Trav Trivia

Volume 7, Number 46

February 27, 2012 -- In the words of Liza Doolittle, “is that all you blighters can do?” This seems as good a time as any to just let people speak for themselves, a torrent of “words, words, words” with a thank you in the direction of the Supreme Court keeping in mind that corporations and organizations are people too.

On the 20^th Republican Debate

“Santorum proved that even if the subject was rutabagas, he would still find a way to point out that Massachusetts passed its universal health care law when Mitt Romney was governor.” Gail Collins in the New York Times. And, “Birth control pills seemed to get the blame for rising rates of unwed motherhood.” On, the convoluted logic of social conservatives.

“Governor Romney supported the bailout of Wall Street and decided not to support the bailout of Detroit”, said Santorum.

Commenting on gaps like that between ideology and practice, in the Washington Post, E. J. Dionne Jr. said: “Free market virgins? They gave that up long ago.” It’s a wonder conservatives haven’t come up with a pill you could take for that, to save your free market virginity. The John Galt pill. Turns you in to Any Rand.

“Romney then announced that everything — I think this included both unwed motherhood and the Obama health care reform — happened because Santorum had endorsed Arlen Specter for the U.S. Senate in 2004. He’s (Mitt) facing a must-win primary next week in Michigan, which is, of course, his home state. Along with Massachusetts and New Hampshire and California, where he has, um, homes. Michigan appears to be the only Romney home state where Romney does not have an actual residence.” Collins again. Romney seems to live wherever he hangs his hat. Or his authorized Mormon underwear.

With his steady caucus and primary wins behind him Santorum got the most heat in the debate from other candidates who seemed to take on the personality of the debate’s location and treat him as if he were just another illegal Arizona immigrant. With Michigan and Arizona Tuesday, Washington State March 3^rd, and Super Tuesday March 6^th all looming, this is most likely the last debate of these traveling toomlers (such an apt Yiddish word under the circumstances).

“According to Michael Kinsley, a gaffe is when a politician accidentally tells the truth”

Economist Paul Krugman used that gem of a quote in a column about Mitt Romney in which the candidate “absent-mindedly said something completely reasonable: ‘If you just cut, if all you’re thinking about doing is cutting spending, as you cut spending you’ll slow down the economy.’ ” That is Keynesian stuff and Galt-like conservatives howled in protest making it even harder for Mitt to fend off criticism that he is not conservative enough.

His best gaffe though was a beaut. There he was in Michigan in his self-cast role of regular guy with regular problems as though his collar was blue when in a speech pandering to regular people he said: “The streets are just right. I like the fact that most of the cars I see are Detroit-made automobiles. I drive a Mustang and a Chevy pickup truck. Ann (his wife) drives a couple of Cadillac’s, actually. And I used to have a Dodge truck. So I used to have all three covered.” Tell me Mitt, does Ann have two Cads so like so many of Detroit’s auto worker’s wives she can color coordinate?

Gaffe number three: holding an event in the middle of vast Ford Stadium in Detroit when only about 1,200 or so people showed up and looked awfully lonesome out there. TV cameras panned the empty seats and the crowd was anything but enthusiastic. At least he said: “you know, the trees are the right height,” which in certain portions of the South would have been another gaffe, as in the right height for what, to string someone up?

Religion to comfort us in bad time?

You would think that would be the case, but then you read the headlines like these:

“Afghan Protests Over the Burning of Korans at a U.S. Base Escalate”

“Israeli Court Invalidates a Military Exemption … the government's negotiations with religious parties.”

“At times, it seems as if Santorum is running to become Theologian in Chief… but his Ozzie-and-Harriet ideas about family life place different solar system.”

Eugene Robison commenting in the Washington Post.

“Chairman Issa’s head is somewhere I don’t want to go.”

Sandra Flukey, a young college student on the chairman of the committee who rejected her as a witness in a hearing in which five Republican male lawmakers are working on “trying to take the pill away from women”, writes Dana Milbank in the Washington Post. I don’t want to know where she thinks his head is.

This kind of stuff is happening all over. In Georgia one (female) legislator introduced a bill requiring vasectomies in order to get the attention of fellow lawmakers, and as was widely covered Virginia, the bill to force pregnant women considering an abortion to view or submit to a most intrusive ultrasound probe that would be similar to what got them into that condition in the first place. The governor was for it, then was against it, and the legislature is revising it, and so on.

In Indiana a lawmaker named Bob Morris insists that the Girl Scouts promote abortion and homosexuality. Cookies do this? Something in the water, maybe, but cookies?

“The Nazis built their pseudoethics with its grim logic on precisely this Nietzschean cosmological view.”

The Post’s Milbank dug this out of an old book written by Santorum in an article of how the man seems to find Nazis everywhere. “…in the Middle East, in doctor’s offices and medical labs, in the Democratic Party, and now in the White House.” The White House: no more High Fives, just one “Heil” after another.

“Of the Darwinian view of a ‘purposeless universe,’ Santorum wrote that ‘the Nazis built their pseudoethics with its grim logic on precisely this makes him “wonder if we have merely been momentarily delayed in our slide” Our slide? Santorum, seems to me you are the one slide, a slide into some dark, dank world of your own and you seem to be taking many people with you.

“I challenge you to distinguish a naked prostitute from any other naked woman.”

That may be my favorite quote of the week. Remember Dominique Strauss-Kahn? Accused of raping a New York Hotel maid? French authorities are accusing him of involvement in a prostitution ring and his lawyer, Henri Lecler, made that statement. A contest? Are you looking for volunteers? Where do I sign up?

A Few Words From Presidents of the Past

Presidents Day came and went last week, but in an effort to learn what some of them might have to say about current affairs in the country they once led, we a virtual séance was held to get the perspective of a dozen of them. From a darkened room, heavily draped with eerie sounds in the background here in no particular order is what they had to say.

1. George Washington … Still in Afghanistan? I only kept my troops at Valley Forge one winter.

2. Abraham Lincoln … Presidents Day? My mistake. I thought I was here for the big event, Martin Luther King Jr. Day.

3. Herbert Hoover … I’m here to make a complaint. Representative Rand Paul stole my economic plan but hasn’t given me any credit.

4. Thomas Jefferson … since I once dabbled a bit in miscegenation I wanted to see how the consequences of such would work out in the field of politics.

5. Teddy Roosevelt … I started the ball rolling on universal health care over a hundred years ago and you people just got around to it? That’s like instead of charging up San Juan Hill upright, going up on your hands and knees.

6. F.D.R. … we have nothing to fear but fear itself … and the possibility of Rick Santorum as president, of course.

7. Lyndon Johnson … strapped a dog to the roof of his car? Only a Republican would do that. A Democrat would just pick him up by his ears.

8. Calvin Coolidge … somebody asked me to appear here to share the secret of my charisma with Mitt Romney.

9. William Taft … just in case New Jersey Governor Chris Christie decides to run for president after all he should remember that I got my 330 pounds stuck in the White House bath tub so he should stick to showers.

10. Andrew Jackson …since I bedded and married a woman who was another man’s wife at the time and suffered from the scandal, I say to Newt Gingrich I feel your pain.

11. Harry Truman … President Obama, you are certainly welcome to use my words and complain about a do-nothing Congress.

12. Richard Nixon … as I have said, if the president does it, it is not illegal, unless the president is a Democrat of course.

 

A NOTE OF THANKS TO ALL WHO VOTED IN THE NEW YORKER CARTOON CAPTION CONTEST FOR THE ENRY OF NORMA HERSH.

AGAINST GREAT ODDS SHE WON!

A REAL COUP.

 

 

 

Volume 7, Number 45

February 20, 2012 -- Calling Rumpelstiltskin! We are said by some to have a problem. A social fabric problem. One would think that if there was anyone who could sew up holes in fabric, social or otherwise, it would be the one who could sew straw into gold as Rumpelstiltskin did.

We hear a lot from social conservatives now, and especially the Crown Prince of all social conservatives, Rick Santorum, about the decay of “family values” and the dissolution of the family unit as the root of all of our problems. It makes for good sanctimonious rhetoric, but I have difficulty swallowing it whole. I feel like I am sitting here listening to Robert Preston as the con Music Man singing about how we “got to keep them moral after school.”

It was interesting to see how two columnists for the same newspaper, The New York Times, viewed the sharp decline of marriage rates of people in the prime working years. Economist Paul Krugman wrote that this is not due to some “mysterious moral collapse;” but to a drastic reduction in the work opportunities available to less-educated men. Without a job at a decent salary there isn’t much incentive or resources to marry. And people being how we are, we end up with children born out of wedlock at 40 percent and rising. And more one parent families. “Come be my love and we shall all the pleasures prove” on food stamps.

Krugman also quotes these statistics: “Adjusted for inflation, entry-level wages of male high school graduates have fallen 23 percent since 1973 … In 1980, 65 percent of recent high-school graduates working in the private sector had health benefits, but, by 2009, that was down to 29 percent.” On the job subject, it should be noted that the Economic Policy Institute points out, we started 2012 with fewer workers employed than in January 2001, zero growth after 11 years, even as the population, and therefore the number of jobs we needed, grew steadily. (Krugman: “Even at January’s pace of job creation it would take us until 2019 to return to full employment.”)

Krugman writes that the idea that we are a classless society is a myth. “Among rich countries, America stands out as the place where economic and social status is most likely to be inherited.” He adds “Social changes taking place in America’s working class are overwhelmingly the consequence of sharply rising inequality, not its cause.”

About a week later his fellow NYT columnist David Brooks, without naming Mr. Krugman, took issue with those who say economics has anything to do with the “weakening of our social fabric,” calling it “to a crude materialism that has little to do with reality.” Oh, that “bourgeois paternalism.” I always respect the erudite Mr. Brook’s opinions although I disagree with him most of the time, but here he reminds me of listening to my father’s generation decry how the youth of their day had just gone to hell. “Smoking pot in high school classrooms” they cried. When I got there I looked around but darn it couldn’t find any. I get the Brooks Tsk. Tsk. part but not how he thinks we got into it or how to get out of it.

Rick Santorum, who wants to be our Holy President accuses “radical feminists” of “succeeded in undermining the traditional family and convincing women that professional accomplishments are the key to happiness.” Or at least he did in a book he coauthored in 2005 which he now says he does not remember. The old Rush Limbaugh “feminazi” thing. Haven’t you noticed all of those black booted women marching round the country shouting Sieg Heil?

So wait a minute. Step back and ask yourself how bad is it, really, that everyone does not live as the “traditional American family?” Is society really hurting because we aren’t? Just how? What does that actually mean? Of course it would be ideal if we were all June and Ward Cleaver but life is not like that. Society evolves.

At the risk of being stoned for blasphemy I say while a two-parent family is ideal, divorce is better than “staying together for the sake of the children” where everyone is miserable, even the children who will pick up on mean spirited conflicts (just ask any family lawyer who deals with divorces). I say if a woman has an intellect as they do in the same proportion as their male counterparts it is society’s loss as well as hers if she does not put it to good use. Does everyone have to have a family just because their biological clock is ticking? Better when there are two parents, but good child care is available, you see this every day, and I don’t see the country falling apart because of it. It is a matter of economics and instead of wringing our hands and bemoaning a loss of a fantasy world would be to concentrate on building a strong, stable economy the fruits of which can be enjoyed from the bottom rung of the economic ladder on up. Stop already with the “family value” yammering.

Rick Santorum wants to attack the perceived problem b by making divorce more difficult and providing “fatherhood training programs.” Divorce more difficult? I am old enough to remember when Reno found out how to make big bucks, before Nevada turned to gambling and whoring, by granting divorces unlike the rest of the country after short residences, finally as low as six weeks. Only rich women could afford divorces then and besides, at lower economic levels, there were no jobs women could take to support themselves. They stayed in marriages no matter what, even when abused. Should we return to that?

By the time I reached my twenties in my little community what kind of a life a young woman could look forward to depended strictly on how successful the man she married turned out to be. And spinsterhood was tough. It made the dating game pretty sticky and a guy could get a guilt complex by dating someone when he knew he couldn’t, or wouldn’t, marry them. Santorum, would you have us go back to that? These days a woman should not feel compelled to marry if she is happy with her lot. And if necessary, either parent can be the prime care giver for offspring. But it is a matter of economics. There. I have said it. Now June Cleaver can send me to stand in the corner for time out.

I will say this about David Brooks, bourgeois tough I may seem in his eyes, since he offered this take on Santorum as having a “black or white view of politics. Everybody is either on God’s side or on Satan’s side.” Well, weren’t the old June and Ward Cleaver shows in black and white, or did I just not have color then? The plight of the bourgeois.

Would Rumpelstiltskin make a good Republican?

In the fairy tale Rumpelstiltskin was doing his sewing in order to take advantage of a maiden, demanding her first born. That does not say much for his regard for women. He qualifies.

The Progress Report did a summary of where the four Republican nominee hopefuls stood on issues of concern to women, in chart form with links to source material. In essence, all four are opposed to, or hold negative views on, these eight topics:

1. insurance covering birth control

2. breast cancer screening

3. coverage for maternity and newborn care

4. women paying the same for insurance as men

5. closing the donut hole for prescription drugs

6. women under 26 from staying on parents insurance

7. screening for diabetes

8. eliminating domestic violence as a presiding condition

We almost have a Letterman Top Ten there, and probably could fill it out if we worked at it. Here, for example is Rick Santorum on the Pentagon’s announcement that more women in the military will be put in combat roles. Santorum said to do so “could be a very compromising situation, where people naturally may do things that may not be in the interest of the mission because of other types of emotions that are involved.” Santorum might want to check with Israel about those “emotions” since their female fighters have racked up a fine record in a military that has certainly had no problems aggressively winning battles. It is surprising that he did not use the occasion to bring up those “radical feminists” again.

Wonder if Santorum would consider Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins radical feminists? The two senators from Maine are female, and both signed on to the White House compromise on providing contraceptives with no co-pay under health insurance. Their male Republican colleges still want no part of it despite endorsements by the Catholic Health Association, University of Notre Dame, The Association of Jesuit Colleges and Universities, Catholic Charities USA, and according to various polls the majority of the public.

Free birth control products? Let’s examine that word “free.” Nobody is standing on a street corner handing such things out. If you say (1) that a woman’s reproductive system is subject to health issue like all of the other body parts, then (2) wouldn’t you want to make the appropriate medical products available just like all other such items available with no co-pay? Take one and call me tomorrow.

Republicans came up with a counter plan that would let just about anybody, any state, opt out of provisions in the Health Care Reform act which would effectively kill it. It’s a wonder Republican legislators haven’t invited a catholic exorcist to come on the floor of the House or the Senate to perform the rite to expunge the thing they see s so evil from our society. Yes, by orders from the Pope every catholic diocese has an official trained exorcist. Maureen Dowd had a lot to say about that in her column in The New York Times this week. She reminds us that Father Gabriele Amorth, the exorcist for the diocese of Rome, has complained that yoga and Harry Potter are evil. Not as evil as “Obamacare” Republicans would have you believe. After all, as she quotes exorcist Father Gary Thomas as saying: “Demons are always looking for people who have broken relationships and no relationships. Demons don’t have corporeal bodies like we do. They can travel faster, are far more intelligent and have a much keener sense of free will.” For a moment there I thought he might be talking about the Republican leadership, broken relationships yes but no corporal body? Move faster? No, the demons must remain virtual.

Frayed Social Fabric? How About Hole in the Safety Net?

Our social net prams are under obvious stress and no matter what they promise those who would take us on a drastically austere spending program on the current European model could make no dramatic reductions without chopping holes in it. Has the net grown under the current administration? No, it’s basically the same but more people are falling into it. So at a time when we need it most is when we are most apt to shrink it.

But Atlas shrugs. Representative Paul Ryan, the chairman of the House Budget Committee, requires that staffers read Ayn Rand’s Atlas Shrugged, “in which heroic capitalists struggle against the ‘moochers’ trying to steal their totally deserved wealth, a struggle the heroes win by withdrawing their productive effort and giving interminable speeches” as Paul Krugman points out. The austere Ryan plan has been heartily embraced by Mitt Romney, not a latter day Saint, but a latter day John Galt.

This should not surprise us. Political scientists who use congressional votes to measure such things find that the current G.O.P. majority is the most conservative since 1879, which is as far back as their estimates go. There seems to be a longing for a “land of traditional values, where people don’t eat Thai food and don’t rely on handouts”, writes Krugman. Land of milk and honey? Well, the First Lady is keeping bees at the White House and producing honey. She actually is. So she is doing her part.

In Europe where austerity programs like Ryan’s proposal have been put in place things are just awful. You read headlines like this” “Euro Zone Economy Shrank in Fourth Quarter of 2011, Britain's Central Bank Expects Scant Economic Growth” And this: “For London Youth, Down and Out Is Way of Life” from the New York Times. The news report goes on to say: “The lack of opportunity is feeding a mounting alienation and anger among young people across Europe, threatening to poison the aspirations of a generation.” Better bring back Fitzgerald to write about another “lost generation.”

The choice was immediate draconian cut backs or judicious reductions combined with investments for growth, the same choice we are about to make with or choices in the election this year.

Next Up: Michigan, February 28^th

Michigan, where the two leading candidates for Republican presidential nomination are trying to explain to voters why both think it would have been better if the government had let “big auto” go bankrupt. And “Restore Our Future”, a pro-Romney "Super PAC," is trying to restore it by committing $470,000 in ads that started Tuesday in Michigan. No way Santorum forces can come anywhere close to that. Let us not, however, let Santorum get away with playing the poor-boy card. There are reports that since he left Congress he has taken in over $3 million as a lobbyist. He released four years of his tax returns which showed incomes of a little over $900,000 to $1,000,000 in each. He did pay more taxes than Romney, 29.4% vs. 13.9%.

On to glory March 3 and March 6

The Washington State primary is the third of March, then comes Super Tuesday on the sixth, when ten states hold primaries which should sew things up unless the unlikely happens and Republicans end up with a brokered convention. What will we do then? We’ll have to go back to watching the TV sitcoms rather than the unreal reality shows that passed for debates.

The seas parted, the sky turned blue again

This week Congress voted to extend payroll tax cuts and unemployment. The House and the Senate voted to extend the payroll tax cuts and unemployment benefits (House Speaker Boehner managed to whip his Tea Party bad boys in line) and sent the legislation to President Obama. Each party claimed an election year victory. Bipartisan means you have to split the chips.

Two other parties are going to have to learn how to work with each other according to the Washington Post’s Eugene Robinson with these words: “For decades to come, the United States and China will be the world’s two biggest economic powers. We’re stuck with each other, like it or not. If we are to thrive in a changing world, singing “America the Beautiful” isn’t enough,” slipping in a little dig at Mitt Romney. And the competition gets even worse now that Jeremy Lin of the Knicks has shown us that Chinese can jump. The occasion is a visit from Xi, not a beer but the VP of China slated to be the next president. He called the U.S.-China relationship “an unstoppable river that keeps surging ahead.” If we are going to have to cope with all of those Chinese names I wish we would put the key for “X” in a more convenient place on the keyboard.

A few discarded Valentines

Karl Rove once advocated political operatives sneak around and root out documents in the trash of political opponents that could be used against them. Valentine’s Day has come and gone, but suppose we look for cards now discarded by some of the political figures now in the news, or at least some that might have been but are figments of our imagination.

 

A RICK SANTORUM VALENTINE

Will you be my Valentine and give your love to me?

I’ll return your love if you’re not an LGBT.

 

MITT ROMNEY SENDS A VALENTINE

My gift to you this Valentine’s Day is to get someone to hire you.

Unless you have a job then there is no way I can fire you.

 

GREETINGS FROM NEWT GINGRICH

We Catholics pray that you’ll succumb not to temptation.

Don’t love your Valentine unless for procreation.

 

HOUSE SPEAKER JOHN BOEHNER PLEADS

Tea Party wayward legislators you’ve got to hold the line

You’ll have to follow me if you’re to be my Valentine

 

FROM PRESIDENT OBAMA

My gifts are economic plans

If Congress just enacts a few

Sweet Valentine’s for all to share

If we’ll allow a tiny tax or two

 

 

Volume 7, Number 44

February 13, 2012 -- At times political parties talk about being the “Big Tent.” Today, the Republican Party seems to be a “Big Evangelical Revival Tent” exhorting the brethren to fight against the perceived “war on religion” they see being waged by the Administration (thy never say “administration,” they say “Obama,” the one-man government). It comes straight out of the mouths of Righteous Romney, Guardian-of-the-Faith Gingrich, Sanctimonious Santorum, Querulous Catholic Bishops, and all of the FOX News fair and balanced holy rollers so it must be true. Halleluiah. Pass me my palm-frond fan.

It’s that darn old First Amendment thing still, separation of church and state and all of these people are dead certain of what it means, what it doesn’t mean, what those saintly founding fathers had in mind and of course what they had in mind was exactly what these people are spouting. Let us then look at the “founders,” what they had to say in letters and diaries, what was reported about them by their contemporaries. Did they intend to make this a “Christian Nation?” Did they craft the form of government around the Saint James version of the Bible? Has our government strayed from the original intent?

Let us turn to President James Madison, the man who wrote the Constitution and the Bill of Rights, who ought to know what they were supposed to mean if anybody did. What did he have to say on the subject? “Who does not see that the same authority which can establish Christianity in exclusion of all other religions, may establish with the same ease, any particular sect of Christians in exclusion of all other sects?”

He was almost maniacal about separating church from state, was against having paid Chaplins in Congress or in the military, would not issue a national prayer in time of war until forced to do so. Like the other prominent “founders,” he was more Deist than Christian. These men attended church services of one denomination or another but to one degree or another they did not believe in the Trinity, the virgin birth, the divinity of Jesus, the resurrection, original sin, or miracles.

John Adams? He signed the Treaty of Tripoli, which stated: “The government of the United States of America is not in any sense founded on the Christian Religion.” That’s laying it on the line and he ought to know. He made clear in his diaries he held Unitarian beliefs.

John Quincy Adams: “The question before the human race is whether the God of nature shall govern the world by his own laws or whether priests and kings shall rule by fictitious mischief.”

Thomas Jefferson was really off the wall, predicted we would become a nation of Unitarians, wrote a version of the bible taking out divinity of Jesus, the Virgin birth, the resurrection, original sin, miracles, and so forth. “Say nothing of my religion” he wrote. “It is known to God and myself alone. Its evidence before the world is to be sought in my life; if that has been honest and dutiful to society, the religion which has regulated it cannot be a bad one.”

George Washington had a real hang-up about the Trinity, although he saw religion as necessary for good moral behavior. He attended Anglican services but would leave before taking communion.

Washington’s most famous statement on religion and government was the letter he wrote in 1790, to a Jewish synagogue in Rhode Island, in the news recently as the ownership of the original changed hands. Washington made clear that in America all faiths were not only tolerated but fully equal: “It is now no more that toleration is spoken of as if it was the indulgence of one class of people that another enjoyed the exercise of their inherent natural rights.”

That was the first synagogue in the new world, in the place where Roger Williams, a real religious fanatic established Rhode Island Plantations in the 17^th Century, and insisted that there be no official religion nor any requirement that one should have one. “Forced religion stinks in God’s nostrils”, Williams said. And there are some pretty rank odors trying to come out around the country at this very moment.

This is not meant to be an assault on faith. A genuine faith is very important to many, many people, enriching their lives, offering stability and comfort, helping guide them in everyday life and times of trouble. It means to counter the claim that this was established as a “Christian Nation” when in fact it was and is a secular nation with a large percentage of the population consider themselves Christians but where no particular religion should dominate another, or demand its views be government sanctioned. This is as important as any freedom we have, to protect your particular faith from some other faith by keeping it and all others out of government. We need to protect this freedom vigorously at a time when a Newt Gingrich, a religious role model if there was ever one, says he wouldn’t vote for an atheist for president because “non-believers lack the proper moral grounding to guide the American ship of state.” Like Washington, Madison, Adams, and Jefferson, Newt?

“We cannot—and will not—comply with this unjust law”

This was said by Cardinal Francis George, head of the Catholic Church in Chicago and leader 2.3 million people in his archdiocese. The Holy Hoopla this week about contraceptive provisions in the Health Care Reform Act had all three leading Republican presidential aspirants accusing President Obama of waging a war on religion. Catholic bishops are ricocheting off church walls between the stations of the cross (using contraceptives is so much worse than priestly pedophilia it would seem) although that does not seem to be the case with most Catholic parishioners or the priests that serve them. The law exempted churches and religious institutions by their nature employed only members of their own faith, but that exemption doesn’t hold for Catholic entities like hospitals and universities that employ people of all faiths. No exemptions there. So on the one and without an exemption a Catholic hospital will have to pay for birth control pills they object to adamantly, and cry foul. My First Amendment Rights are violated. On the other hand if the exemption is granted, scores of workers who do not share the church’s view will be denied a benefit that workers in other organizations get.

We keep thinking that with the election of JFK we tossed out the concern that the Vatican would influence our politics, but it hasn’t totally happened. Remember just a short couple of elections ago some Bishops were going to deny communion to some politicians and parishioners who voted against the dictate of the church. And here we are again.

The bishops are so far out of sync with public opinion in America. Archbishop Timothy M. Dolan in New York has been leading the fight against requirements for insurance coverage of birth control, but Catholic health institutions, including those in his own diocese, have for 10 years complied with law. Here is what polls by the Public Religion Research Institute show about who favors the provision:

Women               62%

Catholics             58%

All voters             57%

All Americans      53%

Catholic voters     53%

96% of Catholic women have used or do use birth control. Catholic women actually have a higher rate of abortion than other American women. Half of all pregnancies in the United States are unintended, and nearly half of those end in abortion which is why expanded access is desirable.

But then you have Santorum saying: “This is a president who, just recently, in this ‘Hosanna-Tabor’ case was basically making the argument that Catholics had to, you know, maybe even had to go so far as to hire women priests to comply with employment discrimination issues.” The war on religion. Except Santorum got his facts wrong because the Administration argued just the opposite. But hey, there’s a war on.

Thursday the President acted to try to calm everybody down; he proposed tweaking the program by requiring insurers, not employers to provide the contraceptives with no co-pay. The women still get contraception coverage, and the president has shown his respect for the bishops’ strong moral position. Now everybody is happy? “A first step in the right direction” said the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops. Later, however, on the Catholic Bishops’ website: “But stepping away from the particulars, we note that today’s proposal continues to involve needless government intrusion in the internal governance of religious institutions, and to threaten government coercion of religious people and groups to violate their most deeply held convictions.”

The Administration is still “trying to impose their values on somebody else,” Rick Santorum. “A fig leaf,” Representative Jim Jordan of Ohio. The whole thing “shows why we must fully repeal ObamaCare,” Senator Marco Rubio of Florida. Well, that would solve the controversy but it wouldn’t do much for women’s health. That is the idea, isn’t it? Or maybe not.

Meanwhile, Obama says about the compromise: “Religious liberty will be protected, and a law that requires free preventive care will not discriminate against women.” “Catholic Charities USA welcomes the Administration’s attempt to meet the concerns of the religious community and we look forward to reviewing the final language.” We are “committed to ensure that our religious institutions will continue to be granted the freedom to remain faithful to our beliefs, while also being committed to providing access to quality healthcare for our 70,000 employees and their families across the country.” Sister Carol Keehan, the president of the CHA (Catholic Health Association) has bucked the bishops from the beginning, endorsing the Health Care Reform Acct from its outset. Funny how Catholic women seem to have a different view of contraceptives than their celibate male counterparts.

So, does the First Amendment not only allow religious organizations exemptions from rules imposed on other citizens but also allows it to withhold benefits due their employees of a different faith? What would Madison say?

When a Smartphone Got Religion

It’s not enough that these cyber bullies keep telling us what to do, but now they are going to sermonize? Before last Wednesday if you asked Iris on a smartphone, powered by Android running the Siri-like voice-recognition system, about abortion, she would say that the Lord said, 'You shall not murder.' Exodus 20:13. The life that is growing within the mother is a child, a baby. The Bible looks at the life in the womb as a child. Thanks. What will it do next, spew out a little spray of Holy Water?

Other typical answers to questions: Is Satan real? (Answer: “Yes, Satan is real. Satan is the spirit of evil. He is not a person. He is an adversary of God, tempter of mankind.”) Holy Hacker, now these man-made electronic robots not only have a memory and can talk, but now can moralize. The abortion answer has been changed to a more noncommittal response but who can tell what else is buried in here. John Adams would never stand for it.

Oh Follow the Fold, Brethren

The reproductive rights of allowing women to retain control of their own bodies are under serious assault, not just pro-choice, but access to birth control products and the many important health services offered by Planned Parenthood. The conflict is between those who believe that a woman’s control of her own body is important to good health, and those who believe that society should make those decisions for her by way of government regulations. But the government has demonstrated willingness to make special exceptions to religious organizations such as the Catholic Church or the Salvation Army allowing them relief from rules imposed on the rest of society in the name of practicing “Freedom of Religion” under the First Amendment. This offers an opportunity to ensure maintaining women’s right to manage their own bodies by making them the foundation of a new religion. Ergo, establish a new church. As we have seen the most prominent of the founding fathers though attending popular church services held views quite different from established dogma. In their spirit then a new church could be established. I suggest it could be called: Church of Responsible Procreation, or CORP.

Core belief: the Almighty holds human life to be so valuable it should not come into being haphazardly, by accident, by carelessness, by lapse of self control, or without careful consideration of the world it shall enter; will it receive the environment, the nurturing, the encouragement necessary to develop and live a full, fruitful, meaningful life as a contributing member of society? If it does not meet these standards it is better that the development of a potential being be arrested before it begins and its place in the never-ending stream of earthly humanity be taken by another that does. This decision shall be at the sole discretion of the female host.

Suggestions on how CORP might function: It might be a kind of additive religion for some, not taking the place of an individual’s traditional faith if they have one, but an enhancement. As such, CORP services might take place on the first day of the week, on Mondays after the weekend services of traditional religions. Services could take the form of “meetings” as they were often called in early America, and perhaps conducted along the lines of AA gatherings, conducted by a chosen lector. The lector could report on the newest developments in the world of reproductive services, individuals could take turns sharing their success and problems, the core beliefs of the organization should be affirmed, lively discussions should ensue. Of course these are just thoughts on how CORP might function. The main thing is to have an established, registered “Church” that would be allowed the exceptions and special benefits offered to other religions in order to protect and preserve the reproductive rights of all women. I’ll bet Thomas Jefferson would be an enthusiastic supporter.

Straw Man Moves Farther Down Yellow Brick Road

This week Mitt Romney took a few more steps down the Yellow Brick Road to be the Republican nominee for president. Actually, that is poor analogy since lack of brain is not a problem for a man who can make $23 million a year; Tin Man for lack of heart would be better but since he won the straw poll at the big Conservative Political Action Conference it came to mind. That was followed by his 39% to 36% win over Ron Paul in the Maine non-binding caucus. Ron Paul was disappointed, hoping to win, but the difference was only a couple of hundred votes. Neither Santorum (18%) nor Gingrich (6%) bothered to try hard in Maine figuring Paul and Romney were going to dominate anyway.

Straw man, Tin Man, Romney seems to lack something in the eyes of voters as he marches along with his Obama character assassination campaign to reach that Emerald City House where he can play the wizard. Eugene Robinson had a few thoughts on that in the Washington Post. If Mitt has a coherent theme, it comes across as “passionate about the need, as he sees it, to defeat President Obama — but vague or self-contradictory as to why.” Robinson writes: “My point is that even Romney’s sharp disagreements with Obama’s policies don’t add up to a philosophy or a vision. They’re more like what stuck after a bunch of random tough-sounding positions were thrown at the wall.” I agree with those who see in Romney a desperate need to become President, whatever it takes.

Open letter to Rick Santorum

You are on a roll in the Republican presidential primary and caucus contests having won four out of eight and obviously have captured the social conservatives in your party, but there is the general election to think of should you capture the nomination. There you are going to have to appeal to independents, and young ones in particular. According to polls those in the age group of 18 to 39 are less likely to share your views on same-sex marriage or use of contraceptives. You are going to need some spin. Now I spent my life in the world of advertising where spin is Mothers milk so giving thought to your problem I have one or two suggestions.

It takes a family vs. a village. That book you wrote, “It Takes a Family,” to counter the Hillary Clinton contention that “It Takes a Village” will apt to be a bone of contention for a lot of people who agreed with Hillary, so I suggest you simply express the way to go is the way you and your wife are going in having seven children, growing the family into a village.

The anti-contraceptive problem. This is a tough sell to everyone, even Catholics, except for the bishops who don’t need to avoid pregnancy taking into consideration their apparent sexual preference. You are stuck with this position, and I don’t mean Missionary. The best thing to do I would say is to enliven it, go cutesy, create some fuzzy-feeling little cartoon characters that tell a little story. Have Sidney Sperm fight his way up the Fallopian tubes to reach Enid, the Egg despite the efforts of mean old monocled Conrad Von Contraceptive to create cute little Freddie the Fetus at which time he instantly becomes a real person wearing shorts, a baseball cap on backwards and socks falling down around his ankles-to-be. It won’t convert anyone to your punitive way of thinking but it will keep you from looking like such a stuffed shirt about it, therefore less of a turnoff.

Premarital sex. Frowned on by social conservatives, but this one ought to be easy for you to handle. After all, been there, done that. Instead of ducking the well-known story that your wife lived for six years with a man over forty years over her age, you can make the case for joys of redemption, how redemption is so much more satisfying when you have something to be redeemed about. How dull it would be to reach that point in life and have nothing for which to be forgiven. As a couple, you are role models.

Same-sex marriage. You have to face this one head-on. You can’t waffle. The amendment to the Constitution is needed. But here is the thing. In this day and age it is not always easy to tell a male from a female. Just make it a rule to ignore attire, grooming and given names. A couple presents themselves, one states “I am a male,” the other says “I am a female” and you take their word for it. They marry. Problem solved.

No, with the right spin even a Sanctimonious Santorum might have his social conservative cake and eat it too, although it may give the rest of us a terrible tummy ache.

 

 

 

Volume 7, Number 43

February 6, 2012 -- 

Fly Newt to the moon

And give our flag another star.

For the state he’ll make it

Though that may seem quite bizarre.

In other words, given a free hand

By his second term, it’s what he’s planned.

 

A little salute to Newt Gingrich for being Newt Gingrich while campaigning in Florida, reporting on his pledge to have the moon colonized by the end of his second term in the White House and to make it a state once the moon population reached 13,000. I understood the colonizing part as an appeal to Floridians who don’t want to give up their space facility, but why 13,000? What is he magic in that number? Hillary Clinton said, “It takes a village” so Newt says “it takes 13,000?

I bring this old news up because the crew of political wise men at the Daily Beast/Newsweek labeled the speech Gingrich made after losing the Florida primary to Romney “bizarre.” Of course it was bizarre. What else would you expect from professor moonbeam?

With Romney at 44.6% and Gingrich 31.9% (Santorum 13.4, Paul 7.9, the rest other), Newt did take it on the chin but you would never know it from his post primary speech. Forty-six more to go, he said (well, make that 47 if you count the moon) and it was full of ‘when I’m in the White House’ stuff.

What I found interesting was the way he handled the way his own party leaders, like Bob Dole and John McCain, have abandoned him, and if I weren’t horrified at the thought that he could possibly win this thing I would say he came up with a clever approach: run against the “Washington elite” of both parties and turn it into a “People’s Campaign.” He has taken up the guise of “Mr. Smith Goes to Washington.” It is ridiculous of course, but could be very effective.

His would be, pardon, will be a “working presidency” starting immediately after he is sworn in when he will spend three hours signing prepared executive orders dramatically changing the face of government, before trotting off to various inauguration balls. You won’t find him lollygagging, not even from the get-go. His words were called fiery and deluded. Again, what would you expect?

My take on Romney is that he wants us to hearken back to those good old George Bush years, which would require a lot of industrial strength hearkening on my part. In the main; in his speech he just tore into Obama painting such a picture of how wonderful things will be without our faculty club president in office (versus the Corporate Board Room president?).

You may want to take the time to see and hear the candidate’s post-primary speeches. After all, they give you a pretty good idea of how the candidates envision America. They speak above followers shouting “Mitt! Mitt! Mitt” and “Newt! Newt! Newt!” These two candidates are lucky to have names that are short and sweet, unlike, say President Cleveland whom they otherwise kind of emulate whose supporters would have to chant “Grover! Grover! Grover!” which doesn’t come off very well. Neither would “Willard,” Romney’s fist name. Gingrich might have been better off if he were called by his middle name like Romney, “Leroy,” if he’s running a people’s campaign, it sounds more populist. You can hear it now: “We Want Leroy” the crowd chanted.

If you choose to watch the videos from the link below, please take your grain of salt beforehand, keeping in mind there are consequences to the actions they are calling for and they are able to distort, mischaracterize and fabricate here without rebuttal.

http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2012/02/01/us/politics/20120201-fl-speeches.html?nl=todaysheadlines&emc=tha2

If you watched those speeches I hope you kept in mind that no matter how grand they sounded there was much in them that was bogus, distortion of data or outright fabrications, that those proposals have ramifications. Kill the Dodd-Frank bill and you kill any attempt to put some brakes on the financial rampages and also do away with the Consumer Protection Bureau; kill the Affordable Care Act and we are back to square one in health care with no insurance for preexisting conditions, caps on benefits, soaring premiums, even higher percent of our GDP as the only one of 44 industrialized nations that doesn’t think it is civilized to provide care to all citizens; the price of gasoline at the pump is determined globally so building a pipeline will in no way have anything to do with the price of gas nor ease our voracious appetite and dependence on foreign imports so we might give careful thought to its environmental impact; every word said about jobs and job creation is total nonsense, and so on. But the words were pretty.

Romney had the benefit of what Eugene Robinson in the Washington Post described as a “well orchestrated blitzkrieg to save Florida” for him, “solely to raise doubts about Gingrich’s character and electability — rather than convince voters that Romney, on the merits, should be president.” Romney has a 160-page economic plan. “What he doesn’t seem to have is a compelling narrative about the kind of America he envisions and the road he will take to get us there.” We could all carry around a copy in our pockets like Premier Mao had the Chinese do with his little red book. Might make us feel good.

Shades of Tin Roof Blues

Tin Roof Blues was one of my favorite old moldy-fig jazz tunes and sometimes Mitt Romney brings it to mind. The man doesn’t have a tin roof, he just has a tin ear. He doesn’t seem to know what he is really saying sometimes. The man who says he is working for the average person stated, “Corporations are people, my friend,” or “I like being able to fire people.” He claimed he knew what it was like to be out of a job, and he is out of a job alright but making about $23 million a year from investments (we feel your pain). Asked about paying such low taxes on all of that income he said Americans did not want their leader to pay more taxes than he owed; correct, but I think Americans would like to hear him say it was unfair and should be changed.

Now we have his infamous quote about poverty which is bounding around the internet and cropping up in all the columns: “I’m not concerned about the very poor.” Yes, that cold statement is taken out of context, but put it in context and it gets worse. “We have a safety net there. If it needs repair, I’ll fix it.” Then, “I’m not concerned about the very rich. They’re doing just fine (if anyone should know, you should) ... I’m concerned about the very heart of America, the 90-95 percent of Americans who, right now, are struggling.”

The sad point about that statement is he had a legitimate point to make and he made it in the most offensive way possible. The middle class, or middle income segment of the country is our economic engine and it is sputtering, needs help to crank it up again. But at the expense of ignoring the poverty stricken? Bad message, Mitt.

So, “A,” the poverty stricken are sort of O.K. because there is a safety net, and “B” if it has holes in it you will fix it? A number of observers have succinct comments on those points who see Mitt as out of touch.

First, we shouldn’t blow off the seriousness of our poverty. Last figures available from 2010 showed 15.1% of the population at or below the $22,314 for a family of four poverty line, more than one in five children, or 22 percent living below it.”An ethnic problem? Out of 46.2 million people, roughly 13 million are Hispanic, nearly 11 million are African American but more than 22 million are neither. This not only has a human toll, it impedes economic growth.

Now (A), about that social safety net. In 1996, 68 of every 100 families in poverty received welfare assistance; by 2009, that number had fallen to 27 out of 100.

And (B), if there are holes, he will fix it. Ruth Marcus in the Washington Post reports that the “Center on Budget and Policy Priorities found that Romney’s promise to increase defense expenditures while capping total federal spending at 20 percent of gross domestic product would require across-the-board cuts of 17 percent by 2016.” Leaving a hell of a hole.

Here is another view. Romney has enthusiastically signed on to the Rep. Paul Ryan’s plan for drastic cuts in federal spending (except for the military, because Mitt wants us to have a military force so big no other power will dare confront us, except for those sneaky little 9/11 type attackers) in which nearly two-thirds of the proposed spending cuts are at the expense of low-income Americans. According to the nonpartisan Tax Policy Center, the Romney tax plan would actually raise taxes on many lower-income Americans, while sharply cutting taxes at the top end. More than 80 percent of the tax cuts would go to people making more than $200,000 a year, almost half to those making more than $1 million a year, with the average person topping out at the million-plus level (like Mitt) would get a $145,000 tax break. That would increase the deficit by $180 billion a year. I just don’t see Romney as a modern-day Rumpelstiltskin sewing up holes in the safety net.

That noted protector of the poor Newt Gingrich stated both Romney and Obama think poverty can be solved with a safety net. “What the poor need is a trampoline so they can spring up. So I want to replace a safety net with a trampoline.” Bad idea, Newt. Have you noticed that what bounces up on a trampoline promptly comes zooming down with a solid thud. When you are expounding on your esoteric ideas and you come to the word “net” I suggest you look quickly behind you to make sure coming after you is not one of the butterfly variety.

“How sharper than a child’s tooth is a thankless serpent”

If memory serves me right, Snavely, the top-hatted besotted snake character in the old Walt Kelly comic strip “Pogo” should be credited with that crack. And here at campaign time it turns out there are more snakes in Florida than Republican candidates (a cheap shot, worthy of only Sarcophagus MacAbre in the same strip, a name I have often thought about adopting in bleak moments). And there is a political lesson to be learned here.

Turns out the Everglades have been infested by a population of huge, Burmese pythons. Somewhere along the line some got loose there, thrived, populated and have taken over, driving out native residents like foxes, rabbits, birds, possums, deer, raccoons all of the native wildlife. Well over a thousand of these mega-snakes have been killed or captured in recent years.

In desperation, the Interior Department issued some rules and regulations about importing and shipping such exotic snakes. But wait. House Republicans were up in arms. Had a hearing. A snake importer testified it would put people like him out of business and therefore those regulations were “job killers.” We can’t have job killers of course. What were we thinking when we repealed the Volstead Act? Look at all of the bootleggers it put out of work. Now there was a real job killer.

“I'm not going to withdraw. I’m actually pretty happy with where we are.”

That‘s the word from Newt Gingrich after another double-digit loss to Mitt Romney, this one in the Nevada primary on Saturday (Paul was third, Santorum a weak fourth despite endorsement by Sharon Angle, former candidate for the Senate against Harry Reid and Tea Party activist). Newt didn’t let the chance go by without reminding voters that Romney outspent him in Nevada five to one. Nevada is the place that runs on the odds.

“I’m going to take it to the White House,” proclaimed Romney, so sure of himself he emulated his latest campaign endorser, Donald Trump, by saying to his debate coach “you’re fired.” Mitt so has the hang of it he doesn’t need any frigging help, and enjoys saying “you’re fired.”

Count on Trump to turn even an endorsement into a side show. Despite giving Romney his support, Trump as said in the past: “Mitt Romney. No, he’s going to lose. He doesn’t resonate, you know?” I don't believe it would be wise to ever list “the Donald” on your resume.

Romney keeps getting reluctant endorsements. Big money casino magnate Sheldon Adelson and Gingrich supporter through his aides made clear he is willing to donate millions toward defeating President Obama even if his candidate is not the nominee, and include Romney, another stirring backhanded endorsement. That seems to have the grip on all Republican minds: defeat Obama at all costs, no matter what. I suppose it is too ugly to say it’s as if we remarkably chose a person of color as a leader and now we want to show the world what a mistake that was.

What a magnate for money is Romney. He raised about $24.3 million between Oct. 1 and Dec. 31 (about equal to his own personal yearly income). Millions in income, millions in assets, millions in contributions it is no wonder that a ten grand bet he offered to make to Rick Perry was to him pocket change. Let’s see, I’ve got a Cleveland in my pocket here somewhere.

“When a man marries his mistress, he creates a job opening.”

Maureen Dowd reminds us of that old maxim in her column in the New York Times looking at the role 45-year-od Callista plays in her 68-year-old husband Newt’s campaign. Callista doesn’t speak. She just never leaves his side, probably a smart move considering his romantic record. If Romney is a magnate for money, Gingrich must be or at least has been an unexplicable magnate for women. Go figure. The gist of the Dowd analysis is she bolsters his vision of his own greatness in ways his two “starter wives” as she calls them did not. Dowd contrasts the Obama marriage and the Gingrich coupling:

“When Barack is cocky and looks at Michelle, he might see her thinking: ‘You’re no messiah. Pick up your socks.’ But when Newt is cocky and looks at Callista, he sees her thinking: ‘You are the messiah. We’ll have your socks bronzed.’ ”

And so by this time, after Nevada, it would appear that nothing is going to stop Mitt Romney, but with the adulation of Callista, Newt soldiers on. Or, as the Pulitzer Prize winner Ms. Dowd puts it: “Gingrich is still out there grasping for lost power, howling at the moon like King Lear.” Well, at least he has his Cordelia.

Fellow activists, join me to right a wrong

I ran across an item this week which pointed out that since the Supreme Court in the Citizens United case held that corporations are people, then owners of corporations are slave holders. Think about that. By all logic, of course, they are. And I thought we got rid of that 150 years or so ago.

I am a stockholder. I am practicing slavery? Now I am a descendant on both sides of my family of slave owners, but in this day and age it doesn’t seem proper. I am not comfortable with it. Oh I know they are better off under our care and protection, but something needs to be done to set those people free.

I believe I should go to the next Exxon-Mobil stockholders meeting and make a plea to fellow slave owners that we manumits the company (if you are not familiar with that word, which means free from slavery, it’s because we haven’t had much use for it lately). After all, Exxon has served me faithfully for years and I have obtained financial benefits from its labor. Perhaps it has earned its right to be free from the bonds of slavery.

I can see one possible problem. In my family history an aunt of mine, of the great-great-great variety, in her will tried to manumits her life-long faithful servant and companion which gave the nation (Texas was an independent country at the time) something of a hot potato; on the one hand the legislature did not want to free a slave, but on the other hand they felt they had to respect the legality of the will. They solved it by decreeing she could be freed if she left the country within 24 hours, which was an impossibility. Exxon-Mobil headquarters are in Irving, Texas; if you have followed the Texas legislature you know it has the same mind set as it had in its 18^th Century sovereign nation days; Exxon could not be able to get out of Texas in time. Besides, Irving has already lost their beloved Dallas Cowboys, which on this Super Bowl Sunday does not need that painful reminder especially after the way this season ended. No, Exxon may have to live as a person in bondage until we reach some new period of enlightenment, a time when the current quartet of troglodyte Supreme Court justices have left the bench.