My Running Mate is My Mate

I was reminded that I want a running mate. If you write me in, you might as well write in Mrs Vache Folle as Veep. She's going to be involved in everything anyway, and she is the person most likley to carry on my agenda if I die in office. Also, having her as Veep means that, even if the Constitution is not amended in time to allow me to serve for life, we will have a shot at a 16 year co-presidency, so to speak.

Of course, she will carry on the traditional duties of First Lady: hosting parties, not having sex with the president, and running some philanthropical enterprise. Mrs VF's pet cause will doubtless be pit bull related.

If Taxes Are Membership Fees, How Do I Resign My Membership?

I actually heard someone try to reframe taxes as “membership fees” the other day. What a bad analogy. If I don’t want the benefits of a club, I can quit and stop paying membership fees. If I stop paying taxes, people will come and kill me or kidnap me.

I can think of several more apt reframes for taxes. “Taxation is theft” is pretty dead on. Taxation as protection. Taxation as rent. Taxation as the price of civilization gets bandied about a lot but I don’t reckon it’s very persuasive if you dig into the analogy to any depth.

Grace is More than a Gift

Yesterday’s sermon was about grace and how grace should be the number one message of Christians. Christians should hope to be thought of as gracious. This message was delivered in the context of Epiphany and in the midst of metaphors about gifts.

I don’t know that gift giving is all that as a metaphor for God’s grace. Gift giving comes with so much cultural baggage that it may be more confusing than helpful. Christmas gifts are especially problematic from a metaphorical standpoint. We don’t give Christmas gifts to just anyone. We also tend to expect an exchange of gifts, or in the case of kids we ostensibly condition gifts on good behavior. Receiving a gift often seems like it imposes an obligation. And there is some notion that it is possible to reject a gift.

With God’s grace, there is no way to reject it. No action on our part is necessary. No obligation is imposed. It is conditioned on nothing. It is unexpected, undeserved, and beyond reciprocation. It is so much more than a gift, in the human sense of the word, that the metaphor of gift giving diminishes it.

I was, like many children, an ungrateful little shite. I was conditioned to expect some loot at Christmas, on my birthday, and on certain other occasions, and I occasionally felt shortchanged, especially after my father split on us and family finances were a problem. It never occurred to me then that my folks were under no obligation whatsoever (except for social pressure) to give me anything and that anything I got was purely gratuitous. No wonder my father abandoned me. I’m sure Mom regretted that she hadn’t done it first.

Looking back, I now realize that I ought to be grateful that my parents didn’t sell me for medical experiments. A belated thanks, Mom and Dad.

I Begin to Lay Out My Agenda

If I had a campaign manager, he or she would probably point out that I have devoted too much effort to telling folks why they might not want to vote for me and not enough time on why they should embrace my candidacy. I have explained in general terms what it would mean for an unknown, running under an alias with no money and solely as a write in, with no political party to support me to be elected. It would mean that I would have the power to bring about change, not just talk about it. Moreover, my core characteristic of sloth would insure that change would be in the direction of less executive authority and devolution of power to the states and to the people. I will begin in the next weeks to lay out my agenda as president for the electorate to evaluate.

Let me begin by pointing out that I don't have many friends or close relatives. And since I will be elected by regular folks without any political favors to be repaid, I won't be able to begin to fill all the political appointee jobs that will be in my gift. So, I'm going to leave the vast majority of them vacant and save their salaries and expenses. Let's face it, these political appointees don't usually know what they're doing anyway, and by the time they get up to speed they're being replaced. They are dispensable, especially for me since I don't need to buy votes by giving out sinecures to political hacks and their in-laws.

Speaking of dispensable employees, on the first big snow day after my inauguration, I will declare a holiday for all but indispensable federal employees in Washington. Anybody who doesn't show up for work will then be laid off. I recognize that these are hardworking, capable folks who do a good job for America, but the rest of you really shouldn't be forced, at the point of a gun, to support "dispensable" federal activities. Besides, think of what a boon it will be to the private sector when all these talented, productive individuals devote themselves to more meaningful pursuits.

I will begin on my first day the immediate withdrawal of the armed forces from Iraq and Afghanistan, and I will initiate audits of contracting in the war zones with a view to recovering what has been lost to fraud and abuse. All no bid contracts will be cancelled at once.

These are just a few of the things I will do right away, and you can see that substantial savings will be realized.

Lack of Experience or Competence No Bar to White House

Another objection to my candidacy is based on my lack of experience. I have never been a US Senator or a Governor of a state, nor have I served as Vice President of the US. These are apparently the positions that are considered as the training ground for the presidency. I submit that they have no bearing on the duties of the presidency and are only prerequisites because they demonstrate political capabilities and support. My candidacy is all about avoiding this kind of business of usual, so if I had been a Senator or a Governor I couldn't honestly say that I am above the fray and an outsider.

Look what Senators, Veeps and Governors have done so far and tell me why you should consider entrusting the presidency to any of those nutters instead of to me. For the most part, I've had to make an honest living. My background as a working stiff is as meaningful as the experience of any of the candidates when it comes to what it takes to be president. Hell, all they've demonstrated is that they know how to get folks to throw money at them and to get elected to offices. Those skilss don't mean peedoodlysquat when it comes to presidenting.

Besides, haven't we all looked at the big executives and said to ourselves, "Good Lord, what a tool; I could do his job a whole lot better." Admit it. Unless you're a brown noser, you've never looked at your bosses with admiration and awe annd said ' Wow, what a leader!"

So, when my opponents point out the deficiencies in my resume, just ignore them. They don't know what they're talking about.

Weak Character No Bar to the White House

Another objection to my candidacy is that my character is flawed. It's true. Then again, the parties' candidates are even more flawed. They want to be president and will do whatever it takes to make that happen. That's as sure a sign of a bad character as I can think of. I, on the other hand, don't really want to be president at all, and I will not expend any real effort to get elected. I will serve if elected by some miracle out of a sense of duty and the conviction that God must have willed it.

Sure, I have been financially irresponsible in my life. But that was with my own money. As president, I'll be making a quarter of a million bucks a year and will have a free house and a monster expense account. In the past, I just didn't have enough money. As your president, I'll be rolling in it. After I'm done, I'll have book deals and speaking fees to keep me in fine style.

I smoked pot and used recreational drugs in the past. It's true. I bet the other candidates have, too. Besides, do you really want to have the dweeb who wouldn't take a hit off the joint as your president? Of course not.

I'll admit it. I have patronized sex workers. What of it? I paid them, didn't I? I respect them for their professionalism. I do not view this as any reflection on my character.

I am mentally ill, but my illness is well controlled with medication. Can my opponents say the same?

I am undisciplined and gluttonous. What's your point? You won't see me making a bunch of secret service agents go jogging or biking. And I won't be clearing any brush. I am one of you, oh mass of obese Americans! I feel your pain, and hunger.

I experience lust. I've never been presented with the temptation of an intern who wanted to blow me, so I don't know how I would deal with it. I'm apparently not very blowable in any event so the issue probably won't come up.

So don't let the fact that I have a weak character and questionable judgment influence you against me. All these flaws can be dealt with or even put to good use in my office. If my sloth should fail me and I become overly active, you can count on my gluttony to kick in and distract me.

You Are Throwing Away Your Vote No Matter Whom You Vote For, so You MIght as Well Vote for Me

Some may argue that voting for me would be akin to "throwing away your vote". It probably would, but so would voting for any of the candidates from the political parties. If any of them is elected, it will be more of the same, so voting for them is not really expressing any meaningful choice.

A vote for me, however, is a vote for real change. Even if I don't get elected, which I probably won't, you'll have sent a message that business as usual is intolerable to you. Of course, nobody much cares what you think anyway. Except me, the candidate who cares, a little at least.

If I am elected it will be a miracle and would require unprecedented grassroots support. Think about it. I am not aligned with any party, and my name will not appear on any ballot. I'm not going to raise any money or advertise or appear in any debates. Hell, I'm not even using my real name to campaign. That means if I get elected that I will have so much genuine popular support that Congress and the media won't be able to mess with me. I'll be able to get my radical agenda across and ram it down the establishment's throat. Unless they have me assassinated or something. I won't be beholden to anyone except you, the people, who put me in office. I won't even be beholden to you, to tell the truth, but that's beside the point.

But what if I turn out to be a tyrant or fail to follow through on my promises? Tyranting is hard work, too hard for my liking, so that's not a real concern. If I don't follow through on my radical agenda, you won't have lost anything because the other candidates certainly won't do anything about the situation in Washington. Moreover, I would lose my moral authority to defy Congress and the media, and I can't be bothered with being president if I can't cut government down to size and increase individual freedom. I'm not really in this for the salary and free housing, although those will be nice. Anyway, why would I squander the incredible opportunity that my miraculous election, brought about by millions of people writing in my fake name, presents to effect real and lasting change? The bottom line is that you just have to trust me. I can't be any worse than the other guys, and you know it.

Let me give you an example of how my presidency, backed by popular support, might work. Take the War on Drugs, for example. The War on Drugs does more harm than the drugs themselves and costs way more than any legitimate benefit that the people derive from it, so I am for ending it. I will suggest to Congress that they repeal the prohibitions on drugs. Even if they don't do this, I will set the priorities of the executive branch such that the War on Drugs will be very low indeed. And I will pardon anyone convicted of a drug offense in a federal court. If Congress doesn't like it, they can impeach me, if they dare what with my incredible popularity and all. Of course, if you don't want to end the War on Drugs, you might not want to vote for me if it's that important to you to be a wanker who butts into other people's affairs all the time.

Another thing I could do with your suypport is veto anything I don't like that comes out of Congress, even if it's just a miniscule rider or earmark. If the government gets shut down, I don't care, and you probably won't either. The longer it stays shut, the more folks will see that it is dispensable. Let Congress override my vetos and show where they stand.

Vote for me, or don't vote.

My First Campaign Promise: Honesty

When I ran for student council president at my high school, I decided to be completely honest. I pointed out that the presidency was a meaningless position that would serve no purpose except to let me pad my college applications. The council had no authority whatsoever outside of administering the homecoming parade and dance, and this was governed by so much tradition that there was no room for movement. My opponents promised all kinds of things: better lunches, more vending machines, longer intervals between classes. They knew they couldn’t deliver on these. I lost that election.

I still stand by my policy of complete honesty and as I make my run for the presidency I intend to give it to you straight. If I become your president, you can count on one thing. I am not a workaholic. Come 5:00, I’m done. I will doubtless break GW Bush’s record for vacation days. I aim to do as little as I possibly can while in office. Heck, I’d rather be Vice President and do absolutely nothing except pray for the president’s good health.

That said, you can be assured that I will do everything I can, short of working late or on weekends, to reduce the responsibilities of the executive branch. I don’t want more presidential power. That just means more presidential work. So look for me to return to the good old days when presidenting consisted of being the “Chief Magistrate”, so to speak. I will cut departments to the bone and eliminate entire programs if I have to. I will veto anything that might increase my workload.

Because international emergencies mean overtime, I will work to keep these to a minimum by engaging in a non-interventionist foreign policy.

Why not just delegate everything to underlings like Ronald Reagan, who was also stupendously lazy? Because, let’s be frank, the underlings are mostly going to be people whom I smoked pot with back in college. They can’t be trusted. There’s no reason to believe that they will be remotely competent. And lots of the appointees will be people I don’t even know. They’ll be cousins of friends of people I smoked pot with and such like. God only knows what they might do if left to their own devices. The best bet is to end the programs or streamline them so that no executive decisions will have to be made except in the most extreme circumstances.

Legislative initiatives? Who can be bothered? As far as I am concerned, that’s the job of the legislature. And what about letting states handle as much as possible? That’s the easiest way as far as I can see.

As president, I will not rest (Monday through Friday 9am –5 pm with a 2 hour lunch) until I have made the presidency a sinecure. If you’re looking for a vigorous, hardworking, self starter in the Oval Office, I am not your man.

My Pledge to Run a Clean Campaign

I decry the politics of personal destruction, and I aim to run a campaign on the issues, to take the high road. You won’t hear me talking about my opponent’s predilection for philately. That’s between him and his partner and whichever of his gods he reckons is responsible for that compartment of his life. I won’t even bring it up if he tries to interest a nine year old girl in his peculiar practice, although it is not something that I would ever do. I’m not saying I wouldn’t discuss it with my wife, although as we all know marriage usually means an end to such activities. Anyway, enough said. My opponent’s practices in the privacy of his own home have nothing to do with his fitness for the office he is seeking.

My campaign made up an ad suggesting that my opponent has been known to use public restrooms in airports and train stations for more than numbers one and two, if you take my meaning. I’m not going to allow the ad to be run, and to show the kind of ads I consider distasteful, I’m going to put this one on the internets as an example of how campaigns should not be run. Let it be a cautionary example to all.

I pledge that I will not exploit my opponent’s many personal weaknesses and weak character for political gain. I will let the voters decide whether his inexperience and stupidity should disqualify him from office. Maybe the voters don’t care about a candidate’s history of drug abuse and week long benders, and that is perhaps fitting and proper. Maybe, a candidate’s having murdered a prostitute has nothing to do with his ability to serve as president , and the voters will have to decide that issue. It won’t be me that brings it up.

Some may say that a candidate’s having trained in an Al Qaeda sponsored facility calls his loyalty and judgment into question. That’s for the voters to decide. Others reckon that a paranoid schizophrenic who is noncompliant with his regime of medications should not have his finger on the nuclear button. That’s for his psychiatrist to say.

Happy New Year However You Mark It

JL Wilson went to Times Square on New Year’s Eve and enjoyed it. Good for him. You will never catch me there, mainly because I can’t seem to stay up until midnight these days.

If I think back to the last time I was awake to usher in the New Year, it must have been in the early 1990s in Seattle. Mrs Vache Folle and I went down to the Space Needle and waited for something to happen to the Needle. Then we went home on the bus. There were lots of people there, but nothing like Times Square, and getting home was easy. Seattle is warmer than New York, so the temperature was not a deterrent . Seattlleites are painfully polite, so there was no fear of hostile drunks or cutpurses. Someone yelled at us from a car as we stood at the bus stop, “Happy New Year, Bus Takers!” It was not unpleasant but it was truly pointless, and we never bothered to do it again.

The Best New Year ‘s Eve ever was when we ushered in 1991 on the deck of an ocean liner berthed in the harbor of Funchal. The town was festooned with lights, and the whole population must have set off fireworks at midnight. I have never since seen such a display. Many of the dignitaries from Madeira were on board for the party. That was a helluva night, let me tell you.

Aside from my somnolence, there are other reasons I no longer go out on New Year’s Eve. I reckon that January 1 is a pretty arbitrary date for starting a year. I would prefer that we used one of the solstices as folks used to do. Or any meaningful date, for that matter. January 1? Why not August 3, or Arbor Day? I just can’t get worked up about January 1.

I tend to be socially phobic, and the drunk driving Nazis are so active that I am deterred from having a single alcoholic beverage if I have to drive. How can I socialize with people I don’t know very well if I can’t use a social lubricant? Also, I worry that the majority of drivers I will encounter on the way home will be intoxicated and out to kill me.

But just because I prefer not to go out, it does not mean that I am not still happy that those who do enjoy it. I rejoice in their happiness. We’re not all the same. We are diverse, and I celebrate diversity.

Continentally Speaking

I'm not so sure I know how to talk about people who live on the Asian landmass or who had ancestors from there. It turns out that "Oriental" is offensive, or at least mildly so. "Asian" doesn't tell you much. You could be from Yemen or Siberia and still be Asian, although it appears to encompass Chinese, Korean, Japanese, Vietnamese, other Southeast Asians to the exclusion of others. People from India and Pakistan are "South Asians". I don't know whether Burmese are South Asians or just plain Asians. Fortunately, I don't have to talk about Burmese people very often.

Pretty soon, if our experience with Oriental is any guide, Asian will be offensive, if it isn't already. Too bad. It's really handy for talking about people whose precise origins elude you. I can't always tell if someone is Korean or Japanese, Chinese or Vietnamese, Laotian or Thai. Excuse me for not having made a study of the distinguishing characteristics of various Asian nationalities.

You'd think "Eurasian" would describe anyone from the Eurasian landmass, but it doesn't. You have to be a combination of Asian and European.

So far, "African" remains a perfectly cromulent expression for someone from sub-Saharan Africa, unless you are of European origin, in which case you don't get to be African. In college, the Organization of African and African American Students denied membership to a white third generation Zimbabwean because she was not African enough. I reckon that Pan-Africanism has kept Africans from being offended about being lumped together on a continental basis. I've never encountered an African who was annoyed that I didn't recognize his tribal affilation or nationality.

I'm a "North American" because I come from the US or Canada. Mexicans and people from the Central American isthmus don't get to be North Americans even though they live in North America. Because I'm from the US, I can call myself an American. Canadians are not Americans. Neither are Brazilians. The denizens of the US have coopted the entire hemisphere.

Authoritarians for Anarchy!

The other night, Mrs Vache Folle and I were coming home from a social gathering, and the roads were a tad icy. It was late. There was no traffic. We were on the isolated country roads of our immediate neighborhood. Nonetheless, I came to a full stop at a three way stop sign on a hill where there was some risk that we wouldn't be able to continue our ascent due to icy road conditions. This was not occasioned by the likelihood that the intersection might be surveilled (it never is) or any concern for safety. It was a pure reflexive response to an authoritarian upbringing. It's the same reflex that keeps me from jaywalking even in New York side streets when everyone else is doing it and that makes me observe speed limits even when it is almost dangerous to do so. If there is a rule, I am apt to follow it without thinking about it. I wouldn't dream of trying to get through the express lane at the market with one too many items. It makes me uncomfortable on some level to violate rules, no matter how stupid or inapt they may be under the circumstances. I am the perfect self policing subject.

Does this make me a bad anarchist? Mrs VF thinks so.

Painting

Mrs Vache Folle and I painted the downstairs bedroom yesterday. The room has lots of woodwork, sliding glass doors, a picture window, a closet, an alcove and a knotty pine ceiling with beams; so you can imagine how much masking tape we had to put up before we could get started. Taping is half the battle, we have learned. We had painted the room a kind of forest green over three years ago but this had faded to the color of unpainted drywall and made the room seem like a cave in winter. The relatively dark color meant we had to slap on a coat of primer. It then took two coats of the yellow Mrs VF had chosen (the same yellow everywhere else in the downstairs except for the bathroom). By the time we got to the end of the first coat, daylight was gone. It turned out OK, though, with only a couple of spots wanting touch ups.

These spots involve the trim areas, Mrs VF's specialty. My areas, where the roller is employed, are all perfect. As usual, the trim areas are the weak spot. I don't blame Mrs VF for this; nobody could be more careful at trimming. It's the useless devices that we have been using for trimming. They just seem to smear and glob paint or even to remove the paint already applied. There must be some kind of mini-roller that could be used to prevent these problems and make trimming go faster. I always finish my part, consisting in of 98% of the area to be painted before Mrs VF gets halfway through the trimming. I'm not saying she's dogging it or anything; nobody works harder at trimming than she. I'm saying that there has got to be some better trimming technology, and I refuse to paint again until we have found it.

People Who Happen to be Disease-Ridden

It's dehumanizing to call people by nouns that name their disability, so I'm told. You shouldn't speak of "the blind" or the "deaf"; rather, you should speak of people who happen to be blind or who happen to be deaf. The same goes for diabetics, epileptics, narcoleptics, lepers, schizophrenics, and just about any handy term for talking about the disabled, er excuse me, people who happen to have a disability. This makes sense to me, especially if you're talking about the person in a context in which his disability does not pertain. "The leper wants to know if he is going to get hit with the alternative minimum tax if he takes his bonus in 2007." Otherwise, if you are talking about the disability, it shouldn't be all that hurtful to use the disability naming noun. "It's mostly lepers down at the leper colony."

The one disability where it may be OK to use the noun that names it is death. Nobody complains when you speak of "the dead". Nobody insists on your saying "people who happen to be dead".

Horns of a Dilemma

I'm struggling with an ethical dilemma at the moment. The company that bought my employer and had me canned has arranged for me to perform consulting services. All of us have been brought on as part time consultants. If I were to do a good job as a consultant, I would inform my new client how it could save money and achieve maximum efficiency. This information would, however, if taken to heart, result in one of my former co-workers' being cut loose from his or her consulting contract.

I don't yet know whether the folks at the client company are bigger douchebags than my former colleague, so there is no help there. It is inevitable that the client will become aware of the situation, but I don't know whether they will blame me for not telling them and whether this will have an impact on any career opportunities I might have with them. This may take some time because the client company's personnel are not really able to imagine a scenario in which there is no accountability whatsoever, so they cannot imagine that the selling company tolerated as much useless expense and incompetence as I know that it did.

In either case, I would be betraying someone, either the client or my former colleague. My former colleague made life miserable at work in many ways, but I sort of admired him or her for sticking it to the man by drawing a salary for decades while adding negative value to the organization. That was subversive, but I am pretty sure that he or she didn't know that he or she was being subversive. He or she thought that he or she was indispensable, something that made him or her a source of much amusement and frustration. The new people are just corporate tools, and they appear to be competent. I don't yet know whether they have integrity, but I reckon that their goals and behaviors should be predictable and geared at least ostensibly toward making a profit.

My former colleague would throw me under the bus in a second.

What to do, what to do.

My Single Resolution

Mr Scott eschews New Year’s Resolutions so he won’t be disappointed. This may work for him, but I found out that no matter how low I set the bar I can still find reasons for self loathing and disappointment. So this year I am going to set the bar high so that when I fail I will have failed at something worth failing at. Nothing short of physical, spiritual, intellectual and social perfection will do, and that’s what I’ll be aiming for.

I’m not totally unreasonable. I don’t expect to be perfect on the first day or even the first month. I just want to be perfect in every way by this time next year, and I want there to be clear manifestations that I am approaching perfection by Easter or thereabouts.

Also, I realize that perfection is a relative term. I’m not looking to become a being of pure energy or anything like that, just to realize my full potential as a human being.

This will not be easy, I know. Perfection is something that eludes even people with strong character and personal courage, so you can imagine how much harder it will be for me. Then again, the accomplishment will be so much sweeter because it was done without resort to such resources.

Our Trip to Cooperstown

Mrs Vache Folle and I went to Cooperstown on Thursday where we met one of our old friends and neighbors from Seattle. He was out visting his in-laws in Pennsylvania, but he deprived himself of their company for a couple of days to see us and to worship at the Temple of Baseball. We drove through a blizzard to get there, but the weather settled down during our two day stay.

We visited the Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum on the afternoon that we arrived. This consists of a more or less chronological journey through the history of baseball ending in a literal hall where the legendary players and other particpants in baseball are memorialized. The origins of baseball are obscure, and even the BHOFAM acknowledges that the claim that it was invented by Abner Doubleday in Cooperstown was a complete myth. Old time baseball looked to me to be a more leisurely game, one that you could play while getting drunk. Pitchers finsihed their games and even pitched both ends of double headers, so how hard could they have been throwing? Homers were all but non-existent before the Babe came along and made them de reigeur.

The funny thing about the BHOFAM is that it consists almost entirely of baseballs, bats, gloves and photos. And yet each is more fascinating than the next. There was THE VERY BALL that Roger Maris hit to break the Babe's record. There was THE VERY BAT that slugger so and so used for his 3,000th hot, Ohmigawd!

I learned a lot. Did you know that the Pittsburgh Pirates were known, for a season, as the Pittsburgh Innocents? That the Yankees were the Baltimore Orioles before they were the New York Highlanders? That there was a Negro League player whose nickname was "Cum"? All this and more awaits the visitor to the BHOFAM at Cooperstown.

And if you want baseball related souvenirs, there are plenty of folks on Main Street who would love to sell them to you. There are also some pretty good restaurants.

But Cooperstown isn't just about baseball. There's also the Farming Museum and the James Fenimore Cooper Art Museum, both of which are on my must do list for our next pilgrimage to the Leatherstocking Region, as it is apparently known. There is also the Cooperstown Beverage Trail which consists of a cider house, two breweries, and a winery. The cider house was closed for the season, but we were able to take in a tour and tasting at the Ommegang brewery. Ommegang is devoted to Belgian style ales which are quite delicious but which are, at least to me, a potent soporific. We didn't get to the other stops on the beverage trail. We bought a mixed case of 750 ml bottles because we enjoyed the tasting so much. One ale had been aged in the Howe caverns, and you could really tell the difference between the cave aged stuff and the same product that was not cave aged.

We drove home through the Catskills on Route 28 and settled in to our cozy cabin and a couple of bottles of good ale each with a dog for company.

Born in the USA Not Necessarily Enough?

I found a copy of Mrs Vache Folle's grandfather's passport application from 1923. Even though Aksentyj was born in Jersey City in 1904 or thereabouts, his family had migrated back to the Carpathians shortly thereafter, and he was required by the State Department to establish that he had not manifested an intent to abandon his US citizenship by leaving the country. Aksentyj pointed out that he had not had a choice in the matter, having been an infant when the family left the US and that he had had to wait until his younger brother was old enough to help out on the farm before leaving the family.

To bolster his argument, Aksentyj reported that his father Ambrozy had lived in the US for fifteen years. This was not true. The family spent only about five years in the states. But this does not seem to have an impact on the decision to grant him a passport.

Aksentyj returned to America, settled in Luzerne County, Pennsylvania, and lived the American dream by working as a coal miner and dying before the age of 60 from lung disease. Had he stayed in the Carpathians, he might have been enslaved by the Nazis like his younger siblings or deported in the Polish Communists' campaign of ethnic cleansing following WW2.

Aksentyj had a bunch of children who now live all across the USA. Some are successful; some are loons. His brothers' descendants still live in Poland, some of them in the same village where the Madzula family has lived for centuries. Mrs VF and I visited them a couple of years ago, and she still keeps in touch with her cousin. They are lovely people.

I wonder. Would a child born in America and having an American birth certificate have difficulty getting a passport today?

Skill Inventory

I’m gradually starting to think about what I want to do when I grow up, and I have been assessing my skills and interests. It turns out that there are a number of areas in which I both excel and which I enjoy.

I am an outstanding editor and am far better at it than I am at writing. I enjoy helping writers tighten up their work, and I used to earn extra cash by editing dissertations and articles here and there. I am especially good at sticking with the writer’s own style and at leaving stuff alone when it suffices. I never make changes solely for the sake of flexing editorial muscles.

I am a highly skilled negotiator, and I enjoy collaborating on complex transactions with other skilled individuals. Nobody drafts contracts better than I do. I prefer plain language and eschew the use of mystifying legal jargon whenever possible. I love to solve problems in the context of negotiating and drafting contracts.

I am a skilled mediator of disputes, and I enjoy the process. I also enjoy coming up with ways to manage ongoing conflict.

I have good investigative skills and know how to get to the bottom of things. I might make a good inspector general or ombudsman or some such thing. This skill also puts me in good stead when working on the due diligence phase of mergers and acquisitions.

I can teach. I don’t like children very much, but I enjoy teaching/training adults. I don’t have any problem speaking in public or speaking extemporaneously. I love to hear myself talk, as a matter of fact.

It also turns out that I have some weak points as well due to my personal preferences. I don’t want to work long hours or travel more than a quarter of the time. I don’t want to be anyone’s boss. I don’t want to work for a douchebag or to do anything cheney and risk eternal damnation.

Christmas Spirit

I had a most enjoyable Christmas and days leading up to it. On Saturday night, we went to the city and saw “The Seafarer” at the Booth Theatre. This play takes place on Christmas Eve in the home of two brothers, Richard and Sharkey (played by Jim Norton and David Morse, respectively) who live outside Dublin. With friends Ivan and Nick and a visitor, Mr Lockhart (Ciaran Hinds), they play in an all night poker game. Mr Lockhart, it turns out, is the devil, and Sharkey’s soul is at stake. The ensemble pulled off the roles of drunken Irishmen most credibly, and the performance of Norton as Richard was priceless.

I was moved by the theological undertones of the play. The devil envied humanity because of God’s love for us. He even envied the broken and desperate sots at the card game. He resented the promise of redemption held out to them. Meanwhile, the men at the card game were unaware of the gifts of grace, love and redemption and sought peace at the bottom of a glass of whiskey. Mr Lockhart’s unstinting description of hell was profoundly disturbing.

In keeping with the theological theme of the weekend and holidays, Sunday and Monday were filled with church doings. I sang at two services on Christmas Eve, and played in recorder ensembles as well. On Christmas, we visited some friends and had a lovely dinner at their house. I got all four seasons of “Blackadder” on DVD and some certificates for massages. Mrs Vache Folle got horseback riding lessons. In addition, we received gifts of love, hope, joy, light, peace and life.

If only we could keep up the spirit of the season all year round. I sometimes despair of this, especially when some of my co-religionists suggest that these are matters that can be compartmentalized and kept away from life outside the church. I had a frustrating discussion with a fellow chorister who reckoned that the church was getting too “political”. How so? All this emphasis on peace and justice seemed to her to infringe on the political sphere. She simply could not imagine the concept of waging peace or doing justice outside of the apparatus of the state, and she supposed that the church ought not to interfere with the state.

I agree that the church should have no truck with the state at all, and I reckon that love and peace and justice and mercy are attributes that are utterly alien to the state. The state is an impediment to these things, not a means to achieving them.

I was gratified that our pastor felt comfortable enough on Sunday to take a more nuanced approach to prophecy. Isaiah wasn’t predicting the coming of Jesus centuries in the future; he was talking about his own times and proclaiming that God had not abandoned the Israelites. He described the vision of perfect peace that would come with the kingdom of heaven on earth and did so in metaphors involving predators and prey dwelling together. The writers of the Gospels weren’t so much claiming that Jesus was the subject of ancient prophecy as they were pointing out that the coming of Jesus was like what Isaiah wrote about back in the day.

And Christmas has just begun.

Fur

The dude at Death Wore a Feathered Mullet has close to the right idea about animal rights, and he posts a picture of Eva Mendes in the buff.

I won’t wear fur, but I don’t seem to have a problem with leather. The leather comes from cows that were dead anyway since we ate them, but the fur comes from cute little critters who are skinned gratuitously. I suppose rabbit fur would be OK as long as you also ate the rabbit. Anyway. I find fur distasteful, but I’m not going to throw blood on you if you wear a fur coat unless it’s made from an endangered species or hairy third world urchins. Even then, I probably wouldn’t throw blood.

It would really bother me if you had a fur coat made from puppies or kittens. A coat made of mouse fur would be OK except for the enormity of the slaughter.

Child Visitation Redux

Commenter Zeph called me to task in my post about the drunk who reckons that he “deserves” unsupervised time with his kids. The commenter took from my post the idea that I advocated forcible removal of the man’s children from him. I do not.

I have written in the past on this blog that my preferred way of dealing with child custody and visitation issues is to minimize the involvement of the state. I have determined that the best way to accomplish this would be to have a presumption in favor of the mother’s having full custody and control over visitation with the father. Some fathers would get screwed by this system to be sure, but why should this become everyone else’s problem? Most folks will work out a more or less equitable arrangement based on their own needs and circumstances. That some will not is pitiable but hardly a basis for saddling society with the expense and intrusiveness of a child welfare apparatus.

Why the mother? Frankly, mothers provide far and away most of the child care, and, despite a lot of pissing and moaning from non-custodial fathers, fathers often do next to nothing for their kids. This is a social fact that we have to contend with if we want to design an efficient system with minimal state involvement.

On the other hand, I would abolish mandatory child support payments except those agreed upon between the parents. Most fathers will happily provide for their children. Some will not, and this will mean a hardship for some mothers and their children. I reckon some charitable folks will step up to the plate in such cases, and folks will be a lot choosier about whom they reproduce with. Anyway, not much can be done about deadbeat dads without inconveniencing the rest of us with an expensive and intrusive enforcement apparatus.

In the case at point, I reckon that it should be up to the drunk’s ex-wife to decide what visitation he gets based, it is hoped, on the welfare of the children. Instead, he has used the state to compel her to give him access which she may well regard as unwarranted. After, all she knows him better than any judge. He has initiated force in this instance to override the judgment of the mother.

The situation is a bit more complicated in this case, however, because the father is compelled to pay child support. He claims that he does so willingly out of love for his children, but the threat of force doubtless played a part in his decision- making. Also, if they were voluntary, he could use support payments as an inducement to provide more access to the children.

You Don't Get a Cookie for Staying in Recovery

I had a strange and uncomfortable conversation the other day about a child custody and visitation dispute. The father, an alcoholic who went on a bender that lasted several years, had had supervised visitation with no overnights until recently when he had shown that he had been clean and sober for an entire year. The individual, a partisan pf the father, claimed that he “deserved” unsupervised visits and that it had been wrong of the mother to “punish” the father because of his “disease”. The individual wanted me to join the hooray for Father club, but I would not.

Child custody and visitation proceedings aren’t about justice. They’re ostensibly about the best interests of the children. Frankly, the father had been an outright danger to the children when he would drink until he passed out while they were under his care. They might just as well have been home alone. They might have been safer home alone than with Drunky McNojudgement. The mother, who was incredibly inconvenienced by not having much of a break from the kids, would have been irresponsible if she had not sought to curtail the father’s access to the children. And it was up to him to establish that it would be safe for the kids to be alone with him.

Given the rate of recidivism of severe alcoholics, it only made sense to wait at least a year to see if the father was going to keep his act together. Nobody was punishing him. In fact, the rest of the family suffered because of his untrustworthiness and irresponsibility. The mother was burdened with unceasing responsibility for the kids with little break and lots of anxiety, the father’s family was burdened with having to supervise him and his visits, and the kids were burdened with the whole stupid situation, a situation created entirely by the father.

Perhaps the situation was due to a disease, but it still inconvenienced and harmed a lot of people who have every right to be angry and skeptical about Mr Imallbetternowanditwasntmyfaultbecauseihadadisease.

What really gets my goat is that, while it’s a truly wonderful thing that the father is in recovery, he seems to think that he deserves a frakking medal for not being on a bender. And his partisans are so thrilled that he appears to be getting his act together that they heap praise on him as though he had just won the Nobel Peace Prize. Give me a break! You’re supposed to stay sober enough to maintain consciousness, so you don’t get a cookie for not drinking yourself into oblivion. I am happy that the father is on the mend, but I don’t think he has anything to be proud of. And he doesn’t “deserve” any concessions when it comes to his kids. A lot of us expect him to frak up once he gets what he wants, and we are worried sick about the kids.

Stuff About Me

We had an ice storm, so the lovely snow is coated with a crust of slippery ice that even the dogs can’t negotiate. The deer are falling all over the place and can’t get to much in the way of forage. The driveway, though plowed, is a glacier, and I fear that my neighbor, who is supposed to let the dogs out, will kill herself getting to my house. I busted the windshield wipers on the Civic, and I had to replace the battery so the cold starts would not be so dicey. The wind makes it feel even colder than it is. Winter, which is not even officially here yet, sucks so far.

On the plus side, I am now an independent contractor. Even though I am doing many of the same things I did as an employee, it’s way different. I come and go as I please and answer only for my work product. I don’t have to sign in and out or ask permission to leave early. I don’t get any benefits, but I can get these through Mrs Vache Folle. If I get snowed in, I don’t have to explain my absence to anyone.

I am still getting booty from some vendors. I put most stuff in the kitchen to share with others, but I keep any booze or meat or cheese for myself. I’ll let the vendors know after the holidays about my new situation lest the flow of booty be disrupted.

I am allowing my facial hair to grow. We’ll see whether I have the testosterone to pull it off.

Mrs VF, liberal democrat, gave $100 to Ron Paul. The craven Democratic Party is just about dead to her.

Miscellany

I must have been doing the backstroke wrong all these years, because it doesn’t feel as though I’ve been waterboarded.

The way to a man’s heart is through his sternum. You can get there through his stomach, but it’s a much more indirect path.

I love this time of year because kids are especially susceptible to the Santa Claus ruse. They think that they have to be good lest their loot be diminished. My carpool companion claims to have Santa on speed dial and gets pretty good results. Too bad this trick doesn’t work all year round. Then again, if kids weren’t so stupid that they forget about Christmas as soon as it’s over, they wouldn’t fall for the Santa Claus flimflam in the first place. Maybe the groundhog could be endowed with boon bestowing characteristics so that kids could be controlled through January.

Wouldn’t it be great if the Miami Dolphins went 0-16 so as to complement their perfect season from the 1970s? If the Patriots go 18-0 and then lose the Super Bowl, will they be considered better than the 17-0 Dolphins of yore?

Mrs Vache Folle’s train friend lent her “The Biggest Secret” by some lunatic. I’m reading it now, and it reminds me of the stuff one of the nutjobs in Lafayette Park used to scrawl in block letters on pieces of cardboard. If it’s true that the world is run by reptilian space aliens posing as humans, you need a better writer to make the case. This guy’s paragraph divisions are entirely arbitrary and what he cites as evidence consists of supposition piled on supposition. If I were a reptilian space alien who wanted to discredit the idea that reptilian space aliens ruled the world, I’d commission this guy to write the book exposing our conspiracy so it’d be totally unbelievable.

I used to eat lunch in Lafayette Park across from the White House and sometimes share food with a bag lady I often saw there. She claimed that she was keeping an eye on the Reagans to make sure that Ron didn’t get taken over by one of what she called the “Mayo moles”, space aliens working through the Mayo Clinic. Nancy, she said, had already been replaced but as long as she kept watch, Ron would be safe. At the time I figured she was crazy, like all the regular denizens of the park, but looking back it would explain a lot.

It snowed like hell yesterday, and it took hours to get home. It sure is beautiful though, except the part I have to shovel. I never did get around to raking the leaves, but now they are hidden by snow. The dogs love the newly fallen snow. We all hate the snow once the top layer melts and then refreezes into a crust of ice too weak to hold your weight but too strong to walk through easily.

Soon I Will Be Done-a With the Troubles of the Corporate World

Today is my last day as a corporate tool. I am actually excited about the situation since I got a consulting contract that will help to ease the transition to a new position. I won’t have to take the first thing that comes my way.

One of the best things about leaving a job is that you can look forward to losing your boss who, in most cases, is a wanker. One of my recent bosses was outwardly an amiable and kindhearted man, but he had some form of Asperger’s syndrome or something and lacked the capacity to consider the feelings of others or to recognize his own situation. He was a complete impostor who managed, against all odds, to prosper in the corporate bureaucracy while not knowing his ass from a hole in the ground. He didn’t even know that he didn’t know his ass from a hole in the ground.

I am inspired by him and by men such as former Attorney General Gonzo to reach for the stars. I used to think that my bad character and laziness would keep me from the highest echelons in my profession, but they have shown that anything is possible no matter how ineffectual you are.

Anyway, I aim to take a couple of months to ponder what I want to do when I grow up. I am going to Peru in late January to build houses where the big earthquake hit a couple of months ago. I could never get away to go on these mission trips before, so getting canned has opened an opportunity for me to serve my conspecifics in need. Perhaps that experience will be helpful in examining my options and goals.

The Koala Tea of Mercy is Not Strained

My radio show this morning featured audio from a video of a Brooklyn man “going postal” and making an ass of himself in a post office. I can imagine how uncomfortable everyone else in line must have been, and I wonder that nobody pulled him aside and said “just let it go, man” or some such thing. Maybe they figured that he might get violent or something. Anyway, he verbally abused the postal clerks for what seemed like forever.

I used to have anger issues, especially when driving, but I am much more forgiving now. There’s no use getting mad at bad drivers or incompetent clerks because they are probably just doing the best they can. Inconsiderate assholes, like the ones who park their shopping carts in the middle of the aisle or who make you wait in line while they organize their pocketbooks after a transaction, don’t bother me as much anymore. I simply remember that they probably don’t realize that they are being inconsiderate. They just don’t have it in them to think about others around them. I feel sorry for them.

New Years Eve 1985, Mrs Vache Folle and I went to a ski resort in West Virginia for a New Years extravaganza that included a hotel room, dinner, champagne, dancing, and at the end of it all a snack of pastries. We enjoyed the dinner, the room, the hot tub and pool, the party and the booze, but the pastries never materialized. I don’t know why, but this made me very irate, and I made an ass of myself over the pastries. I had been promised a Danish, and by Jove, I was going to get a Danish. I took my complaint to the highest levels of management and made quite a fuss. I even reiterated my complaint the next morning as we checked out (while I was sober). Looking back, I am ashamed but able to laugh at myself for being such a prick over nothing. There was no reasoning with me.

Something else was obviously at issue with me when I went on a rampage over pastry. I was angry at the whole universe because it did not seem just. Now I know that I much prefer mercy to justice, and I am more apt to be merciful. I have been so transformed that I actually find inept service workers amusing rather than irritating, and I try to have fun with the situation rather than getting hot under the collar.

Today, if you mistreat a service worker, even an incompetent one, I am going to consider it a flaw in your character and steer clear of you socially. If you abuse a food service worker, I am not going to eat out with you if I can help it. I don’t want saliva or worse in my food, thank you very much. Have mercy.

Congress to Declare Christmas Important

Finally, Christmas will be recognized as significant thanks to Congessscritter Steve King. Nothing really matters, you know, until Congress acknowledges that it does. King’s resolution goes one better and specifies that Congress “recognizes the Christian faith as one of the great religions of the world”. It’s about time.

Who "Deserves" a Government that Works?

I don’t watch CNN, but I sometimes see ads on other networks for CNN programming. One ad show the insufferable Lou Dobbs surrounded by fawning sycophants hanging on his every rant. I have never seen his show, but the ad is enough to permit me to surmise that he is a douchebag.

He ends the ad with a rhetorical question: “Doesn’t anyone deserve a government that works?”

What would “a government that works” look like? We have to know that before we can determine whether anyone “deserves” to be so governed. A working government would keep its subjects under surveillance and control and extract as much booty from them as it could at the lowest possible cost in order to enrich the ruling elites. Perhaps there are some whose character is so debased that they can be said to “deserve” such a government, but I am going to have to say that the vast majority of us “deserve” no such thing.

Loving the Children of Israel Does not Entail Love of the State of Israel

I have an acquaintance, a co-religionist who seems amiable and completely sane, yet he is a staunch supporter of Rudy Giuliani and the GOP. It is really hard to get past this and his saying things like “As a Baptist growing up I learned to support the state of Israel”. I grew up as a Baptist and learned to love the “Children of Israel”. The “State of Israel” was not an object of reverence except for those oddballs who subscribed to the belief that there would be a Rapture and Seven Years of Tribulation and that this would happen any day now. And they loved the State of Israel only because they reckoned that it would trigger the Apocalypse and bring about the deaths of all but 144,000 of the Jews. With friends like them, who needs Anti-Semites?

I cannot in good conscience support the State of Israel. I don’t support any state, but I especially disdain states with governments that are racist and oppressive and violent. Israel’s government is all these things. May God bless the Jews, but I doubt that the State of Israel is a blessing to Jews or the world. The State of Israel, being predicated on violence and coercion as all states are, will not be the shining example of peace coming out of Jerusalem that the prophet foretold. On the contrary, the State of Israel will doubtless be an impediment to peace. It is something to be overcome, not something to celebrate.

May the Jews thrive and prosper. May they do justice, love mercy and walk in peace with their God. None of these things will be accomplished via the State of Israel but will be accomplished one heart and mind at a time.

Kids Today Don't Know What Fun Is

WaPo has a list of “Toys to Avoid” because they’re dangerous. Some of these involved pieces that stupid children swallowed. Others, such as lawn darts, were banned because some evil children threw them at their playmates and killed or maimed them. Mostly the list makes me think that kids today are a bunch of coddled pussies.

In my day, we laughed at danger. We didn’t need lawn darts to enjoy playing with deadly projectiles. We made them from sticks and rocks and whipped them at each other at high velocities. Farm implements made excellent toys for kids with active imaginations.

Some of the best toys from my youth would probably be outlawed today. The click-clack, for example, consisted of two glass balls on either end of a thick string. You’d hold the string in the middle and make the balls smash into one another to create a really annoying clacking noise. Lots of fun. As a bonus, sometimes the glass balls would shatter and eject bits of glass into your face.

Lots of our toys involved high temperatures, something kids today are just too stupid to handle. My sister had a little oven that reached the temperature of the surface of the sun. We had a Thingmaker, too, a device for making rubber spiders and such like in molds. I also had a kit for embedding objects in epoxy to use as paperweights and what not. It involved a catalyst that made the epoxy get boiling hot.

I also had a chemistry set with real chemicals and once made cyanide gas. I had an air rifle when I was five years old and a shotgun when I was twelve. We put together model cars and planes and never once choked to death on the pieces or fried our brains inhaling the glue (we inhaled, just didn’t overdo it). We had board games with pieces that might have choked us if we had decided to eat them for some reason.

Even our school supplies were dangerous by today’s standards. I had a ruler with a razor sharp metal edge and a protractor with a stiletto blade several inches long.

Playgrounds had cement surfaces, not soft fall cushioning substances or wood chips. The monkey bars were cold steel, and we played in and on concrete pipes. There was nothing more fun than a discarded spool from the phone company. We’d curl up in the middle and roll down a hill until we crashed into something. For extra fun, there’d be nails and staples poking into your body. Abandoned refrigerators were more readily available back then as well. These made great hiding places.

Kids today don’t know what fun is.

Frak Busybodies

A lot of our choices are restricted, not by laws, but by the fact that we have been conditioned to believe that our choices are limited to the conventional. We are given a choice between A and B, and C through Z don’t even get considered. Also, tradition and convention cause us to avoid unusual choices. We don’t want to have to explain ourselves.

An example from my own life that comes to mind involves the marital sleeping arrangements chez nous. When Mrs Vache Folle and I wed, we shared a bed for many years. Even after it became clear that we were utterly incompatible when it came to sleeping habits, it did not occur to us to do anything except try to compromise (and by compromise I mean do exactly what Mrs VF demands). I like to read in bed a good long time. Also, I toss and turn a lot and turn the covers into a twisted lump in the middle of the bed. Mrs VF likes to turn out the lights pretty much right away and requires complete stillness and silence to sleep. At one point she gradually and secretly reduced the wattage of the bulb in my reading lamp so I’d tire earlier.

We finally hit on the idea of having separate bedrooms about 7 years ago, and this has been a lifesaver. At first, we didn’t tell people that we had such an arrangement because we were concerned about what folks might think. Eventually, I revealed that Mrs VF and I slept apart, and I got the expected reaction. Were we on the outs? Didn’t we love one another? How weird!

Frak them. I realized that I didn’t have to explain myself to anyone, and I decided that I would give folks a hard time for sleeping with their spouses. “Are you some kind of freak?” I would ask. “Who in their right mind would try to sleep in the same bed with their spouse if they could afford their own room?” Seriously, it’s not as if they’re going to miss out on all that spontaneous middle of the night sex that is so much a part of the lives of long time married couples.

To tell the truth, I would much prefer for folks to live as they please without let or hindrance instead of their trying to justify their choices by characterizing them as virtues. But so many people treat their own choices as righteous that it becomes necessary at times to counter their assertions by acting as if I believed that their entirely conventional choices are immoral. To those who chide me for my happily childfree lifestyle, I wonder that they have so few children. Why not ten? If having children is righteous, then isn’t it even more righteous to maximize your output? With fertility drugs, they could have large litters, so it’s an outrage that they don’t take advantage of the technology!

In a perfect world, you’d have kids if you wanted to and would be childfree if you wanted to, and nobody would question your choice. You’d sleep with your spouse if you pleased, or not, and nobody would look askance. You’d do as you pleased, and you’d be free from meddling busybodies.

Golden Tablets

I once found some golden tablets in a cave, and I translated them with the help of a solicitous angel. They were additional books that belong in the Bible. The angel told me that I was chosen as a Prophet to lead the faithful who would follow the new scriptures.

Nobody would believe me, though, when I told them about it. That I had lost the tablets really seemed to make me seem less credible.

Enough With the Parades Already

Dear World War Two Veteran:

Once and for all, thanks for fighting in the Big One. Now could you stop it with the parades and dodder with some dignity for a change? At least be truthful about the war. It sucked. You were afraid. You missed your family. You saw a lot of bad things, and you maybe did some things you weren’t too proud of.

Stop prancing around acting like it was all about honor and glory. Some impressionable young men are going to see your zillionth stupid parade and get the idea that they ought to enlist in the armed forces. It will be partly your fault when they get killed for no good reason. You were in a war and should know better.

Again, thank you for your service.

Sincerely,

The Second Greatest Generation

Let's Hope for the Least Evil and Insane Candidate to Be Nominated by Each Party

Mrs Vache Folle reckons that a nominee from one of the two major parties will be the next President. History is on her side. This is not just a display of Mrs VF’s mastery of the obvious. She has an important point, to wit that you don’t want the nominee of either party to be batshit crazy or an asshole of monumental proportions. Even though the GOP has demonstrated that it is incapable of governing and that its ranks are full of frak-ups, crooks and nutjobs, the American electorate has shown that it is capable of voting in large numbers for a ticket unfit for any office.

You want the least crazy and irresponsible candidate to get the nomination in each party. Some partisans will argue that it is good to have an opponent who is too crazy or tainted by scandal to be elected, but Mrs VF knows that there is no such thing as an unelectable candidate. The GOP could nominate Charles Manson, and if some disaster turns enough Americans into cringing bedwetters, he could get elected.

In a perfect world, Ron Paul would get the GOP nomination. (Actually, in a perfect world there wouldn’t be a presidency at all). Let’s hope it happens. If not, we definitely don’t want there to be any chance that Mike Huckabee could become President. He’s a crazy person and an ignoramus. He is a clergyman who, despite professing to follow the Prince of Peace, is an advocate of war and authoritarianism. We don’t want Rudy because he’s the archetypal douchebag with a swirl.

I could live with the creepy Romney or even career frak-up McCain, although both are loathsome in so many ways. They are the least evil and/or crazy of the GOP contenders, so let’s hope one of them gets the nomination if Paul doesn’t pull off a miracle.

I don’t really have nightmares about any of the Democratic candidates, and I don’t worry that any of them would bring about the apocalypse through incompetence or evil.

I have mixed feelings about Clinton. She’s too much like a neo-con for my tastes, but I derive so much joy from the way her success and prosperity piss off wingnuts. It would be worth it to have her as President just to see Sean Hannity’s head explode. I would love it if she achieved greatness and won the Nobel Prize because it would produce an epidemic of apoplexy in people I find it challenging to love.

I am Connected

I know a guy who knows a guy who knows President Bush. The same guy knows all the high up asshats in the government, so I am only two degrees of separation from them. Bush knows Queen Elizabeth and the Pope, so I’m only three degrees from them. Queen Elizabeth knows lots of quality folks, so I’m four degrees from a ton of aristocrats.

It’s possible that one of my quips at a cocktail party will be repeated in the Vatican or the Kremlin or Balmoral, only they won’t know it was me that passed the joke along. “How do you get a London School of Economics graduate to leave your porch? Pay him for the pizza!”

I am much further removed from entertainment celebrities and professional athletes. I can’t think of any way to link with Paris Hilton or Britney Spears unless maybe the Bush twins have partied with them or been in rehab with them. But wait, Bush owned the Texas Rangers and knows some baseball folks! That gets me linked to scads of players, coaches, executives and agents. Some of them may have slept with Paris Hilton!

My Weapons Program is on Hold... For Now

I abandoned my program to develop nuclear weapons for personal home use many years ago. The program was inspired by my desire to harness nuclear energy for home heating and air-conditioning. I explored cold fusion but found that I could not bring it off. I knew I would have to settle for plain old fission.

I figured that if I was going to go to the expense of enriching uranium and running a nuclear power plant in my basement that I might as well produce some nuclear weapons while I was at it. That would be the ultimate in home security.

It turns out that starting a nuclear power plant and a weapons program takes a lot of money and know-how, both of which are in short supply chez nous. So I gave up on the program.

Who’s to say I won’t start it up again in the future?

Would Amanda Marcotte Kill to Keep a Child from Buying a Twinkie at School?

Amanda Marcotte reckons that it’s silly to complain about the “nanny state” in cases where the government is just doing its job and exercising its right to raise people’s children.

“But whining about the “nanny state” when you’re talking about the bona fide child care duties of the state—i.e. the right of the state to restrict the foods brought into the school to be sold or served the children—is puzzling.”

Given Amanda’s view that the state is “in loco parentis” when kids are in its clutches and that the state has “rights”, it is not surprising that she would be puzzled by libertarian objections. Once again, a statist jumps to the conclusion that libertarians object to the point of a law or program rather than to the coercive manner in which it is to be accomplished.

I agree that children in schools should be offered healthy snacks rather than unhealthy ones. I disagree that the federal government should mandate this and use compulsion to bring it about. Let’s review for Amanda. Healthy snacks good. Coercion bad.

I would argue that the issue of what snacks should be available in schools is better decided by parents and the local authorities rather than the Imperial government in Washington. Healthy snacks good. Usurpation of power by the central government bad.

I would go even further and argue that government, even though it is in the business of running schools, should stay its hand when it comes to such matters as snack offerings. Is there no limit to the reach of the state? Is nothing so trivial or personal that the state ought not to interpose itself? Is it really necessary or desirable to manage the issue of school snack offerings with the threat of force?
Healthy snacks good. State thuggery bad.

Let’s run the issue through may patented test of when government action is appropriate. Am I so concerned about what some other people’s children might get from a vending machine at school that I would be willing to send in goons to rough people up to make sure that my will is done? I have to say no. Then again, that’s me. Perhaps it is that important for Amanda. I hope not. I would like to think that she is not a douchebag and that she is simply a victim of the false consciousness that forms the basis for statism.

How Do I Tell My Children....

I watched Louis CK’s most recent HBO comedy special this weekend. He had, among many extremely funny observations, good points about homosexuality and gay marriage. Why, he asked, would homophobes get so worked up about something that had no impact whatsoever on their lives? It’s not as if gangs of gay people are running around forcing themselves sexually on others. And if two gay men married, what would that be to anyone but them and their families? Louis addressed the slippery slope argument brilliantly. If gay folks can marry, then some guy might marry his dog! Good for him, said Louis. Again, it does not affect anyone but the man and the dog and their immediate associates.

I especially appreciated his treatment of the “how do I tell my children” argument. It’s not anybody’s problem but the annoying parent who is posing the question. The whole world has to organize itself in a particular way because some parent wants to avoid a conversation with his child? Thank you, Louis CK.

CNBC, Cockatrice, Carpool Conspecific, Pilgrims, Jane Austen, and Cthulu

The TV in the conference room at the office is perpetually tuned into CNBC, a so called business news network. It’s good for one thing only as far as I am concerned: it shows the DOW and S&P numbers and such like. Otherwise it’s just so much wasted air. Business journalism is, in a world where journalism has reached its nadir overall, the worst of the worst. The challenges are somewhat unique in that businesses carefully manage their image and try to control information. Oh wait, that’s not unique. It is a challenge, though, and business journalists are just not up to it.

Last night at choir practice, we ran through a version of “A Little Child Shall Lead Them”. The part where “the sucking child will play on the hole of the asp” and “the weaned child will place his hand in the cockatrice den” killed me. I couldn’t stop laughing for ten minutes. Apparently, even in paradise, you will need to keep a close eye on your kids. I’m hoping that I will be able to sing this with a straight face when the time comes.

My carpool conspecific reckons that “they ought to outlaw commodity trading”. He blames speculators for high oil prices and the price of gasoline (we paid $3.30.9 the other day). We’ve been commuting together for three years, and my libertarian rants have apparently had little influence on him. I give up.

I’m reading Philbrick’s “The Mayflower”, about the settlement at Plymouth. I’m only a quarter through it and already realize that everything I ever learned about the Pilgrims was a crock. I shouldn’t be surprised since all my education in history from public schools has been more akin to mythology than to history.

I just finished two “annotated” works that I had already read before without annotations and found that the notes made them quite interesting. I liken the experience to watching a DVD with the special features and commentary. The first was “Pride & Prejudice” by Jane Austen. Having a better understanding of the social order really adds to appreciation for the story.

The second book featured stories by HP Lovecraft, a favorite from my youth. The annotations in that book were more in the way of cross references to other Lovecraft stories or to other authors in the genre, but there were quotes from Lovecraft’s letters and some tidbits about edits in the pulp magazines in which the stories had been published. Rereading Lovecraft these many years later, I didn’t feel the same sense of the “eldritch” that I felt as a kid. Real life is way scarier than anything the Old Ones can unleash. I imagine that the Old Ones couldn’t do any worse at running things than the humans are doing.

Is America Ready for a New Gilligan's Island?

Jerry Van Dyke could have played the role of Gilligan but decided that he would rather star in “My Mother the Car”. The rest is history as we have experienced it. Imagine how different Gilligan’s Island might have been had Jerry taken the role. Imagine the ripple effect that this one small change would have had on the timeline.

I reckon a Broadway musical based on Gilligan’s Island is long overdue. Perhaps it would be best to start with a movie based on the TV show: Brian Doyle Murray could be the Skipper; Chris Elliott could be Gilligan, or if we had the budget Adam Sandler; Jennifer Love Hewitt could play Mary Ann while Ginger could be played by any number of actresses; let’s get Brent Spiner to play the Professor; the Howells could be Edward Herrmann and any number of actresses. Then we’d make the movie into a Broadway show, after which we’d make another movie based on the Broadway musical.

I Am Not Spam, Even Though I Appear So to Some Robots

JL Wilson is back and is embracing despair concerning political matters. I enjoyed his posting on music and sports, but I have to say that I don’t reckon that a college football championship is necessary or even desirable. So what if folks can disagree about which teams are better? That’s half the fun. Of course, everybody knows that the only real football is played in the SEC.

Back home when I was a kid, most men divided themselves up according to their favorite college football team and, despite never having attended college, would refer to themselves as an “Auburn man” or a “Tech man” as the case may have been. They were avid followers and partisans of their chosen teams. I could never figure out how these men selected their colleges, and there was no way that I could see to predict what any given man’s preference would be. I attended the University of Georgia for part of my college career, so I feel obliged to root for the Bulldogs. I lived in Gainesville, Florida for a while and grew to loathe the Gators. The same thing happened when I lived in Seattle. I grew to hate the “U-Dub” Huskies. I am an alumnus of Western Washington, so I would root for the Vikings if I were ever called upon to do so.

I have been associated with a number of mascots in my lifetime, and these provided practice for subsequent irrational collectivism. I started first grade as a “Ripple” at Valley Point Elementary. This was a riff on the high school mascot the “Green Wave” which was represented as a water wave apparently overcome with algae. The Ripple was not, as far as I can recall, ever represented pictorially. I then became a Brookwood “Beaver”. I don’t remember what City Park School’s mascot was. My junior high school featured the Dug Gap “Bisons”, chosen because of the school’s proximity to Ed King’s chicken ranch where he kept a small herd of bison. In high school, we had the Dalton High School “Catamounts” which was represented as a kind of lynx. Go Cats!

Dalton College had the “Roadrunners” based on the cartoon bird that eluded the coyote. Dalton had a fantastic basketball team back then. Then there was the University of Georgia “Bulldogs” and The American University “Eagles”. I later became a partisan of the WWU “Vikings” and, at last, the Columbia “Lions”. To sum up, I have had as associated mascots one inanimate object, a rodent, a large ruminant, two felines, a canine, two birds, and some medieval marauders. You’d think there would have been a Native American reference somewhere along the line.

Blogger’s robots decided my blog was spam for some reason, but they have now acknowledged that I am a human blogger and will allow me to post to this blog once again. Most of the spam I get is via e-mail, and 99% gets filtered through some magical program. The 1% that gets through relates to replica watches, hot stock tips, friendly warnings that my co-workers are talking about how fat I am behind my back, and lonely promiscuous women who want to meet me. These women obviously don’t talk to my co-workers. In any event, this quality post should convince any spam detector of my "humanity".

Romney to Deny Necrophilia; Rudy to Evade Questions About Platonic Friend

Is there any truth to the rumor that a certain GOP presidential candidate, whom we will just call “Rudy G.”, has been in a long time gay relationship with a Catholic priest? Or that another GOP candidate, whom we’ll call “Willard”, is a necrophiliac? Not that there’s anything wrong with that.

Now that the rumors have been mentioned in the blogosphere by a source with no credibility whatsoever, the legitimate media should feel free to run with it. The story will be that the rumors exist (or do they?) not that they are credible or anything.

What Is Meant By Improved?

One of my conspecifics remarked at the water cooler that the war in Iraq is “improving”. He could not explain what that meant, however.

Has it suddenly become lawful? Is there an actual mission that can be described in human language? Is there a way to know when it has been “won”? Can the troops leave now? Are the Iraqi people secure in their persons and property? Is it going to cost less?

Getting Psyched to Look for a New Job!

I’ve been giving a little thought to my future career now that I am about to be unemployed. Frankly, I have become so reconciled to the good points of getting laid off at this point, that I’d be disappointed if it fell through. Firstly, although my boss is well-intentioned, good hearted man, he wants watching and wrangling way too much. Also, he is one of those guys who sincerely believes that he is always the smartest man in the room, and this makes it hard on those of us who really are. Secondly, the principal subject matter of my job, environmental matters and toxic torts, have begun to bore me. I know the sites and the litigation environment of the entities I serve like the back of my hand, and it’s starting to become same-old-same-old to a fault. I’m not learning anything at this point, and I’m not using my skills in problem solving or negotiation as much as I would like. If I didn’t do some work for the other operating companies, I wouldn’t be using them at all.

I will have two weeks at the end of the year to spend in thinking about what I ought to do and to polish up my CV. Then I’ll hit the bricks looking for new opportunities. I have my asinine interview question responses down cold:

“Where do you see yourself in five years?” “In your boss’s job, firing you for asking stupid interview questions.”

“What is your greatest weakness?” “I am sometimes inhumanly productive and efficient, and this can make my co-workers feel inadequate.”

“What is your greatest strength?” “The ability to work with douchebags, which, if this interview is any indication, will come in handy here.”

“What are you looking for in a salary?” “I prefer to be grotesquely and comically overpaid, and I would like to make at least 50% more than you.”

Save 71.5 Billion Bucks

If the Department of Education disappeared tomorrow, who, other than the 4,500 bureaucrats who work there, would miss it?

The financial aid departments of universities and other educational institutions would have to turn elsewhere to get money for students, and such institutions would likely have to trim tuition and improve services in order to attract students. I reckon that the additional costs of higher education have eaten up any benefit that students might have gained from access to loans.

Consultants and administrative bureaucrats in school districts all over America would find themselves out of work since the byzantine system of the federal DOE would no longer be around to mystify the laity. Luckily, these are highly intelligent folks who will be able to turn to more productive work.

Would the professionals in school districts find themselves paralyzed by a lack of guidance from Washington? I reckon that they would celebrate the demise of their heavy handed federal overlords.

We’d all get about $200 each if the 71.5 billion smackers that the DOE spends were returned to us. I’d rather have the $200 than the DOE.

Love and Radishes

In the last few weeks, the theme at church has been “radical love”, and I have been gratified by this move even further from legalism and exclusionism. It is supposed that the word “radical” is etymologically related to “radish” and that radicalism involves getting back to root values. Get it? Radishes are roots. I would suggest that radicalism involves striking at the root and replacing it rather than reaffirming old core values. The core values of most churches I have encountered have had little to do with radical love, and embracing this concept will likely require a significant rethinking of core values by most of the congregation, at least if they are much like me.

I Won't Go to Mars, So Don't Even Ask Me

I have been enjoying the series “Mars Rising” and had long thought that I would jump at the chance to join the crew of a mission to Mars. After last night’s episode on the hardships of the undertaking and the psychological and social problems that would have to be overcome, I am withdrawing my application. The clincher was the part about drinking my recycled urine, but the other complaints of veterans of long term missions had already weakened my resolve.

Apparently, bathing is out of the question, so everybody on board is going to reek. And for some reason it is hard to sleep well in space, so everybody is going to be irritable and on edge. All your fellow cosmonauts will be slowly going mad, as will you, and you will ultimately have to kill them all before they kill you. The diet will soon become monotonous beyond toleration, and the society of your crewmates will become tiresome.

Even if it doesn’t get that bad, even one asshole or douchebag among the crew will make for a miserable journey. It will take months to get to Mars, and you’ll have to hang out on Mars for almost a year before you can return. You will either love or despise your crewmates. In the best case scenario, it will be like the “Breakfast Club”, only longer.

The main problem, as I see it, is that crewmembers are going to have to be geeks with the ability to troubleshoot all the gear, yet, at the same time, they will have to be socially adept and empathetic. How often does that combination occur in nature?

What b psycho Said

bpsycho says it better than I ever could:

“Whether or not something that spends a decent chunk of time being microscopic & cannot yet live outside of its host is equivalent to you or me is in no way whatsoever as obvious as whether or not ones skin color makes them less human.”

Violent Radicalization Worries Congress

Congress is so worried about “Violent Radicalization” that the House of Reprehensibles has passed the Violent Radicalization and Homegrown Terrorism Prevention Act of 2007.

What the hell is violet radicalization? “The term `violent radicalization' means the process of adopting or promoting an extremist belief system for the purpose of facilitating ideologically based violence to advance political, religious, or social change.” The War on Drugs would fit the definition as far as I am concerned. Or military recruiting.

Why is this such a concern now? “The Internet has aided in facilitating violent radicalization, ideologically based violence, and the homegrown terrorism process in the United States by providing access to broad and constant streams of terrorist-related propaganda to United States citizens.” I bet they are talking about TownHall, Michelle Malkin and Little Green Footballs. The GOP has an internet presence as does the White House.

What’s to keep the Commission created by this law from trampling on civil liberties? “In General- The Department of Homeland Security's efforts to prevent ideologically based violence and homegrown terrorism as described herein shall not violate the constitutional rights, civil rights, or civil liberties of United States citizens or lawful permanent residents.” Whew! That’s a relief. Congress has left a convenient reminder for the Commission right in the legislation to reign in any despotic impulses.

Here's the thing. Will the Commission consider political advocacy as promoting ideologically based violence? Politics is all about force; therefore, any political advocacy is the advocacy of force. Is this bill designed to squelch dissent from the "mainstream" as espoused by the two ideologically indistuinguishable major parties? I'm going to assume that it is.

My Personal Economy is in Recession

It finally happened. As I feared, the latest imbecilic transaction dreamt up by upper management in Europe has resulted in my getting canned. At least I got a month’s notice. I suppose it could have been worse. I might have gotten hired by the wankers who bought the entity that employs me. I reckon that it is infinitely preferable to work for imbeciles than for wankers, and I hope that I will be able to find another situation working for an equally imbecilic organization.

The most ironic aspect of the event is that the reason for carrying out the transaction became moot some time ago, so there was no reason to go forward with it. But certain Europeans have not grasped the concept of having a Plan B. They also don’t seem to realize that this makes them susceptible to getting taken. So I have spent much of the last several months digging my own grave so to speak, and I will doubtless spend the next four weeks helping with “the transition”. You can imagine how helpful I will be. Or any of us. All of us got the heave ho.

Lazy Jihadists Are Here

John Amato at C&L posts about a Tancredo ad that problematizes open borders. A taste:

“There are consequences to open borders beyond the 20 million aliens who have come to take our jobs. Islamic terrorists now freely roam U.S. soil, Jihadists who froth with hate here to do as they have in London, Spain, Russia.

The price we pay for spineless politicians who refuse to defend our borders against those who come to kill.”

These must be the laziest or most inept Islamist terrorists ever. They freely roam US soil and yet commit no terrorist acts! Seriously, the potential targets and opportunities to spread terror abound if you are really interested in scaring Americans. Even minor annoyances, such as felling trees across roads would turn a sizeable number of Americans into bedwetters. Threats alone might do the trick and with little chance of repercussions.

I Express Opinions

If I want to take the nucleus of one of my cells and put it in an ovum and implant this product in a womb and have someone give birth to it, it’s nobody’s business. I don’t care if you do the same. The result will be a copy of me or you, not some monster, unless we manipulate the genes to promote monsterism. Even that’s nobody’s business as long as our monsters don’t go on rampages.

Does genocide work? I’ll say! If you want to solve the problems presented by an inconvenient ethnic category, there’s nothing more final and complete in the way of a solution than killing every last one of them. Why don’t we use it more frequently in view of its effectiveness? I reckon the main objection is that it’s evil. Just like torture. It doesn’t matter if it works because you don’t even want to go there morally. Unless you’re evil, you won’t even make allowances for the possibility of using genocide (or torture).

Global warming really is happening, and humans are contributing to it. It won’t be the first time that living things have had a spectacular impact on global climate. It is the first time that any living thing has had the capability in principle to mitigate the consequences. We won’t, though. Lucky for me I’ll be dead by the time the world gets really unlivable. I understand the global warming deniers. As long as we’re too stupid to do anything about it, we might as well pretend it isn’t happening.

I wish it were legal to possess and consume pot. Then it would be easy for me to find it and buy it without worrying about some jackbooted thugs invading my home. In that case, I would smoke pot every evening and pretty much the whole weekend. Not enough to be really baked but just enough to be a little high. If everyone were smoking weed, it would be a far better world.

I can’t help feeling that I would be a lot happier if I could afford servants to clean my house, do laundry and such, do the routine yard work and run errands for me. It would be even better if I didn’t have to work and could enjoy the clean house and well kept yard for a lot of each day.

I Don't Want to Be Divisive, But...

On Sunday, the pastor emeritus preached on the value of unity and diversity. We should celebrate that we are one but acknowledge that we aren’t always going to agree on everything. We shouldn’t let these disagreements become occasions for divisiveness; rather, we should embrace the opportunity to engage in discussion in community. We should welcome those who differ to the table.

It is difficult for many people of faith to adhere to this ideal for they take the view that they are right, everyone else is wrong, and there is no basis for compromise. “God said it, they believe it, and that settles it.” They lack the capacity to imagine that they might be mistaken, that they don’t know the whole circumstances of others whom they condemn, and that Christian love entails a high degree of tolerance for differences of opinion.

On the other hand, I am challenged by impatience with some of my more legalistic and judgmental co-religionists. It is difficult for me to tolerate their opinions because their opinions include insisting on the adoption of their views and disrespect and condemnation for those who dissent. Perhaps I can find a way to be tolerant of the underlying views while ignoring the requirement that they be applied to everyone and ignoring the divisive aspects. There won’t be any way to keep them from leaving and setting up their own shop, but at least I can try to be loving toward them while they are taking their leave.

Then again, what happens if a legalistic and judgmental faction takes control and closes the tent flaps, so to speak? Am I obliged in the interests of unity to go along with such a program? I would not be welcome, I think, in such a church since my beliefs are strongly anti-legalist.

I think the legalists are wrong and that I am right, but I acknowledge that there is no way to resolve the difference because both beliefs are irrational and predicated on metaphysical assumptions that are beyond debate. I can try to understand how a legalist might feel and acknowledge that he is coming from a position of faith, but I would like for the legalist to show me the same courtesy, an event that has so far never transpired in all my dealings with individuals of the legalistic ilk.

It is a conundrum.

Are We Desperate for Public Intellectuals?

We subscribe to the Atlantic Monthly, but it’s not because they sometimes feature Andrew Sullivan’s writings. In fact, I reckon Sullivan is a wanker whose views on matters are hardly worth considering. Take his most recent work in The Atlantic in which he writes about Senator Obama.

Sullivan thinks that America is facing a most “lethal enemy” in the troglodytes of Al Qaeda at the same time that it is bitterly divided in an unprecedented way by haters on both the left and right. Obama is a possible savior:

“At its best, the Obama candidacy is about ending a war—not so much the war in Iraq, which now has a mo­mentum that will propel the occupation into the next decade—but the war within America that has prevailed since Vietnam and that shows dangerous signs of intensifying, a nonviolent civil war that has crippled America at the very time the world needs it most. It is a war about war—and about culture and about religion and about race. And in that war, Obama—and Obama alone—offers the possibility of a truce.”

Seriously, Sullivan sees America this way? And he sees Al Qaeda as such a monumental threat? What is his evidence?

“ The traces of our long journey to this juncture can be found all around us. Its most obvious manifestation is political rhetoric. The high temperature—Bill O’Reilly’s nightly screeds against anti-Americans on one channel, Keith Olbermann’s “Worst Person in the World” on the other; MoveOn.org’s “General Betray Us” on the one side, Ann Coulter’s Treason on the other; Michael Moore’s accusation of treason at the core of the Iraq War, Sean Hannity’s assertion of treason in the opposition to it—is particularly striking when you examine the generally minor policy choices on the table. Something deeper and more powerful than the actual decisions we face is driving the tone of the debate.”

The posturing Of Bill O and Hannity and Coulter are not comparable to the examples on the left. MoveOn and Olbermann and Moore are at least thoughtful and resort to reason while the right wingers are just plain hateful. The left isn’t calling for mass murder or detentions of dissenters. Bill O, Hannity and Coulter are clowns, and they speak for only the wingnut minority of hard core authoritarians. You can’t seriously hold them up as evidence of anything other than a kind of twisted form of entertainment for yahoos.

Who is to blame for this unprecedented division? Baby Boomers, of course:

“The answer lies mainly with the biggest and most influential generation in America: the Baby Boomers. The divide is still—amazingly—between those who fought in Vietnam and those who didn’t, and between those who fought and dissented and those who fought but never dissented at all. By defining the contours of the Boomer generation, it lasted decades. And with time came a strange intensity.”

Really? This is how the Boomers divide themselves? I’m a Boomer. I was too young to fight in Vietnam or even to have much in the way of an opinion about it. There are millions of Boomers in my position, so we are presumably not engaged in the non-violent civil war in Sullivan’s imagination. Most Boomers did not fight in the Vietnam War, and many who did were conscripts. Many protested, but most people jut tried to get on with their lives in the hope that the government wouldn’t get them killed. Women mostly didn't have to fret about serving against their will.

And look at the Boomer leaders of the right who ought by Sullivan’s reckoning to come down on the non-fighting side: Bush and Cheney fought not. Most of the wingnut punditry sat out Vietnam. The neo-con cabal never served in Vietnam. For crying out loud, does Sullivan just pull this stiff out of his ass?

GW Bush has his chance to set things right after 9/11:

“With 9/11, Bush had a reset moment—a chance to reunite the country in a way that would marginalize the extreme haters on both sides and forge a national consensus. He chose not to do so. It wasn’t entirely his fault. On the left, the truest believers were unprepared to give the president the benefit of any doubt in the wake of the 2000 election, and they even judged the 9/11 attacks to be a legitimate response to decades of U.S. foreign policy.”

I can’t think of a single person on the left (other than arguably Ward Churchill) who ever opined that the attack on the World Trade Center was “legitimate”. It was “understandable” in light of American foreign policy but not “legitimate”. Frankly, there aren’t haters on the left that come close to the haters on the right. That’s why the left is so susceptible to the right’s maneuvering and manipulations and why the left even now is unable to to do much. The left aims to be inclusive, to have dialogues, and what have you. The right just wants to win.

I have not read any cultural analysis ever that was so far off the mark as this article by Sullivan.

More on Corn Farming

Sunni had some questions about my post on corn farming. I claimed that cheap corn contributed to obesity. This is my own opinion based on the assumption that the cheaper food is, the more folks can afford to eat. And corn based processed foods are high in calories. Also, less expensive chicken and beef means that more Americans can afford to eat meat every day, even at every meal. The corn I was discussing is commodity corn, not the stuff we eat qua corn. It’s the stuff that goes into animal feed and other products such as high fructose corn syrup. Of course, I can’t really prove that cheap food contributes to obesity, and I concede that the problem is overdetermined, but it stands to reason.

Until recently, when there has been a spike in prices fueled by demand for ethanol production, corn prices have been lower than the cost to produce corn with the result that farmers had to receive federal subsidies to make up the difference. In the case of smaller farms, these subsidies are inadequate to insure an income level sufficient to sustain farmers and their families. Smaller operators tend to support farm programs that guarantee income levels rather than price assurances. The recent price increases will doubtless be a short term boon to farmers, but the increased cost of oil will in short order add substantially to the costs of production.

Farmers in the corn belt are not readily able to retool and change crops, but are prone to sustain losses over a number of seasons in the hope that prices will increase. The only market is for corn and soybeans, so that is what they have to grow. If they switched to broccoli, they’d have no way to sell it.