Trav Trivia

Volume 7, Number 37

December 26, 2011 -- This was the week of “God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen Let Nothing You Dismay” and “Tis the Season to be Jolly Tra – La – La – La – La, La – La – La – La,” or at least it was for most Americans, as we enjoyed the atmosphere of good fellowship, the festive feeling in the air, the parties, the gif giving, the warmth of being with family loved ones. Yes, the spirit of the season prevailed ... ironically everywhere but in the world of politics. Not much Tra – La – La, not much Jolly, lots of dismay in what seemed like the most contentious week of the year.

It all began with the payroll tax fiasco and the return of the threat of having the government shut down. The shutting the government down threat has become such old hat we hardly pay attention to it any more. It reminds me of a time in the sixties when I moved into an office on the sixth floor of an ancient building in downtown Providence, Rhode Island (all of the buildings in downtown Providence were ancient). Authorities considered them something of a fire hazard and reacted swiftly to any hint of a fire, which seemed to happen constantly. Fire trucks were always wheeling up, sirens blasting, firemen rushing into the building to catch elevators to upper floors. A first I would leave my office to get out of the building when this happened but then I saw that no one was paying any attention. Shoppers just kept on shopping as yellow-slickered firemen brandishing axes rushed by them, paying no attention. Just routine. So it seems with “shutting the government down.”

What was at stake? A January 1^st deadline after which if legislation were not passed doctors who treat Medicare patients would get a huge cut in pay and the state unemployment compensation systems would be thrown into chaos. People who have been out of work for more than half a year would start falling out of the system in a near-random fashion. Some of those who have been unemployed for 25 weeks would lose their benefits before others who have been collecting for 70. Payroll taxes for Social Security would rise for everybody. That’s all.

The House passed a bill and sent it to the Senate. Week before last we watched members of the Senate lock horns over it, Democrats insisting it retain the payroll tax cut, Republicans finding themselves against a tax cut (well it is a tax cut that does nothing for the wealthy, only affecting ordinary Americans). Finally, as my favorite word smith columnist Gail Collins put it in The New York Times: “a miracle occurred. Angels sang, a star rose in the east and the Democrats and Republicans worked out a compromise. … an old-fashioned Congressional compromise that resembled the offspring of a wart hog and vampire bat.” The parties agreed on a two-month extension of a payroll tax holiday by a bipartisan 89 to 7 margin.

Senators packed up to leave for home and the holidays as it went back to the House for what was assumed to be a given, final approval. But no. House Tea Party Republicans revolted and Speaker John Boehner found he could not corral his charges. What to do? He tried to get President Obama to call back the Senators, with no luck there. He then named members to a committee to negotiate a new agreement, members who were dead set against any compromise we might add, but the Senate had adjourned. It appeared there would be significant financial consequences for every household in the country.

All hell then broke loose against Boehner and his band of merry men (and women) in widespread condemnation from all sides, including leaders of his own party and all of the notable staunch conservatives. Boehner must have felt like Frankenstein with throngs of people coming after him brandishing burning torches shouting in rage.

The Wall Street Journal published an editorial under the headline “The G.O.P. Payroll Tax Fiasco.” You know if you are a conservative and the WSJ gets after you must be doing something terribly wrong.

Senator John McCain said: “It’s harming the Republican Party.” Rep. Steny Hoyer of Maryland, the No. 2 House Democrat, was quoted as saying: “This is the walk-away caucus with the walk-away leadership that are walking away from 160 million Americans.” Sen. Scott Brown of Massachusetts: “It angers me that House Republicans would rather continue playing politics than find solutions.” Sen. Bob Corker of Tennessee asked: “Are Republicans getting killed now in public opinion? There’s no question,” who then urged House Republicans to just “get it over with it.”

Every person with a keyboard, mic, or camera weighed in against these yo-yos in the House, an outpouring of widespread contempt I haven’t seen before. It should be noted that the conservative concern was not the damage their actions would do to millions of Americans but how much political damage it was doing to the Republican Party. You have to have priorities you know.

On the campaign trail the candidates apparently felt the need to be a little more prudent, I suppose in order not to appear to defy Tea Party voters. Mitt Romney supported extending a payroll tax holiday, but he wouldn’t comment on the split between the House and Senate Republicans. Gingrich condemned the Senate on the payroll tax vote but did not criticize Speaker John Boehner for leading House Republicans in rejecting the Senate compromise.

Sir Gingrich said: “Republicans ought to do what’s right for America. They ought to do it calmly and pleasantly and happily, and over time people are smart and will figure this stuff out.” That from the calm, pleasant, happy Gingrich? Mitt: not willing to “get into the Congressional sausage-making process.” Bachmann: “There’s a real lack of leadership in Washington.”

Under all of this pressure the House folded its tent, passed the bill, and went home for Christmas. So we are saved … again … until February when we get to do it all again. The litter it left behind is how much did it hurt, or did it hurt, the Republican chances in the elections next year? And how much did it hurt the career of John Boehner? Some suggest enough to have him lose his position as Speaker of the House next year because he hasn’t been able to control his people. I certainly have no brief for Boehner, who in my book ought to still be back in his Dad‘s bar sweeping floors, but considering who elected those cantankerous freshmen members who are making all of the trouble and essentially they went to Washington to destroy government it seems like a lot to expect from the guy.

Don we now our gay apparel

 With due respect to Michele Bachmann on the Republican campaign trail there wasn’t much to be gay about, apparel or otherwise, this week of otherwise public high spirits and good fellowship as things turned ugly. Not much Fa La La in the negative ads a super PAC tied to Romney is running against Gingrich. Newt, of course, rails against the PAC. Romney says he is not responsible (an ex associate runs the PAC) because it is illegal for him to even contact them, which it is, but he does not publicly refute them either. It is very ugly.

“Friends of Romney Super PAC has purchased about $2.8 million in Iowa TV ads. Everywhere you look in Iowa, there’s an evil, demented Newt on the screen. You would think he’d been cast as the new head zombie in ‘The Walking Dead.’ ” (a report from columnist Gail Collins in The New York Times).

Under the heading of “Oh, please: The hypocrisy of Gingrich and Romney” Ruth Marcus in the Washington Post writes: “These two candidates deserve each other. Restore Our Future, the super PAC run by former Romney aides and now responsible for the barrage of negative advertising against Gingrich. ‘I object to negative smear campaigns’ Gingrich, master of the negative smear campaign.” Fa la la la la indeed.

Cost of the d campaigns to elect somebody to come to the aid of citizens who lack jobs and are running out of money have spent to date in Iowa and New Hampshire is as follows:

In Iowa:

• Perry $4.4 million,
• Make Us Great Again (pro-Perry Super PAC) $1.5 million,
• Restore Our Future (pro-Romney Super PAC) $2.8 million,
• Paul $1.75 million,
• Romney $1.1 million,
• Gingrich $475,000, and
• Red White and Blue Fund (pro-Santorum Super PAC) $200,000.

For New Hampshire:

• Our Destiny PAC (pro-Huntsman Super PAC) $1.6 million,
• Paul $700,000,
• Romney $650,000, and
• Perry $234,000.

To keep the numbers in perspective Texas has an estimated two-year budget shortfall of $27 billion. It needs a super-superPAC. The candidates can raise money for campaigns but not to run the government.

“A campaign based entirely on falsehoods”

 Paul Krugman detailed the Romney campaign strategy in a column in The New York Times. “Mr. Romney portrays the president as the second coming of Fidel Castro and seems confident that he will pay no price for making stuff up.” His whole campaign is based on a “strategy of attacking Mr. Obama for doing things that the president hasn’t done and believing things he doesn’t believe.”

Krugman quotes Greg Sargent of The Washington Post reporting that Romney portrays the president as a “suspect character, someone who doesn’t share American values. And since Mr. Obama has done and said nothing to justify this portrait, Mr. Romney just invents stuff to make his case.” It is a good column that proves this point: the Romney campaign is based entirely on falsehoods. As for me, I consider Romney the speaker as a kind of understudy for Rush Limbaugh. Nothing of the Christmas Spirit in either one of them.

“I’ll Soon Show You Ten Thousand More”

 It seems Newt Gingrich did not get his ten thousand stout hearted men as required by the Republican Party in Virginia where he leads in the polls and will not bet on the ballot of their caucus March 9^th. Ten thousand signatures of registered voters, at least 400 in each of 11 Congressional districts are necessary. Candidate Rick Perry did not make it either leaving it to Ron Paul and Mitt Romney, a pretty hard blow for Newt to take.

“It speaks volumes to me about the particular organizational skills of the candidates,” said Carl Tobias, a law professor at the University of Richmond. “It’s hard for me to understand how they could miss this opportunity.”

Details, details, the devil is in the details. When you are on such a high plane as Gingrich you don’t sweat the little stuff.

Some Quotes, Old and New

Jonathan Chait, New York Magazine writer and former senior editor at The New Republic:

“Romney is the handsome swindler who plots to win your mother's heart and make off with her fortune. Gingrich is like the husband who periodically gets drunk and runs off to spend a week with a stripper in a low-rent motel but always comes home in the end. Which one would you rather see your mother marry?”

Christine O’Donnell, former Delaware Republican Senate candidate, quoted in Politico on her endorsement of Mitt Romney:

“That’s one of the things that I like about him -- because he's been consistent since he changed his mind.”

John Heilemann, writer for New York Magazine, on the Gingrich-Huntsman Lincoln-Douglas-style debate:

“Both held forth at enormous length about various issues of great importance in foreign policy…All of which made for a debate that even the participants more or less admitted was boring enough to induce narcolepsy in a chronic insomniac.”

“Let him see those, who are now a Prey to all the Calamities of Want, who are starving with Hunger, and seeing their Wives and Children in the same Distress; expecting likewise every Moment to be thrown into a Dungeon, with the cutting Anguish that they leave their Families exposed to the utmost Necessity and Despair: Let him, I say, see these living under a sober and orderly Government, settled in Towns, which are rising at Distances along navigable rivers: Flocks and Herds in the neighboring Pastures, and adjoining to them Plantations of regular Rows of Mulberry-Trees, entwined with Vines, the Branches of which are loaded with Grapes.”

So wrote an early enthusiast in the mid 1600s about the Oglethorpe settlement in what is now Georgia by Huguenots escaping from persecution in France, Calvinists and others who essentially came to this country to get away from domination by what we think of today as the entrenched .01 percenters and religious zealots. We might pause and think about that, and ponder what vigilance is required to preserve those ideals which seem to be always under attack, never more so than today. In the new year may our mulberries flourish and be entwined with lush vines of grapes. End of sermon.

Short Takes

Pledges of one sort or another have become de rigueur in politics, the no tax under any circumstance pledge, the “personhood” pledge and so on. Friend Dr. Don Anderson wants to institute his own pledge: a pledge politicians sign pledging they will sign no other pledges.

What Newt Gingrich would have wanted for Christmas: a magic mirror on the order of the one in the fairy tale Sleeping Beauty that he could peer into and ask “Mirror, mirror on the wall, who is the brainiest candidate of them all?” He could preen before a reflection of his own image and preen with satisfaction.

Kim Jong Un is the new leader now in North Korea. What’ with that “Uh” on the end of his name? It begs for another syllable, as in “Uh Oh.”

Two movies opened Christmas Day: “Warhorse’ and “We Bought a Zoo.” Both said to be good movies, but why choose an opening on Christmas Day? The spirit of Christmas? A movie about war and a movie about a zoo. Each in its own way they do kind of make you think about the current condition of Congress, a raging war in a place that reminds you of a zoo.

Speaker John Boehner got into so much trouble over the way he handled the payroll tax cut it is enough to make him blush with embarrassment, but if he did, with his heavily applied tan who would know?

Scientists have discovered two earth-sized planets in outer space which will give some authenticity to an old expression. Now when you say, “Gee, Speaker Gingrich, what planet are you from” it has a little more meaning.

Ron Paul has a problem trying to explain news letters that went out over twenty years ago that were patently racists. He had been complaining about not getting enough press attention but this is not what he ha in mind and so far has not been able to just brush the questions about earlier racism. Here is what he ought to do. About 1950 the result of studies showed that about 22 percent of Southerners had an African-American somewhere in their ancestry. Paul is from Texas, a Southerner, so if he would just dig back into his family tree and come up with his African-American ancestor it would get him off the hook. If he can’t locate one he should just make one up. His fellow candidate Mitt Romney makes up stuff every day and gets away with it, so so should Paul.

Who would have thought that an executive branch body part would have made news this past week, but Congressman Jim Sensenbrenner (R-WI) manager to pull that off, so to speak, by saying the First Lady has a “large posterior” or words to that effect, not a remark in particularly good taste. Taste had something to do with it since he seemed to think that disqualified her from telling him how to eat. Now the First Lady does three 90 minute workouts a week and while enjoying a burger now and then certainly both follows and promotes healthy eating. The Congressman should also be aware that in some circles the physical attributes he made reference to are considered very appealing, as a body type not from over eating, beauty being in the eye of the beholder. To his credit the Congressman contacted the office of the First Lady and apologized, but it makes you wonder why he was paying that much attention to her rear in the first place. The good Congressman is no doubt a fine, upstanding citizen but, we might ask, when he is tucked snugly warm in his bed, do “visions of sugar-plums dance in his head” or considering where his interests seem to lie are there dancing succubus there instead?

All political bombast and bickering aside I only hope your holidays whatever their nature were as full of joy as was mine.

 

 

 

Volume 7, Number 36

December 19, 2011 -- Have you bought your arugula lately? Or do you stick to Iceberg lettuce? The answer might tell us whether you are conservative or progressive, red stater or blue stater, Republican or Democrat. How you eat or do not eat your veggies apparently indicates your political bent.

David Wasserman did a roundup on this subject for the Washington Post and discovered that you are what you eat, either a Cracker Barrel or a Whole Foods person so you cast your vote the way you dine. “In 2012,” he writes, “the campaign might be a contest between these alternate universes of culture and cuisine: Whole Foods Markets and Cracker Barrel.” Texas journalist Bill Bishop has written a book entitled “The Big Sort; why the clustering of Whole Foods is blue and Cracker Barrel is red.”

Skeptical? According to Wasserman: “In 2008, candidate Barack Obama carried 81 percent of counties with a Whole Foods and just 36 percent of counties with a Cracker Barrel (he won the state anyway). In 2000, Vice President Al Gore won 58 percent of counties now containing a Whole Foods and 26 percent of those now boasting a Cracker Barrel … in 1992, Gov. Bill Clinton won 60 percent of Whole Foods counties and 40 percent of Cracker Barrel.” You may remember the Obama oops moment in Iowa in 2007 when he said “Anybody gone into Whole Foods lately and see what they charge for arugula?” Iowa didn’t have a Whole Foods at that time.

“Politics is aligned with lifestyle right now, not policy” Bishop writes. Nine Democrats in Congress voted against the Health Care reform got money from Cracker Barrel PAC.

The Nielsen people have a lifestyle zip code segmentation system which groups consumers under such headings as “Young Digerati”, "big fish, small pond", “Blue Blood Estates”, "low rate living", “Country Squires”, "single pleasures", and “Shotguns and Pickups.” I ran into this a decade or so ago when I was involved in helping determine where to open a new retail store. Nielson has 67 of these designated zip code groups with snappy names. Most Whole Foods are in zip codes with high populations of “Young Digerati” and “Blue Blood Estates,” while most Cracker Barrels sprout amid high concentrations of “Country Squires” and “Shotguns and Pickups”, says Wasserman. The fish counter versus the meat counter.

I like the Nielsen system although I do not know how they arrive at their conclusions, surely not by simple observation. If that were the case I would designate the zip code in which lies the Jewish Community Center where I go to exercise “old men lurching.” Or areas where a lot of people walk their dogs as “poop picker uppers.”

“Zany is not what we need in a president.”

 To make sure we know who he was talking about Mitt Romney went on to say: “A leader needs to be someone of sobriety and stability and patience and temperance.” However, as NYT columnist Gail Collins reports: “Newt is sticking to his no-attacking-fellow-Republicans pledge, while Romney is running around calling him everything from unreliable to uninformed to uxorious. (I made the last one up.)”

Newt got it pretty hard by both Michele Bachmann and Ron Paul in this week’s Gypsy Caravan of a Republican debate (yes there was another debate this week) and is said to be losing his luster in Iowa where Bachmann and Paul are making a strong showing. The gaggle of political experts at the Daily Beast say the Iowa caucus could very well turn out of be a foursome, no clear winner, the water muddied. Jon Huntsman seems to be content to portray the adult in the room, above the children’s raucous play, ready to step up with dignity when people get tired of the fun and games. Santorum is said to be working extremely hard practically full time in Iowa yet can’t seem to get anyone’s attention, or so the polls indicate. Mark McKinnon and George Caudill say: “Newt Gingrich is starting to lose steam, Ron Paul is surging, and it's show time for Jon Huntsman.” If these people were a zip code Nielson could call them “pandering political promisers.”

Republican candidates signing a “personhood” pledge

 Pledges seem to be the big thing this year. A group is pressing the Republican candidates to sign one that says life begins at the moment an egg is fertilized, hence “personhood” begins. The ramifications of this idea are very large, not only making any kind of abortion illegal but would also prohibit many forms of birth control and in vitro fertilization. Newt Gingrich signed on even though he had publicly rejected the concept earlier this month. Romney is said to be “dithering,” or in other words trying to figure out to find reason not to sign it while sounding as though he thought it was a great idea (as a governor he did not make an effort to abortion because he had said he would not change any laws already on the books, although while running for the Senate against Ted Kennedy he was pro-choice because he said a relative had died from an illegal abortion). He is a used car salesman with a different deal in every pocket.

The multi-married Gingrich (who, once a Lutheran than a Southern Baptist, is now a baptized Catholic) may consider himself as speaking for the Church which is pushing hard against the legal sale and use of any form of contraceptive. It seems to me the Vatican ought to focus on the country which they are in the middle of. Italy has the lowest birth rate in Europe. You tell me all of those randy Italians are on the rhythm system?

“Personhood” is such a bad idea the voters of Mississippi rejected it. Gail Collins wrote “Which might make an excellent slogan for the current crop of presidential candidates” is “The Republican Field: So Far Right, Mississippi Thinks They’re Scary.”

Of course there are many in politics, as well as a sizeable number of the public, who can’t seem to get their heads out of the uterus. The secretary of Health and Human Services is ruling not to allow girls under 17 to buy Plan B, the emergency contraceptive pill, without a prescription and President Obama is going along with it. Also there is the question of whether rules for the new health care law should require that insurance plans cover the cost of contraceptives.

House Republicans tried to tie the latest bill to provide money toe keep the government going to de-funding Planned Parenthood, but were defeated. Collins wrote: “Those two things aren’t necessarily linked in most citizens’ minds, but everything reminds the House Republicans of their hatred of Planned Parenthood. Chestnuts roasting on an open fire. “Jingle Bells.” “A partridge in a pear tree.” She commented on the unpopularity of our legislators: “Really, everything has a higher approval rating than Congress. Termites. Zombies. Donald Trump.”

Then the Senate almost shut the government down

 The House passed the $1 trillion spending bill and sent it to the Senate for approval before Friday or else the government would shut down where it ran into a road block. This time Democrats refused to pass it unless they got concessions on the Payroll Tax Cut. Republicans didn’t want to take up the Payroll Tax Cut until the budget bill was passed. At the last minute Thursday Senate leaders agree on 2-month extension of the Payroll Tax Cut so the government staggered on. But wait. When it went back to the House for approval as altered House Republicans are refusing to pass it, and are very angry at Senate Republicans for making the compromise. They will take it up again next week. Tuesday is the beginning of Hanukkah. Maybe they should spin a Dreidel to decide this thing.

Nielsen zip code group for Congress? “Cockfight Mentality Pols.”

The tab? $806 billion

 The war in Iraq is over. The last of the troops have returned. We can now total p the cost in lives and money, which does not include loss of prestige as a world leader, or as role model and increasing the influence of Iran.

• U.S. deaths: 4,484
• U.S. wounded: 32,200
• Iraqi Security Force, or ISF, deaths: At least 10,125
• Iraqi civilian deaths 1003,374 to 113,265
• Internally displaced persons: 1.24 million
• Refugees: More than 1.6 million

Put the cost of Operation Iraqi Freedom at $806 billion. To it add projected total cost of veterans’ health care and disability: $422 billion to $717 billion.

What happens next is up to the Iraqi people who are having a tough time practicing democracy as we define it. Some legislators are boycotting parliament. The president seems to have authoritarian instincts. How much influence will Iran have? It is out of our hands. Columnist Maureen Dowd calls it this way in the New York Times: “The White House sees it this way on Iraq: The baby is born. The gestation period couldn’t be 18 years; eight years was bad enough. The midwife had to leave.”

If we group Bill Kristol, John Bolton, Donald Rumsfeld, Dick Cheney, George Bush, and others responsible for this military adventure for Nielson, call it simply “hounds of war.”

A personal Andy Rooney moment

When a chance to do a good deed comes along and you take it, it is a good feel experience. Such an opportunity came my way one day this week. I got to support a better life for farming families. I got to support good environmental stewardship.

How did this happen? The label said it was:

“Tapped from the wild forests of the North Country” and read as follows:

“We wait all year for the spring to come. Once we get that first taste of Maple Syrup we know that summer is just around the corner. We take the tart flavor of lemons and mix in just enough of real Maple Syrup to make it taste just right. It’s a New England Recipe that’s sure to refresh year ‘round. By choosing this Fair Trade Certified product, you are directly supporting a better life for farming families through fair prices, direct trade, community development, and environmental stewardship.”

So there I was, enjoying a glass of lemonade while doing something for the good of the world. I wonder if it is tax deductible?

In a week that embraces both the first days of Hanukkah and Christmas let us hope the joy and comfort these celebrations give us will sustain us in the year to come no matter what may befall.

Happy Holidays.

 

Volume 7, Number 35

December 12, 2011 -- The Republican debates leading up to the caucuses which will select the party’s presidential nominee are kind of like a medieval contest wherein suitors of the hand of the princess must undergo a series of demanding challengers to see which is worthy of the reward. Slay the dragon. Pull the sword out of the rock. Recover the lost sacred relic.

Depending upon the hosts of these events they have been challenged to prove how conservative they are, how religious they are, how homophobic they are, how much do they know about geography, how much they love Israel, how much they hate Obama, and last Saturday night how ready they are for prime time under the guidance of ABC’s Diane Sawyer and George Stephanopoulos from Drake University in Iowa. It was sort of a “do any of them look presidential, as if they were speaking at a press conference at the White House?” kind of thing. Pause and dwell on that for a moment. And then realize that one of them might very well be called upon to do just that a little over a year from now.

I have my own opinions. Rick Perry looks like a guy who is fumbling his lines as he is up there to introduce the guest speaker; Mitt Romney seems agitated and impatient with being questioned; Santorum as though his feelings are hurt because people do not seem to love him as they used to in Pennsylvania; Newt Gingrich just stands above it all looking down on the witless throngs; Ron Paul the Andy Rooney of the field; and Michelle Bachmann as if addressing a meeting of the PTA on the bad behavior of the children in the playground. I find it difficult to envision any one of them speaking to the nation from the White House. It’s like sticking a finger in my mind’s eye.

What did we learn Saturday night? Rick Perry did not have a bathroom to potty in until he was five years old; when Mitt Romney thinks he is right he is quick to bet, not a fiver or a twenty, but a casual ten grand as though all he has to do is reach in his pocket for the big roll held by a rubber band; Ron Paul’s wife worked to put him through medical school; Rick Santorum waxes nostalgia for Pennsylvania, and in a bid that smacked of asking to be consider a choice for VP in a Gingrich administration said early in his career Newt Gingrich was his inspiration; Michelle Bachmann brought us up to date on the “hate the Jews” rhetoric of Palestinian school books; while Gingrich had to stave off accusations that he would treat Israelites in a manner akin to he would treat grade school children over here by having them clean the school bathrooms.

One commentator immediately after the event said that in general it seemed low in testosterone although I thought the feisty Mrs. Bachmann held up her end. It still looks like the two man race that polls indicate, either Mitt or Newt (the best order to list them for as it came up on the popular NPR program “Wait, Wait, Don’t Tell Me…” to say Newt-or-Romney is a little indelicate).

We’ll Know You By The Company You Keep

Earlier this week you would have heard cries of anguish had you been anywhere near me when I read that Newt Gingrich said that as President he would want to make the strangely mustached John Bolton his Secretary of State. To recommend Bolton for that position would evoke the same reaction Republicans would have if a Democratic President recommended Barney Frank to head the Federal Reserve.

To refresh our memory Bolton, the man George W. Bush asked to represent us at the United Nations, wanted to get rid of the United Nations. It was a recess appointment since there was no way Bush could have gotten him confirmed by the Senate; Bolton resigned when his temporary term was up, but he was there long enough to tick off many of the other members. Rude. Undiplomatic, they said.

Bolton did not hesitate to equate diplomacy with weakness and indecisiveness. He said: “There is no such thing as the United Nations. There is only the international community, which can only be led by the only remaining superpower, which is the United States.”

Bolton, a lawyer, has been around for a long time in government service, always so far to the right in danger of falling off the edge. He was one time protégé of Jesse Helms, helped prepare Antonin Gregory Scalia prep for his confirmation to the Supreme Court, was involved in the Iran Contra affair, was an early and vocal advocate of taking out Saddam Hussein while Clinton was President, has been called one of the architects of the Iraq war. Good Lord, Secretary of State? You are a strange person indeed, Newt Gingrich. Did you make that announcement, which may have been in violation of a law on the books to prevent such premature selections, because among many other positions Bolton serves on the Jewish Institute for National Security? Carl Ford former State Department intelligence chief calls him a “kiss-up, kick-down sort of guy”, implying that he was always ready to please whoever had authority over him, while having very little regard for people working under him. A Secretary of State is a diplomat. Of course you could hardly call Gingrich a diplomatic kind of person either so it makes sense he would pick another bully to bully the rest of the world.

Sandra Somashekhar of the Washington Post reports Gingrich is “crazy for zoos” as he visits one in Iowa. Of course he is. He loves the Republican Party doesn’t he?

And this from Kathleen Parker in the Washington Post: “You don’t get more un-Romney than Gingrich. Imperfect and untidy, he’s the serial husband with whom anyone could feel comfortable sharing a beer. Or a keg. A sinner like the rest of us, he’s as familiar and comfortable as an old sofa.” She quotes a former colleague who remains anonymous: “He’s unstable, and everybody knows it, but no one wants to say it. Yes, he’s a genius and is respected for his many great ideas. But he’s Icarus. He flies too close to the sun.” It seems “erratic behavior and his inability to resist the sound of his own voice” (Parker) is now going over well on the campaign trail.

Ryan Plan to End Medicare Fully Endorsed by Romney

And what company does Romney keep? Paul Ryan for one. And endorses the Ryan plan to end Medicare as we know it, turning it into a voucher system that shifts health care costs away from the government “onto the backs of seniors” (Progress Report) and doubles seniors’ out of pocket health care costs.

Also in Mr. Romney’s camp is Glenn Hubbard, who from 2001 to 2003 was chairman of President George W. Bush’s Council of Economic Adviser. We can thin Hubbard for those wonderful “temporary” Bush tax cuts under his aegis which goosed the budget from a modest surplus to the mega deficit we have today. He stands at Mitt’s side ready to do it again. Whoopee.

Which Man Do You Choose?

NYT columnist David Brooks, from the right: “Romney, who seems to have walked straight out of the 1950s, and another, Gingrich, who seems to have walked straight out of the 1960s.”

Commentator James Moore: “Newt might scare them with his pseudo-intellect and his multiple wives and his millions of dollars made off of being a lobbyist for the guys who caused the mortgage and Wall Street collapse.”

Paul Krugman from the left: “Mr. Romney’s strategy, in short, is to pretend that he shares the ignorance and misconceptions of the Republican base. He isn’t a stupid man — but he seems to play one on TV … the only way to actually believe the modern G.O.P. catechism is to be completely clueless. Newt: by no means the deep thinker he imagines himself to be, but he’s a glib speaker …”

Not what a crowd, what a crowd, but What a choice, What a choice.

Was it something I said …

A young member of my household began reading the newspaper at an early age and one day came across an item in “Believe It or Not” that stated there were 14 million bats in Carlsbad Caverns or some such number. “Who counted them?” she demanded. Keeping that in mind I am informed there are 988,968 words in the English language, many more ways to convey meaning verbally than any other language, going away. We commonly use a few more than two thousand, but we get to choose which two thousand.

Then along came texting with acronyms, like “I Y Q” and its response “I Y Q 2.” The verbal words go digital. My granddaughter has been texting for years, rarely talks on the cell phone which she rarely answers, but her fingers are always flying over her smart phone even when she is doing something else.

Then came Twitter and Tweets. Communications reduced to 140 characters making use of acronyms even more desirable. The Library of Congress estimated 140 million tweets are sent every day, collections of trivia and drivel. The library has made a deal to archive every one of those tweets but as a guy who had trouble looking up numbers in the old telephone directories I don’t see the good of it.

Now there is something entirely new. Texting, even with acronyms is too much bother so here comes Emoji, a collection of whimsical little icons that express meaning and take the place of “emotions,” those combinations of parentheses and other punctuation that people use to drop a facial expression into a text message or e-mail. So if you want to invite a friend to get together for a drink you make on click on an icon of two clinking beer mugs. Saves so much time and bother and replaces actual words. A vocabulary of icons has been developed and an app has been created. It is in its infancy, but just wait a minute or two. Will people write stories and books in emoji? Will the world grow ever more silent?

It is like a return to the past. Thirty to forty-five thousand years ago early humans drew pictures on walls of caves. The Egyptians developed hieroglyphic script (and in the elections this week used over 240 symbols on their 60 ft. long paper ballot). The Mayan had glyphs, about 550 logograms (which represent whole words) and 150 syllabograms (which represent syllables). And of course Asians came up with the stylized versions of stick drawings.

So we are making a move to revert to earlier means of communications, as in silence as we take away the language. There is a new movie out that is completely silent, a tribute to the old silent movie days, that is getting much rave critical attention, “The Artist.” Maureen Dowd wrote an interesting rave review in the New York Times, quoting the movie’s creator Michel Hazanavicius, “I compare it to the zero in mathematics. People think it’s nothing, but actually it’s not. It can be very powerful.”

So if we go back to communicating with icons we will each need a personal one to represent our own name to go along with the vocabulary in the app. I can see Mitt Romney with a stylized car with a dog strapped to the roof. Newt Gingrich with a head of carefully coifed white hair imposed on a field of sparkling jewels. Rick Perry’s icon could feature his boots which read “come and take it” on both right and … does he own a left anything? Even a boot? Jon Huntsman, two hands holding a fertilized human egg. Ron Paul a partial globe containing only a map of the United States. Michele Bachmann the old symbol for coupling, the two key-like figures connected by circles connected at the top but the end of each would be pointed symbolizing same [sex uniting, all covered with a big red X].

For my signature a Word Cloud of one of an old Trivia piece might do. The one I have shows the biggest usage is the word “word” since if nothing else, I seem to be all to full of words. Full of it. But I don’t have to tell anyone how knows me that.

 

 

 

 

Volume 7, Number 34

December 5, 2011 -- It was a quiet week here in Washington Woebegone, or so it seemed to me. The legislators, back from doing whatever they do when not in session. Raising money? Of course, but they have to do that even when they are in session. And we had five whole days without a Republican debate. Almost a whole week. Did the grass seem greener, the air fresher, the days brighter? Then came Saturday, Mike Huckabee, Fox News, and the troopers, though a slightly shorter list now that Cain has suspended his campaign and Jon Huntsman did not accept an invitation.

Earlier in the week James Moore summed up the candidates as follows: “As one more woman makes up another story about Herman Cain’s sexual proclivities, Rick Perry struggles to understand who is eligible to vote in the democracy he wants to lead. Mitt Romney changes positions as often as a light-hitting utility infielder; Michelle Bachman prompts questions about what is required to become a member of the House Intelligence Committee; Ron Paul makes enough sense to scare the electorate; Newt Gingrich has reached the fifth level of hypocrisy and thinks his contradictions are invisible or meaningless, while Jon Huntsman, who has been far too rational and informed to be riding in the GOP clown car, stands off to the side and wonders how he is not even qualified to be considered for the Iowa debate on December 10.” We might consider this our play list as we go down the campaign debate trail.

At least the Saturday night campaign spectacle took a different form, as a forum, set up by former governor and presidential aspirant Mike Huckabee and Fox News with three conservative state attorneys generals who have filed legal cases against the 2009 health care law firing tough questions at the candidates. The candidates were challenged to prove they are really conservatives, the more so the better. Under this three on one format there was no opportunity for intraparty politics. The New York Times called it “one of the more substantive television events in the Republican contest so far.” They convinced me. These people are certainly all truly conservatives, as mean spirited as necessary to qualify. I feel them nipping at my shins just by thinking about it.

If it has appeared to you that these debates have taken on the character of a traveling reality show, wait until December 27 when one will be moderated by Donald Trump, sponsored by Newsmax, the conservative magazine and Web site. Will the participants have to produce their valid birth certificates? Will Trump have the power to fire somebody? Should be different at least.

“Newt Gingrich’s mind is in love with itself.”

“It has persuaded itself that it is brilliant when it is merely promiscuous. He plays air guitar with ideas, producing air ideas. He ejaculates concepts, notions and theories that are as inconsistent as his behavior.” As Gingrich reaches the top of the polls along with Romney, propelled no doubt to a large degree by the Herman Cain Titanic voyage, he is garnering the attention of all of the usual suspects, er commentators. This passage is from a Maureen Dowd column in Sunday’s New York Times in which she does a thorough number on the eccentric self-appointed visionary. The entire column would be worth reprinting.

David Brooks wrote: “Sometime between now and Iowa Newt’s essential Newtness will emerge — mainly the fact that each successive moment for him has no bearing on the next.” And that’s just a conservative columnist writing.

In New York Magazine Dan Amira wrote about “Newt Gingrich's habit of using a few choice adverbs to make the things he says sound just a bit more intelligent to his listeners: Profoundly. Deeply. Frankly. But none of them are as vital to the Gingrich lexicon as fundamentally (along with its cousin, the adjective fundamental).” Dan made a list of 418 occasions when Gingrich used “Fundamental” in a speech or interview. Frankly, with profound feeling I deeply agree that Newt is fundamentally overdoing it.

“I’m used to being in the minority. I’m a left-handed, gay Jew.”

The Republican candidates were not the only personalities in the news this week. That thirty year fixture in the House of Representatives Barney Frank announced he will not run for reelection. Things are never quite the same when bedrock disappear, especially one that stood up against the weight of massive disapprobation, that often takes the form of downright hatred. To say he earned it is not to brush off his hard work, his diligence, his never-ending effort to do good for common cause. But he is a bully.

Early in his career it was thought that he had a shot at ultimately becoming Speaker of the House; in fact Speaker John McCormack is quoted as saying ‘Oh, Barney, I had hoped you would become the first Jewish Speaker’ when Frank told him he was coming out of the closet, or “out of the room” as McCormack mistakenly announced to staff. Well he did bound out of the closet and into his own sex scandal, which he managed to survive with strong support from his constituents.

Whether you approve or disapprove of his views without question he has the best grasp on matters financial of anyone in Congress. In The Daily Beast /Newsweek coverage of his announcement the point was made that even the Wall Street financiers who fought against his efforts to regulate them often sought his counsel. He had not won a Nobel Prize as did Paul Krugman, but Krugman wrote that no one else could explain complicated financial matters as clearly as Frank.

His foes, you have to call them foes rather than opponents due to the viciousness of the attacks he took, have attempted to lay blame for the housing bubble at his feet, even tough he was in the minority with no power to act during its development by the very people who created it. By chance I tuned in a televised committee meeting during that period and watched him warn the members that too many people were buying houses they could not afford only to take criticism for trying to prevent people from realizing the American dream of home ownership by the Republican majority leader.

In his announcement he said he had planned to run for one more term but when the results of redistricting came out he saw he would be faced with losing a large segment of his long-time supporters and introducing himself convincingly to a very large number of new constituents. To do so and win would consume all of his time preventing him from diligently doing his job in Congress. As it stands these days to win and hold a seat takes so much time and money it interferes with the job of governing. Rick Perry wants a part-time Congress like the Texas legislature. Well, in effect, we already have one.

At least for the next year he will be able to keep his focus on legislation. Maybe he can even save the Dodd-Frank bill from the masticating jaws of carnivorous Republicans out to kill it.

I wouldn’t call Frank a lovable figure, but I for one will miss his frankness (no pun intended), forthright bluntness and unceasing efforts to attach a curb bit on the rampaging financial system. He was the guy with his finger in the dike so look out now.

There is, of course, that little matter of his personality. Karl Rove wrote “Brilliant, but acid tongued and generally unpleasant, Mr. Frank ruled with an iron gavel, ran over critics with delight and treated committee members and especially Republican colleagues as lesser forms of life.” It takes one to know one.

The Washington Post’s Dana Milbank, who has covered him for years, writes that he is mean to his staff, mean to his colleagues, even once made a young woman trying to make him up for a TV appearance cry. Frank was frequently good for a quote. “Conservatives believe that, from the standpoint of the federal government, life begins at conception and ends at birth.” And: “The problem with the war in Iraq is not so much the intelligence as the stupidity.”

As Milbank notes, “Barney Frank, liberal lion, gay pioneer and respected legislator, is also one mean and ornery S.O.B.” Yet, I will be sorry to see him gone. He will have no replacement.

“Your list is just not accurate so, one, we’re going to have to be better informed.”

We can’t leave Mitt Romney out of any account of the week’s adventures of political figures. This was a little rebuke he gave to Bret Baier of Fox News during an interview when Baier asked him: “How can voters trust what they hear from you today is what you will believe if you win the White House?” An uptight Romney complained about the tone of it after it was over. I think we have to say he is thinned skinned and not very likeable, not that he isn’t a decent human being, but he is the epitome of that 0.01 percenter so much on our minds these days. As NYT columnist Gail Collins puts it: “Romney made his living buying companies on borrowed money, shrinking the work force, and then walking away with so much profit that the companies were, on occasion, left like victims of an overeager vampire.” All very smart. All very legal. But how does that translate into being the chief in charge of the welfare of over 300 million living, breathing human beings?

“Let’s face it, Shank is not a pretty word.”

Bob File, a former pig farmer and the president of Pioneer Meat, commenting on the power of euphemisms. In marketing a new popular food item, a two-ounce bits of pork cut from the fibula of a ham shank the common name for it is “Pig Wings.” There are variations, such as squealers, beaver tails. carnitas-on-sticks or carnitas lollipops. It’s like Chinese Gooseberries did not sell well in American markets until the name was changed to Kiwi.

This comes to mind as we learn of instructions given to members of the Republican Governors gathering in Florida on the importance of the choice of words, by the Party’s message mastermind Frank Luntz.

 

● Replace “capitalism” with ‘economic freedom’ or ‘free market.

● Change “taxes the rich” to “takes from the rich.”

● No ‘middle class.’ Call them ‘hardworking taxpayers.

● G.O.P. euphemisms for the wealthy can be “small businesses” but the main one is “job creators” as in punishing job creators.

 

If there is anything that gets my hackles up, or makes my skin crawl like scratching a blackboard with your fingernails it is the use of “job creators.” People hire people to fill jobs, but they don’t “create” them. Market demand creates jobs. Here is the best explanation by a successful entrepreneur and true member of the 1 Percent, Nick Hanauer.

“I’ve never been a ‘job creator.’ I can start a business based on a great idea, and initially hire dozens or hundreds of people. But if no one can afford to buy what I have to sell, my business will soon fail and all those jobs will evaporate.”

“Only consumers can set in motion a virtuous cycle that allows companies to survive and thrive and business owners to hire. An ordinary middle-class consumer is far more of a job creator than I ever have been or ever will be.” This is the truth of the matter and I am fed up with conservatives whining about so-called “job creators.” Enough already.

“These days, ambulance-chaser economists like yours truly have an embarrassment of riches.”

So much is going wrong, in so many places, that one hardly knows where to start.” Some words from Paul Krugman, the evil economist from the left if you follow the conservative line. Britain is the poster boy for the theory of “promising to slash deficits and energize economic growth through radical fiscal austerity. It failed dismally” as an editorial in the New York Times points out. That is not a partisan view. It is obvious to all. The cuts reduced growth so badly more cuts had to be made with reduced growth yet more so more cuts set. And the British are still at it.

The scary part of this is that this seems to be the model for Republican policy. Just cut everything to the bone no matter how it affects 99 percent of the population and wait for “job creators” to get creative. Oh woe. Oh bane. Birnamwood shall march to Dunsinane.

“I'm at peace with my God. I'm at peace with my wife, and she is at peace with me.”

If you say so, Herman Cain, if you say so. After suspending your campaign. Like so many others, I’ve wondered how Cain could enter such a high-profile race having such a history. Did he really think no one would come ignore it? Who did he think he is, another J.F.K.? The Daily Beast laid it on the testosterone factor. Makes you wonder if originally he just thought by running he would gain so much attention it would sell more books, increase his fees for making speeches. And that may still be true. Meanwhile, he is also the butt of many jokes. For example, this one reported by Columnist David Brooks: “I did see a nice tweet from somebody who observed that the only thing Herman Cain knows about foreign affairs is that he denies having had any.”

Meanwhile the Cain people launched a new Web page, Women for Cain. Do they expect women to respond to his charms as usual? Could be they are using it to collect money to pay off campaign expenses (Cain is accustomed to pay offs).

You have to feel a little empathy for a man brought down so low after reaching such heights, even though it was all his doing. In that spirit I offer him these few words of consolation.

Herman, we’re feeling your pain

Let us turn to the tale

Of the woe and travail

Of the man in the news Herman Cain

It seems he forgot a

Past inamorata

Oh Herman we’re feeling your pain

You’re neither Spitzer nor Arnold

When it comes to things carnal

Yet your actions are hard to explain

Thirteen years she collects,

Money and gifts, but no sex?

Oh Herman, we’re felling your pain.

What now? There’s some hope

If like Gingrich, go “Pope”

And a Catholic confession obtain.

Still with such an exemption

The road’s long to redemption

Oh Herman we’re feeling your pain.

A Bachmann hysterectomy

A bad Perry vasectomy

Or if Santorum failed to abstain

Might divert bad publicity

Of all your lubricity

But look for unlikely miracles in vain.

If still wishing to contend,

Then just face it my friend

Take the one course that’s simple and plain.

Claim the media, the press

Is at blame for this mess

And certainly not you, Herman Cain.