Sage Street

The Year 2011...

2011-12-31T16:29:00.000-08:00

On the last day of 2011, here some notes about 2011 and then the annual Sage awards for the best and worst of the year...

Interesting Travel for 2011: I traveled to Turkey, with my brothers and sister-in-law, in July, with first-time stops also for me in Germany, Canada (in Vancouver), and Seattle, Washington. In Turkey, we visited Istanbul, Izmir, and Yenipazar. And back in Wyoming, I was able to visit my aunts and uncle, all whom are in their 90s. For the college in April, I traveled with other faculty members by train to Chicago for the Higher Learning Commission conference. With the Delta newspaper students at the college, I also traveled in April to Springfield, Mo., for the MCMA convention. During the Springfield trip, we enjoyed a national performance called "The Aluminum Show." All were great trips!

Most Interesting Project at the College: Working in the summer with an amazing student named Amit Jain who designed and created the Delta Online newspaper website, the first for Mass Communication at the college.

Another Digital Book: With my other digital e-books on Amazon.com of "Sage Street" and "The Wolves and Short Stories," I added just this month "News At 10," a compliation of "This Just In" columns from this blog.

Most Interesting Professional Moment: I was pleasantly surprised to receive the John McCallum Excellence in Teaching Award at the college. It is voted upon by administration, deans, and past recipients, with nominations from fellow faculty. With it in May came months of drafting my speech for the Convocation ceremony in September. It went well and people said they liked it.

O.K., now for the Sage citations of best and worst....

Best World Historical Moment: The "Arab Spring" uprising that started with Tunisia and continued to Egypt and Libya, as people cast off dictators and claimed their right to democracy. It is still a work in progress, but it is a hopeful sign for a better world for all.

Best U.S. Historical Moment: The homecoming of the American troops out of Iraq for the end of the Iraq War this month. Finally!

Worst National Problem: Unemployment. It is still too high. People need good jobs. Other nominee: The Afghanistan War, another quagmire. (An awful national event was the Joplin, Missouri, tornado.)

Terrible World Disaster: An awful world event was the earthquake and tsunami in Japan, followed by the nuclear plant leaks. (I don't think I had ever seen such devastation in a string of ongoing horrors.)

Worst Scandal: The Penn State University football program's child sex abuse scandal, said to be the worst in U.S. sports history. Terrible problems were exposed by the so-called "Paterno culture" concerning college sports.

Most Irritating Line: "To take America back," uttered mainly by Tea Party people. Backward would be the correct definition of it.

Best Books read in 2011: "Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass" by Frederick Douglass, read for yet another time and "American Massacre" by Sally Denton about the Mountain Meadows massacre, the worst civilian massacre in the 19th century. (I enjoyed reading both books as a class book club reading with students in the Basic News Reporting class.) Other nominees: "The Amateur Emigrant" by Robert Louis Stevenson (read on a plane to Turkey), "The Colonel and Little Missie" by Larry McMurtry (read on a train to Chicago), "Quarrels That Have Shaped the Constitution" by John A. Garraty, "Polio, An American Story" by David Oshinsky, and "Moments, the Pulitzer Prize-Winning Photographs" by Hal Buell.

Most Amazing TV moment: When Anderson Cooper of CNN and his camera crew had to run from thugs who were unhappy about coverage of the Egyptian protestors in Tahrir Square in Cairo.

Most Amazing TV Feature moment: The "60 Minutes" segment by Lara Logan about the mountain climber Alex Honnold who doesn't use safety ropes and scales cliffs with just chalk-covered fingers and strength. Amazing!

Most Awkward TV moment: When Texas Gov. Rick Perry forgot his campaign rhetoric and then just made it worse by trying, unsuccessfully, to remember. I was embarrassed for him, but glad to see his campaign sink like a rock because of his poor debate performances.

Most Entertaining TV Reporters to Watch: TV reporters who were drenched by hurricanes. Always entertaining to see wet and wind-shoved TV reporters.

Best TV program: "The Rachel Maddow Show" on MSNBC. I watched it regularly throughout the year and was greatly informed. Other nominees: "Nightline" for interesting news segments on ABC; "Saturday Night Live," though some shows were better than others; "Hell on Wheels" on AMC; "Haven" on the SyFy channel; "Prime Suspect" on NBC because actress Maria Bello is great and provided an interesting character; "Merlin" on the SyFy channel; "Glee" for the musical performances on Fox; "Teen Wolf" on MTV which I stumbled upon while channel-surfing in the summer and was pleasantly surprised by the scary elements with a good ensemble of characters; "60 Minutes" for continued reliability; "CBS Sunday Morning" for interesting feature stories; "The Ed Show" on MSNBC, "the McLaughlin Group" on PBS; "Anderson Cooper 360" on CNN; and "Wipeout" for being so strange as a contest with witty banter; and many programs, such as Frontline and musical performances on PBS.

Best TV Actress and Actor: Maria Bello (Prime Suspect) and Anson Mount (Hell on Wheels).

Best Network: PBS. Other nominees: MSNBC, History channel, Animal Planet channel, SyFy channel.

Worst TV programs: The many reality TV shows. When will that trend end?

Watched with Mixed Emotions: I watched all of the Republican presidential debates, because I thought I should, being in journalism and as they were part of history. But, wow, it was difficult and aggravating at times, leading to believe that this crop of Republican candidates (with a bunch of Tea Party types) is the worst selection I have ever seen.

One Appreciated Moment from Republican Candidate Mitt Romney: When he said in an interview with CNN's Wolf Blitzer just today that he watched and enjoyed Laurel and Hardy and the Three Stooges.

What I Didn't Watch (historical moment or other): Not one minute of the royal wedding of Prince William and Kate Middleton. Not one minute of "American Idol" (in fact, I never have seen it).

Most Under-Reported Subject: The military's drone program, wherein apparently drones are killing more civilians than terrorists.

Most Used Website: The Delta Online. For a national one: Probably Facebook. Other nominees: Highereducationjobs. com, Journalismjobs.com, Mandy.com, Amazon.com.

Best Song discovered in 2011: "Tonight the Streets Are Ours" by Richard Hawley. Other nominee: "Ah Leah" by Donnie Iris.

Best Movie seen in 2011: "My Boy Jack" about Rudyard Kipling's son and WWI. Other nominees (seen through Netflix DVDs): "Howl" about Allen Ginsberg's controversial poem with drama and illustrative art mixed interestingly; "Get Low" with performances by Robert Duvall and Sissy Spacek; "Devil" which was scary; "Monsters" for the way the couple's relationship developed as they traveled space alien-infested territory; "Triage" with Colin Farrell; "Prayers for Bobby" "Skyline," "Clash of the Titans (2010 version); "Vanishing on 7th Street," "A Shine of Rainbows (with might have been an Irish movie)," and "The Disappearance of Alice Creed" for twists and turns.

Best Foreign Movie seen in 2011: "Fateless" with memorable scenes in a story about a Polish Jewish boy during the Holocaust. Other nominees (also seen through Netflix): "Even the Rain" about a film in Bolivia about Christopher Columbus while residents fought for water rights; "The Devil's Backbone," "Kisses," "El Bola," and "Swimming Upstream" about Australian Olympic swimmer Tony Fingleton.

Best Documentary seen in 2011: "A Day in the Life" about clips from videos taken on one day July 24, 2010 around the world. Other nominee: "Exit Through the Gift Shop" about a graffiti artist. (Previous great documentaries in this category have been "The Tank Man" which is probably the best I have seen; "Two Days in October" based upon the book "They Marched Into Sunlight;" "Born into Brothels," "The Conscientious Objector;" "Pete Seeger, the Power of Song;" and "McLibel.")

Best Magazine: History magazine. Other nominees: Mother Jones, Country, Intelligence Report (of the Southern Poverty Law Center), the Amnesty International magazine, and Mules and More.

Other Sage nominees for Person of the Year: Elizabeth Warren, candidate for U.S. senator from Massachusetts who speaks so eloquently for the middle class and poor; Ralph Nader, consumer advocate who continues to be correct on the issues, most recently about the problems of money and college athletics; Gabrielle Giffords, U.S. Congresswoman who survived a terrible assassination attempt; mountain climber Alex Honnold for his amazing skill and fearlessness; and Barack Obama, U.S. president for ending the Iraq War and sounding more like the candidate with the liberal ideas that most of us voted for.

Sage Award Person of the Year: This year, Sage Street agrees with the choice of Time magazine's person of the year, which was the "protestor." The Sage Street blog editor proudly accepts the award, in being a long-time protestor on many issues and levels over the years. But the award actually goes to all of the freedom and rights protestors of 2011, especially those in the "Occupy" movement and the "Arab Spring" democracy protests.

News at 10...

2011-12-15T05:12:00.000-08:00

This just in:

The Republican presidential candidates held yet another debate and not any of them were arrested for "occupying" the stage for too long.

Republican presidential candidate Rick Santorum was seen in Iowa throwing a big tantrum--stomping his feet and waving his fists--saying he still hadn't had a turn to lead in the national polls.

The Time magazine cover for "Person of the Year" was the generic protestor, symbolic of the "Arab Spring" protests and "Occupy Wall Street" protests. A scratch-and-sniff spot in the magazine provides a whiff of pepper spray.

Hot-air balloonist Donald Trump withdrew from moderating an upcoming Republican debate after most presidential candidates fled from it faster than you could say "You're fired." Trump said he only regretted that he didn't have more opportunity to say the title of his goofy reality show in every sentence uttered about the debate.

Republican presidential candidate Newt Gingrich's new "Contract With America" is that he promises not to cheat on his third wife. Gingrich is almost 70 years old, so Americans really don't want to know if he cheats, even if he cheats. New rule for 2012: Teenagers and people older than 70 never talk about sex. Not ever!*

*Caveat: In the world of the Paterno Culture, it is okay and important for kids to talk about sex
-- To the grand juries.

WikiLeaks has revealed the Secret Service name for Republican presidential candidate Michelle Bachman. It is "Scary Eyes."

As a result of the effort by some people to see that Christ is not taken out of Christmas, another effort is under way to see that "ho," as in "ho, ho, ho" is not taken out of Happy Holidays.

The U.S. troops are coming home from the Iraq War after 9 years; more than 4,400 U.S. soldiers killed; more than 32,000 U.S. soldiers wounded; more than 115,000 Iraqi civilians killed; and more than $1 trillion in war costs for America. With the exception of Ron Paul, all of the other Republican presidential candidates think U.S. troops should stay longer there. !!!! Probably all of those candidates sacrificed little, if nothing, in the war effort and even got big tax cuts when the war costs made the federal budget deficit soar.

A new silent movie called "The Artist" is getting rave reviews and Academy Award chatter. It probably won't win sound editing awards.

The U.S. Supreme Court, which had declared that "corporations" are "people," recently provided a 5-4 decision that "people" aren't "people."

This week's episode of the reality show "Celebrities Chasing Squirrel" features the Kardashian family in an "Alvin the Chipmunk" song segment about hula hoops.

News at 10...

2011-11-24T20:51:00.000-08:00

This just in...

Someone finally got a job in America. Unfortunately, it was Chelsea Clinton, taking a job as a correspondent for NBC away from an actual, real, qualified journalist.

The Republican TV debate about foreign policy on CNN competed with the commercials for excitement. Newt Gingrich has become the non-Romney candidate this week. A commentator referred to Ron Paul as the "last hippie" for his anti-war and marijuana stances. Herman Cain and Blitz Wolfer were there. Michelle Bachmann had a strange look in her eyes (okay, she always has a strange look in her eyes). Gov. Perry didn't Alamo-massacre a statement, fall asleep, or forget where he was. And no pepper-spray was used. Not even on the audience.

I don't get it?! It took one brief yell in a high-tech microphone (that was supposed to drowned out other sounds) to end the campaign of Howard Dean in 2004, but look at all of the political gaffes that this year's slate of presidential candidates have gone through...and they are still going. It's enough to wear-down the Energizer bunny, but they still keep going. Gov. Perry has enough money to run until he's at least at 8 percent again. Herman Cain can't go much beyond 9-9-9. And Rick Santorum stays on the debate stage because it gets him out of the house and something to do. Wow, times have changed!

After the presidential campaign, the next stop for some of the candidates is likely the "Dancing With the Stars" TV show. Watch for Gov. Perry to square-dance, Michelle Bachmann to waltz around the stage, and, for some real eye-popping ratings, Rick Santorum as the first guy to be paired with a male dancer.

First Jenna Bush and now Chelsea Clinton, NBC has hired presidential daughters as TV personalities. The Obama daughters are also in negotiations at other networks, possibly replacing Brian Ross and Sanjay Gupta.

In the CBS "Sunday Morning" show's "Moment of Nature," presidential candidate Newt Gingrich is seen eating a donut.

You know you are getting old when you have no idea what the claim to fame is for the "Saturday Night Live" guest hosts.

Penn State University will be the setting for a new series of commercials for eye glasses called "Turn a blind eye." The series will not include shower scenes.

Modern definitions...The Paterno culture: A culture where a nation is ranked first in sports, but 17th in the world in science education.

Second definition...The Paterno culture: A culture where the highest paid federal employee is not the President ($450,000), not the Speaker of the House ($223,000), not the Senators ($174,000), certainly not the deployed soldier ($38,000) or the average senior citizen living on Social Security ($12,000), but rather is...pep band drum roll...yes, a football coach. Or three of them--the Army, Navy, and Air Force football coaches (one and probably a second making more than $1 million).

Third definition...The Paterno culture: A culture where the highest paid public employees in most, if not all states, are university football coaches.

Fourth definition...The Paterno culture: A culture where it takes five years for a reporter to request, through the Freedom of Information Act, the amount of money that the Penn State football coach makes annually.

Students engaged in recent peaceful protests at UC-Davis in California were pepper-sprayed by the police. A Fox News anchor said the pepper spray was probably diluted. No, Fox News anchors are diluted.

With all of the attention paid to pepper-spray by police on "Occupy" protestors, the Republicans in Congress are now trying to classify pepper as a vegetable for school lunch menus.

It was reported that tear gas used by the Egyptian military on pro-democracy protestors in Cairo was made in America. That's pretty amazing, because just go to a store on the Black Friday shopping day and try to find anything else made in America. How did the American tear gas industry keep from getting moved to China?

This week's episode of "Celebrities Chasing Squirrels" involves a segment of New York Mayor Bloomberg chasing the squirrels out of a park. The mayor also had his police force chase protestors out of the park. The city parks are designated for homeless people and derelicts.

11/11/11...

2011-11-11T18:11:00.000-08:00

As this is 11/11/11, I thought I should write something profound, profane, or prophetic.

"Don't be picnicking in Yellowstone Park when the volcano goes off."

"The phrase 'Oh, hack it' will be obscene one day, according to the super-computerized robots."

"I enjoyed living in a world where there were bees, whales, and helium."

"Janet Jackson will sing again at a Super Bowl half-time."

"I predict that, by 11/11/2111, every time your finger presses your nose, your brain will refresh your thoughts."

"I'm sorry for the plastic bag that I threw away today." (I read that a plastic bag will stay in the environment for 1,000 years.)

Humor lasts a long time.

News at 10...

2011-09-18T15:18:00.000-07:00

This just in...

President Obama proposed a jobs creation plan. But it may be just a bit too radical for the Republicans, as it proposes the construction of highways and schools. Said one angry Republican congressman, "That smacks of something that President Eisenhower would do." (Historical note here: Eisenhower was a Republican, but that was back when Republicans were sane.)

It was no surprise...Gov. Perry plays poker, former Gov. Romney plays "Hearts," and Congresswoman Michelle Bachmann plays "Slap Jack."

During the recent Tea Party presidential debate, the audience applauded the death penalty and letting a 30-year-old die if that person didn't have health insurance. They also applauded air pollution, global warming, child labor, chastity belts, non-regulation of rancid meat, drowning of witches, and fences with razor-wire.

At the Tea Party presidential debate, CNN's Wolf Blitzer failed to ask the "evolution" question. You know, the question that asks if the candidates reject the theory of evolution and then all the Republican candidates hold up their hands, and the rest of us then wonder if either they are lying to pander to their wacko religious base or they slept through every science class in junior high, high school, and college. Blitzer, with the first name of Wolf, was the perfect one to ask it, since all dogs come from wolves and, Wolf, that's evolution!

Regardless of evolution, wouldn't it be blasphemous to credit (or blame) God for creating poodles? !!!!

To help the ratings and draw a viewing audience, the next gathering of the Republican presidential candidates won't be on CNN, but instead will take place on the TV show "Wipe-Out." Michelle Bachmann will dodge wet sponges when she isn't dodging the truth. Rick Perry will have to sink or swim in a pool of water and uncertainty, and Mitt Romney will have to jump over a big round ball and Newt Gingrich. But there will be no tango dance number by Rick Santorum and Ron Paul, because that's another TV show concept. All of the candidates will have to plunge down a water slide.

Just because Lady Ga-Ga wears a meat dress doesn't mean Justin Timberlake can wear a beef jerky suit.

Because Congress wants to cut deficits rather than save jobs and provide services, there will now be one post office per state. Please drive to your state capital to pick up your mail.

When the United States stands virtually alone in vetoing the United Nations proposal for giving Palestine "observer status," it will be interesting to see how the U.S. suggests that Palestine return to the peace negotiations with Israel, when it hasn't solved much in 20 years. But, hey, somebody has to support Israel in this time of the so-called "Arab Spring" of developing democracies in Middle Eastern countries before Israel becomes completely irrelevant in the region. Struggling against democracies, that promote freedom, tolerance, and peace, is just not the same as struggling against dictatorships.

This season of "Dancing With Pseudo-Stars" includes the guy who was on the "Love Boat" for two episodes; the author of the book about the mystery of Obama's birth certificate; someone who once worked for Enron; and a dancing polar bear.

The popularity of Twitter is now being challenged by Cusser. Every user gets just four characters to express vulgar intent.

The next episode of "Celebrities Chasing Squirrels" involves Dick Cheney plugging his lousy book, not in the branches of government but instead in the branches of a poplar tree.

Remembering the dreadful 9/11 decade...

2011-09-11T07:15:00.000-07:00

On the 10th anniversary of 9/11, it seems like the past 10 years, which could be called the 9/11 decade, have been rather dreadful for America.

Sept. 11, 2001 was a horrible day. I can't think of any other national moment where, as a TV viewer, I was able to watch the ongoing terrible tragedy. We were glued to the TV sets, listening as news anchors and reporters attempted to fill in the gaps of informaton, watching the smoke from one of the World Trade Center towers, then the appearance of a second large plane hitting the second tower, then the collapse of both buildings. The plane attack on the Pentagon building and the plane crash in a Pennsylvania field meant that a massive terrorism attack had been coordinated against America.

The stories of heroism and sacrifice by people ranging from the fiirefighters and other emergency response people at the sites of the attacks to those on the United flight who stormed the plane cockpit to try to end a hijacking and to thwart a diabolical plan are truly amazing and inspirational.

Of course, America had experienced moments of terrorism before, particularly the home-grown variety, with the terrorism of the KKK in the South all through at least half of the 20th century and the violent attack by a monstrous renegade on a federal building in Oklahoma City. Certainly, the attack on Pearl Harbor by the nation of Japan prior to WWII was a jarring national moment leading to war, as was the case with 9/11.

While a quick U.S. military response to dislodge and punish the Taliban government in Afghanistan for its accommodation of al Qaida bases and the Osama Bin Laden terrorists seemed appropriate, the military reach then went beyond the mission, reaching into Iraq to topple a dictator and then back into Afghanistan, to prop up a weak leader, all with the steady drumbeat of fear. Fear was the biggest winner in the 9/11 decade and was that what the terrorists wanted?

The result has been two seemingly endless wars, thousands of U.S. soldiers as well as Iraqi and Afghan civilians killed, and huge expenditures in defense spending (from the monthly billions in war expensive to the creation of the Department of Homeland Security to the massive increase in war contractors and war profiteers).

There were more problems and troubling issues over the decade, such as the hopefully short governmental embrace of torture, thanks to moronic leaders like Dick Cheney, who turned the higher moral ground of a democracy on its ear and made me, many other Americans, and the rest of the world wonder what had happened to the American conscience. There were secret prisons and the use of rendition. There was political demogaguery to exploit fears at every turn, rampant from politics to the media.

Then there have been the effects on the "homeland," a term that the Bush administration brought into the American lexicon but a term that I have always disliked as it has a "Nazi Germany" ring to it. America is my country. I care about what happens to my country, just as I care about what happens in the world.

Because of one criminal with explosives in his shoe, we all now take off our shoes at airports and go through the "naked" scanners and let the security officers bark at us and feel our bodies through our clothes, as though that's the expectation for air travel. (We have one unemployed person...No, wait...100,000 unemployed people...No, wait...1 million unemployed people...No, wait...14 million unemployed people in our country and what do we do collectively to end that problem? Is it because fear apparently isn't part of how people and politicians view unemployment?)

My fears are somewhat different from those of politicians on a debate stage. When I look out into my college classes and see the honorable ROTC students in their military fatigues, I fear for them. Will they have to go to a pitifully unstable place like Afghanistan or Iraq, and be part of what looks to be as hapless a military adventure as the Vietnam War was but longer? I fear for those students because I am not sure if American political leaders and even true military leaders command those wars or if instead the wars have become a business venture for the benefit and profits of contractors within the military industrial complex. When there are more contractors on the ground than there are soldiers...when the contractors are paid 10 times what the soldiers would get for the same work required...I seriously wonder, and dread that 9/11 has reached beyond now a decade. How long will those wars go?

Bin Laden never believed that his militia was capable of defeating the American military. The numbers and weaponry and budgets would never make it so. But he saw the American reach as similar to the old Soviet reach and hoped it would break us financially as it had done to the Soviet Union. And in 2008, he lived long enough to almost see the collapse of the American economy, probably saved from a great depression by a huge expenditure (and debt). It took nearly 10 years to find bin Laden, who was then killed. So, a person who advocated violence came to a violent end. There's a lesson for the world.

As for 9/11, there were many heroic stories that need to remembered.

Following the 9/11 tragedy, there have been some encouraging aspects. Hopefully, the American network of law enforcement is working better together for coordinated security. And I recently saw a report about how the better construction of buildings could at least prevent a towering building from collapsing. The report noted that if a plane had flown into a building like the Empire State Building, with its better foundational and cement structural support from the older days when buildings were made tougher, it would have been unlikely for the building to collapse. So, it might cost more to make stronger buildings, but, especially for skyscrapers that are at risk from planes, internal fires, earthquakes, or other problems, the safety for people is worth the expense.

As I hope nothing happens in a "terrorism" way today on the 10th anniversary of 9/11 to elevate a renewed fear and its consequences, I also hope America can escape the fears and traps of the dreadful 9/11 decade.

News at 10...

2011-08-27T14:30:00.000-07:00

This just in:

TV reporters are getting soaking wet and wind-blown from standing outside as Hurricane Irene arrives along the East Coast. A hurricane is a terrible event, but it really is fun to see the pretty TV people drenched by rain and trying to stand up in a mighty wind.

Rick Perry, governor of Texas who is running for president, was recently accused of doing a bad George Bush impersonation.

Presidential candidate Mitt Romney says that corporations are people. And sometimes churches are corporations. And then catsup is a vegetable. And some leather shoes are cows.

A guy from Wyoming wondered why people in hurricane paths are concerned about 50 mph winds. "It's that windy every day here," he said, walking at an angle.

An American got a job recently and President Obama took his Canadian-produced bus to go shake the guy's hand in hopes of keeping the Stock Market from dropping like a rock.

Obama's advisers said sometimes Obama has been so far to the right that he's angered his liberal base. But his advisers think that's okay and they advise him to anger more of his liberal base so that he can compromise with Republicans and produce more mediocre legislation, even if it means his base will abandon him and he ends up with only 100 votes (the votes of his advisers). But his advisers advise him that that's okay. Nothing like good advice to make a president successful.

TV reporters are getting drenched from standing outside and covering the hurricane news. Newspaper journalists, who get to stay inside because they don't have to rely on dramatic visuals on video, are dry, but still a bit windy.

If Gov. Rick Perry doesn't win the Republican nomination or the U.S. presidency, he will return home to Texas to consider becoming potentate when Texas secedes from the union.

Counseling services, like the one run by presidential candidate Michele Bachmann and her husband, came under fire recently when a straight man complained about counseling services to "cure" people from being gay. Said an angry straight man, "Why do gay people get all of the services? It's discrimination! Where are the counseling services for a person who wants cured of being straight?!"

TV reporters are still out in the hurricane weather, getting soaked by the rain. The TV ratings have been so good that some networks have decided to spray their TV reporters with water from garden hoses while they give the news, whether there's a hurricane in the area or not. The drama of a pretty person in a windy down-pour is just too darned good to limit it to just times of rain and wind.

This week's episode of "Celebrities Chasing Squirrels" includes a remarkable segment about a squirrel saved in a hurricane by a valiant, but well-drenched TV reporter.

A TV reporter during the hurricane was seen hugging a tree with his legs flopping parallel to the ground. He was advising people to stay inside because it was too rainy and windy. He said, "Some people don't have enough sense to come in from out in the rain."

My advice about his advisers...

2011-08-11T16:06:00.000-07:00

President Obama ought to fire all of his advisers and start over. The Clinton people and his friends from Chicago didn't do him a bit of good. He should start over, as it still might not be too late if he decides to be a real progressive, and he should look for advisers who read about FDR.

Otherwise, we need a new presidential candidate from the left (who really is from the left).

(Update: The same evening that I placed this blog entry, an Obama adviser was on TV, telling the news anchor and the audience of watching Americans that Obama has so tried to compromise with the Republicans on issues that he has even made his base unhappy. Wow, the Obama advisers are actually using the dissatisfaction from Obama's own base to promote the idea of compromise, as though any person from the right is going to vote for Obama. Newsflash: The people on the right don't give a rat's whisker about Obama's move to the middle or even to right. They aren't going to vote for him next time. Period. And if Obama doesn't keep his base and maintain his base since after all they are the ones who elected him, those goofy advisers can take him out of the oven because he's done, his goose is cooked. Wow, brain-dead advisers. Obama, for the love of the country, get rid of them and become the president you said you'd be as candidate.)

Ralph Nader was correct...again...

2011-08-03T06:15:00.000-07:00

Ralph Nader was right, again.

He wanted to forge a third-party alternative to the corporate Democratic Party. He put his reputation on the line, taking considerable criticism, in hopes that something from the left, like the Green Party, would have at least a say at the table of American politics.

Democrats, even the progressive ones, were slow, or completely unable, to grasp the importance of an alternative party.

Their enthusiasm about finally achieving a "liberal" candidate named Obama apparently was based on false hopes. Saddled with a lackluster and corporate two-party system, America has suffered the consequences.

And ironically, it was the outrage and action of people from the right, unhappy with the corporate Republican Party, that actually spawned results in the form of the infamous Tea Party. Though it is only a minority group, it still has power and clout within the Republican Party and thus on the national stage.

Too bad it wasn't the Green Party minority from the left having the influence.

Fourth of July, 2011...

2011-07-04T18:29:00.000-07:00

The memorial report on PBS for July 4, 2011 of American soldiers killed in war (all in Afghanistan) noted the following eight men:

Riley S. Spaulding, 21, of Sheridan, Texas (Army)
Nicholas S. O'Brien, 21, of Stanley, North Carolina (Marine Corps)
Jason D. Hill, 20, of Poway, California (Marine Corps)
Michael W. Newton, 30, Newport News, Virginia (Army)
Mark A. Bradley, 25, of Cuba, New York (Marine Corps)
Gustavo A. Rios-Ordonez, 25, Englewood, Ohio (Army)
John F. Farias, 20, of New Braunfels, Texas (Marine Corps)
Donald V. Stacy, 23, of Avondale, Arizona (Army)

News, politics, religion, and pets...

2011-06-24T05:28:00.000-07:00

Notes from the news...

In light of the current times in which we live when a 5-4 Supreme Court generally follows the mandate of "government of the corporations, by the corporations, and for the corporations," the Obama Administration deserves praise for going to the U.S. oil reserves in order to increase the oil supply and drive down the gasoline prices...and end the institutionalized robbery of the record profit-making oil companies upon the middle class of America. A thumbs-up to Obama on that one.

A thumbs-down to Obama on the war speech that was previously noted in this blog. A few additional statistics for that issue: The Afghanistan War has cost the lives of more than 1,000 soldiers, 10 years, and $443 billion. Some are predicting the United States will spend $1 trillion on the so-called training of Afghani troops to take over before the U.S. involvement is done. That's a terrible waste! And that's not even counting the expense in lives and money for the Iraq War. Wars are dumb morally, economically, and politically. The age of the war, for any competent and successful democratic power, has come to an end.

A thumbs-down to Obama on his "evolving" claim about whether or not he supports gay marriage. Oh, come on. It's marriage equality, as commentator Ron Reagan said recently. If you don't want a gay marriage, then don't get one. But don't discriminate in the meantime. If you are a progressive, Mr. Prez, then you believe in civil rights. Period. If not, you're probably playing dishonest political games for vote purposes. Some people on TV have said that Obama's conflict is a reflection of the conservative nature of the "black" church. That doesn't truly make sense to me, except again in a dishonest political fashion, because Obama comes from the Congregational Church (the church where I was baptised) and it is a liberal church and it came to terms with the issue of gay marriage years ago like the Unitarian Church and other churches. Maybe the first lady Michelle Obama comes out of the conservative black-church setting, but the president doesn't, according to his pre-presidential church history. It is both annoying and amusing when these churches, filled by minority groups who have been discriminated against, decide to discriminate against other groups. But it's about political viewpoint within churches. The liberal churches don't discriminate. The conservative churches discriminate. So, there are previously persecuted minority groups gathered into conservative black churches discriminating against gays, in Mormon churches discriminating against women and gays, in Catholic churches discriminating against women and gays, in Islamic mosques discriminating against women and gays. The fact of the matter is that when people choose their faith, they are often choosing their political attitudes as well. But I would suggest that all church-goers and politicians and evolving presidents read Frederick Douglass' biography to better understand when a church can be "wrong" and on the wrong side of history.

The worst news coming out of Missouri this month had to be the story about the baby who lost seven fingers after a loose pet ferret in the household chewed them off. Some animals are wild creatures generally...and then there are dogs. Most dogs make good pets. Goldfish are gentle enough, but aren't the best pets. Dogs make good pets when they are in the company of good people. Wild, undomesticated animals don't generally make good pets. A recent TV report noted that there is a large number of people who actually have lions and tigers at their homes or ranches in Texas. Wow, again, I just don't think lions and tigers are pet material. Here are some other Sage Street blog recommendations for non-pet status: wolverines, grizzly bears, whales, crocodiles, badgers, ticks, and pythons.

The speech that Obama should give...

2011-06-21T16:48:00.000-07:00

Here's what I hope I don't hear from President Obama in his "war" speech tomorrow...

If President Obama announces tomorrow that he is only removing 10,000 U.S. soldiers from Afghanistan for 2011 and 20,000 from Afghanistan in 2012, that just amounts to a fraud.

It was Obama, after all, who "surged" the troop levels in Afghanistan two years ago by 30,000...and, oh, by the way, nothing much is better in terms of conditions in Afghanistan. (Note: At the time of the surge, I predicted that Obama would lose re-election and, with his generally hapless efforts to deal with Main Street unemployment--though I realize he's been hampered all the way by irritating Republicans--I am not going to back down on that prediction. I can't see how Obama re-energizes youth, particularly, as a war president, nor the middle class, as a Herbert Hoover on job creation.) I can't see how Obama wins, with the exceptions of the unemployment rate dropping dramatically or the wars being ended. Then there is the default way of winning re-election...and that is by having a presidential opponent who is so crazy and radical that it puts fear in the hearts and minds of anyone who likes Medicare and Social Security.

So, if Obama just takes out of the war zone the troops he surged in the first place, that still leaves 70,000 U.S. soldiers there (or double the amount that President Bush put there).

That would be a joke. I can't figure out why Obama doesn't see real value and distinction in getting to be the president who actually ends long, wasteful, expensive wars. In many ways, Obama seems like he represents opportunity lost instead of opportunity at hand. Don't wait for the college subcommittee to decide some incremental step. Don't wait for the bumbling generals to determine peace. Make something good and positive and progressive HAPPEN. And if that isn't in the cards for no-drama Obama, then the left needs to find a good presidential candidate. Perhaps Howard Dean would return. If Obama desires to be a Democratic war president, which is contrary to progressive ideas, then perhaps what will be needed is not the return of his youth vote, but instead the return of youth war protests on campuses again. This is certainly a moment and time for Obama to determine where a Democratic president needs to take his country. If he wimps out, I think he loses big time.

And as I am completely annoyed with U.S. generals who have contributed to the longest war in U.S. history, I would not do what some of the Republican presidential candidates suggested in seeking the advice of the generals before changing paths with the wars. About the only thing I would ask generals, if I were president, is what kind of toilet paper should be ordered. Otherwise, I would ask privates and sergeants and people in the real world of the war for an honest evaluation of the war effort.

Then I am also growing weary of the fact that NATO can't get one lousy dictator named Gadhaffi out of the picture. If that dictator can't be eliminated (as dictators should be) by the end of the year, then I will change my position on Libya involvement as well. When it comes to war, length almost always means loss. Speed is victory.

Here's the speech that Obama should give:

The troops will be leaving Afghanistan and Iraq as soon as they can get on the planes. We will leave some expert Navy SEALS units to strategically target actual terrorists who like violence. We will provide any woman who thinks her husband is going to follow the conservative and archaic ideas of the Taliban with a heavy frying pan, as the guy has to go to sleep some time. We will provide foreign aid for education for all genders, for the building of schools and hospitals, and for the training and benefit of honest police officers, lawyers, and politicians.

By saving $120 billion a year or so on the expense of the Afghanistan War, we will put much of that money into infrastructure projects, like FDR's WPA, for jobs for soldiers leaving the service and others who are currently jobless. In further channeling the wisdom of FDR, we will establish a CCC program for young people, providing summer jobs and, instead of money, the student workers, including children of illegal immigrants, will be granted free college tuition, board, and room for a year at colleges or universities (the colleges and universities who want to continue to receive federal funding and Pell grants for incoming students). And that will just be the start of our new jobs creation effort.

And God bless the United States of America.

Accidental surfing and depressed endurance...

2011-06-14T13:09:00.000-07:00

The first four paragraphs are about accidental moments in surfing on the TV. The last two paragraphs are about being subjected to a Republican TV debate...

In switching TV channels, I hit CBS, I think it was, on the evening of the Tony Award show. "The Book of Mormon" won the Tony for best Broadway musical play this past week. It is a play by the guys who created the cartoon series "South Park" on cable TV. At that particular moment, the song "I Believe" from the play was being performed, which noted that, among other proclamations according to Joseph Smith, the Moses with the tablets for the LDS church, Jackson County in Missouri is the site of the Garden of Eden.

One day, I landed on a TV channel where conservative author Ann Coulter was being interviewed. Semi-interviewed actually, as Coulter was avoiding anything personal. But she did repeat her idiotic statement about public school teachers being "tax-paid parasites." I wonder why Republicans never say she should apologize for her off-the-wall rudeness. Do they agree with her?

I landed on MTV one day with the show "16 and Pregnant." It apparently is a reality series about 16-year-old girls dealing with a pregnancy. I watched it for 20 minutes mainly because it was like watching a train wreck. Wow, parents should require their teenagers to watch that show. No teen would want to get pregnant nor hopefully even want to be around a potential loser of a boyfriend if they watched one or two of those shows. It is the best promotion for "abstinence" that I have ever seen!

I saw another bunch of talking heads on TV continuing to fuss over the Congressman Anthony Weiner scandal. I know I made my share of blog fun at his expense. I mean, geez, how many naked chest shots would someone want to take of themselves and then share? If you are a model, go for it. But if you are politician, I don't think a naked chest adds much to understanding the issues. But the more I think about it, the more I wonder why he should resign from his position. It is true that he will probably be rather ineffectual legislatively in being associated with tawdriness, though others have risen beyond their scandals and transgressions, such as Bill Clinton and Newt Gingrich. I can see Weiner having to give up his cell phone with a camera and to stop using Twitter. Please do! I hope he's already done that. Beyond that, this "scandal" is sexless. At least as far as we know now. Maybe it is good if any "scandal" can remove a politician from office. But it makes me wonder if the media aren't just playing to tabloid mentality by chasing the congressman down the street. As they used to say about Bill Clinton and his scandal compared to George Bush and his war, "At least when Clinton lied, no one died." The Weiner scandal is a mere Vienna sausage in the realm of meaty matters. Sorry, I couldn't resist!

And do young people today also use immediate technology in various regretful ways...and will it come back to haunt them later on? The immediacy of technology in the hands of some college students in bars at midnight might mean the future of electronic messaging devices will include the feature of a breathalizer in order to prevent their use at ill-advised times.

Going to CNN for the recent debate by the Republican presidential candidates was not accidental. I always feel like it is my duty as a citizen to keep up with national politics...and consequently I have watched a lot of bad TV in process. I thought the TV debate on CNN was badly orchestrated for the most simplistic and boring sound bites yet to bite viewers. There wasn't much that the short-answer format provided, but it is understandable that if there'd been a longer answer period the candidates probably would have just droned on with canned rhetoric. So, it was lose or lose for the viewers. For the longer questions, often the wrong candidate addressed them. I already knew how Ron Paul, the only anti-war candidate probably up there, would respond to the Afghanistan War. The quick questions to supposedly give us more of the personal side of the candidates were stupid. "Conan or Leno?" Geez, who cares?! It reminded me of the famous "Boxers or briefs" question to Bill Clinton. Like that made a big difference, either. Better quick questions could have been "their favorite book, or most recent book they have read, or, like with some of those questions from Katie Couric to Sarah Palin, what Supreme Court case they believe in or their favorite Supreme Court justice. For more personal questions, I would like to know if all of Mitt Romney's sons are still Mormons and if they all married Mormon women. Just curious, as to see if the Romney immediate household is the least bit religiously diverse. The quick questions at the debate were just bubble-gum. I hate being bubble-gummed by the media.

In a word, I would define the Republican TV debate as "depressing." About the only issue that the candidates were for was cutting taxes for corporations. Otherwise, they were against almost everything. Against NASA, against the EPA, against the auto industry bail-out, against unions for workers, against separation of church and state, against the government spending any money on social programs, against abortion rights, against gay marriage, against...against...and against. If those candidates are the future, why did they sound like the past? And not just recent past, either but decades-ago past, if not longer. Wow! Depressing!

Poetry in commotion...

2011-06-08T10:05:00.000-07:00

A Sarah Palin poem:

Listen, my children, and you shall hear
of Sarah Palin's version of
the midnight ride of Paul Reverse,
who put his pickup into "R" (for Republican) gear
and sped away backward, with shots so clear,
from guns a-blazing, always first.
He warned the Danish that Americans had guns,
lots of guns, and they would lose.
One, if by land; two, if my sea;
three, if by Fox News.
And he shot a partridge in a pear tree.
Nevermore. Nevermore.

An Anthony Weiner poem:

Everyone's a twitter
for Tony to consider
that sending pictures "obscenie"
makes him quite a wienie.

A poem for politics:

I would rather vote for a lizard than for Newt.
I would rather vote for Abel than for Cain.
I would rather vote for a baseball glove than for Mitt.
I would never vote for Sarah plain.*

* Note: Well, "Palin" didn't rhyme, but both words have the same letters.

News at 10...

2011-06-04T08:04:00.000-07:00

This just in...

A new study finds that if your friends look like Cirque du Soleil characters, you have really unique friends.

Congressman Paul Ryan's budget plan to finish off Medicare looks like it is going to finish off Republican candidates nationwide. And what's really strange is that the Republicans are running like lemmings off a cliff to embrace the Ryan budget plan.

National Geographic channel plans to do a special report on lemmings and Republicans.

Right-wing social engineering has hurt Newt Gingrich's presidential campaign. He shrugs off the problem with occasional shopping trips to Tiffany's jewelry store. He was pleased about the bargain deal he got for a tie tack. A mere $20,000.

A couple were criticized by some people for raising their new baby "gender-less," meaning they weren't going to tell others the gender of the baby. Well, heck, it's not like there are hundreds of possibilities to speculate about. The baby is probably either a girl or a boy.

Singer Pink recently had a baby girl. People are guessing that she will dress the baby in "pink."

Have you ever felt like you could star on a TV show "The Biggest Loser" but the show is not about weight loss?

News media people have been chasing after TV reality show star Sarah Palin while she is on her recent bus tour, despite the fact that she hasn't announced a campaign for running for anything. So, tell us again, why is she in the news?

An unfortunate incident occurred when Sarah Palin's bus ran over candidate Mitt Romney while he was announcing his candidacy for president in New Hampshire. But Romney is okay. His Mormon underwear protected him.

Sarah Palin's version of the historical ride of Paul Revere was so "entertaining" that birther Donald Trump has decided to produce a new TV reality show called "Sarah's History Lessons." It will appear on that other SyFy (Science Fiction) channel, Fox News network.

This blog was recently spanked for breaking the rule that children of politicians are off limits, even when those children are paraded around, put on TV shows, and used as media blockades. This blog promises to not make fun of Bristol, Piper, Moose, Twitter, Tinsel, and all the rest and whatever their names are, when and if they ever fade from public spectacle.

Just think when presidential candidate Michelle Bachman's 28 children start getting on TV reality shows?!!

China, please don't hack this site. Please! There are many better sites far more worthy of your hacking, censoring, infiltration, and denial.

Congressman Anthony Weiner said his Twitter account was hacked and a photo of overwhelming briefs was sent to prank him. Weiner isn't sure if that photo is of him or not. Meanwhile, 20 million American men have already claimed that the photo is of them. One Twittererererer said, "Hot dog!"

Current U.S. generals were ranked as the worst in history as wars in Afghanistan and Iraq continue endlessly with weekly soldier fatalities. With $113 billion estimated for another year in Afghanistan, the generals are at least hoping to turn a corner, as they eye Pakistan.

The World Health Organization has cautioned about the potential of brain tumors from using cell phones next to people's ears. People also shouldn't wear hats that microwave buttered popcorn.

A new study warns that people who always bite the heads off of animal crackers with their first bite are more likely to make dogs eat dried dog biscuits.

It is hoped that "Arab Spring" will land right on top of the Syrian dictator, the Libyan dictator, the Bahrain dictator, the Iranian dictator, the Yemeni dictator, the Saudi Arabian dictators, and all other Middle Eastern dictators with a big ka-thump.

Women are secretly practicing their driving of cars in Saudi Arabia, using highway cones as designated ruling dictators.

In this week's episode of "Celebrities Chasing Squirrels," Arnold Schwarzenegger admits to furnishing the nuts and John Edwards warns against hunter mentality. There is a special song from Lady Gaga, dressed as a pecan.

The issues to win the presidency in 2012...

2011-05-27T16:23:00.000-07:00

It was too bad that Congress passed and President Obama signed the reauthorization of the USA Patriot Act without eliminating some of civil rights intrusion and violation aspects, particularly the part involving public libraries.

Concerning the library aspect, I have faith that librarians will continue to be hard-nosed about privacy of book reading and refuse to cooperation or cooperate in lukewarm, half-heartedly approaches. Frankly, I would put my money on librarians more than U.S. intellegence agencies any day in the battle of wills and the defense of freedom and rights.

While the field of potential Republican presidential candidates certainly makes Obama look good, the nation may need a candidate from the left to keep Obama's feet to the fire concerning the promises he has already made. The promise to end the wars. The promise to close down Guantanamo Bay prison.

I believe that the person who wins the presidency for the future will do it with these stances on these issues:

Supports Medicare and Social Security. (That means really supporting them and wanting them to exist and to be worthy for the citizens. It doesn't mean playing games with them, in hopes that a good social program vanishes. It doesn't mean shifting to privatization which just puts a lot of money into the pockets of a few and the social programs at great risk, depending up markets and bottom-line.)

Has plans for job creation and employment expansion. That probably means spending money upfront in order to attain benefits in the long-term. (Chrysler recently paid back with interest a $7.6 billion bail-out loan from the U.S. and Canadian governments. And GM, also a bail-out recipient, announced recently that thousands of jobs would return for plants near Detroit and throughout the nation. That means that President Obama was wise in saving the auto industry--and thousands of good jobs for Americans--while Republican candidate Mitt Romney lacked vision in opposing the bail-out. Romney's op-ed piece was headlined something to the respects that the government should let Detroit and the car industry go bankrupt. Romney was horribly wrong and America would have been worse off right now under his early judgment.) There is a difference, I believe, between a bail-out for a high good-jobs industry or business which makes tangible products that Americans can use and a bail-out for Wall Street financiers who speculate over fears and fantasy and provide no real products of use. I remember a TV commercial many years ago where a company was joyful about producing reports by way of their copy center. I thought at the time, if American companies only produce paperwork and reports and not steel, shirts, toys, and cars, I can't imagine the companies flourishing or the nation prospering.

Concretely plans for the end of the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. That means getting ground troops out of backward Third World countries with religiously conservative cultures. Let the social media networks play the role of freedom fighters, as citizens of those kind of countries will be able to see for themselves what the rest of the world has and what they don't. The Navy SEALs' action in finding Osama bin Laden shows how a small-scale mission can be surgically successful without putting platoons of the young people on foot or vehicle patrol--the so-called kid next door--into ridiculous and costly daily danger. Also, ending the wars is the best first real step in cutting a budget deficit. Less tanks and wars where soldiers are killed. Instead, more soldiers and advocates in peacekeeping, humanitarian, and educational missions that also make our soldiers more respected and safer around the world.

Those are the three campaign stands that I think will lead to victory for a presidential candidate in 2012. President Obama certainly has the edge for the victory, as he has stated his feelings before about everything from Medicare to the wars. Making it happen even before it is a campaign promise would assure victory.

News at 10...

2011-05-01T16:56:00.000-07:00

This just in...

The headline could have read, "Trump trumped." Birther and big-mouthed bully of a candidate for president Donald Trump got trumped by President Obama who produced the long form of his birth certificate after Trump exploited the falsehoods about it for his own political gains.

Donald Trump wins the Sage Street "Keep Blabbering and Spin" award for saying he was proud to do something so important as to get Obama to release the long form of his birth certificate. Ah, Mr. Trump, Obama didn't need to release it as the short form, which is the legal document used by Hawaii, was already available and then there were also those birth announcements in old newspapers. Of course, those facts probably wouldn't matter for crazy people who just don't want to believe the facts. Congratulations, Mr. Trump, on your award. It comes with a huge wad of bubblegum (to keep your mouth busy).

Pope John Paul (the some Roman numeral) took one step closer to sainthood, while most everyone else on Earth, as is likely in life, took steps farther away from sainthood.

Catherine "Kate" Middleton married Prince William Arthur Philip Louis Mortimer (what the heck is his last name?) in a royal wedding this past week in Great Britain. (Note: I just made up the "Mortimer" part, and I'm not so sure about the other names either.) I know their last name isn't Mr. and Mrs. Queen Elizabeth's Grandchildren. Hmmm??!

The U.S. news media wasted all kinds of time leading up to, during, and following the royal wedding of the future king of England. It got to the point where the TV reporters were talking about the royal wedding biscuits (cookies in America), the royal dresses and uniforms, the royal hats, the royal number of times that Will vacuums in their home, the royal squirrels that live in the trees near their home, and the royal pains that royalty produces.

Oh, and by the way, more American soldiers were killed in the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, but that news was overlooked while the TV media counted flowers at the royal wedding.

"Dangelavidize" is one of the newest words in the English language and placed here for the very first time. It means "to search the dictionaries and Google for something and not be able to find it." Used in a sentence: Have you ever dangelavidized successfully? (Note: The word was recently created on Facebook by the editor of Sage Street just to see if a new word would spread and find its way to popularity and a dictionary.)

There are many blockbuster movies for the summer that will feature comic book superheroes. Thirteen-year-old boys are ecstatic.

The latest episode of "Celebrities Chasing Squirrels" features Donald Trump telling a squirrel to turn in his nuts because he's fired.

An April entry for a busy month...

2011-04-22T18:34:00.000-07:00

I've been so busy that I thought I should post at least one entry in the blog for April. So, here are some random thoughts...

I can tell everyone in advance that there is one TV event that I don't plan on watching. It is the so-called "Royal Wedding" of the Queen of England's grandson and his girlfriend. No thanks! If expenses for royals were in the American national budget, that would certainly be the easiest item to cut. I give great thanks to George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, and all others who helped in breaking America's ties with royalty.

I enjoyed recent trips to Springfield, Mo. (with nine college students for the MCMA convention) and to Chicago (with faculty members for the Higher Learning Commission conference).

The current TV show that has the most references to Wyoming is probably "Supernatural" on the CW channel. One of the co-stars, Jim Beaver, was born in Laramie.

A "bodhran" is an Irish framed drum. (The Ridge River String Band recently played one at the college. A dulcimer was also played.)

The longest word in the Old Testament is 18 characters long. It is "Mahershalalhashbaz." In the New Testament, the longest word is 16 characters long and there are three of them (covenantbreakers, fellow-prisoners, and unprofitableness). That is according to a website about the King James Bible.

I like Richard Hawley's song "Tonight the Streets Are Ours." I heard it first when watching the documentary about graffiti artists called "Exit Through the Gift Shop."

Some recent movies that I liked: "My Boy Jack" about Rudyard Kipling's son who goes off to war; "Howl" about the life, poetry, and poem censorship trial of poet Allen Ginsberg; "Get Low" starring Robert Duvall and Sissy Spacek; "Devil," a scary movie about people stuck in an elevator; and "Triage" starring Colin Farrell as a photojournalist.

I predict that the awful pencil-headed dictator of Syria will be forced out by his people by the end of the year. Or hopefully sooner.

I would like to attend one theater event where rude, inconsiderate young people, who hear the theater announcement to turn off cell phones but refuse to do so, don't sit near me. Is it possible?! How do they develop such obsessions that they can't disconnect from a piece of equipment for at least an hour or two?

My quote: "Sometimes going through the motions gives me motion-sickness."

Buy products made in the country if you want to help your community and neighbors...

2011-03-06T11:33:00.000-08:00

Interesting information from ABC News shows and its recent series about "Made in America"...

In the 1960s, nine out of 10 products in America were made here. Now 50 percent of products sold in America come from foreign countries.
If every American spent $64 more per year for U.S. products specifically, 200,000 jobs could be created.
The number of Americans working in manufacturing is at a 70-year low.
There were 55,000 U.S. factories that closed during the Bush years. Jobs gone, tax-base also gone.
In some Chinese factories, workers make $14 per day.
Leo Gerard, president of the U.S. Steelworkers Union, noted that low-priced goods meant poison in children's toys, lead in steel, and other conditions that actually lead to high costs in other ways.
There is only one lightbulb brand now made in America and its major obstacle is getting on the shelves of places like Wal-Mart.
There is no American factory that makes wind turbines from start to finish. (My comment: That could be a great opening for a factory in a place like Medicine Bow, Wyo., which should also seek out an inventor of the prototype of a portable wind turbine/solar energy unit for rooftops, back-door steps and in "energy" gardens that hooks to portable heating and air conditioning units for individual homes, and manufacture those, too.)
After 25 years of record trade deficits, America went from the top producer to the top creditor nation.
The ABC News segment, with Diane Sawyer and David Muir, went to an average American family's home to find out how much within their home was actually American-made. After checking the entire livingroom, all that was left that was made in America was one flower vase (and the kitchen sink in the kitchen). Then the news show went about redecorating the house with American-made products only, finding just as many good bargains nationally. The new bedroom set cost was $1,699 as compared to the previous bedroom set cost of foreign-made products at $1,758.
Senator John McCain was on ABC This Week on Sunday, still touting the unfair and unequal idea of "free trade." There is no such thing as equal free trade, because wages, product safety and standards, work conditions, economy are all different depending upon where a person lives and works. It comes down to where a consumer wants to invest or send their money. Some might want to help workers in foreign countries as a response of generosity and humanitarianism in hopes of lifting up the workers there. But if a person wants their own local and national economy to be good and sound, with fair wages to workers, the best way is to buy locally.

Cut this, cut that...How about keep this, if it works, and add this, as an improvement...

2011-02-27T09:17:00.001-08:00

A quick post for a busy month...

I just watched ABC's This Week news program and, for what I think is the second week in a row, there was no "In Memoriam" segment. That segment usually provides a quick review of the famous people who died during the previous week. It is a way of memorializing a historical or cultural figure and informing the rest of us about their passing as well as their achievements.

As much as I appreciate the show's attempt to cover the democracy revolutions now occurring in the Middle East countries--certainly an important subject--I still liked the short "In Memoriam" segments that no other TV news had.

Instead, I had to endure an extra minute or two of Republican governors blabbering at a round-table about budget cuts. Budget cuts are a ridiculous subject ever since the Congress failed to cut the tax breaks for the very wealthy. Now politicians and news media want us to believe that there is serious intent for cutting budgets? Give me a break!

For the minute that I had to listen to Arizona Governor Jan Brewer say that government is "a necessary evil," I could have been learning something factual about the nation and world.

I would add that just as it is not likely that it is a wise idea for a football team to be headed by a coach who hates football or a farm to be run by a farmer who hates farming or a school to be managed by a principal who hates education, why in the hell do we have to put up with politicians who hate government but then want to run it? They will run it all right. And likely right into the ground.

Budget-cutting won't bring about good jobs. Good jobs--not Wal-Mart or McDonalds jobs, by the way--are the key to driving a healthy economy. When Gov. Walker of Wisconsin wants to eliminate collective bargaining and make unions in this nation weaker, that is not going to help the nation in the long-run.

The politicians can cut till the cows come home and probably will, but that won't create jobs, make for a better society, or improve the economy, any more than buying a car made in Japan will. Creating jobs and buying products made in the country and town where you live will impact and improve the nation's economy. Everything else is meringue and baloney. If they aren't careful, the budget-cutting will just lead to a recession or even a depression.

But if someone would be so wise as to put some regulations and limits on runaway corporations who have "socialized their losses" but "privatized their profits" as author Michael Lewis noted in his book "The Big Short," then that would also certainly be a step in the right direction.

I know I covered a lot of territory here. From the small to the large. But it's all about framing and ideas. Keep it, if it works or if it has been a promise to people, such as with pensions, and add it if it's an improvement. If "cutting" is the only part of the mentality, then spiraling down in quality, content, accomplishment, progress, and the future will be the outcome.

Time for Mubarak to leave...

2011-02-02T20:55:00.000-08:00

Hosni Mubarak, the dictator of Egypt, is also a thug. He needs to be removed from office and quickly if the democratic movement in Egypt is going to avoid further violence.

Anderson Cooper of CNN noted that with the anti-Mubarak protestors, the demonstrations were peaceful. When the pro-Mubarak people (or thugs and goon squads) showed up today, the violence began. It also included pro-Mubarak groups harassing and threatening western mediapeople, including Cooper and his crew which were attacked and hit.

It has always been hoped that a country in the Middle East would become the model for democracy. Before it's too late, before protestors are radicalized by the violence, this is the opportunity for democracy. But Mubarak has to go. If President Obama can't move the dictator to leave, then he should at least stop the foreign aid funding and say that it will start again only when a democratic government is in place. We should use whatever leverage we have to be on the side of freedom and rights.

In the meantime, the protestors for democracy and human rights need to avoid being slaughtered, like the scenes from Tiananmen Square in China. I can't imagine that Mubarak will ever be able to safely show his face in public again after playing the violence card in order to hold on as a tyrant. As all dictators, he's quite delusional that he has "served" his country in preventing freedom and rights, in censoring the media, in ruling with an iron fist. After this, if he continues to control the country when he really should be going to trial, he will be known as a thug. He was known as that before, by many of the Egyptian people. But now the world will know. That's a sorry legacy, but probably typical for autocrats.

Let the dominoes continue to fall...

2011-02-01T12:10:00.000-08:00

It has been interesting and exciting to see the spread of protests for democracy and human rights in Middle East countries. First with the revolt in Tunisia that sent the dictator fleeing to Saudi Arabia, the scatter of incidents of protest throughout the dictator-controlled countries of North Africa and the Middle East, and now with the mass demonstrations in Egypt.

My thoughts pretty much can be summed up in the sentence, "Good riddance to all dictators."

It also could be said that it is never wise for American leaders to hold hands with world dictators.

It is also interesting for dictators to realize that they can't control people or media technology forever. Technology can give an edge or at least even the playing field, as Martin Luther must have realized when he used the fairly-new technology from the mid-1400s called the printing press to get his message out and to rally support for what would become the Reformation of the early 1500s. In Tunisia, WikiLeaks provided information about governmental corruption and brutality and then cell phones and the Internet including Facebook and Twitter allowed people to communicate, network, and organize a resistance. The same technology and process can be used time and time again against the choke-hold of dictators and to free the masses.

Beyond that, it has been interesting to see many of the places in Cairo where I visited in 2002. Even then, I wondered why the millions of poor people there as well as the educated and intellectuals who were afraid to speak freely didn't throw Mubarak out. Mubarak lasted longer than I thought. He lasted way too long, as being iron-fistedly in control for 30 years.

Some Americans may look at leaders like Mubarak and others as being moderate and ones we can work with, so that apparently means it is okay for them to abuse their people. I don't think that way. I see nothing good about the rule of dictators. They are still dictators. They still use the authority and power of the state against others, often unfairly, often unjustly.

The pyschology of being a dictator must be an interesting study. Mubarak and others must actually think that they are doing the good of the people in holding their nations together, keeping them from slipping into chaos, keeping them out of the hands of religious zealots. Certainly, chaos and anarchy would be bad. Somalia is an example of that. Certainly, theocracies are bad where religious law rules over political law. Iran is an example of that. But why would an autocrat, a dictator who has jailed people for conducting sociology surveys or for speaking their minds, think that the people would love them? The people, who have to live under them, hate dictators. Mubarak and maybe even U.S. President Obama and Secretary of State Clinton, seemingly slow to embrace a people's movement when it also means dislodging a leader ally, don't seem to get it that the people, after 30 years of torment, don't want Mubarak's conciliations now or any part of his ideas for suddenly moving into more democratic governing. They want him out of there. The right side of history is with the demonstrators and those who support democracy. Mubarak will be fortunate if he leaves before they put him on trial. But for now, Mubarak must be living in some great delusional myth that he, as a dictator, was the best thing for his nation.

As the flood tactics in Tiananmen Square in China worked only until the Communist leaders brutally ordered military force and civilian murder, the flood tactics in Tunisia and Egypt, so far not becoming the target of violence from the military, are working.

Let the dominoes continue to fall.

News at 10...

2011-01-20T13:50:00.000-08:00

This just in...

There's an old theatrical saying about "break a leg," which is supposed to be a statement of good luck. But if you see any actors who actually have real broken legs, then they were probably in the Broadway play "Spiderman."

The art and conspiracy theory world was abuzz recently over the possible mystery of tiny letters painted in the eyes of "Mona Lisa." That's nothing. There is also a profane word in her nostril. Michelangelo was mad that day, after having gotten a bill for paint spilled on the Sistine Chapel's floor.

In a related Michelangelo story, scholars and nudists have determined that the guy who modeled for the "Statue of David" obviously had to pose in a very, very cold art studio.

The monthly weep index indicates that Speaker of the House John Boehner has only cried in public five times so far this month.

Facebook apparently doesn't have enough personal data about its millions of users. New profiles will include the question: Has anyone ever called you a "mammal"?

Chinese leader Hu visited the White House this week. Who? Hu. That's what I'm asking...Who? Hu. It is Hu. That's what I'm asking. Who is it? Hu. Who is what I and Abbott and Costello are asking?!!!!

Speaking of oppressive governments, dictators everywhere are complaining about WikiLeaks, Twitter, and YouTube. Said the former iron-fisted dictator of Tunisia who fled to Saudi Arabia, "Information sucks!"

Sarah Palin was back in the media spotlight, with homemade videos, making badly conceived and ignorant historical and word references. This time, it was for "Jim Crow," "dogma," and "fairy floss." Said a Palin spokesperson, "Sarah was referring to an Alaskan neighbor named Jim. She knows that there are papa dogs, too. And, of course, she knows that fairy floss refers to cotton candy. She has eaten cotton candy. She likes cotton candy."

Some guys love their guns so much that the NRA is now proposing guns with wider barrels. Well, at least a little bit wider. For the guys who not only love their guns but also want to have sex with them. !!!!

A woman who was texting and not looking where she was going fell into a water fountain at a mall. While under the water, she quickly wrote to a friend, "I M wet. 2 much H2O!"

One day last week, no students had to be told to put away their cell phones and text messaging devices. One more miracle and a Mass Communication professor may qualify for sainthood.

Joe Lieberman, Independent senator from Connecticut, announced he wouldn't run for re-election. But he would be willing to accept the vice presidential position if Senator John McCain or former Vice President Al Gore ever run for president again.

The editor of the Sage Street blog has come to the conclusion that gun laws should be stricter and that no crazy person should be able to get a gun. And for those people who think crazy people should have the right to guns or who believe in the ridiculousness of lenient gun laws, then those people are crazy, too, and they shouldn't have guns either.

Researchers say they will be able to clone a wooly mammoth in six years. In six years and one month, a wooly mammoth will be displayed in a Las Vegas casino. Tickets are now on sale.

Don't miss this week's episode of the TV show "Stars Chasing Squirrels." There is an amazing moment when radio commentator Rush Limbaugh climbs up three branches.

Three items, when mixed, that cause heartburn, irritation, and stupidity: Tea, baloney, and Rush Limburger cheese.

Thoughts about the Tucson tragedy...

2011-01-15T15:44:00.000-08:00

It has been a week now since the terrible shootings in Tucson, Arizona, when a single shooter killed six people, including a 9-year-old girl, and wounded 14 others, including Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords. Here are a few observations...

One of the quotes about the young girl named Christina Taylor Green, who was starting to show an interest in politics and public service, from President Barack Obama's speech on Jan. 12 at a memorial service in Tucson following the tragedy: "We should do everything we can to make sure that this country lives up to the expectations of our children."

Sarah Palin provided a defensive and idiotic (again) moment when she talked about "blood libel" after being chastised for having a "crosshairs" map on her website, which included a "targeting" of Gabrielle Giffords' district in the past election. When Giffords had earlier criticized the "crosshairs" map, Palin flippantly shrugged it off and continued to speak in gun language as though she thought it was cute. After the tragedy, Palin's website removed the map. While Palin isn't to blame for the actual shooting, her map could have influenced crazy people with guns and it does point to Palin's lack of good sense, wisdom, and intelligence. She didn't have the vision to see that the vitriol of her map and rhetoric could be detrimental to American society and might come back to haunt her. I think that says a lot about the unworthiness of her leadership qualities.

The thinking of some gun owners is quite ridiculous. Some gun owners say that if other people, also with concealed guns, had been there, they could have shot the shooter before he fired 30 bullets in just seconds. Well, there was a man with a concealed gun who came out of the Safeway Store near the time of the shooting and he ran to the scene, but thought that one of the heroes who taken the shooter down was the culprit. He said that if he'd used his gun immediately, he might have shot the wrong person. !!!!

Americans shouldn't have to carry around a gun in order to be safe in this country. That would turn a good country into a chaotic one like Somalia or other Third World countries where every person is armed. Who wants to live like that or in a place like that?!

There is definitely a need for stricter gun laws. The Assault Weapons Ban should never have been allowed to expire by Congress. Yes, I know. Outlawing guns won't work as there are too many around and it is a right for good citizens to possess a gun. But if stricter laws and more procedural steps keep even one more tragedy from happening, then it is worth it and Americans should get reasonable and be glad that guns and violence are better controlled and reduced.

It has been interesting to see the Tucson locations in the recent news coverage. I went to the University of Arizona as a college student. I worked in the late evenings, sometimes from about 9 p.m. to midnight, in the library and copy center at the University of Arizona Medical Center, where Congresswoman Giffords was taken and has been receiving care. One time, for about 30 minutes, I got stranded in the library's elevator when it misfunctioned and stopped. I think I finally had to use an emergency phone in the elevator box to call for help. The only other student at the library's front desk wondered where I'd been after the elevator finally came back into service. Another time, in walking to my apartment several blocks away late one colder desert night from the Medical Center, I experienced a somewhat unnerving incident that people don't think about happening in a city. I was walking home--everyone else in homes along the streets were, of course, sleeping, for the most part--when this pack of loose dogs started following me. One of dogs even started to nip at my gloves. Eventually, the dogs went running away. But it was a bit unnerving. No, I didn't need a gun. But the presence of a loud whistle or a can of pepper spray might have made me feel a little better. Another time I was walking down a street and a little old lady called out to me for assistance. She was near her front door. She was very elderly and frail and she had stepped into a flowerbed and couldn't, without some support, lift her feet only about an inch to get back onto the sidewalk and back into her house. I helped her mainly by just holding onto her hand to steady her as she managed to gain her footing onto the sidewalk. It took a while, but neither of us were in a hurry. I will always remember the squeeze of her hand. Despite her obvious declining health, I could feel her spirit and life in that grasp. For the most part, I enjoyed being a college student in Tucson. I traveled all over town, feeling perfectly safe, in the bus system. It was a nice city and university. The people were nice as well.

I also remember visiting the McKale Center, where the recent memorial was held, when it first opened and on occasions. It was a big arena, mainly for sports though sometimes the class registration process, going from academic discipline table to table for classes, would also take place there, at the University of Arizona.

Observations, as 2011 begins...

2011-01-02T11:32:00.000-08:00

Here are some observations for the new year, also based on the previous year...

The "R" in Republican stands for "rich."

I would have to be insane to vote for a Republican or a Tea Party candidate. Definitely, voting for them is out of the question. If I ever indicate I will, please grab a net and a taser and then get me some mental health assistance quickly.

My biggest problem this year may be trying to find some progressive candidate to support and ultimately vote for. I am not interested in voting for a centrist Democrat just to avoid the alternative of a more conservative candidate. I have done that before, and then never liked the results.

It is not surprising to me that the American economy is down. I went to Wal-Mart recently to purchase a baby gift and could find only one item in all of the large section of the baby items that was made in America. If the country doesn't make anything, then how will it be anything but an importing consumer? It's like Facebook is the new American model of business. Maybe even better as a model is Farmville. For both, people send time and time and more time creating a scrapbook profile or purchasing a fake cow and never produce anything real and substantial that anyone else would want.

If social networking ever becomes financially rewarding, some people will make millions....Well, I guess Facebook creator Mark Zuckerberg already has. But not so much for Facebook users yet. Maybe the way to make it work involves advertising. If some company that sells cheese pays a Facebook user to, for example, use the word "cheeseball" in order to entice readers into going out and buying cheeseballs, then you could start seeing notes that read: "Hey cheeseball, I cheeseball am cheeseball so cheeseball ready cheeseball for a cheeseball weekend." Hmmm. I think I have hit upon a new viral, guerrilla advertising approach.

Moment of supreme disappointment: Learning that someone has died and left you their farm. Only to find out that it is their farm on Farmville.

I have already been exercising this new year with two marathons. The Three Stooges marathon was on AMC and the "Twilight Zone" marathon was on the Syfy channel.

The bumps, falls, and mishaps of life would be a lot easier to take if they were accompanied by those Three Stooges-type sound effects.

It is a blessing if your sense of humor is greater than your sense of smell.

The unofficial person of the year 2010 could be Pat Down, the ubiquitous airport security person.

The second annual Sages, for 2010...

2010-12-29T20:12:00.000-08:00

This is the second annual presentation of the Sages, the end-of-the-year awards from the Sage Street blog. Congratulations to the winners, as well as the nominees!

BIGGEST POLITICAL WINNER--This category was painfully empty this year, as more people, including good politicians, actually lost. The nominees included Jerry Brown, a Democrat who won the California gubernatorial race for a second time; Scott Brown, a moderate Republican who used a pickup to pick up middle class support to win a Senate seat in Massachusetts; and both Democratic senators named Udall (cousins Mark Udall in Colorado and Tom Udall in New Mexico). But the winner is Lisa Murkowski, the former Republican and newly Independent senator from Alaska, who ran a long-shot write-in campaign and won. What Murkowski actually did was defeat the Tea Party, who had put up an extremely conservative candidate as the Republican nominee. Even better, Murkowski "defeated" Sarah Palin, who had backed the Republican candidate. It has been downhill in popularity and seriousness for Palin ever since.

BIGGEST POLITICAL LOSER--Wow, a filled category. The nominees included President Obama, who went to the aggravating center, compromised on important principles, and pretty much lost his progressive way, probably ending his chances for re-election as his enthusiastic majority faded slowly away. The young voters, who had supported his ideals, didn't like his need to rack up compromised achievements of lackluster legislation and so they didn't vote in the 2010 mid-term election and thus the Democrats lost the House and probably the future. Obama's concept of "change" seems to be replacing one Clinton Administration person with another Clinton Administration person. Doesn't he himself know anyone worthy of political thought outside of Clintonville and Chicago?! Other nominees included David Cameron, the Prime Minister of Great Britain, who showed the UK why conservatives don't lead to progress; the Democratic Party, who lost Nancy Pelosi as the Speaker of the House and three great progressive politicians Russ Feingold, Joe Sestak, and Alan Grayson, all who lost their elections; the Tea Party who put up crazy candidates like Christine O'Donnell, Sharon Angle, and other backward-thinkers who lost their elections; the Republican Party which is burdened by the likes of Mitch McConnell and John Boehner; and John McCain, whose flip-flopping stance on the "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" policy just made him look like an "old fool." But the winner or, in essence, loser in this category is the American people, because of all of the previous reasons.

MOST AGGRAVATING--The nominees included the Republican zeal for rich people as indicated by their demand for the extension of the Bush tax cuts for the wealthy despite what it will add to a budget deficit; British Petroleum with its leaking oil well in the Gulf of Mexico which created the biggest environmental disaster in U.S. history; the lack of jobs desperately needed by the unemployed; the failure of President Obama and the Democrats to promote a public option for health care; and the Republican denial of global warming despite the weather extremes and records. Many years ago, when I lived in Wyoming, I think my newspaper was the first in the state to recommend that Wyoming adopt the Martin Luther King Jr. holiday. The governor at the time, though a Democrat--which often doesn't mean much in Wyoming--dragged his feet and waited and stalled, but finally approved the adoption. But by the time it was done, its passage seemed more embarrassing, for being slow, than triumphant, for being bold. Such was also the case for the December repeal of the "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" policy concerning gay soldiers in the military. It was with a yawn, an "About time!" and finally joining the rest of the world democracies that the repeal got through Congress and to the president. But the winner for most aggravating and generally horrible is the continuation of the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, with the loss of lives and the huge cost. The war in Afghanistan goes into its 10th year, the longest in U.S. history.

BEST PEOPLE MOMENTS--The nominees included Shirley Sherrod, the woman who was unfairly removed from her job at the USDA, who showed why the rant and the sloppiness of the right-wing media is destructive; Velma Hart, the woman who spoke her mind to President Obama at a CNBC town meeting concerning the economy and expressed what most of us in the middle class were thinking; when the former insurance executive apologized and described to filmmaker Michael Moore the effort by Cigna and the insurance industry generally to undermine his documentary "Sicko" because the insurance industry didn't want Americans to start a populist movement for universal health care; Anderson Cooper, for an amazing moment after the Haiti earthquake when he came to the rescue of an injury boy; and the inspirational views of Elizabeth Edwards on the Larry King Live show, not long before her death. The winner is Jon Stewart whose speech at his D.C. rally noted the concept of respect and community by using the analogy of drivers taking their turns in traffic: "You go, then you go, then you go." And everyone gets to where they are going on the American highway of opportunity, freedom, and care.

BEST TV NEWS SHOW GUESTS--Howard Dean, Anthony Weiner, Nancy Pelosi, Elizabeth Edwards, and Joe Biden who is probably the best member of the Obama Administration for, as vice president, being able to speak to truth while the president speaks to politics. The winner is Ralph Nader, who showed up on the Lawrence O'Donnell news show. Wow, he had been missed!

THE QUOTE OF THE YEAR--The nominees included the response by President Obama in the Jon Stewart interview of "Yes, we can, but..." It was a "but" that just confirmed why Obama is seen in disappointing ways. Another nominee is the recent "tweet" by Newark, N.J., Mayor Cory Booker that noted "I just doug out your car," a reference to his good work in helping to clear streets of snow but which also shows why politicians shouldn't use Twitter if they can't spell. ("Dug" not "doug" unless it is a play-on-words for a guy named Doug who had a snowed-in car and, in that case, might be clever. Twitter language is supposed to reduce letters to irritating spellings of "u" for you, not increase letter amounts.) And who could ever forget--even if you want to--the quote from a young man's airport security experience, "Don't touch my junk." It was aimed at Pat Down, the ubiquitous airport security person. But the quote of the year is "I am not a witch," spoken by Delaware senatorial candidate Christine O'Donnell, conjuring up ghostly images of Richard Nixon's "I am not a crook." And when O'Donnell uttered the words, she was wearing a black blouse with a black background. All that was missing was a black, pointy witch's hat. Couldn't her PR people have at least suggested the colors of green or pink or blue as the color companion if she were going to go there?

A TIP OF THE HAT TO...All are winners here: Salvatore Giunta, Medal of Honor winner for heroic service as an American soldier in Afghanistan; Larry King, who retired from his interview show on CNN; Andy Griffith, who became a spokesman for TV public announcements about health care reform; and Leslie Nielsen, who died in December, leaving a movie legacy of deadpan humor and entertaining comedies.

BEST TV ENTERTAINMENT MOMENTS--The nominees included Andy Samberg's songs, often with nasty innuendo but always goofy and funny, on "Saturday Night Live"; the Geico Insurance commercial about the "woodchucks chucking wood;" the clever writing of James Thurber as read by MSNBC news personality Keith Olbermann; and the entertaining CNN teaming of Anderson Cooper and Kathy Griffin for the New Year's eve show. But the winner is Betty White, whose monologue and comedy-sketch performances as a guest host on "Saturday Night Live" was very amusing. She seems pretty ageless with her sparkle and wit.

BEST ENTERTAINMENT TV SHOW--"Saturday Night Live," "Merlin," "Haven," "The Mentalist," "The Closer," "Parks and Recreation," and "Monk." The winner is "Smallville" though the absence of the character Chloe, played by Allison Mack, was evident this past fall.

ACTORS AND ACTRESSES TO WATCH who are early in their careers, all of whom are winners: Ashley McKay, Yuval David, and Carlo Marks.

BEST NEWS SHOW--"Rachel Maddow Show," "Keith Olbermann's Countdown," "Anderson Cooper's 360," "Nightline," "60 Minutes," "Ed Schultz Show," "The McLaughlin Group," "Need to Know," "Fareed Zakaria's GPS," "Reliable Sources," "Caught on Camera," "Now," "CBS Evening News with Katie Couric." The winner is the PBS News Hour.

BEST NETWORK--MSNBC (except for the crime show schedule on the weekends), CNN, History Channel, Discovery Channel, Animal Planet, and the Sci-Fi Channel. The winner is PBS for depth of news and information, music, and historical programming.

WHAT I NEVER WATCHED (not once in 2010): Fox news or commentary shows, most reality shows, "American Idol," "Mad Men," and "Dexter."

BEST BOOKS (from the ones that I read, some of which were written in earlier years): "The GI Bill, A New Deal for Veterans," "Thirty-Eight Witnesses," "All the Devils Are Here, the Hidden History of the Financial Crisis," and "Jacob Riis, Reporter and Reformer." The winner is, but I'm very biased on this category, the sixth edition of the Wyoming Almanac. For digital books: "The Wolves and Short Stories" and "Sage Street."

BEST MOVIE (from movies I watched, some of which were made in earlier years): Not as many good ones as last year that I found, mainly through Netflix. "Avatar" and "Blind Side," which were two from last year that I finally watched. Also, "Daybreakers," and "2:37." For an indie film, the winner is "Entre Nos," a 2009 movie about Colombian immigrants in New York city. Paola Mendoza was the main actress as well as director in a story based upon her mother's experience in struggling to provide for her children. For a major film, it has to be "Avatar," which was excellent and really set a new standard in special effects. (Favorite movies continue to be "Dear Frankie," "Idiocracy," "Bella," "Sin Nombre," "Angel-A," "Children of Heaven," "Evil," "Unleashed," and "Across the Universe," and the segment leading up to the sheep driving the truck off the cliff in "Black Sheep.")

And drum-roll...

HONOREE (PERSON OR ORGANIZATION) OF THE YEAR--Last year, the Sage Street "Honoree of the Year" was singer Pete Seeger. Time magazine named Mark Zuckerberg, founder of Facebook, as its 2010 "Person of the Year." Sorry, Zuckerberg didn't even make the list for the Sages. This year, the nominees were:

Elizabeth Edwards, who lived with grace, optimism, and resilience and who died of cancer before the year ended. She also was probably the truest voice among the many leaders in politics and society for progressive action.

Jon Stewart, who kept the humor and insight going on his TV show. He continues to be a political power through his sharp perspectives.

Rachel Maddow, who provides meticulous depth on issues on her MSNBC TV news show while she also is smart, likable, has a sense of humor, and can easily smile, which is rather rare and unaccomplishable for most TV talking heads, especially the mean, angry ones on the right.

Paul Krugman, the Nobel Prize winner who writes about economics and politics for the New York Times, who always had insightful views about the economy and recommended an approach more like one from FDR.

The people within the organizations of Amnesty International and the ACLU for continuing the important missions of those organizations.

The winner is the WikiLeaks organization of people who have determined its mission of dedication, as a website, to worldwide governmental and business transparency. It is hoped that Julian Assange, the founder of the site, is correct in defining the criminal accusations against him as false and as a smear campaign. However, the site itself should not be judged by the personal conduct or behavior of one person. The information on the WikiLeaks is probably the most important addition to American journalism since the passage of the Freedom of Information Act.

(To see the first Sage award nominees and recipients, go to the Politics category for 12/29/09.)

Book Review: "The GI Bill, A New Deal for Veterans"

2010-12-23T13:16:00.000-08:00

Book: "The GI Bill, A New Deal for Veterans"
Authors: Glenn C. Altschuler and Stuart M. Blumin
Publication date: 2009

Ten years after WWII, the Census Bureau found that 15.7 million veterans had returned to civilian life in the United States. Of that number, 12.4 million (78 percent) benefited directly from the GI Bill. When surveys were taken of American veterans, two-thirds of them answered, "The GI Bill changed my life."

That information is part of a paragraph from the book titled "The GI Bill, A New Deal for Veterans" by authors G. Altschuler and S. Blumin.

The authors note that the GI Bill became the largest government program in American history. "By providing job training, unemployment compensation, housing loans, and tuition assistance, it allowed millions of Americans to fulfill their dreams of upward social mobility."

The GI Bill, signed by President Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1944 under the name of the Servicemen's Readjustment Act, allowed soldiers coming out of the world war, following the decade of the Great Depression, to go to college, acquire job skills, buy homes, and, in essence, create a strong middle-class for a healthy U.S. economy. It was, and continues to be (to this day), an economic stimulus package in reward to veterans for service to their country.

The book provides an interesting history of American politics concerning the treatment of veterans, dating back on the continent to settlers of Plymouth in 1636 with a measure "to maintain for life any soldier maimed in the colony's service."

Several dozen veterans' benefit laws--the first in 1776--addressed the needs of soldiers and veterans of the Revolutionary War. In 1817, fifth U.S.President James Monroe proposed that Congress award pensions to Revolutionary War veterans. At first, while Union soldiers benefited from national pension laws following the Civil War, soldiers of the Confederacy had to rely on the limited resources of their home states. Eventually, the Civil War pension system was expanded to all veterans. World War I veterans waited only 12 years for the enactment of a non-service-related disability or needs-based pension, according to the book, compared to 35 years for Revolutionary War veterans and 25 years for Civil War veterans.

But the largest expansion of assistance for veterans came with the FDR New Deal program in the 1940s. And it came the fastest for the WWII veterans.

Over the next few years, with government-backed loan guarantees, 4 million vets bought homes at low interest rates and 200,000 purchased farms and businesses, according to the book. "Education and training became the great surprise of the GI Bill. A whopping 51 percent of GIs took advantage of this provision: Altogether 2.2 million attended college or university and 5.6 million opted for subcollege training." The veterans were known for taking education seriously. According to the book, a Harvard professor said, "The window-gazers and hibernators have vanished. This crowd never takes their eyes off you." A student, competing with the veterans, said, "It's books, books, books all the time. They study so hard we have to slave to keep up with them." Harvard University's president, who had once been a critic of federal funding for higher education, said the GI Bill was "a heartening sign that the democratic process of social mobility is energetically at work, piercing the class barriers which, even in America, have tended to keep a college education the prerogative of the few."

Veterans became civilians and went to college, acquired job skills and went to work, bought homes for new families, and created a middle-class in the decades to follow that was probably stronger than any other time in U.S. history. And the whole nation benefited.

"The GI Bill, A New Deal for Veterans" is interesting and insightful. I found it at Murrell Memorial Library at Missouri Valley College, but it can probably be found in libraries and bookstores through America.

Bad poetry finds a home with rap music...

2010-12-18T22:03:00.000-08:00

I was so moved by the bad poetry of the rap songs of Eminem and Lil Wayne on Saturday Night Live tonight that I took a few minutes to write some crappy rhymes for a couple of rap songs.

Here's what I came up with....

Title: SHEEP BLEAT
You walk down the street.
You can't find defeat.
You sure take the heat.
You might lose your seat.
You'd better like the beat.
Or go slip on the sleet.

Title: MY ROBOT FRIEND
Robot
I bought
for war
I thought
It tore
A lot
And what
I got
was not
One shot.

Title: JESUS AT WAL-MART
Jesus
Squeeze us
Freeze us
Please us
Have some rice
Throw some dice
Pack some ice
Kill some mice
Find a price
Wal-Mart

And finally this title: MAD FRED
Give 'em real.
Take a pill.
Don't fulfill.
Walk, talk, balk, polio guy.
Sock, sock, sock.
Argyles.
No cops.
Corn crops.
Sweet honey.
Got money.
Prosecute my pants from my ass.
And if I care.
Fred Astaire.

News at 10...

2010-12-15T17:34:00.000-08:00

This just in...

The Las Vegas odds-makers, the jellyfish experts, and the spelunkers were correct with their predictions about President Obama and the extension of the tax cuts for the wealthy. Yep, he caved.

Republicans are working on what they will ask President Obama to cave on in 13 months when the unemployment benefits come due again for renewal.

President Obama's new slogan for the 2012 presidential race may not work quite as well as his slogan "Yes, We Can" in 2008. "Yes, We Cave" just doesn't have the same lofty ring.

Future Speaker of the House John Boehner cried three different times during the interviews by Lesley Stahl on "60 Minutes" last week. Then Boehner watched the segment on TV, and cried again.

In a memo to all Republicans in Congress, Republican strategist Frank Lutz advised, "Never replace the phrase 'trickle down' with the wording 'urine stream'."

Presumably without compromising, President Obama recently signed the Child Nutrition Act, endorsed by first lady Michelle Obama. He joked that otherwise he might have been sleeping on the couch. In the meantime, Progressives have refocused their efforts on getting the first lady's support for legislation in the future. They call it "The Couch Strategy."

Time magazine named that Zuckerberg kid, the founder of Facebook, as the person of the year. The choice made future Speaker of the House John Boehner cry.

OK, let me get this right (or maybe reich would be the more precise word if it's up to the censors). The government has fits about WikiLeaks and probably does its bullying best to make sure Americans can't find the site, while, on the other hand, we can be bothered by someone who wants to buy a chicken for their fake Farmville on Facebook, learn on AOL what Taylor Swift is doing on her birthday, and probably surf a zillion online porn sites. But, no, don't try to find the WikiLeaks site.

Though hundreds, if not thousands, of people at all kinds of levels in the military and government, had access to material that eventually found its way to WikiLeaks, the government is going to prosecute a military private. Said the Secretary of State, said the Secretary of Defense, said the state department officials, said the defense department officials, said the diplomats, said the generals, said colonels, said the majors, said the lieutenants, said the sergeants, said the corporals, "Blame the privates."

This week's episode of the TV show "Celebrities Chasing Squirrels" features Bill O'Reilly fighting a squirrel for a nut. O'Reilly is mean, so the squirrel didn't have a chance.

President Obama called in former President Bill Clinton to try to sell his compromise on the tax cuts for the rich. Seeing Clinton again at the lectern was about as refreshing as kicking a skunk. But Obama couldn't call in former President Jimmy Carter, who took the Democratic Party to the center and then didn't win a second term, or former President George H.W. Bush who compromised on his famous "Read my lips" tax promise and didn't win a second term, or former President George W. Bush who already urged passage of tax cuts for the rich years ago. And since all other former presidents, many of whom were actually strong and tough, are dead, well, that left Bill Clinton.

The national news media went ga-ga when former President Bill Clinton showed up to point his finger and lock his jaw at Obama's presidential lectern. The U.S. Olympics committee declared that news personalities Chris Matthews and Chuck Todd performed the most perfect cart-wheels.

Former U.S. Senator Alan Simpson of the Debt Commission commented about the progress of the commission proposals, "Throw a rope around it and then see if any muskrats will gnaw at it." Asked about why he called senior citizens greedy, he replied, "Some grasshoppers are green and some grasshoppers are brown and fly farther." Asked about the large cost of war, he said, "Only dance when you can hear the drums." Asked what he means any time he speaks, he answered, "The mud is deep on the wet side of the river bank."

The Photo of the Year...

2010-12-12T09:42:00.000-08:00

The photo that should be sent to everyone this holiday season to adorn their desks and tables is the one of Prince Charles and his wife Camilla with their astonished expressions when their Rolls Royce limousine on route to the theater was accosted by college students protesting tuition hikes in Great Britain and unkindly uttering "Off with their heads!"

It was a wildly entertaining photo, meant to become as good a holiday tradition for everyone's viewing as Jimmy Stewart's movie "It's A Wonderful Life."

Now, let me repeat part of the facts of that moment: The royals. In their Rolls Royce limousine. On their way to the theater.

And the second part of facts: Students in the street, hoping to afford an education.

Prime Minister Cameron, the current British leader from the political conservative right, is looking more and more like the Herbert Hoover of Great Britain. That means that Liberal Party leader Clegg, whose support was necessary for Cameron to ascend to leadership, is looking more and more irrelevant. For an American comparison, it would be like Cameron is the Republicans and Clegg is Obama. Of course, the royals are the main constituency of the Republican Party which is the 2 percent group of millionaires that the Republicans here so dutifully support, as was the case with the recent proposal for the extension of the Bush tax cut for the wealthy.

Wow, if the Bush tax cut extension for the wealthy does indeed get passed by the Republicans and Obama, despite the protests of progressive Democrats, then someone needs to send around a memo that says, "Got the tax cut again. Bless your lucky stars. And spend like hell." The memo needs to encourage all those millionaires, in the absence of their self-sacrifice for the nation, to do their darnedest to buy another car or two and an extra 3-D TV and some new laptop computers and the latest texting gadgets for their kids in college, to take a trip to Yellowstone Park, to hire another maid and gardener, and to expand that company that hires so many workers. In other words, to spend like crazy so that the economy improves and more middle-class people can find jobs and leave the unemployment lines.

And, of course, that's where it is especially important to include with the memo the photo of the royal distress and surprise of Prince Charles and his wife, as it wouldn't be good if that photo comes to define the future.

Presidential advisers mystify me...

2010-12-09T18:54:00.000-08:00

I must admit that sometimes I am mystified by presidential advisers.

Like today, I saw two economic advisers from the Obama Administration on TV and they were both saying that Obama made a good deal when he compromised on the extension of the Bush tax cuts for the wealthy. Then they said that they didn't like that particular part of the deal, but that it would be easier in two years, right after the 2012 election, to get rid of the tax cuts for wealthy. Why? Because they said it would then be clear that it didn't help the economy. So, then it would be an easy cut.

Hmmmm. Now, I am no economic wizard, but doesn't that imply that in order for the tax cuts for the wealthy to be seen as unsuccessful, then also it means that the economy (or the employment rate) doesn't improve? Do they think the economy and employment rate won't improve in two years? Wow! I hope not. Because that means none of their ideas (or the least the few that they have) were successful and so they haven't worked. Wow, I sure hope this economy improves in two years.

But wouldn't it also be true that if the economy improves, the proponents of the tax cuts for the wealthy could point to it as one of the reasons for economic improvement and thus make the case even more than now that those tax cuts need to be kept in place? And then that would mean an extension of the extension of the tax cuts of the wealthy.

Wouldn't it be just better to eliminate the tax cuts for the wealthy now, which should reduce the national debt, and then to work like a busy FDR to improve the economy...and then show that the tax cuts for the wealthy weren't needed?

The Obama advisers mystify me. But maybe they have to say something and put as much of a happy face on it as possible, considering that they made such a goofy mistake.

Grace, disgrace, jellyfish politics, and journalism resources...

2010-12-08T18:00:00.000-08:00

Some random thoughts on the news of our times...

It is certainly sad to hear of the death of Elizabeth Edwards, a health care activist and political leader in her own right. She died of cancer yesterday. Though she played a supportive role in her husband's campaigns, she would have been the better candidate. She had the passion and also the integrity. Through her illness and the scandal of her husband's affair, she showed spirit, resilience, and grace. She was inspirational and will be greatly missed by an America with so many needs for activists and courageous voices.

As a journalist and educator, I believe that the best resources that American journalists now have number six in general terms. They are: 1). The First Amendment; 2). The U.S. Supreme Court decision of New York Times v. Sullivan; 3). The Freedom of Information Act; 4). Shield laws when they are strong; 5). Sunshine laws for meetings and records; and 6). WikiLeaks, which comes new just this year to my list.

The jellyfish experts and the spelunkers were right. President Obama caved and sold-out to compromise with a Republican minority once again for some bewildering reason. This time concerning his willingness to extend the Bush tax cuts for the wealthy. That would be $60 billion per year that goes to the top 2 percent of income holders in America while the nation can't afford it. That amount of money is equal to what the U.S. could provide if it wanted to provide free college for students or $500 per American in a check rebate, according to a recent New York Times list of possibilities. If either political party were truly serious about reducing the budget deficit, this was the best first sacrifice to start the national effort going. Instead, President Obama gets rolled over again, like a bowling pin. Any new suggestion of where the budget should be cut now--usually aimed at the middle-class or people below the poverty line--would be a cruel and ridiculous joke. I do believe that it is essential that a candidate from the left emerge to challenge Obama in 2012. Perhaps Russ Feingold, Howard Dean, or others. Someone who is a real, actual progressive who isn't likely to dump a principle for a quick compromise. Obama appears to be weak and spineless. That won't be difficult to run against. I don't think Obama will win the 2012 election, so the Democratic Party is crazy if it provides him with the nomination. We expected FDR and we got Hoover who likes the banks. We were hoping for Harry Truman and instead got Bill Clinton and the love of the middle ground that always seems to be farther to the right and to satisfy the Republicans most of all. The middle-class desperately needs to have a better choice for the future.

President Obama's presidential slogan in 2008 was "Yes, We Can." Well, for his next presidential campaign for 2012, for accuracy it probably should be "Yes, We Cave." (My brother noted that phrase and I just had to use it here.)

I recently told PayPal to take me off their e-mail list as I don't intend to use that service, especially in light of their response to the WikiLeaks controversy. PayPal said it was intimidated by the U.S. State Department. Well, that's too bad...and I won't miss their promotional e-mails. I also recently asked to be taken off the Organizing for America e-mail list by the Obama campaign. Enough of that, too.

The difference between conservative and liberal environments...

2010-12-04T10:11:00.000-08:00

I can tell that Americans live in a conservative environment socially and politically, thanks to politicians and media, based upon the issues that are framed as provocative or controversial.

In liberal environments, social and political issues tend to lack a provocative nature because freedom, width, breadth, and diversity allow for a lot. If it is done, it is tolerated, it is accepted, it is part of the fabric of the society, its controversy is diminished, if not erased. In conservative environments, on the other hand, provocative and controversial issues are widespread because they are far beyond the norm, the allowed, the legal, the narrowness.

Since about every feature or concept can usually be framed to accommodate the conservative mind or the liberal mind, it then rests on who's doing the framing. Usually those are the people in power, which includes generations-old senators and rich media personalities.

So, for example, the American media might refer to Julian Assange of WikiLeaks as an anarchist because he believes in the transparency of government, even if it means publishing governmental secrets, while the same media wouldn't use the same word to describe Rand Paul, the senator from Kentucky who ran on the platform of opposing government.

It is like with the silliness about the "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" policy in the U.S. military. What a non-issue, if the environment were Sweden, Norway, France, Canada. But, of course, in the conservative environment of America, it is agonized over, debated endlessly, and senate committees waste time on its focus. Gay soldiers are already in the U.S. military and always have been. The recent survey of soldiers noted that most wouldn't have a problem with the repeal of the policy, which is discriminatory. Most straight soldiers probably are insulted by the idea that they couldn't handle it. The percentage of support for repeal is way greater than when President Truman ordered the end to military segregation of white and black soldiers.

Nonetheless, a stern Marine commander, who has higher percentage figures from his military branch to support the continued discrimination, tells a senate committee that the change would impact cohesiveness. Of course, there are no one polls to see how many bigots are in the Marines or other branches of the service and how that might affect cohesiveness. No, leave the bigots in there because we need them to fight. Apparently, most U.S. soldiers must have adjusted and adapted to the fact that some of their buddies are likely ignorant bigots and/or otherwise insecure about sexuality. Thus, the cohessive issue isn't about mind-set, especially if the mind-set, such as prejudice, comes from within a conservative culture.

About every political or social issue, from God to book-banning, also could be framed narrowly or widely depending upon whether the environment is conservative or liberal. The conservatives see it narrowly and thus any views beyond the status quo are seen as provocative and controversial. Liberals see it broadly. They see no need for stress and they accept the range.

People in other countries where liberalism isn't seen as horrifying must look at America and sometimes shake their heads in wonder. Of course, at least America has Iran, Iraq, and other also conservative societies beat...At least, thank goodness for that.

Changing the dynamics of world secrecy...

2010-11-30T19:58:00.001-08:00

I like the idea of the WikiLeaks website changing the dynamics of world secrecy. I hope it continues to provide transparency concerning governments.

In the past, all that journalists had to praise for opening governmental secrets on a national level was the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) and we all felt good when some 20- or 30-year-old secret, usually shameful, finally came to light about what the government, including its agencies such as the FBI and CIA, had done. Now, with WikiLeaks, that has changed. The release of secrets is pretty immediate. No decades to wait. No lingering darkness to accommodate the cobwebs of history.

While the government, through many presidents, tends to whine about national security being breached, I haven't seen much evidence that past revelations have done harm. There are people who say the release of documents endangers lives. Well, where is the evidence of that? It is a big claim, easy to inflate. But where is the proof?

It has been entertaining to watch the American TV networks handle the WikiLeaks story. Their reporters will say that WikiLeaks did the leaking--it's their fault--and then will go ahead and tell everyone listening about what was leaked. If the TV networks don't like the process of the leak, why don't they refrain from providing the information about what was leaked in the first place? U.S. journalists can blame WikiLeaks and then have their cake and eat it, too. The news is then reported. U.S. journalists also would probably have reported everything that WikiLeaks provided if they'd been first to have the source. That's how the profession works.

The New York Times printed the leaked history of the Vietnam War called the Pentagon Papers, despite the Nixon Administration's attempt at prior restraint. The U.S. Supreme Court settled the issue, with a verdict that favored the New York Times. Then Woodward and Bernstein used a source of leaks known as Deep Throat who happened to turn out to be the second highest official in the FBI. Though the Washington Post editors demanded that additional sources be found for verification of what Deep Throat said, the source was still a crucial part of the Watergate scandal story. Without him, who knows if the Watergate scandal story would have ever seen the light of day.

Julian Assange, the Australian founder of WikiLeaks, is currently entangled in a scandal relating to alleged sex crimes in Sweden. He says it is a smear campaign. Regardless of whether that aspect of the WikiLeaks story is true or fabricated, one man surely doesn't keep the website going. Nor does it mean that the mission of the website isn't worthy of support. The website is currently under attack by hackers, probably from governments around the world and likely from even the U.S. government. This is one time when I don't want nationalism to trump globalism. I want nationalism to bring forth better and more open government. If WikiLeaks helps in that regard, that's good.

So, calm down, government. Don't have a cow, Attorney General Holder. Take a breath, Republican and Democratic senators. And then go about the business of making government something we citizens can have respect for and pride in for being good, open, smart, wise, competent, honorable, and an example of the integrity we want and expect.

Information Station...and Comments....

2010-11-26T20:16:00.000-08:00

Information and random thoughts:

Here's a record achievement that no nation should want. Today marks the day that America tied, with the conflict in Afghanistan, the amount of time that the Soviet Union gave to its unsuccessful war in Afghanistan: Nine years and 50 days. The Soviet Union left Afghanistan in 1989. On the PBS News Hour, 10 more faces of young American soldiers who were killed in the war were shown.
Because my nation can't seem to ever find or sustain peace for any good length of time, I gave up purchasing Peace-On-Earth-themed Christmas cards for the second year in a row. I don't want to participate in a cruel fraud. Some day, it will really be a joyful occasion to actually send out "peace" cards because it is true. But at this point, I won't wish for something that our leaders can't or won't accomplish. It feels too much like being a sorry character in "Waiting for Godot."
Speaking of Christmas cards, I almost returned a box of Hallmark cards today after I saw that they were produced in China. So, then I looked at a box of Designer Greeting cards and those cards also were produced in China. Can I return two boxes? Then I looked at the last box of Christmas cards that I had purchased which were UNICEF cards. Guess what? They were made in the U.S.A. Well, how about that?! Good deal! And not only that, but also it said on the box that the purchase of the box will "help UNICEF provide seven notebooks for schoolchildren, opening up a world of possibilities through education."
I can't think of anything I would want to buy that would ever turn me into a Black Friday shopper waiting in early morning hours for a store to open (or for a shopping stampede).
Wal-Mart has the worst selection of books that I have ever seen. I went there today and they had multiple books by or about Sarah Palin and Glenn Beck and not much else. An awful selection!
Newsweek magazine listed the "Power 50" of political media personalities who make the highest income annually. Here are the top 10: 1). Rush Limbaugh, $58.7 million (he makes more money per year than the combined salaries of all the members of the U.S. Senate); 2). Glenn Beck, $33 million; 3). Sean Hannity, $22 million; 4). Bill O'Reilly, $20 million (I bet those top four are loudly supportive of the extension of the Bush tax cuts to the wealthy.); 5). Jon Stewart, $15 million; 6). Sarah Palin, $14 million; 7). Don Imus, $11 million; 8). Bill Clinton, $7.7 million; 9). Keith Olbermann, $7.5 million; and 10). tie with Rudy Giuliani and Laura Ingraham, $7 million each. I guess this list means that there is a big-money market for conservative chatter. That's scary. It also means that "Demagoguery sells."
"Exodus for Hunger" is a book by the Rev. David Beckmann of Bread for the World. He said recently on TV that the world produces enough food to feed every person on the planet. He said the big hunger increase in America is because of high unemployment. About 15 percent of all American households had trouble putting food on the table and needed the help of food banks, he said. One in four children lives in a household that runs out of food.

News at 10...

2010-11-20T20:43:00.000-08:00

This just in:

Some people got jobs recently. They were Republicans elected during the mid-term election. Unfortunately, they didn't need jobs, don't want to extend job benefits to the unemployed, and the unemployment rate remains the same.

Airport security (the national TSA) is telling travelers that they have two choices in order to board a plane: 1). Walk through a full-body scanner and have a naked photo of you taken; or 2). Have some security guy feel your private parts. In light of complaints about those choices, TSA is considering a third choice: 3). Let some security guy squeeze your private parts and then cook them with the radiation from a scanner that takes 3-D photos of your naked body and posts them on Facebook, with a poke here and a poke there.

Progressives are wondering if President Obama has the backbone to not compromise with the Republicans on the extension of the Bush tax cuts for the wealthy. Las Vegas odds-makers, spelunkers, and jellyfish experts are not optimistic.

Junk once was stuff that people took to the town dump. Now people take it to the airport and let security guards check it for explosives.

Bristol Palin and her dance partner won again on the "Dancing With the Stars" TV show. This time, their competition was only Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers in a historical film clip.

Apparently, a high number of Tea Party members watch "Dancing With the Stars." That's just one more reason for not watching the show.

In order to cut the budget deficit, the Debt Commission recommends that the retirement age be set at 105, unemployment benefits be replaced by a bus ticket and one TV dinner, and military spending be reduced by the cost of one nut and one bolt. Said former Senator Simpson, a member of the commission, "We need to stop square dancing and start peeling the potatoes."

This week's episode of "Stars Chasing Squirrels" features Glenn Beck almost catching one.

2010: President Obama said U.S. troops will be withdrawn from Afghanistan in 2014.
2014: President Brown said U.S. troops will be withdrawn from Afghanistan in 2018.
2018: President Hernandez said U.S. troops will be withdrawn from Afghanistan in 2022.
2022: President Robot 634 said U.S. troops will be withdrawn from Afghanistan in 2024
2024: Afghanistan becomes the 75th state of America, right after West Kansas, Iraq, Yemen. and Armpit.

Anderson Cooper on CNN finally threw up his hands in disgust and yelled at a politician. He's frustrated because he's been trying to "keep them honest." That's about as easy as trying to separate a college student from a cell phone.

Only about 40 years behind the times, the Pope is finally endorsing some use of condoms. Therefore, feel free to use them for water balloons.

A version of a "This Just In" repeat: Who would have ever guessed that there'd be more prostate exams at airports than at clinics?!!

Common ground sounds like dirt to me...

2010-11-05T02:59:00.000-07:00

Some random thoughts on the mid-term election:

1). If I hear President Obama say one more time that he will try to find common ground with the Republicans, I am going to reach down, grab a handful of ground, and throw it at the moon.

2). It was particularly depressing to see Senator Russ Feingold of Wisconsin, senatorial candidate Joe Sestak of Pennsylvania, and Congressman Alan Grayson of Florida lose in the election. If any of them want to challenge Obama from the left in 2012 (if Obama continues to compromise on important issues), I sure would be willing to join their campaigns.

3). A new third party from the left is definitely needed. It could be called the Progressive Party.

4). While only one percent of the Progressive slate of Democrats lost in the mid-term election, apparently 47 percent of the Blue Dog Democrats lost. Good riddance to the Blue Dogs, as they even gave dogs a bad name.

5). A friend recently noted in an e-mail that we really should be identifying the selfish jerks, who are against government and taxes that help to provide services, with the term "anarchists." I agree. The anarchists were in full-force this election.

6). Speaking of that, Rand Paul, the anarchist (Tea Party candidate) who won the senatorial seat in Kentucky, had campaigned on "taking America back" and more specifically "taking back the government." Well, it will be an interesting time seeing how he does that and where he takes it back to. If he gets his way, then it would probably be the 1930s, before FDR. Or maybe the 1850s, before the Civil War.

7). According to filmmaker (and Progressive) Michael Moore, if Obama doesn't return to respecting the concerns of his base (the liberals, young people, minorities, etc.), a "Naderesque challenge" is bound to emerge from the left. I agree. The one poke in the eye to Moore that I would mention, however, is that I remember a moment on a Bill Mauer show when Moore made a fool of himself on his knees begging for Ralph Nader to not enter the presidential race in 2004. What Nader was trying to do was build some kind of third party, which takes time (though apparently the Tea Party did prove it could be done faster). A third party from the left is essential now, for the same reasons of influence that the Tea Party will have on the Republican Party.

Irritating candidates: "Up" yours...

2010-10-29T20:03:00.000-07:00

If I hear one more woman candidate say, "Man-up," I am going to run from the TV screaming like a girl.

What exactly is the female equivalent to the sexist remark? I know it isn't "grow a pair" as that refers, in a positive or negative way depending upon how it's stated, to comparing the quality of courage to the male anatomy, though women do have some anatomical pairs, too. On the other hand...or both hands...everyone and apes have thumbs. But while "thumbs-up" can mean approval or good movies, it is gender neutral.

But, concerning the question, it can't be "woman-down" as, though it is an opposite to "man-up,"
that's also a descending direction. Or maybe that's the purpose of the remarks anyway: to sting and to insult.

Maybe it is just the equal "woman-up," though I am not sure what that defines. If "man-up" means being more of a man, then I guess "woman-up" would mean being more of a woman. But what does any of that mean, beyond stereotypes and narrow gender notions? For men, they need to throw a football, drive a pickup, and spit? For women, they need to cook, have a baby, and wear a dress? Oh, the old days of Archie Bunker.

As much as I am annoyed by Missouri Democrats who claim in their political ads to be pro-gun, pro-life, and anti-Obama-care, I would be willing to use the term "Democrat-up" if I thought it would actually do any good. Too late for that.

I know there can be "giddy-up" for cowboys, but that usually involves a horse, too. And there's often "spit-up" for babies. There's "leg-up" for achievers...or for dogs.

But where else would it work? "Mature-up" for senior citizens. "Young-up" for young people. "Rich-up" for wealthy people. "Poor-up" (or "poor-down," like "trickle down" from the Reagan years) for the middle and lower classes. "Straighten-up" for straight people. "Gay-up" for gay people. "Black-up" for African Americans. "Hispanic-up" for Hispanics. "Catholic-up" for Catholics and "Protestant-up" for Presbyterians. "Large-up" for big-sizes. "Skinny-up" for beanpoles. I don't think any of it works, except...

..."Shut-up!"

News at 10...

2010-10-22T18:49:00.000-07:00

This just in...

A lunatic at an anchor desk is ranting into the TV camera in an effort to move people through anger and fear. No, not the 1976 movie "Network" this time. Just another evening of FOX News.

He called her names. She called him names. They both called each other "liars" and "corrupt" and "lower than whale manure." No, not the latest reality TV show. It is the recent string of campaign attack ads.

Tea Party candidates, many of whom are disguised as Republicans for Halloween, have qualified for the book of world records as the strangest bunch of politicians ever known.

While Republican candidates are running against President Obama, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi,
and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid in every state where there's an election, Democratic candidates are running away from the national health care bill.

President Nixon said, "I am not a crook." Delaware senatorial candidate Christine O'Donnell, wearing black, said, "I am not a witch." A public relations person was recently seen holding his hand over Rush Limbaugh's mouth, trying to prevent radio talk show host from saying, "I am not a big-mouth."

Delaware senatorial candidate Christine O'Donnell read the First Amendment today. She still doesn't understand it.

Elliott Spitzer's new political talk show on CNN hasn't been doing very well in the ratings. So, CNN is considering a suitable replacement. They have been talking to Larry Craig, Monica Lewinsky, Michael Vick, John Ensign, Mel Gibson, Rand Paul's college buddies, and that evangelical pastor at the mega-church in Atlanta.

After the election on Nov. 4, defeated California gubernatorial candidate Meg Whitman will be selling her used campaign yard signs on eBay.

The politically extreme wife of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas left a message on Anita Hill's phone machine asking for an apology from Hill for her testimony at the Thomas confirmation hearing years ago. Hill said she had nothing to apologize for. So, then Clarence Thomas called back, asking Hill to at least return the pop can with the pubic hair on it.

It is very unlikely that NFL football player Brett Favre will be used in TV commercials to endorse any brand of camera.

Want to hear a joke about American business? The national Chamber of Commerce. Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha!

A legislator just got awful legislation passed that will force people to wear polyester, walk on their hands, and eat rock salt. His success is contributed to the name he gave the legislation, the "Children, Football, God, Flag, Marriage, Puppies, Beer, and Pizza" bill. Said the legislators from the other side of the aisle, "We had to vote for the darned thing. Or else, next election, there'd be campaign commercials by our opponents saying we voted against beer."

Words born today...yesterday and tomorrow...

2010-10-10T16:04:00.000-07:00

This just in for 10/10/10....

There are only two more years to go when a person could write 11/11/11 and 12/12/12 before it will be a long time to the next 1/1/01 (and some of us won't be around to see the next century). But our words have the opportunity of living into cyberspace and time, carrying on the DNA of thought, opinion, humor, and truth.

For that reason, meet my son...or daughter...named "Words," born on 10/10/10 and hoping to be seen, heard, valued, appreciated, enjoyed, and shared for years and decades and vast time to come.

Words Roberts was born on a pleasant day in a free country. He is strong. She is beautiful. They are happy to have a voice.

Easy answer why Obama has problems from progressive side...

2010-10-03T07:50:00.001-07:00

Question: Why is President Obama having trouble in keeping his liberal base enthusiastic?
Answer: Because Obama's rhetoric hasn't matched the action.

It would almost be laughable, if it weren't sad, that now Obama is scrambling to encourage the liberal base to stay with him. But there is also a whiff of contempt and snottiness that those White House people seem to have for the progressive base that got them there in the first place. When Vice President Biden tells the left to "stop whning" or when press secretary Robert Gibbs refers to the left in insulting ways, then you can't help but wonder if they really want to represent the progressive view. Maybe it is just too hard to stand tough with progressive ideas and action. Maybe it is just politically easier to compromise with Blue Dogs and Republicans.

Obama and the White House people remind me a bit of "Eddie," the character from the old TV series "Leave It To Beaver." Eddie was always so proper and polite when he was in the presence of the Cleaver parents in that show. In articulation, he was the model young man. But the Cleaver parents were never fooled. They knew the reality that Eddie's actions, often bad-boy, didn't match his words.

Oh, that's President Obama's problem. He is the best speaker, with speeches, that I have ever heard in the current times of America. Martin Luther King Jr. was another eloquent speaker. Of course, King would have never bartered with the South in order to find some common compromise that, in effect, would have resulted in poor-quality law and bad social conditions. He wouldn't have traded for integrated drugstore counters in exchange for allowing segregated drinking fountains. King's words led the way to his actions. Unfortunately, Obama's speeches don't translate well into the action. His rhetoric doesn't seem to match the action, perhaps because the reality of politics won't allow it or perhaps because he doesn't committedly fight for it. As much as like Obama's speeches, I almost dread hearing them now. Am I hearing the ring of truth or the disguise of politics?

Now Obama needs the progressive base...again. Wow, imagine that. What visionary couldn't have seen that need? Only a fool who did care or who took his support for granted would have been so out-of-touch.

There are some good changes (that I can believe in) going on right now. Lawrence Summers, the economic adviser, is leaving the administration. Good riddance. Rahm Emanuel, the White House chief of staff, is leaving the administration to run for mayor of Chicago. Good riddance, and good luck to poor Chicago. Those are some changes that might lead to hope for progressive change and improvements.

However, when Obama's rhetoric truly matches the action, then he won't have any problem gaining the support of progressives. It is just too bad that a lot of progress and good candidates, like Russ Feingold of Wisconsin, may well be in danger because the Obama administration chose weak and inadequate compromise over strong principles that could have achieved both progressive action and strong support.

News at 10...

2010-09-17T18:31:00.000-07:00

This just in...

Republicans are probably going to oppose President Obama's jobs creation proposal regarding transportation and infrastructure work. After all, Republicans and Tea Party members want to take the country back to the way it was. (And they apparently mean when jobs were being lost during the Bush years.)

Christine O'Donnell recently won the Republican primary to become the Tea Party candidate for the Delaware senate seat. It's no longer politics as usual. Now, it's politics as unusual.

Christine O'Donnell recently won the Republican primary to become the Tea Party candidate for the Delaware senate seat. Here's how that works: Republicans organize a primary, but all of their members have split to the Tea Party, which then organizes rallies to allow everyone, especially people over the age of 70, to act really mad because they want the country to return to something that doesn't have Obama as president, and then they all go to the Republican primary election and vote for people who are opposed to masturbation.

"Hey, Mabel," Charlie, her husband, yelled from the recliner chair in the living room. "That woman from Delaware who's against masturbation is on TV again."

Don't you think that if the only thing a person can remember about a politician is what they said about masturbation, then the Republican Party is in a world of hurt?!

Glenn Beck is planning a rally. He will dress in a robe like Moses and come down from a mountain top. Note for rally members: Bring your own marshmallows for the burning bush.

Glenn Beck is planning another rally. He will wear a fake beard to look like Brigham Young and then lead zealots with handcarts to Utah. Note for rally members: Bring either a zealot or a handcart.

The new TV season will include the show "Stars Chasing Squirrels." Each week, different celebrities will go to a park and chase squirrels. Celebrities scheduled for the competition include Rush Limbaugh, Pat Boone, Evan Bayh, Queen Elizabeth's piano mover, and Sarah Palin's third cousin from Homer, Alaska.

Flo, the lady in the insurance commercials, will host Saturday Night Live this week, with musical guests rapper Bad Poetry R-U-Cool and an electric pencil sharpener.

A pastor of a tiny, irrelevant and intolerant church in Bedbug, South Carolina, is threatening to burn Qurans, Torahs, Buddhas, rosary beads, Methodist hymnals, Jehovah's Witness door pamphlets, biology books, Dixie Chicks CDs, National Geographic magazines, French recipes, and sour-dough pancakes. The media coverage has swelled from community attention to statewide attention to national attention to international attention, as unnecessary outrage grows. It has even caused chauvinistic men in Middle Eastern countries to riot because they are so offended.

A college professor has introduced a new higher education concept for college courses. Students will sit in a class for two weeks and then the professor or instructor will get to choose which students stay in the course and which students are exiled to the library to silently read books for the rest of the semester. Faculty everywhere are ecstatic about the plan.

Thank goodness--One war down...

2010-08-31T19:06:00.000-07:00

President Obama announced the end of U.S. combat troops in Iraq today. Thank goodness!

Bush, Cheney, and company were dishonest leaders who put young American soldiers in a quagmire. Shame on them...forever...for their recklessness.

Just for the record: Inventions...

2010-08-28T14:00:00.000-07:00

Inventions or concepts that started here...

1). The Roberts pyramid...In journalism education, there is a newswriting style known as the inverted pyramid style. It is an upside-down pyramid which explains that the first sentence, or lead, of the story is the important, containing the 5 W's (who, what, when, where, why) and how or how much and sometimes an attribution. The inverted pyramid style of writing is old, dating back to the Civil War days, when news stories told in traditional ways of story-telling, like a fictional story, had to be changed in order to get through before telegraph wires were cut. When I use the inverted pyramid structure as a teaching tool for basic news reporting students, noting that they should eventually write more leads in the structure of nut graphs or featurized leads, I do incorporate a separate inverted pyramid to get them thinking about their lead. Thus, it is an inverted pyramid of important elements within an inverted pyramid of story structure. As the Roberts inverted pyramid concept is intended just the lead, the students are told to consider which one of the elements of the 5 W's and how or how much is most important and to start with that. It does seem to work in helping them design their leads. Usually, leads aren't started with the when or where elements. Usually, the leads begin with the who, what, why, or how much.

2). Pitch Golf...Many decades ago, in my book "Sage Street" and for my weekly newspaper, I wrote a column about my sports innovation of the exciting, but inexpensive game of "Poor Person's Golf." It is the golf game wherein people don't use fancy and expensive clubs to hit the golf ball down the golf course. Instead, they get to throw the ball. Then there is no need for anything but a golf ball. How many throws would it take for you to get down the course to the first hole? And what would be the likelihood of a pitched hole-in-one? They are all challenges in my "Poor Person's Golf" game, which is probably is need of a higher-brow name. Thus,..."Pitch Golf." While I haven't yet gotten a call from the PGA, I did encourage a recent college graduate who is golf club management to give it a promotional try. I am hopefully that it will catch on, especially in a tough economy.

3). We-Mail...I just saw on the Internet that a website called WeBuzz.Im or something like that has a new service called "We-Mail." Alums of a journalism newsletter that I have been writing for years should recognize the word "We-Mail" for its use for the We-Mail newsletter. The We-Mail idea, of course, is that we hear from each other, as a social network of alums using e-mail...Our mail to each other about news which is then turned into one for all--We-Mail. If a company has trademarked it, then it is legally theirs. But, just for the record, that phrase was one I've been using for journalism alums long before a Google search could find it referenced by others.

I have a few other inventions, concepts and developments--one that's even in fashion, if you could imagine--but maybe I actually should get patents and trademarks before I describe them in words. Inventing is tough work!

Meringue on a cowpie...

2010-08-25T18:02:00.000-07:00

Alan Simpson, former U.S. senator from Wyoming, made the news today for more goof-ball comments--this time about Social Security. President Obama made the mistake of putting Simpson on a national taskforce committee. Another goofy effort to compromise an important issue into diddly-squat.

What really irritates me is Simpson's typical Republican view about Social Security. Simpson, with his undeserved Senate retirement, should keep his hands off my (and every other workers') Social Security, especially if his conservative ideas are for cutting it or raising the retirement age. How about proposing a raise in the Social Security payroll cap of just 2 percent (or even more) on those who have very high incomes (like Simpson)?

Many years ago, in my Medicine Bow Post newspaper in Wyoming, I noted that Alan Simpson's folksy baloney was like meringue on a cowpie. Looks like Simpson is still meringuing and haranguing.

News at 10...

2010-08-10T17:00:00.000-07:00

This just in:

The 99-Weeks Club, the group of unemployed people who have come to the end of their unemployment benefits and still haven't found jobs, are hoping members of Congress who won't extend the benefits will join them someday...so they can see how it feels.

Though the government said the security scans wouldn't be kept, the best of the naked scans of people going through airport security were posted this week on the WikiLeaks website.

A woman traveling passenger class on a plane to Butte, Montana, was voted as Miss August by visitors to the WikiLeaks website concerning the naked scans by the airport security machines. A man traveling first class to Littleton, Colorado, was voted most likely to make naked-scan equipment workers laugh.

A teenager took the keys of the family car and then drove the vehicle into the ditch. His father said, "Son, that officially makes you a Republican." (Explanation: President Obama has referred to the Republican condition of the economy that he was left to salvage as a car that was driven into a ditch and that now the Republicans want the keys again to drive it.)

Mad Hatter of the Tea Party has claimed that Alice is an illegal immigrant and should be put in an Arizona jail.

Tea Party members ran for public office and lost in the primary elections. But they sure have funny hats and goofy signs.

It has been recommended that someone chip in a dollar for the Tea Party sign-writers, so they can buy a dictionary. (This is absolute true: A recent message on a sign at a Tea Party rally shown on a TV news segment was "Obama care not fare.")

The primary campaigns really got nasty and mean. One candidate accused his opponent of sleeping with bed bugs. The other candidate responded back that only bed bugs would want to sleep with his opponent. Pollsters are trying to figure out which bed bug accusation hurt the worst.

Obama's press secretary, the guy with the Southern twang in his mouth who complained recently about the "professional left," is trying out an interesting theory: Insult the Democratic base which is the left and remind them that the Obama administration couldn't come close to providing the same quality of a health care system that Canadians enjoy, and then see if they will vote for Democrats in the elections. Maybe he's an Einstein and the theory will work. Or maybe he's a Bozo.

Warren Buffett, Bill Gates, and other billionaires have promised to give away half of their wealth during their lifetimes. Though on the other end of the economic scale, the Sage Street blogger wants to join the effort and thus promises to give away half of his poverty.

An opposite-sex couple filed for divorce today, saying that the prospects of same-sex couples having the same right to marry drove them to it. The Family Nonsense Council warned that it signals the end of marriage between a man and a woman. "No straight couple will want to get married if gay couples are doing it," said Al Mond, a religious nut.

Ben Nelson the asterisk is the U.S. senator from Nebraska who's a Democrat but who often votes with the Republicans. Well, something very strange happened. Stranger than paranormal activities, jackalopes, and Glenn Beck. Ben Nelson actually turned into an asterisk. A real, tiny asterisk. One moment he was a man, the next moment he was an asterisk. He's been shipped back to Nebraska for immediate display below a pile of corn cobs, with tiny type for explanation.

Update on Prop. C vote and other comments...

2010-08-08T08:55:00.000-07:00

Update of the news: By 71 percent, Missouri voters supported Proposition C, the measure that opposed mandatory health care insurance. The national TV news downplayed the vote by saying that it didn't matter since federal law trumps state law. But the newspeople missed what the vote really meant: That a majority of voters, from the right as well as from the left, dislike the idea of mandatory health insurance with its costs in a reform measure that offers little change. The right dislikes anything that's Obama. The left dislikes the farce of watered-down health care with insurance companies still in control. That's what it meant. Legislators who continue to dilute measures because they think they will make more people happy by going to the center need to understand what that does to the enthusiasm and support factor.

Concerning the 9.5 percent unemployment nationwide, a conservative commentator on an ABC news show said, "Democrats are at an ideological deadend on jobs." He may have been referring to the Obama Administration which morphed into the Clinton Administration. But he sure wasn't referring to the FDR Administration during the Great Depression which had plenty of creative ideas for job growth. The difference is in leadership and vision.

There he goes again. Ben Nelson the asterisk, who is the Democratic U.S. senator from Nebraska but tends to vote with the Republicans on everything when he's not diluting Democratic measures, was the only Democrat in the Senate to vote against Elena Kagan as the U.S. Supreme Court nominee. Kagan was approved for the position and has become the fourth woman to ever serve on the U.S. Supreme Court (the others being Sandra Day O'Connor, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, and Sonia Sotomayor).

Voting for the proposition that opposes mandated insurance...

2010-07-31T18:07:00.001-07:00

Here's something you won't hear often...I am joining the Republicans in voting on August 3 for a Missouri proposition that opposes the mandating of people to buy health care insurance. (Of course, a lot of Progressives are also voting for it, so I am not alone with just the Republicans.)

The Republicans are voting for Proposition C because they throw fits about socialism and Obama-Care. However, I am voting for it because the centrists in government failed to provide a public option program in the health care reform measure, so the insurance industry continues to control health care in this nation. No public option, well, then to hell with mandates and padding the pockets of the insurance industry.

On one flyer that I received in the mail, the first argument that the opponents to Prop. C made was this: "By law, Missouri's hospitals must provide medical care in their emergency departments to anyone who is uninsured--even if they can afford health insurance. Hospitals must cover the cost of that care by charging more to patients who do have insurance...So, should Missourians who already pay for health care also have to pay for those who choose not to pay?"

Oh, boy! I really do hate mythical arguments that imply we all have to equally pay for a health care system that stinks and is set-up for the benefit of the middleman called the insurance company. If we all need to pay for health care, then why don't we just pay it directly to our local hospitals in order to keep our hospitals within the community and then, by doing so, we should be guaranteed that if we get sick we can go there and get free treatment. Why do we need to pay our money to insurance companies so they can make profits, spend on ad campaigns, and spend on lobbyists in Washington, D.C.?

The second argument from the pro-mandate group was this: "It is projected that $50 million a year will be directed away from Missouri. That loss will cause the greatest damage to community hospitals in Missouri's small cities and rural areas...perhaps the one your family relies on in times of need."

Well, I am not a fan of blackmail, either. If the government really cares about the health care of all of its citizens, then it won't penalize a state for refusing to force its people into institutionalized-thievery costs in the first place.

I don't even like being forced to buy car insurance when I almost never have had an accident. Oh, well, because I might someday. I might get caught in a flood one day too, but I can't afford insurance for that in the meantime. Nor a host of other insurance coverage for potential problems in life. When did car insurance become the mandated rule in some states, and how about repealing that? Because we are ALL forced to buy car insurance in Missouri, I sure haven't seen my costs decrease. So, the theory of come one, come all, and we'll all be better off, just isn't the reality.

And it is not about cost, it is about real quality. For instance, I greatly support having monthly amounts for Social Security taken from my paychecks, even if I never live to age 65 to get my share. I support it because I know others who need it are getting it and because it makes our society better.

I was more than willing to join the health care reform cause when I thought that the United States would be getting a geniunely good system, like those used in Canada and Europe. But with no public option or no universal health care, I don't intend to support reform that's not reform.

Ben Nelson the asterisk, wolf sex, feeling like you're going to boot, and other facts and information of the summer...a three-part series...

2010-07-29T16:15:00.000-07:00

This is part of a three-blog entry series. The next one will involve bewildering, head-scratching moments from the news that I experienced this summer. The third one will be about some summer reading that I enjoyed. But below are some of the many interesting facts and information that I learned this summer...

New word of the summer: "Vuvuzela" -- The plastic horn that South Africans used to make that annoying noise throughout the World Cup games. The device is also known as a "lepatata." I am not sure which word I like better. Both are fun to say and sound musical.
New slang of the summer: "Boot" -- In modern college student language, a verb that means "to vomit." According to The Field Guide To College Slang by Natalie Sudikoff, other slang words that may be on campus this year include: "Gut Class" -- An "easy class that everyone does well in. "Blitz" -- Sending a short e-mail, as in "I'll blitz you." "Dormcest" -- Hooking up with someone who lives in your dorm. (Probably meant more for coed dorms, but these are modern times, too.) "Turkey Dump" -- When a freshman returns home for Thanksgiving Dinner to dump his or her "hometown honey." "Midnight Howl" -- A bellowing scream heard at midnight, the night before finals.
Interesting book of the summer: "The Man Who Stopped Time" by Brian Clegg. It is a book about English pioneer photographer Eadweard Muybridge, who has also been called the father of the motion picture. He is best known for his series of photographs of a horse in a gallop which proved, as moment to moment of the gallop was studied, that a galloping horse can indeed have its four hooves (legs) off the ground simultaneously. He had to use 24 cameras to catch every second of movement. What I didn't know about Muybridge was that he was a murderer. In 1874 in England, he killed his wife's lover. He was facing the gallows and he went to trial with the defense of "marital rights." Did the jury convict or acquit him? I shouldn't give it away in case you want to read the story, but I will mention it in an upcoming blog, the third in the series, about summer reading. If you don't want to know, then skip over the repeated reference to "The Man Who Stopped Time" there.
Interesting TV show of the summer: "The Human Family Tree" on the National Geographic channel. It was about the history of DNA of all the world's people since the time of early ancestors like "Eve" in Africa. There was a lot interesting information. For instance, there are 5,000 languages in the world today and speech was critically important in allowing the human species to progress. Also, researchers estimate that at one time, because of one terribly dry period in Africa, the human species probably only numbered around 2,000 and was on the verge of extinction. The program also noted that there are 3 billion letters of the human genome and only a few change the race. In other words, race differences are not more than skin deep. Genetically speaking, race doesn't exist.
Interesting documentary of the summer: "Yellowstone: Struggle for Survival," a three-part TV series by the BBC, which you can watch in its entirety by way of a DVD from Netflix. The film photography of the wildlife and landscape was stunning. Lots of interesting information about Yellowstone National Park. The park contains more geysers than in all the rest of the world. Real mama grizzlies, antelope, bison, beavers, elk, and wolves were featured. I had no idea that wolves have a rather problematic situation involving sex, but there is a scene of the potential hazards of the problem in the film. This is a family-oriented blog, so I will leave it vague, but the film also is great for family viewing. Heck, mammals are just better at illustrating the subject of sex than birds and bees anyway, so if you have children and if it leads to a discussion, you may discover that they know plenty already about the subject or, at least, they probably know more about it than you think they do. If you have teenagers, God bless and help you! In the modern world, college students are the experts on the subject.
Interesting TV quote of the summer: A TV news story in June 2010 featured author and former lawyer John Grisham. He said there are thousands of innocent people in prisons. About half of the time, the real killer is never found, he said. But here is the quote, pertaining to why it is important for the justice system to get it right, that I thought was very interesting from Grisham: "When you send an innocent man to prison, chances are you've just increased the crime rate."
Best News Anchor of the summer: Jake Tapper of ABC's "This Week" on Sunday mornings. He challenged guests with insightful questions. The permanent anchor for the show, starting next week, will be Christiane Amanpour from CNN.
Interesting asterisk of the summer: Ben Nelson the asterisk. Whenever I am speaking about and criticizing the Republican Party of "No," please note that more specifically I probably should be saying, "The Republicans and Ben Nelson." Nelson is the conservative senator from Nebraska who often votes with the Republicans. He's about as much a Democrat as rattlesnakes make good necklaces.

Information Station...

2010-07-28T16:23:00.000-07:00

Here is some information from TV and Internet reports, as well as some comments...

In a previous blog, I had mentioned that Americans need more news and information on subjects that really matter, rather than about celebrities and scandals. Add one more name to my list of those mentions that we don't need to hear about: Chelsea Clinton (and her $2 million wedding).
Excluding the cost of college, the cost of raising a child for an average middle-class family is $11,000 to $13,000 per year. (CNN)
The Pentagon can't account for 95 percent of the $9 billion for Iraq reconstruction money. (CBS).
The War in Afghanistan costs America $5.5 billion per month. (CNN)
The U.S. House of Representatives recently approved $37 billion for continued Afghanistan War funding. (PBS) (Wow, you add a billion here and a billion there for the war machine, and then does any politician wonder why there's a large budget deficit?)
British Petroleum (BP), the oil spiller in the Gulf of Mexico, could qualify for a $9 billion tax cut. (CBS)
Pakistan receives $1 billion per year in foreign aid from the United States. (MSNBC)
Facebook has more than 500 million users. Facebook also has been recently criticized for its blocking of certain words, such as "Palestinian." (I have also noticed that if you place something light and trivia on the site, it is added pretty immediately to the news feed for others to read. If you place something political or the least bit controversial, the gatekeeping blockers kick into gear. A positive comment I made about the Americans With Disabilities Act, which is celebrating its 20th year, took more than 24 hours before Facebook posted it. It is to say that Facebook definitely is a SOCIAL networking site, with preference of talk about picnics over talk about politics.)
The more you sit, the shorter your life span, according to a study, which also noted that the effect is worse, percentage-wise, for women than men. (MSN on the Internet)
The Bush tax cuts for the wealthy are soon to expire. (What are the odds that the Democrats will cave and join the Republicans on keeping the tax cuts for the rich in place?)
Last winter was the worst in the United States since 1979. This year so far is considered the hottest ever recorded for America. (CNN)

Quote: "My husband worked all his life to feed his family. He died hungry." -- Written on a paper plate at a soup kitchen in Ohio, July 2010. (CNN)

Sherrod provides a chance for wise counsel...

2010-07-23T14:33:00.000-07:00

A few comments about media comments and political events...

The recent editing of the Shirley Sherrod video, out of context, by the reckless conservative blogger, the firing of her at USDA, the apology and job offer to her from USDA, and the call to her from President Obama was a distracting moment of political drama. It would have been even more disappointing and disturbing, however, if Sherrod hadn't fought back, also using the media, to make her case and shed some light.

Some media people have said, in essence, that the Obama Administration probably wishes to get beyond that story and put Shirley Sherrod in the past for political expediency.

Wow, that's the wrong attitude to have. I hope President Obama is wise enough to realize the opportunities that sometimes fall awkwardly into his grasp. The greater presidents have to be the ones who care more about issues and life in America than political expediency and media news cycles.

President Obama needs to seek counsel about real-world matters from people like Sherrod. He shouldn't run from her. Instead, he should see that she has greater gifts to give to him than just going away. She has an amazing personal narrative. She is older and from the South. She is also articulate, concerned, and looks to me like a pretty nice person. Obama should embrace the real-world people he meets along the journey of his presidency and seek their advice and counsel often, networking with them, as it will do him and the nation far better service than the political hacks around him who, of late, have managed him badly.

Also, I hadn't heard much about the biased history of the USDA until the Sherrod story happened. That means that the media, particularly always the TV media, need to do a better job in covering issues rather than following scandal-driven or entertainment-driven headlines. We need to see more about how the USDA improves its conduct and those kinds of issue stories, and far, far, far less coverage of actress Lindsay Lohan, Kate plus eight, and Mel Gibson. Intregity in media is often about quality.

Two other comments:

In the story about Alvin Greene, the candidate in South Carolina, I have heard from news reports that Greene had to pay $10,000 in order to file to run for the U.S. Senate. Well, why is that so? That sounds like a poll tax to me, to keep poor people from getting on a ballot. So what if there are more names on a ballot. That's democracy. I think someone should challenge that kind of fee in court. (And frankly, I'd like to see incumbent Senator Jim DeMint in South Carolina lose to anyone.)

It was interesting to see, from a segment on the Rachel Maddow Show, that in 1947, one year before President Harry Truman integrated the military, a survey of officers and enlisted men showed only 7 percent supported the idea of integration. Nonetheless, Truman stepped up courageously to the issue and did the right thing, in ordering integration of the military despite its unpopularity. Obama should find a lesson from Truman's actions as well concerning the modern issue of "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" that punishes gay soldiers for speech any time, rather than solely for inappropriate behavior during military duty. It never should be difficult to do the right thing. But even if it is, America deserves the greater good, and presidential legacies are made by vision, courage, and leadership.

News at 10...

2010-07-21T18:54:00.000-07:00

This just in...

An American got a job today and it was so rare that scientists were called in to give the phenomenon a name. After considering "New Worker" and "Employed Person," they decided upon the phrase "Person Who Uses Their Hands To Actual Make a Product Sold in America."

An American, with long-time employment service, got a job offer today in the USDA, but only after getting fired by people who panicked and over-reacted to an edited film clip by a biased weasel of a conservative blogger who was deceptive for the sake of a darned political agenda. (Hey, wait a minute, this actually happened to Shirley Sherrod this week. It just seems too ridiculous to be true.)

The Republicans in Congress finally approved extending unemployment benefits to jobless Americans after saying they had balked because, besides the fact that they had jobs and didn't have to worry about unemployment personally--at least, until election time--they think the budget should be balanced...finally and suddenly. (Note of truth to suddenly concerned Republicans as well as Democrats: The War in Afghanistan costs $5.5 billion per month.)

Sarah Palin recently used the words "mama grizzlies" to describe tough women in politics. She considered other animals references, but "black widow spiders" kill their mates, "female elephant seals" live in harems and get trampled by larger blubbery males, and "large bovines" are sent to slaughter for their meat.

Sarah Palin "refutiated" the dictionary today.

Actor Mel Gibson ranted and raved, belittled and used profanity and racial slurs again. This time to the pizza delivery guy after the pizza parlor failed to put pepperoni on his pizza.

Rahm Emmanuel, Obama's White House Chief of Staff, accepted the "The Disastrous Wizard of Oz Power Behind the Curtain" award. The previous recipient during the Bush Administration was Vice President Dick Cheney.

The film "The Crazies" came out in DVD form this past month. But the title is misleading and it is not a documentary about the national Tea Party rallies.

Electrolytes are burning out all across the humid Midwest and South.

"To Kill A Mockingbird" marks anniversary...

2010-07-18T17:54:00.001-07:00

As this year is the 50th anniversary of the publication of "To Kill A Mockingbird" by Harper Lee, I wanted to present a book review that I wrote for the Sept. 26, 1997 issue of the Mirror, the student newspaper at the University of Northern Colorado, when I served as general manager there. I had written it for "Banned Book Week" and the student editor had generously allowed for its publication. For my review at the time, I noted that it was available at UNC's Michener Library, the college bookstore, and many locations. It is available now at bookstores and libraries everywhere.

The 1962 film version, starring the great Gregory Peck, is also excellent. (It was a good year for movies with serious themes. Other films that same year included "The Miracle Worker" about Helen Keller and Annie Sullivan, "Days of Wine and Roses" about alcoholism, "Lawrence of Arabia," "Long Day's Journey Into Night," "Bird Man of Alcatraz," "Lolita" and "Whatever Happened to Baby Jane?")

I could also mention a lighter moment in education one time when I asked students to tell me what book Harper Lee had written. One student responded, "To Kill A Salesman." Probably its sequel was "Death of a Mockingbird," as I realized that the student had mixed up the titles of Lee's "Mockingbird" and Arthur Miller's play "Death of a Salesman." Needless to say, education is an ongoing process. !!!! Anyway, here is my book review...

When Atticus Finch gives his children an air rifle, he tells them that they should never kill a mockingbird. Providing beautiful music to the world, mockingbirds do no harm to anyone, he says.

Harper Lee's 1960 Pulitzer Prize-winning novel "To Kill A Mockingbird" is a story about two children and the powerful lessons they learn from their father and from the racial inequities within a small Alabama town in the 1930s. Told from the narrative viewpoint of a 6-year-old girl, the story follows a lawyer's attempt to seek justice for a black man who is falsely accused of raping a white woman. The lawyer is the narrator's widowed father. He represents justice in a town where the Southern culture has preserved its corrupting traditions of racial and class prejudice.

The book emphasizes that children are born with an instinct for justice, but learn prejudice through socialization. Respect for the individual is also addressed in the relationship between the children and the father. Throughout the story, the father's messages to his children are a constant and deliberate attempt to lift them above the community's racism. "You never really know a man until you stand in his shoes and walk around in them," he says to his children. He tells them to judge people by their character and not the color of their skin, which is one of the strongest messages of the Civil Rights Movement.

Another lesson in this book is about real courage. Among many instances, the novel includes a scene of the lawyer, Atticus, facing an angry, gun-carrying mob as he sits unarmed in front of the jail where his client is being held.

Author Harper Lee, a descendant of General Robert E. Lee, undoubtedly rankled white Southern readers at a time that coincided with the Civil Rights Movement of the 1950s and 1960s. In more recent times, the books has drawn anger from black readers who are particularly offended by the use of racial epithets by many of the characters. Since 1980, the book has been challenged in a New York school district as a "filthy, trash novel," in Indiana schools because it "represents institutionalized racism under the guise of good literature," and also in Arizona, California, Illinois, Mississippi, and Missouri schools because of racial slurs and profanity. The book was removed from a Louisiana school library shelf because of its "objectionable content," and was banned from a Texas school's English reading list because of "conflicts with the values of the community."

Racial epithets and a few off-color words are in the novel. However, people or groups who are offended by that kind of literary license should not read the book. If they don't want their children to read the book, that is also their choice in the role of parental guidance. Yet, book-banning is another matter. It is an infringement upon the rights of every reader within the school or community. Practically speaking, book-banning doesn't work. Many of the books at the UNC Bookstore's "Banned Books Week" display are best-sellers that have reached classic status.

"To Kill A Mockingbird" is one of the leading fiction books of all time. More than 15 million copies of the book have been sold. Those who punish "Mockingbird" for its harsh wording are missing the greater lessons of how prejudice undermines justice.

After years of being edited, "To Kill A Mockingbird" progressed from a short story to a novel. Lee's fictional and somewhat biographical novel has won widespread acclaim as well as a Pulitzer Prize. Lee, like the characters of "Mockingbird," was born and grew up in an Alabama community and her father was a lawyer there. According to the Bloomsbury Guide to Women's Literature, Harper Lee, born in 1926, was six months away from earning a law degree at the University of Alabama when she went to New York in 1949 to pursue a literary career.

Lee's "Mockingbird," as any mockingbird, provides beauty and song within the world that sometimes isn't so beautiful. It would be terrible to kill a mockingbird. It also would be terrible to ban a book that provides many excellent cultural insights.

Obama had the progressives and independents when he was liberal in his campaign...

2010-07-16T18:44:00.001-07:00

O.K., genius mainstream media, explain this to me.

You say that President Obama is caught in a choice, as his approval rating drops. He needs to keep his progressive base, which has been unhappy lately, and he needs to keep his independent voters, who supported him in the election but are losing faith in him now. You say that Obama has to choose to go left to the progressives or go center and right to the independents.

Well, isn't that interesting, because when Obama was at his liberal most, in his campaign and for his election, he attained both progressives and independents as voters. He attained victory then.

Now that Obama has become a president leaning to the center, he is losing his progressives and the independents. Doesn't that suggest that going to the center has been a mistake regarding both groups? If he had their support before, in more liberal days (when he was anti-war, pro-public option for health care, and tough on Wall Street), but not now, in more milquetoast days (when he adds troops to the Afghanistan War, sacrifices the public option, and accepts weak financial reform), which days should he try to reconstruct and revive in order to keep his support and win re-election?

Of course, I believe Obama's sliding downfall, in the polls and in the hearts and minds, is because, when he became president, he surrounded himself with dreary, corporate, centrist Clinton administration people. He must not have had a network of Obama thinkers, though that seems unlikely to me. Instead, he selected Clinton people who are centrist do-nothings, like Timothy Geithner and Lawrence Summers. He added Hillary Clinton and turns to Bill Clinton, the great sell-out (NAFTA, GATT, Don't-Ask Don't Tell policy, and deregulation of corporations), for advice. He even selected a Clinton adviser, Elena Kagan, as U.S. Supreme Court nominee and her view remains a mystery. Then there's the Clinton guy Rahm Emmanuel who has become the Dick Cheney from the Bush administration for this administration, as the power and mouth behind the throne. It has all amounted to an Obama that couldn't find his own voice and didn't have his own people--despite David Axelrod--to keep him on the progressive track. He defined himself into Bill Clinton when we really needed, expected, and hoped for a Franklin D. Roosevelt. He has listened to his Clinton advisers and they have chipped away at his brand, taking him down, not as quickly as the Titanic but like in a slow, moderate drip. If the Democrats stay the course of another Clinton administration, they will be politically doomed.

In the meantime, no one should say that Obama and his liberal policies didn't work, because he never used liberal policies. He's had centrist, moderate, weakened, watered-down, compromised policies. And if he doesn't get off that road, there's no way he will retrieve the progressives and the independents that he successfully attained during his campaign. He doesn't see it, his Clinton advisers certainly aren't going to tell him, and the genius mainstream media apparently isn't going to offer much more than wrongheaded chatter.

More tepid legislation to the rescue?...

2010-07-13T08:39:00.000-07:00

The problem with the Obama administration is its propensity for settlement for tepid, half-assed legislation.

The health care reform measure was like that, failing to offer anything very real in reform such as a public option. I have heard no one anywhere remark about how wonderful the health care coverage in America is, because the real quality of that reform was hacked away and the insurance companies still rule the day.

The same now is true of the financial reform measure. Russ Feingold of Wisconsin refused to support it because he knows that it will do nothing to avert another economic meltdown. He also knows, as do all honest experts, that the legislation does more for the banks and Wall Street than it does for consumers or the nation. In other words, it's a placebo at best and a fraud at worst, with a nice name on it. The Obama administration again sweats bullets to get something passed with the new majority number of 60 votes, now with the help of the two Republican women from Maine and the Republican centerfold guy with the truck from Massachusetts.

Then the Obama administration expects the disappointed progressive wing of his party to praise his efforts and say, "Wow, that's really great that you were able to pass 'tepid half-assed legislation.' Wow, it is far better than nothing at all." Settlement, settlement, settlement. Crumby, tepid, half-assed. Placebo, fraud, crap.

My recommendation to Obama: Don't do it if you can't make it great (and real).

Baffled by mysteries of popular opinion...

2010-07-07T07:27:00.000-07:00

Sometimes I am baffled by the mysteries of media, politics, pop culture and life. Here are some examples...

Actress Lindsay Lohan recently made the TV news and I had one question: Why? I know it had to do with court, and that's always public record, but otherwise why would we care about an actress whose work I can't even cite in terms of one memorable movie or TV show. If it were Meryl Streep or Sissy Spacek or Hilary Swank, yes, those are actresses of measure, with awards to show for it. They'd be worthy of TV air time, for the good or the bad. But Lohan? Give us a break.
The Israeli leader Benjamin Netanyahu recently met with President Obama. I heard news anchor Chuck Todd on MSNBC say, "They both need each other." Netanyahu seems like a real yahoo and not in a positive sense, if you ask me. Maybe those guys need each other in some political sense, but as for the greater picture, I can certainly see that Israel needs the U.S.; I just don't see how the U.S. needs Israel. Israel needs the U.S. for the billions of foreign aid we give them and because American religious fundamentalists would have a fit if America didn't stand by Israel even when it doesn't deserve it. On the other hand, if Israel had good sense, it would have forged peace with all of its Arab neighbors decades ago. That's the best way to a secure future. Instead, Israel has been a thorn in the side of peace negotiations and has ruled under the arrogant terms of "might makes right" and the non-Golden rule of "We treat you like we wouldn't like to be treated." America has taken a beating because of that friendship and there are two wars going on that are rooted in the Israeli/Palestinian conflict. Of course, the Arab countries of the Middle East add to the dysfunctional politics because they are almost all commanded by dictators (and there's no future to that) and a conservative religion that wants to dominate political law. The best thing that ever happened in America was the concept of separation of church and state, which allows people to have whatever religion they want but denies the religious pulpit from narrowly ruling the government or society. Can you imagine if Baptists or Mormons determined the course of American political law? Oh, the horrors!
Queen Elizabeth visited New York recently. Ironically, near the Fourth of July, the date in 1776 when America fortunately gave the rule of royalty the boot. At least the modern royalty there doesn't have any real political power. Here's the difference between the Brits and me. They like their royals. I think they are wasting their money.
I saw a recent news report that teens in Texas were biting each other as a sign of affection (?!!! -- I guess because there are vampires in the "Twilight" movies). So-called "tween" girls (those beTWEEN teenager and diapers, I guess) enjoy the "Twilight" book and movie series. I always think it is good if people are reading books. As for the movies, I have watched two in the "Twilight" series (the first one because I was curious and the second one because I wanted to give it another chance) and I guess I would review those movies as "dull, slow, and boring." But I have never been part of the crowd when it came to movie series sequels that others liked. For some of the most boring movies I have ever watched, I would list these series titles: "Harry Potter," "Twilight," and, probably worst of all, "The Pirates of the Carribean," as well as the series of "Star Wars" movies, with the exception of the first one which was worthy because it set a higher standard for special effects. Thank goodness some series movies have hopefully come to an end, such as the cruel Hannibal Lecter junk (the first one was worthy for acting and scare), the exhausting "Indiana Jones" action, and the repetitive Friday the 13th and Nightmare on Elm Street slasher nonsense.
I really like Morgan Freeman as an actor. He is in a lot of great movies. But here's something I have never figured out. CBS News is using Morgan Freeman's voice as the introduction to Katie Couric on the evening news. Freeman's voice replaced the voice of Walter Cronkite. Though he is deceased, Cronkite is still the absolute best in news anchoring and reporting. Freeman is a great actor, but he's no Cronkite, especially concerning journalism. So, why would CBS choose to replace the voice of Cronkite? Wouldn't you think they'd want to keep that association?

And that's the baffling news and bewildered commentary for this news cycle!

Information Station...

2010-07-06T04:41:00.000-07:00

Here is some assorted news and information from various sources:

As of July, 14 million Americans were unemployed and looking for work. Another 8.6 million Americans were forced to settle for part-time work. And another 1.2 million Americans have given up looking for a job. (CBS News)
Recently, the U.S. senators, who make $174,000 per year and are given a lifetime of health care benefits, decided to go home for the Fourth of July vacation after Republicans, with the help of Ben Nelson, filibustered and killed a bill that would extend unemployment benefits for 1.3 million Americans whose benefits had run out. With each week that passes, 375,000 unemployed people will lose their benefits. (My personal comment: The lack of action of the Senate and particularly because of the Republicans was shameful and disgusting.) (CBS)
British Petroleum was so well-connected in Washington D.C. that even after being cited for 760 different safety and environmental violations, it still got environmental waivers for the Deepwater Horizon oil rig that's still leaking oil and destroying the Gulf of Mexico. (MoveOn.Com)
Lady Gaga broke the record on July 2 for 10 million "friends" on Facebook. (CBS)
200,000 kids get hurt every year playing soccer. Boys mostly hurt their ankles, while girls mostly hurt their knees. (TV news)
A recent Marist College poll showed that 40 percent of 18- to 29-year-olds didn't know what country the United States of America won its independence from and one-fourth of Americans of all ages in the poll didn't know. Only seven percent could name the first four presidents in order (TV news and the Internet)
Ninety percent of all creatures on Earth are insects. (Animal Planet)
There are 120,000 different kinds of flies. (Animal Planet)
"Fear is that little darkroom where negatives are developed." --lecturer Michael Pritchard

The Elizabeth Edwards interview...

2010-06-30T19:36:00.000-07:00

I watched the Elizabeth Edwards interview on the Larry King show tonight on CNN. And I was impressed with her. I have always been impressed with her, though. Certainly, she is resilient (her book is titled "Resilience") and, based upon her attitudes, perspectives, and outlook on life, I would say she is also a wise person.

She would have made a great presidential candidate because she cares about people and issues, and was probably the best spokesperson for national health care on the 2008 campaign trail. Though her husband John Edwards let his libido get the best of him, Elizabeth Edwards was correct about how her husband's last campaign led the way on important issues, such as health care, poverty, and employment. He pushed the other candidates (Obama and Hillary) on those issues, though Obama and Hillary still seem pretty clueless about them. Obama wouldn't have been elected if it hadn't been for Edwards splitting the vote and, after he withdrew from the race, his supporters going to Obama. That might still irk the Hillary supporters, but Hillary failed because she tried to go right when the better path was going left. I am still hopefully that Obama will find his wings of spirit and fly progressively...I am hoping.

Elizabeth Edwards has gone through her share of hellish moments (the death of her son, her ongoing battle with cancer, and the infidelity of her husband), but I think she has done it admirably and with grace under the circumstances.

Elizabeth Edwards said she was hoping for at least eight more years, when her younger children will grow into adults. I hope she gets those years and more. Nobody knows how many years they have left. As she noted, a person has to live each day with joy and appreciation. From even the bad things that happen, she said, you can learn and find something to appreciate. That's indeed wisdom.

Prospects of a 5-4 Supreme Court for a long, long time...

2010-06-29T17:24:00.000-07:00

My first impression of Elena Kagan, the U.S. Supreme Court nominee from President Obama, as she is before the Senate confirmation hearing, is "lightweight." I hope that's a wrong impression, since she's likely to be on the Court for a long time.

Kagan told Senator Feinstein that the two recent 5-4 Supreme Court decisions about guns is now established law. Well, you know, the Supreme Court can reverse decisions that prove to be bad. It can and it has in the past. I have read about the court's first decision that required school children of Jehovah's Witnesses to say the Pledge of Allegiance and salute the flag back in the 1940s despite the group's belief that it was a violation of their right to religion (believing that pledges and flags are like graven images and idols as described in the 10 Commandments). Several years later, after the court saw that its decision had caused all kinds of violent assaults upon Jehovah's Witnesses who continued to refuse the order because they couldn't get a sudden agreeing sign from God, the court completely reversed the ruling in the next case, siding with the Jehovah's Witnesses. After all, the best line in the Pledge of Allegiance is "And liberty and justice for all" and there can't be liberty if some people are forced to do something against their beliefs.

Then some old Republican senators (like John McCain--geez, aren't we lucky that he wasn't elected president) were unhappy about Kagan throwing the military recruiters off the Harvard campus because of the discriminatory "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" policy, though she later caved on that issue in order to keep federal funding for the university. So, Kagan tries to go in a weird orbit around the issue by saying something nonsensical about military recruitment actually going up that year at the university. Wow, I was sitting there, wanting someone with a tad bit of fight within them, to answer those fossil senators, "Yes, we threw the military recruiters off the campus and may have saved some lives of the young people temporarily at least before you learn-nothing-from-Vietnam-War senators were able to send them off to the no-win quagmire of the Afghanistan War." (Oops, I know that isn't very politically correct of me. After all, we have to be very nice to military recruiters so they can send our young people off to endless wars. !!!! Insert your four-letter word of choice here.) Anyway, Kagan wasn't anywhere close to that with her almost-apologetic statements, so she will probably get confirmed with namby-pamby flying colors, though she probably would be confirmed anyway, as I think the Democrats have a majority of votes (though that's always questionable nowadays as well).

The U.S. Supreme Court is going to be a dreary institution for a long time, I have a feeling, with more 5-4 conservative decisions ahead for our country that instead needs progess socially, culturally, and politically.

The paper shredder lasted an hour...

2010-06-27T02:08:00.000-07:00

I went to Wal-Mart recently and purchased a paper shredder, made in China, for $12.95. It was just the top part of a shredder, as I didn't need a whole unit that included a bucket for the resulting confetti as I already had one from a previous shredder.

I brought the shredder home and started on the task of shredding some bill stubs and other papers that I didn't want to otherwise throw away into the town dump, fearing worries about identity theft, though frankly I am not sure why anyone would want my identity in the first place since it hardly benefits me.

I shredded about 10 pieces of paper. Then the button on the top to make the shredder shred wouldn't work. It would run the shredder in reverse, allowing the paper to spit back out of the machine. but it wouldn't shred in natural shredding order.

In one day. No, in less than one day. In one hour, the Wal-Mart $12.98 paper shredder, made in China, was broken.

I know there's the saying about "getting what you pay for," but I still do live in a world where $10 is a sizable chunk of cash. It can mean about two and a half cartons of milk, or a gas tank half-full, or about half of a three-month subscription to a community newspaper, or at least 10 cans of the cheaper chicken noodle soup. It can mean whether the last week of the month is buoyant or restrictive. I don't like wasting $10, let alone $12.95.

So, here's my question to the quiet masses of American consumers who end up buying junk from Wal-Mart, made in China, because it is at a reduced price: Have you ever purchased anything made in the modern China that was a long-enduring, quality product, otherwise beyond the realm of junk? I don't mean a jar from the Ming Dynasty. I mean something produced in a factory in modern China?

Anything produced in a factory in modern China. And where the workers are woefully paid and probably forced to work long hours standing on their feet, which is probably why American chain stores find such joy in doing business in the Chinese market? And a person can't help but hope that one day the Chinese workers will get ticked off enough to kick that old-man Commie-Capitalist government and all of the complicit, douche-bag American companies out of there.

When I was a boy, I remember that all of the junky trickets and souvenirs, like a buffalo salt shaker from a tourist shop in Yellowstone Park or a gas station near an Indian reservation, was "made in Japan." Back then, "made in Japan" denoted junk. Though I never did jump on the bandwagon about how Japanese-produced cars became better than American-made cars and don't believe it to this day, Japan was able to raise its product quality identity as it developed technology, mainly media products, and took the lead in the creation of interesting but pointless robots.

So, now, it's apparently "made in China" that carries the stigma of junk, brought to us by chain stores like Wal-Mart. Thus, I should have known better when I purchased the paper shredder that shredded paper for less than an hour.

(Please send in your list of high-quality and/or long-lasting products made in modern China to this column, though I would be really surprised if anyone has any such products.)

War is a quagmire, generals are incompetent, the public never learns from lessons...

2010-06-23T11:33:00.000-07:00

My summary of the war in Afghanistan, the longest war in U.S. history it has been said, which is also described the same way in the recent Rolling Stone magazine article, in which comments by General McChrystal and others caused President Obama to replace McChrystal today with General Petraeus, so as to continue the same policy that McChrystal, Patreaus and Obama have followed, with the loss of lives and billions of dollars wasted, having just seen the weekly photos on the PBS News Hour of young soldiers recently killed in Iraq and Afghanistan: "QUAGMIRE."

Information Station...

2010-06-18T16:54:00.000-07:00

Here are some interesting pieces of information that I heard or read recently, with some of my commentary...

The ocean oil leak in the Gulf of Mexico is now America's greatest environmental disaster. As of mid-June, it now equals about 14 Exxon-Valdez oil spill incidents. And it's not over yet.
Wouldn't you know that some Republican Congressman (Joe Barton from Texas, to be exact) would apologize to BP for the disaster of their continuing oil leak?!!! That guy has to be an incredibly inept and stupid politician. Now, with a ton of bricks falling on him in political heat, he has apologized for his apology to BP.
British Petroleum (BP) spent $50 million on a recent TV ad campaign. That tells me, considering all the money that BP is going to have to dish out for its oil disaster, is that we all are certainly paying too much for our gas prices at the local pumps. All those oil companies have reaped huge profits. Talk about a shakedown of consumers.
BP has $9 billion in contracts with the U.S. Defense Department and billions for contracts with other governmental departments. So far this year, BP has garnered $837 billion in federal contracts.
BP has enough oil in reserves to furnish the U.S. gas needs for more than two years.
Okay, some non-BP oil leak news...Since 1910, the color border of National Geographic magazine has been yellow.
My father, who liked to use his hands to fix his own cars, would be annoyed at the modern cars of today which are dependent upon electronics under the hood. It often takes a diagnostics test at the car repair shop to see what's wrong with the electronics of a car. Well, here's something distressing...A recent AOL report noted that criminals now can use laptop computers to disable the brakes of a car or even turn off a car engine.
With a 9.7 unemployment rate nationally, there are 7 million Americans who have been out of work for more than six months.
Mother Jones magazine for July-August has a story about Julian Assange, the creator of WikiLeaks. His website has been referred to as the world's most famous source of secret information and, to quote the magazine, "the uncensorable Wikipedia for untraceable mass document leaking and analysis."
I remember that my mother (and I) thought country singer Jimmy Dean was very entertaining and talented. He could play the banjo and other instruments and had a likable personality. I remember being impressed by his talents when he was a guest host on the old Mike Douglas Show, among others. Later, he became known as a brand name for breakfast sausage. He died this month.

News at 10...

2010-06-07T18:13:00.000-07:00

This just in:

An American got a job today but it was another person from the Clinton administration appointed by President Obama. Said Obama, "I don't know anyone in Washington but former Clinton administration cronies. And neither does Rahm Emmanuel. Back then, they got two terms out it and what's more important than that?"

President Obama set-up an 800-member bipartisan task force to study ways to create jobs. It is so bipartisan, it screams of no accomplishment. Leading the task force from the Democratic side is former President Bill Clinton, who supported NAFTA and GATT free trade deals which exported a ton of American jobs overseas and across the borders. On the Republican side, Liz Cheney will co-chair the task force and provide input about how nepotism can really open doors.

British Petroleum continues to try to stop the gushing oil from the drilled hole at the bottom of the Gulf Coast ocean. About 39 million gallons of oil have mixed with ocean water, drifting into wetlands and beaches. They have tried everything from a hat device to the idea of golf balls. Fortunately, they haven't attempted the nuclear blast yet. Here are some other items that they might want to try to clog the hole: Irons and ironing boards, hair from every shower in New York city, baseballs and marbles, dead walruses, and the cushion of Rush Limbaugh's chair.

Please get out your irons because here's some irony: The BP oil spill is affecting the Gulf Coast states of the Southeast. All of those states are "red" states, meaning they vote for conservative Republicans. The conservative philosophy is for deregulation and that the government should be small and stay out of the lives of people and businesses. So, those "red" states were likely pleased that oil companies could drill, baby, drill off-shore without tough regulation and oversight. But now that there is gushing oil and all kinds of fishing and tourism dollars that will be lost by the damage, they want the government to do something about it and may even want bail-outs for industries that have lost income. Huh, that's ironic! Hey, red Gulf Coast states, how's that "conservative deregulation" stuff working out for you?

Rush Limbaugh, a serial groom, recently got married for the fourth time. For the bride, instead of a wedding card, it probably would be more fitting to send a sympathy card.

Giving up his representation of Connecticut because it was just taking too much of his time, Senator Joe Lieberman said he will continue to serve as the U.S. senator for Israel.

The Israeli blockade of aid ships into the Gaza strip of Palestine is not just about weapons. The policy (and this is totally true) also blocks the delivery of jam, chocolate, notebooks, and other items. Said an Israeli politician (and this is back to total fabrication), "A thrown Hershey kiss can put out someone's eye."

The Catholic Church has apologized for the sex scandals of priests in North America and Europe. That leaves only five more continents and they are pretty confident that there are no major problems in Antarctica.

A concerned Catholic suggested that the church would benefit from the concept of gender equality, moving some nuns up and some priests down the hierarchy ladder. Said a Vatican spokesman, "No, no, no. A woman would never look right in wearing the flowing gown of a pope."

Do you have dry ears? Then you should talk to a quack about Dryearyoxitin. It will make your ears sweat naturally and keep your ear lobes moist. Possible side effects include loss of hearing, decibel increase of the voice of a mother-in-law, sneezing, hiccups, erectile dysfunction, stomach aches, unnatural gas, burping, tooth decay, flat feet, purple toenails, green fingernails, itchy armpits, diarrhea, constipation, mold, rabies, hallucinations, thoughts of running naked through a cornfield, intolerance, pregnancy, computer viruses, and vivid dreams of Republican politicians in clown suits.

Time for a new progressive third party...

2010-05-28T15:39:00.000-07:00

The news came out today that Joe Sestak, the senatorial candidate in Pennsylvania, was offered an advisory board job or some such appointment from Bill Clinton, speaking for the Obama administration, if Sestak wouldn't run against incumbent Republican-turned-Democrat Arlen Specter.

O.K., much can be determined from that one piece of information.

1). That Sestak didn't sell out for a presidential favor. I think that speaks well of Sestak, who had to run against Specter and all those Clinton/Obama jerks within the Democratic Party.

2). If President Obama wants to buddy-up to Bill Clinton and use Clinton advisers and continue to milquetost the Democratic Party into the same centrist nothingness that Bill Clinton offered during his presidency, why in the hell didn't Obama just let Hillary Clinton win the election? I thought we got rid of the Clintons once and that it was largely because of them, as well, that we ended up with the disaster of the Bush years.

3). If Obama doesn't start standing on his own and being the candidate that he promised to be, and dump the Clintons and their cronies, then I am done as a progressive in supporting Obama. I will then spend my time, my words of support, and any money that a Democratic Party is always seeking from me for a good, progressive, third party. I left the Democratic Party because of Bill Clinton and went to Nader and the Green Party. When Obama sounded like he was progressive, I returned. That was apparently a mistake.

Progressives need to find a good party that supports real progressive action. The Democratic Party is quagmired by fools of the past and apparently shills of the present. Progressives, let's go elsewhere.

It's early and we have time to find a real progressive candidate for 2012. There just has to be someone who believes in progressive stands and wants to provide real progressive change.

News at 10...

2010-05-20T16:56:00.000-07:00

This just in...

An American got a job today and it was so amazing and rare that Hallmark Hall of Fame is going to turn the poignant story into a TV movie. Viewers will also need hankies for more tear-jerking commercials about people who send and receive cards.

The Gulf of Mexico has been renamed the Gulf of Oil, as British Petroleum's non-stop oil leak at the bottom of the ocean continues to gush and pollute a huge amount of ocean, wetlands, and beaches. A regular American said, "I'm no rocket scientist, but it doesn't make sense to drill off-shore if you aren't able to stop a possible leak." A rocket scientist said, "I'm a rocket scientist and the whole idea is goofy."

That's some range about how much oil is gushing into the Gulf of Oil, formerly called the Gulf of Mexico. The range goes from 5,000 gallons per day by BP's estimates to 40,000 and up to as much as 90,000 gallons per day by independent experts' estimates. Therefore, if you ever need a low estimate on anything, please contact BP because they apparently are good at low estimates. Not so good at stopping an oil leak in the ocean, but very good at low estimates.

The Republicans, President Obama, and Sarah "Drill, Baby, Drill" Palin, all who supported off-shore oil drilling, do not know any rocket scientists.

According to a Fox News report, Elena Kagan (Supreme Court nominee) and Janet Napolitano (Homeland Security director) are twins and were mysteriously separated at birth.

It's been determined through a Sage Street poll that the most fun names to say are Betsy Ann Bowser of PBS, Rafsanjani (sorry, we don't know his first name) of Iran, Wolf Blitzer of CNN, Cloris Leachman, and anyone named Rufus. The name that is most fun to change is "Big News" Brzezinski (the first name is actually Zbigniew).

At the age of 88, actress Betty White recently hosted Saturday Night Live. She also has been asked to host the Academy Awards, run for governor of California, and join the U.S. pole vault team for the next Summer Olympics.

An Australian filmmaker is doing a documentary about virginity auctions. Not yet to appear on eBay or as a reality TV show, virginity auctions apparently are where virgins auction themselves to the highest bidder. Some virgins--or so they say they are--reportedly are getting paid $20,000 each and one young person said in a newspaper story that it was a way to pay for her college tuition. Said one old and bitter college grad, "I had to bag groceries at a supermarket and pump gas at a gas station to earn money for college." It would be true that most people remember a time when virginity was absolutely worthless.

Arizona recently passed a law requiring suspicious people to carry around papers that identify them as Americans. The state is also considering a law requiring suspicious people to carry around papers that prove they aren't obese, papers that show they can drive golf carts, and papers that indicate their virginity status. For suspicious people who are found to be totally innocent by Arizona law officers, be sure to visit the Grand Canyon as the State Tourism Board says it is beautiful at this time of year.

Rand Paul recently won as a Tea Party Republican-Libertarian candidate in Kentucky. He was quoted as saying that he believed government should stay out of the affairs of private business owners, even if those owners wanted to decline services to and discriminate against different groups of Americans. In response, a growing number of Kentucky businesses are now wanting to discriminate against Tea Party Republican-Libertarians.

Lessons to be learned from the primary elections...

2010-05-19T16:12:00.000-07:00

Here are some lessons hopefully learned from the primary elections on Tuesday for all of those whose influence was rejected.

In Pennsylvania, progressive Democrat Joe Sestak defeated former Republican and new centrist Democrat Arlen Specter. The lesson is for President Obama and his awful centrist advisers and for Democratic Pa. Gov. Ed Rendell and fellow party bosses everywhere (and throw in the national TV media too): The Democratic voters don't need a political movement, like the Tea Party, to know how to reject the do-nothing lackies and incumbents in the center. They know why they want to vote for progressives on the left, like Sestak, who have ideas and want change like the voters want. Obama was one of those progressive candidates at one time, but he's sat around in the Oval Office listening to the crap of Clinton advisers too long. It has stunted his growth. Recommendation for Obama: The title of the Beatles song: "Get Back." And dump some advisers. Recommendation for Rendell: Retire, like Specter.
In Arkansas, Democratic centrist Blanche Lincoln got the most votes but not enough vote to keep her from a run-off election with progressive candidate Bill Halter. In that way, Halter won, and will probably win the run-off election. The lesson is for the Clintons and the political establishment everywhere: Progressives generate energy among voters. Centrists are rejected.
In Kentucky, the Democratic candidate Jack Conway won on the Democratic primary side with many more votes than Rand Paul, the winner on the Republican primary side. But the Paul vote should provide for some lessons, as the Republican establishment candidate who lost to Paul was the candidate supported by Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell. The lesson is for Republican leader Mitch McConnell, who is under the false notion that voters want Republicans to replace Democrats. No, it looks like voters want people of change to replace people of the establishment or incumbents who are stuck in the middle-nothing, dilution-pollution land of politics. Rand represented the libertarian vote, and was a so-called Tea Party candidate. But many of his foreign affairs views from the Libertarian perspective are rather progressive, such as wanting an end to the two wars and drug decriminalization. Paul will lose, though, because his domestic ideas are way too conservative. The Democratic candidate will win and let's hope he knows better than treading down the center when it comes to issues. Recommendation for McConnell: Retire. And the faster, the better.

Information Station...

2010-05-18T13:24:00.000-07:00

Here are some random news and trivia items...

There are 1.5 million children who are homeless in America. That means one out of every 50 children is homeless. (CBS News)
An average of 14 deaths per day happens at U.S. workplaces. (ABC's Nightline)
The most common form of litter: cigarette butts. And they contain some toxins. (NBC)
In 2008, the last year of the Bush presidency, the Bush administration denied 47,000 Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests. In 2009, the first year of the Obama presidency, the Obama administration denied 70,000 FOIA requests. (Rachel Maddow Show, MSNBC)
"When cheaters prosper, it drives honesty out of the market." --William K. Black, author of "The Best Way to Rob a Bank Is to Own One." On the Bill Moyers Journal show, Black talked about the alleged fraud of Goldman Sachs investment bank. He said, "If you don't regulate, you create a 'criminogenic' environment for fraud." (PBS)
Singer Lena Horne died in May 2010. She was the first African-American entertainer to have a Hollywood contract in movies. Her most famous song was "Stormy Weather." Her scenes in movies where cut out of the movies when they were shown in the South in the 1940s and 1950s. She left a USO tour during WWII in protest after she saw that black soldiers were seated at the rear, even behind the German POWs. (CNN)

If I were grading President Obama...

2010-05-11T03:04:00.000-07:00

With the end of the school year, students recently received their grades. If President Barack Obama were my student, I'd give him a "C" for average, for having the opportunity to carve out a magnificent progressive legacy and then choosing to dilute it instead, for going to the do-no-change center too often, for being Clintonesque, for mythically thinking consensus-building works when you are dealing with people so far to the right that your neck is likely to twist to an angle reminiscent of the demon-possessed daughter in the movie "The Exorcist."

Here's how my grading system is based:

1). Obama is the first African-American president. An "A" for that and the excitement that the American electorate can choose someone other than a white, old, rich guy.

2). Obama campaigns as a progressive liberal. An "A" for that. More excitement. Maybe the old status quo can change, after all. But wait. Obama fills his Cabinet with Clinton people and heads to the political center. An "F" for: Been there, done that, no real progress.

3). And the issues...Two wars. Though Obama inherited two wars, he still has pretty much the same lousy generals who apparently can't win them. The wars have become the longest in American history. WWII was shorter. Generals after WWII sure have been poor. What's wrong with the military leadership training? Democrats have to realize that some of us progressives have never voted for a war president ever and don't intend to in 2012. Thus, it is paramount that Obama end the costly wars, rather than increase troop deployment and lengthen the list of the American war dead. An "F" for ongoing wars.

4). Health care reform. Wow, Obama had the chance to do something amazing here, but caved in on the public option possibility. It is good that more people are covered by health insurance, though the insurance companies are still pretty much in charge of costs and profits. An "A" if there'd been a public option plan. The "C" here stands for caving for convenience.

5). Guantanamo Bay prison. Still not closed and that's gone beyond his first-year promise. An "F" there.

6). Worldwide view of America. Definitely this one is a bright part of the Obama presidency and the replacement of Bush. Much improvement. An "A" for change the world can believe in.

7). End to discriminatory practices. One that comes to mind is the "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" policy that is discriminatory toward gay soldiers. So, how does the first racial minority president--the second minority president if we count FDR in terms of his wheelchair disability--do in tackling discrimination toward others? Not so good. Here again, Obama is leaving it up to the generals. Yes, those same incompetents who can't win wars. The Obama administration wants to wait for the generals. Or maybe it's waiting for Godot. A "D" for good talk, just no action.

8). Supreme Court selection. A high mark for Obama's selection of Sonia Sotomayer. As the first Hispanic member of the Court, another legacy moment was attained. An "A" for that. For his second selection of Elena Kagan, the jury is still out. Obama missed his chance to select a solidly liberal justice. He still has a majority in the Senate, so why didn't he go for it? That old mythical dilution quality of "consensus-building" and "go to the center" makes for more "C" words with average intentions. Why didn't he choose a liberal African-American man or woman to offset the conservative Clarence Thomas? Why didn't he choose a Protestant, so the Court wouldn't be, for the first time in its history, without a Protestant justice? No Protestant is counter to diversity. And, yes, religion does matter, because it represents thought and stance. With Kagan, that would mean the Court consists of six Catholics and three Jews. That's not representative of the nation.

9). Off-Shore Oil-Drilling. Oh, wow! Here's where Obama could have stayed with his environmentalist base on higher ground and oil-free water, but chose again to retreat to the center. The oil leak by British Petroleum in the Gulf of Mexico is gushing disastrously at, so far, 3.5 million gallons of oil and no end in sight. Hey, I am not a rocket scientist, but I kind of think that if there's no solution for plugging up an oil leak in the middle of an ocean, then it's probably not a good idea to drill there in the first place. The Obama administration says it is considering a reversal in its support of off-shore oil-drilling. Really? So, pelicans might mean more than campaign donations, after all. And when will the administration decide? A "C" for can't stop loving oil. (An "F" for my lack of faith now that the administration will do the right thing on this issue.)

10). Wind energy development. The Obama administration does seem progressive on advancing alternative energy development. A "B" there, maybe a "C," because Obama also endorsed nuclear energy, which could be worse than oil-leaky catastrophic.

11). Obama probably had no choice when it came to bailing-out Wall Street after the greedy non-regulation of the Clinton and Bush years. The question is: Are the banking regulations back in place to prevent the problem from happening again? An "I" for incomplete on this grade.

12). Jobs. Probably the most important of the long-term issues on this list. The stimulus money has helped, but Obama has been too timid in job-creation ideas. FDR had a legacy of lifting people out of unemployment and economic despair. I don't think Obama has that legacy yet. Guess that means a "C" for average again.

So, what's the grade for President Obama, a year and a half into his presidency? My averaging may be off, but "C" seems like it makes sense to date. Definitely, the shine of the prospects of finally getting a liberal president who knows how to achieve progressive goals has faded.

How does Obama improve his grade? Well, he needs to stay with the views of the people (the progressives) who took him to the White House in the first place. The center is not a wise suppport mechanism for enthusiasm at the voting booth.

Leave American rights alone...

2010-05-10T15:07:00.000-07:00

Oh, good grief! Politicians should leave the Miranda ruling and its legal requirements alone.

I heard Wolf Blitzer on CNN saying that Miranda occurred before the threat of terrorism. I guess he meant the terrorism from the Middle East of recent decades.

But there's always been some form of terroristic activity going on in America. One of the oldest terrorist groups is the Ku Klux Klan. When did presidents and politicians ever talk about taking away citizenship of the KKK members, let alone reducing their legal rights as defendants? I don't remember hearing that. And how about all the other hate groups in the nation? I don't like them at all, but prosecution of their crimes certainly can be successful without eliminating legal rights.

Once again, the nation is forced into a frenzy of fear by a bunch of goofy politicians. Leave American rights alone! We can still keep the high ground and defeat terrorists and criminals if we have good quality law enforcement.

Here are two concrete ways to reduce the threat of terrorism: 1). Solve the dispute between Israel and Palestine. 2). Stop wasting time, money, and lives on wars.

A refreshing change...

2010-04-14T16:18:00.000-07:00

President Barack Obama hosted leaders from around the world at the Nuclear Treaty summit last week and I especially appreciated one major change and aspect that the Obama presidency has provided.

Now when I watch the U.S. president at a lectern, at a meeting, at a public event or at anything that requires poise, dignity, and intellect, I don't have to worry about being embarrassed anymore.

When I watched President George W. Bush, at about any moment or function, I always watched with a certain uneasiness, even dread, that he'd say something moronic or otherwise goof it up. Bush was probably good at hosting barbecues and that's about it.

Obama is articulate, prepared, and impressive in his public demeanor. He projects an excellent image for America to the rest of the world. That's refreshing! That's a change worthy of praise!

Fishermen and pirates and the framing of the issue...

2010-04-11T20:02:00.000-07:00

I know from journalism that every story is like a slice of bread: It has two sides. And often an issue has more than just two sides as well. There can be all kinds of sides and complexities. So, it is always interesting to consider how the media or government or business or others can frame an issue. Sometimes information is there, sometimes it isn't. Sometimes sides of an issue are available, sometimes they aren't.

Take, for example, the matter of Somali pirates. For years now, I have heard on the TV news about pirates off the coast of Somalia, tormenting ships and drawing the ire of world-wide navy forces. The term "pirate" itself is certainly a negative term. When I think of a "pirate," I think of "Treasure Island" by Robert Louis Stevenson and salty peg-legged or hook-handed characters who are mean and violent and like to steal and kidnap. And if a person "spells like a pirate," well, then you know they probably aren't too educated.

Well, I was surprised recently when I checked out the book "Censored 2010, The Top 25 Censored Stories of 2008-09," edited by Peter Phillips and Mickey Huff with Project Censored. The project provides lists and information about news stories that have been reported but tend to be generally overlooked and don't make it into the mainstream media.

Story number three was titled "Toxic Waste Behind Somali Pirates." It noted, "The international community has come out in force to condemn and declare war on the Somali fishermen pirates, while discreetly protecting the illegal, unreported, and unregulated fleets from around the world that have been poaching and dumping toxic waste in Somali waters since the fall of the Somali government 18 years ago."

I don't mean to imply that I am sympathetic to the cause of Somali pirates. I honestly don't know enough about the matter. But now I do have some questions, because of how the issue has been framed by all those who control the picture and the framing.

The descriptive word "fishermen," in contrast to "pirates," is not a negative term. But my main point is that until recently when I saw that article in the book, I had never ever heard anything remotely positive, let alone potentially justifiable, from the Somali side of the issue. Not once, not ever. It just wasn't in the news. It just wasn't part of the news reports. Those who framed the issue within my world of the media and society had framed that detail out.

News at 10...

2010-04-03T18:48:00.000-07:00

This just in...

An American got a job today. It was the lead story on the TV news. "60 Minutes" plans to do an expose. Said Morley Safer, "When Andy Rooney retires in 25 years, there will be another job opening for someone."

The Party of No recently spent party money on a strip club. That's a no-no, Party of No.

So, if people don't send in their census forms, would that allow newly-employed census workers to be employed longer, which would also help the economy? Hmmm.

The proper grammatical conjugation of Apple gadgetry products is, "iPod, iPad, iPeed."

Media Watch notes that Sarah Palin has been getting too much media coverage lately, with her Arizona trip to campaign for John McCain and other dull subjects, and that isn't fair because Levi Johnston hasn't been providing enough of a counter-balance by getting the same share of media time. For every Palin story, there needs to be a Levi story. Where's the FCC "Fairness Doctrine" when we really need it?

Tea companies are suing the National Tea Party for defamation of character.

A new group, known as the National Beer Party, has emerged. Oh, wait, that was just spring break for college students.

The Republicans and President Obama favor off-shore oil-drilling on the East Coast. Residents of North Carolina are for it too, until they have to trudge around in the black sand with oily feet.

Rufus Barfly said his Idaho militia members like playing soldier, as long as it's not in Iraq or Afghanistan. Their favorite color is camouflage. He said, "We pledge to protect potatoes from government interference and from the French and their fries."

O.K., more Hollywood bad behavior. But, after all, what do people expect from a person named Jesse James?

What's Not For Me--New Media, Technology, and Gadgets...

2010-03-28T07:18:00.000-07:00

In considering aspects of new media, technology, and various modern gadgets, I have come to some conclusions and theories about the future of media and electronics, both personally and generally.

Here are some media and technological products that, I am sorry to say, just aren't for me:

No way can I ever imagine that I would watch a movie on a tiny screen like the screens of cell phones and texting devices. No thanks!
I also don't watch movies on a computer. You see, when I want to watch something long, like a movie or a documentary, I like to sit on a comfortable couch and watch a screen that's across the room. A VCR is a nice addition, because I can start, stop, and start again when I want to. TV remains the place for my film viewing.
No, never would I read a book on an electronic screen. For me, a Kindle-type device will never replace the good feeling of opening up a book and reading from paper-page to paper-page. I also prefer library check-out to the Internet for reading a book, although the Internet is a great resource for research and quick information.
Twittering? Oh, I don't think so. It reminds me of what I didn't like about USA Today, when it was all the rage for the new kind of newspaper: The brevity of stories and content. It was nice that USA Today added the splashes of color and color photos. But it was media cotton candy. The New York Times and the Washington Post still are the T-bone steaks. I still look for those great papers in libraries or, at a lesser degree, online. I haven't seen a copy of USA Today in years. Does it still exist?
Even Facebook falls short for me because it is Twitter-like in its brevity that works well for chit-chat about how the "weather is bad" or "it's time for a beer" or "I just got to the zinnia level of the zombie flower game I am playing." Oops, the last comment may be too long, in words, characters, and attention-deficit, for Facebook. But what I mean is that anything of depth is not what Facebook and other social networking sites are about apparently. Media cotton candy again.
I wonder just how "lasting" a lot of this new media, including sites on the Internet, will be. When I subscribe to a newspaper or a magazine, I usually stay for years. I can't think of one newspaper or magazine website on the Internet that I go to as consistently. In fact, I have lost more interest in websites the longer they exist than I have found in terms of maintaining a connection. When eBay first started, I was excited to surf for items and to even sell some items. But about eight years ago or so, eBay became more "corporate" with lots of big companies getting into the act and I think the feeling of an individual finding items in the attic that he wanted to sell was lost. I haven't been back to eBay in years. I used to enjoy looking at all the videos on YouTube. I haven't been there in months. I used to go to Salon.com, as it has some very good writers, such as Glenn Greenwald. But I haven't been there in weeks and once when I returned, it had changed its look and I felt like I had to re-learn the procedure for looking or writing comments. No time for that. I only go to the Huffington Post when relatives send me links to something interesting. I certainly prefer the progressive sites to the conservative sites, just as I never go to the Fox channel on TV, but I still want to read or see objective and neutral reporting, for my own evaluations or the scope of the arguments, and I just don't tend to find that on the Internet. I am on Facebook, but now I visit it about once every two weeks, just to keep up with the chit-chat. Facebook probably has reduced e-mailing. As I have heard from others too, I get less personal e-mails now than ever before, though there is still plenty of it coming from spam sources. So, even e-mail is losing its popularity.
I don't like the idea of connecting my bank account to anything on the web. So, the paypal concept doesn't work for me. If a website is paypal only, I don't buy products.
I heard from a recent broadcast speaker that the fastest-growing user group for Facebook now is the group of middle-aged to older women. Hmmm? I have this theory called "Theory of the Generations," which theorizes that when older generations take over a youth media, fad, or product, the young people move on to something else (and new). I have often said that when some young men were walking around in the fashion fad of letting their trousers drop low enough so that their boxer-covered butts were exposed (and fortunately at least the fad included boxer shorts), the sure-fire way of eliminating the fad was if the faculty and parents had done the same thing for about a week. That would have killed the fad pretty immediately and beyond measure. MySpace gave way to Facebook. What will replace Facebook for the new youth social network?
I heard a faculty adviser from a Missouri university comment that, while college students will place zillions of personal photos on their social networks, why is it that it remains somewhat difficult to get them to go out and take photographs of news events and activities on campus? Wow, I don't know, either. Students in journalism and mass media are wasting their valuable time if they are spending too much of it on Facebook and social networks. They should be creating portfolio-quality products and experiencing journalistic moments in order to make the most of their education and to get a good boost into the professional world. Much of their work then could still end up online, but involving subjects beyond themselves and published in more serious form.
The "lasting" feature is problematic to new media. I believe people are wrong if they think that newspapers will vanish and Internet sites will pick up their place. I don't think new media may last long enough, in any form that becomes a tradition, to not be easily replaced. New media is also partly about product sales. The way of selling electronic products is to change them. For example, the VHS tape gave way to DVDs and now Blu-Ray and 3-D wants to claim the DVD customer base. If you have lots of money, you can keep up with electronic media products.
It took about 10 years for digital cameras to get good enough for the replacement of 35mm camera, though some photographers might disagree. I certainly love the replacement of the chemical darkroom with the computer darkroom of Photoshop. I like the immediacy of the digital photo and its transfer capabilities. But I kept looking for a digital camera that would have, not only removable lenses, but also a shutter speed adjustment on the outside of the camera...and with digital cameras at 12 megapixels that I have recently seen, it finally has arrived, or so I have now found them.

One reason for passage...

2010-03-18T20:52:00.000-07:00

Big-mouth radio commentator Rush Limbaugh once said if Obama's health care reform legislation passed, he'd move to Costa Rica.

So, there's one of the better reasons for the legislation passage. Even better if radio airwaves don't reach America from Costa Rica.

(Apparently, Costa Rica has a government-sponsored health care system, but what Limbaugh doesn't know won't hurt us.)

News at 10...

2010-03-14T13:46:00.000-07:00

This just in...

A person got a job in America today. It was big, big news! It made the front-pages of the Wall Street Journal, New York Times, Washington Post, Medicine Bow Post, and Mad Magazine.

Admitting they offer a more conservative approach, Republicans unveiled their version for the "Meals on Wheels" program. It's called "road-kill." Said one Republican millionaire senator, "I've heard that prairie dog meat with a taste of the rubber from a snow tire can be very nourishing."

Nancy Disgrace was wondering the other night if the national obesity problem will tip the scales?

Glenn Beck interviewed Eric Massa. Massa was the congressman that no one in the nation had ever heard of until he was caught in a scandal and then ended up being the conversation of every TV talking head this side of stupid. Beck also proved it.

In the meantime, the TV talking heads didn't have time to talk about the U.S. soldiers who were recently killed in the wars. One talking head who was tickled pink about the Massa scandal and also didn't see a reason for confronting someone about why the public option isn't part of the health care plan, said, "Talk is cheap and we're at basement bargain prices."

Concerning the issue of eliminating the policy of "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" in the military, President Obama is consulting his doctor about the need for a backbone similar to one that Harry Truman had when President Truman integrated the military and ended that discrimination, despite the objections of generals. Doctors said Obama could be up and courageous in no time. Said one doctor, "Our goal would be to get him even half as courageous as a gay soldier dodging bullets in the Afghanistan war."

Some straight soldiers have expressed irritation with the implication from some politicians that they can't handle being around openly gay soldiers. "I think we can handle it," said one soldier as he dodged bullets from enemies trying to kill him.

The Republican Party of "No" continued to say "no" to about everything. Even in the Congressional cafeteria, they were unwilling to pass the salt.

An 11-year-old failed a quiz after a teacher found that the kid had notes scribbled on his hand. The student's defense: "I wasn't cheating. I was just trying to impersonate Sarah Palin." Betcha won't do that again!

TV reality shows continue to try to push the envelope. But some of the prospective shows that didn't make the network line-up for this year include "The Horrifying Race of Runaway Toyotas," "My Sexting Photos are Better Than your Sexting Photos," "Undercover Parents at the Fraternity House," "You Get a Nobel Peace Prize if You Can Ever Get Israel to Work for Peace, But Don't Count On It," and "Push the Envelope Down the Street to the U.S. Post Office."

Professor I.M. Nuts will be teaching a new course next fall on "Writing for Text-Messaging." The first essay assignment will be graded according to how often a college student can use "U" for "you." Students with very tiny fingers are expected to have an edge in the class.

Yes to public option or single-payer system, no to mandate alone...

2010-03-12T17:20:00.000-08:00

I don't get it.

I don't see the point of passing a health care reform plan that has a mandate, forcing all to buy insurance, while it doesn't have a public option, allowing for an alternative to the greedy insurance industry.

Obama and Congress should offer a public option plan, or, even better, convert the plan into a single-payer plan, like the successful and people-friendly plans that other industrial nations have.

To provide a forced mandate for insurance from the insurance industry seems naive and foolish to me. The insurance industry is mostly the problem concerning national health care. We all know the insurance industry will do everything in its power and creativity to charge more, offer less, and try to make more profits. Profits shouldn't be part of a nation's health care policy. They should have never been part of it in the first place. And why should Americans settle for less than what residents of other countries receive?

I thought America was supposed to be first, best, setting the example, and leading the way when it came to the quality of life. Apparently not, when it comes to health care.

Bipartisanship is a sinking ship...

2010-02-21T17:50:00.000-08:00

Good riddance to Evan Bayh, Blue Dog senator from Indiana. Maybe other Blue Dog, insufferable centrists will throw in the "white flag" towel that they always wave anyway. They did enough damage to the health care reform proposal, by watering it down to please the Republican Party of No who, of course, couldn't be pleased because they didn't want any of it in the first place.

Here is my advice for the notion of bipartisanship: F-word it.

As liberal Arianna Huffington said on TV today, with the agreement of conservative George Will, the major issues of this nation have required strong political stands. She wondered what would have been the moderate position, to placate both sides, on the issue of slavery during Lincoln's time--to free half the slaves?

Bipartisanship is a bit like suggesting that everyone should be bisexual because that's some kind of "middle ground" between two definite but contrary approaches. No, I think people should be what they are and they should advocate strongly for their beliefs, on either side, without having to think that a strong stance must be turned into a soft appeasement in order to be best for America.

Progressive presidents should advocate for progressive measures, conservative presidents should advocate for conservative measures. The so-called middle already spoke when it helped to elect what people all recognized to be a choice between a progressive (Obama) or a conservative (McCain). With that mandate, then the progressives should lead. And the Blue Dogs and centrists should get out of the way. And the conservatives, who can be the loyal opposition as a minority, shouldn't expect their stances in politics and legislation to supersede the vote of the majority.

Nuclear energy is costly and dangerous...

2010-02-19T18:25:00.000-08:00

Well, here we go again...

What in the heck is President Obama doing? Now he is supporting nuclear energy and pledging to waste billions of dollars on that nonsense, thinking it is a clean, quality energy source for America's future.

Nuclear energy is not clean, because it leaves waste that has to be managed for thousands of years. It is not safe. The first major Chernobyl-like disaster that occurs in America is going to be costly beyond belief, poison people with illness, and contaminate whatever region it is in for probably a century. And that's supposed to be quality?

I don't understand why Obama is bound and determined to chase away his progressive base--this time, environmentalists. My patience is wearing out.

The energy resources to develop should include wind energy, wave power, solar energy, and other truly good and safe sources. If every housetop in America had a portable wind power generator (just like homes have cable dishes) and solar panels, citizens would not only be able to cut their costs for utilities but also, in mass, reduce the need for other energy sources and help save the planet. If the Obama administration would fund that kind of portable equipment manufacturing, made in America PLEASE, and provide tax breaks, discounts or even reward in the way of food or product certificates for citizens in order to acquire the equipment, then there also might be some more jobs created for the American workers.

Quote about photography...

2010-02-18T19:29:00.000-08:00

"A photo is like a stab of a knife. Painting is meditation."
--Henri Cartier-Bresson, photographer and artist

Palin's palm...

2010-02-14T10:44:00.000-08:00

So, politician Sarah Palin criticized President Obama for being a professor of constitutional law. Wow, being intelligent doesn't particularly seem to me like a disadvantage, particularly when it comes to America. On the other hand...

...There's that hand with the scribbles on it.

It was Palin who wrote inky notes on the palm of her hand for a recent speech. Now, I have known of junior high students who used notes on their hands in order to try to cheat at tests. I have known adolescents who have written phone numbers of potential dates on their hands. But what adult ever writes notes on his or her hands for a speech or an interview? Couldn't she afford a 65-cent package of note cards like debaters use? Or a note pad like reporters use?

Palin's inability to answer Katie Couric's questions about Supreme Court cases or magazines she reads was an insight that has haunted her. Her "death panel" remark was beyond stupid, into the zone of reckless. Now her silly hand memos. Stupid? Juvenile? Daffy?

Former Vice President Dan Quayle never overcame his "potatoe" moment. ("Potato" is the correct spelling.) I guess Palin will have some cover for her lightweight moments, since she's now working at the Fox network.

Notes from the Boat (That We're All Riding in)...

2010-01-24T10:36:00.000-08:00

Some thoughts about the news...

I have been impressed with the news coverage about the Haiti earthquake and aftermath by Anderson Cooper and the news reporters at CNN. That is good broadcast journalism.
For now, I would like to commend Google with its latest threat to pull out of China if it has to continue to filter out words and images that upset the communist dictatorship. It is about time, I would add. Where is Microsoft and Yahoo and the others in also standing up, finally, for freedom and rights? When all the American Internet companies hurried into China, their goal, of course, was one greedy measure: $. Since then, the companies have gotten deserved criticism for being complicit in censorship and the jailing of activists. China should allow the photo of the Tank Man at Tiananmen Square to be accessed on its computers. And everything else that comes with a real worldwide web. China's tricky mix of communism and capitalism has shown that capitalism doesn't equal democracy. But we knew that with all the other dirty little dictators around the world that like to enhance their coffers while they step on people's rights. Now, we will see if Google stands for something greater, in terms of ethics. I hope I will commend Google later for standing tall. I know I will not be using the "Bing" search engine of Microsoft and others until those companies gets some ethical guts, too.
The win by Republican Scott Brown in the Senate race in Massachusetts was interesting in many ways. I wondered if sports (baseball knowledge) mattered; apparently it did to some voters there. I wondered that if the woman candidate had been the centerfold rather than the man candidate, how would the media and societal response have been different? But I don't think Brown's victory means the Republican Party is now in a better place. I think it means that incumbents or those coming from the incumbent party (in the case of Martha Coakley) need to worry. It will only take a few conservative "nothing" votes by Brown to put him into the disappointment category, unless he has figured out a way to attain populist progress after an election.
President Obama (and all the conservative national media) need to quit chasing the unicorn. A unicorn is mythical and doesn't exist. So, is the idea that going to the political center to produce watered-down, crap legislation is the way to lead or to attain real progress for the nation or to have any legacy of greatness.
All a person has to do is look at the major issues and see whether those issues naturally and progressively go to the right or go to the left. Health care--Do we want the status quo on that when other nations in the world do better to provide health care for their citizens? No. So, which way do you go? Of course, you go left, providing more coverage. Most people in this country wanted universal health care. Most people wanted the public option in the latest debate. Why wasn't that the way the politics went? It went to the center and has nearly strangled Obama's campaign idealism as seen by his voters. The wars--Go to the right andthat means adding more troops and spending more money on war. Go to the left and that means leave doing the mission swiftly and getting out. (The use of troops as peacekeepers and rescue assistance in Haiti was a better use of money if the Pentagon wants to think of ways to sustain its huge budget.) Those are just two examples of why conservatism doesn't work. Look at any generation. Is any current generation more conservative or more liberal than their parents? They are almost always more liberal. That's the path of history.
After the U.S. Supreme Court, by a 5-4 vote, decided that limits on what corporations can spend on political campaigns are against freedom of speech, I pulled out my wallet and looked inside it to see how much free speech I had. Hmmm. Not very much there. But I never figured, even before, that my amount of financial power would ever equal the power of Microsoft, Time Warner, Disney, or Exxon. That's why I write, why I blog, why I try to voice my opinion in any way I can, knowing that money also talks. The U.S. Supreme Court did no favors to the status of the American citizen by blessing corporations with one more advantage. Does it also then mean that corporations that are largely controlled by foreign countries, such as China, or have great interests there will get to try to influence American politics? I hate to think, though I guess it could backfire, too. Probably an endorsement to an issue or candidate by a corporation linked to a foreign dictatorship or agendas would be a kiss of political death.

The life (and death) of Miep Gies...

2010-01-17T16:32:00.000-08:00

Miep Gies died on January 11. She was 100 years old. I read about her in a book I'd recommend, titled "Anne Frank, A Biography" by Melissa Muller. She was also mentioned in the book, with another theme of a diary, titled "Freedom Writers' Diary" by the Freedom Writers and Erin Gruwell.

Probably not a lot of people know her name. Certainly, more people would know the name of Anne Frank. Anne Frank was the Jewish girl who hid with her parents and others in a secret annex in a commercial building in Amsterdam, Holland, a country that was occupied by the Nazis during WWII. Born in Austria, Miep Gies was one of the Dutch residents who hid Anne, the Frank family, and the others, and supplied them with food and necessities while trying to keep them from being discovered by the Nazis. It was risky and dangerous, and it led to the tragic ending when someone informed the Nazis of the hiding place and Anne and others were sent to concentration camps. Of the Jewish people who hid there, only Otto Frank, Anne's father, would survive the concentration camp. When he returned to Amsterdam, Miep Gies gave him the diary journals by Anne that Gies had found and saved.

After Otto Frank published what is best known by the title of "The Diary of Anne Frank," Anne became the face representing the millions of innocent people who suffered the brutality of Hilter and his Nazi regime.

With all his power, Hitler delivered hatred and death to the world. No one in that time in that place was probably as powerless as a Jewish teenage girl. Yet the publication of her story demonstrates that the powerless can be given a voice and can speak to greater and lasting lessons.

The story of Anne Frank is about hiding from unimaginable evil. It is about the grace of courage and hope. It is about the inspiration of words on paper, thoughts of a girl mature beyond her age. When I think of the Nazi era, I think of Hitler and I also think of Anne Frank. The powerless trumps the powerful in the important ways.

Anne Frank said, in her writings, that she wanted to become a journalist. In journalism, giving voice to the voiceless, to the powerless, is a crucial and meaningful ethic. Without the media, through books and movies and the TV mini-series programs and the websites over the years, the story might have been unknown. Without Miep Gies preserving the diaries, the story might have been lost. And Gies stands for something greater as well. She represents the goodness of people who act on principle and care about others rather than just stand by and do nothing in the face of cruelty and injustice.

Miep Gies had a long life. Anne Frank had a short life. But their lives touched each other in amazing and positive ways and then touched the lives of millions of others.

Notes from the Boat (That We're All Riding In)...

2010-01-17T10:25:00.000-08:00

Here are some thoughts about current events...

Probably the greatest speaker in my lifetime was Martin Luther King Jr., the civil rights activist who led America to a better place. The Martin Luther King Jr. holiday is tomorrow.

Certainly, an excellent speaker of these modern times is President Barack Obama. I recently listened to his speech at a Baptist church today.

I find myself looking at Obama near this King holiday and wondering, "What would Martin Luther King Jr. do if he had been the U.S. president?" Of course, King never had the opportunity. King had to sometimes stand alone or in the minority, face danger, advocate change, stick to his values (which included a belief in non-violence), rally support, and merge sympathies and outside powers in order for the power of his words to be fulfilled and turned into reality. He had a very tough journey, especially considering the times and the power structure of the bigoted South.

The problem that Obama faces now is that, while he can inspire with words, he has the power that King never had--Obama has the power of the U.S. presidency. Therefore, it is not enough anymore, at least for me, to hear an Obama speech and to nod in complete agreement. Obama has to inspire more than just through words. He needs to inspire through policy. He has to keep his administration from compromising for qualities that make the ring of his speeches sound flat and false. He has to make progress truly happen.

The expectations are high for Obama because he has what any activist would love to have: the power of policy. If Martin Luther King Jr. could move the country in the ways he did, having little official power, then Obama should be able to, as president. The expectations are high for a reason. With power comes obligation of governance for achievement, well beyond the hope of inspirational words. The words are great as directions for the road map. But, with the privilege to lead and to hold the greatest power perhaps in the world, the destinations have to be reached in order for success and quality to be real and true.

Jackson Hole, estate tax, and the national media...

2010-01-10T10:10:00.001-08:00

I waited a whole week for CNN's "The State of the Union with John King" to broadcast of a segment about anchor John King's visit to Wyoming, the last of the 50 states that he has visited since his program began. At the beginning of the segment, King said he wanted to visit all 50 states, so he could talk to "regular" people in America. Wow, that was comical, based upon the choice of Jackson Hole as the site of his visit.

The segment aired on Sunday. And it was quite horrible. It was pretty much a farce. But, no doubt, it gave King a nice assignment junket trip to see some beautiful Wyoming landscape. Whenever some national newsperson wants to involve Wyoming, it usually means a quick plane ride into Jackson, followed by a quick plane ride out. That's what they see of Wyoming. The beautiful mountains in a resort and ski town where only the rich can own houses. The average price of houses in Jackson is $1 million, according to one of the Jackson guests in the report. I would guess that the estimate is correct. Rich politicians, like Cheney, and Hollywood stars own cabins or estates in the Jackson area. Jackson is to Wyoming about as much as Hollywood is to California. John King missed the regular people in Wyoming.

The King interview also featured three Jacksonites who dodged the truth about how many people view the "residency" of former Vice President Dick Cheney. When Cheney first ran with George W. Bush, he had to declare Wyoming as his home state in order to constitutionally come from a state other than Texas which was Bush's home state. Cheney really was a Texan, residing in Texas at the time, working in the state. He had left Wyoming. Yet another fraud of the Bush years. Even when he ran as a Wyoming Congressman, the election allowed him to leave the state. When my brothers were drafted out of Wyoming during the Vietnam War period, Cheney used five deferments to avoid the draft. He ran from military service and, ironically, now acts like he's America's greatest warrior. Another fraud.

I had to dodge the TV networks this Sunday as Cheney's daughter Liz ended up on two. She was on John King's show on CNN, so I switched the channel for that segment. Then she was on ABC's "This Week," so I switched the channel there. We, who are really from Wyoming, know how she ended up with a big-shot job as deputy secretary of state during the Bush years. It is the same way that Michael Powell, son of General Colin Powell, became FCC chairman during the Bush years. And it wasn't because of qualifications. Can anyone, including the media, say "nepotism"?

It is only natural for national news personalities to gravitate toward rich resort towns and rich people, because often they are part of that class; their networks play to that class. Congress and both political parties eagerly serve that class. That's probably why Congress and the national media allowed the estate tax to lapse on January 1. The estate tax brought in $14 billion to the U.S. Treasury, a sizable amount when everyone, especially Republicans, are screaming about the deficit and governmental spending. (The expense of endless wars can be costly, too, by the way.) The estate tax involved only about 5,500 very wealthy families, which is less than one percent of American families. But it wasn't something Congress apparently wanted to keep.

Politicians and the national news media sure are good to rich people. They all may want to fly into Jackson and celebrate.

Good idea about banking...

2010-01-08T20:22:00.000-08:00

I like Ariana Huffington's suggestion:

That people take their money out of the big banks, who helped to cause the economic crisis in the first place, took taxpayers' bailout money, and then lobby against the return to good banking regulations....
And then people should put their money in small, community banks and credit unions, who invest in the local communities.

Good idea! Spread the word!

Information station...

2009-12-30T18:53:00.000-08:00

Here are some interesting random facts from books, TV, and the Internet...

There are 9,000 species of birds. There are 28,000 types of fish. There are 350,000 kinds of beetles. And there are 2 million (and counting) living species on Earth. (Source: Nova on PBS)
A human has 23,000 genes, which is the same number that a chicken has but is less than what an ear of corn has. (Nova on PBS)
An astronomer has estimated there are 37,000 galaxies and that probably at least 361 of them could support life. (CNN)
Forty percent of Greenland's ice sheet has disappeared in the last 40 years. In Greenland, 100 billion tons of ice per year are melting. If the entire ice sheet would melt, it would cause the oceans to rise by 23 feet. (Anderson Cooper's news show on CNN)
Of the 3,000 plants used in the fight against cancer cells, 70 percent are found in the Amazon rainforest. (CNN)
Ninety to 95 percent of people in airplane crashes survive. (CBS)
The biggest reason for false imprisonment is eyewitness misidentification. DNA has freed 248 people in prisons who were wrongly convicted. In those cases, it also has found 155 real perpetrators. (Barry Scheck of the Innocence Project)
Latinos are the biggest targets of hate crimes in the United States. (Federal report)
Thirteen hours of video are posted every minute on YouTube.
If the U.S. cut its military budget by 10 percent, the United States would still be spending more money on its military than do Russia, China, India, France, England, and Germany on their military budgets COMBINED.

The first Sages awarded...

2009-12-29T14:06:00.000-08:00

Roll out the red carpet because here are the first Sage Street Awards, simply known as Sages, for the year 2009:

(Note: This list is likely to grow as I think of the categories, so check back on it from time to time.)

The biggest winner, in a positive way, of 2009: The nominees include MSNBC network's political talk counterbalance to conservative Fox network; Netflix, the DVD company that provides great range of film to the public by mail; the growth of independent film-making as assisted along the way by Robert Redford's Sundance Film Festival; the ACLU who continues to challenge what's wrong, even when it's an unpopular cause, and often wins in the Supreme Court for regular people. The winner is Barack Obama who so far has avoided a second Great Depression despite the economic mess left from the Bush years. He wasn't FDR unfortunately this past year, but there's hope that he could be in the future.

The biggest loser of 2009: The nominees included the Republican Party as the new Party of No (and no ideas), Mark Sanford's amazing hypocrisy in journeying down the Appalachian trail; religious fundamentalism of any religion which keeps people in narrow frames of mind and prevents progress. The winner is Tiger Woods, who showed that much of celebrity sports is about popularity, too much money, and superficiality. He proved that even being probably the greatest golfer in history doesn't mean much in the end if the priorities of family and character are abandoned.

The saddest turn of events in 2009: The nominees include the U.S. Postal Service which, though it delivers inexpensively-priced mail with almost daily service and competent reliability, lost income to the computer technology of e-mail; and that Editor and Publisher magazine, which covered the newspaper industry for decades, would cease publication. The winner is: The loss of many newspapers. They are an important media form, crucial to better democracy and community-building.

The biggest political punch in the reality nose for 2009: Nominees included Barack Obama with the notion that there apparently is no such thing as a liberal president, even when we want one and vote for one; the awful Clinton people take over the White House after we voted for Obama; no likely public option in the health care reform plan though most Americans wanted it; Wall Street, the banks and credit card companies who were bailed-out then raised rates, gave outrageous CEO bonuses, and did little for regular taxpayers; the national news media (with the exception of Rachel Maddow) for failing to cover the story of the "Family" religious cult group of conservative Republicans; that there is always political over-reaction to airplane security mishaps and then usually the end result for the traveling public is no better safety but more hassles and delays. The winner is: A surge in deployment in U.S. troops in yet another endless war in Afghanistan.

The most over-rated, annoying, or puzzling media product in 2009: Facebook, a social network that is a bit like when an adult has to sit at the kids' table; more reality TV shows of dull regular people acting stupid and mean; Amazon.com's Kindle or other electronic book devices providing yet another screen and need for batteries; Twitter and the shortening of words, language and communication or the following of people who don't deserve to have followers (though appreciation is given for its importance in non-democratic countries, like Iran and China, where people are seeking freedom and rights). The winner is: Cell phones within an industry that has avoided the scrutiny about possible links to brain cancer and other forms of cancer (as well as increased public rudeness).

The best media product in 2009: The nominees include the vast number of television networks; Netflix, the DVD company that provides great range of film to the public by mail; the GPS devices that help travelers find their locations. The winner is a tie between: 1). The traditional book, with its wide range of informational and enjoyable possibilities; and 2). the Internet, with its worldwide reach and vast resources for knowledge, information, and entertainment.

The worst passage in the Bible and least likely to be quoted from a pulpit: Leviticus 21:18-20 which reads, "For whatsoever man he be that hath a blemish, he shall not approach: a blind man, or a lame, or he that hath a flat nose, or any thing superfluous; Or a man that is broken-footed, or brokenhanded; Or crookbackt, or a dwarf, or that hath a blemish in his eye, or be scurvy, or scabbed, or hath his stones broken." In some versions, "hath his stones broken" instead reads "men with small testicles."

Most intriguing creature in Midwest nature: Nominees included bees, bats, armadillos, paddlefish, and mules. The winner is: Fireflies.

Most intriguing living thing to see in the wild: Nominees included redwood trees, koala bears, condors, penguins, manta rays, dolphins, and giraffes. The winner is: Whales.

The most horrifying creature on Earth (for men), not counting violent humans: Nominees included anaconda snakes, pythons, crocodiles, grizzly bears, lions. The winner is the candiru, which is a Brazilian fishlet that can swim up a man's urine stream and lodge in the urethra of the penis with a ring of retrorse spines preventing its removal. According to the book "The Professor and the Mad Man" by Simon Winchester, it is one of the rare circumstances in which doctors will perform an operation known as peotomy, the surgical removal of the penis.

Most intriguing natural event to witness: Nominees included active volcanoes, migration of gnus and wildebeests in Kenya, bird's-eye view of birds in flight. The winner is: Monarch butterflies in mass returning to traditional Mexico cocoon-emerging site.

Best political or social advocate of the year: Nominees included Russ Feingold, Ralph Nader, Al Franken, Elizabeth Edwards, Cindy Sheehan, Keith Olbermann, Rachel Maddow. The winner is: Howard Dean.

The most horrible politician of the year: Nominees included the Republican Party generally, Dick Cheney, Sarah Palin, Ben Nelson, Blue Dog Democrats generally, Rahm Emmanuel, Dick Armey, Tom Coburn. The winner is: Joe Lieberman.

The best maverick: The nominees are the Saturday Night Live cast, Michael Moore, Jon Stewart, Mother Jones magazine, Glen Greenwald of Salon.com, Jimmy Carter. The winner is Levi Johnston, who is the best foil and irritation to mother-in-law Sarah Palin.

The Sage Street famous person of the year: The nominees are Howard Dean, Oprah Winfrey, Tina Fey, Meryl Streep, and Walter Cronkite who died this year. The winner is Pete Seeger, for a lifetime of music and activism.

A list for 2009...

2009-12-26T16:11:00.000-08:00

As the year 2009 comes to an end, here is a list involving moments of great impression, new knowledge, interesting insight, or entertaining amazement...

Something new for me in the year 2009: This "Sage Street" blog. I started it in late July. I enjoyed meeting Bill Rasmussen, the founder of ESPN. I presented my first PowerPoint presentation for high school students at sessions at the college library. The subject was on political cartoons and President Abraham Lincoln.

Biggest disappointment in something new for me in 2009: Facebook. Nice to connect to people, but not much there other than knowing that someone else is still alive. Sometimes it reminded me of being an adult who has to sit at the kids' table for dinner. Honorable mention: Started the year excited and ended the year with mixed feelings about President Obama. Disappointed with the war surge for Afghanistan and his lackluster support for a public option in the health care reform plan. But when Obama displeased me, all I had to do was listen to the horribly awful Republicans, and then it made me feel better about Obama.

Best movies of the year (that I saw): "District 9," "Sin Nombre," "(500) Days of Summer," and "Star Trek."

One of the strangest movies (released in 2009) that I have ever seen: "District 9." A documentary-style science fiction, its storyline was like nothing I'd ever watched and, to the last moment, it was intriguing. The "alien" kid in the movie is about knee-high to a grasshopper, and only those who have seen it will understand the humor in that statement. (O.K., I'll tell you...The aliens in that movie looked like grasshoppers.)

Best TV entertainment shows of the year: "Parks and Recreation" (NBC), "Medium (CBS)," "Saturday Night Live" (NBC) though some episodes were better than others, "My Name Is Earl" (NBC), "Community" (NBC), "Smallville" (CW), "Jeopardy" game show (ABC), Jon Stewart's "The Daily Show," (Comedy Central), and "Monk" (when I could find it--not sure of its network).

Best TV news programs: Almost anything that "Frontline" (PBS) covered, "Bill Moyers Journal," "The PBS NewsHour" (PBS), "The Keith Olbermann Show" (MSNBC), "The Rachel Maddow Show" (MSNBC), "NOW" (PBS), "60 Minutes" (CBS), "Nightline" (ABC), "Sunday Morning" (CBS), and the "Ed Schultz Show" though it comes on opposite my evening news programs, so I didn't watch it as much as I would have liked. For online news and commentary, I liked the articles by Glenn Greenwald for Salon.com.

Specific moments that I liked on TV in 2009: The weekly "In Memoriam" segment and sometimes the panel discussion on "This Week with George Stephanopolous" (ABC), some interviews and the segment about book recommendations on "Fareed Zakaria's GPS" (CNN), some segments of "360 with Anderson Cooper" (CNN), the banter of "The McLaughlin Group" (PBS), the Steve Hartman "Everybody Has A Story" segments on "The CBS News with Katie Couric" (CBS), the "Making a Difference" segments on "NBC Evening News with Brian Williams" (NBC), some interviews by Christiane Amanpour on her news show (CNN), some inerviews by Oprah Winfrey on her show, the beginning segment, especially when political, and the usually very adult songs sung by Andy Samberg on "Saturday Night Live," the moment of Rachel Maddow eating popcorn as she watched something daffy, usually involving Republican politicians, and Keith Olbermann's hilarious impression of Lou Dobbs.

The TV interview show I'd like to see (or help start): A show that features the stories and interviews of people who were in famous Supreme Court cases, people who were in famous photographs, and people who are activists in different causes.

People who I admired that died in 2009: Walter Cronkite (who I was able to interview many years ago), Eunice Shriver, Karl Malden, Frank McCourt, and Ricardo Montalban. (I remember hearing poet W.D. Snodgrass at a poetry reading at the University of Arizona.)

Best TV sign-off: Charles Gibson's "I hope you had a good day" on "ABC Evening News with Charles Gibson" and the Edward R. Murrow line of "Good night and good luck" by Keith Olbermann on his news show.

TV shows I never watched (not even once) in 2009: The conservative talking heads on Fox network, "American Idol," anything involving a tabloid couple named Gosselin.

The TV show of 2009 that most bewildered me: "The Biggest Loser" about people losing weight. I still can't believe that is actually considered "entertainment." ???? Also, a question: If the biggest loser is the winner because he or she loses the most weight, then what did they call the person who was the worst at losing the weight?

Best networks: PBS, History Channel, CNN, Headline News, SyFy Channel (though I preferred the abbreviation SciFi), MSNBC, the Discovery Channel, Animal Planet, TV Land.

Some good books that I read within the year: Too many to mention. Lots of good ones. "Nothing to Fear" by Adam Cohen, "Six-Legged Insects, Using Insects as Weapons of War" by Jeffrey A. Lockwood, "Inventing the Job of President" by Fred Greenstein, "Sugar of the Crop" by Lana Butler, "Journalism's Roving Eye" by John Maxwell Hamilton, and others. Also, re-read the book "The Professor and the Mad Man" and John Hersey's "Hiroshima."

Facebook strikes blog...

2009-12-16T16:47:00.000-08:00

For the first time in my life, I ate a persimmon yesterday. (Now if that isn't a line worthy of Facebook, I don't know what is.)

On the other hand, here are some events that I never experienced in 2009 or at any other time:

I have never purchased a CD of Christmas songs by Alvin and the Chipmunks.
I have never had a pony. I have never had a ponytail.
I have never voted for a war president.
I have never taken Christ or any Chris that I know out of Christmas.
I have never owned a cell phone, a gun, or a hamster.
I have never worn a tuxedo, but I did go to the high school prom.
I have never been to Disneyland.

Here's what puzzled me about 2009 and I am still seeking answers:

How is it that there is a Democratic president and a Democratic majority in Congress and the end result, so far, of the health care reform legislation appears to be the Republican version, with the help of jerks Lieberman, Ben Nelson, and other centrist obstructionists and insurance industry shills? How does that happen?

A Christmas story...

2009-12-09T20:58:00.000-08:00

One year, CNN featured a poll that ranked the most hated Christmas song as the one with the Singing Dogs woofing out "Jingle Bells"? Well, I like that song and version. It makes me laugh every time I hear it. How can a song that makes a person laugh not be something special?! So, it is in the ears of the beholder. I often have thought about asking the college music department if the choir has ever considered singing that song at a Christmas concert...in the dog version. In the key of Irish setter???!!!!

That poll also noted that Nat King Cole's "The Christmas Song" is the most loved Christmas song. O.K., isn't that the song with "Chestnuts roasting on an open fire, Jack Frost nipping at your nose..."? Yes, I liked it when I heard Nat King Cole singing it. He was an excellent singer. However, there was this one time, many years ago...

I was on a bus. I was on a bus traveling for two hours from Medicine Bow to Cheyenne, Wyoming, one snowy Christmas. I thought I would take a bus to avoid the worries about snow on the roads. So, I took a seat in the middle of the bus. Travelers were scattered throughout. Then, at Laramie, with an hour of travel to go, this guy got on and sat at the front of the bus. When the bus took off, the guy started to sing that "Chestnut" song. He sounded just like Nat King Cole and might have been him if it weren't that Cole died several decades earlier.

Anyway, after the guy had finished singing the song in its entirety, everyone on the bus--in gleeful holiday spirit--applauded because it was sung so well. Just like Nat King Cole would have sung it. In appreciation of the applause, the guy sang an encore of it. Wow, again, just like Nat King Cole! Once again, the people on the bus applauded, full of good Christmas cheer.

Then...well...then, the guy started to sing the same song again. At the end of that time, people still thought it was nice, but strangely enough, no one applauded. The bus had a bewildering but probably justified silence. I was almost ready to clap my hands once or twice--what the heck, it's Christmas!--but I didn't need to because the guy started singing the song again.

And again. And again. And again. And again. And again.

Forty miles later, he was still singing the song. A couple in the row on the other side of the aisle near me were covering their ears, now completely miffed. Finally, as the Christmas spirit seemed to fly out the bus windows, someone in the back of the bus yelled, "Would you shut the hell up!" That's a direct and accurate quote. Obviously, not a Christian at Christmas time...or was he? Anyway, the Christmas crowd started to become hostile and so I sat there, trying to think of another Christmas song, like "Jingle Bells," as a possibility to distract the singer from the "Chestnut" song. I couldn't even barked it out, because the guy was going strong with the "Chestnuts and Jack Frost."

There was no stopping him; he was just like a human CD player on song repeat. At the end of the bus ride in Cheyenne, people hurried off the bus with very unpleasant expressions, but with a very good ability to forever remember the lyrics of the "Chestnut (Christmas) Song." By the way, the college Christmas concert was held last week. The choirs are always so good. And...well...they sang the "Chestnut" song...

President Obama gave his war speech...

2009-12-01T18:02:00.000-08:00

Tonight President Obama said he will escalate U.S. troop numbers in Afghanistan.

Prediction: One-term presidency.

My plan for nation-building and war-ending...

2009-11-29T14:29:00.000-08:00

Holy cow!

I just heard on TV that for each U.S. soldier sent to Afghanistan for one year, it will cost the United States $1 million. One million dollars for every soldier for one year! So, if Obama sends 30,000 more soldiers...oh, my goodness, what a tremendous waste of money. I have a better idea.

Instead of using that $1 million so that each good soldier can trudge around in sand, dodge bullets, and be put in danger, why not divide up the $1 million in a more effective war-ending way. Take some of it and buy off the Afghanistan warlords...yes, an annoying thought, but I have heard that we've been doing it anyway. Take some of it and raise the average incomes of impoverished Afghan citizens, so they don't want to join the Taliban for the tiny amount of money they offer. Take some of the money and build a new school there, to help employment, education, and the Afghan economy. Take some of the money and build a new school here, to help employment, education, and the American economy. And finally take some of the money and give it to the American soldier, with orders that he has to stay in America and spend it here, thereby helping the U.S. economy.

And copy that model for every other U.S. soldier, bringing them home, and better spending the billions of dollars.

There's my plan for nation-building and war-ending, and using the expense of $1 million per soldier per year in better, peaceful ways for the good of all. I say it is better than Obama's escalation plan and war expense.

Another box of "Peace on Earth" cards...

2009-11-27T17:15:00.000-08:00

I purchased a box of Christmas cards today. Sometimes I will choose cards with a Nativity scene on the front, but usually I select cards that show a dove and an olive branch with a theme about "Peace of Earth."

You know, I sure would like to purchase my box of "Peace on Earth" holiday cards knowing that it is actually true, for once, that America is at peace and out of wars and that we can rejoice what should be a real gift of the holiday. Do you think America will ever achieve that goal? There was a short time, right after the end of the Cold War, when I was able to say that, within my lifetime, America was at peace. No wars! Wow! And conincidentally...or maybe not so coincidentally... at the time, there also developed an actual U.S. budget surplus and not a huge deficit. But it was not to last. It vanished, with the come and the go of politics and fear, without most of us getting the time to treasure it.

More war years went by--this time two wars rather than the usual one. I always thought the moment that summed up the George W. Bush years came at the end of it when a frustrated Iraqi journalist threw his two shoes at Bush when he was speaking in Iraq. The Iraqi was, of course, hauled off to jail to serve a sentence length that was way too harsh for its crime. But I always felt that the shoe-throwing, meant to reflect an Iraqi insult, reflected the view of many Americans, including mine, that our president then was misguided, reckless, oblivious, careless, stupid...about the wars, about the economy, about the social problems. That was Bush. That was then. Then there was the end to eight, long years of irresponsible governing. Inspired by hope, I voted for Barack Obama and change and hopeful, new paths.

This coming Tuesday, President Obama is supposed to tell us, according to clues from the media this week, why he thinks there is a need for troop escalation in Afghanistan, what the exit strategy will be, and how we are going to defeat an indigenous population like the pitiful religiously conservative Taliban within a nation that has never been stable and that is now led by a American-foisted leader whose termed corrupt and whose police system is considered even more corrupt. Well, Obama can give a pretty good speech, so I guess I will hope that he can pull it off, for the sake of all the American soldiers and their families and the Afghan civilians, all who will suffer the consequences of longer days of war.

Going back to the "shoe" theme, of how a shoe can matter in the course of a presidency, I think Obama has to worry about the dropping of two shoes. One shoe is the war. The Vietnam War offers a lot of lesson-learning comparisons. LBJ escalated and Nixon continued a war that cost way too much for too many people. It went on too long and it had little success. Too many Christmases went by with Bob Hope specials from war zones and "Peace on Earth" Christmas cards.

When Obama escalates the war effort on Tuesday, he opens the door for the emergence of an anti-war candidate who is also populist and also Main Street- and jobs-driven rather than Wall Street-aligned. He opens the door to the exit of his liberal base. But it is more than just an invitation to someone else who may actually supply the change that candidate Obama once symbolized. It means that Obama's journey, once hopeful in the shoes of FDR, was turned into a political "Waiting for Godot" with domestic policy that parroted Bush, foreign policy that didn't learn from LBJ, and an assortment of mediocre Clinton advisers keeping Obama from progressive steps.

Because of his polio paralysis, FDR couldn't even walk, but his shoes were his vision and action and they stepped boldly in ways that saved an economically depressed nation. The second shoe that Obama has to worry about is the economy and how it relates to all of America. His advisers followed the Poulson and Bush path with big bail-outs for Wall Street without responses of regulation for Wall Street transgressions. The bail-outs for Wall Street made Main Street feel forgotten. The banks made profits, did little for consumers, and continued business-as-greedy practices, jacking up credit card rates on the very people--the middle-class taxpayers whose money had saved them, and the young voters who were inspired by the prospects of change.

And yet, it could happen again. Wall Street could cave and tumble into another gigantic financial ruin with the least little financial collapse around the world, and then what would the Obama speech be? More economic stimulus for them because without them, we are lost, even though, with them, we were forgotten? I don't think even Bernanke at the Federal Reserve would be able to sell a second Wall Street bail-out. Certainly, that would mean a one-term presidency. A sad end to what could have been. And thus, the renewed need and arrival of that populist, now with an anti-war voice and a eye on Main Street and a jobs programs mentality.

Shoes thrown are an insult. Shoes that are led astray are wasted. Shoes make a difference because paths make a difference.

I look forward to the day when I send my "Peace on Earth" cards during a holiday season and the message truly reflects the American belief and the world reality.

Quotes...

2009-11-24T18:52:00.001-08:00

Here are some interesting quotes...

"I coached English for two seasons." --A coach tells students in the recent movie "The Assassination of a High School President."

I saw these two lines quoted by friend Doug Mellgren on Facebook:

"I like life. It gives you something to do."
"Some things you share with a loved one. Some things you eat before they get there."

I saw these quotes in the book "Boots on the Ground by Dusk, My Tribute to Pat Tillman" by Mary Tillman:

"When it is dark enough, you can see the stars." --Charles A. Beard
"The ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands in moments of comfort and convenience, but where he stands at times of challenge and controversy." --Martin Luther King Jr.
"Action is the antidote for despair." --Joan Baez
"We'll be friends until forever, just you wait and see." --Winnie the Pooh (A.A. Milne)

Many famous authors worked as journalists first. That was true for L. Frank Baum, author of "The Wizard of Oz." According to the December 2009 issue of American History magazine, Baum's first article for the Chicago Evening Post appeared on the front page on May 1, 1891, and was about the experience of relocating to a new home (what he had done in moving to Chicago). For that article, Baum wrote:

"Many a proud man will sleep on the floor tonight for this is moving day. This is the day when man lives as it is written he shall, by the perspiration of his brow. Also it is the day when the wife...whispers in your ear the beauty of the poet's tip that there is no place like home."

The modern 51 apparently is 60...

2009-11-23T20:16:00.000-08:00

I admit that I have never been very good in math. When I was young, the school systems forced modern math upon me, only to later abandon the experimental fad after, for me, the damage had been done.

But despite my problems with modern math, I always thought that 51 was a percentage majority for 100.

Let's do some figuring...There are 50 states. Each state has two senators. Fifty times two is 100. Fifty percent of 100 would be exactly half. So, 51 percent would be a majority. Right?

So, why do Senate leaders calculate a majority at 60 percent or 60 votes out of 100? That's nine points beyond an actual majority. Fifty-one votes should be what determines whether legislation passes or fails. Not 60. And not 56 plus trying to get goofball Blue Dogs like Blanche Lincoln, Ben Nelson, Mary Landrieu, and Joe Lieberman to join for a total of 60 votes for health care reform legislation (which, of course, needs to include a public option program).

I think the Senate needs to respect the notion of a majority.

I realize the doggone electoral college messes around with presidential election--and I have never understood why that should usurp the majority popular vote, either.

Not always is majority rule the best choice. But it still means a majority has spoken, and that usually relates to democracy in action. When it comes to the Senate or the House, I like that concept. Modern math or not.

One of the seven percent...

2009-11-22T11:32:00.001-08:00

I heard on TV that only seven percent of Americans don't have a cell phone...and I am one of them.

It's not that I am opposed to technology and electronic devices. If I need and want one, then I'll buy one. If you need or want one, then buy one.

But I honestly don't need one yet. I needed one way back when I was traveling weekly on snowy Wyoming roads, delivering my newspapers to a printer hundreds of miles away. But they didn't have them then.

Why should I get one now when my land-line phone is fine and adequate for my needs? (Relatives and friends know my number and how to reach me.) Why should I get one now when it will likely just add more expense to a phone bill? Why get one and risk even a long-term threat of possible brain tumors, if various research about "putting a microwave-like device against your head...and cooking" turns out to be correct?

About half of the time when I call someone who's using a cell phone, the reception is either bad (unless they are truly frying bacon) or the connection will suddenly end, as their batteries die, and we are cut off from our conversation.

If I were traveling a lot, I would want one. Maybe that will mean a summer purchase sometime. If I had children who were college students and traveling the roads to college, I would want them to have one, though I would encourage "emergency use" mainly.

I have told students that I will certainly get a cell phone when, not only do they come with Internet and photograph capabilities, but also work as a flashlight, a shaver, and a taser.

So, I still don't feel the need to rush out and buy a cell phone because 93 percent of Americans have them. I am fine being in the seven percent.

Three pop culture questions...

2009-11-11T18:41:00.000-08:00

Three questions came to my mind today concerning pop culture in America:

1). There is a show on the Sci-Fi channel called "Ghost Hunters." Question: How long can an actual TV series exist with episodes wherein so-called ghost hunters jump or scream or say "What was that?" and there is never anything remotely close to a ghostly image apparent or captured on film?
2). I listened to only the start of the County Music Awards program tonight because it featured singer Taylor Swift and, as I had an earlier opinion about her singing, I wanted to see if my opinion was wrong. No...I still don't think she can sing. Is it just me?
3). Why in the world would someone spend more than five minutes per day on Facebook? After finding out that everyone is doing okay, usually in very mundane ways, I have found that even the dictionary reads with greater excitement--Oh, that's an interesting definition of mung beans...

When the Stock Market goes up...

2009-10-25T11:49:00.000-07:00

When the Stock Market hit the 10,000 level again recently, I thought, "Oh, no. There goes the real economy. There goes the concern by politicians for Main Street America."

It seems like when Wall Street and the Stock Market are doing well, American politicians from the political parties often forget about what has been happening across America--industrial and rural America--in terms of the loss of good-paying, good-benefit, community-building jobs for the past 30 years.

Though I too have a teaching pension that is somewhat affected by the Stock Market condition, I find myself often rooting against Wall Street and the Stock Market, because of its political power and usual selfish nature.

It really aggravates me when we poor and middle-class taxpayers and all of America bailed-out Wall Street mega-banks and businesses, so they then can turn around to enjoy profits and wealth and economic security without, what it seems like, a shred of humility or concern for the rest of the nation.

For example, did the banks, without any demands of the government, decide to allow homeowners to stay in their homes with renegogiated payments in order to avoid home foreclosures? Did the big businesses pass their own in-house proposals concerning the reasonable limit of grandiose CEO pay and bonuses? And many of the "rescued" banks manage credit cards. Did those credit card rates go down in appreciation to the consumers who saved their Wall Street butts? No, probably they went up, in order to screw over consumers one more time before the federal credit card law kicks in for more control of outrageous rates and card conditions. There you have it.

That's Wall Street. That's big business. It's been that way since John D. Rockefeller bought his way out of Civil War military service and used unfair practices to establish a monopoly and control a whole industry. (And though Standard Oil Company might have been called a business "too big to fail," it was nonetheless broken-up because it violated anti-trust laws.)

Lots of people blame the government for providing big bail-outs for Wall Street, though many economic scholars say it was critical for the U.S. and world economy at the time. I'm willing to give government the benefit of the doubt that the crisis needed quick financial response, though I think there should have been many conditions tied to the money, including the aspect of breaking-up the businesses that are too big to fail.

But even more, I'd like to know specifically what Wall Street and big business, in receiving the bail-outs, have done for Main Street America, jobs, workers, and taxpayers. I'd like to see the tally sheet for that. I'd like to know how they have actively worked to pull America out of economic recession and how they have helped people--regular people--deal with their financial problems.

Until I know that federal help for Wall Street actually amounted to benefits for all and not just for a few at the top of the big business ladder, if I sound like I care less about what happens to Wall Street nor at where the Stock Market number arrives at the end of any day, it is because of long disillusionment and lack of respect for the ethics and conduct of big business.

The president who is needed...

2009-10-04T10:11:00.000-07:00

With the economic disaster of the Bush years (collapse of the economy and huge deficit in return for nothing but endless, costly wars), America needed one particular president.

America didn't need President Kennedy, President Nixon, President Ford, President Carter, President Reagan, President First Bush, or President Clinton.

A part of President Johnson was needed in terms of social programs that make life better for Americans. A part of President Eisenhower was needed in terms of developing large work projects like the interstate highway project. A part of President Truman was needed in terms of ending discrimination, this time for gay soldiers, in the military.

But mainly, following the disasters of President George W. Bush, America needed President Franklin D. Roosevelt.

Obviously, on the 2008 campaign trail, John McCain, with his Republican beliefs that the economy would remedy its own problems without any governmental involvement, sounded like President Hoover, not FDR.

Barack Obama, pushed by other populists on the campaign trail, talked about the need for smart, progressive policies that would help citizens by adding jobs, end wasteful spending on overseas military occupancy, and provide a real, comprehensive health care plan.

With 15 million people out of work, America needs an FDR-style jobs creation plan that, in the same FDR manner, doesn't acquiesce decisions and funding to the will of the state governors and state governments. Some people say WWII got America out of the lingering problems of the Great Depression. But, if so, exactly how? It was because, in expanding FDR's pre-war jobs programs, Americans were put to work in communities and in factories that made products for the war effort. (Many of those factories, by the way, that were unionized then or later for good wages.) If FDR had deferred those jobs to some foreign, cheap-labor country, the war effort itself--employing large numbers of soldiers on the governmental payroll--would have been largely deficit without community and job benefit. That wouldn't have created a lasting, better American economy (and also is why modern wars are budget-busters now). FDR knew that jobs were needed here, whether or not there was a war.

Now in his presidency, we, and Obama himself, should hope that he is the FDR that the country desperately needed and needs. That's what will give Obama a legacy and pull America through its tough times.

Sage Street

The Year 2011...

News at 10...

News at 10...

11/11/11...

News at 10...

Remembering the dreadful 9/11 decade...

News at 10...

My advice about his advisers...

Ralph Nader was correct...again...

Fourth of July, 2011...

News, politics, religion, and pets...

The speech that Obama should give...

Accidental surfing and depressed endurance...

Poetry in commotion...

News at 10...

The issues to win the presidency in 2012...

More questions than answers...

News at 10...

An April entry for a busy month...

Buy products made in the country if you want to help your community and neighbors...

Cut this, cut that...How about keep this, if it works, and add this, as an improvement...

Time for Mubarak to leave...

Let the dominoes continue to fall...

News at 10...

Thoughts about the Tucson tragedy...

Observations, as 2011 begins...

The second annual Sages, for 2010...

Book Review: "The GI Bill, A New Deal for Veterans"

Bad poetry finds a home with rap music...

News at 10...

The Photo of the Year...

Presidential advisers mystify me...

Grace, disgrace, jellyfish politics, and journalism resources...

The difference between conservative and liberal environments...

Changing the dynamics of world secrecy...

Information Station...and Comments....

News at 10...

Common ground sounds like dirt to me...

Irritating candidates: "Up" yours...

News at 10...

Words born today...yesterday and tomorrow...

Easy answer why Obama has problems from progressive side...

News at 10...

Thank goodness--One war down...

Just for the record: Inventions...

Meringue on a cowpie...

News at 10...

Update on Prop. C vote and other comments...

Voting for the proposition that opposes mandated insurance...

Ben Nelson the asterisk, wolf sex, feeling like you're going to boot, and other facts and information of the summer...a three-part series...

Information Station...

Sherrod provides a chance for wise counsel...

News at 10...

"To Kill A Mockingbird" marks anniversary...

Obama had the progressives and independents when he was liberal in his campaign...

More tepid legislation to the rescue?...

Baffled by mysteries of popular opinion...

Information Station...

The Elizabeth Edwards interview...

Prospects of a 5-4 Supreme Court for a long, long time...

The paper shredder lasted an hour...

War is a quagmire, generals are incompetent, the public never learns from lessons...

Information Station...

News at 10...

Time for a new progressive third party...

News at 10...

Lessons to be learned from the primary elections...

Information Station...

If I were grading President Obama...

Leave American rights alone...

A refreshing change...

Fishermen and pirates and the framing of the issue...

News at 10...

What's Not For Me--New Media, Technology, and Gadgets...

One reason for passage...

News at 10...

Yes to public option or single-payer system, no to mandate alone...

Bipartisanship is a sinking ship...

Nuclear energy is costly and dangerous...