The Spencer File

I'm going to share something with all of you. Yes, I know it's been months since I last posted, but I think I need to tell you all something.

As a baseball fan, tonight, I am a golden god.

My matriculation to deity happened about 4 1/2 hours and 6 beers ago, when the Phillies won their second World Series title and first since 1980.

Brad Lidge strikes out Eric Hinske for the final out, and for a brief moment in time (at least until April) all the pain, anguish and torn hair caused by being a lifetime fan of the Philadelphia Phillies disappears under a hail of shouts, screams and a touch of alcohol.

I live in Milwaukee now, but damned if I'm not going to spread the joy, beginning with this blog post. As a fan humbled by their excellence, I'd like to personally thank every member of the 2008 Philadelphia Phillies for giving the last 28 years meaning. For all the dreams shattered, for all the almost-was-es to today's celebration, may all of you walk together forever. As a fan, when I'm 80 and soiling my underpants, I shall remember your names, and I shall smile. May the magic never wear off.

Oh the places I've gone.

Since we last left our readers you can count on one hand, I've changed jobs, watched my beloved Penguins lose the Stanley Cup, and officially become a recording artist.

First the job. I'm now a Compliance Officer for a local medical billing firm. I love this place! Imagine starting every work day with a clean slate and finishing a daily project all the same? This may be the job I've always wanted. I know I've thought that before, but this time it may be the whole shooting match. I go to work and create, and then I return home and create. I'm not sure what I should do with myself and my creativity...

Until this past weekend. I drove the 800 miles to Marietta, Georgia for the release of To Whom, Etc., the debut album by my old friend Steve Whitworth. I contributed vocals on 5 tracks on the 9-song album. We played live, and Steve and his good friends in his band Absolute Jack killed. I would have liked to hit better notes, but I received many second-hand compliments over the 24 hours after the gig while I was either preparing for or completing the drive home. Steve and I are already talking about recording the follow-up. I look forward to my eventual return down South for just that purpose.

Meanwhile, back in the land of Beer and Sausage (and Cheese, but I hate cheese), my own collective, The Jumping Frenchmen of Maine, prepares for a show this Friday at Smokin' Joe's in West Allis, WI. That will be followed up with a show at The Chancery in Waukesha on August 30th. Busy, busy, busy.....

I’ll start this post with a question. What do Ed Snider and Fox News have in common?

The answer is that no intelligent person believes a word coming out of either entity, and yet both really don’t care. For you see, the people that Ed Snider and Fox News lie to on a daily basis aren’t intelligent human beings. The people they lie to are their rabid fans.

The ongoing horror that is Fox News continues uninterrupted despite over 80% of the country disagreeing with them on a daily basis in George W. Bush’s United States. I’ll let the reader find a first-tier source to document those particular atrocities. For Ed Snider and the Philadelphia Flyers, look no further.

I am now and from this day forward a Pittsburgh Penguins fan. I have been since 2001. I used to be a Flyers fan, but I got sick of flogging a dead horse.

The first hockey game I ever watched was the first game of the 1974 quarterfinals between the Atlanta Flames and the Flyers. I was 8 years old, and my family had just moved back to the greater Philadelphia area. I just happened to have turned on an old black and white TV that was showing the game. The Flyers won that game 4-1, skating and shooting rings around Tom Lysiak, Eric Vail, Phil Myre, Brian Hextall and the rest of the Flames. The Flyers went on to win the Stanley Cup that year and again in 1975. They’ve never won one since.

As a child and far too long into adulthood, I believed in another Stanley cup victory that never happened. Sure, they came close. They lost in the finals to the Islanders in 1980 due to a bad offside call by the ever-deplored Leon Stickle. They lost to Wayne Gretzky and the Oilers in 1987, and again to the Detroit Red Wings 10 years later. In reality, all three teams overachieved, and continued to miss the key elements that would put them over the top. Further, it can be argued that if the two teams that had won the Stanley Cup in the ‘70’s had had to face the Montreal Canadiens in the playoffs in either of those years, they may never have won a cup at all. They finally did run up against the Canadiens in 1976, and were swept in the finals.

And yet, the Flyers faithful continue to pay the ever-increasing ticket prices to watch a team that last won a championship in the abbreviated Gerald Ford administration. The Flyers brass, led by aging owner and perpetual excuse dispenser Ed Snider, continue on the same outdated course that has now lasted longer on this earth than Jimi Hendrix did, and falling far short of the fireworks from the solo in “All Along The Watchtower”.

As I watched my newly-beloved Penguins take a 2-0 lead in the Eastern Conference finals last night, I saw the Flyers again choose brawn over brains with the addition of Steve Downie to their lineup. On the final one of his few shifts of the evening, Downie coughed up the puck in his own zone, leading to the game-winning goal being scored by Maxime Talbot, the Penguins fourth-line center. To review, the other centers in Pittsburgh have the last names of Crosby, Malkin and Staal. All three are known for goal scoring. Max Talbot is a fourth-line center nursing a broken foot.

This type of soul-searching in the clutch has been a hallmark of the Philadelphia Flyers every time they get this deep into the playoffs over the last 20 years. While some allowances can be made for injuries on the blue line to Kimmo Timonen and, as of last night, Braydon Coburn, the Flyers continue to be the bulls in the proverbial china shop. They’re great at throwing hits and knocking things over, but the puck has to enter the other team’s net more often than your own. That is what wins hockey games.

It’s not as if the Flyers lack talent in this area, with Jeff Carter, Mike Richards and Daniel Briere in their lineup. However, the balance of their forwards are all what I like to call “Bobby Clarke types”, two way centers for whom skating is for the most part a secondary skill. This may very well be the Achilles’ Heel of the whole franchise. Every year, on draft day, when faced with the choice between a proven scorer and a plugger with an attitude, they choose the latter. They proudly assign the moniker of “a guy who plays Flyers Hockey” to whoever that poor, misguided soul might be, and they once again rise to the not-so-ethereal heights of the first circle of Hockey’s Inferno, which is forever reserved for also-rans. The irony of Daniel Briere now being a Flyer is that the Flyers could have drafted him the year he became eligible. Apparently, Briere didn’t play “Flyers Hockey” in junior, as he had the audacity to actually score points in Quebec Major Junior. The Flyers instead drafted Dainius Zubrus, a now-journeyman center and only the second Lithuanian ever to play in the NHL. Now that’s Flyers hockey.

If the ineptitude of the front office were only evident on draft day, that would be one thing. The Flyers have also been burned with free agent signings over the last decade. Veterans who were supposed to be the missing piece of the puzzle for a championship populate their recent history. People like John VanBiesbrouck, Jeremy Roenick and Sami Kapanen have all arrived in Philadelphia past their expiration dates. Others that looked good on paper, like Chris Gratton, were spoiled by a series of coaches with either little to no NHL coaching experience (Bill Barber, John Stevens) or long tenures with no championships (Terry Murray, Roger Neilsen).

The reward for continuing and stubborn mediocrity has been an economic windfall for Ed Snider and the Comcast Corporation, as the con game continues between the Flyers marketing department and the fans that populate the Wachovia Center. Ed Snider is a millionaire many times over, and as a veteran of the ownership group that hired Gary Bettman, pulls a lot of strings behind the scenes in the NHL. Is it any accident that the Comcast-owned Vs. Network, the acknowledged cable home of bull riding and sport fishing, is now the official cable network of the NHL in America? Of course ESPN is the preferred home of any sport that calls itself respectable, but respectable doesn’t line Ed Snider’s pockets quite enough apparently. It is this kind of self-serving decision making that leaves the NHL behind pro football, college football, baseball, the NBA, college basketball and NASCAR in the pecking order of American sports. More people watch the NFL Draft than the Stanley Cup Finals in the United States. That borders on treasonous.

The Flyers continue to hike their ticket prices, which does not include the money shelled out by their fans for gas, food and parking. The fans, delusional as ever, in all their best Kevin Bacon regalia, bend over, get hit by the paddle and say “Thank you sir. May I have another?” WIP, the popular local sports radio station, calls Flyers fans “Stepfords” and for good reason. The Flyers are a cult like no other in professional sports. Former players that are forever referred to as “the Flyers Family” infect the front office of the Philadelphia Flyers. There are Amish families 50 miles to the West of Philadelphia that exhibit more diversity than the Flyers’ brain trust.

It’s often said that being a fan of the New York Yankees is like rooting for the House at a blackjack table. The Flyers will continue to pay exorbitant amounts of money on big name players that are past their prime, throwing bait to their free-spending fans, deceiving them into thinking that this one new player is the one to put them over the top. The Flyers follow the Yankee model, with the only difference being a lack of success on the playing surface.

As we prepare to see signs in the crowd tomorrow night at the Wachovia Center from the Flyers fans that call Sidney Crosby a crybaby, it won’t enter the minds of those 20,000 fans in attendance that the only way they’ll ever see a guy with the skill set of a Sidney Crosby in the Flyers’ lineup is by a fat contract when he’s past his prime. The Flyers model is tired, robotic and not about to change. As long as the cattle stream to Broad Street, money in hand, accepting at face value the pronouncements from on high, it will be a case of good money after bad. A little ignorance of the way things could be goes a long way.

Labels: Ed Snider, Fox News, NHL, Philadelphia Flyers

Today is primary day in my former homeland of Pennsylvania. While Hillary Clinton is expected to come away as the victor in this particular contest, going forward she carries on her back the hopes and dreams of a group within the Democratic Party who with each passing day become more and more an irrelevant anachronism.

The Democratic Leadership Council was brought forth in the age of Ronald Reagan as a response to Democratic candidates whose views were seen as too far to the left of the country as a whole. Bill Clinton, Joe Lieberman and others felt it was their collective duty to lead the Democrats to the White House by staking a claim to what they believed was the middle ground that all Americans sought. In 1993, the world was their oyster. Having just taken the White House and holding a majority in both the Senate and the House, it seemed like the DLC way was destined to be the new way forward.

In actuality, the DLC way was doomed from the start. When the differences with Republicans across the aisle appeared to be semantic more than substantive, parts became interchangeable in the eyes of the independent voter. The base of the Democratic Party becomes disinterested in voting for candidates that didn’t share their views. It also didn’t help that the early 90’s saw the ascendancy of right wing talk radio and Newt Gingrich, two entities that were more interested in verbal bomb throwing than responsible governance. In eight short years, Clinton found himself impeached for something far short of a high crime, and George W. Bush, the perfect symbol of all that is wrong with the United States, became the president.

The DLC’s last stand now presents itself in the guise of Hillary Clinton. She stands seemingly as the last great believer in the right-leaning triangulation that propelled her husband to the White House 16 years ago. Facts such as Ross Perot taking 19% of the vote in 1992 and propelling Bill Clinton to the White House with far less than a 50% majority of the vote are conveniently left out of her narrative. For Clinton, she is fighting not just for the presidency, but for future relevance for herself and her brethren.

The DLC is having enough of a hard time without a Clinton loss further kicking sand in their face. The DLC’s current chairman, Harold Ford, endorsed Christopher Shays, a Republican, in his current reelection bid to the House of Representatives. When he’s not endorsing Republicans, he’s sponsoring conventions on the DLC’s behalf that feature a lot of empty chairs. Joe Lieberman, fighting his own ongoing battle with irrelevance, turned in his DLC card years ago.

For Hillary Clinton, she only needs to look across the aisle at her Senate colleague from Massachusetts, Ted Kennedy, for a glimpse into her future as a losing presidential candidate. Ted Kennedy says all the right things nowadays and is a reliable Democrat on a host of issues, but his speeches only serve to recall a time when his personal possibilities, based on his name and his position, seemed less limited. His relevance on a national scale is minimal at best, despite his surname and the power that once summoned.

All of this should be taken into account when you listen to Hillary Clinton trash MoveOn.org, or talk about using nuclear weapons on a sovereign nation, or having her subordinates argue that any states with fewer than 15 electoral votes that she happens to have lost are full of latte-drinking elitists. Hillary Clinton currently gazes into an abyss of future irrelevance, buffeted only by millionaire donors making veiled threats and the hope of getting enough Democratic superdelegates to ignore the popular vote. Maybe she and Ted will get together in the Senate commissary someday and discuss their twin fates, even if by Hillary Clinton’s latest words and deeds they have nothing else in common politically.

Labels: Democratic Presidential Nomination, Hillary Clinton

"…promote the general welfare…"

I’m not a constitutional scholar, and would never pretend to be, but as an American, whenever I think about the potential of the land of my birth, I go to the preamble to our Constitution. Those 52 words ratified 221 years ago hold great promise, neatly summarizing the goals of a new country.

The first four words of this post affect me more than any other. I’m employed in the healthcare industry. No, I’m not a doctor or other specific caregiver, as that would define me as "useful". I’m on the administrative side. I represent that portion of the American healthcare system that drains much-needed resources from things such as providing timely medical care to patients and educating the public on risks to health.

Without being too specific about my daily job functions (not that I’m hiding; hell my name is right there in my ID), I am a certified medical coder. As briefly as possible, I’ll try to describe what that is. Every medical test, service, procedure and patient condition has a numeric equivalent for governmental reporting and insurance billing. I’ve been trained to determine what numbers go where on which bill for which patient for what service or condition. For this, I make a healthy wage in a recession-proof industry.

I’m going to ask something of you that may come as a shock, but I’ll do it anyway.

As quickly as you can, please put me out of a job.

Though I do not work in a doctor’s office on a daily basis, trust me when I tell you that I’m on the front lines and the American healthcare system is broken. We need single-payer healthcare yesterday.

I started on the insurance side of this industry in 1989. I was a medical claims adjuster for a little over 6 years. The time I spent on that side of the fence gave me incredible insight into the mind of the person adjudicating your medical insurance claims. Specifically, some of these people really get their rocks off denying services. I wasn’t one of them. I can remember an instance where I was forced by the terms of a patient’s insurance policy to deny a $92,000 hospital bill for a 4-year-old girl with lymphoma. I also remember the hangover I had the next morning from trying to drink my guilt away.

"…promote the general welfare…"

I’ve had my share of stops in this industry. I now find myself on the physician side attempting to educate physicians and other practitioners on documentation for services. I feel that this only slightly helps the treatment outcomes for the patients. What I really feel is that I am employed as a defense mechanism against Medicare and insurance regulations designed not to compensate physicians for the fair value of their services. Meanwhile medical mistakes are on the rise in hospital settings, much-needed treatment is being withheld due to cost to insurers and the amount of a typical healthcare dollar spent on jobs like mine keeps going up.

I realize that I can’t speak for everyone in my sphere of the healthcare industry. I can only speak for myself when I tell all of you to put me out of work. I’ll find another job. I’m reasonably intelligent and have the innate survival skills to find something else to do with the 25 years (give or take) I have left in the working world. I can even write and sing a song or two. Who knows where that might lead?

A society that cares about the fate of all of their citizens would have moved to a single-payer healthcare system years ago (some enlightened countries have already). I currently exist as a symbol of everything that’s wrong with America’s approach to its own citizens. Do the country a favor and politely send me packing.

Labels: healthcare system, universal healthcare

As a former resident of Pennsylvania, I can tell you that when it comes to voting, the Keystone State is an odd place. There are blue areas around the state, mostly Philadelphia and other urban centers, but Pennsylvania is still a place where a good candidate, no matter what party, can rise to the top and become a force. Pennsylvanians tend to look at each individual candidate not so much for party affiliation, but for stands on individual issues.

Pennsylvania has the highest population of voters over the age of 65, mainly because the benefits of being old in Pennsylvania are many. As one example, all proceeds for the Pennsylvania lottery go to programs benefiting senior citizens. The late Republican Senator John Heinz, nicknamed "Senator Landslide", was one of the bigger advocates of issues affecting seniors during his tenure in the Senate. Pennsylvania is also roughly 30% Catholic, a great many of whom vote only based on a candidate’s stand on abortion.

Into this backdrop comes freshman senator Bob Casey, Jr., who today announced that he is endorsing Barack Obama for the Democratic nomination for President. Like his namesake former governor father, Casey’s power center is mostly in Western Pennsylvania, and his name and endorsement will do nothing but help Obama in the red and purple parts of the state.

Now relocated, I haven’t had a chance to see Bob Casey Jr. enough to form an opinion on his political career, but my opinion of his father is carved in granite. I was taught not to speak ill of the dead, but in Bob Casey Sr.’s case, I’ll make an exception. He was a scumbag. The biggest reason he won his first gubernatorial campaign was because of a TV ad now referred to as "The Guru Ad". The ad was run in the western and rural parts of the state against his Republican opponent, Mark Scranton. It showed pictures of a long-haired Scranton in the early 1970’s as a threatening voice talked about his living for a short time on a commune under the leadership of some questionable cult-like figure now lost to the sands of time. The insinuation of the ad was clear. Do you trust Casey, anti-choice establishment Democrat, or some now clean-shaven hippie? The ad was considered so toxic at the time that it never ran on any station anywhere near Philadelphia, as it was thought that the ad would cut into Casey’s Democratic base of support there. Casey ended up racking up big numbers in the rural part of the state that carried him to the Governor’s mansion.

When Casey Sr. was in declining health in the mid-90’s, he was able to get a heart-lung transplant by magically appearing at the top of the transplant list. No one ever provided a reasonable explanation for how this happened.

Bob Casey Jr., much like his father, is a Democrat more for political expediency than for any other reason. The Casey family is adamantly anti-choice and they are very comfortable seeking the middle ground when the Republican wagons begin circling. It’s hard to blame them for this behavior, given the split personality of the Pennsylvania electorate. Casey will have a long career in Pennsylvania politics because the Republican Party in Pennsylvania is currently drenched with people like Curt Weldon, Joe Pitts and Pat Toomey. Arlen Specter, as silly as he is in all his camera-mugging glory, is truly the best the Republican Party in Pennsylvania has to offer in the post-John Heinz era. In any other state, a guy like Bob Casey would either never make it past the local level, or he would be a Republican in the mold of a John Danforth. I gave him my support from afar in the last Senate election because like many others I observed that Rick Santorum was a cancer on the body politic and needed to have his revolting back side booted back to Virginia, where he actually lives.

Bob Casey Jr. endorsing Obama is good for Obama in the short term, but Casey is not a guy with a lot of credibility with the Democratic wing of the Democratic Party. Given Pennsylvania’s political intricacies, this endorsement is stunning. On the surface, Casey would seem to have more in common with Hillary Clinton than Barack Obama. In a state like Pennsylvania, where KKK membership is higher than any other state in the union (you truly have to see parts of Central Pennsylvania to believe it), Casey endorsing Obama won’t do him any favors in 2012 if he runs for re-election to his Senate seat. I commend Bob Casey Jr. for the courage of his endorsement of Obama, but it is with the realization that it doesn’t do Obama any favors with his core constituency in other parts of the country.

Labels: Barack Obama, Democratic Nomination, Pennsylvania

It has been a week since I first put forth a proposition to the campaign of Hillary Clinton for President.

By any reasonable mathematical equation, Hillary Clinton cannot win the presidency without cajoling or making wild and unwieldy promises to the sizable swath of uncommitted superdelegates in the Democratic Party. She has currently won fewer states, has fewer pledged delegates and yes, she also trails in the popular vote, unless you apply what I call the Lieberman Theorem. This theorem posits than when you finish anywhere but where you expect to finish, it’s best to call it a tie, such as a three-way tie for third when you finish fifth in New Hampshire. There’s no such thing as a statistical dead heat when all the votes are counted. Either you finished first, or you lost. Hillary Clinton is currently in second place. The only entity that reverses the absolutes of voting mathematics is 5 extremists in black robes on the Supreme Court.

Being an Obama voter from the state of Wisconsin, I have made my voice heard in this election. I voted for Obama and hope he is the eventual nominee. In the face of the current mathematics, if he isn’t the nominee, I will immediately declare myself to be a supervoter, with carries with it all the expectations of cajoling, wild promises or perhaps bribery that the superdelegates currently hold.

As a supervoter, if Hillary Clinton wants my vote, I want a number 6 combo from Wendy’s, plain, biggie sized with a Hi-C. In addition, Bill Clinton has to sit with me as I eat it, and Eddie Vedder has to join him, as my wife is a Pearl Jam fan and she missed their last concert in Milwaukee because she was giving birth to our son.

There is no doubt in my mind that if Hillary Clinton wins the nomination, she’ll spend about 2 ½ months of time between the Democratic Convention and the general election showing up on campaign stops next to superdelegates running for re-election as a thank you for giving her the Democratic nomination. Absent that, her big money donors, (the ones currently blackmailing Nancy Pelosi Don Corleone-style by tersely worded letter), will more than likely start throwing their money around into the campaign coffers of superdelegates who back Clinton at the convention.

If a superdelegate’s vote for Clinton carries enough weight for a series of quid pro quos, so too does the vote of a supervoter. We all want something. She wants a vote. I want lunch. My wife wants to meet Eddie Vedder. Everybody’s happy, and it’s a hell of a lot cheaper than a campaign stop and much friendlier than a reading from the Book of Threats.

I’m hoping that there are many more like me. I want to start a supervoter movement. Picture if you will the last scene of the movie "Billy Jack". Instead of an upraised fist, imagine that all the students of the Freedom School held a spicy chicken sandwich in their hands? Billy is driven off in the back of a police car (substitute Bill Clinton in the back of a limousine) on a road lined for miles by people holding sandwiches aloft. The slightly clouded Southwestern skies dotted not by the red painted mountains of the desert, but by God’s most perfect creation, the Wendy’s spicy chicken sandwich in the united hands of humankind. It is this kind of rampant idealism that shapes me as an American. My dream of a spicy chicken sandwich has now replaced thoughts on policy as we approach the general election.

I’ll make a promise to all of you. If Obama wins the nomination, come to Milwaukee, introduce yourself by your Daily Kos ID, and we’ll celebrate with a stop at my favorite Wendy’s at the corner of Chase and Oklahoma in Milwaukee. If Clinton wins the nomination, I hereby promise that I shall not eat a beloved spicy chicken sandwich until Bill Clinton and Eddie Vedder come to Milwaukee to eat one with me. Bill’s buying, so it’s not like I need to scrape up the money.
As a supervoter, what I ask for is much less than what is being offered to superdelegates currently. This isn’t a $100 a plate dinner we’re talking about here. Throw in a chocolate frosty and we’re talking about maybe $10, plus the cost of tranportation to Milwaukee. Transportation is negligible though. If Hillary Clinton wins the nomination, someone who represents her is coming to Wisconsin, also known as "a much-needed swing state". My Wendy’s is about a ten-minute drive from the airport. Bill and Eddie could swing by, eat with the jpspencers after local drive-thru maven Ron gives us all our food perfectly matched to our order, and be done in about 45 minutes tops. Then it’s on to Marquette, or UWM or some other high value destination within the city limits where ralliers await (possibly with chicken sandwiches in hand; you never know). You can even bring a camera crew along. I’ll endorse Hillary and take a bite of my chicken sandwich, instantly creating an image for the ages (don’t worry; I weigh 196). And, what the hell, Eddie can have my fries!

A chicken sandwich is such a small price to pay for knee-capping the preferred candidate. A political hit requires a karmic price. As a supervoter, I demand my tribute. E Pluribus Pulli, Unum! GIVE ME SPICY CHICKEN OR GIVE ME DEATH!

Labels: Democratic candidates, Hillary Clinton, superdelegates, Wendy's Spicy Chicken Sandwich

As the effects of the banking and mortgage crisis become more apparent, it offers all of us an opportunity to look at some of the less visible reasons behind it.

The primary reasons for it are obvious at this point. We have the adjustable rate mortgage, which may very well be the greediest lending avenue ever devised by humankind, automobile leasing being a close second. Some of the percentage increases now former homeowners were faced with when ARM’s reset at higher interest rates were staggering, so much so that many homeowners have chosen to send house keys to the bank rather than pay an inflated mortgage on a home that’s losing its sales value. Add to this fact that there are many mortgage brokers rewarded not so much for minimizing risk to their lender employers, but for getting a signature on the dotted line, and the ingredients for disaster begin to congeal.

This is where we come to the less obvious reasons. We clearly have a certain percentage of borrowers living beyond their means. While it may be fashionable for someone with a good job to desire a house worth $750,000 or more, very few members of our society can reasonably afford a dwelling at this price. With each new McMansion style development that swallows open land space and existing resources, people begin to measure wealth by the square feet inside a dwelling, rather than the value and efficiency of that living space to themselves and their immediate environment.

Modern housing developers cater not to needs, but desires. Denizens of cities and their immediate suburbs dream of the great big house in the country. If we take the example of greater Atlanta, the future effects of this desire have arrived in an ugly fashion, as Lake Lanier, the water source for Atlanta and suburbs as far as 40 miles away is running dry. While lack of sustained rainfall can share some of the blame, the bigger culprit is the sprawling, overpriced cul de sacs that ring Atlanta in the far suburbs. I have a friend who lives in Marietta, GA, which is roughly 30 miles north of Atlanta. When I visited him recently, he drove around his immediate area and pointed out what used to be farms two decades ago, now gone. In their place are gated communities, with prices on individual homes behind the gates going up to 7 figures and beyond.

There are now over seven billion people on the planet. While human potential is infinite, the amount of ground available to human beings is not, and the open spaces are disappearing. With each farm that disappears under the weight of obscenely overpriced and oversized housing comes the realization that one small source of food evaporates along with it. This fact alarmed Thomas Malthus. R Buckminster Fuller saw it as an opportunity to rethink and redesign man’s immediate needs and environment with attention to design and reuse of existing resources.

With this in mind, Fuller brought forth the Dymaxion House, a four-dimensional house built around one pole with sufficient space for a family of four and all modern conveniences. The unique design would allow for a constant suitable temperature in all seasons, thereby conserving dwindling resources such as natural gas. Unfortunately, it was derided as a "tin can" and under the weight of the failure of his business, Fuller was only able to erect one temporary Dymaxion House in Kansas.

Sixty years later, Fuller’s grand designs warrant a second look. While not perfect, the though process that brought them forward had the best of intentions. This cannot be said of the modern land developer, who puts profit motive ahead of reasonable use of space. Municipalities, eager to expand the existing tax base in an American economy no longer invested in domestic manufacturing, happily sign over the land for unneeded and unnecessary new development.

With an increasing percentage of this type of housing now sitting empty and seeing stark devaluation, we have now reached a watershed moment to reassess what it means to live "comfortably". Does comfort means that each member of a family of four deserves 1,000 square feet of space under one roof? Given the direct environmental impact of an affirmative answer to that question, does a 4,000-square foot family have an obligation to break it to fellow citizens within their immediate geography that they must go without space and resources for the sake of the comfort of 4 people out of seven billion?

Comfort and affordability need not be mutually exclusive. The operative principles exist to utilize space and resources for all to live comfortably. With the number of McMansion foreclosures slowly rising, it is time to change our perception of these homes from one of overvalued vacancy to one of suburban blight. With a combination of reason and political will, we can insure that now is the time to send these developments back to the drawing board to be replaced by the kind of shelter that benefits a higher percentage of the population and the resources at all of our disposal.

Labels: Housing, Mortgage Crisis, R. Buckminster Fuller

For purposes of full disclosure, I must state that I am not only a subscriber to Sirius Satellite radio and have been for two years, but I also am currently a holder of 100 shares of Sirius stock. While this is not a large amount, I can be reasonably judged to have a vested interest in what I write about. I disclose this because it’s the right thing to do.

With that out of the way, I’d like to join the chorus of those in the world who aren’t legislators and government "regulators" being bought off by the National Association of Broadcasters (NAB), a front group for the Republican-leaning Clear Channel Communications. There is absolutely no reason in the world why the Sirius/XM merger should not go through. Anyone who says otherwise is on the take and not arguing the point honestly.

The main thread of argument is that the combined company represents a satellite radio monopoly. This is absurd. The combined company would represent slightly more than 5% of the entire audience for all broadcast radio. This number does not include broadband streaming of FM stations, which presumably decreases the percentage for satellite radio if included. Satellite radio currently does not compete against itself. It competes against terrestrial radio, MP3 players such as the IPod and CD’s. With such a small percentage of the total listening audience, the combined company wouldn’t cease to be a fly on most windshields, but rather it would become a rubber fly that could bounce and compete on its own merits.

The NAB is paying legislators, including Louise Slaughter (D-NY) and Roy Blunt (R-MO), to put forth the monopoly argument because anyone, like myself, who experiences satellite radio for 15 minutes knows that they never want to listen to terrestrial radio again. If the NAB could be honest and argue that they want to see satellite radio die because it’s cutting into their action, I could be persuaded to listen. Lying doesn’t get my attention.

Yet there is a bigger reason why everyone in this community should be fighting tooth and nail for the Sirius/XM merger to go through.

It is currently being argued by the usual suspects (such as Michael Smerconish) that talk radio leans heavily to the right due to overwhelming demand for that kind of opinion on terrestrial radio. All one needs to do is look at the ratings Al Franken drew in New York City when he was up against Bill O’Reilly to see the right wing argument for the lie that it is. Left wing talk is buried because Clear Channel wants it buried.

Air America Radio, begun with the best of intentions, is still for the most part sequestered in smaller radio markets. I live in Milwaukee and the closest Air America station is in Madison. Unless I turn up my AM radio in my car to volume 43, I’m not hearing Air America Radio.
Enter satellite radio. I can’t speak for XM not being a subscriber, but Sirius channel 146 supplies 24 hours of left wing talk radio. I realize that it is mostly a work in progress, as it’s currently populated by DLC types like Bill Press and Alex Bennett, who spend far too much time taking cheap shots at progressives to stroke their own egos. Lynn Samuels in the afternoon, while funny, is the human vocal equivalent of a horse getting a pitchfork suppository. Having said that, it’s nice to know that the channel is there and thriving. Air America Radio is currently on its third ownership group, tilting at the Clear Channel windmill on terrestrial radio while constantly downgrading the on-air talent and cutting costs.

I’m particularly annoyed with Louise Slaughter on this subject. Anybody with half their hearing notices that progressive voices are being shut out of terrestrial radio. Why empower these people further by killing one of the few national outlets for progressive talk in the country? Is $1,000 really the financial threshold for stabbing your own constituency in the back? The Pharisees would have loved Louise.

John Conyers isn’t immune from criticism on this. The people in his district have contacted him in large numbers telling him the obvious, but he appears to be in Clear Channel’s pocket as well, as he is putting forth the monopoly straw man at every opportunity. Decades of independence and fighting for progressives shot to hell. Way to go, John!

It surprises me little that Democrats constantly vote against their own beliefs. With a wide swath of broadcast media lined up firmly against them, they worry more about appearances and appeasement than standing up for what they believe in. Cowering in fear is the new bravery in the Democratic Party. This thought process gave us the rogue regime we currently have in power in the White House. The only question to be asked, as we have asked it with net neutrality, the Iraq War, telecom immunity, the Justice Department scandal and other scandals too numerous to count is "With the president at a 19% approval rating, why cave"?

If you insist on shutting down one of the few outlets to get your side heard for the convenience of a little money, why not just sever your own vocal chords and get it over with? Think of the windfall!

One last point. Sirius isn’t completely immune from criticism. Sirius 146 is called Sirius Left. The right wing equivalent (I don’t know the station number for obvious reasons) is called Sirius Patriot. I happily call bullshit on that, but at least Sirius Left is in existence. It should stay that way. It has now been over a year since the merger proposal was put forth. Sirius and XM have expanded their own deadline for the merger to go through thanks to the NAB’s money gumming up the wheels of the decision making. Enough already!

Labels: Congressional Whores, SIrius/XM Merger

As someone who is part Italian and part Irish, I learned at a very young age that I needed to do my best to keep my genetic predisposition towards hyperanimation and anger in check. The presidency of George W. Bush has severely tested the limits of my personal patience. In most cases when I visit here, I have done my level best to be civil and to bury the more guttural speech that was part of my upbringing in Philadelphia.

Yes, the war, the constant stream of lies emanating from the White House and the eunuchs in Congress who call themselves Democrats all made me extremely angry to varying degrees, but I calmed down by telling myself that in the current climate in America, self-determination is the prevailing power. At the end of the day, I had the wherewithal to take care of myself with minimal interference. After all, fundamentally, this was still America.

Then came the "stimulus package", or as I now call it, that FUCKING stimulus package.

With this action, the powers that be in Washington, D.C. have now completed their conversion from freely elected representatives of the people to an Americanized House of Lords.

Let me start at the beginning. Whoever the person was who came up with Adjustable Rate Mortgages should go into the Legalized Grifting Hall of Fame, right next to the sonofabitch who invented auto leasing, which is basically selling the same car twice for its sticker price. Never mind the fact that the moment it gets a mile from the dealership, the car has lost 50% of its stated value. By all means, everyone needs an eternal car payment.

The mortgage industry peddled the American Dream to people who couldn’t afford it. The reason for this had nothing to do with altruism or building a better country or community. It had everything to do with bonuses to the individual mortgage brokers for getting a signature on several dotted lines.

Thanks to the changes in bankruptcy rules requested by the major banks that were fast-tracked through Congress a few years ago, the banks are now surprised to find that people are more than happy to abandon the houses that are plummeting to values below the purchase price. If you can’t afford the mortgage at an adjusted rate, the cost of that mortgage is more than the value of the home and bankruptcy protection is now off the table, why wouldn’t you abandon the house?

The fundamentals of the economy, thanks in large part to the upending of the mortgage market, are still a train wreck. The FDIC currently is making preparations for the failure of roughly 200 banks. In addition, they are making it known that they are looking for a separate entity to take care of the portion of bank failures that deals solely with mortgage losses. None of the banks are talking about the true indemnity of their mortgage debt, fearing a run. The brokerage houses that repackaged the lousy mortgages as now-worthless collateralized debt obligations are being propped up economically by China and other foreign "investors". The beginnings of the effect on credit card payments and car loans are now being realized, as the default rates for both are now climbing.

The solution of the Lords on High in Washington, D.C., after about 20 minutes of serious deliberation, is to throw money to the peasants so they can buy things they don’t need. This is apparently the panacea to all of our economic problems.

I am not a serf. I am not a person who needs to be taught how and when to spend my money for the sake of others. As an American citizen, it’s really fucking insulting that the leaders of my government now consider me as little more than an urchin in an orphanage who needs a handout. I never asked for charity, mainly because I DON’T FUCKING NEED IT!

My lack of spending is not the problem here. How about CEO pay? How about business regulations? How about the fact that whenever business leaders want a new perk or a fresh public mouthpiece, all they need to do is write a check to a legislator’s campaign fund and it’s blow jobs ahoy?

The people at the bottom of the poverty scale are getting $300, or as I like to call it nowadays (after a stop this morning on the way to work), 9 fill-ups of a compact car’s gas tank. For most people, that’s not even ½ of a month’s rent in an apartment. If it’s a mortgage you’re paying, $300 is about as potent as a fart in a football stadium.

In a previous diary about this same topic, I received many suggestions regarding what to do with the money, from charitable donations to political contributions (fat chance!) to those who agreed with me that the best way to stick it to the man is to deposit it and collect interest. My wife and I are slated to receive $1500, thanks to a combination of our wedded bliss and our 19-month-old son. In the end, my wife does the books, so odds are that she has an idea for the money that will trump any of my ideas. Wedded bliss; CATCH IT!

I do have a 4th option now though. If you can afford it, put it towards investments in other countries. Buy stock in a foreign country. My 401(k) offers me the option to invest in a mutual fund that puts 96% of the fund’s money in Canadian companies. Or better yet, invest in a social activism fund that shies away from companies that are bad for the environment or who sell things like tobacco products.

Why invest in a country that treats you as if you should be grateful that the Lords are borrowing against our collective tomorrows to throw you a few crumbs? The sweetest revenge is to send the money packing and find a way to make sure that it never ends up back in their grubby little hands.

While the race for the Democratic nomination for president has yet to be decided, the choice of a vice-presidential candidate will soon be upon us. Unlike other topics lately (Clinton vs. Obama, Ralph Nader, "my candidate can beat up your candidate"), the few discussions undertaken thus far in this forum regarding potential running mates have been fairly civil, with many good ideas.

The purpose of this diary is the encouragement of a brainstorming session to put forth the pros and cons of potential Vice Presidential candidates from different segments of the Democratic Party. For purposes of organization, I have tried to put the groups in three categories, starting with:

Senators – The biggest positive to considering a Senator for your running mate is safety. There’s a clear voting record on issues that can be weighed easily as a positive or a negative. There is also a long list of senatorial running mates on the Democratic side, as every running mate going back to 1988 was a Senator at the time of their initial elevation to the ticket.
The big negative these days is the dire need for 60 Democratic votes in the Senate, and how taking a Democratic senator out of the mix affects those numbers. As it stands right now, we have two Democratic senators battling for the nomination. If one of these candidates wins the presidency, that creates a seat that will more than likely need to be defended within one year of the 2008 elections (I’m unsure of the state laws of Illinois and New York pertaining to this; I’m happy to accept help in this area). If either Clinton or Obama choose a sitting senator as the running mate, that creates two seats.
One name that is brought forth from this category is Jim Webb, a Democratic senator in a state that is narrowly Republican who has been a senator for all of 14 months. If the goal is 60 Democratic senators, it doesn’t make much sense to put Virginia back in play so quickly after a tremendous victory in 2006.

Governors – The last two candidates for president coming from the Democratic side that were declared the winner of a traditional election were both governors. This time around, the Democrats will once again have a senator at the top of the ticket. This is a unique time in that the majority of our current crop of Democratic governors offers some attractive choices for the VP slot. The positives are similar to choosing a senator for a running mate. Governors have a voting record that’s easily assessed, with the added advantage of a governor having once been a chief executive of a state. The fact that governors act as executives independent of Washington, D. C. gives them a unique appeal.
The one thought that gives me pause is the timing. 2010 is a census year, meaning gerrymandering and reapportionment are right around the corner again. While this process has become convoluted in the past ten years with Tom DeLay’s shenanigans in Texas, having a Democrat in a governor’s chair goes a long way in drawing districts that are favorable to Democratic house chances for the next decade. It’s great to get better Democrats in U. S. House seats, and nothing gives them a leg up better than a district drawn in their favor post-census.
All of my personal "sleeper" candidates for VP come from this category. I like Brian Schweitzer and Janet Napolitano, but I realize that they are way down the list of possible running mates that have been discussed.

The Sympathetic Unelected – These are defined as people well known in the party who don’t currently hold elected office. The two biggest people in this category are John Edwards and Wesley Clark.
The positive aspect of choosing an outsider can’t be dismissed in a year when the presidential candidate for the Democratic Party will be a sitting senator. The element of surprise tends to rear its ugly head from this group, as every fuzzy speech recorded on video before any trade group becomes fodder for criticism. People from this category would be chosen because they are so good a compliment to the top of the ticket, they can’t be ignored. Edwards and Clark both fit that description, though Edwards didn’t fare very well in this slot 4 years ago.

Everyone here has someone in mind. As long as we don’t make the Joe Lieberman mistake again, virtually any of the names flying around for Vice-President are well qualified and will be better than anyone John McCain pulls out of his ancient head. With the damage that George W. Bush has done to this country, and the work it will take to correct these same mistakes, there are now many more reasons to choose the Vice Presidential candidate wisely.

It has been snowing off and on in Milwaukee since December 1st. Portions of the sidewalks here are now icy, thanks to a brief melt of snow yesterday. How this affects turnout for the Wisconsin presidential primary tomorrow in this area remains to be seen. I can tell you that speaking as a person who is 41 and whose polling place can be seen from his front door, I can predict one solid vote for Obama in tomorrow’s primary.

I’m a John Edwards guy. I have been ever since he announced his candidacy for Senate in North Carolina in 1998 against Lauch Faircloth, the guy who brought us Ken Starr. Edwards didn’t have traction, and thus he’s on the sidelines delaying an endorsement so as to play both sides of the fence until the voters have clearly chosen a candidate. I’m not waiting for the Edwards imprimatur. I’m now in Obama’s camp.

My wife is also voting for Obama, as is my sister-in-law, who shares the duplex we live in. Among my voting age friends who are actually registered to vote and are politically active, it appears to be a clean sweep. The balance of my voting age friends here are musicians, who either don’t care or have a philosophical objection to voting (PLEASE don’t ask me to explain that on their behalf; it makes my head hurt).

How my informal poll of the voters I know will affect the outcome in the rest of the state remains to be seen, but I feel safe in predicting at least a 5% margin of victory for Obama in Cheeseland tomorrow.

Obama was in town this past Friday at a rally downtown on one of the local college campuses. I was unable to attend due to my work schedule. Two of my friends in their early 30’s attended and reported that they seemed to be the oldest people there, which was not thoroughly unexpected given the locale. The energy level in the room was apparently inescapable. Later that night, they introduced me to the "Hope-O", which apparently consists of holding your arms above your head in the shape of an O, signifying Obama. This reminded me of a less-drunken version of the "E-A-G-L-E-S EAGLES!" chant from my days in Philadelphia, but it was charming nonetheless.

There are many different reasons as to why people I talk to prefer Obama, but a recurring theme is "we need someone new". Part of my initial reservations about Obama had to do with the idea of "how new is too new". Yet with Edwards out of the race, in my case, Obama was a natural second choice.

Hillary Clinton represents to me a walking and talking last hurrah for the Democratic Leadership Council and a generation of Democrats who came to power by acting like Republicans. In retrospect, who could blame them for inventing that model? Three lackluster presidential candidates in the 1980’s had all been trounced, as America (not me) embraced the senile daydreams of Ronald Reagan.

Thanks to George W. Bush, America’s view of Republicanism, to put it mildly, has changed dramatically. Despite his eternal POW status and the adulation received by him in the mainstream media, John McCain has a long legislative and quote record that flies in the face of virtually everything he delivers in his stump speeches. Add to that his advanced age and unevolved temperament and you have a recipe for a Democratic winner later this year.

Hillary Clinton now finds herself as a Democrat searching for a vision of a political moderate that no longer exists. Only the 25% that still backs Bush and Cheney want to talk about things like the evils of mass entertainment. When Clinton went after the video game industry last year, I wondered if her home in Chappaqua was actually a cave. After 12 years of South Park and about 10 years of Grand Theft Auto, the entertainment scapegoat has long since escaped from the corral. There are no Pavlovian dogs listening for that bell anymore. People now realize that those types of arguments are meant to distract from the fact that there has been a catastrophic redistribution of wealth in this country going on unchecked since Reagan took office in 1981.

If that wasn’t enough, the recent rhetoric coming out of the Clinton campaign regarding what is and what is not an important primary state is truly appalling. If I’m looking for an inclusive candidate, this is not the ideal message to be communicated.

As I slip down the icy pavement to my polling place tomorrow to retrieve a ballot from the nonagenarian poll worker sitting behind the table, I shall think of the ease of this decision. I had voted for third party candidates going back to 1984 until George W. Bush became the Republican nominee in 2000. The thought of Bush as my president was enough to vote for Al Gore, and then John Kerry 4 years later. Barack Obama is a candidate I can vote for enthusiastically, rather than the lesser of two evils. I respect those that would choose Clinton over Obama. I simply see the situation differently.

So, here we are. The economy is crumbling into a recession created from a unique stew of governmental malfeasance, corporate greed and investor myopia.

George W. Bush’s all-purpose "solution" is the same play book we’ve seen since those heady early days of 2001; give businesses ridiculous tax breaks and send the poor a check equivalent to a fraction of the monthly rent.

No one in his or her right mind can actually believe that this is going to do anything worthwhile to stimulate the economy. The banks are busy cooking the books to hide their true exposure to failing mortgages. The brokerage houses are firing people they’ve already given 7-figure bonuses to for doing an abysmal job. Warren Buffett is offering to prop up the same banks and brokers by insuring their most valuable assets, because we all know that investing is no fun until one man is worth as much as 20 central African nations combined. With economic fundamentals this bad, a $300 check to a taxpayer is obviously not a panacea.

I write this knowing that I’m currently one of the lucky ones in this economy. I have a fixed-rate mortgage, no credit card debt, no outstanding medical debt and a healthy sum in a savings account. The stimulus check coming to my wife and family is welcome, for who in their right mind who’s not dressed in flowing robes would turn down a check for (I believe it’s going to be, with one child) $1500? (OK, maybe the Polyphonic Spree). Yet, we’re not hemorrhaging like so many others. Just because the government is stupid enough to bankrupt our country further by sending me a check doesn’t mean I should invest it in that same country’s economic infrastructure. I stopped buying U. S. savings bonds years ago for the same reason.

What I’m attempting to talk my wife into doing with our little slice of national economic mutilation is to put the money in our savings account. Rather than spending our money on a crappy product made in a Chinese prison, I’d rather that this check be the gift that keeps on giving. Before the banks go under due to their bad mortgage debt obligations and there’s a nationwide run, I’d like to squeeze a few dollars in interest out of the monocle-clad Monopoly guy that runs my bank. Nobody in his right mind is investing bank money in real estate ventures right now, so my bank will use that money as a tangible asset on the books until the bill comes due. When the real damage is revealed, I’ll make my withdrawal and stuff it into my mattress.

I fully realize that I am fortunate enough to do this, and that there are many people who will use the stimulus check to pay a circling creditor before they become carrion with a damaged credit rating. I would encourage those of you like me who can to hold onto the stimulus money as long as you possibly can. In this country, giving money to a consumer is equivalent to giving a junkie heroin. It’s time to go cold turkey. Ideally, I’d like to hold the money until January 20th, 2009 at 12 Noon when a Democratic President takes power. I’m not naïve to think that things change in five minutes on that date. I simply don’t want Bush to get any kind of boost whatsoever in the sunset of his mine shaft collapse of a Presidency.

If you have the economic wherewithal, think of yourself and that stimulus check in the same way as a horny but hopeful teenager with one wrinkled and aging condom in a wrapper in his wallet that has indelibly shaped an "O" into the leather. It’s been there awhile, and you don’t need it this minute, but just in case…

The world woke up this morning to the knowledge that Hillary Clinton won the Florida primary for the Democratic Presidential nomination. If we are to believe the Democratic National Committee and Howard Dean, this Clinton victory, like Michigan before it, is meaningless, as the delegate slates will not be seated at the Democratic Convention. This is as a punishment to those two states for cutting into the established line of primaries set forth by the DNC, and agreed to by all the candidates for the nomination.

So why is Hillary Clinton smiling?

The first reason is obvious. Just days after Barack Obama handed her her backside in the South Carolina primary, any good news for the Clinton campaign is welcome. One year ago, it was presumed that Clinton would have solidified her hold on the nomination by this time in the primary/caucus process. Now the Clinton camp finds themselves in the fight of their lives against Obama, with every sanctioned race highly contested between the two candidates.

Securing the nomination is all about delegate counts. With a close two-way race, the unseated delegates in Florida and Michigan may very well prove to be the margin of victory. If they are seated, which the DNC is currently stating that they won’t be.

The Clinton camp is currently working very loudly behind the scenes to browbeat the DNC into seating the delegates from Michigan and Florida. Thanks to her attempted end run around the current nominating rules, Howard Dean is now placed in a no-win situation. If he seats the delegates, he risks the wrath of the large number of new voters that the combination of Barack Obama and the malfeasance of George W. Bush have brought into the nominating process. If he doesn’t seat the delegates, it will more than likely start a fresh wave of criticism from James Carville and the other DLC types who opposed him as head of the DNC in the first place, and who are now mostly in Clinton’s camp.

After polls closed in Florida, Hillary Clinton mysteriously appeared in the state. Despite the fact that all candidates had agreed not to campaign there, the Clinton camp took the strategy that since the polls were now closed in Florida, it wasn’t technically "campaigning". This is the same attorney-like parsing she uses on the campaign trail attempting to explain her vote to authorize the Iraq War. It also bears a striking resemblance to "it depends on what your definition of is is". And she criticizes John Edwards for being a trial lawyer? That’s rich.

Ever since I was a boy and engaged in contests ranging from tag and kickball to Monopoly and Battleship, there has been a word for people who attempt to change the rules in the middle of the game. The word is cheater. By attempting to amend the rules of the nominating process to which she agreed, Hillary is trying to cheat her way to victory just as much as my brother was whenever he tried to move his aircraft carrier in Battleship after the game started.

On January 20, 2009, we will have somehow survived (if we’re lucky) 8 years of this kind of behavior emanating from the current denizen of the Oval Office. Putting a Democrat in the White House shouldn’t be about subsidizing the underhanded for the sake of the Executive Branch operating under a Democratic banner. It should be about real, honest change in direction and policy for the country. Replacing one cheater for another guarantees that the only change will be on the nameplate on the door.

It’s barely the end of January, and I already hate the 2008 election season.

I’m an unabashed supporter of John Edwards. I’ve been a supporter of his going back to when he originally won his Senate seat in North Carolina. Since the New Hampshire primary, I’ve had to accept the reality that he’s once again not going to be the nominee of the Democratic Party for President of the United States.

When one connects the dots, one realizes that a candidate like Edwards, with a pro-worker, anti-corporate message, has little chance for the White House when multinational conglomerates like GE, Viacom and Time Warner run some of the main media outlets. Given this, perhaps my endorsement of Edwards’ candidacy can be construed as naïve, but if ever there were a time in America for optimism, the final year of the Bush Administration would certainly qualify. I felt that Edwards gave America the best chance at a recovery from the bottom up. It looks increasingly like this once again isn’t his year, and that’s truly a shame.

So I’m left – stuck with? - Obama and Clinton.

The debate a few nights ago in South Carolina bluntly reminded me why I never liked Bill Clinton and voted for Perot twice back in the ‘90’s. Hillary Clinton, like her ex-president spouse, has a tendency to speak for a long time without saying anything. Based on the amount of damage George W. Bush has done to this country over the last 7 years, this election more than any other requires forceful leadership. I’m not looking for a lot of big words and amorphous ideas. While Obama and Edwards gave what sounded a lot like a plan to end the Iraq War by the end of 2009 in the last debate, Clinton hemmed and hawed and gave us all a "maybe if" scenario. In the absence of a plan, I assume that the war continues under Hillary Clinton for a long, undetermined period after January 20, 2009 if she’s elected. For a debacle as enormous as the Iraq War, any person with a conscience shouldn’t have to think twice about ending this war as immediately as possible upon taking the White House. Hillary Clinton isn’t even in the proverbial parking lot of the stadium that houses this idea.

Add to this that the Clintons still have a lot of explaining to do regarding globalization and the adoption of NATFA under their watch, and I find myself rooting against Hillary Clinton, tears and all. Too often, when the economy is explained to Americans, the first phrase coming out of someone’s mouth is "We’re in a global economy now, and to remain competitive……". This is usually followed by a twisted rationalization for why more American jobs must be sent overseas. What it really is is a war chant for more corporate greed and continued concentration of wealth in the hands of the few.

Like many Americans, I think there are better ways for the United States to stay engaged in the global economy without Americans losing their jobs and CEO’s getting 8-figure salaries and benefits packages. While the Clintons didn’t invent this behavior, they certainly enabled it when they last occupied the White House. One visit to any number of dying towns in America with an abandoned and shuttered factory tells you all you need to know about who’s losing under the current set of rules. I’m convinced that these rules won’t change under a Hillary Clinton presidency.

For Obama, my reservations about him come from the fact that he hasn’t been on the national stage very long. I also remind myself that he got on the national stage by beating Alan Keyes by 50 points in an election, which is about as difficult a task as boiling a pot of water. However, the election results thus far have forced me to listen to what he is saying. I’m not particularly happy with Obama’s idea of bringing Republicans and Democrats to the table together, as Republicans haven’t demonstrated that they can compromise on anything for the last 15 years. "Be reasonable, do it my way" is not how one reaches consensus. The best solution is to leave the Republicans out in the cold for a time based on the amount of unfettered damage they’ve done to this country. From what I’ve seen, roughly 70% of the electorate would agree with this approach. While still not as compelling a message to me as that of John Edwards, Obama goes far enough into my sphere of belief that I can be counted in his camp if Edwards drops out.

The Wisconsin primary is scheduled for long after the eventual nominee is probably decided. If Edwards is still on the ballot or has staged some kind of miracle comeback by then, he’ll get my vote. I will state that if this year’s Democratic Convention becomes brokered, I would hope that the Edwards delegates have the good sense to go with Obama, for the good of the party and for the good of the country going forward.

Labels: John Edwards, Presidential Race

In the last week, I’ve had several ideas for diaries, but being a part-time musician, I have so many sounds in my head at any given time that I can’t pick just one to contemplate. With that in mind, I’m just going to throw out these random thoughts for your perusal. Feel free to pick one or more to comment on, and know going in that these are mostly incomplete thoughts smashing together to make one big pot of……..something. I can’t even begin to think of what color this would look like if it took physical form and sat in a cauldron.

• 
  Campaign Financing – I recently arrived at the conclusion that politicians are going to continue to suckle at the money teat until such time as they become scared to take money from an individual or corporations. It’s obvious that corporate money and the vampiric leadership behind it doesn’t scare them, and currently, individual contributions are more than welcome. Public financing of campaigns can’t get a fair hearing in this environment. Thinking about it, I’ve decided that the only way to make politicians think twice about public financing is to out the personal and professional peccadilloes of individual donors. If you’re interested in campaign reform, go to the FEC website, pull up any candidate and their individual donors and start searching. If you know that one of the donors is having an extramarital affair or runs a floating high-stakes poker game or is a bed wetter, share that knowledge with the world. At the point where every individual check received is a potential scandal, public financing of campaigns should grow some legs. Oh, and don’t bother; I haven’t donated to a candidate in quite a few cycles, so you’ll never know about my underground porn vault….OOPS!
• 
  New Hampshire Results – The Granite State once again showed the country that if States were people, New Hampshire would be the 89-year-old man in the corner who’s full of piss and vinegar (and it used to be just vinegar; Abe Simpson said that). While he doesn’t know it yet, I think what we witnessed on Tuesday was the last hurrah of John McCain. Mike Huckabee is going to crush him in Republican strongholds in the Deep South, starting with South Carolina. As the obvious begins to show itself, ("Wait a minute….he’s 71 fucking years old!") the bloom will fall off McCain and his accompanying 100-year plan for the Middle East. I am disappointed by John Edwards’ third-place finish on the Democratic side, but I offer my congratulations to Sen. Clinton for her victory.
• 
  Demographics – Bill Richardson is dropping out of the race, if all reports are to be believed. While he had a poor showing for the Democratic presidential nod, I wish him luck in the future. Any way you slice it, this is going to be a year when the true face of America was displayed solely in the Democratic Party. An African-American, a woman and a Mexican- American vying for the same nomination is something for which we can all look to with pride. As a counterpoint, the Republicans brought forth a series of white males who proudly wore their prejudices and their contempt for the Constitution on their collective sleeves. As demographics in America shift over the next 100 years away from an Anglo-Saxon majority, the historians will look to 2008 as the year when Republicans began a slow and steady descent to the depths currently occupied by the Whig Party.
• 
  Ice Hockey – A slugger hits a home run on HGH, and it’s unbelievable. Two guys drop their gloves and beat each other senseless? DAMN! Now THAT’S reality! So far for the NHL, over 3000 tests for steroids and only one positive test in the bunch, but players have a habit of loading up on Sudafed before a game, for which there is no current testing. And you thought speed freaks with bad teeth were exclusive to Rural America? For shame!
• 
  Chris Matthews – Sexist douche bag. Need I say more after his despicable performance on MSNBC so far during the campaign season? It’s people like Matthews that make me ashamed of being from Philadelphia. However, I must admit that it’s been awhile since I had a good chicken cheese steak in Milwaukee.
  
  This is a but a small cross-section of ideas and thoughts currently squatting in my head. The balance of its contents are mostly song fragments, bristly resignation at having to be on a diet and assorted bits of taproom trivia. These will have to wait for another appropriate time and place. Have a good evening.

I tend to stay out of Three Stooges-style pie fights. For this reason, I have tried to stay away from getting into a discussion about which candidate I prefer from the Democratic field to be the presidential nominee.

The eve of the Iowa Caucuses has me feeling bold as a cold snap embraces me in Wisconsin, a state without a true say in the presidential race. For what it’s worth, I offer that as it was in the 2004 election, my primary choice to be the Democratic nominee is John Edwards.

Since he entered the national stage, Edwards’ mantra of "Two Americas" has resonated with me. Our country, through a series of governmental moves friendly to large American corporations, is coming apart at the seams. Edwards is the only candidate in my belief with a long and well-documented history of fighting for the poor and middle class. While I would have liked to have seen him fight to retain his former Senate seat in North Carolina rather than run for president in 2004, I was with him then in both his presidential and vice-presidential runs, and I have seen no reason to reverse my original decision.

I did take into consideration that fact that he voted for the authorization to use force in Iraq. I like the fact that he has come out and stated that he was flat wrong, rather than mincing words about how George W. Bush corrupted the UN Inspections process. I don’t hear politicians admitting when they make mistakes. While this was a fairly huge mistake, I like a person who sincerely admits his mistakes and learns from them. In my mind, Edwards has done that.

For me, it was also a process of elimination. Mike Gravel is an important man in the history of this country for his leadership in cutting off funding for the quagmire that was the Vietnam War, and his value system remains intact. I believe that anyone who wants to run for president should have a chance to be heard. Because of the orchestrated "debates" conducted by the various news outlets, Gravel barely got a word in. Perhaps because of that it’s pretty clear from poll numbers that he has no traction, so I wrote him off.

The same goes for Dennis Kucinich. From a policy standpoint, I agree more with Kucinich than any other candidate in the race. He didn’t have traction in 2004, and he still doesn’t today. It looks like he may disappear completely from the public eye in the next year, as he’s being primaried in his district in Ohio. So, Kucinich gets scratched off my list.

I was willing to listen to Bill Richardson up until the moment he stated that Byron White was his ideal Supreme Court justice. It’s a shame, because he has more foreign policy credentials than anyone else in the race. Next time, Bill Richardson should remember the name Harry Blackmun. Off you go, Bill!

Then there’s Joe Biden, a windbag with a great deal of useful and insightful knowledge, but a windbag nonetheless. I had my fill of Biden when I lived on the Delaware border on the Pennsylvania side. He should go back to the job of grooming his son to be his successor. Someday, he’ll be remembered as a visionary when I look at a map and see three countries where Iraq is now identified. He just won’t be remembered as a president.

Chris Dodd came close. He has done everything right in the latest congressional session. I agree with a number of his stands on important issues and, unlike his fellow Senators in the race, he’s showing real leadership on the floor of the Senate. Then he appeared on Don Imus’ new radio show on the first day that the old weather-beaten bigot was back on the air. This is an incredible lapse in personal and professional judgment. It has the smell of political calculation and has become a deal breaker for me. Dodd remains my second choice among the field behind Edwards, but I don’t think he has a chance.

Then there’s Barack Obama. I don’t have anything against Obama politically, and I do admire his purity with regard to his consistent opposition to the war in Iraq dating back to 2003. He has moments when the substance of his stump speech reaches inspiring heights.

I have three problems with Obama, two of which become one big problem. For one, Obama is very new. For people like me who have been stumbling in the dark for a long time in search of someone politically palatable, Obama’s born-on date has a lot of appeal. And yet how new is too new? As a junior Senator, I’ve yet to see him grab the saber and charge up the hill for something he believed in. This goes hand in hand with the fact that the only election Obama has won on a national stage was a 50-point drubbing of Alan Keyes to win his Senate seat. To be blunt, a trained musk ox wearing a Brooks Brothers suit could beat Alan Keyes by 50 points. The third reason is Obama’s recent embrace of right-wing talking points, such as pot shots at "trial lawyers" and the last two standard bearers of the party from 2000 & 2004. Throw in his rather alarmist view of Social Security, and I have to conclude that Obama, while new, simply isn’t ready for the new political realities that surround him.

Bringing up the rear is Hillary Clinton. I am rather unique in the world at large, as I am a two-time Perot voter. I didn’t vote for Bill Clinton. I’ve always been a left-leaning independent, but there was something about Bill Clinton that I never truly embraced. Based on who the Republican nominees were in 1992 and 1996, history has mellowed me into saying that Bill Clinton was a hell of a lot better than the Republican alternatives offered. I do feel that he has a lot of explaining to do with regard to globalization in general and NAFTA in particular.

As much as Hillary Clinton wants to be regarded as her own person, neither Bill nor Hillary has adequately explained how her presidency would be radically different from what we saw with Clinton Version 1.0. If there was nothing compelling to me about the message the first time around, what is the difference with Version 2.0? I will concede that most of the low points of the Clinton Administration were the product of manufactured right-wing outrage. Economically, with the salient exception of some segments of Silicon Valley, the economy as a whole was in incredible shape compared to now. Yet I didn’t want Bill Clinton then, and I still would rather not have Hillary Clinton now. If I want a good package deal, I’ll go to my local Wendy’s and buy a number 6 combo.

My distrust of all things Clinton is rooted in the belief that these two represent Big Business more often than the people who truly need help in America. The Clintons have always talked a big game with the "It Takes A Village" sales pitch, while at the same time putting American villages out of work as a result of globalization. If you’re looking for someone to stand up to Corporate America, Hillary Clinton isn’t the go-to general for the planned assault. For these reasons, Hillary didn’t make my cut.

Having said all of the above, I can at the very least state that in the absence of a nude picture of the nominee with a farm animal, my vote for President in November will be for the eventual Democratic nominee. Any one of the people above is miles above the unvarnished insanity that passes for the Republican Party. Although I am now a registered Democrat (thank you George W. Bush), I still value my independent streak. I value it so as to not want to sully it with a vote for Michael Bloomberg or any other stiff exhumed by the hacks in Unity ’08. The Democratic Party with all of its flaws still offers the best hope for improvement in the American Condition.

Like hundreds of other Americans, I watched the outdoor NHL game yesterday between the Pittsburgh Penguins and the Buffalo Sabres. You would think that having done this once in Canada a few years ago, the NHL would have been better prepared for the game. Instead we got 6 10-minutes periods, constant maintenance to the ice surface and a game that lasted over 3 ½ hours.

If there is a next time, how about four 15-minute periods to counteract wind direction, allowing more lead time before the game for actual ice to form and two zambonis that will work for the duration of the game?

Mmmmm......Bettman. Smells just like fiasco.

Ever since the de facto defection of Evgeny Malkin to the NHL in the summer of 2006, Russian Hockey has been fuming. Miffed at what they perceive to be too little money paid by NHL franchises in transfer fees for Russia’s best players, Alexander Medvedev and Igor Larionov, two of the primary movers and shakers of Russian Hockey, have been scheming in secret for a solution.

In the past two weeks, the secret has been unleashed. Russia is now proposing a European Hockey League to be run in opposition to the NHL. European teams, similarly frustrated by the low NHL transfer fees, are signaling their interest.

As a 33-year hockey fan, to this I say "Go ahead".

While the NHL will no doubt put a brave face on this proposal, secretly they are fretting, in my opinion for no good reason. With some of the best players in the NHL coming from other countries, it’s logical to think that the NHL would indeed worry. No team ever wants to lose their stars without compensation, precisely why the Russian scheme is on the table.

Yet the mere existence of European players in the NHL flies directly in the face of Commissioner Gary Bettman’s stubborn and quixotic plans to expand NHL market share in the United States. The NHL is arguably sixth in the pecking order behind the NFL, NCAA Football, the NBA, NCAA basketball and NASCAR in the United States. It probably isn’t helping matters when certain owners are forced to market foreign-born players with non-Anglo surnames to the slack-jawed yokels in the Deep South where Bettman insists there is a fan base.

You’ll pardon me for a quick interlude. Like most true fans of the NHL, I am not a fan of Gary Bettman. In many ways, the constant clunky changes he has made to the NHL during his tenure have destroyed the game I used to watch as a boy. Bettman has given us the Glo-Puck, the abolition of the 2-line pass and the "goalies-can-only-touch-the-puck-in-the-funky-trapezoid-behind-the-net" rule. On the flip side, the owners in the NHL love him, primarily because he was able to institute a salary cap for the league during the last lockout. While I’m not thrilled with the Bettman tenure, fans of the NHL better get used to him. With the support of an ownership group more eccentric than any other in professional sports, I have a strong feeling that he’s not going anywhere for a while.

Now back to our regularly scheduled blog post. Having seen hockey games in the South firsthand, I can tell you that these people are not watching hockey for the goals. They’re watching it for the hitting and fighting. It will more than likely make the marketing jobs in places like Nashville and Dallas that much easier if North American skaters claim the jobs left behind by European players going back home to play.

With regard to Russian players in the NHL, the time has long since passed when these players need to take a hike and go home. It is interesting that Russia would want to reclaim a player base from their own country that typically only give half-hearted efforts on any given night in the NHL. Too often, unlike the rest of their Eurasian counterparts, Russian players like Alexei Yashin have been picking the pockets of NHL owners based on scouted talent rather than effort. Yashin is now picking the pocket of his own countrymen. After over a decade of needless subsidy by the NHL, Yashin has now returned to Russia to grift his own people, for which the NHL is no doubt grateful.

An interesting side headline to this whole Russian plan is the amorphous involvement of Bob Goodenow, formerly the head of the NHL players union, the NHLPA. The plan currently on the table for the proposed European League calls for a salary cap, something Goodenow fought against as a union head. Time will tell how this particular wrinkle plays out in the coming months.

Europe has provided some great hockey players to the NHL over the past 4 decades, but the day of reckoning has arrived. With the current NHL now bloated with 30 teams and struggling for an American identity, a proposed league in Europe could end up being a boon for North American hockey as more NHL roster spots open up to skaters on the home front. It could just be the tonic that Gary Bettman has been looking for to cure an ailing league on the brink of marginalization in the United States.

It’s nice to be a Leftist.

I just typed that with an inner superiority gained through serenity. My serenity is rooted in the fact that I calmly state my case in waves of rationality. When a situation presents itself, I can come to a decision free of knee-jerk reactions and invective. I’ll be the first to admit that from time to time, I pepper my language with four-letter colloquialisms common to the world of the Internet and the billiard hall, but I grew up in Philadelphia, and that kind of language is almost expected in that particular environment.

From what I’ve read in the history books, the same can’t be said of Republicans. In fact, a cursory review of Republican behavior over the past 60 years reveals a rather obvious tendency towards overreaction.

The McCarthy Era can be logically viewed as a grandstanding overreaction to the Rosenbergs and Alger Hiss. From the path of this event lay the senseless destruction of lives that up until that time had been dedicated to making America a better place in the Post-Depression Era. While this televised witch-hunt was playing out, the people who actually were responsible for the transfer of atomic secrets to the Soviets went undetected. McCarthy himself became a victim of his own devices, ending his life and career twisting in the winds of shame and alcoholism. In 1954, as a parting shot to the era, an overreacting Republican forced the words "Under God" into the Pledge of Allegiance to show how much better we were than the Communists in the East Bloc. The Soviets yawned and continued unabated for 35 more years. Communists in China now prop up our crumbling economy as modern day Russia drifts back to the Soviet mindset. Which God was that anyway?

We learned some years after the actual events of May 4, 1970 that Nixon had his hand in the overreaction that was the shootings at Kent State University. The rational approach would have been to track down those who had burned down the ROTC center on the campus and deal with it appropriately via legal means. Instead, in the heat of the times, and in that special way that Nixon liked to overreact, four students were shot and killed and many more wounded.

The entire fiasco that was Watergate was something of a Rosetta Stone for all Republican overreactions to follow. Remember that the original break-in at the Watergate Hotel was meant to gain information to assure Nixon’s reelection in 1972. 22 months after that landslide reelection, Nixon caved in on himself and resigned in disgrace. The subsequent overreaction of Ford pardoning Nixon for crimes for which he had yet to be charged ended up costing Gerald Ford the 1976 election.

No cataloguing of Republican overreactions would be complete without talk of the present day. We as a country now find ourselves firmly ensconced in the mother of all Republican overreactions, that being the "War on Terror" in general and the Iraq War in particular. As the Bush Administration begins their 7th year of killing and torturing people worldwide who had nothing to do with the September 11th attacks on New York and Washington, we must finally acknowledge that to be a Republican is to soil one’s pants on a daily basis to the lightest of stimuli. Since the tragic events of that day, Republicans have now placed all of the citizens of the United States under illegal surveillance via the Patriot Act. They have given billions of dollars to a dictator in Pakistan with no results, save for a junta now being on the brink of collapse thanks to the murder of Benazir Bhutto. They have browbeaten the United States into invading a sovereign country that had no connection to 9/11, killing hundreds of thousands of Iraqi citizens in the process.

Logical perspective tells us that a bunch of Islamic rednecks got lucky one day a few Septembers back. The logical reaction would have been to eradicate Osama bin Laden and his followers from the face of the Earth by having them eat the pointy end of the nearest missile. Instead we started a "War on Drugs" for terrorists, a bottomless pit of wasted resources and pending economic collapse that accomplishes very little. As an afterthought, Bush as Commander-in-Chief let bin Laden get away.

Fast forward to the latest Republican overreaction, that being the sudden ascendancy of Mike Huckabee to the seat of Republican frontrunner for the 2008 Presidential nomination. The bill for over forty years of the Republican Party kowtowing to Christianist bigots has come due in the form of the formerly fat man from Arkansas (the one named Huckabee). The Republicans finally have the zombie they have appeared to crave for four decades. Huckabee sports a history of a personal agenda that is anti-science, anti-woman, anti-minority and highly partisan while simultaneously spouting nonsense from the Old Testament. He should be a 25-percenter’s wet dream. Instead, if current right-wing Republican opinion is to be believed, he’s the harbinger of the Apocalypse.

While past Republican overreactions have had a tendency to indiscriminately swallow everything around it in a vortex of stupidity, the reaction to Huckabee is rather compartmentalized. As a rational human being, it’s no skin off of my nose if the Republicans tear each other apart overreacting to this perfect beast of their own creation. We all laugh when monkeys throw their own feces at each other. It’s funnier to me to watch people who don’t believe in evolution overreact and do the exact same thing. The primary difference in this case is that the rational world is walled off from this particular overreaction. Unlike past knee-jerk Republican hysteria, this one is fun to watch from a distance.

(Disclosure: the author is a subscriber to, and an extremely minor [100 shares] stockholder of Sirius Satellite Radio)

I have to start this post off with something I don’t do often. I now admit that I was absolutely wrong from the very beginning about Howard Stern and his radio career.

I lived in Philadelphia during the 1980’s. I was a loyal listener to WMMR in Philly and their morning team, which included John DeBella, a man whose career was unceremoniously guillotined by the arrival (in syndication) of Howard Stern on WYSP in Philadelphia in the mid-‘80’s. I was a late teen/early 20’s guy who thought he knew everything there was to know about what made for good radio. Philadelphia would never embrace Howard Stern and DeBella would reign supreme. I was wrong.

I thought that the only substance to Howard Stern’s show were interviews with strippers, scatological humor and time spent with 15-minutes-of-fame types like Jessica Hahn and the lesser lights of the stand-up comedy world. I was wrong.

I figured that Howard Stern, being one of those annoying New Yorkers I sometimes ran into while living on the East Coast, would only appeal to the megalopolis along the Atlantic Seaboard. There was simply no way that a Jewish guy from New York would appeal to the heartland audience. I was wrong.

When they sliced and diced his old FM radio shows down to a 30-minute telecast for the E! Network, I figured no one would watch a litany of chromo-keyed breasts when they could be watching the evening news and a late night talk show. As the telecasts became the highest-rated show in the history of the E! Network, I once again found myself on the wrong end of the argument.

I have now been a subscriber to Sirius Satellite Radio for just short of two years. I now view satellite radio in the same way that HBO would have been viewed in 1976. It is an idea still in its infancy that has the potential to forever alter the way we listen to the radio. It took me all of five minutes of listening and scanning the music channels to realize that I had listened to AM/FM radio for the last time.

Since Howard Stern made the jump to Sirius early in 2006, their subscriber base has exploded, nearly surpassing their only rival (and potential merger partner) XM. While no usable ratings system exists currently for satellite radio, the millions of listeners added in the past two years can reasonably be considered a public stamp of approval for a now-unexpurgated Howard Stern Show.

Currently, Sirius is presenting The History of Howard Stern, a two-week special interspersed with interviews of people who are now or who have in the past found themselves in the middle of Stern’s personal and professional universe. The amount of behind-the-scenes detail in this special is astonishing, and I can’t help but recommend it to anyone with the capability to listen.
Yet the thing that is most illustrated by this special isn’t necessarily about the ascendancy of Howard Stern, but rather the continuing reaction to him by terrestrial radio. From the very beginning of his career in 1977 to the present day, Stern has encountered nothing but resistance, censorship and hostility toward his idea of how a radio show should be conducted. In his career, it can be safely stated that he made a lot of myopic people in the broadcasting industry boatloads of money despite their best efforts to cut him off at the knees. To see FM radio scramble for a new idea in his absence, coupled with technology such as the IPod slowly eroding the traditional audience for terrestrial radio, is something I find amusing.

If anything, thanks to the FCC only being worried about obscenity and not so much about rampant media consolidation, terrestrial radio is the worst it has ever been. Clear Channel, a company owned by a prominent Republican family, seems more focused on making sure that they hire DJ’s in all markets that delicately toe the Republican Party line rather than worrying about innovation. Even long-time carpet bagging losers like Mankow are turning themselves into Republicans publicly overnight in order to stay on the air under their GOP paymasters. Terrestrial radio owners force right-wing bigots like Rush Limbaugh, Michael Savage, Bill O’Reilly, Sean Hannity and Glenn Beck down the throats of America through the use of syndication, while liberal radio hosts such as Stephanie Miller and Air America Radio are forced into a nearly underground situation in miniscule markets. The big advertisers, obviously being extorted by Clear Channel and their powerful minions, won’t touch liberal talk radio with a ten-foot pole. And don’t even get me started on the doors that keep getting opened in terrestrial radio for drug-addled redneck Don Imus.

Not being a longtime diehard fan, and using The History of Howard Stern as a guide, in my opinion Howard Stern’s show is now better than ever. Free from the clutches of the FCC, his show is now no-holds-barred. In lesser hands, this kind of format would be a train wreck of can-you-top-this obscenity. Stern utilizes his 30 years of experience to operate two radio networks on Sirius, bringing compelling listening to all who tune in. His daily show, while maybe not appealing to every listener straight through for a four or five-hour period, always has one thing that appeals to someone. I tend to turn off his show when he invites strippers and porn stars into the studio. To me, the best moments on his show tend to be conversations he’s having with his staff or the random callers who get through. Underneath the fart jokes, sex chair rides and energy-draining phone calls from the ever-annoying Eric the Midget lies damned good entertainment. With the dawn of the Internet, the art of conversation is a dying one, and Stern may someday be viewed as one of the last masters of the art. With Artie Lange and Robin Quivers offering strong support in the studio and Fred Norris’ library of sounds at his disposal, Stern has taken the format of the radio talk show and turned it inside out.

Stern’s success does come with a price. Despite his newfound fortune from Sirius, you won’t see him hobnobbing with A-list celebrities. You aren’t likely to find many positive things written about him in the consolidated media. With his neurotic personality, this is not a guy that any one of his millions of fans can ever realistically dream of sharing dinner. When I think of his particular group of guests such as Elliott Offen, Bigfoot and Crazy Alice (with others, collectively called "The Whack Pack"), I'm tempted into thinking that someone in a group like this is bound to put his life in danger. Much like Valerie Solanis to Andy Warhol, I can’t help thinking that this is the kind of guy that has a crazed fan somewhere in his universe with his name on it. Longtime security chief Ronnie the Limo Driver isn’t much of a defense against someone like this who may pop up on the horizon.

The majority of Stern’s army of listeners will always admire from afar, forever dialing the show and getting a busy signal, dreaming of the 15 seconds they may someday get to talk to Howard Stern. I’ll just listen and enjoy and wish Howard Stern safe passage through the world around him, in addition to adding a heartfelt apology to him personally through the use of this blog for not having the good sense to be a fan of his for a longer period of time. When my Sirius subscription comes up for renewal in March, I’m getting the lifetime membership. I proudly state that I am now a Howard Stern fan.

Hey kids, remember how Roger Clemens pitched all those years in the American League by striking out ridiculous numbers of batters and aiming at the heads of those batters that got hits off of him? Turns out he might have been juiced and possibly suffering from ‘Roid Rage.

And remember how Barry Bonds hit 73 home runs in a season and everyone except Barry and his kids said he was cheating? Chalk one up for everyone. It looks like he was cheating.

And remember that amazing season of relief pitching that Eric Gagne had a few years ago? Apparently dominant relief pitching is that much easier with a little advanced chemistry in your system. He looks to have been loaded up and cheating too.

Forget about "the names" for a minute. In addition, let’s set aside the ridiculous discussion of who gets how many votes for the Hall of Fame as a result of this report. Those arguments are for unctuous baseball writers who love to belabor points for the sake of circulation and discussion, and no one outside of themselves really cares. I’d like to get a little deeper with topics I’ve yet to hear about in to 30+ hours since the Mitchell Report hit the news.

Three things strike me about the Mitchell Report. First, virtually all of the new "evidence" presented in the report comes from clubhouse employees for the Mets and the Yankees. Mitchell spent over a year on this report, and there’s no documentation in the report that states that he talked to any other clubhouse personnel in Major League Baseball. The commissioner, who is employed by the owners, requested this report. Clubhouse employees are not members of the Players’ Union; they are employees of the individual teams. If the owners really wanted the truth about what is going on in all of baseball with performance-enhancing drugs, they would have had Mitchell’s investigators interview every clubhouse attendant in Major League Baseball. In the end, without these interviews, this report ends up looking like a McCarthy-style witch-hunt deliberately constructed to name as few current and former players as possible. Now the owners can say "it was a big problem, but we’re working on it" and almost keep a straight face due to lack of evidence.

Second, how can we trust that any major sport is the unvarnished truth anymore? I have the same feeling now about baseball as I do about the NBA and its tainted referee pool. When I turn on a TV, I like to think that what I’m watching with regard to sports is true. I gave up on the bullshit that is TV news years ago, save for the Weather Channel. Sports until very recently were my last bastion of "what you see is what you get". It’s been a bad year for that thought. With Tim Donaghy, the Mitchell Report, the Patriots Spygate scandal and the only unbeaten team in NCAA Football excluded from playing for the National Championship, what is believable and virtuous in the sports world anymore? And no, golf is not a sport.

The third impression that strikes me is the fact that the War on Drugs is now finally exposed as the absolute racist joke we all thought it was in the first place. The federal government has spent trillions of dollars since the 1930’s attempting to stop the flow of illegal drugs into the United States. Now if the Mitchell Report is to be believed, the two clubhouses belonging to the teams playing in one of the world’s largest cities have for years been one-stop shops for illegal drugs received through domestic sources. As we incarcerate insolvent black and brown people in large numbers in this country in a foolish attempt to convince ourselves that we’re keeping drugs out of the hands of our kids, an entire generation of the best millionaire athletes in one sport are being exposed as users of illegal drugs. I guess those Coast Guard cutters can’t patrol Shea Stadium. If you’re going to selectively fight any war, it’s not a war at all. It’s just a lot of people with guns and uniforms dicking around and wasting tax dollars.

The Mitchell Report, coupled with the trial of Barry Bonds, will probably be non-stop stories on ESPN for the rest of recorded time. Questions will be asked of Bud Selig about the integrity of the sport, which he will defend at all costs, even if ultimately it isn’t true. Why let the fact that your entire enterprise is a massive con job get in the way of selling tickets?

This just in from Milwaukee: It has finally stopped snowing.

So far in December it has snowed here four times. While the landscape is beautiful, my driveway looks like the asphalt equivalent of a man who shaved with a meat cleaver. The sun is now once again coming through my office window and I can finally see blue skies on the horizon. It helps my mood immensely that I’m currently listening to Tomorrow the Green Grass by the Jayhawks. This leads to the first question for the comment thread, which is "What album do you reach for to improve your mood?" For what it’s worth, I’ll add two other albums from my personal list: Eli & The 13th Confession by Laura Nyro and the first album by Moby Grape.

I am one of the fortunate few in the United States. Being in Milwaukee, I currently have a Democratic congresswoman (Gwen Moore; I love this woman and what she stands for), two Democratic senators (Russ Feingold and stinking rich Senator-For-Life Herb Kohl), a Democratic Governor (Jim Doyle; he could be a lot better) and a Democratic mayor (Tom Barrett; so far, not bad). In 2008, only the mayor is in a re-election battle, and it’s not much of a battle at that. Gwen Moore usually disposes of her competition at a rate of around 75%-25%. It’s a safe seat as long as she wants it. I know that some of you have Senate campaigns, and we all have the White House to think about. With that in mind, I give you Question #2: "Do you think your member of the U. S. House of Representatives deserves re-election based on his/her public stands on the issues you care about? Why or why not?"

As another day passes, and the latest Cheney Administration (who’s kidding who here?) scandal comes into view, leading Dana Peroxide to hem and haw to the press gaggle (I haven’t read any news yet today, but given his track record, he has to have screwed up something else today), my newfound optimism leads me to think of the future. I think of a future without Dick Cheney running this country with his hand up the back of a frat boy. Specifically, I think of the end of taxpayer-funded healthcare for the office of the Vice-President that is quite obviously keeping Cheney alive long past his expiration date. Between the catnaps he catches during visits with foreign dignitaries to the constant shocks from his implanted defibrillator, Cheney has become something out of a typical story from H. P. Lovecraft. The only difference is that no one ever saw anyone actually exhume his body for reanimation. Strictly by observation of the two, I would ID Lynne Cheney as the corpse in the relationship. Looks can be deceiving.

I don’t subscribe to any one religion, but I do have a strong belief in a karmic afterlife. If I go to what is commonly thought of as Hell, it will be a room full of all types of bugs with Celine Dion pumping through the loudspeakers for all eternity. This leads to Question # 3: "What is Dick Cheney’s Hell?" Use your imagination and be as descriptive as possible.

And finally, Question #4, which is asked more out of curiosity than anything else: "Are there any other diehard hockey fans in the house?" I feel lonely sometimes in Packer country.

I hope the sun is shining where you are, and if not, if you’re currently to the East of me, I can tell you that this too will pass. Have fun answering one or all of the questions above. Smile everybody!

(The writer begs your pardon while he briefly pretends that he is Fred Savage on an episode of "The Wonder Years").

So there I was. It was 1977. Jimmy Carter came into office with a big lovable doofus for a brother. I spent my afternoons watching my rhythmically challenged, 18-year-old sister attempt to disco dance. I spent my Friday nights with a couple of guys named Jim Rockford and Quincy (what was that guy’s first name anyway? His first initial was R., but I guess he wished he was like Liberace while solving murders as a coroner).

I was in 5th grade, well on my way to building a perfectly mediocre educational resume (with "Some College" now being used on product surveys as a euphemism for "Community College Dropout"). I went to the school library and checked out a book called 2010:Living In The Future. And what an amazing future we were all to have! I would be 44 years old, leaving my perfect round house (which looked exactly like all the other houses in my neighborhood), getting into my flying car for long trips or staying home to work. My children would be in the other room attending school via television, just like all the other kids in the neighborhood. Colonies would exist on the moon, telephones would be extinct (replaced by videophones of course) and all of the little drawings in the book featured smiling faces. I was hooked. Despite my dad being 45 years old, short and overweight, I couldn’t wait to grow up to get a round house of my very own.

By my current calendar, this is all supposed to happen over the next 757 days, 412 of which will feature George W. Bush as the President of the United States. Revisionist history is nothing. Let’s talk about revisionist futurism.

A common theme of the 20th Century that cropped up, usually at World’s Fairs, in radio serials, movies, television and books, is the absolutely ridiculous and over-optimistic view of the world of the future. Buck Rogers was supposed to be the last traveler on a deep space probe in 1987! Instead, 1987 featured the Iran-Contra Scandal. The television show Space: 1999 featured a moon colony as a backdrop. Instead, 1999 was spent picking up the pieces of the tech bust and discussing the president’s sexual peccadilloes.

We’re not sending humans into deep space to live (and no, the ISS doesn’t count as "deep space"). You can count on one hand the number of people who take their personal helicopter to get to work. School buildings built 50-70 years ago are still being utilized on a daily basis, to say nothing of the house I currently occupy that was built in 1926. Webcams are more commonly used to watch women who are 18 years old and 15 seconds perform sex acts. There are no jetpacks, George Jetson is still a cartoon and people only smile if it’s in their job description. Toto, I’m not in 5th grade anymore.

Thirty years after seeing a fanciful future in a children’s book, I’ve come to realize that the people who see a better world in the future are ridiculously marginalized and sacrificed at the altar of Big Business. Somewhere along the line, the pioneering spirit and engineering intellect inherent in people such as Preston Tucker and R. Buckminster Fuller morphed into third-rate models like Bill Gates, who made a fortune creating a con job of a product which is easily replaced that never truly works exactly as envisioned. In addition, it can be argued that Gates’ product has actually become a barrier to the evolution towards the better functioning world we’ve all envisioned.

I tend to be optimistic by nature. At 41, I still have trouble letting go of daydreams of people existing in an advanced society and getting along. I would hate to think that all of my optimism about the future was instead invested in the idea of making microwave ovens smaller and kitchen counter-friendly. With regard to that childhood vision of the better world of the future, I’ll believe that one when pigs – or cars – fly.

I want to start this post off by saying that I genuinely like Christopher Dodd. Of late, whenever Democrats have needed real leadership in the Senate on issues important to the country, he’s stepped up. Because of this, he has leapfrogged over many other current Democratic Presidential candidates to the number two spot behind John Edwards on my list of desired candidates.

On the surface, Dodd doesn’t stand much of a chance, but he does have the IAFF union behind him for organizing in Iowa, which could make his candidacy very interesting as the Iowa Caucuses draw closer if that can translate into numbers.

Then came this morning……

Everybody’s favorite racist radio has-been, Don Imus, debuted on WABC in New York this morning, fresh off a short-lived exile for mean-spirited remarks directed at the women’s basketball team at Rutgers University. Among his new touches (which on the surface look more like transparent attempts at insulation) are a black female co-host who’s about as funny as a picnic table, as well as a simulcast affiliation with some far-flung rural cable channel called RFD (why do I picture Ken Berry and "Goober" Lindsay when I type those letters?). Among his old touches are the many members of the Washington Establishment who find nothing wrong with Imus’ long history of racial and ethnic intolerance, as long as there’s a microphone in their face. For his first show back, today’s guests included aging DC prostitution circus act Carville and Matalin, everybody’s favorite intemperate lapdog John McCain and, unfortunately, Chris Dodd.

In a presidential election season, every move is a calculation. Chris Dodd is barely recognized during televised "debates" on cable news networks. One could make the argument that as a candidate with a visible absence of big money and debate recognition, you take your exposure wherever you can get it. Anywhere you hang you soapbox is home.

Having said that, as a Democrat, why Don Imus?

Dodd is more than likely making the calculation that appearing on a radio program that is attempting to appeal to rural America is more than likely a good thing if he wants to finish strong in Iowa. Yet based on Imus’ history and the type of guests he has on his show, the only thing rural about Don Imus is his horrible cowboy hat and his borderline KKK sense of humor.

Making a conscious decision to align oneself with Don Imus for free publicity can’t be seen as a good move in attracting primary voters from the Democratic Party. Primary voters tend to be the most motivated and dedicated to a given party. I’ll venture a guess that Don Imus doesn’t have much of a rabid following among regular readers of Daily Kos or other major players in the left wing blogosphere. I’d also venture a guess that the primary voting patterns of those same readers are heavier than the rest of the Democratic population, though I lack statistical proof to back up that argument. I leave it up to those more capable to study that hypothesis.

Don Imus trying to reinvent himself as some kind of leather-faced Paul Harvey Everyman will be interesting for about one week while the mainstream press looks in on his "rehabilitation". After that, he’ll go where all short-syndication talk radio goes; straight into the abyss of a 1.5 share. His time as any type of major mover and shaker in the radio industry passed in the early ‘80’s. For anyone to appear on or to sponsor his siesta of a radio show now, in my opinion, lends tacit approval for the kind of behavior that’s gone on before. I still think positively of Chris Dodd, but today I’m stunned at how his need for publicity in a primary season leads to horrible decision making. It’s not what I look for in a President, and he just lost a chance at getting my vote.

Currently, the Senate Finance committee is attempting to put together a bill to determine payments to physicians for 2008. The current number being bandied about is a 15.1% cut in pay for physician services spread out between 2008 and 2009. The cut would start with a 10.1% cut for 2008 followed by a 5% cut for 2009.

As it stands right now, Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus wants a package that avoids these cuts entirely, while Charles Grassley, the ranking minority member of the committee, wants a one-year suspension for 2008 and the entirety of the cut to come in 2009.

In the past, what has invariably happened at this time of year goes as follows. The desired cut is announced by the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS). Through a combination of AMA lobbying, book cooking and the desire to pass the buck, the desired cut doesn’t appear in the budget and gets put off another year.

At the point that payments to physicians are about to be cut by 15.1%, it can be safely stated that the day of reckoning has arrived. As expected, when a budgetary emergency presents itself, every special interest cockroach comes out of the woodwork to claim the crumbs. Already, 30 senators from both parties have signed a letter that was sent to the committee asking that no cuts be applied to radiology services.

By far, the biggest stumbling block (as if we should be surprised) is Senate Republicans.

Max Baucus has a good plan. He wants to suspend the pay cut to physicians and replace that funding by reducing the payments made to insurance carriers for administrating Medicare Advantage plans. Senate Republicans, having never met a corporate welfare plan they didn’t like, are backing Grassley’s plan instead.

A Medicare Advantage plan, sometimes called a Medicare Fee for Service plan, works somewhat like a standard commercial insurance plan. They cover (in theory if not always in practice) everything that Medicare covers, plus additional benefits like routine physicals at the administrator's discretion.

Since the introduction of the Medicare Part D drug benefit, enrollment in Medicare Advantage plans has exploded. When a Medicare recipient looks for a carrier to handle their Medicare Part D coverage, they are looking for a carrier and a plan that includes the litany of drugs the patient is taking into one formulary. The recipient does not commence this process looking to change their base Medicare coverage from traditional Medicare to a Medicare Advantage plan, but this happens frequently. The sales pitches put forward by many of these plans remind me a lot of the days of long distance phone carrier "slamming". Most recipients don’t realize that they need not switch their basic Medicare coverage to be enrolled in a Medicare Part D plan.

When Medicare Part D came into existence, the focus of the budget busting affects of the program seemed to be focused on the enormous giveaway it represented to the pharmaceutical industry with regard to "Average Sale Price" versus "Average Wholesale Price". The dollars paid to insurance carriers for the administration of Medicare Advantage plans in many instances is just as crippling. It is yet another example of the billions of dollars funneled to Corporate America under this president.

The ramifications of a 15% pay cut to physicians are already being made abundantly clear. Doctors, via the AMA, are already announcing that they may close their practices to new Medicare patients if the cuts are approved. This would be just in time for the Baby Boomers who will begin turning 65 in 2010 to be left out in the cold for primary medical care.

Republicans have made it their mission to starve Medicare and Social Security of needed funds until both can no longer function in any form, leading to what they hope will be their eventual demise. People like Newt Gingrich and Grover Norquist have made this very clear publicly over the last 15 years. It is now clear that while they attempt to destroy both, they might as well perfect a form of legal embezzlement of funds to their friends in the insurance and pharmaceutical industry.

Baucus wants to stop a portion of the bleeding of funds with the next bill. While this doesn't address the big hemorrhage to the pharmaceutical industry, it can be at least viewed as a start. Whether he has enough Roach Motels at the ready remains to be seen.

So, if all the major news stories are correct, the reservoirs around Atlanta and surrounding areas in Northern Georgia will be out of water in roughly 80 days.

The current cracker Governor, Sonny Perdue, (a name that perfectly symbolizes the lack of working intellect of its holder) snapped into action immediately. He summoned his ill-informed political followers to the state capital and prayed for rain. When I think of effective government, this is not the picture that pops into my head, but I guess that’s just me.

No one should be surprised that a state rich in Republican tradition displays this kind of ineptitude on a state level. Rather than spending the last 20 years planning for the day in early 2008 when the wells run dry, Georgia spent their resources on the ’96 Olympics, the lengthy investigation of Richard Jewell for not setting off a bomb at those same Olympics, the initiation of a state lottery and the passage of Voter ID laws that are for all intents and purposes a reintroduction of the Poll Tax.

The contingency plans are now down to praying and (in the likely event that fails) diverting water from the Great Lakes.

As a resident of Milwaukee, Wisconsin, located semi-majestically on the banks of Lake Michigan, I proudly say "HA!" to the first idea and "Fuck you!" to the second.

As a person with a Democratic Governor, two Democratic senators and a real Democratic congresswoman, I now say to Georgia without the least bit of pity, "How’s that small, non-intrusive government theory working for you now?" By placing your state government in the hands of people who hate governmental operations, you get what you deserve. The only thing missing from the Governor and State Assembly members in Georgia to place them firmly in the Middle Ages is chain mail armor being worn to work.

Once again, for anyone who will listen: you can’t put people in charge of government whose sworn ideology is the piecemeal destruction of that government.

Sometime in early Spring (if they have any chance at all of getting attention in the middle of a Presidential race) the situation will be so dire in Northern Georgia that the proud Bible-waving governor will be screaming at FEMA and the Army Corps of Engineers to immediately fix the problems created by decades of Republican neglect. He and his brethren in state government only need look to New Orleans to see what type of response they’re likely to get.

I have friends in the Atlanta area that will be directly affected by all of this to whom I’ll more than likely ship a case of water. I really wish I could sit here and state that I care about what happens to the area as a whole. Yet I wasn’t the one who elected these charlatans to the state government of Georgia year after year. If the residents of Northern Georgia want to get mad at someone for a lack of water, look to your state and local governments that allowed an overpriced McMansion-style gated community to go up in every piece of free space in the North of the state. Here’s some math for you:

One New House = One New Dwelling Needing Water

Your government created the problem. If they can’t fix it, that’s your fault for either not voting at all or voting for these idiots when you had the choice of someone else.

Lake Michigan and its contents belong to the people abutting Lake Michigan. We do our job by continually monitoring the health of the immediate Great Lakes and the effects of changes on the residents surrounding it. You can’t have it now or at crunch time. Tough shit. That’s life.

Picture for a moment that scene in the movie "The Three Amigos" where Steve Martin, Martin Short and Chevy Chase are riding through the desert. They each take turns opening their canteens. Steve Martin gets five drops of water into his mouth. Martin Short gets a canteen full of sand in the mouth. Chevy Chase dumps a canteen full of water into his mouth and onto his head as the other two look at him longingly. He then turns to the other two and offers them lip balm.

Georgia, thy name is Ned Nederlander. No worries though. I’ll be happy to send you some Chap Stick.

A funny thing happened to David Stern on his way back from the bank.

He was returning from depositing checks made out to the NBA by Mark Cuban. The fines had been levied by Stern against Cuban for criticizing the referees of the NBA for lackluster performance. Stern, being the commissioner of the league, scolded Cuban but good utilizing the power of the pocketbook, and strolled back to the league office with the confidence and swagger of a man confident in his decision making.

Then he passed the newsstand.

It seems that half of the referees in the NBA had violated the rules of the league by going to casinos in the off-season. One referee in particular, one Tim Donaghy, was indicted for fixing games in favor of illegal gambling interests.

David Stern acted decisively - by doing nothing.

Tim Donaghy had already resigned from the league by the time the story of his game-fixing hit the streets at large, requiring nothing more of David Stern than was required of Pontius Pilate. He washed his hands of Donaghy and let the feds take care of the execution of justice.

The other casino-hopping refs got the Scooter Libby treatment. Their punishment for breaking the rules of the NBA was for the head of the NBA to change the rules to make it OK for the refs to go to casinos in the off-season. This kind of reaction doesn’t even rise to the level of making each ref sit facing the corner wearing a dunce cap for 20 minutes. Rather than face the problem head-on, Stern saw a problem and ignored it by imperial fiat.

You have to admire the arrogance of David Stern, if nothing else. He sits on his New York throne like Queen Elizabeth II, as the head of a fading empire, TV ratings heading in a downward direction, shrinking attendance, officials with questionable ethics and a dysfunctional ownership team at the helm of the blue-chip franchise down the street at Madison Square Garden.

Through his leadership, he has done everything in his power to exclude the African-American community as fans of the sport in exchange for a well healed (read: WHITE) fan that, if we are to judge strictly by attendance figures, apparently doesn’t exist. Not to worry though, African-American fans! You can still purchase throwback jerseys at a ridiculously high price and display your pride in the NBA from a distance, where David Stern prefers you.

In a league that includes Donald Sterling among the NBA ownership group, it’s not a complete mystery as to why David Stern keeps his job. Having stated that, I appear to be the only person in the public at large who thinks that David Stern got a free pass on a problem he helped create. By constantly displaying to the world at large that he would back up the referees against all criticism, he helped form a Teflon class of official like no other in any sport. One wonders what rule the officials will break next, knowing that unless they go the full illegal route like Donaghy, Stern still has their collective backs.

The NBA has been dogged for years by criticism stating that a separate set of rules appears to exist for the star players in the league. Stern could laugh off that kind of charge based on the lack of long-term statistical evidence. Tim Donaghy throwing games and altering the results of those games for the benefit of gambling interests throws the entire product put forward by the NBA under a cloud. How can any fan of professional basketball watch the NBA and trust the product now?

As long as Stern continues to sit at the helm of the NBA, this league can’t reasonably consider itself credible. When an entity loses the public trust, the eventual destruction of that entity is spent for a short time on outrage, followed by long term indifference. I for one have now reached the latter category.

I must preface this writing by stating unequivocally that I am not a scientist. I tend to base my conclusions on what I observe and for the big scientific questions, I tend to default to the majority opinion among reputable scientists presenting research free from personal or political bias. Based on observation and majority scientific opinion, I have come to the conclusion that yes, global warming is a measurable phenomenon that is occurring and that the prevailing evidence shows that the behaviors of humans are a major factor in the warming trend.

While what happens next if the overall problem continues is still open to speculation as far as I can tell, it appears ultimately that human life in certain corners of the planet is at risk. This leads to a conclusion that humankind, by continually engaging in actions not directly related to the survival of the species, has placed its own species at imminent risk of not surviving.

This is the point where I state without hesitation that I eagerly await the planet’s final response to humankind’s existence on it.

So the reader at this point is horrified. "How utterly sick!" you think to yourself, "Are you actually arguing in favor of the natural destruction of the human race?"

In a word, yes.

If you could just take a moment, take your heart off your sleeve and tuck it back into your chest, take a deep breath, swallow the nearest industry-forced psychotropic medication at your disposal and relax, I’ll explain myself.

Isaac Newton posited that for every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction. There are many examples of this in everyday life. If you use logic and criticize a Republican using intellect and reason, Rush Limbaugh and Bill O’Reilly tell everyone within earshot that you hate America, which while hysterical and devoid of reason, can be classified in the simplest terms as a reaction to a stimulus. If you rub a sexual organ (yours or someone else’s; I’m not judgmental) at a certain angle with the necessary combination of force and energy, you stimulate a reaction (and it’s hoped for all involved that it’s not the spoken phrase "Are you done yet?").

Now consider the planet. Since the Industrial Revolution of the late-19th Century, the actions of humankind have acted as a stimulus toward the planet on which we all coexist. The planet’s well-considered reaction is becoming abundantly clear with each passing day. It is curious to the species of humankind that for every man-made emergency, we begin with soul-searching, in most cases asking ourselves "what can I do differently to change what has occurred or what is about to occur?" With the evolutionary gift of reason, it is our conceit that we believe we can come up with solutions for every problem that presents itself.

There are two problems with that conceit. The first is humankind’s lousy track record of ideas, with an overwhelming majority of what we’ve come up with thus far being worthless and not at all helpful to the overall health and survival of the species.

Don’t believe me? Below is a list of items created by the minds and hands of humankind. How many can you spot that are/were necessary to the survival of humankind as a species?

Handguns

Bombs (atomic and non-atomic)

The Tacoma Narrows Bridge

The Chevy Vega

The Ford Pinto

The 5-day deodorant pad

Tris pajamas

Lead paint

The Dalkon Shield

Thalidomide

PCB

CFC’s

Asbestos insulation

Cigarettes

Crystal methamphetamine

Plastic containers

The Maginot Line

This is the short list. I’m certain a better mind than mine can find other sterling examples of human ingenuity throughout history that led to no improvement whatsoever in the human condition or led to lives being saved. I am certain that still others can name things that have helped in the survival of the species, such as penicillin and any of a number of vaccines that argue in opposition.

The second problem with the above conceit is much more concrete. If I had to lay a wager (a uniquely human activity that does nothing to benefit humankind by the way; add that to the list above) between humankind’s capacity to save itself from extinction, and a planet that has already survived past climate shift and inundation by large land mammals and comets, I’d bet everything on the planet. While humankind has had its successes, it is still a species ruled both literally and figuratively by its vices. While homo sapiens evolved from other species that were much more primitive, one check of any given day’s disasters in the news, from Pakistan to Burma to Darfur to any given day in the life of the current occupant of our White House, proves beyond doubt that there is still much work yet to be done on the evolutionary front. We are at best a species with potential long-term viability doomed to be disconnected from that eventuality by our emotions, terrible judgment and litany of bad ideas.

Being infected with human feelings, I take no personal or emotional comfort in self-inflicted human extinction. However, I do take comfort in the knowledge that the planet’s oncoming reaction to the negative stimulus of human encroachment presents Nature with an opportunity for improvement upon previous life models. As millions of species on our planet have disappeared, millions of others have taken their place, with each exchange bringing about either subtle or significant improvement (with the salient exceptions of the duckbill platypus and Ann Coulter). This heavenly mass teeming with life that we all coexist upon is a marvelous series of experiments to behold in that way.

Many generations from now, someone or something will discover what was Washington, DC at the bottom of a 10,000-meter underwater trench and will be curious about the primitive architecture for about 30 seconds. After that they’ll continue on their way, much like we all did when the Woods Hole Institute found the Titanic. It’s not the planet as an entity that is destroyed by global warming, but merely the myriad life forms upon its surface. While I currently recycle, compost and utilize a rain barrel and an economy car, I am aware that no amount of recycling, composting, organic farming, emission limits, carbon credits or vegetable oil buses alters the truth of supremacy of planet over inhabitants.

Look at the bright side though. Pat Robertson and James Dobson will bite the biscuit like everyone else. In and of itself, that should give everyone hope for a more evolved phoenix rising from the ashes of humankind.

Over the holiday weekend, AP chose Tiger Woods as the Male Athlete of the Year. My vote is for Ladanian Tomlinson of the San Diego Chargers and his boatload of touchdowns, but I think I need to clarify why the choice of Woods is an absolute travesty.

The first reason should be obvious to everyone with a pulse. GOLF IS NOT A SPORT! It's a scored activity, like darts, shuffleboard and cribbage. Any activity in which a guy the size and shape of Craig Stadler can become a millionaire by taking part should never be considered a sport. The only people who ever call golf a "sport" are the well-paid sportswriters who play it in their off hours and the assorted obnoxious white guys who have country club memberships and ugly pants who never lower themselves to ask my opinion on the matter. Bo Jackson was an athlete. Deion Sanders was an athlete. Tiger Woods plays golf.

The second comes down to numbers, specifically, the number of PGA tournaments that Tiger Woods participated in in 2006. Granted, Woods' father and golf avatar, Earl Woods, was in ill health and eventually succumbed to cancer this year, and it is understood that this would be a distraction for any "athlete". Having said that, the PGA has roughly 40 events in a calendar year, which works out to 160 days competing in tournaments. No one on the PGA tour plays in every event, but having said that, you can find very few golfers who played less than the 13 events Tiger Woods took part in in 2006.

In 2006, Woods only played about 50 days worth of golf for money on the PGA Tour. In contrast, very few starting pitchers win Athlete of the Year because they only get about 25 to 35 starts per season. If a guy like Tomlinson played in only 35% of his team's games, do you think he would have a shot at Athlete of the Year? We are told that half of life is just showing up. Woods only does that 30 to 35% of the time, but he's a better athlete than Tomlinson, who gets hit on EVERY PLAY in his sport when he plays?

So Woods won over $8 million for the tournaments he took part in. Big deal. The real story here is the tournaments where he didn't even show up. Give the Male Athlete of the Year award to someone who I can get used to seeing on a daily or weekly basis.

Well, the rain is getting colder
And the sky is growing dark
There’s no one left to clean the muddy street
Down in a swollen gutter
Amidst the bottles and the trash
A lotto ticket dances without feet
On its back it bears a number
Written down in fading blue
Seven indecipherable digits and a heart
Will anyone remember
Does anybody care
About the opportunity that fell apart

Light a candle, say a prayer
They could be anywhere
A brief encounter in a convenience store
Led to a fantasy
That was never meant to be
And strangers they must be forevermore

In a café by the roadside
A girl is sipping tea
And wondering why he never calls
And somewhere in a diner
Surrounded by his smoke
A boy is lost in shadows on the walls
Sometimes he’ll think about her
And how he never got her name
Then write it off to his unlucky fate
And as he finishes his smoke
That losing lotto ticket
Spirals down beyond the sewer grate

Light a candle, say a prayer
They could be anywhere
A brief encounter in a convenience store
Led to a fantasy
That was never meant to be
And strangers they must be forevermore

The houses all look empty
As the afternoon wears on
The wind is singing Wagner to the clouds
And the worms out on the sidewalk
Drowning in unsalted tears
Are mourned by the skies in their shrouds
Lost love is nostalgia
And broken hearts will mend
And star-crossed lovers reunite in death
If life can teach you anything
It’s to always take your chance
And fight for what you love with every breath

Light a candle, say a prayer
They could be anywhere
A brief encounter in a convenience store
Led to a fantasy
That was never meant to be
And strangers they must be forevermore

Emotional availability is always a rare and beautiful thing when encountered in others. Actually being open-hearted oneself often seems to be an invitation to manipulation, abuse, and rejection. This is because the heart (as an emotional center) is a doorway to compassion, which involves delving into the Sea of Infinite Sadness that is the sum total of all life's experience from the ego's perspective.
Compassion incorporates the awareness that all we do as living creatures is only the tiniest blip on the cosmic radar, that all human achievement is temporary, and that any individual's actions may therefore feel entirely futile; in addition to which most people who recognize an empathetic person will express firstmost their misery and disappointment. The goal of compassion is to move beyond this egocentric 'poor me' point of view to an enlightened state of connection to a larger sense of self. However, not only is it easy to slide back from this heightened awareness into the depths of personal discontent; it is also just as easy to keep this illumination localized in the safety of the mind where it can exist in an Ivory Tower, disconnected from the heartache and suffering of life.
Yeshua ben Josef (a.k.a. Jesus Christ in vulgar Latin) is an example of one who struggled to use his compassion to alleviate suffering by bringing others into an enlightened state; the prolonged gore of his assassination shows how much this was appreciated at the time. Conversely, the Buddha Siddhartha Guatama managed to live and teach longer than three years, partially because he started out as a prince rather than a carpenter, but mostly because he was born on the right side of the planet. At any rate, the lessons of these and all other transcendent sages, martyred or otherwise, suggest that we as human beings have the opportunity to release this attachment to suffering, and thereby conquer the death of the ego. So what is it that keeps ordinary schmucks like you and me from bringing it all together and evolving into spiritual masters? In a word, karma.
Karma at a practical level isn't about justice, or past lives, or even the balancing of universal energies. It's about recognizing the patterns and laws by which one leads one's life and seeing their inherent falsehood and limitations. Most of us fail to comprehend just what is meant by 'attachment to suffering.' Over the course of any lifetime, when bad things happen it is normal to learn from the experience. Unfortunately, this learning process is seldom conscious, occuring as it does primarily at the level of emotions and beliefs rather than at the level of rational thought. The lesson is then incorporated, which is to say, brought into the body at a cellular level. Once this is done, reality is defined in terms of that lesson.
For instance, a child who burns his hand may be sufficiently traumatized by the experience to develop a fear of fire. Fire may become a symbol to that child of all that is evil and hurtful. As an adult, this person may be able to rationally use a lighter or a stove without flinching, but may also believe in an afterlife where the soul is burned for eternity for being evil. This fear will continue to severely limit the person's ability to accept the diversity of human experience unless the root of it is brought to light and an alternate belief is engendered.
Furthermore, this new belief must be sufficiently impactful to negate a whole lifetime of living by the previous belief. For this to occur, one needs open-heartedness. Without it, any new lessons are just flotsam and jetsam on the stream of consciousness. This doesn't necessarily mean accepting the abuse and miserable company of those that see empathy as weakness. Everyone needs to be able to retreat to a safe place, away from social manipulation. In this space, one may see how the ego's Sea of Infinite Sadness exists as a mere drop of water in the Universal Self. Gradually, this awareness may grow strong enough for the individual to invite others to share it. When this is possible, it will signify an integration of Higher Self with personal identity. Only then will loving kindness result in bringing others up without getting entangled in their suffering.

I'm not a journalist or some erudite historian. I'm a citizen of the United States who sees his country and its leadership heading down the wrong road.
We all know what happened 5 years ago today. The Islamic equivalent of rednecks got off a lucky shot with a couple of airplanes because our national leadership was worried more about clearing brush and creating an energy policy for their longtime friends at Halliburton and Enron than they were about protecting America. I remind the other citizens of this country that Spetember 11th, 2001 was a date that fell within the first term of the presidency of George W. Bush.
So, being the most powerful country on earth, did we do the right thing, that being making these Islamic rednecks eat the pointy ends of missiles in the mountains of Afghanistan until they were obliterated? Well, we were well on our way to accomplishing that goal, but we stopped and invaded Iraq instead. At the time, Iraq was a circumsized dictatorship, controlled completely by a multinational force by the use of "no-fly zones" that took up two-thirds of their airspace. We are told Saddam was an oppressive despot. How this differs from the leadership in Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Lybia, Jordan, Syria, Iran and Morocco has yet to be fully explained by the people currently in power in the United States.
Did Iraq have weapons of mass destruction? No. Is the Iraq War, as promised, being paid for by profits from the sale of Iraqi oil? No. Was the Iraq War over, as Donald Rumsfeld predicted, within months? Again, no. Is the Iraqi insurgency, as stated by policy wunderkind Dick Cheney, really in its last throes? Um, no. Was Saddam Hussein an imminent threat? Not counting probable halitosis, no.
The way to teach the Arab world a lesson would have been to drag Osama Bin Laden's lifeless body behind a jeep before news cameras right around Christmas 2001, following the Israel model of showing the world what happens to people who attack us.
What we got was a GOP-engineered clusterfuck, where our soldiers are underequipped sitting ducks in two countries, and batshit insane states like Iran and North Korea, seeing the quagmires the United States finds themselves in, are now feeling their militant oats on the world stage. Osama Bin Laden, the architect of a mass murder, now has a more prolific recording career than Michael Jackson and our president "doesn't much care" where he is.
The great equalizer is that Novermber 7th is a midterm election day, which gives the 60%+ of America who doesn't support the war in Iraq a chance to neuter the president for the remainder of his term in office. Based on the recklessness and irresponsibility we've seen from this president, it's a neutering whose time has come. Numbers don't lie. Those who now support the Iraq War can honestly be referred to as the lunatic fringe. Think of your vote as a shot of Thorazine across the bow of the S. S. Cuckoo's Nest that is the United States.