The Psychopathy Checklist

I don't put much stock in Robert Hare's psychopathy checklist, but just for fun we might want to check it against some of our political and corporate leaders. Hare estimates that about three million Americans are psychopaths. That means that if you go to a Santa Rosa Symphony concert, there are probably about three psychopaths in the audience and maybe one leading the orchestra. Keep in mind that psychopaths are often "deciders" who exhibit what humans call "leadership."

Leaders suffering from aggressive narcissism show many of the symptoms listed below:

• Glibness or superficial charm
• A grandiose sense of self-worth and pathological lying
  
• Cunning/ manipulative skills
• Lack of remorse or guilt for antisocial outcomes of their behavior.
• Shallow affect (genuine emotion is short-lived and self-centered)
• Callousness; lack of empathy
• Failure to accept responsibility for own actions

It's easy to point to examples of people who are glib, cunning, lack remorse and fail to accept responsibility for their own actions: Dick Cheney, Ralph Nader, Michele Bachmann, Noam Chomsky, Newt Gingrich, Bill Clinton, most corporate CEOs, Donald Trump, Mitt Romney, Paris Hilton, Ron and Rand Paul and so on.

Many of us are eager to follow at least one or two of them, aren't we?

No One Celebrates

People who said that it would make no difference if Obama or McCain won the Presidency, might want to consider the following message from President Obama.

"Early this morning, the last of our troops left Iraq. As we honor and reflect on the sacrifices that millions of men and women made for this war, I wanted to make sure you heard the news. Bringing this war to a responsible end was a cause that sparked many Americans to get involved in the political process for the first time. Today's outcome is a reminder that we all have a stake in our country's future, and a say in the direction we choose."

John McCain, outraged, has protested. He wanted the war to continue endlessly.

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We don't say it out loud, but the sacrifices made by our men and women and by the Iraqis were made for nothing. They died for nothing. The war was pointless, except that it made certain rich Republicans even richer. What we hear today, a few days after leaving Iraq, is that the Shia President has begun to crush the Sunni minority. As many predicted, the outcome in Iraq may be a new dictatorship to replace the old dictatorship, the real difference being that the new dictator will befriend Iran.

We can't face pointless deaths in an open way, but a war has ended and no one is celebrating.

Teabagger Studies

Studies of teabaggers have begun to reach us, and we can begin to form a more accurate picture of them. For instance, the Teabaggers have always been Radical Right Republicans and always will be. They have never voted for Democrats.

Teabaggers are old. They have no youth branch, but if they did they would look down on it because young people are not old. Teabaggers regard young people as fools.

Teabaggers approve of government programs to support wise old white semi-literate people. They disapprove of programs to help children, people of color and young adults. They don't care for public education, prenatal health counseling, student loans, etc. These things are, in the Teabagger's view, undeserved freeloading.

Teabaggers are as white as polished rice but not as smooth to touch.

Teabaggers like Newt Gingrich because he is an authentic butt-head who looks wisely ancient. Newt is their idea of an intellectual leader, someone has noted.

Teabaggers disapprove of the sciences and rational discussion. In their view, the idea that some people are better informed than others undermines democracy, which depends on a belief that all old men are equally wise.

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This is a curious era in the sense that we have a block of ignorant old people who dislike the young vs. a larger and growing block of young voters looking for change. Perhaps that is always the case, but seldom has the division been so stark. The election in 2012 will decide a generational struggle. The next year should be fascinating.

Free Yourself

The great American revolution of the 2oth century went unnoticed by many of us, because it was silent and leaderless. In 1900 about 90% of black people in America lived in the South, where they were denied citizenship. In the 1920s, for example, if you were a black motorist, you were forbidden by law, in much of the South, to pass a white motorist on the road. Over the next 50 years about half the blacks, deciding one at a time, moved out. They freed themselves.

Bloomberg the Book Burner

Have you ever wondered what Mayor Michael Bloomberg of NYC is up to? I haven't.

I mean, until now. Bloomberg's a billionaire and a five foot pile of horseshit in a wig. My guess is that he bought himself a political job to get more face time on camera.

Last week he confiscated the donated 5,000 copy library of Occupy Wall Street and had it destroyed. That makes him Bloomberg the Book Burner. He did this, he claimed, to protect the citizens of New York, which he accomplishes by assaulting those citizens with hordes of large blue men wielding batons and pepper spray against children and old ladies.

Bloomberg is a typical American mayor, funded by real estate interests. By "protecting citizens" what he means is "protecting the system run by the 1%." A few people in tents are pushing for changes in the system--so tenting must be against the law and punishable by street justice. If you tent in NYC, Billionaire Bloomberg will beat you black and blue.

Big Window

I like to amuse the Peace Project's Bob Boardman with new facts (new to me). The last time we had dinner together, about ten days ago, he spent most of the meal staring out the Big Window. I finally told him that 100,000 Jews (half Jews and quarter Jews) had fought in Hitler's army. "I didn't know that," he said, glancing at me, then resuming his stare.

A few years back Bob decided to bike in the AIDS ride from San Francisco to Los Angeles. He hadn't done much serious cycling, so the little bike club I belong to provided people for him to train with.

Anyway, Bob loves this club. Until recently he has joined us on twice-a-week excursions, where the point is to play like kids and then stop and eat something sweet. Bob fell on the trail for no apparent reason on his last ride. I suspect that he fell because he'd started to look through the Big Window. That's no way to ride a bike.

When Bob steps through the Window, everything will change. Nothing can stop that. The way I see it, we're here only once, so we should be good to each other right now. We won't get another turn. That is, more or less, my politics. Bob Boardman--no one better--has gotten his turn right.

Not Enough Jobs

We've seen the new Sonoma County pension proposal made by Supervisors Shirlee Zane and David Rabbit, and it is conventional, thoughtless and a good illustration of why the Democrats will have a hard time enlisting the 99%ers into their party. The Tea Party fled immediately into the arms of the Republicans because they were Republicans to start with and because the Tea Party wanted funding from Wall Street. Now the Democrats hope for a similar boost from the 99%ers, but they won't get it unless they figure out why the 99ers are in revolt. So far they haven't.

The county Democrats plan to reduce benefits for county employees (a Republican concept involving punishing the poor for the sins of the rich) and to increase the age of retirement (guaranteed to reduce employment slots for young people). The elected Democrats are not getting the message--they listen to corporate campaign donors, not to ordinary people.

The basic problem is that there are 7 billion people on the planet and not enough jobs to go around. The Democratic Party response is to make the lucky folks who have jobs keep them longer, shutting out newcomers. That's senseless.

We live in an age where technology ends more jobs than it creates (see RACE AGAINST THE MACHINE by Erik Brynjolfsson and Andrew McAfee). That is our future, except that it's going to get worse. Robots are more profitable than human workers. Our current economic system depends on everyone working to earn money so we can purchase products etc. And the system is failing because many cannot find work. An estimated 2 billion people on this planet go to bed hungry each night.

There are quick temporary fixes for the relatively rich Western World. We could cut the work week to 35 hours and have instant full employment. We could make the retirement age 55 and have full employment. But our ideology--when times get tough, America punishes the poor--forbids these answers. Our political class doesn't get it (or doesn't want to). Almost no one in power is listening. Finding humane answers is left the powerless.

Zini's

Zini's Diner in Cloverdale, next to Ace Hardware, has been rated as the best diner in Sonoma County. Susan and I finally went and ate the pan-friend chicken with real mashed potatoes ($10). It was like home if your mom was a good cook. Fine house-made apple pie. Friendly atmosphere and zero ambiance.

Rich Man's Disease

Now that the class warfare season has begun, with the Rich attacking the Poor, debaters and bloggers should be careful how we employ certain terms, one of which is "the rich man's disease." This concept, the philosopher Wittgenstein might point out, has several quite unrelated meanings or uses. It's easy to confuse or conflate them.

In one context "rich man's disease" is a reference to sexual addiction, a malady found only among the wealthy. It has never been diagnosed in the poor, who are merely lewd or sluttish.

In a second context "rich man's disease" is kleptomania, a treatable disorder. Again this emotional problem doesn't develop among the poor, who merely steal things and go to prison.

A third type of disorder--and a considerable handicap--attacks rich Christians, who are nearly all born with a reading comprehension deficit. For example, they read the Bible without comprehending key passages like "Sooner shall a camel (or rope in some translations) pass through the eye of a needle than a rich man enter heaven." To date there is no known cure for this disease and no attempt to find a cure.

In discussions with the rich, we should at all times remain polite and supportive, keeping in mind that we might be addressing someone burdened with diseases unavailable to the likes of us and someone certain to go to Hell if the Good Book has any truth in it.

Can Obama Win?

The cable and network analysts of our Presidential horse race are a waste of time, unless you find them entertaining, and I do. If you want to predict who will win the popular vote in the next election consider the following.

1. The campaigns by the Democratic and the Republican candidates will cancel one another out. Also the campaigns will be followed only by voters who are already committed. Republican and Democratic voters cancel each other out. Everyone else will find the campaigns an annoyance and pay them little attention.

2. The election will be, like all Presidential elections, a referendum by the voters on the party in power in the White House. Should that party remain in power in the White House because it's doing okay or not?

3. The criteria used by our pragmatic, uninformed, independent voters in judging the White House will be varied and subjective. The election will not be decided by one or two factors like the economy or foreign policy or who is likable.
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Most of the above comes from THE KEYS TO THE PRESIDENCY by Allan Lightman and Ken DeCell, who have worked out a list of 13 factors that enable them to predict the popular vote in Presidential contests. Their system has worked for the last 33 Presidential elections. No other predicting system comes close to that record.

Note that the 13 keys predict the popular vote and not the outcome, which has been stolen several times by Republicans (Hayes/Tilden and Bush/Gore come to mind).

This method does not use polls, because polls are, as many have learned, unverifiable and unreliable.
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The Thirteen Keys

There is no way to weight these keys and apparently no need to do so. The operating rule is that if five or fewer of the following keys are false, the incumbent party wins the popular vote. To date this method has been accurate in every case.

True or false is determined by general voter perception, not by right or left ideology.
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1. The White House incumbent party gained seats in the last House election. (False)

2. There is no serious contest for the incumbent party's nomination. (True)

3. The incumbent party candidate is the sitting President. (True)

4. There is no significant third-party candidate. (T/F)

5. The economy is not in recession. (T/F)

6. Real per-capita economic growth is positive. (T/F)

7. The incumbent has made major changes in national policy. (T/F)

8. There is no sustained social unrest. (T/F)

9. There is no major incumbent party scandal. (T/F)

10. There has been no major failure in foreign or military affairs. (T/F)

11. The administration has achieved a major success in foreign or military affairs. (T/F)

12. The incumbent candidate is charismatic or a national hero. (T/F)

13. The challenging party candidate is not charismatic or a national hero. (T/F)

Veronica's Secret

Veronica's Secret, whatever it was, turned out to be the best kept secret of the 2oth Century. To this day no one has revealed the secret, but it's not because of lack of research. When I received the Veronica's Secret catalog in the mail, I studied each page closely, hoping to find clues, and so did many other scholars. Somewhere in those photographs of busty young women in their underwear lay the answer. . . .

I believe it is now clear that at least one person has figured the secret out, and that is Sarah Palin, who, each day, looks more like a Veronica's Secret model, only older and with a gigantic gong (old football term for a player's head). Palin is as welcome among male political reporters, including liberals, as a Veronica's Secret catalog. In fact, nearly all men in politics gravitate to her, except for Michele Bachmann's husband.

We'd better start counting on this new Veronica's Secret factor playing big in future American politics. By 2016 we are likely to see one of Fox News' row of indistinguishable blond ladies leading the Republican ticket (and keeping the secret, of course).

The Gaddafi Loyalists

As a leftist--a pragmatic one--I've had no problem deciding which side to support in the Arab spring. When ordinary people go into the street to overthrow a brutal dictator with tanks, I hope they succeed. I find it sad that a few people on the Left support the tyrants, but then some people are daft.

I'm not talking about pacifists. They oppose violence and war as a matter of principle, and I respect that. I'm talking about flat-out support for tyrants like Gaddafi.

Two of the leading Gaddafi loyalists are people I long admired--and I was wrong to do so. Cynthia McKinney has celebrated the vicious 40-year reign of Gaddafi in many venues in the Middle East, including Libyan television. Celebrating Gaddafi seems to have become her new profession. Hugo Chavez is on the net with a video I've watched in which he claims that the fall of Tripoli's Green square happened not in Libya but in Qatar, where it was staged with actors.

McKinney and Chavez are, of course, trapped in ideologies that make it impossible for the United States to be on the right side of an issue even by accident.

Pap the Teabagger

In a column last week in The Financial Times, Gary Silverman pointed out that Huckleberry Finn's father, Pap, sounded like a member of the Tea Party. (Thanks to Tom Belton for calling this to my attention.)

Pap is an unabashed racist and "whenever his liquor began to work, he most always went for the government." Pap is fearful, afraid the government will take away his meager belongings. When a free black man appears in his town, Pap flies into a rage. This black man is a professor from a midwestern state, has a mixed race background, dresses well and "could talk all kinds of languages, and knowed everything." Pap wants the man sold into slavery.

Living back before the Civil War, Pap would not have been a Republican, but times have changed. Frightened racists are today the backbone of the Tea Party, and that makes them central in Republican primaries. The Tea Party, unfortunately, is as American as apple pie.

THE HELP reviewed

The most popular movie in the USA is "THE HELP." At first glance this film about race and women's relationships might seem to be an odd pick for number one, but it packed our little theater on a Monday night. The movie was compelling and entertaining, and I recommend it with reservations.

THE HELP is a key American story, one that we enjoy again and again, working out (I think) feelings about ourselves and our history. We insist on this story in the same way that children may insist on hearing repeatedly a tale about how a duckling gets lost and then gets found. It's a safe way to deal with something uncomfortable and make sure it ends well every time.

This is the generic story (found in THE LAST OF THE MOHICANS, HUCK FINN, AVATAR, THE BLIND SIDE, etc.) A member of the dominant culture comes to value those in the dominated culture and helps them, and rewarding friendships develop. The story's protagonist, of course, is the helper from the dominant culture (the culture that buys the most movie tickets).

Black intellectuals have criticized THE HELP--which sets out to show fictional black servants telling their own stories--as being unrepresentative of reality. I have to say this: the blacks strike me as being more real than the whites in the movie. The whites are mostly cartoon figures. I would not want to see this movie with a Tea Party audience.

I wonder what black viewers without doctorates think of the film. I suspect they enjoy it, as I did.

For me what kept THE HELP from being first rate was its sentimentality. That's often what separates the rest from the best. Everything gets slightly softened. The movie is comfortably moving, unlike life. That adds to popularity. The black intellectuals have a point, but this glimpse into how people treat one another--I've seen Latina house cleaners treated badly in Healdsburg--has value. And the movie kept the audience interested.

Juan Cole on Qaddafi

My guess is that the great majority of American voters remain unacquainted with the segment of the American Internet Left that once again mourns the overthrow of a mass murderer, this time the dictator of Libya for 40 years. I write of the tyrant Qaddafi (whose name has been spelled at least nine ways).

These mourners are, to borrow a descriptive term from Juan Cole, daft.

Let's look at what Cole had to say about the claim that the Libyan war was about oil. "That is daft. Libya was already integrated into the international oil markets, and had done billions of deals with BP, ENI, etc., etc. None of those companies would have wanted to endanger their contracts by getting rid of the ruler who had signed them. . . . Moreover, taking Libyan oil off the market through a NATO military intervention could have been foreseen to put up oil prices, which no Western elected leader would have wanted to see, especially Barack Obama, with the danger that a spike in energy prices could prolong the economic doldrums. An economic argument for imperialism is fine if it makes sense, but this one does not, and there is no good evidence for it . . . and is therefore just a conspiracy theory."

But why do most of us on the Left oppose dictatorships to begin with? It's not as if what we call Western Democracies are responsive to their citizens. If they were, the United States would have a single payer health care system. Western Democracies are obviously oligarchies run for the benefit of the rich--but the rest of us do have, on occasion, some small impact on decisions. Built into our governance systems is a bit of flexibility not found in the rigidity of dictatorships. We can and do change--to a degree--with the times. That's better than nothing. It's better than a dictatorship.

At least some of American mourners of Qaddafi suffer from Obama Derangement Syndrome. They blame the war on Obama, giving little credit to the ordinary citizens of Libya, armed with handguns and axes, who attacked the dictator's tanks. Qaddafi's fall is Obama's fault, they totally believe, and so is everything else.

Obama Derangement Syndrome

The Republicans are having a hard time deciding which butthead to run for President. They have Mitt, an artificial man something like Nixon but without Nixon's gravitas. No one likes him. They have Michele, a primitive religious nutter who stares into the wrong camera with confused, half mad eyes. And now they have Rick Perry, my favorite because when he was a new legislator in Texas he wore tight pants--his nickname was "Crotch." You gotta love "Crotch Perry for President!"

Meanwhile the Democrats try to cope with the Obama Derangement Syndrome (ODS). Those suffering from ODS believe that Obama was born in Kenya (the Right) or that Obama is a Republican (the Left). Right and Left ODSers agree on one thing: that Obama is a Fascist. There is no known cure for this malady, and it's a bummer, man.

PROF. WISDOM

About 50 years ago I came across a pamphlet written by Prof. Wisdom, the master of an unnamed discipline. In the pamphlet Prof. Wisdom argued that the Irish had descended from Neanderthals. Well, my grandmother came over on the boat from Ireland, and I enjoyed the pamphlet and showed around through the years on the assumption that it was false. It wasn't. It turns out the the Irish (and the rest of Europe) carry between 1% and 4% Neanderthal DNA. The only people lacking this DNA are Africans. And that is one of the things that make us different from the non-human apes.

Playing Hard to Get

Some progressives argue that we can move President Obama and the Democratic Party by playing hard to get. That's a strategy I've seen work in the past. Doris Day used to do it to Rock Hudson. And it was amazingly successful, even in cases where Rock Hudson was gay.

Yes, today we're living in the age of Paris Hilton and hard-to-get wasn't the motto of (even) Elizabeth Taylor, but if the strategy worked in romantic comedies in the 1950s, why won't it work in American politics in 2012?

I have to admit that playing hard to get never worked for me or for anyone I know, but there's always a first time.

The Obama Mystery

We used to argue about G. W. Bush--was he shrewd in a vicious way or merely a stupid burned-out dry drunk or perhaps something else entirely? I never found a convincing answer that explained his murderous behavior, other than the obvious fact that he lacked decent parents. (I know I treat the Bush family badly, but so did Mother Nature.)

Now we wonder about Obama. What makes him tick? He's been accused of being racist, Republican, Kenyan, detesticulated, dumb, etc. None of that rings true. But Obama does remind me of Eisenhower, another President whose approach to solving a problem was to seek the middle. We all have lifelong strategies for coping--Obama's is to seek the middle between black and white. Under pressure he reverts to his basic problem-solving strategy.

If you're old enough, you can remember Eisenhower, a Republican, accepting in a half-hearted way the changes of the New Deal. During WW II, Ike's job was to keep a balance between the opposing strategies of Montgomery and Bradley. Ike mediated from the middle. Later he kept us out of wars but sent in the CIA assassins, much as Obama sends in drones. When Joseph McCarthy attacked Ike's beloved army and his mentor, George Marshall, Ike fumed in private but kept out of the conflict, letting others cope with it.

I expect history to find Eisenhower, as President, above average--the modern average being a half-demented ignoramus. Obama is also above average, but doomed to negotiate the middle with the Wall Street Oligarchy who, in turn, have to negotiate with radical right teabaggers too stupid to feed themselves soup.

What a great system of governance we have.

Long Train to Nowhere

No doubt you have seen one of those long trains, the ones with two or three engines in front and one in back (no caboose these days). You look down the track, and the train rumbles on, hundreds of cars, out of sight. You might ask yourself how many workers are on board.

The correct answer is: one.

Everyone else has been replaced by automation. If that one engineer falls off the train, no one will be on board. Or if the engineer takes out a bottle of whiskey and drinks straight shots, a drunk will be aboard. Or if the engineer grows lonely for a human voice and calls his wife, one inattentive dreamer will be on board. Automation will take care of safety, except when it doesn't.

We're headed for a time when there will be one person working at the General Motors plant, flipping an on/off switch. Meanwhile the unemployment rate for Blacks is about 20%.

Maybe we should start to talk about this.

The South Secedes Again

The first time the South seceded from the United States, two of my great-grandfathers fought as privates to free the slaves. Make no mistake about what and who caused the war. Most of the rich people of the South had most of their money tied up in valuable slaves. That was their capital. They seceded to protect their investment.

Slavery was, as General Grant noted, as bad a cause as anyone ever supported.

In a way we are still fighting the Civil War today; The Tea Party, someone said on television, represents secession. The Tea Party is united around an issue that reminds me of the South in 1860: escape from the federal government. This escape takes many forms: hating people of color and immigrants and viewing women as inferiors (the government offers them some protection); home schooling rather than school district education; crippling all government by cutting its income; ending social security and Medicare; threatening to secede; arming vigilante militias; claiming the government is not legitimate; claiming to represent the original founding fathers (a tactic copied from the South in 1860); freeing itself from a belief in history and in science, including economics, climate studies, biology, geology (the earth is 6,000 years old)--in short, freedom from facts. The object of all this is to prop up a jumbled ideology that is unrelated to reality as our species understands it. Like slavery, Tea Partyism can not be defended rationally.

The good news is that Tea Party represents a minority of voters. The bad news is that we are still fighting for the sanity of a nation.

It's rumored that Rick Perry, a governor of a once Confederate State, who has threatened to secede, may run for the Republican presidential nomination. The Tea Party loves him. I hope he wins the nomination--that should make the situation clear to the majority of Americans, including the 400 families that form our oligarchy. They supported and used the Tea Party in the past, but things got out of hand. Monopoly Capitalism vs. Radical Right Populism--it might make a good monster movie.

The 600 Pound Gorilla

The other day I heard a history professor talking about what had caused the Civil War. At the start of the war, he said, the Southern orators spoke of nothing but the need to protect slavery (slaves were the most valuable property owned in the United States, worth more money than the railroads and manufacturing plants combined). Ten years after the war, the Southern orators began to claim that the war had been started because of many important factors, of which slavery was only one. The war had been fought over states' rights, for example (the right to own slaves) and Northern financial dominance and so on.

You see, the South is no longer quite as certain as it once was that slavery is humane and uplifting and sanctioned by Jesus Christ. So the claim is that the Civil War was fought for many reasons.

The historian drew an analogy. Suppose you went to see King Kong for the first time. Someone later asked you what the movie was about. "A gigantic ape," you replied. Ten years later someone else asks you the same question. "King Kong?" you reply. "It's about many things. The movie is filled with interesting characters."

A Liberal Plot

We pay a heavy price when we elect fools to public office. I remember reading, about ten years ago, that scientists had determined that Sonoma County was undergoing climate change--it was getting hotter at a rate faster than average for the nation as a whole. It occurred to me that this might not be good for premium wine grapes. Much of the economy of Healdsburg depends on fine wine grapes. When I tried to discuss this with the City Hall Old Boys at the time--mostly Republicans--they told me to ignore science. "Climate change is a liberal anti-business myth," they insisted.

Today the main headline in the Press Corporate Democrat is "WARMING CALLED MAJOR THREAT TO GRAPES." All you really need to read is the first sentence: "Global warming could leave half of Napa Valley's famed vineyards unsuitable to grow premium grapes by 2040," according to a Stanford study.

For some vintners, that sort of news is best met by denial. There is one problem with denying the plans of Mother Nature, however: what Mother Nature wants will happen. The consent of vintners and goofy Republican ideologists is not required.

I don't doubt that smarter vintners are working on ways to mitigate the growing heat, and I expect public universities like Davis to find ways to help unless we close them down to save money. All is not lost. But what fools we be.

Our Candidate for President

It's no secret that progressives in general are disappointed with President Obama and that the Facebook Left tends to be outraged. This is not because Obama has accomplished nothing. He gambled his presidency on opening the door to universal health care. He integrated gays into the military. He ended our combat mission in our most pointless and stupid war (Iraq). The problem is that Obama is by temperament a thoughtful centrist who operates in slow motion. That's not what progressives voted for. He's not FDR, Truman, JFK or LBJ.

The Republicans apparently will nominate a daffy liar or an empty suit who caters to the Tea Party. That makes Obama our candidate for President in 2012.

Congressman Weiner

In the long line of political figures who mispronounce their own names, Hamilton Jordan (which he pronounced "Jerdin") used to be my favorite, but now Anthony Weiner, a congressman planning to run for mayor of New York, has pushed Jerdin into second place. Congressman Weiner first became famous as an aggressive defender of progressive ideas. Then he became even more famous for sharing photographic information about the bulge in his underpants and lying about having done this with the fervor of wolverine. Today he has few defenders because people fear the next Weiner surprise.

So far Weiner is guilty of tweeting some suggestive photographs of himself (not a crime) and then lying about it (not a crime). But many people believe his behavior is creepy and find his hard-nosed lying offensive. To date, no real sex has been uncovered, just minor exhibitionism. As a comic said, "Never has anyone lost so much in return for so little."

Should Weiner resign? I don't care. As our entitled political leaders go, he's probably average.

The truth is that men have all sorts of fantastic sexual notions, some of which are physically impossible--but most men don't act out the stupid ones. They grasp the difference between fantasy and reality. They hope no one can read their minds. Weiner lost his grip on the difference and did it in public--anything you put on the internet is public.

Apparently many political leaders cannot get it through their gongs that (1) no matter where they go, someone will be filming them with cell phone, (2) that if they tweet an underpants shot, it will end up on TV, and (3) that if they go on the Colbert show, they will look ridiculous.

--Gary Goss

Iran's Bomb

There is a new American National Intelligence Estimate on Iran. Our own government experts state that there is no convincing evidence that Iran is building a weapon. None. Nada. Nothing.

We are boycotting Iran to stop a program that doesn't exist (as far as we know). And we have spies reporting to us from all over Iran. You can read about this. See Seymour Hersh, in the June 6 New Yorker, where he discusses the new National Intelligence Estimate on Iran.

When you spot someone talking on television about when Iran will get the bomb, remember that, as far as our government intelligence agencies are concerned, there is nothing to back up the claim that Iran even has a program in mind. The talking heads are slicing pure baloney.

Two Nonidentical Parties

In case you missed it, yesterday the House of Representatives fell a few votes short of ending the war in Afghanistan. Democrats voted against the war by a margin of 178 to 8. The Republicans voted for the war 207 to 26.

Palestine and Israel

Two unrelated thoughts. . . .

1. President Obama ventured into the 3,000 year war between Israel and the Palestinians this week, suggesting that peace talks should begin with a discussion of the 1967 borders (with land concessions from both sides) and that the Palestinians not take this to the United Nations (why not?). He tried to give something to both sides and took a tiny half-step in the Palestinian direction. As a consequence he is under attack by both sides with the Republicans promoting comments somewhere to the right of Benjamin Netanyahu.

The conflict remains, for now, intractable. Hamas, elected by the Palestinians, is still devoted to the complete destruction of Israel, while Israel. with its elected leaders, is still devoted to a humiliating apartheid repression of the Palestinians. But adults don't give up on peace. Obama deserves credit for attempting to move things along. In the end peace can come only from the Palestinians and Israelis, and my unorthodox view, approved of by few, is that this is one more war the United States should withdraw from.

2. Dan Walters, a conservative columnist for the Sacramento Bee, not often a favorite of mine, has published a piece on California's two-tiered economy. When he pointed out that Asian women in California have a life expectancy of 18 years more than Black males, it reinforced the truth that the rich live longer than the poor. If you value life, that's something to keep in mind. The two-tiered economy is not new, of course. The New Yorker recently noted that in 1887 the top one percent of Americans owned fifty-one per cent of the nation's wealth. That's worse than today, and it was the ideal Wall Street Republican nation, composed of the Rich and the wage slaves. Who needs a middle class?

Manifest Destiny

I hope we don't forget that the first time the United States took Monterey, California, from the Latinos occurred on October 18, 1842. The frigate UNITED STATES, led by Thomas Jones, arrived off Monterey. Commodore Jones, under the mistaken impression that Mexico and the United States were at war, came ashore and announced that he was taking possession of the port in the name of his government. The stunned locals, under the guns of several American ships, signed the document that Jones produced. What followed was an unpleasant ceremony in which the Mexican flag was pulled down and replaced by the stars and stripes.

You might wonder why the name Jones is not as famous as the names of Fremont, Kearny, Sloat and Stockton. Here's the problem. The day after Jones captured Monterey, news arrived that Mexico and the United States were not at war. Jones took down the American flag and sailed away. The next try for California would come four years later when Fremont's forces, the famous Bear Flag volunteers, conquered the undefended town of Sonoma and arrested Mariano Vallejo, after he had fed them a delicious supper.

The Shores of Tripoli

The oldest military monument in the United States is the Tripoli Monument, now on site at the US Naval Academy in Annapolis, Maryland. It's there to remind us of the First Barbary War (1801-5), our original foreign war, fought under President Thomas Jefferson. Arab pirates along the Barbary Coast, seeking ransom and tribute, had been attacking our merchant ships and holding them for ransom. The USS Enterprise helped put an end to all that.

Piracy was, after all, a government sponsored business, and after some sharp battles, a business arrangement (treaty) was signed in 1805.

More recently Osama Bin Laden, mass-murderer, founder and leader of al-Qaida, was shot to death by American Navy Seals in his hideout in Pakistan. The Seals had been instructed to take Osama prisoner if he managed to surrender, and a team of experts had been assembled to question him. As it turned out, the Seals killed Bin Laden, leaving roughly 11% of Americans to mourn his passing. As someone asked recently, "Who are these people?"

I am not one of the 11%, mostly because Bin Laden was intent on murdering me. I understand how self-centered that sounds, but there you have it. I feel safer with Osama buried at sea.

It's not unusual, in a war, for one side to target the other side's leader (check out the fate of Admiral Yamamoto in World War Two). As Osama has discovered, wars are hell, and he should not have started one.

an assassin dies

I'm opposed to the death penalty and not for sentimental reasons. We all die. Good people die. I just don't want the state holding people down and killing them because it sets a bad example for the other psychopaths.

Like most people I was glad to see Osama bin Laden dead. In my view Osama was a descendent of the Hashshashin , the Nizari branch of the Ismā'īlī Shia founded by the Persian Hassan aṣ-Ṣabbaḥ during the Middle Ages. They were active in the castle of Masyaf in Syria, which is where they came to our attention. The group murdered members of the Muslim Abbasid, Seljuq, and Christian religions for political and religious reasons. This was where we got the term "assassin." Osama was an assassin killed while resisting arrest. Well done.

Dumbing Down of Republicans

Today Donald Trump, a human road apple, is a leading contender for the Republican nomination for President. Trump's issue has been President Obama's "missing" long form birth certificate (now made public after the President's special request). This must be the dumbest political issue of my lifetime.

I've been thinking about how things got so bad.

Until 2010 the Republican Party existed as a conduit to pass laws that would transfer money from poor people to rich people. It took smart Ivy League lawyers to pull off this fraud. As recently as George W. Bush that was still the party's core function. But Republicans could not run on theft from the poor as an issue.

To win elections, the Republicans had to mislead voters, and, in theory, the less informed the voters were, the better the Republicans would do. We're familiar with how they went about dumbing down voters: Fox News, a stress on racism, laws to hamper registration of young voters, defunding public schools, etc. The problem with this 30 year campaign is that it turned into a slippery slope. The Republican party ended up way too dumb. Now it has produced the Tea Party (right wing populists), who run Republican policy. Wall Street is appalled--the Teabaggers are on a path to destroy the American government and the world economy, because they know nothing. They don't listen to the corporate oligarchy that manages America.

The Wall Street Republicans have a problem.

An example of current stupidity is the attempt to appeal the California court decision against Proposition 8 (forbidding gay marriage) on the grounds that the judge who made it was gay. Here is the reasoning. The judge was gay. The issue was gay rights. Therefore, the judge was biased.

This is an interesting new standard without legal precedent. Let's see how if might work.

If the Prop 8 judge had been straight, that would also have been a bias. Only a bisexual judge would have been fair.

In cases involving racism,unbiased multiracial judges would be required. In cases about the rights of women, only transgendered judges could render evenhanded verdicts. Cases involving religion would be tried by agnostics. And so on.

I doubt if this will catch on.

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What the Republicans did was follow Wall Street Karl Rove's strategy, which was to maximize the stupid vote. The stupid soon took over the Republican primaries, to Rove's dismay, defeated Wall Street incumbents and elected raving loonies to public office.

What does this illustrate? The law of unintended consequences.

Gary Goss

The Loony Bin: Ayn Rand

A y n R a n d (rhymes with Cain Band) was a Russian with a terrible first name and a wandering eye who became known for developing a teenager's "philosophy" called objectivism. She moved to the United States in 1926 and eventually wrote (quite badly) THE FOUNTAINHEAD and ATLAS SHRUGGED.

Rand is popular at the moment in some rightwing circles and (I am guessing) among advocates of open marriage who horse around with each other Back East.

All you really need to know about Rand's beliefs is that she advocated egoism and unrestricted capitalism, making her a favorite author among CEOs of major corporations, disastrous economists, and happy libertarians, who read her (correctly) as a ruthless rightwing anarchist seeking absolute freedom at the expense of the less fortunate.

In recent years we have seen her ugly beliefs being applied to living flesh by lamebrains like Alan Greenspan, Ron Paul, Rand Paul and Corporate Republicans in general. In Rand they claim to find a justification to tax the poor and subsidize the super rich. They ignore her atheism. She's again the rage. Meanwhile, I wish she were dead.

Actually she is dead.

Ayn Rand was a dim-witted self-centered cougar, but I doubt if she wanted us to tax the poor and subsized the rich. I can't say for certain. She was long ago dismissed by experts in fiction and by experts in philosophy. Life is too short to spend weeks of it studying the trash she generated. She's not part of an education.

In the human comedy we all enjoy, we can take a certain pleasure in watching, once again, how easily deluded we are. My suggestion is that we name all our cats "Rand" and then get back to living together. (Could that be the reality Rand of Russia missed: that humans live together?)


Gary Goss

The Devolution of Republican Leaders

I remember when many of us thought President Eisenhower was of barely normal intelligence, because he seemed inarticulate. That was wrong, of course--Eisenhower had been smart enough to cope with Hitler, Roosevelt and Churchill. He was inarticulate in public because (my theory) he was hiding a sharp personality behind a grinning boyish charm, even at age 70. That much self-censorship would make most people trip on their tongues.

Next we thought that Gerald Ford was stupid. In fact, we said, Nixon had named Ford as his Vice President because nobody would ever remove Nixon from office if the alternative was a thickheaded dunce who had played football without a helmet. President Ford was the first man of whom it was said that he couldn't walk and chew gum at the same time. Chevy Chase achieved fame by playing Ford on Saturday Night Live as a fool who repeatedly fell over furniture and landed on his ass. Compared to some recent political leaders, though, Ford now looks like the dean of graduate studies.

George W. Bush is commonly thought to be the most stupid President in American history, although not the most stupid major candidate, who remains Dan Quayle. I once saw Quayle in person. He had a single mixed expression, fear of punishment combined with puzzlement. It was the look of a man who could not spell his own name and had been beaten on top of his gong for it. Example: when he addressed the United Negro College Fund, whose slogan is "A mind is a terrible thing to waste," Quayle said, "You take the UNCF model that what a waste it is to lose one's mind or not to have a mind is being very wasteful. How true that is."

But Quayle is a paradigm of informed wisdom compared the what the Tea Party has coughed up on the lawn in the last two years. Now we are down to slobs set on ending contraception on the grounds that having sex once every nine months more than meets their copulatory needs. They wave Confederate flags, stare with hogs' hungry eyes, and tell you slavery wasn't so bad. After 2010 they rode into Washington, two to a mule, on saddles made of recycled toxic waste, determined to destroy the federal government, sack the world economy, and reverse events that had once taken place at Appomattox Courthouse. They live in an alternate universe composed of twaddle.

It's enough to make you wonder why democracy failed in Athens, replaced by an oligarchy of wealthy families, unless that sounds familiar.

Celebrating Slavery

I noticed recently that the White Republican South has launched a five year official celebration of the Civil War, which they started about 150 years ago. This is roughly the equivalent of Germany hosting a five year celebration of the Holocaust.

Like many others, I tend to let dim the horror that was slavery, when four million people were held in conditions that allowed torture, murder and rape. The viciousness of this crime against humanity stains American history--or it would if we talked about it. For the most part the North is silent, part of the bargain we made when we brought the South back into the union, a major mistake. (Consider what our government would look like today without the South.)

About 40% of our people believe that the South went to war to preserve states' rights, which is almost a half-truth. The South fought to preserve one right, the right to extend slavery into the new states, where the tide was running against them. To build an army, the South initiated the country's first draft, a one-year term for poor farmers that was soon extended to last the duration of the war.

Two of my great-grandfathers, I can say, fought as privates to free the slaves. I doubt if they would have been pleased to see a five year celebration of those who fought for what General Grant called the worst cause known to history.

No doubt the most celebrated rebel will be General Robert E. Lee, a noble-looking slaver, considered at the start of the Civil War to be among the South's ten best military leaders. No one then thought him the best. That honor went to Albert Sidney Johnston, killed at Shiloh. Jefferson Davis called his death "the turning point of the war." It now seems likely that, like Stonewall Jackson, Johnston was shot by one of his own draftees, perhaps by accident.

In any case, Robert E. Lee went on to defeat about eight Union generals, each of them fourth-rate. Lee had no opposition. As a general Lee was active, imaginative, rash and headstrong. When he finally met a second-rate general, Meade, at Gettysburg, Lee got crushed. Once Grant got hold of Lee--Grant won every battle he ever fought--the noble slaver was beaten like a rented mule.

We're going to hear a lot of rubbish about the great Bobby Lee in the next five years. I'm gritting my teeth.

Dewey Defeats Truman !

As you may have read, a Republican county clerk, Kathy Nickolaus, in Wisconsin found, in the aftermath of Justice David Prosser's reelection defeat, an additional 14,000 votes, which reversed the loss and gave her former boss for 13 years a resounding victory.

By late afternoon, Nickolaus had also taken authorities to Jimmy Hoffa's body, missing since July 30, 1975. Hoffa, who had once led the International Brotherhood of Teamsters, was found buried under the football stadium in Green Bay. She next found Judge Crater, missing since August 6, 1930, living in a suburb of Madison.

By midnight, with the help of Karl Rove, Ms. Nickolaus had located the missing section of Franz Schubert's Unfinished Symphony, the Lost Ark (containing the stones on which the Ten Commandments had been written and Aaron's rod and a petrified jar of manna), and enough loose votes to elect Thomas E. Dewey President of the United States in 1948.

She went to bed satisfied. We congratulate Ms. Nickolaus on her remarkable day.

Oahu

I hear complaints that President Obama doesn't bargain like a hard man from Chicago. That's right. He isn't from Chicago. He bargains like a man from Oahu.

Healdsburg Owls

Baseball fans may be aware that a Giants fan made the mistake of attending opening day at Dodgers Stadium, where a group of Dodger fans beat him down in the parking lot. He is now in a coma with brain damage.

For some years I worked on Long Island, and I recall well the last time I went to a Mets game. My wife and I took our two little girls, fans of the club, and once we were seated I realized that we had taken them to what amounted to an outdoor saloon filled with drunken louts. When they weren't pouring beer into their mouths, they were shouting obscenities. The Mets lost.

After the game, we got onto the train with the other fans, and again we were surrounded by obnoxious drunks, including one in particular, a guy wearing glasses, who spent the trip cursing loudly (being manly, no doubt) and making racist remarks--he attributed the Mets loss to the one Black player on the team, Mookie Wilson, (who had played very well). Our car was parked at the first stop, and as I got off, I had to pass the loudmouth, so I rammed my shoulder into him. To my great pleasure, his glasses popped off and fell into the crack between the train and the platform, where they could not be retrieved. We could hear him grieving as we walked away.

Meanwhile, many years later, some friends took me to a minor league game, where the crowd was small, friendly, relaxed and totally enjoyed a losing game under a soft evening sky. I am now hooked on minor league ball. I mention this because Healdsburg has an unknown minor league team that will be playing this summer. You might want to google the Healdsburg Owls.

Political Jokes

Newt Gingrich, according to Bill Maher, was so confused by events in Libya that he made a pass at his own wife. Maher also noted that Michele Bachmann is running for President seeking the support of those who find Sarah Palin too literate.

I'll throw in the suspicion that Sarah Palin, recently visitor to Israel, took a harpoon to the Wailing Wall.

The worst joke came yesterday when Eric Kantor, second in command of the Republican House of Representatives, announced that they planned to pass their vicious budget a second time, which would make it the law of the land. And he wasn't joking. Apparently Kantor doesn't know that a budget has to pass both houses of congress and be signed by the President.

Juan Cole

It happens at times that you run into issues so sticky that no matter what position you hold, you end up with dirty hands. The United Nations' intervention in Libya, led by NATO, is an instance of this phenomenon. If you support the intervention, you will be in part responsible for the casualties that come in any military battle, including the deaths and maimings of the poor sods who were coerced or drafted into Gaddafi's forces. If you reject or remain neutral about the intervention, you will share the blame for what might be the deaths of the tens of thousands of ordinary Arabs Gaddafi has promised to kill.

The intervention is well under way, of course, so the question has become, says Juan Cole, can the American Left walk and chew gum at the same time? The Left is opposed to interventions and opposed to potential genocides; does it oppose interventions in potential genocides?

The World, by and large, has spoken. Even nations openly reluctant to intervene (Russia, China, Germany) got out of the way once Gaddafi said he intended to kill many workers and middle class Arabs in Libya. Juan Cole has spoken: he won't turn his back on the working class and middle class people fighting for their lives in the streets of Libya. That's good enough for me.

Two Rules for Genocides

As a card-carrying member of the American Far Left, which is unique among Far Lefts in the world, I have been looking for insights into how to react to the United Nations intervention in Libya. This is a confusing matter, but I believe I have figured out the underlying rules for correct responses.

Rule One: The United States and the United Nations should never intervene in a genocide if the country involved has oil reserves. That would cost us our personal moral integrity. We might gain the world and save millions of lives, but we would lose our souls. (See Libya, for example.) What really matters here is not the Libyans but our rejection of situational ethics.

Rule Two: We should not intervene in a non-oil genocide unless we intervene in all genocides--I estimate that at any time in human history, there have been roughly ten genocides going on. To intervene in one genocide while ignoring the other nine would be logically inconsistent. (See Bosnia, for example.) Also, this rule is retroactive in the sense that if we failed to intervene in earlier genocides (the Trojan War, the fall of Jericho, the Persian Wars, the Holocaust) we would be wrong to intervene today.

Ann Coulter, One Toke Over The Line

I picked up this amazing story from Cynthia Boaz's Facebook page. It seems that Ann Coulter has been arguing that radiation is "good for you."

In a column called "A Glowing Report On Radiation," Coulter wrote that many scientists have been studying the effects of radiation and have found that, as she put it, "at some level--much higher than the minimums set by the U.S. government--radiation is good for you," and actually reduces the risk of cancer.

She repeated this assertion to a skeptical Bill O'Reilly, who told her that, even if there was scientific discussion going on about the effects of radiation, it was the media's job to be "responsible" and "err on the side of caution" about radiation. "You have to report the worst-case scenario," he said, adding that there is a clear scientific consensus that "some radiation will kill you."

Coulter said she disagreed, and said that the scientific consensus has changed, but that the media are not reporting it.

MICHELE BACHMANN AND POSTSTRUCTURALIST NON-THOUGHT

My children started college near the end of the poststructuralist boom that had swept aside rational thought in some elite English departments. I paid tuition, good money, to support air bending English professors who were teaching my offspring that "there are no facts."

Actually the existence of the word "fact" is a fact.

My children easily survived this miseducation, as so many do, by ignoring it in favor of things they found more interesting.

Congressninny Michele Bachmann, on the other hand, remains a true deconstructing poststructualist. Yesterday she made a speech in which she placed the battles of Concord and Lexington and the "shot heard around the world" in Vermont, although most believe that they occurred in Massachusetts. Of course if there are no facts, then where the Revolutionary War began is a matter of opinion. I personally think the war started north of Napa, inside a winery, and I am entitled to my opinion. I feel certain I am right. That's all that matters.

Tsunami of Stupidity Hits Washington

A Republican plan passed by the House of Representatives will cut $126 million dollars from the agency that warned Hawaii and the West Coast about the tsunami coming from Japan (at about 500 mph). This cut will cause rolling closures of the agency's offices.

The Presidential Arabian Menagerie

As someone who visited the naval base at Guantanamo about 55 years ago, I can comment on the new Presidential Menagerie being constructed there (my sources include Wickipedia and Jon Stewart).

Menageries have been with us for some time. The oldest known zoological collection was found during excavations at Hierakonpolis, Egypt, in 2009, of a 3500 B.C. menagerie. The exotic animals included hippos, hartebeest, elephants, baboons and wildcats. Other well-known collectors of animals included King Solomon of the Kingdom of Israel and Judah, Kings Semirami and Ashurbanipal of Assyria, and King Nebuchadrezzar of Babylonia.

The new Arabian Menagerie will follow what has become a standard practice of approximating a natural environment--Gitmo is surrounded by a desert. Following the tenets of the American Zoo Association, the Presidential Menagerie has stopped the practice of having Arabs perform tricks for visitors.

Some may object to the idea of Arabs displayed in cages, but that is not an innovation. In September 1906, William Hornaday, director of the Bronx Zoo in New York—with the agreement of Madison Grant, head of the New York Zoological Society—had Ota Benga, a Congolese pygmy, displayed in a cage with the chimpanzees, then with an orangutan named Dohong and a parrot. The exhibit was intended as an example of the "missing link" between the orangutan and white man. The public reportedly rushed to see it.

Persons were also displayed in cages during the 1931 Paris Colonial Exposition, and as late as 1958 in a "Congolese village" display at Expo '58 in Brussels.

Some Arab rights people have objected on the grounds that Arabs should be afforded the same consideration as human beings (see the Magna Carta). Gary Francione has argued that Arabs need only one right: the right not to be property. Despite the different approaches, advocates broadly agree that Arabs should be viewed as non-human persons and members of the moral community and should not be used as food, clothing, research subjects, or entertainment.

Critics of the rights movement argue that Arabs are unable to enter into a social contract or make moral choices, and for that reason cannot be regarded as possessors of rights. A parallel argument is that there is nothing inherently wrong with using Arabs as resources so long there is no unnecessary suffering, a view advocated by the Arab welfare organizations.

A Note to Birthers

Last night Jon Stewart pointed out that no one denies that the President's parents were married in Hawaii or that his mother was three months pregnant at the time. If you hold that a fetus is a person, our future President was in the United States at the time.

Writer's Cramp

Good luck to the mismanaged Press (Corporate) Democrat, our county newspaper, which has increased its price by 50% while cutting 1.5 inches off the width of its little page. The paper's columnists are learning extreme brevity. I suspect that many old readers (and the newspaper readers tend to be old) won't pay 75 cents for this truncated collection of tiny tidbits, while the young people get their news off the 'net.

Slaves and Masters

After some thought I have come up with an explanation for why people cannot hear a Black President when he talks. It's based on history. For many years Black people misled much of the nation by pretending that they were happy to be obedient slaves in the fields and bedrooms of the South. Whippings and murders were--they seemed to agree--the price of learning civilized ways. To placate the masters, Blacks pretended they couldn't read or think or dunk a basketball.

Historical falsity of such magnitude lingers. It explains why so many white people today don't hear President Obama when he says he was born in Hawaii. Their deafness is based on 200 years of inauthentic connections between peoples.

Moral: It always pays to be honest with other people, unless it gets you whipped or killed.

Black-Deaf Problem

I realized this morning how hard it is to hear what people with dark skins say. Days after President Obama had come out in support of union bargaining rights, I was watching a group of union supporters demonstrate in Wisconsin; many carried signs that read: "Obama, Which Side Are You On?"

I was reminded of Obama's Presidential campaign, in which he said many times that he intended to ramp up the war in Afghanistan. A year later many on the Left felt betrayed when he ramped up the war in Afghanistan.

Meanwhile, at Tea Party rallies, people carry signs proclaiming that Obama is a Moslem (he's said weekly that he is a Christian) and a foreigner (Obama has proved that he was born in Hawaii).

Skin tone induces deafness in certain citizens of the Left and Right. This disease is, from what I can tell, incurable. At best it might be quarantined until it dies out.


--Gary Goss

Gadhafi

I would like to be celebrating the spirit of liberation evident in Libya (and in the Wisconsin demonstrations, for that matter), but I fear for the lives of ordinary people. Dictator Moammar Gadhafi is doing his best to murder the citizens of his country. As I write this the outcome is unclear; Gadhafi may be losing control of the eastern part of his nation. Meanwhile he has imported well-paid mercenaries to machinegun protesters armed with metal pipes.

Closer to home, the Tea Party governor of Wisconsin continues the Republican attempt to destroy the financial base of the Democratic Party. The plan is to make it illegal to negotiate with unions. Bust the unions, and there will be no large entities left to oppose the Corporate State (keep in mind that the Republican Supreme Court recently freed corporations to spend as much as they want in election campaigns).

This is a national push, state by state, to defund the Democrats and turn our country into a one-party nation totally dominated by the greed of multi-national corporations.

I am old enough to remember FDR (barely). These times strike me as astounding in some ways. We've fallen so far. But if you push people hard enough, push them to desperation, they will take to the streets with metal pipes in their hands. Fear of that kind of response helped usher in the New Deal.

An Attack on Women

The Republican Party has declared war on American women. Consider the following. The Republicans are attempting to redefine rape (in order to make the cases against men harder to prosecute). They also intend to change the legal term "victim of rape" to "accuser of rape." In South Dakota they hope to make it legal to kill a doctor who provides abortions. Republicans in congress want to make it legal for a hospital to let a woman die rather than perform a life-saving abortion. And so on. More of the same is in the works.

Why any woman would vote Republican is beyond me, but I guess some women like the Taliban.

Power to the People

The ordinary people of Egypt have thrown out the Dictator Mubarak--which seems astonishing. Hundreds lost their lives in this push, but the demonstrators remained peaceful. I admire their courage. And we should all note a rare event in American history; our President, after a day or two, sided with the Egyptian people and against a tyrant who had supported American policies for 30 years. Another American first for Obama.

On a local scale you might have missed what the Press Democrat reported at a hearing before the Public Utilities Commission, where a 43% rate hike for Larkfield was under discussion. Mike McGuire, our county supervisor, spoke to the commission, noting that the utility's parent corporation had earned "$227 million in profit in the first nine months of last year." McGuire said, "Larkfield residents are helping better the bottom line of fat cat investors, while our seniors are struggling to survive." He went on to characterize aspects of the corporation's arguments as "hogwash" and "a lie."

Blunt truth can be refreshing.

Lara's Theme

One of the current problems Egypt faces is finding a new President, now that Hosni Mubarak's son, Hosni W. Mubarak, has bowed out. Egypt will need a special figure to unite a country new to democracy.

Americans are in an excellent position to advise on this choice, having been voters in a democracy for hundreds of years. We hold the experience needed and the wisdom. My suggestion is that Egyptians elect a charismatic fellow of proven charm who has the ability to read a speech compellingly. In this country no sort of person has better fit that bill--I speak in historical terms--than a former actor old enough to be approaching dementia. That is why I am nominating Omar Sharif.

Who else in Egypt is 78 years old, speaks seven languages, was a leading expert in contract bridge and had an affair with Barbra Steisand?

Blaming Obama

I've been following the analyses of the situation in Egypt, and I have concluded that President Obama is to blame. The protests in the streets have occurred because Obama once made a speech in Cairo extolling democracy. That's Obama's fault. If the protests win, radical Islamists will come to power. I blame Obama. If the protests lose, it will be because Obama failed to support democracy. If the dictator Mubarak turns the situation into a bloodbath, it will be because Obama armed him and failed to restrain him. If Mubarak gets driven out, Obama will be the President who lost Egypt.

We can conclude with certainty that whatever happens to either side, President Obama will be to blame, unless he isn't.

THE GREEN MUSIC CENTER

Today my wife and I listened to some excellent Brahms in the still-incompleted Green Music Center on the Sonoma State University campus. The calming odor of new wood didn't hurt a bit. The sound (where we sat) was distinct and terrific. The place struck us as quite small when compared to Luther Burbank, but it will be a great building for music.

Six Topics for a Tea Party Discussion

1. Is John McCain a stump?

2. Why do we prefer women with huge spiteful faces?

3. Would World War Two have been improved "by one more gun"?

4. Why do smart people pick on us?

5. In which ways are black women most like Nazis?

6. Should South Carolina secede?

Killa from Wasilla

The following is a true story. I can vouch for it.

A UCLA graduate I know named Tom Icywalker died recently and found himself standing in front of St. Peter, asking to be admitted to heaven. St. Peter thumbed through the Book of Life to determine if Icewalker was eligible. Icywalker just stood there shuffling his feet like a deck with two cards.

"Icywalker," the saint finally said, "I find nothing in your life that might get you into heaven, not even one good deed. Have I missed something?"

"Yes," Tom replied. "Once, while on a trip to Wasilla, I met Sarah Palin. She was clubbing baby seals to death for fun."

"What did you do?"

"I rebuked her."

"What did you say?"

"I called her a five-gallon buckethead--have you seen the size of her melon?"

St. Peter leafed through the Book of Life again. "That's excellent," he said, "but I can't find a mention of the incident here. Help me out. When did it happen?"

"About a minute ago."

Minority Report

Some may have seen a Tom Cruise science fiction movie of a few years back called MINORITY REPORT. In this film Cruise was part of a special police force that can see into the future and detect upcoming crimes. That way they are able arrest the perps before the crimes take place. But then certain problems develop. . . .

The Giffords assassination attempt (and murders) has raised the question of why the lunatic killer wasn't in clapped into detention before the awful events took place. Along the way the killer displayed symptoms of mental illness in public school, in a community college, and nearly everywhere else. In Arizona, of course, he almost fit in. No one put him away. "He hadn't committed a crime yet," is the explanation.

In fact, people who are a danger to themselves or others can be detained under certain circumstances. One such instance looms in full public view. The federal government is holding prisoners at Gitmo who have committed no provable crime, are not awaiting trial, and who (apparently) will never be released, on the grounds that if let go they might commit a crime in the future.

The future has arrived. Tom Cruise for President!

---Gary Goss

U.S. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords

I had a note from one of my daughters, who attended college with Gaby Giffords. This makes the assassination attempt and murders in Arizona seem closer to home.

I'd like to make a few points. (1) If leaders demonize politicians, they will become the chosen targets of armed lunatics. (2) The lunatics will be carrying crowd-killing weapons undreamed of by our Founding Fathers, whose rifles had room for only one slug. (3) The Democrats reject the violent Left; the Republicans have incorporated the violent Right, which now holds Republican seats in Congress. (4) It's a good idea not to live in Arizona.

What are we becoming?

Delegating Responsibility to Obama

Let us suppose that we, like Abraham, hand over responsibility for decisions to God. That is a decision we make. If I delegate responsibility, then I am responsible for what my Leader does. I am responsible for the outcome.

******************************************

In a representative democracy we use the same process. We vote and delegate responsibility to elected officials to conduct our foreign policy, protect the nation, shape the economy, deny health care to the dying, etc. Sometimes, like Abraham, we are asked to sacrifice our children, perhaps by sending them to die in a useless war. Like Abraham, we obey.

I am not responsible for George W. Bush, because I voted against him, he stole his election, and I would never delegate responsibility to a stunted frat-boy. I am, however, responsible for the actions of President Obama, because I supported him. The outcomes have been mixed so far. Consider the war in Afghanistan--Obama told us repeatedly during his campaign that he intended to enlarge the war. I can't claim that he fooled me.

Some of my friends avoided responsibility by not voting or by voting for third-party candidates. You can't delegate national decision-making to third party candidates, because they never get elected. This sort of non-delegation, however, has occasionally led to the election of George W. Bush to high office. Non-delegation also has outcomes.