Of Principalities and Powers

They Used to Be Convictions

2011-02-14T06:41:00.000-08:00

The internet world was rocked today by the announcement that Of Principalities and Powers (known to its legion of fans as “OPP,” or sometimes just “Oh, Pee”) has opened its pages to corporate advertising and, in a clearly-related development, is involved in negotiations to sell the blogsite. This follows close on the heels of the news, late last Sunday, that Huffington Post co-founder Arianna Huffington is selling her liberal website to media giant AOL for $315 million.

At a hastily-called news conference, Of Principalities and Powers founder C. A. Russell said the blog was branching out into celebrity coverage and would immediately make its pages available for advertising at competitive rates to “interested corporate entities.”

When asked what prompted the moves, Russell said that it was “a timely response to opportunities to enhance our revenue stream and position ourselves more favorably for corporate takeover in the upscale market.” When asked to clarify his statement, he paused and then said, “I’m selling out.”

Queried about what corporate advertisers the blog was targeting. Russell specified “the financial sector, energy conglomerates, defense contractors, and major pharmaceuticals.” After reporters pointed out that those were the corporate areas often singled out for criticism on the blog’s pages, he responded, “Precisely. That’s why it makes sense for them to book advertising and then exercise their financial clout to shape blog content.”

“Does that mean that you’re actually inviting those corporations to gut your columns in exchange for cash?” asked one stunned reporter.

Russell failed to answer the question directly, saying instead, “I think I’ve already spelled out my basic stance. This has been just another in a long lifetime of hard winters, and my wife and I have never been to St. Thomas, Anguilla, St. Barths, St. Vincent, Cancun, or even Hawaii. The house we’re renting is being sold, I haven’t owned a new vehicle since 1972, we currently have nowhere near enough income to qualify for tax breaks, and Congress is poised to cut Social Security and medical benefits as wars eat up half the federal budget. Add to all that the sale of The Huffington Post, and clearly the time was right to rethink my positions.”

“By ‘positions’ do you mean ‘convictions’?”

“They used to be ‘convictions’: now they’re ‘positions’.”

“What makes you think Of Principalities and Powers will attract the big-bucks advertisers you mentioned?”

“Our financial advisers tell us that corporations are always on the lookout for areas with an exceptionally pure water supply. Once identified, those areas become prime targets for commercial and residential development, since pure water is an increasingly rare commodity. Our blog holds a comparable position in the media landscape. It’s virtually undiscovered, and in laboratory tests our columns consistently rate pro-peace, pro-nonviolence, pro-democracy, pro-human rights, pro-civil liberties, pro-environment, pro-poor and middle class, pro-tolerance, pro-arts, pro-education, and pro-activism. We’re 99.44% pure. That should make us extremely attractive as an area for commercial growth.”

“But my understanding is that the level of pollution in a water supply has a direct correlation with the level of development,” commented one reporter.

“Yes?”

“Well, I guess I’m asking if you expect the analogy to play out that way. Areas have pure water, get developed, and then have polluted water. Your blog is pure, it gets developed, and ...?”

“In both cases, think of the new revenues.”

“I’m not sure that addresses my question....”

“You need to understand our corporate vision. We feel that with our new partner--whomever that may be--we can embrace the digital future and become a digital destination that delivers unmatched experiences for both consumers and advertisers.”

“Consumers? Haven’t you always thought of your readers as citizens first?”

“We’re rethinking our business model. We see ourselves now as serving advertisers rather than the public.”

“Do you really think the culture needs another media outlet tarted up with celebrity coverage?” asked one reporter hesitantly. “I mean, won’t it just distract people from the issues that matter to keep plastering pictures and stories of Lindsay Lohan, Kim Kardashian, and Christina Aguilera all over your pages?”

“I see celebrity coverage simply as a way to attract more viewers to the blog. Like spooning sugar on a grapefruit.”

“How far have you gotten in your efforts to sell your blog?”

“I can’t divulge many specifics at this time. I can tell you that we’re engaged in extremely delicate negotiations with a number of serious candidates, including Fox News, AOL, Disney, and Viacom.”

“And the price tag?”

“Our starting point is the Huffington Post deal. They draw about 25 million visitors to their site per month, and sold for $315 million. We’re looking at prorating our price based on our number of monthly viewers.”

Hastily scribbling notes, one reporter asked, “So can you give us a ballpark figure for your selling price?”

“Somewhere in excess of $2,500.”

The reporter looked up. “I don’t think that will get you a week on St. Barths.”

“We’re willing to settle for Tampa.”

An Equal-Opportunity Peace Advocate

2011-02-08T06:54:00.000-08:00

Writer’s note: This column is a sequel to the November 8, 2010, column “War? What War?” in which Uncle Whitt chastised Ace for his foolish claim that we were a nation at war. Unfortunately for Ace, he fares no better this time around in an encounter with another neighbor.

* * *

I found a parking place with twenty minutes still left on it at the side of the courthouse, and hurried out front to catch the peace protestors. With a little luck, I could finish up and get back to the car before it was time to put another dime in the meter.

Three people were standing on the sidewalk, holding hand-lettered signs and waving when a car happened to drive by. I didn’t recognize a couple who appeared to be in their seventies, but my heart sank at the sight of the third one, who was all too familiar. Ms. Carrie Higgins, my former third grade teacher, now a feisty octogenarian. “How’re you doin’, Ms. Higgins?” I said. “What’s your sign say?”

She turned, saw who I was, and held her sign up so I could see it. “You can read it yourself by now, I expect,” she said.

“Give Peace a Chance,” I read, and nodded. “We got a news tip that you folks had some pretty controversial messages,” I told her. “Guess it was accurate. That’s certainly provocative. What has the public reaction been to your sign?”

She considered. “We’ve been coming out here almost every Thursday for nine years, Ace, so your tip is a trifle tardy. But to answer your question, a lot of people wave at me as if I’m a distant cousin by this time. Other people give me a thumbs-up or make the peace sign, which is encouraging.”

“How about negative reactions?”

She laughed. “We get some of those too. Once in a while somebody scowls and jerks his thumb down. One gentleman raises his middle digit each week as he drives by. Some people crank their windows down and yell for us to move to Iraq if we don’t like it here.”

“Why did you laugh?” I asked.

“I laugh because their reactions baffle me,” she said. “Really, now. ‘Give Peace a Chance’? How can that be objectionable? Can you explain that to me?”

“Well, it’s political, isn’t it?” I said.

“I’ve often thought about what Colman McCarthy said about politics,” she answered. “He said the true definition was ‘Who decides where the money goes.’ And in that sense, it’s certainly political. Do these bitter, angry people really endorse killing women and children, destroying cities, diverting a trillion dollars away from health and education and employment and research and what all, and bringing home horribly wounded and mentally scarred sons and daughters as their return on their tax dollars?”

“I meant political parties,” I said. “They’re probably Republicans, and you’re criticizing George Bush’s war.”

Ms. Higgins gave a ladylike sniff. “The last time I looked, Ace, Barack Obama, a Democrat, was president. Mr. Obama has increased the military budget every year he has been in office and has escalated the wars in Afghanistan and Pakistan. We are as opposed to his policies as we were to Mr. Bush’s. I’m an equal-opportunity peace advocate.”

I glanced at my watch. I still had about four minutes.

“Maybe they see your protest as unpatriotic,” I offered. “If our country is at war, you should support the war.”

She gave me an appraising look, and I squirmed. For a minute I was back in an old high-ceilinged classroom with an oiled wooden floor. “If the war is unjust, am I obliged to back it anyway?” she asked.

“Uh, it’s our country ....,” I began, and stopped.

“If the war is bankrupting the nation and robbing our children and grandchildren of their future, am I obliged to support it?”

“Well, Ms. Higgins ....”

“If the war is alienating millions of people overseas, turning them into our enemies, and making us less safe in the long run, am I obliged to support it?”

“Well, you know, uh ....”

“If I surrender any moral sense I have, and any critical thinking ability I have, I’m simply a slave of the state, not a free and responsible citizen,” she declared with some passion. “Are you seriously suggesting that loving your country enough to try to persuade it to halt a disastrous war is unpatriotic?”

Actually I was, I guess. But I stole a glance at my watch and breathed a quick sigh of relief. “I wish I had more time to talk with you,” I told her, “but I think I’ve got enough for a story. If I don’t leave now, I’m liable to get a parking ticket.”

“That’s a convenient excuse, Ace,” she sighed. “I’m afraid you haven’t changed a great deal in forty years. When are you going to grow up?” And she pivoted and resumed waving her sign at cars as they drove past.

Family Ties

2011-01-31T12:29:00.000-08:00

But you're so far away

Doesn't anybody stay in one place anymore?

It would be so fine to see your face at my door,

And it doesn't help to know you're so far away

- “So Far Away,” lyrics by Carole King

* * *

I had our Great Dane out for her morning constitutional, and one of the new neighbors stopped to admire her.

“She’s a beautiful dog,” he said, as she tried to climb up into what would have been his lap if he were sitting. “My name’s Rick, by the way.”

“Chuck,” I said, reaching out to shake his hand. “We live around the corner in the yellow house. She’s just a pup. She has a lot of filling out to do yet. Our son in Tennessee brought her up for us the last time he came up for a visit.”

“Tennessee?” he said. “My dad was from Tennessee, near Sparta.”

“No kidding?” I said. “My dad was born in Kentucky, but he and my mother lived in Tennessee for a few years before they moved to West Virginia.”

“So you’re from West Virginia originally?” he asked.

“Yep,” I said. “The state calls itself America’s Switzerland sometimes, but that’s a joke. Switzerland is rich, educated, and secure. They would no more strip mine their mountains than they’d desecrate a painting by Paul Klee or drive a bulldozer through their front door. We're actually the Ireland of America. Just like the Irish, we labored for the benefit of absentee landlords, were driven out of our homes to find food and work, and scattered all over the world, taking our music and our accents with us.”

“So where did you scatter to?” he wanted to know.

“Oh, I worked for a few years in North Carolina, and then got a job at an assembly plant in Ohio.”

“Is that right?” he said. “Where in Ohio? I was stationed there after I got back from Vietnam.”

“Near Cincinnati,” I said. “I worked in a GM assembly plant. It’s shut down now.”

“No kidding!” he said. “I was stationed at Wright-Patterson outside Dayton. I was two years there before I got transferred to Edwards AFB in California.”

“Our youngest daughter lived in San Francisco for a few years,” I told him. “Then her husband’s company relocated. They were in Seattle and then Chicago. They’re up in Portland, Oregon, now.”

“Sounds as if your kids are pretty scattered,” he commented.

“Well, the oldest boy is in Alabama. He met a girl from there when they were in school together in Georgia. The next one is the one in Tennessee. He got a job there after he finished school in Kansas. And then there’s the daughter in Oregon, and another one in Minnesota. She wants us to move up there, but I told her I have a tough enough time with the winters here in Virginia.”

“Must be hard seeing your grandkids, if you have any,” he said.

“We’ve got five. We’d like to see a lot more of them,” I admitted. “The oldest just graduated from MIT. He took a job with a company in Connecticut--something to do with extreme low temperature physics. How about you? You have any kids?”

“Just two, both girls,” he said. “The younger one’s a teacher up in Alaska. She went to school in New Jersey and then graduate school in New York City. The older one is living in New Mexico. She was working in Louisiana, but got driven out by Katrina. She moved to Nevada but didn’t care for it. She says she likes it in New Mexico, though.”

“I drove through it once when my sister and her husband were living in California,” I said. “But they’re in Colorado now.”

“Colorado’s a beautiful place,” he said, “but it’s getting overrun. It’s like Arizona; too popular for its own good.”

“I guess so,” I said. “My uncle and his wife moved to Phoenix years ago because of his asthma. But I hear the air is as bad there now as it is anywhere else. Maybe worse.”

“I don’t know about that,” he laughed. “My brother lives in Pittsburgh, and the air there will peel the paint right off of your car. Imagine what is does to your lungs.”

“I’ve got a niece in Houston,” I said. “She says the pollution there is a nightmare.”

“One of my cousins lives in Dallas,” he told me. “She was an Army nurse for twenty years and out. Lived in nine different countries. I haven’t seen her in--gosh, must be thirty years now.”

“Are you originally from Texas?” I asked.

“No,” he laughed, shaking his head. “I was born in Mississippi, but we moved to Missouri when I was just a kid. My father’s brother went to work in the oil fields in Oklahoma, and one of his daughters married a petroleum engineer. That’s how they wound up in Texas. But they’ve been all over the world.”

“So how did you end up here in Virginia?” I asked.

“Oh, after I got out of the Air Force I took a job with the government in DC. We lived in Maryland and commuted for years. But when I retired, we decided to move some place walkable, where traffic doesn’t dominate your life.”

“Maryland,” I said. “Where in Maryland?”

“Bethesda,” he said.

“My wife’s brother lived in Silver Spring for years,” I said. “He’s from Iowa, but he lost his job there when the company he was working for outsourced his job to India. He and his wife moved to Maine a few years ago when they retired.”

“Is that right?” he said. “Small world, isn’t it?”

“It doesn’t feel so small when you’re missing someone,” I said. “We’re a nation of nomads. Freedom’s just another word for somewhere else to move.”

“‘Me and Bobby McGee,’” he laughed. “I loved that song, back when I was living in.... Darn, where was I living then?”

Four Thousand Upward

2011-01-24T11:35:00.001-08:00

A southwest Virginia school district [Giles County] is reposting copies of the Bible's Ten Commandments in all county schools, despite concerns that doing so is unconstitutional. .... The decision came even though the board's attorney had previously advised that such Christian displays represent unconstitutional government endorsement of religion. - ZINIE CHEN SAMPSON, Associated Press

* * * *

LA School Board Approves Posting of Texts from Upanishad, Qur'an, Tao Te Ching, The Analects of Confucius, Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, Book of Mormon, The Divine Principle, Zend Avesta, Kojiki, Dianetics, and Zhuan Falun

LOS ANGELES, Ca (MP) - This Californian school district is posting texts from the Upanishad, the Qur’an, the Tao Te Ching, the Analects of Confucius, Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, the Book of Mormon, The Divine Principle, Zend Avesta, Kojiki, Dianetics, and Zhuan Falun in all classrooms in the district, despite objections that doing so violates the Constitution.

The seven-member Los Angeles School Board voted unanimously to post the framed three-foot-wide-by-four-foot-tall texts after parents and local ministers, rabbis, gurus, monks, healers, teachers, elders, and other religious leaders demanded space equal to that of Christians, who recently pressured the board to hang copies of the Ten Commandments in the district’s classrooms.

Monday night’s board meeting was packed with supporters from the various faiths, who sat in separate sections to avoid contamination and reduce the chance of violence. Speakers from each faith rose to shout over the objections of the others, telling the board that the schools had a moral obligation to reinforce God’s/Allah’s/the Supreme Being’s/Vishna’s/the Tao’s/Mohammed’s/Confucius’s/et cetera’s teachings.

“After hearing from these members of our community,” said perspiring Superintendent Donald Madison, “we just felt this was the right thing to do. It will take us a while to get copies of all the texts printed and framed, but we think we can have them in the classrooms by mid-April, at the latest.”

Madison noted that other faith traditions, not represented at last night’s meeting, might also demand to be included. Preliminary research by a reporter for the Herald indicates that while the precise number of religions in the world cannot be determined, the best estimates range from four thousand upward.

Harried teachers said after the meeting that they were concerned about whether there was space to incorporate that much moral obligation in their classrooms. “Right now we’re looking at a hundred and ninety eight square feet of wall space devoted to religious texts, with more likely” worried Aakifah Ali, who teaches geography at Jefferson Middle School. “I don’t have space now for everything I’d like to display. I’ll have to take down my maps, posters, material on current events, and student papers. Even then I’m not sure all the religious texts will fit. Maybe they can mount them on the ceiling,” she joked.

One segment of the audience which left dissatisfied was a sizable contingent of secularists/non-religious parents. Daniel Brinkman, spokesperson for the group, had risen to point out that one in six Americans have opted out of organized religion and consider themselves non-believers. He asked about having one-sixth of available space allotted for his group to post their absence of belief, but was rebuffed by Jefferson, who said that the blank, transparent windows in the room already fulfilled that function.

Christians, who had earlier succeeded in having the Ten Commandments posted in classrooms, were furious at news that they would have to share wall space with groups they regard as heathens. “It’s blasphemy, pure and simple,” asserted Rev. Randall Snodgrass, a leader of the group who had previously won the right to insert their religious text into the classroom.

When reminded that he had earlier argued that the Ten Commandments belonged there because of their historical rather their religious value, and that each of the subsequent groups had argued for inclusion of their texts on the same grounds, he had to be restrained by security personnel. “That was just a legal maneuver cooked up by our lawyers to get our faith in the schools where it belongs. This farce tonight is all the work of the ACLU, the ADA, the Democratic Party, and other hate groups!” he yelled as he was being escorted out by half a dozen guards.

Constitutional scholars, almost unanimously, expect the courts to reverse the board’s actions. Taxpayers will foot the bill for all legal expenses incurred.

The Pentagon’s Good Samaritans

2011-01-18T14:21:00.000-08:00

Sign on door of our granddaughter’s preschool this morning: “In honor of Martin Luther King’s birthday, let us be kind to one another.”

* * * * * *

We were all sitting in the living room. I was studying the sports page, Patty was reading the front section of the paper, and Kevin was doing his homework. Patty gets fascinated by something she’s reading and just has to share it with you, so it was no surprise when she looked up and said, “Did you see this? The general counsel for the Pentagon implied in a speech that Martin Luther King would have supported the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan because ‘we live in a complicated world,’ and King would have recognized that ‘our Nation’s military should not and cannot lay down its arms and leave the American people vulnerable to terrorist attack.’”

“No, I didn’t see it. It wasn’t on the sports page,” I said. “Who was the speaker?”

She skimmed down the story. “His name is Jeh Johnson. (I don’t know how you pronounce J-E-H.) He graduated from Martin Luther King’s college, Morehouse. He was a classmate of Martin Luther King III, and says King’s son was his study partner in college and has been a friend of his for almost thirty-five years.”

“So he has some credentials to speak on the subject,” I said. “What does he base his claim on?”

Patty said, “That’s the peculiar part. Actually, he doesn’t make much of a case for it, after making such a big deal about how he’s a King family insider. He says, ‘Today, at the Defense Department, how do we honor and respect Dr. King’s message and legacy and reconcile it with our mission?‘ Then all he does is talk about Dr. King’s use of the parable of the Good Samaritan to show why he was in Memphis helping striking sanitation workers.”

I didn’t know Kevin had been listening. “I’m afraid you lost me there, Mom,” he said. “What does that have to do with the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan?”

She frowned. “Well, let me read what Johnson said:

In 2011, I draw the parallel to our own servicemen and women, deployed in Iraq and Afghanistan and elsewhere, away from the comfort of conventional jobs, their families and their homes. Those in today’s volunteer Army, Navy, Air Force, and Marine Corps have made the conscious decision to travel a dangerous road, and personally stop and administer aid to those who want peace, freedom and a better place in Iraq, in Afghanistan, and in defense of the American people. Every day our servicemen and women practice that “dangerous unselfishness” Dr. King preached on April 3, 1968.”

I did a double take. “So he’s saying that the troops in Iraq and Afghanistan are comparable to the Good Samaritan? That they’re only there because they’re ‘personally stopping and administering aid’ to the Afghani people? And therefore King would have approved?”

Patty nodded. “It’s right near the end of his speech,” she said. “After all the buildup, that’s what it amounts to. He doesn’t have any other argument for why King would have approved. We’re Good Samaritans.”

“‘Personally stopping and administering aid’ somehow doesn’t square with shooting people and bombing them and torturing them and sending unmanned drones to blow up houses with women and children in them, does it?” I mused.

“That argument is just garbage!” yelled Kevin, red faced. “It ignores everything Dr. King ever said about nonviolence and loving your enemies and America’s role in the world. I don’t care if Johnson is black and a Morehouse graduate and a friend of the King family, he still twisted the idea of being a Good Samaritan to justify fighting a war! Johnson is just trying to attach Dr. King’s good name to a war he would actually have condemned even more strongly than he condemned the Vietnam War!”

“Whoa, calm down there, Kevin,” I said, reluctantly laying the sports section aside. “You seem to feel pretty strongly about this.”

Kevin took a deep breath. “Sorry I got so loud, Dad,” he said. “It just makes me mad.” He held up the book he’d been reading and a couple of sheets of paper he’d been taking notes on. “This is my homework assignment,” he said, waving the papers. “And this is a book of Dr. King’s speeches. I’m writing a paper for history class on King’s use of nonviolence. Anybody who spends any time at all reading King’s work can see that nonviolence and Christ’s command to love your enemies meant everything in the world to him. Given all Mr. Johnson says about his connection with Morehouse and the civil rights movement and the King family, he can’t be that ignorant of King’s writing and thinking. He deliberately betrayed King’s legacy to propagandize for the Pentagon! It makes me sick!”

“You disagree with Mr. Johnson. You don’t think Martin Luther King would have backed the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, I take it,” Patty said.

Kevin gave her a look. “That’s what I said, Mom.”

“No,” she said, “that’s what you yelled. But all you did was give your opinion, which happened to be different from Mr. Johnson’s. Opinions are cheaper than pennies. Can you back yours up?”

Kevin hesitated while he thought about it. “I think so,” he said more quietly. “I’ve just been taking notes from King’s speeches. I haven’t laid my notes out for a debate or anything, but Dr. King was always developing an argument in his speeches anyway. And they’re consistent from speech to speech, from year to year.”

“Let’s hear them then,” Patty said.

“Well, okay, just give me a minute,” said Kevin. He began shuffling his papers and making checkmarks by some passages, while Patty and I went back to reading our sections of the paper.

“Okay, I think I’m ready,” said Kevin after a while. “These two quotes are from a 1957 sermon, Loving Your Enemies.”

Men must see that force begets force, hate begets hate, toughness begets toughness. And it is all a descending spiral, ultimately ending in destruction for all and everybody. Somebody must have sense enough and morality enough to cut off the chain of hate and the chain of evil in the universe. And you do that by love.

“It’s pretty clear to me,” said Kevin, glancing up, “that going to war doesn’t ‘cut off the chain of hate and evil in the universe’ through love. And he uses that idea of violence being a downward spiral over and over again.” He went on to the second passage.

There is a power in love that our world has not discovered yet. Jesus discovered it centuries ago. Mahatma Gandhi of India discovered it a few years ago, but most men and most women never discover it. For they believe in hitting for hitting; they believe in an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth; they believe in hating for hating; but Jesus comes to us and says, "This isn’t the way.”

“This is from later on in the same sermon,” said Kevin. “The reference to Gandhi is important, because King learned a lot about dealing with political problems nonviolently from Gandhi. He wasn’t just talking about person-to-person nonviolence, but about dealing with major conflicts within a society or between nations. And when it comes to war, he believes that Jesus is telling us ‘This isn’t the way.’”

“You’re doing pretty well so far, Kevin,” said Patty. “Do you have more?”

“Sure,” said Kevin. “If you weren’t positive that the quotations above were talking about nonviolent action as an alternative to war, these passages are from his Nobel Prize acceptance speech in 1964.”

I refuse to accept the cynical notion that nation after nation must spiral down a militaristic stairway into the hell of thermonuclear destruction. I believe that unarmed truth and unconditional love will have the final word in reality. This is why right temporarily defeated is stronger than evil triumphant.

“And this.”

I still believe that one day mankind will bow before the altars of God and be crowned triumphant over war and bloodshed, and nonviolent redemptive goodwill will proclaim the rule of the land. "And the lion and the lamb shall lie down together and every man shall sit under his own vine and fig tree and none shall be afraid."

I was impressed. “Those are really powerful passages,” I said. And there’s no doubt what he was talking about. What was that phrase again? ‘Nonviolent redemptive goodwill’?”

“Right. I’ll just read two more,” said Kevin, who was getting into it. “These are from his 1967 speech Declaration of Independence from the War in Vietnam.”

The Americans are forcing even their friends into becoming their enemies. It is curious that the Americans, who calculate so carefully on the possibilities of military victory, do not realize that in the process they are incurring deep psychological and political defeat. The image of America will never again be the image of revolution, freedom, and democracy, but the image of violence and militarism.

“You see how he contrasts freedom and democracy with violence and militarism there?” asked Kevin.

Patty and I nodded.

“Listen to this last one,” he said. “The final sentence is the famous one that gets quoted so often, but it seems to me a lot of its power comes from the sentences before it.”

This business of burning human beings with napalm, of filling our nation's homes with orphans and widows, of injecting poisonous drugs of hate into the veins of peoples normally humane, of sending men home from dark and bloody battlefields physically handicapped and psychologically deranged, cannot be reconciled with wisdom, justice, and love. A nation that continues year after year to spend more money on military defense than on programs of social uplift is approaching spiritual death.

We were silent.

I finally broke the silence. “You know, I’ve never heard any of those things,” I said. “All I remember ever hearing was clips from the I Have a Dream speech, year after year.”

“I see why you got so angry,” Patty said. “You read them to us in chronological order, and if anything they became more firmly opposed to war and militarism, and more steadfast in calling for love as an essential element of freedom as time went on. To pretend that he would have supported our current wars is...” She groped for the right words. “It’s repulsive. It’s an abomination. And it’s a common propaganda technique. You don’t have to prove your point; you just have to make it look as if there’s a debate about whether something is true.”

“Why do you say that?” asked Kevin, curious.

“Because most people won’t research it,” answered Patty, “and a lot of people end up thinking you could legitimately argue it either way. Anyone who reads Johnson’s speech carefully, and then reads some of King’s work, as you have, will quickly see that there’s no doubt that the Pentagon’s claim is sheer balderdash. But how many people will take the time to do that? ”

“It’s just not right!” said Kevin, frustrated. “What can we do about it?”

Patty laughed. “Good for you. That’s King’s question, isn’t it? You don’t just take the evil and take it and take it because you’re nonviolent. You make sure your heart is right, and then you act.”

That sounded like my cue. “Well, if we’re done,” I said, “I want to finish reading about the Patriots game.” And I picked up my section of the paper.

Remember Why They’re Out There

2011-01-03T08:43:00.000-08:00

Steve Spurrier, while football coach at Florida, telling

Gator fans that a fire at Auburn's football dorm had

destroyed 20 books. "But the real tragedy was that 15

hadn't been colored in yet."

Reporter #1: “Ozzie, you said that poor conditioning was a factor in your decision to make a coaching change.”

AD: “That’s a good question, Greg. Well, not a question, just a restatement of my statement, but it’s a good one.”

Reporter #1: “And your answer to your statement?”

AD: “Oh, yeah. I firmly believe that players representing our great university ought to have the stamina to remain awake and upright for the full two hours of commercial breaks during a football game.”

Reporter #1: “Are you saying that your team isn’t prepared to stand around for four quarters?”

AD: “Our players haven’t been adequately conditioned to spend endless minutes doing nothing. Opponents have consistently outstood us in the second half. By the fourth quarter, our guys’ legs are gone.”

Reporter #2: “What do you base that on, Ozzie?”

AD: “Come on, Mickey, you’ve seen it yourself. We have players tweeting, other players checking their iPhones and Blackberries for messages, guys posting on Facebook, some guys listening to hip hop with their headphones. But at least those guys are awake. After we kicked a field goal in last night’s game, seven members of our kickoff team lay down on the turf during the five-minute commercial break, and three had to be awakened, including our kicker. Imagine how embarrassing that was on national TV.”

Reporter #2: “More embarrassing than the score?”

AD: “No question, Mickey. These guys have to remember why they’re out there.”

Reporter #3: “To play the game?”

AD: “Come on, Jack. Your average game broadcast is three-and-a-half-hours long, for a game that takes 60 minutes to play. Commercials have a two-to-one edge in screen time over game action. You tell me which is more important.”

Reporter #2: “Help me out here, Ozzie. Are you embarrassed that the game has become nothing more than a vehicle for commercials, or what?”

AD: “What. Our conference has a new 15-year $2.25 billion contract with the network, and our school’s cut will be roughly $17 million per year. Our guys are out there to attract viewers for commercials. What kind of statement does it make when they doze off during the fourteenth run of an ad for Sprint?”

Reporter #4: “But there’s no financial incentive for the players in that arrangement.”

AD: “We think our quarterback and tailback are compensated as well as any players in the country. That’s off the record, of course; officially, they play for pride.”

Reporter #3: “Your new hire, Coach Hooker, has a reputation as a no-nonsense guy. Do you think he can turn this team around?”

AD: “They don’t have to be turned around, Jack. They just have to stand there. But Coach Hooker is an innovator. His teams have been at the top of the ‘standings’ everywhere he’s been.”

Reporter #4: “How does he do it, Ozzie? Has he developed some special drills or exercises?”

AD: “Coach Hooker is an ‘opportunist‘ in the best sense of the word, Mike, if there is a best sense. He takes his guys to the Post Office to mail packages. Has them wait to checkout at Sam’s Club. Get in line at the Social Security office. Try to change a course during registration each term. Check on their scholarship at the Financial Aid office. At the end of six weeks of these drills, his guys stand as if their shoes were glued to the turf, their eyes vacant, their minds going nowhere.”

Reporter #!: “So they’ll be prepared for life after football, if they don’t make it to the NFL?”

AD: “No doubt about it. Our guys will be ready for the unemployment line.”

“Odd Ducks and Loons”

2010-12-13T17:14:00.003-08:00

Whether they are defending the Soviet Union or bleating for Saddam Hussein, liberals are always against America. They are either traitors or idiots, and on the matter of America’s self-preservation, the difference is irrelevant.

- Ann Coulter

I was walking downtown to pay the water bill when I spotted my neighbor raking leaves from the Bradford pear in his yard. “Ron,” I greeted him. “Long time no see. What’s been keeping you so busy?”

“Oh, hi, Ace,” he said, glancing up. “I’ve filed a suit for federal protection under the Endangered Species Act, and you just can’t believe how much time all the paper work eats up.”

“I didn’t know you were a nature lover,” I said. “What kind of critter are you trying to save?”

“The political liberal,” he said. “You used to see them everywhere. From the redwood forest to the Gulf Stream waters, they were once as common as robins and English sparrows. Now they’ve virtually disappeared.”

“Now that you mention it, I used to hear their call almost every evening on the news,” I said. “But I can’t remember hearing one for ages.”

“It’s been years,” he affirmed. “The only remnant populations are on scattered Internet websites and in preserves like Austin, Texas; San Francisco; Madison, Wisconsin; and Charlottesville. And even those are under threat of commercial development. Most of the state of Wisconsin just underwent corporate takeover.”

“I’d hate to see them go,” I said. “I have all those fond memories of their sweet songs on the radio in my childhood.”

“We’re not just talking nostalgia here, Ace,” he said. “They’re a keystone species. They provide aid and shelter for all kinds of other creatures. If they go, a lot of other species are vulnerable.”

“Do liberals actually qualify under the Endangered Species Act?” I asked dubiously.

“Oh, no question,” he assured me. “The act was specifically intended to protect critically imperiled species from extinction as ‘a consequence of economic growth and development untempered by adequate concern and conservation.’”

“Is the problem really that serious?”

“The liberal is the passenger pigeon of our time,” he said gloomily. “People acted as if the liberals were so abundant that the species could withstand anything. But market hunters downed them by the millions. Then, the unregulated use of poisons on talk radio and the loss of habitat in newspapers drove their numbers steadily downward. They’re on the verge of vanishing as we speak.”

“I just can’t believe it,” I said, shaking my head. “How could this happen?”

“Partly because the hunting lobby keeps talking as if there’s still a huge population,” he said. “They’re always looking for that big trophy kill.”

“When did you first become aware of the danger?” I asked.

“Well, I remember becoming pretty uncomfortable being called a ‘liberal’ back in the 70’s. You’re too young to remember, but it seemed then as if everybody on the left suddenly wanted to be a radical. Liberals were considered comfortable enablers of the status quo--people who only wanted easy, painless fixes and wouldn’t pay the price for real change. So that peeled off a lot of the more vigorous members of the breed.”

“Boy, that era sure has passed,” I said. “That attitude is as outmoded as bell-bottom trousers and love beads.”

He nodded. “Then, in the 80s, the fire came from another direction. Reagan swept into office, and somehow being a greedy, right-wing imperialist was all the rage. And then the first George Bush began alluding to liberalism as ‘the L word,’ as if it were obscene and unfit to be used in polite company.”

“Is that when a lot of Americans who had been calling themselves liberals began to feel uncomfortable in social situations?” I asked.

“Uh huh. The overall population took a big hit then,” he said. “But there were still decent-sized breeding populations in a variety of habitats around the country.”

“And then?”

“The onslaught just never let up,” he said. “Your modern liberal isn’t typically an aggressive bird. Bolder birds can drive them away from feeders.”

“You mean blue jays and such?” I asked.

“Well, not just blue jays. But they’re a good example. They’ll steal another bird’s nest. They’re loud and not shy about voicing their opinions. They bully other birds mercilessly, especially ones that are smaller and weaker.”

“So liberals began to call themselves ‘progressives’ in self defense?”

“It’s a form of protective coloration. The survivors are almost all ‘progressives’ now,” he said. “And that’s just scattered colonies outside government. With Ted Kennedy dead and Russ Feingold bounced out of the Senate, it’s hard to even name a liberal politician in the US now.”

“Oh, surely there are still some liberal politicians around,” I said.

“Well, what would you expect a liberal to do if he or she were in office?” he challenged.

“That’s easy,” I said. “You know, the common sense stuff. Admit climate change is a global threat and do something about it. Fight to defund the war. Cut the deficit by eliminating tax breaks for the rich and reducing military spending. Raise the minimum wage. Guarantee health care for everybody. Defend the Constitution by insisting on habeas corpus, eliminating torture, giving terrorists and everybody else their rights to know the charges against them and have a speedy trial. Insist that gays and lesbians be treated as ordinary citizens with the right to love the adult they choose and work at any job they qualify for. Support public education. Give public employees their due. Protect consumers and the environment. Stop acting like corporations are God’s gift to the planet.”

“There’s a lot of variety to their song,” he said, nodding his head, “but you’ve identified some of the most common variations. Now, how many birds perched in Congress are out there singing those tunes?”

“Well, there’s... uh... uh....”

“Exactly,” he said. “And how many congresspeople can you name who deny climate change is real; who fully support the war; who are all for grabbing suspected terrorists, torturing them, and then tossing them in some hell hole and throwing away the keys; who swear that homosexuality is sinful, deviant behavior that God despises; and who want to privatize everything they think they or their patrons can make a buck on?”

“Just offhand, dozens,” I said. “But there are hundreds of congresspeople I’ve never even heard of.”

“You see the situation, Ace,” he said. “First it was liberals who were afraid to be called liberals. Then it was liberals who were afraid to act like liberals, whatever label they wore. Now, it’s where is a liberal?”

“So they’ve modified their behavior, muted their calls, and fled to isolated pockets,” I summed up. “Is it too late to designate Congress as a critical habitat zone?”

“It’s not just Congress,” he said. “It’s the whole mainstream political arena. A few localized populations are still hanging on, but that’s about it.”

“Gosh. It sounds as if the situation is getting desperate,” I said.

“I’m afraid we may be approaching the point of no return,” he said gloomily. “Isolated individuals are unable to find a mate. It’s a whole tradition that politicians have simply kissed goodbye. If the Social Security system and the GI Bill of Rights and the TVA and the Clean Water Act and the Voting Rights Act had come up before this bunch now, we’d still be sending old people to the poor house, drinking water laced with raw sewage, and watching blacks be blocked from the ballot box.”

“You’d think the public would be alarmed at the possible extinction of such a valuable creature,” I said.

“It’s like a lot of other vanishing species, Ace,” he said. “Nobody raises the alarm until it’s too late to do anything about it. Younger people now have trouble even identifying one. They mistake them for odd ducks and loons.”

"Donkeys"

2010-11-12T05:15:00.000-08:00

Childhood joke: What kind of keys can’t open a door?

Answer: Donkeys.

* * * *

“Channel 16 continues its election night coverage. Results are pouring in now that the polls have closed around the country. We take you now to Washington, DC, where Channel 16‘s Scott Wamsley is live at Democratic headquarters. Scott, what’s the mood there?”

“Erin, people have been gathered around the television, watching as results are announced from state after state. Excitement began to build early on, when it became apparent that Democrats were likely to lose the House, and champagne corks began popping once it became clear that Democratic losses are going to reach historic proportions. They may be able to lose the Senate as well, but right now several of those races are too close to call.”

“Is this what people there were expecting, Scott?”

“It is, Erin. As one Democratic staffer told me, ‘This is what we’ve been dedicated to for the past twenty-two months, but it’s all just a dream until election night rolls around.’”

“Scott, given that the number of registered Democrats is greater than the number of registered Republicans, and that women, young people, blacks, and Hispanics all lean heavily Democratic, how was the Democratic campaign team able to put together a disaster of this scope?”

“It was a downhill struggle, Erin. In 2008, they had created a powerful block of energized voters, attracted hordes of enthusiastic new voters and young people, and swept control of both houses of Congress along with the White House. They had the power to deliver all that people had been longing for during the Bush years. Party insiders tell me that crushing those expectations was their focus from day one.”

“What was their strategy, Scott?”

“Erin, they felt all along that the key was going to be voter turnoff. If they could just manage to disillusion enough people in their core constituencies, they knew they had a chance to pull this off.”

“Do you have any idea how large voter turnoff was, Scott?”

“It’s too early to have precise numbers, Erin, but preliminary figures show that the total votes for Republican candidates for the House fell by about eleven million from 2008, while the total for Democratic candidates fell by nearly thirty million.”

“That’s an enormous drop-off, Scott.”

“It is, Erin. In fact, nearly half the Democrats who voted in ’08 stayed home in 2010.”

“How were party leaders able to engineer such a huge collapse of support, Scott?”

“They had a plan, Erin. The campaign team worked closely with the Obama White House and the Democratic congressional leadership to identify key issues that would drive voter disillusionment. For the Democratic base, promoting economic opportunity, closing the widening income gap, halting home foreclosures, ending the Middle East wars, repudiating torture, and undoing Bush-era attacks on civil liberties were all priorities. Party operatives felt that by targeting those areas, consistently reneging on promises Obama made in the ’08 campaign, they could drive voter turnoff. Instead of delivering what they had led Democratic voters to expect in those areas, they either adopted the Bush policy they had attacked, or ignored the issue altogether. I have to say that even they seem somewhat surprised by how well that strategy has played out.”

“Did they have any idea this was coming, Scott?”

“They did, Erin, although there’s always some uncertainty with these things. They were concerned that voters might not be paying close enough attention, but clearly, their worries were groundless.”

“Can you give us an idea what the new political landscape is going to look like, Scott?”

“Well, Erin, Republicans gained approximately 60 seats in the House, with about eight still too close to call. In the Senate, Republicans won 23 of the 36 seats at stake. Republicans also made huge gains at the state level, picking up governorships in Iowa, Kansas, Maine, Michigan, New Mexico, Ohio, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, Wisconsin and Wyoming. They also gained what looks like about 700 new seats in state legislatures, and took control of 19 more chambers of state legislatures.”

“Simply stunning results, Scott. Thanks for the report.”

“You’re welcome, Erin.”

“This is Erin Masters in Big Springs. As Democratic strategists celebrate in the background, we end this portion of our election night coverage. We’ll check in with Scott Beasley in Washington at Republican headquarters when we return from station break.”

"War? What War?"

2010-11-08T06:23:00.000-08:00

If we let people see that kind of thing, there would never again

be any war.
- Pentagon official explaining why the U.S. military censored
graphic footage from the Gulf War

* * * *

“Ace! Bob’s on the phone!” called Patty.

Bob didn’t waste any time. “Ace!” he barked out. “Get over to the courthouse right now. There are half a dozen people down there carrying anti-war signs. It’s the biggest peace protest here in years, and I want you to get some pictures and interview them before they get too cold and head home.”

“I’m on it, Chief,” I assured him, then grabbed my coat and headed out the door.

One of my neighbors, Uncle Whitt, was just walking past the house, dragging his rat terrier Roscoe, who--as usual--was doing his best to lift his leg at every tree, bush, hydrant, gate, and signpost they passed.

“Where are you running off to in such a big hurry, Ace?” he gasped, wheezing from the effort of dragging Roscoe every step around the block.

“There’s a big story down at the courthouse,” I said. “An anti-war rally.”

He stopped. “Anti- what? An anti-war rally? What war?” he demanded.

“The same war we’ve been in for the last nine years,” I told him, surprised.

“What the Sam Hill are you talking about?” he snapped, staring at me as if I had just claimed visitors in flying saucers had arrived from outer space. “We’re not at war.”

“Excuse me?” I said.

“I read the newspaper every day,” he said. He must have thought I was trying to pull a fast one on him, and he was obviously getting hot. “You get the same big city paper I do. Have you seen any articles about a war?”

I had to stop and think about it. “Now that you mention it,” I said, “I don’t remember seeing anything lately. I don’t even know what I mean by ‘lately,’ though.”

“War is news,” he said belligerently. “Big news. Listen, I’ve lived through World War II, the Korean War, and the Vietnam War, and I know what kind of press coverage they had. There’s been nothing in the paper about a war. Don’t you think a major newspaper would cover one of the biggest stories in the world if we were at war?”

“Sure, but...,” I began.

“In wartime, newspapers are filled with pictures of mothers whose homes have been destroyed or whose children have just been killed. Soldiers carrying their wounded buddies. Bleeding, bandaged soldiers being evacuated. Human interest stuff that makes a war intimate and personal. Have you seen any pictures like that?”

“Uh, no,” I said, “but....”

“We’re always hearing that the world is shrinking. That this is ‘an age of instant communication.’ That ‘our lives now are intertwined with those of people on the other side of the globe.’ Have you been feeling communicated with by people we’re at war with on the other side of a shrunken planet?”

“No, I guess I haven’t, but....”

“If you’re at war, the war looms huge in a nation’s life. People talk about it constantly. It’s part of the fabric of everyday life while it lasts. It’s part of your consciousness. Do you hear people talking about a war? Is a war part of your consciousness?”

That caught me off guard. “Well, no, but....”

“We just had midterm elections,” he interrupted me. “I did my civic duty. I watched all five debates between the candidates for Congress from our district. Nobody mentioned a war. In five debates. Not once. Considering that the military eats up around half our federal budget, and wars cause huge casualties and hardships, don’t you think it would be hard for candidates to ignore a war?”

“Yes, but....”

“Don’t ‘yes, but’ me,” he said. “Did you watch the debates?”

“I did, Uncle Whitt,” I said.

“Did you hear anybody mention a single word about a war?”

“Well, no,” I said, “but....”

“And the Republican candidate’s main claim was that he would cut taxes. Just like all the other Republican candidates. Wars aren’t cheap. You don’t cut taxes in wartime. You raise them to fund the damn war. Even an idiot knows that. So it’s obvious we’re not at war. Don’t you think his opponents would have jumped all over him if he tried to pull a stunt like cutting taxes when we’re fighting a war?”

“Uh, ....”

“If we were at war, wouldn’t the war be one of the major issues in the election?”

“You would think so, but....”

“And don’t you think there would be millions of protestors clogging the streets in DC and New York and LA if we were fighting a war they didn’t care for?”

“I suppose so,” I said, “but....”

“Do you see streets packed with demonstrators?” he challenged, as Roscoe began to fidget.

“No, no, but....”

“Do you see soldiers welcomed home with parades, given the keys to the city? TV news covering soldiers’ returning from a combat zone, or soldiers’ bodies being flown home with their families receiving a flag and attending their burial?”

“Well, no, but....”

“Do you think our government is actually conducting an invisible war?” he demanded sarcastically.

“I know it sounds crazy, but....”

“Ace,” he said, “you were never the brightest candle on the cake. But this takes the cake. I don’t know how you came up with this tomfoolery, but somebody with delusions like yours needs to have his head checked out.” And, giving Roscoe a jerk, he trotted off in a huff. Roscoe--as usual--took a nip at my pants leg as he passed.

I stood there for a minute, feeling a little dizzy. Then I turned around and walked back into the house. “Patty,” I said, feeling idiotic, “this may sound odd, but I need to know. Are we are at war now, or are we not?”

Writer’s Note: Just to be absolutely clear, this column in no way is intended to say or imply that there aren’t people in this country who care deeply about the war and try to stay informed about it, whether it is because they have a friend or family member in harm’s way, or because of the devastation and suffering the war is causing, or simply because they are sickened by what’s being done in our name. The column’s intent is to show how successful our political leadership (and their corporate string-pullers) have been in muting media coverage of the war, eliminating it as a political issue, and erasing it from our public consciousness.

"Money As a Form of Speech"

2010-11-04T09:57:00.000-07:00

One of the reasons why we get more pleasure from satire

than from a sermon, even when the satire is making exactly the same

point as the sermon, is that we have an uncomfortable feeling that

the minister expects us to do something about it.

-- Leonard Feinberg

I had to get to the office early today to write up the local election report. So I was surprised to see that my neighbor’s foreign exchange student, loaded with books, was already headed toward the university. I pulled over and told him to hop in.

“We should probably introduce ourselves if we’re going to keep running into each other,” I said, sticking out my hand. “I’m Ace.”

“My name is Aadil,” he said. “A-a-d-i-l. I am pleased to formally make your acquaintance.”

“That’s an unusual name,” I said. “Where are you from?”

“I am from Pakistan,” he replied. “‘Aadil’ is a Muslim name meaning ‘just.’”

“Hope you’re not a terrorist,” I said, and then added, when he flinched, “Just joking. What gets you out so early? Got a big test coming up?

He shook his head. “No,” he said. “I stayed up late watching your election returns and had trouble sleeping afterwards, so I decided it would be more efficient to make use of the time and go study.”

“Well, what did you think of the election?” I asked. “Watching democracy in action must have been an experience for you. And now the people have spoken.”

He glanced at me. “My country is a parliamentary democracy,” he said. “But it is interesting that you phrase the results of your election in that manner. Since your Supreme Court ruled in ‘Citizens United’ that money is a form of speech, I mean.”

“Why is that interesting?” I asked, curious.

He hesitated. “This is your country,” he said. “Please understand that I do not wish to offend. I am simply trying to understand the way in which your electoral system functions.”

“Hey! No skin off my ... nose,” I told him. “Feel free.”

He looked baffled for an instant, and then said, “I am unable to follow the logic of the assertion that money is a form of speech, and that therefore people and corporations can spend unlimited amounts of money exercising their freedom to use this presumed form of speech.”

I glanced over at him. “What’s your problem with the logic?” I asked.

“It’s simply an analogy, isn’t it?” he said. “Money equals speech? Dollars are the same as words and sentences?”

“Okay.”

“But if we pursue the analogy, it means that people who have no money have no speech, no voice,” he said. “If one’s home is being foreclosed on, or if one has huge medical bills, or works for minimum wage, or is out of work, or any of a number of other possibilities, one is unable to ‘say’ anything, because one doesn’t have the money to ‘speak’ in the political arena.”

“Uh, I guess that makes sense,” I said. “I hadn’t thought about that.”

“And if one is very wealthy, or a giant corporation, or a union, one can ‘speak’ loudly and almost endlessly,” he went on. “In fact, one can speak so long and so loudly that it becomes difficult for anyone else to even be heard--or only another person or corporation that also has an enormous amount of money.”

“I’m afraid that’s true,” I said, after thinking about it for a minute.

“So your court’s ruling would seem to sweep away any possibility of equality in the electoral process,” he said. “One citizen can ‘say’ nothing, while a billionaire can ‘speak’ on and on and on. And your elections are very expensive. One has almost no hope of competing successfully without having a huge treasury to buy television time, buy radio time, hire consultants and pollers and staff, print brochures and bumper stickers, rent offices and computers and phone banks.”

“That’s true too,” I admitted.

“People of ordinary means therefore have little voice, and also appear to be largely excluded as candidates for major offices in your country,” he said. “Or they are sponsored by the rich and indebted to them.”

“Politics has become a playground for the wealthy,” I conceded.

“And both political parties are indebted to their wealthy sponsors, meaning that what they both ‘hear’ is likely to be the voice of the ruling elite, not the voice of common citizens?”

“‘Ruling elite’ sounds like un-American phrasing,” I said, “but I get what you’re saying.

“Perhaps ‘dollars are a form of votes’ would be a more accurate analogy than ‘money is a form of speech,’” he mused. “And it contradicts the “one person, one vote” rule, because some people get millions of votes, while others get none.”

“It doesn’t always work out that way,” I pointed out. “Sometimes the winner has spent less than the person who lost.”

“That happens,” he concurred. “The one who spends the most generally wins, though not always. Actually, the level of spending required to even compete acts as a screening device. People who can’t raise large levels of money are simply eliminated. Usually they don’t even make it into your primaries, because they get discouraged. Or they lose in the primaries. That means that many ordinary people can back a candidate who doesn’t stand a chance, while a single wealthy backer or industry can propel another candidate forward in the race. In effect, many people’s ‘speech’ may mean nothing, while one person’s speech may lead to victory.”

“That’s the way it works,” I said slowly.

“The ‘Citizens United’ ruling appears to be the capstone on your election funding process,” he said. “Maintaining the form of a democracy while functioning as a plutocracy.”

“Now wait a minute,” I said. “You’ve gone too far.”

He looked out the window. “Oh, no,” he said. “This is where I get out. And thank you for the dialogue. I am most grateful for the ride.”

“Check Your Algal Bloom?”

2010-11-01T06:31:00.000-07:00

Writer’s note: I should explain to newer readers that while Ace, the bumbling reporter, is a fairly accurate stand-in for your writer, his editor, Bob Spinner, is an affectionate but grossly distorted version of Bob Weaver, a tolerant, good-natured, and long-suffering friend if ever there was one. Bob, with the help of his wife Diane and a few loyal friends, has been putting out a wonderful online “newspaper” called the Hur Herald for many years. The paper distills the essence of life back in our home territory in Calhoun County, West Virginia, and I wholeheartedly commend it to you. You can find a link to the Herald on my blog page, or you can reach it readily by googling its name. The Hur Herald is an all-volunteer effort and a labor of love; if you enjoy it and want to support it, I’m sure Bob and company would make good use of your donation.
* * * *
My editor, Bob Spinner, had sent me off to Louisiana to investigate reports of disagreements between local fishermen and environmental monitors on the one hand, and state and federal agencies on the other, about huge oil sightings reported in an area the government has recently reopened for fishing.
One commercial mackerel fisherman told a TV reporter that “Oil is everywhere. Our boats have to plow through plumes of oil twenty miles long, floating on the surface and as much as five inches thick. Anybody who eats fish and shrimp from this mess is an idiot.”
Other fishermen have repeatedly charged that the governments’ overriding concern all along has been the health of the oil industry and its profits, not the health of citizens and the environment.
Government agencies, by contrast, remain unfailingly upbeat. They continue to declare that the Gulf of Mexico is largely free from remnants of the escaped oil and dispersants derived from the mammoth BP oil spill in the Gulf. Earlier this week, a U. S. Coast Guard spokesperson, Lt. Cdr. Chris O’Neil, declared that the thick brownish-red substance spreading over thirty square miles in the West Bay area off the Louisiana coast appeared to be “an algal bloom.”
I checked in with Bob by telephone just before filing my story.
“What have you come up with, Ace?” he demanded.
“It’s definitely algal bloom,” I said cheerfully, glad to be able to deliver good news for a change.
There was a pause. Then, “I have to admit that’s not what I expected. If anyone else had told me that, I’d have been surprised,” he said. “Do you mind telling me what evidence you have for that conclusion?”
“People along the Louisiana coast know algal bloom when they see it,” I told him. “You stop at a full service filling station and the attendant pumping your gas asks, ‘Check your algal bloom?’ And if you tell him to go ahead, he’ll fiddle around under the hood and then say something like, ‘Your algal bloom’s about half a quart low.’ They tell me that Standard Algal Bloom has a lot of filling stations down here, too. And everyone says there’s a big push by energy companies to drill more deep-water algal bloom wells in the Gulf.”
“That’s ironic,” he muttered, apparently to himself. “Did you check out any of the citizen complaints first hand?”
“Sure,” I said. “A BP pilot flew me over West Bay to see it for myself.”
“And?”
“And the government is absolutely correct,” I said. “There’s algal bloom covering the surface as far as you can see. Marshes are covered with algal bloom, their grasses are dark and dead, and sea birds have their feathers coated with algal bloom. Everything has an algal sheen to it, reflecting all the colors of the rainbow and shimmering in the light.” (I was proud of myself for that last part; it had a poetic ring to it.)
Bob made that sound that resembles the gnashing of teeth. “I can’t believe I’ve overestimated you again,” he finally responded.
“Thanks, Chief,” I said. “By the way, I need to lay over and change my flight to tomorrow evening.”
“Why should I pay for an extra night?” he demanded.
“Excuse me for being indelicate,” I said, “but I’ve got the runs. I think it might be the shrimp gumbo I had last night for dinner.”
© Tony Russell, 2010

“Congressional Candy Company Commences Clearance Campaign”

2010-10-29T08:47:00.000-07:00

Writer’s note: This is a slightly modified version of a column that originally ran several years ago. Unfortunately, the issue appears timeless.

* * * *

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Radio ad: Congressional Candy Company Commences Clearance Campaign

Directions: Read breathlessly, just below shouting pitch.

* * * *

Midterm elections are only days away, and the Congressional Candy Company is staging a once-in-a-lifetime sales event! Members locked in tight races as well as those trailing badly in the polls have joined together to bring you this unprecedented clearance sale! Prices will never be lower! Pay just pennies on the dollar! Take advantage of these gigantic savings now!

Prices have been slashed to the bone on items such as:

· Sugar and tobacco subsidies!

· Highway construction funds!

· Timbering, drilling, and mining permits in national parks and forests!

· Tax breaks for your firm or industry!

· Grazing rights on range land!

· Water diversion for irrigation, development, and industrial expansion!

· Oil drilling in pristine areas and wildlife refuges!

· Defense contracts!

· Drainage and development of coastal wetlands!

· Deregulation!

· Maintaining high fuel consumption standards!

· Licenses for the emission or discharge of pollutants!

· Broadcasting licenses and market monopolies!

· Unneeded military bases!

· Federal judgeships

· No-bid, no-risk construction contracts!

· Mercenary assignments in Iraq and Afghanistan!

Yes, you heard me right! All of these things and more are for sale at unheard of low prices! This is just a sampling of the items available in our mammoth national warehouse! They won’t last long at these prices! Call our congressional offices today to see what is available in your area!

Is your accountant a nuisance about traceable purchases of influence?

Not to worry! No cash needed! We accept:

· Seats on your Board of Directors!

· Lobbying assignments for your industry!

· Positions at think tanks!

· Endowed chairs at colleges and universities!

· Jobs for our spouses and children (Sorry, $60,000 minimum applies.)!

· Use of yachts and private jets!

· Golf outings!

· Presidencies of foundations and universities

· Bulk orders of our memoirs!

And that’s only the beginning! Let your imagination run wild!. Surprise us with what you have to offer! Make us YOUR candy store—CONGRESS! “How sweet it is!”

“An Acoustics Problem in Congress”

2010-10-26T07:17:00.000-07:00

“Government leaders are amazing. So often it seems they are the last to
know what the people want.” - Aung San Suu Kyi
It was halftime at the high school game, and I was standing in line waiting to buy a veggieburger and a glass of cider. Turned out the guy in front of me was Dave Crawford, one of my high school classmates, who has a commercial electronics business. We got to jawing, and I asked him if he was getting much work with the economy still in a nosedive.
“I can’t complain, Ace,” he said. “Things have been slow for the past year and a half, and I had to lay off most of my crew, but I landed a job in DC that’s been keeping me pretty busy right now.”
“Yeah?” I said. “What are you doing?”
“Actually,” he said, “I’m working on an acoustics problem they’re having in both the House and the Senate. Something’s not working right. They talk, and the public can hear them just fine, but when the public talks to them, they can hardly hear a word. Or if something gets through, the sound is completely distorted.”
“Distorted?” I said, puzzled. “Whaddya mean?”
“Let me give you a for instance,” he said. “The public says, ‘Help! Hundreds of thousands of us are losing our homes!’”
“Sure,” I said. “That’s a huge issue.”
“Yeah, but what Congress hears is ‘Help the banks and investment firms! They’re losing their bonuses!’”
“That’s weird,” I said.
“Isn’t it?” he agreed. “And it’s a constant problem. Right now the public is saying, ‘Create more jobs, even if it means an increase in spending,’ and Congress hears, ‘Cut more jobs in order to reduce spending.’”
“Bizarre,” I said.
“It’s just constant,” he affirmed. “The public says, ‘Tax the rich to help balance the budget,’ and Congress hears, ‘Cut taxes to line the wealthy’s pocket.’”
“How could the public’s voice get so distorted?” I wondered, shaking my head. “Is it a design problem in the audio system? Some flaw in the original?”
“No, no, the design seems fine,” said Dave. “In fact, a lot of other countries liked it so much that they’ve used it themselves. And evidently the acoustics were okay for a long time. Not terrific, maybe, but at least the public could make themselves understood.”
“How about the sound equipment?”
“That’s the first thing we looked at. It’s kind of old, but it’s all still serviceable. The mikes, amps, control panel, all that stuff checked out.”
“When did the problem crop up then?”
“Well,” he laughed, “they’re kind of embarrassed about that. They don’t know. One member said she thought it might have started after the Supreme Court ruled that money was a form of speech, and people could talk with all the money they wanted to spend. But most of her colleagues swore that hadn’t impacted their hearing at all. To tell the truth, congress members hadn’t even noticed there was a problem, but finally so many people were complaining that they asked us to come in and look over their setup.”
“Where do you go from here?” I asked.
“We did find a problem in the wiring system,” he said. “There’s a real rats’ nest in the lobbying network. There’s shredded money all over the place where they’ve made themselves at home.”
“I’ll bet that’s a mess,” I said.
“You’d better believe it,” said Dave. “Urine and feces everywhere, and they’ve actually gnawed at the fabric of the Union itself.”
“Sounds like that could be the source of your problem,” I said. “Are you replacing the wiring?
“That’s a tough one,” he said, shaking his head. “A lot of it is concealed and hard to get at, and the layers of insulation shielding that stuff are just unbelievably thick.”
“Boy, I’m glad that’s your problem and not mine,” I said, and then told the lady at the counter, “Mustard and lots of onion on that burger, if you don’t mind.”
© Tony Russell, 2010

“Restoring Honor: A Beginning”

2010-10-21T08:31:00.000-07:00

Writer’s Note:
In the aftermath of Glenn Beck’s Washington rally, I’ve drawn a picture of what “restoring honor” in this country might actually mean, using the example of Colin Powell. The column, as harsh as it may seem, isn’t intended to sit in judgment of Powell; that’s a matter between him and his Maker. What he did, however, was public, and the consequences likewise. Moreover, Powell admitted, in a 2005 interview with Barbara Walters, that his performance at the UN was a “blot” on his record, adding that “It was painful. It’s painful now.” Clearly, the enormity of the wrong he committed was far more than a “blot,” and it had far greater consequences than marring his personnel record.
“Honor” is about measuring oneself against a code of conduct. This column goes beyond that to portray a man confronting his own conscience. In delivering “his” speech on Glenn Beck’s show, I’ve tried to imagine myself in Powell’s place: a man with intelligence and a conscience confronting the wasteland of his own history.
* * * * * *
Fox TV host Glenn Beck declared himself “overwhelmed” today by the response to his giant rally calling for the restoration of America’s honor. His show is already booked through the end of 2011 with Bush administration officials, members of Congress from both parties, executives from major investment firms and pharmaceutical companies, people from the young Obama administration, and other media figures--all eager, Beck said, to confess their roles in tarnishing the nation’s image.
A vast nationwide audience was held rapt by Beck’s first guest, Colin Powell. Appearing thin and worn, the former Secretary of State, National Security Advisor, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and four-star general launched the effort to recapture the nation’s honor.
“Thank you for giving me the opportunity to begin the restoration process,” Powell began. “As a man with a long military career, and as a soldier who has been awarded at one time or another a Purple Heart, the Bronze Star, a Soldier’s Medal, the Distinguished Service Medal, as well as numerous others, I, more than most, might be expected to understand honor--what it consists of, what it means to the individual and to the country he serves, and what a high price one may have to pay to retain it.”
He paused, removed his glasses, and wiped them. “I have learned that price dearly,” he went on, “because I sold my honor so cheaply--for the title of Secretary of State, for the advancement of my son’s career, for a future of well-paid sinecures on corporate boards, and out of a misguided loyalty to the administration I was a part of.
“I went before the UN Security Council, on February 5, 2003, and with the eyes of the world upon me, made perhaps the most dishonorable speech in the troubled annals of American history.
“It was dishonorable because it was a panoply of lies, from beginning to end. It was dishonorable because it betrayed every man and woman serving in our armed forces, dispatching them to fight, suffer, or die under the illusion that they were defending their families and country. It was dishonorable because it was the major factor in selling an unjust war of aggression to a skeptical American public. It was dishonorable because it irrevocably destroyed our country’s claim to history’s moral high ground.
“I said, before the UN, that ‘there can be no doubt that Saddam Hussein has biological weapons and the capability to rapidly produce many, many more.’ That was a lie, designed to frighten my country into war. I said that I had no doubt that Saddam Hussein was gathering materials to produce nuclear weapons. That too was a lie, designed to justify a war. I listed seventeen indictments in my speech. Every one was a lie, intended to propel us into war.
“In another time, and in another culture,” Powell said, “a man who has so dishonored himself and his country would have simply thrown himself on his sword. In my own way, I have been doing that since I left office. I am doing it tonight.
“There is no way I can make amends for the suffering and devastation I helped create. Since my retirement, I spend part of each day visiting VA hospitals, and every depressed, suicidal veteran; every amputee; every brain-damaged victim, is seared into my soul. I also do my best to visit and comfort the families of more than four thousand men and women in our armed forces whose lives have been needlessly wasted in Iraq. When I am met with the tears of mothers and fathers, of wives and husbands; when I see the broken lives of families; when I look into the uncomprehending eyes of orphans, I think of myself delivering the words that set the horrific machinery of war in motion.
“But the scale of the suffering caused by the war is beyond any human comprehension, and far beyond anything for which I can make amends. At least 1.6 million Iraqis have been set adrift as refugees, struggling to survive. Six hundred thousand civilians have died from illnesses or injuries attributable to the war and occupation. One fourth of all Iraqi children are chronically undernourished, and two thirds of them have unsafe drinking water.”
He faltered. “I’m sorry,” he said. “This is so hard.” He took a deep breath and then continued. “The Iraqi health care system, their educational system, their transportation system, their water and electrical supply--all the necessities to keep a modern society viable--have been turned into ruins.
“Shias and Sunnis who once lived together as neighbors and friends have been cast as bitter enemies, murdering and torturing one another, setting off waves of ethnic cleansing. The Iraqi countryside is strewn with fragments of depleted uranium from armor-piercing shells. Generations of Iraqis will suffer the agonies of cancers caused by their radiation.
“We have plundered the resources of our own country to pillage another. We have cheated our youth of education, our elderly of retirement security, our sick of needed care, and our citizens of fundamental rights--all to pursue an unnecessary, useless war.
“That is our world now, and I bear its full weight on my shoulders. Restoring our nation’s honor will be a task for real heroes. It will be a colossal task, and it may take decades. It will demand that we tell the truth, that we confront ourselves at our weakest and worst. We must take responsibility for our acts. We must make what reparations we are able. Tonight is only a beginning.”
Finally, the old general began to weep, tears running freely down his cheeks. “My guilt,” he said, “is more than I can bear.”
Following the show, Beck was quoted as saying that “This wasn’t quite the direction I had in mind. But the ratings have been terrific!”
© Tony Russell, 2010

"The Enthusiasm Deficit"

2010-10-12T09:33:00.000-07:00

As soon as Janet stepped through the kitchen door, she could hear the sound of crying--deep, gasping, soul-wrenching sobs. “Oh no,” she sighed to herself. “Not again.”
She put the tea kettle on and then walked over to put her arm around her friend’s shoulders. “Brenda, honey, what is it? What’s wrong?”
Brenda kept her head bent, tears pouring down her cheeks, as she stared at the kitchen table. “It’s Barry,” she finally managed to choke out. “He and his friends are saying the meanest things about me.”
“What kind of things, Brenda?”
Brenda had temporarily brought her crying under control. “He accused me of being unfaithful. He said I didn’t really love him, that I didn’t understand all the things he has to struggle with. He acted as if I was stupid and ungrateful!” And she burst into a new round of tears.
Angry on her friend’s behalf, Janet said, “What’s the matter with him? Why is he saying those things?”
Brenda looked up, distraught. “I don’t know! I don’t know! Oh, I think I’m going to be sick.... She jumped up and raced to the bathroom.
As she pulled two cups from the cupboard, Janet could hear Brenda retching. “What would be best at a time like this?” she asked herself. “Mint? Chamomile?” Finally she settled on Tension Tamer™. “When will she ever learn?” she thought.
Brenda finally emerged, looking wan and shaken. She sat, cuddling the warm teacup with both hands. “Thanks, Janet,” she whispered. “You’re such a good friend. I don’t know what I’d do without you.”
She seemed to settle herself, and then reflected, “He seemed so perfect. Not just tall, dark, and handsome, but so articulate, so intelligent, so sensitive. He convinced me that we shared so many hopes, so many dreams. We were going to walk together into a new world. And now it’s all gone wrong.” She raised her eyes, and she had the look of someone staring into an infinite, sucking void.
“It’s not fair!” she screamed, and then burst into a new set of tears, this time hot, scalding tears of rage. “He betrayed me, he turned his back on me, he acted as if I didn’t even exist! And now he expects me to be enthusiastic when he turns up at my door. When I’m not, he accuses me of being unfaithful! After all the money I gave him, after all the calls I made on his behalf, all the friends I nagged to give him a job! I walked the streets for him!”

“You gave him money? How much money, Brenda?” demanded Janet, shocked.
“I don’t know,” said Brenda despondently. “A lot. Sometimes a check. Sometimes my credit card. He just always needed a little more. Every bit was critical, you know. He kept saying he was desperate. He depended on me.”
“Brenda, you work in a daycare center. He’s a lawyer. And you were giving him money? When this is all over, he’ll be even richer, and you’ll be no better off than you are now.”
“It was never about me,” Brenda said. “It was always about making the world a better place. The common good.” She looked up. “You think I’m hopelessly naive, don’t you? You think I’ve been a sucker for the same old line. As soon as he was elected, he stopped calling. He found new friends. But I just thought that he was really busy getting settled in, that he still cared, that he was still true, that he would keep his promises to me.
“But I finally got tired of waiting. He never had time for me and my friends. He surrounded himself with the same people I thought we were hoping to replace. He kept so many of the same policies he attacked during his campaign. I still gave him the benefit of the doubt. I told myself I might be exaggerating. Blowing minor things out of proportion. So I made myself sit down and put together a list of ways he had changed. When I finished, I could hardly stand to look at it, it hurt so much. Now he’s in trouble, and he’s angry because I’m not satisfied with the way things are going. He says that I need to fall in line, that I’m hurting him, and I’m the only hope he has.”
“Oh, Brenda,” said Janet sadly. “Sweetie, we’ve been through this before. You’ve got to learn sometime.”
“I don’t know what to do!” shrieked Brenda. “Why does it always come down to a choice between being assaulted by people whose entire political philosophy revolves around greed and aggression, or being betrayed by people who claim to care about fairness, community, and peace?”
© Tony Russell, 2010
Brenda’s list (admittedly incomplete and a work in progress) :
Instead of the change he campaigned on, he actually kept Bush’s Defense Secretary, Robert Gates, and Bush’s favorite warrior, Gen. Petraeus, as his leading voices on national security policy. For all the rhetoric, we are still at war in Iraq, and waging expanded campaigns now in Afghanistan and Pakistan.
Instead of repudiating Bush’s landmark embrace of “preemptive war,” Obama used the occasion of his Nobel Peace Prize acceptance in Oslo to specifically endorse it as a strategy. His “Peace Prize” speech was seen over most of the globe as a glorification of militarism.
After criticizing the Bush administration for its use of torture and promising to comply with a court order to release Pentagon torture photos , Obama moved to block any investigation of the torture, denied the release of the photos, and has worked hard to help cover up this violation of human rights and international law.
Obama has incorporated the most heinous and undemocratic features of the Bush administration’s police-state policies, including support for “extraordinary rendition,” domestic spying, and the holding of terror suspects indefinitely, without charges.
Despite campaigning on behalf of the struggling middle class, with its millions of unemployed and underemployed, he has shown none of the urgency his administration demonstrated when Wall Street investment firms, banks, and auto makers were threatened.
Instead of taking steps to embody the hope he campaigned on, he has done nothing to stop the endless drumroll of home foreclosures.
Instead of using his “stimulus bill” to drive work on alternative energy expansion, environmental improvement and restoration, or to build permanent social assets, as did the CCC and the WPA, he aimed 90% of the new jobs created toward traditional, existing private businesses.
During his campaign, Obama championed the public option for health care and opposed forcing people to purchase private insurance; once elected, he ruled out the public option before negotiations on health care even began, and supported mandating the purchase of private insurance.
During his campaign, Obama promised to negotiate health care reform in public sessions televised on C-SPAN; once elected, he negotiated behind closed doors.
Instead of the change he campaigned on, he turned his economic policy over to Tim Geithner and Larry Summers--the same Wall Street corporate insiders who helped get us into our current mess--and only accelerated the widening of the gap between the haves and the have-nots.
Obama promised to close Guantánamo within a year; that hasn’t happened.
During his campaign, Obama supported ending the Cuban embargo; in office, he has ignored the embargo, allowing it to continue.
During his campaign, Obama promised to reopen negotiations on NAFTA; once in office, he has done nothing, perpetuating the status quo.
As a Senator and candidate, Obama courted labor and supported the Employee Free Choice Act; since being elected, he has done nothing to secure passage of EFCA, which will be dead in the water once these mid-term elections hand Congress over to the GOP.

“Get Inside the Box”

2010-10-05T05:43:00.000-07:00

“I’ve called you all together because we’re facing a major challenge. Fox News has put four potential presidential nominees on its payroll--four! We don’t have a single candidate of our own, and something has to be done about it. Now!”

“What’s the problem, Steve?” asked Jeff, the VP for programming. “All four of their people are far right Tea Party darlings. I mean, give me a break. Sarah Palin, Newt Gingrich, Mike Huckabee, and Rick Santorum? A lineup like that completely undercuts their claim to be ‘fair and balanced.’”

Immediately, the infighting began. This was a TV network, after all.

“What you fail to understand, Jeff,” began Monica, the chief operating officer, “is that even though Fox is outrageously biased, you can’t stop them from telling people otherwise. Trot out all the statistics you want showing how lopsided their coverage is, and it doesn’t faze them. God could speak in a voice of thunder, calling them liars, and when the thunder finished rolling, Fox would still be plastering their claim on the airwaves, hundreds of times a day.”

Jeff ‘failed to understand’ something Monica clearly understood. Well played, thought the others around the table

“Right. Get real, Jeff,” chimed in Arnie, the head of the entertainment section. “You act as if you don’t understand the power of TV. No wonder this network is in a tailspin.”

Ouch. All eyes shifted quickly toward Steve to see if Arnie’s low blow did more damage to Jeff or to Arnie himself.

“We’re getting sidetracked,” said Steve. “Focus on the real issue.”

“Look, Steve,” piped up Lyle, the head of the sports division, “I don’t see the problem here. Fox isn’t exactly fielding an all-world team. Palin was a feisty point guard, but she didn’t even make all-Alaska. Santorum will mix it up and do the dirty work, but he can’t score. And Gingrich is a shooter who misfires most of the time.”

Groans and winces. The usual reactions to Lyle’s contributions.

“Let me spell it out for you, Lyle,” said Steve. “Fox has contracts with all four potential candidates forbidding them from appearing on any other network. How do you suggest we cover the presidential race when there’s a boatload of candidates who won’t even appear on our shows?”

Having brushed Lyle aside, Steve moved on. “Time to get serious, people. I want us to settle on at least one candidate of our own by the time this meeting is over, and two would be even better.”

Okay. Time to shift gears and move on.

“We need somebody who screams ‘not Fox’,” offered Arnie. “Somebody with a positive vision, somebody who cares about the climate catastrophe facing our planet, somebody who will direct our resources toward our common problems instead of mutually destructive wars....”

“You’re thinking outside the box,” snapped Steve, cutting him short. “Get inside the box! There’ve got to be plenty of politicians with bizarre, discredited views who are available and viable presidential candidates.”

Ah, an acceptable direction to move in.

“Steve,” said Rahim tentatively, “what if Fox already has the good ones sewn up? I mean, crazy is flat-out entertaining, and Fox may have cornered the market. I’m not sure anybody as wacky as Palin or Gingrich is still available.”

Monica was quick to pounce. “Well, Steve,” she said, “Christine O’Donnell just jumps out at you. If she wins Delaware, there’s going to be an enormous amount of buzz about her and a possible presidential bid.”

Wouldn’t you know it? Got to give Monica credit, she’s a quick study.

“I think she puts Palin in the pale,” she continued--winging it, but sounding good. “For my money, she’s better looking than Sarah Palin, and she’s even more quotable. She has a track record of looney, anti-intellectual positions that endears her to right wingers and fascinates the media. That makes her an ideal candidate to be our candidate.”

A gleam came into Jeff’s eyes. “Uh, Monica,” he said, “what you fail to understand is the extent of Christine O’Donnell’s history with Fox News--or maybe you were just completely unaware of it. She’s spouted political commentary for shows like The Live Desk and The O’Reilly Factor. If she entered the presidential race--God forbid--she’d become Fox’s fifth entry, not our first.”

Silence, as that soaked in. Monica momentarily stunned.

“Ya know,” mused Lyle, “I’m not sure we ought to put this game on our schedule.”

“What?!” said Steve. “What the devil are you talking about?”

“It’s sort of like a football game,” began Lyle. But then everything was sort of like a football game for Lyle.

“How do you figure?” inquired Monica, recovered and willing to help him hang himself.

“Well, think of the two political parties as teams,” said Lyle. “And news media are kind of the referees. They’re supposed to be neutral, see, not favoring one team or the other. Just call ‘em the way they see ‘em. But here you have Fox owning a team and paying the players and still pretending they’re gonna referee the game fairly. So if we buy a team and pay the players, we’d be doing the same thing. It’s disrespecting the game.”

Talk about being out in left field! But that’s baseball, not football. Anyhow, who will set Lyle straight?

“Look,” said Monica dismissively, “it’s simple economics. “Corporations donate money to campaigns, they buy ads, they lobby, they spend millions to bend politicians to their will. Then the politicians do what they’re paid to do in Washington. This just simplifies the process. You eliminate the middleman by hiring him.”

Lyle couldn’t seem to let it go. “Let’s say the Constitution is the rule book,” he argued. “This is a way to get around the rules. It might not break any rules, but it violates the spirit of the game.”

“Oh, for cryin’ out loud!” exploded Steve. “Think of it as the introduction of the forward pass--something new that changes the nature of the game. It’s progress!”

“All progress isn’t progress,” countered Lyle. “This is more like blue artificial turf.”

"A Form of Civic Education"

2010-09-27T10:33:00.000-07:00

Our neighbors, the Whittens, have a foreign exchange student staying with them. I saw him walking toward town yesterday morning, and stopped to offer him a ride.

Once he was in the car, there was an awkward pause, as neither of us quite knew how to make conversation with the other. Finally he said, with some hesitation, “I see you people in Virginia have executed a woman. The first in almost a hundred years.”

“Yep,” I said cheerfully. “That’s progress for you.”

“Progress?” he said, frowning.

“Right. Women’s equality,” I explained. “Equal treatment. Virginia has been executing men by the truckload. Women deserve their fair share, and this is a start. Treat both sexes alike. No discrimination.”

He turned and stared at me. “May I inquire what the rationale for such executions might be? Is it simply vengeance?”

“No, no,” I reassured him. “Vengeance would be barbaric. Executions are a form of civic education. We kill people to teach people that killing people is wrong.”

“You kill people to teach people that killing people is wrong?” he asked, as if he had trouble following simple logic.

“You’ve got it,” I replied. I added, “Even though this woman, Teresa Lewis, didn’t pull the trigger herself, she planned the killings, and two other people working for her did the actual shooting. She could have stopped them, but she let the killings take place. They were premeditated and carried out without remorse.”

He paused again. Then he said, “And your governor, Mr. McDonnell. He didn’t execute her personally?”

“Of course not,” I scoffed. “He has subordinates who do the detailed work and carry out his instructions. He could have stayed the execution or changed Teresa Lewis’s punishment to life imprisonment, but he said he couldn’t see any reason not to execute her. He denied the appeals and gave the go-ahead for the execution to take place. It was carefully premeditated, and was carried out without remorse on his part.”

“Mrs. Lewis,” he said. “Did she remain unrepentant for her responsibility in causing the deaths of others?”

“It’s hard to tell about those things,” I admitted. “Other prisoners and some of the prison chaplains said that over the years she was waiting to be killed she comforted other prisoners, prayed for them, sang for them, and was generally an inspiration.”

“I see,” he said. “And Mr. McDonnell. What will the impact of Mrs. Lewis’s execution be on his political career?”

“Oh, I’m sure he and his staff calculated the potential impact thoroughly,” I said. “No question that the execution was a win-win situation for him. It’s bound to have bolstered his support among conservative Christians, Right-to-Lifers, and get-tough-on-crime hard-liners. So I would imagine, all in all, he’s pretty happy with the results.”

“Then executing Mrs. Lewis profited him politically?” he asked.

“Oh, I would think so,” I said.

“What was Mrs. Lewis’s motive for her crime?” he inquired.

“Money,” I said. “She was hoping to profit by collecting $250,000 in life insurance.”

“That seems truly callous,” he murmured, and I agreed.

But something still seemed to be bothering him. “It is my understanding that every year more and more bills are introduced in your legislature to increase the types of offenses for which people can be executed?”

“That’s right,” I said. “That’s how things work in an advanced nation. The legal system is constantly updated to keep pace with social progress.”

“I’m sorry. One more question. Could you explain to me how Mrs. Lewis was put to death?” he asked somewhat numbly.

“In the most humane way possible,” I assured him. “Fourteen corrections officials strapped her down so she couldn’t move. Then someone injected poison into her veins, and people stood around and watched her die.”

He seemed to be having trouble taking it all in, and we rode on silently for a few blocks. “This is where I get off,” he managed, signaling me to stop. “Thank you for your courtesy in providing me with transportation, as well as for a most memorable conversation.”

“No problem,” I responded, not wanting to make too much of it. I knew foreigners are often overwhelmed by Americans’ kindness and generosity. As I told Patty afterward, “He speaks surprisingly good English, and he seems pretty well informed. But he doesn’t have a clue about how a civilized country operates.”

For an instant, an expression flickered across Patty’s face. The one that hurts--compassion. “Oh, Ace,” she began, “sometimes you’re so....” Then she stopped, turned, and walked out of the kitchen without finishing.

I love that woman.

© Tony Russell, 2010

"All Available Means of Persuasion"

2009-08-08T19:40:00.000-07:00

I had a chance yesterday to talk with an old buddy of mine, Vern Gosworth, who works for a public relations firm. We met for lunch at Eppie’s. Vern hemmed and hawed and finally ordered the Wednesday special, hot tamales, but I stuck with the jerk chicken.

While we were sitting at the table, waiting for our names to be called, I asked him about the news this week that a Washington lobbying group hired by a coal industry consortium, the American Coalition for Clean Coal Electricity (ACCCE), had sent forged letters opposing clean air legislation to several members of Congress.

The letters were supposedly from organizations such as the NAACP and the American Association of University Women, but were actually written on fake letterheads.

“Boy, coal companies must be really angry that somebody they hired would try to deceive members of Congress into voting against the clean energy bill,” I said.

“Oh, absolutely,” said Vern. “They’ve issued a statement that they have ‘always maintained high ethical and professional standards,’ but then something like this happens and makes people wonder. I couldn’t blame them if they were furious.”

“Why are they so opposed to the clean energy bill?” I wondered.

“Are you kidding? It could end up costing them billions. Coal is the dirtiest energy out there. They shoveled out almost $11.8 million lobbying against this clean energy bill in the past three months, so you know it’s a huge issue for them.”

“If it’s that important, and they spent that kind of dough, they must have hired the best,” I reflected.

“For sure,” said Vern. “My outfit wanted the job, but we didn’t stand a chance with the Hawthorn Group in the hunt.”

“I think I know what you were up against,” I sympathized. “I was just checking them out on line. Their website says that they approach an ‘advocacy challenge’ with ‘all available means of persuasion.’ They must mean it; they run the phrase three times in three paragraphs on their home page. Your company probably didn’t stand a chance against one that was willing to use ‘all available means of persuasion.’ I hate to ask, but when they say ‘all available means of persuasion,’ do you suppose they mean ‘all available means of persuasion’?”

“You’re reading too much into that, Ace. What they really mean is ‘all available means of persuasion that are legal, ethical, responsible, and morally exemplary.’ They just keep it short because spelling that out would be too cumbersome,” Vern said.

““You’re probably right, I expect. But don’t you think there’s a danger that somebody reading their mission statement would think the Hawthorn Group is willing to do whatever it takes to sell whatever somebody is paying them to pitch?”

“Oh, absolutely not,” said Vern. “It’s already a given that these campaigns will operate on the highest moral and ethical plane; that’s the only way these companies will do business.”

“I see,” I nodded. “But if coal companies are shelling out millions of dollars to oppose the clean energy bill, don’t you thing they would spend some time with their PR firm laying out some guidelines for what they want, and then review ideas the firm comes up with before they okay them?”

“Oh heck no,” said Vern. “That’s not the way the big boys do it, Ace. It’s carte blanche. They just give us a budget, tell us to come up with something, and then forget about it. They trust us to do quality work.”

“And this unnamed employee who created the phony letters--is that the way these things normally operate? I mean, you’ve got a top-drawer client spending huge sums of money, and some employee, all on his own, without even talking with anybody else in the firm, without clearing his idea with some kind of boss or superior, takes it on himself to forge letters to members of Congress?”

“Incredible, isn’t it, Ace? We’ve got so much freedom in the PR business you wouldn’t believe it. We never clear anything with anybody before we put it into effect.”

“Wow!” I exclaimed, “not even something that important, involving so much money and the Federal government? The level of trust in your business is fantastic!.”

“Well,” he said modestly, “we’ve earned that level of confidence. That’s what they pay us for.”

“I was looking at the Bonner & Associates website too,” I went on. “They say that they have ‘a 25 year track record of extensive, winning experience in all levels of government,’ with ‘hands-on experience in winning tough fights.’”

“Uh huh,” Vern said.”

“So evidently this is a veteran outfit that doesn’t mind mixing it up if you pay them enough,” I surmised.

“Oh, I’d definitely say so,” agreed Vern.

“And yet something like this happened,” I pointed out. “You have a top PR firm, and a savvy insider firm that traffics in using grassroots organizations, both promoting themselves as delivering wins, and yet somehow you end up with a dirty, crooked stunt like this.”

“Ace, these things happen,” said Vern. “It was all the work of one person, a rogue temporary employee far down the food chain. Nobody higher up had any clue what that person was thinking of, squirreled away in some lonely cubbyhole. Now that it’s come to light, everybody’s embarrassed.”

“Do you suppose the employee was ‘temporary’ before news of the forgeries broke?”

“I couldn’t speculate on that, Ace.”

“It’s too bad the forgeries came to light after the vote on the bill, since a couple of congresspeople who got the letters actually voted against the clean energy bill.”

“The timing was unfortunate,” he agreed.

“The odd thing is that ACCCE, the consortium of coal companies, says that Bonner and Associates told them about the forgeries before the bill was voted on and before the news came out in the papers. They say that Bonner told them it had contacted the organizations whose names they used on the forged letters, as well as the congressional offices who got the letters, to clear everything up. Now the coal consortium is just shocked to learn that didn’t actually happen.”

“There you go. Somebody at Bonner dropped the ball. Probably got too busy in the hurly-burly of the campaign to follow up on that piece,” said Vern.

“It looks as if somebody at the coal consortium dropped the same ball,” I pointed out. “You wonder why they didn’t address the matter themselves, instead of leaving it to Bonner. And once they’d passed the buck--or bucks--you’d think they’d want to keep on top of the potential scandal, making sure it was taken care of, given their concern to see that “everyone involved in the public policy dialogue lives up to the highest ethical standards.”

“Hindsight is 20-20, Ace.”

“Hindsight is 11.8 million, Vern.”

"Not a Pretty Sight"

2009-05-12T19:26:00.000-07:00

Lead sentence in CNN article: “The more Americans go to church, the more likely they are to support the torture of suspected terrorists, according to a new survey.”

Third paragraph: “White evangelical Protestants were the religious group most likely to say torture is often or sometimes justified--more than six in 10 supported it. People unaffiliated with any religious organization were least likely to back it.”

Patty and I were sitting in Wendy’s, quietly working our way through our combo meals. The ladies behind us were working their way through their friends.

“What kind of Christian does she think she is?” scoffed one. “Supporting terrorists by saying we shouldn’t torture them.”

“I know,” said another. “I always thought better of her than that.”

“She may have a lot of people fooled with that sweet smile and soft voice,” said the first, “but God knows what’s in her heart, and you can bet it’s not a pretty sight.”

“She actually pointed at her ‘What Would Jesus Do?”’ wristlet when she was talking to Wilma and told her that she didn’t believe Jesus would waterboard someone, or strip him naked and sic a dog on him,” tossed in a third. “Can you believe it?”

“I heard that too,” said a fourth. “Wilma told me she couldn’t believe her ears. She was just shocked.”

“Not as much as those thugs at Guantanamo when we hooked them up to electrodes,” joked the second woman.

“This isn’t a laughing matter, Gladys,” one of them reprimanded her. “We’re talking about someone whose patriotism is so shaky her immortal soul is in danger.”

“I tried to talk some faith into her,” said the third woman. “Jane,” I said, “Jesus never said a word forbidding torture. Search the New Testament from beginning to end, and he never says a word against torturing your enemies.”

“You’re right, of course,” said the first woman. “I hope that gave her something to think about.”

“To tell the truth, she didn’t think much about it at all,” said the third woman. “She just quoted Matthew, chapter 5, from the Sermon on the Mount. ‘Ye have heard that it hath been said, Thou shalt love thy neighbour, and hate thine enemy. But I say unto you, Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you; that ye may be the children of your Father which is in heaven: for he maketh his sun to rise on the evil and on the good, and sendeth rain on the just and on the unjust. ’ She claimed that Jesus was very clear about how we were supposed to treat our enemies, and torture sure didn’t fit in the picture Jesus was drawing.”

There was a pause. Patty and I looked at each other, ears perked, waiting.

Finally, the first woman sighed. “I hate to say it,” she said, “but sometimes Jesus could be awfully unrealistic.”

“I know what you mean,” said the second woman. “Those are great ideals, but we live in the real world, with suicide bombers and people flying planes into buildings.”

“Right,” said the third woman, “Jesus did have enemies, you know, and he didn’t torture them or kill them. But look what happened to him.”

I glanced around. They were all absentmindedly fingering their crosses while they gave that some thought.

“My gosh, look at the time!” said the first woman suddenly. “We’re going to be late for prayer meeting if we don’t get a move on.”

"Obama's Plan to Raise Taxes on Wealthy Meets Fierce Opposition"

2009-03-04T19:22:00.000-08:00

President Obama’s plan to raise taxes on the wealthiest 5 percent while cutting taxes for the remaining 95 percent has raised fierce opposition nationwide. Protests against the proposals are scheduled later in the month in major metropolitan areas coast to coast. Organizers expect the largest turnout since the futile demonstrations of 2003 against a U.S. invasion of Iraq. Officials in New York and Los Angeles both anticipate turnouts of more than a million demonstrators.

Rep. David Camp of Michigan, the top Republican on the Ways and Means Committee, said that with unemployment exceeding 10 percent in many parts of the country, numerous former workers will have time on their hands to show their opposition to the increase. “As CEOs slash workforces to maintain their company’s bottom line, that frees up huge numbers of people to show their support for maintaining the status quo,” he said.

Evan Rouse, a teacher whose contract will not be renewed for next year because of budget cuts, was among many local citizens protesting the tax increase for the rich. “Those at the top need our help,” said Rouse. “I feel their pain.” Facing the possibility of losing his health insurance for his family of four, and of having his mortgage foreclosed, Rouse remained upbeat in his support of the well-to-do. “I just think it’s unfair to put people in a position where they might have to rethink the purchase of a Rolex or downsize their yacht,” he said.

Bibi Weinhart, a local socialite, appreciates the outpouring of support from across the community.

“It’s so heartening to see the housekeeping staff at hospitals and universities, Hispanic landscape workers, retail clerks, fast food servers--just the whole range of little people who make our lives easier--come to our defense,” she declared. “I’m giving our nanny and housekeeper an extra hour for lunch to attend the local rally.” “They can make it up on the weekend,” she added. “They understand that my friends and I regularly donate our cocktail dresses and sportswear to thrift stores once we’ve worn them a few times. We have a social conscience; we’re not ogres.”

“It’s not just the increase in the tax rate that’s so unfair,” contends local real estate developer Max Wilmoth. “The president also wants to keep us from using tax havens to avoid paying taxes. That’s a double whammy. My friends and I salt away part of our capital gains on a little tropical island, thinking we can hide it from the IRS, and then along comes this Obama fellow, breaking an unspoken compact between the rich and our government. Wealth has its privileges, and avoiding taxes is one of them.”

“It’s not the principle,” he added, “it’s the money of the thing.”

Wilmoth knows what he’s talking about. The top tax rate people pay for money they earned at work is 35 percent. But the top rate for income from dividends and capital gains is only 15 percent. So the super-rich are taxed a much lower percentage on much of their income than their cooks and chauffeurs pay on their earnings.

“That’s as it should be,” says Wilmoth. “ It’s all about job creation. It’s how we can afford so much help. Obama is trying to take us back to the fifties, when people in the top income bracket paid more than 50% of their income in taxes. Who would want to go back to those days?”

Rouse, the math teacher, agreed. “Just think, if we had kept those fifties tax rates, we could have afforded universal health care, maintained the levies in New Orleans, kept from robbing the Social Security system, cleaned up the environment, and invested in education,” he said. “It’s frightening even to contemplate. The preference of every ordinary voter I know is to line the pockets of the rich instead of squandering money on those kinds of programs. Where are this administration’s priorities? I’m organizing the staff of my school. We’ll show up en masse to oppose Obama’s budget.”

“I never imagined he’d actually follow through on his campaign pledges,” added Rouse. “He would never have been elected if people had understood he was serious about this kind of change.”

Don Hagerman, an investment banker, joined in praise of the usually-silent Americans who are flocking to the defense of the elite. “Who knew there would be this overwhelming popular support for people in our tax bracket?” he asked. “We thought we were dependent on thousands of lobbyists and hundreds of millions of dollars in political donations to make our case. But it turns out the voice of the people is more powerful than the cries of cash, and it’s making itself heard.”

The cause of the rich is being aided by Republicans in Congress, who are nearly unanimous in their opposition to Mr. Obama’s proposals. “ When we cut taxes for the rich and shifted the burden of the budget to the poor and the middle class, that was intended to help everyone; when Obama wants to cut taxes for the lowest 95%, that’s class warfare!” declared Eric Cantor, R-VA, the Minority House Whip.

“President Bush, over a period of eight years, fought for a series of tax cuts for the wealthy, tax cuts that helped forge the economy we have today,” Cantor continued. “How quickly people forget.”

"Too Little to Fail"

2008-09-30T19:52:00.000-07:00

I had only been asleep for two hours before I was awakened by the ringing phone. As a veteran of eight years on night shift, I was used to these interruptions. Blearily, I rolled over and glanced at the caller ID. The digital readout showed “Fannie Mae,“ my mortgage holder. Uh oh. I snatched it up.

“Hello,” I croaked.

“Hello, may I speak to Mr. O’Doyle, please?”

“Speaking.”

“Mr. O’Doyle, I’m calling on behalf of Fannie Mae to let you know that we have yet to receive your mortgage payment for this month. As I’m sure you’re aware, this payment is due on the fifth of every month, and your payment is currently two weeks late.”

“Sorry about that,” I said. “I made a few bad investments down at the grocery store. I thought sure that those four boxes of macaroni and cheese would last us all week, but there I was on Friday, buying Ramen noodles.”

“Excuses aside, when can we expect to receive payment, Mr. O’Doyle?” he demanded.

“Just be patient,” I said, “help is on the way. I saw on television last night that Uncle Sam has realized that folks like me are having trouble paying our mortgages, and he’s stepping in to assist us. I believe the number I heard was $200 billion, so that ought to square us for a while, right? I know that this will increase our tax bill down the road, but Uncle Sam understands that these are tough times, and he’s willing to work things out.”

“Mr. O’Doyle, you seem to have misunderstood,” he said. “The $200 billion in government relief is to rescue Fannie Mae from our bad debts, not you from yours.”

“What? That can’t be right! They’re the same debts, aren’t they?” I asked. “I mean, you guys are struggling because you made idiotic decisions on mortgages like mine. There’s no way I should have been approved for a home loan worth six times my annual salary to begin with. But here I am, stuck with it, and a flexible mortgage rate that keeps going up. Luckily, Uncle Sam knows that we make bad decisions from time to time. He’s willing to step in so we aren’t forced to suffer from our bad decisions. Despite the fact that you never should have issued the mortgages, you still get your money. Are you telling me that when I, as a taxpayer, am giving you the money to cover your losses on my bad mortgage, you still expect me to make good on that same debt?”

“Ummm, yes, well the government is bailing us out, not you,” he explained again.

“So even though the blame lies primarily with your policies, we’re expected to pay not once, but twice? And even though we’re saving you from your own folly with our tax dollars, you figure you deserve to be paid not only the money owed to you, but $200 billion tax dollars on top of it?” I demanded, my voice rising.

“Well, sir, you have to realize that not everyone who owes us money will, in fact, be able to pay it,” he reasoned. “The bailout is designed to cover our losses in those instances.”

“I bet they’d be able to pay it if the government gave them the money,” I said. “And furthermore, if the debt has been covered, shouldn’t they be off the hook for it? You guys foreclosed on my neighbor, Lou, two months ago, and his family has been living in a camper behind his mother’s house ever since. Now that his debt has been covered, where can he pick up his house keys?”

“I’m afraid the bailout doesn’t apply to individual cases,” he said. “Rather, it applies to our institutional debt. The government has decided that we’re ‘too big to fail.’ You aren’t.”

“I’m willing to bet that come tax time, this bailout will be individualized plenty,” I said. “Nobody’s too little to qualify on April 15.”

"You Can Actually See Russia from Here"

2008-09-26T19:56:00.000-07:00

John McCain and other Republicans are defending his choice for the vice presidency against charges that she is totally unqualified. Mrs. Palin herself vouched for her extensive foreign policy credentials, saying she has lived next door to Russia for years. As she told ABC News, "They're our next-door neighbors and you can actually see Russia from land here in Alaska, from an island in Alaska."

I was explaining this to Patty. “I don’t understand how people can call her unqualified,” I said. “Look how she answered her critics on the foreign policy issue.”

“I couldn’t agree more,” said Patty. “People are so quick to ignore the importance of experience like that. And her thinking opens up all kinds of possibilities. Take you, for instance. You lived in Detroit for a couple of years when you were growing up. That’s just a stone’s throw from Canada. I’m sure you’re qualified to be vice president too.”

“I don’t know about that,” I began modestly. “It’s just Canada. They all spend their winter vacations in Florida anyway. But what about that trip we took to Houston in 1974 to watch the Super Bowl? We were practically in Mexico.”

“A weekend might not be long enough to become an expert,” said Patty. “But think about this. The hospital is only ten minutes from our door, and we’ve lived here for over twenty years. Maybe I should set up shop as a cardiologist. I’m probably qualified to deliver babies and perform appendectomies, too.”

“What makes you think that?” I asked. “You’re not qualified to practice medicine. That’s the craziest thing I’ve ever heard of!”

“Just following her logic,” Patty said. “We’re only a few miles from the university as well. You can actually hear the chapel bells when the wind is blowing this way. That should be all I need to edit an economics journal. Or give a lecture on Elizabethan drama. Or to head up a biochemistry research lab.”

“Come on, Patty,” I said. “Quit joking about stuff like that. You’re talking about important jobs where you really have to know what you’re doing--doctors and economists and biochemists and literary scholars and what not.”

“Right,” she said. “Whereas, if she and McCain are elected, and anything should happen to him--God forbid--, she has her finger on the nuclear red button, and the fate of the world is in her hands. She’s in charge of dealing with Iraq, Afghanistan, Iran, Pakistan, China, Cuba, Venezuela, and every other nation in the world. No doubt living across the Bering Strait from Russia has more than prepared her. I imagine she has a grand global strategy all worked out.”

“There’s probably not much chance she’ll be placed in that position,” I said hesitantly.

“Oh, I don’t know,” Patty responded. “Eight vice-presidents have stepped in so far when the president died, and Gerald Ford took over when Nixon resigned. That’s 9 out of 43. When you consider that McCain, if elected, will be the oldest man ever to take the office, has a history of melanoma and a medical record 1,200 pages long, you’ve got to consider the odds that she’ll replace him are pretty good.”

“Ouch,” I said. “I’m developing a headache just thinking about it.”

Patty whipped out a pen and tore a piece of paper from a notebook. “Here,” she said, “let me prescribe something for that.”

She handed me the note. In capital letters she had printed “VOTE.”

"Only God Knew"

2008-06-26T19:50:00.000-07:00

Once upon a time, before the current administration, only God knew what your government now knows--your shame, your guilt, your weakness, your doubt, your beliefs, your political bent:

how you borrowed money from your sister again to keep from losing your home;

how you omitted your kidney problem from the pre-existing conditions you listed on your insurance application;

how you failed to report thousands in tips on your income tax return;

how you exchange romantic e-mails with a man who isn’t your husband;

how you and a dozen others held a candlelight vigil, trying to prevent the invasion of Iraq;

how you saved more than 70% by faxing your prescription to Canada;

how your auto insurance was canceled when you got a second speeding ticket;

how your family has a history of schizophrenia;

how you tried to form a union at the plant, before they closed down and moved over to Taiwan;

how you think “The Emperor’s New Clothes” is a paradigm for our time;

how you took those earrings you always wanted when your aunt was placed in a nursing home;

how you used your credit card to donate to MoveOn.org;

how you had a crush on someone of the same sex when you were a high school sophomore;

how your purchases of whiskey and vodka have been on the rise;

how you squandered your house payment on lottery tickets;

how you unhooked the odometer on your pickup;

how you were molested by your uncle when you were eight;

how you thank your Higher Power that your brain still works after all the coke you’ve snorted up your nose;

how the police have responded to three domestic disturbance calls at your house within the past six months;

how your taste in library books runs toward left-wing politics;

how you despise televangelists for worshipping success;

how you have prescriptions for painkillers from four different doctors;

how you downloaded photos of women wearing latex boots and fishnet tops;

how you donated fifty bucks to Ron Paul’s campaign;

how your daughter was caught shoplifting at the mall;

how you had two abortions before you turned 21;

how you lie to your wife to conceal your gambling addiction;

how you printed out instructions on anal sex;

how you keep a folder for “election fraud” on your hard drive;

how you tried to commit suicide by cutting your wrists;

how your herpes infection dates back to your high school years;

how you’re outraged that our government tortures;

how you support the right of gays and lesbians to teach, preach, marry, and be ordinary;

how you maintain a small arsenal of automatic and semi-automatic firearms, along with thousands of rounds of ammunition;

how you’ve upped your contributions to Emily’s List, the ACLU, Amnesty International, and the Environmental Defense Fund;

how you hide a baggie of grass in a shoebox in your closet;

how you check out the Sports Illustrated swimsuit issue online when you get bored;

how you have Googlle Alert send you articles on impeachment;

how your orders from NetFlix are heavily weighted toward “R” ratings;

how you harbor a persistent fear that the cancer that killed your sister is lurking in your cells, waiting to claim you as well;

how you have two books overdue, both on global warming;

how you ranted that the Patriot Act spits on the nation’s spirit;

how you spend your paycheck, every transaction on your credit card and in your bank account laid as bare as Judgment Day;

how your psychiatrist keeps tweaking your medication, trying to allay your depression;

how your calls to your AA sponsor show increasing desperation;

how what terrifies you is the War on Terror;

how your doctor is treating you for impotence, insomnia, high blood pressure, and possible paranoia.

"Happy Hour at Beelzebub's Bar"

2008-06-09T20:04:00.000-07:00

‘Happy Hour’ at Beelzebub’s Bar, and two young devils with a powerful thirst stepped through the swinging doors. It was broiling hot outside, but the barroom was like an inferno.

“Whew, it feels good to get in out of that warm air!” said the taller one. “Let’s grab a booth.”

A waitress in a scanty scarlet outfit, wearing a cute little ‘devil’s horns’ headpiece and swinging a realistic tail from her tush, sashayed over to take their order. “What’ll it be, tall, dark, and handsome?” she grinned. “Working hard today, or hardly working?”

“Going full bore,” said Nick with a wink and a leer. “Keeping a lid on the global warming debate isn’t easy. My costume’s wringing wet.”

They watched her retreating form as she hustled to get their drinks. “Come on,” said Scratch, the shorter of the pair, “you don’t really think you can lull a planet full of people to sleep while you turn their world into a miniature Hades, admit it.”

Nick snorted. “Hey, it’s easier than you think. I don’t have to deal with six and a half billion people--just a handful of corporate execs.”

“Surely you jest,” laughed Scratch.

“Did you see the Pew survey? Two-thirds of the public in both Japan and India are worried sick about climate change. But you know what? The people who are doing the heavy damage, the Americans? No sweat! Only one out of every five say it worries them a lot. I’d say that’s pretty good proof my method works.”

“Pagan poop!” swore Scratch. “How the heaven did you pull that off?”

“Scratch, Scratch,” said Nicky, shaking his head sadly. “It’s so basic. You’ve gotta get back to your roots.”

“Roots?”

“What’s the root of all evil?”

“Oh, the love of money. I always thought ‘all evil’ was an over-simplification. ‘The love of lucre is the love of Lucifer.’ But I see where you’re coming from.”

“I get off on working with giant corporations. If shareholders aren’t happy with the bottom line, they boot out the current management and bring in a ‘leaner, meaner’ team. Love the sound of that, don’t you? Who’s leaner and meaner than me? Think about it for a minute. These corporations exist for a single purpose--to generate a sizable profit. That makes them a perfect devil’s instrument, since by definition, they worship Mammon! Brothers, hello!”

“You’ve got a track record with some of the best.”

“Hey, I don’t want to sound like I’m bragging, but I’ve been in bed with the big boys--ExxonMobil, Chevron, Halliburton, Ford Motor Company, GM, Massey Energy, American Electric Power, Boeing, Alcoa, Phillip Morris, Cargill.... Carbon emissions, poisons, carcinogens, smog, bribery, polluted rivers and earth and air... poke around in that list and you’ll find it all.”

“I wonder about their consciences,” mused Scratch.

Nick stared at him. “Didn’t you know? Each one of them’s considered a ‘person’ under the law, but they have no conscience built in. It’s Frankenstein’s monster in a real-world version!”

“I don’t get it. Don’t they care what they’re doing to Creation?”

“A corporation doesn’t care one way or another about Creation. They can be totally committed to Destruction, as far as that’s concerned, and hire a PR firm to paste a pretty face on the pig. Then they pick compliant state legislators and judges, Congresspeople and presidential candidates, and bankroll their campaigns. They dictate the limits of action and the terms of debate.”

“Wow,” said Scratch. “That sounds like a process planned in hell.”

“How did you guess?” beamed Nick. “Here’s the beauty of it. Corporations are like us; they’re immortal. People come and go, but corporations are going to be here till the earth bakes in its own greenhouse gases.”

“A day to dream of,” said Scratch. “But the executives and people on their boards--doesn’t all this worry them?”

“Why would it? They’re rich; they demand and get insulation. They live on private estates, belong to exclusive clubs, and travel in private planes; their kids go to exclusive prep schools and private colleges; they only hobnob with people like themselves on the boards of charities and museums. They’re respected. They’ve got it all!”

“Except their souls,” noted Scratch with a grin.

“That’s a small clause in our bargain. Even the rich can’t have everything,” said Nick.

“Doesn’t it bother you when executives blast critics for ‘demonizing big business’? You do all the work, and then somebody else gets all the credit?”

“Nah. I’m not in this to make a name for myself. I do it just for the hell of it.”