It's the law!

Can't anybody here play this game?

My lack of interest in sports is well-nigh complete. Please don't bother making small talk with me by asking whether I “saw the game last night.” Nevertheless, even I remember Casey Stengel's lament about his wretched New York Mets: “Can't anybody here play this game?” Stengel's question sometimes echoes in my head whenever I see another fumble by the Obama administration. (Yeah, I know: “fumble” is football. Did you forget that I don't care?)

Obama and company could stand to be a little more aggressive in the face of constant carping, petty backbiting, and outright lies. The president has been largely content to allow tea-stained critics to denounce him for “lying” about his statements that the Affordable Care Act would allow individuals to keep health insurance plans they liked. A little push-back would have been a good thing, instead of stoically accepting so much abuse and then apologizing.

In particular, I'm thinking Obama should have cited chapter and verse from the healthcare reform legislation itself. Yes, the measure is big and unwieldy (and Republicans like to pretend that no one knew what was in it despite months of delays and debates), but it's not impossible to look things up if you have specific questions. Have you ever read Sec. 1251? Did you even know it exists? Check it out:

SEC. 1251. PRESERVATION OF RIGHT TO MAINTAIN EXISTING COVERAGE.

(a) NO CHANGES TO EXISTING COVERAGE.
    (1) IN GENERAL.—Nothing in this Act (or an amendment made by this Act) shall be construed to require that an individual terminate coverage under a group health plan or health insurance coverage in which such individual was enrolled on the date of enactment of this Act.
    (2) CONTINUATION OF COVERAGE.—With respect to a group health plan or health insurance coverage in which an individual was enrolled on the date of enactment of this Act, this subtitle and subtitle A (and the amendments made by such subtitles) shall not apply to such plan or coverage, regardless of whether the individual renews such coverage after such date of enactment.

(b) ALLOWANCE FOR FAMILY MEMBERS TO JOIN CURRENT COVERAGE.—With respect to a group health plan or health insurance coverage in which an individual was enrolled on the date of enactment of this Act and which is renewed after such date, family members of such individual shall be permitted to enroll in such plan or coverage if such enrollment is permitted under the terms of the plan in effect as of such date of enactment.

(c) ALLOWANCE FOR NEW EMPLOYEES TO JOIN CURRENT PLAN.—A group health plan that provides coverage on the date of enactment of this Act may provide for the enrolling of new employees (and their families) in such plan, and this subtitle and subtitle A (and the amendments made by such subtitles) shall not apply with respect to such plan and such new employees (and their families).

That's right. The provisions of the healthcare act expressly establish a person's right to keep a health plan! The language is clear and explicit. In what way, then, did the president lie? Why, then, are people losing their current plans despite Sec. 1251?

Simple. Nothing forces the insurance companies to continue to offer those plans. Sec. 1251 has an invisible and unanticipated qualification: You can keep your current plan if your insurance company doesn't cancel it! The Obama administration cared enough to put the language of Sec. 1251 in the bill, but it failed to anticipate how many insurance companies would use the measure's enactment as an excuse for immediate cancellation of plans that don't meet Obamacare standards. Are we grandfathered in for a period of time? Who cares? We insurance companies sure don't!

Perhaps the president needs a little help in rebutting his critics, but it's probably too late for him to deliver the following short speech I just drafted:

My fellow Americans, you have heard many critics accusing me of having lied to you when I said, ‘If you like your health plan you can keep your health plan.’ Most of them know that accusation is false. In fact, that provision was expressly written into the Affordable Care Act. I quote word-for-word from Section 1251: ‘Nothing in this Act ... shall be construed to require that an individual terminate coverage under a group health plan or health insurance coverage in which such individual was enrolled on the date of enactment of this Act.’ So what happened? I'll tell you. Many insurance companies decided to cancel policies anyway, abandoning their clients despite the fact that the Affordable Care Act does not require it. Perhaps healthcare reform needed more mandates rather than fewer, but we did not require insurance companies to maintain their existing policies during the transition period. We should have been stricter.

Let me remind you again that nothing in the Affordable Care Act requires anyone to terminate a current health plan that does not initially meet the requirements of healthcare reform. They were grandfathered in. Unfortunately, the many people who were tossed aside by their insurance companies have not had ready access to a fully functioning health care website in order to seek out their most affordable alternatives. We are committed, however, to rectifying the situation and improvements are being made every day. We will stay the course and get the job done. In the meantime, whenever you hear someone screaming about the supposed lies and failings of healthcare reform, be sure to ask them what they are doing to help, besides just making baseless accusations. Thank you.

The GOP wants you!

In your place, of course

When the August recess arrives, members of congress will (in most cases) return to their districts to ingratiate themselves with the constituents who will be deciding their fates in November's general election. Naturally enough, many of them look to the organs of their political parties for support in this endeavor. We recently learned that the House Republican Conference has the backs of the GOP representatives in congress, providing them with a 31-page manual for maximizing their effectiveness during the crucial days of August. The manual is titled Fighting Washington for All Americans, which clearly implies that the Republicans have nothing to do with Washington (“doing nothing” is arguably true) and that voters must choose Republicans to fix all of the things that Republicans have wrecked in the last several years (like the economy and employment).

Fighting Washington is replete with the sort of subtle and sophisticated strategies that you would expect from the party of Boehner, especially when it comes to outreach techniques that bring women and minorities into the fold. (The “fold,” as with sheep, right?) Since each picture is worth a thousand words, let's take a look at the most eloquent part of the Republican play book. Be sure to keep your eyes peeled for women in leadership positions and black and brown people in any role at all. (Hint: These latter appear almost as often as Waldo.) First, though, the textual preamble.

The women do at least start off strong in the text, where the one-named “Cathy” (like “Cher,” I presume) provides a full-page introduction whose third paragraph is

We know that Washington is broken. It spends too much, borrows too much, and takes too much. It targets people for what they believe. It chokes out jobs with more red tape, blocks new energy resources and makes our health care crisis worse. Our government is out of control.

A killer argument. (Don't forget now: The GOP has nothing to do with Washington's failures.) On the next page, Republican House members are exhorted to submit op-ed pieces to their local print media. A complete sample draft is provided for Republicans too dim to write their own. What's the lead? This:

As we conclude another busy legislative session in Washington, I look forward to working hard at home for the month of August. Each day I am grateful for the opportunity to represent you in our nation’s capital because Washington is broken and needs to be fixed.

It spends too much, borrows too much, and takes too much. It targets people for what they believe and punishes them for their political ideologies. It chokes out jobs with more red tape, blocks new energy resources, and makes our health care crisis worse.

Washington is out of control.

Hey, if it works on the members themselves, why shouldn't it also work on their dim constituents?

Let us now consider the importance of ginning up support from those “potentially targeted by the IRS.” This is ideal, because everyone is at least potentially subject to enhanced IRS scrutiny. One may as well start with the biggest real-life bogeyman of them all!

Check out the IRS's potential victims. That could be a token woman in the pink shirt, with her back toward us. The pants aren't very feminine, though, so we can't be certain. At least youth is represented by the teenage boy in the far corner. No doubt the revenuers are threatening his 501(c)(3) organization. Fortunately, the authority figure of the balding middle-aged man is present to instruct them on anti-IRS self-defense.

We can make a smooth segue from the IRS to the dangers of ObamaCare, which —as we all know—is merely a way to let the tax people threaten our health just as they do our wealth. The scruffy and rumpled doctor needs to be warned that the Obama administration's obsession over drug abuse (they really are rather over the top there) will threaten his easy access to prescription drugs for his recreational use (or energy boosts during long hours on duty in our understaffed socialist health system). That might be a woman there in the back, wearing purplish-blue and framed against a window. No doubt this is subliminal messaging that lets women know they're not entirely forgotten (just mostly ignored unless they're dangerously fertile).

A representative's constituency contains more than dissolute doctors and frightened IRS targets. To embrace the wide, wonderful world of one's district in all of its delightful diversity, organize a meetup! Be sure to salt the crowd with your hand-picked minions (“This will strengthen the conversation and take it in a direction that is most beneficial to the Member's goal.”)

This is the illustration the minions of the House Republican Conference chose to represent a typical meetup. Three white guys and one white gal. (Seen any minorities yet?) The woman is appropriately demure and quiet, listening with a docile demeanor to the guy in the middle. Observe the clasped hands of sincerity. Doesn't this look like fun?

One must be certain to use the August recess to argue in favor of people getting jobs (as distinct from actually passing job-stimulus legislation; this long-discredited socialist approach has been anathema since it was last done for the Bush administration). Fighting America—oops!—I mean Fighting Washington recommends a live YouTube Roundtable to boost jobs and fight (or at least whine) about unemployment.

As seen in the picture, a job roundtable need not be a roundtable at all. It can actually be as simple as a white guy haranguing people who are trying to have lunch in a cheap diner in an unidentified war zone. See the pensive lady in this one? (She's wondering if she's getting paid enough for this soul-killing posing job.)

Did you know that the Republicans favor family leave? It's another perfect topic for a roundtable! Your Republican representative can single the praises of the Working Families Flexibility Act, which empowers employers to rearrange your hours so as to avoid overtime pay. But don't worry, if you end up working overtime anyway and don't get a chance to take compensatory time off, you will eventually get paid. (Please don't think of this delayed compensation as an interest-free loan of your wages to your employer. That doesn't sound nearly as good as “flexibility.”)

As before, no roundtable is actually necessary. It's just an expression. Since we're talking about working families, it's important to run a photo with an unambiguous female in it. There's actually three or four in this one, and the nice lady in the blue top is congratulating a morbidly obese Tea Party member on his recent eating contest victory. Note the subtle way it reminded the reader about health issues and the dread impact of ObamaCare! And a bonus: There's a black guy in the back! Hi, black guy! (We're done with you now. Bye-bye!)

It's important to never stop hitting the jobs issue. (Remember, it's all Obama's fault that no jobs measure had gotten through the House of Representatives since the GOP took control in 2011. But what else could you expect from a shiftless black guy?) But let's stay on topic. Jobs!

The compassionate conservative congressman will find time to at least shake the hands of people waiting in an unemployment line. (Most of them are overweight, so look into cutting the food-stamp program some more.) There are one, two, maybe three women in this picture. A high point!

Now on to the job fair! Representative Bucshon managed to get his job fair on the local NBC affiliate. (Time to call up the local Fox affiliate and scream threats at them. Didn't Murdoch's check clear?)

There's something funny about this video-capture photo. Notice how the mix of men and women begins to approach societal norms when a real-life event is captured? Quite a contrast to the default choices of Republican operatives. Did any of them scratch their heads and think this picture was somehow “wrong” and out of place in their play book? I guess they decided to use it to please Rep. Bucshon. But it is a little jarring. (Hey! Is that a minority in the back? Or is he only in a shadow?)

The Republicans have a big demographic problem. Not only do minorities refuse to vote for them, so do most young people. But never fear! Having recognized this deficiency in their recruitment program, the GOP is highlighting the predatory impact of ObamaCare, which will force millennials to pay for healthcare while they're young and healthy, thus helping Mom and Dad and Grandma and Grandpa to stay alive while the youngsters could be using that cash to improve the quality of their partying. Vile redistributionist policies! If young people can be inveigled into destroying ObamaCare today, they can live happier, wealthier lives right now and not be concerned about it till much, much later (which is another matter altogether and not part of the current discussion).

Oh, look! Helping young people understand the wickedness of ObamaCare apparently involves old white-haired guys giving a talk to groups of young, pretty, nubile females. Hey, man, do you really want a camera in the room? (Oh, okay. I hadn't thought of that.) Big progress, though, for female representation in Fighting Washington. We have three young women listening submissively to an older man (just as God intended).

I know from personal experience that farmers love the Republican Party. It appears to make no sense, but they do. (Something about rugged individualism and subsidies for agribusiness.) Certainly the GOP will not fail to address farm issues during the August recess.

As we all know, women have nothing to do with agriculture. Neither do minorities. They're just no good at it (unless, of course, they're under the supervision of an overseer).

Much of the same is true with energy production. That's an engineering problem, and there's the rub. Women don't like hard hats because they muss their hair. The GOP understands this.

Also, there are no young or minority engineers. Get over it if you don't like it. The Republicans accept reality just the way it is!

Hey! Just one doggone minute here! Where did that picture of award-winning black engineering students from Clarkson come from? (It sure wasn't from Fighting Washington, I'll tell you that much!)

Sorry. We got a little off-topic there. Let's turn instead to the GOP's concerns about fuel and food. According to the GOP play book, the August recess should be used to tour gas stations and grocery stores (with the members acting like they've actually been in those places in recent years and not just during childhood). After making sure that the station owners and grocers “are comfortable with the overall messaging them” (that is, ensuring that these people understand that Obama is evil incarnate and responsible for all their problems), the congressman can stage a series of events where he stops off at each business to decry the horrible things Obama has done for them while the owner nods and/or wrings his hands.

This is yet another occasion where womenfolk are irrelevant. When it comes to grocery shopping or gassing up the car, all you need is a couple of white guys. Message received!

Another good topic is higher education, where you can address major concerns like student loans (and the importance of letting interest rates fall too low), lack of available jobs (because of Obama's destruction of the economy during 2008, before he was president), workforce training (which community colleges should provide more efficiently to compensate for budget cuts imposed by Republican governors), and keeping education affordable (see “student loans” and “workforce training” again).

And what says “higher education” more than a white guy lecturing at a white audience? Nothing, of course! (It is just possible that an Asian or two has slipped into this group, but that's okay because Asians are a good minority. Especially in math class.)

It's not enough to tour through farms, warehouses, gas stations, and schools, of course. You have to get out there among the little people. Like the good, honest folk who work in mom-and-pop outfits in strip malls that GOP policies are putting out of business via tax breaks to more efficient megacorporations with off-shore labor forces (where the miracle of the unfettered free market enable young people to find employment opportunities that would be denied them in the US [at least until they are teenagers]).

For a common touch, wear jeans under your sports coat. Commoners will relate to that. It's not clear that women were required in this picture, but perhaps they do the cleaning up. They seem friendly enough to their oppressor, suggesting that it must be hard cider in those plastic jugs. The wine is probably another reliable sales item in depressed economic sectors.

Republicans hate red tape (except when it comes to regulating abortion clinics), so  naturally Fighting Washington suggests yet another roundtable discussion on government over-regulation. A congressman can wander into a convenient factory and bring production to a total halt while he delivers a sermonette on the importance of efficiency through deregulation. He can demonstrate this by refusing to wear a safety vest while lecturing the employees.

If he lives through the experience, he can then visit a senior citizen center, part of his reliable support base as he promises to protect Social Security and Medicare from his party's policies.

The woman in the picture is just posing. She's got her flag pin on her lapel and is probably an example of the female of the Republican congressional representative species. She's a nice lady and probably won't be pushing the old man down the escalator in the background after the camera goes away. Legislation takes longer, but has fewer fingerprints.

When a GOP member of congress gets tired of going walkabout on these various roundtable tours, he can always cede the heavy lifting to local talk-radio hosts. Most of them are always willing to carry water for the GOP. You can read almost any dreck you like from cue cards cut from the party platform (or Fighting Washington!) and they'll run with it. They already feed their listeners several hours every day of right-wing cant. Rest assured that they know your talking points even better than you do!

This photo depicts a model talk-radio station. See the man's arm in the lower-left corner? He's undoubtedly the guy who has the cut-off switch in case the female host is having her time of month and goes off the reservation.

Broadcast media are dominant these days, but it's important not to neglect the surviving print media, which can be important in certain key demographics (like the old people who subscribe so they can keep up with Peanuts). Remember that op-ed stuff. You can get newspapers to run articles that align with your interest if you schmooze sufficiently ingratiatingly with the paper's editorial board.

As shown in the picture, modern editorial boards are made up exclusively of old white guys. These people are the GOP's core constituency and hardly even need an excuse to pitch their stories the way the local congressman would like.

Townhall meetings are lot like roundtables and all the previous tips and rules apply. Don't forget to salt the audience with shills who have the questions you'd prefer to answer. Get free media from your minions inside talk radio and newspaper editorial boards. Then you're on solid ground.

If you're a member of congress who wants to impress people at a townhall meeting, don't leave your visual aids immobile on an easel. Wave them around. That makes it harder to read anything that they can reconsider later, but people will remember your passion. Also, if you have an assistant with a semi-dark complexion, tell people he's of Indian descent (like Bobby Jindal!) and not Mexican (which will make people think he's illegal, or at least his parents were). Call him “Raj” or “Apu.” These are media-tested acceptable exotic names and will make your audience give themselves credit for their fake open-mindedness.

Republican candidates who learn the lessons of Blighting—I mean, Fighting Washington can be certain to reap the votes of their palest and most gullible constituents. Their success will continue until the dwindling supply of such constituents reaches a certain critical level. Fighting Washington is Exhibit A in the argument that the Republican establishment thinks that critical level is many cycles away.

Please prove them wrong in 2014.

Pyrrhus in the pulpit

Bill Donohue redefines victory

The e-mail announcements from the Catholic League always bear ALL-CAPS subject lines, presumably to conform to the histrionic style of its leader and bombastic spokesman, the cheerfully obstreperous Bill Donohue. Clearly the crew at the Catholic League was poised with press release ready the moment the jury weighed in on the fate of  Monsignor William Lynn. The priest was convicted on one count of child endangerment:

Monsignor Lynn served as secretary for clergy for the 1.5 million-member [Philadelphia] archdiocese from 1992 to 2004, recommending priest assignments and investigating abuse complaints. Prosecutors presented a flood of evidence that Monsignor Lynn had not acted strongly to keep suspected molesters away from children, let alone to report them to law enforcement.

The jury, however, declined to convict Msgr. Lynn on the charge of conspiracy or a second child-endangerment accusation. Thus Donohue hastened to declare victory, sort of, with a generous dollop of but-everybody's-doing-it:

The witch-hunt has come to an end, and those who have been clamoring for blood lost big time. What made this a witch-hunt was the decision of former Philadelphia D.A. Lynne Abraham to summarily ignore what she was empowered to do in 2001: she was given the charge “to investigate the sexual abuse of minors by individuals associated with religious organizations and denominations.” Had she done so, those cases of minors who may have been sexually molested by ministers, rabbis, and others, would have been investigated. Instead, absolutely nothing was done about these cases.

Nothing was done? Bill knows this, of course, because D.A. Abraham declines to confide in him concerning other investigations by the district attorney's office. Therefore these other investigations must not exist. Since the D.A. went after a Catholic priest, this is obviously a vendetta against Rome. Besides, Abraham failed to get a conviction against a second priest, hence her prosecutorial efforts are exposed as simple anti-Catholicism. At least, this is how the Catholic League sees it!

Donohue's crowing is not muted by the facts of the second case:

A second priest, the Rev. James J. Brennan, 49, was tried with Monsignor Lynn, charged with attempted rape and endangerment of a youth, but the defense challenged the accuser’s credibility.

To convict, the jury had to find that Father Brennan had not only abused that boy but continued to put children at risk over subsequent years of ministry. The prosecutors were unable to find later victims. The jury said it was deadlocked on the two counts against Father Brennan, and Judge Sarmina declared a mistrial on those charges.

Donohue, however, is certain that Fr. Brennan was small fry and not the real target of the investigation:

They wanted the big prize—they wanted to nail a high-ranking clergyman on conspiracy. Had they won on this count, they would have been in the driver’s seat to pursue other “conspirators” nationally. Looks like their car ran out of gas in Philadelphia.

Hurrah! Victory!

Just between you and me, however, I suspect the celebratory mood is rather more muted when Donohue and his minions are behind closed doors. Another molester-shuffling cleric has been caught playing “hide the abuser.” The champagne won't have many bubbles.

Who was that masked Hispanic?

I know you are, but what am I?

Yes, we live in entertaining times. The Republicans wallow in the Slough of Despond (taking such comfort as they can in the mud they find there) and the right-wing is contorted in angst and paranoia. (Are they really paranoid if we're out to get them?) In past years, it seemed that no GOP talking point was too absurd to be treated with respect by the supposedly mainstream media. Now, however, it appears that the Republican noise machine may have blown a gasket or two. When they pumped up the propaganda organ to attack President Obama's first nomination to the Supreme Court, quite a few people recognized hot air when they saw it.

Nice.

In particular, the snide attacks on Sonia Sotomayor's “first Hispanic” status deflated rather quickly. It must be quite embarrassing to lecture someone for not doing his homework, only to find out that your “correction” needs correcting. In case you missed it, the argument was that Benjamin Cardozo was actually the first Hispanic justice on the Supreme Court. He served on the high court from 1932 to 1938. Here's a comment from Israel Jewish News that was cheerfully picked up by Free Republic:

Uh, I guess that Obama's PR team isn't capable of looking back in Supreme Court history 70 years? I know the drive-by media can't possibly do any research—that's nothing new. If Obama told them he was going to put the first person on the moon, they would probably just report it without remembering we already did that too.

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Was Justice Cardozo a twofer? Hispanic as well as Jewish? It's a bit of a puzzler, because if Cardozo is considered Hispanic, then so am I.

And I doubt that I am.

Wikipedia cites a biography of Benjamin Cardozo as the source for the claim that the Cardozo family considered itself to be descended from the Marranos of Portugal. These were Jews who converted to Christianity (as least in appearance) to avoid expulsion from the Iberian peninsula (the western end of Europe that comprises both Spain and Portugal). There's no particular reason to doubt the Cardozo family folklore. The last name is common enough in Portuguese circles (although the “Cardoza” variant is dominant).

It's quite possible, therefore, that Benjamin Cardozo was descended from Portuguese Jews. Does that make him Hispanic? It gets down to a matter of conflicting definitions.

My own family would deny being Hispanic, although we might concede being Latino. That opens up a whole new controversy, of course.

“Latino” can be construed as referring to Latin America. That would leave out the Portuguese. It could also be construed as referring to descent from Latin-based Roman culture. If one tries to pare that back to those cultures that retained Latin-based languages, we have the nations whose primary tongues are the Romance languages of Spanish, Portuguese, Italian, French, and Romanian. Good luck sorting that out.

In this country, one sometimes hears the term “Luso-American” applied to people of Portuguese descent. (Or, as my college roommate liked to render it, “Loser-Americans.”) It's not very common, however, and I know of no consensus among the members of my ethnic cohort concerning a preferred nomenclature. We aren't a particularly overt minority.

Sonia Sotomayor, on the other hand, is a thoroughly unambiguous case. The Supreme Court nominee is a puertorriqueña who will clearly be the high court's first Hispanic/Latina member. The critics who advance the name of Cardozo as a counterexample are just plain wrong, but I understand their point. They're gleefully mocking the Obama administration for failing to perform the due diligence that would have discovered a false fact. The Bush administration, after all, used to find false facts all the time.

It was sort of its speciality.

The once and future scapegoat

Twisting Clinton's legacy

Most people thought it was just a clever joke when The Onion greeted the inauguration of George W. Bush with the headline “Our Long National Nightmare of Peace and Prosperity is Finally Over.” It was, unfortunately, perfectly prescient. Although Bill Clinton left office amid complaints that he had failed to live up to expectations, his successor burnished Clinton's reputation to a high and resilient shine. When graded on the curve, Bill looks damned good.

Clinton haters are left grasping for straws when they try to pin all the ills of the world on the 42nd president. After eight years of the 43rd, you'd think those matters would have been resolved. Instead, any problem that existed during the Clinton years pales in comparison with the pratfalls, fumbles, and outright disasters of the Bush years. But never fear. The dedicated Clinton hater will spring to Bush's defense anyway, peering back over the years for the tiniest scrap of evidence to shift blame from 43 to 42.

Dad didn't like it when I gently mocked his I-told-you-so message about Newsweek's silly “socialist” cover. Although my father is not the biggest Bush fan in the world, he took offense when I said, “The housing market and the nation's banking system were just the most recent disasters under his administration. [Bush] must be proud of the smoking ruin he left behind for others to clean up.” Dad thought he had me now. He issued a weary wiser-than-thou rebuttal to his ignorant young left-wing son who, unlike himself, evidently did not experience the horrors of that ancient era known as the nineties:

I wish it were that simple. I remember Janet Reno threaten to sue any loan company if they did not loan money to anyone just because they were poor or minority. so the banks had to loan. That was a liberal policy and it kept growing until it burst. you can not blame that on W. tho he acted more like a liberal than a conservative.

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Oh, yes, Bush's failures are due to his liberal policies. Right. And then there's Janet Reno. She insisted that banks lend money to anyone. I have heard legends of her reign of terror and dimly recall news accounts of her exploits back when I was a downy-cheeked lad in my forties.

Geez, Dad. Give a grown-up son a little credit, why don't you? To the keyboard!

Nonsense, Dad. You're remembering something that didn't happen. The Clinton administration opposed the discriminatory practice of redlining, which automatically denied you a loan if you lived in certain areas. Automatically! Banks wouldn't even bother to look at your application if you came from a Zip code they didn't like. The U.S. Department of Justice under attorney general Janet Reno went after banks that used redlining. Nothing in the legal settlements between the DOJ and various banks required anyone to issue loans to unqualified applicants. Instead the settlements stopped the banks from issuing automatic denials. Individuals had to be permitted to apply, no matter where they lived. They were still, however, subject to nonarbitrary lending qualifications.

Did some banks issue loans to people who couldn't afford them? Definitely. We know they did. But it's not because the feds made them do it. It's because the banking institutions got greedy and figured the housing bubble would continue to expand forever and they could write more paper indefinitely.

Ask your grandson if you don't believe me. He saw first-hand how people in his office were giving loans to unqualified applicants because they thought they could get away with it (and simply offer a refi when the loans became untenable). And under the Bush administration the federal regulators didn't raise a finger to stop them.

Go ahead and blame Janet Reno, if you like, but I know enough about what really happened to not fall for it.

-Z-

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How sharper than a serpent's tooth is the e-mail of an informed child.

Overcoming sanity

It's not crazy when they do it!

Remember “Bush derangement syndrome”? Right-wingers were quick to hurl that charge at anyone who dared criticize the most incompetent administration in American history. They didn't like it when people pointed out that George W. Bush was continuing as president the unbroken line of failure and underachievement he had established as an Air National Guard pilot, oil man, baseball team owner, and state governor. To criticize him was to hate him, they said, and a clear sign of Bush derangement syndrome (BDS).

I did not and do not hate George Bush, although I did despise him and his policies. That's different. It appears, though, that Bush's departure from office has opened the door to a new and more virulent syndrome. I speak, of course, of “Obama derangement syndrome.” Those who suffer from it don't so much suffer from it as wallow in it. The on-line asylum known as Free Republic is the perfect place to see the ODS brigade in gibbering action.

Yes the usurper is truly frightening. I find it difficult to look at him. I am not kidding. I think he has very cold cold dead eyes. He is a back stabber. Smiles at you and then knifes you. He knows exactly what he is doing. His mistake is implementing his plans too quickly. He has shown his hand and even politically unaware people are taking notice. I really can’t stand the sight or sound of him. I avoid him as if he were Satan himself. I need not hear a word he says. It is all lies.

9 posted on Sunday, March 15, 2009 4:58:21 PM by TheConservativeParty
(Democrats are bastard coated bastards with bastard filling.)

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Fascinating, isn't it? I remember thinking, every time that I saw Bush's simpering face in the newspaper or on television, how embarrassing it was that he was our nation's chief executive. I considered him a shallow and ignorant man who pandered to the most narrow-minded constituencies in the country. I did not, however, think George W. Bush was evil incarnate—pure malice walking among us in human form. (Dick Cheney has that job covered.)

But the ODS crowd is right up there with the paranoid John Birch Society members of the 1950s and 60s. You know, the loonies who considered Dwight Eisenhower (of all people) to be a “conscious, dedicated agent of the Communist Conspiracy.” Today the inheritors of the wingnut legacy spew their hatred at the new man in the White House, delighting in calling him “Hussein” and spelling his last name with a zero in place of the O. They really think he has a plan to destroy the United States.

The insanity may be just beginning.

Pat Boone's excellent adventure

But it was only a dream

To be fair about it, Pat Boone was the first to admit that his dream could have been caused by something he ate. (I'm guessing it was a pineapple, green pepper, and anchovy pizza.) For him, though, it was anything but a nightmare. No, it was total wish fulfillment, fraught with epic craziness right from the beginning:

News Bulletin: In a stunning, unprecedented civilian uprising, President Obama, Vice President Biden, Speaker Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Reid were recalled and sent packing. Practically overnight, responding to the national emergency, an extraordinary election propelled entertainer/activist Pat Boone into the White House.

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That's the way dreams are, of course: entirely independent of reality. There are no constitutional provisions for recalling the president, vice president, House speaker, and Senate majority leader. And if Boone is thinking of impeachment, that doesn't apply to legislators. It's a fantasy, right along with the notion of a special election for president—yet another thing that is not in the constitution. There's an order of succession for the presidency and it leaves no room for Pat.

First of all, I wonder what Pat has been smoking. Second, why doesn't the U.S. Constitution exist in his dreamland? It's strange how much contempt the super-patriotic demonstrate toward our founding documents. (They're not really patriots at all, are they?) He fantasizes about having Newt Gingrinch back in his old job as Speaker of the House. I guess Boone's alternate universe allows U.S. presidents to appoint the congressional leadership. Does the man who thinks President Obama is a socialist hunger for the opportunity to be a fascist chief executive?

Pat Boone rushes through his frenetic extremist agenda, giving the military absolutely everything it wants and then imagining the revocation of the economic bail-out measures. President Boone fantasizes how happy Americans will celebrate the collapse into Chapter 11 bankruptcy of the country's banks and lending institutions and automobile companies. They won't mind, you see, because the national debt won't be as large under a Boone administration—unless, of course, the prostrate economy pulls the rug out from under the federal government's revenues.

But President Boone is ready. He and his fantasy-league secretary of the treasury, Steve Forbes, ride to the rescue with the flat tax:

With Secretary Forbes' guidance, we instituted the long-sought flat tax, greatly simplifying the whole process and making it much fairer to everybody. Nobody would pay more than 10 percent, and with family deductions, lower-income folks would pay little or nothing. Amazingly, by ridding ourselves of a 700-page code and all the loopholes still in it, and by taking undue burdens off businesses, statistics showed that the government would do better than it ever did before with all its labyrinthine complexity.

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Boone commits the usual sin of pretending that a flat tax is required for tax simplification. Nonsense. It's an entirely separate issue and there's no inherent reason that a progressive tax structure has to be as complicated as the one we have.

As for “long-sought,” Boone is talking about the plutocrats who relish the thought of shifting the tax burden toward people with lower incomes. That's what the flat tax would do. He tries to finesse the issue by offering a family deduction that would wipe out the tax obligation of some low-income families, but it's an implicit acknowledgment of the key idea behind progressive tax rates: poor people pay less. Dollars may be created equal, but they don't stay that way. A dollar in the pocket of a poor person is subsistence. That same dollar in a millionaire's pocket is negligible. As described, even Boone's cherished flat tax contains two de facto tax brackets and lacks ideal flatness. No one dares support a truly flat tax.

Boone natters away at various other ideas, such as returning to the gold standard, revoking foreign aid, and fighting abortion. Then he turns his magisterial attention to education:

As a man who intended to be a teacher myself, I issued an ultimatum to the teachers' unions: They would return to basic math, including arithmetic, and basic English (the mandated official language), and basic science devoid of unproven theories like evolution, sticking instead to factual evidence and not discounting “intelligent design” as the more scientific basis for life and existence. All history books would again detail the reasons America was founded, and tell the stories of our Founding Fathers and national heroes—not latter day revisions. Teachers' pay and advancement would depend on the test scores and comprehension of their students.

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What a teacher the world lost when Pat Boone was diverted into the entertainment industry! How fortunate we are that the end of his singing career has freed him to become a political pundit and teach us all how the world should be.

Too bad he's an idiot, prating about intelligent design as if it bears any relationship to science or reality, insisting on turning the Founding Fathers back into brightly colored two-dimensional cardboard cut-outs, and creating a situation in which teachers have to teach to a state-mandated test to preserve their careers. It's a Republican paradise!

Having created the plenipotentiary presidency of George W. Bush's dreams, Boone ends his own nocturnal emission with an edict to the judiciary, which he expects to tremble before him:

And a final ultimatum was directed to the courts, from the Supremes on down to local judiciary: “Hands off religion, as the First Amendment dictates. And you will no longer legislate from the bench. Keep your personal ideas to yourselves, and enforce the legislated will of the people.”

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Hey, Pat! You want the will of the people? Then pay attention! Last year the people gave Barack Obama 365 electoral votes and a popular-vote margin of several percentage points in making him president of the United States. The people also gave the Democratic Party large majorities in both houses of congress. The people have spoken.

You really ought to wake up and listen.

It only looked progressive

The breakthrough that wasn't

James Flournoy is dead. I was a little surprised to learn that he had still been alive. The former Republican candidate for statewide office in California reached the age of 93 before passing away. Tributes poured in from all quarters, including the warm words of erstwhile rival Jerry Brown, who was quoted in the Los Angeles Times as saying, “He was a wonderful man and a true gentleman.”

I will not quibble. No one had a harsh word to say about Mr. Flournoy and I think it likely he was exactly the even-tempered and delightful man portrayed in the news reports of his death. However, there is less to the James Flournoy story than meets the eye, although press accounts would seem to argue otherwise. Here is what Jon Thurber says about him in the Los Angeles Times:

James Flournoy, the Republican candidate for California secretary of state in 1970 who was the first African American nominated by either major party for a partisan statewide office, has died. He was 93....

Flournoy, a prominent lawyer in Los Angeles for decades, was one of the few black politicians in the GOP at the time.

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However, no one bothered to provide the context for Flournoy's campaigns—a context that saps the man's political career of much of its pioneering significance, for all that Flournoy himself was a gracious and accomplished man.

You see, Flournoy's nomination for statewide office on the Republican ticket was a fluke, even though it happened twice. It was not a sign of enlightenment and progressive values in the state Republican Party. In 1970, when Flournoy threw his hat in the ring for the job of secretary of state, his most significant asset was his name. The incumbent state controller was Houston Flournoy, one of the most well-regarded and popular elected officials in California. Although James and Houston were not related, they shared an usual last name. People who liked the state controller were happy enough to pull the lever for another Flournoy for secretary of state (or perhaps they even thought it was the same Flournoy).

The Democratic candidate for secretary of state that year was Jerry Brown. In all fairness, the same thing could be said of Brown that I just said of James Flournoy: His greatest asset was his name. Edmund G. “Jerry” Brown, Jr., was the son of Edmund G. “Pat” Brown, the former two-term governor of California who would always be famous for defeating Richard Nixon in 1962 (and sparking Nixon's infamous “last press conference”). Jerry Brown rode his famous name into the secretary of state's office and used that platform to prepare for a later successful campaign for governor.

Jerry Brown's rival in the 1974 gubernatorial contest was Republican Houston Flournoy, vacating his position as state controller to take a shot at higher office. While Jerry and Houston were squaring away against each other, who made a run at the state controller's office? None other than James Flournoy, this time going after the office being vacated by the other Flournoy. It didn't work that time, possibly because Houston Flournoy's profile was even higher as a result of his campaign for governor and James Flournoy was now known as the guy who had lost to Brown in 1970. Another Republican got the nomination that year.

Not one to give up, James Flournoy took a second crack at the controller's job in 1982, this time winning the Republican nomination in a year when no one felt there was any chance of knocking off the Democratic incumbent. Flournoy was buried in a landslide, losing by over 1.5 million votes in the November 1982 general election. It was the end of a political career that never really went anywhere, but gave California's Republican Party the unlooked-for distinction of being the first major political party to nominate an African American for statewide office. But it wasn't anything more than pure political opportunism by the GOP leaders who thought they might be able to parlay the coincidence of Flournoy's last name into an upset victory. And James Flournoy, nice guy that he was, didn't object to taking a chance that lightning might strike.

By an interesting coincidence, back in 1970, while James Flournoy was writing a footnote to California's political history as the first black man to win a statewide nomination from a major party, someone else was preparing to become the first black man ever elected to statewide office. It was in the contest for the nonpartisan position of state Superintendent of Public Instruction. Although the candidates in that race lacked official party labels, everyone knew that incumbent Max Rafferty was the Republican (he had previously run as the GOP's candidate for U.S. Senate) and challenger Wilson Riles was the Democrat. The state Republican Party backed Rafferty for re-election while carefully averting their gaze from Rafferty's deliberately race-baiting campaign.

Sure, they might have had James Flournoy on their ticket as their candidate for secretary of state, but all was fair in love and politics. Right?

Prager's pragmatics

You must agree

It's a pity that he is going to hell because he denies Jesus, but Dennis Prager is still one of my mother's favorite talk show hosts. His conservatism is of a more high-toned nature than that of the general crowd and thus appeals to my mother's gentility. (I swear that's not a pun on “gentile”; it just came out that way.)

Anyway, Prager lacks Limbaugh's overt nastiness and misogyny while still being very conservative, so my mother finds him simpatico. I check out his program every so often to see what the polite right-wingers are talking about these days (and to learn what Mom is listening to). He has some skill at sounding reasonable, but it's mostly just a lower-decibel version of the same right-wing cant.

Prager recently aired a debate with Christopher Hitchens, part of which I heard. Prager trotted out one of his favorite “proofs” that religion is both normative and desirable. Perhaps you know it. Prager asks you to suppose that you encounter ten men coming out of a dark alley. Scary! But wouldn't you be relieved to know that they were coming from a Bible study class?

That proves Bible study is good, I guess. Or that people who study the Bible are good (as long as they don't take too seriously all those passages about stoning people). Or, at least, they aren't likely to be muggers.

Well, neither are people who just came from a PTA meeting, or a night class, or a computer club. Hitchens said he'd rather they came from a seminar on Tom Paine, the irreligious author of Common Sense. Prager and Hitchens agreed that that would be unlikely, but only Hitchens seemed to regret that fact.

Prager's parable is a low bar for establishing the significance of religion, isn't it? He commented on his favorite gambit in his Townhall column, saying, “I have always specified ‘Bible class’ because I assume that in America, anyone with common sense would in fact be very relieved if they knew that the 10 strangers, all men, approaching them in a dark alley were committed to either Judaism or Christianity and studying the Bible.” For some reason, Prager was at pains to exclude non-Judeo-Christian creeds from his roster of goodness. I imagine it would deflate the point he was trying to make. The United States is a (Judeo)Christian nation, you know. “I therefore pose this question to make the rather obvious point that nearly all of us instinctively assume some positive things about normative Judaism and Christianity in America.”

Prager revised his scenario for a show in which he discussed the definition of marriage. Once again, the listener is asked to imagine being approached by a group of unknown individuals. Wouldn't you be worried if it was all guys? Wouldn't you be relieved if it turned out to be a collection of heterosexual married couples walking hand in hand? (I think the hand in hand part is crucial.)

For me, personally, I think the degree of relief would depend on the amount of body art and the fraction of Ace Hardware's inventory dangling from piercings, but perhaps that's just me. We could ask Dennis. He certainly appears to think that Proposition 8 makes us safer at night in California.

But as far as relief is concerned, I'm sure I would be just as much at ease if the approaching group consisted of hand-in-hand gay couples. Gay boys out on the town are not likely to be muggers. What have we to fear? Well, in my case, perhaps some trenchant observations about my complete lack of style sense or fashion knowledge. (I'm sure that Prager understands that all gay boys are obsessed with appearances and superficialities.) It would, however, be mostly harmless.

Is Prager mostly harmless? I wonder.

More creationist lies

You'd think God would mind

Why is it that devout creationists don't feel bound by the absolute truths of God's word? No matter how you divide up the tangled text of Exodus 19, the Ten Commandments always end up containing a rule against bearing false witness. Nevertheless, those who purport to take the Bible seriously barely hesitate before lying about evolution, Darwin, or any other target of their disdain. Apparently it's okay to lie if you're doing it for the greater glory of God.

Tricky.

The second 2009 issue of Answers Update from Answers in Genesis continues AiG's struggle against Darwin in particular and reality in general. The newsletter depicts Lincoln's visage as portrayed by the statue in his memorial in Washington. Across Lincoln's chest they've printed the words, “Our focus this month should be on Lincoln, and not a racist man like Darwin.”

There are at least two problems with the implications of AiG's declaration. Was Darwin a racist while Lincoln was not? The case of the Great Emancipator is a complicated one. Although he abhorred slavery and was the instrument of its abolition in the United States, he was enough a creature of his times that he was willing to go on record in support of the superiority of whites. In the fourth Lincoln-Douglas debate, he said, “I am not, nor ever have been in favor of bringing about in any way the social and political equality of the white and black races.... I as much as any other man am in favor of having the superior position assigned to the white race.”

Thus Lincoln is not the perfect foil with which to skewer Darwin for any alleged racism. What about the other half of AiG's claim. Was Darwin truly a racist? Answers Update notes that Darwin referred to “degraded” people who were “savage.” That's neither remarkable nor particularly significant, since any well-to-do English gentleman could be expected to so characterize the living conditions of the native of Tierra del Fuego and other primitive lands. (Oh, oh! I just said “primitive”!)

Furthermore, Answers Update tells us that Darwin would rather have descended from a monkey than from a dark-skinned savage. Is this really what Darwin said? The source of this item is a passage in The Descent of Man, in which Darwin said:

For my own part I would as soon be descended from that heroic little monkey, who braved his dreaded enemy in order to save the life of his keeper, or from that old baboon, who descending from the mountains, carried away in triumph his young comrade from a crowd of astonished dogs—as from a savage who delights to torture his enemies, offers up bloody sacrifices, practices infanticide without remorse, treats his wives like slaves, knows no decency, and is haunted by the grossest superstitions.

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It seems that Darwin is merely citing man's well-known inhumanity to man and pointing out that humanity is not the exclusive possessor of virtue.

After this bit of quote-mining, AiG offers the following additional evidence:

Also, the subtitle of Darwin's main work On the Origin of Species further reveals his racist beliefs: “The Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life.”

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(AiG added the emphasis to “favoured.”) There is it, then. Darwin stands condemned by his own choice of words.

Except that we know better. And, we suspect, so does Ken Ham, who leveled these accusations against Darwin in his AiG radio program and then echoed them in Answers Update. Darwin is not using “race” in its narrow sense as applied to humans. The word is used in The Origin of Species in a much broader sense. Ham is almost certainly consciously lying when he spins the subtitle of Origin to tar Darwin with the brush of racism.

Consider, if you will, the following excerpts from Darwin's Origin:

Nevertheless, as our varieties certainly do occasionally revert in some of their characters to ancestral forms, it seems to me not improbable that if we could succeed in naturalising, or were to cultivate, during many generations, the several races, for instance, of the cabbage, in very poor soil—in which case, however, some effect would have to be attributed to the definite action of the poor soil—that they would, to a large extent, or even wholly, revert to the wild aboriginal stock.

When we look to the hereditary varieties or races of our domestic animals and plants, and compare them with closely allied species, we generally perceive in each domestic race, as already remarked, less uniformity of character than in true species.

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You see that? Darwin even applies the word to cabbages. Is he therefore wickedly insulting the Cruciferae (and we could therefore denounce him as a “cruciferist”)?

I don't know what Darwin thought about cabbages in general, so I won't venture an opinion. I will, however, venture the opinion that Ken Ham belongs to the species known as Homo prevaricator.

When liars figure

Although the figures don't lie

Misleading numbers are everywhere. Is it innumeracy or mendacity that spawns them? Sometimes I think it's both. Remember the bogus argument that autoworkers were making $70 an hour? That grotesque exaggeration was spread by right-wingers who embraced its propaganda value. Some of them probably knew it was false but didn't care.

Does Bill Saracino care when he peddles bad numbers? Does he even know that he's doing so? He uses simple arithmetic to calculate his misleading results, so it's possible he has great confidence in their accuracy. It's difficult to say. It's not, however, difficult to discern their bogosity. Check this out, from the February 5, 2009, installment of the Sacramento Union:

The stimulus bill gives the Coast Guard $572 million for “acquisition, construction and improvements.” It is claimed that these funds will create 1,235 new jobs. Grab your abacus and do the math. The cost of “creating” each of these occupations comes to $460,000 per new job.

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We see that Bill cared enough to put “acquisition, construction and improvements” in quotation marks but not enough to read the words. “Acquisition” suggests buying property or matériel; that doesn't go into the pockets of the workers. “Construction” says that things are going to be built. Labor is by no means the only cost of construction projects. The results will be new Coast Guard facilities with a useful lifetime of decades. “Improvements” are in this same vein.

But Bill isn't done:

The Department of Defense gets $200 million to install plug-in car stations for its plug-in cars, of which it has 53,526. We taxpayers get each plug-in station for the bargain price of $3,700 per car serviced.

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He evidently has a key on his calculator that permits him to do division. Good for him! But once again he neglects the minor consideration that the plug-in stations will create jobs for construction workers and electricians, that the stations will used for decades, and that the DoD's need for such stations will undoubtedly grow in the future. It's a long-term investment with immediate job-creation aspects.

One more:

The bill proposes $600 million for the federal government to buy new cars. The feds already spend $3 billion a year on a fleet of 600,000 vehicles. America’s Big Three automakers got more than $25 billion in December’s $750 billion pork-fest. Do they really need $600 million more? Does the federal government really need $600 million worth of new cars?

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If only Mr. Saracino understood some of the more arcane functions of his calculator, he would see that $600 million is 20% of $3 billion (assuming he gets the troublesome decimal place right; percentages are tough). I'll admit that $600 million is real money (as Everett Dirksen might have said), but 20% is not staggeringly large. (I'd like a 20% pay increase, please, but it won't make me a millionaire.)

Bill eventually has mercy on us: “I could go on—oh, how I could go on—but I think you get the ugly picture.” Yes, we get the ugly picture. You're an innumerate propagandist for the right wing. But just to show there's no hard feelings, here's a nice calculator trick that you'll enjoy.

Four-letter word

Short words and small minds

Oh, oh. We are apparently in the grip of a tsarist resurgence. Had you noticed? The national media assures us that this is so. This is especially true of the petulant right-wing publications that are having trouble processing the fact that liberals triumphed in the last election. (Liberals! In a center-right nation!) But even the more moderate national press isn't exempt. Here's a sampler of examples:

President-elect Barack Obama is nearing an appointment of his “car czar” and appears to be focused on Steven Rattner, the financier with close connections to the Democratic Party, according to people briefed on the conversations. —New York Times, January 13, 2009

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Role of Federal Tech Czar to Be Defined by Obama. —Washington Post, November 14, 2008

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Sen. James M. Inhofe, ranking Republican on the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, asked Nancy Sutley, Mr. Obama's pick for Council on Environmental Quality (CEQ) chairman, whether she would be undermined by the new climate czar, Carol M. Browner. —Washington Times, January 19, 2009

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Obama Era of 1,000 Czars Ushers in Caesar. —NewsMax.com, November 14, 2008.

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Too Many Czars? —Sacramento Union, January 22, 2009

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It's scary, I tell you. The latest item, published in the Sacramento Union, is from the columnist Peter Hannaford, a relic of the Reagan years who has yet to come to terms with the 21st century (and apparently wasn't too crazy about the 20th either). As Hannaford puts it,

The Obama White House starts out with no fewer than eight “czars” (including at least two czarinas). There is one each for the economy, energy, health care, counter-terrorism, government performance, regulations, urban affairs and education.

All modern presidents have had staff specialists for various major topics. The National Security Council and Council of Economic Advisers have been with us for decades. The idea is to develop information and options for the president in various areas independent of the bureaucracies of the cabinet departments. A specialist, however, is one thing, a czar quite another.

The term “czar” implies that the person holding the title is supreme in his particular area, not only coordinating the work of various relevant agencies, but also determining priorities and conveying the president’s orders.

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Yes, the term “czar” smacks of supreme arbitrary authority. Imagine the effrontery, the nerve, the cheek of the Obama administration to so lightly assume the trappings of totalitarianism!

Except...

It didn't.

Go ahead and check the White House website. In fact, try searching it with Google (now that President Obama has revoked the Bush blockade on search-engine indexing of on-line executive branch information). Use “czar site:whitehouse.gov” to see what you get.

Nothing, basically. All the hits are from the Bush administration. Nothing from the new Obama administration, despite the new president's supposed fondness for creating positions for a new horde of little despots and using titles from the days of imperial Russia.

Carol Browner, the energy (or climate) czar? She's actually Obama's “energy coordinator,” although Time magazine headlined her appointment as “Energy Czar: Carol Browner.”

Cass Sunstein? The president has appointed him as chief administrator of the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs within the executive branch's Office of Management and Budget. The Chicago Tribune, however, heralds Sunstein's nomination with “Left not sold on Obama's regulation czar pick.”

I think I gave the game away with that one, right? Sunstein's real title is just too long. The Tribune's headline writer would be hard pressed to fit “head of the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs” into the space allowed for an article heading. Even “OIRA administrator” would be a challenge, but hardly anyone would understand it.

There are only two reasons that “czar” is the word of the moment:

1. It's short, fitting into headlines and serving as a convenient synonym for much lengthier titles. It's not perfect, but convenience rules the press in circumstances like these.
2. Right-wing commentators have so little to work with these days that they seize upon anything as a basis for their fulminations. After eight years of autocratic rule by their boy George, they need a way to project the hubris of the past onto the new occupant of the White House.

Reason (1) I fully understand, especially in print media, but I decry its casual use in broadcast media and don't see why newspapers insist on using it in the main body of their articles (as opposed to headlines). Laziness and convenience are not difficult to understand.

Reason (2) I also understand, but for those wingnut propagandists I have no patience. They are spinning as hard as they can, trying to whip something out of nothing. (It ought to work. They turned a transplanted Texas lackwits into a president.) For them I have a four-letter word other than “czar”:

Forget you!

Darn. I think I misspelled it.

The lidless eye

Evil stalks us

An unsleeping malice has crept up from the Dark South and lain in wait for me. Today it pounced. I was minding my own business, tending to the fuel requirements of my vehicle, when the gas pump came to electronic life and began to bombard me with commercial advertisements. Yes, a northern California Shell station had become infested with TV ads, with small televisions blaring out commercials from atop each pump. It was a nightmare come true.

The ads were interspersed with public-service announcements, offering me advice about road conditions. I guess that's supposed to make it all okay. Then the screen flashed an in-house ad for PumpTop TV, extolling the benefits of shoving advertising into yet a another new venue. (Yesterday, the inside surfaces of restroom stalls; today, the tops of gasoline pumps; tomorrow, the world!) The purveyors of this new intrusion into our lives are not shy when it comes to bragging about their intentions:

PumpTop TV is a premier Out-of-Home Digital Media network that delivers current news, entertainment and advertising to millions of drivers as they fuel their vehicles at the gas pump. Daylight-viewable LCD screens mounted at eye level on top of gasoline pumps at select, high-volume gas stations provide a broadcast television-like experience (video and audio) to a desirable, captive audience out of the home.

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Yeah, “captive audience.” They actually say it.

Damn them.

Apparently this new venture has been building for a couple of years. Westinghouse brags that their equipment is now installed in some 700 service stations. The invasion apparently began in Los Angeles in the first half of 2007. I was blissfully unaware of its gradual encroachment on northern California until the ads began to blare at me.

I will not go to that gas station again, but I fear I am fighting a doomed rear-guard action. The soulsuckers are here.

I'm too mild-mannered to use the hammer from the toolbox in the trunk of my car, but I can think of some nice new applications for contact paper.

Damn.