Trav Trivia

Volume 4, Number 46

February 23, 2009 -- On a bright, crisp cool day in early September of 1945 I stood in a suburban neighborhood of Sendai, Japan, a city of about a million lying about 300 miles north of Tokyo, known for its winter festival of lights. Or rather I stood in what had been a suburban neighborhood; neatly laid out grid of paved streets, but as far as the eye could see reduced to only an inch or two of fine ash and rubble, broken ever so often by three or four stone steps leading up to nothingness.

Sendai had been fire bombed, a military technique that dropped scores of incendiary bombs which create fire storms which driven by wind roiled through big stretches of heavily populated areas, even boiling the waters of rivers. By comparison of other cities, Sendai destruction was minor. About 25 percent of Tokyo was destroyed in one raid, killing about 100,000 civilians, burned to death.

Least you think this is some kind of pacifist appeal, you couldn‘t be farther from the truth. Those of us warming up in the Pacific for an invasion of Japan, having been through the bitter, grinding Okinawa experience, were delighted at the outcome of not having to invade the Japanese homeland. No, the point is the use of civilian casualties in war.

In World War II Germany tried to wipe London and its inhabitants off the face of the earth. Britain and the United States retaliated by indiscriminately bombing German cities and their men, women, and children. Part of the object of such tactics is to so sicken the inhabitants of the cost of war that pressure will be put on the governing body to stop it. When the emperor of Japan toured the firebombed area of Tokyo he started the peace process. When Israel recently bombed Lebanon Hezbollah claimed victory, but from the Israeli point of view it worked because the citizens among whom Hezbollah were entrenched suffered and took it out on Hezbollah.

This brings us to Afghanistan, the Taliban, the corrupt government in place, civilian causalities, the mess it’s in and what to do about it. More U.S. troops are being killed there now than in Iraq. Civilian casualties are accelerating. On Tuesday, President Obama announced that he authorized sending in 17,000 more troops. But will it do the trick? There has to be a local government in whom citizens have confidence because in some areas they have more faith in the Taliban than in the government. Our intent is said to be to build up the local Afghanistan army so they can fight the threat. Somehow, there will have to be a different Afghan non corrupt government in place.

Every time we bomb our one-time friends the Taliban (see the movie “Charlie Wilson’s War”), civilians die and there is hue and cry, just as there is when Israel invades Gaza in retaliation for Hamas lobbing missiles on to civilians inside Israel territory.

All of this begs the question, a moral one: in a conflict like this one to what degree do civilian deaths have to be taken into consideration? This week Pakistan agreed to allow the Taliban to enforce Islamic law in the areas they occupy, creating for them a comfortable haven base from which they can charge out to fight in Afghanistan. We try to cherry pick and bomb their training camps, but in an atmosphere of World War II we would go in and fire bomb the whole area, civilian casualties be damned. Today that would be considered immoral. There would be universal condemnation. And so the Taliban can just perch there in security and perpetuity, financed by their poppy trade and there is little we can do about it. As has been said, this is a conflict between a primitive society and sophisticated ones, the ancient and the modern. We seem to be arriving at a way to get out of Iraq, but there is no plan on how to get out of Afghanistan. The Russians must be snickering.

We may have to fire bomb the banks. That may be the best plan yet presented. What to do, what to do. The so far vague plan of Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner, as NYT columnist Gail Collins puts it, seems to call for “the creation of a public-private investment fund to help the banks sell off their toxic assets.” I hate to bring this up in fear that the market will drop another 400 points again at the mere mention of it.

Suddenly, the word “nationalization” is being bandied about, in some cases by the most unexpected people. It’s the path taken by Sweden, which worked pretty well, but President Obama spoke against it on the grounds that it's just not the American way. Collins points out that the thought of following Sweden in doing anything would never fly with conservatives in America. NY Times columnist Frank Rich says to just call it something else, and suggests “temporary receivership.” If you call a duck a chicken, why then it is a chicken.

Collins writes about an “aggregator bank:” “Have the government take over the impacted banks, hire all the unemployed bond traders to figure out how much the toxic assets are worth, dispose of them for whatever the market will bear and then sell the newly reconstituted banks back to private investors” but she is so cleverly satirical and I am so economically under-endowed I don’t know whether she is pulling my leg or not (after a lifetime in the ad biz writing happy talk about products and services I never thought I would attempt to delve into the dark art of economics).

Those two old socialists, super hardliner U.S. Sen. Lindsey Graham and the old Federal Reserve chairman Alan Greenspan are talking possible “nationalization.” “It may be necessary to temporarily nationalize some banks in order to facilitate a swift and orderly restructuring," the former Fed chairman told the Financial Times. “I understand that once in a hundred years this is what you do” and that loud sonic boom from outer space was the late Ayn Rand, she of “Atlas Shrugs,” reacting to what her acolyte had to say.

Get used to these words: 'socialism', 'socialist', and 'social democracy'. They are being spit out in machine gun fashion by all who are on the political right, about the stimulus package which should be called the recovery plan. As Howard Kurtz of the Washington Post tells us, they are against it as Mark Sanford, the governor of South Carolina says in fear that it will “damage the capitalistic system” which puts conservative ideology ahead of the needs of constituents.

The Associated Press reports that Sanford and "a handful of Republican governors are considering turning down some money from the federal stimulus package.” The governors have gathered in Washington this past week to share their troubles at a time when every state has serious budget problems.

California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger on ABC’s “This Week” said he had no problem with Sanford, Bobby Jindal of Louisiana and others turning down the money because it would just mean more money would be available for California where it was badly needed. California is on the brink of going the way of Iceland, and now Latvia, this week becoming the latest country to collapse. Of course Latvia has only slightly more than 2 million people while Los Angeles County alone has over 10 million. On this, the night of the Oscars, we don’t want to let California start to turn into a place like the one depicted in “Slumdog Millionaire.”

Any Republican that suggests cooperating with the Obama administration, like Florida Governor Charlie Crist, is branded a traitor to his class. Crist says the GOP should be willing to work with Democrats in a time of economic crisis. Horrors. How off putting for the anointed class.

Paul Krugman, Nobel Prized progressive economist, NY Times columnist, and designated demon of every right wing politician has some figures for us. “The net worth of the average American household, adjusted for inflation, is lower now than it was in 2001.The surge in asset values had been an illusion.” All smoke and mirrors. It was “The large public works program, otherwise known as World War II, that ended the Great Depression.” He says we are in for “a long, painful slump.” I would not welcome another World War II, but I might go for the John Hodgeman emergency stimulus package presented on the Daily Show with Jon Stewart: an “Emergency Christmas.” That ought to get retail sales moving again.

On the Canadian island of Victoria I once saw a traditional British Music Hall performance. One of the numbers had a guy cavorting around the stage singing “Where did you get that hat?” while donning one hat after another. Columnist Eugene Robinson in the Washington Post wrote “All Barack Obama wanted was to be president. He may have to become an auto executive, a banker, a mortgage broker and who knows what else before this crisis is done.” Just how many hats can a guy wear at one time, anyway?

If Obama is going to be picked on, I might as well get in my little shot. I am one of the critics of the Bush faith-based initiative who thought Obama had promised to end religious discrimination among social service groups taking federal money. Didn’t happen. Looks like he is going to expand the program. I believe government should stay out of the religion game. That goes for tinkering with social mores. Ask Bristol, the daughter of Sarah Palin, who had a child out of wedlock. This week she was quoted as saying abstinence is "not realistic at all. I just -- I hope that people learn from my story and just, like, I don't know, prevent teen pregnancy, I guess." To rely on abstinence only with no sex education just results in producing more of those tax payers that columnist Cal Thomas wanted instead of birth prevention.

A new term has just dropped into the folder of medical phrases stored somewhere on the hard drive of my brain: “repressed thyroid.” Like every other sensible citizen I do not wait for official diagnosis from the appropriate medical practitioner, I go on line for self diagnosis. There I find that a diet of certain foods can cause the thyroid gland to waste away. And what foods? Vegetables! Nutritious ones, particularly those in the cabbage family. Makes you wonder how healthy was the thyroid of Jiggs in the old cartoon of Maggie and Jiggs who, to the disgust of Maggie, spurned “cuisine” for corn beef and cabbage every chance he got. I don’t believe that comic strip ever had a panel about the Jiggs thyroid.

The culprits are cabbage, broccoli, rutabaga, cauliflower, kale, watercress, and Brussels sprouts (and I am particularly fond of Brussels sprouts). The information comes from a book with the cheerful title of “Eat Right or Die,” for a little relaxing light reading.

This calls to mind a scrap of words from a piece written many years ago by a writer who was intrigued by the medical condition “bezoar,” which you can contract by, among other things, eating too many persimmons. A serious, but rather bizarre condition. The writer just liked the sound of the words and, as best I can remember ended his piece with “… not for him the canon’s roar, his diet was persimmons and he died of dread bezoar.”

Will I be remembered for my association with the cabbage family? If so, I have this to offer:

He tried to live the healthy way

Ate veggies each and every day

But diet wore his thyroid out

The man was felled by Brussels sprout

Volume 4, Number 45

February 16, 2009 -- One way to end a battle is to declare victory and leave the scene. It’s over and we won.

That seems to be the case with the Republicans in Congress on the “stimulus” package. The revised, chewed up, beaten down, squeezed version has passed the House (without a single Republican vote) and the Senate (with three Republicans breaking ranks to vote for it) and goes to the President to sign into law on Tuesday. It was a tough battle. As Howard Kurtz put in the Washington Post “There should have been a pre-nup.”

Representative Eric Cantor of Virginia, the Republican Whip in the House, is so proud that he kept his troops in line and not a single one voted for the recovery bill. We will be hearing a lot from this man as we go along. President Bush used to talk to God; Cantor talks to Newt Gingrich. “I talk to Newt on a regular basis” he says. As the only Jewish Republican in the House, he serves as Cantor to Newt as Rabbi.

As Andrew Sullivan blogs, these people have adopted “a policy of total warfare against the newly elected president in a time of enormous economic peril.” Ron Brownstein, Political Director for Atlantic Media, said on Sunday’s “Meet the Press”: “How do Republicans have credibility to talk about fiscal discipline when they vote for a $2.5 trillion tax cut that would reduce the top marginal rate to 25 percent at a moment when the economy has already--when the government is already facing a trillion-dollar deficit? How does John McCain get up and talk about generational theft after endorsing a plan that would so severely deplete federal revenue? I mean, what, what is the, what is the basis on which to make that complaint at that point?”

The House had enough Democratic votes to pass the bill, but the Senate was another matter. Three Republican votes were needed to avoid a filibuster, and with a lot of romancing, much of it provided by Joe Lieberman (in an act of contrition?), and the addition of some ridiculous tax cuts, he got them. Senators Susan Collins, Olympia Snowe, and Arlen Specter voted for the bill and thereby became three of the most important people in Washington, because they will control what can pass in the Senate. Until Al Franken gets in, if he does. That would make 59 of the 60 needed, much easier for the Dems to get things done.

Of course the Republicans are fighting tooth and nail to keep that from happening. At the end of a three month recount, Franken leads Republican Norm Coleman by 225 votes, but Coleman has taken it to the courts, which if he loses can be appealed and appealed while there is no vote for that seat in the Senate, which makes the Republican Party happy. Coleman has raised $5 million to cover legal expenses, which isn’t enough, so his party is holding expensive fundraisers and many prominent Republicans have maxed out their legal $10,000 contribution. It looks like stimulating business for lawyers.

The inability of Republicans to support any kind of Democratic initiative is partly due to the primary system. When a member of Congress represents a heavily Republican district, if he doesn’t toe the line he faces defeat, not from a Democrat, but from a more conservative member of his own party in the next primary election. And he loses the conservative big business and special interest support he needs to run a campaign. Poor fellows. So much for bipartisanship.

Columnist Frank Rich in Sunday’s New York Times wrote that Republicans are living in a parallel universe where the appropriate response to the abject failure of the Bush administration’s tax cuts is more Bush-style tax cuts. Obstruct and filibuster. "Think Progress" reports that G.O.P. members greatly outnumbered Democrats as guests not only on Fox News but all cable news networks while the debate was going on, crying “pork spending,” “generational debt” now that after eight years they‘ve found fiscal responsibility. And, the most amazing thing I learned was the F.D.R. New Deal was a terrible failure. I was there, and I don’t remember it that way. Rich again: “Judd Gregg (Republican) flakes out (removing from consideration of becoming Commerce Secretary) and Lindsey Graham throws made-for-YouTube hissy fits on the Senate floor. This country wants a New Deal, including on energy and health care, not a New Deal lite.”

Of course the deal we ended up with is catching it from the left and the right. Is it big enough? Is it bold enough? Still, the President got a compromise stimulus bill in a crafty way and, according to Rich “Obama has once again outwitted the punditocracy and the opposition.”

The President had his first White House news conference this week and his performance was reviewed as though he had played a character on opening night of a Broadway play, more on style than substance. Seemed to me to be sober. Thoughtful. Intelligent. What do we want from the guy, song and dance? Critics are probably necessary. Hans Nichols of Bloomberg recently wrote "Every superhero needs an archenemy. President Barack Obama has yet to find one. Rush Limbaugh seems eager to acquire that role.” Limbaugh in the Jack Nicholson makeup as the Joker? I like it.

The next big event of the week … tah dah … was the much anticipated revelation by Treasury Secretary Geithner of what to do about the banking mess. The dull thud heard at the end of his presentation was the stock market falling some 400 points. It was something of a “checks in the mail” with details to come later. The reaction was ironic since one of the reasons Geithner survived his little tax problem was that Wall Street wanted him. He is one of theirs. Boy Wonder. They got him, then tanked on his behalf. Some say he wanted to avoid looking too leftish. It appears it is going to be a combination of private and public infusion of money rather than nationalization, at least at first. A growing number of economists are said to be recommending nationalization. The yours/mine/ours banks.

Conservative NY Times columnist David Brooks writes “The mood in Congress is sour. Members are sickened by how much TARP money has been wasted” (a little parting gift from the Bush Administration, passing it out without controls). His fellow NY Times columnist Maureen Dowd informs us that banks undergoing bailout with taxpayer dollars are running expensive full page newspaper ads of self praise: Bank of America (which got $45 billion) and Citigroup (which got $50 billion) are plastering in newspapers, lavishing taxpayer money on preening prose. “The ad in The Times on Sunday could have cost up to $200,000.” Washington Post columnist Eugene Robinson writes that Merrill Lynch paid year-end bonuses of $1 million or more to each of 696 employees. Somebody needs to get their hands around these people’s throats, and it better be Geithner. Right now perception, as Arianna Huffington writes, is that he is “more worried about the banking industry than the American people, between the interests of the financial/lobbying establishment and the public interest.” Say it isn’t so, boy wonder. But we should give him his two weeks grace period to nail down the details.

The old canine bark “ARF” this week turned into “AARP” as Stump, a ten year old Sussex spaniel won best in show at the prestigious Westminister Kennel Club, oldest winner in the show’s 133-year history You find this news reported on the Sports page, something of a surprise to me. The showing of dogs as a sport? Would you report the raising of pet canaries a sport? Or a tropical fish show?

A company with which I was associated sponsored a tropical fish show which was held in the rotunda of a Museum of Natural History which had around the perimeter a series of pits containing small, live alligators. I was talking to the president of the club while standing next to his tank, on the outside edge of the group of tanks when one of his prized specimens leaped out of his confinement and landed in the adjacent alligator pit. The only sport in this event was watching the ensuing ‘gators scramble after the prized fish. Brief, but thrilling.

This is not to take away from the feat of Stump, aka Champion Ch. Clussexx Three D Grinchy Glee, a nonagenarian in dog years. In a way it is like Arnold Schwarzenegger making a comeback as a world champion body builder. Stump does give heart to some of us who are trying to accept the reality of having a President, and a Secretary of the Treasury, who are less than fifty years old. Can they run the country never having seen Sid Caesar in the Show of Shows, eaten off of a tray at a drive-in, or read a Big Little Book?

We have NYT columnist Gail Collins, among others, to thank for giving us the facts on Stump. She also reports that one of his biggest competitors was a poodle bred from 25-year-old semen from a long dead champion named Snapper. That’s timely news at a time when we are focused on Octomom, the California woman who spits out babies like a winning slot machine at Las Vegas. We honor famous people by putting their images on money, or carving their faces on mountains. Has anyone thought of creating a sperm bank to pass on their genius to the future? Such a bank could be done by endowment. It could be done like a library, with a tank for political figures, a tank for economists, and scientists, and business entrepreneurs like Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, or T Boone Pickens. Come to think of it, though, the sperm has to be donated to be collected. The image of such prominent figures in the process of making a donation is not a pretty picture.

Volume 4, Number 44

February 9, 2009 -- In the 1939 William Saroyan play “The Time of Your Life,” an old Armenian with a handlebar mustache stood at the bar muttering, now and then throughout the play, if memory serves me right (memory does not always serve me right these days) “Dissolute and damned, the faculty and the student body.” My mustache is too white and will not sprout into handlebar proportions, but otherwise I seem to have morphed into that crusty old Armenian. “Dissolute and damned, the Congress and the Republican Party.”

We have just gone two weeks fiddling around with the recovery program, erroneously called the “stimulus” package. We are fiddling while trying to make it bipartisan. As noble as that may be, the bottom line is that it ain’t gonna’ happen. Not and be effective, at least. A group of centrist Democrats and a token few “moderate” Republicans (called “the gang” by conservative NY Times columnist David Brooks) are working to water it down to achieve bipartisan support. Wonderful. It will be only half pregnant, then. Scads of economists, including many conservatives, say bold, decisive action is needed and needed now. Some half-elephanted, mamby-pamby program won’t do. You might as well save the money if we are going to go down in flames anyway, which seems to be the whole GOP idea. It conjures up the lyrics of the 1944 Duke Ellington piece “Do nothing till you hear from me. Pay no attention to what’s said.” (Actually, the original title of that tune, before lyrics were added, was “Never No Lament” and I must say Republicans in Congress don’t seem to lament anything).

To achieve bipartisanship, Obama turned the crafting of the bill over to Congress, a nice thought, but it only empowered the opposition, and generated some criticism, as from columnist David Brooks who complained that this is not leadership. It also made life tough for Nancy Pelosi, who is quoted by New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd as telling her leadership team that she had told the president, “I don’t mind you driving the bus over me, but I don’t appreciate your backing it up and running over me again and again.”

For one thing, Republicans got a jump ahead on the semantics front, with a lot of help from the media. “Stimulas” is a lot easier to attack and mock than the word “recovery,” which is what the concept of the plan is. Republicans can say “what’s stimulating about that” when, as Obama wrote in a Washington Post op-ed piece: "This plan is more than a prescription for short-term spending -- it's a strategy for America's long-term growth and opportunity … it puts Americans back to work, jump-starts our economy and invests in lasting growth.”

Take the $200 million originally suggested to assist states that want to provide family-planning services to poor women. Since the Congressional Budget Office has estimated the money would eventually save about $400 million by cutting unwanted pregnancies it seemed to be a pretty good bang for your buck (probably not the best wording to use in this situation). Speaking of which there is the columnist Cal Thomas criticism about this item. “Won’t fewer people mean fewer taxpayers?” Seems like Cal is recommending we work our way out of the financial crises by having more unprotected sex. Way to go, Cal. You won’t get much opposition to that program from male voters. Somebody sent me an e-mail accusing Nancy Pelosi of a diabolical plot to use taxpayer money to reduce the size of the population.

Doesn’t “bipartisan” require a little give and take both ways? How can you expect cooperation when the Chairman of the National Republican Committee, Rep. Pete Sessions from Texas said they were taking their cue from the Taliban on how to systematically “disrupt and change a person’s entire processes.” Disrupt is the key word here. The idea is not to work to come up with a program good for the country, but to disrupt anything the opposition puts forth. Taliban like. Bill Kristol, prominent mouthpiece for neocons, writes the GOP should unite against economic recovery package now to help it fend off Democratic efforts later for such things as health care. Screw the economy, just get a leg up on fighting future programs. And this from columnist Charles Blow in the New York Times: “Republicans are trying to draw Democrats into a screaming match because they know they’re better at it. They are the masters of shrill — masters of stoking ignorance and rousing rabble … rancor is the Republican briar patch.”

Republicans have singled out small and obscure items in the proposed recovery package, less than one percent, to paint the whole bill as pork to special interests, and I will admit Republicans should know that when they see it. Lindsey Graham and John McCain should be ashamed of themselves for the things they have said in Congress. And what have they got to offer instead? As NY Times columnist and Nobel Prize winning economist Paul Krugman put it: “hackneyed political theater, with Republicans spouting all the old clichés about wasteful government spending and the wonders of tax cuts.”

Let’s look at tax cuts. The Republican idea that they would “stimulate” the economy is absurd. Will tax cuts to businesses result in using the money to expand and hire more people? Of course not. A business expands when there is a demand for more of its goods and services. With rising unemployment and reduction of the big market of middle class incomes the market is shrinking. It amounts to a gift to business getting nothing back in return. Tax cuts to the super wealthy? They don’t need the money and won’t spend it. Middle income people? Might help a little but they will most likely use it to pay down debt. Low income earners? They don’t have enough taxes big enough to make much difference. And here’s your thought for the day (unaccredited): “The idea that we can turn this economy around by caving to the feckless demands of those who screwed it up in the first place is utterly bankrupt.” That’s the old fool me once, shame on you … fool me twice, shame on me.

I can’t say I enjoy being the old Armenian muttering at the bar when I would rather be the kid at the pinball machine in that play, but enough is enough. Stop dancing around. The voting public put Obama in charge, so take charge. Don’t allow us to end up with some weak tea version which we would probably be better without if it isn’t strong enough. Say to Congress these lyrics from my favorite recording by Diana Krall, “Peel Me A Grape,” the words being “When I Say Do It … Hop To It.”

As for the financial situation, we probably ought to just buy the banks. Let taxpayers have a stockholders interest in them if we are going to give them money. According to Krugman, we are already practicing “lemon socialism”: “taxpayers bear the cost if things go wrong, but stockholders and executives get the benefits if things go right.” That way we could all call ourselves bankers. How about this: you can buy all the common shares of stock in General Motors for less than $3 billion, which is cheaper than giving them a handout. Or the common stock of GM could be divided among employees and retirees in exchange for retiring their pension plans. Need to raise some money? Reinstitute the stock transfer tax of 0.25 percent on every purchase or sale of a share of stock. The only people this hurts are the gamblers, who trade every day, buying in the morning, selling in the afternoon which contributes nothing to the economy. How about lifting the income cap on Social Security taxes? Currently, the law exempts earnings of more than $90,000 from taxation, meaning someone with a million-dollar salary pays the same tax as someone earning $90,000. But that would take away another break for upper income people and we can’t have that. We probably can’t have any of these proposals; they are too sensible for blinder-wearing conservative senators to grasp.

While we are bashing Republicans, let’s go all the way. Columnist Bob Herbert, writing in the NY Times, really levels the boom: “Republicans spent much of the week doing their same-old, bad-faith Neanderthal two-step … G.O.P. is a party without a heart … a party without a brain.” He points out that “the U.S. economy has shed more jobs than the total population of Chicago” but that doesn’t seem to get through to the GOP. Well, he said it, not me, but I feel better now it having been said. I suppose I am just suffering from what William Safire calls “an abnormal agglomeration of angst.”

Three seats on the Supreme Court may be up for grabs sometime in the next four years of the Obama Administration, that of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg (who just underwent another operation for cancer), David H. Souter, who is only 69 but said to be tired of the whole thing, and Justice Stevens who is after all 88 years old. Conservative activists and interest groups are already gearing up to fight any future Obama nomination, so when it comes to bipartisanship we ain’t seen nothin’ yet. Look forward to future Senate hearings along the lines of theater of the absurd.

Michael Phelps, who definitely inhaled, has managed to shoe horn his way on to the front pages otherwise devoted to political news. In his honor, Keith Thomson wrote on Huffington Post a long list of famous people who at one time or another used marijuana. A few of them that caught my eye are: Louisa May Alcott, Laura Bush, Mayor Michael Bloomberg, William F. Buckley, Jr., Bill Gates, President Andrew Jackson, President Thomas Jefferson, Steve Jobs, Ann Landers, President James Madison, President James Monroe, Mozart, Sarah Palin, William Shakespeare, and President George Washington. I don’t know about you but I have a little trouble picturing the father of our country with a bong.

If what is called the “era of American exceptionalism truly is coming to a close” maybe we all ought to light up.

When you read about the state of affairs it’s enough to make one turn to strong drink. As a relief from reading about the current sad state of affairs, I take a break from politics and read about strong drink. Before going any further, I hasten to say I am well aware of the downside of alcohol consumption, but I drink, and unlike some who shouldn’t or can't I always drink responsibly. I find much simple pleasure in what one writer on spirits describes as the “slow suffusion of warmth and the language-loosening properties.”

The Martini seems to be in the news at the moment. The real Martini. With gin (purists object to calling something with vodka a Martini). Maybe it’s the influence of the TV show “Mad Men,” set in the era when the Martini was king of booze, obligatory in the advertising game. These articles review the history of the drink, insist it must be shaken, not stirred, and dwell on how much, if any, vermouth should go in to it (the classic ratio is about 3.7 gin to 1 vermouth). In its Mad Men heyday, various theories abounded: put vermouth in the glass, swirl and pour out (usually done today); spray vermouth with an atomizer; show the bottle of vermouth to the drink; allowing a ray of sunlight to shine through a bottle of Noilly Prat before it hits the bottle of gin.” I knew an ad guy in the early sixties who just put a little vermouth on his finger and flicked it into the air before he sipped his drink.

These days we call anything we put in to one of those Y shaped glassed a Martini. I’ve wondered where that design came from. We know as a historical fact that Queen Marie Antoinette had that coupe shaped champagne glass made from a mold of her breast so her admirers could toast her properly. I don’t think that could hold true for the Martini glass. That would be bizarre. Of course these days, for the sake of getting the most enjoyment out of the bubbles, we drink it out of a tall flute. I just hope Marie’s husband, King Louis XII, had nothing to do with the design of that.

Volume 4, Number 43

February 2, 2009 -- Much like the premise of “Slumdog Millionaire,” bring up a subject and it triggers a memory of some other event in your life. It’s been a week of meetings, in Congress, the White House, and around Washington which leads me to relive meetings, hundreds of meetings in my business life. Big business runs on meetings. So, at this point, is government. Charles Tandy had a number of companies, like Radio Shack, Tandy Leather, Tandy Crafts, a large printing company, a chain of junior department stores, auto supply stores, pet stores, and more, including the chain of big department stores where I worked. Charles (and everybody called him Charles because he insisted on it wouldn’t allow it any other way) was a gregarious, informal, over the top guy who interfaced with everybody the same way no matter what rung of the economic ladder on which they perched. And he chewed everyone out the same way; no matter who you were you were apt to get a phone call at any moment of the day or night giving you hell.

He called for a meeting at 7:30 a.m. one morning at a little garden home he kept (we always wondered if Mrs. Tandy knew about this) which he was using because his doctors forbade him from going to his office, due to flare-up with his heart. The three of us – our CEO, the general merchandise manager, and myself – arrived on time assuming the meeting would last a couple of hours and we could get back to the other appointments we had made throughout the day. Not so.

Seated comfortably in a chair in the living room, surrounded by stacks of huge printouts the man started talking to us, and talking to us, and the day wore on. We found ourselves slipping out of the room and canceling appointments. A man we did not know joined us. At noon a woman appeared and said lunch was ready. Still he talked, about everything, his merchandising philosophy, the dangers of short term money, data from the printouts, everything, and we could grasp no idea of why we were there. Finally, as the sun went down, he got to the point. My part was very simple, taking about ten minutes to cover; I was to start a monthly four-color catalogue to help sales (and though unspoken, to help the printing company). Then we learned we were being put in the charge of the stranger who had joined us. A 12-hour meeting, without interruption, the most memorable meeting in my lifetime of meetings.

I thought of it while reading about Obama going over to Congress, breaking precedent, to try to persuade Republicans to work with him on an economic recovery package (considering how that turned out he could have phoned it in). Then he invited leaders of both parties to the White House for cocktails (let’s get ‘em drunk and see if that helps).

I don’t know what you would make of it but there is a notable difference in style between the last president and this one. It is reported that Bush had short meetings that began on time and ended on time, regardless. When Obama invited Congressional leaders last week for a meeting at the White House about the recovery plan, it ran so long, keeping them talking, batting around the details of the legislation, the President felt he had to apologize, very unBushie.

President Bush stayed in his office, summoning people to him. Obama wanders around at will they say, turning up everywhere. President Bush insisted on coat and tie in the Oval Office at all times, no exceptions. One of his ex-press folks said he got caught off guard one day by an unexpected summons when he was wearing jeans and a sport shirt. When he got there President Bush made him stand in the doorway, wouldn’t let him in, while they talked. Regular denizens of the White House were shocked to see Obama working away in his shirts sleeves after association with a man who would have found that uncouth.

Like in Slumdog, this triggers another memory; Foley’s, in Houston when it was one of the nation’s most famous department stores, whose nationally prominent president was Max Levine. We had a strict dress code; men, white shirts only. One day Levine, who had recently married a woman much his junior, showed up at a big meeting sheepishly wearing a pink shirt. He felt the need to apologize, explaining that his new young wife had bought it and insisted that he wear it. Someone remarked that we were selling a lot of pink shirts. Max said wait a minute, I’m the president, I can change the dress code. And so he did. We were allowed o wear colored shirts before dark. Obama is the President. He can change the dress code.

I don’t know what to make of these differences of governing. Some armchair psychologists might draw conclusions, like between a father who is too strict and makes all of the decisions for his children versus the father who is too much of a buddy to his; one that does not share anything, one that shares absolutely everything; a man, the decider, who reached those decisions after brief consideration making it from his gut, and one who is going to weigh every little detail. Which is the better way?

This was the week for the four-day winter meeting of the Republican National Committee in which they elected their first African-American person to head the RNC (black is in this year. Hang in there everyone else, your time will come). What disturbed me was they sang the praises of Ayn Rand. With me it is probably personal, but I believe her ideas have done more political damage than anyone else I can think of. Manual Rog-Franzie in the Washington Post reports on members standing around discussing the virtues of Rand. She was born in Russia in 1943, came to this country and I think of her as a peculiar kind of fifth column setting out to destroy us by popularizing “Objectivism” in her books “The Fountainhead” and “Atlas Shrugged.” A generation behind me fell all over themselves for these books. I hate to think of Alan Greenspan as a generation behind me (he’s only two years younger) but he sat at her feet, contributed to her books and magazine, is the model for “Objectivism.” Rand touted the individual pursuit of self interest, “The Virtue of Selfishness” as she titled one of her books and such passages as “the man who makes another man his goal is a hitchhiker no driver should ever pick up." Of course she, and Greenspan, believed in no rules no regulations, no help for others, a kind of every man for himself philosophy. Greenspan followed that no regulation path right into the financial crises.

Republicans are saying they want to be the party of ideas. Well, when they have one I hope they share it. Not a single Republican supported the Obama economic recovery package. Not one. Nor did a single Republican have an idea about how to deal with the financial crises. Despite the fact that voters went to the polls and voted for change, for action, they beat the drum for more tax cuts following the course of the previous administration. Minority Leader John Boehner (R-OH) and his colleagues call for a return to what the Progress Report labels “Bushonomics.” No serious main-stream economist believes tax cutting, trickle-down works to stimulate the economy. Even Mark Zandi, one-time adviser to John McCain’s presidential campaign, says infrastructure spending delivers $1.59 in GDP for every $1 spent vs. $0.30 for a corporate tax cut. The American Society for Civil Engineers gave a grade of “D” to the nation’s infrastructure of roads, levees, and water, estimating that it would take a $2.2 trillion investment over the next five years to bring it into a state of good repair. It would seem an investment to repair the infrastructure would create jobs, jump-start the economy and give us a good return on our money, but no. Republicans want to use a tax cut to fix the levees. Run for your life, the damn is broken! Oh no, just find a tax to cut.

Republicans found a few dollars in the recovery plan for family planning before it was removed because of the hue and cry, and according to one of those wonderful e-mails that come in, it is all part of a Nancy Pelosi plot to reduce the population by the wide-spread use of condoms. I would think that is a swell idea if it could be done retroactively to get rid of the kind of people who send those e-mails.

Obama warned the Republican leadership that they “can’t just listen to Rush Limbaugh and get things done” which delighted the porcine radio extremist who has already gone on record as wanting the Obama administration to fail. As Joe Conason in the New York Observer points out, that shows Rush could care less about the consequences for America. Limbaugh is gloating that now he is directing the rudderless Republican Party, and I believe him. His acolytes are Sean Hannity and Matt Drudge so we are in for four years of outrageous, bitter invective. Be ready to wash your ears out with soap.

I haven’t seen, read, or heard any of this group going after the Wall Street predators who, according to the New York State comptroller took $18.4 billion in bonuses for the year. In fact, Limbaugh was defending them. Nothing wrong with a bonus as long as you earn it, which is the definition of a bonus. These people, when interviewed, claim it is their due whether of not they lose money, and even though it is now tax payers dollars, because they “work hard.” I think we need to define the phrase “work hard.” Many people work long hours under mental stress, and many people work long hours under physical stress, but just when does that qualify them for multi-million dollar “bonuses?” The President of the United States makes, what, $400,000 a year? And we want him to work hard, obviously under stress. If he does, should he get a taxpayer bonus of a couple of million or so?

Republicans are running advertising against Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid in his home state of Nevada, chastising him for leading the Democrats in “wasting our hard earned money.” Well, there is no better place to talk about wasting hard earned money than in Las Vegas.

Vegas may be the home of frivolous spending but one place where there is not much frivolity at the moment is Iceland, now a land of gloom and doom. The only thing gay about Iceland now is their new leader. Johanna Sigurdardottir, the first openly lesbian person to be a world leader, takes over now that the old government has collapsed. We certainly wish Ms. Sigurdardottir, a long-time hard-working politician,well but just for the record, does this count as a break in the glass ceiling?

The population of Iceland is about 300,000. They are having trouble and we sympathize, but compare that figure to 1.9 million, the number of people in the U.S. who lost their jobs in the last four months of 2008. The economy of Iceland completely collapsed. We need to send George Bush to them to show them how to cut taxes.

A friend directed me to Ben and Jerry’s, the ice cream people, who in honor of our new president have created a flavor called “Yes Pecan” (in Texas the word is pronounced Pee-caahn, not “can,” but the rest of the country will get the joke).

They are evaluating ideas for an ice cream to memorialize the end of the "Wubya" administration of George W. Bush

Some entries are:

Iraqi Road

Choc ‘n Aw …

Bloody Sundae

You might have suggestions. I’ve thought about it and considered:

Chunky Monkey-Business

Federal Fiasco Freeze

Devil’s Food Debacle

Sorehead Sorbet

Intellect Lite

Credit Crumble

Key Lie-ing Pie

But none of them quite captures what I want. So I’ll settle for this:

Choc Full Of Neo-con Nuts.