Must be Tuesday

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/25916299/ READ THIS

I know: Here he goes again! However:

What I think is that it is completely ridiculous that the MSM has decided to plaster the indictment of the this aging AK senator all over the front page of everything they can find (I know: he probably is as guilty as sin) while

-Almost nobody reported on the eventually-non-impeachment debacle that took place on Capitol Hill last week. That was a first rate fiasco because nobody in Congress has any balls;

-After ghastly revelations about DOJ improprieties and another Monica whats-her-name and Gonzales malfeasance, no one in the WH press corps has asked Dana Perino one question about it in two days of press conferences;

-No one has seen fit to mention that the total number of US personnel killed in our two wars has now surpassed 4300 people;

-I have read three separate stories about female US military personnel who have been raped, tortured and killed by either our own servicemen or independent contractors;

-I have seen only ONE story about the fact that Blackwater has recieved millions of dollars in SBA loans to finance their mercenary work.

Anyone who is unwilling to admit that things are really screwed up should re-evaluate their outlook on life.

Life Goes On in Texas.

Funny: Today they are "discussing" impeachment

There are frequent discussions about "envy" of various sorts, like penis envy, fashion envy, and so on. But today I have a serious case of "writer's envy". While the bloggers and the independent news sources are feverishly chasing down the latest "non-statements" about impeachment in the hearings(they can't use the word and can't call Bush a liar?), Eugene Robinson offered this cogent and eloquent commentary about the Obama/Berlin event that poured acid rain on McCain's trip to the grocery store (Did you see the clip on the Daily Show, where the applesauce fell all over the floor at McCain's feet? It was a priceless Mastercard moment.) Here's Mr. Robinson:

The Dream Campaign Goes to Berlin
While John McCain pouted in obscurity, Barack Obama capped off a whirlwind tour with a commanding performance on the world stage.
http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/20080724_the_dream_campaign_comes_to_berlin/

I want to write like this when I grow up.

Testing the Waters

While sitting in a waiting room this morning, while someone tried to fix my truck, I encountered two elderly ladies (caucasian) and posed a question to them. I said I reported some for the AARP on political affairs and the eldlerly (I do) and asked what they thought about the current presidential race and the candidates.

The first lady declined to make any comment at all. Her lips were sealed. She seemed horrified that I would even ask.

The second lady, a retired veteran of the US Air Force, was quick to say that McCain was "seasoned, experienced, knew the 'buttholes' in Washington and could lead us through our problems".

"That other guy", she said, was "a great 'oratator', a smooth talker and very persuasive. In fact he could probably talk you into anything." She was also adamant about his lack of experience, but defended his charm.

She concluded, "I don't like McCain but I'm gonna vote for him. Besides, that other guy, if he gets the job, won't live long enough to do anything, anyway."

Then I found out it would cost $1074.00 to fix my truck.

Too much for a Friday night

Special Edition of Sawdusttx

Set your clocks back: it is 1984!!!!! George Orwell lives!!! Doublespeak has arrived!!!!

7/18/2008: Tonight this was reported in a story on MSNBC.com:

"The two leaders agreed that improvements in security should allow for the negotiations "to include a general time horizon for meeting aspirational goals, such as the resumption of Iraqi security control in their cities and provinces and the further reduction of U.S. combat forces from Iraq," the White House said. "
The bold and italics are mine. This article attempts to make clear that these two leaders are trying to make clear (????) that a general time horizon is not a time schedule for a troop withdrawl. Got that? Well, I know what it is NOT, but just what in the world is it, exactly? And who, exactly do these two leaders think they are leading?
And would someone please tell me WHAT THE HELL an aspirational goal is? I thought aspirating was something you did into a mask in the hospital.

What few marbles were rolling around on the floor of the Executive Branch have been lost completely. I have said it before on this blog and I will say it again:

The government thinks we are stupid and we let them get away with it!

I wish I was at the Pool

Flip-Flops are For Kids

I do not remember when the term “flip-flop” started being used in general conversation, but I’m sure it was about the time the rubbery, sandal-type, thong thingies showed up as swimwear attributes.. I have no idea where the name came from, or who might have coined it, but presumably it came from the sound the soles make as you walk across poolside concrete: flip-flop, flip-flop. I know the phrase has also been used to describe the actions of a fish out of water, going flip-flop frantically, as it tries to get back into sea.

I have never owned a pair of flip-flops and never worn any. And I have never helped a fish back into the water, but the flip-flop metaphor is in use nearly everywhere the media covers politics today, and it is time for some usage correction and an apology. To be blunt, I’m sick of hearing and seeing it.

The term “flip-flop” has become an extremely derogatory one. After John Kerry’s campaign, it has been used widely to describe the way in which a politician seems to abruptly modified his or her position on an issue. This invariably brings about massive consternation from the politico’s former supporters on the previous position and a great hoopla generally ensues. Then matters usually get out of hand for few hours, until someone else makes an even bigger faux pas.

Over the weekend, I heard (of all people) Gov. Scharzenegger state (after blasting Bush on climate change: a flip-flop for a Republican) that if a politician, “after 20 or so years in a warm, comfortable place “ (or words to that effect) realizes that relevant conditions and factors have changed enough to warrant a reasonable change of mind, that is a “good thing” (or words to that effect). He went on to say that if the current presidential candidates find themselves facing that option, it is to their credit for having the resolve to modify their stance.

However, we should remember two things. First, politicians make this position-altering maneuver more frequently during campaigns than they do after being elected. Post-campaign changes are rare, but not unheard of. Don’t forget that George W. made any number of position promises (before he started signing signing statements) before the election, only to wind up immutably sticking with “stay the course” for almost eight years. He has done this despite raging public furor during much of the same time. Like myself, I guess George doesn’t own any flip-flops, either.

Secondly, politicians do not actually flip-flop. They simply slide, smoothly and craftily, but not entirely unnoticed, with linguistic fluidity, from the left to the right or the right to the left. Along the way they graze over and sometimes acknowledge the middle. But they do not go instantaneously from black to white. Although many of them would like to convince us they have the ability, they are not magicians. And despite their bluster and magnanimous claims, they are incapable of moving mountains. They may slide and slither, talk in vague metaphors and exaggerate, pontificate and try to reverse trends, but they do not flip-flop. They are not capable of anything so spectacular or complete. And let’s not forget, as politicians seem to most often, that usually a fish that flops too much on the beach soon dies of exhaustion and is eventually swept away by the tide.

We should abandon this phrase when talking politics. It is inaccurate. Flip-flop is a poolside noise, a cheap rubbery piece of footwear, the dying effort of a floundered fish. But politicians cannot do it as adroitly as is widely reported in the media. The frequent media use of flip-flop should be discontinued. And an apology is due to whoever invented the silly things for so horribly maligning their image in the public rhetoric. Flip-flops are for kids and for adults who wish they still were. Flip-flops are a cultural convenience: politicians are not.

Life goes on in Texas

P.S. After I wrote this, I realized that I should have mentioned that flip-flops can be bought at Wal-Mart and politicians can be had anywhere. And I think both are made in China.

Some current thoughts.

Getting Around to the Middle

Follow this very circuitous route: start with a story heard on NPR, then move on to one heard in the MSM about Rush Limbaugh, proceed to reports of Barack Obama’s perceived shifting platform positions, then read other reports of McCain’s struggles to emerge with a consistent position on almost anything. What do you get? Well, I got an interesting perspective on this drama and the middle of America. And it appears as if it all has to do with percentages and alienation. And suddenly I wondered, “What is so wrong about the middle?” Why is moving ot the middle a bad thing? Don’t most people live there?

To begin with, consider that improperly embroiled and unjustifiably embedded in our current political milieu is the role of the conservative and largely religious right. They are generally referred to as fundamentalist, evangelical, fervent or all three. Not all of those on the right are fervently religious, and not all of those who religious are on the right, but I never met a pair of them who did not agree with and like one another. And they would both like to have a great deal to say about who the next POTUS will be, the future legislative habits of the Congress and the decisions that will be handed down later by the SCOTUS. Veering hard off in the other direction is the “left”. They claim to be different, but they ultimately want the same things. You could call them “ardent”.

This essay travel route starts with the NPR story. One researcher reported that she has concluded that only 7 (seven) percent of the US population is truly evangelical. That is reference point one. Point two comes from MSNBC, who reported that Rush Limbaugh, a well known spokesperson for the conservative right, has just signed a new eight year contract with talk radio for $400,000,000.00. He won this prize because, presumably, he speaks to an audience of five (5) percent of the US population.

Disclaimer: I am not a mathematician or a statistician, and the only facts available to me are those I get from the media. But after looking at several different opinions and estimates, I have settled on the number of English speaking, legally residing, non-hearing impaired or reading/listening disabled persons in the United States to be about 280.000,000 people. If that is the case, then NPR’s 7% figure represents just slightly less than 20 million people, and Mr. Limbaugh speaks to only about 14 million. We can safely assume, based upon the demographics, that they are hardly mutually exclusive and many are one in the same. So maybe we have 25-30 million people in this group, out of (maybe) 280 million? It would be hard to argue that this is a majority of Americans.

Reference point three is a comment I heard on the radio. Quoted approximately, “Why is it that everyone is afraid of the right and the right isn’t afraid of anyone?” This is clearly someone’s opinion, but it does somehow ring true. If you only use Mr. Limbaugh as an example (and he has plenty of company), he seems unafraid to say anything about anyone. The NYT, however, puts him on the front page of their magazine, and offers deference. Today, Think Progress has published that the NYT is Limbaugh’s “lap dog”. But it is reasonable to suppose that everyone is afraid of a junkyard dog. In the same vein, the slightest critical or cynical remark made by the Obama camp is immediately seized upon, impugned and pounded by any conservative with access to the airwaves. And they do this with no shame. On the other hand, if Senator McCain or one of his “surrogates” says it’s time to “bomb, bomb Iran”, exile a colleague to Belarus or kill Iranian civilians with cigarettes, the media is quick to applaud his wit, sense of humor and “candor”. It would seem that sensitivity is one-sided in these matters.

Reference point four: Barack Obama is alienating the left by moving to what appears to be a more centrist position, then alienating the centrists by moving even farther to the right than they would like, and then risking the complete alienation of the right if he doesn’t move that way at all. So he reassures the lefties by telling them that they are not seeing the big picture, attempts to sedate the centrists by showing them that he has moved in the “right” direction (theirs) and then meets privately with the evangelicals in an attempt to convince Billy Grahams’ son that he is not Satan (or Muslim). That was not as easy as it looked: it took forcing compromise from the left, some mesmerizing in the middle and some pandering to the right. But the alienation persists. From some vantage points, it seems to grow worse by the day. While there are defenders of each platform, they do not like to sit at table together. The McCain contingent is, all the meanwhile, huddled together in the far right, trying to help the Senator remember who he alienated yesterday, who he should not like to alienate tomorrow and wondering which issue will be newly introduced or discarded whenever he speaks again. We are practicing alienation to become an alien nation.

(Bear with me: this will all come together, soon)

Point five to consider is more complicated. The right always believes, without any shadow of a doubt whatsoever, that it is always right (Arianna Huffington says they are wrong: read the book). But since the right has been holding the reins for so long, the left has been left to pick up the pieces. It has unfairly laid the whole responsibility for that effort on Obama, who has left the left afraid he is moving too far right, thereby leaving some of them alienated. The centrists, while encouraged, are still suspicious of the left leanings and maintain some alienation. And the right, despite any and all efforts, will always feel alienated if they don’t get their way, completely. (I have never understood why the very people who most loudly proclaim the need for brotherly love, display the least of it when it comes to the needs of their fellow man). Alienation seems to be one common activity that everyone claims to want to avoid, but routinely employs it. The term “Change” has been long introduced by the left, promoting it as a snake oil elixir that promises societal salvation. Lately it has also been adopted by the right as a codeword for “pacification by duping” or the modus operandi for McCain’s responses to audience questions, i.e., “change” the subject. In either case, the use of “change” has produced even more alienation. America, as a people, have become very good at not liking one another very much. Wasn’t there mention of an alien nation?

The last reference point in use here is the fact that our society breeds on sensationalism rather than facts. We digest a steady diet of what Bill Moyers calls “bumper sticker” bits of information. Sadly, these gossipy fragments of fact seem to make up most of what people think they know. Even worse, these “fragments of fact” are the only informational input that most people ever hear and therefore on which they are able to draw conclusions or base their beliefs. And when people go about their daily business, and make critical decisions, based upon perhaps only half of the information available, you are asking for trouble. Six years ago, half of our “information” said Saddam and Iraq were dangerous. The other half of the “intel” said otherwise. We acted on the wrong half, under the wrong leadership with only half a plan, and look where it got us. I won’t go there: it is too grizzly.

My composite thesis for explaining. collating and understanding the significance of these points of reference goes like this:

If the numbers used here are even close to accurate, then a minority of the population is perceived to be exerting a disproportionately strong influence on the majority. One might think this improbable, but it is not impossible and it may even be inevitable. And the inevitability stems largely from the nature of the times we live in. Evidence would support the premise is that it is not this small group of people who wield such influence over popular sentiment, but it comes cumulatively from all the people they talk to .One person hears from another person who thought they heard Limbaugh or someone else say that all citrus fruit imported from Central America was laced with spores that cause lymph-node cancer: within a short time the story is an urban myth and American media gospel. It is picked up by the MSM and Fox News, and the boycotts begin. Fruit growers and sellers are immediately assaulted and attacked; just as the tomato industry was just pummeled for salmonella. Or consider that a religious leader of the far right implies that Obama will enslave white males after his election, and says this in front of a congregation of largely uneducated, uninformed white men. Before long, the story has made its’ way to the MSM and the political, anti-abortion (a-political?)pamphlets of the Catholic Church (this really happened). Firstly, people report and relay sensational information fervently and inaccurately. Secondly, the electronic media (MSM, blogs, web sites,etc.) spread information so quickly that reasonable containment is impossible before verification is even considered. If you doubt this, read Thomas Friedman’s book, The World Is Flat. Before you can finish the first two chapters, the world will have changed several times, fortunes will have been made and lost and most of what you heard on the radio this morning will have been found to be untrue by afternoon. And it will all have been done electronically, in the blink of an eye.

Before someone rushes to mount a defense of the right, it should be also noted that one can only guess that about as many people (25-30 million?) on the left-hand side of this information equation behave in much the same way. Perhaps 14 million people (maybe more) listen to NPR, and another 14-15 million attend liberal places of worship, read left wing journals and blogs and spread around other bits of information just as generously. For instance, for many days prior to this Fourth of July, there were blogs and articles predicting the government “false flag” bombing of the Houston ship channel on the holiday. That hasn’t happened, many were convinced it would happen, it hasn’t yet happened and the articles have vanished. But there were certainly people who left Houston and south Texas for the week, just in case. There is enough blame for reckless behavior to go around on both sides. Dan Rather lost his job this way. But sensational, “bad” news, condemnatory knee-jerk slurs and mud-slinging travels faster and with more gusto than anything without an element of slime attached. Readers and conversationalists will always gravitate sooner to a story about Britney Spear’s lack of underwear than they will one about saving an oil-soaked duck in Alaska.

This brings us, finally, to alienation, or the attempted avoidance of it. It has become the American societal castigation trap. In attempting to alienate no one (that means to please everyone), sooner or later you alienate someone else. In making the left happy, you spurn the right or the centrist. To appease and mollify the right, you incur the wrath of the left. So you promise change and then deliver some disguised repetition and/or watered-down compromise. When this happens, the barn starts to burn from both ends, and no fire department can prevent total immolation of the ideas at stake. If all goes badly, the end result is a charred, blackened and numb middle. Nothing gets done in the end, but the alienation remains.

But let’s go back to the numbers. If you add both the devoted right and the entire energetic left together, you still have less than half the population involved in the daily political-cultural ethos. But that is of course before the rumor mill goes to work or the MSM contributes. And we have left out an accounting for the children, the infirm, the mentally challenged and the senile. But even so, there is still every likelihood that more than 50% of the population doesn’t know or doesn’t care. This huge group either doesn’t act on good information (which is irresponsible) or proceeds on bad information (which is both irresponsible and reckless). At the risk of sounding elitist, as long as this majority has a paycheck, gas money and enough left over to buy movie tickets or beer on Saturday night, they are just THERE. And the chances are that they feel alienated, in one way or another. Barack Obama may not have been so far wrong when he described them as “bitter”. And just how long did it take the electronic media to flash that message up across every television screen in the world? The irony may be that the comment was made in earnest as an observation from the left, but the sentiment is one harbored mostly by the disenfranchised (alienated) right.

All of which is to say that getting around to the middle may or may not be a good idea. It depends upon your perspective and your long term vision of future. Those on the left tend to be those with the visions and the broader perspectives. Those on the right are more likely to be interested in short term gains, more control and some immediate gratification. Those in the middle will either be tugged in one direction or the other or be left untouched. They may also be alienated, because they have been denied any long term vision of the future: sort term gains equal simple survival. Those coming from either end of the spectrum, if they are to come together at all, will need to endorse some compromise. The word compromise means with promise, and implies that in order to secure any future betterment, one must give up, or leave behind, a few ideas, notions and possibly material possessions to accomplish that. Some people do not care for the word compromise or the concept. Those who reject it completely will continue to burn the barn from their end. They will perpetuate and propagate alienation.

Obama is reaching toward the center. If the left can endorse this as a compromise, which leaves their long term goals intact for future reference, the sparks of the fire may be kept alive for future use. But at the same time. I doubt pandering to the right is helpful: I find it very difficult to co-mingle pandering with compromise. If the right can also embrace compromise, then their fire can be similarly be subdued and a middle ground of humanitarian progress can be reached. But at least for now, the left wants to yell betrayal, and the McCain camp, the neo-cons and the addicts of half-truths seem to prefer the raging fire on their end of the barn. Until this tension is resolved, and these alienations eliminated, America will remain three territories at odds: the ardent 25 million on the left, the fervent 25 million on the right and all those millions in the middle, left to wonder and struggle on.

Life goes on in Texas.

After the Fireworks

Despite my better judgement, I actually sat about 20 yeards away from a real, honest-to-God, blow-em-up fireworks presentation on July 4. It was on the shores of Lake Buchanan, about 65 miles west, northwest of Austin, in the hill country. It was fun, noisy and colorful, and the two "presenters" were semi-pros at this; no one was hurt and everyone applauded. These same two pyrotechnical hobbyists also manufactured a large noise maker (they call it a "Salute"), which upon detonation merely creates a giant orange glow in the sky and leaves everyone nearby deaf for several minutes, afterwards. That monster went off at the local firehouse around 11 PM. Fortunately, there were no fire calls at that time, because all of the firemen in attendance couldn't hear a thing. During the evening, I was thinking, though, about two possible events which could have occured in today's world, but did not.

The first was that the DHS did not rush out to Lake Buchanan, in miniscule little Kingsland, TX, and arrest our two "bomb makers" as terrorists, under the Patriot ACT, for trying to blow up a fire station. I fully expected to to see Howard Chertoff in a hard hat, with the Army National Guard in humvees and heliocopters, but they never materialized. I was disappointed. And all of that so close to Crawford,too. A wonderful missed propoganda opportunity. They could have saved Dubya and preserved the peace of west central Texas. And spent millions in the process.

The second thought was that I was reminded of the warnings I'd been reading for weeks, from writers and bloggers on the far left, that the government would set off a "false flag" attack, to rally support for the bombing of Iran, by blowing up the Houston ship channel during the holiday festivities. By midnight, that had not yet occured. I'm still waiting. I don't trust anybody. And if it had happened, the boys at the fire house wouldn't have been able to hear it, anyway.

All the while, as the rockets produced red glares, and the bombs were bursting in air, all around the miles of shoreline around Lake Buchanan, I kept remembering that the Chinese had invented gunpowder. And as all of these explosive devices were going off, a little cash register in my head was calculating the increase in the US/China trade deficit and how much the cost of these fireworks were adding to the vast sums of money we already owe the Chinese banks for financing the war in Iraq (Ted Koeppel says it is somewhere between $600B and one Trillion. How the hell much is that?). Not that it matters, much: what could our national holiday have possibly cost us? I'm sure it was less than what we pay Halliburton a day for food a fuel in the desert or what we spend for electricity a day in the Green Zone. Or what it would have cost to save Kingsland, TX from the terrorists.

Life goes on in Texas