The First Surfer

About 61 years ago I was a student at Redondo High in Southern California, one of several high schools that had been attended by Charles Lindbergh (not that I knew it) and would eventually be attended by the famous Traci Lords (porn actress). My friends and I were body surfers, but the real Jeff Spicolis in the school were three or four board surfers who were--and who knew this?-- part of a long tradition. The father of California surfing, the half-Hawaiian George Freeth (1883-1919), had brought board surfing to Redondo and Venice, California, in 1907. He was the first. Freeth was a surfing teacher and innovative leader of lifeguards. Today forgotten, he was a huge sensation until his death in 1919 in the Spanish flu epidemic described in Katherine Anne Porter's classic "Pale Horse, Pale Rider." But the city eventually remembered Freeth and erected a bronze statue of him on the Redondo Pier. The statue was stolen by metal thieves in 2008 and replaced in 2010.

Snott

Everyone is talking about something Mitt Romney's son said the other day. The son's name is Blapp, I think, but it might be Fragg or Lipp or Glopp. I am not good at remembering names, particularly if I'm hearing them for the first time and don't expect to hear them again . . . ever. Also I tend to mix up Romney's kids, with names like Blipp or Flitt, with Sarah Palin's kids, with names like Targg and Snott.

Romney has a handsome family, four sons, I believe, with lantern jaws and eyes like diamonds. I've seen them on TV. One of them, Snott, was quoted as saying that his father--Mitt Romney--had never wanted to run for President. I suspect that Snott is the same dude who offered to beat up Obama. 

Snott has given us the key insight pundits have been waiting for. Snott explains why his father ran poorly. It's not that his father would refuse to serve if elected (General Sherman once said that). Mitt Romney would not mind being President--he just didn't want to run for the office. I understand that. In fact, I feel the same way. I am willing to serve as President if I don't have to run. Running is ugly work. You have to be polite to idiots who come to rallies waving empty revolvers and you have to pretend that Newt Gingrich and John McCain are quite likable. You have to get out of bed early. You find out that half the voters automatically hate you for no reason, and some of the worst bloggers will make fun of your name and your stupid sons. It's not fun. But you run hard for six years, although you really don't want to, and you destroy the reputations of the other Republican candidates, and all of that turns into a waste of time.  You never wanted to be around so many ordinary people.  You were just being nice, doing the nation a favor. And no good deed goes unpunished. 

Why Krauthammer Is a Moron

Charles Krauthammer is a moron because he takes his talking points from clever Wayne LaPierre, chief lobbiest for the gun manufacturers, who earns $1,400,000 a year by promoting the sale of the guns of mass killings. Today Krauthammer blamed the murders of 26 people in Connecticut on "an entertainment culture soaked in . . . violence." Now if Krauthammer could actually think, it might occur to him to compare the United States to other nations with an entertainment culture soaked in violence. Japan might do. What is the murder rate in Japan? About 1/15th that of the USA. So it isn't the violent entertainment that makes us different. . . . How do we differ from Japan? Well, Americans own half the guns on the planet. The Japanese do not.



Today

Evil

Once in a while people ask me if I believe in evil. The question is well meant, and I reply that evil is a word in the English language. We employ the word in certain ways, mainly to designate an act or person that strikes us as irredeemably wicked. John Boehner, for example, does not strike me as evil. He is, of course, a bagman who distributes bribes to members of congress from corporations and Wall Street. Boehner is a bad human being but capable of a decent act once in a blue moon (as I see him). The members of the NRA do not seem evil to me. Many of them behave in sounder ways than I do when it comes to moral decisions. But the leaders of the NRA make me shudder. Their continued rabid support of murderous gun manufacturing is not redeemable. They are evil shadows walking among us.

A Bushmaster Christmas

This Christmas many stockings will be stuffed with Bushmasters, a compact, ergonomically enhanced solution for the man who plans on overthrowing tyrants, including the Democrats who have stolen this country. The Bushmaster is favored for grammar school attacks in English speaking countries around the world. Your loved ones can buy you an affordable semi-automatic pistol with its clip for $871.13--I don't know why Bushmaster doesn't round off the price. The kit that converts the pistol to fully automatic is extra. In most cases you will have to purchase the kit at a gun show.

One group of buyers that caught my eye on television are the zombie preppers. These are adults arming themselves for the onrushing zombie apocalypse. They believe the brain eating has already begun thanks to certain unsafe experiments conducted by the federal government or maybe the United Nations. Think mad cow disease. We will need many guns, boxes of ammo and food supplies to fort up when the time comes. Or, some suggest, we can live on the second floor of our homes because zombies can't climb stairs (too stupid).

Meanwhile a committee in Washington is being set up to look into why Americans need machine guns in the home. I'm afraid this committee is increasing my paranoia. 

Ammo Is Cheap

Chris Rock once suggested that we put a tax on ammo of about $10,000 a round. End of problem. Yes, some people (my father) would make their own ammo, and there would be black market ammo, but the reduction in school shootings would be considerable.

Guns and Murder

In a UN study of murder rates per 100,000 inhabitants, the world average was 7.6%. The USA averaged 4.2% with many countries in Africa etc. averaging much worse. But if you compare the USA to Europe and Japan and China, we don't look good. The murder average for the United Kingdom is 1.2%. Japan is 0.3%. Ireland is 1.2% and Germany is 0.8%. The role played by gun ownership is not entirely clear. Canada, as Michael Moore pointed out in BOWLING FOR COLUMBINE, has gun ownership similar to the USA but a far lower murder rate. Cultural differences must account for that. I suspect that we are, as a people, more paranoid and violent than Canadians. The American argument that easy access to semi-automatic weapons lowers the murder rate, however, is contradicted by the statistics cited above.

The 2nd Amendment has proved remarkably useful in the overthrow of tyrants or has it? 

Gun Violence

In the United States about 200 people die each week from gun violence. President Obama has gone on TV four times in four years to respond to a mass atrocity. Today he was in tears.

What can we do about violence?

It's obvious that we need better gun control legislation. I say this although I grew up with guns, served in the army and own a gun. But legislation regulating guns will not be enough: 250 million guns will still be out there.

One thing we should understand is that the great majority of mass murderers are not psychotic, although what they do strikes us as nuts. Mass killers are usually badly depressed. Under ObamaCare more money is now available for social workers and mental health work. What can help is a much stronger mental health program that identifies troubled people and reaches them before they begin to plan their revenge and suicide. It might also help if our political leaders turn away from politics based on the hatred of others. We need to set a new tone.

Chomsky Sucks

A favorite of some on the Left, Noam Chomsky recently wrote: "Going back to why people don't vote, I presume the main reason is because they understand without reading political science texts that it doesn't make any difference how they vote. It's not going to affect policy, so why bother?"

The basic problem with that position is that it does not reflect reality. How ordinary people vote affects policy and can save lives. When some on the Left decided that it made no difference whether they supported Gore or not, the people of Iraq paid a bloody price. The working people of this country got a Great Recession. Yes, this country is mostly--but not entirely--an oligarchy, but that does not make voting pointless. Without intending to, Chomsky is helping the Republicans suppress the vote . . . or he would be if what he writes mattered.

Chamber Pots

The Founders of this country believed that sovereignty belonged to  white males. They set up a representative form of government that had four parts: a House of Representatives that was directly elected by white males. That was supposed to be the most sovereign branch, and it was given the power to originate money matters; a Senate that was indirectly elected and would serve as a guardian for the rich and the small states and a brake on the anticipated excesses of the directly elected House; an indirectly elected President, who would act as an office coordinator, and an appointed Supreme Court to decide issues when two states came into conflict.

Founders differed on which body should act as the final authority when it came to interpreting the Constitution.  Madison, if I remember correctly, thought that the Constitution should be interpreted by the House, because the House was directly elected. The House most closely mirrored American sovereignty. But the opposite occurred. The least representative body, an appointed bunch of lawyers, about as far from sovereignty as you can get--the Supreme Court--today decides what the Constitution means, and from their decisions there is no appeal. (I might be wrong, but as far as I know, the USA is the only country on earth that is this undemocratic.)

To this mess you can add the notion that the  Constitution is a sacred document deserving of worship with the preaching done by nine appointees. I doubt if worship is what the Founders intended. Remember that they were revolutionaries. They invented a new kind of country. Their Constitution reflected the compromises needed at the time. I doubt if the Founders wanted the Constitution to last fifty years. Instead they expected that their descendants would come up with new ideas as times changed, new Constitutions, new revolutions, new kinds of countries. What they did not expect was that we would become a nation of timid ancestor worshippers, so frightened of change that we keep attempting to freeze culture in place. Some of us are "originalists," but nearly all of us try to argue political decisions in terms of a document as outmoded as a collection of chamber pots. 

Kennedy Vs. Nixon

Most people know that the first televised Presidential campaign debate took place between JFK and Richard Nixon. On TV Kennedy looked good. Medication for his back problem gave Kennedy a good complexion, and he used an excellent makeup person. Nixon was ill, haggard and badly made up. When polled after the debate, television viewers thought Kennedy had won; radio viewers opted for Nixon. The often repeated explanation for this discrepancy was that Kennedy had won on TV because he looked better. What is interesting in retrospect was what a weird explanation that was.

We know today that Presidential debates have at best a small impact on how people vote. Losers of debates--George W. Bush, for example--often win the Presidency. Ask yourself how many times you have decided whom to vote for based on his appearance in a debate. The huge majority of voters make up their minds before a debate begins.

There is little doubt that Kennedy was a more charming man than Nixon. In fact, Kennedy's political career was in great part built on charm. He was tall, handsome, commanding, cool, witty, amusing. His press conferences were treats. After he won the Presidency, he became about as well liked as a politician can be. I happened to meet him once. He was someone men and women, including Nixon and Eisenhower, took to immediately. But that is probably not the reason for the discrepancy between those who watched TV and those who listened (a small number) on the radio. In those days, like today, most of the people who followed politics on the radio were old Republicans. Of course old Republicans listening to the radio thought Nixon had won. But the weirder explanation (better makeup) caught on, which shows how easily we get misled when it comes to cause and effect. 

The GOP: How Balmy Is It?

Exactly how insane is the Republican voter? Yesterday's polls showed that 49% blame ACORN--which doesn't exist--for stealing the election for President Obama.  I doubt if 49% of the Republicans are balmy. But 25% of them want their states to secede and another 19% lean in that direction. That totals 44%. And that is nutty, given that the states represented mostly live on a dole supplied by New York, Illinois and the West Coast.

Life Expectancy

Some years back I noted here that rich people live four or five years longer than poor people in this country. This occurs--obviously--because rich people are so much wiser than poor people--the rich have the foresight to be born to wealthy parents. It follows that the wise people who own the country are best equipped to rule it. Now that might sound crass but it was, in fact, the position taken by the Federalist party, which was as astonished as Mitt Romney when the voters decided to hand over the Presidency to a commoner. 

Anyway, the remarkable difference between the life expectancy of the rich and poor recently reappeared in a column by Paul Krugman. He was commenting on the argument made by the Republicans (Federalists) that we should add a few years onto the age when people become eligible for social security because now Americans live longer. 

Americans, Krugman pointed out, live longer today if they are rich. If they work for a living, if they wait on tables or change the sheets in hotels or tend a vineyard, they are probably ready to retire at 65 and give their aching backs a rest. And they are apt to die soon enough. Let's not penalize the people who actually work because Bush cut the taxes on the wealthy and ran two wars on a credit card.