Third line, plus

Here's a report of what Mr. Matthews said:

Analyzing Obama's State of the Union address, he called the President "post-racial" before saying, "I forgot he was black tonight for an hour. He’s gone a long way to become a leader of this country and past so much history in just a year or two. I mean it’s something we don’t even think about.

"I was watching and I said, wait a minute, he’s an African-American guy in front of a bunch of other white people and there he is, President of the United States, and we’ve completely forgotten that tonight — completely forgotten it."

I find quite interesting Mr. Matthews' observation that Barack Obama was speaking as "an African-American guy in front of a bunch of OTHER white people..."

___________________

Second Line

Forgive me.

___________________

One Line

You know, while Chris Matthews was speaking the other night, a whole minute passed before I realized I had forgotten he was an idiot.

___________________

MSNBC's Gentlest Host

If you see a man's name repeatedly printed on the FBI's "Most Wanted" list, might you be tempted to think he is perhaps a dangerous character? What if the description of this wanted man included that he was "dangerous, year in, year out"; do you think that might get your guard up, at least just a little? What if the man was described as a terrorist, or what if he was your neighbor? What if the CIA, or the President, or your wife and children, told you that "so and so" is dangerous, year in, year out, and that he was repeatedly named the "Worst Person" in the world by authorities everywhere? Do you think you might find yourself a little anxious, a wee bit cautious? And would it upset you if, in the normal course of everyday life, the man deemed the "Worst Person in the World" was to meet an untimely or unfortunate death?

Let me ask you this: Could it have been possible during the 1930s and early 1940s that Adolf Hitler was considered the world's worst person? It seems reasonable to think so. But if that's the case, do you think it would have been unreasonable or immoral for someone to KILL the worst person in the world, Mr. Hitler? After all, what's the right thing to do with the world's worst person, one who is dangerous, day in, day out? Don't you wish for him to find the grave?

Tonight -- again -- MSNBC's Keith Olbermann listed Fox News' Bill O'Reilly as the WORST PERSON IN THE WORLD. That Mr. Olbermann is obsessed with Mr. O'Reilly is well-known; tonight he even alluded to critics who have pointed out his fetishistic fascination with Mr. Bill. But what was interesting tonight about Mr. Olbermann's  scolding of Mr. O'Reilly is that he presented Mr. O'Reilly as a threat to humanity; that Mr. O'Reilly was literally "dangerous, year in, year out." Mr. Olbermann even averred that Mr. O'Reilly is not a mere provocateur, but a hatemonger, inciting violence against politicians and other public servants. In Mr. Olbermann's opinion, Mr. O'Reilly is directly responsible for the assassination of George Tiller, the infamous late-term abortion doctor who was shot last year while attending church; apparently, or so Mr. Olbermann thinks, Mr. O'Reilly was culpable in that shooting because he opined on his national TV show that Tiller was an incorrigible killer of unborn babies, which, if I am not mistaken, was a statement of fact nearly tautological in structure.

But the irony, the sad, brutal irony, is that Mr. Olbermann is blind to his own hate. He claims Mr. O'Reilly incites violence with his hateful rhetoric. But I think Mr. Olbermann would be hard pressed to find a bit of evidence that Mr. O'Reilly has repeatedly labeled any person on the planet "THE WORST PERSON IN THE WORLD." There is ample evidence, however, that Mr. Olbermann has indeed  relentlessly abused Bill O'Reilly, reducing him to a hatemongering bigot who is "dangerous, year in, year out." Whose language, really, is likely to lead to violence? Whose rhetoric is aimed at creating animosity, hate, and a thirst for retribution?

Of course, Mr. Olbermann will dismiss his critics: "I am the good guy, and what I do is satire, parody; I tell jokes!" Indeed, Mr. Olbermann is nearly exclusively about jokes. But Bill O'Reilly also tells jokes, and his comments about kidnapping Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid, though not hurting them (and MAYBE waterboarding Pelosi), clearly WERE a joke, absurd and silly on their face. Moreover, this is not the sort of joke Mr. O'Reilly tells over and over. But Mr. Olbermann "jokes" repeatedly without humor, without a wink or a smile, that Bill O'Reilly is the world's WORST person; that he is "dangerous, year in, year out" and that he really "is dangerous to Nancy Pelosi." Obviously Mr. Olbermann is not joking, and he knows we all know it.

Mr. Olbermann fails to see that his act of denouncing Bill O'Reilly as a man who "encourages hatred and violence" itself encourages hatred and violence -- against Bill O'Reilly.

This writer is no Bill O'Reilly enthusiast, not even close. In fact, I've hammered him here. But O'Reilly is no Olbermann. Without a doubt the former is a blustering buffoon; but the latter is undeniably and unapologetically hateful, seething with resentment.

What Mr. Olbermann did tonight is really just the bright side of stupid.

©2010/Contratimes. All Rights Reserved.

Unions Incorporate, Businesses Unite: On Campaign Spending

Numbers are a curious thing.

When the US Supreme Court last week handed down its 5-4 decision permitting corporations to exercise their free speech rights during elections, the hue and cry could be heard throughout the land: "Democracy is dead!" In fact, the lamentations were so passionate and sweeping one expected to see wailing and gnashing of teeth in every public square. However, what one hardly ever heard from the court's critics and the many prognosticators of doom is that the court's decision did two things, and not just one: A) It permitted all corporations full democratic participation, and not just SOME, as the status quo had permitted; B) It permitted UNIONS full democratic participation. Seriously, every person I heard complain about the court's decision never mentioned unions, or that some corporations were exempt from the law's restrictions, the law the Supreme Court essentially emended. Critics and decriers merely griped about faceless, nameless bogeymen -- business corporations.

Here's something you will find utterly amazing:

According to campaign finance data, businesses spent $1.96 billion in the 2007-2008 cycle, while labor and other interest groups spent $673.47 million.

Well, that's not all that amazing, is it? Maybe it will be after you read this:

However, while corporations far outspent unions and other interest groups in the last cycle, that spending, historically, has not benefited one party over the other.

Since 1990, corporations have divided their contributions nearly equally -- 49.4 percent toward Democrats and 50.6 percent toward Republicans.

Union political spending is not so balanced. In the same period, labor unions gave 92 percent of donations to Democrats, while just 8 percent went to Republicans.

So, then, let us do the math for the 2007-08 election cycle, admittedly based on loose percentages taken from the last 20 years of campaign contributions. No, never mind. Why bother? All it will likely show us (though not necessarily) is that BIG NASTY BUSINESS and UNIONS contributed more to Democrats than they contributed to Republicans.

I think the big news here, really, is that very little will actually change as a result of the Supreme Court's decision.

By the way, I am not convinced the decision handed down by the Supreme Court is all that good.

©2010/Contratimes. All Rights Reserved.

We Love To Blame: Brief Thoughts On The Haitian Relief Effort

Only a few days after the Haitian earthquake, an old friend of mine said something like this: "Well, Obama sure responded faster to Haiti than Bush did to Katrina, so give one point to Obama."

My response to him was rather thorough, I can assure you, though my response did not include a defense of Mr. Bush. In that response, the secondary point I made is that Haiti was a United Nations and United States humanitarian project long before the earthquake struck. Hence, for Mr. Obama to respond in any positive manner was rather pedestrian, being no more than what any thinking person would do. Responding to Haiti, which was not protected by the levels of autonomous governance as was New Orleans in August 2005, presented little difficulty for a president whose country was already working in consort with other nations in that land.

The primary point I voiced to my friend was that not only were the two situations incomparable, ANY comparison was disgusting political gamesmanship by people exploiting an incident of mass suffering and death. This was NOT a time to politicize, second-guess or mock. This was not a time to sneer, or point scolding fingers. This was not a time for people, pols and pundits, who know nothing about relief efforts in disaster zones, to start barking out "shoulds" and "musts" from the safety of their proud ignorance.

The conversation with my friend ended really quite well, with both of us agreeing that Haiti was just too horrific to be used for sheer political posturing. Our parting was amicable.

Please note, however, that there is evidence I was not wrong, that people will gripe: Three New York City surgeons who immediately responded to Haiti have written that "[t]he U.S. response to the earthquake should be considered an embarrassment." And this from three gifted and heroic souls who were in the very thick of things; in 60 hours of non-stop labor, their teams performed 100 operations on some of Haiti's most damaged survivors. Even the most obtuse of us can understand their frustration: "The death toll from Katrina was under 2,000 people. Deaths in Haiti as of yesterday are at least 150,000. Untold numbers are dying of untreated, preventable infections. For all the outcry about Katrina, our nation [the US] has fared no better in this latest disaster."

I urge you to read the doctors' essay for yourself, which can be found here. The few details they share of the situation in Haiti are compelling, humbling and deeply moving.

It will do no good -- NOW -- to bicker. This IS REALLY a time to congeal together, to quickly learn from our mistakes. It is not a time to take credit or lay blame, or to tally cheap points, or to settle into bureaucratic complacency.

This is a time of war, a war against time, infection, death. Let's got on with it as best we can.

©2010/Contratimes. All Rights Reserved.

The Donor MUST Be Cheney! The Company MUST Be Halliburton!

Continuing to maintain consistency with many of his predecessor's policies, President Barack Obama announced today that he has awarded a no-bid contract worth $25 million to a company owned by one of his biggest sponsors.

The White House is ecstatic in the wake of this decision.

"Let me be clear: People need to know I inherited this sort of deal-making when I came into office last year," the President said from the Oval Office, "and, because of the transparency essential to a vital democracy, I have taken the necessary steps to ensure the American public will not know about this sort of thing again."

Many have wondered if the donor was Dick Cheney, as critics of the former vice president often railed against him for his alleged ties with Halliburton, known as the very lair of Satan (and the setting for Dante's Inferno), which enjoyed no-bid contracts during Bush's War of Choice. Mr. Cheney could not be reached for comment, as he was too busy burying more "tectonic weapons" off the coast of Haiti.

PS. Satire intended.

©2010/Contratimes. All Rights Reserved.

Republicans, Beware.

If Republicans intend on improving their brand over the next few months and years, it seems important that the party learn what it can from the impressive victory of Scott Brown in Massachusetts. What are a few essentials the party should keep from the Brown upset?

Here is what I learned from Mr. Brown's campaign:

1. Stay within yourself. Don't over-reach or overstate. 
2. Just speak plainly, directly. 
3. Use anger gently, and make sure you intellectually, and not just viscerally, understand that anger.
4. Be humble, or at least give the appearance of humility. Steer clear of arrogance. 
5. Listen well. Then speak. When someone asks a question, look directly at the person the whole time. Speak ONLY when your interlocutor is done. (I am not saying Brown has this down perfectly.)
6. Know your neighbors, their worries and fears. REALLY know them. 
7. Don't EVER presume. 

What to worry about now?

1. That the mainstream media, and the DNC, are going to do EVERYTHING possible to up-end Mr. Brown.
2. That Mr. Brown and his party present themselves as entitled, inevitable, or invincible. 
3. That Mr. Brown lets his guard down and says or does something really, really stupid: The press will be watching him more intently than anyone else in Washington, even more than the president. Will he be cautious? circumspect? 
4. That Mr. Brown strays from his focus -- that of representing Massachusetts -- and instead gets pulled into the limelight, the celebrity limelight and all its trappings. Hopefully he shies away from TV appearances and book deals and all that stuff. He can do that later. He's not the new Ted Kennedy.
5. That Mr. Brown becomes too preoccupied with building bridges between disparate views, and thus compromises his convictions for political gain and camaraderie. He must not let himself be perceived as RINO. 

If the Republican Party hopes to succeed in leading America, it must do so with a measured, humble, normal and realistic message, attitude and voice. And if Mr. Brown wants to succeed in the US Senate, he must not spend his time bickering with his Democratic colleagues, debating opponents through the media, or letting others control the debates in which he finds himself. HE must control those debates when Massachusetts and its junior Senate seat are at stake; and he MUST spend time communicating with like-minded constituents at home and across the country.

One thing is apparent: Mr. Brown almost makes being a Republican look cool. And if he is as conservative as he claims to be (on some issues), then his biggest gift to the political maelstrom that is America may be to make conservatism not only look desirable, sophisticated and hip, but to show that it actually is.

Just a few hasty thoughts.

©2010/Contratimes. All Rights Reserved.

CHANGE, ONE YEAR LATER

MAN, n. An animal so lost in rapturous contemplation of what he thinks he is as to overlook what he indubitably ought to be. -- Ambrose Bierce

[see also, Barack H. Obama; Keith Olbermann]

©2010/Contratimes. All Rights Reserved.

Contratimes Goes Offensive: Talking About Tea Bags

Forgive me, dear readers. I am about to sin. Seriously, DO NOT READ THIS IF YOU ARE EASILY OFFENDED. But sometimes you DO have to fight fire with fire.

There is a vulgar and extremely crude expression used by many in the mainstream media; if those who use it were not liberals, they would be excoriated as homophobes.

The expression takes two forms, "teabagging" and "teabaggers." These are used to describe or label people who have associated themselves with Tea Parties, which are grass-roots protests modeled on the Boston Tea Party of 1773. Such parties have been rather popular over the past year.

If you do not know what "teabagging" is, then brace yourself. "Teabagging" is (generally) a homosexual act in which a dominate male dips his testicles in the open mouth of his partner.

To refer to folks participating in Tea Parties as "teabaggers" is homophobic to its core; it proves my thesis that it is leftists who support gay rights who are responsible for homophobia. It is also patently crude, puerile and vulgar.

Keith Olbermann two nights ago called Massachusetts Senator-elect Scott Brown a homophobic teabagger, proving Mr. Olbermann is a crass child.

How to stop such hate-speech? I have an answer, and it comes in the form of a headline:

Brown Wins In Upset: 'Tea Partiers' Dip Bags in Gaping Mouths of Stunned Democrats

I guarantee THAT will stop Keith Olbermann, Rachel Maddow, Chris Matthews, and Janeane Garofalo from using such homophobic slurs in an instant.

(I am truly sorry to have to post this, but someone has got to stop this awfulness. If I have lost you as a reader, well, I apologize.)

©2010/Contratimes. All Rights Reserved.

With Help Like This: When Martha Coakley's Defeat Began

Massachusetts Democrat Martha Coakley tonight lost her bid for the US Senate left by the late Edward M. Kennedy the moment these words were said on July 22, 2009:

"I don't know all the facts... I don't know not having been there and not seeing all the facts... but... the Cambridge [MA] police acted stupidly...."

If there is one thing I know about Massachusetts folks, they don't like their policemen being abused by anyone, even if the abuser is the President of the United States. The Cambridge police department, it is worth noting, endorsed the Republican candidate for the "Kennedy Seat" over Ms. Coakley, and this despite the amazing fact that Ms. Coakley's husband is a retired Cambridge police officer. Really, what can be said when the police unions in the bluest state reject their own attorney general? One can't help but think her support of the president did not set well with those who felt Mr. Obama misused his power to support a Harvard friend and denigrate a whole city police department.

I think historians should always look back to July 22, 2009 as the beginning of the end for Barack Obama's term in the White House. At least, that date marks the beginning of the end for Martha Coakley and the Democrats' most hallowed Senate seat. That, at least, is how history should score it.

One commentator tonight, a long-time pol who lives in Massachusetts, summed up tonight's loss as a "referendum on arrogance." Interesting, and mostly right. But it is also a referendum on the Democrats' greatest vice, epitomized in the July 22, 2009 remarks made by Barack Obama. That vice is being utterly tone deaf to the truth, and the people.

©2010/Contratimes. All Rights Reserved.

Quick Hits: Haiti, "Cheating", and Obama's Truck Fixation

There was considerable confusion and turmoil delivering goods to the victims of the 2004 tsunami in southeast Asia. At the time, it was reported that goods, supplies and provisions were not getting to survivors. If memory serves me well, coordinators from DHL and FEDEX straightened out that mess; goods and supplies were routed efficiently and effectively once the professionals got involved.

Sounds like the public sector working in Haiti could use some big time private sector help. Hopefully DHL, FEDEX and UPS, among others, are helping to get things going. Swiftly. But I do understand how difficult such a task is, particularly in Haiti, since the infrastructure to begin with was so limited. If there are only a few roads out of an airport and they are closed, well, there really isn't much one can do.

It's not like many of us in America have had UPS, FEDEX, DHL or the US Postal Service drop packages in our yards from helicopters.

______________________

I have seen at least one TV journalist lose control of his objectivity while covering Haiti. It is clear he has not kept his distance. I am not saying he should, but it is clear his humanity has gotten the journalistic best of him. But there is one fact that people who believe relief is not coming swiftly enough seem to forget: There is no Spiderman. There is no action figure or super hero; there are no Jack Bauers in the world. Relief comes slowly. It's just the way it is. The real world is not TV; the real world is not a movie. No one is guaranteed a happy ending.

_______________________

In Massachusetts right now, voters are turning out to elect the successor to Edward M. Kennedy. The two nominees are Democrat Martha Coakley and Republican Scott Brown. As you probably know by now, Mr. Brown has a significant lead in the pre-election polls in a state that is so blue even its clams are Democrats.

In his speech Sunday in Massachusetts supporting Martha Coakley, Barack Obama mentioned Scott Brown's pickup truck six times (Mr. Brown drives a GMC pickup with 200,000 miles on it). Below are all six instances Mr. Obama referred to the "truck":

• "Now, I’ve heard about some of the ads that Martha’s opponent is running. He’s driving his truck around the commonwealth and he says that he gets you, that he fights for you, that he’ll be an independent voice. And I don't know him, he may be a perfectly nice guy. I don't know his record, but I don't know whether he's been fighting for you up until now, but --."
• "So, look, forget the ads. Everybody can run slick ads.  Forget the truck. Everybody can buy a truck."
• "Now, what we're proposing is to make sure that taxpayers get their money back from the rescue that we had engaged in at the beginning of this year, thanks to the bad regulatory policies of the previous administration.  And so we asked Martha’s opponent what's he going to do. And he decided to park his truck on Wall Street."
• "Now, there’s a big difference here.  It gives you a sense of who the respective candidates are going to be fighting for, despite the rhetoric, despite the television ads, despite the truck."
• "So I’d think long and hard about getting in that truck with Martha’s opponent. It might not take you where you want to go."

I have heard others comment about Mr. Obama's truck fixation, but none of these commentators seems to have heard what I hear. What I hear is a man using language that is sexist and racially-charged. Women should be particularly anxious about a man in a pickup truck, as Mr. Obama says: "I'd think long and hard about getting in [Mr. Brown's] truck... [he] might not take you where you want to go." And African-Americans should "think long and hard" about riding in a white man's truck; we all know what a white man in a pickup truck really means.

Maybe I have heard too much. Maybe I am so cynical I can't hear with clarity what a politician actually means. But I have no idea why the President of the United States would use a white Republican man's truck as a reason to steer clear of that man. I have no idea why a pickup truck should be an object of aversion. And I have no idea what a President of the United States is doing scoffing at one of his constituents and all those Americans who have put 200,000 miles on their trucks.

Note, too, Mr. Obama's lovely locution: I know nothing about Scott Brown. But I do know he is this and this and this.

Oh, and one last laugher. Mr. Obama intended to sow fear by suggesting Scott Brown would park his pickup truck on Wall Street. Nice! This from a man who sits in the Oval Office because the largest donors to his presidential campaign were Wall Street financial and banking firms.

Sick.

_____________________

MSNBC's Ed Schultz had this to say about the Massachusetts special election:

"I tell you what, if I lived in Massachusetts I’d try to vote 10 times. I don't know if they'd let me or not, but I’d try. Yeah, that's right. I’d cheat to keep these bastards out. I would. 'Cause that's exactly what they are."

Splendid. And Fox News is Faux News!

Did you read Mr. Schultz' apology? Here it is:

"I misspoke on Friday. I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I meant to say if I could vote 20 times -- that's what I would do."

___________________________

MSNBC's Keith Olbermann had some nice things to say about Scott Brown:

"In short, in Scott Brown we have an irresponsible homophobic racist reactionary ex-nude-model tea-bagging supporter of violence against women and against politicians with whom he disagrees. In any other time in our history this man would have been laughed off the stage as an unqualified and disaster in the making by the most conservative of conservatives. Instead the commonwealth of Massachusetts is close to sending this bad joke to the Senate of the United States."

I am wondering if anyone can find for me a single personality on Fox News that is Mr. Olbermann's equal? If so, has that Fox News personality EVER said anything as vile about a candidate for public office as what Mr. Olbermann has said here?

Mr. Olbermann, by the way, is a strawweight.

_____________________

Just some thoughts.

Dear Fox Business News: DICK GREGORY SHOULD NOT BE INVITED BACK

This morning I wrote and sent the following email to Fox Business News. As you know, FBN produces and broadcasts the "Imus In The Morning" program. Because I care for an elderly woman every morning who likes to watch Mr. Imus's show, I end up watching or hearing a good portion of that program each day.

Here is my email to Fox Business News on this holiday:

To whom it may concern:

This morning's appearance of Dick Gregory on the "Imus In The Morning" program is particularly absurd considering he should have been disqualified from ever appearing again on FBN or Imus after his repulsive remarks of 11/12/2009 concerning the Fort Hood shooting. In November, Mr. Gregory had the temerity to suggest the US Army had somehow conspired to allow that horrible shooting to occur. Such remarks were not only offensive and paranoid, they were intended to sow hate, fear and doubt. Mr. Gregory should have been strongly rebuked and challenged at the very moment those cruel insinuations were voiced.

And the same goes for this morning's reprehensible remarks. That Mr. Gregory was permitted to imply, without evidence, that the US government and its military are not doing their best to help Haitians in the wake of last Tuesday's earthquake is patently obscene. His insinuation that something is suspiciously amiss with the Port-Au-Prince airport's runway being intact and yet the tower is not, and sundry other comments of similar paranoia, should be received with the swiftest and clearest censure FBN can offer. Moreover, Mr. Gregory's remarks about race relations in America are deeply divisive, offensive, delusional and demonstrably false.

Sorry, but that's just how I feel on this Martin Luther King Day.

FBN, and the "Imus In The Morning" program, not only should publicly and clearly distance themselves from Mr. Gregory's offensive comments, they should publicly apologize for NOT confronting such sick remarks immediately, and for inviting Mr. Gregory to speak after what he said two months ago.

Lastly, it strikes me as incredibly curious that Mr. Imus would have as a guest Debra Dickerson, the African-American scholar who wrote an article arguing Barack Obama was not legitimately "black," and Mr. Gregory, who said this morning that African-Americans do not categorize their own according to skin tonalities. Disgusting all around. And that Mr. Imus has not sought noted conservatives like Shelby Steele, Thomas Sowell, Larry Elder, or Walter E. Williams as regular guests  -- outstanding people, all -- is also rather telling. To the casual observer, it appears Mr. Imus is still attempting to atone for something. Trundling out paranoid hate-mongers like Mr. Gregory does not amount to any sort of atonement whatsoever.

Sincerely,

Bill Gnade

A Dire Emergency

If ever the United States needed to respond to a situation, it is now, to the Haitian earthquake. This is a crisis few of us have ever seen. I urge the US president and Congress to act swiftly, fully, and without wavering. This will require the humanitarian equivalent of a major military conflict.

President Obama, I urge you to make an executive decision and extend the fullest -- I mean the FULLEST -- response to Haiti that America can give. This will make Katrina seem a small problem. Or so I predict. Please act. Please focus. Please think about this for more than a few minutes. This is a full-on national and international crisis.

The survivors of the Haiti quake, sadly, are not likely to be survivors for long. What comes next could be far worse than the few minutes of shaking ground. Disease is already afoot. No minute can be lost.

Tragic Thoughts

When I heard about Haiti early last night, I could feel, just for a moment, the despair of Port-Au-Prince. But I am safe in a nice home; I am far away from such suffering. Anything I felt was simply imagined.

It is hard for me to pray. I do offer up prayers, but what, really, do I say? It is not as if I know what the scene is like in that sad country. It is not as if I know what should be done. If there is a God, surely He knows what to do; surely He has already heard the news. I ask myself, as I pray, whether I presume to think my prayers matter when there are hundreds of thousands of Haitians crying out, their faces turned toward the stars. I also ask myself if I think I am hoping to phrase my words, and align my faith with those words, in such a perfect way that God must act, that God must respond? Do I think prayer is mere incantation, a voodoo spell?

I am seeing things, I know. I see a nation in abject poverty; I see chaos, death, despair. I see disease. I see crime. I see revolt. I see war. And I see someone, some Venezuelan or Cuban or even an American, stepping forward to intervene, to calm and charm the Haitian people: I see a peacemaker full of political guile.

It's what I see. I wonder what God sees. Better if I just keep my eyes closed.

©2010/Contratimes. All Rights Reserved.

Contratimes Fragments: Reid, Gold, Potatoes, Steroids and Mark McGwire

As I peeled potatoes the other night in preparation for the making of a very fine soup, I noticed during this lovely exercise in domesticity that the longer I peeled a potato, the smaller the peels were that I removed. In fact, the last few peels were tiny.

Talk about an observation of the obvious.

Peeling potatoes may be a dreadful parallel to what I consider an absurd optimism about the recent economic news, but so be it. Last month's job-loss numbers -- a mere 85,000 or so -- were considered good news by many who believe in the current president's economic policies. Why good news? Because the numbers were much larger when the current great recession first began; 85,000 is comparably few to what we're used to seeing. But I haven't a clue why this is good news at all, for anyone. All it means, or at least all it COULD mean, is that the peels are getting smaller because there is so little left to peel. Imagine if I took 3 minutes to peel a rather large potato; in the first minute I might have a hefty pile of peels on the cutting board. In the second minute I'd likely produce a smaller pile; in the third, well, even smaller. You get the picture: If all jobs were cut over the next few years would it be good news if, in October 2013, it was reported that the very last job available had been cut? I guess so, since only one job would have been lost that month. Absurd. (The possibility of a jobless recovery seems quite real, by the way.)

_____________________

Early last year, as I saw a sudden increase in TV commercials encouraging investment in gold, I made an off-the-cuff prediction that the next great bubble would be the gold market. I don't think, really, that my prediction is all that crazy, despite what G. Gordon Liddy says. Gold as a valued commodity strikes me as almost archaic; its value is not intrinsic, but extrinsic. If this was 1020 AD, gold would indeed be dazzling. But in 2010? Gold? For what?

Seriously, gold strikes me as one of the most inflated things on the planet.

_____________________

Sen. Harry Reid's rather indecorous remarks about Barack Obama and race were without a doubt an indictment not of America, but of the Democratic Party. In Reid's honest opinion, the Democratic Party was not ready to nominate* a black man whose skin was too dark, too quintessentially African; or who spoke in a dialect that was too "Negro." No wonder Democrats are coming to his defense; no wonder Al Sharpton has absolved him so quickly.

Pointing to the history of racism in the Democratic Party is a scary, scary thing.

*I note that this has not prevented the party from electing other African-Americans to lower positions who do not conform to Sen. Reid's image of a good candidate.

_____________________

Baseball legend Mark McGwire's recent admission of steroid use is interesting, particularly since he claims that he used the performance-enhancing substances for health and not performance reasons.

I have heard people argue that all steroids can do for baseball players is make them bigger and stronger, and that such drugs cannot help a batter make contact with a pitched ball: You still have to possess the coordination to make solid contact; strength does not help with that. But such an argument is really a load of bahooey.

Batters gain three advantages from steroids:

1. Since steroid-using batters are stronger and hence able to generate more bat speed more quickly, they can WAIT LONGER before swinging at a pitch. Hence, they have an advantage: they can study a pitched ball longer, and can therefore better predict its trajectory.
2. Since such batters are stronger and thus capable of generating more explosive bat speed, a mis-hit ball can and will travel faster and farther, even out of the park. "Normal" players who don't make solid contact will not get the ball out of the park, whereas abnormally strong players may. 
3. Steroids make all the muscles in the human body faster and stronger, including the muscles which focus and move the eyes. Therefore, steroids help with hand-eye coordination. 

Mr. McGwire should just accept and confess the truth. It's the natural thing to do.

©2010/Contratimes. All Rights Reserved.

Let's Face It: It's A Rough And Tumble World Out There

I've always suspected that life as a drug smuggler in Mexico is rather difficult, but I could never have guessed just how difficult it really is. Perhaps this headline sums it up:

Mexican Cartel Skins Rival's Face, Stitches It on Soccer Ball

Who, I wonder, would have been given the task, and who would possess the necessary skills to perform such a task, of skinning and stitching?

The story sure gives a whole new meaning to, "Wilson? Wilsssoooonn?!"

"Private Talks" On Healthcare: The End Of Public Service?

Moments ago, New Jersey Congressman Frank Pallone, a Democrat, gave an interview on television about "transparency." His answer was stunning, and it included the use of the word "private" at least five times.

Recent complaints have been voiced that Mr. Obama's many campaign promises that C-SPAN would be permitted access to every step of the healthcare reform process (and other legislative debates), have been anything but kept. Mr. Obama, as you know, campaigned as a champion of transparency; his would be the most open and accessible administration in history. (Speaker Pelosi has made similar claims about the Congress she helps lead.) But it seems that C-SPAN is not really happy with the access it has or has not had.

And this is what Mr. Pallone was being asked about: Where, Congressman Pallone, is the transparency when C-SPAN is not permitted access to the current debates between house and senate delegates over the details of a final healthcare bill?

Essentially (and I am not making this up) Mr. Pallone dismissed the charge that legislative transparency appeared rather opaque, saying that the healthcare reform process has been the most transparent legislative process ever. But, he added in self-contradictory (?) fashion, NO BILL could ever be passed without "private discussions" or "private conversations"; that it was impossible that ANY legislation could EVER be passed without "private" dealings between legislators. Hence, C-SPAN had gone far enough, or Mr. Pallone averred. Not everything could be transparent.

So, what does this mean? First, it means Mr. Pallone shows us that Barack Obama's campaign was wrong: the amount of public access to the legislative process has ALWAYS been satisfactory. Mr. Obama's campaign promises that -- finally  -- America could witness for itself the legislative process were foolishly superfluous: NO LAW can be finally legislated EXCEPT in privacy. No amount of C-SPAN coverage will change any of that. In other words, if the amount of C-SPAN coverage of healthcare is fine for Mr. Pallone, coverage that is equal to anything that happened in previous years, then there was no need for promises of "greater transparency."

Second, Mr. Pallone has shown that Mr. Obama, who served a brief stint as the junior US senator from Illinois during his bid for the White House, was making promises out of utter ignorance, OR with utter disregard for truth. Surely ANY senator would know that there is a profoundly well-guarded "private" dimension to legislation. To imply American litigation would be finally fully transparent once Mr. Obama was elected president, as Mr. Obama surely did, was either born of Mr. Obama's ignorance of the PRIVATE legislature that exists in the secret chambers of a PUBLIC house and senate, or Mr. Obama was lying when he promised transparency. He either knew that "no bill" can be passed without "private talks" or he didn't. If he knew it, then he lied. If he didn't, then he was ignorant.

Interestingly, Mr. Pallone is not alone. His defense of "private conversations" -- and keeping C-SPAN at bay -- is also offered by progressive Igor Volsky of the Center for American Progress:

"It’s no exaggeration to claim that health care reform is only possible because of the ritualistic ping-pong back and forth that occurs through private conversations."

Mr. Volsky, in true progressive fashion, added that C-SPAN's access to the whole debate, while part of a transparent process, did not "improve" the legislation or the legislative process. In other words, transparency is wildly important -- at least when George W. Bush was in office -- but transparency does not really "improve" anything.

Huffington Post writer David Sirota summed up Mr. Volksy's argument perfectly:

"[Volsky is saying that] Transparency might be fine and dandy, but it didn't improve anything -- and the only thing that improves anything is secrecy."

In the end, what we discover is that the awful way things were done in the Bush Administration were not all that awful, and that those who have taken up the noble duty of "public service" can only do their best work in "private talks."

Who could have known that there exists such a precious and vital private sphere in the the public halls of Congress?

I, for one, would have liked it if the former senator who occupies the White House had known about this private-sector intrusion on the public sector of Congress BEFORE he ran for office.

©2010/Contratimes. All rights reserved.

Cover Your Ears! Brit Hume, Ann Coulter, And The Cross

Fox News contributor Brit Hume recently said something controversial -- on TV! -- about the nature of Christianity. Perhaps you heard his blasphemous remarks; perhaps you heard his great insult.

And perhaps you didn't.

Well, at least one person did -- Ann Coulter. I know, I know, she's a firebrand. She's a bombshell bomb thrower; a crass ideologue; a political pit bull. But set the caricatures of her aside for a moment and read what she has to say about Christianity, about it being the best deal on the planet. Is she right? Has Ann Coulter presented the gospel in a way that does justice to the "good news"?

You tell me. I'd love to hear what you think of "If You Can Find A Better Deal, Take It!" And I'd like to hear what you think of Mr. Hume's remarks, too. (Coulter quotes him at length.)

Peace.