The Year Of Dangerously Living

If you are reading this, it means I've made it through another year without health insurance. I think this makes an even dozen years that I have paid retail for medical services and, knock wood, nothing major has happened, except this stomach trouble from worrying about not having any coverage. I'm on the barter system with my doctors now because the insurance companies treat me like an Untouchable in India or a leper on Molokai. For those fortunate enough to be insured who are puzzled by this situation, I'll repeat; I can not buy health insurance anywhere, for any price. And after a year of watching the health care debate while avoiding doctor visits as much as possible, it doesn't look as if I'm any closer to acquiring it any time soon. Thank goodness I avoid doing strenuous things.

I understand the president's reasons for allowing Congress to write the health care reform bill. He went to school on the Hillary-Care fiasco and didn't want to make the same mistake by presenting a finished product that no one but a bunch of policy wonks understood. I'm certain, however, that Rocky never expected the entire opposition party to turn their backs to him en masse. Time and again he has reached his hand out to the Republicans, and they continue to beat him about the head and shoulders in response. Obama has run out of cheeks to turn. Yet like the boy who wakes up Christmas morning to a stocking filled with horse manure and shouts, "There must be a pony," I keep looking for the angle in Obama's continued attempts at bi-partisanship. I know that Barack and Rahm Emmanuel are smart guys and clever politicians, and the election proved that they are great strategians, so there's got to be some Machiavellian strategy in there somewhere concerning their persistent courting of Republican support for health care reform, but for the life of me, I can't see it. Maybe the pony ran away.

This Thursday, a massive, male-bonding, bi-partisan, drum circle will take place at the White House where, again, Obama will try to reach accord with his political opponents. They will submit their predictable ideas; tort reform, buying insurance across state lines,  protection for insurance company profits,  privatizing Medicare; and their preferences will be duly noted and most included in any bill. But it doesn't matter. Senate Republicans have already shown they are prepared to vote against the very same bills that they originally sponsored in order to deprive this president of a political victory, even if it's good for the country. Never in modern history has the entirety of a political party's elected representatives turned into a mass collection of refuseniks. Bi-partisanship might have existed in some dreamy memory of the New Frontier, but it's been over since the election of Bill Clinton.

Yet the GOP continues to insist that they just want this country returned to the original vision of the Founders. First, the Founders were slaveholders who believed the only people entitled to vote were rich, white, male landowners. Secondly, men like Jefferson and Madison were towering intellects with vast knowledge in a broad range of subjects. Hardly men who would enjoy exchanging ideas with John "ManTan" Boehner or Mitch McConnell, much less having a beer with them. But the Republicans are currently winning the message wars, Obama's popularity is dropping, and the Teabaggers are definitely motivated to return the country to a wrecking-ball style government. After all, there are still a few institutions left standing. The conservatives made their motivations clear at last week's CPAC conclave in Washington. Barely a year into the Obama presidency, and they're trying to Jimmy Carterize this man. The convention's surprise guest, Dick "The Bruiser" Cheney, predicted to his delirious audience that Barack Obama would be a one-term president. Also, I know Obama was trying to show political resolve when he told Diane Sawyer, "I'd rather be a good one-term president than a mediocre two-term president," but he only emboldened his enemies.

If that's how Rocky feels, however, he may as well go down swinging. There is renewed Senate interest in the public option the House has already passed and Speaker Reid has agreed to bring the issue to the Senate floor. The right will demonize it as a "Government takeover of healthcare," when actually it's just a government-run health insurance plan to compete with the profiteers of sickness and death. Now that the Democrats have lost their formerly useless sixty vote majority, they are freed from having to negotiate with bad actors whose major concern is not the health and welfare of the citizenry, but who acquires the most power in the next election. The Dems can now go by the rules of reconciliation, which the Bush crowd nearly put their brand on, which only requires 51 votes to pass legislation. This eliminates the further need to smooch the derrieres of the Senate Republicans and the corporate-owned Democrats too. Either that, or make them fulfill their threat to filibuster. Call their bluff. We've all seen Jimmy Stewart in "Mr. Smith Goes to Washington." It will be great entertainment and a magnificent civics lesson. So, bring in the cots, shut the doors, turn on the C-Span cameras, and let's hear and see the same people who are trying to kill health care reform read from the Scriptures.

Palin the Pernicious

I understood what the National Tea Party Convention in Nashville was all about as soon as I heard that sound. It was in the audience's response to former Colorado congressman and professional xenophobe Tom Tancredo's wistful reminiscences about literacy tests at the polls, after which he said, "People who could not spell the word vote, or say it in English, put a committed Socialist ideologue in the White House named Barack Hussein Obama." In one phrase, Tancredo managed to insult blacks, Hispanics, and the majority of U.S. voters, and the crowd's reaction was startling yet familiar. Tancredo had harnessed the mob's basest instincts and their reflexive response was manifested in a high-pitched, shrill, Banshee wail that I recognized immediately as the "Rebel Yell." There's nothing quite as chilling as being outnumbered in a clamor of Southern yahoos and good old boys when someone lets loose with the Rebel Yell. I've heard it all my life, and it means "I've got my blood up, by God," and suddenly the air becomes electric with the potential for real violence and "outsiders" find themselves in danger. During last week's Kleagle gathering in Nashville, the Tea Baggers did everything but burn a cross.

And that was before the headliner ever showed up. Sarah Palin gave the mob their money's worth while demonstrating that she could star in the sequel to "Mean Girls." As I listened to her mocking tone, her empty, bumper-sticker platitudes, and her irrational personal attacks on the president, accompanied by the howls of her receptive audience, I remembered where I had seen all this before. Even Palin's grim visage and set-jaw behind the Loretta Lynn hair-do was reminiscent of her true mentor, George Corley Wallace. And the Tea Party crowd is the re-assembled Wallace coalition of 1968 that gathered just enough votes to put Richard Nixon in the White House. Their message was the same then as now; Stop the Socialists and their ideas about Medicaid and Medicare, crush dissenters, oppose the Federal gub'ment in favor of  "state's rights," and return the Negro to his proper place in society. But even the old sege Wallace, in his declining years, saw the immorality of his lifelong convictions and spent his final days visiting black churches in Alabama, begging for forgiveness. Sarah Palin is just getting warmed up.

The former half-governor was a red-meat cornucopia to the angry and fearful, but it doesn't take Carl Jung to figure out what's at work here. Palin has a chip on her shoulder like a 2x4, and there is a mean-spiritedness that underlies her entire message. She suffers from the inferiority complex of the ruthlessly ambitious but otherwise average in a world of the gifted. She is in open rebellion against those whom she sees as the "elites," as opposed to "hard-working Americans," like herself. Palin had previously stated that she never attended an exclusive Eastern University, but worked her way through a series of community colleges, even that one in Hawaii, before earning her journalism degree. She got a gig on local news; she wanted to be a sportscaster; she took music lessons; she entered beauty pageants; all the attributes of someone who wants to be in front of the camera. But when all her efforts came a cropper, she, Todd, and God, found politics. And when Miss Wasilla became the mayor of Wasilla, the cross-eyed girl became a swan. If Palin couldn't be a media star, she discovered that, like a one-eyed man in the world of the blind, a mildly attractive person could be a star in the realm of the ugly. There just aren't that many pretty politicians and the Republican party is always looking for the next Dan Quayle.

Disguising hate speech in folksy colloquialisms is Palin's forte, but even she surpassed the gag threshold by asking Obama supporters, "How's that hopey, changey thing workin' out for ya'?" I know she's in Nashville, but who writes her material; Billy Ray Cyrus? Next, they'll be line dancing to her speeches. The mob went wild when she said that we needed a commander in chief and not a "law professor speaking at a lectern." Didn't the Republicans say the same thing about fellow Nobel Laureate Woodrow Wilson, whose dream of a League of Nations was torpedoed by the protectionist spectre of internationalism. Although Palin was likely referring to Obama's professorial "elitism," judging from the Rebel Yell, her Southern audience probably took it in another way. See, down here, we don't like it when our nigras go off to study law and start believing they know everything. Remember, "They call me Mister Tibbs?" But Sarah mindlessly continued to stoke the resentments of her paid-up, all-white audience, and they responded like a crowd at a monster truck rally. They despise the haughty "intellectuals" of the Obama administration as not being sufficiently American, and pine for bombastic leaders like "Dancin'" Tom DeLay and Trent Lott.

The degree of racial animus varies from place to place throughout the South, but nothing much has changed in the way of visceral attitudes. In Memphis, where there is racial parity, public jibes are now couched in prosaic phrases because it's not acceptable any longer to be openly racist, unless you're former mayor W.W. Herenton who makes up his own societal rules. In Nashville, however, they have no such restraint. I have never witnessed more blatant racism anywhere, than in my decade of living in the Music City. So it was appropriate that the Tea Party Convention was held at Opryland. The conventioneers, dressed in red, white, and blue and $500 lighter in the pocket after the ticket prices, have convinced themselves that they are the "real" Americans, and the true "patriots" upon whose shoulders falls the duty of purging the government of subversive elements. So did the Dixiecrats in the forties, the McCarthyites in the fifties, and the Wallace devotees of the sixties. The only difference now is that the reactionaries have a pretty face to follow straight to hell. After a season of slander, ongoing Hitler imagery, accusations of Marxism and worse, this bunch has revealed its true nature, and just like Johnny Nash, "I can see clearly now." But don't attempt to disguise yourselves as "fiscal conservatives," or "small-government libertarians," when you're nothing more than another in a line of misinformed lynch mobs. If knowledge is power, then knowledge of history is the power to avert bullshit when you see it coming down the path. There's an enormous mudslide on the way.

Thanks to Bill Day for the generous use of his editorial cartoon.

GaGa Over Grammy

I recognized another certain sign of aging tonight; the Grammy Awards no longer piss me off. When I was a worshipper at the altar of pop music, the annual music awards show was always my opportunity to vent at the establishment. Every time they gave another award to Henry Mancini instead of, say, the Kinks, I had the chance to rage against the machine. But the machine has shifted gears and the world of popular music is in an upheaval for which the industry is still groping for answers. I stopped following the pop charts with the advent of the arena, hair-bands of the seventies who tarred and paved the road for corporate rock. Coincidentally, cassette tapes came on the market at the same time, so my soundtrack has pretty much remained unchanged for the past 30 years. But I still keep an eye on it, and this years' awards were perfectly satisfactory, some talented people won, and when the awards ended, my heart was filled with like.

I mean, how can you not like Lady GaGa? Not only is she outrageous and provocative, but she's also seriously good. She opened the show in a futuristic, tight-fitting costume that gave new meaning to the term "cleavage." Strutting in front of the now obligatory flying wedge of dancers that Michael Jackson hath wrought, GaGa was flung into a fiery kettle and emerged face to face with Elton John, with whom she performed a stunning duo on twin pianos covered in what appeared to be severed arms from the "Thriller" video. For some unknown reason, they were both covered in soot and wearing outlandish sunglasses. I don't know what the effect was supposed to be, but between Lady GaGa's outfit and Sir Elton's latest fright wig, they both looked like they just stepped out of the cast of "Cats." The performance set up the evening's theme of incongruous duets.

As scintillating as was the GaGa-John partnership, the pairing of America's Sweetheart, Taylor Swift, with America's ex-girlfriend, Stevie Nicks, was nearly excruciating, and that was just the singing. It looked like "take your daughter to work" day at the Grammys. The same disconnect occurred in the Leon Russell/Zac Brown Band collaboration, with the emphasis on "bore." Russell looked like he was auditioning for a role in the next Tarantino movie, and had his lips not been moving, someone would have covered him with a sheet. Wouldn't the logical production decision to have been for Leon Russell to sing with the Kings of Leon, or is that too much irony? Mary J. Blige, who has a nice voice, and Andrea Bocelli sang an operatic version of "Bridge Over Troubled Water," for Haitian relief, which inspired me to write a short poem:
Mary J. Blige might be Queen of the Scene,
But she's no Mavis Staples, if you know what I mean.
And who is Silverberg? They kept singing, "Sail on Silverberg." I liked the Sugarland girl who sang with Bon Jovi, but I never got them either. Bon Jovi, not Sugarland. Just when my attention was beginning to lag, they gave the Song of the Year award to Beyonce and when she made her acceptance speech, I thought I was watching the Golden Globes. I was really hoping that Taylor Swift would storm the stage and grab the microphone, but that's so last year.

The tribute to Michael Jackson proves that you can grow tired of anything after a while. The 3-D video may have looked nice in the Staples Center, but in my living room it just caused retinal burn. And, the kids are adorable, but enough already. I'll still probably buy the damned film though. Also, I know Maxwell is supposed to be the next big thing, but singing "Where Is the Love" with Roberta Flack will invariably draw comparisons to Donnie Hathaway; not a great idea. Flack, who was either drunk or done, was just awful, which is heartbreaking to a man who once wept through an entire, early-seventies Roberta Flack concert at the Mid-South Coliseum. I understand how hard it is to sing live, but somebody ought to tell her.

The level of musicianship seems to have been raised among the performers, signalling the portent that punk is dead and professionalism has returned. Jeff Beck's tribute to Les Paul was an example of stellar artistry, but he played nothing from his own Grammy winning CD, "Live at Ronnie Scott's," which featured his electrifying young bassist, Tal Wilkenfeld, and, by the way, was the sole award winning album I purchased this year. Dave Matthews is another artist that can grow wearisome, but there's no arguing that he, also, is seriously good. The evening's longest performance belonged to Recording Academy president Neil Portnoy Portnow, who bragged about the association's good deeds and solicited donations for Haitian earthquake relief before the screed turned into "Portnoy's Portnow's Complaint," where he scolded the listening public over illegal downloading and file sharing. It's fun to watch the "industry" so hapless and lost after their decades-long stranglehold on the entirety of the muzic bidness. It was also nice that Jim Dickinson and Willie Mitchell were recognized in memoriam.

I don't care how many hit movies Quentin Tarantino makes, he's still a dork. During his introduction of the Rap portion of the show, he suddenly went all Ebonic on us and his fingers began twitching as if he were playing air-turntable. In the words of Speaker Harry Reid, he was using a "Negro dialect," unrecognizable this side of the 1950s. I never much cared for rap, mainly because I don't like people shouting at me, but I don't criticize it lest someone assume I'm a "hater." Every time Lil' Wayne opened his mouth, however, the network censors leaped to hit the "delete" button. In the process, they wiped out two-thirds of the song. They wouldn't let him curse, but he was allowed to show his ass above his droopy drawers. Eminem, however, looked like he got the message and discovered a new thing; the belt. Also, Eminem wasn't bleeped, and his rap sounded like a jazz, scat-singer. His creativity seemingly places him at a different level than the rest of his colleagues in the genre. Is that a racist thing to say?

Either CBS or WREG Channel 3 seriously screwed up the ending of the show. I suspect I know which. After showing a series of local commercials and no-snow closings, the station had a "Heidi" moment and blew the entire presentation for Album of the Year. They returned to Taylor Swift's thank yous already in progress and eliminated at least four minutes of network feed. It was like reading a mammoth novel and finding the final chapter had been torn out, or listening to a CD that's missing a few tracks. Do they get their engineers straight out of high school over there, or is there some remedial training required? Aside from the mutilated ending, this year's Grammys were, pleasant. It was justifiable that "Single Ladies (Put a Ring on It)" won best song of the year for Beyonce, and Swift won Album of the Year. I'm concerned that if I hear that "You Belong With Me" song one more time, I will plunge a knitting needle into my ear canal. Also, after seeing Lil' Wayne's performance, it's obvious that the real song of the year was submitted far too late for consideration. But everyone knows it's got to be "Pants On the Ground."

The People Are Revolting

I thought I felt the earth move last week, but it was only Teddy Kennedy rolling over in his grave. I wouldn't know Martha Coakley from Martha White of the Self Rising Flower, but how bad must a candidate be to go from being 20 points ahead a month before the election, and still lose by five? You would have thought they had found naked pictures of her posing for some cheesy magazine or something. I mean, look what happened to Vanessa Williams. I heard Coakley was "detached" from Massachusetts voters, so in their wisdom, they turned to Tea Party favorite, Scottie "The Body" Brown, to occupy a senate seat the Democrats had held since 1952. My Yankee cousins are going to have to explain to me how another haircut came to represent the people of the Commonwealth since this overnight transformation of Scott Brown from complete obscurity into Republican superstar makes no sense to me.

It should be no surprise that the party that elected George Murphy, Ronald Reagan, Sonny Bono, and Arnold Schwarzenegger to public office would look for another face out of Central Casting to put a handsome smile on obstructionism. The GOP always thinks that a pretty boy (or in the case of Palin; girl) is going to attract the young voters. Witness Mitt Romney, or Dan Quayle, or any of the frozen-haired fellows like Vitter and Ensign, currently embroiled in sex scandals while still remaining in office. Even Karl Rove's infatuation with George W. Bush falls into the category of first finding the head and then filling it with facts, as he similarly did with his latest creation; Texas Governor Rick Perry. So, good for the Massachusetts voters for finding another stud-hoss to send to Washington. It used to be said that "Politics is show business for ugly people." Now, it's just plain, old, show biz.

I know Ted Williams' head is somewhere up there in Boston, (except for that chip off the old block), in a cryogenics lab, and it was there that the original Tea Party took place, all hoping that one day, in some unforeseeable society, they might find the cure for death and taxes. So the only thing for certain anymore in this life is change. I understand that change produces anxiety, which in turn provokes strong responses, but attempting to resist inevitable societal change is as fruitless as trying to hold back the turning of the seasons. Sending one more "no man" to Congress will not affect any solutions, but putting him in Ted Kennedy's seat was most definitely a shot across the bow, both for the undisciplined and unprincipled Democrats, who continue to knit one, pearl one, on health care reform, and the president as well. There are some pissed-off people out there, but the wake-up call should be for progressives to realize that this is a philosophical war, and their opposite numbers are highly motivated. It will take equal motivation to protect the hard-earned gains already won and prevent a slippage back into Bushism.

The anger directed toward Obama after one year in office is baffling to me. The conservatives scream, "Slow down, you're doing too much." And the liberals cry, "You haven't done enough. Your campaign promises weren't accomplished in the projected time frame." I understood, and wrote, that Obama would spend a full half-term extricating us from the Bush-era political quicksand, but if electing more far-right, cultural conservatives (except for that centerfold business), is supposed to punish the president for arrogance or aloofness, or whatever you wish to call it, it's a losing strategy. Obama tackled health care reform first because it was the most difficult issue and required the most political capital. It has dragged on much too long with far too much drama, partly Obama's fault, and as a result, he has spent a good deal of that capital. People are frustrated that only now is attention being focused on job programs and they are angry at the perception that the White House is coddling Wall Street.

In the propaganda wars, the Obama administration is losing to the point where perception has overtaken reality. The Republican "NO" Chorus, assisted and abetted by Fox News, has successfully painted the president as culturally removed from mainstream America, if not outright attempting to subvert the capitalist system. They claim Obama has no accomplishments, despite their protestations that he's "trying to do too much." In reality, Obama has pulled this country back from the brink of Depression, and the government's deficit spending was necessary to save entire industries. Criticism was heaped upon him for the takeover of General Motors and the firing of the Chief Executive, but after six months, look what has happened. GM has retooled, begun manufacturing the vehicles that Americans want, and paid back the TARP money loaned by the government. We are finally at the dawning of the mass produced electric car. Do you think the auto industry would have made the shift on their own without governmental assistance and insistence on stricter CAFE standards?

Obama has in actuality been warring with corporate America, and the corporatocracy is fighting back with foot soldiers from the disgruntled Tea Party protesters, who don't even realize they're being used. In his first full year, the president has announced the prospective closing of offshore tax havens like the Cayman Islands; forced restrictions on credit card rate increases; provided mortgage assistance to millions of people; re-regulated the banks so they can't gamble with your money; introduced new infrastructure repair and high-speed rail programs; moved a shitload of new cars; and is on the verge of passing health care reform so people like me don't have to be afraid to go to the doctor because of the potential expenses that the insured need not fear. I'm a realist. We survived eight years of the most dangerously radical era in American politics. If it takes another year to correct our course, that is how wide was our detour. The election of one more beefcake, cretin Republican to the Senate does not deter my confidence in the president, only in the people of Massachusetts. There are still three years remaining in Obama's first term, and in the words of the old gospel song by Reverend James Cleveland: "Please be patient with me. God is not through with me yet."

Cheech & Chong & Cohen

You have to admire the political moxie of Rep. Steve Cohen for being the only Congressperson to address the Marijuana Policy Projects' 15th annual gala last week. It's not as if the congressman's district is clamoring for the reformation of pot laws, but Cohen has, ever since his days as a state senator where he proposed legislation to enable Tennessee's doctors to prescribe the use of medical marijuana for their patients. Cohen told the Memphis Flyer in 2005, "The laws are crazy to restrict an individual from something that can make them feel better when they're dying. There are so many other legal drugs out there that are much more habit-forming, addictive, and potent." Immediately, Cohen's detractors accused him of being a pot-head, but judging from his previous statement about marijuana's potency, he hasn't smoked any in a while. I was at first delighted and then confused over Cohen's appearance, along with "Trailblazer" honorees, Cheech & Chong, at the marijuana advocacy group's confab. I'm not used to my representatives acting on principle. First, this guy establishes a lottery that enriches the public school system, then he passes legislation formally apologizing for the institution of slavery, and now he's trying to decriminalize marijuana. Who does he think he is? Marcus Garvey?

Cohen told the self-confessed pot smokers that his own campaign polls have shown nearly 3-1 support for medical marijuana. "This is an issue that's important," Cohen said. "It's a freedom issue. It's an intelligence issue... I'm proud to be here." News reports said Cohen received nearly as loud an ovation as did Cheech & Chong, if not the belly laughs. It is a certainty that Cohen's political opponents will seize upon this issue in the 2010 elections. The conservatives will say that he's in league with Barack Obama in attempting to indoctrinate the nation's youth. And his Democratic opponents, including a group of African-American "ministers" who disliked his support over the passage of a hate crimes bill, of all things, will accuse him of being in favor of drugs in the 'hood, when what they actually mean is they don't want Steve Cohen there. The congressman, however, has shown consistency in voting his conscience, and anyone who is even vaguely informed knows that he is on the right side of history.

History teaches that cannabis was made illegal in the 1930s after a study by the Harry Anslinger Commission linked its' usage with illegal workers from Mexico. A marijuana "devil weed" campaign of provocative disinformation followed and was accepted as gospel until the beatniks and hippies exposed the hysterical propaganda as just plain silly. Today, cannabis cultivation is a billion dollar domestic industry that operates on cash and remains untaxed and unregulated despite the fact that, according to author Eric Schlosser, "There are more people in prison today for violating marijuana laws than at any other time in American history." Given the supposition that any mind altering substance is not good for children or the developing brain, isn't it time we admitted that marijuana is a gift from God for grown-ups and good for what ails ya'? Cohen speaks of pot giving comfort to the dying, but how about the living? This innocuous weed eases nausea, pain, and anxiety in most people, while causing passivity in its users. The Rastafarians use it as a religious sacrament, and there are now as many cannibis connoisseurs as wine experts. I suppose I've spent a full third of my life in bars and nightclubs, and I have seen a thousand fistfights, all fueled by alcohol. But I have never, ever, witnessed a pot smoker get high and become violent, unless he was about to be ripped off for drugs or money.

And that's the crux of the problem. Remove the massive illegal profits from pot cultivation and distribution, regulate it, and disassociate marijuana from other Schedule 1 drugs like Heroin and PCP, and prisons would suddenly have room for the rash of violent felons among us. The group for which Rep. Cohen spoke, The Marijuana Policy Project, issued recent statistics showing cannabis arrests outnumbering arrests for all violent crimes combined. And the hypocrisy of accepting thousands of deaths per year resulting from drunken driving while incarcerating nearly fifty thousand people, one out of eight prisoners, for pot use is dumbfounding. Yet the alcohol bandwagon rolls on unabated, creating shareholder wealth while destroying lives in its wake. New Jersey, however, has just become the 14th state to legalize medicinal marijuana and the ski-town of Breckenridge, Colorado has just decriminalized pot possession completely. There are a lot of rich folks in Breckenridge that just grew weary of the hassle and decided to stop pretending. And the Obama administration announced it will no longer conduct federal raids on state approved marijuana dispensaries, as the Bush government did in California.

We can all agree in hindsight that the temperance movement and the "Noble Experiment" of prohibition from 1919-1933, was a miserable failure with unforeseen consequences. The governmental ban of alcohol and liquor gave birth not only to thousands of "speakeasies," but led directly to the formation of the modern crime organization in America, whether known as the Mafia, the Mob, or La Cosa Nostra. Not just men with names like Capone or Luciano made millions from smuggling and bootlegging, but families named Kennedy and Bronfman did as well. After more than a decade of fierce bloodletting, the public had enough and repealed the 18th Amendment, abandoning prohibition. That "tipping point" has been reached again in the case of marijuana. Ordinary people are tired of seeing SWAT teams kick down doors and passive users being brutalized. Parents are weary of their children establishing arrest records over possession of a joint. And the people of the Southwest are sick of the Mexican drug gangs and their American accomplices who murder journalists, judges, and innocents to protect their cash flow. All this can end with the stroke of a pen. And with common sense congressmen like Steve Cohen leading the way, who says "It can't happen here?"

Flying By the Seat of Your Pants

It's wondrous how quickly the Transportation Security Administration leaps to the task of preventing an attempted act of terror that's already happened. First, the Shoe Bomber assured that the flying public would forever tiptoe through security in their stockinged feet, and then a couple of half-assed, bathtub chemists made certain you're not allowed  a bottle of water on a plane. Since the attempted destruction of a American  Northwest Airlines flight over Detroit, the press has dubbed the latest perp the "Underwear Bomber," though I much prefer the more accurately descriptive, "Taint Bomber." Following the TSA's logic, the next step is for everyone to fly naked. If these guys are always a step behind the terrorists, why do they call it "intelligence?" Now, before my octogenarian mother can pass through a security checkpoint, she first has to be patted down by an overly empowered high school dropout in a uniform.

The Taint Bomber, of course, hid explosives in his briefs, which malfunctioned, giving new meaning to the term Great Balls of Fire. Now, the cry is for the installation of full-body X-ray devices, which leave nothing unrevealed to the observer and fulfill every young boy's fantasy of being Superman. I could give a damn if some "professional screener" saw me in my underwear, but if I were a woman, I might be concerned that the man behind the curtain may be enjoying his job a little too much, especially if he is entrusted with the saved images that would be needed to provide any evidence to the authorities. The American public sheepishly goes along, tolerating any abuse for the illusion of safety. The new rule about not going to the bathroom during the last hour of a flight will certainly need to be revisited after passengers start peeing on the floor. And, no books? What the hell are you supposed to do on one of these flying disease incubators; meditate? If you did that, someone might mistake you for a religious extremist and the next thing you know, you're experiencing a full cavity search by a zealous teenager on a summer internship.

As terrible as the potential disaster on Christmas day may have been, the shameless exploitation of the terrorist action by the GOP, not to merely politicize the event, but attempt to fund-raise because of it, is repugnant. Say the word "hijacker" to a Republican, and like a Pavlovian response, they begin to salivate over the possibility of bashing the president over national security, especially the disgraced, future convicted felon, Dick Cheney. The now worst former vice president in American history issues missives from his cave that seem more intent in harming the president rather than preventing future attacks. In fact, Cheney and a handful of hawks almost seem to be wishing for a domestic cataclysm on Obama's watch so they can say, "See? We're not the only ones who allowed  an egregious lapse of security to cost American lives." I have come to the opinion, expressed frequently by commenters to these posts, that the Congress, on both sides of the aisle, are a bunch of whores (my Representative excepted). The difference is that the Republicans are particularly nasty and syphilitic whores, and thus a danger to the common good. The torture party's credibility on national security is shot and can't be restored by a "Democratic" airline disaster.

Who wants to endure the humiliation involved with airline travel anymore? This is why programs like high-speed rail are so important, not just to offer an alternative to the airline monopoly, but to ease the chaos at the airport and lesson the traffic on the highways. Want to know why we are light years behind the Europeans and Asians in the development of high-speed rail?: 50 years worth of congressional cash from the airlines, muscle from a corrupted Teamsters Union, and cheap gas, which strangled the railroads in their tracks, so to speak. I would much prefer riding in a 300 mph bullet train than spending the extra two hours of useless screening before being herded onto another austere and tension filled flight. The Madrid bombings proved that trains are as equally vulnerable to terrorist attack as planes, but if an explosive device detonates on my mode of transport, I'd rather already be on the ground than blown out of the sky.

The system in place should have prevented the latest violent Islamic extremist from boarding a flight in Amsterdam, but the system failed. The Obama administration, clearly flustered, attempted to explain that he was not on the "no fly list," but rather the "watch list" which contains half a million names. Bulletin: We have computers now, so rather than harassing millions of passengers at their point of origin, wouldn't it be wiser to invest more in computerized file sharing between the airlines, in conjunction with governmental security agencies? As it now exists, the TSA merely reacts, rather than project or predict, and the hands-on approach is only succeeding in infuriating passengers and disrupting air travel; exactly Al Qaeda's intentions. How difficult is it to punch up a prospective ticket buyer's name in a security database and insist on photo identification, rather than accept cash for a one-way ticket? The Taint Bomber made it through security undetected and someone must accept responsibility, but the real question is why was this known suspected jihadist, whose own father warned of his radical intentions, allowed to purchase a ticket on a domestic airliner in the first place?

Valedico Decadis Horribilis

To paraphrase Queen Elizabeth II, we're about to bid farewell to a decadis horribilis. To be sure, there have been rotten decades before, but there were always redemptive events to counter-balance the daily drumbeat of doom and despair. The fifties gave us McCarthyism, the Red Scare, and "Duck and Cover," but also Elvis, Chuck Berry and Jonas Salk. Anyone nostalgic for the sixties was obviously not someone in the line of fire. But amid war, assassinations, generational conflict, the draft, and the daily televised body count, we had the Beatles within a flowering garden of popular music, and a self-created counter-culture with unprecedented expressions of artistic freedom.

The seventies brought inflation, oil embargoes, gas lines, hostage crises, a cocaine epidemic among young professionals, and Disco. But on the bright side, we had the Bicentennial and Quaaludes. Reaganism ruled the eighties, with his theory of "trickle-down economics" sewing the seeds for the most recent orgy of fiscal de-regulation and near economic meltdown. Military budgets ballooned and social programs were cut adrift while the Christian right muscled a seat at the table and an age of rah-rah, jingoism returned to America. Iranian revolutionaries who had humiliated the U.S. were rewarded with illegal weapons sales and once empty CIA planes returning from money drops to Contras in Nicaragua, now came home loaded with something new for the Pepsi Generation; crack cocaine. On the positive side, we beat the Russians in hockey.

The nineties were the uproariously entertaining Clinton years, where grown-ups were forced to explain the meaning of oral sex to their children. For what more could we have asked? Scandals, investigations, wiretaps, blue dresses, cigars, impeachment; the Clintons delivered it all, and more. Hillary's heartaches and what "is" is, live on in our common psyche. But, in the words of James Carville, "What didn't you like; the peace or the prosperity?" Bubba coulda' been a contenda' if he had just holstered his weapon once in a while. Everyone eventually grew weary of the whole circus, but they took it out on Al Gore.

The laughter ended in 2000 when a politicized Supreme Court actually stopped a vote count in progress and awarded the presidency to the intellectually challenged George W. Bush, a decision that ranks up there in wisdom with Dred Scott. Thus, the prophesy made by humorist H.L. Mencken in 1920, was fulfilled; that, "On some great and glorious day the plain folks of the land will reach their heart's desire at last, and the White House will be adorned by a downright moron." The Great Stem-Cell Compromise of 2001 was so exhausting, the whole Bush gang went on vacation, and, of course, we know what happened then. We were all behind Bush that awful day and, without exception, wanted our president to succeed. Something redemptive might have arisen from that terrible tragedy, but Bush began following a playbook from an earlier age. A dark time of imperial arrogance and deceit descended upon this nation, and if you disagree with that statement, you may be part of the problem.

In another time, during another war, when things were going badly and people were marching in the streets, a president demonized dissenters as "bums" and "traitors," and energized his base to rise up against these scruffy protesters. Violence and riots followed. Richard Nixon, during a volatile time of social upheaval, unnecessarily polarized society between young and old, black and white, and rich and poor for personal political gain. Only resignation saved him from being booted from office for abuse of power. The next such divisive president, casting aspersions of disloyalty and treason toward those who would oppose him and fraying the nation's societal fabric in the process, was old GeeDubya "Bring 'Em On" Bush. And who was the common link connecting the political philosophies of the Nixon and Bush governments? Dick Cheney, Master of Disaster.

The decade's nadir came exactly midway with Hurricane Katrina and its aftermath. The country was shocked to see such an unrelenting tragedy compounded by the government's ineptitude; the same government that plunged us into two wars and an economic catastrophe unmatched since the "Roaring Twenties." But Bush was such a one-man, walking disaster that he made it possible for the first African-American to be elected president. So, just here, at this miserable decade's twilight, comes the glimmer of hope of what's possible in the next; affordable health care, resolution to wars of choice, government infrastructure projects and the accompanying jobs that follow, high-speed rail to finally compete with the airlines, quality public education and reasonable college costs. Positive things can happen when people finally decide to work together. Of course, I believed John Kerry was going to be elected president too.

I Jammed With Bat Masterson

The recent death of the actor Gene Barry brought a wash of memories over me about the occasion he visited Memphis. At the time, Barry was starring in the lead role of the hit TV western, "Bat Masterson," the legendary Dodge City lawman, and was to be the featured attraction at the Mid-South Fair's annual rodeo. Cowboy stars like Roy Rogers and Lash LaRue had appeared in years before him, but Barry's series was among TV's top rated shows when he was booked for the fair appearance, guaranteeing a large segment of the audience would be his young fans. I'm certain Barry thought his Memphis stop would be a breeze, but then he never expected to encounter Sputnik Monroe.

The evil professional wrestler with the skunk-like white streak in his hair was already the second best known face in Memphis, after Elvis, when he decided to seek even more public outrage by going to the fairgrounds to stalk Gene Barry. Robert Gordon, in his vastly entertaining book "It Came From Memphis," got the scoop years later from Sputnik himself. Monroe explained calmly, "I read in the paper where Gene Barry was coming to the Mid-South Fair and I went out there to hit him in the nose for copying the way I dress. I was born and raised in Dodge City, Kansas, which is the cowboy town of the world. Gene Barry was the star on 'Bat Masterson' and dressed like I dressed, with a homburg and a vest. I figured if I jerked him off a horse and hit him in the nose for dressing Dodge City-style, I'd get a national reputation." In Sputnik's world, such were the just desserts for impersonating a cowboy. The police kept Sputnik at bay and Bat/Barry's appearance went smoothly, but the Hollywood cowpoke probably never appreciated his near miss with meeting mayhem in Memphis. As it was, Sputnik picked a fight with a rodeo cowboy and made the morning paper's front page. The authentic clipping was sent to me by Sputnik's arch ring enemy, the great Billy Wicks. (Click on clip to enlarge).

The following morning, as we did every Sunday, my sister, Susan, and I attended Temple Israel Sunday School, but returned home to see a sleek town car in the driveway. My mother told us we had a visitor and when we walked into the living room, my jaw dropped. There was Gene Barry himself, sitting at the dining room table having a Sunday brunch. When my father asked if I knew who this was, I replied, "Sure, it's Bat Masterson." The New York bred actor, born Eugene Klass, was the brother-in-law of one of my father's business associates in California. When he found he was coming to Memphis for the weekend, his kinfolks called my mother to ask if there was a good place for a nice, Jewish TV star to get some lox and bagels without being mobbed by fans. "For that," Mom replied, "he'll probably have to come to my house." So there I stood, at age eleven, trying to process the sight of Bat Masterson sitting with my parents, spreading cream cheese on a toasted bagel.

Barry was gracious in the extreme and offered rodeo tickets to my sister and me. When he heard I was an aspiring guitarist, he insisted that I play for him. I had gotten through, "Don't Be Cruel," and "The Battle of New Orleans," when Barry enthusiastically said that he wanted to play along. So, I fetched a pair of bongo drums which I had acquired resulting from my admiration of Maynard G. Krebbs. With bongos firmly clamped between his knees, Gene Barry and I set off into the strangest, rollicking medley of nearly every folk and rock song that I knew. After a laugh-filled jam session, the handsome actor cheerfully suggested that we take the show on the road. Barry withdrew a publicity photo from an attache case and signed it; "To my pal Rand, from his pal Bat," then after expressing his gratitude to my parents and bidding his farewells, Barry opened the front door to find a half-dozen neighborhood kids who had somehow found out about the visit. He was generous to the last child before taking the wheel and heading off to some glamorous hotel suite.

I was still in the thrall of Bat's visit when I spread the morning paper on the floor and saw the article about Sputnik Monroe. I was enraged that this vile man would try to attack such a hero of TV westerns, and I was glad to see Sputnik wrapped in bandages after his fight with the itinerant cowboy. Had someone told me then that I would one day come to revere the man and take his name as a nom de plume, I would surely have asserted that they were insane. I kept up with Gene Barry as a secret pal, but when "Bat Masterson" was finally cancelled, my interest waned, and I never did like the show "Burke's Law" so much. Not so with Sputnik Monroe, who continued to wreck havoc in and out of the ring for another decade and cemented his legend in Memphis history, while personally defending my young ass in the process. But that's another story.

Gene Barry continued his successful career in movies and television and was nominated for a Tony Award for his performance in the original "La Cage aux Folles" on Broadway. His death at the Motion Picture Home in California at age 90 reminded me how quickly life passes. Although I am older now than he was then, I still vividly recall a rugged-looking man with a big laugh asking my father to please pass the lox, and an actor completely at ease in the company of my family, playing the bongos with abandon and a smile while I wailed away on the guitar. The genial Mr. Barry never realized how close he had come to a Memphis-style ass-kicking the previous night. I liked Gene Barry a great deal, and I'm grateful for the afternoon we spent together. My single regret is that if I had only kept in personal touch with him for a few more years, I could have introduced him to Sputnik Monroe, and they might have reminisced about their respective days in old Dodge City.

Obama's War

After Vietnam, I measure a war's nobility of purpose by asking two simple questions: Would I give my life for it, or ask my daughter or son to give theirs? The answer concerning the war in Afghanistan on both counts is "no." I don't understand the logic of committing 30,000 more troops to a guerrilla war that can't be fought with a standing army. The British have already tried that, not only in Afghanistan, but in another tussle known as the American Revolution, with similar results. I don't believe that the President, as a student of history, will repeat the mistakes of Vietnam, yet here we are again, facing an enemy that could be a merchant by day and an insurgent by night, defending a corrupt government that lacks popular support, and an enthusiastic general requesting more troops to "complete the job," only his name is McChrystal instead of Westmoreland.

While the real enemy, Al Qaeda, has an estimated presence in Afghanistan small enough to be defeated by the Tennessee National Guard, their legions have purportedly crossed into Pakistan, as Sec. Clinton so bluntly pointed out to their prime minister. So, it's hard to know who the enemy is in Afghanistan. The Taliban are a nasty bunch, as attested by the news footage of them whipping women in the streets, or blowing up ancient Buddhist statues, long before we invaded. But the purpose for their removal was for harboring bin Laden and friends, not for being religious extremists. I realize that the U.S. must present force in the region to prevent the murderous conspirators who attacked us from regaining a foothold to plot new atrocities. But history and the Mossad have proven that terrorists are better fought with special forces trained for that purpose. If U.S. personnel cross borders to pursue the assassins, I don't necessarily want to know how the sausage is made.

It's not that I don't trust the president's judgement by listening to the military's eternal call of "more troops," or General McChrystal's veracity, although he was involved in the cover-up regarding the death of Pat Tillman; It's Sec. of Defense Robert Gates that I believe. This is a man deserving of one of those Medals of Freedom that Bush used to hand out like prizes from a box of Cracker Jacks. Gates is serving his third president during wartime, having been retrieved from academia to rectify the worldwide chaos wrought by Donald Rumsfeld. Having previously served as head of the CIA, he could have comfortably remained president of Texas A&M, but chose to serve the country again by re-directing the strategy in Iraq, and staying on as secretary under Obama to focus on the indecipherable dilemma that is Afghanistan. Through it all, Gates' primary concern has been for the troops, both in the field and after returning home. If this genuine patriot and public servant believes that more troops now will bring this war to a faster conclusion, then I'm prepared to give him the benefit of the doubt.

Several major differences exist between today's wars and Vietnam. For starters, today's soldiers are volunteers, while the Vietnam War was fed with draftees who were forced to go fight in an alien land or face jail. The war in Indochina was expanded by LBJ primarily over the issue of the size of his balls. He famously said, "I'm not gonna' be the first American president to lose a war." Nixon and Kissinger had the same missile-headed reflexes and cost millions of more lives. Afghanistan, however, was the staging ground for the attacks against us and deserving of retaliation. Now, Obama has the delicate task of extracting us from this morass. No one can accuse him of bait-and-switch on this issue. He campaigned on the promise to bring the focus of our national security back to the region that still endangers us. If the Gates-McCrystal strategy succeeds, I suggest we never again commit troops to any country with a "stan" in its name.

It's too bad the Obama haters won't be listening to his Nobel Prize acceptance speech in Oslo out of general, misguided principle. But they would only still despise him anyway. Had they listened, they would have heard a Chief of State describe the use of arms against an unprincipled enemy as "just," in defense of the citizens he is sworn to protect. He also reminded the "effete" Europeans that the conservatives are so eager to loathe, that their freedoms over the last century have been purchased with large doses of American blood. Obama stated something even Dubya could love; "There is evil in the world that must be confronted." This sober, thoughtful, and historic speech should forever put to rest the wing-nuts' insistence that Obama is somehow un-American, or acting on behalf of dubious forces beyond our borders; but it won't. They have become so engulfed by hatred and misguided outrage, orchestrated by right-wing, self-serving, on-air, borderline seditionists, that they can't see the man standing before them has become the legitimate Commander in Chief of the United States. And no one is blinder than he who won't see.

Full Contact Shopping

When my email in-box became filled with ads from every merchant with whom I've ever purchased a book or candle, offering steep discounts and free shipping, I knew that the holiday shopping season had arrived in earnest. Before the turkey had even been digested, every news outlet was talking about Black Friday. I understand the day after Thanksgiving is when retailers are supposed to "go into the black," but as a history buff, I can't help but think of the original Black Friday on Oct. 25, 1929, when the stock market crashed, precipitating the Great Depression. That day, it wasn't merely prices that were falling, it was raining stockbrokers. Nonetheless, I suppose I managed to save around three hundred dollars this Black Friday just by staying in bed.

The news footage of the crowds that camped out in front of big box stores and rushed the entrances at dawn was enough to discourage me. Police were called to restore order at a local Toys R'Us when a crush of people caused one female shopper to begin waving a taser in the air and threatening those around her to back up. Voices could be heard saying, "Don't tase me, Ho, Ho Ho." I've been informed that people wait all year for these "doorbuster specials." They get the family involved and plot out strategies and logistics, and were it not for the early-bird sales, many could not afford these gifts at other times. As for me, fighting a frenzied mob of aggressive shoppers at 5AM for an electric, Japanese hamster sounds only slightly less appealing than dipping my face in the deep-frier at Wendy's.

Then comes "Cyber Monday," a recent creation to encourage online shoppers to begin early so they don't end up at "Glitch Thursday," when the retailer screws up your order, it doesn't arrive in time for Christmas, and you end up giving your loved one a catalog photo of the gift they were going to get. Even though you run the risk of receiving that late season post card telling you the great bathrobe you ordered for Mom is presently out of stock, I still shop online ever since I noticed that people don't know how to behave in public anymore. The jostling crowds, the slow walkers and cell-phone talkers, the indifferent clerks and rude cashiers had turned Christmas shopping into a two Xanax event. Online, the need for human interaction is unnecessary, which some may think is contrary to the spirit of the season, but it also reduces the chances of contracting the swine flu. That's why the hottest holiday gift this year is Purell Hand Sanitizer.

Speaking of "holidays," I would expect the opening volley of the annual "War on Christmas," sponsored by Fox News, to go off any day. Usually, Bill O'Reilly kicks things off about a conflict over a creche at the post office somewhere, or some such symbolic thing. I heard a woman say last season that if a merchant wished her "Happy Holidays," instead of "Merry Christmas," she would void her sale and take her business elsewhere. I don't suppose a delicatessen was on her list of shops, but isn't that attitude a bit like the Taliban? Since my neighbors think I'm strange anyway, I was thinking of erecting a large, inflatable Ganesha, the Hindu Elephant God, in the front yard. I mean, anybody can blow up a Walgreen's Frosty the Snowman, but Ganesha is the "remover of obstacles." I heard that my rabbi doesn't approve of Jews having Christmas trees, but we're getting by on a technicality since our tree isn't even real and folds up in the attic the rest of the year. Since we're a bi-tradition home, I always get out the acrylic, electric Chanukah menorah, where, on each of the eight nights, you switch on another pastel-colored bulb. I am, after all, a Reform Jew.

I wish I could get more exited about Hanukkah, but it's a minor holiday commemorating a military victory in the 2nd Century BCE, that paled against the festiveness of Christmas as a child. While our Christian friends were given bicycles and ponies, we were getting mesh bags of chocolate coins to celebrate the miracle of one day's worth of Temple oil lasting for eight nights. As far as miracles go, I thought the "Let there be light" one was far more impressive. If it were a holiday of great significance, you would think that after two thousand years, they could agree on how to spell it. It was, however, the world's first holiday celebrating energy conservation. I saw one catalog selling the ultimate in mixed-faith metaphors; the Chanukah spinning top, called a "dreidel," with pictures of Santa on the sides. Could this be a sneaky attempt at conversion, or another Obamanite plot of world-wide ecumenicism?

I know I'll radiate a more seasonal glow as the time draws nigh, then on Christmas day I can erupt in good cheer like an overstuffed Pinata. The family will gleefully unwrap our presents and hunker down for Blue Tuesday, when everybody exchanges everything they received for store credits and gift cards. When all the carolling stops, no one wants to miss an after-Christmas bargain. Until then, the traffic is impossible, the crowds are surly and pushy, and I'm having a difficult time adjusting to life in a world without Ed McMahon. Ask not for whom the jingle bell tolls; especially if you're Dick Clark. "Hiyo!" And, is it alright to say "happy holidays" if you're referring to Lincoln's Birthday, Valentine's Day, and Passover? Finally, why do people pray on Good Friday, but shop on Black Friday? It's not a riddle, I'm just asking. Now get out there and help heal this sick economy by joining our new, grass-roots, holiday initiative, "No electric gerbil left behind."

Lieberman the Schmuck

I would like to offer a heartfelt and blanket apology to anyone that I ever mocked, criticized, or offended for having inadvertently cast a vote for Sarah Palin while trying to register their choice for John McCain as president. To my lasting humiliation, while casting a vote for Al Gore in 2000, I am guilty of voting for the mamzer Joe Lieberman. At the time, I felt it was an inspired choice by Gore. Holy Joe was the anti-Clinton and I was thrilled at the prospect of the first Jewish Vice President. Now, Lieberman's looking more like the anti-Christ, and he has announced his intent to join with the Republicans and filibuster Harry Reid's health care reform proposal, or any bill that contains a public option as a "matter of conscience."

I know this guy believes that he holds up the sky, but how can he speak of "conscience" when he betrayed his own party, supported the opposition candidate for president, and was the second Democrat to speak at a Republican convention in successive conclaves, after the nar Zell Miller. Lieberman means to stand in the way, like George Wallace in the schoolhouse door, and prevent the Democrats from even voting on their centerpiece issue on the Senate floor. All this cranky noise from Lieberman is the continuation of a pattern of revenge against the Party for backing the legitimate winner of the Connecticut senatorial primary in 2006, Ned Lamont. Lieberman was re-elected as an independent, but caucuses with the Democrats, and to guarantee that he would play nice, was allowed to retain his chairmanship of the Homeland Security Committee. At the risk of encouraging Jew on Jew violence, it might be time for Rahm Emmanuel to think about slipping a horse's head under Lieberman's linens.

If you'll permit me a couple of ad hominem attacks, Lieberman looks like The Joker from Batman, and when he speaks he reminds me of the Saturday Night Live characters from the 1980s, Doug and Wendy Whiner. He might even have diverticulitis. Every time he opens his yapper, he embodies the term "mealymouth." In the latest Quinnipiac poll, even Connecticut voters believe his views are more in line with the Republicans, so why continue with this sham? The handy website Opensecrets.org lists Lieberman's top campaign contributors. Why am I not surprised that in the home state of the insurance industry, his major donors include Aetna, Hartford, Pfizer, and Purdue Pharma? Rather than serving the public, or even his constituents' interests, Joe is first serving his corporate masters that got him re-elected.

I long for the days when there was a strong Senate leader like Sam Rayburn or LBJ, who preferred a little arm twisting to assure the success of the party's promises rather than fluff and flattery. And who is the Senate Whip whose responsibility it is to guarantee the votes are there and to enforce party discipline? -Illinois Senator Dick Durbin. Between Durbin and Harry Reid, I don't think either man has ever raised his voice. As a result, rather than a unified party doing the will of the people who put them there, we have a version of a Democratic Party Fight Club, with the Blue Dogs peeing on the carpet. Senator Patrick Leahy has suggested punishing Lieberman by stripping him of his committee chairmanship, but I think it's past time to boot his tuchis from the party so he can find his true home as a spokesman for Fox News. Either that, or force him to filibuster and read the phone book on the Senate floor while people are suffering. Lieberman is already in bed with the Christian right over their staunch support for the state of Israel. His ultra-Zionist views allow him to compartmentalize the fact that the evangelicals' long-term vision for the "end times" in the Holy Land is for either the conversion or death of the Jews.

Earlier this month, Mel Brooks announced the founding of a non-profit organization dedicated to preserving the word "schmuck." Brooks announced at a rally in Brooklyn that, "Shmuck is dying. For many of us, saying 'schmuck' is a way of life. Yet when I walk down the street and see people behaving in foolish, pathetic, or otherwise schmucky ways, I hear only the words 'prick' and 'douche bag.' I just shake my head and think, 'I don't want to live in a world like this." The literal meaning of the Yiddish word "schmuck" is a man's penis, or more specifically, the foreskin. But over the years it has become used to describe any arrogant, annoying, or disagreeable person. Brooks told reporters at the first Shmucks for Schmuck rally, "You can be a poor shmuck, a lazy shmuck, a dumb shmuck, or just a plain old shmuck. We must save this word." I have a tip, forgive the pun, for the success of Mel's campaign. Take a long look at Senator Joe Lieberman, and I think you may well have found your poster boy.

Vocabulary:
mamzer=bastard, nar=fool, tuchis=ass, schmuck=Lieberman

Dick Cheney On Acid

I suppose it was a coincidence that both the National Geographic and Discovery Channels broadcast back to back documentaries about the CIA's experiments in mind control on successive nights. There was nothing new that had not been previously revealed during the Church Committee Congressional hearings of 1975, where the entire ghoulish laundry list of CIA abuses was unfurled before the public, but one inadvertent piece of evidence made my jaw drop. Both shows focused on the CIA's MK ULTRA program, begun in the fifties, which examined the effects of LSD on subjects both witting and unwitting, in an attempt to create new ways to brainwash potential adversaries. Among the early volunteers for the program was Stanford University student Ken Kesey. The whole sordid story is easily researched online or in library, but here's the short version.

In 1953, the CIA killed one of their own and covered it up. An agency biochemist named Frank Olson, who was critical of the program, was surreptitiously given a large dose of Lysergic Acid in his coffee by fellow agents and observed through a two-way mirror. Soon, Olson was debating the weather on Mount Olympus with Zeus and had a severe psychotic break which required sedation and observation by CIA doctors. Claiming Olson was suicidal, he was secretly checked into a tenth floor New York hotel room to be supervised by an agent entrusted with his care, but before morning, the chemist allegedly leaped from a window to his death while his trustee slept. The CIA declared it a suicide. After Senator Frank Church's committee determined that Olson was a forced participant in the CIA's LSD experiments, his family filed a civil suit against the U.S. Government for wrongful death. President Gerald Ford invited the Olson family to the White House and convinced them, for reasons of national security, not to pursue the case. This is where my eyes widened, since this was not a new film, nor one with a political purpose. The official, contractual papers were shown where the family agreed to settle with the government for $7000 (Seven Thousand Dollars). The author of the deal and the signatory for the United States was the president's Chief of Staff, Richard Cheney.

When someone says "Cheney knows where all the bodies are buried," they are not speaking figuratively. Dirty Dick has been covering up for the CIA's illegal nastiness since the seventies. No wonder he was able to go to Langley as Vice President and rifle through the files with impunity to cook the intelligence for the Iraq War buildup. They owe him, and his access goes back to the Nixon years when he coat-tailed his pal Donald Rumsfeld into the White House. Under Gerald Ford, Cheney and Rumsfeld staged what became known as the "Halloween Massacre," usurping the powers of Nixon holdovers Henry Kissinger and Vice President Nelson Rockefeller to become Ford's Chief of Staff and Secretary of Defense, respectively. From his new position of power, Cheney urged Ford not to cooperate with the Church Committee, arguing that airing the CIA atrocities could only damage the intelligence community. And when the terrible truths became public testimony, Cheney and Rumsfeld engineered the ouster of acting CIA Director William Colby, and had him replaced with George H.W. "Poppy" Bush. The Secret Service's codename for Cheney was "Backseat."

And what a putrid list of illegal activities it was that Cheney wished to protect. From the assassination attempts; Lumumba in the Congo, Trujillo in the Dominican Republic, the Diem brothers in Vietnam, and the Mafia sub-contract to kill Castro; to the domestic spying and infiltration of the peace movement; to attempts to discredit Dr. Martin Luther King and destroy the Black Panther movement, the CIA was so blatantly beyond the law that congress passed legislation to reign them in. The FISA laws (Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act) came from the Church Committee recommendations, a law that Cheney obviously disdained then as now. When Ford lost the presidency, with Cheney as his campaign manager, to Jimmy Carter in 1976, the Wyoming native ran for Congress in 1978, serving as the Republican leader on the House Intelligence Committee before "Poppy" Bush tapped him as his Secretary of Defense for payback.

In exile at Halliburton during the Clinton years, Dick Cheney enriched himself as Chairman and CEO of the international conglomerate until the uncanny opportunity presented itself for him to screen the Vice Presidential prospects for "Poppy's" clueless boy Georgie's new administration. We know how Cheney spent the next eight years, trying to revive the Nixon presidency and attempting to concentrate power in the Executive Branch. CIA director George Tenant genuflected before him and Cheney became the de-facto head of government and chief protector of manipulated intelligence. He invaded Afghanistan and Iraq, Halliburton and KBR became bloated with war profits, and the CIA was marginalized by the mercenaries from Blackwater. His understudy, Scooter Libby, pleaded guilty to outing a covert agent, and George Tenant was given the Medal of Honor. Everything he warned of or predicted, from the spectre of mushroom clouds to the effectiveness of state sanctioned torture, has been proven dead wrong; yet he still has the temerity to stick around the Capitol like the ghost of Strom Thurmond, and criticize the military strategy of Secretary Gates and the President.

I believe Cheney is hanging around just to scream "National Security!" if any legal entity should dig too deeply into his resume. Anyone who places a value on the life of an intelligence agent who died in service to his country at $7000, has no qualms about exposing the identity of an undercover CIA analyst who crossed him over the veracity of reports that advanced his imperialist agenda. In 1994, the family of Frank Olson requested an exhumation of the body for further examination. A new autopsy showed that Olson suffered "severe cranial injuries delivered by a blunt object," and was most likely "knocked out" before being tossed from the window. Since Dick Cheney was intimately familiar with the case and prepared the original settlement, and considering his influence with the CIA was sufficient to put his man "Poppy" in the directorship, why do I get the nagging suspicion that he knew about Olson all along and bought his family off with pennies and patriotism? Now that his multi-year, century spanning, executive office-holding marathon is over, there is only one additional governmental agency that Dick Cheney truly deserves to be a part of; the Federal prison system.

Son Of A Beatle

I'm so frozen in time, I wouldn't know an X-Box from a PlayStation if you smacked me upside the head with it, so I haven't the slightest idea how the Beatles Rockband game works. I was curious enough to watch some of the animated videos, however, and they are wonderful. (See them here) Besides, if I want to play a Beatles song, I'll mess it up on guitar like everybody else. But it's amazing to me that 40 years after they broke up, the Beatles are the hottest, cutting-edge group going. Consider that the remastered CDs, prepared for release to coincide with this new project, have already sold 2.2 million copies in a marketplace that barely sells CDs anymore. They topped the Billboard charts yet again and the Las Vegas Cirque du Soleil "Beatles Love" show is sold out forever. Finally, younger people are realizing that Paul McCartney was in a band before Wings.

On the anticipated Rockband release date, Melody and I were surfing channels on a Sunday afternoon when we came across the Beatles' Anthology on VH1. Six hours later, we wondered how the time flew by so quickly. Recalling such sheer joy, we concluded that the first couple of years of Beatlemania were the best and last innocent times we knew. In 1965, LBJ was sending half a million men to Vietnam, and by the time the Beatles reached Memphis in 1966, the emerging evangelical movement was ready to crucify John Lennon for saying the Fabs were more popular than Jesus. At least they were on the pop charts. All those pictures you see with people holding signs saying "Beatles Go Home" were taken in Memphis, where they held a counter-Beatle rally and concert at the Auditorium while the Lads played the Coliseum. I was there when the cherry bomb was tossed from the upper balcony and John Lennon jumped as if he had been shot. The Beatles played two shows in Memphis, and there were still tickets left unsold. Had I known that, I would have attended both. But, I saw the Beatles, and despite the pandemonium, I also heard the Beatles; and it was a religious experience.

When "Hard Days' Night" was released in 1964, local theatres didn't know how to market it, so it premiered at the Malco Twin Drive-In on Summer Avenue. My sister, Susan, and I saw it in Times Square on a family vacation to New York. So many memorable moments in my life are punctuated by Beatle songs. The first time I heard "I Want To Hold Your Hand," I was driving east on Walnut Grove Rd. and immediately took a left on Mendenhall, headed for Pop Tunes, to buy the single (which I still have in the original dust cover). I can tell you where I was sitting in Knoxville the first time I heard "Day Tripper," and wished I was still in a band. Melody favors "Norwegian Wood" and insists that if I outlive her, "In My Life" must be played at the memorial service. I was thinking of "Nowhere Man" for mine, but I figured it was too self-deprecating, so I'll settle for "The End." And during the multi-year run of my lost and lamented radio show, "The Psychedelicatessen," I always started the program with two Beatle songs, just to begin where it all began. My life would have been immeasurably less interesting without the Fabs in it, and I am grateful.

George Harrison was still alive during the taping of the Anthology, and there was a scene towards the end when the surviving three were discussing the impossibility of a Beatle reunion. Answering suggestions that Julian Lennon replace John, Paul said, "Why would we wish to put him in the middle of this?" It's better to "Let it Be" and savor the memories of a remarkable era. The Rockband game offers memories in the making for young fans not yet alive when the Beatles ruled the world, and the sales and popularity indicate a whole new wave of Beatlemania, Part II in the air. These fabulous songs and wonderful melodies have come to life again for fresh listenings, or discovering for the first time. I don't intend to start playing video games now, but I'm sure happy that it's there. If I had teenagers, their Christmas presents would be already chosen.

Rather than dusty dreams of re-forming the Beatles, my new show-biz idea is to start a new band called Sons of Beatles. Ringo has two sons, Zak and Jason Starkey, who are both drummers; Zak, most notably, with the Who. Consequently, The Sons of Beatles could have double drummers like the Allman Brothers. Both Sean and Julian Lennon are artists and singers, with Julian showing a prodigious talent for songwriting. Dani Harrison, George's son, is a singer and guitarist, and surely one of Paul's children, maybe James, can be taught to play bass if he doesn't already know how. Place them all under the control of George Martin's son, Giles, who was instrumental in assembling the Beatles Rockband, and you have a phenomenon waiting to happen. I would certainly like to see it, even if they were rotten. But there's too much nascent talent there for that to happen. Since Brian Epstein left no progeny, I will volunteer for the manager's position. That's OK, fellows; You don't have to thank me.

Premature Acclamation

OK, maybe Rocky hasn't yet amassed the resume of previous recipients of the Nobel Peace Prize, but to hear the nasty protestations of his deranged, right-wing detractors, you'd think they gave the prize to Yasser Arafat or something. I mean, let the man broker a treaty first. Even Obama seemed perplexed at having been chosen International Homecoming King, but there are worse things than having the U.S. President regarded as a peacemaker by the rest of the world. Obama's public statements regarding the prohibition of nuclear weapons, torture, the elevation of diplomacy, human rights, and an outstretched American hand to nations once our adversaries, stand in such stark contrast to his predecessor, that the Nobel Peace Prize is as much a rebuke of the former administration as an expression of approval in the country's change of direction. George W. Bush must have misread the Sermon on the Mount to think it said, "Blessed are the warmongers."

The Nobel awards have never been beyond politics, but Obama accepted with a humility that was nearly uncomfortable. It was as if he were awakened by Rahm Emmanuel and answered, "I won what?" John F. Kennedy got a Pulitzer Prize for "Profiles in Courage," a tome composed when he was still a junior senator from Massachusetts, with the uncredited assistance of a professional journalist. Henry Kissinger won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1973 for his "Peace is at hand" speech, when in reality, he interfered with the Paris Peace Talks of 1968 in order to get his man Nixon elected. So, it is not uncommon that these awards are given to a mission in progress rather than the completed work. The last sitting American President to win the Peace Prize was Woodrow Wilson for authoring "The Fourteen Points," and configuring the Treaty of Versailles which ended "The War to End All Wars." But when Wilson attempted to establish the League of Nations, he was thwarted by an obstructionist Republican congress who wished no part of a world governing body. The result? World War Two. Obama rightfully noted that the prize was, "a means to give momentum to a set of causes," rather than for a new President with precious few political victories to brag about.

One would hope that the "loyal" opposition would be gracious enough, just for once, to say "way to go," and press on, but immediately, Fox News went into overdrive with indignity and condemnation and the wing-nut radio talkers exploded in revulsion. Fox's Brian Kilmeade speculated that Obama delayed sending more troops to Afghanistan in order to win the prize, and Rush Limbaugh brayed, "The Nobel gang just suicide bombed themselves," and, "Something has happened here that we all agree with the Taliban..about, and that is he doesn't deserve the award." RedState's Erick Erickson artfully said the Nobel committee must have been trying to fill an "affirmative action quota." The Obama-haters applaud and cheer when he loses the Olympics and grouse when he wins the Nobel Prize, and these are the self-described "patriots." Yet even a partisan like Bill O'Reilly said, in an unusual spasm of conscience, "Deserved or not, having a U.S. President honored with a peace prize is good for the country." The voodoo wing of the conservative movement remained mute.

All Republicans were not as typically obnoxious as the party's right wing. John McCain and Tim Pawlenty were gracious with their remarks, which puts them out of the mainstream these days. Pawlenty is running for President, and McCain is wise enough to realize that Obama is not the Anti-Christ, as suggested in the above mentioned RedState blog and other internet sites, just the Anti-Bush, who must be sitting in Dallas with the relief that no one is searching for the three sixes on him anymore. Had you told the conservatives in advance, omitting any physical description, that their new president was not only a family man with a beautiful wife and two adorable children, but also a constitutional scholar, lawyer, and college professor, who agreed to let his mother-in-law move in, they would have named him a Saint. And the thing is, Obama's not all that liberal. People see in him what they wish to see in him, including the Nobel Prize Committee, who awarded the honor for noble intentions and the desire for peace. It's like my mother says about eating chicken soup for a cold; "It couldn't hurt."

Depending on where Obama decides to go on Afghanistan will determine his mettle and mantel. A large part of the battle we are fighting, as General William Westmoreland used to say, is for the hearts and minds of the people we are trying to assist. It does us no harm for the Afghan civilian population to perceive that Obama has peaceful intentions for their country. He has already accepted the indigenous nature of the Taliban and recognizes that they are not the enemy; Al Qaeda is. Before we commit more troops to this struggle, it would be wise to remember that the Soviets lasted ten years fighting in Afghanistan before going broke. The U.S. is now into its' ninth year of conflict. The battle against the guerrilla insurgents that this country armed to fight the Russians would be better waged with special forces, spies, and bribes. Obama is walking a fine line between giving humanitarian aid to our friends and the Green Berets to our enemies, but if this bloody conflict is merely to prop up another corrupt dictatorship friendly to the U.S., then it's Vietnam redux. If the President can bring some semblance of normalcy to the Afghan people, and draw down the combat forces in Iraq, he may well deserve the recognition bestowed upon him by the Nobel Committee as "peacemaker." Until then, I can already hear the heathen rage, "Sometimes Satan comes as a man of peace."

Things I'll Never Understand

Madonna
While songwriting in Nashville, the publisher brought in his man from L.A. to tell us hicks what he wanted in rock songs. He played us a cassette of an unreleased tune called "Like A Virgin," and said it was the future of popular music, to which I replied, "God, I hope not." I always thought Cyndi Lauper would clean her clock. A pure product of the video age, her workout regimen must be fierce; especially the crunches. The only thing flatter than Madonna's stomach is her voice.

Piercings
Every time I see one of these guys, I wonder if they might live long enough, infections aside, to seriously regret their self-mutilations. My generation grew our hair long to show we were in harmony with the natural order. This practice shows solidarity with the primitive rituals of isolated, Amazonian tribal savages. I'll hand it to you though, you sure look different.



Local News
Local news is actually regional stories with corporate direction. From coast to coast, they have been using the same formula for 35 years. A bi-gender, mixed race anchor team finish each other's sentences before throwing it to bleached blonde reporters in the field who are all looking to make it to the networks. We've all heard the phrase, "If it bleeds, it leads," by now. But must they drive a hundred miles away in the "news van" to find some meth-head who murdered his family because there wasn't enough serious violence nearby? And how come everything is always "Breaking News?" If the local news was all you watched, you'd never leave the house.

Chicken Joints
Why is it that every time you go into one of these places around dinnertime, they're out of chicken?





Sushi
I understand I'm a provincial with an unsophisticated palate, but among the reasons man discovered fire, wasn't one of them so that we could cook our food?

Ronald Reagan
The "B" actor who co-starred with monkeys and co-operated with the House Un-American Activities Committee in the 50s, became a mouthpiece for right-wing causes before entering politics. Speaking against Medicare, he said, "One of the traditional methods of imposing Socialism on a people has been by way of medicine. It's very easy to disguise a medical program as a humanitarian project." As Governor of California during the campus unrest of the 60s, Reagan said, "If it takes a bloodbath to silence the demonstrators. let's get it over with." And as President, he relaxed regulations on business and industry, imposed a draconian fiscal policy that his own Vice President called "Voodoo Economics," courted the religious right, and declared government as the enemy. I know the Republicans haven't had a hero since Theodore Roosevelt, but do they really want to carve a face on Mt. Rushmore of the man that said, "Trees cause more pollution than automobiles?"

Black Republicans
It must feel groundbreaking to be a big fish in a little pond, but they're using you, pal. How can a black man be the spokesman and apologist for an increasing virulent racism spreading among the base elements of his party? It's like Dick Gregory becoming the Grand Wizard of the KKK. They aren't your friends and are frothing at the mouth to toss you overboard. You believe you're a pioneer, but you're merely a stooge and your term as RNC Chairman will end badly.

Math
A constant and persistent reminder that I ain't so damned smart. I have become such a numerophobe that when you discuss figures with me, my eyes roll back in my head. Math was my worst subject and created a visceral loathing of unknown origin within my soul. I only graduated college because they allowed me to substitute Ethics for Math. When someone tells me, "You do the math," I have a panic attack. I think that in a former life, I may have been an accountant.

NASCAR
Why? When did turning left become a sport? I'd like to see them try to negotiate Poplar Ave. If you asked me if I would like to watch some goober wearing a jump suit covered in small corporate logos, barrel a car blanketed with large corporate logos for 500 miles in an asphalt circle accompanied by the stench of burning tires and gasoline, I would have to say, "No thanks, I'd prefer to watch water evaporate."

Pot Prohibition
Since we have seen the outlawing of a weed, that grows almost anywhere, result in violent drug gangs that deal in bloodshed to protect their massive profits; the filling of our prisons with casual users; revolts in several states to de-criminalize its use by medical cannabis smokers; and the barbaric home-invasions of minor pot growers by DEA and SWAT teams, why is marijuana still illegal? I guess we'll have to wait for Obama's second term before we can even whisper about the complete failure of our government's absurd, 80 year old pot policy.

Fox News
There have always been agitators who blur the line between free speech and hate speech. From Father Charles Coughlin and the Nazi appeasers in the 30s, to Sen. Joseph McCarthy in the 50s, to Rush Limbaugh today. But there has never been a 24 hour "news" network dedicated to propagating lies and slander with the intention of destroying a presidency and furthering radical conservative causes at the behest of its owner. I saw "Tea-baggers" wearing patriotic colors admit that they watched Fox News exclusively. They are unwitting water carriers for an unscrupulous, bare-knuckled, publishing monopolist from Australia named Rupert Murdoch, who could give a damn about the U.S. government so long as they don't re-regulate the multiple ownership of media outlets in one market by a single company. If Fox is to be the broadcasting propaganda arm of the far right, how about removing the word "news" from their title to conform with "truth in advertising?"

Texting
If you are holding a telephone, why are you typing on it?






Thug Rappers
I don't care how relevant, gritty, ghetto, or "street" the message is, I can't hear it because I can't stand being shouted at. And what is this affectation that every single rapper has adopted with the stiff-digits and thrusting hand motions? Are they all supposed to be playing "air turntable?" The "man" is exploiting you, fellows. Learn to sing.

Garth Brooks
See "Madonna" above. This guy has sold over 100 million albums with a talent that rivals Hootie and the Blowfish, yet he will surely be inducted into every existing music hall of fame. Did I lose my taste or my mind? And, truth be told, "I have friends in low places," is not that clever a song idea. I sure wish I'd written it though.