, so I better start cleaning up my act. More exercise, fewer carbs, cut back on cocktails. Look both ways when crossing the street. No more grand standing hand stands for grand children. Take deep breaths when watching the news. Keep emailing friends and obey the speed limit.
If this sounds a little grim to some. It ain’t. It’s just the reflections of someone who is almost two thirds through an interesting life.
I bet luck is what it’s all about. I have done all the things that I taught my children not to, and yet I don’t have a limp and the only prosthetic device are my bifocals. I’ve got most of my own teeth and hair that’s unfair. The family thing, without boring details, is fabulous. I’ve been from here to there and lots of places in between and one of my only regrets is that there are so many places left to see but not nearly enough time.
It is interesting to ponder just how much time there is. We of course don’t know and only our own individual minds can attempt the calculus of how long our progenitors lived and in what kind of shape. Did I quit smoking soon enough? Will that old skiing injury take its toll as the arthritis gallops in to take control of my body? Is it a good thing that my older sibs are hanging in valiantly and that we will die off in order, or will I become the sacrificial goat?
I always tended to do things that should have done me in. I had a Harley down in Texas that I spent as much time under as on top. I bought my single lunger BMer 250 when I was still in a full length cast from a skiing mishap. I used to strap my crutches on the back with a bungee cord when I was down at State U. I’ve skied from the top of Mt. Washington and the top of Pike’s Peak, which it turns out, isn’t any easier when you’re straight.
There’s a lot more that now embarrasses and makes me wonder what possessed me, for surely the dibble himself must have been behind some of the idiocy and daring do. I like to think that I developed some skill along the way which may have helped. After crashing or rolling a half dozen cars before I got out of my twenties, I’ve been accident free these many but fleeting years. I’ve even survived Woods Hole (more luck than skill) but I plan to go back and that just can’t be very smart. Not so much a death wish as a Russian roulette kind of thrill. Sailing into hurricanes is a thing of the past.
What I worry about is an humiliating end. The dragged out disease that ends me up in the long-term care center of the VA hours from here. Or discovering and trying to cope with Alzheimer’s before it sucks me into the vortex from where no wise cracks will be heard from these lips again. I think I beat the chances of a stroke when I had my cheese choked carotids rotor-rootered, but you never know. An aneurysm suggests itself if only because the delicious irony of not being able to speak again would give so many of y’all a chuckle.
But the surer bet is that I’ll probably still be teaching the first time skiers from the local grammar school how to make turns on the slopes when I do hit my biblically touted 70. And, god knows I hope not, but there really shouldn’t be any reason not to be still flipping burgers at Phil’s if the building outlasts us. By that time Owen will be riding a bike and JP will be driving. Of course I want to see if he really does get into Yale and if Josephine can kick his butt in Karate by then, so I better start cleaning up my act. More exercise, fewer carbs, cut back on cocktails. Look both ways when crossing the street. No more grand standing hand stands for grand children. Take deep breaths when watching the news. Keep emailing friends and obey the speed limit.
If this sounds a little grim to some. It ain’t. It’s just the reflections of someone who is almost two thirds through an interesting life.
Tuesday, February 24, 2009
By any other name
If you believe Juliet when she said “Take yer name and stick it where the sun don’t shine because I’m not getting screwed out of a good screwing on accounta your father thinks my father is a Veronese dickwad” (or words to that effect that also mentions “a rose” severally and sequentially), a name is just a name.
There’s a new name in my life: Owen North Case, born on Feb. 18, a strapping chap with lungs to suit his bulk. Almost ten pounds, this little bucko looks to have all the makings of the kind of son any one would want, if they did want. And this guy was so wanted. By mum and dad most certainly, and then unsurprisingly by some grandparents who had yet to experience the continuation of the race on such a personal note.
A grace note really. Though he’s but a few days old I have actually met the 12th generation Case to be born on this soil. It gave me pause to think that it has taken almost 400 years for Owen to get here. Every 33 years, or so, one of his ancestors was born (I am just twice as old as my 32 year old son). Those grand-cestors went about the serious business of staying alive through all the wars and plagues that could have winnowed the line with consequences so dire as there might never have been a Smoking Jacket. But the name lives, and the lad’s incipient blog, The Burping Cloth, is already as old as he is. It is most fortunate that we share the same great editor.
There was no agenbite of inwit that made my heart leap when I laid my eyes on his big blurry blue ones over this past weekend. Having been the father of brand new babies I knew that the digital count and a pronounced in-and-out motion of the chest was the main concern. When Sonny Jim came out, in an upscale University hospital, I believed the Doc when he brushed off the gargantuan dents in the skull as “temporary, and typical” when a baby is yanked out with forceps the size of Harley handlebars. “A fine little football player” was the first thing I heard. And when it registered, I remember thinking that it was an odd thing for the young female anesthetist to say in the ‘70s. But rather than rendering gender, she was thinking that his head looked like it already had a helmet on.
Now that was a trip. Though I have treated myself to a generous helping of the recreational pleasures of that long ago Learycal day, I could never quite describe the feeling that I did or didn’t experience when I saw that brand new life form tautly drawn from its mother. Holey Moley! eh Heth? It was almost like a death. It is so hard to fathom what you just saw with your own eyes and at the same time absorb the ineluctable consequences. For days it would come back to me in a flash (as they say) going about my normal routine. The fact that I owned a little baby startled me.
It wasn’t like when Jess was born and I was 23 and took it in stride as my due. We brought her home in a pink card board box from the hospital that had “Baby Case” written on it, even though she was the only kid born that week in North Cornflake. I suppose that’s better than “Jess-icka.”
But, when Sonny was born ten years later, I was in a totally different mind set. We had tried for a long time, and though I love “trying” we started to think maybe we had to seriously consider what we would do if no baby wanted us. After an anguishing year we got the thumbs up and so I had the rest of the nine months to worry myself foolish about the plausible what-ifs. Though never religious after I gave up the cloth (I was a Latin spouting alter boy till I was 16 – don’t even go there!), I started trying to brown-nose god by asking to be made strong if the toe-count was off, or any other limiting thing might happen that would make our baby less perfect than he actually turned out to be.
The delivery was a soulless hell for his mother on account of the extra hat size for all those brains and she had to stay in the lying-in till the stitches came out. I think I did most of the right things in a sincere effort to show that I understood and cared. But there is no freaking way any man can fathom what women go through. You can only try by imagining what it would feel like for you to pass a flaming porcupine.
Now the torch has been passed and I know that little O is in the best possible hands. In April he will move to Chicago. After pre-school he might think about becoming a community organizer. And perhaps he could go into teaching at some future date, say at the famous eponymous University out there. After that he might even just want to … I’m just sayin’, run for office.
Lighten up. It could happen.
There’s a new name in my life: Owen North Case, born on Feb. 18, a strapping chap with lungs to suit his bulk. Almost ten pounds, this little bucko looks to have all the makings of the kind of son any one would want, if they did want. And this guy was so wanted. By mum and dad most certainly, and then unsurprisingly by some grandparents who had yet to experience the continuation of the race on such a personal note.
A grace note really. Though he’s but a few days old I have actually met the 12th generation Case to be born on this soil. It gave me pause to think that it has taken almost 400 years for Owen to get here. Every 33 years, or so, one of his ancestors was born (I am just twice as old as my 32 year old son). Those grand-cestors went about the serious business of staying alive through all the wars and plagues that could have winnowed the line with consequences so dire as there might never have been a Smoking Jacket. But the name lives, and the lad’s incipient blog, The Burping Cloth, is already as old as he is. It is most fortunate that we share the same great editor.
There was no agenbite of inwit that made my heart leap when I laid my eyes on his big blurry blue ones over this past weekend. Having been the father of brand new babies I knew that the digital count and a pronounced in-and-out motion of the chest was the main concern. When Sonny Jim came out, in an upscale University hospital, I believed the Doc when he brushed off the gargantuan dents in the skull as “temporary, and typical” when a baby is yanked out with forceps the size of Harley handlebars. “A fine little football player” was the first thing I heard. And when it registered, I remember thinking that it was an odd thing for the young female anesthetist to say in the ‘70s. But rather than rendering gender, she was thinking that his head looked like it already had a helmet on.
Now that was a trip. Though I have treated myself to a generous helping of the recreational pleasures of that long ago Learycal day, I could never quite describe the feeling that I did or didn’t experience when I saw that brand new life form tautly drawn from its mother. Holey Moley! eh Heth? It was almost like a death. It is so hard to fathom what you just saw with your own eyes and at the same time absorb the ineluctable consequences. For days it would come back to me in a flash (as they say) going about my normal routine. The fact that I owned a little baby startled me.
It wasn’t like when Jess was born and I was 23 and took it in stride as my due. We brought her home in a pink card board box from the hospital that had “Baby Case” written on it, even though she was the only kid born that week in North Cornflake. I suppose that’s better than “Jess-icka.”
But, when Sonny was born ten years later, I was in a totally different mind set. We had tried for a long time, and though I love “trying” we started to think maybe we had to seriously consider what we would do if no baby wanted us. After an anguishing year we got the thumbs up and so I had the rest of the nine months to worry myself foolish about the plausible what-ifs. Though never religious after I gave up the cloth (I was a Latin spouting alter boy till I was 16 – don’t even go there!), I started trying to brown-nose god by asking to be made strong if the toe-count was off, or any other limiting thing might happen that would make our baby less perfect than he actually turned out to be.
The delivery was a soulless hell for his mother on account of the extra hat size for all those brains and she had to stay in the lying-in till the stitches came out. I think I did most of the right things in a sincere effort to show that I understood and cared. But there is no freaking way any man can fathom what women go through. You can only try by imagining what it would feel like for you to pass a flaming porcupine.
Now the torch has been passed and I know that little O is in the best possible hands. In April he will move to Chicago. After pre-school he might think about becoming a community organizer. And perhaps he could go into teaching at some future date, say at the famous eponymous University out there. After that he might even just want to … I’m just sayin’, run for office.
Lighten up. It could happen.
Tuesday, February 10, 2009
A NH winter morning
It’s not bad enough that we’ve got snow UTYA and the temperature has been 50 degrees below freezing most of the days of official winter and above 32 only once in recent memory. In fact it’s three above zero right now and it’s about to get a little cooler in here.
Rising before dawn, I turned up the heat and put on the coffee. Then I came in here to check the news and get my feet warm where the oil burner blows right on ‘em. Only not today. I noticed with a white knuckled dread that the familiar thrum of fossil fuel being turned into bone warming BTUs was absent.
Still dark, I grabbed a flashlight and slipped on Bean boots because I have to go outside to enter the cellar through the bulkhead. I had kept it shoveled all winter for such an emergency but some of the frozen stuff had calved off the roof and now needed to be broken up before it could even be shoveled. I got a shovel from the garage and came back to the task. When I finally snapped the door open it flipped a quart of snow into the boot of my sockless left foot. I think I cursed.
In the cellar I pressed the little red reset button and went back into the house to enjoy my cold coffee. The furnace stayed on only long enough for me to get boots off and my foot dry. Back on with boots, jacket and gloves and I reentered Dante’s refer and mashed the stupid little goddam red button. This time I waited. It went off and I mashed and it went off and I mashed and then, hateful silence.
I have on a sweater, long johns and slipper socks. I don’t even want to know what the inside temp is.
Twice this year I have been up on the roof to shovel the couple of feet of snow that accumulated. You have to get at this stuff while it’s fluff or it’ll turn to cement in the rain and only a teenage back is up to the task. Of course the little pirates get $50 an hour so it is good to get it done by one’s self. Now I can’t even push it off the roof anymore because the snow is stacked up to the eaves. The guy who plows the drive came back with his front loader and back hoe so that he could redistribute the Andes that have closed in our driveway so that even the Cooper can’t turn around. He doesn’t get quite as much as the teen hijackers but it ain’t cheap and according to the Farmer’s Almanac I expect he will be back before the croci crack through the last piles at the end of April.
Okay, now I’m getting those nose icicles you see on little kids and if I wasn’t heading to Phil’s later I would be tempted to pour a schnick into the last cup of coffee. We both have jackets on as we wait for the oil man who was scheduled to come today anyway. Florida sounds awfully damn good. Umbrella drinks at Ocean Alley on the boardwalk watching the ocean liners go by and that woman with the Harley bod who skates backwards with a monkey on her shoulder and very little else between her skin and the sun’s rays. Or Isla Mujeres, though I’ve never been there. I just know it’s hot and always five o’clock. Round trip for under three hundred bucks or six hours of roof shoveling. My fingers are numbing. I still don’t want to know how cold it is in here. This is what happens when typing with gloves on. Not bad, eh? My Christmas scarf dhelps too. It’s two and a half hours since I called the oil company. Nopt dmuch you c an do. It’s just one of the things you almost l;earn to live wioth, like the roof shovelers. I just lookef and the temp is 48, INSIDE!!
Oh ho! Do my wondering eyes deceive? No, it is the big yellow truck that I called for three and a half hours ago. No explanation why we weren’t on auto delivery as we had contracted for. Very nice man. Very apologetic. I had to put the baseball bat away. “I’m just the driver. You’ll have to call headquarters in Montreal to find out how they missed it.” Right. All is forgiven. Sweetness and light prevails.
Rising before dawn, I turned up the heat and put on the coffee. Then I came in here to check the news and get my feet warm where the oil burner blows right on ‘em. Only not today. I noticed with a white knuckled dread that the familiar thrum of fossil fuel being turned into bone warming BTUs was absent.
Still dark, I grabbed a flashlight and slipped on Bean boots because I have to go outside to enter the cellar through the bulkhead. I had kept it shoveled all winter for such an emergency but some of the frozen stuff had calved off the roof and now needed to be broken up before it could even be shoveled. I got a shovel from the garage and came back to the task. When I finally snapped the door open it flipped a quart of snow into the boot of my sockless left foot. I think I cursed.
In the cellar I pressed the little red reset button and went back into the house to enjoy my cold coffee. The furnace stayed on only long enough for me to get boots off and my foot dry. Back on with boots, jacket and gloves and I reentered Dante’s refer and mashed the stupid little goddam red button. This time I waited. It went off and I mashed and it went off and I mashed and then, hateful silence.
I have on a sweater, long johns and slipper socks. I don’t even want to know what the inside temp is.
Twice this year I have been up on the roof to shovel the couple of feet of snow that accumulated. You have to get at this stuff while it’s fluff or it’ll turn to cement in the rain and only a teenage back is up to the task. Of course the little pirates get $50 an hour so it is good to get it done by one’s self. Now I can’t even push it off the roof anymore because the snow is stacked up to the eaves. The guy who plows the drive came back with his front loader and back hoe so that he could redistribute the Andes that have closed in our driveway so that even the Cooper can’t turn around. He doesn’t get quite as much as the teen hijackers but it ain’t cheap and according to the Farmer’s Almanac I expect he will be back before the croci crack through the last piles at the end of April.
Okay, now I’m getting those nose icicles you see on little kids and if I wasn’t heading to Phil’s later I would be tempted to pour a schnick into the last cup of coffee. We both have jackets on as we wait for the oil man who was scheduled to come today anyway. Florida sounds awfully damn good. Umbrella drinks at Ocean Alley on the boardwalk watching the ocean liners go by and that woman with the Harley bod who skates backwards with a monkey on her shoulder and very little else between her skin and the sun’s rays. Or Isla Mujeres, though I’ve never been there. I just know it’s hot and always five o’clock. Round trip for under three hundred bucks or six hours of roof shoveling. My fingers are numbing. I still don’t want to know how cold it is in here. This is what happens when typing with gloves on. Not bad, eh? My Christmas scarf dhelps too. It’s two and a half hours since I called the oil company. Nopt dmuch you c an do. It’s just one of the things you almost l;earn to live wioth, like the roof shovelers. I just lookef and the temp is 48, INSIDE!!
Oh ho! Do my wondering eyes deceive? No, it is the big yellow truck that I called for three and a half hours ago. No explanation why we weren’t on auto delivery as we had contracted for. Very nice man. Very apologetic. I had to put the baseball bat away. “I’m just the driver. You’ll have to call headquarters in Montreal to find out how they missed it.” Right. All is forgiven. Sweetness and light prevails.
Wednesday, February 4, 2009
Reporting on the reporters
Watching BBC news is a good idea every now and then if for no other reason than to understand it’s not all about us. There are the usual hot spots in the mid East but I only found out this a.m. that our only American airbase in the region (Kyrgyzstan) that supplies our troops in Afghanistan has just been sold to the Russkies for a couple of billion dollars. BBC made it sound like the US wouldn’t pony up the paltry sum, so the head of that country went for the best deal. Now we have to send our stuff through the Khyber pass, a no-fun zone to be sure.
Mind, the Iraqi war still costs ten to twelve billions a month but we’re supposedly winding that down. We know fewer people are dying and we have to assume that the Dexter Filkins-like patrols are not still going on so that our troops are measurably safer and there are cost savings in that. Couldn’t we have spared some money from there to keep that Kyrgy base for ourselves plus blocking Putin from getting it (I know there’s a real president, Medvedev, but he don’t count)? Plus, there is talk of putting in 20 to 30 thousand troops (government types have a tendency to round out numbers in the most obfuscating way) in Afghanaland who will surely be needing supplies.
This is apparently a bigger deal to me than it is to the ‘Merican media who can talk about Tom Daschle’s dilemma and parse the “I screwed up” statement until the cows come home. What crap! Iranians are now orbiting the earth, North Koreans are moving missiles to newly constructed launch sites, The Levant is totally screwed and Maureen Dowd is predicting that disgraced Daschle’s eye-glasses will become a new fashion fad.
It makes sense that with many major newspapers around the world having to trim their budgets it’s a lot cheaper to get stories by just calling or texting contacts to find how what Michelle O’bama wore to the second grade story-time with her husband. It’s a no brainer to just read what others have written and then disagree. And I do wonder how many ways one can disagree. It’s a bit like buying short in the market and hoping things turn out for the worst so your story will have a tinge of truth in it. Ooooh, the Prince of Peace said he was going to change Washington, but ... is he really?
Don’t these latest missteps in the first fourteen days of his administration prove that The One has been under the spell of Rev. Wrong all this time and has a secret cabal to destroy all that is good and holy in the land of the free? Rush doesn’t even want him to succeed. But at least I can understand that. If BHO does well, then the bilious bloviater is in a pinch to explain that to his adoring acolytes.
I shouldn’t be talking about Rush though. Not when I see that J. T. Plumber is back in the news (truly) as a consultant to the Republican party. This guy gives me an eye ache as big as the one I get when I just see an image of Milorad Blago. Letterman killed him last night and he smiles right on through. He’s been kicked out and condemned. He smiles more. He is traduced by all that he sucks up to and he’s all hair and teeth. What a worthy subject for the news.
I happen to think that the media is in cahoots with Congress. In this latest House version of the stimulus bill, we are supposed to believe (again) that the need is crushing. To stall is to guarantee certain economic failure for us and the world. Yet the dumb Ds stick junk into the bill that predictably sets the Rs spinning dizzily in front of Capital Hill mics and the back and forthing is what gets reported. It is more fun to reduce a provision for family planning (a known cure for reigning in house hold expenses) to, “hundreds of millions for rubbers,” than it is to have an honest debate with historical facts and professorial prognostication to determine which really is better: two thirds stimulus to a third tax cuts, or the opposite. I listened to three guys discussing this yesterday on the way to work and they were fairly yelling at each other. Nothing was resolved after an hour of this poisonous prating.
One wonders if anything will ever be resolved. And then there’s poor Latvia.
Mind, the Iraqi war still costs ten to twelve billions a month but we’re supposedly winding that down. We know fewer people are dying and we have to assume that the Dexter Filkins-like patrols are not still going on so that our troops are measurably safer and there are cost savings in that. Couldn’t we have spared some money from there to keep that Kyrgy base for ourselves plus blocking Putin from getting it (I know there’s a real president, Medvedev, but he don’t count)? Plus, there is talk of putting in 20 to 30 thousand troops (government types have a tendency to round out numbers in the most obfuscating way) in Afghanaland who will surely be needing supplies.
This is apparently a bigger deal to me than it is to the ‘Merican media who can talk about Tom Daschle’s dilemma and parse the “I screwed up” statement until the cows come home. What crap! Iranians are now orbiting the earth, North Koreans are moving missiles to newly constructed launch sites, The Levant is totally screwed and Maureen Dowd is predicting that disgraced Daschle’s eye-glasses will become a new fashion fad.
It makes sense that with many major newspapers around the world having to trim their budgets it’s a lot cheaper to get stories by just calling or texting contacts to find how what Michelle O’bama wore to the second grade story-time with her husband. It’s a no brainer to just read what others have written and then disagree. And I do wonder how many ways one can disagree. It’s a bit like buying short in the market and hoping things turn out for the worst so your story will have a tinge of truth in it. Ooooh, the Prince of Peace said he was going to change Washington, but ... is he really?
Don’t these latest missteps in the first fourteen days of his administration prove that The One has been under the spell of Rev. Wrong all this time and has a secret cabal to destroy all that is good and holy in the land of the free? Rush doesn’t even want him to succeed. But at least I can understand that. If BHO does well, then the bilious bloviater is in a pinch to explain that to his adoring acolytes.
I shouldn’t be talking about Rush though. Not when I see that J. T. Plumber is back in the news (truly) as a consultant to the Republican party. This guy gives me an eye ache as big as the one I get when I just see an image of Milorad Blago. Letterman killed him last night and he smiles right on through. He’s been kicked out and condemned. He smiles more. He is traduced by all that he sucks up to and he’s all hair and teeth. What a worthy subject for the news.
I happen to think that the media is in cahoots with Congress. In this latest House version of the stimulus bill, we are supposed to believe (again) that the need is crushing. To stall is to guarantee certain economic failure for us and the world. Yet the dumb Ds stick junk into the bill that predictably sets the Rs spinning dizzily in front of Capital Hill mics and the back and forthing is what gets reported. It is more fun to reduce a provision for family planning (a known cure for reigning in house hold expenses) to, “hundreds of millions for rubbers,” than it is to have an honest debate with historical facts and professorial prognostication to determine which really is better: two thirds stimulus to a third tax cuts, or the opposite. I listened to three guys discussing this yesterday on the way to work and they were fairly yelling at each other. Nothing was resolved after an hour of this poisonous prating.
One wonders if anything will ever be resolved. And then there’s poor Latvia.
Tuesday, January 27, 2009
The stimulus package
I don’t see a “package” which I consider to be some things wrapped up tidily inside so they can’t spill out and perhaps a ribbon with a bow to make a pleasing appearance. What I see instead is a personification of cats being herded by a three year old cranked on Ritalin.
I tried hard to believe Hank Paulson’s idea for a $700 billion bail out was exactly what was needed to stanch the hemorrhaging of financial sector jobs and by extension the failure of the institutions that we all rely on even if we’re not exactly sure why. Two words come to mind: credit-cards and mortgages (Is that three?). Most people who follow current events are likely to have direct experiences with both of these. So it does matter to us what decisions are being made. I personally know people who have been affected by jobs that were cut back. I meet people in my real job, who don’t build houses, are not heading to their retail jobs every day and complain that numbers are down in their restaurant or at the ski area where they work.
What in the name of all that is holy did the bogus bailout do for them? And we have seen a dozen stories of avaricious excess by the principals whose banks (mostly) have received TARP monies. The $87,000 rug, the $50 million new corporate jet. It gives me the feeling that, like the baddies at Enron, these dicks are laughing at the big fat fatuity that is our government trying to steer the right course in the midst of this calamity.
I would have voted against the Paulson plan for the simple reason that Hanky Pank had written into the rules: If I let you let me have this money for my secretive project with little if any oversight, then you have to agree that I can never be held responsible for its (probable) failure. This is a conservative Wall Street banking guy.
Now we are expected to believe that the people in charge of our money like the new tax-cheat in chief know what they are doing. Let me ask: If it is so important to figure out this mess, why is the Republican leadership (if they can be said to have any) with that Devo-looking John Boehner, in front of the mics to announce that he will vote against the $850 Billion (that’s eight five zero, zero zero zero, zero zero zero, zero zero zero point zero zero). His reason as he says with a straight face, “they” want a couple hundred million dollars for rubbers.
Paul Krugman says throw all the money you can at this. Paul’s got a Nobel in this very subject. Does he know how to spend all that money in a way that will solve the problem that it’s aimed at right now? He has only nodded toward somewhat vague concepts of what is needed in terms of the catch all phrase “infrastructure.” But we are hearing ridiculous wild guesses as to how long it will take to put that kind of money into the economy to supposedly stimulate us out of our ever expanding economic hole so that we can someday begin to pay it all back.
I truly believe that we can spend that money all across this country on projects that have been put in the pipeline a decade ago. One does not just build a road to cash in on “free” money. Departments of Highway have teams of engineers and stategists to predict what the needs of an expanding and more mobile population will require to get places, like school. These people figure out how many people will be in the immediate area years from now so they can buy up property at current rates to place a new school where it will do the most good. In some cases new roads will have to be put in place to handle the increased traffic. That kind of thinking has to be ongoing so that we are not starting from scratch when the need is immediate.
Bridge inspectors have a twenty year backlog of disasters waiting to happen in the hopes that money will some how become available to mend or replace ageing and dangerous structures that were built eons ago to accommodate a more modest amount of traffic.
And assuming that the Crooked Construction Company is already lining up to bid on these babies, you can assume from jump street that the costs of these projects will over-run on the kind of formula that made the Big Dig such a taxpayer treat. That little puppy (a 3.5 mile tunnel with off shoots to the airport and such) was estimated to cost $2.8 Billion back in 1985 when it was conceived and that included an underground rail system to go back and forth between the North and South train stations. That didn’t happen.
The eventual cost with adjustment for inflation became $14 plus Billion. O wait! Did I mention that you need to tack on the $7 Billion in interest that makes the grand total enough to run the Iraq war for a couple of months. You see, it’s all relative.
If that little project (3.5 mi.) sextupled, at least, we need to divide the 850 by six to see what we really get for our next trillion of debt which people who are losing their jobs by the millions are expected to pay for.
Have a nice day.
I tried hard to believe Hank Paulson’s idea for a $700 billion bail out was exactly what was needed to stanch the hemorrhaging of financial sector jobs and by extension the failure of the institutions that we all rely on even if we’re not exactly sure why. Two words come to mind: credit-cards and mortgages (Is that three?). Most people who follow current events are likely to have direct experiences with both of these. So it does matter to us what decisions are being made. I personally know people who have been affected by jobs that were cut back. I meet people in my real job, who don’t build houses, are not heading to their retail jobs every day and complain that numbers are down in their restaurant or at the ski area where they work.
What in the name of all that is holy did the bogus bailout do for them? And we have seen a dozen stories of avaricious excess by the principals whose banks (mostly) have received TARP monies. The $87,000 rug, the $50 million new corporate jet. It gives me the feeling that, like the baddies at Enron, these dicks are laughing at the big fat fatuity that is our government trying to steer the right course in the midst of this calamity.
I would have voted against the Paulson plan for the simple reason that Hanky Pank had written into the rules: If I let you let me have this money for my secretive project with little if any oversight, then you have to agree that I can never be held responsible for its (probable) failure. This is a conservative Wall Street banking guy.
Now we are expected to believe that the people in charge of our money like the new tax-cheat in chief know what they are doing. Let me ask: If it is so important to figure out this mess, why is the Republican leadership (if they can be said to have any) with that Devo-looking John Boehner, in front of the mics to announce that he will vote against the $850 Billion (that’s eight five zero, zero zero zero, zero zero zero, zero zero zero point zero zero). His reason as he says with a straight face, “they” want a couple hundred million dollars for rubbers.
Paul Krugman says throw all the money you can at this. Paul’s got a Nobel in this very subject. Does he know how to spend all that money in a way that will solve the problem that it’s aimed at right now? He has only nodded toward somewhat vague concepts of what is needed in terms of the catch all phrase “infrastructure.” But we are hearing ridiculous wild guesses as to how long it will take to put that kind of money into the economy to supposedly stimulate us out of our ever expanding economic hole so that we can someday begin to pay it all back.
I truly believe that we can spend that money all across this country on projects that have been put in the pipeline a decade ago. One does not just build a road to cash in on “free” money. Departments of Highway have teams of engineers and stategists to predict what the needs of an expanding and more mobile population will require to get places, like school. These people figure out how many people will be in the immediate area years from now so they can buy up property at current rates to place a new school where it will do the most good. In some cases new roads will have to be put in place to handle the increased traffic. That kind of thinking has to be ongoing so that we are not starting from scratch when the need is immediate.
Bridge inspectors have a twenty year backlog of disasters waiting to happen in the hopes that money will some how become available to mend or replace ageing and dangerous structures that were built eons ago to accommodate a more modest amount of traffic.
And assuming that the Crooked Construction Company is already lining up to bid on these babies, you can assume from jump street that the costs of these projects will over-run on the kind of formula that made the Big Dig such a taxpayer treat. That little puppy (a 3.5 mile tunnel with off shoots to the airport and such) was estimated to cost $2.8 Billion back in 1985 when it was conceived and that included an underground rail system to go back and forth between the North and South train stations. That didn’t happen.
The eventual cost with adjustment for inflation became $14 plus Billion. O wait! Did I mention that you need to tack on the $7 Billion in interest that makes the grand total enough to run the Iraq war for a couple of months. You see, it’s all relative.
If that little project (3.5 mi.) sextupled, at least, we need to divide the 850 by six to see what we really get for our next trillion of debt which people who are losing their jobs by the millions are expected to pay for.
Have a nice day.
Tuesday, January 20, 2009
Swan song for the ugly duckling
What is there to be said on the last night that Dubya spends in the White House that hasn’t already been said, thought, blogged, opined, repined or joked about? The little dude is gonna sneak off into the sunset with not even a whimper. No speech is planned. No party. No send off. And certainly no press. If we are keen to see his ass hurrying though the door of Marine One, it is nothing compared to what he must be feeling.
We’re not talking just a sigh of relief as he plunks down in his gleaming ride heading for Andrews. O no. He will have an uneraseable shit-eatin’ grin that will stop only long enough to take his first swig of a big ol’ bourbon and branch as he nestles into that cream colored leather chair they have on Air Force One for Ex-POTUSes to take the suckers walk, as it were. Two more like the first one and he’ll be calling Cheney to tell him what he/Dick told Pat Leahy on the floor of the senate.
Then, before he passes out, he’ll get ”The Architect” on the line: “Yo, Boy Genius!” he’ll slur at the top of his lungs. And then, “Thanks a lot futher mucker, you son-of-a-bitchin’ bald-headed, beer-bellied bullying bastard. Thanks for fuckin’ nothin’. Why the hell did I let you ride my old man’s coat tails? You said it was gonna be so easy. Alls I hadda do was play the part. Like I did when I wuzza frickin’ governor. ‘It’ll be easy’ you said, ‘just like ownin’ a baseball team only the owner’s box has 135 rooms. ‘We’ll do all the heavy liftin’ you said, told me to just go and rest my sorry-ass brain, an’ you would take care of every thing. HOW’D THAT WORK OUT YOU FAT SUMBITCH?
“Lemme tell you sumfin teletubby. You and your big-shot plans weren’t shit. No, no, no. I mean thas azackly what they were, a big pile a shit. You wannid me to start that dumb-ass war so I could get re-elected as a war time prez. Well frig you man. Thas the stupidest thing I ever did. Now all those people dead. All those kids in the hospital I went to see, that once. I know, I know. I kep sayin’ that I was visitin’ the sojers and stuff over at Reed. But I cootin take it man. I hated that shit. I didn’t wanna start that asshole war anyway. Now all them dead. Four thousand? Can you believe we killed 4,000 of our own people because somebody else killed 3,000 of arn? What the hell sense does that make, and you wannid it. Well, how d’ya feel about 100 K Iraqi civilians blowed away and the millions of homeless? Karl, I think we fucked up big time. I never dreamed it would be like this. And Katrina…Jeezus man, what were you thinkin’?
“Hey man, didja hear me the other night talkin’ to Charlie Gibson or one a them assholes, sayin’ I thought my biggest mistake about New Orleans was not landin’ the plane there. Aw shit, Karl. Man, I would love to take that one back but I just ditn’ know what to say. I mean all those people wallerin’ around in that stinkin’ water with no food, no water, no nothin’ man. That was the worst. I shoulda said somethin’ better ‘an that. But I just cooten. How could I tell the ‘Merican people that I trusted all that shit to some friggin’ “political operative” and his “neo-cons” – ever what the shit that is. In fact I trusted all you bastards and you all sucked. You sucked at war, you sucked at disaster, you sucked at the economy, you sucked at torture an’ shit. Everything! You sucked at got damn everything!
Karl, I gotta go man. I think I’m gonna be sick, man. O god…. where’s the toilet? O, there it is. Thank you god. RAAAAALLLLLLPH!
We’re not talking just a sigh of relief as he plunks down in his gleaming ride heading for Andrews. O no. He will have an uneraseable shit-eatin’ grin that will stop only long enough to take his first swig of a big ol’ bourbon and branch as he nestles into that cream colored leather chair they have on Air Force One for Ex-POTUSes to take the suckers walk, as it were. Two more like the first one and he’ll be calling Cheney to tell him what he/Dick told Pat Leahy on the floor of the senate.
Then, before he passes out, he’ll get ”The Architect” on the line: “Yo, Boy Genius!” he’ll slur at the top of his lungs. And then, “Thanks a lot futher mucker, you son-of-a-bitchin’ bald-headed, beer-bellied bullying bastard. Thanks for fuckin’ nothin’. Why the hell did I let you ride my old man’s coat tails? You said it was gonna be so easy. Alls I hadda do was play the part. Like I did when I wuzza frickin’ governor. ‘It’ll be easy’ you said, ‘just like ownin’ a baseball team only the owner’s box has 135 rooms. ‘We’ll do all the heavy liftin’ you said, told me to just go and rest my sorry-ass brain, an’ you would take care of every thing. HOW’D THAT WORK OUT YOU FAT SUMBITCH?
“Lemme tell you sumfin teletubby. You and your big-shot plans weren’t shit. No, no, no. I mean thas azackly what they were, a big pile a shit. You wannid me to start that dumb-ass war so I could get re-elected as a war time prez. Well frig you man. Thas the stupidest thing I ever did. Now all those people dead. All those kids in the hospital I went to see, that once. I know, I know. I kep sayin’ that I was visitin’ the sojers and stuff over at Reed. But I cootin take it man. I hated that shit. I didn’t wanna start that asshole war anyway. Now all them dead. Four thousand? Can you believe we killed 4,000 of our own people because somebody else killed 3,000 of arn? What the hell sense does that make, and you wannid it. Well, how d’ya feel about 100 K Iraqi civilians blowed away and the millions of homeless? Karl, I think we fucked up big time. I never dreamed it would be like this. And Katrina…Jeezus man, what were you thinkin’?
“Hey man, didja hear me the other night talkin’ to Charlie Gibson or one a them assholes, sayin’ I thought my biggest mistake about New Orleans was not landin’ the plane there. Aw shit, Karl. Man, I would love to take that one back but I just ditn’ know what to say. I mean all those people wallerin’ around in that stinkin’ water with no food, no water, no nothin’ man. That was the worst. I shoulda said somethin’ better ‘an that. But I just cooten. How could I tell the ‘Merican people that I trusted all that shit to some friggin’ “political operative” and his “neo-cons” – ever what the shit that is. In fact I trusted all you bastards and you all sucked. You sucked at war, you sucked at disaster, you sucked at the economy, you sucked at torture an’ shit. Everything! You sucked at got damn everything!
Karl, I gotta go man. I think I’m gonna be sick, man. O god…. where’s the toilet? O, there it is. Thank you god. RAAAAALLLLLLPH!
Wednesday, January 14, 2009
One eighth of my life
In NH we get to cover the primaries and I got to meet “W” a couple of times back in the 2000 primary. The first time was when he came striding buoyantly across Schouler Park in North Conway surrounded by a dozen Texas Rangers and totally in his element. That big cheerleader grin and the Sarah Palin wave. The crowd was giddy and I remember one very Republican looking woman (Lord & Taylor with pearls) telling her friend, “He looked right at me. I feel like I know him.” Alrighty then.
It was quite an introduction to the North Country and even the cynical lefties of the press (me and Marvel) couldn’t get over how he charmed us all. When he came toward the microphone on his way in he passed within feet of me and I said, “Buenos dias, Gubernator.” I was leery of his professed fluency in Mexican but he came right back with, “Buenos dias...Pedro” for it only took him a couple of seconds to check the name on my press pass. I asked Captain Marvel what he thought and he replied, patting his back pocket where he keeps his reporter pad, “I’ve already written the story. I just need to fill in the times.” But he did agree with me that “W” accomplished that mission and with a putative $200K bankroll it was going to be hard to beat him.
Novemberish, I was sent up to Gorham to hear the candidate give a speech to a room full of polite if phlegmatic Republicans. Arriving early I took and looked at the campaign crap on the table in the lobby. While His Hon. spoke I was suddenly taken with his tin ear. He almost always seemed to punch the wrong word in the sentence. His cadence was so awkward I wondered seriously how his campaign thought he could ever get past the wider press who would surely be gleeful at the opportunity to rag on him, though curiously, they hadn’t yet. I listened very carefully because I knew this was the story I would write. After he spoke I watched him work the room which to this day I don’t think anyone does better. If he stunk at stumping he was a star as he went table to table back-clapping, winking, chortling and having his picture taken with the smitten smilers.
Later, the press, about eight locals — the road to Gorham is a bit long for the national scribblers — were invited to sit at a round table with His Cockiness who could not help making un-funny cutesy jokes as when he sarcastically put down one of the Berlin (NH) reporters for thinking that $40 million was a large sum of money. And when he pretended to be impressed when somebody mentioned a Brooks Brothers outlet and then sneaked in his smirk. I was pissed. I thought then as now, the arrogant little shit has done nothing to prove himself. He has ridden his father’s good name all his life and now he has to be a dick to people who are going to write about him? Clearly a fool who would get his ass handed to him by the big-time media.
I asked him how he had lowered taxes 30 percent in Texas while at the same time giving every single Texas teacher a 30 percent raise during the time he was the Gov. “Where’d you get those figures?” he snapped sensing a gotcha. I handed him some talking points of his campaign that I had picked up in the lobby. He took it without looking at me and barked, “Billy. Go git Karen.” I looked over to see my 3 term Congressman who is 10 years Bush's senior jump out of his chair and leave the room and return in minutes with Karen Hughes whose name I had never heard at that point. She gave me a bullshit answer that didn’t explain anything other than the information they were handing out was bogus and she was at a loss to explain it. I actually felt sorry for her and didn’t want to embarrass her so I let it drop and then wrote a “silver foot in mouth” story for the Daily.
For me that set the tone of his campaign and his presidency. Yesterday I watched his final press conference and got quite a surprise. He was gracious to the press and took all manner of questions for 45 minutes or so in an easy give and take session even chuckling at himself (those shoulders) as he finally remembered to call Suzanne Malveaux “Sue-ZAHN”. There was little smirking and he only poked fun at himself asking the White House press not to “misunderestimate me.” No one laughed.
As he talked about "countries contingent to" Gaza, and bemoaned the "writers and OH-piners," I realized that would be the only thing I will miss about the Dub. I recalled fondly, "Put food on your families," "I know the human being and fish can coexist peacefully." "...internets." Or when he told a single mother of three that he thought it was "fantastic" that she worked three jobs to keep her head above water. Then there was the semi-adorable, "Rarely is the questioned asked: Is our children learning?" and the all time fave, "There's an old saying in Tennessee — I know it's in Texas, probably in Tennessee — that says, fool me once, shame on — shame on you. Fool me — you can't get fooled again."
I believe in my heart he was an unwitting dupe for the Rove machine. But the sumnabitch oughta had knowed better. That being POTUS ain’t bean bag and that he was no more qualified to lead the free world than Milorad Blagojevich. He’ll be gone in a couple of days and I wish his wife and children a speedy recovery. I truly hope "W" lives long enough to finally learn what the world thought of his disastrous reign.
It was quite an introduction to the North Country and even the cynical lefties of the press (me and Marvel) couldn’t get over how he charmed us all. When he came toward the microphone on his way in he passed within feet of me and I said, “Buenos dias, Gubernator.” I was leery of his professed fluency in Mexican but he came right back with, “Buenos dias...Pedro” for it only took him a couple of seconds to check the name on my press pass. I asked Captain Marvel what he thought and he replied, patting his back pocket where he keeps his reporter pad, “I’ve already written the story. I just need to fill in the times.” But he did agree with me that “W” accomplished that mission and with a putative $200K bankroll it was going to be hard to beat him.
Novemberish, I was sent up to Gorham to hear the candidate give a speech to a room full of polite if phlegmatic Republicans. Arriving early I took and looked at the campaign crap on the table in the lobby. While His Hon. spoke I was suddenly taken with his tin ear. He almost always seemed to punch the wrong word in the sentence. His cadence was so awkward I wondered seriously how his campaign thought he could ever get past the wider press who would surely be gleeful at the opportunity to rag on him, though curiously, they hadn’t yet. I listened very carefully because I knew this was the story I would write. After he spoke I watched him work the room which to this day I don’t think anyone does better. If he stunk at stumping he was a star as he went table to table back-clapping, winking, chortling and having his picture taken with the smitten smilers.
Later, the press, about eight locals — the road to Gorham is a bit long for the national scribblers — were invited to sit at a round table with His Cockiness who could not help making un-funny cutesy jokes as when he sarcastically put down one of the Berlin (NH) reporters for thinking that $40 million was a large sum of money. And when he pretended to be impressed when somebody mentioned a Brooks Brothers outlet and then sneaked in his smirk. I was pissed. I thought then as now, the arrogant little shit has done nothing to prove himself. He has ridden his father’s good name all his life and now he has to be a dick to people who are going to write about him? Clearly a fool who would get his ass handed to him by the big-time media.
I asked him how he had lowered taxes 30 percent in Texas while at the same time giving every single Texas teacher a 30 percent raise during the time he was the Gov. “Where’d you get those figures?” he snapped sensing a gotcha. I handed him some talking points of his campaign that I had picked up in the lobby. He took it without looking at me and barked, “Billy. Go git Karen.” I looked over to see my 3 term Congressman who is 10 years Bush's senior jump out of his chair and leave the room and return in minutes with Karen Hughes whose name I had never heard at that point. She gave me a bullshit answer that didn’t explain anything other than the information they were handing out was bogus and she was at a loss to explain it. I actually felt sorry for her and didn’t want to embarrass her so I let it drop and then wrote a “silver foot in mouth” story for the Daily.
For me that set the tone of his campaign and his presidency. Yesterday I watched his final press conference and got quite a surprise. He was gracious to the press and took all manner of questions for 45 minutes or so in an easy give and take session even chuckling at himself (those shoulders) as he finally remembered to call Suzanne Malveaux “Sue-ZAHN”. There was little smirking and he only poked fun at himself asking the White House press not to “misunderestimate me.” No one laughed.
As he talked about "countries contingent to" Gaza, and bemoaned the "writers and OH-piners," I realized that would be the only thing I will miss about the Dub. I recalled fondly, "Put food on your families," "I know the human being and fish can coexist peacefully." "...internets." Or when he told a single mother of three that he thought it was "fantastic" that she worked three jobs to keep her head above water. Then there was the semi-adorable, "Rarely is the questioned asked: Is our children learning?" and the all time fave, "There's an old saying in Tennessee — I know it's in Texas, probably in Tennessee — that says, fool me once, shame on — shame on you. Fool me — you can't get fooled again."
I believe in my heart he was an unwitting dupe for the Rove machine. But the sumnabitch oughta had knowed better. That being POTUS ain’t bean bag and that he was no more qualified to lead the free world than Milorad Blagojevich. He’ll be gone in a couple of days and I wish his wife and children a speedy recovery. I truly hope "W" lives long enough to finally learn what the world thought of his disastrous reign.
Tuesday, January 6, 2009
Post-dictions for 2008
These were a few of my favorite things:
· Sarah Palin
· “The economy is basically sound”
· Winning Iowa
· Winning NH (it kept things lively as in: I never wanted it to end)
· HRC ducking for cover
· WJC trash talkin’ Jesse because he won in South Carolina
· The Fuckabees
· The terrorist fist jab & the NYer cover
· Sarah Palin
· Finding out my buddy Marianne Pernold-Young was the one who made HRC a little verklempt (or as the media had it: bawled her freakin’ eyes out.)
· Rudy’s Florida, Florida, Florida strategy
· Johnny Mc calling his wife that word that men must never mutter when she gently chided him about being “a little thin on top” (You think his top is thin? How ‘bout his skin?)
· D. Kucinich, D-OH admitting he believes in space aliens
· D. Kucinich’s wife
· Mike Gravel getting me a cup of coffee when I was the only one who showed up for his “rally” at the Met in North Conway. Not the only press, the only person.
· HRC reserving the Kennett High gym for a long weekend when she knew she would be elsewhere so that she could block Barack
· Lipstick on a Pig (in my heart I believe he was gleeful over the double entendre)
· Sinking the three pointer for the troops
· The Johnny & Barry white-tie comedy act
· The John Edwards $400 haircuts and subsequent YouTube clip
· John Edwards knocking up his own over-paid videoist
· Fred Thompson’s out of the chute start on an un-plugged mechanical bull
· Ron Paul’s incredible indelible following
· Sarah Palin
· Mitt Romney’s secret Mormon undies
· BHO lifting words from Deval Patrick who had boosted them from MLK Jr. & others
· The mass media criticizing the mass media for being the mass media
· Chris Mathews getting a thrill running up his leg over BHO
· Former NSA Sec. Zbig Brzinsk calling Morning Joe Scarboring’s understanding of foreign policy “stunningly superficial” while ignoring the fact that his daughter (Meekly Buttinski) who co-hosts for Joe, is herself nothing less than stunningly superficial (she had the sand to pick on Caroline Kennedy for interjecting too many “ya knows” into unscripted answers when she herself can seldom finish a sentence. Pot, Kettle, Black)
· Milorad Blag'oy'ovitch finally getting us all to know how to pronounce his name and dousing the possibility of having that other crook Jesse Jr. for an Ill. Sen.
· And who don’t love Pat Fitzgerald?
· Jesse Sr. for offering his surgical skills in order to make the next President (who has effectively made him irrelevant) a soprano
· HRC for bravely ducking sniper fire (again). YGBSM!
· Her husband for not having one single affair revealed during the seemingly endless campaign
· Michelle O correctly wearing a GAP dress on TV just prior to Sarah Palin’s wardrobe debacle
· Bristol Palin not marrying that flaming shit-heel Levi
· Todd not coming down with another DUI or STD
· Trig staying out of mean spirited jokes (for the most part)
· Katie Couric’s miraculous comeback (thank you Governor Palin)
· Charlie Gibson’s piss poor performance which goes a long way to seeing evening network news take a digger (I miss it already)
· Whoever the dub was (Wolf?) asking candidates seeking the freaking presidency of the United States to answer a killer question by raising their hands
· Rudy & entourage going to a Portsmouth restaurant newly named “Rudy’s” and ruining our night
· McCain’s gracious concession (Johnny, we hardly knew ye)
· Getting a mention for my paper by Tim on Meet the Press only to find out my publisher doesn’t watch
· Getting canned twice in the first half of the year (a personal best) by said publisher
· Marge the Barge quitting
· Dave Peterson reinstituting the Horsefeather’s C’mas party
· Heather getting preggers
· Wendy up with putting
· The Brothers Karamazov
· A week at Ocean Alley
· Cheap cognac
And O, did I mention Sarah Palin who gave us this:
Q: One of the things you talked about last night was the flexibility the vice president has —
PALIN: Yeah.
Q: — Uh. What did you mean by that?
PALIN: Uh. That thankfully our founders were wise enough to say we have this position and it's constitutional — vice president will be able to be not only the position flexible, but it's gonna be those other duties as assigned by the president. A simple thing.
Bless her heart.
May you be made Madoff rich in the New Year without getting caught.
· Sarah Palin
· “The economy is basically sound”
· Winning Iowa
· Winning NH (it kept things lively as in: I never wanted it to end)
· HRC ducking for cover
· WJC trash talkin’ Jesse because he won in South Carolina
· The Fuckabees
· The terrorist fist jab & the NYer cover
· Sarah Palin
· Finding out my buddy Marianne Pernold-Young was the one who made HRC a little verklempt (or as the media had it: bawled her freakin’ eyes out.)
· Rudy’s Florida, Florida, Florida strategy
· Johnny Mc calling his wife that word that men must never mutter when she gently chided him about being “a little thin on top” (You think his top is thin? How ‘bout his skin?)
· D. Kucinich, D-OH admitting he believes in space aliens
· D. Kucinich’s wife
· Mike Gravel getting me a cup of coffee when I was the only one who showed up for his “rally” at the Met in North Conway. Not the only press, the only person.
· HRC reserving the Kennett High gym for a long weekend when she knew she would be elsewhere so that she could block Barack
· Lipstick on a Pig (in my heart I believe he was gleeful over the double entendre)
· Sinking the three pointer for the troops
· The Johnny & Barry white-tie comedy act
· The John Edwards $400 haircuts and subsequent YouTube clip
· John Edwards knocking up his own over-paid videoist
· Fred Thompson’s out of the chute start on an un-plugged mechanical bull
· Ron Paul’s incredible indelible following
· Sarah Palin
· Mitt Romney’s secret Mormon undies
· BHO lifting words from Deval Patrick who had boosted them from MLK Jr. & others
· The mass media criticizing the mass media for being the mass media
· Chris Mathews getting a thrill running up his leg over BHO
· Former NSA Sec. Zbig Brzinsk calling Morning Joe Scarboring’s understanding of foreign policy “stunningly superficial” while ignoring the fact that his daughter (Meekly Buttinski) who co-hosts for Joe, is herself nothing less than stunningly superficial (she had the sand to pick on Caroline Kennedy for interjecting too many “ya knows” into unscripted answers when she herself can seldom finish a sentence. Pot, Kettle, Black)
· Milorad Blag'oy'ovitch finally getting us all to know how to pronounce his name and dousing the possibility of having that other crook Jesse Jr. for an Ill. Sen.
· And who don’t love Pat Fitzgerald?
· Jesse Sr. for offering his surgical skills in order to make the next President (who has effectively made him irrelevant) a soprano
· HRC for bravely ducking sniper fire (again). YGBSM!
· Her husband for not having one single affair revealed during the seemingly endless campaign
· Michelle O correctly wearing a GAP dress on TV just prior to Sarah Palin’s wardrobe debacle
· Bristol Palin not marrying that flaming shit-heel Levi
· Todd not coming down with another DUI or STD
· Trig staying out of mean spirited jokes (for the most part)
· Katie Couric’s miraculous comeback (thank you Governor Palin)
· Charlie Gibson’s piss poor performance which goes a long way to seeing evening network news take a digger (I miss it already)
· Whoever the dub was (Wolf?) asking candidates seeking the freaking presidency of the United States to answer a killer question by raising their hands
· Rudy & entourage going to a Portsmouth restaurant newly named “Rudy’s” and ruining our night
· McCain’s gracious concession (Johnny, we hardly knew ye)
· Getting a mention for my paper by Tim on Meet the Press only to find out my publisher doesn’t watch
· Getting canned twice in the first half of the year (a personal best) by said publisher
· Marge the Barge quitting
· Dave Peterson reinstituting the Horsefeather’s C’mas party
· Heather getting preggers
· Wendy up with putting
· The Brothers Karamazov
· A week at Ocean Alley
· Cheap cognac
And O, did I mention Sarah Palin who gave us this:
Q: One of the things you talked about last night was the flexibility the vice president has —
PALIN: Yeah.
Q: — Uh. What did you mean by that?
PALIN: Uh. That thankfully our founders were wise enough to say we have this position and it's constitutional — vice president will be able to be not only the position flexible, but it's gonna be those other duties as assigned by the president. A simple thing.
Bless her heart.
May you be made Madoff rich in the New Year without getting caught.
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