Traitor Joe

When is somebody going to kick that damn Joe Lieberman's ass out of Democratic party? And just kick his ass in general while they're at it? (I realize of course that this cannot be done, that his traitorous hide is perfectly safe, as long as the Democrats have just a one-seat majority in the Senate. But still if somebody were to throttle that silly grin off his face, it would be a good thing.) He's all over the tube today saying that Obama could not even be in Iraq if the country had followed his advice about getting out of there. That he, Obama, is prepared to accept defeat there. Yadda yadda yadda. Oh really, Joe? The fact that Obama even has to go there, this obligatory stop on the campaign trail, apparently, is because of people like you that think the continued bloodshed there, the floundering of American foreign policy in this wretched hell hole in the Middle East, this hemorrhaging of hundreds of billions of dollars to make the world safe for oil companies, is sound policy. Indeed. You have said as much. Further that we should just stay there till the proverbial cows come home. Because otherwise the 4,100+ lives we've already squandered there--correction, American lives--not counting the countless Iraqi lives, will have been lost "in vain." As if all those lives had not been given in vain already. What is the best case scenario for the U.S. out of this everlasting Iraq mess? The best we can expect? You tell me. A thriving democracy? A beacon of freedom in the mid-East? A fast U.S. ally there? Get serious. We have created an absolute hell hole that will continue to fester and infect the whole region . . . but never mind. Four giant western oil companies have already got their mitts on Iraq's oil, and that's what it was all about all along.

I read elsewhere that the Democrats cannot figure Lieberman out. What's to figure out about this guy? He's a turncoat SOB, pure and simple. He's not a Democrat; he's a Republican in all but name. This guy has endorsed McCain for the presidency, for Pete's sake! Every time you see a picture of McCain, you can bet that Lieberman's jowly grinning countenance is lurking somewhere in the background. And if he's not in the background, he's visible, like above, right before he lays a sloppy smooch on our favorite Republican candidate. I understand Lieberman is planning a speech before the Republican national convention. What's the matter with this guy that a good ass-kicking wouldn't fix?

Aw Right Rangers!

I cannot let baseball's All-Star Game slip too far into the past before noting that all four Texas Ranger all-stars contributed to the American League's 15-inning 4-3 win two nights ago in Yankee Stadium. I gave up watching the game years ago. It's an exhibition game in the middle of summer, that's all. Nonetheless, I'm proud of the Rangers who made and delighted they contributed substantially. Ranger Michael Young, whom I would argue is the best shortstop in the game right now, won it with a sac fly as the game approached the 5-hour mark. Here's the full box score. And here's how the Rangers looked.

AL
Name	AB	R	H	RBI	BB	SO	LOB	AVG
M Young SS	4	0	1	1	0	2	1	.250
J Hamilton CF-LF	3	0	1	0	0	1	1	.333
M Bradley DH	2	0	0	0	1	0	1	.000
I Kinsler PR-2B	5	0	1	0	0	1	3	.200

Individual Batting:
Doubles: J Morneau (1), E Longoria (1), C Guillen (1)
Home runs: J Drew (1, 7th inning off E Volquez with 1 on, 2 outs)
RBI: E Longoria (1), M Young (1), J Drew 2 (2)
Sacrifice flies: M Young (1)
Grounded into double play: D Jeter (1)
Left in scoring position: J Morneau (3), A Rodriguez (1), K Youkilis (1), E Longoria (2), I Kinsler (2), D Pedroia (1), D Navarro (1), J Hamilton (1), I Suzuki (1), G Sizemore (2), D Jeter (1), C Quentin (3), M Bradley (1)

Base Running:
Stolen bases: I Kinsler (1), J Hamilton (1), J Drew (1), G Sizemore (1), D Jeter (1), M Bradley (1)
Caught stealing: I Kinsler (1 for season)

Fielding:
Errors: D Navarro (1)
Double plays: 2: (#1: D Navarro, I Kinsler), (#2: I Kinsler, M Young, J Morneau)

I should also mention that Ranger Josh Hamilton, one of the purest natural ballplayers to ever play for my team, was an absolute monster in the home run derby on Monday night.

It's a F**king Cartoon!

Just found out that a first cousin of mine, in the same generation as my kids--I'm the old first cousin in this bunch--is blogging out of Lafayette, LA on Louisiana politics and that he's been at it for years. If you're the slightest bit interested in a (rare) solid leftist viewpoint from those environs, check him out. It's encouraging to know that there's a young person down there in the heart of the red, red bayous bleating out a small voice for sanity amongst the natives. Even if you're not interested, check it out because Louisiana politics are more fun than a circus with twice the number of freaks.

One of the things that people who are reading him are worried about is something I intended to ignore here because it's yet another triviality that's been pumped up by the airheads of the media into something that's supposed to be news. It fits right in there with flag lapel pins, terrorist fist-bumps, and bitter, gun-toting, religion-hugging blue color voters.

I'm talking about the now famous New Yorker cover depicting Barrack and Michelle Obama in outlandish outfits: Muslim and terrorist, respectively. After reading several comments along these lines, I had to respond. Herewith that response:

Don't necessarily agree with the hand wringing over the Obama cover on The New Yorker. I'm with Jon Stewart on this one, a guy who's correct far more often than he's not. "It's a fucking cartoon!" is what he says. Check out: http://www.thedailyshow.com/vide...e=obama- cartoon

Yeah, there are bigots and pea-brains all over the country, and yeah, you've got a lot of 'em in Lafayette. But believe me when I tell you, there are more of them per acre here in Oklahoma, the so-called "heartland," than you want to think about.

Alas and alack, a lot of people are simply not going to vote for Obama because of the color of his skin. My mother, for example, and my wife's mother. Both from Louisiana. Half my siblings, all in Louisiana. All of my wife's siblings. All from Louisiana. Same will be so for bigots and bumpkins nationwide no matter what the hell was on the cover of the magazine. Hell, they could have had a photograph of Obama garroting a terrorist while wrapped in a huge American flag with an Uzi in his belt wearing a monstrous McCain lapel pin . . . wouldn't matter.

Do you think for one second if The New Yorker had never run that cartoon, it would have made the slightest difference to these people? I don't.

I'm afraid this manufactured flap about nothing is the kind of thing we're going to be seeing from now till November on the tube, that monster of distortion and that haven for the overpaid lame brains who call themselves journalists. Don't get me started.

Not Much Choice When You Think About It

I know this is a little behind the times, but I'm still pissed about Obama's fold on the FISA bill. And I'm not the only one. One anguished voice said the vote is "unforgivable." I agree. But we don't have any choice but to forgive, do we?

What are our other options?

• Don't vote at all. Well, I always defend those who don't vote. I contend that no vote is a vote. I used to think that the vast, vast majority of people who don't vote are those who either consciously or unconsciously have decided the system is not about to do anything for them, so why bother? I'd like to think this is so, but research tends to show that there's little to distinguish voters from non-voters, except perhaps degree of apathy. But another reason I always defend those who opt out of voting is the vocal bunch who act like the right to vote is like the right to breathe. And then they go on to argue that if you don't vote, you don't have any right to complain. Two points about this: you always have a right to complain in this country--at least until the fascists take over completely; and two, all those flamers who act like the right to vote is a direct gift from God really don't know much about how the choices we're presented in this country are so constrained. We all operate under the capitalist presumption, the engrained and entrenched two-party system, and its narrow consensus. And that's the "choice" we have. Nothing else.
  

• Option two: vote for a third party candidate? That's a viable option also. I've done it several times. Several times, as a way of registering my protest against the whole damned thing. So sure, if you're so mad at Obama you cannot vote for him, go ahead and vote for the Socialist Workers or the Greens or someone equally as worthy. Got no problem with it. (Presuming of course they're even on the ballot in your state. The system is skewed completely in favor of the two major parties. They agree and collude on ways to make it as difficult as possible for any other party to compete.)
  

• Option three: vote for McCain . . . get serious.

But here's something else you can do in the meantime. Let Obama know how you feel about his gutless reverse on a matter of our civil liberties. Maybe this will keep him from waffling on all the other things he's said during the primaries. Here's where you can do it. And here's what I told him when I wrote:

Sir,
I'm just writing to tell you how disappointed and angry I am at you for your support of the execrable FISA legislation that you just helped George Bush get passed. The spineless dodge you have articulated instead of a straight-forward opposition to this bill is not worthy of you. All you have done is enable yet another assault on our fast-disappearing civil liberties and, on top of it, let corporate malfeasance and law-breaking go unpunished. What, sir, could possibly be in your mind?

I have supported you from the beginning of your campaign for the White House, but lately you're causing me to wonder if I've backed nothing but another trimming politician who says one thing and does another. I've watched you recede from progressive positions on several other things over the past few weeks. How many other surprises do you have for us, Senator?

Feel free to paraphrase on your own letter.

Words Fail Me . . . (Example #7481)

You know when I first started doing this blog, I thought every once in a while I would get to exhibit my jocular and humor-loving side. It's actually a pretty big side of me. I've long since concluded that it's impossible to make it at all on this planet without the ability to laugh a whole bunch at a whole bunch of things. I do . . . all the time. It's what has kept me sane. (along with chess and baseball and books and poetry and my dearest wife). But the state of things here and elsewhere just keep intruding on this good intention. I never run out of things in the news of the day to be frustrated about. There's always a plethora of things.

Take today, for example. I intended to reproduce my letter to Senator Obama about his execrable vote on the FISA bill last week, but this story intruded even on that. (I'll get around to the FISA piece eventually, I assume.) Are you ready for this? As an incentive to get kids to attend a youth conference, Windsor Hills Baptist Church in Oklahoma City offered the enticement of an AR-15 semi-automatic assault rifle giveaway. Have you got that? A frigging free military weapon to some kid to come hear all about Jesus! A FREE ASSAULT RIFLE TO A TEENAGER. What can possibly be in the minds of these people? Do these people have minds? The offer was withdrawn once it became public on television, otherwise, one presumes, some lucky teenager would have a free assault rifle to go along with the joy of salvation. The pastor, one Bob Ross, says his intention was not to give the weapon to someone who would not "respect it," and then "go out and kill."

Well, really, Pastor Bob? I'm glad you told us. What you really meant was to give a free military assault weapon to some normal hormone-crazed half-wit ravaged by unresolved emotional issues--anybody got a better description for teenagers? Plus, what in the name of all that's holy (literally) do military weapons of any kind have to do with Christianity? I have to quit now . . . before I launch myself much further. Peace be with you.

Moron-in-Chief

My son emailed me yesterday about this story he had just seen about the latest verbal gaffe--no, that's too mild; how about--public display of idiocy by the leader of the free world, our Moron/Embarrassment-in-Chief, our president "The Decider" had just uttered before the world. At the closing session of the G-8 meeting in Japan, Bush signed off to his fellow leaders with a jovial "Goodbye from the world's biggest polluter." Apparently he also rendered a hearty fist pump in the air to accompany it. Our president was making a little joke, you see.

I can only imagine what must have gone through the minds of the other sophisticated leaders of the world's top economies. I imagine it would have been a variation on "What a blithering idiot!" How could anyone with a grain of sense react otherwise? The bloggers have had a field day with this, of course. But as one of them, an Australian, commented: "I get the feeling that we haven't yet heard one zillionth of the stories about all the stupid crap he's done. They'll dribble out slowly over the next decade." No doubt . . . we're going to have George W. Bush to kick around for years.

Well, words absolutely fail me. I remember quoting in my book one southerner in 1857 who was beside himself with rage at President Buchanan. "What more," he wrote to
Alexander Stephens, "can I say to hold this man up to your execration?" Indeed. I say the same about Bush. I cannot imagine what more this miserable little pretender in the White House can do or say to embarrass himself and this country. You can't make this kind of stuff up. Unfortunately, we haven't heard the last from him. You can be sure he'll utter a few more such imbecilic statements before he's through. What a blithering idiot he is.

Patriotism, Nationalism, & Other Fatal Diseases

Just finished reading a wonderful piece by Chris Hedges called "Surviving the Fourth of July." It feels so good to read somebody whose thoughts are so much in consonance with my own. He's convinced that the voices of sanity and peace are ultimately going to be fruitless, and that all those of us who oppose the madness have is each other. I cannot yet embrace the idea that peace will never arrive, but if I'm honest with myself, I have to admit that in my heart of hearts I seriously doubt if the kingdom of God we followers of Jesus are supposed to be building will arrive until humankind finally succeeds in purging hate and war out of its soul by utterly destroying itself. I used to think when I was younger and even more foolish than I am now that this somehow would never happen. At this point, I don't see how it can be avoided. Our follies have become fantastic, as the Beach Boys observed all those years ago. (I think it was on the "Holland" album.)

Almost as good as Hedges were the comments from over 60 people who were as moved by the piece as I was. One was kind enough to gather a whole bunch of quotes about the folly of patriotism.

It seems like the less a statesman amounts to, the more he loves the flag. - unknown

Nothing is more annoying in the ordinary intercourse of life than this irritable patriotism of the Americans. A foreigner will gladly agree to praise much in their country, but he would like to be allowed to criticize something, and that he is absolutely refused. — Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America (1831)

Nationalism is an infantile sickness. It is the measles of the human race. — Albert Einstein

He who joyfully marches to music in rank and file has already earned my contempt. He has been given a large brain by mistake, since for him the spinal cord would fully suffice. This disgrace to civilization should be done away with at once. Heroism at command, senseless brutality, deplorable love-of-country stance, how violently I hate all this, how despicable and ignoble war is; I would rather be torn to shreds than be a part of so base an action! It is my conviction that killing under the cloak of war is nothing but an act of murder. — Albert Einstein

or: Heroism on command, senseless violence, and all the loathsome nonsense that goes by the name of patriotism; how passionately I hate them! - Albert Einstein

The object of war is not to die for your country but to make the other dumb bastard die for his. - Gen. George S. Patton (1885-1945)

Patriotism is the last refuge of the scoundrel. - Samuel Johnson

In Dr. Johnson’s famous dictionary, patriotism is defined as the last resort of a scoundrel. With all due respect to an enlightened but inferior lexicographer I beg to submit that it is the first. - Ambrose Bierce

Patriotism, n. Combustible rubbish ready to the torch of any one ambitious to illuminate his name. - Ambrose Bierce

Patriotism is the virtue of the vicious. - Oscar Wilde

Patriotism is your conviction that this country is superior to all others because you were born in it. - George Bernard Shaw

‘My country, right or wrong,’ is a thing that no patriot would think of saying except in a desperate case. It is like saying, ‘My mother, drunk or sober’. — G. K. Chesterton

“Patriotism” is a word; and one that generally comes to mean either my country, right or wrong, which is infamous, or my country is always right, which is imbecile. - Dr Stephen Maturin in Master and Commander, p 173. Patrick O’Brian. 1970

Our government has kept us in a perpetual state of fear kept us in a continuous stampede of patriotic fervor with the cry of grave national emergency… Always there has been some terrible evil to gobble us up if we did not blindly rally behind it by furnishing the exorbitant sums demanded. Yet, in retrospect, these disasters seem never to have happened, seem never to have been quite real. - General Douglas MacArthur

Patriotism means being loyal to your country all the time, and to its government when it deserves it. - Mark Twain

Flag; n. A colored rag borne above troops and hoisted on forts and ships. - Ambrose Bierce

Old soldiers never die; that’s what the young ones are for. - unknown

Can anything be stupider than that a man has the right to kill me because he lives on the other side of a river and his ruler has a quarrel with mine, though I have not quarrelled with him? - Blaise Pascal (1623-1662)

A nation is a society united by a delusion about its ancestry and by common hatred of its neighbours. - William R. Inge (1860-1954)

Every government has as much of a duty to avoid war as a ship’s captain has to avoid a shipwreck. - Guy de Maupassant

Nationalism is a silly cock crowing on his own dunghill. - Richard Aldington (1892-1962)

The Way It Was

Don't know exactly what inspired this. I wrote it yesterday. Seems like my mind is never far from thinking about injustice.

The Way It Was

It took five hours in those days
when Ike was president.
New Orleans to Mama Dear’s house
in Vicksburg, Mississippi,
all of us
five, six, or seven,
depending on what year
measured Mom’s fertility,
stuffed in a station wagon.
No air conditioning,
smoke from Dad’s Camels
(still in my nostrils).
Before Interstates
before pollution of the oyster beds
and the designated hitter.
No Wendy along the way.
US 190 over Chef Menteur and the Rigolets
to old US 51
past the Pearl River
where a lynching victim
had been tossed
a few months back,
Dad said, flatly,
like a weather report on WWL.

Through Poplarville, McComb, Hazlehurst, Brookhaven
all the way up to Jackson:
then east to Vicksburg
over wondrous hills
where you couldn’t see what was coming
till you reached the top.

Lula, Mama Dear’s black cook,
had late lunch ready.
Seemed like she was always there,
and everything was cooked,
and cleaned, and straight, and correct.
And from the back yard
high on that hill on Drummond street,
or anywhere really,
you could look down
into the hollows
where the little black cities were
under their perpetual pall of smoke.

It's a National Disgrace . . .

. . . the so-called health care system in the U.S. Forget about the almost 50 million Americans who don't have any health care at all. Let's talk about those who are paying for insurance and what they've got to deal with.

Stories like this one always make me shake my head and wonder how I'd handle the same situation. I'd want to kill somebody. Here's the basic outline: couple has young son with autism. To cope with medical costs, drugs, and insurance premiums--oh, yeah, they have insurance--the couple has cashed in all of their assets: 401k's, savings, car, house. They're now bankrupt; they live in a modest rental home and have no idea what they're going to do. There's a video of the mom talking about all this here. She seems so matter-of-fact despite her anger at the pharmaceutical and insurance companies. What she's talking about is a national disgrace.

This story about care of autistic children in California bears out the not-too-difficult-to-figure-out fact that insurance companies are doing everything they possibly can to avoid paying for the expensive behavioral therapy required for autism, which, by the way, is most effective if treated early. Though only one in in five autistic kids is severely disabled, in almost all cases therapies are necessary to teach the kids basic skills such as how to dress themselves. Well, guess what? The insurance companies don't want to pay for this. These therapies are "experimental" say some; it's provided by state-funded institutions say some; several carriers refuse to pay contending the treatment is "unproven." And then there's Kaiser who won't pay because the treatment is "educational," not medical. These refusals to pay are especially interesting in view of the law in California that requires them to.

And while these blood-sucking corporations continue to stall and stonewall, good tax-paying, insurance-premium paying parents are being slowly strangled and flushed down the drain.

The Stars and Gripes

OK. It's the 4th and an appropriate time for me to observe that my favorite African-American candidate for president is now sporting a flag lapel pin on his shiny suits. Now what's up with that? Every time I turn around, he's weaseling on what he said and did in the primaries. (Yesterday he allowed as to how he might "refine" his plans to pull out of Iraq in sixteen months . . . and then he "clarified" in a later speech that he had not changed his position: US troops out in 16 months.)

Here was a guy who during the primaries actually had to deal with the inane question by the inane media of why he didn't walk around flagged all the time. Was he not a patriot? I could look up what he said, but I don't have to. Basically it was: wearing a flag pin doesn't have anything to do with being a patriot. Hear, hear! Why should any of us have to accept the flag wavers' definition of patriotism? The word itself according to Mr. Webster means: "love for or devotion to one's country." Anybody with half a functioning brain knows that this includes a lot more than flag worship. Love of country for me means calling it to account for how far it's come from the ideals all these flag-waving patriots say this country stands for. And the fact is, the vast flag-waving majority could not even enumerate two or three the Bill of Rights amendments to the Constitution.

For the record, in case you might have missed my previous comments on this subject: I don't pledge allegiance to the flag, I don't sing the national anthem and I don't take off my hat or put my hand on my chest when others are singing it. I don't have a flag lapel pin, an American flag, or any artifact in my house with the flag on it. There are certainly enough flag-waving "patriots" around for all that. I'm with George Carlin, who also didn't worship the flag. It was just a symbol, he said, and he left it to the symbol-minded.