Down the Dumb Staircase

NOTE:  This was originally written in September, 2023 but just finished and published November 2024

So without further adieu, I present today's rant - Doughnuts!  Yep, that's right.  After 5 years of a world gone whack I ought to be ranting on everything Trump and the unbelievably rotten Republican party or the hottest summer on record in Phoenix or the degradation of society from social media or inflation's bite or any of these exhausting topics riling our lives.  Maybe another time.  Today it's doughnuts baby, and I'm talking about the latest company out there hawking these things covered in Oreos or bacon or globs of some material I can't even describe.  And there's a line out the door to purchase these fat bombs at the local VooDoo Doughnuts.  So is it this intriguing name that has humanity waiting for their chance to try a fried puff of sugar dough that is somehow different from Dunkin or Bosa or Krispy Kreme?  I have to believe so since a doughnut is, well, just a doughnut.  Or, perhaps VooDoo provides the American consumer with the needed excuse to try a "new" incredibly unhealthy food to soothe the ache of their sugar craving bodies.  Now I'm not opposed to someone having an occasional splurge, and I'm not really interested in writing yet another article on the horrible state of food in this country and the two thirds of overweight adults that inhale it.  No ma'am.  My beef is the state of capitalism and the idiocy of giving people what they think they want!  But wait Frog, isn't that the basic tenant of a capitalistic society?  You build a better mousetrap and society will swoop to your website and clean out your shelves?  Well yes, that used to be the idea.  But today, the dumbing down of the American population has enabled the advertising by corporate America to convince A LOT of people that it's perfectly fine to make irrational, personally harmful decisions about how they conduct their lives and spend their money.... and vote.  Pharma ads empowering your hypochondriac leanings,  investment "gurus" as the only answer to your financially illiterate mind and yes, eat this food cause it's easier and oh so satisfying in the moment.  These are not better mousetraps, they're just lazy, thoughtless outcomes that are not going to catch more mice.  

Pure capitalism does not work as efficiently with an educated, informed society.  Advertising by default is simply appealing to the lowest common denominator of the potential viewers.  How many millions of people would handle their own money more effectively if personal finance was still taught in high school?  How about personal health?  How about teaching children how their minds work through cognitive behavioral introduction, thus giving them the tools they need to understand normal life events are not the end of the world.  Instead, social media feeds show an idealized version of beautiful people's lives that they then monetize, making money off the hordes of young wanna-be's.  This has now turned into a sad increase in the suicide rate of young girls.  You are not good enough because you don't look like me!  And part of that reason is you're not thin, which brings us back to doughnuts.  

The relentless pounding of advertising in all it's forms will continue to take a toll.  My argument is it needs to be countered with education.  Which will win out?  Duh.

What, Me Worry?

Those immortal words from my old pal Alfred E. Neuman have been bouncing around in my head lately.  Mr. Neuman didn't have a care in the world back then, and as a 10 year old Mad Magazine reading fanatic, neither did I.  I clearly remember scanning the magazine stand at our local IGA Food Town store around the first of every month hoping the new issue of Mad was out and wondering what delicious farce would grace the front page this time.  Man I loved that magazine, and as I retrospectively contemplate the brilliant satire Mad offered it's quite clear this magazine had a profound impact on my developing mind and general outlook on just about everything in life - relationships, politics, religion, media, etc.  And, of course, the underlying message of being worry free!

A bit later in life came National Lampoon, and the lovely satire of life continued in the written pages on this fab magazine.  Again, there I was every month scouring the magazine stand at the local drug store, at least until I figured out one day that a person could actually subscribe to the mag and it would magically be delivered to your residence (yeah, I've been slow my entire life to embrace technology).  So what Mad Magazine had done to nourish my awakening mind, National Lampoon continued to do with its "adult" observations of the absurdness and hilarity of life and the message that you cannot, let me repeat - you cannot take this shit seriously.  Again - what me worry?   

Then I got married.  I was in my late twenties and National Lampoon had lost some of it's great writers (P.J. O'Rourke became a conservative for hell's sake) so I cancelled my subscription and it was time to leave the irresponsibility of youth behind and get fucking serious.  No more worry free life for you amigo!  Pretty soon the kids came along and several different career changes and money was tight and and later on a cancer scare and all the other ups and downs and the growing poppensity to take anything and everything too seriously and the continuous nagging at the back of your mind that something needs to be shaken up and what the hell is really going on here and............  OK, I actually never experienced the nagging and doubt thing. 

But I could have.  I could have questioned the unanswerable and doubted the obvious and fretted over social status and spent my precious time doing that one thing - you know, worrying about shit.  Of course I was born white, middle-class and blessed with loving parents who stayed together to the end, so I began life in a much more worry-free existence than many others.  But it hasn't been a bowl of cherries, and there was never a silver spoon in this mouth.   But I had something much better than silver, something intangible, something that could never be taken away, something no one really ponders and best of all something that frees the mind and feeds the soul.  I had this:  the ability to see the utter ridiculousness in life's everything, even the less than good stuff.  What, me worry?

As I have blogged about previously, people tend to seek their own. I believe this applies to those who cannot, despite themselves, take life too seriously.  Those, like me, who share a bit of a cynical side and see things mostly in the gray area and view others in an empathetic light because we can't help it.  My wife, children and friends are pretty much like this and what sensational people they are!  Caring, giving, loving and FUNNY.  Fun and funny.  Life doesn't get in the way for this bunch. 

That's not to say we are magically problem free.  Oh no.  Life and living is fraught with potholes of varying sizes.  As mentioned earlier, being diagnosed with cancer presented a pretty major road hazard, but I took a detour, maintained an attitude that leaned to the positive side and 12 years later all is well.  This is where leading a proactive life, which is made easier by worrying less, really comes into play.  I firmly believe many among us don't want to know uncomfortable truths as they will trigger worry symptoms, or require an action that is counter to the make-believe world that has been created by them to square with their beliefs.  Be it politics or religion, this approach to keeping the worry down is often detrimental to all of us.  Why should I worry about climate change when it's much easier to pretend it doesn't exist and therefore no action is required?  Yeah right.  Besides, if it's a religious based perspective, the man is returning to earth soon enough to wipe out the sinners and save my praying ass so the forests burning and oceans rising have no long term consequences.  As I said, detrimental to all of us.

A better way is simple and it's called empathy.  This means taking the approach that regardless of my belief system, I must understand that not everyone shares this outlook.  Using climate change as an example, isn't it better to accept what science is telling us and join in the effort to minimize the disasters that await if nothing is done?  Where have you compromised your beliefs?  Jesus may still be coming but you have a moral and ethical responsibility to try and leave this world a better place than you found it for our grandchildren and beyond.  Why not run with that and keep that worry at bay because you're DOING SOMETHING ABOUT IT!  Isn't that simpler?

Cynicism has it's place in this discussion.  While it may seem to be at odds with empathy, a questioning approach to life only feeds the proactive side of decision making.  For instance, should I just assume this person is truthful and empathize with him/her, OR should I spend a minute investigating and understanding what is being said so I can decide for myself and therefore make an informed choice that will, hopefully, be one of many billions in this world that moves us collectively forward because it's based on fact, not bullshit.  How could such a lying, vulgar sociopath as Donald Trump be elected the leader of the free world by voters with a touch of cynicism?  This questioning has it's place, and it is not counter to blind faith in religion.  Oh no.  Believe as you will but don't get suckered by the next in an endless line of con men who consider your belief system to be a sign of weakness and ripe for exploiting to their advantage.  I guarantee you this way of living is much less stressful and, as a result, more worry free.

So laugh at yourself, laugh at sarcasm, laugh at the ridiculous, love your empathetic and curious life and if you've never read one, pick up the latest copy of Mad Magazine at your local book store (yes, it's still published) and laugh at the wonderful sarcasm Mr. Neuman needs you to embrace.   Seriously, why not take life a little less seriously?    









   

Make America Great-Ful Again

WHOA!  Apparently 4 years, 2 months and 27 days have passed since my last rant and here I am sitting at a newer computer pondering this fact and wondering what the hell happened???  There has certainly NOT been a lack of subject matter, and as my dear spousal unit would testify there has been a time or two when I was encouraged to shut the hell up or go unload on the blog (usually after stupidly reading Charles Krauthammer c/o the Arizona Republic).  Yet, as time passed by and life unfolded, the call to rant has slowly receded - until now!

Why now?  Well, for beginners I retired, and lo and behold there is more time for pursuits beyond working.  I also became a grandfather which has been an amazing trip. There is also another presidential election unfolding and this time we have a real whopper going down.  I recently logged on and read through a few of my old blogs and it was quite apparent that not only has little changed over 4 years but some things are undoubtedly worse.  Of course, Mitt Romney lost the 2012 election (as I boldly predicted...... OK it wasn't all that bold). The Middle East remains a slowly evolving catastrophe, the rich are vastly richer, the climate is hotter every year than the last and to top it all off, Obama still hasn't ended the beyond stupid War On Drugs (more on that later)!  The Repubes are scarier than ever considering the unthinkable fact that reality TV moron Donald Trump is their presidential nominee, and they've controlled both the house and senate since the 2012 election. And, apparently a whole bunch of un-college educated, older Republican white dudes are really, really pissed off (thus Donald Trump).  So while the world is looking as fucked-up as ever, I.M. Frog's outlook on things has actually been headed the other direction.  That's right - I have never been more optimistic about the future than I am today. This is not to say I have given up the fight.  No way!!! When the revolution comes, and assuming I'm still walking the earth, count me in!  And, an occasional rant on the state of the current affairs is not going away.  Yet with the benefit of today's hindsight, this ranting amphibian has chilled baby, and the need to chronicle political bullshit going on in this world has faded, replaced by both a measured acceptance for the way things are and a creeping feeling that the future is slowly brightening, like a beautiful sunrise as you wait for the first light of the sun to crest the horizon.

So, it's pretty cool to realize this.  Like looking in the mirror one day and wondering who that person is staring back at you, these moments of clarity are a necessary part of both aging and acceptance. Cool is not really the word I would use to describe looking older, and I would be lying to say I don't miss being a younger fellow at times, but being okay with this fact is very cool.  So as the horrors of life for so many millions of earth's inhabitants has continued to be daily news, my gratitude for the incredible life I get to live has grown immensely.  Being born white in America puts me in the top 5% of all human life on earth, and this reality means that the opportunities that came my way were made possible by this luck of the humanity draw.  I'm one lucky sucker, and how could I possibly believe otherwise?  For that matter, how could anyone in a comparable position believe otherwise?

Good question.  A recent poll I scanned contained this result:  "Ideologically, those who identify themselves as very liberal are far more pessimistic about the direction of the country than those who identify themselves as very conservative, while African Americans, Hispanics and Asians are more optimistic than Whites".  No shit?

I know many people with a perfectly fine standard of living that have obtained money, status, etc. yet continue to believe that things are horrible and the country is a presidential election away from being flushed down the toilet .  I get the previously mentioned Trump supporters and their mis-directed anger, but what about all of the peeps living the good life that are certainly less angry but just as negative about what's going on.  Where's the gratitude America, and why do you fall for all the lies about the state of society and the bogeyman that is waiting around the corner to take your guns, money, liberty or whatever?  Oh I know, you worked hard and sacrificed for a career and money and finally achieved that American Dream while all of the luckless deadbeats just want free shit.  And then there's you overly pessimistic uber-liberals who didn't get your man Bernie nominated and know Hillary hates peace and can't wait to draft your children to march on Benghazi.  So you're pissed and now voting for the Libertarian who doesn't know what an "Aleppo" is.  Sure, America has warts a plenty but it's nothing that we can't fix once we stop seeing the glass half full of Flint water.  Come on man! Ever considered how damn lucky you are to be living without fear of starvation or dysentery from drinking sewage infested water?  Probably not.  Ever considered that you have never been forced to flee your home before being bombed to hell and then watch your precious child drown while trying to cross water for a better life anywhere else?  I didn't think so.  We have lost our way and more importantly our perspective while engaging in a circular game of shit's bad and so it is. Time to lighten up!  If you have family, shelter, food and a friend or two then you are one lucky son-of-a-bitch.  You are a lottery winner and it's time to cash in your winnings and get behind the revolution to make society a more gracious, caring place for all of us.  Even a Republican can ignore the agitators and empathize with their fellow citizens that need a helping hand. Turn Fox News off and look around.  Sure, there are those who game the system and get away with some extra food stamps, but most of our fellow citizens are basically decent people and would work their asses off for a fair paycheck and the chance to get a little ahead.  And a lot of those same people apparently have a rosier outlook on America's future than us privileged, whiny whites.  That's really messed up. Drumpf has it right people, let's make America great-ful again!

He's Playing Chutes & Ladders

The other day I'm watching Rachel Madow interview Frank Rich from New York Magazine and they're in this deep discussion about the current strategy being deployed by Mittens Romney and his gaggle of hacks and it suddenly occurs to me that I'm watching a rerun of the brilliant 1984 movie Being There.  The movie, based on a novel by the late Jerzy Kosinski, features the incomparable Peter Sellers as Chancy Gardner, a complete and total dimwit who only knows the world through a lifetime of watching television.  Through ummm, chance and just dumb luck, the character ends up befriending the richest man in America, meets the POTUS, and as the movie ends, he's about to be called up to run the largest company in America by it's board of directors.  Substitute Mitt for Chancy.

Now, to be clear, I am not calling Romney a dimwit.  But as I sit watching all of these MSNBC pundits yakking away about the Romney camp and doing their best to decipher the latest anything being said, it's clear to me these people are playing chess while Romney and his crew are playing Chutes and Ladders.  I mean, come on!  Mitt and his band of bozos have yet to articulate anything with meaning.  How will the deficit be reduced?  What will he do about entitlement programs?  How will he, the great job creator of yesterday, create jobs tomorrow?  Oh yeah, by being a venture capitalist.  The first thing those sharpies do after acquiring a business is ask how much fat can we trim (i.e. workers dismissed).  It was NEVER about how many workers can we hire.  The only economic anything from this guy to date is endorsing the Paul Ryan budget plan, which is, unbelievably, a plan to cut taxes further (especially for those rich mother-fucking job creators), give more to the Pentagon and starve social programs.  OK, but there is just a couple of tiny issues with all that.  Tax rates in the US are already at historic low levels and tax revenue is a 20 year low.  You can't cut enough from Planned Parenthood or NPR to make the slightest dent in the deficit, and if cutting Social Security and Medicare is your solution for the deficit, you have NO chance of being re-elected.  Don't forget Mitt, the tea-party is on Social Security.

During the primary and since he was the last moron standing, Mitt Romney has told anyone that will listen what a suck-ass person the other guy is and of course how the Prez has done nothing right, including saving GM and getting Bin Laden, which are both things he later took credit for.  WTF?  To date, Mittens has been only offering syrupy Americana and off-key singing of the national anthem to the masses at his campaign stops, and what a truly embarrassing thing that is to behold.  Now I know Rachel and the others need some red meat, but it's bordering on pathetic when they and their guests spend agonizing minutes pondering what Mitt said in his latest speech, which is basically nothing.  Just like Chancy Gardner, very smart people are doing their best to understand the deeper meaning of Mitten's blather when there is no deeper meaning.  He's just continues to rehash the same shit as he did in the primary with no specifics, and it's just not possible to analyze it.  Even the Republicans are starting to carp about his lack of anything concrete to say.

As I said beforehand, I do not believe Mitt Romney is a dimwit.  But there are a host of other adjectives that work quite well, and I feel just a bit more authorized to offer them than perhaps your everyday political hack. You see, I've seen this type of creature before.  My personal experience growing up in Utah and knowing many, many Mormons has afforded this point of view.  In a peculiar twist of logic, many worshipers of God are actually quite convictionless.  Their moral high ground is often a cover for a shameless, opportunistic pursuit of money and power, closet racism and for many men, a comfortable dominance over the fairer sex.   I've seen it first hand with my own Father being ripped off repeatedly by his fellow brethren and the prevalent, unintended but impossible to miss attitude of authority toward women.  Venture capitalism is the crowning glory of this - a soulless approach to taking advantage of the weaker in society; i.e. weaker companies with weaker workers and their weaker unions and doing it with other peoples money, not your own.  Mitt Romney has displayed these characteristics over and over.  Remember, he was once pro-choice when it suited his needs, a stance the Mormon church adamantly opposes, as it now oppose his heartless positions on immigration and slashing the welfare system budget.  As I said, free of convictions that his own church preaches.  But there is one area that Mitt Romney has no equal - lying with conviction.  My God he's good.  Most recently, his absurd accusation that the bankrupt Solyndra had provided money to the Obama Administration's friends and family was called out by even conservative people as a lie.  Yet Mittens continued with it and even doubled-down in a later speech.  In my view, this pathological lying is the old religious conflict between faith and facts.  Again, being Mormon inevitably puts you in the position of having to accept faith trumping evidence - like carbon dating to establish the age of the earth (hint:  it's more than 7,000 years old dude).  The cumulative result of this nasty conflict is the ability to lie and to no longer feel any remorse about doing it.  And when you grow up in the privileged class, this ability is reinforced from a lack of anyone calling you out on it.  So the media, once again trying to play chess, spends bullshit time having to report about the lies instead of reporting on anything of substance that voters could use to make an informed decision.  Taken all together, Mitt Romney is a very scary creature indeed.  Which leads me to ask this obvious question:  how could anyone want this lying, shallow, wooden, convictionless, money-grubbing douche-bag individual as the next president of our country??

I'll tell you who does.  Join me next time as we explore further this nearly impossible to fathom concept of Mitt Romney being the next POTUS and then I promise to provide my dear readers with all the reasons he will not be elected; unless he happens to pick tea-party darling Rick Santorum to be VP and under this cover promptly tacks straight to the center and starts telling the truth.  But he's too big of dimwit to do that, right?

Independent = Hipster Asshole

I'm an Independent.  Yeah, I don't belong to the Republican or Democratic or Green or any other political party, nor do I feel the need to say I'm a member of any church or other organization where the powerful concept of independent thought and actions may be encumbered by the dogma and ideologies of that organization.  Oh, and it also means, according to a friend of my daughter, that I'm a hipster asshole.

You see, for most of my life I have been unable to understand what is apparently a fact of life for many people - that based on their beliefs, they need to surround themselves with groups of like minded people.  Now I'm not referring to the natural grouping of friendships forged through years of being friends, or family members that have been raised to believe a certain way where love and familiarity trump differing views.  No, I'm talking about the next layer of acquaintances beyond that inner circle, and even layers beyond that.  And so with this lack of understanding, I've found myself asking the question:  why is this need to collectively believe such a powerful phenomena in people's lives?  Is it simply a need to reinforce the belief, or just a mechanism for socializing with others or possibly nothing more than the wearing of some label because everyone else in your outer circle does?  Hardly a day goes by where I don't read or hear someone proclaiming their point of view is not just right, but it's so right it makes your point of view absolutely wrong and by God I'm going to tell you so and then very likely ignore your rational response.  It's manifested in the embarrassing name calling on Facebook, or in countless letters to the editor, or on the political evening talk shows and sometimes in just an overheard conversation.  Is this desire to be right then a basic need of most humans, like eating and sleeping? 

My declaration of Independence is, I suppose, along the same lines of needing to label a belief system.  For instance, I have contributed time and money to a movement entitled "No Labels" that seeks non-partisan solutions to our hopelessly partisan federal government.  But that's about as far as the conformance thing goes for me since the whole meaning of the word independent is, in a way, just the opposite of conforming.  As an Independent, I will not necessarily accept the herd mentality on a given subject.  While this approach to critical thinking is, in a way, a pipe dream since no one is really above being human and influenced by all life's lessons and experiences and the resulting effects on mind and body.  But the thought of just saying "OK, I can't be bothered with definitively figuring this out for myself, so I'll just jump on board with this somewhat like minded bunch and ride it out" is not just perplexing, it's downright frightening!  Of course for many people, it seems obvious to me that a political or religious point of view that runs pretty much with the herd is not a scary thing at all.  Certainly every political leader finds they must embrace the dogma of their party (whether they believe it or not) in order to get elected.  And religious leaders thrive on this "conformance of the masses" as it is often their occupation in life and collections from their believers helps pay the bills.  But what to make of supposedly critical thinking people like scientists who claim to believe in God and Divine creationism, attend a church every Sunday that reinforces this idea and then show up at work on Monday to complete their carbon-dating project!  There's comfort in numbers and like mindedness - can't disagree with that.  But what about the rest of us that wouldn't join a country club that would have us for a member (thanks Groucho)?  Why does this idea of just joining and believing seem so foreign?

When I was in my early teens, the church I was basically forced to attend taught several great and noble concepts for living.  One was called free-agency.  This is supposedly how each church member is able to make the greatest of all great choices - to believe or not believe in God.  Of course, if you chose the latter, your free-agency was quickly circumvented buy all those who chose the former - parents who worked the guilt trip angle; siblings who questioned your love for them and friends who could no longer be your friend.  As a result, the seeds of my independent tree were planted early and over the years every opportunity to be boxed in became another sprouted branch until one day I suddenly noticed the tree had not only matured, it was bearing fruit.  And this fruit of independent thought was surprisingly good.  I mean, how could a tree fertilized with something as bitter as cynicism and skepticism and other isms be tasty?  Wasn't I doomed to live a reclusive, unfulfilled life by not joining in?

Apparently the answer is no.  My early efforts to not be a joiner have been rewarded with the ability to see other points of view, and experience other facets of living and learning and to enjoy experimentation with things that someone had once warned me to stay away from.  Of course, this someone had never actually experienced this thing for themselves.  "Just trying to save you a little grief" is the response.  But how can one accurately formulate a belief if it's just based on the experiences and resulting biases of others?  Isn't this the wayward result of the mass Kool-Aid suicide that Jim Jones fostered on his bunch down in Guyana?  And don't get me started on the myriad interpretations of the man-made writings of the Bible and how it's used to manipulate folks.  And so as time moves on, I have come to realize that this independent thinking thing is actually of critical importance, and weirdly in harmony with that " free-agency" religious concept from so long ago.   

So in an ironic twist, independence is freedom, and I must thank everyone along the way of life that inspired me to question everything which, in turn, provided the freedom of thought I now enjoy.  All the tea party masses crying out for liberty and freedom have, on a basic level, already torpedoed their freedom.  Ahh, but I made the choice to belong to this party a member will say and this choice was made as a free thinking person!  Okay, then why the bullshit line about needing freedom?  You just stated you have it.  What you are really proclaiming is I need YOU to be like me or my liberty will be in jeopardy!  Yes, the more of you like me reinforces me and in turn makes me more right! 

Which leads me to being a hipster asshole.  While this was said with no particular person in mind, the message is still loud and clear - belong to what I belong to or you're something less than what I am.  You see by not joining in, you are sending a message that you're either above it all (too cool to commit) or afraid to commit.  But the other option of choosing to not commit as a result of careful consideration doesn't seem to occur to those that have already committed.  And so I am a hipster asshole, which is hilarious as hell when you consider the following:  I will never, ever be labeled a hipster again under any circumstances as I'm a 50's something suburban white guy with little taste for fashion or style or whatever else lands one in the hipster category these days.  But more importantly, I actually am an asshole, just an independent asshole who happens to be right!

The Hypocritic Oafs

My dear, dear readers, I am back!  It's been a tough stretch of verbalizing my rants and I know the people who bear the responsibility of hearing them are wondering why the hell I am not at the computer unloading this shit to my trusty blog.  This is certainly a good question for which I unfortunately do not have a good answer.  Possibly, my absence has been the result of an overwhelming amount of material worth ranting about.  One day I'm thinking this issue has to be the topic of the week and later that day I'm reading some other unbelievable story and pretty soon it's brain gridlock!  But today, I really cannot take it any more.  Today I reached some invisible quota of perplexing, annoying doublespeak from the political right in this country and I really can't take it any more.  If just one more phony-ass Repube says something you know is complete, unadulterated bullshit, I might quit watching anything on TV except maybe Wipeout and reading anything but the Sunday funny papers.  I might, you know, become more like THEM! 

It is beyond my comprehension to comprehend how someone can live their lives in total hypocrisy and somehow delude themselves into believing this is fine.  A telling article in the New York Times last week did a masterful job explaining this phenomena.  In some ultra-conservative podunk town in the Mid-West, a number of liberty loving (i.e. Obama hating) people were interviewed for this article and asked about their contempt for people who are sucking the government tit for assistance to live.  This country's diabolical march to socialism has them terrified.  These people are all working multiple jobs and sacrificing and going without the niceties of life and on and on.  There's only one problem - every person interviewed for the article was, in fact, accepting government assistance.   Free school lunches for their kids, unemployment benefits, social security disability checks, rent subsidies, etc.  That's right, every one of these unbelievable hypocrites is collecting money from the government, and every one of them has somehow, someway, convinced themselves that they're not and that's just fine.  They're deficient on reality.  They live a lie and do it with fucking conviction!  One woman actually broke down and through a stream of tears "confessed" to accepting government assistance, as if the reporter had finally stuck enough burning cigarettes into her face and she caved.  How can this be?

It can be because it's become a way of life for these people.  They are unmercifully caught between their conservative outlook on social issues and the fact that the Republican party to which they belong has economically fucked them every which way but up.  On one side there's Rick "the dick" Santorum declaring how Obama is getting America hooked on the "narcotic of dependency" and Mitty warning that government programs "foster passivity and sloth".  Euwww, who wants to be sloth?  The Times article went on to point out that the top 10 "most conservative" states as ranked by Gallup received 21.2% of their income in government transfer while the number for the top 10 most liberal states was 17.1%.  That's right, the safety net is much more red than blue.  Of course, this is not a big surprise for anyone that takes a minute to think about it.  The most conservative states are also the more relatively poor states and have greater dependence on the safety-net of government programs, especially Medicaid.  Contrary to the blowhard Gingrich's claim that Obama is the "food stamp" president, Obama has not expanded this program at all.  Rather, the poor state of the economy has reduced incomes and made more people eligible, and low and behold a majority of these people are from red states.  Those are, as Joe Friday would say, "just the facts Ma'am".  So why on earth are these needy people voting for politicians who detest these safety-net programs and are campaigning to dismantle them?  It's simple, really.  The GOP is a master at exploiting social issues, and these legions of brain-dead conservative sheep simply vote against their own economic interests over and over again so, you know, gay people can't legally marry and Hispanics can't live the American dream.  Many people remember the old hypocrite in her motorized wheel chair yelling about how Obamacare is socialized medicine in one breath and then telling the next politician that showed up to keep their dirty hands of her Medicare.  Have they no dignity?

And then there's contraception, the issue of the 1970's that has suddenly exploded into one of the most fake outrage issues in recent memory.  Oh, what hypocrisy looms here.  Obamacare requires contraception to be available on healthcare plans that have federal government backing.  Not on private plans mind you.  But it seems that churches like the cheaper government programs, which is no surprise considering that around 80% of the revenue to the Catholic Church comes from the federal government, and they and their associated businesses like hospitals enjoy tax-free status through this association.  But the Catholic Church preaches no contraception to their masses, and have since the dark ages when having a zillion kids was a game of numbers as most children didn't survive childhood and the more you had, the better the odds that some would make it to adulthood.  But this concept seems just a little bit dated in 2012.  So, the old white men leaders of the Catholic Church conjure up this fake outrage despite multiple polls showing that up to 98% of Catholic women use or have used birth control.  Oh, no shit?  Jeez, I thought that the much smaller families of Catholic leaning people these days just meant Mom and Dad weren't having sex any more.  Are they all going to hell then?  And what about the non-Catholic people working for these hospitals and schools that the quasi Catholic/Federal Government Church associates with?  Are they screwed out of health insurance provided contraception because of where they work?  The Republican leadership is going to shit in their nest in a very Terri Schaivo way if they keep going after Obama on this.  Women of all backgrounds are already outraged, and they represent, to say the least, a fair amount of voters.  So listen Bishop Olmsted, when 98% of your membership is breaking a rule, no greater hypocrisy exists than demanding that the rule be universally accepted and respected by everyone else in this country.  Besides, you've spewed so much hypocrisy in your lifetime (covering up pedophile priests and hitting a pedestiran and leaving the scene of the crime, among other transgressions) that your allotment is up.  Just slither away, please.

This hypocrisy is actually gathering momentum with the Republican candidates.  There's Gingrich trying to appeal to family value conservatives against a background of souless wife cheating.  How the fuck does this guy look in the mirror everyday and not just cringe?  Mitt Romney told a gathering recently that he was an "intense conservative".  This is a fucking lie and everyone listening to this moron knew it.  His tale of how he was actually for the bailout of GM and Chrysler is more convoluted bullshit.  This bunch just keeps spewing out lies, but somehow, someway, this has become acceptable to their loyal followers.  Once upon a time, lying was discouraged, and I think telling the truth is one of those nic-picking commandments that Christians hold in high regard when it's suitable.  But there is no longer any stigma to blatantly lying to people, and the people who practice this art know that those listening are simply co-conspirators, so bogged down by the weight of their own monumental hypocrisy that they can only listen and vacantly nod.  This is not a recipe for success when hustling votes from Independents and other centrists of either party.  As a result, the Republicans will fail to win the White House this fall, and with an uptick in the economy and the realization by a majority of people that Obama's first term was actually OK, they will lose the House.  Then the Democrats had better show the days of rampant hypocrisy are over.  If not, I will vote for Mitt Romney in 2016!

Come On, Give The Guy A Break

Such strange times we live in.  Several days ago the Iraq War ended and apparently hardly anyone noticed.  I suppose the lack of shock and awe meant most Americans couldn't be bothered.  There was just one last oh-so solemn flag folding ceremony and then Secretary of Defense Panetta spewed a few words and that was that.  Here's the final scoreboard:  4,486 dead; 32,226 wounded, many so seriously wounded that they would have died in earlier wars; somewhere north of 800 billion spent, all of it borrowed and flushed down the toilet; 9 billion lost and unaccounted for; 550 million in spare parts vanished; 1 billion in trucks, tractors, and other assorted vehicles missing and approximately 190,000 weapons misplaced.  And all for what - to replace Saddam Hussein with fucking Nouri al-Maliki?  Can anyone point out to me what the fuck else we accomplished?  Excuse me while I go vomit.

OK, that was not pleasant.  For those of us who lived through the Vietnam years, guess what?  We got fooled again.  Suckered like the suckers we are.  However, there was one fellow who warned the nation of this potential disaster, who as a member of the U.S. Senate opposed attacking Iraq.  Oh yeah, Mr. Barrack Hussein Obama, that chump of a president that not even half the country say they would vote for again at this point in time.  Really?  I have to wonder if any of these American citizens have paid any attention to what the other side is offering.  Or is it just "I ain't voting for that chump because the economy sucks and it's all Obama's fault.  So there!"  Then who, pray tell, are you planning to vote for people?  Jesus, it's a scary bunch of Republicans - Gingrich the narcissistic, money grubbing cheat; Romney the private sector hack that has yet to meet a social issue that he can't embrace if it means a vote; Rick Perry the, the, the, oh fuck it this guy's too stupid, fake and creepy to categorize with any fifty- dollar words.  Ditto for Bachman.  Then there's Ron Paul.  What an unbelievably awesome election it would be with Obama running against this crazy Libertarian.  Whoah!!  And of course there's my man Huntsman, who I picked to win the primary because I actually thought the Repubes would figure out that he's the only one that makes any sense and who could possibly beat Obama.  What a shithead I am.

So, what's the downside of re-electing Obama?  Now, readers of this blog know I have my problems with this dude, and many of them he hasn't done much of anything to change (piss-poor communicator, totally fucking up the issue of states rights to implement medical marijuana and others).  However, it's really quite surprising when one stops and considers what this guy has done in three years.  Let's see:
     -ended the Iraq War
     -cleared up the dumbass "don't ask, don't tell" policy of gays in the military
     -extended benefits to same-sex partners of federal employees
     -appointed first Latina to the Supreme Court
     -signed the START treaty with Russia to reduce nuclear weapons
     -repealed the moron Bush's ban on embryonic stem cell research
     -established the credit card bill of rights
     -passed health care reform bill
     -shored up the Veterans Administration medical service, which was an absolute disgrace under Bush
     -extended Pell Grants
     -saved General Motors and Chrysler, almost singlehandedly
     -got Bin Laden
     -ARRA

Not bad!  Now, the ARRA (economic stimulator bill) isn't without controversy.  But when it comes to the economy, this much must be said - it's NOT Obama's economy.  I am so sick and fucking tired of hearing how Obama's failed policies haven't made the economy magically better, or that Obama's stimulus didn't work, or that Obama hates big business and the greedy rats that run them.  This last one is a real laugher.  His Justice Department has yet to press criminal charges against one motherfucker with obvious responsibility in nearly toppling the world economy.  There have been civil charges.  Ha, big deal.  But here's the bottom line - the 2008 collapse of the economy was decades in the making.  The amount of debt created in this world over the last 30 years is beyond comprehension - European countries with 80-120% of debt to their GDP; the commercial and residential mortgage debacle; the huge unfunded pension liabilities of cities and states; and tens of TRILLIONS of dollars in credit default swaps, those nasty side bets on anything and everything that no institution accepting the bet had to actually have the goddamn money on hand to pay out in case of , you know, an actual default!  WTF?  And, of course, the unbelievable amount of credit card and student loan debt taken on by people as well as corporate debt created by the likes of Mitt Romney and other raiders to finance takeovers of companies that would then be torn apart and the pieces sold to the highest bidders while the investment bankers and the deal makers pocketed boatloads of borrowed money for making the deal.  And people, lots of people, laid off.  All of this done to buy today what could be saved for and bought tomorrow.  But why the fuck would anyone do that?  So here we are, and guess who inherited this train wreck from the most inept administration in US history.  That's right, poor old Obama.  The greatest deleveraging in modern times and Obama doesn't have a magic wand to wave to make it all better.  Boohoo. We are talking massive, massive deleveraging, which robs everyone of the ability to spend money right now, even borrowed money since banks are shoring up their depleted capital reserves and aren't lending.  No buying means no selling, and that folks is why we have a snail's pace recovery.  Everyone, and I mean everyone who could have done something to prevent this catastrophe either ignored it or kicked the turd down the road for the next sucker to deal with.  The turd ended up sticking to Obama's shoes.

As with some past second term presidents (not Bush - too dumb), I believe Obama, if re-elected, will be what many centrist and liberals were hoping for - a tough, my way or the highway guy who isn't faced with having to run for office again and will then tackle the thornier stuff.  We'll see. 

Yes, the times are strange - but not hopeless.  In fact, I sense a shift, a slight change in the greater psyche of this beaten down country.  2012 will be better.  I honestly believe that.  So this New Years Eve, raise that glass of champagne at the stroke of midnight and toast yourself and the ones you love and the ones that love you and even the ones that just kind of like you.  You know who they are.  And for God's sake, remember to watch out for the stumps!

Mind Meanderings II

Things have been kinda nuts the last few months at every level - personally, locally, nationally and around this big, bad world of ours.  The sheer volume of topics to write about has left me paralyzed and thus a complete blog slacker for which I am attempting to emerge.  It's not easy my dear followers. 

Personally.  Just wrapped up 5 years of cancer freedom following a diagnosis and radical prostectectomy in November 2006.  PSA - undetectable!   And speaking of PSA, a recent announcement from some branch of the medical community stating PSA is causing more harm than good is bullshit.  I have never, ever read about PSA velocity, or the rate of change of this protein marker.  This is how I caught the cancer early, and it requires getting annual readings.  My PSA at the time of surgery was 2.7, well within the "normal" range of 0-4, yet I had cancer.  It had changed from 0.7 to 2.7 over 3 years.   So, more than a .75/year increase and it's biopsy time.  Now isn't that simple?  Yet this information is not being shared with men by the medical community.  A fucking travesty.

Locally.  This amphibious ranter is taking action!  Rather than sit at a computer and bitch, I'm taking it to the streets with the goal to obtain at least 100 signatures by the end of January to get the Arizona Open Government initiative on the November 2012 ballot.  So look out cause I'm coming for your signature, err Mr. and/or Ms. Registered Voter.  There will be nowhere that's safe to hide, so forget about it!  As previously discussed, this initiative will blow open the primary elections for all voters, not just registered Repubes voting for their candidate and Mocrats theirs.  Registered Independents, who outnumber Democrats in this state, will all be voting the primary and the top two vote getters move on to the general election.  This will force candidates to move to the center instead of sucking up to the radical fringe of their party.  Holy shit I can't wait!

And speaking of initiatives, how about Mesa Legislative District 19 voting to recall nativist Russell Pearce?  After what had to be the dumbest, most disastrous campaign every waged, even the Mo's in Mesa showed they were done with this guy and elected funny man Jerry Lewis.  And according to the instigator of this recall, they're now gunning for Arpaio.  Oh dear God please, please let the most corrupt and inept lawman to ever disgrace the office be defeated.  I promise I will not leave Arizona FOR GOOD is he's defeated.  Otherwise.......

And speaking of gunning, this has to be about the sickest thing I've read in a l-o-n-g time.  The Pima County GOP recently had an auction to raise campaign dough where the prize was, of all things, a Glock handgun.  Yes, that's right, the same gun that was used to shoot Gabby Giffords last January is being offered by the local Repubes (in the same fucking voter district!) as a prize.  WTF is wrong with these people?  Have they NO sense of decency?

Nationally.   These occupiers have me absolutely perplexed.  You see, just living in shit conditions where ever you are doesn't really get anything done people.  Now, as I waxed on about in a recent blog, this movement needs ideas and they need them now.  In fact, I e-mailed the website address of my blog to the local Phoenix Occupy branch with no reply to date.  Also, it would help if they would occupy somewhere meaningful like, ahhh I don't know, how about Washington fucking DC!!!   Call for a march down the mall and get in the faces of the legions of do-nothing politicians milling about.  This all seems so obvious to me - am I missing something?

And speaking of missing something, the labor unions seem to have lost their minds.  Several months ago the Wisconsin Education Association Council, having spent liberally defending public-sector union privileges, announced it was laying off 40 percent of its staff as a result of these legal costs.  It was then denounced by the National Staff Organization, a union for employees of education unions.  Huh??  A very fine way to prove to the masses of union hating Americans that they are dead-on.

Can't leave the national scene without at least a quick word on the GOP presidential candidates.  Newt, the cheating (2 ex-wives, the first he left when she was sick), greedy (1.6 million to be an "Historian" for Freddie Mac, one of the most egregious enablers of the housing meltdown), unbelievably narcissistic (countless books written about his favorite subject - Newt) Gingrich is in front of this pathetic pack.  'Nuff said!

Worldly.   We're basically fucked.  The debt crisis in Europe grows uglier by the day.  Now Italy is paying over 7% to anyone that will buy their debt (bonds) and they cannot continue running the country without borrowing (sound familiar my fellow Americans?).  Greece and Italy have thrown out their worthless socialist leaders after arriving to the conclusion that it's not possible to have a country where you work 35 hours a week, get all of August off and retire at 50.  The people are rioting in the streets for a cause that cannot be maintained - namely the benefits just listed.  Repeat after me people - "there is no more give-away money".  Sorry.  It's almost comical to watch the debt dance being played out on the world economic stage.  And backstage, German Chancellor Angela and French Prez "Nicky" Sarkozy are looking at each other and saying "those dumb-ass guineas, and micks, and wogs, they've run their countries into the ground and we let them do it!!  Now they want us to bail them out"!  Well, you can always disband the EU and let those countries go bankrupt.  Ugly, but the bondholders will get something (not just a haircut) and these countries can then start over.  The EU central bank can back the banks holding the now worthless bonds for enough time to re-build their balance sheets.  I mean, it's all just perception anyway.  The other choice is to keep kicking the stinking debt turd down the road by refinancing this or rebundling that and then, maybe, enough time will have gone by for the world economy to recover and all will be well - except for the one country that will have to take the fall for the rest of the EU and be an example of what must never be allowed to happen again.  Greece, I'm sorry but you're just going to have to take it up the ass.

How About We Occupy Wall Street With Ideas!

My oh my, where to begin, where to begin?  Oh yeah, the REVOLUTION has arrived, and just in time for my return to doing this "weekly" blog!  Well, it's not been quite a weekly thing, but I believe it's fair to acknowledge to my loyal followers that you don't give a rat's ass and neither do I.  Okay, back to the REVOLUTION.

As I've often wondered aloud in many previous blogs, how much shit will the masses of this country eat before rising up?  Apparently less than many thought, like the douchebag Eric Cantor who called the Wall Street Occupiers a mob of anarchist youth set out to destroy the country, or something like that.  That's exactly the response we want from the majority leader of the party that is owned by the top 1%.  Please sir, may we have some more.

Yep, there's a revolution underway, and it seems to be picking up momentum as the message grows with the exponential power of the Internet.  There's even a rally this coming weekend in largely apathetic Phoenix for hell's sake.   It's exciting, it's growing and it has, with apologies to some Canadians who actually came up with it, the lamest name and an agenda that's, well, muddled.  Come on people, this is the revolution I've been wondering and writing about forever and the plan is apparently to just hang out in the lower west side of Manhattan until corporate greed evaporates - or everyone gets a job and goes home.  Now, I applaud this spunk and actually doing something is a hell of a lot more than I'm doing, but it's borderline sad to hear and read about the total lack of message so far.  Sure, great political movements of the past have started with a rag-tag collection of people pissed about something/everything, but truthfully I really can't think of a single one.   Looking back, there's been the Vietnam War protests, civil rights protests, labor protests and the birth of unions, etc. - all more or less singular causes that people could understand and get behind.  But corporate greed???  It's been around since the first caveman fucked another out of his stash of dino meat in some kind of mesozoic Ponzi scheme.

These occupiers know things aren't right in the world - chronic unemployment, foreclosures, bankruptcies, bailed out banks and no one going to jail for their part in fleecing millions.  At the heart of this is the greatest income/wealth gap in this country's history.  But from the interviews with many of the occupiers that I've read lately, it's not hard to reach this conclusion - many of these people are struggling to define a cause and affect that would actually address the "corporate greed" they're rallying against and do so with something that make sense.
Interviewer:  "What do you want"?
Occupier:  "To enforce the corporate tax code.....corporations do everything they can to find loopholes in the tax codes to avoid paying their fair share".
Huh??  The loopholes are in the fucking tax laws already man!  Is anyone at GE going to jail for tax fraud when they paid zero 2010 taxes?  No.  The tax laws must be changed, not enforced as they are to obtain a "fair share" situation.

Unfortunately, as I have read and listened to many of the occupiers, these types of responses seemed to be the rule, not the exception, and the comments posted from those reading these interviews highlight perfectly the sophistication of those in opposition to the occupiers.  Example:  "How much you want to bet this group of young dupes was raised in the era of getting a trophy even if they failed".  Ummm, if they're young there's nothing to bet on Einstein as they were raised in the easy trophy era.  Others then comment on what this jackass said with shit like "you're right on man, they're just lazy slackers and just want to live off the government".  Yeah, that's what it is.

So, at this stage of the revolt, it seems clear the occupiers have a problem defining the movement.  To that end, I humbly offer the following ideas that are actually real solutions to the economic mess I believe these protesters are protesting about.

1.  MOST IMPORTANT.  Pass an amendment to the Constitution that states, simply, corporations are NOT people.  This idiotic relic of an idea came out of the late 1800's when railroads ruled the roost and wanted more clout with Washington.  With this amendment, the recent disgusting ruling by the conservative majority of the Supreme Court that states corporations enjoy free speech and can donate unlimited money to political campaigns could be overturned - would be overturned!  This would be the beginning of campaign reform and weaning politicians from corporate money.  Attention occupiers:  an amendment to the U.S. constitution requires 2/3's of both houses of congress to ratify it or 2/3's of state legislatures to call for a vote, which has never happened before.  You need to know this going forward.
2.  SECOND MOST IMPORTANT.  Reinstate the Glass-Steagall Act (you're welcome Ron Paul).  The repeal of this law in 1999 was the beginning of the end for banks that were allowed to become casinos.  Fucking Bill Clinton signed the change, proposed by Phil Gramm and a bunch of other scum-sucking Republicans who convinced even Democrats like Kennedy, Dodd and Reid to sign on in a pathetic suck-up to the banking industry by both parties.
3.  Uphold anti-trust laws that are already in place.  As has been demonstrated to a most painful degree the last 3 years, bigger is NOT better.  Bigger is bad, bad, bad.  Example:  ATT is currently trying to swallow T-Mobile and the FCC has some concerns it may lower competition.  I have a message for you FCC - it will lower competition you bought-and-sold piece of shit bureaucrats.  These mergers always do, and they also eliminate thousands of jobs which is not a real smart thing to do right now.  This merger idea should have been DOA.
4.  Re-regulate industries.  Airlines, ALL utilities and the gas and oil exploratory divisions of oil companies.  This concept requires it's own blog to adequately explain, but I'll just make this one point.  Remember the names Pan Am, TWA, Eastern, Braniff, etc.  All gone - flew away into the sunset with deregulation.  And of the remaining airlines guess which one is both the most profitable AND the most heavily unionized.  That's right, Southwest Airlines.  'nuff said.
5.  Make the case, loud and clear, that trickle down economics does not work!  Again, a point I've hammered to death already on these pages and will continue to do so.  The money goes sideways people.  The nobility on top don't trickle down shit to the peasants folks, they just buy another house or two, another airplane, a bigger ranch or take a more costly vacation.  These people are not job creators, they're job destroyers.  Example:  Carly Fiorina of Hewlett Packard fame rammed through the acquisition of Compaq Computer about 10 years ago.  Tens of thousands of jobs were lost.  She eventually left with millions in her greedy little hands and last month H-P announces they are getting completely out of the PC market.  Huh???   Such vision!!  Such a fine example of trickle down!!  Old man Reagan would be so proud.
6.  Kind of related, but certainly not on the radar screen.  Two term limitation for Senators.  The merits of this are so vast and intuitive I won't say anything more.
7.  Abolish free trade agreements with every country that has not lived up to their end of the deal, starting with China.  Then slap tariffs on everything and anything they try to import here that is not on equal footing with what we are trying to export to them (like solar panels).  "Oh, but that will create a trade war and prices will go up at Wal-Mart".  Yes they will, but it will force China to right their currency with the rest of the world as their biggest customer (us) will stop automatically buying all their government subsidized shit.  Consumers are in a trench anyway trying to pay down debt, which is good, so let's put the squeeze on now.  This would also be the beginning of stemming the flow of manufacturing jobs overseas.   We have to start somewhere.

If I can figure out the fucking way to do it (see Blog #1), this blog will be e-mailed to someone (with some slight editing first) who claims they have a say in this movement.  I will preface it with this:  people, we need a new name for the movement and I'll get back to you on that.  Also, you're not scaring anyone, especially the Wall Street bunch, with the current mixed bag of generalities.  Besides, that's the tea baggers approach (I'm for Liberty and Justice!) and god knows we don't want to emulate them.  Right?

The Lost Decade

I don't know anyone who lost a family member, friend, enemy, pet, etc. on 9/11.  According to the media, most of the 300+ million people in this country lost someone.  Umm sorry, but that's just not the case.  A very tiny fraction of people were directly affected by this event, and for them the mantra "we will never forget" may actually be a curse compliments of our bullshit media and it's inability to EVER say there's a 2-ton elephant in the room and it's sitting squarely on our country.  Time is a healer, but what if every time you picked up a paper, turned on the news, or scanned the bookshelves at the local retailer and were reminded over, and over, and over again that this nation is on a unbridled quest to avenge your loss, how would you feel years later?  What if you had forgiven and moved on with your life, yet the war on terror precipitated by that day continued at a tremendous cost to the vast majority of U.S. citizens that lost nothing.  Would this bother you?

Let's see what that cost looks like over the last 10 years.  More servicemen and women killed than the total number of people who died in the twin towers, the pentagon and Flight 193.  Tens of thousands more horribly injured by powerful explosives, people that would have died decades ago but are now permanently disabled and disfigured, and a long-term financial drain on this country.  A trillion dollars evaporated - all deficit spending.  Laws of compassion ignored to torture people, often times innocent people. And, in my mind, the biggest cost of all - the cost of a decade of war on people's psyche.  Do you remember what it was like when this country wasn't shipping young people off to die?  When we thought our country, despite some warts, was basically a good country with noble laws and a decent level of respect in the world order.  That's gone now, dredged through the muck of these stupid, useless wars that continue to suck us deeper into the black hole of vengeance at any cost.   It's sickening, and you know who is paying the highest price?  Minorities.  A dis-proportionate number of those killed and maimed in these wars are minorities, and a large number of those minorities are Hispanic.  Yeah, those brown-skinned people conservative nativists are trying like hell to clean out of our cities and states cause, you know, they smell funny or look different and don't always use English to communicate.  These minorities can't get good paying jobs in this country so they join the military and have room and board, medical, dental, retirement and some free schooling.  I wonder how many members of congress over the last 10 years had children in either Iraq or Afghanistan?  I can tell you it's close to ZERO.  Joe Biden had a son or two, but he's not a war hawk and I've never heard him boasting about it.

So, our cowardly media reports on all those feel good stories about 9/11.  On television, commentators are asking sports stars where they were that fateful morning, like anyone actually gives a fuck what some jock was doing 10 years ago.  And the newspapers, with one story after another of how patriotic we all were back then, how this country came together to hear it's commander and chief tell every red-blooded American to go out and buy shit to make things better.  Yeah, that's right, Bush the idiot told everyone to go shopping. Instead of a call to sacrifice, to REALLY do something to fuck with the terrorists like weaning ourselves from too much imported oil, we were told to spend dough.  Leave this terrorists fighting thing up to us, we know how to handle them evil doers.  Well, we know how that turned out.  I believe history will record that response as the worst display of leadership in the history of this country - no close second.

So here we are, 10 years later, stuck in two never-ending, unwinnable wars; suffering intractable unemployment from an economy that may be once again on the brink of collapse; buried in debt beyond belief; witnessing first hand the affects of climate change and the resulting deadly weather; experiencing a wealth-gap that erodes away at our disappearing middle-class and stuck with some of the dumbest, bat-shit crazy politicians in recent history to fix it all.  And, of course, our wounded psyche.  Again, this part scares me more than any other.  Hope is in critically short supply, yet how can we hope for a better tomorrow when nothing ever fucking changes.   Obama's message of hope is a pathetic failure because nothing changed.  Same old tired, bullshit politics.  Meet the new boss, same as the old boss.   We need to be out of the middle east now.  Cut our losses and scram.  We need tariff protections put in place to save jobs.  We need to legalize marijuana then tax it to bring the drug cartels to their knees.  We need a tax overhaul, especially for business, that is simple and we need it now to end the uncertainty over the future so companies will start spending the trillion plus they have stashed away and hire workers again.  And we need a leader who communicates with us.  I've written about it before on this blog and I'll say it again.  Communicate Obama!!!!  Fuck speeches to Congress.  Speak to us, with visual aids like a power-point, or charts and graphs, or anything - and be truthful.  We can take the truth.  We need our collective psyche healed, and it's not going to happen with a media that will never call out lying politicians but instead wants to feed us a steady diet of reality television to somehow make our own reality less pitiful.  We need a leader to guide us out of the last, lost decade and into a tomorrow where we sacrifice, all of us, for the greater good.  We will never survive another decade like the last one - never.

So That's What The NRA Stands For

A recent front page story in the local Arizona paper described how Gabrielle Giffords had finally been told of the other people that were murdered that awful Saturday morning last January.  She certainly had to already know the fate of the people that accompanied her to the event.  But to learn of the little girl, the judge and others had to be very, very tough information to process.

Around the same time, a good friend had received a solicitation from the NRA and thought I would be interested in having a look at it.  OMFG.  The 2-1/2 page letter starts out with this sentence:  "Today, I'm sending out this "Final Notice" to gun owners and freedom-loving Americans across the country to let you know that time is running out - unless you act now, your Second Amendment rights are certain to be dismantled and destroyed".   Gulp!  I had no idea things were so precarious for a freedom loving American like myself, that my gun rights were about to be destroyed, and on top of that it's the "final notice" to the recipient before being drug from their homes in the middle of the night and locked away forever in some gulag unidentified by this letter.  How else to lose one's freedom?    Evidently, powerful gun ban politicians like Hillary Clinton, Charles Schumer (oh, he's a scary guy) and Michael Bloomberg stand ready to fight for an agenda that will ban hundreds of popular rifles, pistols, shotguns (really, shotguns?); limit what guns you can own; bankrupt gun manufacturers and close gun shops and shows.  Hellfire, the infamous "THEY" is coming to get your guns boy, and if you don't send 25.00 to this "non-partisan" organization of greedy, bat-shit paranoids it's all over dude.  Interestingly, the word "fight" is used many times, and usually precedes the word freedom.  I guess the NRA believes that the word "fight" is key to getting gun owners wound up.

Now, maybe I'm the one that's bat-shit crazy here, but I do believe the state of Arizona just passed a number of freedom-enhancing gun-laws in the last Legislative session.  For instance, anyone 21 years or older can carry a concealed weapon without a permit, even into a frickin bar.  Yeah, alcohol and guns, now that's freedom.  Of course, an unconcealed gun can be carried on a person anywhere in the state, including while riding your horse to the round-up.  This little known fact was on full display by some glory seeking schmuck at an anti-Obama rally in Phoenix a while back.  Another new state law stripped cities and counties of the ability to limit firearms from being discharged within their boundries, the only limitation being if the gun is within 1/4 mile of an occupied structure.  Huh?  Can't bullets easily travel up to a mile?  Well that's certainly sensible. Oh, and people previously diagnosed as mentally ill who then become "cured" can buy guns again.  Yippee!  Now in the spirit of full disclosure, the Gov did veto the right of people to carry guns on state university campuses, and the gun lobby was shocked. Yet I did not see Jan Brewer's name in the NRA letter next to Hillary's - uhm, perhaps it was just an honest oversight.   

So, what's the big deal about over-selling a membership in a "grass-roots" organization like the NRA?  I mean, the people being targeted have the liberty, the freedom to send in their 25.00 and save this country from this apparent oppression.   I am, in fact, a gun owner - several rifles, a shotgun and a hand gun.  Last time I checked, this allows me to hunt just about any type of wild beast around these parts and protect my home.  But this kind of talk is too rational, too sensible, and distracts from the bullshit message that this country is in a "fight" to keep the citizens armed when in fact it's just the opposite.  The U.S. already has the most unbelievably laxed gun laws on the planet.  In Arizona, they just keep getting more gun friendly - and dangerous.  Who wants some whack-job firing off a high-powered rifle 1/4 mile away from their home?  And what is the purpose of having an assault, fully-automatic gun available for purchase by the average hunter?  This is a weapon to kill people, nothing else.  Yet the ban on these guns was not reenacted when that provision of the Brady bill came up for a new vote years ago.  No other country in the world has such liberal and stupid gun laws, and no other country comes remotely close to the number of violent deaths of it's citizens from guns.  But in the twisted logic of the NRA, that's the reason for easier access to guns so we can "fight" the perps using guns to kill and maim with even more guns to kill and maim and so on and so on.

Gabrielle Giffords' shooting was framed this way.  Instead of a coherent, logical discussion of some type of changes to our laws to help keep guns out of the hands of violent, unbalanced people, we just need more guns to shoot them first.  Yeah, that's what's going to happen.  This message of fear continues it's ugly march forward, reminding us that we must elect politicians that deficit spend on wars and defense budgets to protect us from terrorists that several generations ago used sling-shots to fight each other (until we armed them), and also reminding us we must contribute cash to bully organizations that feed this frenzy of fear because THEY are coming to get your guns!  And THEY are absolutely not the least bit concerned about the fact that they're coming to get a device that is completely lethal.   THEY better show up in a tank.

I'm Voting "None Of The Above"

OMG - I just rushed up the stairs to the computer and can hardly contain my glee.  Glee does not usually result in a rant, but there's a-move-a-foot, something positive and hopeful and meaningful and it's in politics, and this thing, this idea could, possibly, be the beginning of the end of our completely fucked up political system.  No, I'm not talking about the recall of Russell Pearce, which is an obvious glimmer of light.  What I am talking about is a ballot initiative being penned as I type by a former Phoenix mayor named Paul Johnson, a Democrat turned Independent, and his committee.  This ballot measure, called The Open Government Initiative, would change the Arizona constitution to allow a single election primary open to ALL candidates and ALL registered voters with the top vote getter's moving on to the general election.  It would effectively kill the god-awful 2-party system we have all had to endure for way too long.  Like I said, OMG!!  Parties could still run their primaries at their own expense (not taxpayers) and candidates are free to put their party affiliation on the ballot.  But an Independent could now run in the primary as an Independent, not a "moderate Democrat" or "centrist Republican" or some other slightly right/left of Atilla The Hun label or whatever crap label the opposing party wants to stamp a candidate with.  Think about it - this forces politicians to appeal to all voters in the primary, not just their own whacked out party loyalists.

I first read about this several months ago and checked out the website address.  Not much of a site at the time but I sent in an e-mail asking for more information.  Weeks went by and no reply, so I figured this was just another flash-in-the-pan idea that had already been stomped to death by the 2-party behemoth.  But then, last week, an e-mail popped up from Mr. Johnson himself, apologizing for the slow reply as the response to the article had completely overwhelmed the website and staff.  I almost cried.  Could this be the beginning, the revolutionary idea that finally empowers the masses to actually change our dysfunctional, hypocritical, paralyzed form of government by giving people a THIRD CHOICE????  In Arizona, there are now more voters registered with no-party affiliation (read:  Independents) than there are registered Democrats.  And the numbers keep growing, and growing quickly.  From April 1st of this year to July 1st, there were 13,149 people who registered to vote with no party preference, yet the total voter registration only increased by 1,986.  So over 11,000 dumped one of the 2 parties to change to no party!  That's huge, and a story no one is talking about.  Registered Repubes still out-number Independents in Arizona, but just barely.

When this measure sees the light of day, Demos and Repubes will, at last, have something they can agree on.  But how uncomfortably delicious it will be watching them squirm as they try and mealy-mouth their concerns about changing the way, you know, things have always been and how the electorate, you know, doesn't know what they're doing here and, you know, blah, blah, blah, blah............ Oh sweet Jesus, let it happen!

This could be a game-changer.  Paul Johnson was, in my humble opinion, the best damn mayor Phoenix has had since I've been living here.  He's smart and he knows how to get shit done.  Then it will be up to the nearly one million registered Arizona Independents to act and get this initiative on the ballot.  It seems impossible to fathom that this measure would not be approved, but we are talking about Arizona.  The level of bi-polar conscientiousness in this State is beyond belief - passing medical marijuana in the same election where Russel Pearce and Jan Brewer were elected is just one fine example.  But I believe this time it's different.  The Great Recession has accelerated the once slow, insidious decline of the middle class in this country, a decline perpetuated by government polarization from a 2-party system where the easiest thing to do is just kick the stinking turd down the road for the next group of suckers who will then do everything they can to keep from stepping on it.  People have fucking had it!!  With more choice will come more action from elected individuals not beholding to a party dogma and free to actually do what the people elected then to do. 

I know, I know, this whole idea is fanciful, and idealistic, and perhaps not even the big thing that finally makes a difference.  But how wonderful it is to contemplate the possibility of figuratively checking the ballot box in a future election:  "none of the above"!

In The Spring There Could Be Growth

Late last year a prominent economist, who's name I can't seem to recall, made a bold prediction - by this summer of 2011 the housing crisis would be history, employment would be growing robustly and all would be well.  He based this rosy scenario on two basic ideas:  1)  housing had bottomed out and the country's private companies would be growing and hiring.  Whoops, missed 'er by just that much.  Now I'm not going to sit here and disparage this highly educated and occasionally correct economist, as I'm sure his crystal ball was not working well that day.  But I am going to offer up, as promised, the following observations along with two ideas for getting this country's economic train wreck cleared off the tracks so we can start rolling again. 

Let's face it, the housing market still sucks and will likely continue this way for at least another 12-18 months.  Interest rates remain low and the FHA is backing practically any mortgage thrown its way, so why the continuing doldrums?  Mainly it's a lack of jobs of course, as well as the always tenuous deflation scenario where everyone keeps waiting to buy "at the bottom".  However, without buyers, there is no bottom.  Like many economic cycles, we just keep circling the drain.  So how do we break this cycle?  I believe the first step is to get the myriad of companies in this country that are reporting OK balance sheets and net income gains every quarter, including our beloved banks, to start spending and hiring again.  Without question, one of the main reasons the stock market has been gangbusters for several years and is currently not far from historic highs is that companies are profitable and they have a ton of dough laying around.  In fact, according to Reuters, US companies are holding a combined 1 trillion in cash.  Or should I say hoarding the cash.  This amount is much more than Obama's stimulus package, which finished up somewhere around 700 billion.  WTF? 

I'll tell you WTF.  The economic world remains way too uncertain, and uncertainty is the killer of private investment, and private investment creates jobs.  Sorry you dumb-ass Republicans, but rich CEO's don't create jobs, they just siphon off obscene amounts of money that could go towards hiring workers.  Don't need a PHD in Economics to figure that out.  CEO's do make decisions about how company profits are divided up, but large companies haven't been the main source of job creation for some time.  It's medium and small businesses, start-ups and the like, capitalized by hedge funds and individual investors who are more sensitive to the potential for loss than some CEO who knows he'll collect millions even if he's a complete buffoon and drives his company over a cliff.  It's in his contract bro.

So we need stability and certainty, and this starts at the top.  Mr. Obama, no more financial rules-changing bills for now.  Give in to the House morons, raise the debt ceiling and put off the big decisions about reducing the deficit until later.  I can't believe I'm saying that but certainty must be restored to the economy now so all that stored money can start flowing.  Also, allow interest rates to creep up a bit.  Yeah the stock market will get runny shit for a spell, but a sense of doing something today, before it gets more expensive, is desperately needed.  We need some goddamn inflation Bernanke, and it's time to end the free ride for the banks.  If they're still needing to be propped up, fuck 'em as they're too far gone.  This morass of waiting for zombie banks to get healthy is what killed the Japanese economy for 2 decades.  Every dollar entering the economy is borrowed in from the Fed, so if the bank is a credit risk, let them fail.  End it now!!  We must move on!

In addition of certainty, we need to crack the endless cycle of unemployment, and to do this we need a jobs idea that actually fucking works.  So, as I have done before, I turn to Germany, the leader of the Eurozone and the land of many smart motherfuckers.  Germany's economy is growing at 3.5% and unemployment is below 6%.  Not stupendous but a whole better than the U.S.  So how did the Deutschlanders pull this off?  An idea called Hartz IV Labor Reforms has helped a bunch.  When introduced, rioting broke out as the main reform was cutting unemployment benefits.   But there was a method to this madness - a work sharing arrangement between the federal government and private industry where companies were encouraged to cut hours rather than workers.   Then lost wages from working less were made up by a type of unemployment benefit from government, up to 67% of lost income.  People kept their jobs while companies enjoyed a more flexible and trained workforce.  Laying people off and then hiring new ones is inefficient and expensive.  This reform also prodded the chronically unemployed to take a job, any job, in order to continue receiving benefits.  This reform helped fix many problems with unemployment.  Workers kept their skills honed and union contracts remained intact, helping to eliminate the open warfare on unions that is occurring in this country.  Germany has enjoyed a continuing decrease in unemployment despite the fact that they experienced a deeper recession (according to the numbers) that the U.S.  Brilliant!!

It's like the residential solar panel requirement the German government has in place that I've reported on before.  It's smart, efficient and one other thing - oh yeah, it works!!   When-o-when will the leaders of this country grow a brain?  Why doesn't Obama call a fire-side chat and explain to this ignorant population ideas like this, ideas that are proven to work?  Use some Ross Perot graphs and shit, act enthusiastic about it, build a consensus and then DO IT.  Communicate intelligence.  It might catch on by spring so we can start growing our way out of this fucking mess!

Mind Meanderings

Sunday afternoon, listening to I.H., drinking a beer and Jesus H. Christ (pronounced "Hay-zeus" "H" "Krist") it's HOT outside.  Everybody sing:  "I'm living in Purgatory, I know what Purgatory is, this ain't no sanctuary, this ain't no way to live.  You gotta have a sense of humor, you gotta know how to laugh to live.  I'm living in Purgatory, and anything's better than this!"  Frickin' furnace that Phoenix is in July; my brain's too hot to think too deeply, not that I'm some kind of deep thinker, but ranting just doesn't seem to be on today's to-do list.  Please note that I have not forgotten last weeks promise to offer the necessary fixes for our economic woes, and this will be revealed soon, but today I offer some milder observations and, perhaps, a little something more.

Divorces are down.  Only in the '70's did 1 out of every 2 marriages end in divorce even though that dreadful statistic keeps getting repeated even today.  In fact, the divorce rate peaked in 1980 and has been dropping ever since.  Many reasons are intuitive - the freeing of souls in the 1960's, the "me" decade of the 1970's and the waiting until later pattern of the 1980's and beyond.  Still, an excellent trend.

In Arizona, it turns out that the majority of political donations are not from corporations, lobbyist or their like.  It's from individuals, with retirees leading the pack.  Surprising.  Democracy lives!

America continues to fatten up as the percentage of obese people keeps getting, ummm, bigger.  Two fixes I've mentioned before - charge people higher health care premiums for increased BMI and outlaw high fructose corn syrup - seem to be in order.  The corn farmers will then have a bunch more to sell the Chinese who have shown a willingness to pay big bucks for it.  This, in turn, will reduce our trade deficit and eventually turn all the billions of skinny, hard-working Chinese into fatter, lazier and sicker workers so we can get all of those jobs back that have been shipped over there.  Win-lose!

Bill Maher must be an unidentified follower of this blog, as his last New Rule the other night was exactly the same theme of as the parting paragraph of my last blog - out of work, downtrodden, middle-class Republicans voting for the people who are screwing them over. Come on Bill, identify yourself!

Another sad documentary of our times:  the price of a grave at a municipal cemetery is quadrupling in some cities.  Yikes, best to keep living for a while.  On the up-side, funeral costs for pets are dropping due to good old American capitalistic competition.

And now a little something more.  Please indulge this old web-footed, bug-eyed amphibian for a minute whilst I get a bit philosophical.   You see, sometimes I just can't help but wonder why so many good things have happened to me and what I did to deserve them.  I know there are many, many people hurting these days - good, honest people who are just trying to hang on and likely wondering what the hell they did to deserve their situation.  This only amplifies my wonderment and appreciation, and I can tell you that this goes way beyond economic circumstance and even good health.  It's family and love (see profile!).  And at the heart of this good fortune are the ladies in my life.  And so I would like to say, to my wife of 30 years, thank you and I love you.  To my daughter of 26 years, thank you and I love you.  To my mother of 58 years, thank you and I love you.  To my daughter-in-law of 3 years, thank you and I love you (love you too son, you lucky bloke).  Each of these women are the best - loving, caring, intelligent, beautiful, witty and just absolutely delightful in every way.  Oh, and to one more lady I almost forgot.  To lady luck, my sincere thanks for making me the luckiest frog in the pond!

 

The Other Vietnam

To my army of 3 followers, it must seem like an eternity since I posted.  My deepest apologies.

Obama sucks.  I know, not long ago I was laying the yellow bricks for his walkway to a second term.  He just can't LEAD!  The country needs him to:  1)  Declare a fucking medical marijuana policy for the States to follow so we don't get the stupid shit presently bogging down Arizona's progress; 2)  Don't send good time Joe in with the Reubes to negotiate deficit reduction and then act surprised when it didn't work out; 3)  Get us the hell out of Afghanistan!! 
Now this last item has so many merits even Repubes are starting to grouse about it.  Obama's tepid idea to march a few troops out here and a few out there is beyond my comprehension.  It's been 10 years, we've killed and maimed enough young people, and we can't afford it!!!!!   Oh, and that other small thing that no one dares mention - it's fucking un-winable.  Even Russia couldn't defeat them (whoever "them" is) after 8 years, and they live right next door.  I remember in the 1980's a political cartoon showing a turbine-topped fellow with a machine gun on his shoulder sitting in front of a sign that says "Welcome To Afghanistan".  Only he's crossed through Afghanistan and written Vietnam.  Yeah, it was the USSR's Vietnam.  And because this country was once lead by the dumbest mother-fucker to ever hold office greater than a garbage-truck operator (my apologies to all garbage truck operators), we have yet another Vietnam.  Let's see here, how did that turn out?   Oh yeah, I remember - we lost.  The paper tiger ran, as the communist knew we would eventually. 

And so, the paper tiger needs to leave again - now.  The Taliban will never, ever, just go away, and they didn't attack us.  Install a UN peace force in Kabul, Kandahar, Mazar-I-Sharif and maybe a few other large cities to try and provide a safe haven for people and let the Taliban have the rest.  From what I hear and read, the majority of people not living in the biggest cities would rather live under the Taliban rule again.  They've fucking had it with war, and who can blame them.  Al-Qaeda is on it's back, leaderless, out of money and hated by most in the region for killing too many Muslims, and they don't need Afghanistan to congregate and plot sinister things- they have Pakistan!  On top of all that, the Afghan government is totally corrupt and we know this will never change.  Leaving provides more benefits than the CEO of Exxon gets:  we save tens of billions a year, no more killing of our kids, one less reason for the Muslim world to hate us as we are not occupying one of their countries, and one more roadblock eliminated in the argument for reducing the defense budget.  A recent poll showed 60-something percent of people want the war to end, now.  Sounds to me like a majority Mr. Obama.

We need to save money and cut the defense budget big time.  The idiot politicians on both sides of isle are playing Russian roulette with the economy over increasing the national debt ceiling, and they have no idea how dangerous this could be.  Next week, Economics 101 and Frog's secret recipe for getting the country back on solid financial footing.  The ingredients are available, sensible and non-poisonous. 

I can't wrap this week up without an honorable mention to the Republican Legislature of Arizona for refusing to change one word of a bill that would allow federal money to keep flowing for unemployment benefits.  Everyone knows the unemployed are just sitting around smoking pot and watching re-runs of god knows what while getting free money.  It's like Dan Quayle said during the last recession when he saw a help wanted sign at McDonalds.  Shit man, they're jobs out there.  Well, obviously he and the other employed Republican Americans just don't understand what the problem is.  What I don't understand is how these slimy, heartless, soulless and obviously clueless politicians get elected.  Aren't Republican voters out of work too?  Don't they finally understand that their party would rather put people hanging by a thread into foreclosure, bankruptcy and let them starve rather than accept money from the feds that costs the state nothing in order to make some twisted symbolic gesture of fiscal discipline?  That's your party Republicans!!  Praise Jesus, light the pipe and pass the remote!

 

  

This Is Hard Work

Back in March I penned (errr, typed) a blog with a blaring title proclaiming the recession to be over.  Yes, the statistics keep pouring in - exports are up, stock market up-a-plenty, unemployment down and corporate CEO earnings back in the ionosphere.  Thank God!  CEO pay was flat in 2009, and the poor bastards had to actually work - at keeping stock and bond holders convinced not to sell.  Well the good times are back for these favored souls, and we can thank in order of importance:  Bernanke the Fed chief, China, the federal government, the working slugs of America and the CEO's themselves.
The Fed?  How about I give you all the billions you want, charge 0.0000001% interest and you can take the money and:  bid up commodity prices, buy treasuries at 2.5%, loan it out at 5% or even buy steeply discounted mortgage backed securities for all Bernanke cares.  Fucking hard NOT to make money in that game.  In Arizona, CEO pay jumped 48% in 2010.  The two old white fucks that run the local copper conglomerate Freeport-McMoRan made 43.8 and 47.5 million each - in just one year!  Yeah, it was a tough slog too as copper prices quadrupled due to China needing (hoarding) metals and the rest of the commodities world jumping aboard for the ride.  Thanks China.  These money grubbers did nothing more than sit back and let the frenzied market drive the price of what they're selling thru the roof creating an artificial windfall for all those at the top.  Oh yeah, I'm sure there were a lot of meetings and big decisions to be made and people to lay off.  As Bush the Bonehead would say - "It's hard work"!
In a story on the adjacent page of the paper, thousands of people are wondering how they will manage to eat and find a place to live due to the cutbacks in state and local spending.  Many are laid off, ex-middle class white people, not whiny black welfare exploiters.
Then there's the federal government.  Reagan's trickle sideways idea, Senior Bush's continuing deregulation of everything, Clinton's signing off on the demise of the Glass-Stegall Act, Junior Bush's complete abandonment of the SEC enforcement efforts (Madoff loved it!) and now Obama's continuing ambivalence toward business and his failure to push tax-reform that would:  1) limit corporate welfare tax breaks, and 2) make hedge-fund billionaires pay the same fucking tax rates working people do.  As Warren Buffett famously said - "My secretary pays a higher tax rate than I do".  And the Supreme Court's recent ruling upholding the 1880's idea that a business is somehow a person and allowing limitless corporate campaign contributions to politicians.  This shit isn't partisan, it's unbelievably unjust.
And the working slugs of American?  Yes, we all had a hand in this.  By voting against our own economic self-interest time and time again, we have reaped what we sowed.  Let's see, I'm religious and Democrats are not, so I'm voting Republican.  Let's see, I'm an atheist and Republicans are not, so I'm voting Democrat.
Which leaves the CEO's.  Unconscionable pay and stock options granted to them by their buddies on the board and aided by the majority stockholders, who are almost always institutional outfits like pension plans, that say nothing as their board members hope to one day be on the board of the company who's stock they own. 
Nobody is worth 47 million a year, unless they invent a cure for cancer.  When that day comes, I will personally make every effort to find out which lab scientist making 75K a year actually made the discovery and make sure his name is included in a future blog.  That's right, money can't buy everything!