BARKING AT TRAFFIC

"ITS THE MANTRA STUPID" - WHEN MITT TALKS THIS IS WHAT I HEAR

2012-01-10T11:00:00.011-05:00

Good morning. Great to be here, whereever and whoever I am today.
You can tell by the fact that I wear jeans and no jacket that I am just a folksy billionaire who understands who you are - humans with a pulse who might vote for me if I say something amusing about your pancakes.

My consultants tell me that I should always imply that Obama is somehow foreign. That's why I've been repeating that he wants America to be like Europe. This lets me play the racial dog whistle thing about Obama not being a true American while smearing his health care plan without reminding people that it was my idea.
Recently I was saying that Obama is a "let them eat cake" Marie Antoinette. He has absolutely no idea how tough it is to start with only a 3,000 square foot beach front home and replace it with an 11,000 square foot home working only with millions of dollars and a team of architects.
So as Gingrich and Santorum are looking even weirder than I am, I'm feeling more confident and relaxed. This is not that hard as long as I keep repeating the mantra.

To create jobs, my plan will encourage investment and expansion by restraining federal spending, reducing regulation and making the tax relief permanent.

Who needs think tanks and speech writers? I got that off the internet from George Bush’s 2004 nomination acceptance speech.We're Republicans. We don’t get all bogged down with facts and history.
So all I have to do from here to the convention is keep my foot out of my mouth, mention Obama and Europe whenever possible, throw out some red meat to poor Republicans about abortion, gays, immigration and welfare.
I just need to remember “ its the mantra stupid” then step back and watch as the corporate money floods in.
As Obama’s friend Marie Antoinette once said, "piece of cake".

Feel’in queasy

2011-12-17T07:43:00.004-05:00

Maybe it's Mitt's psycho laugh
when nothing is funny
or maybe it's how he seems to be made of nothing - but money

Then there’s weird chubby Newt with his Tiffany’s tab
who thinks making children clean toilets
would really be fab

and what’s with the names of these two would be chieftans
Mitt and Newt might be fine
if we were naming kittens

but when Im not laughing Im nauseous without relief
at the thought of either of these jerks
as commander in chief

CONVINCING LITTLE RED RIDING HOOD THAT THE WOLF IS GRANDMA- THE GREAT REPUBLICAN MAGIC TRICK

2011-08-22T08:12:00.018-04:00

ANYONE WHO CAN CONVINCE THESE GUYS

THAT JOBS WILL BE CREATED AND THE DEFICIT REDUCED BY CUTTING THE TAXES OF PEOPLE LIKE THIS GUY

Rush Limbaugh House - Powered by: Celebrity House Pictures

COULD TEACH THIS GUY A THING OR TWO

BREAKING NEWS - LARGE WHITE MAN NOT WATCHING SUPER BOWL

2011-02-05T14:34:00.007-05:00

It's the other closet and I'm coming out it. I'm not living in the shadows any longer - so brace yourself - here is the truth.

I'm not watching the super bowl tomorrow night because I just don't give a rat's tuchus about football. I never have and I never will!

There I said it out loud. So far my flat screen TV hasn't blown itself up.

It’s always been my closet problem because sports talk is the great male ice breaker. If I'm in an elevator with one other guy on a Monday morning the odds are good he 's going to say, " that was some game wasn't it?"

As a heterosexual who does not read the sports section I know that nothing brings out a guy's homophobia more than another guy replying, "sorry I don’t follow football."

If I answered honestly, it would be like responding to " boy its freezing out there" with "sorry I don’t follow the weather".

Instead I try to see what floor he pressed. If I only need to fill a few seconds I can usually just make a noise like Im blowing out a bunch of candles followed by a knowing sideways head nod and a smirk.
If I have to buy some more time I move my head around like one of those bobble head things people put in the rear window of their cars and continue the blowing sound with my teeth together for a little variety. Seconds later the guy walks out thinking he just had conversation with another guy about football when in fact he did not.

So tomorrow night is approaching. Might be a good time for politicians about to be indicted to hold a live press conference on c-span because I'd be the only one watching.

A POST RIPOSTE

2011-01-25T08:13:00.005-05:00

TO THE EDITOR NY POST

Your 1/24/11 editorial attacking the “lefty scriveners” who argue that the governor needs to do something about the huge gap between rich and poor is based on the right wing mantra that school lunches and food stamps are bad because the government is picking our pockets to pay for it. OK lets forget the argument that we need to do something about the crippling impact of poverty on growing children as a matter of human decency. Lets talk about self interest. Maybe the gap between rich and poor is everyone's problem because we dont want to become a society where people with money go home at night to live behind high walls and barbed wire to protect themselves from hungry poor people. Maybe we all benefit when most people can live at acceptable levels of decency. I hope Andrew remembers his father's metaphor of society as a dinner table at which government has a responsibility to make sure that while some people get to eat at the table the majority aren’t eating off the floor.
Bob Salzman

HERE’S THE POST EDITORIAL

Fudging the income gap

Foul is fair in the fetid air of the state Legislature, where Albany's tin-pot kleptocrats are pushing more poison on the state's economy.

The plan: Sock it to the "rich" by extending the so-called "millionaire's tax," which targets even couples earning $250,000 a year.

Like, say, an NYPD lieutenant and his assistant-principal wife who earn a little overtime each year.

And right on cue come the lefty scriveners at the Fiscal Policy Institute, who recently ginned up a fact base for the approaching fight with Gov. Cuomo and his merry budgeteers.

Andrew Cuomo

False facts, as it turns out.

The FPI says the income gap between New York's rich and poor is at a historic high.

"New York state is the most polarized among the 50 states," it claims. In New York City, the richest 1 percent take in 44 percent of all income.

The FPI calls it a tragedy.

But it's really statistical sleight-of-hand: The rich look richer, the poor look poorer -- until you check the numbers.

The study apparently only eyes income before taxes -- that is, before the city, state and feds suck cash from the bottom line.

And poverty in New York is tempered by massive wealth transfers from the taxpaying rich and middle class to the untaxed poor -- which somehow didn't make it into the report.

Those transfers add up -- there's the Earned-Income Tax Credit, housing subsidies, energy subsidies, food stamps, free school lunches, and on and on.

What else did it leave out?

A fifth of the state is on Medicaid, costing taxpayers $1 billion a week. And the Safelink program provides poor New Yorkers with free cellphones.

Truth is, the rich-poor divide reflects New York's strength as a world financial center. Wall Street pay soared, but tax revenue did too, benefiting everyone.

Tellingly, the report's data ends right where the recession began. Yet when the big boom ended, the wealthy became demonstrably less so.

New York City's draw also helps explain why some of its poverty persists. The final years of the study, 2000-2007, coincide with the highest levels of immigration in US history.

That's important: Most immigrants perform unskilled labor and lack higher education -- so their wages are low and keep the overall poverty rate static.

Statistics may stay the same, but economic conditions for individuals are always changing, as immigrants and other newcomers move up in the city.

Most of New York's poorest won't be at the bottom for life.

But the FPI wants you to ignore that. Its solution: even higher taxes for top earners -- that millionaire's tax again.

Don't buy the hype. Keeping the tax alive will only drive more taxpayers -- and more revenue -- from the state.

Gov. Cuomo is right to let it die.

Memo to liberals who have fallen out of love with Obama - this is long distance running not professional wrestling

2010-12-23T06:22:00.029-05:00

Consider the possibility that by not giving them a target maybe - just maybe - he's depriving the ReFoxicans of oxygen

This week the best Sara Palin could come up with was criticizing Michelle Obama for trying to reduce childhood obesity. She said that Michelle Obama "should get off our back and allow us as individuals to exercise our own God-given rights to make our own decisions". As an act of protest she gave a cooking lesson on her TV show about how to make s'mores.

This is Sara Palin's solution to the epidemic of childhood obesity

John McCain emerged from the “dont ask dont tell” vote looking like a mean spirited homophobic dinosaur as conclusively proven by this photo

For at least a few days - with no small thanks to Jon Stewart - the Republican 911 smoke machine is down for repairs

On the Arms Control treaty Senators McConnell and Kyl found themselves out manuevered and standing alone on one side of the dance floor staring at Obama holding hands with Condoleeza Rice, Henry Kissinger, George Schultz, George Bush Sr and Angela Merkel

Without an easy target, Rush Limbaugh - the Wizard of the Wingnuts - was forced to float even further away from earth's gravitational pull to dream up this for his web site this week-

The Latest from Rush..

START Treaty is Part of Obama's Effort to Disarm the United States

It's the lifelong dream of Obama and Democrats.

Check out a little prior barking on this subject at http://barkingattraffic.blogspot.com/2009/09/obama-announcement-of-possible-sneeze.html

As the forces of darkness pick up their black satin capes from the dry cleaners and get ready to take over Congress and the new Chair of the Homeland Security Committee, Rep. King gears up for his anti Muslim witch hunt hearings . . .

the first turtle has been busy putting one foot after the other and racking up an impressive list of year end accomplishments

A friend responds

You're a very optimistic guy. I can hear the melody line of "I'm A Believer" in the background.
Maybe you're right. May it be so. I am picturing that turtle flattened on the median of the highway trying to get across.

Hey Dems- Hows that strategy of being comatose workin out for ya?

2010-11-21T09:02:00.014-05:00

During the campaign the dems had a rapid response team that responded to everything out of the McCain Palin camp within the same news cycle.

After the campaign the Republicans kept the campaign going and the Democrats turned off the lights. The result was a vacuum that the Refoxican big lie machine has been able to fill. Every John and Jane Fox viewer can spit back the sound bites like a juror that a great trial lawyer has bamboozled.

Its like we are on trial for our lives and the other guys have a team of great lawyers and the Democrats are like the lawyer from My Cousin Vinnie who cant talk.

For example- why isn’t every Democrat in Congress starting every interview by demanding that John Boehner document one job that was created by the Bush era tax cuts?

A friend writes . . .

Yup, it's pretty rich. X million jobs lost while the Bush tax cuts in effect, and they still have the shamlessness to stand up and say the cuts are job-creators. Wow. Evidence conclusive--against. But no one mentions that it cannnnnnnnot be true.
Forget it. Country's terminally dumb and can't be revived. No hope. No change

America puts itself to sleep with a Tea Party fairy tale - stay tuned for John Boehner playing the lead in “The Emperor Has No Clothes" - the future is looking grimm

2010-11-01T08:07:00.009-04:00

. . .

This piece of rudeness was more than Alice could bear: she got up in great disgust, and walked off; the Dormouse fell asleep instantly, and neither of the others took the least notice of her going, though she looked back once or twice, half hoping that they would call after her: the last time she saw them, they were trying to put the Dormouse into the teapot.

`At any rate I'll never go there again!' said Alice as she picked her way through the wood. `It's the stupidest tea-party I ever was at in all my life!'

from
Alice's Adventures in Wonderland
by Lewis Carroll
Chapter VII A Mad Tea Party

DO YOU HAVE WHAT IT TAKES TO BE A REFOXICAN?

2010-09-11T07:02:00.088-04:00

Here’s a quick quiz to see if being a Refoxican is your cup of “tea”.
Don’t worry you won’t have to waste time thinking.

1.The constitution protects religious freedom for everyone
a. except for people who are unpleasant

2. In a democracy after a presidential election the winner gets to be president
a. unless he has dark skin and was sent here as an infant from a far away land to destroy our way of life.

3. All we have to do to save the US economy and create jobs is to;
a. give billions in tax cuts to the wealthiest people in America and they will take care of us.

4. We can’t afford medical insurance for 40 million uninsured Americans because that’s socialism but it’s ok to flush billions into the sewer each day to pay for Bush’s Iraq invasion based on a big fat lie .

-----------------------------------------------------------
because at least at least none of the money is being spent to help
A. “those people”

5. We need less government and more freedom;
A. except for gay or pregnant people.

6. According to Rush Limbaugh($37 million a year), Glenn Beck ($32 million a year), Sean Hannity ($20 million) and Sarah Palin( $12 million since stepping down as Alaska Gov) the growing gap between rich and poor is bad is not a problem and anyone who says otherwise is
a. a socialist

See "Income inequality to Big to Ignore" Robert H. Frank NYTimes, Sunday 10/17/10
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/17/business/17view.html?_r=1&src=me&ref=general

7. True or False
On September 11, 2010 at a memorial service did a certain grizzly maverick show that she would never exploit the sacred memory of the 911 victims for her own political purposes with this comment;
..

.Tonight I think I'll see some of you at a Glenn Beck event that we have in Anchorage. Woohoo! I know. What would we do without Fox News? I don't know .

answer - You betcha!

Here's the clip of her saying it
.http://www.huffingtonpost.com/akmuckraker/sarah-palin-in-wasilla-fo_b_713627.html?utm_source=DailyBrief&utm_campaign=091310&utm_medium=email&utm_content=BlogEntry

Well? How did you do?

Remember- If you’re angry and frustrated hang on because the ReFoxicans are poised to take back the wheel.

Take a look at this time line for a reminder of how things worked out in the eight years the ReFoxicans had the car keys from 2000 (Dow 10,794) to 2008 (Dow Jones 9,000)

What the Hell Just Happened? A Timeline of the Bush Years

TO THE CLASS OF 2010 - SORRY - OUR BAD

2010-06-26T07:21:00.103-04:00

To my college graduating twin daughters-

A few weeks ago we sat teary eyed through two graduation ceremonies - parents hugging their fresh faced beaming kids thinking about how we once changed your diapers. Now we're handing you the keys to the world and feeling pretty lousy about what a clunker it is.

Sorry you guys

Sorry about an economy in which a kid with a college degree is thrilled to land a volunteer internship

Sorry about Rush Limbaugh - the love child of a menage a trois between Joe McCarthy, Father Coughlin and Moby Dick

Sorry about Sarah Palin and her armed angry mobs of religious fundamentalists who don't give much of a hoot about post embryonic lives other than their own - unless you're in a coma - then they’ve got your back

Sorry about the Tea Party desecrating pictures of the first African American president with a Hitler mustache while claiming its about health care reform when everyone knows the real reason

Sorry about Iraq, when George Bush proved Lincoln wrong - in fact, you can fool most of the people most of the time

Sorry about Afghanistan - Check out Pete Seeger singing "Waste Deep in the Big Muddy”

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uXnJVkEX8O4

Sorry about the Middle East where the wing nuts on both sides are keeping each other in power with their co-dependent addiction to hopeless conflict

Oy vey - that was more depressing than I thought it would be. I'm sorry about that also.

So let me shift gears and tell you what makes me feel better about the future.

First of all you guys and how proud I am of you both.

Then there are the stories of what some of your buddies are up to

- using micro financing to set up a coop for folks to sell home made specialities in an Appalachian town ravaged by mountain top removal mining

- retrofitting diesel trucks to run on restaurant vegetable oil waste

- hanging a banner from Mt Rushmore with Obama's photo that reads " America honors leaders not politicians: Stop Global Warming."

- sailing with an all female crew on a schooner off the coast of Maine teaching high school girls self reliance

-writing songs in Chinese, performing at CBGB-type clubs in China while running a one man home made bagel business out of his Beijing apartment

-spending a semester in Kabul in a school set up to teach boys and girls how to skateboard (check out Skateistan)

-or making a documentary about one woman’s struggle to feed her family fresh food in an inner city “food desert”

and now you and your generation will have a turn at the wheel.

Im also sorry about having no wisdom to offer to make it easier

except maybe

have fun, always know where you are and where you're going and remember that people who confidently give directions are often clueless

Most importantly - drive safely

Love

Dad

CRAZY LIKE A REFOXICAN - THE "CLASS WARFARE" CHECK MATE

2010-02-14T10:00:00.083-05:00

When Obama, the candidate, made a casual remark about economic fairness to Joe, the plumber, Republicans went bananas. You would have thought they'd found the other Joe's number on Obama's Verizon Friends and Family list - Joe Stalin. It was all the proof they needed - Obama is a socialist who wants to take our money away and give it to "those people".

Every Republican position from immigration, the war on terror to the Supreme Court - boils down to one primal racist fear - "dark people who don't work are either trying to kill me or pick my pockets". Thats why they have an easier time staying united. It doesn't require much thinking to be a Republican.

For these folks Reagan is the patron saint. Reagan raised the national debt from $700 billion to $3 trillion, took the US from the world's largest international creditor to the world's largest debtor and gave massive tax breaks to the wealthy and they just love love love him.

Its not deficit spending they care about. Its the possibility that money will be spent to help poor people.

Along comes Obama who wants more sick people to be able to get medical care and these "patriots" are strapping on assault rifles and putting Hitler mustaches on pictures of the President.

No one plays the faux angry demagogue card better than the ReFoxicans. They have managed to hoodwink people who are not rich into thinking that their pockets are being picked every time someone suggests that rich people should pay their fair share of the cost of running the country.

Frank Rich got it exactly right in his NY Times Op Ed piece Sunday (2/14/10) warning that we need to stop laughing at Palin and start figuring out how such a snake oil saleswoman could fool so many people. Op-Ed Columnist: Palin's Cunning Sleight of Hand

Every day Americans who are either uninsured, or one pink slip or illness away from being uninsured have been persuaded that they have the same interests as insurance industry executives! When you're good, you're good and these guys are good.

The wolf has convinced little red riding hood that he is grandma.

Its rhetorical duct tape on the Republican's utility belt. They tear off a little piece and slap it onto the lips of any liberal who tries to start a conversation about economic justice and the corrosive impact of poverty. In the 50's another Joe used to destroy people by calling them "reds". These days instead of red baiting they socialist bait - exact same thing. Its the never fails third rail of American politics. . We say "economic fairness" and they say "class warfare".

- check mate - check please.

If we can't block this snow job with a message that appeals equally to Americans' decency and self interest we are in trouble - and by trouble I mean "911 - may day may day - President Palin and first dude Todd"- kind of trouble".

IS THERE A PULITZER PRIZE FOR HYPOCRICY?

2010-02-09T06:37:00.021-05:00

EVERY DAY THE NEW YORK POST FALLS OVER ITSELF TO HURL MUD AT THE WHITE HOUSE

ON FEBRUARY 8, 2010 THE EDITORS APPARENTLY LANDED ON THEIR HEADS, SUFFERED AMNESIA AND ATTACKED THE WHITE HOUSE FOR BEING INSENSITIVE TO CIVIL LIBERTIES

NEW YORK POST EDITORIAL FEBRUARY 8, 2010

TEAM O'S CIVIL-LIBERTIES WOES

If Team Obama is so keen on trying Khalid Sheik Mohammed and other terrorists in civilian court, it needs to remember that criminals have rights.
Such as the right not to have the verdict and sentence publicly proclaimed before trial by the nation's top officials.
White House spokesman Robert Gibbs declared last week that 9/11 kingpin KSM "is going to meet justice, and he's going to meet his maker and he's likely to be executed for the heinous crimes that he committed."
And President Obama himself said something similar last November, declaring of KSM: "I don't think that it will be offensive at all when he's convicted and the death sentence is applied to him."

Now, obviously KSM is guilty, and richly deserves to die.
Indeed, he and his comrades offered to plead guilty before military tribunals -- and to accept the death penalty.
But now that Obama and Attorney General Eric Holder have decided, in order to prove that America really is committed to civil liberties, to try these killers in civilian court, they need to . . . well, respect civil liberties.
Loose talk like that from Gibbs and Obama is a hanging curveball for defense lawyers determined to exploit every single one of KSM & Co.'s new constitutional rights.
And what about the judge who might decide that KSM & Co. can't get a fair trial, thanks to the loose talk of the president and his spokesmen?
We don't doubt for a moment that the case against Khalid Sheik Mohammed et al. is overwhelming -- and that convictions should be a matter of routine.
All the more reason why the prosecutions shouldn't be compromised by irresponsible public pronouncements.

YOU TELL EM POST GUYS - THATS WHY WE DEPEND ON THE POST FOR NOT MAKING
"IRRESPONSIBLE PUBLIC PRONOUNCEMENTS" THAT MIGHT COMPROMISE KSM'S PROSECUTION

OOPS

NY POST HEADLINE NOVEMBER 16, 2009

2010-01-21T07:04:00.050-05:00

Watching a Republican anti health care reform, state senator take over Ted Kennedy's seat feels a little like watching Thurgood Marshal's seat go to Clarence Thomas.

While we were all too busy patting ourselves on the back and rubbing our teary eyes at the heart stopping image of who was bounding out of Air Force One we took our eyes off the prize. The fundamentalists did not. With the right wing media machine as Turf Grow they created something that looks and talks like a grass roots movement.

The "ReFoxicans", have spent every minute of every day since the election tirelessly hurling buckets of anti Obama spaghetti against the wall watching to see what was sticking - he bows too low, he thinks too much, he prefers shaking hands instead of fists, he is going to kill grandma, he's not an American, his speech about the undabomber wasnt soon enough. In the media war vacuum created by the lack of a counter message from our side the wing nuts finally got a few noodles to stick. Before we knew it every day people were spitting back spoon fed sound bites about big government and the projected cost of the health care legislation like street corner policy wonks who had come up with this stuff on their own. Once again - the other side's trial lawyers were better jury bamboozlers than our guys.

Obama won because he is an extraordinary individual, stepping into a perfect storm of an economy in collapse and the 8 year Bush train wreck. It helped that he was up against a cranky old war hero with a fake smile, who thought Governor Ubetcha Okie Dokie would make a fine back up custodian of the nuclear war codes. In contrast Obama stepped up to the plate and brilliantly energized an army of the ticked off who wanted their country back. People sacrificed, mobilized and hit the streets with a passion that the country hasn't seen in a long time.

When the campaign was over exhausted teary strangers all over the country were embracing and whispering -"yes we did".
Overnight, the troops were sent home, the lights turned off and the machinery dismantled. Now we sit at home reading the papers and opening robo e-mails from the President, telling us to hang in there and asking for money.

Ask every Palin, Glenn Beck, O'Reilly, Limbaugh devotee to tell you what they don't like about the Democratic health care bill and they have a list of prepackaged talking points they can parrot back from death panels to budget deficits and then the old - lets not get bogged down in reality standby - "its socialism".

Boy oh boy, these guys are good! They would have gotten an A+ in Professor Goebbels "Big Lie 101" graduate seminar. They picked the third rail word of American politics that has nothing to do with anything actually happening on earth and it worked like a charm.

Ask me to tell you how the new health care proposal would work and I couldn't. Reforming health care should have been about a one sentence idea that all of us could have been out there fighting for at the water coolers and in the local greasy spoons Instead we're stuck with 1000 incomprehensible pages of legislation and the people on our side who can explain it are walking talking mega doses of Ambien.

Its better to take a straight forward simple position -

"insure the uninsured because doing nothing is the road to a budget busting disaster, morally wrong and not what America is all about"

Lets draw the line and then go down swinging. It's got to be better than the way things feel right now. Let the Republicans go into the next election as the party of insurance industry whores who think doing nothing to provide medical care for approximately one sixth of the US population is a good idea.

DENIED TOTAL VICTORY SENATE DEMOCRATS WIN "GET WELL" CARDS FOR THE UNINSURED

2009-12-20T16:17:00.040-05:00

Senate leaders announced what they describe as "the most significant overhaul of the nation's health care system in more than a generation". According to Majority Leader, Harry Reid, under this plan every uninsured American who becomes ill will now receive a "get well" card.

President Obama seemed encouraged by the progress having just left Denmark with a climate change agreement in hand. According to the White House, after intense negotiations, the Chinese finally agreed to "look into the whole greenhouse gas emissions thing". In a personal message Chinese President Hu told President Obama that they should "stay in touch" and "definitely try to do lunch" next time Obama was in town. He added - "a friend of mine owns this totally awesome Dim Sum place in Beijing".

An amendment passed exclusively for Senator Ben Nelson, Democrat of Nebraska, mandated that any cards sent to pregnant women in the first trimester of pregnancy must be pre-screened by the woman's congressman.

For weeks in floor speeches and news conferences Republicans have warned ominously that "the get well card" compromise will be a disaster and cause a drop in the number of "good luck in your retirement" cards that seniors currently receive causing many of them to die - at some point.

Senator Tom Coburn, Republican of Oklahoma, a leading opponent of the measure, said "they have gone too far this time". He added that Republicans would be forcing a series of procedural show downs to stop, what he called "the democrat death card to granny law."

Senator Olympia Snowe, a Maine Republican, said she would oppose the measure because she needed a few more years to think about it. She expressed concern that people no longer seemed to care about every word out of her mouth.

Senator Lieberman's final support was delayed because of what he described as certain deeply felt convictions. The Senator refused to say what those convictions were until speaking with insurance industry lobbyists whose flights from Hartford has been delayed by the snow storm.

On Friday a weary Senator Harry Reid emerged from a caucus meeting to hail what he referred to as "this Hallmark, . . . I mean .. landmark legislation".

ONE WEEK BEFORE OBAMA'S WEST POINT SPEECH LIMBAUGH ATTACKS THE SPEECH AND HOPES FOR A COUP D'ETAT

2009-11-25T17:42:00.030-05:00

Confession - I have this nausea /fascination thing about the Fox, Limbaugh, Palin 24/7 anti-government mob. I'm not proud of this obsession because actually listening to what comes out of the mouths of these people feels a lot like slowing down to gape at a horrible car crash.

Too busy counting his $37 million per year salary to be bothered with pesky annoyances like facts and reality - Rush Limbaugh tossed his listeners this piece of raw meat last week condemning the Obama speech one week before the speech.

LIMBAUGH: You see where President Obama, in announcing how he intends to lose the war in Iraq -- sorry, Afghanistan -- or both, actually -- is going to do it, the national address will occur from West Point on December 1st. My question is, will theydetain him? Hopefully.

A week before the commander in chief speaks at West Point while the nation is fighting two wars Rush Limbaugh condemns the speech and calls for a military coup d'etat.

So much for that other pesky annoying thing called patriotism that the right wing has decided to bury for now until some day in the future when they might need to use it again.

A note to the President about Afghanistan

2009-11-20T06:49:00.041-05:00

Dear Mr. President

As you know the US can't beat these guys militarily and "winning" means keeping the entire country of Afghanistan on colonial style US life support indefinitely. Heads we lose and tails we lose. We need to get the hell out of there.

When it comes to sending other people's children to war its much easier to be a Republican - no dithering. For Cheney and his fellow travelers there's also pots of Haliburton style war budget bucks to be salted away. The Bush Cheney model for troop deployment is the pickpocket who creates a diversion by terrifying people and then waving a large flag in front of their eyes so no one realizes they've been fleeced until he is safely on the next train out of town, laughing and counting their money in the bar car.

Your friends know that the lessons of Vietnam are a major part of what must be an agonizing process. We know that you are thinking about the 55,000 young Americans sent to their deaths by Washington's "best and the brightest" who thought they were "saving" Vietnam from the fake threat of falling communist dominos- with other people's children.

Meanwhile the Taliban seems to be thriving for many reasons not the least of which is the opium business. They're able to pay better salaries and provide more local services. Our presence as "infidel occupiers" gives them a recruiting tool to enlist a lost generation of young men. For starters, instead of troops on the ground our military dollars would go much further keeping Afghan cops and soldiers salaries ahead of what the Taliban is paying.

There is another secret weapon - liberating and protecting the women of Afghanistan from the murderous neanderthal fundamentalists so that the next generation of educated women can start running things. There is no doubt that you and the Secretary of State get this.

One thing is clear - the problem will not be solved militarily. It will take a 21st century Marshall Plan with the world mobilized into a full court press to dry up the swamp that fosters the stone age creeps. Its exactly what you - President Obama are uniquely able to do.

Your approval ratings outside of the US are off the charts while at home they have taken a dip. Its time for the rest of the world to wake up and start supporting your vision of international relations with troops and money.

No president since Roosevelt has been in a better position to tap an international reservoir of good will to enlist allies in a plan of unprecedented scope, resources and unity. Its what should have been done after 911 when the world was ready to move in unison against the causes of terrorism under US leadership and Bush blew it.

If America's allies keep sleepwalking through the Obama presidency they will share some of the blame if America's home grown fundamentalists nuts emerge from their swamp and take back the White House.

Pulling for you Mr. President.

Love

Bob

CAN WE PLEASE END THIS PRETEND NYC MAYOR ELECTION? LETS JUST CALL IT WHAT IT IS - AN $85 MILLION PURCHASE AND GET THE CLOSING OVER WITH

2009-10-26T07:09:00.048-04:00

Its time to stop the silly charade that New York City is having a mayoral election.
Its just too painful to watch Bloomberg pretending to be interested in what non-billionaires have to say as we all wait for the fake election to be over with. This is an $85 million acquisition - not an election. We should at least be honest about it. The media should back off - cover it minimally and focus on something less predictable - like Halloween.

My nausea level boiled over last week watching Bloomberg sit quietly beaming as Guliani stoked up a conservative Jewish group with his trademark brand of race baiting and fear pandering. it was a reminder of why Guliani's poll numbers with New Yorkers were in the toilet before he (with the help of his close buddy Bernard Kerik)shamelessly exploited the nation's grief after 911 to market his "America's Mayor" brand. Let's not forget his venomous, sneering attacks on Obama last summer before whooping mobs of angry white republicans. Although, he has done one good thing - he resigned from the Donald Trump migratory fowl nest combover club.

Remember in September 2001 when Guliani tried to use 911 to extend his term because he felt New Yorkers couldn't live without him? Even in September 2001 the response was "whoa - what are you talking about - isn't this still a democracy?". Fast forward to 2008, and we all numbly watch as Bloomberg purchases a third term by driving his bankroll driven steamroller back into City Hall. In the path of his steamroller lies the flattened wreckage of what should have been an election - a "level playing field" a la Bloomberg.

I used to like Bloomberg because he was the anti Guliani - the non ideological, boring, competent, engineer whose billions had untethered him from this city's traditional power bases - the mayor as CEO. In this campaign Bloomberg does not appear to be untethered from anything and stands for nothing except as an unvarnished spectacle of American democracy as a rich man's hobby.

What would it have cost him to show a smidge of daylight between himself and Guliani' - a one trick pony - government by racial division and temper trantrums? Would Bloomberg's conservative base have threatened to vote for William Thompson if he had said even something bland like "I dont agree with Mayor Guliani on everything".

Of course what he should have said was - "I don't agree with Mayor Guliani's position that voting for a black person will cause NYC to go back to being plagued by crime and crack".

After Bloomberg's election in 2001 a cab driver asked me "what is it about that position that would make a man spend $60 million to acquire it?" I still don't have an answer to that question and now his campaign has spent $85 million - with a week to go before election day.

But I guess for a bored gazillionaire its alot more bang for ones buck than plunking down $35 million for a ride on the space shuttle.

See: The Wealthiest Entrepreneurs Splurge on Space Travel
http://www.inc.com/news/articles/2009/04/space.html

A response from a friend

Belatedly, you captured my take on Bloomberg. I've always vaguely disliked him, though not with any vehemence. For one thing, he appointed one of the worst HRA commissioners ever and stuck with her through one outrage after another (she had been an early endorser); seemed to me to be pretty deaf to the needs of ordinary and low-income people, though he looked like he might be going in interesting directions with the poverty stuff, but it seems to have been more for show and a few exotic looking pilot programs, but some of what I dislikd was just that he whined a lot and was utterly intolerant, I thought, of the slightest hint of criticism. Anyway, it all blew up for me, as for you, with the purchase of this election.

Prague - Dresden - Berlin - September 2009 Notes of a frequently moist eyed tourist

2009-09-24T11:37:00.078-04:00

Its easy not to think about WWII when you visit Paris or London - but not Prague, Dresden or Berlin where we recently spent 10 days. In addition to the clouds of cigarette smoke- the thing that hits you in these places is the palpable sense of its all too recent cataclysmic history

I was getting teary sitting in a musty old synagogue in a hardscrabble neighborhood of Lieben on the outskirts of Prague that a group of local activists is struggling to save. We lucked out by stumbling onto a Rosh Hashonah service at this old place thanks to a friend's internet search.

Looking up at the ceiling of that ancient building, bolstered from collapse by cross beam steel joists, with Hebrew letters missing from above the torah arch, I'm sure I was not the only one thinking about the 77,000 murdered Jews of Prague and how relics like this might have been all that was left if Hitler had won.

The service was presided over by a visiting rabbi from Israel and a charismatic activist working on the restoration of this synagogue and the preservation of Czech Jewish history - Sylvie Whitmann, a Czech native and the founder of Whitmann Tours, a Jewish heritage tour business. See http://www.wittmann-tours.com/

Our final morning in Prague we were in the Jewish quarter looking at heartbreaking drawings by children in a camp on their way to being murdered. That evening, in a bustling restaurant in Dresden, it was hard not to wonder what the 80 something German guy at the next table was doing 60 years ago.

Having said that - Dresden is a beautiful, vibrant, accessible city on the move

. . . with lots of building going on.

On a bus tour the guide suddenly says "and on the left is a villa owned by one of Hitler's friends that ironically the bombs missed and hit the building next door". He went on to remind us that Allied planes bombed Dresden for 5 days - 35,000 known dead, not including refugees from other German war zones - awful to say -but no tears were welling up inside me.

Berlin was next.

Berlin is a City haunted by its ever present historical ghosts - they lived with Hitler for 12 years from 1933-45

and then under the communists from 1945-89 with the Berlin Wall going up in 1961

After Hitler was defeated a communist government decided that too many people wanted to get the hell out of East Berlin and one morning Berliners awoke to find themselves fenced in by barbed wire followed by a concrete wall with the promise of being shot if they tried to leave.

Now at Checkpoint Charlie in Berlin young German actors dressed up as American Gis pose with giggling tourists. You can also drive around Berlin in a caravan of Soviet era cars with an actor dressed up as an East German cop pretending to check your papers.

A huge stretch of what remains of the wall has been turned over to mural artists

The war memorial to the murdered Jews of Europe is in the heart of Berlin. It's a couple of blocks from the Brandenburg gate and consists of an undulating sea of large gray tombstone like blocks.

The graffiti resistant chemical coating on the side of the blocks was made by one of the companies that made death camp poison gas. When this controversy erupted the company tore up their bill.

The memorial was inspired by the visual chaos of tombstones, that seem to be bursting out of the cramped Jewish cemetery in Prague on top of 12 layers of graves.

The ground around the rows of gray blocks slopes down to the entrance of an underground memorial to the murdered Jews of Europe.

Crowds move in bone chilling silence past well done exhibits laying out a narrative, in English and German, of all available details of the rounding up and the mass murders

There is a room with notes and letters from the doomed with final desparate pleas to loved ones. Some notes were thrown from packed cattle cars on the way to death camps. This is followed by a room with individual and group portraits with the historical details of wiped out Jewish families.

The new Jewish Museum in Berlin, designed by architect Daniel Liebeskind, uses the building itself and its haunting discordant interiors to convey the story of a genocidal shattering of lives, the disappearance of a culture and the physical void left behind.

Liebskind's architectural narrative is powerful but was not well integrated with the story told by the flow of the exhibits and the artifacts of daily Jewish life which are almost overwhelming in volume.

This is the walking surface of a long narrow chamber of the museum piled with heavy gauge steel disks, each in the shape of faces of different sizes, with mouths open in varied expressions of crying out. As visitors walk in silence down this dead end corridor every footstep produces a loud haunting clanging as if the souls of the murdered are being heard from. Profoundly moving.

It feels like there was limited, if any, collaboration between Liebeskind and the curators as if he said, "here is my masterpiece and now good luck filling it with all the stuff you have".

One of the historical displays in the glass dome on top of the Reichstag refers to the Hitler years as the National Socialist Tyranny. Sorry guys - a tyranny means no consent of the governed. The faces of the adoring, saluting, cheering crowds in films of Hitler rallies don’t look like victims of tyranny. That only changed when they started to lose.

According to some young Berlin expats we visited - one Jewish- the feeling in Berlin is that Germans have tried to do the right thing with an unflinching embrace of their ghastly past with every school child required to visit a concentration camp - unlike Poland, Czechoslovakia and Austria.

My fantasy is a world in which the words "never again" mean something. Where a multinational force of troops, known as the "UN Never Again Force" lead by Israel and Germany would have been there to stop genocide in Bosnia, Rwanda and Darfur and whereever the lessons of the holocaust are forgotten.

Two members of a new generation head off to school in Berlin

OBAMA ANNOUNCEMENT OF UPCOMING SNEEZE IGNITES CONSERVATIVE FIRESTORM

2009-09-04T10:34:00.076-04:00

Press Release
White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs announced that President Obama, has made plans to sneeze sometime during the week following Labor Day.

In Texas, emails and calls immediately flooded into the offices of school officials from enraged parents. One parent calling into the Rush Limbaugh show, said

It feels like it's the beginning of a government take over of something and I'll be damned if I'm just going to sit quietly waiting to find out what it is while the left wing indoctrinates our children with their liberal sneeze oriented life style agenda.

Anticipating widespread news coverage, the day after the sneeze, State and Local school districts in Texas have announced plans to allow children to stay at home or to attend prayer meetings in the gymnasium chapels to avoid being inadvertently exposed to post sneeze news coverage or sneeze related classroom discussions.

Texas state education officials have also been dispensing blinders and ear plugs from a stockpile available for parents who have demanded that their children wear them during science classes.

Here is a sampling of conservative media responses;

This is exactly how fascism starts. First Obama sneezes, then Pelosi and before you know it sneezing storm troopers are kicking in our doors. It's like we
elected Sadaam Husein and Mussolini at the same time.
Be sure to catch this evening's three hour Fox News Special Report -Obama's secret plan to make people say "Gesundheit", instead of "God Bless You" and What the Average Citizen Can Do To Fight Back Before Its Too Late. Sunday 7-10 ET

Sean Hannity

He's probably going to use some woosy hanky with a monogram.
Anne Coulter

Once again these thought control liberals are not telling us the whole story people! Don't fall for this. How much more proof could anyone need that this guy is not an American? It makes me so mad that I almost finished a sentence without mentioning Chappaquidick and using the word socialism.
Rush Limbaugh

Big deal. Last week I got sneezed on by a moose. At first I thought it was Todd. I yelled "Hey Bullwinkle" - sounds like you could use a litte Obama care - then I wasted him.
Sarah Palin

Dick Cheney, reached at the Halliburton underground golf course in McLean,VA. issued this statement;

This kind of reckless advance warning of a presidential sneeze, which I would never have allowed, is exactly the kind of thing that encourages our enemies and will certainly lead to a major terrorist attack. Mark my words - what this sneeze produces will certainly be all over Obama's hands.

WE NEED TO SHINE A FLOODLIGHT ON THE LIMBAUGH SWAMP BEFORE THE ANGRY GUN WORSHIPPERS THAT HE PUMPS UP EVERYDAY DO SOMETHING HORRIBLE

2009-08-29T10:44:00.074-04:00

I’ve been putting on my emotional haz mat suit and peeking at the right wing media cesspool. It’s the septic tank of history that spawned Father Coughlin and Joseph Goebbels and now Rush Limbaugh. Limbaugh speaks in not so veiled code to the armed racist nuts that we all live in dread of. We can't wait for the unthinkable to happen to shine the flood light of public exposure into this swamp.

Take a look at the mean spirited racial hostility in what he said today about the thousands of people moved to pay their respects along the route of the Kennedy funeral procession.

They couldn't even get the caravan going -- and, by the way, do you know that they lined the caravan route with union thugs? They did. They had to go out and stack people standing on the streets with union thugs, and I played a game yesterday afternoon. I watched a replay of this whole thing and I said, "You know what I'm going to do? I'm going to take a drink -- in honor of Ted Kennedy, of the caravan going to the library there to lie in repose, I'm going to take a drink -- for every black person I see on the parade route," and I was sober at the end of the parade. They forgot to stack the deck with any black people but there were a lot of union thugs out there. I mean, there's no better way to honor Ted Kennedy than to take a drink for every black person you see on the caravan route.

Limbaugh is a skilled charismatic communicator. If he had a bone of personal decency or an ounce of genuine patriotism, in that "body by Hindenburg", he could have chosen to make a significant contribution to a thoughtful national dialog - like a right wing Bill Moyers. The only problem Limbaugh would have in such a dialog would be learning to deal with those pesky little things called "facts".

Instead like the sleeziest, cigar smoking, blowhard trial lawyer that ever bamboozled a jury he has opted to get on the air every day and spit out a stream of wildly dishonest and racially inflammatory vitriol to an ever expanding mob. The historic parallels to the demagogues of modern history could not be more clear.

The Civil War may have ended but this country never got over it. When you scratch the surface of most issues in American politics race jumps right out at you. When Limbaugh is not being blatantly racial the core of this belief system is - not a dime of my tax money for "those people". This is what they mean when they rail against "big government" and call Obama a "socialist". Limbaugh's angry listeners are terrified by the changing world in which white people no longer run the show. Technology and the global economy have wiped out the old order that sustained the post WWII generations. The "tea baggers" that are riding around in busses this summer with right wing radio personalities speak repeatedly about feeling not listened to. It's the same theme.

What else is the whole Republican gun fetish about but protection from "those people" that the liberals want to give their tax dollars to? A guy shows up outside an Arizona Obama rally with an assault rifle over his shoulder and Phoenix's finest respond with all the law enforcement zeal of the overdue library book squad. I understand that the picture is complicated by the fact that this particular gun toting bizarro was black but where the hell was the Secret Service? If you have a minute compare this http://www.nowpublic.com/world/man-gun-obama-health-care-rally-phoenix-arizona
with this
http://www.commondreams.org/headlines04/1015-06.htm

One more question - what liberal commie gun law restriction was this wingnut - with an assault rifle on his shoulder and an automatic handgun strapped to his waist - feeling oppressed by? Was he pissed off that he had to leave his Stinger surface to air duck hunting missile in his trunk? I agree with Bill Maher that you can call it a sport when the rabbits also have AK47s.

There is still a line that Limbaugh and his fellow travelers can't cross in public so they speak to their base in code. When the nation mourned and Kennedy lay in state Limbaugh said this;

I think we need to look at Sen. Kennedy in a number of ways,” Limbaugh said Wednesday. “I think Sen. Kennedy . . . It would serve us well to remember that Sen. Kennedy is a perfect example of the redeeming aspect of liberalism. If a politician is liberal, and if the politician uses the government to take money from people who work and gives it to people who don't work, they are redeemed for every bad act on earth they commit."

Its not enough for us to shake our heads in disgust. Somehow the opposition has to force an open discussion about this very simple Limbaugh/Republican philosophy of government-

if you're rich - "how can I help you"
if you're poor - "screw you"

As a skilled snake oil salesman Limbaugh is able to keep his working class and poor white fans from from realizing that they are the ones being screwed by the Republican concept of what government should do and for whom. If the democrats can't counter the Limbaugh/Fox News party line with an equally simple appeal to basic fairness and justice then we're cooked. Im not talking about social and economic fairness as kumbaya political correctness I'm talking about appealing to raw self interest about not leaving our kids a society of haves and have nothings where the middle class has to scuttle home at night to barbed wired gated enclaves, If we dont take the right wing on Obama may be a one term gift produced by a once in a generation perfect storm of the economic collapse and the disastrous Bush presidency.

Like "Hate Watch" run by Morris Dees and the Southern Povery Law Center tracking hate groups - resources need to be applied to exposing the Limbaugh worldview to the light of day. Republicans should be forced to pass a litmus test of whether they are either pro or con Limbaugh's socially toxic venom. Here is the link to the Morris Dees group http://www.splcenter.org/intel/intpro.jsp

The only way to force these violent fundamentalists, who have no respect for life after birth, to slither back under their rocks is to break the code of their message and expose it. Talking in terms of "American values" is not in my normal liberal lexicon - but it should be. We need to prevent them from undermining America's basic values that enabled us to elect President Obama and caused the rest of the world to jealously salute us as a nation. We need to make it unacceptable for the right wing fringe that ran the government for 8 years to come back into power

If Father Coughlin, the anti-semitic radio demagogue of the 30s was back we would all be focused on it as a crisis and doing something on a national scale to stop him. He is back. It is a crisis and we need to be something big and loud.

foot note -
If we can't do big and loud, even small and quiet is better than nothing. I just cancelled my account with GoToMyPC.com, one of his big advertisers. LogMeIn.Com seems to provide the same service and hopefully spends their advertising budget appropriately.

TAKE A STAND MR PRESIDENT - MOBILIZE THE TROOPS THAT WON THE ELECTION

2009-08-19T10:15:00.023-04:00

A LIBERAL RESPONDS TO A NY POST HEADLINE

DR. O NO LIBERALS HOWL AS BAM WOBBLES ON HEALTH PLAN
[FRONT PAGE - NY POST 8/18/09]

Here is one liberal's response.

yup

In the world of litigation time and time again reality and doing the right thing take a beating when the other side trots out, what I refer to as, "the moon is made of green cheese" defense.

The way "the green cheese defense" works is that a lawyer with a fancy pedigree, expensive suits and clients with deep pockets takes a position that could not possibly be more outrageous and unrelated to the real world - and then digs his or her heels in.

Faced with a "green cheese" defense, the other side knows its heading for years of grinding expensive litigation in a case where the only issue is whether or not the moon is made of green cheese. The alternatives are to settle cheap or drop the case.

This feels like where we are at in the health care reform battle - the wingnuts are out there disrupting town hall meetings all over the country this summer screaming that the moon is made of green cheese. Last weekend our side was on the Sunday talk shows hinting about major compromise implicitly conceding that that the green cheese guys may have a point.

Knock Knock - Hello - is anyone home!!!!? What's going on? Does this mean that the gun toting angry mobs and their the big idiotic lies about "death panels" and "socialism" have landed a punch?

I was just beginning to understand the public option - now I'm wondering if I should bother figuring out what a health care cooperative is because it feels like very soon the compromise will be that every uninsured person has the right to a "get well" card.

Come on Mr. President - you are the best thing that has happened to the United States, and the world, in decades - take a stand. Your troops, from the campaign, want to help but we need something to fight for. It's better to go down swinging on this one - let the Republicans go into the next election as the party that's pro 47 million uninsured!

Sarah Palin, is lurking off stage somewhere, field dressing a dead moose, and hoping for another chance to "make stuff up" and torture us with more winking and nose crinkling. We've got to keep these dishonest, dangerous, violent people - who really do not believe in democracy - from regaining ground. Our future is at stake.

A friend responds

Bob,
I am with you on the health don't-care blow up. Ending up with the "get well' card entitlement is well said and darned realistic. Hey, here's the monumental stupidity and hypocrisy we thought we kicked out to sea on in Nov. 2008. Turns out it just ducked for a while. It's back. On the day of your Post article (or thereabouts), the Times quoted Sec. Sebelius, back-pedalling from a public plan, as saying that the key goals were "choice and competition" in the health insurance field. I'd like someone to let me in on just what the hell that means. What is the choice people are longing for in health insurance? Are there people out there who want a plan that only covers medical problems from the waist down? Some families looking to cover their male offspring but let the girl child pay her doctor bills out of her allowance? A few gamblers want a policy that covers only diseases which strike on odd-numbered days? Putting aside dental and optometry, is there any health ins. entitled to the name if it doesn't pay the doctors and hospitals when you are sick? Period.
It was a refreshing change to see Obama go to religious leaders to pitch the premise of his health plan as a moral obligation (which has pretty much been limited to opposing other people's pleasure pursuits). You know the opposition is largely the "conservative" Christian folk who seem to think that Jesus actually said, "The truth shall make you free market..." But those who like to think we are a Christian nation should consider some of the big, obvious stuff in the Gospels. Jesus spent a large part of his waking hours going around healing people who had nothing and who, without him, certainly had no chance of getting health coverage. There are 18 miracle stories in the Gospel of Mark of which 8 are episodes of healing. And then there's at least one story of raising the dead (this benefit is no longer available). All the Gospels paint a similar picture. Aside from the many specific stories of healing (including the one of making clay with spit and applying it to some blind guy's eyes), the New Testament says that, from day one, Jesus traveled around "healing every kind of disease." And in his last earthly remarks, just before the Ascension launch, he directs his disciples to get out there and spread the gospel and tells them that "those who believe... will lay their hands on the sick, and they will recover." Well, this moment is a chance for those who say they believe to lay on the healing hands.
What are the chances?
D

thanks for your great blog response D
- these guys loved the Iraq war and called people who questioned it traitors but a proposal to try to provide more people with medical care has them strapping on assault rifles and going to rallies to waive pictures of Obama with a Hitler mustache -
peace on earth good will toward men

I have this sinking feeling that the Obama phenom was a historical fluke that feels more and more like a sand castle..

Michael Jackson's death from the perspective of a 57 year old without an ipod who will try not to use the word "iconic".

2009-06-28T07:40:00.019-04:00

This amazing, sad, gifted, bizarre guy's career was a part of our lives for 4 decades. Beginning with his meteoric trajectory, as a cute little kid, with the Jackson 5 - then hitting a peak in the 80s with "Thriller" and again in the 90's with his Superbowl ½ time performance. [I know Im leaving out lots of great music -- 57 years old - no ipod- remember?]

Then the dark clouds of weirdness rolled in. There was the 2 year Lisa Marie Presley marriage. . Squirming turned to shock when he entertained the papparazzi by dangling his infant - Prince Michael II- over a Berlin hotel balcony. The shock became nausea as he started to look less and less like an earthling.

Then we head into the final Mayday Mayday period when it felt like we were slowing down to gape at a horrible car crash - the lawsuit by the molested kid that settled for millions and of course "Neverland" - his backyard child molestation trap exposed in a police raid followed by his arrest, prosecution and acquittal.

And now we enter the 24/7 Michael Jackson is dead news cycle. On the morning after his death my spinning class instructor wore one spangled glove and we sweated to 45 minutes of Michael Jackson hits.

Its not a stretch to predict lawsuits announced by child victims sitting next to well coifed LA lawyers in $2,000 suits.

Jessie Jackson and Al Sharpton have already had separate press conferences - using this event to emerge from their self imposed "zipped lips elect Obama" exile.

Jackson, as the family spokesman, hints that they may go after the doctor and questions are emerging about the drug cocktail revealed by the autopsy. The family will now tell us they were "shocked" that there was gambling in Rick's Cafe.

Nonetheless it would be a positive thing to shine some light on the fame and money besotted doctors -and all the other parasites in his life - who allowed this sad, lonely, brilliant, talented man to surgically molest and poison himself?

DOES ENTRAPPING SOME BROKEN DOWN JIHAD WANNABES INTO A PAINT BY NUMBERS TERROR PLOT MAKE US SAFER?

2009-05-23T06:29:00.041-04:00

I know its dopey but I have this childlike trust that professional anti-terror cops are out there protecting us. You know, just like Jack Bauer tracking down sleeper cells with Chloe O'Brien and her magic lap top back in headquarters telling him about the layout of the plumbing system in the terrorist's apartment building so that Jack can sneak in through the toilet and waste the bastards with only seconds to spare.

Then last week, just after this season's 2 hour finale of 24, reality had to rear its depressing head. Instead of Jack. I was stuck watching an army of state, local and federal cops, huddling together to make sure they were on camera, at a press conference called to announce the bust of some broken down ex-con jihad wannabes in Newburgh NY who thought they were about to blow up a jewish center in Riverdale.

Apparently, an informer ensnared these guys, who couldn't have found the local K Mart without help much less Riverdale, and handed them the keys to a ready made, make believe, terror plot concocted by FBI agents and funded by taxpayers. Then like shooting fish in a barrel the cops parked outside the Jewish Center target, chosen by the Feds, and waited for the entrapped geniuses to arrive with their trunkful of government issued fake explosives.

I don't know about you but I don't feel any safer. Of course, I'm glad about the arrest of guys who thought they were about to murder people. But what I want to hear is some monotone gum shoe in a cheap suit describe how boring old fashioned police work brought down a real sleeper cell. It doesnt do it for me to hear a bunch of well dressed big shots bragging about how they used limited taxpayer anti terror funds to trap some anti semitic shit heads with a "paint by numbers" plot.

Maybe this deters would be terrorists on the fringes. But I'm worried that when real al quaeda terrorists, working in real sleeper cells on real plots that take years to hatch, see this story on the 6 o-clock news they just laugh and go deeper underground - that's what scares me.

Jack? Chloe? Renee? Help me! I'm not sure I can hold out until the fall.

HOW TO CRITICIZE A PRESIDENT YOU ADORE

2009-05-17T09:26:00.045-04:00

Folks on my wing of Obama's base are grumbling. The big problem is the decision to escalate the hopeless bloody Afghanistan quagmire which threatens to be his Vietnam. Then there was the decision not to go after the Bush torture war criminals and then to keep the Guantanamo kangaroo courts. On top of this he's allowing the torture pictures to hidden from public scrutiny.

Here is my problem. I'm so smitten by Obama and Michelle as extraordinary people, and as brilliant skillful down to earth leaders that whatever they want right now is OK by me. I understand that I will need to return to earth as soon as possible - but not just yet.

This experience makes me think about a friend of my Dads. Until his death at age 94 two years ago - Dad, an old lefty, formed a dear friendship with a retired career military guy named Angelo. After a lifetime in distant political and geographic worlds, these two old gents met in Dad’s Florida retirement community. They played string duets with Angelo on fiddle and Dad on cello. But I think mostly they sat at the kitchen table over coffee and sandwiches talking about the world they were leaving for their kids - and getting a kick out of each other. When Angelo’s arthritic fingers froze up Dad became a physical therapist working to get his violinist back.

Whenever Dad would get going about George Bush’s disastrous presidency - Angelo would end the conversation with “Jack, he’s my commander in chief.” In my mind’s eye Angelo stood at attention and saluted every time he said it - but I think I made that part up. When Dad would tell me this I would shake my head with patronizing amusement at his old buddy's unthinking, blind patriotism.

Sadly Dad didn’t get to see the breathtaking, horizon changing, new world of President Barack Obama and his megawatt smile.

Here’s why Im bringing it up - when people criticize Obama at this point in history I feel like I’ve become Angelo- without the salute. Who'd a thunk it?

I understand that this is not workable. My problem is going to be figuring out how to walk this line of supporting a man who rescued the country and the world from the most destructive criminal regime in American history and did it by remaking the political landscape with his different brand of politics without morphing into an Obama era charicature of the "my country right or wrong" guys.

This is uncharted territory. Obama has a distinct approach to international relations which parallels his domestic policies. His tools are his brilliance, his skill and a personal visionary charisma which has created a reservoir of good will that transcends the Balkanized domestic and international political landscape. If there is a quality that keeps him from being this generation's Roosevelt or perhaps even Lincoln it might be that he cares too much about being liked.

Obama's progressive friends may soon need give him some "tough love". If he nominates a spineless plain vanilla Souter replacement it will be time for that "plan B" to start. The key will be doing it in a way that doesn't help Limbaugh, Cheney and the neanderthal forces of darkness.

We also need to remember where we've been and where we might have gone without this man. I firmly believe that Hillary could not have won and but for Barack Obama we'd be living a McCain/Palin nightmare. Ironically, Obama would probably have lost to McCain if Clinton hadn't forced him into a two year job interview.

The issue of how and when friends should criticize Obama brings to mind the story of what Lincoln said when someone complained about Grant's drinking, which was something like, "find out what brand of whiskey he's drinking and send a bottle to all my other generals".

A FRIEND RESPONDS

Yeah, it's just too early to shake that Honeymoon feeling. Especially after the last one. This just feels good, and you just don't want to look too closely at what she's really doing in the kitchen.

AND HERE'S ANOTHER OPINION FROM A FAMILY MEMBER
Your blogged piece on being charmed by Obama was nicely put and sweet.

It seems to go along with a common hope that Obama has to compromise on minor things like the war, the economy, health care, government transparency, rule of law, climate change, abortion and gun control in order to accomplish his real agenda, like getting re-elected and putting the US back in the running for the stem cell research going on in other countries.
At what point in Obama's systematic betrayal of the enthusiastic new voters who pushed him over the top will a catastrophic awakening be apt?
Of course there may be all sorts of things going on behind the scenes that have tied Obama's hands or that are strings controlling them. Maybe Biden is secretly playing the same role Cheney did with Bush, or maybe a J. Edgar Hoover has information on Obama like the real J.Edgar Hoover had on a succession of other presidents, making it unwise to do anything other that what he is told to. But that would be a conspiracy theory and those are out of fashion these days, much like"liberal" was out of fashion just a couple of years ago.

At any rate, from the point of view the commercial media permit, Obama would seem to be in a position to quickly and decisively institute real health care reform. The majority of the population currently favors single-payer, hates managed care and the phony "insurance"industry, and is aware that they are constantly risking financial and health disaster by cutting corners on their health care insurance (if they even have any), on doctor visits and on taking prescribed medication. The people have spoken in poll after poll. Obama has spoken in speech after speech... until he got in. The press has largely avoided the single-payer debate, downplayed the protests and accepted how Obama's commission failed to include a singlesingle-payer advocate. We do not see any discussion of the huge waste in the current system in terms other than claims that doctors are overpaid and that government control of healthcare would make everything worse.
Take a look at the Bill Moyers article:
http://www.salon.com/opinion/feature/2009/05/22/moyers/index.html?source=newsletter
... then take another few minutes to decide if supporting Obama right or wrong is right.
Love, M

Review/Prediction - Finian's Rainbow will be coming to Broadway

2009-03-26T22:56:00.035-04:00

FOLLOW UP ON PREDICTION
NYTIMES FRIDAY APRIL 3, 2009
FINIAN'S RAINBOW going to Broadway
http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5g6JLMb53o4y2Q_3vHM4WuArTesAQD97AHL6O0

If there's a producer left who can still "spare a dime" - I predict that the revival of Burton Lane and Yip Harburg's Finian's Rainbow, which began its March 26-29 NYC City Center Encores production tonight will be headed back to Broadway where it originally opened in 1947. A big reason it will work is a roster of classic show tunes which each have only one major flaw - they end.

Even if the cast wasn't so gorgeous and talented it might still be hard to go wrong with songs like

"How are things in Glocca Morra?" "Old Devil Moon?" " If this isnt Love" and "When Im Not near the Girl I love."

Its always fun when a hit from another era gets laughs by hitting nerves from the evening news - in this case it's about gold, tax liens, Shears and Roebush pushing easy credit based on rumor inflated property value and a vanishing pot of gold. By the way - that pot of gold was stolen from "the little people" by an old charming guy who initially intended just to borrow it for awhile.

Throw into the stew a magical race change, and a song like "When the Idle Poor Become the Idle Rich" and you've got a show that avoids the revival killing third rail by not feeling dated.

The leads Cheyenne Jackson and Kate Baldwin have show stopping voices and great chemistry with each other. Jeremy Bobb, the perfectly cast leprechaun is fun to watch as he throws it all away for Aina Faye - a statuesque blonde who mesmerizes with a classical ballet solo in a spotlight accompanied by the thumping wailing blues harmonica of Guy Davis (Ossie Davis and Ruby Dee's son)

Philip Bosco brings an eminence grise quality to his central role as the metamorphosing racist southern pol. He doesnt have a lot of stage time but he does get lines like - " No I haven't read the constitution I'm too busy defending it".

Amid all this talent it says a lot that when Terri White belts out her full throated gospel - chandelier shaking - rendition of "Necessity" - it stands out. Jim Norton as the old guy who dragged his daughter and his pot of gold to America does everything with a fun to watch twinkle.

The signature of Encores is its crisp spirited staging and choreography that fits seamlessly into the limited strip of City Center's stage that the performers share with a full orchestra. In this production it makes for a never boring showcasing mush of talent and adds an excitement that I hope doesn't get lost on Broadway.

You heard it here.

A VOICE FROM OVER THE CLIFF - - JOHN BOLTON OPPOSES MIDDLE EAST PEACE

2009-03-14T09:39:00.110-04:00

Bush hired John Bolton to be the United States UN Ambassador because Bolton hated the UN and believed that it should not exist.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HyTmuCJ95Bk

Remember him - he’s the one that always looks like he's standing on his front porch glaring at you, while holding the baseball you just drilled through his living room window.

I promised my wife I’d stop buying the NY Post but I did find one on the subway yesterday- honest Lori that's how I came across Bolton’s rant against Obama’s attempt to start peace talks in the middle east. (Team Obama's Anti Israel Turn NY Post 3/13/09) Yes that’s right - he’s against middle east peace.

http://www.nypost.com/seven/03132009/postopinion/opedcolumnists/team_obamas_anti_israel_turn_159276.htm

Im always a little afraid of smart conservatives who oppose Obama. I worry that if they start making sense it might be a sign that the opposition is getting it together. For me its my own little "canary in the mine" early warning system. Based on Bolton's babble in the Post this week the canary is still breathing quite well - so far.

Bolton's entire NY Post opinion piece is cut and pasted in bold below mixed in with my comments.

----------------------------------------------------------------

The Obama administration is increasingly fixed on resolving the "Arab-Israeli dispute," seeing it as the key to peace and stability in the Middle East. This is bad news for Israel - and for America.

Its not a typo - he actually said that middle east peace is bad for Israel. This is a helpful reminder of what violent radical fundamentalist nuts were running the government

In its purest form, this theory holds that, once Israel and its neighbors come to terms, all other regional conflicts can be duly resolved: Iran's nuclear-weapons program, fanatical anti-Western terrorism, Islam's Sunni-Shiite schism, Arab-Persian ethnic tensions.

Some advocates believe substantively that the overwhelming bulk of other Middle Eastern grievances, wholly or partly, stem from Israel's founding and continued existence. Others see it in process terms - how to "sequence" dispute resolutions, so that Arab-Israeli progress facilitates progress elsewhere.Pursuing this talisman has long characterized many European leaders and their soulmates on the American left.

Now, what the heck do I know? Im just some bloviating guy barking into cyperspace from his kitchen table but did he just say that it's anti Israel to suggest that Middle East peace would help in the fight against terrorism?

Here's my insightful reaction - Huh?

With chewing gum and spit logic he concludes that getting engaged in "the Arab Israeli conflict" is an attack on "Israel's founding and existence" and therefore working for Arab Israeli peace is working for the destruction of Israel.

Based on nothing he has now set up his straw man on which he builds the rest of his rant that its not just Barack Obama who is anti Israel but also Hillary Clinton and George Mitchell.

I get it now. These guys believe that diplomacy is for weaklings. Like "many European leaders" [ in other words like all those gibberish speaking foreign weirdos at the UN] and their soulmates on the American left".

When Hillary Clinton walked into the State Department on her first day of work and was cheered liked a rock star - it was because the career State Department employees knew that the store was open for business again.

The Mideast "peace process" is thus the ultimate self-licking ice cream cone - its mere existence being its basic justification.
And now the Obama administration has made it US policy. This is evidenced by two key developments: the appointment of former Sen. George Mitchell as special envoy for the region, and Secretary of State Hillary's Clinton's recent insistence on a "two-state solution" sooner rather than later.
Naming Mitchell as a high-level, single-issue envoy - rather than keeping the portfolio under Secretary Clinton's personal control - separates Israel from the broader conduct of US diplomacy. Mitchell's role underlines both the issue's priority in the president's eyes and the implicit idea it can be solved in the foreseeable future.

Obama and Mitchell have every incentive to strike a Middle East deal - both to vindicate themselves and, in their minds, to create a basis for further "progress." But there are few visible incentives for any particular substantive outcome - which is very troubling for Israel, since Mitchell's mission essentially replicates in high-profile form exactly the approach the State Department has followed for decades.

It took a few rereads but I did finally figure out what he was trying to say. To the Bush administration the peace process was something you hold up for the world to see while you do nothing about it- not one lick.

[I must confess that, like a lousy song that I cant get out my head, I have spent too large a part of today trying to picture how a "self licking ice cream cone" works. A"self licking ice cream cone" ? Excuse me? - what youthful hallucinogenic experiment did that reference come from John? - forget about politics - tell us more about that weekend.

The heart of what he’s saying is that Israel has nothing to gain - and everything to lose- from the peace process. That’s the line in the sand between right and left on this issue. Between Labor and Likud as well as Republicans and Democrats.

At least we have some clarity here and that's always helpful.

When appointed, Mitchell said confidently: "Conflicts are created, conducted and sustained by human beings. They can be ended by human beings." This is true,however, only if the conflict's substantive resolution is less important than the process point of "ending" it one way or another. Surrender, for example, is a guaranteed way to end conflict

Here, Clinton's strident insistence on a "two-state solution" during her recent Mideast trip becomes important.

Have neo cons ever referred to Hillary Clinton or any other prominent female democrat, for that matter, without using the word "strident"?

She essentially argued predestination: the "inevitability" of moving toward two states is "inescapable," and "there is no time to waste." The political consequence is clear: Since the outcome is inevitable and time is short, there is no excuse for not making "progress." Delay is evidence of obstructionism and failure - something President Obama can't tolerate, for the sake of his policies and his political reputation.

A person with intellectual integrity would at least admit that he opposes the two state solution. I guess rather than defend the indefensible his criticism is that Hillary is making the peace process too much of a priority. There is a science fiction "Planet of the Upside Down People" quality to the way these folks think . If only they were just fictional characters.

You know a guy is in trouble when the best handful of mud he can sling at the President of the United States, is that after two months in office Obama is against obstructionism and failure" and that he cares about his "political reputation". The canary in the mine is singing its little head off.

In this very European view, failure on the Arab-Israeli front presages failure elsewhere. Accordingly, the Obama adminstration has created a negotiating dynamic that puts increasing pressure on Israel, Palestinians, Syria and others.

To neo cons calling someone a European is the same as cursing at them. Remember when Europeans questioned the fraudulent invasion of Iraq and Rumsfeld sneeringly dismissed them as the "old Europe".

Bolton's point is that the peace process can only hurt Israel because Israelis are so reasonable and care about what the world thinks of them and are therefore easier to bully.

That might be the subject of a good faith argument - but using it to attack Obama as anti Israel is just plain sleazy and knowingly dishonest. The last things these guys want is a good faith debate.

Also -the phrase anti Israel is read by many people as anti-semitic and he knows it. We are seeing an opposition strategy of using every opportunity to yell fire in a crowded theatre and pray for chaos that they can use to regain power. [Keep an eye on Cheney's frequent interviews in which he warns of an imminent terrorist attack because we stopped torturing.] It has also occurred to me that the only reason Bolton wrote this thing was, not because anyone will actually read it, but to get the NY Post demographic exposed to a headline that Obama is anti Israel.

To make such a vitriolic inflammatory statement without taking one word of responsibility for the foreign policy disasters they left for Obama on his desk, tied up with a ribbon, speaks volumes about how incompetent, creepy, dishonest and dangerous these people are.

Almost invariably, Israel is the loser - because Israel is the party most dependent on the United States, most subject to US pressure and most susceptible to the inevitable chorus of received wisdom from Western diplomats, media and the intelligentsia demanding concessions. When pressure must be applied to make compromises, it's always easier to pressure the more reasonable side.

How will diplomatic pressure work to change Hamas or Hezbollah, where even military force has so far failed? If anything, one can predict coming pressure on Israel to acknowledge the legitimacy of these two terrorist groups, and to negotiate with them as equals (albeit perhaps under some artful camouflage). The pattern is so common that its reappearance in the Mitchell-led negotiations is what is really "inevitable" and "inescapable." Why would America subject a close ally to this dynamic, playing with the security of an unvarying supporter in world affairs? For America, Israel's intelligence-sharing, military cooperation and significant bilateral economic ties, among many others, are important national-security assets that should not lightly be put at risk.

The only understandable answer is that the Obama administration believes that Israel is as much or more of a problem as it is an ally, at least until Israel's disagreements with its neighbors are resolved. Instead of seeing Israel as a national-security asset, the administration likely sees a relationship complicating its broader policy of diplomatic "outreach." No one will say so publicly, but this is the root cause of Obama's "Arab-Israeli issues first" approach to the region.

This approach is exactly backward. All the other regional problems would still exist even if Mahmoud Ahmadinejad got his fondest wish and Israel disappeared from the map: Iran's nuclear-weapons program, its role as the world's central banker for terrorism, the Sunni-Shiite conflict within Islam, Sunni terrorist groups like al Qaeda and other regional ethnic, national and political animosities would
continue as threats and risks for decades to come.

Instead, the US focus should be on Iran and the manifold threats it poses to Israel, to Arab states friendly to Washington and to the United States itself - but that is not to be.
President Obama argues that he will deal comprehensively with the entire region. Rhetoric is certainly his specialty, but in the Middle East rhetoric only lasts so long. Performance is the real measure

So now we have the two world views laid out side by side.

The Bush administration ignored Israeli-Arab peace because they viewed it as a platform to pressure and criticize Israel.

Bolton is not just arguing for proposed policies. They had their chance to do it their way and the result was an 8 year train wreck that Obama has to dig us out from under.

Bolton's attack on Obama's foreign policy is like the inventor of the Corvair screaming that you guys are idiots for moving the gas tank away from the trunk.

http://www.time.com/time/specials/2007/article/0,28804,1658545_1658498_1657833,00.html

and the administration's performance to date points in only one direction: pressuring Israel while wooing Iran. Others in the world - friend and foe alike - will draw their own conclusions.

Bolton doesnt acknowledge it but his Post piece headline should have been "Bring back the Bush Middle East policies - which was put no resources into diplomacy and rely only on actual and threatened unilateral military force to remake the geopolitical map - in exhange for ignoring the Arab/Israeli peace process hope to get good Israeli military intelligence.

Bolton couldnt acknowledge that he is urging a return to the Bush policies because critical self examination and honestly taking responsibility for failure is not part of the neo con DNA.

Thank god we got our country back from these awful human beings.

And thank you John Bolton for this reminder of how important it is that we keep it that way

PS Bolton was on Jon Stewart in 2007- check out the great interview
http://crooksandliars.com/media/play/wmv/695/12953

DOING THE D.C TOURIST THING FOR A 3 DAY WEEKEND - A FEW LORI RESTAURANT/TRAVEL NOTES

2009-03-08T08:29:00.117-04:00

We were able to get one of our daughters on Spring Break to join us to do the DC tourist thing for three days. Bolt Bus is Greyhound's answer to the Chinatown Bus competition and boy is it great to be car free in a town with a subway system. It was $23 for the trip down on Friday and $18 going home Monday night- the bus back had leather seats, wifi and a plug outlet. https://www.boltbus.com/default.aspx
http://www.nychinatown.org/directory/m_bus.html
My little "you're not in Kansas anymore" moment was a Washington Post Metro section headline reminding Washingtonians that the choppers that frequently buzz overhead will soon be Lakotas and not the aging Vietnam era Hueys. The kind of story you're not going to read in the NYTimes Metro section.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/03/06/AR2009030603207.html

With a $139 per night weekend rate River Inn is a terrific friendly hotel -centrally located - near the Foggy Bottom subway stop and within view of the Watergatehttp://theriverinn.com/

http://www.visitingdc.com/boat-bus-metro/washington-dc-metro-subway.htm
http://map.mapnetwork.com/destination/dc/

http://www.washington.org/

http://www.travelpost.com/NA/USA/District_of_Columbia/Washington/logs/7844670

As hungry early risers we could not find a place to have breakfast before 8 AM on Saturday. The room had a cute little equipped kitchenette - with coffee beans and a grinder - we picked up eggs at 7-11 and it was breakfast in the room.

DC is a company town and you see lots of plastic covered government id's hanging from necks during subway rush hour. Another striking difference between Washington and New York - the restaurants were busy. You have to wonder if its those relatively secure goverment paychecks.

Friday night dinner
Cafe Atlantico -
They have good pre-theatre menu until 6:30 - $35 three courses- the most delicious salad that had a kind of puffed wild rice and walnut dressing with gorgonzola - delicious short ribs came with spinach and mushrooms. For desert molten chocolate cake with banana cream like whip - chocolate pudding and great mojitos with lots of mint - grilled octopus off the prix fixe was fabulous

Saturday Lunch
We went back to Atlantico the next day for lunch. The Crab cake salad - with two tiny crab cakes - shredded not lumps - and boring greens was not the only disappointing part of the meal.
My daughter ordered her omelette whites only, no potatoes and no bacon. When we questioned the sad little naked $16 omlette that arrived, a snippy manager took it off the check but not without scolding us with "thats why we dont do special orders" followed by they will never do special orders again because of us. To future customers of Atlantico who may want an undersized egg whites only omlette with no bacon or potatoes -for 16 bucks - we offer our heartfelt apologies. We ruined it for everybody.

Sunday night dinner in Georgetown
Hook -upscale seafood -http://www.hookdc.com/ very attractive place ($27 entrees) friendly, knowledgeable waiters and staff. The place takes pride in its sustainable fish only policy. Our waiter pointed out that the fish from Australia was the kind that gets caught up in a bigger catch and we might not see it again. So Im thinking - aren't you creating a market for this diminishing species and discouraging fishermen from throwing it back?

Excellent tuna tartare appetizer with small little tasty if hard to identify cubes of something on the side. We also had Artic char from Iceland - the waiter reminded us that Iceland could use the cash - good point - brussel sprouts, sweet potatoes and celeriac puree - delicious
A Japanese broth with mushrooms and a dark green with a fish called suzuki - was tasty. Memo to self - if its called broth you'll be hungry afterwards

It did leave room for a chocoholics dessert built with layers of intense chocolate and nutella ice cream on the side.

The free museums of the Smithsonian are perfect for my short attention span because you can bop in and out of these world class places without guilt.
http://www.si.edu/

The Smithsonian National Museum of American History is great. http://americanhistory.si.edu/The exhibits are supplemented with some very cool performances by actors playing historical characters - like one of the college students from the Civil Rights era lunch counter sit down. The actor walked through the lobby, picket sign over his shoulder, with his beautiful voice miked and booming out a civil rights protest song, as he made his way to a replica of the famous lunch counter for an interactive presentation.

Betsy Ross was also at work rounding up little ones in the crowd to help her place stars on a lobby size flag.

Its not part of the Smithsonian and therefore not free but The Newseum is an entire new building devoted to the media - lots of historical front pages, videos about and by media biggies and a funny montage of comic send ups of the news, a tribute to fallen journalists with Daniel Pearl's lap top, a special exhibit about the coverage of the Lincoln assasination. They even have the actual broken into door from the Watergate. Its worth a few hours. http://www.newseum.org/

You dont get to see much on the Capital tour, but it is fun just to be in the building plus you get passing glimpses of stuff - as we walked by Speaker Pelosi was holding a press conference on the Capital steps surrounded by a coterie of well coifed folks. http://www.visitthecapitol.gov/

Dont forget the Library of Congress http://www.loc.gov/today/pr/2008/08-199.html
That's where Jefferson's bible is, the one that Obama used for his swearing in. Jefferson's actual library is on display in a glass enclosed semi- circular bookshelf. The current Lincoln exhibit " With Malice Towards None" is an opportunity to see Lincoln letters and documents - a few every day writings and legal documents, from his law practise and lots of presidency artifacts and photos including his draft of the Gettysburg Address.

To get a White House tour you need to give them a week for a Secret Service clearance check.
http://www.whitehouse.gov/about/history/
So we just walked by to marvel at the sight of the Obama families new home - makes one pretty goose bumpy.

The sight of an Afro American couple just sitting on the stone ledge in front of the White House fence, quietly taking in the historic tsunami said it all.

Slipping on psychic bananna peels - Mike Birbiglia's one man show -"SLEEPWALK WITH ME"- A REVIEW

2009-03-04T06:23:00.026-05:00

Mike Birbiglia's one man show "Sleepwalk With Me" at the Bleecker Street Theatre, in Greenwich Village, is a stand up act that grew up into a well crafted, hour and 1/2 soul exposing look at a troubled father son relationship, a life threatening illness, a crippling sleepwalking disorder and a broken engagement - all built on the foundation of tried and true material. It worked.

This appealing 30 year old comic welcomes us to join him in a look back at his long hard years of lonely thankless life on the road - comedy clubs, chaotic college gigs and crummy hotels and the combination mental jujitsu/self deception required to get over gigs that bomb - and he loved every minute.

Guys who are good- like Birbiglia - make it by perfecting a funny persona and solid "A laugh" material. Cracking up stoned college kids is one thing but moving on by sculpting his stand up act into a one man show that puts grown up asses in seats off Broadway and rocks the house night after night - now thats something!

OK here comes some critique - I'm being very generous about the house rocking - the laughs were steady - but stronger at different times from alternating parts of the crowd. There were also slow parts that could use tweaking. Nonetheless, the final applause from a smiling audience was long, strong and genuine.

The show feels like you're having a drink with a your vulnerable, unflinchingly honest, schlumpy, old college friend and repeatedly struggling not to spit out beer laughing as he brings you up to date on his years of repeatedly slipping on psychic bananna peels.

http://www.sleepwalkwithmike.com/

A FRONT PAGE SNAP SHOT TO MY KIDS

2009-03-02T09:39:00.033-05:00

Sometimes I send my 21 year old kids a snapshot of the NYTimes front page - its like when my generation used to get clippings in an envelope from our parents that we would ignore -

Hey girls - todays NY Times (2/27/09) ran a front page margin to margin two line banner headline - all capital letters

OBAMA BREAKING FROM A TROUBLED PAST SEEKS A BUDGET TO RESHAPE U.S. PRIORITIES
Tax Rise for Wealthy - Push on Health and Energy

When the Times runs a banner headline you know its a big deal

sub articles on 1st pg
Political Skills Put to the Test
and
A Bold Plan Sweeps Away Reagan ideas

So here is my snapshot - The Reagan and after Reagan years were a conservative bulldozer and wrecking ball attack on the social and economic legacy of Roosevelt's New Deal and the Johnson Great Society. Their radical ideology is that government should do very little except transfer wealth to the rich and let everyone else - except rich people and big corporations - get by on scraps that fall off societies economic table - they called it "trickle down economics".

When you scratch the surface of the Republican world view and of American politics generally you find race lurking not far below the surface. Conswervatives use race to lure white working people into supporting Republican policies that screw them. The psychic bottom line is these guys were and are horrified at paying taxes if some of it ends up being spent to benefit "those people". Remember when McCain called Obama "that one" during a debate. That slip up crawled out of the same racial swamp.

It is possible that Obama's election changed the landscape or maybe I should say the playing field, overnight. We will know more as time passes and ultimately so much hinges on whether he succeeds or fails.

But right now we are living through a seismic shift in the tectonic plates of America's political and economic topography. Its the kind of thing that could only happen when there is a "perfect storm" of historical events - the disastrous Bush years, two disastrous wars, the disastrous economy and a brilliant, disciplined, honest, charismatic, transformative political figure like Barack Obama and his megawatt smile - who may very well be redefining everything - including all the old models of political leadership. He has even changed the way I deal with adversaries in my practice - I regularly ask myself when another lawyer is driving me nuts - WWBD - what would Barak do- the answer is he'd probably take the guy out for coffee - they'd talk about basketball, their kids and then make a deal.

While Republicans cant get over their failed one trick pony theory of more tax cuts - this budget focuses on permanently strengthening infrastructure along with bedrock institutions like health care and education. As the engines of the US and world economy sputter and stall everyone is praying, including us atheists, that Obama will be our Captain Sullenberger - everyone, that is, except Rush Limbaugh who repeatedly says he hopes Obama fails. He decided to drop that old "stand by our President in time of war and crisis" stuff that he'd been peddling because now there are fundamental, truly American, priorities at stake such as keeping his ratings up and not losing advertisers.

This is really a living example of that old line that newspapers are a first draft of history - generations will be writing and studying these events the way prior generations look back at the great depression followed by Roosevelt and his legacy.

By the way girls if this was too much bloviating let me know
Love
Dad

THE RECOVERY BILL IS SIGNED BUT IT FEELS TOO MUCH LIKE ONE OF THOSE OLD HORROR FLICKS WHERE THE CREATURES WERE BEATEN BACK BUT THE MOVIE JUST STARTED

2009-02-17T07:46:00.048-05:00

Obama defeated the Republicans and got his recovery bill. Hopefully - history will see it as the turning point, but its hard not to be scared silly that it won't work.

I have this "calm before the storm" feeling about Obama's first major legislative victory - there is a real possibility that the Obama plan is not going to get banks lending again and we are really screwed.

I just wish I didn't feel like we're the young couple whose car broke down at midnight during a storm near the old creepy farmhouse, slowly climbing the cellar stairs to assess the damage after the opening skirmish with the monsters. Its suddenly quiet out there - too quiet.

At this moment the Republicans are in retreat and praying - as Limbaugh admitted- that the recovery effort fails. I guess he dropped that whole patriotism in time of crisis thing.

As we slowly open the cellar door and poke our heads out we can see the retreating creatures off in the distance - limping away over the horizon - having lost round one - shuffling and crawling back to the graveyard or swamp. We can hear them howling back at us over their shoulders -

"We will be back!" "It will never work"

"Its a Christmas tree full of Democratic pork"

"You have doomed future generations with trillions of debt for nothing"

The Republicans know that whats at stake here is nothing less their entire identity built on decades of post Reagan philosophy about reducing government and cutting taxes and redistributing wealth to rich people - as the answer to everything.

In one piece of legislation Obama and Congress have essentially committed the United States treasury to a 21st century emergency triage version of Roosevelt's New Deal and Johnsons Great Society - forgive me for this metaphor but if the Republicans are Dracula this legislation is like holding a crucifix in front of their noses.

The problem is that spending all this money might not work, not because Republicans are right - [Remember these one trick ponies wanted to put Social Security funds in the stock market] but because this massive cash infusion is not solving the problem of banks not lending.

If banks dont start lending the private economy and the world economy will remain stalled - public works spending will go along way to ease the pain but is it enough to generate a lasting jump start?

The US banking system is on life support. This perfect storm crash of the stock and real estate markets exposed a house of cards - ledger sheets kept in balance with bullshit inflated real estate appraisals and a mortgage backed securities ponzi scheme built on the same smoke and mirrors foundation.

Thats why the markets tanked minutes after Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner's anxiously anticipated speech in which he offerred no details of how they were going to deal with the dead assets -It didnt help that Obama's gladiator smarty pants turned out to have the charisma of an apprentice undertaker.

A piece in last Sunday's Business Section warned - "There is no sense throwing funds at zombie banks"

"Before Stress Testing Banks, Find a Pulse"
Gretchen Morgenson, NYT Sunday Business Section page one 2/15/09

The papers are full of mounting job losses. Noone knows what will happen next-

- and we are low on popcorn.

LIMBAUGH, COULTER AND THE WING NUTS ARE IDEOLOGICAL SUICIDE BOMBERS TESTING REPUBLICAN ATTACK THEMES WITH PLAUSIBLE DENIABILITY

2009-01-31T08:37:00.031-05:00

The right is struggling to climb back up from the cliff they drove over. Attack dog wing nuts like Anne Coulter, Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity are the Republicans ideological suicide bombers. They can repeatedly blow themselves up in the market place of political discourse, without hurting their core neanderthal demographic while far enough away to give Washington republicans plausible deniability.

When Obama told congressional leaders this week they have to do better than follow Rush. He knew he was shining a flashlight on the usually hidden wires between Limbaugh and Republican leaders to make it harder for them to run for cover whenever he says things that even Republicans can't say in public.

In Obama's interview on Al-Arabiya TV last week he spoke to millions of Arabs about "a new way forward" in peace and with mutual respect. Mutual respect between the Arab world and the US is the mirror image of the Bush foreign policy built on cold war style "axis of evil" fear mongering to grease the skids for unilateral military action.

The NY Post responded by wheeling out Amir Taheri, their in house fringe right bloviator. On January 29, 2009 they gave him an enire "opinion page" with the large print startling headline;

PATHETIC MESSAGE - Obama's odd Islamic outreach

If you don't read the Post, Taheri is not a household name. According to a Wikipedia article Taheri has a documented track record of simply making up incendiary smears. In 5/06 he made a false claim- disavowed by the journal that published it- that the Iranian parliament passed a law requiring color schemed clothing to make Jews, Christians and Zoroastrians identifiable). He made a claim that Iran’s UN Ambassador was one of the 1979 hostage takers when he was in fact a graduate student in San Francisco at the time and in 10/08 he wrote that Jesse Jackson told a World Policy Forum that Obama would change US policy towards Israel. Even though Jesse Jackson was not a speaker at that event. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amir_Taheri

In his Post column Taheri uses the time honored simple technique known as setting up and knocking down a straw man. Taheri shows us how its done;

First you distort the opponent's position into an easily attackable caricature that bears no relationship to reality.

Step two - knock down the straw man and do a victory dance while claiming to have easily won the argument.

Its simple but WARNING - be careful before you use this technique at home - it can be harmful if used in marital and parent/child arguments.

The truth. Here is the terrific thing that Obama actually said;

And my job is to communicate to the American people that the Muslim world is filled with extraordinary people who simply want to live their lives and see their children live better lives. My job to the Muslim world is to communicate that the Americans are not your enemy. We sometimes make mistakes. We have not been perfect. But if you look at the track record, as you say, America was not born as a colonial power, and that the same respect and partnership that America had with the Muslim world as recently as 20 or 30 years ago, there's no reason why we can't restore that. And that I think is going to be an important task.

Here is Taheri’s straw man distortion

Obama looked to the past rather than the future to give such platitudes a tinge of political vision. He said he wanted a return “to the same respect and partnership that America had with the Muslim world as recently as 20 or 30 years ago”
The problem is that few people in the Muslim world will welcome his back to the future approach. Thirty years ago Obama was a teenager in Indonesia, Vice President Biden, however was already a junior senator and a champion of President Carter’s strategic retreat”

Taheri spends his remaining two columns giving us his list of US- Arab foreign policy failures of the last 30 years, including murder of Americans and hostage taking, which he then scotch tapes to the President using Obama's hopeful reference to better times in US/Arab relations. Somewhat weak if reality is your cup of tea but as arts and crafts - nice job Amir.

Then Taheri wraps it up;

Casting himself in the role of "bridge" and dreaming of a return to an illusionary past, Obama appeared unsure of his own identity and confused about the role that America should play in global politics.

Who said there is no more large scale manufacturing in New York City?

There is no greater threat to world peace and the personal safety of Americans than the anti US hatred on the Arab street. The neo con philosophy of Arab relations has been Defense Department first and State Department maybe later - the UN? - fuggetaboutit. From within this world view you can see why these guys would be horrified that a President would want to build international bridges across today's dangerous divides. That kind of talk undermines everything they stand for. They also get it, that if such "odd" and "pathetic" behavior catches on they could be spending a lot more time over that cliff.

A Knee Jerk Bleeding Heart in the Third World

2009-01-25T16:23:00.073-05:00

We did the gawking tourist tip toe through the soul crushing poverty of Peru this December. A tourist visit to the third world is a little like walking on the moon. As you wander around in the world of undrinkable water, and a virtually non existent health and education infrastructure it may look like you're in the same time and place as the locals around you but you're not. Why? Because you're actually in a bubble tethered to the mother ship by a lifeline -also known as your passport, and a reserved seat on the deep vein thrombosis express back to Newark.

In addition to luggage we all bring our psychic baggage with us when we travel. Mine is particularly annoying for my fellow travelers - Im an overtipping chump. If I was standing on the wing of that Airbus floating in the freezing Hudson while Captain Sully was checking the empty cabin twice I'd be thinking - "Gee I wonder what the usual gratuity is for this kind of thing?"

This need to tip everyone in sight stems from the same reasons that my knee jerks and my heart bleeds every time my feet hit the New York City sidewalk. For example, as a New York City cab ride from hell is ending and we are hurtling back to within range of the earth’s gravitational pull a normal person might be writing down the complaint number. Not me. I'm busy doing the tip math to stay in good graces with my new friend from another land - Mr Knievel.

Fast forward to a street vendor on the shores of Lake Titicaca. My daughter, with her upgraded Spanish from a semester in Argentina negotiates with a lady selling bracelets. She’s getting close to closing the deal - I take a good look at the 6 year old helping his mom and suddenly Im the bracelet ladies agent urging my daughter to bump up our last offer.

Negotiating with taxis is such a part of life in Lima, that when you hail a cab another cab always pulls up right behind to be there when the haggling with the first guy fall apart.

Im pretty sure Im on an international tipping chumps list. Cab drivers seem to spot me instantly as I cram myself into the shotgun seat next to the driver with my family in back. After some polite mumbling in my pathetic Spanish one driver suddenly pulled out a picture of himself, taken many years ago with a woman and a young girl - Before I could make an approriate noise - he tells me its him and his wife with their schizophrenic daughter. Like a fish in a barrel I’ve been hooked and then he reels me in - from the glove compartment out comes a handwritten list on a prescription pad which he tells me are the medications that he cant afford. The back seat watches helplessly knowing that I been harpooned right before their eyes - and the prenegotiated cost of the trip just got bumped up.

The cab driver passenger relationship can sometimes take an interesting hop. Our taxi from the hotel to dinner in Puno was stopped for a paperwork check by a traffic cop on foot. As the cop walks away with the driver’s documents our guy suddenly takes off. Our cabbie/customer relationship has been upgraded and now we're Bonnie and Clyde on the lam zooming thru Puno rush hour. Eventually we blend into traffic, calmly pull up to the restaurant and of course I give him a nice tip. We got away didnt we?

Gaping out from the tourist bubble the cavernous gap between rich and poor hits you right between the eyes. Private guards in bullet proof vests mill around on the street corners and in front of hotels. In the Lima neighborhood of Miraflores wealthy homes with nice cars in the driveway are completely wrapped in metal security gates with barbed wire at the corners.

Crime in Lima is a problem. The cops in Lima and all over Peru seem pretty good at standing around in heavily armed clusters looking tough, clueless and corrupt. The armored vehicles and machine guns are reminders that Peru's 20 year bloody civil war ended only 8 years ago.

AL QUAIDA AND FOX NEWS ARE FLOUNDERING - - THE FUNDAMENTALIST'S HAVE LOST THEIR COMPASS POINTS -but not Rush

2008-11-28T09:18:00.049-05:00

The fundamentalists woke up November 5 only to discover that their compasses had stopped working.

The world economy is hanging on a brilliant, unflappable ray of sunshine named Obama waiting to break through the dark clouds. In this limbo period the wing nuts are divided, defeated and gasping for oxygen.

Al Quaida responds to the election by spitting out a racist smear.

Sean Hannity interviews, newly minted Fox "consultant" Karl Rove and makes Rove look like a moderate reminding Hannity, in essence, that he might want to wait until the theatre opens before shouting fire.

You can't say they arent trying. Hannity's web page came up with a reminder that AG nominee Eric Holder defended the seizure of Elian Gonzalez. There's a pressing current issue!

Confirming the breath taking sea change the NY Post and the Wall Street Journal ran editorials praising Obama.

From the WSJ editorial 11/28/08 "Obama's War Cabinet"

With these personnel picks, Mr Obama reveals a bias for competence, experience and continuity. Hence the caterwauls from his left flank"

They can’t figure out how to justify praising Obama’s intial appointments and they certainly can't suggest that they might have bet on the wrong horse so they have concocted an “angry” left wing and an alienated “anti war faction” to preserve an illusion of daylight between themselves and Obama's supporters. The "caterwauls from his left flank"? Turns out to be one posting on the Nation's web site from someone who disagrees with Obama. Its the Murdoch theory of journalism - if the facts you need to make a point don't match the reality - be creative.

From the NY Post editorial 11/28/08

Opposition to the Iraq War may have helped Obama make it to the White House, but now that time to govern is nearing, he's choosing people who bring a
reality-based worldview to the security challenges facing the nation.

In other words that silly opposition to the most disastrous costly dishonest foreign policy fiasco in American history vs post election realpolitik. They do have a point - "keep Gates at defense" would not have worked as a campaign platform This is about Obama's extraordinary reservoir of trust and good will at a time of financial collapse and two hopeless wars.

On the Fox News web site we see this headline

“Liberals Angry Over Obama Keeping Gates as Pentagon Chief”.

Who is this crowd of angry liberal's - two former congressional staffers. One used the word “disappointed” because of Gates prior support for torture and another guy would have preferred Sen. Chuck Hagel of Nebraska or Sen. Sam Nunn of Georgia. Thats it - no kidding

Liberals are angry? - oh no - man the barricades - take to the streets - where's Jean Val Jean?

What the heck are these guys talking about? This is the happiest time in the history of American liberalism. They will have to do better and they probably will but boy are they having an identity crisis - or what?

Then there's Rush Limbaugh the guy who has never troubled himself with facts before smearing sends a not so coded shout out on his web sight to his neanderthal bigot demographic observing with dismay that the press "dutifully stood up" as Obama walked to the podium for his press conference. A demonstration of respect for the President Elect of the United States and he's pissed off. So much for patriotism and supporting the Commander in Chief in war time. Like the troubled overweight adolescent bully yelling sarcastic insults from the corner of the playground, Limbaugh contemptuously called Obama "the Messiah" in the same posting.

The right wing locomotive has stalled but its not derailed. Limbaugh - todays Father Couglin - the hate spewing, radio demagogue of the 1930's - not missing a beat is preaching his own coded hate filled message to today's lunatic, angry, fringe - the nut jobs we all worry about.

Even the image of a marginalized Limbaugh is part of a reshuffled political landscape unimaginable before the election. Whatever the right needs to do to realign itself behind Obama is OK by me - Murdoch gets it. Obama is and promises to be unlike any leader America has seen since Roosevelt.

We got our country back!!!!

2008-11-06T08:25:00.031-05:00

From the rally in Cleveland Ohio Sunday November 2, 2008

Door to door getting out the vote Loraine County Ohio

Poll watching and voter protection in Oberlin Ohio

and our stock appears to have gone up in the marketplace of nations . . .

From a friend in France

Dear friends.
America we love is back…
I have already forgotten the former President’s name … who was it???
Obviously, a Bushless White House is the one we prefer.

All the best to you and you and your family, I hope we’ll meet again next year, we would like to come and see what America looks like with Obama..
Congratulations.
Regards
Jacques

From a friend in Belgium
Congratulations America!

A great day for your country and the world!

Peter

more from other French friends

Congratulations ! you can be very proud again to be Americans, you did the right thing, I was amazed by his speech in Chicago, Let"s hope he will be able to carry all the necessary changes.

BRAVO !

Pia and Jean-Pïerre

a friend in Ohio received this from France

I cried when I heard Obama's speech and saw all these faces listening to him. In fact I even cried hearing McCain's speech which was almost eloquent. The capacity of Americans to be... Americans is great. In France and Europe in general people tend to be or pretend to be cynical and that is disturbing.

Love

Hubert

. . . and finally from a relative in Canada

All sorts of people here saying they are proud to be American now, and I had no idea they were. But I feel the same way. What a distance has been travelled! Congratulations to all of you there, and much love, Alice

HEADING TO OHIO FOR ELECTION DAY POLL WATCHING

2008-10-31T06:58:00.029-04:00

My wife and I have downloaded the “Ohio Voter Protection Laws in a Nutshell” and Sections of Title 35 of the Ohio Revised Code and we're headed to Ohio to combine a visit with our kid in college with some "get out the vote" work and "voter protection" poll watching. Based on the training sessions, the on line trainings, the emails from organizers and the word from our network of friends is that there is an army of volunteer lawyers headed to polling places in battleground states to stop republicans from suppressing votes and/or stealing another election. The bottom line is that we are up against people who don’t really believe in universal suffrage and playing by the rules.

Hard to forget the documentary film about Florida 2000 that showed screaming, wall pounding young republican congressional staffers trying to prevent the Board of Election vote recounting (remember the hanging dimpled chads) while the Supreme Court was waiting in the wings to put the final fix in like old time bought and sold street corner pols.

Hard to forget the election day police road blocks to intimidate Afro American voters or in Ohio 2004 when Republicans, led by the then Republican secretary of state, litigated until early morning on election day to allow partisan vote challengers (one from each side) to be inside polling places challenging voter credentials.

Hard not to be terrified about the transparent republican goal of purging voters from registered voter lists because they moved, or because a data entry clerk at social security or the dept of motor vehicles put in a wrong digit.

The republican voter suppression campaign uses the myth of voter fraud as a cover. In the last debate McCain hinted that we can probably expect a post election day fraud spin. A key component of the fraud myth is ignoring the obvious distinction between registration fraud and voting fraud. Lets assume someone is able to register Mickey Mouse [ala the Acorn fake registrations]. The fake person still has to show up at the polls, get past poll workers and into a polling booth. The bogus fear is that a poll worker will say - “Right this way Mr Mouse. Oh and by the way sir - I’ve always loved your work.”

[The other important fact is that although fake registration forms (obviously a bad thing that should never have been allowed to happen) will not generate any fraudulent votes, a machine that flips your vote from who you chose to someone else could, without anyone being able to figure it out, change thousands of votes... ]

They also know that in poor Afro American districts forcing people to come up with photo id is a good way of stopping people from voting. As recently as April the 6–3 decision in April written by John Paul Stevens, Crawford v. Marion County Election Board ,upheld a 2005 Indiana law requiring voters in that state to produce a government document with a photograph at the polls.

The following is from Obama: The Price of Being Black By Andrew Hacker The New York Review of Books Volume 55, Number 14 September 25, 2008

Requiring a driver's license to vote has a disparate racial impact, a finding that once commanded judicial notice. To apply for the state ID card that Indiana offers as an alternative, moreover, nondrivers must travel to a motor vehicles office, which for many would be a lengthy trip. While licenses do not record race, Justice David Souter cited relevant studies of the race of license-holders in his dissent, which was joined by Justices Stephen Breyer and Ruth Bader Ginsburg. In one survey, made by the Department of Justice in 1994, black residents of Louisiana were found to be four to five times more likely not to have the official photograph needed for an identifying document. (Not to mention access to a car; recall how many couldn't leave as Katrina approached.) A Wisconsin survey published in 2005 was more precise. No fewer than 53 percent of black adults in Milwaukee County were not licensed to drive, compared with 15 percent of white adults in the remainder of the state. According to its author,
similar disparities will be found across the nation.

In contrast Ohio allows voter identification at the polls to include proof of who you are based on knowing the last four digits of your social security number, or producing a current utility bill or pay check or other government document with your name and address.

It would be very interesting to compare the Republican and Democratic budgets for voter registration campaigns.

To be continued tomorrow from Ohio . . . .

McCain/Palin mobs are going gaga about this no last name thing - isnt that what they did in the middle ages, before last names were invented?

2008-10-27T06:50:00.042-04:00

Its a new low in the history of dumbing down. The entire Republican campaign platform has been reduced to three words - "Joe the plumber"

McCain and Palin are now jazzing up their dwindling crowds of mean spirited diehards with this weird no last name fetish. McCain cracks himself up with how clever it was to come up with a campaign theme inspired by the middle ages - when all a guy needed on his ox cart license was Nigil the weaver's boy or Cecil the Sundial setter.

Is McCain running for President or Sheriff of Nottingham? I guess its just more nose crinkling small town harkening back to a simpler time when goverment wasn't squandering our hard earned tax money on those gosh darn wasteful earmarks - like sewers and running water.

THERE IS ONE QUESTION IN THIS ELECTION -ARE AMERICANS AS STUPID AS REPUBLICANS ARE HOPING WE ARE?

2008-09-14T09:13:00.019-04:00

Sarah Palin told supporters at a rally in Nevada, " we're going to Washington D.C. to shake things up", she said to approving screams from the crowd" NY Times Sun 9/14/08

So crowds are cheering madly as McCain and Pailin promise to shake things up by rescuing Washington from the Republicans. Hello - is anyone home?

I feel like we are living in that scene in Blazing Saddles when the Sheriff (Cleavon Little), about to be attacked by a threatening mob, takes himself hostage and threatens to shoot himself if they come any closer. The idiot towns folk are frozen in their tracks - someone says "I think he means it" - and they all start slowly backing away".

A friend e-mailed with this observation -

this is really the most amazing political phenomenon of our age: I can't quite get the right analogy for this successful leading of working people to believe that the GOP are on their side, while enacting policies which badly screw them: the distraction faked by the pickpocket just before they hit you; the magician's distraction of the eye before he pulls the card from his sleeve; people buying again and again from the same snake-oil salesman who came by last yr even though they got sick from the stuff. Lincoln never addressed this formulation directly, but maybe you can fool most of the people most of the time

BARKING BACK

2008-09-03T03:25:00.021-04:00

A FRIEND'S RESPONSE TO -

“THE MCCAIN EXPERIENCE MYTH- WEDNESDAY AUGUST 27, 2008”
AND TO
"MEMO TO HILLARY HOLDOUTS WHEN RUDY AGREES WITH YOU ITS TIME TO GET OVER IT" -MONDAY AUGUST 25, 2008

MY FRIEND WRITES

Thanks for the heads-up. Good job. I was curious and glanced at McCain's Senate website. I imagine he might say that simply being in the senate for as long as he's been, he picks up foreign policy experience. You can see lots of trips abroad he's made, speeches he's given that might suggest he has studied up on foreign affairs. But I think ultimately you're right in that his main claim to foreign policy expertise is that he fought in a war, was imprisoned and tortured. Good credentials in anyone's book. Re: Your Hillary/Rudy entry. I have to admit I had a little consciousness raising by my sister in law, who absolutely will vote for Obama with no hesitation, was one of those Hillary supporters who loved the idea of a major-party candidate who was a woman, that their time had come, that whether or not Obama did anything wrong, the fact remains that this upstart with no experience and just a lot of charisma, pushed her out of the way without paying any dues whatsoever, and anyway, it was their turn. Not to mention an absolutely unshakeable belief that Hillary got a raw deal from the media while Barak had a free ride. She was furious that anyone would question the appropriateness, for example, of Hillary supporters insisting on a roll call vote to demonstrate the wide support she had garnered. I say all of this just to say it brought home the depth of feeling that Clinton supporters brought to the convention and to this moment. Which only leads me to say that (a) my personal reaction to the H.C. supporters was the same as yours ("get over it!"), but (b) I have come to believe that the moment requires more sensitivity to their feelings. So if you send any more messages to your wide and ever-growing audience, I might suggest gentler tools of persuasion. It drives me crazy that somewhere close to 20% of H.C. supporters say they'll either vote for McCain or at least not vote for Obama (I forget which). To tell the truth, I think Hillary herself really came through at the convention, and said best what we all want to say to her supporters: Did you vote for me, or do you care about that woman without health insurance, that returned Iraq veteran needing services? O.k., that's my two cents. D

MY RESPONSE

Constructive criticism appreciated and duly noted - but I think I disagree. Although I accept the criticism that I might be too aggressive and strident and should probably calm down.
My feeling is that this election is a war to get the country back from violent fundamentalists who lost the election and responded by seizing power in a bloodless coup and have set the US on a disastrous downward spiral.

Hillary had one thing she needed to do - make sure that there is unity and no voting block of pissed off supporters for the Republicans to go after and she just did not do that. It was an obviously great speech but she talked mostly about her own achievements and was not as enthusiastic about Obama as Bill was. For Hillary to go into the convention talking about people voting their conscience instead of urging her supporters to unite around Obama to get these bastards out was unacceptable.
Instead her self centered speech convinced me more than ever that there is too much day light between the trajectory of her own career and doing the right thing - i.e. her cynical vote for the war. I even have my doubts about the strength of her support for Roe if her career plans conflicted. After her speech it was very clear that letting the Clintons near the White House would make them media magnets and a side show of implied second guessing. It would have been a disaster. Would I feel this way if the Obama and Hillary roles had been reversed - probably not.

Did you happen to catch Geraldine Ferarro on NPR today praising McCain's VP choice and refusing to say who she is voting for. Ferraro, who was forced out of the Hillary campaign leadership when she refused to back down from her comment that Obama is where he is because he is black has now morphed into a living metaphor for the politics of self centered snits. In her case it's a purely racist, self centered snit.

The fact that people who supported Hillary could now vote for McCain reveals that they were not in it because of values shared with the rest of the Democratic party.

Sorry to be so unrepentant
Love Bob

D RESPONDS

This could go on forever, but just a few responses. STOP - I started writing a whole long response and then stopped. You think she was self-centered and didn't do what she needed to do. I think we could not have hoped for much better, and I listened carefully to that speech expecting the worst and really being surprised at the effectiveness of the unity message. You're turning me into a Hillary defender - you say there's no position she wouldn't change if it would help her career, but told me I was off base when I complained that Obama was modifying virtually every decent view he had earlier espoused (in order to help his career). Last point, I actually think that her career interest was best served by making the strongest possible plea for unity. To the extent she failed to do that, and could be perceived of as a divisive force within the party, I think it would not help her career at all.
Vive la difference. D

Unlike McCain - Obama never bought the Bush WMD/Iraq - Al Queda war hoax

2008-09-01T09:23:00.011-04:00

John McCain not only bought it without question but quickly became one of the leading neo con men pushing the big lie with no weighing of the human, geopolitical or economic consequences

"The Right War for the Right Reasons"

by John McCain, New York Times, Op-Ed, 3/12/03 [excerpts]
. . .
. . .

After 12 years of economic sanctions, two different arms-inspection forces, several Security Council resolutions and, now, with more than 200,000 American and British troops at his doorstep, Saddam Hussein still refuses to give up his weapons of mass destruction.
. . .
The critics also have it wrong when they say that the strategy of the United States for the opening hours of the conflict -- likely to involve more than 3,000 precision-guided bombs and missiles in the first two days -- is intended to damage and demoralize the Iraqi people. It is intended to damage and demoralize the Iraqi military and to dissuade Iraqi leaders from using weapons of mass destruction against our forces or against neighboring countries, and from committing further atrocities against the Iraqi people.
. . .
The force our military uses will be less than proportional to the threat of injury we can expect to face should Saddam Hussein continue to build an arsenal of the world's most destructive weapons

----------------------------------------

AMERICA NEEDS A LEADER NOT A WARRIOR WHO DOESN'T ASK QUESTIONS

THE MCCAIN "EXPERIENCE" MYTH

2008-08-27T07:43:00.023-04:00

Item - The McCain campaign issued a press release on 8/23/08 that the Biden VP selection demonstrates Obama's lack of foreign policy experience

WHERE'S JOHN'S FOREIGN POLICY EXPERIENCE?

CAN YOU FIND IT?

COME ON - LET'S SEE IF WE CAN FIND ANY IN JOHN'S WIKIPEDIA BIO

John Sidney McCain III (born August 29, 1936) is the senior United States Senator from Arizona and presumptive nominee of the Republican Party in the 2008 presidential election.
McCain graduated from the U.S. Naval Academy in 1958 and became a naval aviator, flying ground-attack aircraft from aircraft carriers. During the Vietnam War, he nearly lost his life in the 1967 USS Forrestal fire. Later that year while on a bombing mission over North Vietnam, he was shot down, badly injured, and captured as a prisoner of war by the North Vietnamese. He was held from 1967 to 1973, experiencing episodes of torture and refusing an out-of-sequence early repatriation offer; his war wounds would leave him with lifelong physical limitations.

Amazing story of a 33 year old fighter pilot's suffering and bravery in 1969 - but is that a reason - 4 decades later- to give this 72 year old man the codes to start a nuclear war?

Let’s keep looking - maybe the relevant foreign policy experience is coming up . . .

He retired from the Navy as a captain in 1981 and, moving to Arizona, entered politics. Elected to the U.S. House of Representatives in 1982, he served two terms, and was then elected to the U.S. Senate in 1986, winning re-election easily in 1992, 1998, and 2004. While generally adhering to conservative principles, McCain has gained a media reputation as a "maverick" for disagreeing with his party on several key issues. After being investigated and largely exonerated in a political influence scandal of the 1980s as a member of the "Keating Five", he made campaign finance reform one of his signature concerns, which eventually led to the passage of the McCain-Feingold Act in 2002.

whoa - just a minute - "a member of the Keating Five" - that wasn't an 80's rock band- wasn't that one of the largest political corruption frauds in American history and didn't he just miss being indicted?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Keating_Five

He is also known for his work towards restoring diplomatic relations with Vietnam in the 1990s,

so this more recent Vietnam experience was just a tad under 2 decades ago - that can't be all there is - can it ?

and for his belief that the war in Iraq should be fought to a successful conclusion in the 2000s.

he bought Bush's Iraq/Al Queda hoax hook line and sinker and he was one of the earliest and most prominent uncritical cheerleaders for the most disastrous dishonest use of American military power in modern history - now, without a shred of ciritical insight into the invasion of Iraq, teh best he can come up with is escalation without an exit strategy -

he may not have much foreign policy experience but it does tell us something about his "judgment" and that he doesn't need a proven securitythreat before sending our armed forces in harm's way

lets keep going - were almost at the end -

wow- its not that long a resume for such an old man - is it?

McCain has chaired the powerful Senate Commerce Committee, and has been a leader in seeking to rein in both pork barrel spending as well as Senate filibusters of judicial nominations.

no - its not there

McCain lost his bid for the Republican nomination in the 2000 presidential election to George W. Bush. He ran again for the Republican presidential nomination in 2008, and gained enough delegates to become the party's presumptive nominee in March 2008.

Jeepers creepers - is that it ?

That's the foreign policy resume he's bragging about?

Republicans wouldn't be trying to fool people - would they ?

MEMO TO HILLARY HOLDOUTS - WHEN RUDY AGREES WITH YOU ITS TIME TO GET OVER IT

2008-08-25T07:58:00.012-04:00

Rudy Guliani was on the talk show circuit this weekend offering his unbiased opinion that choosing Hillary for VP was a “no brainer”. They know that fanning this flame is the key to Republican victory.

Hillary lost because she wasnt likeable enough. When a comedian is not getting laughs its because she’s not funny - its not because the audience is sexist.

a maybe - just maybe - all those white working class folks were motivated to vote for her not because of who she is but because of who she was running against - does Hillary Clinton really want to embrace "white backlashers" as a voting block?

She also lost because she voted for the war she knew to be a hoax because she cared more about her own career than whats best for the country.

Get over yourselves. This is not about chosing a class president This is not just about John McCain vs Barack Obama. This is about taking our flag and our country back from violent, lying, fundamentalists who stole the White House and have no respect for human life - unless you're an embryo or in a coma.

We need to get our country back from Republicans who have one defining theory of government which is - everything will be ok if rich people can just get more money.

For the sake of our children - keep your eyes on the prize.

2008-08-05T14:44:00.002-04:00

A CAVEMAN TRIES TO UNDERSTAND A SCIENTIST ABOUT THE CELL PHONE CANCER THING

2008-08-03T14:54:00.014-04:00

FREE hit counter and Internet traffic statistics from freestats.com

When the latest new health scare/alert sends me into a tizzy I usually turn to my brother in law Myron the psychiatrist/scientist for help. Here is my caveman response ("cm" in bold) to Myrons email.
------------------------------------
Dear Bob
It is true that radio frequency radiation passes into the head from a cell phone,

caveman (cm) - radio frequency radiation into head - me no like

and it is probably true that substituting a Bluetooth earpiece for holding the phone against one's ear exposes the head to even more radiation.

cm- fuggetabout bluetooth

A metal shield is kind of dumb as a protective
strategy,

cm-fuggetabout dumb protective shields

but using a plastic tube to conduct sound to the ear from a little speaker located on one's lap would definitely reduce radiation to the head.

cm: lets get little speakers for our laps

However, one's lap would then be exposed to more radiation. Which region is more important will vary, of course, between people and changes as one ages.

cm: fuggetabout little speakers for our laps

Radio waves do not have enough energy to strip electrons away from
atoms and hence cannot influence ordinary chemical reactions.

cm: me feel better about radio waves

Even visible light cannot do this despite having far higher energy per photon. It is only when one gets into ultraviolet, Xray and gamma ray frequencies that you have ionizing radiation (see
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ionizing_radiation ).
The radiation from a microwave oven cannot ionize... it only heats.

cm: finally - me happy - I can walk around with a microwave held up to my head or in my pocket without getting cancer

The amount of heat produced by a cell phone is so tiny that I don't think you could
measure the rise in temperature in the ear or anywhere.

cm: me like it when scary things cant be measured

However, for years, doctors have used "diathermy" machines to treat
orthopedic injuries. These emit high-frequency radio waves, like a
microwave oven (in fact, those waves are microwaves) and penetrate
deeper into muscles more rapidly than would a heat lamp or hot wet
towels. The warmth, combined with massage, is supposed to relax the
muscles and reduce pain and inflammation. The intensity of the
diathermy radiation is thousands of times greater than what is emitted
from a cell phone. There has been no evidence of diathermy causing
cancer.

cm: me getting sleepy

Radiation induces cancer by disrupting DNA. It knocks electrons off
the DNA or nearby molecules, making them available for unusual
chemical reactions. Only ionizing radiation can do this. Again,
visible sunlight, which is thousands of times more energetic per
photon than radio, can only heat up one's skin. It is only the
ultraviolet, again far more energetic per photon than, say, green
light, that can ionize anything and cause a sunburn or even induce
tanning.

cm: zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

What this boils down to is that rumors, anecdotes, conspiracy theories
and pseudo-scientific polemic constitute the only basis for the
fantasy that cell phones next to the ear are more dangerous than a
cell phone in one's pocket.
As for radio waves, we are flooded with them, such as from radio and
TV broadcasts. A wire can pick up lots of energy from radio waves in
the air, a really lot. A so-called crystal radio set gets all its
energy from the antenna. You string a wire up to capture the radiation
that hits the wire, then pass the electricity through a coil and
capacitor that blocks out over 98% of the power and allows only a
little fraction to pass through... the fraction that is at the
frequency of a particular AM broadcast station. There remains enough
power in this fraction to produce sound in an earphone, with no
amplification, no batteries, no external source of power. There is a
lot of radio energy passing though us all the time, but, like I say,
it is non-ionizing and there is no serious body of evidence showing
any cancer risk.
As for using a little tube to conduct sound into the ear as little
puffs of air, this was how certain headphones in airplanes used to
operate. Nowadays, people plug electronic headphones into jacks on the
armrests, but one used to plug tubes into armrest holes. I think that
the fidelity of sound degrades when it has to pass through a littletube like that, so that it may be more difficult to decipher
conversations using the WaveShield RF1000 compared with a good
Bluetooth headset; and the latter usually includes a noise-cancellingmicrophone that supports hands-free operation when driving, walking or
eating. The little plastic tubes are better in an MRI machine...
that's how the technician talks to you and how they play music to help
you relax and enjoy.
Love, Myron

CM - me waking up in sweat. . . physics exam tomorrow . . . forgot to go to class

So Myron - Is it possible to answer the following true/false question?
Q Do cell-phones, in fact, emit enough radiation to cause cancer?
Yes or No
Thanks
Love Bob

stay tuned . . .

THE NYC RUSH HOUR SUBWAY CAR -THE KEY TO WORLD PEACE

2008-07-24T05:07:00.025-04:00

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It may not seem like it when you’re struggling to stay vertical in a packed NYC rush hour subway car - praying that the smelly guy is not you - but that human mush is a model for world peace.

Like the earth - the subway in rush hour is not big enough. There’s not enough fresh air, light, and clean space. People shuffle onto those packed iron beasts from every walk of life lugging with them all the available racial and ethnic hostilities and isms but for the most part - they get along.

Of course you’ve got your jerks, your door blockers, your leg spreaders and the occasional early morning condemnation to eternal hell but mostly its regular folks who just want to get where they going - everyday people who give up seats, keep comments and judgments to themselves; pull out a napkin to wipe water from the seat next to them so a stranger can sit down, hand a mom the rubber toy fallen from the stroller or help the lost tourist, the disabled, the sick, the elderly while perfecting the New York art of not getting caught staring -every day folks quietly making it work

In the worlds hot spots - the Middle East, Africa or the Balkans - extremists set the agenda. Things are not going to get better until the agenda is set by regular people with no ax to grind - like New Yorkers in the subway - who just want to get where they are going - quietly making it work

Photo by Markus Hartel (markushartel.com)

I AM AN UPPERWEST SIDE LIBERAL- I LIKE IT WHEN OBAMA MAKES ME UNHAPPY-IT CURES MY MCGOVERN ANXIETY

2008-07-19T06:53:00.006-04:00

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Obama supporters are worried about his swerves into right wing territory this summer - telling evangelicals that he will expand faith based initiatives -expressing a pro death penalty sentiment in agreement with Thomas and Scalia and recently an opinion in favor of FISA's warrantless wiretapping.

Im more worried about not getting our country and our flag back from the violent fundamentalist nuts with no respect for human life who stole the White House along with our wallet and car keys and for 8 years have been plowing the nation's car into buildings and pedestrians all over the globe.

One thing is clear - I don't have a clue.
I will never understand how Americans were persuaded twice to vote for this idiot frat boy prince. So Im not sweating Obama's recent swerves to the center and right because if he makes guys like me unhappy thats good.

He won't win this election if he cares too much about what people like me think of him. In fact when I like him too much I start having 1972 Nixon 49 McGovern 1+DC - "don’t blame me Im from Massachusetts - anxiety attacks

So you keep swerving Mr. Obama. What matters now is getting our wallet and car keys back - then we will figure out how to dig our way out from under W’s legacy of lies, bloodshed, squandered billions and anti US hatred.

BARKING BACK - Friends weigh in with responses to the "barking" about Obama's swerve

2008-07-10T13:40:00.017-04:00

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"Well stated. I wish I could get comparable pleasure out of Barak's becoming a moderate Republican. I agree that if a candidate was remotely as progressive as we'd like, he'd have no chance at winning. And nothing that he does will so disenchant me that I wouldn't vote. Not a chance. But I have to admit my stomach turned when in the course of two weeks he sounded or tried to sound like he agreed with the pro-death penalty dissent on the court and agreed with the pro-gun owner majority on the court, then he opted out of federal financing on his campaign, hedged on withdrawal from Iraq, and more. All this a week or so after he waffled on his willingness to talk with even foreign leaders we don't like. Without a doubt I'll still vote for him, but at some point I may have forgotten why. Will his campaign reform efforts, Supreme Court appointments, and Iraq strategy and foreign policy decisions be based on these latest statements? Or can I, as some friends argue I should do, rely on the belief that he really is progressive but will only let that fact emerge once he's been elected? "

---------------------------------------------
"I'm with you--although i just hope he doesn't pass the center and join the right!"

---------------------------------------------
"On the other hand

The ideals that a politician actually holds inside himself, let alone those he openly espouses, and let alone those that remain by the time he enters office, rapidly degrade through enlightenment to reality, repeated compromise, pervasive peer pressure, and the corruption that inevitably accompanies power. Whatever he once may have been, 0bama is now very much a politician, very much subject to external manipulation, and not just until the election. That is, he can be steered so that harsh pressure from progressives may be well worth exerting. If he takes the support of progressives for granted, he will act like a "centrist" and could turn out worse for the country in the long run. If many progressives turn away in disappointment and he loses, that may even be best.There is something to be said for letting McCain be elected. It could be that the country's current problems will worsen no matter what, and whoever is president will be blamed. A full economic depression, a war of annihilation between Iran and Israel, a widening of the chaos in Africa, severe disruptions caused by global warming, including all sorts of of diseases, agricultural disasters, rioting and mass migrations all occurring during Obama's presidency would cause the country to quickly turn to a frankly dictatorial "man on a white horse" eager to declare emergency and substitute authoritarian rule for the already flagging American experiment in freedom..On the other hand, if the country gets the president it seems to deserve there would be an opportunity for another Roosevelt-like administration to follow. Obama would have a clear mandate and would be pushed by an outraged public to prosecute the people illegally profiting from the war, to break up the de facto monopolies, to balance the Supreme Court, disband the CIA and perhaps to form an uneasy alliance with China against Russia and our other enemies so that when we finally go down we would go down more gently."

-------------------------------------------------------------
and someone else sent me this link with more on the subject
http://www.laweekly.com/news/dissonance/dissonance-obamas-middle-ground/19203/

THE NYC CRANE DISASTERS

2008-05-31T08:13:00.017-04:00

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Mr. Bloomberg responded angrily during a news conference to the suggestion that the Department of Buildings had failed to ensure public safety.

“I don’t think there’s anything wrong with the D.O.B. — D.O.B. didn’t crash; it was the crane that collapsed,” Mr. Bloomberg told reporters. “Keep in mind that construction is a dangerous business and you will always have fatalities.”

TWO DISASTERS IN TWO AND 1/2 MONTHS - MR MAYOR ISN'T IT TIME TO ADMIT THAT DOB DID CRASH - BEFORE THE THIRD?

May 30, 2008 / 91st Street

March 15, 2008/ 51st Street

(an unpublished letter to the NY Times)

The deaths and injuries caused by two recent crane collapses were both tragic and miraculously limited. For decades New York City's development philosophy has been that what’s good for the real estate industry is good for the rest of us. The Department of Buildings, our “cop on the beat” was left underfunded and understaffed. The Guliani administration changed the rules to allow architects hired by builders to “self certify” zoning and housing code compliance. The real estate industry has now forfeited the right to this degree of trust.
Its time to remove the fox from the henhouse door before there is a third crane disaster. High rise crane projects need to be halted pending a safety procedures review that is similar to what NASA did following the Challenger disaster. New Yorkers have a right to be assured by competent independent experts that they can live and work near high rise construction sites without fear.

IF THE FIRST GEORGE W HADNT "CUT AND RUN" IN 1776 WE'D BE DRIVING ON THE LEFT AND SAYING "SHEDULE"

2008-02-16T06:35:00.133-05:00

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In 1776 George Washington saved the American Revolution by knowing when to retreat from the British in the Battle of Brooklyn.
Senator McCain would you have attacked him for "cutting and running" or should the President of the US have the capacity to understand when, where and how to fight a war?

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

In 2003 Bush and his shameless gang of violent fundamentalist neoconmen took the nation to war based on a big fat lie- like the sleaziest trial lawyers that ever bamboozled a jury.

A few months later they dressed Bush up as a pilot and stuck him in the back seat of a fighter jet so he could whoop it up with sailors on an aircraft carrier in the San Diego harbor under a "Mission Accomplished" banner.

There are locked up convicted murderers who are guilty of crimes that are less morally despicable.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Casualties_of_the_conflict_in_Iraq_since_2003

Five years after that victory party we have a pretty clear picture of what Bush's mission actually "accomplished";

-Bin Laden was allowed to escape to plan another attack from his hideout in Afghanistan;

- the historic opportunity to lead a united world, militarily and politically, against these stone age mass murderers was lost;

- whatever credibility and good will the US used to have as a world power has been destroyed;

-the troop strength and morale of our armed forces has been devastated and

- the bravery of our troops who trusted their commander in chief has been rewarded with almost 4,000 dead, 10s of thousands wounded

http://www.icasualties.org/oif/IraqiDeaths.aspx

- the population of military families is suffering deeply;

-Iraq has been destroyed and the remaining Iraqis (those who haven't fled or been killed) long for the good old days of Sadaam when they had water and electricity and could go out to buy bread without being blown up;

-the Iranian mullahs are thrilled to pieces that Bush removed the country that was holding them in geo-political check and

-Al Quaida which was not in Iraq before we invaded has been given another base of operations from which they can kill Americans more easily-

-Al Quaida's recruitment efforts are going a lot better than the US Armed forces thanks to Bin Laden's fund-raiser/recruiter in chief - George W.

On the home front Bush's insane war has blown a hole in the US budget that has left us hemorrhaging at a flow of $720 million a day. In each day of his war Bush is flushing down the toilet the cost of 1,153,846 school lunches or 12,000 elementary school teachers - for example.

A heck of job Bushie!

John McCain thinks the war was a good idea and should be escalated without an exit strategy. Kind of makes you wonder if his driveway goes all the way to the garage!

When Republicans send troops into harm's way they control the debate and Democrats are checkmated into silence.(We should be afraid - very afraid about an October surprise)

The next time McCain tells a crowd of conservative white whoopers that we can't end the war because that would be cutting and running would some journalist please ask -

excuse me Senator - we understand that you find it acceptable for the President of the United States to launch a war based on a deliberate lie about WMDs and a fabricated connection between Sadaam and Al Quaida -

but now that your war has lasted longer than World War II - if you become Commander in Chief -

-how many years of this horrendous nightmare in Iraq is too many for you?

-how many billions to accomplish nothing in Iraq is too much money for you?

-is there any number of dead and wounded that is too many for you?

-could you even begin to describe what "winning" the war in Iraq would look like?

and finally

-when does your claim to believe in the sanctity of human life kick in - or for you does that just apply to embryos and people in comas?

OUR FAMILY TRIP TO ASIA - CONFESSIONS OF A GERMOPHOBIC NUT JOB

2008-01-18T07:15:00.023-05:00

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A few days before my wife and I and our 20 year old twin daughters left for a two week family trip to Thailand, Cambodia and Laos over the Christmas break the girls sat me down for a pre trip talk about getting a grip on my health anxieties. They know that if you could buy a haz mat space suit as casual travel wear Id own one faster than you can say medivac.

When it comes to traveling my wife and I have a division of labor - she deals with the small stuff like where we are going, how we are getting there, where we are staying and what we will be doing when we get there. I address the “big picture” - terrorism, war and pestilence.

The “dad we need to talk” sit down came after they caught me heading for the bathroom wearing a long rain coat, leather winter gloves a ski hat and one of my avian flu surgical masks to spray all of our trip clothing with industrial strength insect repellent on advise of our travel medicine doc - but the talk ended abruptly because in trying to describe what they saw both kids were laughing too hard to finish a sentence.

Its not entirely correct to dismiss me as a germophobic nut case. After I read the South East Asia vaccination and health alerts on the CDC, WHO and State Dept web pages it would be more accurate to dismiss me as a malaria, dengue fever, japanese encepalitis, diptheria, hepatitis (A and E) food borne viruses, waterborne parasites, rabies - phobe nut case.

A little background factoid -the family is still getting good laughs about the jumbo jar of gefilte fish I bought at Costco in the fall of 1999 to prepare for Y2k - a plan that depended heavily on adequate Red Cross stockpiles of horseradish.

So what's a germophobe to eat and drink in a part of the world where slabs of unrefrigerated raw meat, along with eggs and fish sit out all day on tables in local markets and there doesnt seem to be any government effort to provide sewage and solid waste disposal systems (not to mention schools or hospitals). We had alot of soups and stir fried dishes and scrutinized quite a few spring rolls looking for lettuce. So how was the food? I have no idea - I was too busy playing restaurant roulette with the menu to notice - as long as whatever was on the plate was overcooked I was happy.

We had a pretrip consult with Dr. John Cahill, an emergency medicine physician and the director of the tropical and travel medicine clinic at St. Luke's-Roosevelt Hospital. Dr. Cahill, is a confidence inspiring, incredibly nice and patient guy, with an impressive CV, who has lived and travelled extensively in Asia and Africa. His advice about the food safety issue was that the main rule is to make sure the meat, fish or chicken is well cooked. He also put salads and fruit that you can't peel on the list of no nos.

For us peeled fruit and especially little grilled banannas were our walking around snack food.

The visit to Dr. Cahil was not only for vacinations and malarone, to prevent malaria but he was also a good source of assorted third world travel does and donts -such as the useful fact that the antibiotic cipro hasnt been working in SE Asia -when he heard we might be rafting in northern Laos - he cautioned to make sure you don’t have any open wounds because of waterborne parasites - based on this advice my wife added water proof bandaids to our first aid kit. This revealed a significant difference between my wife's travel attitude and mine - If I have an open wound in Northern Laos the list of things on my mind will not include whether or not to take a dip in the Mekong River.

Our itinerary included Luang Prabang, in Northern Laos, a Unesco world heritage town followed by a six hour drive south to Vang Vieng, and then on to Ventiane, the capital, a flight to Siem Reap Cambodia, home of Angkor Wat and a flight to Pnomh Pemh. Arrange through Exotissimo, an agency with offices all over SE Asia.

Taking comfort in Dr. Cahill's advise and another talking to from my kids about the importance of experiencing local life when you travel we cancelled a dinner reservation in Luang Prabang and went to the food stall market and picked up a delicous fish on skewers held in place by strips of bamboo, stuffed with lemon grass and an assorted plate of cooked vegetables. The fish cost 25000 kip (under $3) and a plate of cooked vegetables from a vendor opposite the fish lady topped off by an ice cold Lao beer. The markets of Luang Prabang are memorable for the good humored easy going ladies selling crafts and dinner

While in Luang Prabang we got up at 5 am and sat on mats on the main street to give morning alms to a procession of about a hundred safron robed monks. This means people lined up on main street, after buying pots of sticky rice from a vendor and then putting little handfuls of therice with bare hands into the monks ceremonial bowls. Apparently this is not just chow time it's a time honored solemn buddhist ritual that has something to do with the monks as a link to departed loved ones. It was a safe bet that I was the only one thinking about all of our unwashed food serving hands. One guy I was pretty sure was not fretting the hand-schmutz issue was the chubby Italian tourist on the next mat who started eating his rice long before the monks got there.

Lake Tonle Sap in Cambodia, is the largest lake in South East Asia. Until we actually saw Lake Tonle Sap we didn't give a second thought to ordering Tonle Sap fish which is on menus throughout Laos and Cambodia. Our “what was I thinking” moment came during our boat ride in the sludge brown water of Lake Tonle Sap past the garbage strewn shoreline and the glimpses into crowded - floating sewage generating homes of impoverished families of Vietnamese refugees in this lake an hour outside of Siem Reap. Let me just say that I kept my lips tightly sealed on that trip while thinking- "boy - if there was ever a boat I did not want to sink - this was it!".

The busses and van loads of visitors, that clog the narrow road to Ton Le sap are required to stop and pay some kind of entrance fee. There is certainly no visible evidence that this, significant revenue stream is being spent on development for the desperate folks living in this area.

On an afternoon ride outside of Siem Reap to see ruins we had to pay another toll that did not look very official. Our guide said the toll is run by the company that is supposed to be building the road - huh? The contractor gets to set up a private toll booth?

For the health anxiety nut, the fabulous thing about being in a place that has both dengue fever and malaria, is that you can feel anxious day and night. Dengue is something you get from daytime mosquito bites and there is no medication that prevents it- you just slather on the insect repellent with scary sounding chemicals. Malaria you get from female mosquitos that bite during dawn and dusk.

A tourist handbook put out by the Laotian government offerred the helpful advise -

“Mosquito bites. Beware of the females. . . . Dengue fever is waiting to pounce. and I also appreciated the following helpful tip - Tiger bites? Very bad, especially in the rainy season. You will be comforted to know that your family will read about you in their daily papers".

You gotta love totalitarian humor

To protect against Malaria you take Malarone before and 7 days after you are in malaria country and sleep with mosquito netting treated with permethrin - unless its a place with air conditioning and closed windows. As advised by Dr. Cahill you should also spray your clothes with insect repellent with permethrin. One of the confusing things about the whole malaria/dengue danger was why so many luxury hotel dining rooms and lobbies are designed without walls like there is no problem?

My kids can't believe my gift in finding chicken little - doom and gloom -newspaper articles. The day before we flew from Ventiane Laos to Siem Reap, Cambodia (home of Angkor Wat) I take a break in a hotel bar and just happen to pick up an International Herald Tribune and of course there is a report of a spike in the number of dengue fever cases in Cambodia. It was like the paper had been created and left there for me by Ed Harris in a kind of Truman Show moment.

Another "best of" anxiety moment was the morning when I was up at 4 am reading in the bathroom of our hotel in Luang Prabang and I saw a mosquito in front of my nose. There I was on the toilet wondering if 4am was technically dusk and trying to see if mosquitos have genitalia.

My family really enjoyed the moment of our Mekong River boat ride when I had a hypchrondriacal meltdown because I was convinced that I had forgotten to take my malarone that morning The pill count when we got home proved me wrong.

At some point it finally dawned on me that all the malaria protection was merely a swiss cheese zone defense. When I got this for some reason I started to worry less - kind of an anxiety circuit overload. My spirit of travel adventure refocussed on the a more practical question - will Malaria and Dengue fever kill us. The comforting answer is probably not.
So here is the slightly cheesy finish - to my fellow germophobes - I offer the advise of my kids -just suck it up and deal -you'll be fine- hopefully.

Gotcha!

Level the Playing Field --Choose Arbitrators Arbitrarily

2007-08-11T17:39:00.004-04:00

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NYTimes City Section Letter 8/12/07 p.9

To the Editor:
In "Mandatory Fairness" (Op-Ed, July 22), Dirk Olin correctly praises the Legislature's failure to pass an immunity for arbitrators law. In my two-lawyer firm in Brooklyn we regularly speak to average working people who are victims of a civil wrong and discover that they will have no access to the legal system because at the courthouse door they must answer the question, "How much justice can you afford?"Arbitration is a good idea and a can make justice more accessible to everyday people. Putting arbitrators in a position of dependence on being chosen by the large corporate arbitration users tilts the playing field unfairly.One way to try to fix the problem would be to end the process of having the parties choose their arbitrator. If we forbid "judge shopping" in a courthouse, the same should apply in arbitrations. The arbitration system needs an arbitrary referral process, the administration of which would be subsidized by an annual fee from the volume users so that arbitrators get randomly assigned by a computer.
Robert M. Salzman
Downtown Brooklyn

A proposal to fight racist profiling by police

2007-04-20T06:57:00.008-04:00

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The first step to solving a problem is honestly identifying it. The problem is not racial profiling - its racist profiling.
Every human being profiles. When our kid brings a new friend home - we profile. When we decide who to sit next to on a long train ride - we profile. If we are alone on an isolated street at 2 AM and a person is coming the other way - we profile. If you're a cop approaching a car that you've just stopped for speeding and reckless driving- you profile.
The problem is that profiling is so often based on ignorance, irrational fear and racial bias. An antidote to ignorance, irrational fears and racism is to form personal relationships that cross cultural, racial and class divides.

A small proposal
Police cadets should be required to spend a month living with the family of a fellow police cadet from a different race or ethnic group.
This monitored and structured program will teach the cadet something and it will also inform the police department about the cadet. If he or she gets bad reports from the family (especially the ten year old kid and his or her friends) the department may find out that this is not a person to be trusted with a gun and a badge.

Two problems with Bush as mourner in chief (an unpublished letter to the NYTimes)

2007-04-18T10:55:00.000-04:00

To the Editor

There are two problems with having President Bush speak as the nation's mourner in chief following the Virginia Tech massacre. The first is his life long commitment to regulation free gun ownership. The second is that as a direct and foreseeable result of his disastrous, dishonest, preemptive war, 30 massacres is just another day in Baghdad.

"Spalding Gray: Stories Left to Tell” at the Minetta Lane Theatre- a review

2007-04-10T07:32:00.001-04:00

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Call me crazy but I was expecting to see a play when I walked into the Minetta Lane Theatre to see “Spalding Gray: Stories Left to Tell”. It was disappointing to get only a reading. Five performers take a stab at mining Gray’s poignant elegant and funny diaries - organized into love, adventure, journals, family but in the end the show gets a free ride of audience good will that it didn’t quite earn.
My expectations were raised by the interesting stage set with floor to cavernous ceiling hanging manuscript pages as a backdrop and stacks of Gray's signature black and white notebooks. The problem may have been that the director and actors also thought it was a play. How else to explain the cast's curious synchronized but pointless running around on stage to reposition themselves amid the piled up notebooks in between readings?
During each reading the other actors sit around on stage watching, randomly emoting, and sometimes draping an arm around a shoulder. It felt like we were eavesdropping on a graduate school drama seminar. It was confusing and distracting to watch Kathleen Chalfant (love) more visibly emotional when listening to the other actors. Hazelle Goodman (adventure), was fun and interesting to watch perhaps because she’s a young African American woman channeling a middle aged New England Wasp. Ain Gordon (journals), who looks like a young Eric Bogosian, gets to read from a table, with a microphone, a glass of water, a grade school note book and a small yellow boom box. He fell short of tapping Gray's funny dead pan insights and he seemed more like a grieving relative. Frank Gordon (family) has a frumpy demeanor that felt comfortably close to Gray's persona. Josh Lucas a guest performer came on stage late in the performance and he seemed like a guest -a talented good looking actor but he added nothing. If you are going to a have a guest performer why not stick in a larger than life character actor who brings a wild contrast and change of pace?
A production based on the work of Spalding Gray has a presold market of people, like me, who looked forward to each new work, as the next episode in a, frequently hilarious, serialized journey with that unique performance artist in whatever direction his life had just taken. Although after Swimming To Cambodia his material seemed less and less spontaneous and more and more like it was being lived to generate itself. Then there was the taint of cringing discomfort as he shared the details of the painful end of his long term relationship with life and creative partner Renee and his affair that eventually ended the marriage.
An audience of Gray fans at a reading of his work in 2007 can still feel the spirit and hear the voice of this wonderful writer and performer we lost in 2004. At the end the cast turns to face a projected photo of Gray and joins the audience in a tribute of applause - an image that says it all about this show.

We need to start calling US troops "other people's sons and daughters"

2007-03-13T07:40:00.003-04:00

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In a just world George Bush would be led from the White House in handcuffs and sentenced to serve for the rest of the war on a medivac chopper in Iraq caring for the wounded and transporting the dead - in a plea bargain he would be allowed to wear his flight suit with the helmet - the one he wore in May 2003 when they stuck him in the back seat of a jet fighter and flew him to an aircraft carrier in the San Diego harbor for that idiotic mission accomplished photo op.

My second choice would be making him drive around America with the military detail responsible for knocking on doors to tell people that their son or daughter was killed in Iraq. These officers would say to the loved ones - "and now over here is former President Bush with a free flag and an apology".

If we can't bring an immediate end to the most disastrous, dishonest foreign policy debacle in American history - that has caused domestic and international damage to our nation that will be felt for generations- we should at least insist on an honest vocabulary.

Politicians and talking heads, with no kids in Iraq, should be required to refer to US forces there as "other people's sons and daughters". For example - VP Darth Cheney would have to say that it is disloyal to question the hoax he and his neo con men sold the public as a cover for sending "other people's sons and daughters" to invade and destroy Iraq instead of seizing the historic, and now lost, opportunity for the US to lead a united world, both militarily and politically, against the stone age mass murderers responsible for 9-11.

Referring to US forces as other peoples fathers, mothers, husbands and wives, sisters and brothers - would also be acceptable.

Lori’s Restaurant Tip #3 Luz

2007-02-25T15:28:00.000-05:00

Luz
177 Vanderbilt Avenue (Myrtle Avenue), Fort Greene, Brooklyn; (718) 246-4000.

Oozing along sclerotic Flatbush Avenue in rush hour, towards dinner in Fort Greene, I found myself wondering how on earth will Brooklyn survive the artery clogging impact of that $5 billion, 22 acre, entree known as Atlantic yards.

The approach of a meal took my mind off the fate of Brooklyn and things really started to improve when we found a parking space right in front (hold your applause)of Luz, a charming unpretentious neuvo latino neighborhood restaurant with a high quality varied menu and decent prices. The decor is attractive with a minimalist feel that was both warm and cool. Our waitress, a delightful kid who knew the menu and was able to explain her choice of favorites and what didn’t make her list and she understood the ballet of how to float in and out at the right time during the meal.

On a chilly February night hot sangria - a spicy hot mulled wine- hit the spot. Others reported that the cold sangria was refreshing. The white red and sparkling sangria as well as fruit flavored mojitos looked good for next time.
Three of us enjoyed two appetizers. We went with the arapas -3 corn and goat cheese disks with a subtle interesting flavor and a cerviche of poached shrimp with mango on an attractive bed of mango slices.

The slow cooked pork with plantanos was good but not as memorable as the appetizers -(aint it always that way). The short ribs had a great flavor although it lacked that melt in your mouth/fall apart at the touch quality that was hoped for.
Desert fiends may be disappointed by a limited four item desert menu - we split one delicious hot chocolate cake with vanilla ice cream - not what we ordered but a welcome mistake by our buddy the waitress who had a lot of goodwill chits to cash in.

There will be a next time and on the list to be tried is an interesting whole snapper that has some kind of salad inside it. The ½ or whole Peruvian roasted chicken and a choice of sides including potatoes, collared greens. The ½ chicken was $5 - [sounds too cheap but I think its right](whole chicken $10) plus $5 for the choices of sides - it looked good on the next table where it was ordered by the young woman on a what looked like a first date.
Entrees were were $20.00. Appetizers were between $9 and $12

The place was not crowded when we arrived on a Friday night at 7 but as we paid the bill the joint was jumpin and people were waiting for tables. The Friday night crowd was a nice mix of folks reflecting the different shades of Brooklyn and the presence of art students from nearby Pratt.
Fort Greene is another NYC neighborhood fighting for its future in a war with the salivating predators of this town's real estate industry- I mean that in a nice way - The community is not going down against the Atlantic Yards project without a fight - thats the good news. The bad news is that the fight is pretty much lost at this point and developer Ratner has already started clearing operations.

Norman Oder, a tour guide and journalist who blogs in his Atlantic Yards Report observed, “Fort Greene, with stark poverty across the park from steady gentrification, may be as emblematically paradoxical a neighborhood as there is in New York” Greenhttp://atlanticyardsreport.blogspot.com/2007/01/two-realities-in-fort-greene.html

Presidential Campaign 2008 -Dream Press Conference Question for Hillary

2007-02-17T08:57:00.002-05:00

Senator Clinton
The Bush administration is driving this country over a cliff with a foreign policy fiasco that they sold to a majority of Congress and the American people like the sleaziest trial lawyers that ever bamboozled a jury.
There are only two alternative explanations for your vote to let them do it- neither one is too pretty.
The first is that you’re human and like most of the other kids in the class, you fell for Colin’s dog and pony show like a ton of bricks - that might let you off the historical hook - but Im not aware of the rule of career advancement that says "if you make a really dumb decision about something very important you get to be the boss". Furthermore, if you did nothing wrong and would do it again how can you be trusted to standup to the upcoming snowjob for a preemptive attack on Iran.

Then there is the other more likely explanation. You knew it was a catastrophic mistake but didn't care because doing the right thing once again lost out to presidential lust - the other kind. The country has been there and done that.
Here’s the question -unless you have a third explanation - why do choices one and two earn you anyone’s vote ?

Presidential Campaign 2008-Dream Press Conference Question for Rudy

2007-02-15T07:11:00.000-05:00

Mr. Guliani - prior to 9-11 your political career was in the toilet and New Yorkers were sick of your divisive, temper driven, leadership. After 9-11 the nation's shattered psyche craved the image of Wyatt Earp taking back the streets of Dodge City -but that was it. Instead of retiring gracefully, you shamelessly exploited 9-11 to develop your marketing brand as "America's Mayor" and with smoke and mirrors spun it into a multimillion dollar security consulting business, with your trusted partner Bernard Kerik.
When and if the national press snaps out of its trance there are some items in your resume that people might care about when choosing a president;

Dealing with a diverse population
-You were perhaps the most racially divisive mayor in New York City's history. Not once, in your eight years as Mayor, did you meet with the black Manhattan borough president;
Having a psyche that can be trusted
- What's with that screw loose history of a marriage to a second cousin that was later annulled;
Courage in a tough personal crisis
- You chose to let your wife, Donna Hanover, know you were filing for divorce by announcing it at a press conference - dashing any hope of being crowned "America's Husband";
Strategic planning
Before 9-11 you made the decision to put the city's emergency command center in a building at the World Trade Center - knowing that terrorists had already tried to destroy it with a truck bomb - so with a tank of its own fuel supply as an accelerant your command bunker helped bring down one of the smaller WTC buildings.

How come you never mention that?
Sound personnel decisions
- You opted to form a partnership with Police Commissioner Bernard Kerik who, when he wasn’t muscling himself into the camera shot next to you at press conferences, or pushing his autobiography or making a fortune selling stun guns to police departments, was having trysts in a government paid for condo at ground zero in an apartment rented with tax payer dollars as a place for ground zero workers to rest. Kerik finally capped his distinguished career by pleading guilty to ethics violations for using government contractors to work on his mansion.
Sound foreign policy decisions
Since 9-11 your only contribution to the national political debate has been your unflinching support of the worst foreign policy debacle in American history and the bible thumping snake oil salesman who convinced our elected patsies to gave him the nation's wallet and car keys.

So Mr. Guliani -aside from a decision we all appreciated, to get rid of that silly comb over (what a surprise- you're bald - who knew?)- and other than your press conference skills why would anyone in their right mind want you to be in charge of digging us out of the smoldering wreckage that George Bush will have left us?

"A Spanish Play" directed by John Turturro - a review

2007-01-21T15:20:00.002-05:00

As I uncrammed myself out of my seat at the end of “A Spanish Play”, directed by John Turturro, in previews at the Classic Stage Company near Union Square - I thought OK maybe Im just too stupid for theatre.

As the blood started to flow back into my legs I saw John Turturro in the last row intensely conferring with people holding clipboards - I wanted to yell “Jeez John for $75 bucks shouldnt I be walking out of here with some idea what the hell these people were talking about?

Its too bad that its so tough to write a decent play because boy this performance was yet another reminder that theres alot of world class talent out there in need of world class material. In "A Spanish Play" the performers frequently step back and reflect on themselves as performers. The play is about a 70 something mother, played by Zoe Caldwell and her tormented relationship with two daughters. Nuria, played by Torturro's wife, Katherine Borowitz, is an emotionally tormented movie star. Her older sister Aurelia, played by Linda Edmon, is an emotionally tormented wannabe actress, mother/wife, trapped in an emotionally tormented marriage to her emotionally tormented alcoholic math teacher husband,Mariano, played by Denis O’Hare. I will go out on a limb at this point and say the play is about emotionally tormented lives and lousy relationships.

Mom has invited everyone over to meet her new love, Fernan, the 60 something property manager of her coop played by Larry Pine, who makes up for being refreshingly untormented by tormenting the audience with a series of speeches, that need to be cut, about how good he is at handling the physical and social complexities of managing a New York City coop. Are you still awake because I wasn't.

For most of the play they all torment each other over champagne and Mom's lousy frozen cake. (Get it - frozen cake - frozen love)

Nonetheless, when I wasn’t looking at my watch, as the promised 1 hr 35 min running time dragged on to 2 hours, there was alot of great acting and even ground breaking use of live video which creates a kind of movie within a play about a play within a play. In the video sequences live performers are alone on stage (and sometimes offstage)followed by a backwards walking hand held camera operator as the live video image of their monologue is projected onto a rear wall.

It is visually interesting to watch a live performer in front of a video image of the same performmance from different angles that are frequently unflattering. Whether this is a distracting gimick or a plot enhancing device will have be debated. The kid with the camera, Cameron Bossert, did a pretty good job of making himself invisible as he followed characters around with a palm size video camera on stage. He deserves a more prominent credit in the playbill.

Denis O'Hare is a funny physical comedic performer who got the best -or was it the only - laughs of the night. Linda Edmond gives a riveting performance as the aging actress/mom/housewife trapped in a dead marriage. Four time Tony winning veteran Zoe Caldwell, is returning to the NY stage where she hasnt been since 1995 - she's a pro but its kind of hard to figure out why her daughters dislike her so intensely.

There is still time before this play opens - it needs to be funnier and shorter. The french playwright Yasmina Reza is probably trying to say something worthwhile here about acting and life. However, as rule of thumb an audience should walk out of a play with some idea what the playwrights point was.

http://www.playbill.com/news/article/104763.html

NYC Subway Conductor Training Manual

2006-11-24T05:52:00.004-05:00

Welcome to your new job as a NYC Transit Authority subway conductor. Remember - here at the NYCTA we treat the subway riding public like family - the kind where people only talk to each other through lawyers.

1. If an express train is sitting in a station as a local arrives on the opposite track, make sure you quickly close the doors of the express before any of the local passengers have a chance to make their connection. Pulling this off requires a quick wrist and advanced eye contact avoidance skills. The open mouths of the passengers getting off the local, lets you know that your timing has been perfect.
If you can leave people stranded on the platform unable to get on either train - congratulations - thats called " a double play".

2. If things are going smoothly periodically have the train sit in the station for no apparent reason. After a few minutes the conductor should announce that the train is being held for a "schedule adjustment". This solves the problem of passengers getting where they are going too quickly. The passengers will quickly realize that it is their schedules that have been adjusted. It also lets them have the experience of hearing a TA employee use the word "schedule"in a sentence.

3. When the train is packed to capacity but unable to leave the station because one passenger’s bag is caught in a door address the entire train like a patronizing school teacher and threaten to empty the train and go out of service if the bag is not pulled in. If the speaker system of your train produces an unintelligible irritating raspy sound - repeat this announcement frequently.

4. Repeatedly tell people to "use all available doors". This instruction is both physically impossible and therefore completely meaningless but it does enable you to imply that overcrowding is the fault of the people wedged into packed doorways, as in, "things wouldn’t be so bad if only you guys would use all available doors, " and not that there are too few rush hour trains. The wonderful logic of making this announcement through your train's public address system is that you are speaking to the passengers who, are already on the train, presumably having used only one door. If during rush hour some smart alek on the platform hears your announcement and tries to make a run for a less crowded door in a different car you know what to do before he gets there.

5. If a passenger gets sick on a crowded rush hour train do not assist the passenger off the train to wait for paramedics because otherwise the train might be back in service with a minimal disruption.

6. If a local has been changed to an express by the dispatcher dont make the announcement until passengers have boarded and the doors are closed. To maximize the impact its better if you wait until the train passes the next local stop before making the announcement that "this train will not be making local stops". This one can really be a hoot on a slow day.

7. When people are trying to get on a train tell them, in an irritated tone, that there is a train behind this one. This announcement is for the benefit of people who expected that maybe the next thing rumbling into the station would be the Staten Island Ferry.

8. If you are assigned to make announcements for passengers on the platform please make sure that this is done from a distance of 3-4 feet away from the microphone while eating no less than 3-4 saltine crackers.

Good luck out there and remember that Transit Authority executives understand what its like in the subways because we hear about it all the time from our chauffeurs. Rest assured that we know how annoying customers are and we are doing what we can to reduce the problem.

This piece was run in the 4/07 edition of The Subway Chronicles
http://www.thesubwaychronicles.com/express/Manual%20for%20Subway%20Conductors.htm

2 Weeks in Vietnam - September 2006

2006-10-23T20:20:00.006-04:00

We listened in tight lipped, stomach knotted, silence, as our cheerful 50 year old Vietnamese tour guide, -"you can call me Flower" - told us she had just spent 9 days driving around Hue with a bus load of U.S. Marine Vietnam vets and their families. It sounded like she fell in love with them and vise versa. She proudly told us that they gave her a gift of their maps from the war that were more detailed than any Vietnamese maps she had ever seen. On our last day on the way to the Danang airport, she brought her scrap book with photos of the group smiling next to her. She also had been given an old photo of a young Marine taken in what looked like the mid 1960's with his shirt off posing outside a bunker- She told us she said to him - "Harry -you such a beautiful young man - now you look like Buddha - what happened?"

As she went climbing in the hills around Hue, using these maps,with her Marine buddies and their families she confessed to being somewhat worried about old land mines Apparently these guys knew what they were looking for. At one point one of them pointed to a rock, looked at his wife and said "honey- that's where I read your letter". On another day she sat down in a jungle clearing next to a burly ex marine, who now sells insurance, and he softly said to her - "Flower, - we came here with 175 men and I left with 25" - then he broke down, and collapsed into her arms - both weeping. As they walked back to the bus past a small village he asked her - " -how much is a water buffalo?"- she told him somewhere between $200 and $500 - he peeled off some bills,handed them to her and said - "Do me a favor -buy one for them- from me". Her next day off (of which there are few) it was going to happen.

To distract us from the reality of our newly empty nest this September my wife and I spent two weeks in Vietnam - the country I spent so much of my youth trying to stay out of. It was hard to read the names of the places on our itinerary without stopping to take a breath after each one- Hanoi, Danang, Hue. As we swam in Halong Bay during our overnight boat trip gaping at those spectacular towering rock formations that rise dramatically from the pristine green water - I kept thinking - "holy moly - we're swimming in the Gulf of Tonkin"

A few minutes into our one hour cyclo ride in Hanoi (picture a bicycle rickshaw) I stopped feeling self conscious as I realized that we were wearing the goofy tourist invisibility cloak because as you sit in those things you blend unnoticed into the Hanoi street chaos.As you move slowly thru that amazing city you see every inch of side walk and street space being over used as everything from a restaurant with little kindergarten chairs that we could never have gotten out of or in to for that matter-to a barbershop an iron welder, a motor bike repair shop or an underwear store.

Hanoi has 4 million people and 3 million motor bikes. Traffic initially seems like wild stoplight free mess but it quickly became clear that there is a predictability that people seem to respect. Crossing the street is like trying to get to the other side of a fast moving school of fish -you just go forward at a predictable pace and somehow you get to the otherside. The view from the cyclo is like a video game as motorbikes and bicycles come at you from all directions- laden with pigs, chickens, 5 foot high stacks of straw conical hats, building supplies or families of three with an infant standing on the running board and often a third or fourth person on the back gabbing away on a cell phone. Just as it felt like one of these things was about to crash into you- some unspoken ancient social contract kicks in and the oncoming motor bike, bicycle or car slows it way around you and the driver smiles . The horn is used the way bats send out sonar to keep from running into each other- honking is constant nobody gets pissed or even turns to look. Some of the taxis seem to have a horn that sends out a preset pulsing tone that goes from loud to soft in about three or four beats. Road rage is not in the national psyche-we saw a couple of smiling people casually sitting around smoking and chatting as they waited for a cop after a fender bender- apparently the cop is the judge and whatever he says goes as to who pays what.

Weaving their way through traffic on and off the impassible sidewalks are women with those classic two baskets attached to a wooden plank balanced over their shoulder- selling fruit and often vegetables we have never seen before or steaming cooked meals on plates. Surrounded by this high energy beehive of intensely focused small scale private enterprise I kept asking myself- this was the falling red domino that 55,000 Americans died trying to stop?

It speaks volumes about the past, present and future of Vietnam that Americans are welcomed without a trace of bitterness only 30-40 years after what we did to them in that clueless disastrous war.The consistent overwhelming impression in Vietnam is how genuinely good natured,good humored and kind people are to each other and in particular how adoring they are with their children. Everywhere you look people are working really hard. They're also pretty good looking.

I asked our guide in Hanoi, what the main religion was.This smart, funny guy in his late 20s, who was very proud of his country,shot back without missing a beat - money.

The population looks very young - one has to assume its because a generation of Vietnamese were decimated by the war. When you look into the eyes of old people on the street - returned smiles were noticeably fewer.

It also spoke volumes about America's past, present and future to pick up the International Herald Tribune in Danang and read that Bush was promising not to "cut and run" from Iraq. All I could think about was the Vietnam era protest song -"we were waste deep in the big muddy and the big fool said to push on ".

The proverbial elephant in the room for a tourist is how cheap things are because people earn so little. The average wage is between $30 and $50 a month. US dollars are used everywhere as is the 16,000 Vietnamese dong per dollar exchange rate.As we slept and ate in a beautiful hotel our guide got $3 (roughly 50,000 dong)to sleep and eat for the night. This wonderful trip was arranged by a very good and responsive travel agency in Hanoi (Exotissimo).Without plane fare,it cost us only $1,500 a piece with two internal flights; two overnight trains; an overnight boat with meals; deluxe hotels with breakfast; and pickup in Hanoi, Hue and Sapa by our owncar, driver and guide). It felt somewhat like enjoying a nice pair of cheap sneakers and not wanting to know how and where they were manufactured.

Mid September is apparently Australian school break travel time. Bali where the Aussies used to go for holidays is now out after the bombings. For Australians, Vietnam is like a flight from NY to Paris -for us it was 24 hours of flying.The pace of change and the exploding tourist industry certainly makes thefuture of Vietnam a work in progress. A couple from Australia had a very different experience than ours with a creepy Vietnamese tour guide who demanded a huge tip in advance. Onthe way home the guy who sold me a newspaper at the Frankfurt airport offered his opinion that in 10 years Vietnam will be like Bali. It is certainly worrisome.There are shorefront strips of real estate in Danang and in Hue where its too easy to picture big hotels and casinos . For 100s of years the Vietnamese have fought to protect their proud national identity from invaders and occupiers. It looks like they're going to have to protect themselves again but this time the invaders are tourists and their wallets.

New Feature- Lori's NYC restaurant, theatre tip

2006-10-17T07:40:00.000-04:00

At a recent meeting of the circulation department - (which typically meets when I am wedged into a corner of a downtown rush hour express train, sweating like a pig and unable to open my newspaper) it was decided that to get my blog readership up from its current circulation - estimated at somewhere between 3-4 people to whom I am related - it was time to add a useful feature from someone who actually knows something -my wife Lori who reads the entertainment and weekend section and actually remembers things she reads, as well as what we ordered and how it was- has reluctantly agreed to being draqooned into letting me stick in her suggestions as long as I dont get too annoying - then she left for work.

this weeks restaurant tip

Camino Sur
336 W 37th St (Cross Street: Between 8th Avenue and 9th Avenue)
New York, NY 10018
(212) 695-4600

Great south american food
We enjoyed the duck arepa appetizer (arepa is a corn based south american polenta) - delicious lamb shank entree and the lobster stew was rich and interesting and although listed as an appetizer was big enuf for an entree (note to self - read some real restaurant reviews to steal some better adjectives) - cool looking interior - as you walk west on 37th you will wonder if you are on the wrong block in the garment district until just before 9th Avenue -right next to the Zipper theatre with Jacques Brel is Alive and Well etc The waiter was nice enuf to accomodate our group of pregeezers by turning down the blaring music so we could hear each other. In a few years I will be one of those old jews in a Jackie Mason routine switching tables and complaining about how drafty it is. At this point you're saying "Hey what the hell is going on here? It thought this was a restaurant review" - well so did I - who knew?
By the way and unfortunately the bread basket had these warm, thickly cut squares of fresh bread, deliciously seasoned and served with some kind of olive mush dip on the side.

Update
To quote the late great philosopher Allen Sherman's letter from camp - "mudda fadda kindly disregard this letta"

We recently went back (Nov 14, 2006) this time the food was disappointingly mediocre - those seasoned bread squares were gone - the lobster stew mostly potatoes -

the problem - the republicans are better street fighters

2006-09-09T11:22:00.001-04:00

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Sometimes, being a democrat feels like living in the scene from "My Cousin Vinnie" as the kid on trial for murder watching his assigned lawyer try to give an opening statement to the jury but the lawyer can't talk.
When you get down to it the republicans are better street fighters who are really good at the big brother and mind control thing.
one solution
the word "lie" must become our "flip flop"
Remember how they made the electorate think about "flip flopping" as if it was actually something that a person should care about in voting for a president. Wasn't it amazing to listen to people, who had never used the phrase or even thought about it before in their lives talking about "flip flopping" as if they independently came up with it as a concern? It's as if I suddenly started caring about "ring around the collar" and believing that it was my idea.
Anyway it worked - people voted for a dumb as a shoe, violent, fundamentalist, frat boy prince with very little regard for human life (unless you're an embryo or in a coma) instead of Kerry a guy with depth and proven courage - even if he did look and act like one of the talking trees that scared Dorothy in the Wizard of Oz.
Here's what needs to happen - Democratic candidates and talking heads must work the word "lie" into every public statement as in -our President lied to us or the American people need to decide if they think their leaders should be lying to them. Even "let sleeping dogs lie" will do in a pinch.
The theory the Haliburton boys and girls perfected is that if a word gets repeated by enough people, with sufficient frequency, it will eventually leach its way onto the lips and into the consciousness of everyday folks, who will start to discuss it as if its an independent political posiiton they came up with on their own. Before you know it Republicans will have to tell the voters what their position is on lying and whether or not by selling the Iraq war based on a lie instead of focusing on uniting the world against Al Quaeda - W has been the best thing that ever happened to Osama. It also gives cover to the dems who voted for the war, as in "they lied to us- what could we do?". Hopefully we can avoid the followup question, which is - "so tell me Senator Clinton - is it possible that you were that stupid or were you just a disappointing, spineless chameleon?

the problem - Facebook and privacy

2006-09-03T15:05:00.003-04:00

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the problem
The generation gap about Facebook, MySpace and privacy
An entire generation of high school and college age young adults seems to be redefining the boundaries of personal privacy by making MySpace and Facebook a seamless part of teen and twenty something daily social life.
To a clueless aging boomer, it feels like you might as well take a personal diary that includes no holds barred accounts of every aspect of your social life, with pictures of what you and your friends have been up to -make millions of color copies and drop them from a low flying airplane all over the country. Of course, its a youth thing - in my case hoards of innocent Americans would be falling asleep in broad daylight - kind of a yawn flu pandemic.
the solution
Not a clue
This phenom is only a few years old. Facebook started in 2004 and has 7.5 million members.We are going to have to wait and see what happens as this crew grows up into the post-college world of careers and bosses, lawsuits and snooping lawyers, reporters and newsworthy activities including runs for elected office with this voyeur's treasure trove of personal details and photos waiting to be used or abused. This generation is going have to come up with their own version of Clintons "I didn't inhale". Thank goodness this demographic is so cautious and risk adverse - oy. In the shorter term it may help explain the muted reaction to the Bush administration's warrantless eavesdropping. "Wow- a right of privacy - that sounds sooo awesome- What was it again?"

the problem- court backlog that makes the system inaccessible

2006-09-02T07:53:00.000-04:00

the problem
Court Back log that drives up litigation costs and makes the civil justice system inaccessible to people who are not rich
the solution
Judges should work from 9-5 Caveat- this does not apply to any judge that I have ever, or will ever, appear before - because they are all very hard working, exceptionally smart and grossly underpaid.