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

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

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

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

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".

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?

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

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

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

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.


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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

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

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

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

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

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

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.