Conan the Scumbag

There's a reason men reach their sexual peak at 18 while woman don't get there until age 40. It gives men a quarter-century or so to calm down and take the edge off of their sexual frenzy, so that when the time comes for mature sexual activity, they will supposedly have enough self-control not to act like a Schitzu in heat. Comedian Eddie Griffin stated that a man's sexual organ is designed to last about as long as the speed limit, depending on where you live. It's a good thing Jimmy Carter's not still president or we'd all be driving 55. This bizarre rash of post-manopausal, paunchy, middle-agers, participating in sex scandals and fathering love-children well into their sixties, however, illustrates that certain types of men never outgrow their jackrabbit, youthful ways. And while the cornucopia of pills for erectile dysfunction is succeeding in making their penises harder, they are simultaneously making their brains softer. I usually try to abide by that "Judge not," admonition and avoid commenting on the private lives of celebrities. I've lived a rock and roll life, and while most people have a skeleton or two in the closet, I still have red meat hanging in there. But this latest rash of high profile sexual atrocities is giving all men a bad name, and in the words of Paul Newman as "Hud," "Don't go blaming all the dogs just cause one of 'em has fleas."

Last week's arrest of International Monetary Fund director Dominique Strauss-Kahn illustrates the audacity of certain powerful men who have become so used to abusing women with impunity, they feel entitled to act as they wish and the consequences be damned. Strauss-Kahn, or DSK, as the media has dubbed him, has allegedly committed sexual assault on a chambermaid in a pricey New York hotel with a recklessness and aggression too nasty to describe outside a court of law. His first defense was to say that the sex was consensual. The maid walked in while DSK was naked, so he had no choice but to assault the woman. In the hundreds of hotel rooms I have stayed in my life, I have never felt the desire to grope the maid who comes to clean the room. But, of course, DSK is French, and they don't look as unfavorably at sexual "dalliances" as we unsophisticated provincials in the USA. When an old, wrinkled, horny man forces himself upon a servant, we still tend to call it "rape." At first, they put DSK in Rikers Island and strapped him into an anti-suicide vest to keep him from harming himself. A man with an ego so large he thought he could take one to go and get away with it, is not about to kill the person he loves most; himself.

Strauss-Kahn made bail and received one of the sweetest house arrest deals ever. He's in a protected Manhattan high rise with an ankle bracelet while awaiting trial. However, he will be permitted to attend religious services and doctor's appointments, and in addition to family members, he is allowed up to four visitors at a time. He is also restricted from being out between 10pm and 6am. This is punishment? It sounds more like my everyday waking life, minus the ankle bracelet. DSK's lawyers insisted he was not a flight risk despite the fact that he was sitting on a plane when arrested. This is obviously a job for the Law & Order: Special Victims Unit. On television, at least, they aren't so lenient concerning rapists' accommodations. So while DSK sits in a penthouse professing his profound love for his wife, the tabloid media has staked out the residence of the maid and has kept her under virtual house arrest as well. A bidding war has started for photographs of the victim and her neighbors have been bombarded with questioning "journalists." Wasn't there a time when the identity of a rape victim was kept confidential? I suppose with TMZ, Access Hollywood, and other programs devoted to celebrity gossip, that has become a quaint notion from an unenlightened age.

TMZ went wild over the Schwarzenegger revelations that he fathered a child with the family maid and kept it quiet for his tenure as Governor of California. Even in a state accustomed to electing movie stars to public office, this was beyond the pale. TMZ accused the maid of "pursuing Arnold," as if she were just too alluring to resist, but the tawdriness of his "any port in a storm" mentality and the massive deception perpetrated on not only his wife and family, but the California electorate, is unbelievably repugnant. Arnold may have considered himself a Kennedy, but at least JFK had Marilyn Monroe and left the help alone. Schwarzenegger left office with a 20 percent approval rating, so it's a safe bet to say, "He won't be back." The outpouring of sympathy towards Maria Shriver, who had to live a decade with Arnold's love child hanging out at the governor's mansion while the maid continued to work 10-14 more years for the family, has caused Arnold to rethink his current plans. Confident he could return as the "Terminator: The Geriatric Years," all movie projects have been put on hold, including an animated series called "The Governator," in which Schwarzenegger was to be portrayed as a "Superhero living a double life." His partners at Archie Comics and Stan Lee Enterprises felt that this particular "double life" was too unbelievable even for a cartoon.

By now, the list of politicians from both parties involved in marital infidelities or reckless sexual conduct has become common knowledge. Beginning with Bill "Elvis" Clinton, the current list extends from whoremongers like David Vitter and Elliot Spitzer, to homewreckers like John Ensign and John Edwards. And let's not forget Governor Mark Sanford's stroll down the Old Appalachian Trail. My favorite excuse comes from serial philanderer Newt Gingrich, who said his love of country caused him to cheat on his wives. "Driven by how passionately I felt about this country..I worked far too hard and things happened in my life that were not appropriate." A statement that absurd gives me cause to worry about his "passion" for the country.  Should he receive the Republican nomination for president, it sounds like he plans to screw us all. Henry Kissinger once said that, "Power was the ultimate aphrodisiac," while the aging professor squired movie starlets half his age about town. It was a ridiculous spectacle, but at least Kissinger wasn't married at the time, and without access to Viagra, the public was spared from imagining Kissinger and Jill St. John "en flagrante delicto." No more. Armed with Cialis, old men have set out like Don Quixote, lance in hand, to conquer the world. A brand new medical study just stated that Viagra can cause hearing loss. At least this gives women a "heads up." Watch out for the ones with the hearing aids.

Show Me the Mullah

Ya'll know me. I'm usually the raging advocate for liberal causes. But every now and then, an issue arises that seems clear to me, but puts me in the opposite camp from my progressive friends. I vociferously disagree with the president's decision not to release the Osama bin Laden death photo, and I uncomfortably find myself on the same side as Alan Dershowitz, Sarah Palin, and a mess of right-wing Republicans. Conspiracy theories began to sprout the moment bin Laden's death was announced. CIA Director Leon Panetta initially announced that "ultimately, a (proof of death) photograph would be presented to the public," but someone quickly yanked his leash. The government needs to post the photo tomorrow, not for the prurient pleasure of revenge seekers or lovers of gore, but to send a message to jihadists, active or potential, that if you attack the United States, this is the fate that awaits you. Already, the Pakistani residents of Abbottabad are denying that the terror kingpin was ever among them. Even though Al Qaeda acknowledged bin Laden was killed, there are thousands of people who believe that Elvis faked his own death to escape the limelight and lives in Michigan. Hell, there are people that still think Hitler survived WWII and is spending his dotage in Paraguay. And Mr. President, 33% of Republicans think you're a foreigner, and 20% believe you're a Muslim. Why would you think they would take your word for it about bin Laden? These are the same people who believe John F. Kennedy was kept on life support at Bethesda Naval Hospital after his brain went missing.

Speaking of JFK, is there anyone left that has not yet seen the Zapruder film? If I can take watching President Kennedy getting his brains blown out ("back, and to the left"), I can stand a photo of bin Laden with a hole in his head. Yet, the president remains cautious, so as not to further inflame homicidal zealots that hate and want to kill us anyway. These are the savages that beheaded journalist Daniel Pearl and posted it on the internet. When the military caught up with the assassin, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the Bush posse blew up the photo of his dead ass, poster size, for the world to see, and there was one less delusional killer making snuff videos in Iraq. We have lived with the horror of Al Qaeda for twenty years and three presidents now. Show them the photo and give them a taste, and if some naughty people want to make computer games and YouTube videos of the graphic image of a dead Osama; oh well. Freedom of the press gets messy sometimes. Were the decision mine, I'd drop copies of the photo from a helicopter over the Pakistanis that harbored him, and send a special 8x10 glossy to Ayman al-Zawahiri with the phrase "Sic Semper Tyrannis" engraved underneath.

The U.S. Navy granted bin Laden more respect in death than he gave to his thousands of victims, but the burial at sea better have been videotaped. When the Fascists were defeated in Italy, they hanged Mussolini, and his wife, upside down in the town square. When Nicolae Ceausescu lost his job as Butcher of Romania, the photo of his bloody corpse finally gave surcease to his suffering subjects. The president claims publishing a dead Osama picture will cause an "incitement to violence." Is he kidding? The Shia and Sunni in Iraq are killing each other for sport. If it's our troops Obama is concerned about, go ahead and bring them home. The drone strikes are effective and, despite their vow to avenge the death of bin Laden, Al Qaeda's collective sphincter just tightened several notches. The president says he doesn't want to give the terrorists an iconic image to exploit, but he's a bit late for that. Think of Osama and the turbaned image is already imprinted in your mind. The Bolivian Army was forced to publish pictures of the bullet-riddled body of Che Guevara on a slab to prove that he was dead, but that's not the iconic image people wear on their T-Shirts.

I was once a turn-the-other-cheek pacifist, until age and experience convinced me that some people are so obtuse, the only way to get your point across is with a smack upside the head. My Georgia in-laws will forgive me for referencing General William Tecumseh Sherman's quote; "Make war so terrible (and) make them so sick of war that generations would pass away before they would again appeal to it." President Truman followed the Sherman example to end the war against Japan. Despite the horror of war, no amount of diplomacy will dissuade a generation raised on the glory of the mujahedeen from ceasing their hostilities against the West. The U.S. created and armed this monster to fight the Russians during the Reagan era. It's only fitting that our soldiers should also destroy them and their charismatic leader. Thanks to the fresh efficiency of the CIA and military, Al Qaeda has been reduced to a bunch of bitter, womenless men, riding dirt bikes and playing guerrilla in the mountains of the Hindu Kush. Motor scooters can't cross an ocean. Unquestionably, some deranged individuals will try to commit some new atrocity on U.S. soil, but the threat of bin Laden's Al Qaeda is essentially over. We have their Rolodex. Since the "Arab Spring" is sweeping the Middle East, the U.S. has an opportunity to embrace a new generation, disenchanted with despots and jihad that offer only death and despair.

Nip these cancerous conspiracies in the bud by publishing the post-mortem photograph. Even then, some people will still believe it never happened, just as others won't accept Obama's birth certificate. If this drags on, Donald Trump will insist on seeing a "death certificate." Traditionally hawkish GOP legislators are suddenly questioning the legality of the targeted killing, and the sloppy way the administration rolled out the narrative only aided their cause. They raised the questions: did bin Laden hide behind his 18 year old wife? Was he holding something or reaching for a weapon? Personally, I don't care if he had the remote control or his dick in his hand - good shot guys. Maybe I've lived in Memphis so long, a bit of redneck has rubbed off on me, but I've come to agree with my Texas cousins' aphorism that "some people just need killin'." After the destruction of American embassies in Tanzania and Kenya, the bombing of the U.S.S. Cole, the Twin Towers and the Pentagon, plus hideous acts of terror in London, Madrid, Mumbai, and Indonesia, no one in the world had it coming more than bin Laden. And when they got him, he was planning a 9/11 tenth anniversary attack on U.S. railways. Fuck him, post the head shot. I trust and believe President Obama, but if my position is conservative, I may as well quote Ronald Reagan, who once famously said, "Trust, but verify."

Stalingrad on Lake Michigan

"Benton Harbor, Michigan is like many rust-belt cities which have lost all of their manufacturing plants. Half the residents live below the poverty line and the town of 10,000 has lost population since that last census. Across Lake Michigan from Chicago, Benton Harbor is half of a "twin cities" combo with neighboring St. Joseph. The "twins" couldn't look more different, however. Benton Harbor is 92% African American and impoverished; St. Joseph is 90% white and affluent. While the nation's attention was on the war against public unions in Wisconsin, newly elected Michigan Republican Governor Rick Snyder has chosen Benton Harbor as the test case for his "financial martial law" bill. Snyder proposed that any municipality deemed economically unfit be taken over by a state appointed "emergency manager," with the power to dissolve contracts and replace or dismiss locally elected officials. The notion is laughably unconstitutional on its face, but the Michigan State Legislature passed the bill anyway and the Governor has already designated his first "manager," who has taken over the township of Benton Harbor. The decision-making power of the City Council has been suspended. Elected officials are allowed to hold meetings, only they are no longer allowed to govern. The state legislature cocked and loaded the gun and the governor pulled the trigger. He killed Democracy. If you thought the citizen protests in Wisconsin were impressive, wait until this load of neo-Republicanism hits the fan in Lansing.

Snyder is part of a cabal of new Republican governors, including Walker of Wisconsin, Kasich in Ohio, and Scott in Florida, who are waging war on the working class. Emboldened by a congressional majority and backed by the Tea Party, the neophyte governors entered political office with a greater desire to impose a political philosophy than to serve the people, and this bait and switch has caused their approval ratings to plummet. Yet they continue to serve their corporate masters and pass legislation punishing the poor. In the name of deficit reduction, Gov Snyder has proposed deep cuts in  school funding and favors eliminating the state's $600 per child tax credit. At the same time, he has called for tax cuts of 1.73 billion dollars for business. In hapless Benton Harbor, meanwhile, the Whirlpool corporate headquarters still provides executive positions for the few while the people have lost their plant. With no powerful voices to oppose it, the public lakefront has been privatized as part of a luxury golf development, backed by Whirlpool. Since the Michigan jobless rate stands at 10.7%, I'm certain they'll need some caddies.

Governor Snyder's previous job was founder and CEO of an Ann Arbor venture capital fund, which made him very wealthy. His choice for Benton Harbor's "emergency manager," was Joseph Harris, formerly Chief Financial Officer for the city of Detroit, a dubious distinction. Harris' decree, stripping power from elected officials in favor of his fiat, were reminiscent of an old Commissar sending a politburo apparatchik to tend to a provincial problem. The township takeover has caused sufficient uproar for the ACLU to file several Freedom of Information Act requests over the legality of the act and the governor's alleged collusion with lobbyists. The Michigan ACLU stated that 100 local governments were in a state of "fiscal watch," which has not slowed "manager" Joe Harris, who has added the Detroit School District to the state's list of distressed assets, enabling the governor to appoint an additional manager with the power to void any and all union contracts. This is the antithesis of the smaller, less intrusive government favored by real conservatives, yet you don't see any Tea Party or Fox News rallies protesting the elimination of representative democracy.

Although Governor Snyder has stated his focus will be on budget issues, the state legislature has joined with new Republican super-majorities elsewhere in an effort to restrict women's reproductive rights. Michigan legislators have proposed 17 bills since January concerning abortion or public funding for organizations like Planned Parenthood. This perfectly mirrors the federal government. While creating all those new jobs, the Republican House of Representatives has still managed to introduce an astounding 916 bills over a woman's right to control her own uterus. Those bills are going nowhere, but the Michigan statehouse has a two-thirds majority of radical Republicans, giving them the power to put any issue of their choosing on the ballot. The National Organization of Women has mobilized, as well as a group called Michigan Citizens United, which has started a Facebook page in their efforts to collect the sufficient number of signatures to petition for a recall of the governor. Snyder responded by adding the cities of Pontiac and Ecorse to the list of distressed places in need of an "emergency manager."

Ordinarily, I would enjoy watching the Republican Party self-immolate. Hell, I'd even bring the marshmallows. But this drastic overreach by a handful of ideological power zombies is not just a danger to working people or distressed municipalities, it's corrosively un-American. And it is happening in state legislatures across the country and done in stealth, lest the constant news gaze upon Washington, D.C. be diverted by actions on the periphery. The GOP majority Tennessee General Assembly just passed a bill prohibiting the use of the words "gay" or "homosexual" in elementary schools, but if the new Governor should send his man to Memphis to dissolve our elected city government, I might have to be up in the capital building in Nashville creating a ruckus. In Michigan, the people voted for a CEO-led government and they got a centralized body to make decisions for the state, a totalitarian figure-head for a leader, corporate lobbyists, anti-union propaganda, and political coercion from a radical majority. Back in the thirties, we used to have a name for that kind of governing: Fascism. Our parents and grandparents fought a war against it. Remember?

Budgetary Buffoonery

Does anyone believe that this latest political impasse that came within an hour of  padlocking the government actually had anything to do with the budget? If so, I have some shares of National Public Radio that I'd like to sell you. I know, it's not a private company. Yet. Just give them time. It's typical for the Republicans to begin eviscerating social programs when they assume power, but this Tea Party uprising is starting to resemble The Lord of the Flies, when the bullies victimize the weak until the grown-ups arrive. How else to explain the willingness to hold our soldiers' paychecks hostage to the government funding of Planned Parenthood?

This supposed attempt at reducing the federal deficit was a congressional comedy from beginning to end, starring John Boehner as the substitute teacher in a juvenile corrections facility. The stated intent was to create jobs and strengthen the economy, but the Tea Party novices muscled away the wheel of the bus and turned the discussion into all abortion, all the time. The insane crusade against Planned Parenthood in the midst of a budget crisis revealed the Tea Party Republicans as the zealots for their social and moral agenda that they are. Civically challenged Indiana Rep. Mike Pence took to the House floor to declare that Republicans were willing to shut down the government if the Democrats didn't "respect our values," while outside, Tea Party activists chanted, "Cut it or shut it." Arizona Sen. John Kyl addressed the rally saying, "If you want an abortion, you go to Planned Parenthood, and that's well over 90% of what (they) do." In truth, 96% of the organizations' activities consist of cancer screenings, STD or STI testing, contraception, counselling, pregnancy testing and pre-natal care. Abortions are referred to medical professionals since the Hyde Amendment already forbids public funds for that purpose. Republicans lied, Democrats enabled them, and Margaret Sanger just rolled over in her grave.

It's difficult to imagine that a scant 11 years ago, the U.S. had a balanced budget and a federal surplus of $230 billion. "But 9/11 changed everything," the argument goes. It certainly did. 19 homicidal men, armed with nothing more than sharp objects and an audacious plan, attacked landmarks of finance and government with hi-jacked domestic airliners, and caused this nation to go berserk. The Pentagon budget soared, our military invaded and occupied two countries, and our president told the nation to go shopping while Wall Street looted the treasury. That's why we run a $12 trillion deficit for which China is holding the marker. I'm no economist, but it seems the logical thing to do is extract ourselves from the entire, misguided fiscal and military morass we find ourselves in and disassemble the failed Bush policies that put us there. And that first means ending the two shooting wars we are currently fighting and bringing home our troops, not just from Afghanistan and Iraq, but from Germany, Japan, and Korea as well. The U.S. spends as much on defense as the rest of the world combined. The Bipartisan Poling Center recommends the reduction of our armed forces by 275,000 troops, and a Barney Frank/Ron Paul led congressional committee found that reducing our military presence in Europe and Asia by 1/3, would save $347 billion. Currently, we spend seven times as much as China, which is in second place.

The budget battle was like a bantamweight preliminary to the main event; the next budget. Both parties are sniping over earmarks and government funding, while their proposed reductions to the deficit is the equivalent of removing two M&Ms from the deluxe-size bag. I would like to recommend some large cuts that no one has yet addressed, beginning with restoring the tax code to Clinton era levels when nobody was complaining. This includes closing the loopholes for American corporations who make their profits here and park their money in overseas tax havens like the Cayman Islands. Conglomerates like General Electric would no longer be able to pay zero taxes whatsoever, which just happened. And a company like Transocean, responsible for the BP Oil disaster, would pay more in taxes and less in bonuses to executives for the year's "outstanding safety performance." A non-partisan study estimated $1 trillion in annual revenue if the government taxed corporate earnings channelled overseas. So, what cuts do they want to make to balance out the absence of corporate funds; the Environmental Protection Agency, HUD, financing for high-speed rail, heating subsidies for the elderly, and school lunches for poor children. Why not dismantle the whole Bush-era, Germanic sounding, Department of Homeland Security, instead?

As for Medicare, anyone who watches TV sees fraud roll by everyday, especially in the ads for electric scooters for the elderly. Alongside the Hoveround and the Scooter Store, there are numerous companies offering their guarantees of mobility "at little or no cost to you." This means with the right doctor's note, you too could be doing wheelies on the lip of the Grand Canyon. I might enjoy a free scooter too, but I don't think the country can afford to give one to everybody. Maybe a wheelchair, but you would still have to push. It's a Medicare scam, pure and simple, and the doctors get a little taste too. Same with the automatic stairs, and specialty home medical equipment, and the excessive testing of well insured patients in clinics and hospitals. All you need to end it is honest oversight of the agency. And wouldn't it be an altruistic gesture if billionaires donated their Social Security checks to the truly needy?  Before horse-whipping the poor, these blinkered budget hawks should remember that our Afghan adventure is costing us $10 billion a month, and the military budget is greater than federal spending on education, Medicare, or interest on the debt, combined. Without the expense of empire and a remade military for the 21st century, this nation can find the way to escape from this dark economic period in the same way we have time and again; prosper out of it.

Sputnik Soars Again

Club Clearpool was the scene for the 1964 Les Debs dance, and the girls had hired Randy and the Radiants to supply the music. At evening's end, there was an argument between the club owner and the band over what time to stop. He had flipped the lights on fifteen minutes early and we were contracted to play to the hour. When all the party-goers were herded out, a tussle broke out between band members, the 40 year old owner, and his two greaser bouncers, one of whom followed me outside and punched me while my hands were filled with musical equipment. I was just 16, and when I entered my parents' home with a bloody shirt and a busted lip, my mother lost her mind and my father called the police. We went to court, where all three received stiff fines for assault and battery and malicious mischief, which would have been great were we not scheduled to appear at Club Clearpool again the next weekend. This time, I hired a security guard with a sidearm to join the band, but when we set up on the stage facing the concession stand on the opposite wall, the same three men were glaring at us with blood in their eyes.

Suddenly, the front door crashed open and hit the wall with a bang and in walked Sputnik Monroe, doing the Beale Street Strut, followed by our young, DJ manager, Johnny Dark. The entire room erupted and stopped the dance cold, while Monroe greeted a stream of teenagers before bounding onstage. When the cheering subsided, Sputnik took the microphone and said, "I'll tell you people what I said at the Tennessee State Prison last week. I couldn't say, 'ladies and gentlemen,' because there were no ladies, and if they were in there, they sure weren't gentlemen, so I'll just say, 'Damn, it's good to be here." Then like Babe Ruth at bat, he pointed directly at the concession stand saying, "And I want to tell everybody," he paused for dramatic effect and jerked a thumb back over his shoulder in the band's direction, "These boys are Sputnik's boys, and if you mess with them, you're messing with Sputnik." Thanks to Johnny Dark, Sputnik took a rare Saturday night off to attend a teenage party and put the fear of God into some bullies. The following morning, the club owner called and apologised for the entire mess, telling me that he had fired his two associates and  we were always welcome to play at Clearpool. I have been one of "Sputnik's Boys," ever since.

Like others of the Mouseketeer Generation who grew up in Memphis, I was addicted to live, Saturday morning, television wrestling, and especially fascinated by the blood feud between good-guy Billy Wicks and the evil Sputnik. After one particularly violent encounter, Sputnik swore revenge at the Monday night matches at the downtown Ellis Auditorium. I had never been to the live matches before and I begged my father to take me. He said, "Call your grandfather. He loves wrestling," and my eyes widened. I couldn't believe my immigrant grandfather, with his continental manners and ever-present jacket and tie could be a closet wrestling fan. We drove downtown in a taxi and got ringside seats to view the mayhem. I watched fascinated as toothless men screamed epithets at Tojo Yamamoto and howled at the shoulder length hair of Mario Galento, but the main attraction was Wicks and Monroe. When Sputnik entered, the arena burst into open hostility with boos and calls of  "Commie," and "Skunky," referring to the white streak in Sputnik's hair. Wicks arrived like the Golden Boy. It was a two-out-of-three fall marathon match which Sputnik won by cheating. He hit Wicks with a foreign object and held his trunks while applying the pin, but the referee raised his arm in victory anyway. I was aghast that he could get away with it, and it was left to my grandfather to explain to me that sometimes the good guys have to lose for the sake of the gate.

As a Billy Wicks fan, I could never have imagined myself 15 years later, hanging out at the Phillips Studios on Madison, sharing a joint with the evil Sputnik. He told me that if you wanted to smoke reefer in the 50s, you would ask someone to "come help me mow my yard," and they referred to marijuana cigarettes as "muggles," to the surprise of Harry Potter fans. It was the early 70s, and Sputnik was frustrated because he couldn't get the fans to hate him like before. I said that in these times, everything was upside down and what the fans truly despised were the hippies preaching peace and love. My friend Skip Ousley, a tall, black man, suggested that Sputnik find a black wrestler to tag-team with. The next Saturday on studio wrestling, Sputnik appeared with Norvell Austin, also with a white streak in his hair and calling himself "The Black Panther." Their hapless opponents were tangled in the ring ropes when Sputnik retrieved a bucket of black paint from ringside and poured it over their heads. Grabbing the announcers microphone, Sputnik declared, "Black is Beautiful." Norvell shouted, "White is beautiful," and linking arms they said in unison, "Black and white together is beautiful." The next time I saw Sputnik, he was a happy man and proclaimed, "They hate me again."  

Last Thursday was declared Sputnik Monroe Day by the mayors of  both Shelby County and the city of Memphis, and Representative Steve Cohen read a declaration into the Congressional Record commending the late professional wrestler for his role in desegregating public accomodations. The honor was to coincide with the premier of the new documentary, "Memphis Heat: The True Story of Memphis Wrasslin'," and it was such a success, I would like to offer a suggestion. Make Sputnik Monroe Day an annual event, and then the congressman can take it nationally. We need this, people. Directly on the heels of Valentines Day, where in order to express love, you are required to cough it up for cards, candy, and flowers, there needs to be a day when you're allowed to tell somebody to kiss your ass. (Not you, sweetheart. I'm talking about someone else). Then, every March 24th, in Sputnik's honor, you are entitled to go in and spill your boss' coffee in his lap and smash him over the head with a folding chair (what would pro wrestling be without the folding chair?). But listen and listen good, pally. Anyone who recalls a jam-packed Mid-South Coliseum with Jerry "The King" Lawler, Bill "Superstar" Dundee, "Handsome" Jimmy Valiant, or the infamous antics of Andy Kaufman on the bill, and doesn't go to see this film, is just another ignorant pencil-neck geek.

State of the Unions

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Is it starting to become clear yet? The totally unnecessary chaos in Wisconsin should be a revelatory moment, for anyone who wishes to learn, that working people have no business in the Republican party. Rookie Governor Scott Walker's blitzkrieg against collective bargaining rights for public employees is just the sort of thing that happens when an ideologue is elected who serves a political philosophy rather than the people who placed him in power. It also reveals the Janus face of the Republican Party. One face is of the social conservatives, dominated by the Tea Party, whose pro-fetus, anti-tax sentiments are stoked and inflamed by the other face of the party; the corporate side that's in the pocket of Wall Street and beholden to their campaign financiers. Their marching orders include strip-mining a century's worth of progress in labor relations earned by the bloodshed and struggle of working people. And if you think that the freshman GOP governors are only concerned with public unions, think again. This new breed of radical, right-wing corporatists believe they've been given a mandate to repeal the New Deal.

Scott Walker exposed the whole scheme to a prank phone-caller identifying himself as oil billionaire and Republican donor David Koch. Walker blathered on for twenty minutes about his union-busting plans, hatched in closed-door secrecy with a loose cabal of freshly sworn GOP governors, including those in Ohio, Indiana, Michigan, Florida, and New Jersey, who were prepared to follow Wisconsin's lead in stripping worker's rights under the guise of financial necessity. They used a budget crises to attack the unions just like George Bush used 9/11 to attack Iraq. The Democratic minority fled Madison for Chicago to deprive the union-busters of the quorum needed to ram their "budget repair bill" through the legislature. Soon they were joined by fugitive Democratic legislators from Indiana for exactly the same reason, causing Illinois to resemble Canada during the sixties as a refuge for conscientious objectors. Walker and the Wisconsin senate removed the pesky "budget" references from the bill and voted with one-party rule to strip public unions of the right to collectively bargain. The result? Four straight weeks of public protests, 100,000 people in the streets, and an active effort, already underway, to recall the perpetrators like rancid peanut butter. 

The stealth campaign against unions, disregarding decades of progress, was done with such a cavalier attitude, it caused me to question the scholarship of Governor Scott Walker. He is a preacher's son, who attended Marquette University where he ran for Student Government president, but lost to a write-in candidate after being cited for violations of campaign rules. Walker attended college for four years, but dropped-out without earning a degree. His Milwaukee mentor, however, was Reince Priebus, current chairman of the Republican National Committee and the man credited with laying the groundwork for Walker's election. Priebus was the seed from which the anti-union crusade germinated and he promised Walker the complete support of the national organization. I realize making sport of someones name, like Hussein, is the cheapest of shots, but Preibus' parents set him up for this. He's like Johnny Cash's "Boy Named Sue," whose rogue father gave him the name to toughen him up. Reince Priebus sounds like a bulletin placed by management on the wall of a restaurant bathroom reminding employees what is required of them before returning to work. Since Priebus' elevation from Wisconsin Republican Chairman to national director, his old Milwaukee crony, Walker, is simply doing the bidding of the RNC.

When the Republicans came into power in the midterm elections, they promised their focus would be entirely on job creation and budget cuts. So, what has been on the agenda? In the House of Representatives, bills have been introduced to restrict abortion, curtail same-sex marriage, expand gun carry rights, including a proposal to allow firearms on the floor of Congress, reducing the corporate tax rate, and amending the National Labor Reform Act to get rid of the secret ballot. The focused attack on the Teacher's Union is meant to weaken a traditional Democratic voting bloc. By claiming that teachers' contracts are too generous, even after Wisconsin educators agreed to negotiate, Republicans have declared open warfare on funding the public school system. I used to believe these ideological slaves wanted to go back to the 1950s, but I was wrong. They want to return to the Nineteenth Century, when the gentry could afford to educate their children and the poor worked at manual labor for generation after generation, until unions insisted on child labor laws. Any job creation in there?

The Wisconsin union-busting bill will surely be overturned as a violation of open meeting statutes, as will the bill just passed in Michigan, giving their governor the right to declare martial law in a fiscal emergency, and the power to dismiss a town's democratically elected officials and appoint a "special manager" to right the municipality's imagined economic wrongs. Several Michigan cities were known as "company towns" before, but the corporations didn't get to own them outright. The fictional David Koch's easy access to Scott Walker proved the complicity between corporate America and the Republican governors. Only, it sounded more like Pinocchio reporting back to his puppet masters. While working-class, Republican foot-soldiers rail about taxes and immigration, men like the Kochs, Karl Rove, and Dick Armey move them around like rooks on a chess board, using and discarding them when necessary. This battle over public unions should have particular poignance for Memphians. It was 1968, when then Mayor Henry Loeb refused to negotiate with a public union he considered to be illegal, forcing a strike by the city's sanitation workers. I wonder if the GOP governors even realize that the right for public employees to unionize was the fight for which Dr. Martin Luther King gave his life.

Ka-Daffy

His tribe has been in power for thirty years, with plans to transfer authority from father to son. Yet despite the public disfavor and condition of his country, he continues to make personal appearances. He is responsible for the deaths of thousands of his own people and countless others, including civilians, by bullets and bombs. He routinely used detention without charge or trial, and torture against his enemies. He ordered electronic surveillance and spying on his countrymen and hired mercenaries to fight his foes. Even after falling from favor, he still believes that he's some sort of religious mystic who was placed in power by God, from whom he receives personal instruction, and he speaks in gibberish that no one else can understand. He is delusional, militaristic, and totally out of touch with the people of his country. During his reign, the elite prospered while the poor starved and went homeless. Anyone with such a record must be called to account for his criminal behavior, and George W. Bush certainly has a lot to answer for.

Earlier this month, Bush cancelled a planned trip to Switzerland, where he was to make a speech, amid calls for protest and threats of arrest. In this country, while the Tea Party runs amok, making the most of their fifteen minutes in the spotlight with bizarre attacks on the current president's legitimacy, human rights groups around the world have stated that they plan to seek arrest warrants whenever and wherever Bush travels outside the United States. Since Bush admitted in his autobiography to the authorization of "waterboarding" detainees at Guantanamo, the respected organization Amnesty International has said enough evidence now exists to open a criminal investigation. Yet there he was, yukking it up with Jerry Jones in the owner's sky-box at the Super Bowl, munching hot dogs in a billion dollar football palace where millionaires play, while the rest of the populace struggles to recover from economic disaster. It was a portrait of the Bush years in a snapshot.

Speaking of war criminals, Dick Cheney was the surprise guest at this month's annual CPAC Convention in Washington, where he presented the conservative organization's coveted "Defender of the Constitution" award to his old foxhole buddy, Donald Rumsfeld. There was enough irony in the hall to build a bridge. Cheney entered the room to the blaring of Tina Turner's "Simply the Best," reminding music fans that Cheney is an abuser like Ike was.  Jr.Walker & the All Stars' "Shotgun" would have been a better choice. The old-boy reunion was spoiled by a crowd of libertarian Rand Paul supporters who had just listened to the new senator from Kentucky call for cuts in the Defense budget to loud jeering from the crowd. Instead of welcoming Cheney like a returning hero, they shouted, "War criminal," and "Where's Bin Laden?" at him, while the true patriots reverted back to the imaginative chant of "USA," to drown out their opponents. Because of a new heart device that constantly pumps blood, Cheney technically no longer has a pulse. (Insert your own joke here.) The ultimate irony is that the former vice president may need a heart transplant, but may be too old to qualify. I wonder who appoints Dick Cheney's "Death Panel?"

Donald Rumsfeld emerged from relative seclusion to go on tour promoting his new memoir, "Known and Unknown." The man Salon.com dubbed the "Architect of Terror," has been met by protesters at every stop and has shown a predilection for musings about meeting Elvis rather than the falsifying of intelligence to sell a war. Rumsfeld's appearance in Orange County, California was planned around a special banquet costing $500 per person, or $1000 if you wanted to meet the secretary. The "Premium Seating Package," including two seats at the head table, an additional table for ten, and a "VIP reception" following the dinner, cost a meager $25,000; chump change to an O.C. Republican. Earlier, Rumsfeld had accepted the "Victory of Freedom" award from the Richard Nixon Foundation at a dinner at the Nixon library in Yorba Linda, California. Over 200 people payed "hundreds of dollars" for the privilege of breaking bread with the man called, "The worst Secretary of Defense in history." And that was by John McCain.

It's The Godfather's most dramatic scene. Michael Corleone arranges for the elimination of the heads of New York's five crime families while he is in a church, standing godfather to Connie and Carlo's baby. After the ceremony, he tells his brother-in-law, Carlo, to go back to the house and wait for his call. The unsuspecting sap is on the phone when Michael enters with the look of the Grand Inquisitor on his face. Michael explains that he has just "settled all family business," and utters the chilling words, "You have to answer for Santino, Carlo." Thus, forcing the unfortunate turncoat to pay a long-delayed price for his role in the assassination of Sonny Corleone, and proving that justice, though not always swift, is inevitable. The invasion and occupation of Iraq, and the subsequent horror that followed, was a war crime. If we are to continue as a nation of laws rather than men, it is essential that the Bush-Cheney-Rumsfeld troika be told, "You have to answer for Santino." The lives of 4,757 American soldiers and a half-million Iraqis demand it. Democracy may be sprouting in the Middle East, but only when the era of privatized privilege passes from this land can we look ourselves in the mirror and ask,"What have we done?"

Just Sing the Damn Song

So what if Christina Aguilera botched the lyrics to the National Anthem before the Super Bowl. Sometimes, when it occurs to you that a billion or so people are scrutinizing your every breath, it can make you a mite nervous. I enjoyed the letter to the editor, however, from the Collierville woman who was so incensed, she wrote that Aguilera's error was "a spit in the eye to all I hold dear." I hope no one ever shows her a video of the performance by Rosanne Barr. What offended me was not her messing up the words (those are some tough lyrics to sing), but the tortured, moaning manner in which she chose to sing the song. As soon as she sang the first line, I told Melody, "Here we go again." The "Star-Spangled Banner" is just one of those songs that doesn't lend itself to a breathy, orgasmic, reading. It sounded like Christina and the flag needed to get a room. The lyrics seemed like an afterthought.

Not that I'm opposed to artistic interpretation of the National Anthem, mind you. Ever since Jose Feliciano drove the puritans insane at the 1968 World Series, artists have been putting their own touches to the anthem. Several inspiring versions have been performed since then, from Jimi Hendrix at Woodstock to Whitney Houston at the 1991 Super Bowl; or the greatest version OF ALL TIME;  Marvin Gaye at the 1983 NBA All Star game. These artists had the one ingredient lacking in so many contemporary singers' anthem attempts; heart. As good a technical singer as Aguilera is, no amount of vocal pyrotechnics can overcome a soulless performance. Thanks to shows like American Idol, where Americans try to sound just like their idols, these wild exercises in vocal gymnastics are all we ever hear any more. I can still hear the echoes of my father saying, "You call that singing?" after hearing Elvis, but as an aspiring singer myself, I can say with some authority that note-scaling, over-singing has saturated the current music scene to an extent that it's become farcical. No one even needs to sing on key anymore. They have something called an auto-tuner that will make you sound like an emasculated Darth Vader, but it will be on pitch.
   

The musical term for this stylized vocalization is called "melisma." Simply put, it's singing a single syllable using multiple notes. It's beginnings go back to the madrigal, but in popular music, "melisma" originated in the black church. All the great, church-based, soul singers could manage it to an extent, but the master was Bobby "Blue" Bland. I used to study his records like a mathematics textbook to figure out how he sang like that. In the song, "I'll Take Care of You," he sings the single word, "I," with a five-note drop. I know, I counted. Listening to Bland's style taught me a variation of melisma that, although not authentic, is better than most white folks. Great singers also know when to leave it out, lest it become a distraction. There are many artists with melismatic abilities like Mavis Staples, Usher, even Justin Bieber. But no one really overdid it until Patti LaBelle, the Queen of Over-sing. Listening to Patti wears me out because she tries too hard to be over the top, all of the time. And she does this bird thing with flapping arms that's not nearly as entertaining as when Rufus Thomas did it. It proves that melisma is best applied with a fine brush, and not the paint roller that LaBelle uses.

Blame the neurotic, microphone hand-twitch on Whitney, but the current phase of female vocal abuse can be traced back to Mariah Carey. She is to contemporary women singers what Joni Mitchell was to the 70s- unavoidable. Mariah's pipes inspired a thousand imitators until a slew of top female singers all began sounding just the same. Which brings us to the 2011 Grammy Awards. This year's show began with a quintet of chanteuses paying tribute to the still-kicking Soul Queen, Aretha Franklin. Aside from the immensely talented Jennifer Hudson, the rest of the pack, including the caterwauling Ms. Aguilera, illustrated just how far we have fallen in our definition of "diva" from Aretha's gold standard. Lady GaGa arrived at the ceremonies inside of a turquoise, oblong pod carried by throne bearers, just daring critics to say that she laid an egg. But the harshest criticism for GaGa was reserved for the similarities between her new song, "Born This Way," and Madonna's "Express Yourself," from 1989. Having a longer memory, I can tell you both songs sound just like "I Got the Music In Me," from the Kiki Dee Band, 1974. You're welcome.

Aside from Justin Bieber being punished for his success and shut out of the awards, the most surprising Grammy moment was the upset win for Album of the Year, by Arcade Fire. I'll own up to being so unhip that this group wasn't even on my radar until their Grammy performance, but I always enjoy seeing a Yoko Ono tribute band get a break. As far as the ladies, it seemed like it was Rihanna's night, and she wasn't even up for an award. Leave it to Babs, though, to show that a great singer doesn't need to hit her highest note in every verse, and is able to thrill you with her tone, not how many notes she can cram into a measure of music. Younger singers would be wise to look to Streisand and realize that sometimes it's better to just sing the damn song. The two other most infectious performances of the evening came from Bob Dylan and a show-stopping Mick Jagger. Even with all the fresh, new interpreters of song, leave it to a trio of septuagenarians to show 'em how to rock the house. And poor Christina Aguilera needs to learn that after milking that final, excruciating, drop of melisma from a song's ending, try not to fall on your ass. That's what the audience is supposed to do.

Sarah and Michele's High School Reunion

Many great representatives of American culture have come from Minnesota. They gave us Bob Dylan and Prince; Rod Carew and Fran Tarkenton; The Mary Tyler Moore Show and Minnesota Fats. Long a bastion of progressivism, great statesmen like Hubert Humphrey and Walter Mondale have been elected to congress by Minnesotans. Lately, however, things have taken a turn for the weird.  In the "Land of 10,000 Lakes," citizens seemed immune to celebrity until they went a little crazy and elected Jesse "The Body" Ventura as governor. When that experiment was done, they elected comedian and former Saturday Night Live alumnus, Al Franken, to the Senate. In the case of the Harvard educated Franken, however, he proved to be a viable candidate because he was good enough, smart enough, and, doggone it, people liked him. I am at a loss, however, to explain how an electorate goes from Hubert Humphrey to Michele Bachmann, unless some outside, sinister force is at work.

In Don DeLillo's classic novel "White Noise," he describes an incident called the "Airborne Toxic Event," a chemical spill from a rail car that makes townspeople go insane. This fictional account is close to describing some of Minnesota's real-life disasters, like the I-35 bridge collapse into the Mississippi River in 2007; or the 57 separate oil pipeline spills since 2000; or even the severe storms and massive flooding that required the president to declare parts of the state a "disaster area," in 2010. Even Minnesota's loons were threatened by the BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. Whatever the cause, something has made these hardy Midwesterners turn to Michele Bachmann to represent them in congress, and she acts more like a contestant for Homecoming Queen than a legislator. It used to be said that politics was just show business for ugly people. In truth, congress is one big high school do-over, with the same adolescent jealousies and pettiness that we find in some pre-teens. Only now, their hissy fits are putting us all in jeopardy. The quote, "Carbon dioxide is portrayed as harmful, but there isn't even one study that can be produced that shows that carbon dioxide is a harmful gas," could have been straight from DeLillo, had Michele Bachmann not said it first.

A singular event in American history took place after the President's last State of the Union address. Michele Bachmann, the self-appointed Miss Tea Party, gave a rebuttal to the official Republican rebuttal to the president's speech. CNN was the only network to elevate this to news, and thank goodness. Bachmann  stared into a computer camera for an online response seen by a few thousand people, while the rest of us got to watch her gaze off, slightly to the left, and appear as if she were waiting for Peter Pan to return and whisk her off to Neverland. With charts and graphs, Bachmann told of the 16,500 IRS officers being prepared to enforce Obamacare and claimed that what was really needed is medical malpractice reform, something Obama had announced only an hour before. More astounding was the footage of Bachmann addressing Iowans for Tax Relief only the night before. Speaking with hushed reverence about the founding fathers, Bachmann claimed, "(They) worked tirelessly until slavery was no more in the United States." No they didn't. Half were slave owners, and anyone who ever took a history course knows that. She lauded John Quincy Adams, who was not a founder, but proves, at least, that she saw "Amistad."

Among Bachmann's other lies; she has accused the census of being a government plot to round up dissidents, like her, and put them into internment camps, and she began the canard that Obama was "spending over $200 million a day," on a state visit to India. She advocated eliminating the minimum wage and suggested $400 billion in cuts for veterans' benefits as an austerity measure. Michele was a backbencher until Sarah Palin proved that venomous rhetoric and a pretty smile will get you noticed, even if the professional pundits refer to you as a "Bubblehead." Despite having called for an investigation into Democratic congressmen to see which ones were "anti-American," John Boehner appointed Bachmann to the National Intelligence Committee, and she has already visited Iowa to explore the possibility of a presidential run in 2012. A pretty face and nice smile may win you "most popular" in junior high, but when you get to congress, it's time to put away the pageant sash and work to serve others. Instead, she has said that Obama is turning us "into a nation of slaves," and called health insurance reform, "The crown jewel of socialism,"

Watching all the media attention Bachmann was receiving, Sarah Palin got "all wee-weed up," and leaped into the fray. In an interview on Fox News, Palin claimed that the launching of Sputnik in 1957 was the ultimate cause for the Soviet Union's downfall in 1991, and that the Russians "won the space race." More ghastly, she noticed that Obama's phrase from his State of the Union, "Win the Future," could be abbreviated WTF, which fits well into her Twitter mindset, but not for a serious candidate for high office. Yet she continued to repeat it several more times, including on her Facebook page, oblivious to the 90% of Americans who approved of the president's speech. Between Michele and Sarah, we could be headed for a loser-leaves-town cage match to determine who will be the undisputed Tea Party Princess. Meanwhile, when did stupidity become a virtue in public life? Before a law school graduate becomes an attorney, he must pass the bar exam. Shouldn't we at least have an elementary civics exam for all potential legislators? That might weed out half the know-nothing, yet ambitious politicians of today, including "Dumb and Dumber."

Second Amendment Remedies

A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.   Second Amendment 

This nation's founding father's were wise, but they weren't clairvoyant. A "well regulated Militia" in 1787, had more to do with keeping the old musket cleaned in case the Minutemen needed reassembly, than an individuals right to possess more firepower than a standing army. The framers' intention was to assure the rural populace that, in league with a regulated militia, they had the power to beat back an insurrection or invasion by force of arms. Not even Ben Franklin, however, could have foreseen a semi-automatic assault rifle in every closet, or statewide militia organizations that serve more to intimidate citizens than protect them. Certainly, the founders did not wish for a paranoid "Wild West" mentality to grip the entire country with regular occurrences of indiscriminate gun violence and murder. Yet, the Second Amendment has become the Rosetta Stone for conservatives, untouchable to modern interpretation, exploited by the NRA, and used as a shield for the explosion of gun sales during the past two years of the Obama presidency.

That's why the obscene violence visited upon the citizens of Tucson in recent days was a shock, but not a surprise. This country has become so accustomed to spree killings, the only news value is the body count, or, as in Arizona, the prominence of the victims. The documented mental condition of the Tuscon shooter demonstrated that lethal weapons are as easy to obtain as a Happy Meal, and if one Walmart won't sell you enough ammunition to fight off an army of Huns, just drive over to the next one and load up. We lurch from Columbine, to Virginia Tech, to Tucson without batting an eye, because the battle for reasonable gun regulation has been forfeited in the face of the firearms lobby. The National Rifle Association, by heavily "contributing" to the campaigns of sympathetic state and local officials, has successfully initiated a stealth campaign to eliminate any restrictions on where a gun can be taken. Consequently, the guy sitting next to you at Happy Hour, or in the public library, could be concealing a firearm. And there was hardly a scintilla of public debate before these insane notions were codified into law.

It can be expected for a goober like Texas Rep. Louis Gohmert to advocate carrying a weapon into a legislative chamber like the House of Representatives, but when Congressman Steve "Quick Draw" Cohen announces he'll start packing heat, it's a cause for concern. Not because Cohen is a bad shot or a pacifist with an occasional temper, but because we have come to this as a society. Who could blame Cohen after a major party's senatorial candidate suggests "second amendment remedies" to reign in government and some zipperhead in dysfunctional Arizona declares open-season on congressmen and their constituents? At Rep. Cohen's own Town Hall meeting during the Tea Party's "Summer of Hate," a few local zealots chose to wear holstered weapons like trendy fashion accessories and suddenly, there's a rash of nationwide amateur constitutionalists strapping on sidearms at public events as some sort of political statement. The romanticized gun culture reinforces their fantasies of repelling a home invasion or taking up arms against a tyrannical government and the Glock has become the most coveted household possession since the Salad Shooter.

The debate over regulating the sale of guns is over. The remaining question is how to keep weapons out of the hands of homicidal lunatics. For all the conservatives have done to champion gun rights, they certainly have liberal attitudes about who can obtain them. The GOP brags of being the party of  "God, guns, and guts," only lately, it's other people's guts that are involved. One of the questions in a recent forum for candidates for Chairman of the Republican National Committee was, "How many guns do you own?" The greater the number of firearms claimed, the louder the applause from the audience. One candidate bragged of owning every manner of weapon except a surface-to-air missile. In this case, Michael Steele got out-gunned, while the Republican Party is just a few warlords short of resembling Afghanistan..

Politicians and pundits are quick to assign blame, but who can say what motivates these murderous freaks? A brutal popular culture that glorifies violence has surely contributed to our annual national gun carnage, but Canada has as many guns per capita as the U.S., and they watch the same movies and listen to the same music as we do. If their country-wide gun murders in a year equate to Chicago's in a month, it must be an issue of mental health, and we seem to be in the middle of a national nervous breakdown. Our political discourse may be vulgar and ballistic, but the Tucson shooter seems just another in an endless parade of the viciously insane. John Hinckley shot Ronald Reagan to impress Jodie Foster. Squeaky Fromme took a shot at Gerald Ford in order to be incarcerated with Charlie and the Mansons. These potential assassins cared      more about fame than politics, yet they were able to wipe the drool off their chins just long enough to purchase a firearm. Who doesn't believe that another incident like the massacre in Tucson isn't looming somewhere already? This country's deranged individual arms race has made us one nation under the gun, and the casual, vending-machine nature of weapons sales has turned us into the land of the free to carry, and the home of the artificially brave. I don't think this is what the framers intended. 

Ten Most Annoying in 2010

I have never compiled an end of the year Top 10 list, mainly because no one ever asked me. Nothing has changed in that regard, but since I wrote about this wretched 365 days past, I feel qualified to enumerate my ten most annoying people/events of the year. Since this was an election cycle, I could have filled the list with nothing but goofy senatorial candidates like Sharron Angle or the world's worst loser, Alaska's Joe Miller, but I tried to spread the scorn around a little. There were many deserving and hideous annoyances, but I've attempted to incorporate a wide range of the aggravating, beginning with:

10. Dick Clark. Although he only shows up once annually, it's enough horror to last all year long. When he first appeared several years ago on "Dick Clark's Rockin' New Years Eve" after a debilitating stroke, it seemed shocking but courageous for him to go on the air in a semi-incapacitated state. Now, after several years, it's purely for self-aggrandizement. Only there's no one around him to tell him to hang it up. Clark increasingly looks like the Cryptkeeper and speaks in brief, indecipherable mutterings that only Ryan Seacrest can understand. Seacrest calls him "The Master," while eyeballing that cozy, indoor desk-set he will inherit one day, maybe even on the air. It's a shame that Dick Clark began his career entertaining children and ends it by frightening them.

9. Willie Herenton. The former Memphis mayor did not go silently into that good night, but mounted one more vanity run for representative of the 9th Congressional district with the slogan "Just One." Had that meant there's just one Willie Herenton, it might have been effective, but the slogan and the Herenton campaign drew national media attention by consistently stating that the district could only be fairly represented by a black man. This racist strategy drew a rare congressional endorsement from President Obama for Herenton's opponent, Rep. Steve Cohen. Herenton cancelled a debate because he didn't approve of the questioners and even after Cohen beat him like a dusty floor rug, Herenton railed at the media, County Mayor A C Wharton, white voters, the president, and anyone else he considered responsible for his last hurrah. At least we can hope it was.

8. BP CEO Tony Hayward. After the catastrophic oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, Hayward began a campaign of serial lying to stall for time. He intentionally misrepresented the size of the spill, the estimated damage to the Gulf, the mechanical safeguards that failed, and BP's grotesque record for safety. When appearing before Congress, Hayward said "I don't remember," more times than John Gotti at trial. His treatment of the victims of the spill was reminiscent of an English Viceroy in India during the days of the Raj, and his famous remark, "I want my life back," drew enough anger for BP to recall him to Great Britain. His replacement tried to tamp down the public relations damage while Hayward rushed off to the yacht races.

7. Cialis Commercials. Cialis is an erectile dysfunction medication made by GlaxoSmithKline, a public corporation. Since the Supreme Court determined in the Citizens United decision that corporations are now considered people, Cialis is one annoying sumbitch. Two aging yuppies are gardening or painting a house and exchange a randy glance, and suddenly waterfalls appear and thick plots of green grass grow where the horny couple appropriately pitch a tent. Next thing you know, they're reclining naked in the woods or on the beach in separate, antique bathtubs, implying that they did their dirty business thanks to Cialis. When's the last time you hit on someone and ended up nude, lying outside in a dry tub? I thought only tequila could do that.

6. Snooki. I allowed my wife to talk me into watching The Jersey Shore, with its cast of hedonists, and it happened to be the episode where Snooki gets cold-cocked by some beefy drunk in a bar. Intrigued, I watched for a couple of weeks until I realized that this show is about a group of aimless, clueless, functioning morons whose sole purpose in life is getting drunk, fighting, boasting of their "hotness" or manliness, and picking up strangers with whom to "hook up." I used to have a redneck friend who would get mean drunk and say, "I want to fuck or fight, and I don't much care which." This sums up the entire premise of Jersey Shore, and the result is that Snooki and her "poof" are international celebrities. Lord knows why.

5. Bank of America. The second largest non-oil company in the nation (after WalMart), BOA received $45 billion in government money through TARP, with the instructions to ease credit restrictions and work through their mortgage division to assist financially troubled homeowners in restructuring their loans. They responded by raising interest rates on credit cards by 28%. Only last week, the bank was accused of institutional fraud, where people applying for loan modifications found their paperwork "lost" within the system, until default. The bank's employees advised some homeowners to intentionally miss payments to illustrate the urgency of their need, only to have BOA speed up foreclosure on those in arrears. When the foreclosure horror stories emerged, BOA suspended, then resumed foreclosures in 23 states. The institution is so steeped in fraud, WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange has said the next batch of leaks will succeed in taking down the bank and its officers.

4. Mel Gibson. It was bad enough to read Gibson's anti-Semitic screeds second-hand, but to actually hear his insane ravings on his former girlfriend's phone tapes proved that he's a regular, foaming-at-the-mouth, psychopath. His vile, name-calling obscenities and threats of violence were enough to make the worst misogynist wince. I, for one, am no longer capable of watching a Mel Gibson movie. And here I thought it was just the Jews that he hated.

3. The Republican Congressional Leadership. They devised a strategy of depriving the president of a single legislative victory through the tyranny of the minority, then pointed at him at election time and accused him of accomplishing nothing. And it worked. That is, until Obama steamrolled them during the lame duck session. Minority Leader Mitch McConnell has admitted that the Senate Republicans' top priority is to deprive Obama of a second term, and new House Speaker John Boehner aims to "repeal and replace" the Obama health insurance reforms. It's not just that I think these men are working against the best interests of the country, and it may be superficial, but how do you take someone seriously when one of them looks like Mr. Toad from Alice in Wonderland, and the other looks like an Oompa Loompa?

2. My Neighbor. I make a point of knowing my next-door neighbors, but this is a family across the back fence and it's probably just as well I don't know their name. The wife and four kids have spent the last eight years in their back yard screaming. The children were infants when we moved in, and although I wondered aloud whether they shouldn't be in college by now, they're all still back there screaming. The husband owns every gas powered lawn device on the market, including a riding mower with a headlight so he can cut his postage-stamp sized yard at night. Between the leaf blower and the weed wacker, some deafening motor is always running. I had to wake Melody early one morning, however, to tell her that the neighbors now had chickens. She gazed in disbelief at the grown birds clucking away across the fence. Now, our dogs have gone insane and we've inquired about the legality of keeping barnyard animals in east Memphis. But the wife found a way to grandfather in the chickens before some new ordinance takes effect. They say strong fences make good neighbors, but, in this case, only when they're soundproofed.

1. Sarah Palin. I try to ignore her, but they won't let me. From the book deals, the speaking engagements, the Fox News commentary gig, and her inane "tweets," Palin has made a vast fortune from non-public service, or, as we used to call it, "self-service." And yet, a large segment of the population just loves her and can't get enough of her cruel sarcasm. The final outrage came during the reality show, Sarah Palin's Alaska, when she traveled to some remote hunting area and murdered a young, female elk. Sure, she justified it by claiming they planned to eat the animal, but I'll bet the response to the dining experience won't match the orgasmic breathlessness exhibited by the bystanders when she killed that majestic creature. If this weekly Palin infomercial is intended to boost her chances for higher office, it has, so far, only exhibited her vapidity. I'm convinced that this woman is a complete idiot, and if you think she's qualified to be the president, then so are you. And that's deeply annoying.

Representation Without Taxation

I'll own up to being a yellow dog, liberal Democrat, and I generally support what the president is attempting to do to rescue this country from becoming a wholly owned subsidiary of the Peoples Republic of China. After the great Christmas tax compromise/giveaway, however, the thought crossed my mind that maybe I should have voted for Hillary Clinton. At least I know she's got a pair. As for the president, he's participated in more cave-ins than a Chilean miner. I understand that Bo the dog is following Barack around so he can learn how to roll over. After all 42 Republican senators signed a letter saying that they would allow no other legislation to be considered until the Bush tax cuts were extended, I just knew the President would call their bluff and force them to, literally, filibuster against jobless benefits at Christmas. Instead, he quit in his corner without throwing a punch. Obama claimed the Republicans were "holding the American people hostage," and their demands amounted to "blackmail," yet he paid the entire ransom and even more that the kidnappers didn't even ask for. Doesn't he watch crime dramas on television?  Even when you've paid them off, blackmailers will continue to blackmail. I want my president to be a fighter, but not one that says, "No mas," and surrenders when he's behind on points.

The GOP merely threatens filibuster, and the Democrats flip like fish. But the closest resemblance to an actual filibuster was Rep. Bernie Sanders' 8 1/2 hour marathon speech in objection to the tax bill. Most folks' only notion of a "filibuster" was given by Jimmy Stewart in "Mr. Smith Goes to Washington." It would be a terrific civics lesson for the American people to see the real deal. I can't remember the last time they dragged in the cots and forced senators to attend in shifts. Perhaps the sight of Mitch "The Amphibian" McConnell reading Bible passages on C-Span while attempting to block veterans' benefits might have changed a few hearts and minds. It's too late for that now. The minority party played "chicken" with Obama over the people's welfare, and Barack blinked. The president claimed this was the best deal he could get before the new congress convenes in January, and that it was a good compromise. When the playground bully pushes you to the ground and demands your lunch money, and you give it to him, it is not a compromise, it's capitulation.

I understand that the tax fight is only over a 5 percent increase at the highest income levels, but the Republicans were willing to stop all government functions rather than compromise. Obama campaigned on the promise to allow the Bush tax cuts to expire for those making more than $250,000 annually, and  though some of my best friends are rich people, does the same group that prospered the most during the past decade deserve a fresh pile of free money? My dad had a saying; "This is a great country, but the dues are expensive." There seems to be a growing number of people who believe they should somehow be exempt,  agreeing with Leona Helmsley that, "Only the little people pay taxes." It's astounding that the Republicans would engage in a petty tax revolt when the nation is still in financial crisis and fighting two wars. In better days, paying taxes was often considered the height of patriotism. In the televised, Senate-Mafia hearings of 1952, when New York mob boss Frank Costello was asked by the committee to name one thing he had ever done to benefit his country, he said, "I paid my tax." Even gangsters understood how the roads get paved.
 
The conservatives claim tax cuts for the wealthy will help stimulate business and create jobs in the private sector, but we all know what happens to that money. It's invested in various markets, making large portfolios even larger, and allowing the super-rich to live off of their dividends and interest. While the Bush tax cuts have been in place for a decade, all the action switched over to Wall Street, creating a class of obscenely wealthy money-managers while our manufacturing base hemorrhaged jobs. Republicans have warned that  unemployment compensation and welfare assistance for the poor are destroying the work ethic, but the new tax giveaway is simply welfare for the wealthy. Who needs to work hard at a stressful job when your money will work for you? The old Reagan, supply-side, trickle-down theory of economics functions most efficiently in single family estates where the natural instinct is to care for your own. Now that Obama has waved a white flag on any inheritance taxes up to five million dollars, the money no longer trickles down; it gushes like a waterfall. The deficit hawks won't fund medical assistance for 9/11 first responders because they claim it's not paid for, yet they are practically giddy to put nearly a trillion additional dollars on the tab for this tax scam.

Ever since Obama took office, his opponents have questioned his legitimacy to be president. They have called him an illegal alien, a socialist, a Marxist, a Kenyan, and a secret Muslim. But I'm beginning to think the truth may be far more frightening. I believe that Barack did not learn "anti-colonialism" from his father, like the right-wing radio blatherers say, but instead was invested with Kansas Republican values from his mother. After all, Kansas is the home of Alf Landon and Bob Dole, and that brand of conservatism must have affected Barack's single mom and grandparents. Somewhere, he was instructed to grow an Afro and assume the guise of a liberal, which facilitated his admission to Harvard and the bar, and his subsequent hiring by the University of Chicago. His work as a community organizer cemented his liberal street cred, and his "palling around with domestic terrorist" William Ayers, gave Obama a Che Guevara-like mystique. Only now, I'm beginning to see the pattern of deception in all this, and I suspect that Barack may be the most frightening type of politician of all; a stealth Republican. Dreams from his father; politics from his mother. The president promised change, yet the Bush tax cuts are about to be engraved in stone, Guantanamo is still operating, illegal wiretaps are still functioning and Bin Laden is still alive. Would an explanation be out of order, or must we read it on WikiLeaks? Obama has spent over half his life learning how to "fight the power." It's past time he learned how the power fights back.