Courting the women and children voters.

The president was downstate yesterday, campaigning amongst the government workers (currently = economic untouchables) and children (under 26, still attached financially to their parents). He pulled the finger-waving bit that always signals desperation, and even raised his voice with passion, and rolled up the sleeves. (Why you have to roll the sleeves to give a speech, as if it's hard physical work, I never will understand. And it's not like there are any blue-collar voters in Madison; I can count on my hands the numbers of men with handyman skills I met living there...)

Here's why I don't think that's a winning strategy this year:

Not to pull a Biden and plagarize from another candidate, but John Edwards might have spoken of Two Wisconsins. Not economically though, but geographically, and mentality-wise.

First, let's get this out of the way, Wisconsin, like many other northern states, is overwhelmingly "white". If you look at the ethnicities who settled the region, that's who came. The black migration that took southern blacks north to Chicago and Milwaukee, and in some cases Minneapolis and St. Paul, stopped in the big cities, where the jobs were, and upstate Wisconsin is more spread out. They're welcome of course, as is anyone who likes an independent outdoorsy lifestyle.

We are a state of smaller towns and cities, essentially, many a day's horseride away by geography. Where the big industry was logging, trapping and agriculture, our landscapes are still unpolluted and healthy. No rustbelts or toxic brownfields left over from the quick-grab of the industrial revolution.

You want to revisit 1800s America, how communities back then worked? With our rural, admittedly updated farms, you can catch a glimpse... We're small enough that one's own actions matter, not as just a cog in a wheel. Personally, it's one of the things I like about the state, after having grown up in Cook County, Illinois. (ie/ Good luck filing in small claims court there for justice.)

Here, there's an independence to the people, earned from doing things themselves. The small towns built hospitals, churches, schools, barns, homesteads, and they did it with the help of their neighbors. There's a Can-Do sense here that's missing in those cities and counties long overrun by bureacracy. There's a sense of responsibility and consequence learned early by rural people that is missing in the more protected suburban youth:

A lot of it is nature. Sure, you can eat lousy and underdress ... but here you'll feel it. You can insult your neighbor and work against him ... but when your time of need comes, you might just learn the dangers of standing alone.

Up north, there are families that hunt for food, and fish, and grow their own. Not to be showy or make a statement, but because it's good to understand where your food comes from, to see and smell it before processing.

Madison is a different part of the state. It's a place where top students go to attend the flagship university, sure, but plenty of other families choose educations at the smaller regional branches. Why?

There's the thought that Madison is for outsiders. The "coasties" -- students who can't get in to the East Coast names, whose parents are willing to pay the double "out of state" tuition for them to experience "independence" in a small, starter city like Madison, while getting a decent public education.

Our politicians and professors too, like neighboring Minnesota, are often opportunistic Easterners, seeing in Wisconsin the chance to make their fortunes, "enlightening" the rubes here. The big push for "diversity" leads to the university courting students from California and Texas, since we can't seem to accept that our whiteness is not caused by any type of discrimination, merely that darker skinned people haven't yet discovered the advantages of less dense living, and overcoming the weather and isolation in pursuit of bettering their own lives.

There is more and more suspicion of the downstate Madison and Milwaukee politicians -- the Republicans chosen by upstate voters lost in the primaries so now we're choosing between lifetime Milwaukee and Madison pols in November.

The only hope the Obama-Biden ticket has, is that enough of these women and children voters will turn out in Madison and Milwaukee voting booths (and those tricky "absentee ballots") to offset the overwhelming preference of others in the state. We've had enough of Madison's spendy ways, with the rest of us picking up the tab.

The health care reform is overwhelmingly rejected, because the people who will be paying want to have some choice in the matter. It's simply unAmerican for those liberals who continue advocating spending, (while living verrrry comfortably themselves), to reject what the American people are telling them: Stop getting the rest of us to pay for your poor policy choices.

Public housing. Public education. Public health.
Robert Taylor Homes. Chicago/Milwaukee public school system. And now, the quick fix they promise will change the way we access health care and remake us from an obese nation to a leaner, healthier one.

No thanks. We don't believe you can deliver what you're promising, and we'd prefer to make our own choices and live by them.

Hopefully, the pols will get the message soon.
----------------------------------


ADDED: The Morning After.
Lest we forget...

Goodbye Mr. Chips, indeed!

ALSO:
Another reason why I am suspicious of Madison liberals: while some played by the rules and waited in line, some always manage to jump the line. Whether it be citizenship, paying taxes, or just waiting to see the President speak, these kind of liberals always seem to have it in them to look out for themselves and their offspring first -- while others darker, less affluent, and less ... "initiated" need wait their turn and go through the usual citizenship processes, etc.

Something ain't right about this linejumping, especially when you otherwise advocate equality...

STILL MORE: "The race does not always go to the swiftest (or wisest, or most accountable, or ... best), but to the ... pushiest."

Which explains why this Baby Boom generation's insistence on grading on the curve -- essentially playing the numbers -- does not work in international competition. For too long, our best and brightest have contented themselves not with quality per se, but with the rewards and spoils that comes from ... just one-upping the next guy.

It's how students game the system: taking the easier profs, getting notes/tests from past classes, not retaining knowledge for its own sake, just regurgitating on the "test" and moving on confidently, having bested your peers temporarily.

But then, there are always accountings. Say what you will about the material possessions our Boomers have gained for themselves and their offspring -- being comfortably embraced into their parents' professions, in some cases workplaces too -- we are losing ground in the international game. This is what happens when you game the system as it is, and forget who our real competitors are...

Somebody who collected handsome bonuses and salaries helped contribute to the mess this country is in now. Short of blaming the undocumented workers, who will the Boom generation pin their failings on? GWB? Obama? The corporate millionaires who profited while bankrupting their firms? The prize-winning economists?

No really, I'm curious who will accept responsibility at least, for leaving future American generations holding the bag...


(Damn that Nancy O'Donnell! Dated a witch that one time, and didn't pay her outstandings for a diploma... Don't look now, but, I think we have a Public Enemy, folks.)

Autumn.

Best time to travel...

Have a a great weekend out there.

Pentagon Confirms: 9 Dead, All Americans

"And you shake your head --- hhumpfh -- and say it's a shame..."
~Tull, Thick as a Brick.

Not just anonymous NATO forces, the 9 were our men. Navy SEALS and soldiers. Might have been shot down, might just be a malfunction. Best to hope for the latter, according to the spin.

KABUL, Afghanistan — All nine troops killed in the worst helicopter crash for the coalition in Afghanistan in four years were Americans, the Pentagon has confirmed without providing further information on why the aircraft carrying Navy special forces went down.

NATO said there were no reports of enemy fire in a rugged area in the Daychopan district of Zabul province, where Tuesday's crash took place. But Taliban spokesman Qari Yousef Ahmadi told The Associated Press by telephone that insurgents shot down the helicopter.

The Taliban often exaggerate their claims and sometimes take credit for accidents.
...
Tuesday's crash was the deadliest since May 2006, when a Chinook helicopter went down while attempting a nighttime landing on a small mountaintop in eastern Kunar province, killing 10 U.S. troops.

One step closer to a U.S. victory then? These fellows, dying as heroes over there, to protect us all from the burqa over here...

Now did anybody happen to see who got voted off Survivor or American Idol last night?*
------------------------


*Yep, mocking the short-term-attention-span of the verbal W.arriors who have no skin in the game but are determined that somebody else's sons stay and fight on the taxpayer dime, until "victory" is achieved.

I want to know more about the dead men: who they were, when they enlisted, who they left behind. I want us all to FEEL these deaths, the losses. Turn off the boob tube for a bit and actually look at the cost of these silly missions, preserving pride over being honest and acknowledging, any gains in Afghanistan are temporary, and the guerillas will always outlast us on their own territory.

Defense, Defense, Defense.
in the American Homeland.

Something tells me, like with this health insurance makeover, we're all going to continue paying more for less and less basic coverage and security. I wish these non-military W.arriors would just take up paintball in the woods or something. Or send their own to fight, over there.

Those 9 are dead, not coming back. Somebody's sons...

So who got voted off Survivor again?

Fighting the Good Fight. *bump*

Georgetown Law Professor Randy Barnett continues to explain why the individual mandate to pay health insurance premiums is unconstitutional:

The "Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act" includes what is called an “individual responsibility requirement” or mandate that all persons buy health insurance from a private company and a separate “penalty” enforcing this requirement. In this paper, I do not critique the individual mandate on originalist grounds. Instead, I explain why the individual mandate is unconstitutional under the existing doctrine by which the Supreme Court construes the Commerce and Necessary and Proper Clauses and the tax power.

Just as we had plenty of professors early on explaining why McCain-Feingold would not pass First Amendment constitutional scrutiny, it might be wise now to listen here, to a law professor opining in his legal area of expertise.



---------------

In RELATED NEWS:
The NY Times top stories today tout the benefits of deep-tissue massage in releasing toxins, and the benefits of good food and healthy diets in maintaining health.

To their surprise, the researchers, sponsored by the National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine, a division of the National Institutes of Health, found that a single session of massage caused biological changes.

...

Food is at the center of health and illness, he argues, and so doctors must make all aspects of it — growing, buying, cooking, eating — a mainstay of their medical educations, their personal lives and their practices.

Well, I knew that. (Next thing, they'll be telling us you can pick up more germs waiting to see the doctor to get an antibiotic prescription for your sniffles than if you just treated with common sense at home.)

And things like massage and good food indeed cost money (though don't let anyone fool you that fresh vegetables and fruits necessarily need cost more, via stores like WholePaycheck.)

An individual should be able to look at their own healthcare needs and household budget, and decide if it's better to pay premiums to cover somebody else's family medical care and pre-existing conditions, or if it's better for the individual to spend that money on preventative care: exercise costs, food budget, the occasional massage, and set aside savings for nominal costs, like a routine doctor's visit.

Who better to determine and manage personal health risks than the individual herself? Who better to evaluate medical advice and options than the person paying for their bills out-of-pocket, who actually feels the costs of proposed treatments, and has an incentive to seek efficient care?

Of couse, some might think such an individual is "reckless", or "betting against herself". But look at the track record. Some people are just healthier than others, with less formal "medical" need.

If there are no outstanding bills, no continuing medical need such as prescription drugs, and the option -- with a clean medical history -- to purchase pro-rated insurance as needed in the future, we must allow individual to choose, in consultation with their chosen doctors as per tradition, how to best meet and maintain their own individual health goals.

One size does not fit all when we're talking quality care -- never will, and if Prof. Barnett's work draws attention, in popular circles, to the pre-existing fact that such a mandate is indeed illegal, there might still be time to properly focus on what's causing the painful symptoms of a bloated healthcare industry, without infecting too many others nationally.

Personal Choice is no magic pill to good health, that's for sure, but unlike the insurance game, generally you do end up getting back what you put in.

or, "Be Good to Yourself, because nobody else has the power to make you happy healthy..." (George Michael: Heal the Pain.)


ADDED:
How does this logic fail when you distinguish between the "uninsured" and "the uninsured who have outstanding medical bills for treatment incurred"?

"Sometimes I fault myself for not being able to make the case more clearly to the country," Obama told the audience of about 30 people. He described how Americans paying for health insurance are forced to subsidize those who do not have it, with hospitals passing on the expense of treating the uninsured to insurance companies, which in turn pass it on to clients.

"What they do is, they essentially pass on those costs in the form of higher premiums to the people who do have health insurance," he said.

If you properly frame the issue, you begin to see it's the latter category of uninsured we should concentrate our focus on, by either insuring the poor via Medicaid, or recognizing our undocument immigrants who will still not be insured, or paying any mandatory premiums, under the new "reform".

Push to control medical costs first, Mr. President.* And work on de-incentivizing childbirth costs of undocumented immigrants by eliminating the need for an "anchor baby" to procure citizenship for the family.

* Miami Herald columnist Carl Hiaasen recently gave us a good real-world example of how and why medical costs are skyrocketing, and it has little to do with the minimally treating uninsureds who choose to pay their bills as-they-go:

South Florida remains the Deepwater Horizon of Medicare corruption in the United States, and the gusher is getting worse. No other place even comes close to matching the number of crooked health-care businesses, or the immense dollar amounts that wind up in the pockets of criminals.

While overworked prosecutors crack down on operators like Gonzalez, the latest wave of Medicare cheats is specializing in fictional billing for mental health services, rehab sessions and physical therapy.

As Jay Weaver reported in The Miami Herald last week, mental health clinics in Florida billed Medicare for $421 million in 2009. That's four times more than was billed during the same period by mental health clinics in Texas, and 635 times more than was billed by clinics in Michigan.

As crazy and depressed as Floridians can be, there's no way that we're four times crazier than Texans, or 635 times more depressed than Michiganders.

The only plausible explanation for such a staggering discrepancy in mental-health claims is stealing -- thieves in Florida are simply more adept at fleecing Medicare.

Our dubious distinction as the sleazebag capital of America brought Attorney General Eric Holder and Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius to Miami last week for the first-ever national summit on healthcare fraud.

It wasn't quite as flashy or upbeat as the LeBron James-Chris Bosh-Dwyane Wade summit at the American Airlines Arena, but the mission is nonetheless worthy of attention.

Medicare is the biggest drain on the federal budget, and epidemic fraud is the biggest drain on Medicare. Most older Americans depend on the program to cover many health-care expenses, but the system is sagging and bloated.

Experts say Medicare fraud in South Florida costs U.S. taxpayers between $3 billion and $4 billion annually. It's predictable that Miami-Dade, Broward and Palm Beach counties would be the hotbed, and also the venue for one of every three federal healthcare fraud prosecutions.

Part of the problem is that Medicare pays claims first, then asks questions later. That leaves criminals with a time gap that often allows them to bank the money, shut down their storefronts and scurry on before they get caught.

In 2008, Medicare paid $520 million to home healthcare agencies in Miami-Dade, just for treating diabetic patients. That was more money than the agency spent on that particular illness throughout the rest of the country combined.

The feds then changed the rules and put a cap on claims for homebound patients receiving insulin injections. The scammers simply turned their energies toward other exploitable areas -- in particular, mental health and physical therapy treatments.

Records show that Florida rehabilitation facilities billed $171 million to Medicare last year for physical and occupational services, which was 23 times more than California and 26 times more than New York -- two other states with no shortage of fraud artists.

For years, the Justice Department has been locking up Medicare fraudsters in Florida, yet business is booming. More FBI agents and prosecutors would help, but you'd need an army of them to dismantle all the bogus Medicare operations in South Florida.

What say you, Mr. President? Sounds like a win-win if you can put some people back to work tracking down the bloat in the current system as it is...

"Never to Part, Baby of Mine."

The Gill family of Florida gets some good news from the Appeals Court, after a long wait.

This one then, goes out to them, and all the potential families they've helped with their quiet fight:

Baby mine, don't you cry.
Baby mine, dry your eyes.
Rest your head close to my heart
Never to part, baby of mine.
Little one when you play
Don't you mind what they say.
Let those eyes sparkle and shine
Never a tear, baby of mine.
If they knew sweet little you
They'd end up loving you too.
All those same people who scold you
What they'd give just for
The right to hold you.
From your head to your toes
You're not much, goodness knows.
But you're so precious to me
Cute as can be, baby of mine.

"You say: It ain't ours anymore to win."

Yesterday's Senate vote actually gives me heart. (Not denial of the Dream Act provision that would lift non-citizen students, brought here as children, out of legal limbo.)

No, I'm talking about the vote that denied we need the services of trained and qualifed soldiers serving honestly in wartime. What the Republican politicians are really saying here is, "Wrap it up in the Middle East."

They may pretend it's about a December Pentagon report, but look further at what their vote is really telling the country. As Althouse puts it, "there isn't even a small fragment of the party that would support fighting the war with a serious commitment to victory. How damning! "

(To be fair, she was opining on another topic, but her words are indicative of the lip-service hawks.)

If the creaking W.arrior party leftovers in the Senate, led by Sen. McCain, actually believed we were in an important fight, they'd want the backing of every qualified soldier. This fight we're in now, over there?

There's a war outside still ragin' ;
You say, "It ain't ours anymore to win...
~Bruce Springsteen

Remember WWII? (the Big One?) Kids pulling wagons collecting cans and scrap metals, and mapping out from news and radio reports the fight's progress in foreign lands, learning the geography of Europe as we advanced; women sacrificing, in the kitchen and in their personals, to free up materiel for the fighting men. Some took jobs out of the home, in heavy industry -- men's work -- and got dirty learning new skills. As a country, we needed everyone to do what they could, in whatever way they can, to contribute to victory. The fight was that big.

And the fighting men, over there? We measured them on how they fought, the ground they gained, and we pretty much took all comers. Let the men sort it out in the bunks who can be trusted, whose sexual behaviors and indiscretions in heading out at night might put the others at risk...

The country was in the fight of its life. What happened in Europe and the Pacific affected us all. And we knew it, were willing to sacrifice together. Give up our own petty prejudices to work alongside others, because winning wars is a collective fight.

This latest war, over there? It's a war of leisure, a war to follow when there's nothing else on. The deaths are just numbers, unless you're personally affected. Even our media has moved on. Of course it doesn't matter, yesterday's vote, if we exclude honest men and women with skills that might prove useful -- leave talent sitting untapped on the sidelines -- because the end score in that war we're playing in over there? It doesn't really matter to most.

Our younger generations -- the ones who don't see equality so much as a loss or victory for "gay rights", just as a matter of fairness or not -- aren't backing this fight. Even the patriotic youngsters, of which every generation boasts its fair share, aren't signing up in droves help free Afghani women to vote and secure their freedoms at home.

If nation building -- changing a culture on their own grounds -- is the answer to setting the table for more democratic societies in the future, this work should be undertaken by private, missionary and charity interests. With support from international and U.S. funds, via diplomatic efforts, if they prove effective.

Recreating the U.S. military role to tackle such missions? The vote yesterday tells us how the country sees these foreign wars.

It doesn't really matter now how much more money we throw at the problem, how long we stretch out the timetable, how many kills or how much ground is gained. It's over.

And no matter what terroristic threats might arise, what surprises are in store, you have to think as a people, we're going to start playing honest defense one of these days. Determine where the system failed, who is responsible, and target -- effectively -- only the evildoers. (Points for efficiency too.)

As Judge Judy says about witness misidentification, generally if you are victimized, you want the proper wrongdoers punished. Letting off steam misdirecting your anger might feel good -- temporarily -- but it's costly, as our young people are learning from their elders' actions.

Next time, if there is a next time, we'll get it right: efficiently targeting, with all the tools we have, those who planned the attack that killed our citizens and others who also lived and worked here. Nevermind getting bogged down abroad. Nevermind promising forced cultural evolution...

If America indeed focuses our monies and attention on making Change happen here at home, we might start playing a strong defensive game, and begin to clean up the messes the W.arrior party has left us.

That's the future hope. That's where the country's going...

Ask the Senate.

Let Your Love Shine...

Took a drive in the countryside today -- a day out, not a day off -- with the afternoon sun bathing the grasses, crops and trees.

With all the rain we've had this year, it's amazing the growth. None of the brittle- or dryness you'd expect by now...

Deferring to the Bellamy Brothers tonight:

Just let your love flow like a mountain stream
And let your love grow with the smallest of dreams
And let your love show and you'll know what I mean
It's the season.

Let your love fly
Like a bird on the wing
And let your love bind you
To all living things
And let your love shine
and you'll know what I mean
That's the reason.

De-nial.

“My goal here,” the president said, “is not to convince you that everything is where it needs to be. But what I am saying is that we are moving in the right direction.”

I don't know, Mr. President. Whoever's advising you here is not your friend.

Telling people -- good, honest people -- what they know in their hearts not to be true, is not how you push up your sleeves and begin to tackle the problems facing us, head on.

(Do you watch football, Mr. President? You've got to be playing like the hungriest pass rusher now. Defense. Forcing something to happen. Make that Change! ... )

You made promises, and for better or worse, people are holding you to them. Foreign policy, social issues, immigration -- people didn't just want soft shifts. We could have voted for a moderate Republican to slowly bring the ship around.

No matter how big the problem: you had 'em chanting "Yes We Can". Why are you suddenly afraid to try?

Another thing:
People didn't vote for you based on your promise of mandatory health insurance for all, either. Where in heavens name do you get that from? That was Hillary's platform; healthcare change you also mentioned, but only in assuring us you were Pro-Choice in letting people choose what was personally best for them.

The anti-vote is aroused by lines like: " “there are a whole host of things we’ve put in place to make your life better.” He cited his administration’s health care overhaul bill; a financial regulatory reform measure that imposes tougher requirements on credit card companies; and an education bill that makes student loans more widely available."

But not everyone is struggling to send a child to college, has an underwater mortgage, or has charged more than they can pay off each month. And these people, thanks to the domino effect, are hurting too. And it's not getting any better, it seems, unless you're either at rock bottom, or your family safely ensconced at the tippiest top.

You helped the biggies, who now think it's crisis over and back to old way of playing the game. There's no worse way to avoid change than to artificially mess with their free market day of reckoning. Put it off until sometime in the future, cause the game hasn't at all been changed. You rewarded the healthcare CEO's and and the hedge fund brokers, brought back their bonuses. While the country, like the workers' 401(k)s continue to decline...

You tell us, "what I am saying is that we are moving in the right direction."

If you don't understand by now that people feel what they feel, people measure what they measure and you can't talk them out of that, then why did you pretend you were for Real Change in the first place? I know you didn't think that the Real Change you were promising was just a black family in the White House. I know it.

What have you to lose? September 26 -- when the Israeli settlement expansion freeze is lifted, will you and Hillary lead there? Use our carrots, and threaten to bring home our Big Sticks if our allies don't find it in their best interest to work with us?

If it's just a PR issue to you -- is America anti-Muslim in the worldwide view, favoring Israel no matter what? -- isn't this one you could have had some effect on? Why are you so afraid to look strong, with America behind you, and end the idea that we're planting permanent military bases in the Middle East region to make the world safe for Israel?

If their economy is flourishing, while ours has tanked, shouldn't a true friend step up to take some of the burden off of our own "defense" budget? If you could make the case that America's defense has nothing to do with allowing Israeli settlers to secure Jerusalem, water access, and whatever land promised in their ancient titles, you could potentially save the country A LOT of money in fighting avoidable neverending wars over there.

Imagine -- if you had the money -- how you reinvest those "defense" resources here at home. We just don't have enough police and security jobs to put all those unemployed soldiers to work here at home in the "protection" industry. We need to build again. Here, at home. Invest in our own people -- train the young men in skills they can use other than in policing and survelliance. Building. Exercising. Disciplining.

That creates more work than you might think. Doesn't have to pay the most either, if it's healthy and fulfilling.

Demographically, the Boomers will be out of the workplace in another decade or two, naturally opening up the job market there. But look at all the problems -- obesity, woman and grandparent-headed homes, lack of practical life skills -- that our people could be bettered on today.

Not by forcing, but by rewarding the healthy and those willing to make small-c change to actively create Change. You know how they say, "There's not a lack of love in this world. There's a lack of places to put that love." (paraphrasing)

Well, there's not a lack of work out here. There's a lack of access to the funds that finance the work that need to be done. And quite frankly, due to their fatcat history, there's a great lack of trust in liberal government bureaucrats to properly administer and distribute those funds.

Whoever's advising you that touting the increase in this government class as a success (I'm sure the poor people who qualify think that, but you're not really campaigning for their votes.), and that we all win when people have less decision-making control themselves, is not doing you any favors.

Prayin' for Time.

Krugman's column today brings to mind George Michael*:

Yes, Republicans are pushing the line that raising taxes at the top would hurt small businesses, but their hearts don’t really seem in it. Instead, it has become common to hear vehement denials that people making $400,000 or $500,000 a year are rich. I mean, look at the expenses of people in that income class — the property taxes they have to pay on their expensive houses, the cost of sending their kids to elite private schools, and so on. Why, they can barely make ends meet.

And among the undeniably rich, a belligerent sense of entitlement has taken hold: it’s their money, and they have the right to keep it.
...
Never mind the $700 billion price tag for extending the high-end tax breaks: virtually all Republicans and some Democrats are rushing to the aid of the oppressed affluent.

You see, the rich are different from you and me: they have more influence. It’s partly a matter of campaign contributions, but it’s also a matter of social pressure, since politicians spend a lot of time hanging out with the wealthy.

Which explains the appeal of neophyte politicians, I think. Remember Davy Crockett's latter career? Coonskin in the House? (Not being racist; that was his folksy campaign sell**.)

The more things change...




--------------

* The rich declare themselves poor
And most of us are not sure
If we have too much
But we'll take our chances
'Cause God's stopped keeping score
I guess somewhere along the way
He must have let us all out to play
Turned his back and all God's children
Crept out the back door
...
So you scream from behind your door
Say what's mine is mine and not yours
I may have too much but I'll take my chances
'Cause God's stopped keeping score
Did you cling to the things they sold you?
Did you cover your eyes when they told you
That he can't come back
'Cause he has no children to come back for

Enjoy the last lingering days of summer 2010.
Make of them what you will...

**Crockett, Davy (1786-1836), American folk hero. The real David Crockett was a Tennessee backwoods politician who had the good fortune to be systematically promoted by the Whig party to counter the frontiersman appeal of the Democrat Andrew Jackson. The latter, under whom Crockett served in the Creek war (1813-15), made a point of ending his political career in 1835. His Autobiography, vigorously ghost-written by the Kentucky congressman Thomas Chilton, and several likewise imaginative almanacs ensured that the ‘coonskin’ image caught on during his lifetime. But his durable position in popular culture, most notably the commercial craze of the 1950s, was born of his heroic death as the best-known defender of the Alamo. There is violent controversy whether he was among the handful killed after surrender, but the point is surely that he went to Texas to explore land investments and could easily have avoided his fate. He chose instead to share the fortunes of the volunteers and thus to symbolize uncompromising commitment to liberty.

~ Hugh Bicheno

US Military Dictionary: Davy Crockett

Only 2 Things in Life Make It Worth Living.

Guitars that tune good, and firm feeling women.
I don't need my name in the marquee lights.
Got my song, and I got you with me tonight.
Maybe it's time we got back ... to the Basics of Love.

Let's go to Luckenbach, Texas
With Waylon and Willie and the boys.
This successful life we're livin'
Got us feuding like the Hatfields and McCoys.
Between Hank Williams' pain songs and
Newberry's train songs and Blue Eyes Cryin' in the Rain
Out in Luckenbach, Texas ain't nobody feelin' no pain.

So baby, let's sell your diamond ring
Buy some boots and faded jeans and go away
This coat and tie is choking me
In your high society you cry all day
We've been so busy keepin' up with the Jones
Four-car garage and we're still building on
Maybe it's time we got back to the basics of love...

Encore.

Nothing like a 4th quarter goal line stand...

to give you confidence in the power of D.

God, I miss having a strong, solid defense in this country. Pretending that these pre-emptive offensive actions -- heavy on the equipment but light on the strategy and purpose -- in any way resemble actual defense... it's almost like you start to believe it, until you see a successful goal-line stance and understand that true defense takes place close to home... not as paid UNpaid muscle, over there.

How 'bout that Cameron Wake?

God Bless Sports, where we still have one place to judge solely by performance.

And Cameron Wake, of Miami's defense, is bringing his A-game today against Brent Favre and the Vikings...

No doubt.

ADDED: I miss Shannon Sharpe. If the charges were quickly dropped, let the guy come back to work. His style is a breath of fresh air.

UPDATE: Whoop -- he's back. Didn't hear him earlier on the show, that uniquely familiar voice.

Christine O'Donnell does not bother me.

Do these incumbents bother you?

(Tell the truth...)





ADDED: Perhaps the presence of Nancy Faust in the formidable years accounts for my own inimitable* style? Here's to evolution, and innovation as the years demand.

In the beginning, Faust wore headphones during the games so she could listen to the radio commentary of Harry Caray. One day, she said she heard him say, “This game is going so slow they are going to have to carry me out of here,” and a song popped into her head. She played a few bars of “Carry Me Back to Old Virginny.”

Caray picked up on it and made sure his audience did, too, and Faust’s signature style was born.

“What kept me going was I got such positive reinforcement from Harry and from the fans,” she said, adding, “I loved having the ability to reflect every aspect of the ballgame for the fans.”

Play off the lady nicely; she was a champion talent in her own right...

Quotes

She can play everything. Musically, she's pretty awesome. There are a lot of songs she'll throw in there that I don't think a lot of people get. Me, being a music fan, and guys like Scott, we'll laugh.
~Former Sox pitcher and rock musician Jack McDowell

* Can't Touch This.

Kit Carson?

Say it ain't so.

As calls flooded in about Mr. Limbaugh’s depiction, Judge Vinson, 70, took it all in stride. “I’ve never killed a bear,” he said Wednesday, “and I’m not Davy Crockett.”

His wife, Ellen, was less amused. “It offended me,” she said, “because I don’t think you should be able to broadcast something nationally if you can’t verify it.”

Kit Carson, a spokesman for Mr. Limbaugh, said a staff researcher had found the information in an article on the Pensacola newspaper’s Web site, and not on Wikipedia.

King of the wild frontier...

Poor BP.

They promised the country they won't stop until every last bit of their oil spill is cleaned up. And now, with the use of dispersants and other untested techniques in waters so deep, it looks like their job of cleaning up the scattered and sunk mess is going to be even harder than had the oil been contained and floating nearer the surface.

It's like you have a pile of leaves all raked up ... and the wind comes and scatters them and you have to start over. Or, you've got the miniscule debris all swept off the bathroom, hallway and kitchen floors, and then someone unknowingly walks through the dust pile redistributing it, before you have a chance to come back with the dustpan to pick it up.

Dontcha hate it when that happens?

So poor BP. Just a few months ago, they though the job was almost over. Turns out the real work is just beginning... Promises made, promises kept, eh?

And I've no doubt our competent media, old and new, will continue tracking this cleanup and scientifically investigating the reported facts. Nobody really believed that you could one day just proclaim the spill ... "done", with all the spilled particles just magically disappeared. Or eaten up by the crude-consuming bacteria -- hungry little buggers!

Interesting the corporate ethics that will come into play here, as the company charged with taking the lead in cleaning up their messes attempts to limit liability. Should set a good 21st Century precedent for how accepting the public, and their watchdog media, will be for corporate error and easy payouts to help the public swallow their losses.

Will we take the money and look away? Fix a price and absolve their guilt? With federal funds perhaps, to help bail out the region?

Or do we take a more tough-love parental approach: make sure the corporate power gets that mess cleaned up properly* -- before it's back to business as usual, and before the ideas of fairplay, responsibility and paying for your own actions out of your own profits for your own actions are scattered to the winds.

God help us all if the message BP takes away from this deadly disaster is that their cost-cutting efforts and corner-cutting pays off in the end.


*even if it bankrupts them; nobody's too big to fail who's big enough to take those kind of heedless risks, especially with other people's lives and in shared ocean waters.

Wisconsin DA at play... on the job.

"Are you the kind of girl that likes secret contact with an older married elected DA ... the riskier the better?" Calumet County District Attorney KennethKratz, 50, wrote in a message to Stephanie Van Groll in October 2009."

Nay!

Van Groll said Kratz sent the first text minutes after she left his office, where he had interviewed her about the case.

He said it was nice talking and "you have such potential," signing the message "KEN (your favorite DA)." Twenty minutes later, he added, "I wish you weren't one of this office's clients. You'd be a cool person to know!" But he quickly tried to start a relationship and told her to keep quiet about the texts.

Van Groll at first was polite, saying Kratz was "a nice person" and thanking him for praise. By the second day, she responded with answers such as "dono" or "no." Kratz questioned whether her "low self-esteem" was to blame for the lack of interest.

"I'm serious! I'm the atty. I have the $350,000 house. I have the 6-figure career. You may be the tall, young, hot nymph, but I am the prize!" he texted.

Says you.
I don't get why -- with all those perks -- he couldn't find his action outside of his workplace, without using the job to score. With a non-client. Boys will be boys? What if this behavior occured from a police officer, say, and not a DA. Still on the job?

Kratz may be best known for prosecuting Steven Avery in the 2005 killing of Teresa Halbach, a 25-year-old photographer. The case won national attention because Avery had spent 18 years behind bars for a rape he did not commit in a separate case before DNA evidence implicated someone else. Kratz received glowing media attention and flirted with a run for Congress in 2008.

Last year, around the time he was texting Van Groll, Kratz was back in the spotlight for prosecuting a woman who worked with others to lure a boyfriend to a hotel room and glued his penis to his stomach as revenge for his cheating.

I hope there's an entry-level opening in the Calumet County DA's office someday soon. Save the county some money and all...

Kratz has remained the top prosecutor based in Chilton, where he has served since 1992 and earns a $105,000 salary. Kratz, a Republican, said he intends to run for re-election in November 2012.

He and his wife filed for divorce last December, although he said they were separated when the messages were sent.

Poor Charlie Crist.

An ex-Republican, when he finally steps up and decides it's time to take a stand and do the right thing... even his good intentions are not wanted.

Gov. Charlie Crist's announcement that he is mulling whether to drop the state's appeal of a ruling that allowed a Miami Beach homosexual to adopt could capsize advocates' efforts to declare Florida's 33-year-old ban on adoption by gays unconstitutional.

Pulling the plug on the closely watched case of Martin Gill, who adopted two brothers he had raised as a foster parent, would mean that, at least for now, appellate courts would not rule on the constitutionality of the ban and leave gays in legal limbo.

"We'd still be left with the statute" that bans gay adoptions, said Miami Beach lawyer Alan Mishael, who has represented two homosexuals who successfully adopted. "We'd still be where we started - judging on a case-by-case basis."

Timing, babe.
If you wait 'til it's safe to be courageous, people sometimes see your hedging for what it's worth.

"Caught in a Bad Romance..."

Looks like the Republican slot on Delaware's senatorial ballot turned out no more to be the national party leaders' to gift, than "the Kennedy seat" belonged to the Democrats in Massachusetts.

Domestic democracy in play: Brown, and now O'Donnell. But why do we still act so surprised?


"Stand up, miss. Your party's practices are passing."

Topping from the bottom.

That's my take on this Tea Party hubabub:
Sometimes, those content to be more submissive in general -- here, the country's still vast taxpaying middle class -- rise up, for lack of a better phrase, when those in power forget where their dominancy is derived.

So it might not last long. (You don't take a critter like a hare and change his essential nature when he defeats a less able predator.) But you never know how things shake out when the action is over, and the relationships rearrange.

Personally, I wished we wouldn't have stepped in so quickly under Bush to bail out the country's (alleged) Top guys and gals -- the financial folk, hedge fund bettors-- the people who should have cleaned up after their messes, haven't learned a thing, and I'm betting will soon be back to their old tricks of profiting obscenely at the expense of others.

(Like rewarding a 16-year-old with a second, after he totals the first sports car you bought him... No. Make 'em work for the first. And pay the insurance before signing over the title.)

Of course, I understand Main Street, dependent on the biggies, would have hurt, maybe fallen in some places too. Call me a sadist like that, but I'm a rip-the-bandaid-off-quickly kinda person. This lingering hurt -- to so many who conserved, and played by the rules in play at the time -- might not be overwhelming, but it really deserved to be felt by those who begged it on themselves...


Those bottoming at the Top.







----------------
* People fear the longterm bureaucratic effects of the healthcare bill will be as personally costly as the effects of government-mandated desegregation busing to achieve a well-intended goal in public education via plans created in theory on paper, from far away. In retrospect, not only bigots object to how that's turned out in our overall public education system.

It's one thing to provide poor people with basic healthcare; it's comparable to requiring public schools to be non-discriminatory in their admissions policies v. overreaching by prescribing methods that may -- or may not -- ultimately achieve their well-intended goal. People are wary of betting so much, right now, especially when so many other budgetary factors are in flux.

(Hth.)

Overheard conversations.

"The new right believes every new government program is one step forward on the road to serfdom. They’re winning. But I still don’t quite get it. Do they believe everybody in Sweden is a serf?"



...




No. But after a few moments pause, they probably accept that America -- for better or worse -- is not as homogeneous as Sweden, and a one-size-fits-all solution that might be adaptable to our Northern states, say, might not work when you consider the system as a whole. We've a unique history and pedigree, and now's no time to knock the brash traits that brung us.

Which is to say, if Collins were being honest here and not cleverly playing into the black-and-white game that in another breath she says she dislikes, she might understand the difference between the currently passed systematic healthcare overhaul on faith that it will prove healthy in the long run, and taking incremental steps to cover that percentage of uninsured Americans who are too poor to afford it currently.

Mandatory coverage for pre-existing illnesses: there's a reason, from a financial viewpoint, businesses operate on business principles. Taking all comers, no matter the underwriting process, kinda puts the whole concept of insurance out-of-business. As does making purchasing "insurance" mandatory...

It's solving one private industry's demographic, systemic problem by forcing into the system non-consuming populations (here, generally our healthiest, and youngest) who are expected to pay but not draw back on their dollars. That's the only way it all adds up -- if this percentage non-voluntarily gives up something for nothing, thus shifting the cost burden.

It's like prescribing a 24/7 feeding tube of healthy new customers to an already overstuffed, obese industry.

And nevermind that rising medical care costs, or any way of credibly curbing them, have yet to be addressed. Or that the undocumented "invisible" -- often the poorest and most vulnerable non-citizens amongst us -- will not be required to carry insurance as they are not systematically recognized, nor hopefully with a presumptive humane pattern continuing, will they be turned away from accessing needed healthcare. Those costs will just continue to be borne by the ever-increasing numbers of Americans forced to participate in the private health "insurance" system.



******
This is a good place to maybe talk too, about how insurance works -- what takes priority:

If an healthcare-uninsured young person is in a car accident -- or meets that damned hypothetical bus going around the country hitting healthy pedestrians everywhere who don't hear it coming and can't jump out of the way... -- they are treated in the ER, where basic facts are gathered.

When it comes to light the injuries were sustained though a vehicular accident, the vehicle policy is billed up to the Medical Payments policy limits. (My state sets a minimum that insured drivers must carry. Remember: anyone not wanting to buy this insurance doesn't have to; they just lose the privilege of driving.)

If it's not the accident victim's fault -- and I'm going to guess that in a good percentage of the mythical bus hypotheticals, the bus would be liable -- though the patient's vehicular policy is billed and pays off my bills initially, they will always subrogate, or collect, from the liable party. This way, it's between the vehicle insurance companies, and the hospital's bill has been satisfied. If the medical bill is under the auto insurance policy limits, no healthcare insurance is touched -- even for those vehicle, or pedestrian accident victims who carry it.

What if a non-driver, non-healthcare-insured is hit? And he has the i-pod on and steps in front of the bus? OK, then I'll give you, he -- or his mother, father, or responsible guardian taking him as a tax deduction -- will be facing some medical bills. That he'll either choose to be responsible for and pay off, or he'll pass on to others who have voluntarily contracted into insuring themselves.

Or, he might be one of those legitimately poor people who is non-voluntarily uninsured, without resources, who would then be eligible for Medicaid or SSI, should the injuries rise to that level. Help those people. Definitely. With tax dollars. Without bailing out the private insurance industry, or skewing the concept of voluntarily contracting for "insurance" as we know it.

Systematic shakeups too often don't prove to be all they're promised...

What percentage of the often-touted figures of America's uninsured do you suppose this Swedish-like policy of collecting everyone into the nets helps? What percentage of the currently employer-insured? Heck, in my county anyway, many of our poorest are comfortably insured by Medicaid now already: the system in place of reimbursing local dollars with federal, while hurting perhaps, was working.

Up the amounts available to those states and localities where undocumented need, and unmet realities are causing health issues, via Medicaid dollars. That was one non-conservative taxing option. Might not like such an incremental step, but with 60 votes you could have gone incrementally and sold it. Curb/manage costs there, and attempt reform with that population -- already federally controlled. Pass an unpopular bill that affects the least, first.

And you wouldn't have had to do it in the cold, dark middle of the night -- sneaking in like the Grinch and taking from the children's futures -- either.

--------------------
ADDED: Why is Brooks always artificially assuming the dominant position in these conversations?

David Brooks: Before I answer that question, let me surmise that you are up in Alaska investigating my theory that Sarah Palin is a Democratic double agent. That’s the only plausible explanation for the last two years.

He's a joke.

Does Collins deliberately play up to him to balance things out, as the unassuming yet powerful liberal to the currently out-of-power conservative? Or are they just replicating the standard Man-woman thing?

I noticed it in the repeated mention when Brooks was vacationing, and then in the deferments in that she's always asking him, promising goodies, soliciting his more able advice. I know the country is going more retro-traditional, and I know Collins came up more a news businesswoman than a writer* -- but this artificial playing up to him and taking the conversation into Dave-Barry-Lite sillyland... I don't know how many people would continue reading once they start charging for pagehits.

*Not that there's anything at all wrong with that; the rarer the talent, the stronger the contribution to the team.

Harvest Time = Cooking Time.

The goal, I think, is to get as much fresh nutrition into the body right now as possible, after putting away in the freezer and cupboards what you can for winter. So if growing is a skill -- up here, not really: I give thanks to the glacially scraped topsoil -- cooking, even just the basics, is another.

Last night, I got creative with the ingredients ripening stovetop. Eggplant, garlic, onions, broccolini, peppers -- banana, red, and green. Of course, the ever present Romas. A little olive oil in a skillet, then the glass ovenware, with a sprinkle of dried Italian herbs, and later naturally, some cheese...

The best part is, coming back upstairs to the apartment this morning after being out, the smell of fresh cooking that greeted you, even the day after.

Overheard.

"I celebrate Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf."


...


Is there cake with that?

Harvest of Plenty.

The community garden hosted an open house tonight, for neighbors, the Park Board (which approves our lease), participants and passersby. The Restorative Justice crew -- involved with an alternative dispute resolution program that draws teens both serving community service, and those helping administer the justice -- grilled zuccini with oregano. I brought some fresh-picked broccolini and dip.

The ex-Mennonite family has moved off to Kentucky, but their purple, green, and purple-and-green-striped pole beans were still around to sample. Someone made pesto...

I like being involved. I like the people who garden, share their info and stories. We even had a bear visiting this summer, treed itself down the street. (This is the residential garden, not the church one on the edge of the cornfield.) The fellow who helped get it organized last year -- the community one -- is a Baha'i. I think he was most interested in keeping these plots organic -- no fertilizer -- whereas the farm field plots are not.

But... I think too, he wasn't interested in participating in the church garden and preferred the secular. I wondered myself last year when signing up with my phone number and address if I'd be pressured to join their evangelical church. Which wouldn't have bothered me -- you learn as a child opening the door to Jehovah's Witnesses, conversion crews go away quickly when you tell them you're Catholic.

But no pressure: nobody called, nobody mailed. Just the community invite to the Corn Roast end-of-harvest gathering. And meeting some of the nice families in neighboring plots who were members of the church.

Still, it's nice when your city is big enough to offer both.

Redemption Song.

Bob again:

But my hand was made strong
By the power of the Almighty.
We flowered in this generation...
Triumphantly.

Won't you help to sing
These songs of freedom?
...
Emancipate yourselves from mental slavery;
None but ourselves can free our minds.
Have no fear for atomic energy,
'Cause none of them can stop the time.
How long shall they kill our prophets,
While we stand aside and look? Ooh!
Some say it's just a part of it:
We've got to fulfill the book.

Won't you help to sing
These songs of freedom?
'Cause all I ever have:
Redemption songs.

Speaking of priorities...

This reading from Luke, 14:25-33, seems particularly relevant today in considering presidential leadership, past and present:

"Great crowds were traveling with Jesus,
and he turned and addressed them,
"If anyone comes to me without hating his father and mother,
wife and children, brothers and sisters,
and even his own life,
he cannot be my disciple.
Whoever does not carry his own cross and come after me
cannot be my disciple.
Which of you wishing to construct a tower
does not first sit down and calculate the cost
to see if there is enough for its completion?
Otherwise, after laying the foundation
and finding himself unable to finish the work
the onlookers should laugh at him and say,
'This one began to build but did not have the resources to finish.'
Or what king marching into battle would not first sit down
and decide whether with ten thousand troops
he can successfully oppose another king
advancing upon him with twenty thousand troops?
But if not, while he is still far away,
he will send a delegation to ask for peace terms.
In the same way,
anyone of you who does not renounce all his possessions
cannot be my disciple."

When you first encounter that passage -- sitting in a pew with your parents, brothers and sisters -- it might sound strange to the childlike listener. Hate your family?? But in understanding the meaning not so much to be literal, but to be in prioritizing -- Love the Lord more than your earthly family and possessions -- you kinda get it in repeated readings.

The Cross isn't a shiny gold symbol afterall; it's struggle. Ah, but the victory that lies in the redemption, for those who have faithfully borne those crosses and still believed in Almighty Love...

"Fuentes, and McCafferty, and Bailey, and Badillo, and Carey, but no one knows whether they were Catholics or not ..."

or, Obama's no Jack Kennedy.

David Broder, on Kennedy's important speech, 50 years ago today. Never forget:

Then came the rhetoric, including the reminder that "side by side with Bowie and Crockett died Fuentes, and McCafferty, and Bailey, and Badillo, and Carey, but no one knows whether they were Catholics or not. For there was no religious test" at the Alamo.

In the question period, Kennedy sported a look of bemused puzzlement as the ministers quoted from the Catholic Encyclopedia, his body language conveying that this trip was outside his normal world. But he never lost his cool, and he assured them he found none of the questioning "unfair or unreasonable." He left to applause.

At the end, Peter Lisagor of the Chicago Daily News turned to a knot of other reporters and said, "If the editors of this country were smart, they'd pull every reporter covering Kennedy tonight off him for the rest of the campaign. You can't have watched this and still say you're neutral." I thought he was right.

By contrast, after a rousing Labor Day speech in Milwaukee, the president yesterday is back to that just-reading-off-the-teleprompter delivery again.* Which might work, if he indeed had a team of brilliant speechwriters, capable of crafting the kind of wordplay that can't help but complement the president's natural delivery -- bring out the best in him and all. We know he's got it in him, when the inspiration strikes...

Instead: say, is that young fellow caught feeling up Hillary's cardboard boobie still on the job?*

Nothing wrong with youth per se, in and of itself, but sometimes it helps to surround yourself with "old souls" --regardless of age -- because those boy-whippersnappers with all the ego and answers (the intellectual version of "young, dumb, and full of cum") really don't have their listening ears well attuned to their fellow countryman's needs and all.

And sometimes listening -- before you craft your speeches, agendas, and priorities -- to the people who brung ya, counts more in the end than all the youthful support of the paid fanboys, who believe their credentials from the best and brightest places indeed entitle them to a place at the table quicker than those other American workers who have spent lifetimes listening and responding, working day-by-day-by-day at the dirty details to promote effective change that lasts longer than a political term or two.


















(Yup, that last sentence is a run on. So what? Function over form. Solid gains over PC niceities. Catch my drift? I knew you would.)

* I think some speechwriter was trying unsuccessfully to match Kennedy's rhetoric. The bit about Muslims fighting and dying, and praying together with other denominations in the Pentagon nearby, was an attempt.

But when you put names to the fight, when you show us instead of the continual telling... It works.

(Is that even a test to measure these policies anymore? Whether something works or not? Maybe it should be? And in hindsight too, not just in optimistic prediction mode... No excuses. Either it works, or not. And if it's not working ... something about change ... nope, cap that = Change!)

Is there a place for the hopeless sinner...

who has ... hurt all mankind, just to ... save his own?
Everybody now!

One Love, One Heart
Let's get together and feel all right
Hear the children crying (One Love)
Hear the children crying (One Heart)
Sayin' give thanks and praise to the Lord and I will feel all right
Sayin' let's get together and feel all right

Let them all pass all their dirty remarks (One Love)
There is one question I'd really like to ask (One Heart)
Is there a place for the hopeless sinner
Who has hurt all mankind just to save his own?
Believe me.. One Love.

One Love, One Heart
Let's get together and feel all right
As it was in the beginning (One Love)
So shall it be in the end (One Heart)
Give thanks and praise to the Lord and I will feel all right
One more thing

Let's get together to fight this Holy Armageddon (One Love)
So when the Man comes there will be no no doom (One Song)
Have pity on those whose chances grow thinner
There ain't no hiding place from the Father of Creation

Sayin' One Love, One Heart
Let's get together and feel all right
I'm pleading to mankind (One Love)
Oh Lord (One Heart)

Give thanks and praise to the Lord and I will feel all right
Let's get together and feel all right

People Get Ready.

Oh you...

Telling me the things you're gonna do for me...

Wow — a lot of misinformation about the new estimates on health care costs. Read Ezra Klein, who concludes:

So, the nickel version: Spending goes up in 2014 because we’re covering 30 million new people and then down after that because we’re controlling costs in the system.

So yes, there’s a bump when 35 million people who would otherwise have been uninsured get coverage; but growth is slower after that, which will mean big savings in the long run. It really doesn’t matter at all whether your estimate says that overall health spending will be slightly higher or slightly lower in 2019 as a result of the law; aside from the fact that covering all those people with at most a minimal rise in costs is itself a policy triumph, it’s spending in the decades that follow that matters for cost.

And let’s be clear: you could not have gotten the cost savings without the move to near-universal coverage, for both political and technical reasons. This thing really is a package — a package that, with all its flaws, both makes our society more decent and improves our long-run budget outlook.

The question remains ... is it constitutional to force healthy, independent people under penalty of law to purchase a product on the private market that they don't want, and don't consume, in order to subsidize a private industry? If not, the numbers don't work.

I suppose we'll see in 2014 some accountability from the numbers guys who are going to stand by their 2010 optimistic predictions, just like we see the profession stepping up and accepting responsibility for the current fiscal mess, eh?

It must be the Life of Riley to be an ineffectual Eeyore economist today: "Oh what a mess we're in... Only gonna get worse folks. But I got it right predicting this misery; too bad nobody listens to lil ole me..."

Too bad for all their brains, these economical wizards apparently never read "How to Win Friends and Influence People." Really must be tough being the Best Player on the Losing Team. Having all the answers, and nothing collective to show for it.

No matter how many prizes you might pick up for your work and all.

September Song.

The Walter Huston classic:

But it’s a long, long while from May to December,
And the days grow short when you reach September.
The autumn weather turns the leaves to flame,
And I haven’t got the time for the waiting game.

Oh, the days dwindle down to a precious few;
September, November. . . .
And these few precious days I’ll spend with you,
These precious days I’ll spend with you

.

"In this bright future, you can't forget

... your past. So dry your tears, I say."

~Bob Marley

Anniversary Number 9.

Number 9:

Now the valley country cried with anger*:
Mount your horses; draw your swords!
And they killed the mountain desert people
So they won their just reward.

Now they stood beside the treasure
On the mountain, dark and red
Turned the stone and looked beneath it:
$1 trillion in debt... was all it read.

Go ahead and hate your neighbor
Go ahead and cheat a friend
Do it in the name of heaven "democracy" ;
You can justify it in the end...

(Apologies to Coven.)

*For a vivid reminder of that justifiable anger, though improperly aimed -- Dick Cheney-style, you can't beat Leonard Pitts for fresh rawness that day:

...
Yes, we're in pain now. We are in mourning, and we are in shock. We're still grappling with the unreality of the awful thing you did, still working to make ourselves understand that this isn't a special effect from some Hollywood blockbuster, isn't the plot development from a Tom Clancy novel.

Both in terms of the awful scope of its ambition and the probable final death toll, your attacks are likely to go down as the worst acts of terrorism in the history of the United States and, indeed, the history of the world. You've bloodied us as we have never been bloodied before.

But there's a gulf of difference between making us bloody and making us fall. This is the lesson that Japan was taught to its bitter sorrow the last time anyone hit us this hard, the last time anyone brought us such abrupt and monumental pain. When roused, we are righteous in our outrage, terrible in our force. When provoked by this level of barbarism, we will bear any suffering, pay any cost, go to any length in the pursuit of justice.

I tell you this without fear of contradiction. I know my people as you, I think, do not. What I know reassures me. It also causes me to tremble with dread of the future.

In days to come, there will be recrimination and accusation, fingers pointing to determine whose failure allowed this to happen and what can be done to prevent it from happening again. There will be heightened security, misguided talk of revoking basic freedoms. We'll go forward from this moment sobered, chastened, sad. But determined, too. Unimaginably determined.

You see, there is steel beneath this velvet. That aspect of our character is seldom understood by people who don't know us well. On this day, the family's bickering is put on hold. As Americans, we will weep; as Americans, we will mourn; and as Americans, we will rise in defense of all that we cherish.

Still, I keep wondering what it was you hoped to teach us. It occurs to me that maybe you just wanted us to know the depths of your hatred.

If that's the case, consider the message received. And take this message in exchange: You don't know my people. You don't know what we're about. You don't know what you just started.

But you're about to learn.

$1 trillion in debt, was all it read...

"I don't know why I like it..."

"I just do!"

Those words, kicking off an old Whitney Houston song, strike me as just about right regarding my opinions on this story:

Palm Beach radio talker Rush Limbaugh and Gainesville pastor Terry Jones, who’s been flip-flopping about whether he’ll burn Korans on the anniversary of 9-11 tomorrow, graduated together in 1969 from Central High School in Cape Girardeau, Mo.

Funny, funny. Too funny our coincidental world. Not that we should be judging others on how fellow classmates, possible teammates, turn out, but still. Something about those Show-Me Missouri boys gone Florida and the attendant notoriety...

You might say, in his quick-grab of media attention -- making mountains out of silly, easily divisive nonsense-- the good pastor out-Limbaughed Limbaugh!*

(I wonder if the pastor was one of those gathered in the Limbaugh house to hear Rush's dad pontificate, as the alleged smartest man in town and all...)

----------------------

* I get so emotional, baby...
everytime I think of you.
I get so emotional, baby...
Ain't it shocking what love shlock can do...

"I'm a-shakin' it, Boss... I'm a-shakin' it!"

Warning NSFW:
Don't quote this, under deadline, heading back to your desk in corporate carrel-land. It's like the humor nutrients in those workplaces get sucked out in the air-control intake, or something.

Otherwise: happy Friday, friends.

Wrapping up the year.

Taking stock, and looking ahead to the next...

Let there be Peace on Earth, and

... Let it Begin with Me...
With God as our Father
Brothers all are we
Let me walk with my brother
in perfect harmony...

And with that, we round out our week of latter-day church songs.* Why that theme this week?, the reader asks.

In response to Glenn Beck's call to rally round family and faith in these upcoming hard times? Nope, purely coincidental. But oddly connected, in an ever so slight way...

My mother's cousin, I learned this weekend, will be a monsignor come October. Quite an honor, in his Catholic faith and career. And a long time coming...

Father Leo you see, as a young Chicago priest, was sent by Cardinal Meyer in 1963 to build a missionary church community in Panama. He did; it was so successful, international politics were involved.

They call this "liberation theology", and to steal a line from the late Paul Harvey, now you know the rest of the story...
---------------



*

ARLETTA
[Thank God!] Well, why not? Idee of marryin' got
you all choked up, trying to pretend
you was respectable you was borin'
the hell out of all of us.
LUKE
(grinning at her)
Yeah.

To take each moment
and live each moment
in peace -- eternally...
Let there be peace on earth
and let it begin with me.

Wishing you and yours a happy Labor Day weekend, come rain or shine! (It's a bit like the Sabbath of holiday weekends, no? If you get the work done early, and aren't scheduled to pull a shift this weekend anyway...)

Bob Herbert speaking at UW.

As an alum, we're invited every year to attend the Kastenmeier Lecture. One of my favorite treats of law school -- they pick up some good speakers over the years. (Anthony Lewis, Lawrence Lessig.)

So Tony, Larry, and now Bob. (Just joking, to offset the minor formality of these events.)

Have I mentioned here, on the comedian front in recent years, I've seen George Carlin, Lily Tomlin ... even Jerry Seinfeld, before the show, when he was still doing college stand-up.

Not that Herbert's topic looks funny -- Afghanistan: What Are We Fighting For? -- (nor did Lewis or Lessig's in 2002 and 2003: Civil Liberties in a Time of Terror, and The Forgotten Balance of Robert Kastenmeier.)

Still, a stand-up lecture is a performance like a comedy routine. And humor, especially intelligent humor, can help things along.

Sing to the Mountains.

Getting an early start on Thursday's post:

Sing to the mountains, sing to the sea.
Raise your voices, lift your hearts.
This is the day the Lord has made.
Let all the earth rejoice...

Blest Be the Lord.

Sweep your Wednesday worries aside ...

Blest be the Lord, blest be the Lord
The God of mercy, the God who saves
I shall not fear the dark of night
Nor the arrow that flies by day
...

or,
A Wednesday Double Shot

Though the Mountains May Fall:

Though the mountains may fall and the hills turn to dust,
Yet the love of the Lord will stand
as a shelter for all who will call on His name.
Sing the praise and the glory of God!