The Wandering Gentile

A Wandering Gentile Vlog!

2011-07-01T17:34:00.001-04:00

http://youtu.be/yhLa104HRso

Let's try this again.

June 20 video update!

2011-06-20T20:08:00.001-04:00

http://youtu.be/H32uGah63S4

He's back...he's vlogging...and he's worldwide! Gil Gillon skewers the headlines.

Obama calls Pakistan!

2011-06-16T00:44:00.000-04:00

A dramatic recreation of the call to Pakistani military command about the operation to remove Osama bin Laden. Many thanks to Hijastra (la menor) for her flawless camera work.

http://youtu.be/WMCYU7L1OVU

Debate Impressions

2011-06-14T09:18:00.000-04:00

If one has a Republican friend or acquaintance, be nice and don't make many loud noises this morning. Last night's debacle in New Hampshire was enough to provoke the most committed, teetotaling Republican to down a fifth of Jim Beam, straight and hot.

Let's get the candidates who have absolutely no chance off the table first. They may be around for the next seven months or so, but once the buses leave South Carolina, they will be gone.

Herman Cain is a condescending jerk who has a bunch of ideas, and absolutely no idea how to make them work in the context of Government. His skill set requires the absolute authority of a business executive, not a contentious Congress. Cain is one bad interview from gone. He's smug, arrogant, and the wrong color to get any traction with the full Republican electorate.

Ron Paul is a great cult figure, but that is exactly what he will remain. His greatest obstacle is that he speaks the language of his cult. The rest of us are sitting there listening to the theme from The Twilight Zone going through our heads. He's not going away, but he is unlikely to connect with more than the ten to fifteen percent of the Republican Party that he already holds.

Rick Santorum has one major problem which will not go away: he was thrown out by the voters in purple Pennsylvania. The Keystone State leans slightly blue, but you would be hard pressed to know it because they will pick some of the most conservative candidates known to God or man. If Santorum could not hold Pennsylvania, how in the world does he expect to hold Ohio or Florida? He should run out of money before long.

Tim Pawlenty has more than one issue which will not go away. He has a competitor from his home state in Michelle Bachmann. He looks enough like Rick Santorum that their respective wives could view the photograph and ask, "What's wrong with this photo of my husband?" By screwing with Romney, he has tinkled in the Rotarian Republicans' corn flakes. And he is almighty dull. He might last until Super Tuesday as the non-Mormon version of Romney.

The scariest moment your Wandering Gentile had while watching the debate was looking at Newt Gingrich and thinking, good Lord, he's the best one up there. His answers were comparatively clear and articulate. He showed a sense of having an idea of how to do things. Hell, Gingrich was Clinton's tough old adversary, and almost worthy of nostalgia.

Newt Gingrich also sounds like a capon being strangled, and Romney does competent equally well.

Mitt Romney looked better. He was clear, concise, articulate, and he is blessed with one of the better speaking voices in a party filled with men who sound as if they are waiting for puberty. He is a little bit less dull than Pawlenty, who remains his closest competitor on the issues. He was the best communicator on the stage on 13 June.

Michelle Bachmann was the other candidate who mattered. With her unofficial declaration as a candidate, she slapped the elephant in the room in the tusks. The elephant in the room is Sarah Palin.

Palin will be the shadow over any candidate on the stage until she formally declares her decision. Her name recognition exceeds that of Mitt Romney. Palin has a national apparatus in place waiting for her to jump in, and by avoiding the early debates, she is finally listening to the wisest advice she could get: Better to be silent and considered to be a fool than to open one's mouth and remove all doubt.

The last thing Sarah Palin needs right now is a lucky punch from a second tier candidate that lays her candidacy on the ground. The only ones who could get that in might be Gingrich or Santorum. In spite of their being insufferable, the two of them are also much smarter than Governor Palin. Santorum and his ideological twin Bachmann have the most to gain by the absence of Palin. They are similarly paleoconservative in philosophy, and Bachmann has an outside chance of winning the nomination compared to Romney.

What one should watch for in the short term of this most off of off-years follows.

There will be attrition in the very near term of candidates with little or no traction. Cain, Gingrich, and Santorum do not appear to have very strong campaigns and may not make it to Iowa. The heat and light Pawlenty needs to grow in Minnesota will be consumed by Michelle Bachmann competing for much of the same supporters.

Ron Paul's supporters will be a spoiler, and will likely go to ABR, i.e., anyone but Romney.

If Michelle Bachmann gains traction over the next three months, she will serve as Palin's surrogate. That is all Michelle Bachmann will ever be. She lacks adequate name recognition, and she is unlikely to build a national base beyond those who would have written Palin in, anyway.

Look for Palin to get in late, possibly as late as December 1. This keeps her out of debates where she has always done poorly, but leaves her viable in the Iowa caucuses. Michelle Bachmann holds the enthusiasm of Iowa congressman Steve King, which puts Tim Pawlenty at a huge disadvantage.

Mitt Romney will continue as the moderate alternative to Bachmann Palin overdrive. The fatal error that Romney's campaign will make is that he will continue to run to the right. Romney's problem is that he is not credible as a paleoconservative, not if he had a successful career achieving statewide office in Massachusetts. Indeed, the waning support for the tea parties indicates that he would have a chance as a moderate in the general election.

However, in order to get to the general election, one must cater to the party's base. And that base will prefer someone with a better set of credentials as a Conservative, be it Bachmann, or more likely, Palin. Mitt Romney would be well served by campaigning for the Vice-Presidency, because Governor Palin has a history of not bearing up well under scrutiny from the national press.

The future of the Republican Party will be dependent upon the strength of bringing moderates into the fold.

It shall be seen if they remain to do so in 2016.

The Wandering Gentile: A Vlog post!

2011-06-05T16:51:00.001-04:00

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ByJr-1LW6XY&sns=fb e Wandering Gentile: A Vlog post!

Is Palin Running?

2011-05-30T18:04:00.000-04:00

Of course Sarah Palin is running for President.

For all of Palin's vast inadequacies, she does one thing with exceptional competence: campaign. Please do not confuse this with actual capability, intelligence, or the capacity to guide even the smallest jurisdiction in a direction which will lead to prosperity or providence. She runs because she has been running for the last 30 years.

A marathon runner has the physical fitness to be the Center of a soccer team. That runner may not have the ball-handling skills that a pudgy, chain-smoking roofer from Tegucigalpa has, though. Endurance and speed may bring the opportunity for more goals, but without someone with ball-handling skill, all it means is a lot of running around on one end of the field. Not a lot of goals will be scored.

It is time to watch Palin the marathonner. In this realm, she shines. Politics requires endurance. If one tires out the opposition, one can cruise right up to the goal and tap the ball in.

Endurance is one tactic which works a majority of the time. It does not work on the greats, because they have endurance too. Thousands of Soccer players fell trying to wear Pele out, and just when it looked as if Pele were finished, he bicycled the ball into the goal.

Barack Obama is the Pele of American Presidential Politics, maybe with a little bit of Beckham's curving kick to go along for good measure.

In other words, Obama puts points on the scoreboard.

Mrs. Palin is running, and she's looking for the Republican nomination. The one person who will be most drastically affected by this is Mitt Romney, because he will be the frontrunner until maybe ten seconds after Palin officially announces. Michelle Bachmann will be annoyed, but she is not going to do much besides pout. Herman Cain will be a bit fussy, but frankly, he's the wrong color to ever pull more than 15% of the Republican electorate.

The announcement will be later than sooner. This is the slowest period in American politics, and Palin is an adept campaigner. The time will be used to shore up the huge negatives Palin has with independents and moderates, and give a strong look at which of the lackluster candidates for the nomination as to who would make the best Vice-Presidential nominee.

Palin's short list should include, but not be limited to anyone already declared. A guess says that she may pick a running mate from a traditionally Democratic state-Chris Christie, Paul LePage, and Michelle Bachmann would add regional strength without losing appeal to her base in the deep south.

It will be asked if Palin can win the nomination. That question is akin to asking if the sun will rise tomorrow.

Palin, for her lack of goodwill among moderates and independents, is still considered to be "accomplished" by the base of the Republican Party. One other factor is not popping up that may well prove to be the Republicans' downfall in 2012.

It does not appear that the Democrats will present a serious primary challenge to President Obama next year. That leverages a number of primary voters which might be caught in an internecine debate about the direction of the Democratic Party to pursue a challenge which would make for a compelling contrast of ideas and realizations.

No Soccer fan wants to watch meaningless contest. But people who care little for the sport might enjoy a championship match involving the rivalry (think Red Sox and Yankees with violence) between Manchester United and Liverpool.

Democrats have the chance to bring up the most despised rival in Sarah Palin if she is on the ballot.

Republicans have more to lose in the near future from a Palin candidacy than gain. Palin's endorsement, along with identity as part of the Tea Party, managed to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory in at least half a dozen mid-term contests last year. The paleoconservatism of the quasipopulist Tea Party movement found little traction outside of the deep south.

More moderate populations are expressing a deep buyers remorse for movement candidates like Rick Scott, John Kasich, and Scott Walker. A Palin candidacy has the chance to make those contrasts much clearer.

In the long run, Republicans would be better served with a Palin candidacy now as part of a long-term restructuring to bring the party closer to the middle where elections are won and lost. It is territory where Democrats dwelled for the period from late 1979 to the middle of 1992. Without some sort of outreach to the middle, the Republican Party is doomed by demographics as well as policy.

The age and ethnicity of the current Republican voter is well over 40 and overwhelmingly white. Educational attainment is also inferior to that of those preferring Democrats. Income levels and net worth are metrics leading to a conclusion that the Republican party as we know it will not survive much past 2020, if at all.

Republican leadership knows this. This is why a Palin candidacy for the nomination will succeed. An explicit show of support empowers the ability to jettison the component which provides little value to continued success. There is no longer an ability to survive on smaller pieces of pie. They now have to make more pie.

And the fastest way to do that will be to get Sarah Palin away from the oven.

The New Calendar Arrives

2011-05-21T14:32:00.000-04:00

If the Obama administration were a baseball game, taking Osama bin Laden out is a fifteen-run fourth inning in a game he was winning 7-3. Make that 22-3 now.

In one weekend, the instant replay showed that the ball hooked fair around the Pesky pole (ask a Red Sox fan about this particular obstacle at Fenway Park), by dragging out the original birth certificate signed by his mother's OB in Honolulu. Then within hours, the Internet lit up like a Bush Family midnight visit to Baghdad. Osama, the infernal boogeyman of the last twenty years, was dead.

There are those who will argue that eliminating bin Laden may not have been legal. A description of that particular mindset contains language which is not appropriate here.

When one commits an act of war upon a nation, confesses, and declares oneself to be the accountable party of the body committing the act of war, one becomes an enemy combatant. That is cut and dried. Whether or not the culpable party has the official backing of a nation-state or functions as a privateer is not relevant.

The tacit approval of several countries with Islamic majorities is apparent-particularly Saudi Arabia, Pakistan and the former Taliban Regime in Afghanistan.  The implied, as opposed to express support saves a major city in any of those countries from becoming a parking lot. The fact that bin Laden was in Pakistan was troubling due to the fact that Pakistan is a nuclear power.

Remember the old Bush-era spectre of our only warning being a mushroom cloud over a major city? Pakistan has the tools to make that happen.  Osama bin Laden was not hiding from the Pakistanis.

Indeed, it is pretty evident that the compound was out of the ordinary and the locals knew something was up. There was somebody high enough up in the Pakistani command apparatus to make sure he stayed off the radar. It is not entirely unbelieveable that someone with that kind of clout has access to tools and codes, the kind which make mass murder a one-stop affair.

Sometimes it is as simple as "it was him or us."  Bin Laden wasn't remarkably original in his target selection, which leads to the conclusion that New York and Washington were, if not the two leading targets, in the top three.

The Obama Administration, in two and a half years of being a little less heinous in their practices compared to the Bush Administration, managed to neutralize Osama bin Laden without the use of "extraordinary rendition." The euphemism is still offensive.

For the cost of a 24-man Seal Team, one Black Hawk stealth helicopter, and retraining one clumsy whirlybird pilot, they got Osama. All told, a bit over 60 million dollars, including ruined hardware. That is still real money, but a whole lot less real than three trillion dollars, 5000 servicepeople dead, seven-and-a-half YEARS without neutralizing the original objective, and the nation's reputation as a fair broker stuffed down a commode.

It was, mathematically speaking, like replacing an ugly $50,000 car that sits inoperable in the driveway and periodically eats a young family member, with a brand new sportscar which was purchased for ten cents, gets to the desired destination...and 38 miles per gallon.

This puts the national security aspect into dollars and cents-mostly cents. Twenty cents a person is what the mission cost, belying the costs of the security mechanisms built under the George W. Bush administration. The plot wasn't even new-it merely lacked Chuck Norris or Charles Bronson and Martin Balsam as the designated Jew from being culled from a Golan-Globus film of the mid-eighties. (Which one? ALL OF THEM.)

Afghanistan has returned to comparitive irrelevance. Pakistan has proved to be an unreliable partner. Iraq is as progressive friends advised nine years ago, superfluous and should not have been our problem. The Southern border with Mexico was much less vulnerable than the comparably porous Northern border with Canada, which has a fairly open immigration policy with Pakistan.

In other words, every "Security" Republican's credibility has been effectively destroyed. There is no unnecessarily elaborate Dr. Evil/Bond Villain death involved, no monologue, just the Osama cocktail, two shots and a splash of water.

There is a sentiment among a part of both the progressive and conservative communities alike that bin Laden should have been tried. It is fair to characterize this viewpoint as an outlier. There is no necessity in putting the people of New York, Washington, London, Madrid, or even The Hague through reliving the horrors of Osama's confessed crimes. Nor is there a particularly compelling reason to make any of those cities a target for bin Laden's associates. If he wanted a trial, bin Laden had ten years to surrender.

The incontrovertible truth is that Osama bin Laden was an armed, dangerous fugitive who had ample opportunity to solicit a fair hearing and supply his followers with a litany of propaganda. He did not choose that route.

The Pakistanis will bear watching, but for now the intelligence gathered from bin Laden's computer files should prove to be very fruitful for American and allied intelligence services. There could be up to a terabyte of plans and contact information. All of bin Laden's now-known accomplices should be watching over their shoulders.

They will not anticipate when the visit comes from the CIA, MI6, or the Mossad. These are not nice people, and they do not have nice tasks, but they are also a sad necessity of last resort.

As for those who prospered from bin Laden's continued existence, there is a huge vacuum where the monster, the destroyer lived. These are people who profit from fear and loathing of the other. A large component of those belong to the Republican Party in the United States.

Already, two viable candidates for the 2012 Republican presidential nomination have decided against entering the field. One of them is Mike Huckabee, which should be sufficient to provoke jubilation in the Obama camp. The other, Donald Trump, is a polarizing figure who would have done more to destroy the Republican party than promote it. That job will now go to Sarah Palin and Michelle Bachmann.

Budget and security policy likewise inhabit a changed territory. When the argument existed that legislative activity contributed significantly to the well-being of the nation and its citizens, it was not possible to prove a negative...nor is it ever. In a landscape where effectiveness can be measured against a result, it becomes imperative that the whole shebang (a technical term) goes back on the table to see what can be disposed of.

This will require a Republican of stature serving in a weak district to happen before 2013.  Should no agreement be found, the death of Osama bin Laden may prove to be what fragments the Republican-Libertarian coalition in American politics. It exists as a point of the deficit being unmanageable without an identifiable symbol at which resources may be directed.

In other words, the Democratic Party has the opportunity to say "We are the party which wants to leave you alone and stop costing you money," to the vast majority of Americans. They now have the leverage to show how that will be accomplished, and the credibility of action and results.

Oh, how one yearns to use the Anglo-Saxon vulgarity which is applicable to the condition of al Qaeda and the Republican party alike.

The Parable of Republican Fiscal Responsibility

2011-04-03T10:20:00.000-04:00

A Republican goes on vacation. A thousand miles from home he decides he wants a bacon sandwich.

So the Republican spends thirty dollars renting a car. He spends an hour of time and and three gallons of gas searching for a supermarket. At the supermarket he spends ten dollars on bacon, mayonnaise and bread.

The Republican makes a huge mess in the hotel microwave for the maid to clean up. She will not be tipped because the Republican presumes her to be illegal, despite the fact that she is blond, 6'6" tall, and named for her legal immigrant grandmother, Inga.

The Republican realizes that he has no method for taking care of the bacon and the mayonnaise, so he drives out to the truck stop and buys a portable cooler for a hundred dollars.

After the end of his three day visit, The Republican has a cooler he cannot take on the flight back, filled with food which, while not spoiled, is more than he requires.

Giving the surplus food to people who haven't got enough to eat goes against The Republican's work ethic, so he sticks it in the commercial waste-collection dumpster at the hotel. The cooler, likewise, is not something which can be allowed into other hands, for fear that it may be repurposed for some nefarious end.

So the Republican stands at the airport, proud and pleased that the sandwich itself only cost two dollars. But he wasted $158 to make that two dollar sandwich.

A Democrat is on vacation. A thousand miles from home, he decides he wants a bacon sandwich. The Democrat walks to a nearby restaurant and asks for a bacon sandwich. When he is done eating, he gives the waitress about seven dollars, including tip.

The Republican shakes his head in amazement at how wasteful the Democrat is, when the Democrat could have done the job himself.

When Peace Broke Out

2011-02-15T13:47:00.000-05:00

For those who are over, say, 40, this is not a new story.

We sat in front of our analog televisions and watched crappy little Trabants stream through the Brandenburg Gate. The composite bodies were the same colors that one finds in a nursery, and the masonry wall which had served to protect communism could no longer contain the smoke from the Trabant's little two-stroke engine.

The first protests had been in June, in China of all places. For nearly two months, protesters called for democracy and liberty. They built an homage to the Statue of Liberty on Tiananmen Square in Beijing. Their call was one for human dignity and civil rights.

And on 4 June, 1989, they were crushed. The organizers were carried off to secret prisons and the protesters were dispersed by tanks and arms fire. It seemed that the hope of democracy was destroyed on that day.

But it wasn't. By the end of October, peaceful civil protests were rampaging throughout the Communist bloc. But Berlin holds a special place.

Two years earlier, President Ronald Reagan had exhorted Soviet Premier Mikhail Gorbachev, "Tear down this wall!" It was seen as daring and indecorous, a challenge which was full of the bravado of a victor in battle without a shot being fired.

And on 9 November, 1989, we turned on our televisions and saw a joyously unthinkable event. Germans wielding picks and sledgehammers were bashing the Berlin Wall to smithereens! They were having a huge party tearing it down. Mikhail Gorbachev and Ronald Reagan were nowhere to be found.

It is this memory which informs a guarded optimism. In the last month, we have watched autocrats in Tunisia and Egypt deposed by popular uprisings. These are not the uprisings of turbanned fanatics with an extreme interpretation of Islam.

These are young people who use cell phones and the internet. They are not bent upon retribution for the misdeeds of the autocrats beyond their departure. Aside from their newfound technical prowess, they look like their antecedents in Beijing and Berlin in 1989.

This is beyond huge. The illusion of universal fanatacism in Muslim countries has now been shattered, although one may still appropriately question as to a Wahabbist connection to fanatical movements. In Cairo, you saw young men who had awful jobs and went to their Friday prayers and behaving peacefully.

If one were to turn on the television, one would see their Farsi-speaking counterparts in Teheran on the morning of 15 February. Other reports invoke the nations of Yemen, Bahrain, Algeria, Jordan and Syria. There are no Imams proclaiming fatwas-just people demanding accountability from their leadership.

As it happens when peace breaks out, authoritarians are threatened, but there is no room for their voices. On the deserts of Northern Africa and Southwestern Asia a new thing as old as the sun has broken free-the desire of people to have choices and liberty to decide what is best for the future.

In fifteen or twenty years, should someone walking into a Saipa dealership in New York or Toronto be curious about the little car built in Iran and ask, they will be reminded of this moment. They will see images of happy Saipa owners driving their cars down the Neda Agha Soltan Expressway in the brochures.

Perhaps there will be old men who remember the day when Iran was a place that terrified them. They will recall three wars fought to do something which was accomplished with plastic keyboards instead of bullets and bombs. They will recall the names of places like Fallujah and Kandahar.

While things could still go badly wrong, please remember this: nothing impedes the undesirable like daring to imagine the best possible outcome. This is the motivation behind higher education and Mega-ball lottery tickets alike. As of today, positive outcomes have become possible.

This possibility is the greatest gift that the Middle East could have gotten.

State of the Union

2011-01-26T18:24:00.002-05:00

It was President Obama versus 298 Republicans in both houses Tuesday night. And that looked unfair to the Republicans.

State of the Union addresses have been fun in recent memory. Watching Clinton was easy, because of the theater. “Yeah, you Republican interns. You see this economy? I’m get-ting cre-dit for-it…nanny nanny boo boo!”

For the first twenty minutes of the 2011 State of the Union, it looked like Obama was wayyy off his game. He was generic, competent, and, well, kinda boring. Some of us know that there will be a moment when President Obama has a bad speech. It seemed like this one was going to be it.

This speech was not it.

For those of us who have watched Obama work a room, there are few who can touch him for technique. The New Civility seating arrangement really worked to the President’s advantage. It worked so well, that one wonders if he didn’t consider proposing a tax on Baptist bookstores just to see how many Republicans he could get to clap for it.

For crying out loud, Boehner was clapping for things which will get him a new orifice for excretory function from Fox News. To his credit, Boehner must have gotten hold of a terrific mood elevator, because he only misted up once. But he appeared to be either hammered or lost, like a kid who arrives to take the SAT and realizes about two questions in that there is no way in hell that he’s bluffing his way through this test.

Barack Obama did not have that problem. When he hit the message about 80% clean energy by 2035, he pitched it like a Republican. For twenty years, Democrats have been selling the environment to liberals.

Ask Al Gore how well that works when running for President, sometime. The environment is Crack Cocaine for liberals. It makes the left stupid and willing to do anything for more of it. President Obama took the left to Rehab.

Elections are not won by selling the environment to liberals any more than they are won selling guns to conservatives. Elections are won by making sense to the middle. President Obama started doing something extremely astute by playing to the center.

Invoking the space program, the President’s rhetoric touched on the value of clean energy for defense, education and jobs. In an economy which by circumstance has become much more global than a lot of people would like, the point of grabbing the future from our economic rivals is cogent. The reality that policies embraced by his Republican opposition have put resources in such a place as to place the nation at a competitive disadvantage can, and will make sense to independents and moderates.

There was not a hint of environmentalism to Obama’s treatment of clean energy as a generator of security for the nation, except as a favorable byproduct. That is something the middle has not really heard before.

The Republican Party approached this State of the Union with one of the worst game strategies that they have ever used. They set everything off with a block from their right and sealing all of the routes up the left. That might work on Dennis Kucinich, or Bernie Sanders. If this were football, they would have watched some game film to know that Obama likes to run up the middle.

The Republican Party is also facing a resurgent Obama at a time when their party is in disarray. There is little room for multiple and sometimes differing messages. A divided party will cave in upon itself. It happened two years ago when Sarah Palin wound up on the ticket, becoming the de facto head. It also happened last night.

In the official Republican rebuttal, it became clear, instantly, that the speech was prepared well in advance of Obama’s speech. What was also evident was that whoever prepared the speech had zero grasp of the President’s articulation or capacity. And Representative Paul Ryan, like Charles Boustany and Bobby Jindal before him, was spectacularly ill equipped to compete with President Obama’s polished rhetorical skills.

It did not help that Representative Ileana Ros-Lehtinen offered the same inadequate speech in Spanish on Univision, albeit with a much stronger rhetorical capacity. Representative Ryan resembled little so much as Topher Grace portraying an adult Eddie Munster.

Representative Michelle “Guano” Bachmann offered a rebuttal for the ever-shrinking ranks of the Tea Party. For a group of people who kvetch incessantly about Obama using a TelePrompTer, you would think that they could mount the blamed thing in the same area code as the camera. Apparently, Rep. Bachmann was sitting in DC, and the TelePrompTer was somewhere on top of the Springfield Interchange in Virginia.

Republicans could scarcely have done worse by letting Sarah Palin ad-lib, and Huckabee might actually have been good.

At the moment, President Obama and the Democrats have altered the game-they are now using the right’s verbiage and tone with the older Center Left message. The last political figure who married his opposition’s tone to his own philosophy? Ronald Reagan.

This just got extremely interesting.

Demographics

2011-01-26T18:15:00.002-05:00

If one were to look at the demographics, one will realize that the Left’s absent friend Keith Olbermann will be back on the air quickly. This is because Olby has a market, and Glenn “The Beckwad” Beck had one with less appealing demographics.

Fox found overlap when CNN Headline News carried Glenn Beck over to Home Depot, gave him a hammer and a GPS programmed for the nearest beach, and told him to pound sand. After all, Glenn Beck appeals to quite a few Fox viewers.

Beck connects well to people who live in previously-owned manufactured homes, earn ten dollars an hour when employed, and have no teeth to speak of. There is no real revenue loss for Fox if all of his advertisers go away, because, face it; Beck’s audience has the same disposable income as dirt.

The people at most television networks are not looking for a loss leader. Beck stays because he keeps people (like your Wandering Gentile) who know better at least remembering that Fox is out there and purports to be a news source. One waits, probably not in vain, for Megyn Kelly to offer up that President Obama is actually the legendary “Bat Boy” from the Weekly World News.

The Weekly World News was a tabloid, which on occasion offered such scoops as “Bat Boy Found Living In Cave,” and inspired the “Boy Trapped In Refrigerator, Eats Own Foot” headline from Airplane! They also featured a weekly column from a character named Ed Anger, whose far-right rantings presaged Beck by several years. The Weekly World News went under a while back, probably because Fox offered the same thing without the hassle of reading. Or chapped lips.

It is at this point where your Wandering Gentile expresses a deep and embarrassing admiration for the National Enquirer. It is not for their politics or their intellectual posture. The closest one gets to politics is political scandal in the Enquirer. And that is something they do quite well.

Gary Hart, Bill Clinton, several politically connected evangelists, John Edwards and now Todd Palin have all been caught with their trousers down, and the Enquirer is who caught them. Every so often a blind squirrel gets a nut. But it takes one bad-ass squirrel to shake the entire oak tree.

The National Enquirer is one such bad-ass squirrel. The New York Times is not so much of a bad-ass squirrel when it comes to getting political figures in flagrante delicto. It’s called journalism, and who expected it out of Lantana, Florida?

Note to every journalistic enterprise: if an investigative journalist comes to you from the National Enquirer, give that scribe everything they want. If they had been researching your Sunday Crisis megaturd (Apologies to Dave Barry for using his apt term) there would not be 100,000 people in your market who think Pulitzer is a brand of light beer.

While saluting the competent and amazingly non-partisan investigative crew over at the National Enquirer, I totally got away from the point of Keith Olbermann coming back to television.

There are a few little facts about Keith Olbermann’s audience that really got my attention. They are disproportionately well educated, with a majority holding some type of higher degree. Their income level is roughly double that of Glenn Beck’s audience. They are loyal to products and providers who exhibit high quality and good service over lowest prices. And Keith Olbermann is one of very few unique voices in broadcasting.

He is also capable of endearing himself to moderates as well as liberals, because it’s good TV. Keith Olbermann knows this. So does his audience. And if anybody at say, CNN/Time Warner has any blamed sense, they know it, too. Third place is a cold and unhappy place to reside.

Sometime between July and October, there should be a tease spot on CNN, offering what will be the worst-kept secret in Cable TV, touching upon the imminent return of a beloved host to the “Most Trusted Name In News.”

And, um, there will probably be a lot of people TiVoing Rachel Maddow, because Piers Morgan has not really started well, now has he? (Look for Rachel to join CNN just as soon as Crud-I mean COMcast-finishes ruining MSNBC.)

MORE Debunking The News

2010-11-16T10:17:00.000-05:00

Some time ago (January, 2009), Your Wandering Gentile posted the original “Debunking The News,” a list of bogus terms and phrases with what they mean in the real world. Your Wandering Gentile was a bit hard up for new material, so he grabbed the dead tree version of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, and found a whole bunch of NEW words and phrases designed to camouflage the speaker’s intent.

Able to capitalize on widespread frustration- If we do not get rid of these defectives with ballots, back into civil war we go!

Advocates dispute claims- Hence their description as ADVOCATES. Remember Robin Williams’ bit about redundant?

Arbitrary and capricious- Detrimentally affects my friends and anyone else who might give me money.

Based on a fresh analysis- Somebody found a way to give us an answer we liked.

Could be the administration’s last shot- Is the administration’s last chance, down by 8 in the bottom of the ninth.

Could be viewed as a rebuke- Will be as appealing as a s*** sandwich.

Could complicate efforts- (Screwed) into a cocked hat.

Critics said the vote was rigged- Myanmar, Miami, what’s the difference, really?

Despite difficult conditions while in captivity- Somehow, this never sounded like a week at Club Med in Costa Rica.

Gave a spirited rejection- Spat in the face.

Have become more vocal in their efforts- It’s like talking to a wall, isn’t it?

Improperly issued- Broke about nine zillion laws and rules by saying “okeydokey.”

Is politically toxic- Pisses own friends off.

Lacks confidence in ________- Thinks _______ is idiotic.

Made it falsely appear- Lied their asses off.

Mounting a robust defense- Look at the tense here…this is something you should have done six months ago!

On shaky ground- I don’t care if it eats garbage and pees 93 octane Unleaded gas. This is very bad for me politically and must DIE DIE DIE!

On condition of anonymity- These people I’m telling you about have guns and know where I live.

Organizers condemned the violence- Organizers weren’t caught participating in the violence.

Said in a statement- Phoned it in.

Starting point- There’s the stable, and there’s your teaspoon. Have a ball.

Taken out of context- Oh, crap, that mike was live.

The exact aim of the attack remains unclear- But this does not seem to be your garden variety Sigma Nu prank, though.

The language was a mistake rather than an intentional attempt to mislead- Sure it was.

These findings worry officials- No good can come of this for officials.

They might have disarmed the bomb accidentally rather than by design- Well! His head and hands are still attached! Excellent! Don’t try that again if you don’t know what you’re doing.

The New Reality- Same old Depression.

Ceremonial job- Almost as good a gig as Former Vice President.

Former Vice President- Money for nothing and Dick’s still free???

The Tsunami That Wasn’t

2010-11-16T10:04:00.000-05:00

President Obama came out of the promised Tsunami in a whole lot better shape than most Democrats expected. Please do not confuse this for being GOOD for the President, but it is mostly wounded pride. He kept the Senate, and most of the Democrats sent into retirement were not exactly Obama’s political allies.

A few of the President’s more vexing figures in the Democratic Party managed to stay put, but Obama’s net loss of votes in the House is closer to 20 than 60. It turns out that Republicans prefer Republicans as opposed to Republicans who caucus with Democrats. Who knew?

In other words, the “Solid South” of Dixiecrats and Demagogues has been thoroughly purged from the Democratic Party. Nixon’s Southern Strategy has come to full fruition.

In the short term, this is a pain in the behind for President Obama. He also has a battalion of right-wing political pundits proclaiming the end of his presidency. It may turn out to be a blessing in disguise.

Remember that whole “party of no” strategy that Republicans have been using for the last couple of years? Yeah, that’s not going to work so well now. Now they have to come up with something more than that.

Republicans actually have to send things to the Senate that will get to the floor. Gaining the House without getting the Senate gives Republicans two years to propose the Tea Party agenda, and get absolutely nothing passed. That gives President Obama a do-nothing Republican Congress to run against.

If anyone thinks Harry Reid is going to give in to Jim DeMint in the Senate, they should smoke some more of that particular stash.

President Obama is still fairly well liked, while there is no corresponding sentiment for congressional Republicans. A couple of people on the left have some buyer’s remorse and wish that Hillary Clinton were now the President. The people on the right who do not like President Obama didn’t like Hillary Clinton any better. They are unlikely to give Speaker-in-waiting Boehner too much latitude if and/or when he does not deliver.

Obama was the first president in a generation to win a majority of the popular vote. He did exactly what he had to do. The President used a big chunk of political capital to get as much of his agenda pushed through as he could when he was certain he had the majority in the House. This is something which put Republicans into full overreaction mode.

Republicans do not do overreaction well. If one goes back to the forties and the fifties, Richard Nixon versus Alger Hiss and Joe McCarthy versus Decency are key examples. Let us please not start on anything done by a member of the Bush Family.

We now approach two years of Don’t Tread On Me sound bite populism, from what is arguably the most unappealing political body ever. For the Tea Party’s claims of massive grass-roots support, there was no statewide candidate from the Tea Party to outperform expectations for any Republican.

In the cases of Christine O’Donnell, Sharron Angle, and Ken Buck, Senate seats which had been trending Republican went to the Democrat. Mike Castle is among Delaware’s best liked political figures. The Chicken Lady, Sue Lowden, was tracking WAY ahead of Harry Reid in Nevada. The less one says about Ken Buck, the better.

A case could be made for Pat Toomey, but 1 for 37 is NOT that much better than 0 for 37. Ask Barry Bonds about his postseason hitting record sometime.

The Republicans have a giant Tea Party Albatross around their necks. This overpriced publicity apparatus has produced NO unexpected results, generated no new support, and alienated pretty much every growing population in the country. If Republicans had washed their hands of the Tea Party and the Koch Brothers, they would now be in a better position for free.

Republican misfortune is such: they now own a quarter-billion Dollar machine, and the blamed thing does not work. Do not think that salesmen Karl Rove and Dick Armey have endeared themselves to the party poobahs. While the tea party has blue-collar appeal, they are not self-supporting. There is no death panel like that of Republicans who have dropped 250 million bucks on convincing poor people to do something and got nothing but what they were going to get anyway.

Some of the higher-profile Tea Party figures are already walking back the Tea Party identity. Rand Paul and Marco Rubio are already saying “Tea? Tea? No, I ordered a Diet Coke.” The Half-term Halfwit is still bringing her peculiar brand of polar populism, but the audience has seen the quiet exeunt of Republican power brokers.

The Grand Old Party sees the fastest return to power through failure in the near term. They cannot afford a 2014 election cycle with a viable Sarah Palin near the head of the party, so they will get rid of her in 2012. The only thing Democrats could have wanted besides a win this cycle has happened.

The Republicans seized a pyrrhic victory.

American Liberal

2010-11-16T09:52:00.000-05:00

I am a liberal. I am not ashamed of my beliefs. Let the debate with whichever individual or group begin.

I have a deep mistrust of unaccountable collectives. It does not matter what name an unaccountable collective goes by, be it Corporation or Government. If forced to choose, I will pick Government, because the power of the individual vote, bought and paid for with the blood and suffering of generations of American service people, is ultimately a greater guarantor of transparency than shadowy lucre.

I see the role of Government not as enemy, but as a power of all the people of this great nation to assure that no citizen is denied that greatness upon gender, ancestry, faith, or sexual orientation. Prejudice and bigotry are not American values. They are vices which destroy our nation from within as a cancer.

I know that America is the most exceptional and extraordinary nation in the history of mankind. We achieved this by opening doors, not closing them. By embracing new ideas and different peoples we stood toe to toe against every kind of totalitarian evil and won, with the knowledge that autocrats discarded. Leave walls and paranoia to North Korea…we know they don’t work for us.

I love my Nation, and support its defenders. This means that they must be called into action, not by questionable intelligence, but by irrefutable truth. The sacrifice of our all-volunteer military is not to be treated as a mercenary force for the prosecution of a personal vendetta.

I love my God. I have friends who come from every religious tradition. I have friends who are not part of any religious tradition. My God tells me to judge not lest I be judged. While I feel sad that some have not received the gift of faith, I respect and admire those who continue to do the right thing without the promise of an eternal reward. Oh, that all of my own faith should act so well.

I accept the patriotism and service of Representative Keith Ellison, a Muslim, and Representative Hank Johnson, a Buddhist, as coequals with Representative John Lewis, a Christian, and Representative Anthony Weiner, a Jew.

I embrace the concept of personal responsibility. This means that individuals, who have acted irresponsibly, particularly in the financial services industry, bear the brunt of their bad decisions. Fraud does not deserve continuing reward; speculation is a form of gambling unworthy of public support, and the best talent profits by building strong communities, not spurious investment instruments.

I believe in a free and unrestricted press. When six companies control a disproportionate number of outlets in radio and television, debate ceases to exist. Without debate, our nation strays far from the tradition that it was built upon.

I favor the right to keep and bear arms. I do not believe that a right exists to behave irresponsibly with one’s weapons. I also get that “well regulated” does not mean “unregulated.”

I support the right of labor to organize. I would not go to court without an attorney. It seems disingenuous to expect someone to make a financial decision of potentially millions of dollars, alone, without representation to counter an employer’s legions of accountants, attorneys, and managers.

I am not blinded by hatred for taxes. Our nation prospers with education, infrastructure, a justice system which is free from corruption, and shared responsibilities which assure us of clean and accessible air, water, food and medicine. Employers prosper disproportionately from a healthy, secure and educated workforce, and their responsibility is also disproportionate.

I love opportunity. I reject the notion that opportunity is something which should be limited to those who already have means. This nation’s founders shared a vision of a place where opportunity and prosperity would not be the province of idle nobility, a cosseted clergy, and miniscule enclaves of merchant and financiers.

So when bringing a debate about the future of the United States of America, remember who threw that first tea party. They were not Tories, Loyalists, or Conservatives. They were people like me.

They were American Liberals.

Hey i've seen this before

2010-10-07T03:22:00.001-04:00

Imagine my chagrin when i discovered my idea without, any acknowledgement

This picture message or video message was sent using Multimedia Messaging Service.

To play video messages sent to email, Apple� QuickTime� 6.5 or higher is required. Visit www.apple.com/quicktime/download to download the free player or upgrade your existing QuickTime Player. Note: During the download process when asked to choose an installation type (Minimum, Recommended or Custom), select Minimum for faster download.

9/11 Love Story

2010-09-09T10:12:00.000-04:00

One promises not to touch the cliches about the pretty September morn or wax eloquently about Manhattan's snaggle-toothed skyline. If the date 9/11 has no significance for the Gentle Reader beyond the litany of now-trite allusions and allegories, then these words have little significance.

As Paul Harvey used to say, this is the rest of the story. It is personal.

On September 8, 2001, I had planned a visit to Manhattan. I am a commercial driver. The firm I was hired onto at the time had a yard in New Brunswick, New Jersey. My plan was to celebrate my birthday with an oft-delayed visit to New York City. I was offered a run from Atlanta to New Jersey, which due to certain regulations faced by professional drivers, I would not have been able to complete by Monday, September 10.

The key issue was that my truck was bog-slow, with a maximum velocity of 62 miles per hour. Had the rig been a bit faster, I may not be here to tell the story.

My itenerary included the World Trade Center. There was no particular motivation besides that of Homer Simpson visiting that landmark. If one chooses one of the world's greatest cities, one chooses the greatest landmarks in that city.

I wound up celebrating in a different form in my hometown of Atlanta. On the night of September 10, I watched one of the great World War II films (Steve McQueen in The Great Escape), and headed to Virginia with a load of dog food. It was as simple as that. At 3 in the morning, I parked my rig in a North Carolina rest area.

The next morning I arose to find the message that the second World Trade Center tower had fallen. Holy cow, I didn't know the first one had fallen. The only channel I could get was the ABC affiliate from Winston-Salem.

I had a pocket full of change and called some old friends back in Georgia. First on the list was my old friend Moses Horowitz, a Long Island native. I asked after his family in New York. There was another friend with whom I had celebrated my birthday, to inform that I was still around and still had a pulse. I made it up to the truck stop in Mount Airy, the model for Andy Griffith's Mayberry.

The image of CNN anchor Aaron Brown weeping lingers in an arid and painful place in my heart.

And I was haunted. I was haunted by a too-vivid imagination, remembering a young woman I had taken to the Decatur bus station, as she embarked for a journey to renew her life in Union City, New Jersey. I imagined the gray uniform shirt of a maintenance person, her face, and the knowledge that the planes hit at least a quarter of the way down the buildings.

I remembered her name. It would not escape me. As rosters of the fallen came from New York, I studiously avoided them. For 49 months, through the memorials and annual recitations, over the photocopied handbills, I dared not go too closely for the abject terror that my passivity had condemned this woman to a martyrdom in New York.

The month after The Wandering Gentile first published in 2005, I returned to Atlanta from a time domiciled in southern Georgia. I rented a room from a woman of my approximate age in the eastern suburbs. She was and remains a friend, although time and circumstance have put a necessary distance between us.

In October, I was invited to visit Helen, Georgia, one of the world's great kitschy places, with her brother and sister-in-law. She went up in her CUV, and her brother and sister-in-law drove their large Toyota. As we neared Helen, 90 or so miles from Atlanta, her sister-in-law put on a stern face.

"Do you remember my cousin?" She asked, then uttered the name. Her face was not one of joy, but of mourning. I could feel my soul sinking through the floorboard of the Toyota. This was the eventuality I had been avoiding for 49 months.

"Yes," I replied meekly, suddenly enervated.

"She remembers you too! I was in New Jersey, and she asked after you!"

They say that life has moments. One questions whether or not he has answers, but when the answer is obvious, bells and whistles go off. Bells, whistles, fireworks, air raid sirens, and tiny European engines echoed throughout my cranium. This was a sign 30 meters tall and backlit.

The Gentle Reader may be forgiven if one has chosen to skip the body of this extended bit of self serving meta. It is of no purpose or weight other than the conceit that it pleases me.

But as we close on the anniversary of a dreadful morning in Manhattan, rejoice in that for most, those who loved someone associated with the World Trade Centers, that someone returned home later on September 11. God lives in the fact that this evil did not cost 50,000 or 100,000 lives. God lives in the flat tire someone had entering the Holland Tunnel, or the train which was delayed on Long Island. I refuse to believe that good and evil do not have some supernatural design.

I also refuse to compel my brethren to believe as I do. That mindset is fertile ground for the evil we saw as innocent lives were taken.

And for the record, that young woman I spoke of taking to the bus station in Decatur? The one whose life inspired my rejoice?

You, Gentle Reader, would know of her as Mrs. Wandering Gentile.

Rope-a-Dope, Hawaiian Style

2010-09-02T21:26:00.000-04:00

A recurring theme pervades from television news to Facebook chatter: Republicans are going to retake the House, and very well could retake the Senate, too.

Sure they are. And a Category Five hurricane is going to blast straight through the Narrows and wipe New York completely off the map. But neither event is guaranteed to happen in 2010.

Republicans were not going to lose on Stimulus. They were not going to lose on Justice Sotomayor. They had defeat of Health Care Reform sewed up. There was no way that there was going to be any re-regulation on Wall Street.

If one goes back two years to the primaries, Hillary Clinton was going to be the Democratic nominee. Six years ago, Ryan had been leading in the polls for Paul Simon’s old Senate seat. In other words, we have been hearing about Barack Obama’s imminent doom since he stood up and smoked everyone at the Democratic Convention in 2004.

Six predictions of impending failure have six wins for Barack Obama. It would seem foolish to bet against the President with this much time on the clock.

President Obama is sitting as low on the polls as he ever has. He’s still twenty points up on Bush’s lowest point. He has kept a low profile all summer. This is classic Obama. He’s running the Rope-a-Dope on the Republicans.

For those who may not have had the frustrating pleasure of watching Muhammad Ali fight, the Rope-a-Dope works thusly. Ali would lean back on the ropes and let an opponent pound, pound, and pound some more. Ali was a cerebral fighter. He studied his opponent’s best moves, let the opponent tire himself out, and in the last two rounds, Ali would knock his opponent into the middle of next Tuesday.

At the moment, as the old southernism goes, the Tea Party and the Republicans are (defecating) in high cotton. Someone may wish to remind them where the McCain-Palin ticket stood in the polls on Labor Day, 2008.

The right has been going to the well repeatedly. There is a strong likelihood that a large component of the electorate which wasn’t quite sick of the Tea Party six months ago may have had its fill of screaming white geezers. The party which has been quiet has a strategic advantage.

Democrats will discuss the economy and jobs. James Carville is sitting around, and James Carville is going to be brought back into the game. Nobody has ever crafted as effective a campaign based on the economy like him in the last 50 years. Carville would have been first choice a long time ago, but he was very highly annoyed.

They also have Robert Reich, Clinton’s Treasury secretary, biding his time as a talking head on CNN and MSNBC. As far as the economy and Domestic policy go, the Clinton years are remembered fondly. There are even a few conservatives out there who would be willing to trade places with that woman, Miss Lewinski, if it would reboot the economy to 1998.

This is where the Clinton card gets played. Obama has the Clinton economic team available, and they have very strong credibility, because the economy was strong. The administration is smart enough to realize that it is tough to clean up eight years of mess in less than two. The message has to be Dubya versus Bubba.

The independent center is not going to hear much about the following from Democrats over the next two months: the environment, unless it is linked to green jobs; immigration; LGBT rights; or security (unless it is connected to jobs, jobs, jobs.) This will be extremely frustrating to Liberals and Progressives, but it is also pragmatic. The Democratic Party is not in a position of being the Vegans at the barbecue without alienating the coalition moderates who helped bring them to power.

The base understands that their objectives will be completely and perpetually screwed if Republicans get back into power. It would be the equivalent of choosing Lindsay Lohan for a designated driver.

President Obama’s desires for the next two years are going to be extremely dependent upon voters who have traditionally been more apathetic. Obama’s organization has been strong in keeping a connection to his supporters over the last couple of years. This crucial body may pull the President’s bacon out of the fire in November.

They may very well be the left jab that the Republican Party does not see coming.

Understanding Your Haynes Service Manual

2010-08-28T23:16:00.002-04:00

A few of us in the automotive hobby have come to know and appreciate our Haynes service manuals. However, these manuals are written in ENGLISH, not AMERICAN. Some of the terms may be confusing to those unfamiliar with British automotive jargon.

As a courtesy to friends who enjoy automobiles, or those curious about the hobby, your Wandering Gentile has prepared a glossary of British automotive terms translated into American.

SPANNER- A tool who sends you unsolicited e-mail.

BOOT- An oversize bit of footwear in the trunk.

SPARKING PLUGS- Someone forgot to remove the bloody ground cable, didn't he?

REMOVE NEGATIVE CABLE FROM BATTERY- If followed to the letter on a Lucas/Prince of Darkness system, and owner leaves the key on, his car will become an Austin/Morris/MG/Wolseley/Riley/Triumph/Rover/Standard Chernobyl upon replacement of cable on positive-ground system.

I.C.E.- The people who will have some question about your immigration status if they hear Shakira on your radio.

WHEELBRACE- Thang whut looks lak uh tar arn.

WING- Hey, Ah tole ya they got them fline cars over in Anglund.

OFFSIDE/NEARSIDE- Not even the British are entirely certain about the rules on this one. It's kind of like Cricket. (RIP, Mr Woolmer)

BONNET- Famous NASCAR driver where the hood ought to be.

HOOD- It's like the English have a different word for everything. It looks like a convertible top to me.

CROSS-PLY TYRE- Apparently the belts don't get along.

SALOON- You got to be kidding. John Wayne wouldn't be caught dead in this thing for all the Rye Whiskey ever distilled. He probably wouldn't even fit.

MINICAR- Roller Skate with an attitude.

MoT- Bureaucrats who have an agenda for the promotion of public transit.

FOUR STAR PETROL- Urine with an attitude.

TWO STAR PETROL- Urine without an attitude.

FORECOURT- Where the gas pumps are.

MULTI STOREY CAR PARK- Parking deck. Expensive.

CITROEN- French word for "lemon."

RENAULT- French word for "(excrement)."

(Repurposed from content originally posted at Opel GT.com, March, 2007.)

2010-08-28T21:46:00.001-04:00

Scarier than Stephen King.

This quote was found in the comments section of a Think Progress report on Glenn Beck's 8/28 rally in Washington. The commonality of this rhetoric and that of the Tea Party is disturbing.

"It makes no difference whatever whether they laugh at us or revile us, whether they represent us as clowns or criminals; the main thing is that they mention us, that they concern themselves with us again and again, and that we gradually in the eyes of the workers themselves appear to be the only power that anyone reckons with at the moment. …"

"[O]ne can never count on protection on the part of the authorities; on the contrary, experience shows that it always and exclusively benefits the disturbers. For the sole actual result of intervention by the authorities – that is, the police – was at best to dissolve, in other words, to close the meeting. And that was the sole aim and purpose of the hostile disturbers." [...]

"If through some sort of threats it becomes known to the authorities that there is danger of a meeting being broken up, they do not arrest the threateners, but forbid the others, the innocent, to hold the meeting, and what is more, the run-of-the-mill police mind is mighty proud of such wisdom. They call this a 'precautionary measure for the prevention of an illegal act.'

"Thus, the determined gangster is always in a position to make political activity and efforts impossible for decent people. In the name of law and order, the state authority gives in to the gangster and requests the others please not to provoke him."

Adolf Hitler in Mein Kampf

Crudcast Cable

2010-08-11T14:41:00.000-04:00

“Dear Mr. Gillon.”

Uh-oh. Nobody puts Mr. in front of my surname unless they want money. It’s kind of like being called “Sir” in a truck stop parking lot.

“Crudcast Cable is offering a unique savings opportunity!”

Yup.

“Now you can have 150 channels of crystal-clear Crudcast Cable, packaged with home telephone service and lightning-fast Internet for…”

However dang many dollars a month they wanted. I forgot, not that I cared all that much to start with. I drive a truck. Mrs. Wandering Gentile only likes three channels, and we can get them with rabbit ears for free.

I shudder to think of what viruses are out there with Justin Bieber’s face on them. I suspect that a few are also on the Internet.

“Our premium 150 Channel Package includes all of your local favorites.”

They don’t carry the low-powered digital channel which happens to be TeleCaramba, my wife’s favorite network. We live close enough to the transmitter to pick up the broadcasts in our fillings.

“We also offer great sports programming from….”

I am the only person in the house who really watches sports at all. I drive a truck. I can tell you which newspapers have decent baseball coverage. It’s not doing me any good when I’m in Walla Walla, picking up apples.

“Crudcast’s news and information selection features great choices from CNN and Fox News.”

My apologies. I just threw up a little in my mouth. CNN is on channel 22. Fox is on 20. MSNBC is on another system.

“For the youngsters in the house, we have Disney, Nickelodeon, and the Cartoon Network.”

Okay, the youngster is almost 44…and rarely has impure thoughts about Selena Gomez any more.

“We also offer several convenient shop-at-home services.”

I have no clue what they have on these shop-at-home services, but I bet they are neither economical nor a very good use of bandwidth. Thankfully, this is not a habit of Mrs. Wandering Gentile’s. Shop NBC could easily be replaced with something from the same corporate family. Gee, could I guess what it might be?

“Crudcast home telephone service offers great connections and unlimited calling within the continental United States.”

My prepaid cell phone carrier offers ALL FIFTY states and Canada, and the Internet. For an extra five dollars a month, we can have unlimited land line connections in sixty countries on my wife’s prepaid carrier. My phone works everywhere but Oklahoma and some parts of West Virginia. Her coverage is a bit less nationwide, but better in Metro Atlanta.

I also don’t like telephones enough to want another one of the damn things which happens to be less versatile than what I have already!

“Crudcast Internet offers the lightning fast speed that you want…”

Yeah, except when a whole bunch of my neighbors discover that the Aguilas are playing the Chivas. Then the thing packs up like the Cross-Bronx Expressway on a Friday afternoon. I may as well try to find out what Rachel Maddow was talking about at 8 by smoke signal.

So I called Crudcast to see how much they would charge me for just Comedy Central, the Cartoon Network, and the Internet, just for grins.

It was 10 dollars more a month, I HAD to take Fox news when I didn’t want it, and Crudcast’s customer service department left a little bit to be desired, which is a nice way of saying that they suck.

If Jasmine stands on Sasha’s shoulders, we can pick up Macon with the rabbit ears.

The Season of Miracles

2010-08-11T14:27:00.000-04:00

As this interminable summer of unpleasant confrontations and dreadful poll numbers draws toward its end, be of good cheer, Liberals.

Republicans want to debate extending the Bush Tax Cuts. This is like being a bullfighter in a wheelchair. There is no way this will turn out well.

If the Bush Tax Cuts had worked, it would be logical to expect the following:

1. Full employment.

2. A shrinking deficit.

3. Growth of middle class incomes.

This is, after all, the premise upon which the Tax Cuts were sold in 2001. At the time, the federal surplus was in the neighborhood of half a trillion dollars. The unemployment rate hovered within a few ticks of 5%. The spending power of the median US family was about 20% more than it is today.

Supporters of reinstating the Bush Tax Cuts will argue some points. 9/11 will come up, as will the subprime mortgage fiasco. The suggestion will be made, with some tenuous supporting evidence, that the middle and lower classes are paying less in taxes today than they did ten years ago.

9/11 was certainly an impact upon the American economy and psyche. There are now two wars as a result, at a cost of (roughly) a trillion dollars a year. Our presence in Iraq is questionable, at a cost of having lost bin Laden at Tora Bora.

For those who would suggest that Liberals do not support the armed services, one wishes to query. Starting a war, sending troops without adequate intelligence or correct equipment for the job, and then the whole thing turns out to have been done on crap evidence, well, how supportive is that? Cutting benefits and placing stop-loss orders is not supportive either.

The subprime meltdown is another case of the path to hell being paved with good intentions. Yes, Clinton signed the repeal of Glass-Stegall. Being truthful, quite a few Liberals and Progressives were convinced that the economy would continue its exponential growth. Senator Russ Feingold (D-WI) is among the few who get a pass for not following a dumb, but popular, idea.

For every Conservative who loves Madame Palin’s “How’s that hopey changey stuff workin’ out for ya,” there is a guy, whose residence has a license plate, looking for a deregulation Republican to park his home on. This individual is paying less in income taxes, because 15% of zero is zero.

The Laffer curve was great while we were on the upslope. The downslope is as frightening as anything found at Cedar Point in Sandusky, Ohio. We are facing something that would have a very peculiar interpretation of y=mX+b. A point came somewhere around five years ago when we passed the intersection where lowering the marginal tax rate would result in increased revenues.

What would work is getting back to what we already know works. The pre-Bush economy worked.

President Obama has been holding this move for months. There is no way he does not want the Bush Tax Cut debate to come to the floor of Congress. The population which would be most affected voted something like 90% in favor of Senator McCain two years ago. There is no political downside for Obama.

If the usual litany of Conservatives begins to pontificate on the virtues of this particular tax cut regimen, then the Democrats don’t have to run against individual opponents. They are now running against people who prospered when most people did not and George W. Bush. That works quite well.

The wealthy will cry victim, as with any group which has become dependent upon public largesse. There is something decidedly unsympathetic about any group prospering on somebody else’s dime. Welfare kings from Beverly Hills to Beacon Hill are even less sympathetic when one has faced the loss of a career, a home, or a marriage to economic instability.

Governments cost money to run. A progressive taxation policy is not punitive to producers. It means that those who have prospered under a free, democratic system are also responsible for maintaining the integrity of the system which has enabled their prosperity.

Producers know that debt is not a smart choice. The nation is overleveraged. We can ill afford to dump US$700 billion on people who sat on it the last time. An economically broken government cannot assure the security of the nation it serves.

And if he has to, Obama’s going to veto the Bush Tax Cuts anyway.

Fossil Fuel Free by 2023

2010-07-27T00:14:00.000-04:00

The left is losing the green discussion. Progressives are already heavily invested in renewable energy, and that is not a bad thing.

But progressives are losing the political center. Last summer, your Wandering Gentile proposed the concept of “Defensive Energy Autonomy Legislation.” The idea is simple. Fossil fuels make America vulnerable to countries that are not likely to act in the best interests of Americans.

It really does not matter which country with oil is acting. There are enough despots on both sides of the authoritarian spectrum to be of concern to everyone.

So what is the easiest solution? Quit using oil! The time to start was nine years ago, but was hindered by an administration with ties to an industry which needs to become as relevant as typewriter repairmen.

This is not a hard sell. Where did the money for the aviation lessons for 9/ 11 come from? It isn’t exactly like al Qaeda was using Terror Scout cookies to pay for it. This was oil money. Petroleum supports terrorism, period.

The first objective is simple. Take steps to help every home and business in America become a net producer of renewable energy. This is a goal which is possible with technology existing today.

The effect of this upon the economy would be spectacular. There would be a need for twenty million new jobs to manufacture, transport, install, maintain, and recycle renewable energy solutions. Even if one million petroleum workers were displaced, there would be jobs to replace those incomes.

Second, but not secondary is the cumulative effect of individuals becoming masters of their energy, as opposed to utility providers and oil companies. When transportation passed from the hands of the private railroads to the automobile a century ago, the new industry fueled spectacular economic growth.

Most people over 18 appreciate the revolution of information technology, and the subsequent boom in the economy under President Clinton.

Making energy an individual ownership as opposed to a collective commodity would also spur massive economic growth.

A few days ago, we celebrated the 41st anniversary of Apollo 11 landing on the moon. In 1961, when President Kennedy put forth the idea that Americans would land on the moon by 1970, America was behind the Soviets in space exploration.

The idea that the United States would pull ahead of the Soviet Union was no less farfetched than the idea that the United States can be fossil fuel free in 13 years sounds now. But it will require the same kind of commitment that the Apollo program required in the sixties.

One believes that America is still the country of The Right Stuff.

We begin with a commitment that every square inch of government roof is covered with solar panels. This opens the market for research and development. It also jump-starts mass production.

At the moment, solar is accessible to the affluent. What happens when solar goes from US$20,000 to US$2,000 per household? When development improves the efficiency of solar to support the heating, cooling, cleaning, and cooking needs of any home at less than the cost of a year of commercially generated electricity?

Kids, TRY THIS AT HOME!

Finally, with energy from renewable sources supplanting commercially generated electricity, a point will come where some of the science fiction aspects of renewable energy could become reality. Compressed hydrogen fuel cells might go from tax-subsidized parity with gasoline and diesel to the equivalent of fifty cents a gallon.

Oh yes, there would be a few more benefits, like reduced pollution, the effective end of petrodespots, and exports of technology to other countries who already know us and respect us as a fair and honest broker.

President Obama was right when he discussed leadership in renewable energy as a boon for the United States. Our objective is to equate the end of an archaic technology with the same honorable patriotic motivations as the space program.

The objective is not to deprive our compatriots of a living from work in the petroleum industry. The desire is to assure that American exceptionalism be preserved from the interests which threaten liberty through terrorism, environmental destruction, and the ability to control the flow of energy which sustains our nation’s standard of living.

The time is right. Right now.

Tony Hayward Gets His Life Back

2010-07-27T00:08:00.000-04:00

It appears that BP has figured out that Tony Blair’s liability to their bottom line goes far, far beyond his million-pound-a-year salary.

This is one of those moments where most of the reasonable world is sitting here going DUH! Hayward has been a leading candidate for a Marie Antoinette Award since the Deepwater Horizon blowout in April.

The Marie Antoinette Award is a big slice of cake ingested directly through the esophagus, because the mouth is no longer connected to the stomach. There are no excuses for tone-deaf pronouncements about getting one’s life back; the “little people”; a billion gallons of crude cut loose in the Gulf of Mexico not being that big a deal.

Revelations of dead porpoises, sea turtles burned alive, cleanup workers without access to safety equipment, and Corexit causing rectal bleeding were similarly unconstructive. At the moment, the only thing Republicans and Democrats agree on is that they hate BP.

For a lot of people, the dead sea critters were the deal breaker. Porpoises and Sea Turtles are extremely sympathetic. If someone had any sense, someone would have accentuated something positive like dead jellyfish. Nobody likes jellyfish. They sting and appear to serve no great purpose.

Nope. Pictures of Flipper lying dead on the beach were what came out. That is the moment when one needs to wave a white flag, shut the hell up, and stop making things worse.

Tony Hayward did not have that kind of sense. He got a wild hair to go yachting off England, in a nice, clean ocean. This was after he told the press he “wanted his life back.” He is lucky he does not have to ask for his HEAD back.

The sad part is that the majority of the people who are going to get hurt are not BP executives. They are for the most part pensioners in the UK and the US who trusted their retirement to British Petroleum. Their stock takes it in the tuchas, but Tony Hayward and his cronies won’t lose a farthing.

This is a short lesson in crisis management for the incoming executive at BP. Let’s use the recent disaster as a template of what to do.

Upon hearing of a major screw-up which includes eleven dead, PICK UP A BLOODY PHONE and contact the media in the nearest large city. Once WWL and WDSU in New Orleans have been assuaged, move to step two.

Step two is to at least LOOK accountable. You call Richard Branson and bring a significant number of staff from London on a chartered airliner straight into Louis Armstrong International. You have 48 hours to get your happy ass on the ground at the disaster site.

Step three is obvious. You need two dozen truckloads of Dawn dishwashing detergent rolling to Grand Isle within 72 hours. And a bunch of toothbrushes. Spend an hour every morning on the beach with a coffee can, a toothbrush, and some dish soap.

This does not mean that your life will not suck until you get the blowout capped, but you will continue to have a life once people have forgotten about your indiscretion. It also assures that your company is not on the verge of getting shut down or nationalized in the country where it is operating. It also means that the investors whose interests you are in charge of protecting do not get wiped out.

Finally, should you find yourself in front of investigators, particularly a political body, remember that YOU ARE NOT A VICTIM. There is nothing you can do to appear sympathetic. You have just been caught with your knickers down. This is not a shakedown when you are being held accountable for your own mess.

If someone should attempt to make you out to be the victim, make it clear that you are responsible for a giant problem, and you do not see where living up to your responsibilities makes you a victim.

At this point, you and your dealers are back on the path to profitability.

One hopes that Mr Hayward will enjoy Russia as much as Czar Nicholas.

In 1917.

Fw: American Management Style

2010-07-06T03:43:00.001-04:00

This is quite worthy, and beautifully stated.

----Forwarded Message----
From: professor0400@yahoo.com
To: professor0400@yahoo.com
Sent: Mon Jul 5th, 2010 1:19 PM EDT
Subject: Fw: American Management Style

For the past four years, and even before the 2008 elections, I used
slides in my presentations that basically said, "Who would want to be elected
president in 2008?" The conditions were such that failure was the only
option.

Who do we blame for the Great Depression? Most kids of our
generation learned that it was that mean old Herbert Hoover who was elected in
November 1928 and took office in March, 1929. The stock market crashed in
October 1929 and the Great Depression began. Now Hooverdid a lousy
job of trying to help the nation dig out from the stock market crash and his
policies only made things worse so he still deserves the condemnations of
history, but he didn't create the original catastrophe. That was Calvin
Coolidge and the GOP-business dominated interests of the "roarin' twenties."
How does history treat "Silent Cal?" Not as badly as it should. The last time
the richest 5% of Americans earned 90% of the national income was in the late
1920's… until now, when the same conditions prevail. The last time the stock
market went virtually unfettered and banks and other institutions could put
together and market any kind of financial deals they wanted was during the mid
to late 1920's… until now. The last time the nation left its natural resources
unprotected from unlimited exploitation was during the late 1920's to early
1930's… until now. Then we had a dust bowl and agricultural collapse. Now we
have the Gulf polluted and the fishing industry virtually
destroyed. Déjà vu all over again? (Quoting Yogi Berra)

Just as in the early 1930's, a GOP-controlled legislature refused
to take the hard steps necessary to reverse the nation's economic downslide.
Just as in the 1930's, a GOP-minority blocked via the filibuster many of the
changes proposed by Rooseveltto bring the
nation out of the depression. Just as the country had started to recover, in
1935-36, policies that had encouraged development, jobs and infrastructure,
were thrown into reverse because the "country couldn't afford the debt" … and
as a result, the nation suffered a "double-dip" depression that lasted 4 more
years. Look familiar? The same conditions prevail today. Déjà vu
all over again?

Today's budget woes, (deficits running around 15% of GDP, are of
concern, but still pale to other war-time periods in modern American
history. Look at the WWI and WWII periods when the budget deficits were
2-3 times current rates. We have fought America's longest war
and unlike any other wartime period, how have we been paying for Bush's wars?
In other wars, presidents and Congress called for tax increases to pay for what
had to be done. As Americans always do, we grouched and complained, but
we realized that some sacrifice had to be made. But for Bush's war, what
did we do? We've cut taxes to their lowest rates since the early 1980's
and drove up spending. The richest 1% of Americans pay taxes at a lower
rate than the middle 20%. GOP filibustering means that hedge fund
managers (the same guys that drove the economic collapse in the first place)
pay 10% of their multi-million dollar incomes in taxes while an American family
with an $80-100,000 annual income will pay on average 22-26%. Why should
anyone who makes their living from "investing" pay less taxes on that income
than others who make their livings teaching school or managing a small
business? Yet that is the result of the current filibuster and the
trade-offs required to get even a minimum of sense back into regulating
financial markets.

For the first time since the late 1920's, just before the nation
fell into a Great Depression, American workers earn less than 250 times the
senior managers of the companies they work for. As recently as 1980, this
ration was less than 10:1. All the conditions are there for economic disaster,
so the need for some deficit spending, even serious deficit spending is
evident.

But, the argument goes, our children and grandchildren will have to
pay for it all? Well as John Boehner, the GOP House leader said last
week, we could just raise Social Security retirement to 70 and unemployed
people could just take lesser paying jobs. This when a still uncontrolled
Wall Street is paying gazillion dollar bonuses and corporate farmers are
getting annual multi-million dollar allotments from the government. (Like
that farmer in Missouriwho posted a
billboard condemning the unemployed as just being lazy and Obama as a
socialist, too many Americans are looking for the easy answers without the
sacrifice. That farmer, we learned had been paid over $3 million in the last
few years not to grow anything.) Try to change the farm support program
and see if you can get re-elected.

We can eliminate the deficits in less than 5 years if we just go
back to the same tax rates that we had at the END of the Reagan years as president
in 1989. But can we raise taxes? Americans, among all the
industrialized nations of the world, pay the lowest tax rates… and yet we
complain. We'll we are getting what we pay for, bad schools, poor health care
(37th in the world), a collapsing infrastructure of roads, sewers,
water systems, bridges… you name it. In Arizona, the state has
closed half its state parks because it refuses to raise taxes. After all
the rich have their country clubs, they don't need to pay for parks by parting
with less than 1/4 of 1% of their incomes.

No, we will not raise our taxes a couple of percentage points, we
will continue to wallow and accelerate our status as just another banana
republic, with India, China and Brazil simply shaking the dust from their boots
on us. Thank you GOP, de-regulation and tax cuts have trickled down so
well.

________________________________
The New Busy is not the too busy. Combine all your e-mail accounts with Hotmail. Get busy.

The Tea Party vs. The Constitution

2010-06-09T15:04:00.000-04:00

It looks like the valiant opposition over in the Tea Party wing of conservatism had a pretty rotten night on June 8. They managed to get one candidate on the general ballot, Sharron Angle, in the Nevada Senate race. Otherwise, they went 0-for-Tuesday.

The problem that the Tea Party has is that, despite proclamations that they love the Constitution, Tea Party activists don’t really seem to like it much.

Oh, they love the second and tenth amendments, but the Tea Party does not seem to have much love for the other 25 amendments. The right wing hates the ninth amendment outright, and none of them seem to understand the third. Apparently the whole Founding Fathers respect thing has no traction.

The First Amendment is great when conservatives want to protect the Fox Opinion channel. Who among the Tea Party would accept First Amendment protection for a broadcast network showing The People vs. Larry Flynt, uncut? Yet bigoted, racist, seditious, and even treasonous are okay.

If enough people want to watch an uncut movie about a pornographer on broadcast television, then conservatives are welcome to change the channel, or go read a book.

Special disdain exists for the Fourth through Eighth amendments among the fringe elements of conservative thought. These are areas which may be considered among the greatest controls on the power of governmental intrusion which can be found in American jurisprudence. One would think that people who style themselves libertarian would be in favor of this.

Except that conservatives want exception for certain crimes from these protections. What happens if a quasi-Christian group is accused of planning an attack upon civilians? There was an outcry from conservatives about David Koresh at Waco in 1993. Coincidentally the outcry came under a Democratic administration which realized that terrorism does not stop at the boundaries of radical Islamic faith.

The Westboro Baptist Church of Topeka, Kansas, could at any point decide that it will be the instrument of Divine vengeance against homosexuals. Let’s hold Fred Phelps without trial and subject him to extraordinary rendition, deny him a jury, and tap his phones. While we’re at it, a couple of those self-styled Minuteman vigilantes can go, too. Vigilantism is terrorism’s developmentally disabled sibling.

This primer comes to the point of the 13th through 15^th Amendments. If there is a batch of amendments which hacks the Tea Party off worse than this one, please let us know. These are the amendments which ban slavery, assure that anyone, no matter how not white they may be, can be citizens, and allow all citizens to vote.

Amazingly, the Constitution explicitly defines what “Real Americans” are in the 14^th Amendment, and how they are to be treated. Oh snap, there is nothing about race, gender, ancestry, sexual orientation, religious affiliation, or political beliefs. No wonder Tea Partiers dislike the 14^th Amendment.

As a remedy for the Reconstruction amendments, conservatives led the call for restrictive immigration laws. In times of relative economic prosperity, they saw the need for an expendable, inexpensive labor source. An individual with no rights is better than a slave, which obligates the owner to the cost of maintaining his property. That individual can be worked to death, and who is going to organize or demand treatment which might cut a businesses profit margin?

Businesses are also able to defer the costs of these employees well-being to the taxpayer. Then if things go to hell, send the undocumented back, and get off scot-free. Call this de facto amnesty for flaunting labor, safety, wage, and tax laws. If no amnesty for the undocumented, no amnesty should be countenanced for the individuals and businesses that employed them, either. The businesses made out like bandits.

Of course, there is no love whatsoever for the 16^th Amendment, which allows Congress to levy taxes based upon income. Progressives aren’t particularly fond of it either, but it is the best of a bad set of options. Otherwise, any other scheme would be a nanosecond from instituting a New Feudalism.

“Libertarian” Tea Partiers espouse the virtues of the “Fair Tax” scheme, a consumption tax. Does anyone think that the affluent would not defer purchases until absolutely necessary, slowing the economy to a crawl and devastating the middle and lower classes?

The rest of the Constitution, aside from Prohibition, deals with who can vote for President (women, 18-year-olds, the District of Columbia, people not paying poll taxes), some restrictions on who gets elected (direct election of Senators, establishment of electing the President and Vice President together, when the Presidential term starts, how long and under what conditions one can be President), judicial obligations to citizens, and Congressional pay.

It is all important, but pretty dry stuff.

The next time a Tea Partier wishes to regale a progressive with his knowledge of what is and is not constitutional; ask him or her about the 23^rd Amendment. It’s the one which allows DC to vote for President, and it does NOT start off with “The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want…”

The Road Trip

2010-05-28T16:45:00.000-04:00

Mrs. Wandering Gentile and I are known for taking road trips. Seldom are they successful. In fact, our road trips only seem to lack the presence of Fred and Ethel Mertz for inclusion in an I Love Lucy rerun.

Case in point, a few years ago, I booked a suite online at a hotel in Atlantic City. Better, it was near Atlantic City. Actually, it was in Camden, but five blocks from a bus line to Absecon, where I could switch buses and get to Atlantic City.

On top of this, I had erred gravely on the date of Easter. I hadn’t been to church in a while, and many parishes frown upon loaded semis in unreinforced parking lots. So we missed the holiday by, uh, it doesn’t matter. We missed the holiday, and I will not live it down at any point in the next three eternities.

When we got to Camden, the room was not so much a suite as it was a barracks. There were three narrow beds in a row. A black-and-white analog television was bolted to the wall. I feared that our wake up call would be from a burly gentleman with a crew cut and tan clothes who would refer to us as “maggots.”

So we took a bus to Absecon, and found a nice, albeit retro, suite at Patel’s Motel. It rained all weekend, but was two whole degrees warmer at 58 Fahrenheit than Easter weekend. This required the purchase of copious quantities of shoes.

Our luck in Florida has scarcely been better. Just before the recent unpleasantness, I found lodging in the kind of establishment which one normally finds in the pages of Conde Nast with a boatload of little symbols next to its name. They were remodeling, and bonus, they were a mile from the nearest Lone Star Burger.

Then I got the brilliant idea to go out in the sun. People who observe Mrs. Wandering Gentile, the Hijastras, and me together are prone to observe the three pretty ladies and, “…damn, Casper sure got FAT!”

I spent two months with my legs in the same peculiar shade of orange as John Boehner’s face. And I learned that an extremely bad sunburn itches. It itches A LOT. I remembered to cover my coconut and arms, but I had NEVER had sunburn on my legs in 40 years of living.

I don’t ever want the second one. From now on I wear a burqa to the beach.

This year, we had an abbreviated visit to Florida. I went, in my burqa, reading British tabloids and periodically retiring to the mini mart for frozen beverage treats. We found a pleasant room in a chain hotel, and I even got my trip to Lone Star Burger.

Mrs. Wandering Gentile was not as enthusiastic about us returning to Lone Star Burger for dinner. She wanted chicken, and half a mile before we got to Lone Star Burger, there was an Admiral Squibby’s Connecticut Chicken. I would not have chosen Admiral Squibby’s, being that we have one so close to home their grease spatters our back patio.

Mrs. Wandering Gentile, the Hijastras (Jasmine and Sasha), and I were to split 16 pieces of Hartford Hot chicken, two pints of El Morro Style black beans and rice, four Big River sodas, and four Adirondack Apple pies.

As Mrs. Wandering Gentile and I were filling our sodas at the fountain, there came an unholy roar from the dining area. The suction pulled my Red Sox cap straight off my burqa.

We entered to find Sasha, the younger, but physically more imposing of the two sisters hunkered in the corner in a Jet Li pose, defending a Hartford Hot drumstick.

Everything else was gone. Our order; a table that the manager was pretty sure was there when he got there; and some New Haven Hush Puppies which were not technically ours, because they had been technically paid for by the polite senior Canadian couple at the next table.

As I made things right with the Canadians, I heard Mrs. Wandering Gentile ask the petite Jasmine what she had to say for herself.

“I was hungry. Can we get ice cream?”

It wasn’t me this time.

Carol, the Illegal Alien

2010-05-09T18:35:00.000-04:00

The following includes the real laws as they are enforced. "Carol" is a composite of several individuals who are detrimentally affected by current immigration legislation. One hopes that the gentle reader will forgive the use of a composite, being that it protects the identities of more than one decent human being who got screwed over.

Carol is an undocumented immigrant. She entered the United States legally in 1992 as a 22-year-old student at a major university in the Southeast. Carol did well in her studies, and married her first husband, a Mathematics major at the same school, in 1993.

At the time they were under the impression that marriage provided automatic permanent residency in the United States. Carol and her first husband did not file the appropriate paperwork in 1993. Her student visa expired with her graduation from the university in 1994.

In 1995, Carol and her first husband split, a couple of months before their second anniversary. She caught him balancing equations with an 18-year-old intern from Tuscaloosa, and neither one had any clothes on.

She continued on a career path at a restaurant chain in a major Sun Belt city. Carol eventually remarried, to Mike, who hated math, and refused to balance his checkbook. They have two boys, Dylan and Josh, ages 13 and 10. Carol managed to ascend to the post of district manager with the restaurant chain when complications arose.

In 2007, Carol went to renew her driver's license. As a result of the Real ID laws passed after 9/11, Carol was asked for more documentation of her residency. As can be imagined, she didn't have any, or know that she had needed any.

Carol's husband, Mike, was unaware that there was any complication with her residency status in the United States. Upon discovery of issues with Carol's documentation, they consulted with an attorney about normalizing her status.

Actually, they consulted with more than one. Several requested fees up front, only to tell them that her case was next to impossible to normalize, once they got a hundred and fifty bucks or so. A couple made promises that there would be no problem in arranging her documentation, demanding fees in the thousands of dollars beyond the thousands of dollars needed for the appropriate government applications.

Only one such attorney was necessary to break the illusion that he could do any better than the attorney who told them, for free, that there was nothing he could do.

The next year, a participant in E-Verify absorbed Carol's employer. Carol's 12 years of exemplary work, commendation and competence vaporized overnight. A large chunk of her family's income vaporized as well. So did their ability to continue to make their mortgage payments, car payments, and provide a better upbringing for their kids.

They are now living in a rented mobile home near Mike's parents. The kids have been taken out of their quality suburban school district, and now face the free lunch lines and the methamphetamine addiction issues common to rural America. The boys now exhibit behavior issues due to the upheavals in their lives.

Carol's husband does the best he can, but his job requires frequent travel. They manage to keep a roof and lights, but her husband has the nagging concern that his telephone will ring with the call that his wife has been removed from their home. They joke that the employment options which would keep him closer to home involve such a drastic pay cut that he would be forced to sell one of the kids.

A large component of Carol's family no longer resides in her native country. Some are in Canada, others in Europe. A few live in the United States, some around the sun belt city where she settled in the nineties. Some are legal, others not so much.

If Carol is caught without papers, she will be returned to her native country for a minimum of ten years for remaining in the United States for more than 180 days without the appropriate papers. That means that she faces a minimum of ten years before she can reapply for legal readmission to the United States.

Neither her husband nor her children speak her native language, so relocation is not an option for them.

There are those who want others to conflate the face of undocumented immigration with a tiny subculture of thugs, young men and women of ill will. But the truth is very different, filled with men and women like Carol and her family. Before considering the one in a hundred with evil in his heart, the ninety-nine like Carol are deserving of our compassion, our understanding, and our embrace as a nation of immigrants.

One Month

2010-04-23T16:49:00.000-04:00

The Republican Party has chosen immigration as its method of suicide. All eight mourners will be found at a Tea Party rally in Wichita Falls, dehydrated and badly sunburned. Survivors will include the Conservative and the Libertarian parties.

To explain: the Arizona Senate has approved SB 1070, a state law which criminalizes undocumented immigration. There seems to be a better than likely possibility that Governor Jan Brewer will either sign the law or it will be left to become law without her signature. And then it will be open season on Latino residents of Arizona, particularly for Joe Arpaio’s Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office.

That will last about thirty days, until every legal mechanism in the state of Arizona pancakes. There will be video, probably of a particularly gratuitous violation of civil rights, upon an American citizen of Latin ancestry. The civil rights violation may be of a photogenic young woman.

In the short term, this is a disaster for the latino citizens of Arizona. In the long term, this is the calving of the Bigot Glacier from the Republican Party. It is not Montgomery on a cold December evening in 1955. This is very likely immigration reform’s Pettus Bridge, its Bloody Sunday.

The difference is that this is 2010. How many violations of civil rights will be captured on video-equipped cell phones? The first half-dozen will be on YouTube within 72 hours. Meanwhile, law enforcement resources will be concentrated upon this onerous enactment.

After a couple of hundred erroneous arrests of American citizens, the dockets of Arizona’s courts will clog like the arteries of a fried food enthusiast.

Note to Citizens and legal residents arrested erroneously: DEMAND JURY TRIALS! Nothing will gum up the works like jury trials. Nothing will work in favor of reform like a justice system full of fertilizer, either, particularly when greater infractions against humanity are going unpunished.

Every improper arrest deserves a big honking Federal lawsuit over civil rights, too. The symbol will be, again, a Citizen, female, preferably a young mother. Video will be involved. (Rule 1 again, this is 2010, fool, there is video everywhere.) Put the feds in the mix.

Arizona is bankrupt. They really cannot afford this kind of publicity. The sales tax is 12% in some places. The real estate market has collapsed. A law that has the potential to generate billions in lawsuits is not going to be a real incentive for businesses to locate in Phoenix, Tucson, Flagstaff, Kingman or Yuma.

Businesses in Yuma could find it advantageous to relocate across the river in Winter Haven, California. In Phoenix’s dubious downtown, where newcomers frequently ask “where’s downtown?” only to be informed that they’re in it, office rental rates will plummet. Large national and international businesses are not going to hang around to pay for the enforcement end of this debacle. They may well find Las Vegas, Los Angeles, Albuquerque, or El Paso to be much more hospitable.

The stereotypical goat-roping, oversize pickup-driving, sunglasses on a cord-wearing middle-aged-frat-boy Tea Partier is ginning up to celebrate his pyrrhic victory. He will be elated about how “we sure stood up to bring about the rule of law in Arizona.”

Note to Tea Party Traitors: When did anything that y’all supported work out anywhere but in Tea Party Utopia? Do you really think you deserve the country back? The Bush administration turned a budget on a path to zero deficits by now into something like 14 trillion dollars of debt. Nah, screw that. Even when Democrats screw up, they manage to occasionally get something right. A 30% average is still better than nothing.

The crystal ball says that this is the beginning of the very shank of the Tea Party Movement. Most large companies who had an interest in financing Tea Party Rallies against Health Care Reform have no interest in financing rallies against comprehensive immigration reform. The short answer is quite easy: No large national business besides Fox News has an economic interest in enraging 15% of the population of the United States.

With the 15% of the population which is latino, count another 14% of the market which is African-American and sensitive to overt bigotry. Beyond that, about 45% of whites are disinclined to agree with any bigoted manifestation. In other words, any business backing an anti-immigration Tea Party Rally is going to alienate 65% or so of the population instantly.

Whether or not one likes the mentality of some businesspeople, they aren’t STUPID.

Timeline:

Any minute, SB 1070 will become law. Within 72 hours an obvious violation of Civil Rights will appear on YouTube. Within 2 weeks, The Obama Administration will back a Comprehensive Immigration Reform Bill. Within 24 hours of that, Hannity, Beck, and a few of the other Hitler Youth will proclaim a Tea Party on Fox News. Corporate backing will not exist, leaving the group an eclectic mix of white and whiter.

At thirty days, Comprehensive Immigration Reform will be on President Obama’s desk for his signature, a codicil of which will void all non-federal legislation regarding immigration restrictions. Republicans like Mitch (The Chinless Wonder) McConnell will be left to screech, showing racist tendencies.

Oh yeah, one other thing. The Latino vote can turn an election in several Senate races, particularly California, Illinois, Florida, New York, and Arizona.

Stay tuned. This may be a lot of fun for progressives in November.

FEEDBACK

2010-04-22T17:52:00.003-04:00

A gentle reader has informed your Wandering Gentile that it is impossible to believe that A: President Obama is acting in the best interests of the United States of America, and B: That the nation is well on its way to losing constitutional protection.

Were this an anonymous individual lacking credibility as a reasonable human being, one's first response is to suggest- rather vehemently and sarcastically- that no further credence be given to Glenn Beck. This is the tack one chose when his meal was interrupted by a Tea Party enthusiast at a truck stop in Nebraska.

But the individual is a friend with whom I disagree. That makes things complicated.

President Obama could stand to be a bit more forceful and yield less on his policies. Indeed, some of his measures have been more Moderate than Progressive. This is to the President's political benefit. It is also frustrating, and sadly necessary.

To suggest that Obama does not have the best interests of the nation at heart is to buy into the belief that he is the puppet of a conspiracy to bring down the United States. After the Bush family's international entanglements (Prescott-Nazi Germany, George H. W.-China, George W.-Saudi Arabia), a more compelling argument could be made for their disinterest in the future of the United States.

What is most truthful is that any public figure has any number of associations which could be construed as harmful to the wefare of the nation in general. The time has come to compare actions as opposed to associations. Just because one knows someone, professionally or personally, is no guarantee that they share values or ideas. This leftover from the McCarthy era deserves a very loud, very public Viking funeral.

With regard to the protections of the United States Constitution, it somehow seems that President Obama, a scholar, lecturer, and professor of Constitutional law would be an ideal candidate for protecting them. The Bush administration was culpable for egregious abuses of the fourth, fifth, sixth, seventh, and eighth amendments.

We may not like the accused that the Constitution protects. We also may agree that they are guilty as hell before the trial. But if no protection existed under Bush, the same level of disregard can be countenanced under Obama. One has argued repeatedly that the key difference between Mohammed Atta and Timothy McVeigh is the alphabet used in the Holy texts that they carried.

No effort appears to be underway to deprive the right of trial and human decency to those for whom the teachings of Jesus Christ and violence against their fellow man can cohabit with utter tranquility.

With regard to health care reform, and the Constitutionality thereof, it has not been embraced as fulfilling the desires of the core of either political party. However, it is a positive step. One waits (with bated breath) for someone to point out any key differences with the plan signed into law by Mitt Romney in Massachusetts. While there is no guarantee of health care in the Constitution, neither is there a guarantee of an organization reaping massive profits while denying care to those in need.

The interest which serves the greater welfare of the nation is curing sick citizens, not making a small number of executives a bit more wealthy.

Ultimately, we anticipate some sort of re-regulation of the financial services industry, immigration reform, and a new, young, progressive Supreme Court justice to take the place of the retiring Justice Stevens.

One hopes that no offense has been inferred. Some of the conservative speakers are compelling and entertaining. However, they are not acting so much in the interests of their audiences as they are those of the small number who sign their paychecks.

The behavior of President Obama is the same, but with a much larger number of people signing his check.

Penance. (Learn it, love it, live it.)

2010-04-10T21:56:00.002-04:00

There comes a time when one must renounce evil. It is a key part of the prayers surrounding Roman Catholic baptisms. There is also a point where one is instructed to go and sin no more. This is one of the commands of the reconciliation sacrament in the Roman Catholic Church. These are points of faith which are non-negotiable for believers.

These are also points which should be non-negotiable for the Church, as well. In the case of the sexual abuse of children, there is no excuse. In the case of covering up clerical abusers, none can hide their face from an almighty and omnipotent God. When the Pope himself is complicit in the stonewalling authorities protecting the interests of abused children, the presumption of infallibility comes to a crashing halt.

This is not a point of indicting the Roman Catholic Church. This is a point of suggesting that the Church live up to the same standards it expects from its faithful. The Vatican is culpable in these abuse cases; they are also fundamentally responsible for reconciling with the wronged, the faithful, and God.

The fashionable thing among some circles of progressives is to belittle people of faith. That is tragic. Throughout history, great progressive change has come from places where the faithful and non-believers alike put aside their differences to achieve a common goal. Over the last thirty years, Conservatives have monopolized the positions of the publicly faithful.

Likewise, a conservative mindset of unaccountable behavior has pervaded the Catholic Church in America. The Church has lost the new connection it developed with the faithful it found after the Vatican Council of 1963. The daring outreach to welcome all into modern Catholicism seen under the early papacy of John Paul II has devolved into something resembling the church's medieval incarnation.

This is not a point where the Church holds the same kind of absolute power it held in 1020. If Roman Catholicism is going to survive, then the Vatican is in deep need of change. That can only come from the papacy itself.

The vow of celibacy is something which lives honestly within the vast majority of the Roman Catholic Clergy. But it is not something which is going to perpetuate the Catholic church. The pool of candidates for the priesthood begins limited.

When the candidate pool starts with the condition of foregoing a normal sexual relationship with a woman, it compounds the sins of those who get their pleasure from a position of power over their victims. Whatever the sins of Ted Haggard and Jimmy Swaggart were, they were committed with adults, people who were capable of choosing right and wrong. These were not acts of choice for the children and adolescents involved.

The huge majority of priests who fulfill their commitment to their vows are now obligated to carry the cross upon which the sins of a small number of clergymen will not be hung. It is wrong to protect and hide the sins of a few and ruin the reputation of the honorable. It is foul, and evil, and spectacularly un-Christlike.

A time will come when Rome will be forced to ask forgiveness of those who have been wronged. As John Paul II reached out to the other sects of Christendom, and took steps to reconcile with Judaism, a Pope may find a way to reconcile with the flock he has been called to shepherd.

It will not be an act of faith or goodwill coming from this Pope to atone for the evil committed in the name of the faith he heads. Atonement does not come from tacit support of those who violated children, nor the arrogant posturing which compares an outcry against the same evil to the greatest horrors against humanity. It just is not that kind of atmosphere.

Thankfully, there are places for those who love the Catholic liturgy, and retain their faith in Jesus Christ. It is a sign that a connection with God need not come at a cost of children's suffering to protect those who hurt them.

That is an objective which is worthy of the Saviour served.

As the GOP Turns

2010-04-02T23:02:00.002-04:00

It looks like the Elephant Party is getting a little bit nervous about their prospects. One feels a bit of schaudefreude while watching. One also suspects that he will get over it.

The first thing to remember is that the Republican Party will not be more popular at any point this year than they are right now. At the moment, this is their peak, and they're still hanging within a point or two of a fifty-fifty split on their best issues. This is not a bad sign: it is a harbinger of inevitable doom.

Things are not improving. There are a couple of hundred-hour cycle news stories going right now which look particularly bad, like the large sex club expense, the telephone porn line listed as a GOP donation number, and some not-so-behind the scenes infighting between different factions of the party. The Republicans are on the eve of self-destruction.

Problem number one: the most visible ideologues are quickly becoming irrelevant. Limbaugh is dismissed as an elderly pedophile with erectile dysfunction. Hannity is serving as apologist for domestic terrorists like Timothy McVeigh. Beck may be recalled to Planet Crying Psycho at any moment. The House Minority Whip, Boner Boehner has had a public meltdown on television. Policy is rapidly conforming to Sarah Palin, who does not work or play well with conservatives who are not radicalized.

Problem number two: radicalized conservatives are closing upon the date when they may abandon the Republican party. This is slowly moving toward probability. Some of the most worthy objectives of the Tea Party movement are being drowned out by factions which have co-opted to find a market for prejudiced, self defeating propaganda.

The disconnect will come. Laudable objectives like a balanced budget, and greater individual freedom will begin to conflict with those who would prefer dictatorial powers to enforce their vision of an orderly society. Participants who are sincere about libertarian principles will become disenchanted with factions espousing totalitarian authority in individual matters.

That notwithstanding, without an industry offering unlimited resources to provide venues and media coverage, the majority of tea party supporters will drift away. They may be gone as early as June, inflated participation numbers, Glenn Beck, and all.

Problem number three: President Obama won the game he was supposed to lose. Does anyone else remember the comment that Health Care Reform could be Obama's Waterloo? Well, it was closer to right than anyone thought...with the possible exception of President Obama. He knew his presidency was on the line. Republicans thought it was a game of chance.

Obama was playing a game of skill, say, chess. He won. Obama was also using his board, his pieces, and his rules. Barack Obama is extremely risk averse, and he really hates to lose. This makes him extremely dangerous as an opponent, and pretty much nearly impossible to beat.

Republicans could have been a bit more observant about the President's character. Instead of giving the President his Waterloo, the GOP may well have found theirs.

Watch the short term. President Obama will find a way to commandeer one key rhetorical point belonging to Republicans before the election. A possibility may be found in the post from 14 July, 2009 Cap and Death or Cake and Trade. If he takes the tax cut or national security ball from the Republicans, they can expect a long time out in the woods.

That would be called Checkmate. The President is unlikely to pussy-foot around in dealing with the Republicans in the near term.

Then watch for a screaming turn to the left on 21 January, 2013.

Hutaree Putaree

2010-04-02T20:55:00.003-04:00

A great old comedy routine has the members of several fringe groups showing up to protest. The audience is eventually shown a few people protesting the same event, with each individual having a slightly different group name, and slightly differing ethos and objectives. By the end of the routine, the fractious protesters had devolved into fighting amongst themselves over the most trivial of differences.

(My recollection is that it is a Monty Python routine, but I have been wrong before.)

Artistic vision, meet reality.

When the Hutaree Militia story broke on Monday, one expected the worst stereotypes of rural whites of marginal educational attainment. One was not disappointed. Among the detained included an individual with a mullet hairstyle. The apparent headquarters was a primered manufactured home with appliances in the yard. There were nine members, and four were from the same household.

That gene pool is definitely a puddle.

We have entered into an era when the broader populace has been asked what the appropriate role of government is. The answer has been a grudging acknowledgement that there are times when the public sector can do a better job of serving the public than a profit-motivated private sector.

This does not serve certain interests, as they will be obligated to take a pay cut from a killing to a living. The objective then becomes the discovery of individuals willing to act opposing their own best interests.

There are groups who are under the illusion that not only their lifestyle (such as it may be) is threatened, but their very survival is endangered as well. This has to be stressful. The group's nominal affiliation is not as important as the commonality in the methodry.

The group requires poor educational attainment among the leadership. Critical thinking is detrimental to indoctrination. It does not take a fifth grade education to see that there may be some holes in the following:

"We are going to take out some police officers and their families, develop a fortress in four Michigan counties and fight off the Antichrist and the New World Order."

I hate to break this to y'all, but I think you're going to need a bigger boat, and more than nine members. Has someone smoked himself stupid?

There is also little argument that there is a question of discipline in some of the fringe groups. Honestly, who can argue for group discipline when there are appliances in the yard??? And don't even get me started on mullets conforming to the dress code.

Fringe groups are convenient for those who are able to leverage individual dissatisfaction with poverty into rabid, virulent, violent manifestations. Other groups are taking opportunities, not a lack of educational accomplishment. A faceless colussus has ruined the individual. God is on His way back, and He ain't happy.

The main differnce between these mullet-and-camouflage Americans and the Islamists who destroyed the Twin Towers is limited to language and form of worship. Both rejoice at the loss of innocent life; both have chosen the United States as sworn enemy; both draw from the poorest, least educated and most vulnerable populations of their respective societies.

Small terror cells are useful to certain interests. The chaos wrought can be of practical use to artificially inflate the prices of commodities and services. The violence can be used to suppress moderation. They are cheap, effective, and fundamentally expendable.

One looks forward to the Hutaree detainments being the start of a strong program to impede the greatest terrorist threat facing the peaceful people of the United States of America: Right-wing white anti-government Christians.

Oh yeah, how's that profiling stuff working for ya?

2010-04-01T17:28:00.001-04:00

01Apr_001|Near Santa Barbara.

One More Analysis of Health Care Reform

2010-03-28T18:30:00.000-04:00

Health care reform looks like its dragging on President Obama right now, and it probably is. However, this is still March, and the President is going to look like a genius in November.

The Republicans, in addition to not doing things which benefit quotidian Americans, also manage to not benefit themselves. Should they continue at this rate, we may actually see a political party succeed at self-immolation.

John Boehner with his "HELL NO!" rant is living on borrowed time. While his district is conservative, there is a very good chance that a pro-labor Blue Dog could take the seat from Boehner in southwestern Ohio. It would be comparatively easy.

First of all, there is the link to unions and jobs. Southwestern Ohio is still a place with a long legacy to organized labor. It is also a place which has overlap into the Cincinnati television market, which means that Mitch McConnell is also on the table as a recognizable face.

Link Republican opposition to card check, McConnell's support for NAFTA, and conflate Boehner with both. This could turn into a very ugly, destructive campaign for the man with the unnaturally orange skin.

The Tea Party movement is also sitting at about 14:55 and counting on their fifteen minutes of fame. The key Republican strategists know it, and they're also easing their strongest candidate quietly back toward the center. They need Palin, which also means that they have to protect her.

Sarah Palin is going to be quietly disassociated from her natural constituencies in the Tea Party movement. She makes her face time at the shindig in Searchlight, throws a couple of screeds on twitter, and over the next six months she is going to have to be a new Sarah. The Republican party cannot afford the old one for more than about 60 more days.

Republicans know that there is no possible way that Health Care Reform can be repealed before people start benefitting from it. Once an entitlement gets started, there is no turning back. And once enough people have benefitted from HCR, it is going to be over.

The strategery is to call congresscritters and scream profanities over the telephone. Other bright ideas include shades-of-kristallnacht vandalism, and attempted sabotage of congresscritter homes. The former is a strong image for Democratic candidates. The latter is just embarrassing, because they got the wrong house.

A super-genius in Nashville is sitting under a felony reckless endangerment charge after trying to drive over a car with an Obama sticker with his SUV. This is not the kind of publicity that will further the objectives of a political movement. Indeed, even people who would find the objectives worthy tend to be turned off by this behavior.

Radio hatemongers Beck, Hannity and Limbaugh are weakened. They failed to deliver for their business interests. Glenn Beck's caustic delivery will be the first to go: he isn't delivering on public opinion, and he isn't delivering ad dollars for Fox. Beck may be lucky if he is not delivering pizzas by the end of 2011.

Limbaugh and Hannity may survive, but there is a litany of mediocre right-wing talkers who will see their opportunities suddenly reduced. The Rusty Humphries and Hugh Hewitts of the world will discover their outlets becoming more profitable leasing themselves out to religious broadcasters. Or even better, they will wind up serving an ethnic community.

One looks forward to the day when Lou Dobbs' radio home in Atlanta starts broadcasting in Spanish. Play Salsa and Bachata, please.

The future holds the following: A Teabagger in a restaurant acknowledges the image of President Obama, and states, "There goes the rotten so-and-so who brought socialist medicine to America." All it will take is the first waitress to pour a pot of coffee in his lap and respond, "Really? All I see is the man who saved my grandbaby's life."

That is the final break. At the moment, we have a population who cannot believe that the Tea Parties did not stop Health Care Reform from becoming reality. They are not happy, but it is a mentality which has question as to the outcome of a pro wrestling match where the opponent is "Bob from Syracuse." They got what they did not want, and they aren't coping well.

Democrats are still a bit dazed, but somehow one imagines that they will get used to this idea. After multiple attempts, the United States has managed to develop a health care system which works for its patients as opposed to a private insurance industry. It may not be everything the hard core of progressivism would have preferred, but it is a big step in the right direction.

As for the hard core of progressivism goes, how many people think that there is not at least one of those private insurers who hasn't cooked the books? And who precisely do you think will wind up managing the health care of their customers when the fecal matter hits the ventilation device? Chill out, the Wolf is coming, and he's got Single Payer in his trunk.

There may be a dozen people in the country who will not think its a good idea when all of this happens. There will not be the money available to sway public opinion in that proximate future. Indeed, there may be a great deal of industry support for single payer by then.

To borrow a bit from John F. Kennedy, Mr. Obama, your opponents just blinked.

The New Whiskey Rebellion

2010-03-05T12:28:00.001-05:00

After all of the tea parties, what seems to be obvious is that Progressives need something to get some attention. What should be proposed is a new Whiskey Rebellion.

A Whiskey Rebellion is obvious. First of all, the tea parties are full of Buick-driving, Rascal-riding old coots that have been getting their information from some clown prince of Conservatism like Limbaugh or Beck. Tea partiers come in two varieties: sober and dull, or sober and arrogant.

The great thing about being progressive is that we don’t have to drive home!

Progressives can take public transit. Therefore we can get hammered and still get back to the collective. Thus, we should bring whiskey, and lots of it. Conservatives no longer drink, much like many conservatives are no longer members of traditional religious denominations.

As progressives, the opportunity exists to offer areas where we may agree with some of the tea party objectives, but with a dollop of unspun truth.

Tea partiers hate government, pretty much in all of its forms. Pop quiz: who was the last president to leave a budget surplus and a thriving economy? (Bill Clinton.) Anyone who wishes to complain about the deficit should be raising hell at George W. Bush, and the Republican congress he had for six years of his administration.

Apparently, the Bush doctrine was somewhere along these lines: Woohoo! Found money! Let’s go blow some stuff up! Whaddaya mean we spent the found money? We can print more! Ah, dang! That blowed up good!

While there are plenty of progressives who really like government, most of us lean toward the libertarian approach to civil liberties. Things like gay rights and abortion rights are not the province of government to regulate, but the responsibility of those who love freedom to protect.

A man may find abortion appalling, but he will never be in the position of making that decision alone. What is the answer to a woman with four healthy children whose husband deserts her when he discovers that she is carrying a fifth, a fetus who will be born with a grave medical issue which would imperil the futures of every healthy member of the household?

It’s easy to be pro-life until the babies are born, requiring education, food, health care, housing, jobs at decent wages, and so on. If a small group has control of the necessities of life, one could care less about their commitment to the unborn, only to starve the ones they don’t like once they’re ambulatory. That is a totalitarian abuse no different from the Soviets.

With regard to gay rights, one more time: marriage is the only religious structure defined by government. If government can define marriage, it is also able to define any other religious structure: baptism, last rites, holy orders.

You know, like government licensed priests and ministers and sanctioned religious operations in Nazi Germany. (Ooops! Wrong answer to that question! Looks like you’re going to camp whether you like it or not!)

With regard to firearm rights, more than a few progressives are weapons enthusiasts. More than a few progressives wish that more progressives still were weapons enthusiasts, but hell, we’re a big tent.

Maybe a progressive likes unions. Maybe he doesn’t. But he might like the option of having a bargaining organization which is equivalent to the collective which he is now obligated to negotiate with alone. We’re just saying here.

A lot of progressives agree that mind-altering substances are a blight on communities. But it seems that a well-regulated system of distribution focused upon keeping dope out of the hands of kids would work a lot better than organizations which finance the destabilization of countries which are ostensibly friendly to the interests of the United States.

Prohibition does not work. It just gives crooks the chance to look like heroes in places which might thrive as strong, prosperous democracies, like Mexico, Colombia, and Peru.

As far as taxes go, nobody is very fond of them. Flat taxes do not work, and a consumption tax is painfully regressive. Therefore, a taxation system which requires more of those who have prospered beyond the average is most just. There is no reason for some poor shmoe yanking down fifty large a year to cough up a pile of dough to hand over to a corporation that just shipped a boatload of jobs overseas.

Someone may dislike entitlements and programs designed to defeat poverty. The amount in question pales in comparison to tax breaks for businesses exporting jobs from the United States. I’d rather pay fifty percent on a hundred grand than ten percent on fifty.

The whole thing about national responsibility on health care is rather embarrassing. We don’t have private fire or police departments. If someone wishes to drive an automobile, every state requires the owner to have insurance. Most places in the United States do not have public transportation options that would allow someone to forego owning a car.

Reform health care. Now. Please. Thank you.

And finally, we tackle immigration reform. Five paragraphs earlier, one will see the words, “prohibition does not work.” It doesn’t work here, either. When one hears of twelve million undocumented in the United States, the number is screwy.

Large numbers of those who are unpapered would have qualified under the law for normalization before the Orwellian-named Immigration reform and Immigrant responsibility act of 1996 a/k/a IRA-IRA. (A single digit salutes President Clinton for signing this piece of crap.)

More than half entered legally. A bureaucracy which makes other despised government entities look warm and fuzzy impeded many more. The real number of people who behave badly and are harmful to the nation as a whole is probably under 500,000. Another couple of million not only have no business here, we would probably be better off without them.

That leaves about nine million or so who are being dealt with inappropriately by a bad law. That number, if given the opportunity to work and own property, with full legal rights as residents, could replenish the social security and tax rolls. Those have been decimated by retiring baby boomers who have nothing better to do than listen to Glenn Beck and complain about government daring to put its hands on Medicare.

Maybe progressives should call this a Tequila Rebellion instead.

Haiti, Chile, and Sometimes Anorexia Is a Bad Thing

2010-03-03T11:34:00.000-05:00

For thirty years the mantra has been consistent. Smaller government and deregulation are the key to continued prosperity. This shibboleth has been repeated so often, that it has become tattooed upon the public brain as if it were a law of economics.

These things are not laws, really. They are theories which serve moneyed interests to consolidate power at the expense of a dwindling middle class.

When taken to an extreme, the end result is not prosperity. The result is a nonexistent middle class, abject poverty, and the inability of a government to respond to the population it purports to serve.

If any proof is necessary, the Gentle Reader is encouraged to take a really good look at Haiti.

Haiti

has never been what one would call a stable or thriving country. It has almost always been a festering cesspool of corruption. Any regulation a businessperson could want could be had for a price from the Duvaliers or another dictatorship.

With the atmosphere came a total collapse of mechanisms that people in more developed countries take for granted. There were no building codes, few hospitals or emergency services, nor the technical knowledge to save lives in the event of a catastrophe.

And now, smaller government and deregulation have a body count of almost 250,000. That equates to the approximate population of Lincoln, Nebraska.

The United States is a big country. Somehow, one imagines the United States missing a city the size of Lincoln.

A 7.0 earthquake took out 3 of every 100 people in Haiti. Twenty years ago, the same size earthquake took less than 100 people out of the San Francisco Bay area, population roughly six and a half million.

Twenty years ago, Chile was also in bad shape. The Chileans were coming off the extended right-wing dictatorship of General Agustin Pinochet. Much like Haiti, Chile was characterized by poverty and domestic structures designed to concentrate wealth in the hands of a few business interests friendly to the dictatorship. Pinochet was removed from office.

The Chileans chose to embrace structures which would rebuild their middle class: education, health care, social security. In twenty years, Chile became a well developed, prosperous country. They had a good transportation infrastructure, Santiago’s modern downtown, a thriving economy.

And then the Chileans were hit with an 8.8 earthquake, 200 miles (330 km) from Santiago. People felt it in Buenos Aires, Argentina, 690 miles (1120 km) away.

A little perspective on the size of this earthquake: It would be like an earthquake in Los Angeles shaking El Paso, Texas. Had an earthquake this size hit near Paso Robles, California, there would be widespread devastation in Los Angeles, San Francisco, Oakland, Fresno, and Bakersfield. Santa Barbara would be erased.

The Chilean earthquake was very much The Hand of God.

The preliminary death toll stands under 1,000 people.

One does not question that some business interests found building codes, inspections, hospitals, publicly-funded medical care (the Chileans have a strong single-payer system), and education to be extravagant.

These things were unnecessary. Government was getting in the way of responsible individuals having their own money to spend. The Chilean people could trust private enterprise to look out for their interests. Large government and the Nanny State would destroy initiative and prosperity.

Average per-capita income in Chile: over US$14,000. Average per-capita income in Haiti: US$ diddly-squat..

But the truth lives in a much more visible place. While Chile was spending on shared responsibilities, the Haitians were letting technologically unsophisticated people have “individual responsibility” for their personal safety.

Not every shared responsibility is socialism. Sometimes it’s just good common sense. Consider the lesson of a quarter million Haitians.

Pay me now or pay me later, the old saying goes. Some things, if neglected too long, will return to a natural order as a shared responsibility. But when they come back, they cost a lot more than anyone is willing to pay.

FW: Coming Soon: "The Distinguished Senator from Saudi Arabia"

2010-01-24T17:18:00.001-05:00

The deck is stacked.

I am a little less optimistic about the prospects for positive change than I was a year ago.

Representative Grayson is one of the reasons I have not abandoned hope.

----Forwarded Message----
From: professor0400@yahoo.com
To: Professor0400@yahoo.com
Sent: Sun Jan 24th, 2010 9:08 AM EST
Subject: Coming Soon: "The Distinguished Senator from Saudi Arabia"

Dear Alan,

Thanks to so many of you for contacting Chairman Conyers Friday and thanking him for helping to save our democracy. His office was overwhelmed with calls and e-mails. One of his staffers said that it was "like working the phones at a telethon."

I've been thinking a little more about the Supreme Court's decision. This ruling gives foreign powers more rights than U.S. citizens. Imagine that! Aramco, a corporation owned by the Saudi Arabian government, will have enormously more influence in choosing your senator than you will. That's one thing that I meant when I said that "if we do nothing, you can kiss this country goodbye."

This will not stand. It cannot stand. There are too many Americans who love this country and won't allow it to happen. And you are one of them.

We are making a movement. If you have a moment, please forward this email to five of your friends, and ask them to sign our petition at http://www.SaveDemocracy.net. And then a mighty voice will rise up from the land.

Courage,

Alan Grayson
Member of Congress

Contribute: https://secure.actblue.com/contribute/entity/18665?refcode=012410_email

If you do not wish to receive further email from Congressman Grayson's campaign, please click here to unsubscribe: http://secure.mydccc.org/o/30019/t/9/unsubscribe.jsp?Email=Professor0400@yahoo.com&email_blast_KEY=152&organization_KEY=30019

----------
Paid for by the Committee to Elect Alan Grayson
----------

Sedition; It’s Not Just For Leftists Anymore

2009-09-30T14:27:00.000-04:00

There are things which deserve punishment. There aren’t a whole lot of people who disagree with draconian measures for Genocide and Child Molestation, as an example.

Then there is sedition. Sedition is not a partisan issue; it strikes at the core of patriotism. Sedition lances the heart of rational debate and diminishes even the most valid concerns of the perpetrator’s partisanship.

A couple of days ago, somebody felt that sedition was so brilliant that it should be shared on a Facebook page. Liberal or Conservative, Democrat or Republican, suggesting the violent demise of the President of the United States is wrong. It is an awful act of betrayal against the mechanisms of representative democracy.

When a small component of progressivism spoke about usurping the Bush administration through violence, they were wrong. Likewise, a larger movement of reactionaries is equally wrong in their calls for brutal reaction to whatever policies being debated in Congress.

The hard line of the right wing is best admonished with its own words from earlier this decade. “You lost. Get over it.”

Losing stinks, but this time there is no question over the credibility, or size, of the loss. Barack Obama is the President of the United States. The majorities of the House and the Senate are, at least technically, in Democratic hands. This is not a fluke or squeaker. The Republican Party was handed its posterior in the last two election cycles.

Instead of looking inward, and trying to discover why Republicans and Conservatives were soundly rejected, the tactic has been to coarsen the debate without offering solutions. As of now, affiliation with the Republican Party hovers under a quarter of all voters.

Conservatives really did not need the illusion that harm coming to the President would be something that they could approve of. This is an idea that offends the overwhelming majority of Americans.

A violently-inclined, bigoted component of Conservative discourse is now the face of the Republican Party. This group was courted by Nixon, and rejects the moderation of James Jeffords, Lincoln Chafee, and Arlen Spector. They similarly reject the libertarian postures of John McCain, a genuine Goldwater Conservative.

Vocal paleoconservatism is not serving the long-term interests of a viable Republican Party. When invoking secession and assassination, reasonable people of all political affiliations recognize these ideas for what they are: sedition.

The violent overthrow of a duly elected government is not something to be bandied about lightly. After suggesting assassination, such as the Facebook survey; secession, such as Governor Rick Perry (R-TX); or (more ominously) a military coup d’etat, alluded to by Perry, advocated by Rush Limbaugh (see link), one hopes that the President will finally say enough.

Justified disagreement with a President is not an adequate animus to bring charges. However, there is a very real need to clarify what is free speech and that which may be construed as sedition under United States Law.

There are three components under the 1940 Smith Act, the relevant US law regarding sedition. Short form-advocating or planning the overthrow of the United States Government is illegal, as is participating in an organization which does the same.

Translation-a majority of the right-wing opinion apparatus, particularly Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck, Lou Dobbs, Fox News, and Premiere Networks have been complicit in empowering groups who wish to overthrow a duly elected President and Congress.

Nothing is very likely to happen unless someone finally gets hurt or killed. Perhaps the opportunity exists for the Secret Service to begin investigating the most visible supporters of inappropriate activity. Rush Limbaugh should have a nice long conversation in front of a judge for sedition. It might be a good opportunity to define where the boundaries lie.

No one who loves the United States Constitution can be enthusiastic about putting ideas on trial in a general sense. Nor can anyone who loves that same Constitution be enthusiastic about those who would attempt to destroy the institutions which it has so eloquently provided for 222 years.

The daily assaults we now witness are not merely upon Barack Obama. They are directed against the presidency itself. President Obama has not committed a crime, but a small plurality feels that it is their right to thwart the will of a majority of American voters through deceit and violence if they deem it necessary.

Arrest Limbaugh. Enjoin him from broadcasting. The American people deserve a clear and distinct definition of what sedition is, because it certainly is not patriotic.

UPDATE: Think Progress reports that Newsmax has withdrawn an opinion piece where one of their commentators advocates a military coup d'etat against President Obama. It appears that not everyone reading Newsmax is opposed to the United States.

One still questions how many of those who believe them are.

A Modest Press Conference

2009-09-30T13:45:00.000-04:00

“Good afternoon.

“After several weeks of quiet negotiation, Congress, the South Carolina Legislature and I have come to terms on legislation which will formally separate the State of South Carolina from the United States of America.

“The separation will become official at midnight on October first. The state of South Carolina will henceforth be recognized as The Libertarian Republic of South Carolina.

“I have spoken with ad-hoc President Sanford about the steps which will be necessary to make South Carolina’s transition to an independent nation as smooth and transparent as possible.

“The United States of America will continue a partnership with South Carolina in certain defensive capacities, much like we share with many of our allies throughout the world. Similarly, South Carolina will continue to use the United States Dollar as a de facto currency until their new banking system, and currency, the Thurmond, become operational.

“Ad-hoc President Sanford and I have established a program where those residing in other states who wish to relocate to South Carolina will be able to participate in an exchange with South Carolinians who prefer to remain loyal to the United States of America.

“Homeowners and renters in both jurisdictions will be paired with people of similar means to exchange their domiciles in a one-to-one swap. Significant populations in Georgia, Florida, North Carolina, and Texas have expressed their support for plans for South Carolina’s independence and willingness to support the new nation.

“It is the ambition of this administration to assist those wishing to cooperate in South Carolina’s business-centered, privately administered, low tax experiment.

“No doubt exists in my mind that the Government of South Carolina will continue the tradition of Human and Civil Rights established while one of the United States. However, some minority citizens have stated their apprehension about the future of those standards.

“In order to assuage some of those fears, we have taken these extraordinary steps to guarantee that those not comfortable with South Carolina’s experiment will be able to remain under the jurisdiction of the United States.

“Likewise, the most sensitive defensive technologies currently located in South Carolina will be relocated with other Federal assets to other states. Most of the structure will be consolidated within the states of North Carolina, Georgia, and Florida.

“South Carolina’s financial system will cease its association with the FDIC, FSLIC, and SEC on January 1, 2010. Accountholders in South Carolina will be expected to have accounts in South Carolina-based institutions by that time.

“Current participants in Social Security, Medicare, and the Veterans Administration systems will be transferred as appropriate to analogous private systems in South Carolina.

“Several members of our corporate community have already exhibited enthusiasm for the prospect of the new South Carolinian nation. While we are saddened to see some of our old friends opt for the new country instead of the United States, we remain bullish on the prospects for opportunities in this great nation.

“To South Carolina, we wish you Godspeed. Although a separation may be painful for us, we thank you for your contribution to the United States, and hope for your continued success as a neighbor and an ally. I will now open the floor for questions. Helen?”

“Helen Thomas, Hearst News Service. Mr. President, was this decision based upon Representative Wilson’s outburst during your address to Congress on September ninth?”

“Not at all. Let me say that after hearing some of our friends speak about some of their concerns about the role of the Federal government during our debates over health care, I was moved by their passion and sincerity.

“I spoke with then-Governor Sanford about developing a mechanism where those who disagreed with our vision of the public sector’s role would have a place to realize their vision of limited government and privately-based solutions. South Carolina was the best possible location- geographically and demographically- to provide such an option for those who felt dissatisfied with the United States under my administration.

“To my conservative friends who felt as if we were not living up to their expectations, they asked for ‘their’ country back. There is now a country which may hew closer to their values. I would call that a positive outcome for both sides of the discussion.”

NO SKIDMARKS! Wandering Gentile Briefs.

2009-09-30T13:33:00.000-04:00

CBS’ Guiding Light was extinguished last week after several eternities on the air.

In the case of soap operas, the bad frequently outweighs the good. A toddler on Friday becomes Monday’s relevant troubled teen. Twins, both evil and benevolent, materialize. The ever popular amnesia storylines explain characters which are resurrected. When in need of a ratings boost, have a wedding.

If searching for the ultimate benthic art, the American Soap Opera is as close to the definition as it gets. After a short time, the devices necessary to propel a daytime serial over decades become pathetic.

One soap had a lead character kidnapped by a gorilla. Another lead character has been married so many times that she now has more last names than a Manhattan telephone directory.

This does not require a mere willing suspension of disbelief. This requires beating disbelief down, handcuffing disbelief, and locking disbelief in the trunk of a Datsun Honeybee.

This skill set translates quite well to Glenn Beck’s audience.

Spanish-language soaps a/k/a telenovelas, much like pregnancy, go away after nine months, and occasionally produce something good like Salma Hayek.

Assemblyman Ivan Marte, ex-chairman of the Rhode Island Republican Hispanic Assembly, has announced that he is leaving the Republican Party.

Attempts to identify another member of the Rhode Island Republican Hispanic Assembly have not been successful.

Michael Moore tells Larry King that Capitalism failed.

Capitalism did not fail.

The mechanisms designed to restrain the consolidation of wealth in the hands of a minute proportion of the population were dismantled or abandoned. This concentration of wealth led to a de facto planned economy which was not responsive to the wants and needs of the market.

A profit-based system for discretionary purchases, with adequate regulation, is still the best guarantor of innovation and grower of employment. Planned economies are the clearest indicators of a lack of effective competition, inflating costs for a consumer base which dwindles.

Democratic allies who did not embrace the same kind of reckless deregulation are now climbing out of a worldwide recession/depression.

When the United States allowed companies to consolidate, just like the Soviets before, the market was filled with noncompetitive quasi-monopolies offering inferior product at inflated prices.

Economic systems do not fail. Utopians seeking an ideological purity force failure upon economic systems.

Laissez-faire ideological purity nearly killed capitalism.

Structured, well-regulated capitalism with extensive competition works just fine.

President Barack Obama has requested that New York Governor David Paterson not stand for re-election in 2010.

Paterson, a 1982 graduate of the Governor William J. Lepetomane School of Political Competence at the State University of New York in Plattsburgh, has suggested that he will stay in the race.

Young America’s Foundation spokesman Jason Mattera supported his Conservative beliefs by suggesting that “…our women are hot,” and cited columnist Michelle Malkin as an example.

If Malkin, 38, is the best they can do, Conservatives are in serious trouble.

While more attractive than the typical Conservative female spokesperson, Mrs. Malkin is not exactly the first person one thinks of when the word “hot” comes to mind.

Avowed Liberal women who would come to mind when thinking “hot” include: Scarlett Johansen, Charlize Theron, Beyonce Knowles, Halle Berry, Rosario Dawson, Eva Longoria, and Jessica Alba.

The total hotness of all Conservative women would leave copious space in Jessica Alba’s navel.

Mmmmmmm. Jessica Alba’s navel…

(TIP OF THE WANDERING GENTILE TOUPEE TO THINK PROGRESS.)

Post Speech Analysis

2009-09-10T18:34:00.001-04:00

Barack Obama came off the bench and delivered something meaningful in the clutch. If anything is to be taken from the President’s Wednesday address to Congress, the key fact is that his performance was solid.

It would be convenient for Obama’s critics to decry him as ineffectual or incompetent. It would also be the only argument left, and totally subjective.

Obama came to the podium on top of his game. There was not time to act with deference toward his opponents, or balm the wounded sentiments of his party’s base. The President took his rhetoric to the audience he needed: the political center.

As suggested here on Tuesday, President Obama went into the language which has served him well. He spoke in the vernacular of moderates and conservatives, connecting his ideas to values which had been staked by Conservatives as their sole province.

President Obama was not an ideological Liberal when he spoke. His progressive friends- and they are many- may decry the President’s lack of traditional Liberal expressions. He sounded more like Rush Limbaugh in the tone of his discourse than the wild-eyed Liberal that Limbaugh portrays Obama to be.

That is a high complement. Limbaugh is not a very nice person, but he knows how to connect with an audience.

The speech masterfully connected the issue with themes of Patriotism, Family, Thrift, and Opportunity. The President called statements from his opposition as mendacious when he felt it to be necessary. Gracious acknowledgement was offered to his opponents in the rare instances when he felt they offered something of value to the debate.

From Obama’s end, there was only one minor misstep. His reference to the late Senator Kennedy’s role, and Senator Kennedy’s work across the aisle was justifiable. However, it went about 45 seconds too long.

No one is unaware of the gratitude Barack Obama owes to Ted Kennedy. But that part of the speech was a thudding minor chord in a program which was heavy with Obama’s joyous early hits.

It was like watching a Beatles reunion ditch I Wanna Hold Your Hand for a Yoko Ono song. One understands the outreach to Democrats, but not the method employed.

The Republican opposition was not as fortunate in their display as President Obama.

Representative Joe Wilson (R-SC) managed to start the clock on his 15 minutes of fame by interrupting the President and stating, “you lie.” This will not end well for Representative Wilson. On lists of things which will end a political career, interrupting a speaking President is just behind making a homemade adult featurette with a commode plunger, a wild animal, and Jane Fonda holding the wild animal.

It was not appropriate when Cindy Sheehan tried it on George W. Bush. Sticking an “R” after one’s name does not make it any better.

Just when Republicans didn’t think things could get much worse, Representative Charles Boustany (R-LA) gave the response to the President. It wasn’t just bad; it was the Attack of the Killer Tomatoes.

Representative Boustany used his teleprompter ineptly. His script appeared to have been written a year ago by a talk radio host who would be rated fourth in a two station market. One is not entirely certain that he did not mispronounce his own name.

However, there was one silver lining to Representative Boustany’s response to President Obama.

It was the funniest thing seen on CBS since WKRP in Cincinnati went off the air 27 years ago.

REPORT CARD:

President Barack Obama: A-. It was a momentum changer for sure and at least tied the game.

Republican Response: F. Republicans came off like a bunch of crybabies who are not only petty and small, but also weak for their size.

Health care just became a sprint to the finish, a discipline where President Obama excels.

Twilight

2009-09-08T18:01:00.000-04:00

A couple of Twilight fans live in the Wandering Gentile household. Twilight has moved in like a particularly destitute and unimaginative relative. What joy.

For the eight or so people who are unaware of Twilight, it is the first novel in a series of vampire-themed romance novels aimed at 13-year-old girls of all ages and genders. Author Stephanie Meyer’s prose does not inspire like Hemingway or humanize like Steinbeck.

The plot developments are awkward. One waits, probably not in vain, for the inevitable appearance of an evil twin, a fatal illness, and weddings at prescribed intervals. At least Dark Shadows, a vampire-themed soap opera from the 1960s, was funny.

But for as much as can be said for what the books get wrong, Stephanie Meyer has gotten something very right. A number of females are bringing books into the house because they love Edward and Bella. Nothing that instills a love of reading can be a bad thing.

Eventually the audience may overlap into better storytellers. But for now, at least the storytellers have a path to people who might have chosen another hour with Randy Jackson calling some evil-haired singer “Dawg.”

As a spoiler-free gift to those who are not fans of Twilight, your Wandering Gentile offers a bit of realism for a few scenes from the book and the movie.

FORKS, WASHINGTON??? What better way to avoid questions about diversity than to set a book in a place that has 110 black people and 13 Latinos? There are more diverse Klan rallies in Georgia. A really cool black vampire, not just the token dude with the dreads in back, could be off the chain.

Maybe somebody could go to Seattle and bring back a Jimi Hendrix-like rockin’ undead. Being that Jimi was from Seattle, that would be pretty cool.

THAT F’COCKTA TRUCK! That’s right, a 1960s pickup is obviously the first choice of vehicle a law-enforcement officer wants his novice-driver teenage daughter tooling around in.

Her mother doesn’t say squat about a vehicle with a great big engine, tiny brakes, sloppy steering and NO SEAT BELTS! Let’s not forget about the physics of a vehicle with a lightly loaded rear end and the perpetual rain in western Washington State.

Don’t forget the reaction of every kid who got a seat belt citation from her dad, either.

If Kurt Cobain, from nearby Aberdeen, had owned this POS, he wouldn’t have lived long enough for the shotgun.

EDWARD! What is he, 108 years old? Why is he still in high school? After a while, wouldn’t he get bored and go looking for cougars or something?

For that matter, wouldn’t somebody at the State Board of Education in Olympia get a bit curious about a 108-year-old high school student? Three words come to mind…MASSIVE IDENTITY FRAUD!

If I’m 108, but I have the body (and presumably the libido) of a 17-year-old, the last thing I want to do is hang out at a high school in flippin’ Podunk!

I want to hang out where there are a lot more hotties. And I could be very inconspicuous in New York or Los Angeles.

Then there’s the whole issue where Edward punches out a minivan which is about to turn Bella into a tortilla.

One imagines a couple of hillbillies.

“Hey, Dwayne! I bet he can’t stop a Camaro!”

Stephen King still has my vote in the Vampire campaign. Shape Change you can believe in!

A Conservative Case For Health Care

2009-09-08T17:42:00.000-04:00

Liberals are panicked and Conservatives are boogying on the grave of Health Care reform. Both sides are a bit premature. This is a clutch situation, but the game is still a bit early, and Democrats have not brought out their best players.

This is not as precarious as the situation as the Red Sox found themselves in during the 2004 ALCS against the despised Yankees. President Obama finds himself in a must-win situation nonetheless.

The challenge for President Obama will involve defusing very loud Conservatives who feel that their future well-being will rely upon the status quo. And now Obama is taking flack from Liberals who do not feel that the reforms being offered go far enough.

The Conservatives will not be an easy nut to crack. Obama is dealing with a group which has invested twenty years of trust in an opinion mechanism which is rabidly opposed to his party and the principles which got him elected. Conservatives are loud, frightened, and led by individuals who trust Limbaugh, Hannity and Beck.

There is only one way around this. Bill Clinton knows how. Obama has to lead with his right until the Conservatives walk into his left- hard.

The key to the speech will be adopting a vernacular identical to the right. The idea will be to make his proposals, including a public option, in terms of Faith, Patriotism, and Individual Opportunity. Clinton could have made this happen, and failed in 1993. Barack Obama has made his career on avoiding Bill Clinton’s larger mistakes.

What Obama will have to avoid is any suggestion of partisanship against free enterprise. No doubt exists that the President is a relatively moderate Democrat, but he is now faced with the challenge of reconquering the ten to fifteen percent of the middle who have wavered since his election. This can be achieved through the use of a Conservative lexicon.

Faith is the easiest term to renew. A quote from the Gospel of Matthew would serve nicely to open, preferably something from the Beatitudes or the Parable of the Good Samaritan, if not both.

The idea is not to preach to the saved, but put the religious opposition on notice that the teachings of Jesus Christ are not to be trifled with. There is very little in Christ’s lesson that speaks to raising the lot of the affluent. And it is very hard to envision where Christ would have been in favor of letting decent people die because they aren’t rich enough.

Patriotism is much tougher, but must be faced early in the speech. The core principle is that Americans have found a way to come together and realize public solutions to a common need. From the first public fire brigades to a common defense, this has been an overriding precept since 1776.

This is the first, best sound bite: “A healthy America is a strong America.”

Patriotism is where the existing Medicare and VA systems come into play. It is appropriate to ask why all citizens of the United States should not have the same quality of care offered to seniors and veterans. This is where Obama can offer some red meat to Liberals, in terms friendly to Conservatives.

“Health care is a privilege which no citizen of the United States should be denied based upon his ability to pay,” might be a good way to start.

“For too long, people have profiteered by abusing a system designed to help those in an hour of need. We are not a people who delight in kicking others when they are down. We never have been, nor will we ever be.”

As President Obama moves into the area of individual opportunity, he would be well served by making the case for entrepreneurship. No one knows how many new businesses have not opened because an entrepreneur has not been able to secure health coverage for his family.

We know from the example of other developed countries which are already growing economically. America has always done well when Americans have had the room to take reasonable risks and use a deep well of ideas. Removing a difficult obstacle to developing business is good for the economy.

And, oh yes, President Obama should remind Congress how much health care we get while paying half again as much as any other industrialized country.

That might get a lot of people to reconsider the value of public medicine.

I Got Your Compromise...RIGHT HERE!

2009-09-03T13:54:00.003-04:00

Just a word for those who feel that President Obama is about to tank on Health Care reform: chill.

Things look pretty rough right now. Obama is catching grief from Town Hall screamers and the louder voices in the Republican Party. His Democrats are running about in spectacular disarray. Much of the press is assured that any bill that comes out of Congress is not going to make anyone happy.

We have seen this movie before. Barack Obama has played this role so frequently that there is no drama. He did not become President by gambling. Obama became President because he is a very astute tactician.

Last year, when Obama was caught in a rasslin’ Cage Match with Hillary Clinton, there was the distinct belief that he might lose. What happened? He won, and got Mrs. Clinton to throw down the deal-breaking arguments when they were not in a position to harm him.

The Palin nomination for Vice President was supposed to be a game-changer which was going to invigorate the Conservative base of the Republican Party. Briefly, in early September, John McCain pulled ahead in the polls.

The economy tanking did not hurt Obama’s campaign at all, but Mrs. Palin was already on radar. She had already popped up on Limbaugh. His campaign had a scouting organization which would put the Dallas Cowboys to shame. A plan was in place.

And now Republicans would have us believe that Barack Obama and his organization have caught a massive case of lazy compounded with a latent onset of stupid?

More likely is that Obama has taken a big gulp of rompin’ stompin’ pick ‘-em-up-by-the-ears LBJ. He will not share Lyndon Johnson’s rough-hewn Texas populism, but the deals will come straight out of the Johnson playbook. A few are already in place, and have been since the early summer.

The quiet is designed to bring the unhinged on the right out. The unhinged are rather untelegenic. There is a distinctly scripted quality to their rhetoric. And, oh yeah, they also happen to be as obnoxious as hell.

Nothing sold Civil Rights to a majority of the Senate in 1965 like the loudmouths in Mississippi and Bull Connor’s dogs, either. Images of violence, whether real or implied, do not portend well for the side upon which they are found. By the time the President speaks to Congress on 9 September, death panels will not abide in the memories of most Americans,

Every hateful image will come to haunt Republicans like the spirit of Nixon’s Southern Strategy. There will be nothing left of the party of Lincoln, Theodore Roosevelt, and Ronald Reagan but a few decrepit southerners who may have lived slightly better when blacks, Latinos, and women “knew their place.”

Obama’s first tack will be a nice little conversation with Senator Baucus (D-MT) to bring him back to Faith. There are several things he can do to make Mr. Baucus’ life quite uncomfortable. Obama can drop them on Kent Conrad in next-door North Dakota, too. This moves a bill to the floor with a public option in place.

Once President Obama is done with the reluctant committee, he can sic Rahm Emanuel on the Blue Dogs. If Mr. Emanuel is allowed latitude to persuade, one has little doubt that his fellows from the Blue Dog caucus will leave less than convinced…or uninjured. Emanuel is a relatively conservative Democrat, but he is also compelled by his service at the pleasure of the President.

Meanwhile, an excess of vitriol within the Republican Party will cause their remaining popularity to implode. It is possible that one or both of the distinguished ladies from Maine may cross the aisle to join the Democrats. There are a few more Republicans in the House who live in competitive districts and could find political advantage in alliance with the President.

The final result will be a reform bill which will contain a tiered public-private system which likely resembles the French model. Passage will come under the budget reconciliation process, with 54-58 votes in favor. And President Obama’s antagonists in the Legislative Branch will have a great deal of explaining to do no matter what.

This might be fun.

UPDATE: As your Wandering Gentile was writing, CNN broke news that President Obama and Senator Olympia Snowe (R-ME) were in talks to develop a compromise bill. This bill would include a trigger for the Public Option if private insurers fail to reach certain cost-cutting and coverage goals by a predetermined date.

Face saved.

Talking About Health Care

2009-08-12T18:43:00.000-04:00

It was a bit refreshing. The caller was not a mechanized sales pitch for an Auto Warranty or a bill collector. That, in and of itself, justified attention. A Gentle Reader was expressing concerns about health care reform. One hopes to have been persuasive in favor of a public option and President Obama’s goals. Some of the information being offered is, at best spurious, anecdotal, and inaccurate.

That is a nice way of stating that some of the rhetoric is best referred to with an eight-letter term synonymous with bovine waste. The caller was polite, and our conversation was decorous.

One was a bit dismissive of some of the caller’s sources. The broadcasters cited included several well-known conservative presenters. One of the presenters comes from a background of objective journalism. The vast majority has minimal educational attainment, and is best characterized as entertainment only.

Entertainers are well within their rights of free speech on any side of a debate. While educational attainment is no guarantor of competence or talent, the skills obtained in post-secondary education are often better predictors of reasonable debate, What has been notable from the right has been a dependence upon volume and questionable partisan sources lacking empirical integrity.

The political left has been little better. There may be method in the left’s madness. While the right has been making much of vocal displays to legislators, the left has been remarkably non-committal toward such demonstrations. By focusing upon quantitative and independent means of refuting dubious information, the Obama administration has managed to seize the mantle of reason and judgment.

This is the part where your Wandering Gentile becomes a bit sarcastic, because the spurious, anecdotal, and inaccurate are not part of the pizza he ordered.

Claim: America’s health care system is the best in the world.

Polite Response: While we remain among the foremost researchers in the world, there are some inadequacies which remain to be rectified.

Wandering Gentile Sarcastic Response: Maybe more people would be able to get the attention they need if there weren’t half a dozen drug companies sponsoring right-wing bloviators with commercials for jumped-up talleywhacker pills. Who do you think is paying Rush Limbaugh US$40,000,000 a year? It damn sure ain’t the people listening to NPR!

Claim: Health care will be rationed.

Polite Response: A plan with a strong public option will allow more people to get better care, at a lower cost.

WGSR: What, precisely do you call a bureaucrat at a for-profit insurer deciding which procedures will be covered? And who, exactly can you appeal to if and/or when coverage is denied? Does anybody think Sean Hannity is going to stand up for individuals outside his immediate circle whose insurer has declined a necessary procedure?

Claim: Evil Death Panels will euthanize the elderly and the infirm.

Polite Response: End of life counseling will be made available but not mandatory.

WGSR: Thank God Conservatives like the Second Amendment! That way when someone can’t get coverage for a chronic health condition that ruins their quality of life, they can buy a really good gun which will end their misery. It might be messy, but they won’t have to clean up.

Claim: A public option will be a terrible burden to taxpayers.

Polite Response: Legislators and the White House have been cooperating to find a revenue-neutral solution which will give every American access to health care.

WGSR: You have to be kidding me!!! Fifteen years ago, these same insurance companies promised us that they would cut costs and improve services. Now we have three times as many uninsured with costs which have wildly outpaced inflation. What the hell? On top of that, parquet floor treatments at my local hospital were tax-deductible as a business expense. Here’s a good idea! Try treating a few more patients instead of the (profanity) floors!

Claim: Socialist Health Care like Canada will mean a decline in service and increased costs.

Polite Response: If you’re happy with your private insurer, you can keep them.

WGSR: Let me see, I’m supposed to reject the system which costs half of our system, gets better results, has a spectacular approval rate, and has proven to reliably serve the entire population of Canada. In trade, I get private bureaucrats telling me that my insurance will cost more than I earn in a month, with huge co-pays, and the possibility that my claim will be rejected. Just one question-do you think I was born on Planet Stupid?

Claim: You won’t like nationalized health care, if it happens at all.

Polite Response: As with any new mechanism, some fine tuning may be necessary, but we can rise to the challenge.

WGSR: Maybe. But there is a better chance that I will be around to complain than if we continue down the track we’re on.

A Brief Obituary or Two

2009-08-12T18:41:00.000-04:00

Walter Cronkite (1916-2009)

One promises to eschew the odious term “avuncular.” Cronkite, at times referred to as “Uncle Walter,” earned his familiarity from a generation at the helm of the CBS Evening News. The whole uncle thing has been blown way out of proportion. Most people don’t have uncles like Walter Cronkite, but wish that they did. Most uncles are not genteel and erudite, and that is something that they would like to forget.

Mr. Cronkite was a product of another time. His impartial rendering of the day’s events in clear, concise language earned him recognition as the “Most Trusted” man in America. If Cronkite deigned to render an opinion, it was clearly acknowledged as such, with objective support for the conclusion. Cronkite’s detachment was so ubiquitous and notable, that only two occasions are noted for him going outside the boundary over a career that spanned seven decades.

What may not be remembered by most people under 40 will be Cronkite’s unassailable integrity or his spectacular confidence. Unconsumed by ego, he enjoyed a reputation as a fair broker before such argot became commonplace. On occasion, he was noted for playing upon his image with self-deprecating good humor. No modern journalist can achieve that.

Ultimately, Walter Cronkite was the best kind of teacher. He accepted and lived up to the challenge that his role was to bring others in debate up to his level.

Walter Cronkite has gone on assignment for eternity. No one is likely to fill the big chair behind his desk in the foreseeable future.

Sadly, that’s the way it is.

John Hughes (1950-2009)

We move from Walter Cronkite’s empirical truth to another approach which is no less valid. John Hughes was an entertainer whose films chronicled the maturation of a generation. For those born in the mid to late sixties, we saw ourselves for the first time in his films.

Our generation had no moment as a touchstone. There was no Beatles on Ed Sullivan or moon landing, merely the Chicago suburb of Shermer, Illinois. These were young people who spoke our language and became a common experience.

While some of the films may now appear dated in music and fashion, the underlying integrity continues to make them relevant. When we see John Bender’s Dionysian rebel from The Breakfast Club or the Authoritarian Ed Rooney from Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, their conflicts and characters are still as recognizable as they would be when the films were released.

On an August morning in Manhattan, the trenchant and timeless observations from John Hughes came to an end. In the theme song from The Breakfast Club, we are implored, “…don’t you…forget about me.” The mirror has been covered, and those of us who recall the eighties in their glorious bouffant excess sit Shiva, but we will not forget the artist who knew our face before we realized we had one.

The West Wing: President Valverde.

2009-08-11T17:31:00.002-04:00

(With Apologies to Aaron Sorkin.)

Scene I: President Quantavius Valverde is in the Oval Office with his Chief of Staff, Ira Rath, having his morning briefing.

PRESIDENT VALVERDE: What kind of messed up stuff has landed on my desk this morning?

IRA RATH: Well, Lobs Doo from Cable Network News is questioning your citizenship.

PV: When did Jersey City leave the union? What are we doing about him?

IR: Knowing Mr. Doo's history with angioplasty and diabetes, we sent him a lovely cheesecake and signed it Rusty Gobler.

PV: (Smiles) There is nothing like the loving fraternity of conservative pundits.

IR: More seriously, Huang Seuk Gu of Upper Hangulia is willing to talk about releasing the female journalists.

PV: The pudgy little paranoid must be out of food again. What does he want?

IR: Legitimacy. Height. An ego stroke, a bigger peenie, he's a needy little freak.

PV: Duly noted, but he's a needy little freak who has a couple of our citizens in prison.

IR: We could send Norton Charles.

PV: The karate guy with the bad toupee from Rider:GBI?

IR: Filming wrapped in Atlanta last week.

PV: It would be appealing if not for the inevitable international incident.

IR: Inevitable?

PV: General Secretary Huang is obsessed with American entertainment and martial arts. Huang and Norton Charles would either hit it off owing to a mutual love of isolationism or they decide to have a physical confrontation and Huang has him shot.

IR: The propaganda value would be high...

PV: But not for us. Next? No more B-movie actors from films about rescuing Americans from Communists. Oh wait...that was humor. Now I get it.

IR: Yessir. Huang has met with former President Earl Miller.

PV: I appreciate Earl's support. I really do. But he's also 85 years old, may be suffering from undiagnosed dementia, and he hasn't crossed paths with a dictator he couldn't love in the last 15 years.

IR: Huang's father.

PV: He does us more good being quiet on his legume farm in Vermont.

IR: What about Vice President Gilbert Blood?

PV: What's he going to do, bore Huang to death? He was the number two man in he most successful administration of the last forty years, and still managed to lose to a borderline retard from Stillwater, Oklahoma.

IR: Well, there was the whole House of Representatives thing...

PV: Humor, I am not always good with. Constitutional law is my specialty. If it had been the Supreme Court, then I would be annoyed. And ever since Blood got that Academy Award, he has been absolutely insufferable.

IR: What about Secretary of State Burlington?

PV: 18 Months ago, Jennifer Burlington would have been my first choice for a mission to Upper Hangulia, preferably on a one-way ticket. Since joining my administration, she has been an effective Secretary of State. If things went badly, I would lose my best diplomat and then have to justify why she was talking to a country we don't officially talk to.

IR: You know, Bob Burlington is available.

PV: (Raises eyebrows, face becomes relieved, then happy.) If I am an American who had just spent the last few months incarcerated in Upper Hangulia, he would be among the first people on my list of who I would be happy to see. I would not question my safety.

IR: They are still females, sir...

PV: He'd no sooner boink them than he would boink his daughter. I would, however, worry about General Secretary Huang's female relatives.

IR: There is one more reason I would be glad to see him.

PV: What's that?

IR: President Burlington never crossed paths with a cheeseburger that he couldn't love. Have you ever seen Hangulian food?

PV: Point taken. I lived down the street from a Hangulian take-out place when I went to Morehouse. What's next on the agenda?

IR: Hose appropriations has its last meeting before the August recess at ten.

PV: Ira, what time does your happy pill wear off?

IR: At about 10:15, Mr. President.

PV: (Smiling) Be there.

Birthright? You Don't Need No Stinking Birthright!

2009-08-11T16:28:00.002-04:00

The societal subculture of individuals who insist that President Obama was not born in the United States has gone off the deep end. These people would be quite amusing if they were not serious. The "Birthers" now appear to be running down an arterial thoroughfare wearing nothing but very small minds protected by a set of My Favorite Martian rabbit ears.

Where have you gone Mojo Nixon? (Ans.: Satellite Radio, natch.)

The whole Birther movement is a blessing for pretty much anyone not questioning Obama's birth. there are plenty of good reasons why. The primary reason is that Birthers lose credibility every time their lips move, even when reading. Many overlap with some or all of the most bizarre myths and urban legends of the last ten years.

10: Republicans are the party of smaller government and lower taxes. What do OSHA, the EPA, AMTRAK, and the national 55mph speed limit have in common? All were signed into law by Conservative Republican Richard Nixon. What do the last balanced budget and the return of speed limits to state control have in common? All were signed into law by Liberal Democrat Bill Clinton. Don't even get me started on the expansions of government wrought between George W. Bush and a Republican congress: there aren't enough bytes.

9. Canadian Single Payer health care doesn't work. This is true...in BUFFALO. Aside from a few anecdotes on talk radio from people with suspiciously non-Canadian accents, the majority (54%) characterize their health care as "excellent." Over 33% of the population would consider their health care "good." That leaves less than 13 % to say "fair" or "poor." In the United States there are 16% with "No Opinion" because they don't have any health care.

8. Elvis is alive. This one is the most plausible, but he's now laid off as a result of the Wedding Chapel in Las Vegas going into foreclosure. The last reported sighting was in the dumpster behind a taqueria west of the 15, last Thursday.

7. Right-wing talk hosts speak for their audiences. This is partially true. The audiences they speak for are the advertisers hawking questonable investments, inferior legal services, and talleywhacker pills. The people listening are only paying Limbaugh's 40 million a year second hand.

6. Rasslin' is real. If one considers fitness and choreography, that is real. One certainly would be disinclined to a dark-alley rendezvous with an irate John Cena. But Rasslin' is ballet's poor cousin, living in manufactured housing. It's where gym denizens with poor acting skills can earn a living. Gym denizens who are tolerable actors often move on to become unpopular governors. (Jesse Ventura, Arnold Schwarzenegger.)

5. Republicans have their priorities straight. A suburban Atlanta county has found a million dollars in its budget to prosecute 287(g), the law Joe Arpaio uses to harass latinos in Phoenix. This is while facing a budget shortfall which has pulled 100 front-line public safety personnel off the streets, stressed the county schools to the breaking point, and closed parks and libraries, One hopes that the county commission will be on the unemployment line at the next election, along with the Sheriff.

4. The moon landings were fake. One would think that after 40 years somebody could come up with the contractors and location for the elaborate soundstage necessary, were this credible. One appreciates the challenge of strapping three men to a giant bottle rocket guided by less brain power than a '96 Plymouth Voyager. However, the moon is a pretty big target. Stop messing with astronauts and we won't send Hillary Clinton to get you in a black helicopter.

3. Deregulation is a tool for prosperity. This is true if one is either Goldman, Sachs, Merrill or Lynch. If one owns a home in Vegas, LA, Phoenix or Florida, even if one played by the rules, behaved responsibly, and only bought what was affordable, then they just got the short end of the greatest transfer of wealth in the history of mankind. Much more of this and the queue for the Ambassador Bridge will start in Findlay, Ohio.

2. American Families should be more like the Waltons and less like the Simpsons. Let's see, where would I rather live, an all-white, depression community in Appalachia, or the prosperous Clinton-era Springfield, USA??? D'OH!

1. America was a better place in the fifties. Not really, it was just different. Paranoid drunk Joe McCarthy made a mockery of the constitution. Some communities were denied the full leverage of their franchise. It was great if one was a white conservative protestant, but there wasn't room for some of the more demonstrative iterations of protestantism seen today, either.

Oh, but the music! Chuck Berry, Little Richard, Fats Domino...all denied accomodation in hotels and restaurants nationwide. Apparently they did not have the long form birth certificate to prove to the owner's satisfaction that they indeed were born in the United States.

Losing The Health Care Argument

2009-07-30T16:45:00.005-04:00

One suspects that President Obama's handling of the Health Care issue is not indicative of his lovemaking ability. If it were, he would be facing a divorce hectored by Rush Limbaugh on top of the daunting issues already sitting on his desk.

President Obama built his brand with an outreach to the political center. He has done a poor job of that lately. We have detailed the President's passed ball on green energy. That one went all the way to the backstop in a different stadium. Mr. Obama's agenda is getting savaged by a milquetoast presentation and what appears to be a fundamental lack of desire to reconnect with the people most responsible for his election.

For all of this criticism, one recognizes that the administration has done an admirable job of expressing itself responsibly and treating the debate (a bit too) thoughtfully. Regrettably, the Republican opposition has been very successful demagoguing the Rove-Atwater ankle-biting, testicle-punching, sand-throwing propaganda tactics. The President is not going to realize a reversal of current trends until he becomes angry, yanks his opposition up by the hair, and slams them into a turnbuckle at full force.

As stated in the discussion about Cap and Trade, empowering the liberal wing of the Democratic party with the details of presentation has proved to be a poor use of Obama's political capital. Obama's jury is in the center, and the entire presentation has been committed to people who drive Swedish cars and listen to NPR on their way to Whole Foods. That can be defined as converting the converted. Less fortunate for the administration are the Camrys and Accords catching right-wing screeds on the way to Kroger.

The President's first objective must be to narrow the term "socialist." For nearly anyone with a dictionary in the house, it would not be hard. The Clear Channel-Fox News axis is particularly fond of the term. In an instant, Roger Ailes' propaganda machine is able to hitch an idea coming from the Obama White House to unattractive little cars tooling between grimy concrete apartment blocks.

The pitfall for the right is that of any panacea which becomes abused. The effectiveness dwindles to nothing. A speech that puts some pavement between Health Care Reform which includes PRIVATE providers and Socialism is necessary. Should Mr. Obama defang the opposition's number-one favorite go-to word, there exists no equivalent, effective backup. Conservatives are only left with asinine portmanteaux.

President Obama is more than capable of delivering an optimistic message which takes the mischaracterization of socialism off the table for good. What can be achieved simultaneously is the contextualization of the current federal participation in health care. At the moment the United States and Canada spend the same amount per capita on the governmental level for health care. The Canadians have a functional, relatively transparent system of universal medicine, which approximately 90% of Canadians describe as good or excellent. (See enclosed link from CTV News in Toronto.)

We in the United States, on the other hand, are paying a sirloin price for stale chicken hot dogs.

The public-private duality of the Obama plan must be clarified on the President's terms. A private option, and the ability to move between public and private plans serves as a check on the growth of government. It also serves as a release for pressures to undo a public system by political means. A key motivator of many who preferred President Obama to Secretary of State Clinton in the primaries was his endorsement of a Universal solution which included Private insurers.

A single-payer public health care system in a diverse population of 300 million is unworkable due to its political vulnerabilities. The quasi-private system that exists is unworkable because it fails to cover one in six people, and thusly leaves the nation in a system of de facto rationing. This disproportionately affects less affluent and minority Americans by denying access to medicine, particularly those with chronic conditions which are factors of poverty.

The administration's preferred health care system requires a comparison of total cost to society as compared to the status quo. The best idea would be to have the estimates drawn by several partisan think tanks so as to provide a range of values which would not be impeachable by partisanship. Every group would be instructed to use the same criteria and methodology.

Similarly, the status quo offers the opportunity for some well-justified populism. While incessant populism quickly becomes tiresome, a short burst against a worthy opponent gives Obama's credibility a shot of painfully absent vitality. He could have given the What? Now they can't compete? discussion a bit more time, and saved himself the drama he finds himself in now. A seasoning of mild populism leverages appeals to small businesses and working class families.

Once equipped with independent, empirical data, the case in the president's favor hews closely to his usual style of cool reason. When armed with the tools of logic, President Obama is nonpareil in his ability to offer a clear, informed engagement as to how the average person will benefit from Health Care Reform. Taking the mantle from congressional master debaters and vitiriolic radio polemecists plays to Obama's greatest strength, analytical rhetoric that focuses upon the justification for a plan without the caprice of gratuitous emotion.

President Obama is well aware of Stephen Colbert's lesson: Reality has a well-known liberal bias.

Cap and Death or Cake and Trade.

2009-07-14T20:18:00.003-04:00

Cap And Trade needs to go away soon. Compared with some of the huge failures that the Republicans have had lately, this one would not even be a blip on the radar. To be succinct, the President is losing support by playing to the Democrat base on this one.

While there are a few positive elements of the bill, it is a stinkeroo of biblical proportion. President Obama cannot afford to lose this much of the middle on an issue and hope to maintain the principal of his political capital. He very well knows it.

This was a test of how far to the left that the administration could move on an issue. The answer is that he couldn't go very far on it at all. A very large component of the American electorate is disinclined to invest much faith in the idea of Global Warming. Pitching the bill in terms of the bicoastal left hasn't helped matters much.

Obama didn't invest a lot of his personal popularity in this issue. He knows it would be foolish. There is a better way to achieve the same result and improve his popularity.

Let "Cap and Trade" die. The only people who would miss the term were going to vote for Obama anyway. Give Cap and Trade the Goldfish Funeral it deserves, let it sink to the bottom of the Potomac Tidal Basin, and never allow it to resurface like Jason Voorhees in a Friday the 13th movie.

This strategy is Bill Clinton Classic. Obama should lead with his left and lay the Republicans out with his right. A sympathetic Blue Dog Democrat could be enlisted to introduce a more center-friendly bill which includes a few concepts from the Conservative lexicon.

A terriffic acronym is always a good start. Let's call this one "Defense Energy Autonomy Legislation (DEAL). Cap and Trade evokes images of Eddie Izzard's "Cake or Death" routine, without that whole annoying "cake" meme. (A tip of the Wandering Gentile Toupee to absent friend Ms. Banana from "American Fool" for the introduction to Mr. Izzard. Ms. Banana is sorely missed.) The idea is that even if one questions the validity of DEAL, the person most likely to be questioning is going to have a very difficult time opposing "Defense" or "Energy Autonomy."

Defense and Energy Autonomy serve as cupcakes to Blue Dogs and Republicans. The Interstate system began with the ostensible purpose of serving military interests, not polyester-clad RV drivers. Not even Ike could spend that kind of money without resolving a significant defensive issue.

Energy independence and the technologies to achieve it would be a huge jumpstart for American leadership. As far as our defensive needs go, we would be well served by taking away the leverage that energy has given a legion of despots in multiple world hotspots. War is difficult to wage when unable to buy the tools.

We begin with the massive "Hannah Montana" birthday cake, offering tax credits based upon the deployment of American-sourced green energy technologies. It culminates with maximum credit to individuals and businesses which become net producers of green energy. This becomes revenue-positive by starting a brand new industry. Someone has to design, manufacture, install, transport, and maintain green energy solutions. These people will buy homes, automobiles, durable goods and so on.

With large scale production, the accessibility of individualy-based solutions would be increased dramatically. Does anyone remember US$350 pocket calculators? As Americans take the lead, our industry begins to export to other markets. While some countries may not be enthusiastic about American leadership, the United States is still seen as an honest broker. No petrodespot can touch our integrity.

Don't even think that the Russians or the Chinese want to be vulnerable to the caprices of regimes sympathetic to the Uyghurs or the Chechens. They are not Tibet and Georgia.

At some point, likely within ten years or so, the United States could have a surplus of energy. It could be used to refine sewage and seawater to provide irrigation for non-edible grain or sugarcane on land which is not currently arable. This could serve as an abundant substitute for petroleum motor fuel.

The defense component could also be leveraged to provide eligibility for health care through the existing VA mechanism to any participant in the program. It might not be fancy, but it certainly beats no health care. The sum total of a bill like this would not only demonstrate American leadership and exceptionalism, a lot of very unpleasant people would be abased.

Anything that takes Ahmadinedjad and Rush Limbaugh out in one shot is definitely worthy of consideration.

Powerful Periodical Purloins Pauper's Post?

2009-07-14T19:49:00.004-04:00

Did The New York Times do something inappropriate to your Wandering Gentile? (Please see enclosed link)

There is a word, it starts with the letter "p"...gosh darn it! It's on the tip of my tongue. I mean, the post "Clowns Are No Laughing Matter" had been out on the Internet for three days labelled with the words "Clowns" and "Al Franken," when a similar article appeared in the Times under Victor S. Navasky's byline.

Nahhh, it's only a coincidence. I mean, it's not like a writer who needed an idea could go to Google, plug in "Al Franken" and "Clown" and get a whole bunch of links. Hell, I even found a couple of posts with the same title as Navasky's Op-Ed piece.

But there is the issue of that "p" word...it just isn't coming out...but I can remember the name of the Times reporter associated with the term.

Oh yeah, they would probably recall Jayson Blair, too.

Clowns Are No Laughing Matter

2009-07-07T17:41:00.005-04:00

The Jester takes his seat in the United States Senate. A slim plurality of voters chose Al Franken over Norm Coleman to represent them. They did not choose a Businessman. They did not choose a Professional like a Doctor or a Lawyer.

Minnesotans elected a Clown. Mazel Tov, it is a decision which may prove very wise.

A clown does not have the luxury of pretense or hypocrisy. To be successful in the science of humor, the clown is obligated to have integrity, His or her nature is to phrase truth in terms which deflate the disingenuous. Pompous pretexts become ephemeral in the light of motives served. Hidden agendas are laid bare as weak policy.

The skill set of a clown does not normally translate well to politics. Barry Levinson and Robin Williams argued this point in Man of the Year. The honesty required of the clown, the jester would impede the process of compromise needed to govern in the name of the people.

This is not entirely accurate. The atmosphere of fear and ambivalence has engendered an environment of legal, but not ethical leadership. There is nothing acceptable about the family values lawmaker who cheats on a spouse. There is nothing honorable about the legislator denying basic civil liberties to the same people with whom he would tryst, anonymously and gleefully. The defender of decency oftentimes grants special favors to patrons who would destroy the livelihood and security of constituents who do not question the defender's motivations.

The clown is unacceptable to the hypocrite. This is because the clown gains his strength from authenticity. It gives him the latitude to be wrong and the flexibility to make himself right. The clown can disclose and find forgiveness while no such tolerance will be countenanced for the hypocrite.

Laughter is harder to earn than a vote. It resides in the province of surrender more total than that which authoritarians demand, yet laughter can only exist in an environment of liberty and trust. There were/are no great jesters surrounding Hitler, Stalin, Mao, or Osama. Ideologues are serious people with many important, grown-up things to accomplish early in the morning. There is not time nor acceptance of levity.

As a nation, Americans are charmed by leaders with wit. John Kennedy and Ronald Reagan were effective communicators through humor. Obama has shown glimpses of a dry, acerbic and lively sense of humor. As of yet, he approaches this with trepidation. Obama could afford to be more daring. His opponents will find fault regardless, but the candor necessary to face serious issues armed with a smile will reaffirm the wavering and convert quite a few disbelievers.

That is a challenge when carrying the weight of several levels of history. The native intellect which might be prone to a barbed comment is tempered by the knowledge of the potential repercussions on sympathetic people. Taking into account of history's import, Mr. Obama will need time to find a comfort zone which will allow him to leverage his wit. Eventually, a lively intellect will be enhanced by the flexibility and integrity of humor.

Senator Franken does not carry the same set of Samsonites from 1964. He is going where no one has ever been, satirist to senator, mocking the news to making the news. In a Washington of frauds and phonies, hypocrites and liars, the Junior Senator from Minnesota is in a position to clear the mine fields where the President cannot tread.

Obama: The American people need a public option for health care.

Franken: The American people cannot afford to leave their health care in the hands of private insurers. These are people who learned their business pracitices from the same great minds that taught AIG that derivatives were perfectly acceptable because they were legal. Private insurers function under the model that what is legal and what is right are the same thing.

Obama: Cap and Trade will incentivize the development of green energy technologies which will benefit the average citizen.

Franken: Oh, my goodness! Do you really think moving the means of energy production closer to the consumption end might actually lower costs and stimulate the economy? Why, that model has only worked in the passenger transportation and information industries! Energy would be much different!!!

Parodists, satirists, jesters, clowns: why would anyone prefer them to frauds, phonies, hypocrites and liars?

And Then There Were None

2009-07-06T15:48:00.003-04:00

Effective 23 July, bloggers won't have Sarah Palin to kick around anymore. The people of several states are resplendently verdant with envy, owing to the fact that their governors will not be leaving as well. Mrs. Palin's resignation came as a benign surprise on Friday afternoon. She has been on campaign for the 2012 Republican Presidential nomination since four seconds after John McCain named her as the Vice-presidential nominee last summer.

This is very good news for Democrats. The Barracuda has been a perpetual gift to liberals. Instead of the holiday weekend news cycle being dominated by health care and cap-and-trade debates, the Democrats had the public implosion of another GOP figure, and the commensurate rumors, speculation and innuendo. No, innuendo is not a term to be inappropriately bandied with a South American mistress.

Democrats have played this smart. When one's opposition has arrayed itself into a circular firing squad, the most appropriate move is to sit back and hold the video camera.

In Mrs Palin's case, no one who watched the July 3 speech could be blamed for asking if this were actually a great bit of satire committed by Tina Fey. Palin was ranting and only marginally coherent, indicating either a need for meds or that they had not been taken.

Her statements were either factually misleading, crediting Lincoln for the Alaska purchase which happened two years after he died, or out of left field. Then she was surprised when someone way, wayyy out of the progressive mainstream got a wild hair and included Trig in a particularly offensive bit of internet tomfoolery.

The progressive mainstream tends to be a little bit sensitive to those who have been marginalized by those who would be bullies. The bullies would be much more concentrated on the right than the left, and defined as authoritarian. Right wing bullies can dish it out but they can't take it.

Governor Palin and Governor Palin only is accountable for her words and actions. Her opponents in the press and the Internet did not select her party affiliation, her positions on the issues, or her camera presence. There is a big difference between plain-spoken and inarticulate, and Governor Palin crossed that line about ten months ago.

Thousands of bloggers, columnists and commentators would be pressed to invent a character who provides a better well of material in their own imaginations. The right has provided a figure who combines paranoia and the least palatable bits of partisan rhetoric into one spunky, gaffe-prone but telegenic figure. One could call her the offspring of Dan Quayle and Michelle Malkin, although it would be physiologically impossible.

The least bad result (for Republicans) of Palin's resignation is also the least likely. In other words, Palin's resignation is as it appears on face value. Mrs. Palin is unable to fulfill her obligations as defined under the Alaska state constitution. She resigned to allow her state government to move forward on issues without gratuitous scrutiny of appropriate decisions made within her duties as Governor. Mrs. Palin will abjure from politics to spend more time with her family.

And that time will be spent on a palm-fringed island on the Aleutian archipelago. One asks: Does smoke up the behind affect the human body in the same way as smoke through the lungs?

Almost as unlikely is the chance of a major office-killing scandal. By office-killing, one refers to federal indictments or video evidence including any or all of the following: a live girl, a dead boy, or a marital aid and a moose. If any of this existed, it would have been on Youtube by now, so progressives can wipe that hope off the board, although we are better off with Palin still in the picture.

Governor Palin is ducking out of the mundane details of operating a state with a population which could be lost in any of a dozen metropolitan areas. She will likely choose a career of face time as a professional public speaker. Palin will spend her nights facing groups with names like "The Christian Nationalist Patriot's Liberty Heritage Front," for three years. She will portray herself as the embodiment of true conservatism; defender of the average guy; slasher of taxes; destroyer of big government; hounded away from her sworn duties by elitists who wish to silence the voices of her audience.

This is a fantasy-for Democrats. Mrs. Palin's oratory will improve, because it can't get any worse. She can't use a teleprompter, because it would require her knowing how to read. She has 18 months to become fully immersed in believing her own hyperbole.

Palin is an attention junkie. She isn't competent enough to know the difference between the score offered to "Not Obama," and that which is hers.

If Republicans are fortunate, Palin overdoses on attention before the nomination. Democrats already know about attention-junkie candidates (Gore, Hillary Clinton) who can't handle their fix.

Monty Python's Meaning Of Death

2009-06-28T15:29:00.002-04:00

Neda Agha Soltan. That is the only name worthy of repetition. She was the only figure over the last few days who merits immortality in print or pixels. No other individual living the early part of their afterlife in Live Team Coverage carries the same need to be memorialized.

Miss Soltan was murdered in the streets of Teheran by thugs solicited by authoritarian theocrats masquerading as leaders. Indeed it is reasonable to question the tenuous link between faith and totalitarian bastardry in Iran. Faith is a gift from the Almighty; it cannot be coerced.

The dictatorial cadre in Iran has used faith as a pretext for some of the most odious prohibitions upon personal liberty, culminating with a sham election. Everything was made up and the points did not matter. Miss Soltan died yearning for the basic human right of conscience, disillusioned by the realization that her voice had been denied, unable to exercise ant latitude in the decisionmaking that will affect the lives and well-being of her contemporaries. Thieves and murderers moved quickly to associate thher reasonable wishes with a cabal of the unfamiliar.

On the other side of the world, a politician took advantage of a similarly convenient approach to faith. Years ago he was among those who attempted to thwart the will of a nation's choice for president, based upon his judgement of the fitness of that president's moral character. In the case of Iran and the politician's jurisdiction alike, holy literalism has served to cloak poor stewardship of the electorate's interests.

It is the politician's great good fortune that his overt hypocrisies will be judged by educated adults with computers and free speech. One only wishes that Miss Soltan had enjoyed the same freedom. Only the politician's ambitions have died. Barring some divinely just irony, he will awaken tomorrow, free, affluent, and able to choose a new path. His constituents should be so fortunate.

Truly dystopian were the deaths of the two entertainers. One was a former sex symbol attached to the most famous nipple in the history of humankind. Her health had been poor for some time. The other was a lost song-and-dance man-child who had long since spent his own fortune, and continued spending the fortunes of others.

These events, although tagedies for the humanities, were not the same tragedy to humanity that was Miss Soltan's death. They had earned celebration and recognition for their talents. They were more than liberally compensated.

The sex symbol made efforts to use her talent to reveal the suffering of women at the hands of neanderthal brutes who must reconcile their differences through violence. That is laudable.

The Man-child spent twenty years under a cloud of accusations of pedophilia. A performing career which had once concentrated upon raising the lot of famine sufferers became a self-parody of odd, self-destructive behavior. One hopes hat he is reunited with his right mind in the afterlife.

Indeed, one hopes that he was truly innocent of the unforgivable things he was accused of, not just beyond a reasonable doubt.

Neda Agha Soltan, however, was innocent. She died at he hands of a child made subhuman by brainwashing and the hope of escaping poverty. Her death was the product of those who believe and teach that basic human rights are only to be conferred upon those with whom they agree.

The other names were heard a lot. Neda Agha Soltan's name deserves mourning in words, thought, and prayer.

The Liberal Media Myth

2009-06-16T18:04:00.004-04:00

As the news spread of the heinous and brutal attack on the Holocaust museum in Washington, onehopes that the Gentle Reader was deeply and sincerely offended. Simply stated, free speech mutated from the rantings of far-right cretins to a cancerous blight on libertarian discourse.

Deep condolences to the family of Stephen T. Johns are inadequate. The nation owes his family a proactive measure as means of beginning a memorial to a man who gave his life protecting a repository of evidence of what happens when extremism replaces sanity. Rounding up extremists and prosecuting them is compellingly attractive, but we are in the position of having to be the Good Guys.

Whatever we do, referring to the collective as those of good will and love for our system of constitutional jurisprudence, it must be informed by an unabiding adherence to the rule of law and the rights of the accused. No matter how distasteful we may find extremism, rounding 'em up and locking 'em down is just terribly George W. Bush-league. A better solution exists.

Repeal the 1996 Telecommunications Act. Get rid of it and salt the land from whence it came so that nothing ever grows there again. This law is an odious act of corporate welfare which has served to stifle dissenting opinion and deprive valid viewpoints of a platform for expression. The 1996 Telecommunications Act has provided fertile ground for breeding far right extremism of the kind which killed Officer Johns and devastated his family.

One station per band per market was the rule until a preliminary deregulatory law allowed companies to begin acquiring multiple stations in the same city. Free-to-air broadcast licenses being a finite commodity, limits were placed upon any entity consolidating large numbers of licenses. Prior to 1996, stations such as WIRY in Plattsburgh, New York, who focused upon the community they served were the rule.

WIRY is now the exception, as many broadcasters move to a business model of satellite-delivered programming. Author Stephen King refers to the most prolific type of music broadcaster as "Robo-oldies." While one is not inclined to focus upon the disgraceful state of oldies radio in America, the same model applies for news and opinion broadcasting: Robo-Republican.

The Robo-Republican nodel works thusly: acquire a potent signal in a medium to large market. Dismiss the news-gathering and local on-air talent. Replace the local talent with Fox News, Beck, Limbaugh, Hannity, Levin, Savage and Noory. Preemptively purchase any signal where a competitor may be established with the profits. Develop friendly professional relationships with entrenched local personalities like Neal Boortz and Mark Davis. Continue until able to throw loss-leader advertising rates against any program which appears to challenge satellite-delivered content. Eventually establish a monopoly upon audience.

Now is where things would most appropriately move in an anti-trust direction. The most egregious of all Robo-Republican megabroadcasters is Clear Channel. Clear Channel also owns Premiere Networks, which owns or distributes most of the content mentioned. While one does not suggest that Clear Channel directly specifies content, 900 signals, a lack of high-profile progressive voices, and the occasional leveraging of a Clear Channel board member (J.C. Watts) as a guest on Premiere Networks programming do indicate a definite agenda and conflict of interest.

The conflict is most easily ascertained when combined with the ability to direct dissent over to inferior signals or reformat entirely. It also helps to be able to elect an inferior rival, such as Air America, which sounded like it was produced on a dorm-room laptop.

The most compelling case for reregulation and anti-trust investigation of megabroadcasters does not lie in conservative rhetoric. As long as megabroadcasters are in a position to obstruct opposing viewpoints, a violent fringe of radical conservatives takes comfort in increasingly angry rubric. This rubric is couched in the idiom of inevitable subservience to a monolithic authority which would violently suppress all dissent. Listeners are encouraged to become active with the tacit subtext that conservative voices will only survive through the implicit threat of sustained violent rebellion.

Therefore, many sincere, decent conservatives been absorbed into the hateful thing that they themselves most fear. Right-wing broadcasters have tiptoed up to the line of inciting the overthrow of the United States Government. That one is pretty much a no-no in the Constitution. They put it right up there in the front. Aggression against a body which has committed no crime or has made no threat and justifying said aggression with fear is not the American way. It is the Nazi way. We are obligated by our constitution to be better than that.

It is time to take the microphone away from those whose acrimony and paranoia would deprive an innocent Stephen T. Johns of his right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

When Only The Worst Will Do

2009-06-15T17:09:00.002-04:00

Attorney General Eric Holder has reversed a ruling made late in the Bush Administration that defendants in deportation cases may not appeal based upon inadequate counsel. Apparently, former Attorney General Mukasey was under the illusion that the US government was not required to follow the constitution here any more than in Guantanamo Bay.

Whatever, we here at the Wandering Gentile applaud the fact that the Obama administration feels that due process may suffer when an attorney graduated from Ray-Ray's House of Tacos and Accredited Law School of Mabelvale, AR, instead of, say, Harvard or Yale.

It is now important for defendants in deportation cases to find incompetent attorneys. As a service to undocumented persons who are innocent until proven guilty, your Wandering Gentile is offering advice on picking a bad attorney.

1. His office is a single-wide mobile home encircled by a chain-link fence.

2. His image car is a Kia Sephia.

3. His legal books are all paperback. Some of them were written by Dean Koontz. The shelf is made from cinder blocks and planks.

4. During consultation, he participates in an animated conversation with his "baby mama," because the child support check bounced.

5. The same animated conversation ends when his Trac Fone runs out of minutes, and his service abruptly cuts off.

6. Confronted by the word "tort," he asks for extra whipped cream on his.

7. His laptop is the approximate size of a Chevette. It operates on a Windows system that uses a Roman numeral like "I.I/VIII."

8. He asks for a change of venue because he has an outstanding warrant.

9. A plastic bag from Dollar Tree serves as his briefcase.

10. He shows up for court with a gold tooth, oversize aviator shades, and a "13" sweatshirt from an urban haberdasher.

11. He brings a QT chili dog to court because he missed breakfast.

12. His opening statements include an imitation of a Dodge Dart on a cold morning.

13. He refers to the judge as "you old pickle-smoker," instead of "your honor."

14. He returns from lunch wearing a Long John Silver's paper pirate hat, and most of a hush puppy.

15. During his closing statement, he moons the bailiff while consulting his "legal briefs."

Maybe there was a reason he had to advertise on daytime television...

THE HUNDREDTH POST! (How to blog like the Wandering Gentile.)

2009-06-15T15:20:00.002-04:00

Today, in honor of our hundredth post, your Wandering Gentile is going to share a DVD-type special feature, explaining how a post becomes a Wandering Gentile post...yay!

Always have a subject in mind. Sometimes your original first paragraph is crap, so expect an alternate plan. This happened today.

At roughly one-tenth of an administration, we have a better picture of where the Obama Administration is going. The President's objectives on the economy, the environment , health care and justice are now coming into focus. He had a task to clear out the Augean Stables before getting to work on his agenda.

Readers like lists. They also like realism. Sarcasm doesn't hurt much, either.

THE ECONOMY.

If one were to consider the economy in terms of a tractor-trailer, this country's was going across the George Washington Bridge toward New York with two flat tires on Election Day. By the time President Obama got to the White House, it was stuck on northbound Jerome Avenue in the Bronx under the El, with eighteen flats, and somebody had boosted the stereo out of the dash for good measure.

For readers unfamiliar with operating a large commercial vehicle, this scenario is as bad as it gets before destroying your rig or accumulating a body count. Commercial drivers will require a crowbar to get the seat from a puckered sphincter.

The Republican answer, keep moving forward and then turn right is not an appropriate solution. Obama's tack of turning left at the first McDonald's is the only solution which will save the vehicle. In a spectacularly suboptimal situation, this takes the fixed overhead obstacle out of the equation.

Turn right once arriving at the faster track of I-87. Obama's rolling, and he's made the turn, but plenty of obstacles await before he gets to the Major Deegan Expressway.

THE ENVIRONMENT.

Compared to the Economy, Obama is out in the back end of North Dakota on this one. Unless he is in imminent danger of freezing to death (He's not), Obama has a long, boring slog in front of him in which nearly everyone wishes him well in the objective of getting to a much greener place with a tree. Obama would do well to hope that the tree is near a Burger King, because nobody wants to be in North Dakota with him.

North Dakota's state tree (envied by South Dakota because they don't have a tree, yet) is in West Fargo, a couple of blocks from the truck stop. There is also a Burger King.

HEALTH CARE REFORM.

Ready or not, it's coming. Nobody in America trusts health insurers as much as they trust Congress, and they don't trust Congress at all. (Hyperbole is always fun. Ask Dave Barry.) In Congress' case the tiebreaker is the fact that it is at least theoretically possible to vote a congressman out of office. When was the last time a health insurance customer had a vote on the direction of the insurer? (Not guaranteed even if holding preferred stock.)

Health insurers are right when they state that they cannot compete. Competition does not exist when a business model is built around a captive market and the fundamental inability of a customer to challenge the providers service without litigation. A publicly subsidized option-not corporate welfare for insurers to serve the entire public, not just the ones they like-is urgently and desperately needed.

We already have de facto rationing in the form of pre-existing condition codicils. Government is already on the hook for half of all health care spending already, shelling out more per capita than the universally covered citizens of the rest of the industrialized world. Freedom of choice should include the ability to fire an inferior or inept health payment provider.

This is the possibility that Obama's plan from the campaign-and ironically the French- make available to non-millionaires. You know, the ability to make a rational decision.

I forgot. We're Americans. We're not supposed to be able to do Rational. (Quips like this are good for annoying conservatives, particularly when mentioning the French.)

JUSTICE SONIA SOTOMAYOR.

Get used to saying it. Republicans don't have anything. It isn't even going to be close. Too bad she's not a Red Sox fan.

IMMIGRATION REFORM.

(If I need to rant, this subject is good because I can make fun of Lou Dobbs and Tom Tancredo. And those two are made for being mocked and harassed, when not taking on the entire G.O.P.)

What do you call a bus going off a cliff with the entire Senate Republican caucus aboard? The waste of a big damn bus, sorry about Collins and Snowe.

Immigration reform is the big bus which will go off a cliff with the Republican party's future aboard. In states which have large numbers of socially-conservative, entrepreneurial latino voters they will wind up with the approximate lifespan of a triple-meat, triple-cheese plain-and-dry Whataburger left in the care of your Wandering Gentile.

Republicans cannot afford to trade Miami, South Texas, and Arizona for a significantly smaller number of Anglo-Saxon bigots in states without enough electoral votes to beat Walter Mondale's '84 performance against Reagan. Immigration reform is a winner for the USA and Mexico.

The US economy wins, gaining ten million people with a pent up demand for homes, automobiles, and durable goods gaining the clout to buy them. We could also anticipate a trillion-dollar shot in the arm for tax revenues over the next ten years. It doesn't hurt that the undocumented population is disproportionately entrepreneurial and disposed to risk taking.

If combined with a workable guest worker program and some mechanism enabling labor to organize without being forced to take anti-labor propaganda before making their decision, ethical businesses would prosper. Border security would improve, owing to the resources not allocated to pursuing people forced into illicit crossings by an overreaching prohibition.

Tom Tancredo and Lou Dobbs would go broke though, because their support of that same overreaching prohibition is what enriches Mexican organized crime, their true masters. The Kluxers and Neo-Nazis would have to fold up their tents and go back to Idaho.

(Bad quip goes here!!!)

Who da pimp, now?

The First Post!

2009-05-30T16:18:00.005-04:00

This is the first Wandering Gentile post from the summer of 2003, discovered in the bowels of my Yahoo account. It is brought to the Gentle Reader in celebration of our hundredth post. We apologize for the pretentious use of Canadianized English, but hell, it seemed like a good idea at the time.

The same excuse goes for the first G.W. Bush administration, spicy food, and any automobile built in the 1970s.

Glad you're here, and thanks for spending time with The Wandering Gentile.

Gil.

Such a week, such a week.

The face of evil was found on the face of a 31-year-old trucker from Schenectady, and it is a perfect irony. A black man was trafficking slaves. They were a commodity he was being paid to ship, just as his ancestors were on the ships out of Africa. They were a commodity to be sold for their labour in the streets of scores of municipalities across this great nation.

It is with a heavy heart that one observes the complete lack of understanding this grave situation engendered. The trucker had cargo he was being paid for. The condition of the cargo did not matter to him. He did not consider the value of dead slaves on the open market:none. The black trucker's ancestors were valued more than the cargo he let die.

Such is the course of human bondage in the twenty first century. Aliens without documents, education or legal recourse are better than slaves. They are expendable. When one dies or is deported, another five are queued for his place on the farm or in the chicken processing plant. These are menial jobs that most natives of the United States are not willing to take.

This is not a defence of undocumented immigration...both of the enabling principals;i.e. the immigrants and the employers are equally guilty, but this is not exactly true.

An undocumented alien does not have the education to understand that the United States disproportionately punishes a hungry neighbour for daring to seek scraps of our affluence in the rubbish bin. Yet there is no equivalent compulsion that would sanction someone who willingly seeks the hungry so that he may give them only scraps.

Those who employ...and they do so knowingly...the undocumented face nonexistent scrutiny. Criminalising poverty does not repair the problem. The procedural crime must be less than the crime that engenders the procedural issue. People with education know better. The employers...at the highest level...must be accountable.

The issues at more than one famous poultry processor are examplar. Large contributions to the previous administration appeared, and few charges have been filed. More contributions followed to the subsequent administration. Both political parties are equally culpable. But a deported undocumented employee has no voice, and more often than not, no paycheck.

Anyone who believes that no one knew that there were deliberate mechanisms to recruit and employ undocumented workers in the poultry industry has never been to places like Gainesville, Georgia, or Chincoteague, Virginia, or any other place with a large poultry processing plant. As recently as fifteen or twenty years ago, the poultry industry was employing U.S. citizens.

Once it was discovered that undocumented aliens do not speak out to the Labor Department or OSHA, the Americans went out on a rail.

The eighteen who died on that truck in south Texas last week may not have been seeking employment in a poultry processor, but the conditions that make undocumented employees attractive to poultry processors empower the exploitative in many industries.

Eighteen lives were worth US$2500 to a black trucker from Schenectady. Slaves are now rented instead of owned. Where are the Democrats from the civil rights community and the Teddy Roosevelt wing of the Republican party?

The civil rights community will defend the black man and there will be Republicans who seek less scrutiny of business practices in spite of TR's abhorrence of injustice. It is a disgusting headstone for eighteen hungry people who died last week, and not worthy of the people of this Nation.

Father Cutie (Pie?)

2009-05-29T16:13:00.003-04:00

Father Alberto Cutie (It's pronounced koo-tee-AY, not QT, for our wise guy reader friends,) is preparing to celebrate his first Mass in the Anglican rite this Sunday in Miami. And yet the debate no longer proceeds with regard to the issue of Celibacy and the Roman Catholic Church.

You see, Father Alberto got run off by the Roman Catholic Church for a relationship with a woman. His relationship appears to be healthy, mature, and expressive. His fiancee is, by all indications, an affectionate and caring lady who is fully age-appropriate.

Yes, this is a "now, let me get this straight," moment. Priests who committed the most heinous acts of homosexual pedophilia were permitted to remain in service while church hierarchy covered up their deeds, but a healthy, adult heterosexual relationship is grounds to eliminate a clergyman from consideration?

If men are created in God's image, one hopes that the part of men going "huh?" is directly derived from God's Personality. Otherwise, we may be in some deep stuff here.

Full disclosure-your Wandering Gentile has effective baptisms in both the Roman and Anglican rites-the details of having two baptisms being unnecessary for the narrative here. Let it be said that I was very devout and sincere in my practice of Roman Catholicism for over twenty years. My discussion was not with Jesus Christ, but with those who portray themselves as holding the patent and exclusive license to my Lord and Savior.

I had a disastrous encounter in South Georgia with a Pentecostal church. The worshippers appeared to my liturgically-informed sensibilities to be suffering from broken legs, i.e., rolling on the floor, crying and yelling "JESUS!" Upon returning to metropolitan Atlanta, I attempted to reconcile with the faith which had once brought me great joy.

The administrations of two different archbishops in the Atlanta Archdiocese had changed the character of the church as I had known it. As a worshipper, I leaned more toward the young Karol Wojtyla's example of social activism and pursuit of justice. It could be described as more Martin Sheen than Mel Gibson. There was great emphasis on connecting the Word to those who had been cast aside. There was an outreach to those who were already out of the womb but as yet not connected spiritually.

That was an exciting time, but it is long since past. When I got back, I found my local parish to be filled to the rafters with people willing to hear the Word of God. The priest apparently got his catechism directly from Sean Hannity, because his Homily included a very unsubtle, and frankly offensive suggestion that the undocumented repatriate immediately. This was during a SPANISH LANGUAGE Mass.

That was the beginning of the Jeremiah Wright phase. The real question was more along the lines of "Do I want to spend Eternity with it being run by people like him?" I did what I could to give the priest a fair hearing. I did not bail out immediately. I stayed for six more months. He did not get better.

Finally, I was informed that if I wanted to attend Mass in that parish, I would have to park across a busy four-lane boulevard. The church's parking lot was reserved for a group which had scheduled in conflict with the Spanish language Mass. They wanted the Lexuses and Cadillacs, and those of us in Escorts and Minivans could be inconvenienced. We would keep coming back.

One of us did not, will not return. I parked across the street, unwilling to be taken for granted. The next Sunday, I found the Anglican parish on the other side of my Atlanta suburb.

The priest spoke of Reconciliation and Hope, the communion of humanity and their Creator. The hymns, the prayers, and the language of faith were from a lexicon all but abandoned by the Roman Catholic parish a short distance away. It was a return to the faith, if not the denomination which had structured my beliefs. In other words, I was home after a long time away.

One hopes that the telegenic Father Alberto will feel the same. Most of those who practice a Christian faith are inclined to seeking reconciliation with God. One imagines that questioning a rule about Celibacy which appears not in the Gospel, but in an admonition from St. Paul, may not preclude a good servant of the Lord from continuing to inspire as he did previously.

Question not the kind priest from Miami who fell in love. Question the hierarchy which would consider him expendable, when they tolerate so many behaviors which estrange men from God.

Judge Sotomayor

2009-05-29T13:57:00.002-04:00

There is something satisfying about watching Republicans in a state of absolute public impotence. Please understand, this is not to refute the general impotence that compels a disproportionate number of Viagra ads on Rush Limbaugh-or Mr. Limbaugh's questionably obtained mass quantity of the drug. No, one refers to Judge Sonia Sotomayor, the minority woman who has become untouchable.

President Obama has the prerogative to select the candidate he feels is best suited to being the next high court justice. Kudos to Senator McCain for stepping back quickly with the words, "...elections have consequences." Indeed, one could suggest that Mr. McCain is the prototypical centrist, once identified as Republican and now suffering the hangover of two Bush terms. After all, McCain was patient zero in the Bush disaster.

Returning to the theme of Judge Sotomayor's nomination, the facts are such: President Obama is in a position to select a candidate closely reflective of his own center-left politics. At the same time, Obama is in a position to acknowledge the contribution of an ethnic group to his candidacy. Finally, he has the option of a supremely qualified candidate who lives in this political neighborhood.

Now this is about to become fun-like watching Radio Disney switch to an all Garage Rock format.

First and foremost, the most partisan Republicans are going to come after Judge Sotomayor for her ethnicity. Hello? Does anyone think that Roberts, Alito, or Scalia were not given a pass by Republican principals for the simple fact of being white males? Of course they were. Part of the decision to pick the three of them is to reflect the concerns of conservative phallo-centric whites.

Sotomayor is no more or no less racially motivated than Roberts, Alito or Scalia. If that is a concern for the reader, perhaps the reader may wish to reconsider some of his or her own perspectives upon race. One suspects that Newt Gingrich, Rush Limbaugh and Jeff Sessions (R-AL) are suffering from a bit of projection here. Of course, part of that is because Sessions was rejected for a seat on the Federal bench by the Senate

Sessions' partner in crime, Mitch McConnell (R-KY, a/k/a Jim Bunning Lite) has raised a few concerns about Judge Sotomayor's qualifications. Way to go, Mitch! If you want to throw that rock, it's going through Clarence Thomas' roof. Judge Sotomayor has 18 years on the bench, having become a federal judge (roughly) concurrently with Thomas.

One would not feel as compelled to embrace Judge Sotomayor's nomination if, for example, she had hosted the courtroom on an afternoon television program. While one suspects that Judge Milian from The People's Court could capably run any courtroom where she sees fit-the type of court atmosphere where Judge Sotomayor is vastly different. Most of Sotomayor's litigants have a greater command of vocabulary, grammar, and precedent. They are major-leaguers in the field of being a boil on the tuchas of society.

Simply disagreeing with an individual does not make them unqualified. It is justification for withholding support, but one should be certain to have all of their ducks in a row when it comes to evaluating qualification. Should this fight continue, Mr. McConnell's emasculated little party would be in position to be splattered with all the mud.

That would not be of much concern in states like South Carolina and Alabama, where Latino votes are miniscule compared to those of black and white Americans. But in states like Texas, Florida, and Arizona a significant latino electorate would be in a position to turn out about fifteen percent of the remaining Republican senators. Georgia and North Carolina are already on the edge of being driven out of the fold. If those five large sun belt states wind up going blue, Republicans will wind up living next to the Whigs and the Know-Nothings of Millard Fillmore.

Thus it comes down to this. Republicans can pick a fight with Judge Sotomayor's supporters, and become the next inhabitants of the ash heap of history. Or they can make the discreet decision to choose a more appropriate battle. That is the choice they face in this debate.

One asks whether or not Limbaugh, Gingrich, Sessions and McConnell will choose oblivion over relevance based upon a flawed principle. One waits with bated breath.

But...We're Not Dead Yet

2009-05-22T14:39:00.007-04:00

All reports of the demise of the Republican party are as of yet, sadly, untrue. But there is hope, because they are on life support and their recent behavior is evocative of a stage 4 lung cancer patient walking into the QT for a pack of Marlboros.

A Democrat has to love Dick Cheney. His actions and outcomes are as predictable as an Univision telenovela. What Cheney says has ceased to matter as much as his smug, sarcastic delivery. Every time the man opens his mouth, he finds ways to turn off those within the eighty thousand or so people left willing to self-identify as Republicans.

Not only is Cheney unwilling to admit that his party lost six months ago, he keeps reminding the electorate as to why. Choosing a public confrontation with Barack Obama and Colin Powell is not the most appropriate form of swaying the independent voter back to the Republican Party. What is amusing is that despite both Obama and Powell being black, there has been little attention paid to the possibility of a prejudicial component.

Of course, no one harbors any illusions about Mr. Cheney having the first type of commitment to diversity-his crowd being diverse enough to include both Wonder Bread and Hellmanns Mayonnaise. The Republicans have lost all opportunity to connect with socially conservative african-american voters through Nixon's Southern Strategy. Latinos have been turned off by economic isolation strategies directed toward latinos while conflating all immigration with illicit behavior.

Thanks to Cheney coming off as a condescending (bag of fertilizer), a point has been reached where there are Republicans who feel that they no longer are white enough for their party...(see: Specter, Arlen. Before too long, also see: Steele, Michael.) An alliance with Rush Limbaugh and other quasi-sophist pundits has filled the party's ears with the idea that they're all right, but gosh dang it, they're just not conservative enough.

And Al Gore lost because he wasn't Liberal enough. That premise cost the Democrats several years of kowtowing to the anti-semitic, authoritarian Ralph Nader/Cindy Sheehan left. Leaving the center and surrendering a party to the most anti-libertarian forces of its base is a recipe for disaster. Had Gore moved further to the left in 2000, he would have lost twice the votes he got from Nader to Bush, and the whole Florida thing never would have happened.

If a party does not have a leader, they cannot manufacture one. The Republicans should ask John Kerry about that. At the moment, the choices for still-active political figures are limited to Sarah Palin and "Other," because every time Rep. Eric Cantor (R-VA) inserts himself into the discussion, one hears the late, great Harvey Korman saying "...too Jewish," in Blazing Saddles.

And the base is choosing to embrace Governor Palin in droves. Should Palin be the best that the Republicans can get, there is hope that the Yankees will be calling your pudgy, out-of-shape, 42-year-old Wandering Gentile to pitch...hopefully against the Red Sox. Mrs. Palin is not the cure for what ails Republicans...she is exactly what ails them; poor communication skills, a stale agenda, and an authoritarian political tack well to the right of the mainstream.

Should Republicans wish to rejoin the political forum, they have a few steps to take.

One: Conservative is not necessarily arrogant and caustic. The whole caustic and arrogant thing took off with Morton Downey, Jr.'s TV show in the late eighties, which was evocative of the radio show which predated Limbaugh in Sacramento. Reagan could be acerbic and inappropriate, but was rarely anything less than a perfect gentleman.

Democrats should not fear Sarah Palin, but they need their A game for Mike Huckabee.

Two: The whole State's Rights/Tenth Amendment resurgence that Governor Rick Perry (R-TX) has put back on the table? It doesn't work. Primarily, it appears to be a vehicle for old confederacy types to retry institutionalized bigotry against latinos. Smaller jurisdictions enacting ordinances to review nationality documents with regard to rental properties and business licenses, 287g, and like laws are a pretext to harass latinos of all legal dispositions.

What happens when a progressive state whose economy is in the toilet uses the tenth amendment to vacate the parts of federal immigration laws that they don't like. (I'm talking to you, Michigan and Rhode Island) If driver's licenses and business licenses bring in new entrepreneurs without papers and the economy takes off, the current tenth amendment fans will howl for a constitutional convention to repeal the thirteenth through the seventeenth amendments.

As if they liked those amendments in the first place.

Three: Whether they like it or not, Republicans are going to have to move left to survive. At the moment, there is a very weak railing holding their political vehicle away from a looong drop into the drink. Republican potential lies in the increase of old, angry, affluent white Christians, which is a demographic which shrank under their watch, and the trends aren't looking too good for the future.

You see, their children grew up knowing Dora as well as their parents knew Miss Piggy. Those are children comfortable with diversity. They saw the government break the country's image, social compacts, and economy within five years of a surplus of goodwill, tranquility, and money. Those children reaching voting age this year know Democrats as the party of peace, prosperity, and minimal governmental intrusion.

Remember, the people that Republicans promised us that they would be?

Spanish TV and Led Zeppelin

2009-05-15T11:40:00.004-04:00

As a result of my intercultural marriage, I am blessed with the opportunity to watch a lot of programming on the TeleCaramba network. There are only two problems.

I understand what's going on, and my wife and hijastras will not allow me to do something about it by turning the volume off and listening to Led Zeppelin instead. TeleCaramba would most appropriately serve as imagery backed by The Immigrant Song.

The top-rated show on TeleCaramba is a telenovela produced by Mexico's XCRTA-TV/TV Chilango called El Querubin, or "The Cherub." The Cherub is the story of a Very Poor Young Woman who was born a Very Rich Baby, but was given to the Church when her mother was mistakenly diagnosed with a brain tumor which turned out to be sinusitis. There are great opportunities to make this very campy and funny, but none have been taken as of yet.

The Very Poor Young Woman and her infant are perpetually imperiled, facing certain death approximately 3.2 times per every one-hour episode. Again, this could be made funny, owing to the sheer exaggeration of precarious situations, but the only thing more serious than a Bridezilla is a Latina watching her novela.

Hijastra la Mayor dared to express concern for the infant's outcome on El Querubin. Once. I explained that nothing was going to happen. First of all, we were ten minutes into the start of the show. Second of all was that the vast number of men associated with the novela and working for the various broadcasters playing a novela that dared to harm the infant would be scheduled for immediate castration.

If one understands the dialog, this program begins to grate upon the viewer almost immediately. The only thing worse than the padded rehash of Cinderella they call a script is the actress portraying the Very Poor Young Woman. Her only visible attribute is a pair of spectacularly thick eyebrows. However, judging from her acting, one suspects that she could consume a McDonald's milkshake with a coffee stirrer. How else could someone get a role that only required hugging something and crying for most of every episode?

Should the volume be turned off, one could invent his own script while listening to Robert Plant belt out Dazed and Confused.

On the bright side, El Querubin is not the Miami-based topical talk show, ?Quien Grita Mas Fuerte?

?Quien Grita Mas Fuerte? features an unappealing host, a robust, blond-bewigged woman whose dimensions approximate those of a Dodge Caravan, and guests of such unattractiveness as to inspire a rebirth of enthusiasm for eugenics. This program makes Jerry Springer look like Manners Day at the Junior League.

Sadly, ?Quien Grita Mas Fuerte? is produced by TeleCaramba in Florida, but none of the principals has, as of yet, been eaten by an alligator or a sink hole. As a result of being produced in the United States, ?Quien Grita Mas Fuerte? is not subject to the more conservative standards of the subsequent XCRTA-produced tabloid Impacto Rojo (Red Impact) which implies bloodiness and gruesomeness but is actually quite tame. Impacto Rojo seldom shows anything more controversial than a two-headed Venezuelan goat.

Which is preferable, D'yer Maker, or Hugo Chavez ranting? Yeah, you get my point.

Finally we get to TeleCaramba Noticias en Accion, or TeleCaramba Action News. It is instantly recognizable to anyone who has watched the local news in a major metropolitan area. Everything is there, right down to the Centro de Satelites, or Satellite Center. That would be a bunch of monitors in the basement.

And The Song Remains The Same.

SAVAGES!

2009-05-05T17:38:00.003-04:00

The United Kingdom has banned Michael Savage from entry, and the trolls are ballistic. One is certain that the Internet will be on fire with rantings about how the British are opposed to free speech, that the death of liberty is imminent, and the English are opposed to fairness in general. One is also certain of something else.

The trolls will be wrong.

Michael Savage is unquestionably hateful. If an award were given for fulfilling the requirements of any pejorative that the Gentle Reader deems appropriate, little question exists that Mr. Savage would be a finalist if not the grand-prize winner. He is simply not a very nice person.

Savage, nee Weiner, has been quite the firebrand for limiting access to the abundance enabled by the American constitution to white, heterosexual, Judeo-Christian, and English speaking persons who adhere to his particularly strict definitions of "Language, Borders, and Culture." No tolerance exists for those who disagree with Savage's viewpoints, while dissenting opinions are mocked as unworthy of consideration. Savage is the most unusual of creatures: a Jew whose sympathies are more closely aligned with the practices of German National Socialism.

One notes with great amusement that the first well-publicized act impeding the international movement of an individual based upon his politically sensitive speech be directed at Michael Savage. He has made his career upon advocating an agenda which specifies which opinions and groups are worthy of entry into discourse. Savage's infernal hatred of those who disagree with him has resulted in his banishment from the United Kingdom.

The British have a great tradition of discourse. One suspects little challenge to free speech actually exists in the UK, but the differences between the Magna Carta and the Constitution force the British to preclude opinions advocating antipathy for smaller populations coming from abroad. The list included a legion of bigots from multiple societal subsets.

No one is incarcerating the National Front in Britain. There is a big difference between protecting the right to minority opinion and permitting an atmosphere which empowers the same groups to impose their opinions upon others from overseas. The liberty to espouse an unpopular outlook does not bring with it the leverage to import reserves from beyond borders.

The British home office, under the auspices of the Labour party, have moved to restrict entry to radicals of multiple viewpoints. Were all of the affected from a particular, distinct religious and/or political viewpoint, or being culled from the number of British Subjects, then it would be incumbent to question a commitment to liberty of conscience.

The libertarian standard of the United States ends at the border. Michael Savage, and the numbers who agree with his narrow view of acceptable behavior in the United Kingdom will conflate tolerance and endorsement of opposing viewpoints. To challenge the unrestricted entry of persons whose presence may be considered disruptive to the well-being of societal structures is not unknown in this country, either, and Savage has been an advocate.

The real point that the British made was that if one chooses to be outspoken about one's intolerance and vehement regarding one's conditions of acceptability, then one is also expected to abide by the same standard.

There is nothing so unfair as being asked to live up to one's most bigoted criteria.

Chill Out, I Got This

2009-04-25T16:15:00.004-04:00

It appears that the Obama Administration is off to a roaring start in its first hundred days. The man has managed to lead from the center, and he seems to be holding all of the credibility cards.

This is extremely bad news for Republicans and Conservatives.

If the Gentle Reader will recall, the original tactics have not worked out very well. Opposing everything that the Administration supports, screaming "SOCIALIST" really loud, and hoping that Obama gets recognition for everything proposed and passed have basically made Republicans look like the Hillbillies and neighborhood Yard Nazis that most of them are.

One will recall what a Yard Nazi is: a white male between 45 and dead who drives a full-size American sedan, and calls the cops any time he sees a neighborhood kid touch his grass. He is also the guy who got egged every Halloween. If somebody chucked an anonymous bag of used diapers out of a car, they went on his beloved lawn. And the Yard Nazi was always the number one target of getting his house rolled/tp'ed or his front door (excrement)-bombed.

They are the last ones listening to Fox News, Rush Limbaugh, and Sean Hannity. For those readers who saw pictures of the Teabaggers at their local venue, who can honestly state that the people seen there were not a 60%-38% mix favoring Yard Nazis over Hillbillies?

One appreciates that there were some very sincere and honorable people at the Tea Parties. But when one's political activism only includes grievances and broad policy objectives without any specific method for achieving said objectives, the activist becomes his opposition's best advertisement. Thus by losing Reagan's optimism and pragmatism, Republicans are pushing the center away with a Snowplow.

This is something Obama pulled out of his ear. He is the first Democrat to get that optimism and pragmatism appeal to the center. Has President Obama managed to achieve all of his objectives from the campaign trail? No, because no one can live up to any campaign's litany of goals. Has he managed to move on controversial actions and prevail? More often than not, Obama has been successful.

By appealing to the center, where a third of the country's voters abide, he risks losing a few on the ultra-left by not being Liberal enough, and the perpetual right wasn't going to vote for him anyway. The further Republicans move toward the Teabagger mentality, the wider the center willing to hear Obama becomes. As the economy eventually recovers, the question will become that of the '84 Reagan campaign: Are you better off now than you were four years ago?

The moment is coming where one wish of Conservative pundits is about to come true, and it's going to backfire on Republicans. The hope was that President Obama be credited for every act of the new administration. Once economic recovery takes root, all of those "no" votes are going to haunt Republicans like Marley's ghost.

It begins now. The same talkers desiring Obama get full accountability for the measures to counteract the recent unpleasantness are working on borrowed time. Local conservative talk has imploded in California, with ratings now drilling for oil under Hell. Tertiary hosts are one, maybe two ratings books from gone, and secondary hosts will be out within a couple of years.

After this winnowing, the only ones left will be Rush, Sean, and a couple of hosts in deep-red local markets like Atlanta's Neal Boortz and Dallas-Fort Worth's Mark Davis. There are already indications that Conservative talk radio is beginning to infight and pressure lesser-known hosts into staying on the reservation. The same sub-national presenters are evidencing a use of the smaller programs as a source of callers to nationally syndicated broadcasts.

As things exist right now, the local figures are serving to identify callers who are still in step with the agenda of national programs. There is a case to be made that screeners are coaching the same callers to expel talking points in a prescribed order which leaves the shows feeling as spontaneous as the construction of a shopping mall.

Conservative talk is dying, and lives in denial of its mortality. An opening now exists which was not even believable a year ago. Liberal talk did not fail on the merit of ideas, as is so frequently suggested by conservatives. If liberalism had failed in the realm of ideas, Mitt Romney woud be the POTUS. Liberal talk became dormant upon a litany of mediocre broadcasters.

If a Jon Stewart or a Bill Maher were to begin a syndicated broadcast leaning upon Liberal ideas, it could succeed. The nation has already accepted a left-of-center president with enthusiasm. A left-of-center radio broadcast with an entertaining host and some semblance of spontanaeity could provide an offset to the structured ennui that has become Conservative radio.

Perhaps that could be the greatest accomplishment of progressive leadership.

Why So Formal, Baldy?

2009-04-14T19:33:00.002-04:00

After a few days of more feedback than usual, the title above came through in an e-mail from a Gentle Reader. Why so formal, Baldy, indeed. There are things which deserve a bit of protocol. Even for a writer whose bent is humorous, certain steps must be taken.

First and foremost, one must offer the reader an experience featuring a command of language. Particularly when the writer is an awful typist, dominion over grammar, vocabulary, spelling and punctuation can at least alleviate issues related to clumsiness with the keyboard. It is a courtesy that indicates that the writer takes the quality of his work seriously.

When communicating with a Gentle Reader, one is obligated to exhibit a bit of formality and decorum, provided that there has not been some kind of vulgar or profane affront to your Wandering Gentile. At the point of a vulgar or profane affront, the GLOVES COME OFF. Of course, we had the last laugh as the last person who tried that was attempting to defend the indefensible, i.e., Sarah Palin's benefit to the McCain campaign.

The writer is first and foremost a servant of both the idea and the reader. His role is to connect the idea and the reader. The road is paved with vocabulary. Spelling puts lines on the pavement and punctuation hangs the signs. Grammar opens a second carriageway in the event that an idea gets out of control and jackknifes.

The idea is to stand apart from not only one's competitors and friendly rivals, but to establish a marked difference in content and quality from the questionable and just plain inferior.

The questionable must be addressed quickly. One imagines a quick Googling of "questionable thematic elements of opinion writing" would instantly cough up the entire body of writing by Michelle Malkin and Ann Coulter. These are very able and competent writers who happen to be wrong about everything.

Competence is what makes the questionable dangerous. The questionable is phrased competently and thus earns credibility. There is a yawning chasm in the realm of ideas between the George Wills and Thomas Friedmans and (heck, let's just combine them, they're probably composed by a committee in Stillwater, OK, anyway...)Moulter.

The questionable apes the tone of authentic conservatism, and adds the paranoia of a hillbilly on the edge of a meth overdose. Conspiracies and cabals hide in the questionable with the specter of Karl Rove holding Black Helicopter puppets just out of the reach of the toothless masses who have suckled at this teat.

The only good news about the questionable is that some of that audience can be salvaged with a bit of education and inclusion of Univision on their basic cable packages. We hillbllies do like our latinas with big hooties, which inspires hope for comprehensive immigration reform. Mrs. Wandering Gentile has noticed an uptick in attention to her breasts since moving to Georgia.

The just plain inferior is something altogether worse. Periodically, some cretin feels that he has the skills to add something to discourse and posts something in very large print to justify a fear that his way of life is about to vaporize. Invariably lacking sources, the second goal is conflating immigration with terrorism, or the pretext that persons from outside the United States are invariably treated better than citizens.

Either way, the ideas come from other hack sites as sources (when offered at all), and attempt to link the enjoyable with support for a weak thesis. Usually no source exists, thus giving credence to the idea that all anecdotes and numbers are PURE FICTION.

Frankly, if this is what informal gets, one hopes to be insulted by the incompetent. It becomes a complement. Thus, one elects formality. It is the best way to maintain integrity.

It is a commdity that cannot be purchased at any price.

INDELICATE!

2009-04-13T18:54:00.005-04:00

The Gentle Reader's forgiveness is begged. Your Wandering Gentile has been living in Girl World so long that he had not been to see Manny, Moe, and Jack since he and Moses (Horowitz)were working on an Oldsmobile together. One becomes inured to, if not indoctrinated in, Cute Shoes, Romance, and the ennui of nice.

Dude World recently made a roaring, drunken midnight phone call and connected deep within the confines of the Girl World inner sanctum where your Wandering Gentile dwells. You see, ABC Nightline did a segment on sexting. As if no one could have foreseen that teenagers and others with self-esteem issues might send naked pictures of themselves to others.

One imagines the very short time frame between the invention of the camera-equipped cell phone and the first sext, but one also imagines that quantum physicists have not established a reliable measure of such a short time frame.

Dude World rang with the revelation that one of the squeaky-clean, provisionally adult (old enough for voting, but not for drinking) female stars of a Disney entertainment franchise was photographed in the altogether. In the interest of responsible commentary, your Wandering Gentile was compelled to examine the uncensored photograph, several times. It was also bookmarked, and locked away behind a passcode.

Aside from being unable to dislodge The Cars' Moving In Stereo from my head, I feel quite well. Really.

The first shock upon seeing the photo was a discovery: pelt is back! Yes, the landing strip look sported by the dysfunctionally shorn singer-which made her appear as if she were smuggling an Arby's Roast Beef Sandwich between her thighs-does not work for everyone. To the eight Vegans who are not yet on notice, wearing fur is okay if one grows one's own. Robin Williams is undoubtedly thrilled.

It is easy enough to imagine the things going through her father's mind. He is my contemporary. First of all, he does not wish to reminded that his daughter is a full-growed hottie, under any circumstances, by his contemporaries.

One would not wish to be the photographer of record, specifically at the moment that the young actress in question discards the photographer for a more suitable male companion. Speculation exists that the is her squeaky-clean male co-star from the Disney entertainment franchise.

Note to the co-star: having a male appendage and working in a family-oriented Disney project is like being Levi Johnston or a guy not named Scotty wearing a red shirt on Star Trek. You are defined as "expendable." Most of your fan base has moved on to Twilight, the author of which was treated was treated much too kindly by Stephen King.

Many of the girls swooning over the co-star and Twilight are likely to remember both as their parents recall St. Elmo's Fire...and promptly hide the medium where the file is stored. Much better, one sees, for avoiding the wrath of critical children.

Regrettably, several provisions of constitutional law, specifically enjoinders upon cruel and unusual punishment, prohibit the co-star from being locked up and obligated to watch his own films.

However, the actress' father has likely entertained the fantasy of presenting her co-star to a very large Corcoran inmate who has spent significant time without companionship. The resulting mayhem could be videographed by Michael Eisner, with the co-star's 1970-71 Bobby Brady haircut in peculiar juxtaposition to the Corcoran inmate, as the object of an industry-specific short-subject, So You Want To Renegotiate Your Disney Contract?

As much as the actress' father, Michael Eisner, the Corcoran inmate and I would sincerely enjoy realizing the preceding scenario, the most likely outcome is little better. The 405 and the 101 are filled with former teen idols racing to Hollywood auditions for cable-TV reality shows in dilapidated cars with their CHECK ENGINE lights glowing. One cannot walk down the street in Venice without tripping over Leif Garrett or a Bay City Roller.

When the bad haircut turns to a Wandering Gentile haircut, and he spends his afternoons trying to hook up with soccer moms who recall his heyday 30 years before, the co-star will be able to answer one question.

Is it better to be a has been at 24, or a never was at 42?

The Truth And Bad American

2009-04-11T14:54:00.005-04:00

Kudos to Gentle Reader La Bruja of Venable City, Georgia, for the heads up on this e-mail. I would have provided a link but the craven bully who wrote a a rambling, disorganized discourse under the pseudonym "Bad American," but he didn't want to be linked to his cowardly repetition of fifteen-year-old Rush Limbaugh talking points.

Instead, we will attempt, through the use of the talking points employed by Mr. Bad American, to refute the propaganda of the right. Apparently these twits do not feel that America is large enough to hold an opinion other than their own vision of an all-white, technically Christian, English-speaking only nation that only existed on old episodes of Leave It To Beaver.

To the "Bad American," I am your worst nightmare. I am a southern, white, Christian, native speaker of English. I am also a LIBERAL, as is my President, my congress, and if we are fortunate, the Supreme Court. Very simply, conservatism has screwed up. Conservatism's strongest voices have moved from controlling the growth of Government and limiting its role to using Government to realize a vision of America which is closer to Hitler's Germany than the Nation I love.

I am proud of the millions of brave Americans who gave everything to face down the evil which would force those with whom they disagree from their jobs, homes and countries, if not declaring them "illegal," and committing genocide. Mr. Bad American, and proud conservative, why do you hate America? Does E Pluribus Unum only apply to Canadians who are unhappy with their health care system?

Our record with people not descended from northern Europe is abysmal. This does not suggest nobility or victimhood, but it does mean that people like YOU will not be allowed to dismiss a qualified LaToya Suarez from the inner city to employ an unqualified Laurie Shropshire from the suburbs.

Likewise, it appears that you have a great disdain for capitalism and profit. If a business owner chooses to make his products and services available to a broader market by employing bilingual staff, more power to him. In nine years of truck driving, over 48 states, I have as yet to find a place where I cannot order the meal of my choice, anywhere in the United States, in English.

If that business owner needs a bilingual staff because his market demands it, that is the business owner's decision. It is not up to you and government to ruin the man's business because you don't like his customers. This kind of disconnect is common to conservatives. I have thirty years of listening to Conservatives promise limited government, but every time I turn around they're making another law to restrict freedom.

If conservatives don't want to hear Spanish, they pass an English-only bill. If some competitor makes their unmotivated children look like the lazy, video-game addicted tubs of lard that many of them are, Conservatives will move the bar on immigration so their children don't have to compete as hard. If a Conservative feels that someone is moving into the position of succeding without their permission, they will perpetually find obstacles to that success.

At this rate, limited conservative government is on a track to make government bigger than Nancy Pelosi's wildest dream. The last three presidents who did not grow the federal deficit over their terms? Clinton, Carter, and Lyndon Johnson. The last Republican to leave a balanced budget? Dwight Eisenhower, with a top marginal tax rate of 90% So much for the myth about Tax and Spend Liberals.

Deregulation of out Financial services has cost American taxpayers more in the last year than four and a half DECADES of Great Society entitlement programs. These same programs are much less responsible for the lack of two-parent homes in some communities than a failed policy of drug interdiction and incarceration.

Do I want police to deal with someone committing a crime? Sure. But drug laws such as New York's Harriman laws, and zero-tolerance policies have filled our prisons with many people who are fundamentally harmless and stimulated a violent and highly profitable black market. I will believe that race is not a factor in enforcement when the stoners in Dunwoody and Sandy Springs (affluent, predominately white Atlanta suburbs) do time in similar proportions to African-American and Latino offenders.

Everyone has the right to pray to his or her God when and where they want to. Conservatives do not have the right to use a public venue to require that others pray to the God of Conservative election. One also questions the appropriateness of God's name on currency, but He may actually be all that stands between the US and hyperinflation. Of course, quite a few Conservatives have the inability to see the similarities between Tim McVeigh, Eric Rudolph, Fred Phelps and Osama bin Laden.

The Greatest Americans of the last century were people of action and courage. The men and women who served us in World War II, represented by President John F. Kennedy. Those who risked being murdered by their compatriots for participating in the Civil Rights Movement, represented by Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., and Rosa Parks. And those who felt that it was America's responsibilty to live up to its promise for those marginalized by politics, language, class, and historical animosities, represented by Edward R. Murrow and Cesar Chavez.

As an entire class, the NASA program deserves mention before any motorbike. Any putz with enough cash can buy a bike. NASA is America at its best, literally going where no man had ever been.

Before suggesting that those in Florida were unable to decipher the 2000 butterfly ballot, one asks if there were steps that should have been in place to assure that it was clearly produced. Let's just blame Ralph Nader and go get a beer-Ralphie has been as bad for America as most Conservatives.

If one dislikes people soliciting donations in intersections, there's a great word called no, and it needs no translation into Spanish. The issue is that an unemployment rate of nearly ten per cent means that people who really do need assistance are in positions of begging with the chronically lazy. Which one of them is Jesus? He ain't the one in a US$40,000 SUV.

Illegal is only Illegal when judged by a court of law. What part of "innocent until proven guilty," do Conservatives not understand? Until then "Illegal" is slanderous/libelous and likely actionable in civil court. One hopes that someone from MALDEF gets Lou Dobbs with this one.

As far as Mr. Bad American's desire for only the American flag to fly in the United States, we share his enthusiasm. But before we invest ourselves in taking action against symbols of living nations, states, and territories which may have legitimate connection to ethnicity, we need to move against the only banner which was the standard that flew over an act of overt treason as defined by the United States Constitution: The Confederate Battle Flag.

God never left our country. We left Him and his lessons about love, mercy, and tolerance. We are free because of the brave who share the vow to uphold, protect and defend the United States Constitution.

Perhaps Mr. Bad American and his Conservative cohorts should try it sometime.

The Terrible Two Year Term

2009-03-28T17:35:00.003-04:00

NEVER EVER WASTE A GREAT SIGHT GAG!!!!!!!!

Escorts A La Parrilla (Grilled Escorts)

2009-03-28T16:23:00.005-04:00

An arsonist is targeting green Ford Escorts, approximately fifteen years old, in Medford, Oregon.

That Arsonist is a long way from being "right," starting with nascent pyromania and ending with his choice of target.

The Ford Escort of the nineties was a good kind of cheap, like a bologna sandwich made from name brand fixings. It was a great bologna sandwich on wheels, but that's all it ever would be. The engines had useful horsepower, and they were decent handlers on good tires, but it was purpose-built for transparency, universally adequate and uninspiring. The GT models charmed with 40 extra horsepower elicited the passion reserved for nude photos of Meryl Streep. (I'll look, but I doubt that I will become aroused.)

It was not bad, but it left the driver with the sense of being transported passively, much as if one had used public transit. It was cheap, dull, and until the recent unpleasantness, disposable.

Family members would give Escorts away until the point where nine-year-olds would curse about the potential cost of disposing of yet another Ford Escort. The well-meaning relative would be attempting to impress a kid and inspire a lifelong automotive enthusiasm. The nine-year-old would be lamenting the lack of a cash offering to be leveraged into the purchase of a bootleg copy of Grand Theft Auto:Peach City, featuring an even more phallic doppelganger for Atlanta's Westin Peachtree Plaza hotel.

This led to the employ of the first strategic abandonment technique: Enlist a tallish 12-to-15-year-old sibling, that young'un with the fever for getting behind the wheel of anything, and some of the ability to do something about it. Drive the Escort to a rough neighborhood, and leave it with the keys in the switch, the title on the driver's seat, with the windows open.

That would be how the police would find the Escort, often with the keys to hot-list luxury imports under the windshield wiper. These Escorts would find their way back to their rightful owners who had to lose another five bucks worth of GTA:PC savings on gas to try and dump the thing again.

In the nearly twenty year history of Escort-dumping this technique only worked once, at the home of one Austin Morris, in the Happy Holiday Acres Manufactured Home Plaza (nee Mobile Home Park), Emerson, Georgia. Mr. Austin Morris is a good friend and somewhat computer literate, promising to raise your Wandering Gentile's readership percentage by double digits...someday. He did quite well scavenging useful bits from abandoned Escorts and keeping his pricipal Escort in as-new condition.

On 12 May, 2005, while visiting his mother in Decatur, a freak windstorm removed Mr. Morris' Zayre Garden Storage Shed, featuring enough mechanical components to assemble up to six complete Escorts, given an adequate supply of bodies. Rumors of Escort parts raining in Hinesville, nearly 300 miles away, have been so viciously denied by authorities in Liberty County and on Fort Stewart that we are forced to believe that the rumors are true.

Mr. Morris, lacking the desire to continue using his wrench set, or collect his parts in Southeast Georgia, became a Toyota man, and hasn't had to fix squat since. And this has nothing to do with an individual torching Escorts 3000 miles away in Oregon. Yet.

The other Escort disposal technique was a much more successful codicil in the NAFTA treaty. Escorts are required to be towed out of the country as a condition of registering a Ford or Nissan pickup from the United States in Mexico. Of the 17 million Escorts manufactured between 1981 and 2001, fully 14 million have been expatriated/repatriated to Mexico. That makes them ubiquitous, just not as ubiquitous as before, except on I-35 in Texas.

Owing to the recent economic unpleasantness, some debate exists as to whether the nation's fleet should be repurposed abroad, with a goal of restarting manufacture. It is entirely possible that a person or persons unknown are acting in Medford out of the suspicion that these Escorts have been employed in the thwarting of immigration enactments, knowing how many Escorts have been repurposed to Mexico.

Does anyone know the whereabouts of Lou Dobbs on the nights of the fires?

All The Fits That's News To Print

2009-03-28T15:13:00.003-04:00

Obama vs. Special Olympics

Republican National Committee chair Michael Steele expressed his grave displeasure about the quip comparing President Obama's bowling skills to the Special Olympics.

According to Steele "...(we) are a big tent party. While developmental and cognitive disabilities are not prerequisites for membership in the Republican party, those with developmental and cognitive disabilities are welcomed within our numbers. We are proud of our record in helping the mentally impaired, having elected George W. Bush, the first developmentally disabled President of the United States of America.

When asked to elaborate, nationally-syndicated radio host (and noted Hydrocephalic) Sean Hannity responded succinctly, "Urrrrgggghhh!"

Rush Hudson Limbaugh III vs. Human Decency

Joy defined: Rush Limbaugh on the snack aisle of a CVS, with an open OxyContin/Viagra bar. Rush's nickname is "Tiger," not derived from his long game on the links of the Dominican Republic, but from the fact that his little white balls are done with a small hole in four strokes or less.

Charles Grassley vs. AIG

After Senator Grassley (R-IA) suggested that seppuku would be an appropriate demonstration of contrition for bonus-receiving AIG executives, several AIG executives asked the Senator to demonstrate the proper technique.

Dick Cheney vs. Obama

Now, let me see if I get this straight. Dick Cheney is linked to Halliburton, an oil company. He states that President Obama is making the country vulnerable to terrorist attack. If terrorists attack, the price of oil takes off for the moon. Oh, snap, I forgot about lost revenue from no-bid contracts,opposed by the Obama administration. That's why Cheney and his pals are so upset. They would take a pay cut from a killing to a living.

Geithner and Obama vs. AIG

It's not about the bonuses. It's the fact that the new ownership of an enterprise has the right to reset compensation as they see fit. Ask anyone who works/worked for a company that merged, if they're still employed. Republicans only balked when they figured out that legislative leverage may be brought to bear in cases of tax benefits or corporate subsidies, a/k/a corporate welfare.

Sneaky damn Democrats! They almost got Republicans to require that Capitalists use Capitalism!

Bill Maher vs. Ann Coulter

In their male-appendage measuring contest, Mr. Maher lost.

Ms. Coulter is also uncircumcised.

Miami vs. West Palm Beach

Miami and West Palm Beach, two distinct media markets with individual urban centers have been merged into the same metropolitan area. Meanwhile, LA/Ventura/Riverside and San Francisco-Oakland/San Jose are considered to be separate metro areas despite being much more closely linked than Miami and West Palm.

Great, if having overlapping suburbs is a qualifier, let's merge Boston-Providence, Baltimore-Washington, San Antonio-Austin, Tampa-Orlando, and New York-Philadelphia. One is certain that the people in the smaller market will not mind losing their identity and character to the larger. Just ask Fort Worth.

Ann Coulter vs. Meghan McCain

For crying out loud, Ann Coulter has to run around in the shower to get wet. The woman doubles her weight by eating a Quarter-Pounder. In her world Nicole Richie and the anorexic Olsen Twin are buxom. Boobies are something to be envied, pertpetually inaccessible without surgical intervention.

Were a physical confrontation to occur, the well-endowed Miss McCain could swing one breast and knock Coulter into the next solar system. Hopefully, the other breast would send fascist runt Michelle Malkin into the next Galaxy.

My goodness, that last sentence almost works as rhyming slang.

The Wandering Gentile vs. Kim Kardashian's big ol' thick booty and awesome unibrow.

A man can dream, can't he?

C'mon. Put Your Back Into It.

2009-03-05T11:25:00.003-05:00

I regret that the idea of having the earth give way under Mr. Limpbaugh's mass did not occur to me until after the cartoon was inked.

Adolescense Happens

2009-03-05T10:11:00.003-05:00

A few days ago adolescense hit the Wandering Gentile household. One of the Hijastras (La Mayor), hovering between the ages of eleven and full-growed hottie, went from being a sweet, kind little girl who loves princess books, to the venom spewing spawn of Ba'al.

One imagines this kind of transformative moment serving to inspire William Peter Blatty's vision of Regan. If the other day was any indication of what is to come, the Devil would merely add cheesy effects; I am not entirely sure Hijastra (La Mayor)'s head did not spin a full 360 at some point. Indeed, the mayhem witnessed made Satan superfluous.

There was little warning, although she had quietly provoked her sister, Hijastra (La Menor), to tears by dinner time. The day before, (La Mayor) inspired (La Menor) to desire her demise in frank and unmistakable terms, while at the dinner table.

The adults at the table, having experienced (individually) the untimely demise of a sibling, did not find such an expression to be necessary, appropriate, or in any way conducive to (La Menor)'s future welfare. This was communicated with brusque inflection, conjoined with adequately draconian conditions as unique recourse for redemption.

Should the Gentle Reader feel it unlikely for a nine-year-old to suggest that adults engage in autohomoeroticism, nonverbally, eschewing long-established had gestures, the Gentle Reader is not well-informed.

Your Wandering Gentile's experience with sibling rivalry has been heretofore limited to brothers. Boys are not a challenge. Most of what is inflicted by boys is limited to flatulence, challenges to gender identity, and the cruel repositioning of the victim's undergarment into a fundamentally uncomfortable position, i.e., a wedgie or a snuggie.

Boys are simply rude and gross. Beavis and Butthead; Adam Sandler; Mike Myers; and John Belushi are all indicative of the masculine predilection for the loud, grotesque, and profane. There is an inclination in the male psyche which holds an appreciation for provoking a friend to expel a red beverage from his nose, thus soiling his shirt with Fruit Punch Gatorade and mucus.

It is not only an appreciation: it is an accomplishment on a scale with the Manhattan Project. We have established dominance over our rival, and fulfilled an atavistic need to demonstrate superior genetic potential by revealing the rival's vulnerability. Men say crap like this to justify wanting to provoke a friend to blow Fruit Punch Gatorade out of his nose, and retain the hope of ever engaging in behavior which may result in procreation.

This is not behavior which would ever occur to girls or possibly a non-threatening boy-band. There are more subtle forms of expression that females engage in. When it comes to undressing with the eyes, females are constantly evaluating rival boobs, butts, and guts.

Men are so uncomfortable with male genitalia that they question the appropriateness of liking their own. Were men as insecure as women, an entire medical industry would be committed to the construction of desensitized, perpetually aroused, 16" (40 cm) penises.

One will also observe women ritualistically asessing automobiles, shoes and handbags. Most men value an object's value in relation to expenditure as opposed to manufacturer's label, unless they are Republican members of congress or belong to exclusive groups where everybody looks like a Republican member of Congress.

A woman sees a twenty year old hatchback and sees a US$500 pile of junk. If it is halfway clean, has oversize tires and wheels, and a louder-than-standard exhaust, men view it as cool, as long as it is also equipped with a manual transmission. The owner has fortitude, the car looks like it's fun to drive, and probably gets kick-ass gas mileage.

As good as this is for men, many women would prefer a glorified station wagon like a RAV4 or a CR-V to the hatchback, or something even cooler like a pre-GM buyout Saab 900 convertible. The glorified station wagon has air, automatic transmission, a vanity mirror, and a Warranty. The Saab has a power top that one has to wrestle to lower.

I can live with Starter shoes from Wal-Mart and the Saab. The Starters were made by the same Vietnamese children as Nikes, out of the same materials, across the hall in the same sweat shop.

I'll wrestle the inoperable power top to not drive the glorified station wagon; which brings us back to Hijastra (La Mayor)'s advent into adolescence.

Once she finished belittling her younger sister, she started in on me. Part of the recent economic unpleasantness that has gripped the United Stateshas impacted the Wandering Gentile household as well. This included the precocious departure of the Pornstar Minivan, a vehicle which counted my beloved Saab 900 convertible as partial trade.

Hijastra (La Mayor) found humor in this misfortune that I could not, some of her remarks being quite cutting and pointed. To rephrase, I found her comments to be distinctly unfunny. A moment came where I wanted to forget about the little girl who suggests riding over to Birmingham for their available Whataburger franchise, or suggests a trip to the public library so that she may renew her friendship with Princess Mia Thermopolis. These were continent-sized obstacles to the caprice of wanting to cause intense, lingering physical pain.

After a brief, monosyllabic proration unlikely to challenge the intellect of the average Lou Dobbs acolyte, I retired to quarters. Upon arrival, I was greeted by the voice of Hijastra (La Menor). "You see? She does that to me ALL THE TIME!"

The next few years promise to be endlessly diverting.

Jindal Does Fey

2009-03-05T10:07:00.001-05:00

MIRACLE ON THE HUDSON!

2009-02-07T17:31:00.002-05:00

When Right Is Wrong

2009-02-07T15:13:00.005-05:00

As the worthy opposition in talk radio rants and raves about President Obama's economic recovery package, one wishes to suggest that the conservative talkers are spectacularly wrong about everything.

Privately-based solutions to issues facing the public are infinitely preferable to those coming from the public sector. However, the state of the private sector is such that the catastrophic collapse of large segments of the private intellectual infrastructure has occurred. Free markets can only survive when both the production and consumption sides function as equals.

In the case of the US banking and finance industries, the lack of public oversight left the consumer at a disadvantage to the producer. Ultimately liberties were taken which could not be supported by the market, leaving the production side of the equation with a handful of well-intentioned wishes which were legal and worthless tender simultaneously. Whether we like it or not, the public sector has a role in assuring that the practices of the production side do not overmatch the capabilities of the consumption side.

This goes the same for petroleum companies not gouging the price of gasoline and unions not gouging the price of labor.

At a moment when the economy is shrinking, government has a role as as a parallel conduit for capital improvement. If progress is blocked by large dead obstacles on the normal private path, then it is the necessary role of the public sector to ascertain that the well being of the nation continue to progress regardless.

President Obama's plan appears to have a functional system of mechanisms which appear to promote at least an illusion of rewarding initiative and empowering incentive for enterprises which accept risk. This is not Socialism, which attempts to restrain risk through planned production and scheduled shortage to perpetuate an underserved market receiving inferior product protected from competition by legislative fiat. Socialism isolates a nation behind walls, holding its people incommunicado from new ideas, ultimately enslaving multitudes by appealing to atavistic mistrust of the unknown.

Frankly, the cultural practices of socialism reflect more those of conservative talk radio than the last-resort leveraging of the public sector by a President faced with an economic crisis not of his making. We appreciate the thought that a strict orthodoxy of lower taxes, smaller government, and minimal reliance upon the public sector are keys to the nation's prosperity. Unfortunately, a sampling of large nations indicates that this is not true.

The tax burden in Germany is 42%. Norway's burden is 29%. The USA, Canada, and Australia are all at 24%. Mexico is at 8%. So far, if this wisdom holds constant, Mexico should be the most affluent of all of the countries.

A review of hourly incomes in manufacturing jobs after taxes in Germany, the US, Australia, and Canada has all four countries hovering between US$17-19. The Germans are at the high end, US$18.86, while the US, Canada, and Australia hover within about a quarter of US$17.60. The Norwegians smoked everybody drawing US$24.59, and the Mexicans came in at US$2.30.

Wait a minute, I'm confused! The Mexicans, with the lowest tax rate, the greatest local control of schools, the smallest presence of labor unions, a stricter emphasis upon border security and the strongest structures impeding imported goods, came in DEAD LAST? But, AM talk radio has been telling us that these things would lead to prosperity for twenty years!

Okay, well, Mexico has a heavily deregulated and completely private health care system. They should be the best cared for people, and the life expectancy should reflect that. The Mexican people only spend 6.2% of their GDP on medicine. Men can expect to live to 72.6, women 78.3.

Americans spend 15.2% of their GDP on a private health care system, over US$5700 per person, and get 74.8 for men, 80.1 for women. But this is supposed to be the best health care system in the world. So how come Norwegians, Germans, and Canadians pay less per capita (9-11% of GDP) but get over a year more life expectancy from their nationalized public health systems than we do in the United States? The average dollar outlay is even more dramatic, hovering at half(!!!!!) of what we pay for our health care as Americans.

One country would be a fluke. Two would be questionable. But a view of industrialized nations with nationalized health care shows a consistent per capita cost of between US$2500 and US$3200 per person. One may not speak for a gentle reader, but it looks like Americans are getting the raw end on this one.

After further review...the ruling is such...talk radio is lying to their listeners. The leveraging of public resources for the good of the population paying for them may qualify as socialism under a very broad interpretation of the term. However, the lesson of other industrialized countries, including our next door neighbors in Canada and Mexico, indicates that a certain level of taxaton is necessary and a certain level of publicly-based solutions are necessary for the continued wellbeing and prosperity of the nation.

For those who have invested their faith in the Portly Pundit and Hannie Pie, go get a World Almanac and prove me wrong. Utopianism, be it through a Capitalist or Socialist economic model, is spectacularly unworkable.

Imitating the practices of the Mexican Government is most likely to produce the same results as Mexico. We would be well served by taking our lessons from the neighbor which does not have millions of people risking their lives for a better existence as the object of scorn and prejudice.

Nobody is trying to deport Mike Myers, no matter how little they liked The Love Guru.

Sarah Punchline

2009-01-17T15:01:00.002-05:00

Nothing brightens the day more than discovering a fresh encounter between Sarah Palin and the media. (Please see enclosed link.) Of the most reknowned political figures extant, she manages to combine what appears to be a complete lack of situational awareness with folksy vernacular, to live down to the widespread perception that Sarah Palin is an ill-natured Ditz.

This is the point where very passionate and committed Republican partisans fire off an e-mail to your Wandering Gentile, reprimanding a reproach of their beloved Governor Palin. This is usually accomplished with as little attention as can be paid to grammar and still be technically written. There are exceptions who will offer a reasonable discussion of Mrs. Palin's achievements, but most frequently one receives presonal affronts.

The saddest thing about committed "Joe the Plumber" conservatives is that many of them are personable, decent human beings who have been so indoctrinated by the venom and vitriol on AM talk radio that there may never be any hope of reconciliation with a broader America. Not everything conservative is wrong, but a lot of the presentation is. Mrs. Palin is a weak speaker who interviews poorly. She comes from the vernacular of talk radio, which if presented with certain accomplishments of the Reagan administration, might very well call Ronald Reagan a Socialist. (Well, they're wrong about nearly everything else...)

It leaves Mrs. Palin of being supported by people who were going to vote Republican, anyway, and no one else. Democrats and liberals are well served by encouraging Mrs. Palin's broader aspirations. Indeed, the Limbaughesque tactic of supporting the weaker candidate could be a justifiable turnabout on the practices of Karl Rove and Lee Atwater. Palin is already the choice of the conservative opinion apparatus, as well as those information structure is based upon Fox News and the Internet's NewsMax service.

This information structure embraced by Palin's supporters also caters to a particular subset of conservatism which is better described as enumerating more heads than natively occurring teeth within.

This ostensibly paleoconservative subset has allied itself with some of the more extraordinary conspiracy theories, including the questioning of Mr. Obama's citizenship. They have cited the lapse between his birth on Friday, August 4, 1961 at 7:24pm and his registration with the Hawaii Bureau of Vital Records on Tuesday August 8, 1961, probably between 8am and 5pm, as being part of a conspiracy to cover up his birth in Indonesia.

Okay, five years later it took almost TWO WEEKS for a birth certificate to make its way from Savannah to Atlanta. Maybe I'm actually Canadian! It would certainly explain my liking for the sport of Curling, and preference for Pontiacs over Chevrolets!

The real truth is much more mundane. The Palinite subset is not capable of accepting the fact that they lost the election. Nor will they consider that Mrs. Palin may have had some consequence upon the ticket. It has become easier for paleoconservatives to engage in a quixotic fight against imagined enemies than make changes to the substance of their presentation and engage more people in the market of ideas.

More painful for liberals and neoliberals alike is that Palin's ultimate effect upon the outcome of the election was negligible at best. The fact was that Barack Obama ran a spectaularly effective campaign, and there may not be any Republican who could have won against any Democrat in 2008. Bush was that much of an Albatross.

Now come some words that the Gentle Reader may not expect: Sarah Palin is doing something very astute right now. By setting herself as the victim of a poorly executed campagn and a hostile press, her trajectory is set within the party. She is already the front runner for the 2012 campaign. But a few obstacles remain.

1.) Mike Huckabee. He's a better speaker, spectacularly likeable, and an extremely competent campaigner. Issue for issue, Huck is a mirror of Governor Palin's positions, but much less unwise in the stewardship of his presentation. He's relatively young, and a smart move would be to curry favor with Palin, land the number two slot in 2012, get the party on board, and win in 2016.

2.) Palin needs an image makeover. Nixon did it in '68, so we know it's not impossible. But most of Nixon's image rebuild relied upon Lyndon Johnson, and most of Palin's will be heavily dependent upon Barack Obama.

One foresees an Obama administration building upon the campaign infrastructure-in fact he has already started-with the ability to leverage the Obama Brand Goodwill through direct communication with supporters. This is the mother of all things big. In an instant Mr. Obama can connect to millions to plead his case for his legislative agenda. In other words, he can stand toe-to-toe with talk radio and have a chance of achieving his goals.

Likewise, he will take a cautious tack with his legislative priorities. Obama, likely more than anyone else, has the capacity to understand that he represents the aspirations of millions of Americans whose voices have been stifled for centuries. The cost of imprudence or incompetence would weigh unbearably upon the shoulders of the majority of americans who are not white, non-latino males.

To bet against Obama appears very foolish.

FIRST 2012 ELECTION PREDICTION!!!

Obama-Clinton (You saw it here first.) 425-475 Electoral Votes.

Palin-Huckabee 63-113 Electoral Votes.

FIRST 2016 ELECTION PREDICTION!!!

Alls I got is an image of the Arkansas governor's mansion. You know, the triple-wide in Little Rock.

Debunking The News

2009-01-11T14:40:00.002-05:00

If one reads the newspaper or receives the news directly from television or an internet connection, as the case may be, there are a few things which deserve to be debunked. One does not refer to the strict partisanship of Fox News or NPR , but rather the orthodox phrasing which masks the true meaning of what has just been said.

Thus, with no further ado, Your Wandering Gentile offers a comprehensive, although not completely conclusive list of bogus words, phrases and comments found in the news.

A Long Illness- Cancer, AIDS, Alzheimer's, Parkinson's.

A Short Illness- The deceased dropped face-first in his plate at dinner. Survivors regret that it did not happen at Chuck E. Cheese as opposed to a restaurant they liked.

Popular- Any teenager who gets shot.

Honor Student- The teenager was also a member of a historically marginalized population.

In The Wrong Place At The Wrong Time- Was probably doing something wrong, but it can't be proved, thus exposing Media Conglomerate News to a lot of libel litigation if we say so.

Friend and Adviser; Unpaid Adviser- Goon, Hatchet Man, Golf/Drinking Buddy. Unlikely to be fired.

Firebrand, Populist- Loudmouth, Bigot. (See: Bunker, Archie; Dobbs, Lou.)

New Revenue Sources- Higher taxes.

A Controversial Policy- Usually something which leads to a Fundamental Reconsideration or a Clean Break With The Past.

Fundamental Reconsideration- We realized that we screwed up, and are going nuts trying to fix it before we lose our collective tuchas.

Clean Break With The Past- If you have fecal incontinence issues, don't sleep in the nude. We learned this one the hard way.

Economic Downturn- Well, it sounds much better than Recession or Depression, doesn't it?

Recession- Depression

Depression- Economic armageddon. Completely failed nation-state. (See Zimbabwe.)

Zimbabwe- How a country with prodigious resources and talent can be converted into an utter cesspool through spectacularly poor leadership. (See Robert Mugabe.)

Robert Mugabe- The Shona-language term which most closely approximates George W. Bush.

A Mutual Separation- Everyone was REALLY annoyed, but no gunfire was exchanged.

Exchanged Gunfire- What is this, Christmas? It's called a gun battle!

We have realized a change in direction.- Catastrophic failure is imminent.

We are reassessing our options.- God almighty, that HURTS!

We regret any inconvenience this may have caused.- Not really; we are just covering ourselves. But it sounds nice, doesn't it?

We discovered adjustments and revised our estimates.- Miraculously not releasing our new numbers until 4:05pm on Friday, after our CEO cashed out his stock options and was in the air on a plane from Miami to the republic of Dinero Lavado. (It's on the tapestry at Cooter Holler Elementary in Wolfboro, GA, and was the setting for most "A-Team" episodes.)

The time is not right for us to pursue this opportunity.- We are out of money.

Let's not rush to judgement with legislation.- That hooker the lobbyist sent looked just like Reese Witherspoon. She smelled good, too.

More industry oversight is unnecessary.- You're darn tootin'. That would just document that more people lost their homes and retirement savings to undisciplined greed than gay weddings, abortion, illegal immigration, restrictive gun laws and a lack of drug interdiction combined.

I haven't heard any negative feedback, and I am shocked to discover that some individuals are calling for our professional relationship to end.- You haven't got anything on me, and I found another job anyway. Either way, I can afford to be both smarmy and indifferent.

I do not believe that there has been any inappropriate activity.- I don't think anyone has video or any kind of tangible evidence linking me to the misbehavior.

Video Leads To Investigation- This is 2009, fool. Everybody and his mother has a cell phone that takes video. Do not screw around. Even paranoids have enemies.

Results Are Inconclusive.- We either don't care or have a real good reason for not wanting or having a public result. (Think WMDs, c.2003) Either way, we don't really know any more than we did before we started. How about some nice Britney Spears Gossip? TMZ is on channel 5 right now!

Investigation Could End Soon.- Investigation was over some time ago. We have been out of clues for quite a while, but we liked being on television, looking like we're earning a living.

Possibility Of A Compromise- Not really, we're just messing with you. If a compromise were possible, it already would have happened.

A penalty of up to...- If suspect was wealthy or famous at any point in time, multiply by a factor of 0-0.25. If suspect is needy (poor), he should pray that the lapsed insurance violation doesn't get him a trip to Old Sparky.

Getting His (or Her) Life Back Together- Just got out out of the joint and/or shot, applied for a job at Burger King. Wasn't qualified for the position before being incarcerated and/or shot.

Aspiring performer- Unemployed and unemployable. Also just got out of the joint and/or shot.

Memoir of Historical Experiences- A very bad book derived from a deal of personal and political patronage. Will be offloaded at huge discounts to institutions for the tax write-off against the profits from the latest blockbuster novel from a name-brand author.

I have concluded that the circumstances require me to withdraw my name from consideration for the position, and allow the important work that needs to be done to move forward without delay.- Dude, I am seriously overqualified for this crap job. My agent just got me a kick-ass deal on a Memoir of Historical Experiences that pays me like five years in this job I could do in my sleep, no vetting required. Call me when you got something I need my skills for. A'ite? Peace!

What you have to understand is...- I am flat out of cogent arguments supporting my position, thus I have to maintain the illusion of reason by using a phrase designed to ridicule and subvert the cognitive ability of those who disagree with my opinion.

This process is not at an end- Oh yes, it is.

Detroit, We Hardly Knew Ye

2009-01-03T16:22:00.002-05:00

Detroit, Michigan has joined Cleveland, Ohio, on the list of major American Cities that have died. Among the very ill remain Cincinnati, Ohio; St. Louis, Missouri; and Buffalo, New York.

Most tragically, the blame will be firmly placed upon the shoulders of the United Auto Workers, Toyota, and Honda.

The same United Auto Workers who built Mustangs, Chevelles, and Hemis are not to blame. These cars came from an era when domestic manufacturers competed to offer the consumer every type of experience and a well-engineered product free of defects related to the design and engineering process. They proffered a wide range of products that were usually well suited to the market.

When Big Three managers endeavoured to seek their fortunes in saturated markets, they invariably failed. When Big Three managers fail, the city of Detroit suffers. One company chose to offer a product identical in mission and market to the fading product of a competitor. It was ill timed, arriving concurrently with a deep recession. The vehicle was overstyled, overcontented, and the innovations were at best underengineered.

2008? No the year was 1957, when Ford introduced to great fanfare and hoopla, the Edsel Division. The issue was that there were several nameplates, Dodge, Desoto, Chrysler, Mercury, Pontiac, Oldsmobile, and Buick, competing for the same affluent, upper-middle class buyer. However, it is the same market where SUVs thrived for several years.

The same intransigent myopia that pushed the Edsel out into a saturated market became entrenched. The cost of labor, including legacy costs, is nothing compared to the losses faced by major manufacturers when a well-connected manager gets the urge to push the Next Big Thing.

Labor only builds the vehicle.

American labor, Union and non-Union alike, is capable of building world-class products. There is no quality gap between Kentucky Fried Camrys and their Japanese-made equivalents. The Mustangs, Chevelles, and Hemis have spawned an entire cottage industry serving owners with the purpose of keeping these cars in a perpetual state of 1966. When American business decides to compete, no one can keep up.

Some well-connected person in a Detroit office tower decided that the best way to compete was to move into markets which were already proven. The only defense against solid engineering and good craftsmanship was to camouflage archaic technology with leather seats and louder stereos. Turn up that James Blunt song to drown out the squeaks and rattles in his key.

Edsel II. More tacky, less technique.

In the 1958 model year, only one US carmaker grew significantly. That was Kenosha, Wisconsin's American Motors. They reintroduced the austere Rambler American compact, which retained essential styling from 1950 until it was rebodied for the 1961 model year. It was the 1960 model year when the Big Three brought compacts out. Edsel and Desoto both died in calendar 1960, although Chrysler built a few '61 Desotos.

Rambler did not kill Edsel and DeSoto: a poor understanding of the market and the needs of the consumer did. Toyota has posted a loss on their range owing to the failing sales of large pickup trucks and SUVs. It was not Toyota's reputation, quality, or engineering which lost money: it was an overcommitment to products which did not suit the desires of the market.

Corollas, Priuses, and those ugly little Scions that look like refrigerators are still selling.

Detroit did not die from the work of her citizens, but the evil which springs from the minds of those who feel it is their perogative to profit from idleness. Millions of men and women toiled in Detroit's factories, building machines which served American families well for generations.

They have been held accountable for decisions made in air-conditioned offices far from the grime and sweat of the factory floor. No such judgement has been offered to the executives who approved inferior, unsuitable, or just plain bad vehicles for these workers to build.

The executives squeezed value out of their product, assuring the death of Detroit, putting all concerned on the unemployment line. Only a few got what they deserved.

Happy New Year!

2009-01-03T15:04:00.002-05:00

We have been away for a couple of weeks trying to put our heads on straight, or at least the best we can. In a couple of moments we will get to the first of several posts which have built up over our extended holiday break. We appreciate the support from Wandering Gentile readers, and we hope that your New Year is happy, healthy, and prosperous. We also hope that the minor alterations we have made to our look will make your experience better, and of course, something which you will wish to share with every person on the planet.

Thanks for your support!

Gil.

As the Republican Party Turns

If there is any consolation in the recession, it will be the death of the stereotype of Americans as loud, bigoted types who think Taco Bell is a major player in Mexican telecommunications, and let Rush Limbaugh do their thinking for them.

To be honest, Americans are pretty sick of persons living down to that stereotype, as well. Their ranks in legislative leadership havee been winnowed to the rural South. With this ebb, the chance of the United States developing Concentration Camps has diminished spectacularly. Now if we could get rid of Mr. Broun down in Athens, Georgia,...the one who has the conspiracy theories about Obama's new Gestapo and makes Dale Gribble seem sane, by God there may even be hope for Georgia politics. (Motto: Legislating Badly since 1733, and you can't do squat outside of Atlanta!)

One does not speak of the worthy Republican opposition of Olympia Snowe, John McCain, or Sam Brownback. While one finds points where our opinions may diverge wildly, individuals of this character and integrity are still capable and competent participants in civil discourse. When speaking of the Paul Brouns, the Tom Tancredos, and the Sarah Palins, one is forced to wade through a miasma of talk-radio fueled paranoids who see cabals where there are none, and fraud when their anti-civil-libertarian agendas fail to be rammed down the throats of the American people.

Did Republicans learn nothing from Al Gore and Cynthia McKinney? The tactics were identical.

This is not 1972 where Republicans used a large and fully functional cabal to retain power against the Democrats. In the case of Nixon versus McGovern, a cabal was overkill, a sledgehammer to kill a mosquito on a 72" television screen. McGovern was incapable of mounting a serious challenge.

Thanks to the cabal being discovered, Democrats could have trotted a trained pig out and won in 1976. One suspects that the results may have been somewhat better than Jimmy Carter.

Democrats had their Nixon in Bill Clinton. Nixon was spectaculaly unsympathetic. Clinton felt the citizen's pain a little too well, and in the case of Monica Lewinsky, got caught being a little bit too curious, using the wrong appendage to see if she had a sore throat. Plenty of people were willing to respect Nixon, but no one wanted to like him. The opposite was true of Clinton.

The excesses of both administrations led to the rise of a weak president from the opposing party.

George W. Bush has become the Republican Jimmy Carter. This time the Democrats actually learned something from the Carter debacle of the late seventies. Hillary Clinton as president could have brought the whole Carter script with an all-new cast in glorious 1080p HDTV. She has the set of insecurities which made Carter in ineffective President and a spectacularly effective Goodwill Ambassador for Peace and Democracy. She will do very well as a Secretary of State.

This is not to call Obama the same transitional figure for Democrats that Reagan was for a generation of Republican voters. Yet. But Obama's skill set is effectively the same as Reagan's. The one who communicates best wins every time. The victory is spectacular when competing with a party mired in an image of dour ineptitude.

The haranguing rhetoric of nannyist Democrats hounding people about safety or paternalist Republicans interjecting their displeasure with behavior which is best kept private were equivalent vote-losers for their respective parties. The tranquil, optimistic voices of Reagan and Obama transformed most of the rabid opposition into sober voices of disagreement, and swayed the ambivalent.

Moving forward, our nation will reclaim its "inside" voice and optimistic tone. We can no longer afford to swagger, screaming that others should "bring it on." A majority of Americans have expressed a faith in rising from humble conditions, and with the blessing of being American, realizing any objective seen fit to pursue. We just call that America.

For many it is a triumph well earned and too long denied.