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.)

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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.

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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.

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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.

Blindly Blithely Double-Binding

I am sure you have heard of the double bind. It's something of a psychology term coined by Gregory Bateson (et al), who noted the prevalent use of double bind-type language and behaviors in the families of children hospitalized for schizophrenia.

A double bind is essentially caused by the communication of two mutually exclusive ideas, concepts or expressions. If memory serves me well, Bateson first noted the double bind while observing a mother's visit with her troubled son. The mother said something like, "Don't you know I love you? Don't you love Mommy? Come over here and let Mommy hug you." When the boy came to hug his mother, his mother stiffened, pulling her head back; she hugged her son awkwardly and insincerely. Bateson's anecdote shows the subtle cruelty of the double bind.

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Behold a political double bind that should trouble us all!

On Tuesday, from the heights of the current economic crisis, here's what Democrat Harry Reid, Senater Majority Leader, said about Sen. John McCain:

“We need, now, the Republicans to start producing some votes for us. We need the Republican nominee for president to let us know where he stands and what we should do.”

You can watch Sen. Reid make his comments here:



Obviously, such a statement by itself cannot a double bind make. But when you add the following to the recipe, well, we're left laughing double-bent at the preposterous double bind. Here's Sen. Harry Reid on Wednesday:

"It would not be helpful at this time to have [John McCain and Barack Obama] come back during these negotiations and risk injecting presidential politics into this process or distract important talks about the future of our nation's economy. If that changes, we will call upon them. We need leadership; not a campaign photo op."

The same day, we heard this from Democrat congressman and-up-to-his-eyeballs-in-this-quagmire Barney Frank:

"All of a sudden, now that we're on the verge of making a deal, John McCain drops himself in to make a deal. I really worry about the politicization of it....

"Frankly, we're going to have to interrupt a negotiating session tomorrow between Democrats and Republicans on a bill, where I think we're getting pretty close, and troop down to the White House for their photo-op, and then come back and get on to it. ...

"We're trying to rescue the economy, not the McCain campaign," he added.

Damned if you do and ... damned if you do.

©2008. All Rights Reserved.

Completely Tone Deaf, Yet He Hears "Shrill"

It is quite clear that even leading Democrats are completely tone deaf. That Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) has sent out his lead man to denounce Gov. Sarah Palin's speech last night as "shrill and sarcastic" proves that the Democrats are in this to lose. Even if "shrill" is code word to his assumed base, Sen. Reid is apparently so politically deaf that he does not understand how deleterious it is to his cause that he has called a successful and competent woman shrill. In case he has no clue, which he must not, "shrill" is a code word to that other base, independent women (actually, nearly all women).

Besides, any man who has not sold his soul to his party knows, really knows, the one adjective that cannot be justifiably used to describe Gov. Palin is the one word Sen. Reid chose. Shrill? Come on. She was anything but shrill. Even Barack Obama knows that, and he has sold his soul to his party. (Well, maybe not.)

When the LEADER of the United States Senate, that incredibly esteemed and proud institution, has to send his butler out to denounce a relatively soft-spoken woman for being "shrill," you know you are seeing weakness at its pathetic worst. Is this the best the Democrats can do? Is this allegedly insignificant governor from the hinterlands so great a threat that Senator Reid cannot present his own thoughtful rebuttal to this 'nobody from the north?'

Clearly Gov. Palin is not a nobody. And it seems that if he and his party are not careful, Sen. Reid will be, at least in the Senate, a nobody really quite soon.

©Contratimes/2008. All Rights Reserved.

General Housekeeping: On Alito; Rove

To Harry Reid, Alito Too Qualified?

The nomination of Samuel Alito for associate justice of the United States Supreme Court occurred moments ago. First impressions yield only this: the guy is incredibly well-spoken. In fact, he might be the most grammatically and syntactically precise speaker I've heard in a long time. Yes, of course, he is an Ivy-leaguer (which is no bad thing), but it is clear he's no legacy child. I'll wager he entered Princeton and Yale on his merits.

Harry Reid, the petulant Democratic senator from Nevada, has already berated President Bush for nominating "another" appellate court justice. To Reid, the court is now looking a bit like a "good old boys club", resembling nothing of America at large. Apparently Harriet Miers should have been confirmed. We must, after all, keep up appearances. (One Democrat has already called Mr. Alito an "extremist.")

McCain Denies Bush/Rove South Carolina "Smear"

In other news, I think many of you will recall that Karl Rove, the wunderkind of the White House, is feared and loathed by his critics for his allegedly heavy-handed schemes and ploys in policy-making and election campaigning. Recall that in the 2000 election cycle it was alleged Republican John McCain was defeated in the South Carolina primary by a Rove scheme wherein phone calls were made throughout the state asking potential voters if they had heard about John McCain's illegitimate child (Mr. McCain has no such child). Though this story was dubious from the start, and has been soundly dismissed by credible analysis, activist Democrats believe the veracity of the story to this day, and believe that Rove is the devil for doing something so unseemly. But what a moment today when Mr. Don Imus (Imus in the Morning, MSNBC) asked Mr. McCain about the Rove-Libby duo, and whether Mr. McCain was glad to see bad luck fall upon his political foes who so abused him in South Carolina. McCain's reply was telling: "I don't think they had anything to do with that." Oiks! There goes another myth. (And it was also telling that McCain reiterated that though he thinks the Iraq War has been badly mishandled, "every intelligence agency in the world" asserted that Iraq held weapons of mass destruction. Thus, McCain defended the Administration's earlier claim that the fact of Hussein's possession of WMD was "a slam dunk." Ouch!)

Lastly, I leave you with this quote from C.S. Lewis' great speech, Membership:

Fruit has to be tinned if it is to be transported and has to lose thereby some of its good qualities. But one meets people who have learned actually to prefer the tinned fruit to the fresh. A sick society must think much about politics, as a sick man must think much of his digestion; to ignore the subject may be fatal cowardice for the one as the other. But if either comes to regard it as the natural food of the mind–if either forgets that we think of such things only in order to be able to think of something else–then what was undertaken for the sake of health has become itself a new and deadly disease. [emphasis added]†

Why this quote? Just to remind myself, really, that political thinking is a means, always a means, and never the end in itself. Politics is so much tinned fruit. The man who eats solely from its bounty is sure to go hungry; is sure to fall ill.

Contratimes

©Bill Gnade 2005/Contratimes - All Rights Reserved.
†The C.S. Lewis address may be found in The Weight of Glory, Walter Hooper, ed., MacMillan Publishing, NY. Page 109.