Monday, March 29, 2010

This Just In! Breaking News!


I couldn’t resist the headline from Reuters that popped up in Google News: “Junk food addiction may be clue to obesity.” Well, duh!

It seems there was a scientific study of three groups of rats: “One group ate a balanced healthy diet. Another group received healthy food, but had access to high-calorie food for one hour a day. Rats in the third group were fed healthy meals and given unlimited access to high-calorie foods. The rats in the third group developed a preference for the high-calorie food, munched on it all day and quickly became obese.” This is science?

This has to be a put-on. An eleventh-grader’s science fair project, maybe. Somebody actually financed this “research”? Now I know why America is lagging behind in brains.

Junk food, on the other hand, is a no-brainer, which is why it has its limits in our house. Chocolate-chip cookies from Costco are strictly rationed: one apiece at lunch every other day (unless we’ve just bought them, in which case we argue, quite reasonably I think, that freshness can’t go to waste). One of the pastries we brought back from our favorite bakery in Tucson last fall and stuck in the freezer is thawed every other Sunday (and plans are afoot for their replenishment). Ice cream comes in relatively small doses, especially since we read that too much sugar in the evening can keep you awake. Tortilla chips are allocated only with burgers or wraps at lunch. And the dark chocolate-covered nuts from Trader Joe’s are part health food, right? But otherwise no candy, and definitely no sodas. What’s that, you say, no fun? A while ago I weighed in on the proposal to tax soda, but why stop there? Anything containing HFCS oughta be fair game. As long as airlines are going to benefit by selling double seats, the government might as well get some revenue out of the situation.

But I think they conducted this “study” too soon (or maybe just in time?), because if pot is legalized in California, you’re going to see some serious junk food consumption on the left coast (so Ahnuld needs to get those taxes passed). Oh well, at least they’ll have a benchmark – as long as the rats didn’t inhale.


Sunday, March 28, 2010

Spam Takes a Holiday


I usually go into the spam folder at Gmail in the morning to empty out what’s accumulated overnight, and before going to bed to trash the day’s accumulation. I figure it’s always good to make sure nothing you really wanted ended up there by mistake – communications from old friends, opportunities to join AARP, offers from Nigerian princes, stuff like that.

But this has been a day without spam. And I’m incredulous.

The good news is, when I click on my spam folder, I’m given a link at the top of the box for a recipe. “Spam Vegetable Strudel - Bake 20 minutes or until golden, serve with soy sauce.” (Yum!) “French Fry Spam Casserole.” (One can only wonder.)  “Spam Fajitas - Serves 8, add extra salsa if desired.” (OlĂ©!) Spam Confetti Pasta, Ginger Spam Salad, Savory Spam Crescents...do the enticements never end?

It’s heartening to know that, even when spam takes a holiday, it’s never a day without spam.


Friday, March 26, 2010

Raindrops on Roses, etc.


We went up to Flagstaff yesterday to see how our summer trailer had weathered the winter storms. The aluminum roof over the porch must’ve had three feet of snow on it at some point, and it suffered some buckling that we’ll have to get fixed. But we figure we dodged a bullet, because a couple of porches in the park had caved in completely.

One can’t help but think at times about the things one accumulates in life and the need to safeguard them or insure against their loss. It conjures up images of people fleeing war zones or natural disasters with all they could cram into a vehicle or cart or suitcase (much as we fled that trailer a few years ago when a wildfire threatened). I ask myself what inanimate objects are irreplaceable enough for me to rescue under similar circumstances. Not being terribly attached to things, I don’t know that I could come up with even ten favorites – but here are five....

5. The guitar I bought just last year has quickly become a favorite thing. My old Gibson seemed too narrow in the neck after I’d gotten used to an Ovation nylon, but that was a bit bulky for sitting around with. I used to take a Martin backpacker (also nylon stringed) with me on trips East or to Flag – easy to transport, but it sounded like a ukulele. The Seagull Coastline Grand is just a dandy little instrument with a nice full sound. Replaceable, granted, but since the tone is supposed to improve with playing I’d want to save it.

4. Back when I used to haunt used bookstores, I’d always check to see if they had a reasonably priced first edition of V. by Thomas Pynchon on the shelf. Being a long-time, die-hard Pynchon freak, I considered it as much of a quest as that of its protagonist Herbert Stencil for the meaning of a mysterious initial. One storekeeper gently chided that I wouldn’t likely stumble on one at random because no bookseller would fail to recognize its value, and whenever I did come across a copy it’d usually be in a locked case and cost a couple hundred bucks. After some patient on-line searching, I finally found a third printing in good condition for just $45 – a teensy bit cocked and missing a front endpaper but with a nice jacket, so it scratched my itch just fine. Replaceable perhaps (as is my favorite edition of the TTC), but not at that price.

3. My Creative Zen MX 16-gig mp3 player is the latest in a series of repositories for the music that matters to me. I’m constantly (dare I say obsessively?) fiddling with its content, and it’s nice to know that I could leave behind all of the CD’s I’ve accumulated over the years and not miss them because I had my Zen. Device replaceable – content only with considerable replication of effort.

2. Another book worth saving would be my own, a novel that I completed back in the early 90s and then spent ten years beating my head against a wall trying to get published. I’ve gotten that frustration out of my system, but the work itself is nearer and dearer to me than a couple of other attempts at literary immortality, so the manuscript (or rather its e-file) would be something I’d want to rescue. Irreplaceable.

1. Fortunately I wouldn’t have to expend any effort to rescue my #1 item, because it resides on the third finger of my left hand, a band of titanium with two inset circles of gold. It’s a reminder that after years of farting around I finally found the love of my life. We ordered them from a craft dealer at the 4th Avenue street fair in Tucson, constantly looking over our shoulders lest anyone we knew see us since our wedding plans were under wraps; the day we put them on, in a registry office in Edinburgh, Scotland, is one I’ll not forget. Perhaps replaceable as a “thing” – but it’s way more than that.

Anyone who knows me will recognize that two of the five have to do with music, another two with the written word, reflecting the consuming interests of a lifetime. But anyone who knows me well will recognize that the other reflects a quest whose satisfaction was a lot more meaningful than the quest for V., whether Stencil’s or my own.


Thursday, March 25, 2010

When It All Started


I was drafting a post about the Republicans’ continuing counterattacks on the health bill when I came across this column by Gene Lyons. There’s not much I can add.

One of the points that stood out for me had to do with the GOP’s constant citing of public opinion polls purporting to be against the bill, even though a portion of that percentage thought it didn’t go far enough. Lyons asks, “where was all this solicitude for the randomly selected will of the people back when Republicans impeached Bill Clinton while polls showed that two-thirds of Americans opposed it?” I flinched a bit at the mention of that episode, because it had marked my re-politicization.

I was a conservative kid, Youth for Goldwater in high school, then made a left turn when I got to college. Slapped a McCarthy bumper sticker on my car in ’68, voted McGovern in ’72 (unless it was for Benjamin Spock, I really don’t remember). Then somehow I lost interest and declared myself apolitical. Maybe I couldn’t muster enough amusement to overcome my disgust, but I even slept through the Reagan years and didn’t vote again until ’92. It’s not that I was gung-ho for Clinton, I just couldn’t bear the thought of a doofus like Dan Quayle being a heartbeat away from the presidency. Even so, I still hadn’t been re-politicized.

But boy, did that impeachment ever get to me. The audacity of those sanctimonious sons of bitches was hard to believe. It seemed like the old white male establishment really resented having somebody from my generation in charge. Bubba may have been a sleaze, but by god he was OUR sleaze.

And now they have to cope with a black guy as President – and a woman as Speaker. O tempora, o mores!

People like David Frum are pointing out that the Republicans brought this legislative defeat on themselves by making wrong-headed choices since Obama’s election, but I think it started more than ten years ago when they decided to crucify Bill Clinton. They just don’t want to share their power toys with kids who aren’t from their neighborhood. And they’ll throw a fit if anybody tries to take them away. Looks like the Daddy party needs to be sent to bed without its supper if it can’t learn to behave.

Wednesday, March 24, 2010

The F-Bomb


I read yesterday that Joe Biden dropped the f-bomb at the ceremonial signing of the health-care bill. This seems to be a recurring and evidently serious problem, and I think it needs to be addressed. Something simply has to be done about flatulence on the part of public figures.

It’s difficult, I can appreciate that. There are times when I can hardly contain it myself. Oh sure, it’s easy enough at home where you can make jokes about it and blame it on the cat and if necessary turn on the fan. But in public it’s another matter and not to be taken lightly. Being out in the open air is one thing, but there’ve been times on airplanes when I just didn’t think I could contain myself and had to make my way to the loo simply for the purpose of passing that to which I wouldn’t want to expose an unsuspecting seatmate. Or even have to live with myself while flying over the heartland. It’s not like you can blame it on a cow 30,000 feet below.

There was some commotion a while back, I recall, about the FCC cracking down on TV networks for letting slip the dropping of f-bombs on the air. Didn’t Bono or somebody drop one once while accepting an award? I wasn’t watching the show so can’t attest to how audible it was, but it’s pretty shameless that a celebrity can’t exercise a bit more self-control. If you know you’re going to be in front of a camera, just lay off the bean dip in the green room beforehand, for cryin’ out loud. I understand cabbage can also be a culprit, so don’t go near the cole slaw either.

What I find most confounding is the fact that the media insist on reporting it. Can’t they be polite and just pretend nothing happened? Did their mothers raise them to call attention to each and every f-bomb that gets dropped? Or maybe they had the kinds of dads who liked to exaggerate every occurrence and made those rude imitative noises through cupped hands. (Or maybe the kind you make with your armpit – I never quite got the hang of that.) It just goes to show how hungry the 24-hour news cycle is for any kind of sound bite. If it’s of the silent sort, they could just let it pass as easily as he who dealt it. We don’t need to have our noses rubbed in this kind of event every time it happens.

I certainly hope our vice president learns a lesson from this, if only for the sake of his lovely wife who has to share a bed with him. It’s not as if flatulence is at the top of the list for what our newly overhauled health care system is going to address. But if there are any f-bombs to be dropped in forthcoming public events, we can only hope he has the common sense to leave the room before letting them rip.



Monday, March 22, 2010

"...and your little dog, too!"



Dont know about you, but the first thing I thought of when I read about Republicans pledge to repeal Obamacare was the tirade of Ozs Wicked Witch. For a more reasoned analysis, consider the reflections of former Bush speechwriter David Frum:

“No illusions please: This bill will not be repealed. Even if Republicans scored a 1994 style landslide in November, how many votes could we muster to re-open the “doughnut hole” and charge seniors more for prescription drugs? How many votes to re-allow insurers to rescind policies when they discover a pre-existing condition? How many votes to banish 25 year olds from their parents’ insurance coverage? And even if the votes were there – would President Obama sign such a repeal? We followed the most radical voices in the party and the movement, and they led us to abject and irreversible defeat.”

Sunday, March 21, 2010

with Liberty and/or Justice for All


This is being posted before the health care vote. It isn’t about the vote itself.

At the beginning of today’s debate in the House, congressmen rose for the Pledge of Allegiance. And it struck me that the phrase “with liberty and justice for all” just about summarizes the dichotomy I wrote about last time. Conservatives invoke liberty and the belief that people should be free of government interference, in this case free to arrange their health care privately (...if they can). Progressives want justice (yes, the same “social justice” that Glenn Beck was ranting against) that includes protection from predatory business practices — in this case the power of insurance companies to keep health care unaffordable for many Americans. And never the twain shall meet.

Once the speeches started, what really got to me is the tendency of politicians to claim to speak for the entire population: “The American people want x.” “The American people don’t want y.” Never “my constituents” or even “right-thinking Americans”; always “the American people” as a rhetorical whole. Gimme a break.

While this has no doubt been going on since the founding, it never really struck me until the 1996 presidential debates. Bob Dole seemed to repeatedly proclaim what the American people did and didn’t want, and I resented his presumptuousness in speaking for me. And while I’d like to accuse Republicans of being guiltier of this tactic, I have to acknowledge Obama’s tendency to claim that the American people want health care reform. Which I think was largely the case until Fox whipped up its tempest in a teapot. People protesting outside the Capitol today are American people. Are they the American people? All I know is, they’re nobody I want to be associated with.

Which is it that the American people want more, liberty or justice? More to the point, why can’t we have both? Given that we can no longer lay claim to being the indivisible nation to which our legislators pledge allegiance, it sounds like a toss-up to me.

Tuesday, March 16, 2010

E Pluribus Duo


There’s so much difference of opinion in America, not only about issues but also about how to approach them. A recent NYT article observes that nowadays everybody is a constitutional scholar and is preoccupied with whether the government’s actions are in accord with that document. Meanwhile, you’ve got conservative Christians similarly concerned about living in conformity with biblical dictates. Those two works, the Constitution and the Bible, are at the heart of many American thoughts and beliefs; it’s their interpretation that causes so much brouhaha.

People who take an originalist stance regarding the Constitution believe that we ought to interpret its meaning as the Framers intended in their time. This strikes me as being perfectly parallel to a fundamentalist reading of the Bible – particularly the Old Testament. I’d say it’s dollars to donuts that a Venn diagram of those two groups would show some serious overlap.

A few weeks ago I posted about people’s tendency to take certain artifacts of the written word either (a) literally or (b) in an interpretation that suits their own worldview. This certainly goes on all the time. Why is that, do you suppose? Dare I suggest (with no claim to this being an original thought) that the American public is much like the Roman god Janus, who looked both backward and forward? Some folks look to the past and want to preserve it; others look to the future and want to improve it. The former cling unquestioningly to the authority of what has gone before, especially as codified in key documents; the latter want to adapt to what they think is called for by changes in demographics, public sentiment, technology – just keepin’ up with them changes. Some of us are traditionalists, others progressives, and it seems like there’s no reconciling the two.

Just as the Bible is open to interpretation – especially when it comes to narratives that clearly fall in the realm of folklore and myth – the same is true of the Constitution. And just as the authors of the various biblical books cannot be said to be infallible, neither can the Framers. (After all, they beat around the bush when it came to the slavery issue.) They fashioned a blueprint for government that was appropriate to their times; had they had a soothsayer in their midst who could have seen what the United States would become over the course of two hundred-plus years, they might well have run for the hills. And while they did provide an amendment process, they surely didn’t anticipate the complications posed by fifty states and 300 million people, not to mention expanded suffrage. I’m just sayin’ that being inked on parchment ain’t the same as being engraved in stone, and appropriateness to 1787 is no more an answer for today’s ills than are biblical injunctions against eating shellfish. Arguing a course of action simply because it’s prescribed in either work is appealing to authority that’s long dead.

We are our own authority.

Okay, I recognize that you have to have some sort of foundation, otherwise you’ve got anarchy on your hands. The U.S. Constitution is obviously an excellent framework for a representative form of government that has weathered a lot of storms, but its very adaptablilty (or nonspecificity) throws us into constant perplexity. We already have different translations of the Bible (and conservatives are still trying to rewrite it); maybe it’s time we all got together to rewrite the Constitution so we can stop arguing over what it really means and get on the same page for a change. We are our own authority. We can rewrite the rules if we want – we just all have to agree.

But what are the odds of such agreement? That’s about as promising a scenario as the situation the Framers faced: advocates of a strong central government vs. states-righters, slave-holders vs. those who believed that “all men are created equal”... We’d be right back where they started, with abortion replacing slavery as the divisive moral quandary.

Maybe we could do it right next time and create two separate nations, one for traditionalists to reenact The Handmaid’s Tale and one for progressives to have a shot at Ecotopia. Sure, a lot of us will have to pull up stakes, just like India in 1947, but it might be worth it to have like-minded folks for neighbors. I for one am getting tired of feeling like half the readers who post opinions to the on-line Prescott Courier are people I’d just as soon cross the street to avoid.

E pluribus duo. Isn’t that the ways it’s been from the start? Federalists and Jeffersonians, Republicans and Democrats, Traditionalists and Progressives, all trying to foist their points of view on the other side and making the other guys miserable.

We’ve been making each other miserable for too long. Let’s wake up and smell the coffee – your basic Maxwell House for one side, fair trade organic for the other – and file for divorce before things get any uglier.

Saturday, March 13, 2010

Vinegar Verboten


A story in today’s paper talks about the Tea Party movement attempting to lure Democrats by severing ties to social conservatism. While their focus on fiscal issues is admirable, thinking this will attract liberals is like trying to catch flies by merely not using vinegar, ’cause there’s sure not much honey on offer. All well and good to not take an anti-abortion stance, but that’s hardly going to create a major drain on the left. The teabaggers seem to forget that Democrats like Obama, want health care reform, and believe that government can do the people’s work. They also don’t freak out selectively over budget deficits. (We had our turn w/W’s war.)

No matter how much the Tea Party disassociates itself from the GOP’s cultural crusaders, they’re still shackled to Beck, Hannity, and company, and I’d just like to see them shake those albatrosses loose. Beck’s recent tirade against Christianity won’t help win any converts. And news of what the right-wing loonies are doing to education in Texas won’t help the cause overall; as one supporter of more open-minded education said, “The social conservatives have perverted accurate history to fulfill their own agenda.” But somehow I think the Tea Party can relate to that.

The teabaggers are going to have to have more than a bit o’ honey to win new supporters, like actively supporting personal-liberty values – maybe even disavowing the social conservative agenda entirely – instead of just avoiding the issue. Because the lingering smell of vinegar just isn’t going to go away.

Friday, March 12, 2010

That’s Not What I Was Thinking


Not what I was thinking at all. It’s such a far cry, I have to stop and pinch myself to remind myself that it’s as far as it is. A cry. And for cryin’ out loud, isn’t there any difference anymore between betwixt and between? It’s like the devil and the deep blue sea. A rock and a hard place. Six of one, half dozen of the other. That’s the way I see it, that’s the view from here. It’s hard to see it any other way, especially when there’s nothing to be seen at all, nothing in the scene at all. No thing. But still not what I was thinking. I could piss and moan all day and still not come close. Come closer and I’ll tell you. Let me whisper in your ear. Let me whimper in your ear. Let me whisker, let me whisk her, let me outa here. Because it ain’t fair, it just ain’t. Nobody can tell me it is, nobody can tell me what to do, what to think, because it’s not what I was thinking at all. If I’ve told you once I’ve told you a hundred times, a thousand times, more times than I can remember, more times than I can shake a stick at. More or less. Whichever is more, unless it’s less. Because I’ve just about had it with the whole shebang, the whole shootin’ match, the whole nine yards. Ja? Nein. Das ist nicht was ich hab’ gedankt. Let me put it another way, put “it” another way, give “it” some breathing room, but don’t let “it” come between us. For it will surely be the end of us, if put another way. But never let it be said that that’s what I was thinking, not at all, not in the slightest, you can bet your bottom dollar, you can take it to the bank, you can stand tall in the knowledge that that’s still a far cry, far from a foregone conclusion, far from the madding crowd, and a long way to Tipperary, a long long way to go, so long you’d hardly believe it, so long it’s been good to know ya, so long as I can tie my shoes, still sing the blues, forget to choose, have nothin’ to lose, nothing to fear but fear itself and thinking outside the box. But it’s inside the box that it’s all happening, inside with chocolate-covered crunchy goodness, inside with springtime freshness, inside with united confederated amalgamation, inside outside, what’s up is down. But still not what I was thinking. Be still. Hush. Be quiet, be very very quiet and it will come to me. It will surely come. It will arrive on little cat feet, on moth wings, on tenterhooks, tender hooks, with tender looks. And there will be weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth and grinding of teeth and chattering of teeth but no relief. What, a relief? Watt, a bulb. Shining a light in the darkness, hiding it under a bushel, a candle in the wind, breaking wind, pounding surf, shifting sands, but nowhere near what I was thinking. For that you’ll have to look into my eyes, see what I’ve seen, been where I’ve been, preen how I preen. Let us preen. Let us preen lettuce. Let us pray. Let us bray. Let us not forget the day, forego the hay, forfeit the pay, forfend the way, never again. Never say never. Again: never say never. Be it ever so humble, so righteous, so outasight, so abfab, so tender, tenderly, tenderloin, tendentious, so absofuckinglutely incredible that I can hardly stand to talk about it. But it’s not what I was thinking, not by a long shot, even a short shot, there’s a line drive past the shortstop and the third base coach is waving the runner in and there’s going to be a play at the plate and he’s OUT! No, the catcher dropped the ball, he’s SAFE! He dropped the ball, he missed the call, he couldn’t make head nor tails out of it, heads I win, tails you lose, it’ll all come down in the blink of an eye, in the bat of an eye, before you even know it. I don’t know it, I can hardly believe it, can’t hardly stand it, can’t hardly stand up, but I’ll stand up and sing, stand up and be counted, stand up stand up for Jesus ye soldiers of the cross, stand up sit down fight fight fight. And it’ll be all right. All the way until night. Just to do what’s right, the right thing, stick to your guns, don’t let the bastards get you down. Because it’s what I’ve been saying all along, it’s what I’ve had on my mind. It’s what I’ve been thinking. Isn’t it clear, plain as day, plain as the nose on your/my/his/her face? It’s what I’ve been thinking all along. All along.

Tuesday, March 9, 2010

"Miss me?" Nyet!



The question has been posed.

Have pigs taken wing?
Has Hades booked the Ice Capades?
Are simians emerging from my anal sphincter?
Is the sun rising over the ocean off Los Angeles?
Are federal reserve notes sprouting in the orchard?
Is blood being wrung from a rutabaga?
Was Rome erected in a single circuit of Sol?
Can the contents of a book be ascertained from the image on its jacket?
Have hens taken to wearing dentures?
Can you now take it with you?
Do tumbling rocks in fact provide a home to rudimentary plant life?
Are Hellenic visitors with presents henceforth to be made welcome?
Is it now permissible to weep over lactose mishaps?
Does Elvis stick around after the show?
Can Argentine dances now be performed solo?
Has the value of held versus enshrubbed avians diminished?
Were weapons of mass destruction found in somebody’s basement in Baghdad?

Submissions welcome.

Sunday, March 7, 2010

The Joy of Cat Puke


If we had any misgivings about our house when we bought it, it was about the fact that it has wall-to-wall carpeting. White carpeting. Okay, not white-white, there having been one house on the market when we were hunting that advertised that and even offered to dye it. But off-white carpeting is close enough because it has the same drawback: it shows cat puke.

At least it’s Berber and relatively easy to scrub. Our previous house had shag when we bought it and was more of a pain to clean, but it was beige-ish so the puke didn’t show in high contrast. But carpeting isn’t that much of a luxury in Tucson anyway, so we eventually had it torn out and replaced with tile. The cats of course made it a point to either hurry over to an area rug when they had to puke or, if they had to puke on the spot (which always seem to be the case*) aim for the grout.

*Like all cat owners, we’re grateful to have critters that know how to use a litter box. I can attest to any number of times when a trapped cat, once freed, made a beeline to the box after holding it for too long. But the same rules don’t apply to puking. When the spirit moves them, they do it where they stand. Then move a few paces and do it again. Three times seems to be the routine cycle for most of ours. Sometimes it’s furballs. Sometimes it’s pet grass. Sometimes it’s kibble perhaps too hastily ingested in the middle of the night. And as any cat owner knows, there’s nothing quite like being awakened from a sound sleep by the hydraulic sound of puking.

White carpets being subject to getting dirty fast anyway, a rug shampooer was an early purchase after moving it in. There was no sense in having a pro come in when the odds were good that within 48 hours after his having rendered our carpets spotless one of our cats would put his work to the test. (Is it like dogs having to pee every ten feet when they go walkies?) Better to handle it ourselves as needed, we reasoned, than to singlehandedly pay for the carpet cleaner’s kids’ college education.

The shampooer works just fine. Like so many of the reviewers on Amazon observed, it’s shocking just to see the color of the rinse water. But in a certain light, you’d swear there was still this pattern of former puke spots, so in addition to the shampoo we bought the spray bottle of spot treatment. Spray, wait ten minutes, then blot. “If needed, repeat.” Somehow it’s always needed.

Then a few days ago while satisfying home-improvement cravings at Home Depot, we decided to check out other pet-stain-removal options. And that’s where we discovered, in amongst the containers bearing the images of cute, if not sufficiently guilty-looking, dogs & cats, the stark white plastic bottle of Folex.

As stated in their on-line spiel, which reads as if it’s been transcribed from a late-night commercial on some local VHF channel, “Even cleaning pet accidents is easy.” And boy, is this stuff good. Not only is it easy to use – work it in with your fingers, then blot it out – it actually works. And I’m not just talking about the cat puke I discovered the other morning that had had enough time overnight to really sink in; it even took care of the mystery grease spot left behind by the previous owners that no combination of cleaning agents had even come close to removing before. (We were fully prepared to list it as a formal disclosure should we sell the house, something our sellers hadn’t done.) The does-not-work review posted on Amazon in the shadow of 30+ raves has to be from a competitor.

It’s only a matter of time (well, probably years) until we give up on the white carpeting entirely. But until then, the kitties can puke at will. And maybe we can look forward to that inevitable red-wine spill with less dread.

Friday, March 5, 2010

Choosing Sides


It was interesting to read today’s columns by conservative David Brooks and liberal Paul Krugman, because each weighed in on comparisons and contrasts between left and right. 

Brooks ponders how today’s teabaggers are similar to the radical left of the sixties: “Both movements are built on the assumption that the people are pure and virtuous and that evil is introduced into society by corrupt elites and rotten authority structures.”

Krugman meanwhile draws a line between congressional Republicans and Democrats based on their differing attitudes toward unemployment compensation and estate taxes. Jim Bunning’s recent tantrum is the point of departure, but Arizona’s own John Kyl is the star of the show. His attitude toward the unemployed—“continuing to pay people unemployment compensation is a disincentive for them to seek new work”—is downright Dickensian.

Each columnist makes some pretty astute observations, but each falls slightly short of the bull's-eye. Maybe if each had read the other’s rough draft they might have seen the common denominator.

Sixties radicals and present-day Democrats share an outward-looking point of view. They were, and are, interested in the betterment of society, in helping their fellow citizens. Teabaggers share with congressional Republicans a more inward-looking (dare I say “selfish”?) outlook: they take taxes as a personal affront and are unwilling, or unable, to look beyond their own self-interest toward the possibility of social justice.

As Krugman puts it, “the difference between the two universes isn’t just intellectual, it’s also moral,” and I don’t think either side would dispute it. Barry Goldwater justified voting against the Civil Rights Act by declaring “You can’t legislate morality,” and there’s a smidgen of truth in that. But aren’t all laws a codification of our worldview? And sometimes it’s not so much a question of morality as compassion – a trait that I seem to recall was linked to conservatism not all that long ago.

For one side, it’s people that matter; for the other, it’s money. And I think we should be grateful to Bunning, Kyl & Co. for making that so crystal clear.


Thursday, March 4, 2010

More Thrills from the Big Top



I hadn’t expected to follow up so directly on yesterday’s post, but sometimes the loonies get me going. Yesterday we had proponents of guns rushing to the defense of texting while driving; today a front-page article in the NYT talks about opponents of teaching evolution linking their cause with global warming denial.

Now that climate change has come under a cloud, I guess it’s only natural to hitch your wagon to a falling star. Only problem is, we now have state legislatures declaring “Carbon dioxide is not a pollutant, but rather a highly beneficial ingredient for all plant life.” That old black/white thinking again: if it ain’t bad, it must be good. Too bad the Brazilian rainforests won’t be around to enjoy all that healthy CO2 we’re spewing.

I won’t call this “linking” tactic stupid; in fact, I think it’s pretty shrewd. What surprises me is that it’s been so long in coming, seeing as how the Right has been so good for so long at gathering together all these diverse hot-button issues so that they can get people to vote against their own economic interests. To be sure, the Party of No knows when to take an affirmative stand: pro-business, pro-gun, pro-life...and pro-fantasy as far as their literal reading of Genesis is concerned. It’s a big tent, all right. Send in the clowns. (But send out the clones, because cloning is being linked as well.)

But I can’t help but look at these commonalities from another perspective. The shootin’/textin’ crowd is wary of restrictions. The evolution & global warming deniers are wary of theories. And we already know that another bunch in the big tent is wary of people of color. Ain’t it clear? It’s the Party of Fear. They’re just doing what they do best: stirring up anxieties among people too uninformed to question their rhetoric.

Why can’t the Left take a lesson from this tremendous organizational ability and get something done? Instead we’ve got heel-dragging on a Consumer Protection Agency and Bart Stupak poised to unravel the whole health-care package because it doesn’t jibe with his views on abortion. I know, I know: unlike lock-step Republicans, Democrats aren’t afraid to stand up for their principles. Now all we need is for some pro-gun Democrat to insist that the health bill guarantee the right to be packing heat while visiting your doctor. We need to tie things together, folks, not nit-pick them apart.

No, we lefties don’t have a big tent. We’re just a carnival sideshow, geeks and all, masquerading as a congressional majority. And what P.T. Barnum once said applies to all of us who voted for them: “There’s a sucker born every minute.”


Wednesday, March 3, 2010

Defending Liberty Yet Again


I’ve posted here before about living in a conservative state. That’s the way it is; I can live with it, I guess. And I ought to show a little appreciation for how our state legislators defend my basic rights.

The recent news is, the Arizona legislature failed once again to pass a law banning texting while driving. Why? Because they oppose “unnecessary government restrictions.”

“Sen. Ron Gould, R-Lake Havasu City, called the legislation a ‘nanny bill’ and ‘feel-good legislation’ that would have banned a practice already covered under current laws against reckless driving. Why not also ban drinking from a Big Gulp or eating a burrito while driving, he asked.”

Even cell phone companies supported this bill, but it was opposed by the Arizona Citizens Defense League – an organization that, according to their website, lobbies “for legislation that improves the rights of honest citizens, and against legislation that demeans or diminishes those rights” – and particularly “against bills that constitute a direct or indirect impairment on your Right to Keep and Bear Arms.” So apparently the right to bear cell phones and text while driving deserves 2nd Amendment protection. After all, it’s a slippery slope: today no texting, tomorrow they come after your assault rifles.

Now, I don’t like to think of myself as a mean-spirited person. But I would truly glee in the news that Ron Gould was run into by someone texting. Nothing life-threatening, you understand, just enough in the way of damage to his vehicle to clear the cobwebs out of his brain. And make him spill his Big Gulp.

So while we’re at it, let’s repeal all unnecessary traffic laws that impinge upon our freedom and allow everything to be covered by “reckless driving.” I ought to be able to ignore a red light as long as I don’t do it recklessly. And speed limits? Just be careful, that’s all. Even in a school zone, it’s style that counts.

It’s only a matter of time before these nuts propose a constitutional amendment: Congress shall make no law abridging the right to be stupid. The irony is, the increased accident rate will mean we’re all going to need more health care. Who says this ain’t a wonderful country?


Tuesday, March 2, 2010

“Where’s that confounded bridge?”


I continue to plug away at the guitar, building up my repertoire of jazz and pop standards from the first half of the twentieth century. They knew how to write good tunes back then. (Has anyone alerted Lady Gaga?) I’ll have the Sirius/XM jazz station on and hear something I know I’ve always liked and say to myself, “Sure, I can work that out.” But half the time I seem to have a problem with the bridge, just like Robert Plant in “The Crunge.”


Most songs are in AABA form: a catchy melody, repeated, then a brief diversion, then the melody again. And it’s that diversion, B for bridge, that more often than not trips me up, because it’s never as memorable as the melody. I got it in my head this past week that “Don’t Get Around Much Anymore” or “Nice Work If You Can Get It” would be fun to play, but damn if I could remember the B part to either one, sending me to last.fm for a refresher. And “I Can’t Get Started”? I can’t get finished, because even after listening to a couple different versions I still find the bridge totally elusive. (Sure, I can google on a chord progression, but it’s never in a key I’m comfortable playing in. I mean, E-flat-minor? Come on.) It just gets lost in the fog.

One of the problems is, you take some of these songs – e.g., “I Can’t Believe That You’re in Love with Me” and “Exactly Like you” – and the bridges seem practically interchangeable, the B from one working well enough with the A from another that I sometimes can’t remember which goes with which. And just try exiting the bridge from “Glory of Love” and not going directly into “Making Whoopee.” A bridge is like compositional sleight-of-hand intended to do nothing more than expedite another chorus of the main melody. But without it, constant repetition of the A would be monotonous – or does it just seem that way because of what we’re used to? After all, “The Crunge” doesn’t have one. And it gets to the same shore as a bridge does. Albeit somewhat irritatingly.

My main objection to bridges is that most of them are ultimately dispensable. They’re sometimes not even interesting musically, so I just want to get past them and back to the main theme with its more tantalizing hooks. But I have to hand it to one song’s bridge for containing what I think is the cleverest lyric in pop music, in “Cry Me a River”: “You told me love was too plebeian / Told me you were through with me and / Now you say...” Using a word like “plebeian” is gutsy enough to begin with; finding a rhyme in “with me and” ups the ante; then segueing directly back into the last verse is breathtaking. I don’t know that anybody’s pulled off anything quite like it recently. (How many people today even know what “plebeian” means?) And who’s this guy Arthur Hamilton who wrote it? He doesn’t even rate a Wikipedia entry (but is in IMDb).


 
So, a bridge can be frustrating at times but there are a few hidden rewards. And at least in music, it’s always a bridge to somewhere.