GILLIGAN’S ISLAND

August 29th, 2010

“Just sit right back and you’ll hear a tale…”.  In this case, the tale would begin about a Presidential campaign that promised “hope” and “change”.  Change from the tired old Washington politics.  But more and more I’m feeling like one of millions of “Gilligan’s”, stranded on an island after what was supposed to be a three-hour cruise.  Vice President Joe Biden as the hapless Skipper, and our own President as Thurston Howell III, the pompous super-wealthy aristocrat played wonderfully by Jim Backus, with the exaggerated, diminutive, nasal drawl.  Removed, always, from the discomforts suffered by the rest of the cast-aways.

Look, I don’t expect the President and First Lady to be staying at a Motel 6 when they vacation, and we have all come to accept the extraordinary cost associated with keeping the couple safe when they travel.  Still, a little humility goes a long way.  At a time when Obama could use a little bump in the popularity poll, what a tremendous gesture it would be for them to scale back a little bit, you know, like the rest of us are having to do.  Not surprisingly, as the public mulls over the latest economic news, the worst month for real estate in 15 years, rising unemployment and foreclosures, news of Michelle Obama flying a $12,000.00 per hour aircraft to Spain and back does not sit well.  The Martha’s Vineyard trip is awash in stories of excess.  Fifty grand for a rental?  Again, whether it is taxpayers money or their own, the emblematic disconnect from the rest of us, from the President who promised “change” and “not to rest” until certain goals were achieved, is palpable.

Even now, Joe Biden, just in New Hampshire, continues to insist we are on “the right track”.  Oh…I think we’re on a track, alright.  Tied to a train track, perhaps.  The Administration continues to refer to the “Summer of Recovery”.  Maybe the rest of us just misread the meaning here.  We were thinking “recovery” in terms of something getting better.  Healing…returning to normal.  Instead, they may be thinking of “recovery” in terms of hauling up the wrecked hull of the USS American Economy from the Marianna Trench.  There’s a difference between a rescue mission and a recovery mission.  We may be past rescue.

Early on I thought it odd how easily the Obama’s settled into the High Life.  It is one thing to carry oneself well in heeled company, but there was always a smarminess about them, at least to me.  All the accoutrements fit too well…too easily.
Even some feigned discomfort would have gone a long way.  A little clumsiness here, a little aloof over there, a signal now and then to the public that you’re a regular guy and you want to keep sight of that.

But there’s an emperor-type vibe that is unsettling.  It would have been good advice to the President, I believe, to make an overt attempt during his tenure over these perilous economic times, to “keep it real”.  An occasional foray into some inner-city neighborhoods, where the plight that the Democrats love to pander to actually lives, would be a good place to start.  Our President likes the speech circuit though and finds it hard to get out of campaign-mode, or blame-mode.  Innovative solutions put forth in comprehensive terms are hard to come by.

The game plan now seems to be to continue to insist that reality is just our imagination,  We’re on the road to recovery, afterall.  Let’s just hope that the road is in better shape than most of the highways and bridges in this country.  Or are we on the “right track”.  Jeez…come to think of it, they don’t even know if we’re in a car or on a train.  Not a comforting sign.

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N. PELOSI: GUMSHOE

August 22nd, 2010

I begin by making the unconventional request that as you read this, you imagine the theme to “Dragnet” playing softly in the background.  “I was working the daywatch out of San Bernardino…”.  Except the quirky detective is no longer Joe Friday, but instead House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.  The diminutive, insipid, toad of a woman who has interjected herself into our daily lives by means of her position, is at it again.  She better start keeping a tube of Purell handy when she’s standing next to Biden, because she is quickly becoming the first documented example of “Foot-In-Mouth” disease being transferred like an airborne virus.

It would take pages to compile even the most cursory list of her ridiculous statements.  Her recent proclamation that unemployment compensation was one of the best uses of stimulus money because “people went right out and spent it” comes to mind.  Oh yes, they spent.  With government issued debit cards that were accepted in strip joints, casinos and race tracks in California until just recently.  Stimulation.

She was indignant when questioned about her $1,000.00 per week bill for snacks and booze on her taxpayer-funded flights back and forth across the country.  That’s just the food bill…now imagine the cost of the plane, pilots and staff.  She complained about her Gulfstream not being large enough and routinely booked the plane, and left pilots and military staff waiting, only to cancel at the last minute.  A truly wonderful person.

Still, as only Pelosi can do, she has reached even greater heights in her ascent to clinical insanity.  She has called for an investigation into “those people who are opposing the Mosque” and “where their funding is coming from”.  The “Mosque” she refers to is, of course, the thirteen-story black eye that is planned, and maybe already doomed, for construction in the shadow of Ground Zero in New York City.

An investigation?  Really?  Funding?  If I was going to investigate any funding, I would be wondering who is funding this behemoth Mosque.  Now that would be interesting.  But the folks, the 68% of Americans who oppose the construction of this victory tower, they are the ones who should be scrutinized.  Hey Nancy…we’ll make it easy for you.  We’re right here in front of you.  We are funding our own opinions, with money we earned.  And as is wont for Pelosi and this administration to do, she, and they, look right past us.  We are a nuisance.  Our contrary opinions are silly and racist and rooted in some sort of neo-nostalgic, quasi-Americana fantasy.

But the reality is we are the average work-a-day Americans who are collectively watching in horror as our country morphs into some sort of passive-aggressive continental freak.  If you have to explain to someone why building a Mosque just feet from where thousands of innocent people died at the hands of fanatics bound to the religion that this Mosque promotes, why it is simply bad manners, than there is barely need to continue the conversation.  It is yet another example of the “we’re just a little more enlightened than you” crowd looking down their noses at the rest of us.  It’s irritating enough on it’s own, but when it comes from a woman who could easily pass as a Pixar creation, who admonishes the rest of us to tighten our belts while she flits around like a Princess, it is just too much to bear.  Let’s figure out who is funding Nancy Pelosi.  Oh…wait a minute…it’s you and me.

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LET’S MAKE A DEAL

August 17th, 2010

You may be expecting Monty Hall to enter from stage left and the roar of an excited crowd.  If you’re my age, you’ll understand that reference to the once popular game show where contestants chose between items hidden under large boxes or behind curtains.  One might win anything from a new car to a lifetime’s worth of fishsticks, depending on how well you guess, or “make a deal”, as it were.  It was a popular show, as I remember, and innocent entertainment fun.

Deal making has taken on a new, more serious tone in modern America as it has become the number-one tool in meting out justice in our court systems throughout the nation.  Considering the monumental task of handling the chore of administering punishment to the many criminals we have here, at first glance it seems understandable.  But, if you look at the justice system as a business, then why doesn’t the “service department” expand to meet the requirements of the increased “business”?  What we need, it seems, are more courts, more judges and more prisons.  Instead, increasingly the mindset is to reserve prison space for hardened criminals, the truly violent, and to “plea-deal” everyone else back to the street.

If it were that simple, it might not be as dangerous a philosophy as it is turning out to be.  Instead, our prisons are populated by everyone from pot smokers to murderers, and navigating the judicial system turns out to be much more like the old television game show than it is akin to an honest “crime and punishment” scenario.  To me, it is pretty simple.  The punishment should fit the crime.  However, in a society ever-more diverse, by our own design, there is rarely consensus on what is a “serious” crime, and what is not.  Consider the recent case of the Souhegan High School in Amherst deciding that two thrill-killers should have their pictures included in the yearbook.   ‘Nuff said.

Last week, an editorial in the Union Leader pointed out yet another horrendous “plea deal”.  In Dover, a young man named John Wentworth had started a brawl with a complete stranger on a walking trail, not far from Central Avenue, and probably in view of other people.  Richard Nolette wasn’t looking for trouble, the two were strangers, and Wentworth was about 80 pounds heavier, not unusual for “tough guys” to pick a fight with an easy target.  Wentworth kicked Nolette in the head and torso, and then slammed his head into the sidewalk.  Nolette was sick with AIDS at the time.  A day later, Wentworth went to  Nolette’s apartment looking to finish the job, but Nolette would not come outside.  A day later, Richard died of head injuries.

It took a full year for Wentworth to be arrested and indicted, a travesty in and of itself.  But the real travesty occurred last week when Superior Court Justice Kenneth Brown accepted a plea deal that would set Wentworth free in 18 months.  Not surprisingly, many of Nolette’s family members, present in court, were outraged.  Others, it is said, were satisfied with the outcome.

As a father of four boys I am confident that if one of their lives were to be taken in such a cavalier, senseless and brutal way, I would be satisfied with nothing less than the perpetrator sacrificing his or her life in exchange.  That is simple and fair.  I lose a son, my son loses his life…the perpetrator should match the deal.  Life in prison.  Yet somehow, as a society, we have come to a place where these sort of life and death negotiations are handed down everyday across the country and we don’t even bat an eye.  I don’t know either family and have no stake in this beyond being astonished that as a culture we continue allow our “legal system” to dole out such mismatched doses of “justice”.  Easy to pass it off when it’s not a loved one, but at some point, as a society, we may want to revisit exactly how the greater good is being served here.

And by the way, if it ever becomes a sure thing that manslaughter gets you 18 months, I expect we’ll all be seeing people being slammed, head-first, into sidewalks on a regular basis.  Afterall, most of us learn as children that there are consequences for our behavior.  That is what kept us from cutting the cat’s tail off with pruning shears.  It will be interesting to see what changes await us as a culture as we slowly remove “consequence” from that equation.

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MOSQUE FOR MEN

August 9th, 2010

Wait a minute…no…that was “Musk for Men”, that cologne from the 70′s reserved for guys who drove Corvettes.  What we need is a Mosque for men, although that may be a contradiction in terms.  We’re getting a Mosque, ready or not, but it’s not just any old Mosque.  This one will be thirteen stories high and will be built right, plunk in the middle of Ground Zero in New York City.  Yes, the same religion that still holds Osama Bin Laden in good stead has decided to showcase itself exactly in the shadow of the spot where 3,000 innocent men, women and children died at the hands of Islamic extremists.

It barely seems necessary anymore to add the “extremist” at the end of that, because even in the wake of 9/11 there was little or no outcry from Muslims living here denouncing the act.  There has been little or no outcry since, either.  That speaks volumes in my book.  Sure, I’ve heard the lone voice here and there in print or on talk radio claiming that the terrorists are in a league of their own…but are they?

The claim I hear most from those defending the Muslim silence is that they are afraid to speak out.  Imagine being so beholden to a faith that you fear speaking out against the parts of it that are nonsense.  You know…those pesky little paragraphs about killing infidels and Jews.  The part about needing to do that to be allowed your passage to heaven.  African-Americans should be grateful that Martin Luther King did not share those same fears.   See…that is why a Mosque for men would be silly, because there are few real men that adhere to that religion and philosophy.  Cowardice is the badge that these people wear.
How else do you describe flying an aircraft full of innocents into two of the world’s largest office buildings?  How about the beheading of Daniel Pearl? Courageous?  Strapping bombs to women and children and even developmentally disabled acolytes to have them bid the dirty work?  The strategies of brave men?

In a way, I am glad this is happening.  Not for New York, or for the relatives of those lost on that dreadful day.  Not for the families of firefighters and other first responders who died on that day, or since from complications derived from it.  I’m glad that such a simple, black and white statement has been made by the Muslims who call America “home”.  It lays in stark terms, for those who may have missed the message of 9/11, exactly what these people are all about.  Every one of them? No…of course not.  I have met many who seem like fine people.  I have also met some who can barely contain their disdain for Americans, yet they remain here for reasons that are increasingly baffling.

Dennis Miller said it better than anyone I’ve heard yet.  He wrote that the fact that we would allow this tells you everything you need to know about us.  The fact that Muslims in this country wouldn’t edit this on their own accord, tells you everything you need to know about them.   Really, exactly how far over do we have to bend to convince the world, or maybe ourselves, that we welcome all with open arms?  Will this mosque finally do it?  Will that be enough and then maybe we can go back to having some common sense?

This is an affront to every American, and especially to every New Yorker.  If I had one thing to say to Muslims in this country, assuming you see any good in this country at all, that there is even a shred of you that wants to be, even a little bit…American…please, have some manners.

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LITTLE MORE PULL

August 1st, 2010

If you’ve ever seen video of the Air Force Thunderbirds or the Navy Blue Angels, you may have heard the “Air Boss”, the lead plane in demonstration teams, coaxing one of his pilots to give it “a little more pull”.  That is, nose up just a bit to stay tight in formation.

Some things must be seen live to be appreciated in full, and a demonstration by either of these teams is one of those things.
The television screen just doesn’t do it justice, and as more and more military bases close, what used to be rather common and readily available each summer…significant air shows…are becoming far and few between.  It’s been seven or eight years for me, the last one I attended was at Barnes in Springfield, MA.  A long drive home after a long day in the sun looking at and watching, airplanes of every breed.

One need not be a military buff, or even an aviation enthusiast, to appreciate one of these shows.  They are known most as a family event with plenty to do for the kids, typical fair ground food, and lots of airplanes to sit in and see up close.  Aviation is one of the cornerstones of America’s history and at these large shows one is likely to see everything from a true replica of the Wright Brothers flyer, to the most technically advanced military and civilian aircraft.

For those in the vicinity, the opportunity will present itself on August 28th and 29th at the former Pease Air Force Base in Portsmouth, NH.  You can learn more at www.newenglandairshow.com and it is well worth the price of admission.  I’ve seen the Blue Angles a handful of times, and it is an awe inspiring experience.  These are the best pilots, male and female, that the country has to offer.  They are flying the most advanced aircraft in the world, and every second, from the initial ceremony as the pilots approach their planes with brisk, military execution, and then throughout the entire flight demonstration, is sure to get your patriotic blood pumping.  Witnessing up close what these planes and pilots are capable of is simply astonishing.

As though a demonstration by the Blues wasn’t enough, this show will also feature a performance by Sean Tucker, former World Aerobatic Champion, who is simply stunning in an airplane.  Also, New Hampshire’s own Rob Holland who is the current World Aerobatic Champion, will perform as well.  Rob has a style all his own, has flown all over the world, and is based at Nashua Airport.  New Hampshire is fortunate to have him.

I remind people often that aviation sometimes seems reserved for “motorheads”, kind of like Nascar with wings, but the world of General Aviation holds a lot more than that.  For most pilots, myself included, though we are inclined to like things that go fast and have motors, it was the beauty of flying that got me into flight school over twenty years ago.  Some of the most beautiful sights I have seen have been from a small airplane.  Even now, every flight is it’s own in every way.  I have memories of sights that are embedded in my memory bank.  Early morning flights with fog laying just above the rivers.  A night flight back from Portland, Maine under a full moon with Boston clearly visible at the end of a string of lights, doting the coastline like spilled diamonds.  The kids were young and snoozing in the back seat, the air was like glass, and the flight like a magic carpet ride.  I could go on and on, but the point is, there is a reason that people are drawn to the air, and the gorgeous New England countryside is one of them.

It’s a secret pilots kind of keep among themselves because we’re not anxious for everyone to know that we all have a “touchy-feely” side.  When you talk to someone who flies, and you talk about flying, you’ll see it in their eyes.  Go to Pease at the end of August and you may well leave with a bit of a flying twinkle in your own eye.

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THE FOX AND THE HENHOUSE

July 25th, 2010

Once upon a time…well…never mind.  We all know the old adage about hiring the fox to guard the henhouse.  The old saying must have been created especially for this occasion though, because  we’ve never had a bigger fox guarding more hens than we’re about to have now.

Last week, the President signed to law the new Financial Reform bill that will, in theory, provide more strict government oversight of the financial zealots on Wall Street.  Let me be the first to admit that something needs to be done, for sure.  In the wake of the financial meltdown of Lehman Brothers, AIG, the auto industry, and Freddie Mac and Fanny Mae, one not need be a rocket scientist to see that something is wrong.  Let me also admit here that I believe in free markets, trade and capitalism.  I don’t believe, however, that there are many people who need or could possibly earn some of the outrageous bonuses and compensation packages that have become the norm over the last several decades.

By and large, these are not people who have demonstrated some remarkable business savvy in the private sector.  It’s Hedge Funds and Annuities, trading on futures and speculation, and in essence nothing more than a gargantuan and complex shell game.  When thousands of Americans who had invested conservatively, saved money, planned a retirement…and then lost every dime to the likes of Bernie Madoff…something is dreadfully wrong.   It’s not unlike the health care system, also broken and complex beyond need.  It needs to be fixed.  What is remarkable is not so much that something is broken…but who we repeatedly send in to fix it.

The notion of the federal government nominating itself to be the regulator of the private sector financial world is exactly like the fox voting himself head of security in the chicken division.  The chickens would protest and be astonished.  But most Americans don’t even blink at the absurdity of what has just happened.

Yes…the same strict government that already had a Securities and Exchange Commission in place during the financial meltdown.  The same SEC that ignored repeated warnings from outside sources that Madoff was operating a huge Ponzi scheme.  Even with smart, legitimate people coming right to their desk with proof, they still did nothing to investigate or stop Madoff.  We heard Barney Frank tell us how Freddie Mac and Fanny Mae were solid, literally weeks before both institutions imploded taking an entire housing and mortgage industry with them.

Now, these same people have written another 2,000 pages of law, that will be enforced, I’m sure, with the same strident vigor as the last 2,000 pages were.  In other words, not at all.

Who is more corrupt with the public checkbook than our own politicians?  The same folks who spent 3 million bucks to study shrimp reproduction.  Just another day in the pork barrel.  And you know how this stuff works.  Some Senator somewhere has a nephew that “had a landscaping business, then he got into the blow and the next thing you know he’s bankrupt.  So…I bought him a boat, a snorkel and a clipboard and told him to go watch shrimps-gone-wild for a couple of years and take some notes…”.  Don’t laugh, this is exactly how pork works, or doesn’t work, more accurately.

This is the same government that, as part of the stimulus bill, spent 15 million dollars to build an underground tunnel for turtles to pass under a highway in Florida.  For 15 million bucks I’ll spend the next twenty years down there carrying the turtles across the highway on a velvet pillow.  How come I don’t have an uncle in Washington?

Never mind the fox, none of the above even addresses what the real intent of this law is.  I’m surprised there weren’t more “slippery slope” calls during all of this, because this is a Black Diamond Trail for sure.  It will be a much shorter leap now to the European model of income redistribution, a government cap on personal income, and a general one-size-fits-all approach to our economy.  One size, that is, for the working class.  The folks in Washington won’t be buying off the rack anytime soon.

Every American should wince at the prospect of the government controlling Wall Street.  Companies that allow huge bonuses to CEO’s who are mediocre at the expense of their stockholders and customers should be punished, but not by the government.  They should see their business dwindle and die as the customers stop buying their product, and turn to a competitor who operates a tighter ship.  But the notion of our government, that hasn’t seen a balanced checkbook in decades, is going to fix this problem is….well…like hiring the fox to guard the henhouse.

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ROMAN

July 18th, 2010

Leave it to the Swiss to provide the headlining act to our opening act.  Switzerland, afterall, is much like Obamerica would look.  Just last week I wrote about the stunning decision by Eric Holder, aka Barack Obama, to dismiss all charges against members of the Black Panthers who had intimidated voters at a local polling place, brandishing night sticks and encouraging folks to “kill crackers”.  Another example of New World Justice which is doled out in many different forms, depending on your race and social standing.  Now, Switzerland, a gorgeous country which I have visited, skied in their Alps, ate their cheese, reveals their true political colors by releasing child rapist Roman Polanski.

Oh…what a long and winding road the Polanski story has been.  Protected by the Hollywood elite after committing the crime, decades ago, of raping a thirteen year-old girl after plying her with alcohol and Quaaludes during a “photo shoot”.  Naturally, because he is a talented guy, he needed, apparently, to be allowed some sort of artistic license.  C’mon…she’s thirteen, it’s not like she’s a kid!

Except…she is a kid. Or was.  It is fair to question what sort of parental malfunction occurred that results in a girl that age being at Jack Nicholson’s house with Roman Polanski for a photo shoot.  At the end of the day, however, she is very much a minor and despite what Whoopie Goldberg may say, rape is rape.  Were it you or I with a camera, pills and alcohol, we would probably just be finishing up our sentences.  Or maybe not.

Look, it’s no surprise that Switzerland let Polanski go free.  That was any easy guess when they brought him in months ago.  Let the story get off the front page, wait a day or two more for another mind altering story to emanate from the United States, and then let him go in the middle of that dust cloud.  Remember, too, that Switzerland is the poster boy for European culture, particularly when it comes to sexuality.  Travelling there when I was a young boy, I took an unhealthy fascination with their news stands, as I remember.  Let’s just say that the Saturday Evening Post took on a whole new meaning at the Swiss magazine racks.

The reason though, that I wonder if you and I would just be hanging up our prison jumpsuits today, is that there is more to this story than Polanski and Switzerland.  It is the omnipresent blind eye that we continue to cast, as a culture, on sex crimes against children.  Had Polanski beaten the girl with a baseball bat, but not sexually assaulted her, there would be more outcry.
Even violent rapes against adult women, horrendous as they are in their own right, generally garner more press coverage and social outrage then the same crime against a child.  This baffles me.

Despite the strengthening of laws that deal with child predators, in nearly every state across the country (thanks in large part to Bill O’Reilly), the sexual exploitation of our children continues to grown like a cancer in this country.  Child pornography on the internet is an established business and that fact doesn’t seem to bother too many people.  Try distributing a video of someone clubbing a baby seal or a Dachshund, though, and see how quickly your phone starts ringing.  When was the last time you heard a politician mention this horrific scourge on our national character?

So maybe Switzerland knew that the Polanski thing would only show up beneath the fold, if at all.  America is busy, afterall, suing themselves and looking for a ShamWow large enough to cover the Gulf of Mexico.  They just let two Black Panthers off the hook, and in Massachusetts a four year old girl was violently raped by an illegal immigrant.  America is not even watching it’s borders, much less worrying about an aging and irrelevant Hollywood icon living off of past achievements and notoriety.

Switzerland was right.  Polanski is free and barely anyone blinked.  And like their cheese, we may soon find ourselves so full of holes that we…America…become unrecognizable.
www.beantowncomedy.com for details.”

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WILD KINGDOM

July 13th, 2010

If you’re my age you probably remember Mutual of Omaha’s Wild Kingdom, a television series about wildlife.  Too bad the host, Marlin Perkins, wasn’t around, because we’ve got a whole new “Wild Kingdom” to talk about and you don’t need to go to the Serengeti to see it.

I’ve written before how astonishing our current administration is, without a week going by that some new mind-boggling decision, non-decision, or legislative initiative is hoisted into the dust cloud of failure that is engulfing them.  The lawsuit against Arizona, despite nearly 70% of the population supporting the new Arizona law is one of the latest examples.  Folks were quick to jump on McCain as having political motives when he hardened his view on the Arizona border, but our President stops just short of administering a personal back rub to every illegal immigrant, and suffers barely a whisper from the “Press”.  Not coddling that Hispanic vote are you?  The motivation could not be more flagrant.  And, Obama seems oddly removed from any concern about public perception of his performance or motives.

He continues to seemingly ignore the Gulf Oil Spill, and by the way, we can stop calling that a “spill” anytime now.  A “spill” is a glass of milk, not an oil slick the size of Kansas.  The country should expect weekly briefings from him with regards to the world’s largest environmental disaster.  Of course, there would be nothing to report, because there has been no leadership from the White House on this.  No commands coming from the command post.  They have dispatched lawyers, instead of drilling and clean-up experts and have hampered, stalled or denied every effort by the State of Louisiana to mitigate the destruction of the Gulf of Mexico.   Send more lawyers.

Lawyers, too, were involved in the latest example of blind leadership.  The charges against a couple of Black Panther members who disrupted a voting center during the 2008 Presidential election were ordered dropped by Attorney General Eric Holder.  You’ve all seen the footage.  A “Panther” outside a local voting center waving a night stick and threatening folks on their way in to cast their vote.  More footage of the same man urging people to kill “crackers” and their babies.  Hard to imagine, isn’t it?  The conviction was in place, just sentencing was due, and the entire case got dropped.   Imagine a couple of White guys doing the same thing in a mostly Black neighborhood?  Imagine, if you can, the field day the Press would have with that.  Imagine the charges being dropped.  There would be rioting in the streets.

I assume, as well, that this should open the door for some pretty colorful expressions of Free Speech outside voting booths this November.  I’ll be yelling from the gun turret of a surplus tank over here in Milford.  Should be no problem as far as I can tell.  Folks should expect intimidation and threats of violence when they go to their local Middle School or Town Hall to vote, right?  I mean…look at Iraq.  Why should we be any different?

As though the economy wasn’t enough, and the social unrest that will accompany any further decline in it, Obama seems to breed chaos.  It’s as though they want it.  He has fueled the fire in Arizona instead of quelling it.  The Black Panther situation is yet another signal from Washington that deep cultural change is the intent and if the shrinking number of Americans that still remember what this country is all about, and are not ashamed of it, don’t come out in force this November to stop this madness…well…we will all need a night stick, or worse, to go vote in 2012.

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STARK REALITY

July 6th, 2010

The only thing more gooey than the Gulf Coast right now is the personality of California Representative Pete Stark.  Indeed, nothing would bring me more joy than to see him drenched in crude and hopefully near an open flame.  On this Independence Day, when we honor our country and freedom, and the unspeakable costs of attaining and maintaining it, pause is called for on all fronts.  We are at war and not doing well.  The economy is on the verge of complete collapse, indeed it has collapsed we just don’t know it yet because we are delicately poised atop Chinese props.

For anyone who hasn’t heard it yet…Google it.  This elected Representative engages in one of the most arcane arguments I have ever heard, with a citizen at a Town Hall style meeting.  The man in the audience, polite beyond reason, is questioning Rep. Stark about the border problem and illegal immigration, and why the government is not doing more to address the problem.  Stark responds to every single question from this guy with the most pompous, arrogant style I have ever witnessed.
He tells the man “we want to send the Minutemen more arms”, tongue-in-cheek, and when reminded that Americans are being killed, most recently in Arizona, Stark simply replies “yes”, but with a tone that suggests satisfaction with that fact.

I’m considering archiving the entire conversation and using it as a ring tone so that I never, ever, forget, how pitifully vapid some of these people are.  Elected to a position that was intended to be voluntary by our forefathers but has since become some kind of life-long appointment to royalty, Stark displays a swagger that rivals Jack Nicholson’s character in “A Few Good Men”.  Except Stark is all hat, and no cattle.  The swagger is built on sand.  He has revealed himself as  just another diminutive jackass who couldn’t make it in the real world, so entered politics and climbed to heights that can only be climbed to by people like that in the political world.  In the real world, they never make it past janitor.

We should all take note of Peter Stark.  The entire country.  And we should think about it.  We should think about that horrific mouse of a woman, Nancy Pelosi, who admonishes the rest of us to “tighten our belts”, while she continues to spend over a grand a week on booze and nuts for her flights on government aircraft.  Someone explain how she got here…to a place where my tax dollars are paying for her travel and in-flight snacks.  Stark is her new counterpart in the political shop of horrors.

The gentleman in the audience should be applauded for maintaining his dignity.  It’s more than I could have done. It could have been a Saturday Night Live presentation.  It was so over-the-top it didn’t even seem real.  I could never have contained myself, being mocked and spoken to like that.  Stark even told the man, “if you knew anything about our borders, you would know that they are quite secure, thank you…”.  Really?  Quite secure?  Just don’t trip on any dead ranchers, and ignore those signs just erected by our own federal government that certain areas are unsafe for travel.  What more of a wake up call do we need?  Sections of Arizona have been lost to the illegals.  It’s an invasion, as I have said all along, and they have secured territory.

How I miss men like Moe Udall who served Arizona for 30 years as a Representative.  But he truly represented his people.  He was a cowboy, a rancher.  He drove his beat up F-150 to work for years and was modest and attentive.   He wanted to give back to the country, not take from it.  He also coined one of my favorite phrases, that “the difference between a caucus and a cactus is that a cactus has all its pricks on the outside.”  Beautiful.

Hard to believe that just a little over 200 years ago we won our freedom here.  Stranger still that we seem more and more likely to be approaching a point where we may need to fight to get it back.  Through all the battles, the bloodshed, the sacrifice, we are now supposed to accept that those battles were fought to provide a free country for anyone who wants to wander in.  And when a citizen, a taxpayer, questions an elected official about it, he is derided and satirized.

I can be pretty swift with the written blade myself and there is nothing that would please me more than to cross paths with that arrogant blowhard Peter Stark.  I’d like to go completely John Cleese on the guy and finish it with a solid boot out the door.  That door, by the way, opens in November.  Maybe you’ve never voted.  Maybe you’ve never paid a lot of attention to this stuff.  But if there was ever a time to do it, it will be this Fall.

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McCHRYSTALIZED

June 28th, 2010

Watch what you say around the office.  Especially if the office is in the Rolling Stone Magazine building.  The subject seems tired already but is too important to leave alone.  I’m already tired of hearing about it, but feel the need, naturally, to opine about it just the same.

General Stanley McChrystal owes no apology to the nation.  His reputation and achievements, unlike our President, precede him.  Still, he needed to go.  There was no question in my mind.  The office of the President of the United States simply cannot be lowered to that level.  It’s not Sean Penn blabbering away to Rolling Stone, it’s military brass.

Early on I figured it was all by design.  Perhaps McChrystal chose Rolling Stone to be sure that the President might read the interview.  It’s hard to believe that a guy this sharp wandered into that interview not knowing what was coming, or the outcome.  It’s also not hard to understand the frustration he must be feeling.  The Obama administration, which should be consulting with him at least weekly, took months to sit down with him, and even then, only the most cursory of meetings.  It must be something to be living that Hell, and simultaneously be barely noticed as important by your own White House.

The problem precedes the Obama White House though.  It began in Vietnam, really, when the waging of wars and building of strategy drifted from the hands of military brass and into the sweaty palms of politicians.  Not good.  One would think the nation would have learned its lesson.  Look…soldiers fighting for our safety and freedom have tighter Rules of Engagement than I do as a homeowner in New Hampshire.  If someone breaks into my house in the middle of the night, in any kind of threatening way, I make the rules of engagement on the spot.  We have so hog-tied our fighting men and women trying to make war not hurt, that our battles have turned into what Dennis Miller once called a “horrific dogpaddle”.  He’s right.  And McChrystal was right to fall on his sword for the good of the troops.  Already, Petraeus is talking about loosening those rules.  You know…so maybe we can win the thing and come home.

It’s funny, because I supported John McCain for President, lots of folks told me they thought of him as a war monger.  I disagree.  Who better to know what Hell war can bring than someone who endured it.  It only seems fitting to me that our Commander in Chief be someone who has seen battle.  It is the most consequential of Presidential responsibilities, sending men and women to battle.  You wouldn’t hire a Fire Chief who had never been in a burning building.  You wouldn’t ride in an airplane with a pilot who had only watched movies about flying.  People jump up and down at the notion that military service should be a pre-requisite for being President, but I believe it firmly.  I also believe, had McCain beat Bush in 2000, Iraq would not have happened, or it would have happened much differently.  War must be the last of last resorts.  As we look at the last nine years, we remember why.

It’s ironic that Obama’s first display of leadership was shown in the swift sacking of a real leader.  Hurt feelings, to be sure, and insubordination, made it a sure thing.  If only he had had the same juice for the oil spill, things might be looking a lot different in the Gulf right now.

Thank you, General McChrystal, for the depth of your service to this country.  I’m glad you’re out.  You deserve it.  Go clean up on the speech circuit now.  You’ve earned it.

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