The hard-core Dems and the news media are in a feeding frenzy about John McCain's selection of Sarah Palin as his vice presidential pick. Yeah, I did that too. However, liberal NY Times columnist Bob Hebert has a warning for all of us. Don't be too quick to bash Palin and her typically Alaskan family. It could be a trap.
Don't the Palins seem like a family right out of the off-beat '70s comedy 'Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman?' (Today there is a news report that Bristol's boyfriend Levi Johnson is headed to St. Paul to appear with the Palin family.) There is a slim possibility that this family may strike a chord with broad centrist electorate. Yeah most liberals and Democratic activist think that goverment should be run like a 'West Wing' episode, but a lot of Americans realize real life is a lot messier.
Yeah, McCain is probably an impulsive lunatic and Palin would scare the hell out of your PTA much less the whole country. But the GOP is uniting and you never know. One would hope the yapping class will stop for a moment and rethink its humanity.

Someone whack me on the side of the head. Please. I don't get it. Does this sound like a bad movie script. A elderly presidential nominee, for reasons known only to himself, dissatisfied with his choices, almost on a whim picks an obscure young politician few have heard of from an isolated state to be his vice presidential pick. She has held statewide office for just less than two years, and before that was mayor of a very village. In fact she just recently got her first passport.
In the next scene, we see the obsequious political operatives falling all over themselves to explain 'her narrative' and the major press sopping up details about how the new candidate likes to hunt moose and totes a gun. They also hint about how the young mother is five is a major babe, er make that former beauty queen.
Now we see the bad old liberal media raising questions about how she was picked, spreading scurrilous rumors about her pregnant teenage daughter and wanting to know about what she really thinks about 'the bridge to nowhere.' Could Mary-Louise Parker be picked to play the part? Who would play her husband, John Cusack?
Sarah Pallin may be a wonderful person and would make a perfect neighbor. But vice president? Everyone thought they wanted a veep very different than Dick Cheney, but this is ridiculous.

This year's presidential campaign, which so far has been very unusual, has now taken a turn toward the absurd. By picking an obscure Alaskan politician to run as his vice president, John McCain has shown he can be unpredictable and unconventional. But at some point, you have to think he is just plain reckless.
Because McCain would be the oldest president at 72, one would think that his vice presidential pick would be much more seriously considered than a younger man. At a certain level I am relieved he didn't pick Mitt Romney, and at another level I am relieved he didn't pick another Dick Cheney-like character. There is a school of though that when you pick a vice president you want someone who won't burn you with a past, but this choice is ridiculous.
Super-conservatives are doing handsprings over the choice of Sarah Pallin, but Republicans have to consider that picking someone from the weird and wacky world of Alaska politics (and Sand Point, Idaho) may have a risk.

Bushies in the Bureaucracy

    As the cover is being peeled back on the Bush era in the last days of the administration, we are learning more about enclaves of very conservative Bushies trying to turn the government into a permanent Rebublican bastion. While they couldn't win issues in an open debate, the administration, as we now read, tried to quietly manipulate the supposed non-partisan operations of the bureaucracy. 

    Employees at the Justice Department, from entry level lawyers to high ranking judges, were picked for political views over qualifications in violation of federal law, a new inspector general's reported this week.  The head of the Environmental Protection Agency  as it turned out overrulled his staff and vetoed California's attempt to curb greenhouse gases on direction from political operatives at the White House. The sad truth, however, is that really few people other than governmental insiders and consumers of public broadcasting  are paying much attention. Everybody else know that this will all soon be over.

Twenty-nine years ago on July 15, 1979, President Jimmy Carter gave a famous speech to the nation warning of the country's dependence on foreign oil and an impending energy crisis. The speech made serious proposals that included mileage restrictions for cars, an excess profits tax for oil companies and restrictions on the use of foreign oil. Due to some of the rhetoric in the speech Carter was held up to ridicule as weak. He scolded the country for a 'crisis of confidence' and a 'national malaise.' His suggestions were blown off as the economy improved, setting up the election of Ronald Reagan. Subsequently the US was able to buy its way out of the energy crisis of the '70s.
But the questions arises: how much would gasoline cost today if the nation had followed some of Carter's advice?

I know this is a harsh. You see those guys who walk around with a bluetooth wireless device in their ears. I'm sorry. They look stupid!
I can see wearing one in a car when they are useful has a hands-free device and you can pretend you are jet-fighter pilot. But if you are just walking around, just pull that thing out of your ear and put your cell phone in your pocket. No one's going to call you with that think stuck on your head.
And please, if you are in a public place, never, ever talk into the thing. You look like an idiot!

History

    History will not treat the past few years well. Lyndon Johnson knew that the President of the United States had very little power over the economy and admitted it. But when faced with an economic slowdown and inflation in the early 1960s, LBJ grabbed his telephone and called up leaders of business and finance to harangue them about rising prices. He called this 'jawboning.'

    The current group running the country fervently believe not only that the government shouldn't be involved in the economy, but believe it is their responsibility stand by and watch the train wreck. Look at their absence in the development of the housing credit collapse, the erosion of the dollar and the spector of speculation in the US oil market. It's turning into the Hurricane Katrina, this time only in the economy.

    What the neo-conservatives don't recognize is that most Americans want their government to do something even if its just having the President call up the head of a corrupt, massive hedge-fund and telling him to knock it off. What George Bush has failed to recognized is that he is President of the United States, not just President of the government

The Demise of Newspapers Part 1

    Deep in his book The Fifties, David Halberstam refers to mass cultural trends that journalm totally missed at the time. Along the way he admonishes his readers to look for things that seem to be moving the news and moving history that might not be superficially apparent. In this case, Halberstam is refering to the massive migration of African-Americans from the rural south to the northern cities.

    Regarding the demise of newspapers:  There are obviously quiet social trends at work concerning how people use information. Since newspapers journalists are very uncomfortable with not having an immediate answer to almost everything, everyone has their own theory, and most are probably wrong.

    More later.

Patriotism

    Somewhere a long the line Democrats conceded the concept of patriotism to the Republicans and have been paying for it dearly ever since.

    Maybe Republicans just stole to beat Democrats over the head with it or maybe most Democratic leaders are 'just too cool for the room.' It will be interesting to see if the new Democratic nominee Barack Obama can reach beyond his African-American and Volvo-driving liberal constituencies to middle-of-the road Democrats. He seems to be showing signs of taking back the flag.

New era in politics?

    I could be wrong, again, but it appears that the 'dead-brain' era in politics that be have been enduring for the past six to eight years is coming to an end, at least for a little while.

    Now that it's obvious that the President and his Bushistas have squandered their political relevance, many strong political currents are swirling. Some are obvious, such as Barack Obama's change message. And some are deeper, American's reaction to the economy or their need for security. Eventually the Presidential race will float like a cork in a storm on top of this national soul-searching.

    Heck there are even signs that the national media, except for cable TV, is going to participate at times. But you have to look very closely.

It turns out that ducks and chickens aren’t as crazy about eating slugs as you might thing. I dumped a bunch of the slimly little things in the backyard and the poultry just walked away.

Anyone need a dozen spare slugs?

The truly devout conservatives have been stumbling over themselves the last couple of weeks blasting John McCain as 'not a true conservative.' Today, James Dobson said there was no way he would vote for McCain. Perhaps, since old-guard conservatives and their radio talk show yackocracy are left without a candidate for President, their days of real influence are over. Yes, they have a lot of money and use it effectively to get quoted in the national media, but after the debacle of George W. Bush, they aren't able to demonstrate any real political power of their own.

George Bush

   Everyone should consider very, very carefully when they pick their President every four years. History – recent and ancient – demonstrates that the President of the United States is a very powerful office, particularly when supported by sizeable piece of the Congress – and we elect a President for four years no matter what happens.

   The war in Iraq is extremely unpopular as is its main supporter George Bush. But Bush, blind to majority opinion in Congress and the population, continues to execute an aggressive policy in Iraq.  History will document Bush as one of history’s most inept Presidents, but, hey, he has a year left and there isn’t anything anyone can do about it. A vote for President should be a serious decision.

 

All the media types seem to be bashing Democrats in the Senate for the all-night marathon before losing a key vote on their Iraq War withdrawal measure. They used phrases that the vote as a ‘sound political defeat’ for the leadership, etc. A foolish concept since everyone new what the vote would be before they started that is except for one Maine Republican who defected her party because of her tough reelection battle in a fiercely independent state.

Of course lost in the noise was the fact that a majority of senators would have voted for the measure had it not been for the rule that requires 60 percent approval of proposals brought to the floor. This is the same rule that bottled up civil rights legislature for decades until the early 1960s. In a way the Dems made their point and are now moving on.

There is of course a danger. A poll last week by the Associated Press noted that the approval rating for Congress is even lower than President Bush’s. It’s hovering in the 20s. If the Democrats are going to curry favor with the electorate for the next election, they are going to have to fix this. While Harry Reid looks good to the party’s base supporters, his image is probably way too shrill for most Americans. But then he might be the only distinguished member of the Senate that isn’t either 80 years old or running for President.

I picked up a CD version of one of the greatest rock albums of all time, "Who's Next" by The Who. I have carefully preserved the vinyl version for years, but by comparison it's aural muck. But when you play this reprocessed CD on the big old power stereo that takes back to the 70's, it's near Nirvana, and not the Cobain version. The CD version does justice to the lead riffs in the bass lines, rattles the house to the timbers and sends the kid scampering to her room as if I were playing the best hits of the Mamas and Papas. Particularly driving were the opening keyboard bars of Barbara O'Reilly that build into crashing bass. You can't play this stuff properly on an IPod. Maybe I should save my allowance for 'Tommy.'

Al Gore is turning into a new type of American hero. He has beating the American political system by working “off the grid,” becoming a more potent political force than the dozen or so dwarves running for president. And he is driving the country’s media nuts because he is taking his case for global climate change directly to the public and American opinion leaders. Who needs Maureen Dowd? They are doing all they can to suck him back into the political system, so they can hammer him. In turn his newest book is about the decline of the American media. Gotcha!

Did you ever notice that when you try to be funny --really funny, not teasingly funny--you just end up annoying everyone?

I got some new rubber shoes from my brother for Christmas so I can walk in the backyard without fear of chicken residue. Life is much better. I wish there was something like this I could wear at work.

Everyone nees to be special. It's one of the rules of modern life. Those days when folks suffered along in silence and anonimty are gone. There are just too many people, modern life is just to frenetic. Anymore, if some
one is doggedly trudging down the rainy road of life, Whack! they'll get it right in the kisser by some guy barreling by in a Hummer without mudflats.
Being special is fine in moderation and as long as everyone gets their turn. The problem is that some people carry this "being special" business to excess and the rest of are expected to go along. We see this a lot on TV when a football wide receiver catches a long ball for a touchdown and ESPN makes us endure his celebration antics.

Hormones and bio-chemicals are greatly overlooked. As you got older you realize how much our your life has been prompted by biochemical signals. Feelings of appiness, fear, pleasure and lust are usually just the reponse to some chemical released by a tiny gland somewhere in your body or from somewhere in the depths of your brain stem.
Now take testosterone. It does all kinds of things for everyone. men, of course, more than women. It builds muscle mass, stimulates energy and hair growth. Men are just flooded with testosterone in their late-teens and early twenties, and then after we have done our little bit for genetic diversity, it's all down hill from there. Of course, civilized lifestyles have changed the timeline quite a bit but our genetic coding has never caughtup.
Anyway, the older you get the less testerone is produced with the obvious results. A friend of mine who probably would prefer to remain nameless and blameless, once espoused the theory that as the amount of testosterone a man's body produces decreases, there is an increase in the amount of another undiscovered hormone we can call the Cranky Man Hormone. The older you get the more of the hormone is produced. I was running around touting this theory, until my wife instructed me that this is a bad theory and a really lame excuse for being cranky.