Oooo! The swine flu!!
Run away!!!
H1N1 will infect plenty of us this winter. It will kill some of us. Just like the regular flu does every year.
That's because it IS a regular flu, complete with - brace yourself, a terrifying revelation awaits - flu-like symptoms. It has some peculiar characteristics, like how it tends to targets young people instead of old. It's going to reach a pandemic stage. It will spread like crazy. You or someone you know WILL get it this fall or winter. Oh, did I forget to mention: It also causes little squiggly piggy tails to sprout from your forehead.
All right, so it's not exactly Ebola. Although the next wave of deaths, coupled with a certain shortage of H1N1 vaccine, will test that theory in the media. I hate to sound so callous, but I just can't get worked up about it and it annoys me heavily that reporters do. I guess it just doesn't rise to the level of news I'd drop everything to watch. It will be costly, in terms of lost productivity in the workplace, but otherwise... pfff.
Still, the kids will be washing their hands and covering their coughs with a passion this fall. I'm such a paranoid hypocrite.
(Is this post's title too obscure of a joke? Just curious.)
Thursday, September 10, 2009
Tuesday, September 8, 2009
Duck Season: Use a Blount Instrument / 9-8-09
I know I'm a few days late chiming in here, but sometimes a topic or a thought bounces around in your head for a while, then falls out fully formed, ready to post. That's what happened here with the whole punch fiasco at the end of last week's Oregon-Boise State football game.
I got really bothered the more I read about how Oregon did the right thing in suspending LaGarrette Blount for the entire season after Blount decked opponent Byron Hout with a punch after the final whistle of last Thursday's game. (BSU won 19-8. Insert your personal celebration/lamentation here.)
No, the only thing the Ducks' athletic braintrust did right was allow him to practice all year so he could still pursue the career he came to college to, well, pursue.
Yeah, Blount's nominally a political science major, but with the kind of season he had in '08, 17 touchdowns and over 1,000 yards rushing, he was on track to join the NFL after this year, barring injury. (Little did we suspect the nature of the injury in question.)
I got really bothered all weekend by people saying he got what he deserved. Does he have anger management issues? Seems to. Does he deserve to be suspended? Oh yeah. Does he deserve to have his livelihood threatened? No.
Before you go all "he got to go for school for free, stop defending his indefensible actions" on me, realize two things. First, his scholarship has nothing to do with my point: Threatening his career is too harsh of a move. And then, keep in mind I'm not defending his violent act. What an idiot. Probably. (More on that in a moment.)
As the weekend dragged on and more folks chimed in, I got really bothered by the assumption that Blount's retaliation, for whatever Hout did and said to him, was disproportionate. It may well have been. The dude might just have lost his temper because that's what he does, and he can't control himself, and that's what his upbringing and his nature saddled him with.
Or he could have been enraged by racial slurs, ten dirty cheap shots throughout the game, a boatload of comments about his mother's sexual preferences... or two out of those three. In that case, I have no problem whatsoever with him suckerpunching the offender/s.
It gnaws on me that I'm seemingly the only one who thinks that way. But then again, let's not forget I AM morally and intellectually superior to the entire living population of humankind, and you should count yourself privileged just to be allowed to read my blog. So there.
Anyway, it sure looks like Oregon suspended him for the whole season to save face. 'Cause it's the best PR move for the university. Restoring his ability to practice is admirable, because it allows him to maybe get a shot a playing pro ball, but even that is insufficient. I'd sit him three games and suspend him in advance for any bowl game/bowl trip the team earns. That way the consequence hangs over him the whole year, removes a known hothead from your year-end celebration, and he still gets a chance to redeem himself on the field in the meantime. But that's just too reasonable of a solution.
P.S. If you want to get into the whole race aspect of this, which I don't, feel free to click here, which takes to a discussion on blacksportsonline.com of said punch, and of course, the video thereof.
I got really bothered the more I read about how Oregon did the right thing in suspending LaGarrette Blount for the entire season after Blount decked opponent Byron Hout with a punch after the final whistle of last Thursday's game. (BSU won 19-8. Insert your personal celebration/lamentation here.)
No, the only thing the Ducks' athletic braintrust did right was allow him to practice all year so he could still pursue the career he came to college to, well, pursue.
Yeah, Blount's nominally a political science major, but with the kind of season he had in '08, 17 touchdowns and over 1,000 yards rushing, he was on track to join the NFL after this year, barring injury. (Little did we suspect the nature of the injury in question.)
I got really bothered all weekend by people saying he got what he deserved. Does he have anger management issues? Seems to. Does he deserve to be suspended? Oh yeah. Does he deserve to have his livelihood threatened? No.
Before you go all "he got to go for school for free, stop defending his indefensible actions" on me, realize two things. First, his scholarship has nothing to do with my point: Threatening his career is too harsh of a move. And then, keep in mind I'm not defending his violent act. What an idiot. Probably. (More on that in a moment.)
As the weekend dragged on and more folks chimed in, I got really bothered by the assumption that Blount's retaliation, for whatever Hout did and said to him, was disproportionate. It may well have been. The dude might just have lost his temper because that's what he does, and he can't control himself, and that's what his upbringing and his nature saddled him with.
Or he could have been enraged by racial slurs, ten dirty cheap shots throughout the game, a boatload of comments about his mother's sexual preferences... or two out of those three. In that case, I have no problem whatsoever with him suckerpunching the offender/s.
It gnaws on me that I'm seemingly the only one who thinks that way. But then again, let's not forget I AM morally and intellectually superior to the entire living population of humankind, and you should count yourself privileged just to be allowed to read my blog. So there.
Anyway, it sure looks like Oregon suspended him for the whole season to save face. 'Cause it's the best PR move for the university. Restoring his ability to practice is admirable, because it allows him to maybe get a shot a playing pro ball, but even that is insufficient. I'd sit him three games and suspend him in advance for any bowl game/bowl trip the team earns. That way the consequence hangs over him the whole year, removes a known hothead from your year-end celebration, and he still gets a chance to redeem himself on the field in the meantime. But that's just too reasonable of a solution.
P.S. If you want to get into the whole race aspect of this, which I don't, feel free to click here, which takes to a discussion on blacksportsonline.com of said punch, and of course, the video thereof.
Sunday, September 6, 2009
Obamacare? Puh-leeze / 9-06-09
Just so we're clear.
The Democrats in the White House, the Senate, and the House of Representatives are not interested in becoming your doctors. They're not medical professionals. Presently, they're sanitation engineers. Yes, I mean janitors and garbagemen and women. Seriously, what do you think they've been doing for the past seven months? Every piece of legislation from the legislators, every piece of leadership from the executives, all their efforts have been directed to cleaning up the piles and piles and piles of malodiferous dung left behind from years of reckless Republican rule.
They don't have time to run your HMO. They don't have time to manage your medical care, so they're not even going to try. (And give the death panels a rest, unless you work for FOX "News" and you have a responsibility to your employer to undermine the administration.) No, all our elected officials want to do, besides get re-elected and receive fellatio from ladies and gentlemen of varying levels of attractiveness, is find a way to keep your escalating health care COSTS from causing even more of you to slip into bankruptcy. That's why all the talk of government-run health care is a giant scare tactic. Democrats are interested in establishing a government-run health INSURANCE plan. No care. Just insurance. You know, to prevent companies from gouging you, not that they ever would, not when all their shareholders demand is that fewer and fewer claims be honored and that profits continue to escalate. (Did you catch the sarcasm, or was it too obvious?)
That's what is meant by the term "public option." An option to buy insurance from the government. It's not a green light for something like "Obamacare" in which the President might dedicate an afternoon to making house calls, or reviewing your pre-existing conditions, or arranging appointments for you to see a doctor in Anchorage three months from now for that odd-hued boil on your behind.
Obama, The Great Redistributor, is aiming to give your real financial relief in the one spot of your budget that needs it the most; the public option is a gratuitous naked effort to redistribute wealth from insurance company profits to your wallet. You can say no if that sounds awful.
(Hey, incidentally, the term "Obamacare" needs some work, my reactionary conservative nutjob friends. You used "Hillarycare" in '93. That worked. But it was lame then and now just sounds unimaginative when it plops from your lips today. Try harder.)
Anyway, to explain my point further, I snagged the upcoming paragraph from Politico, where the writing is clearer, conciser and generally less juvenile than on my blog.
The White House line has been: “We have been saying all along that the most important part of this debate is not the public option, but rather ensuring choice and competition. There are lots of different ways to get there.” But now [Obama's] going to step on the gas a little harder. One top official gave this formulation: “He has consistently said that he thinks the public option is an important way to make sure that there is both cost and competition control. He’s also said consistently that if someone can show him a better way or another way to get there, he’d be happy to look at it. But he’s never committed to going with another way. He’s always said he’d be happy to look at any proposal that gets to these goals, but that he thinks this is probably the best better way to do it.”
As you can glean from those words, Obama is set to deliver a major speech soon on this issue. Wednesday, actually. Pay attention.
The Democrats in the White House, the Senate, and the House of Representatives are not interested in becoming your doctors. They're not medical professionals. Presently, they're sanitation engineers. Yes, I mean janitors and garbagemen and women. Seriously, what do you think they've been doing for the past seven months? Every piece of legislation from the legislators, every piece of leadership from the executives, all their efforts have been directed to cleaning up the piles and piles and piles of malodiferous dung left behind from years of reckless Republican rule.
They don't have time to run your HMO. They don't have time to manage your medical care, so they're not even going to try. (And give the death panels a rest, unless you work for FOX "News" and you have a responsibility to your employer to undermine the administration.) No, all our elected officials want to do, besides get re-elected and receive fellatio from ladies and gentlemen of varying levels of attractiveness, is find a way to keep your escalating health care COSTS from causing even more of you to slip into bankruptcy. That's why all the talk of government-run health care is a giant scare tactic. Democrats are interested in establishing a government-run health INSURANCE plan. No care. Just insurance. You know, to prevent companies from gouging you, not that they ever would, not when all their shareholders demand is that fewer and fewer claims be honored and that profits continue to escalate. (Did you catch the sarcasm, or was it too obvious?)
That's what is meant by the term "public option." An option to buy insurance from the government. It's not a green light for something like "Obamacare" in which the President might dedicate an afternoon to making house calls, or reviewing your pre-existing conditions, or arranging appointments for you to see a doctor in Anchorage three months from now for that odd-hued boil on your behind.
Obama, The Great Redistributor, is aiming to give your real financial relief in the one spot of your budget that needs it the most; the public option is a gratuitous naked effort to redistribute wealth from insurance company profits to your wallet. You can say no if that sounds awful.
(Hey, incidentally, the term "Obamacare" needs some work, my reactionary conservative nutjob friends. You used "Hillarycare" in '93. That worked. But it was lame then and now just sounds unimaginative when it plops from your lips today. Try harder.)
Anyway, to explain my point further, I snagged the upcoming paragraph from Politico, where the writing is clearer, conciser and generally less juvenile than on my blog.
The White House line has been: “We have been saying all along that the most important part of this debate is not the public option, but rather ensuring choice and competition. There are lots of different ways to get there.” But now [Obama's] going to step on the gas a little harder. One top official gave this formulation: “He has consistently said that he thinks the public option is an important way to make sure that there is both cost and competition control. He’s also said consistently that if someone can show him a better way or another way to get there, he’d be happy to look at it. But he’s never committed to going with another way. He’s always said he’d be happy to look at any proposal that gets to these goals, but that he thinks this is probably the best better way to do it.”
As you can glean from those words, Obama is set to deliver a major speech soon on this issue. Wednesday, actually. Pay attention.
2000 and counting / 9-6-09
Relax. Not a post about Bush and Gore and Florida.
I think the average sports fan in the Northwest forgets the following fact a little too easily:
If Ichiro Suzuki were to never play another professional baseball game again, he would still be elected to the Hall of Fame.
Ichiro is uniquely awesome... wait wait, hold on a sec, let's not go down this path, you know, the one along which I heap every superlative in the thesaurusictionary on him, and which ends with me pulling off my bra and hurling it onstage, screaming at the top of my estrogen-pulsating lungs, "I LOVE YOU ICHI!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"
No. Strictly a mathematical affair tonight.
Since his arrival in MLB in the spring of 2001, Ichiro has accumulated exactly, precisely, 2,000 hits, on the button. Got the milestone hit earlier this afternoon in Oakland.
He has 250 hits more than the second-place guy (Derek Jeter, maybe you've heard of him) during that time frame.
Ichiro is the fourth player in history to rack up 2,000 or more hits in a single decade. (Joining Rogers Hornsby, Sam Rice, and Pete Rose, all of whom played all 10 years that decade, not just nine like Ichiro. Slackers.)
He set the single-season hits record along the way, 262 in 2004. That record had stood since 1920. (Bragging alert: I was in the stadium.)
He has more hits in the past nine years than ANY OTHER PLAYER ever had in ANY NINE-YEAR PERIOD in baseball history. Look here for confirmation.
He was 27 when his career began on this side of the ocean; in Japan's pro league, Ichiro racked up 1,278 base knocks. Should he reach 2,979 as a major leaguer, he will have more professional base hits than Pete Rose. Yeah, the guy who holds the all-time record.
He's 35 and he beats out infield hits every week.
He's hitting .363.
Eventually, he'll retire. Not soon. But eventually. Instead of taking him for granted, as I sometimes have, keep in mind that he is one of the greatest baseball players in history. We're insanely lucky to have him.
I think the average sports fan in the Northwest forgets the following fact a little too easily:
If Ichiro Suzuki were to never play another professional baseball game again, he would still be elected to the Hall of Fame.
Ichiro is uniquely awesome... wait wait, hold on a sec, let's not go down this path, you know, the one along which I heap every superlative in the thesaurusictionary on him, and which ends with me pulling off my bra and hurling it onstage, screaming at the top of my estrogen-pulsating lungs, "I LOVE YOU ICHI!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"
No. Strictly a mathematical affair tonight.
Since his arrival in MLB in the spring of 2001, Ichiro has accumulated exactly, precisely, 2,000 hits, on the button. Got the milestone hit earlier this afternoon in Oakland.
He has 250 hits more than the second-place guy (Derek Jeter, maybe you've heard of him) during that time frame.
Ichiro is the fourth player in history to rack up 2,000 or more hits in a single decade. (Joining Rogers Hornsby, Sam Rice, and Pete Rose, all of whom played all 10 years that decade, not just nine like Ichiro. Slackers.)
He set the single-season hits record along the way, 262 in 2004. That record had stood since 1920. (Bragging alert: I was in the stadium.)
He has more hits in the past nine years than ANY OTHER PLAYER ever had in ANY NINE-YEAR PERIOD in baseball history. Look here for confirmation.
He was 27 when his career began on this side of the ocean; in Japan's pro league, Ichiro racked up 1,278 base knocks. Should he reach 2,979 as a major leaguer, he will have more professional base hits than Pete Rose. Yeah, the guy who holds the all-time record.
He's 35 and he beats out infield hits every week.
He's hitting .363.
Eventually, he'll retire. Not soon. But eventually. Instead of taking him for granted, as I sometimes have, keep in mind that he is one of the greatest baseball players in history. We're insanely lucky to have him.
A New Hope / 9-6-09
I should explain... there are reasons no blog posts appeared here between July 25 and September 4.
No, I did not spend six weeks incarcerated for public urination following an incident at Safeco Field. That's just a mostly inaccurate nasty rumor.
No, I did not spend the month of August sailing around Cape Horn with the family. We barely made it to the Falklands.
No again, I did not remodel my house, crash my computer, or even enroll in rehab, as attractive as that last option sounds. (Replacing two planks on the deck, installing antivirus software and going four days in between alcoholic beverages is about as far as I got on all three of those ventures.)
I just got burned out on writing, that's all. I'm back in the groove again, especially after Friday night's directionless spouting on a topic that makes me so angry I can hardly organize my thoughts.
But I digress, which is no surprise.
I have posts in the works about Ichiro, Taoism, Obama's approval ratings, the swine flu, health care, the Seahawks, my at-last-completed novel, and rankings of U.S. Presidents who've served in my lifetime. All those are coming this week or next. Some tonight.
So you can stop holding your breath.
No, I did not spend six weeks incarcerated for public urination following an incident at Safeco Field. That's just a mostly inaccurate nasty rumor.
No, I did not spend the month of August sailing around Cape Horn with the family. We barely made it to the Falklands.
No again, I did not remodel my house, crash my computer, or even enroll in rehab, as attractive as that last option sounds. (Replacing two planks on the deck, installing antivirus software and going four days in between alcoholic beverages is about as far as I got on all three of those ventures.)
I just got burned out on writing, that's all. I'm back in the groove again, especially after Friday night's directionless spouting on a topic that makes me so angry I can hardly organize my thoughts.
But I digress, which is no surprise.
I have posts in the works about Ichiro, Taoism, Obama's approval ratings, the swine flu, health care, the Seahawks, my at-last-completed novel, and rankings of U.S. Presidents who've served in my lifetime. All those are coming this week or next. Some tonight.
So you can stop holding your breath.
Friday, September 4, 2009
And the rant goes on... / 9-4-09
I know, I know, I'm not exactly coherent tonight. The more I write about gay rights, the more passionate I get about the issue. And I hear the most inane things from people who appear at first to have brains and cognitive capacity. All of which makes me even more ranty than usual.
I'm sorry, but "Marriage is between a man and a woman, therefore marriage is between a man and a woman" is not a valid argument to deny gay partners the right to marry.
I'm sorry, but "The Bible says homosexuality is wrong, therefore it's wrong" is not a valid argument in any debate. The Bible also says the sun stood still for a day (Joshua 10: 1-15), and that poses quite a few physics-related problems. And I'm not even going to get into Leviticus.
I'm sorry, but "If it's a good enough code for me to live by, it's good enough for everyone to live by" is not a valid argument. Do you see any way through which that might backfire? Like maybe if more than one opinion, one philosophy, one religion happened to exist side by side the same country?
I'm sorry, but the founders did not directly quote Scripture in the U.S. Constitution, so let's keep it out of state constitutions too, okay? You want to use it to make a point? Sure. But that doesn't give you the green light to cut and paste it into law.
I'm sorry, but your marriage is not threatened by allowing Kurt and Burt to tie the knot. You have lost no rights; the certificate is still valid. More to the point, you still need to listen to your spouse on occasion if you want the relationship to last. Look, you still need to floss at night if you want to avoid gum disease; your neighbor's flossing habits, or lack thereof, are not magically going to impact your own. (Yes, I DID just compare listening to your spouse to flossing.)
*briefly pauses rant, takes breath*
I'm sorry, but "Marriage is between a man and a woman, therefore marriage is between a man and a woman" is not a valid argument to deny gay partners the right to marry.
I'm sorry, but "The Bible says homosexuality is wrong, therefore it's wrong" is not a valid argument in any debate. The Bible also says the sun stood still for a day (Joshua 10: 1-15), and that poses quite a few physics-related problems. And I'm not even going to get into Leviticus.
I'm sorry, but "If it's a good enough code for me to live by, it's good enough for everyone to live by" is not a valid argument. Do you see any way through which that might backfire? Like maybe if more than one opinion, one philosophy, one religion happened to exist side by side the same country?
I'm sorry, but the founders did not directly quote Scripture in the U.S. Constitution, so let's keep it out of state constitutions too, okay? You want to use it to make a point? Sure. But that doesn't give you the green light to cut and paste it into law.
I'm sorry, but your marriage is not threatened by allowing Kurt and Burt to tie the knot. You have lost no rights; the certificate is still valid. More to the point, you still need to listen to your spouse on occasion if you want the relationship to last. Look, you still need to floss at night if you want to avoid gum disease; your neighbor's flossing habits, or lack thereof, are not magically going to impact your own. (Yes, I DID just compare listening to your spouse to flossing.)
*briefly pauses rant, takes breath*
It's something, at least / 9-4-09
Here's my first volley in the R-71 battle.
While we wait for the courts to decide if the signatures on R-71 are to remain public, I have something only semi-wasteful of your time that you can ponder.
When you click here, you'll be directed to No on R-71, which is acting as an anti-gay-rights home page of sorts for Washingtonians; it's put together by the same folks who brought you the initiative in the first place. Click through the members. See if you recognize someone. If you do, consider sending them a message. Something polite.
("F*cking hater! Get your slimy holier-than-thou paws off my friend's sex life!" is probably not your best strategy.)
Something like "Gays are entitled to civil rights too. Please consider that R-71 is not about marriage, but about about guaranteeing equal rights to gay couples in matters such as visitation rights, medical care, estate planning, and power of attorney. These are options you take for granted, but which you seemingly want to deny to gay partners, and I wish you would reconsider. Thanks for listening." That will have a more than 0 percent success rate. Not much more, granted, but it'll also make you feel better, which is something.
Oh, you can follow this link too, it's the same.
While we wait for the courts to decide if the signatures on R-71 are to remain public, I have something only semi-wasteful of your time that you can ponder.
When you click here, you'll be directed to No on R-71, which is acting as an anti-gay-rights home page of sorts for Washingtonians; it's put together by the same folks who brought you the initiative in the first place. Click through the members. See if you recognize someone. If you do, consider sending them a message. Something polite.
("F*cking hater! Get your slimy holier-than-thou paws off my friend's sex life!" is probably not your best strategy.)
Something like "Gays are entitled to civil rights too. Please consider that R-71 is not about marriage, but about about guaranteeing equal rights to gay couples in matters such as visitation rights, medical care, estate planning, and power of attorney. These are options you take for granted, but which you seemingly want to deny to gay partners, and I wish you would reconsider. Thanks for listening." That will have a more than 0 percent success rate. Not much more, granted, but it'll also make you feel better, which is something.
Oh, you can follow this link too, it's the same.
Spouting / 9-4-09
OK, R-71 qualified for the November ballot. I've moved past denial and bargaining. Trying to sort through anger, planning on skipping depression, moving toward acceptance.
(R-71 is an citizens' intiative here in Washington aiming to remove civil rights the legislature granted gay couples earlier this year.)
But I want to get into the public-record side of things. The group that got R-71 on the ballot, Misguided So-Called Christians With Nothing Better To Do, er, I mean Protect Marriage Washington, is fighting the release of the names of folks who signed their petition.
Those signatures are public record, under state law; the group's attorneys are asking for the names to remain sealed. A Tacoma judge says he'll review the case and might rule as early as Thursday as to whether anonymity is granted.
From R-71 attorney Sarah Troupis, quoted at seattletimes.com: releasing the signatures "directly leads to the threats, harassment and reprisals that we worry citizens of Washington will be subject to."
Let me get this straight. (No pun intended.)
You want to use our system of government, which operates on the assumption of open records, to further marginalize a group of citizens, and you want the folks who support your efforts to remain anonymous.
You're afraid that the people you are trying to take civil rights away from will get upset? I grant you that. I'm hopping mad, and it's not even my rights you're directly messing with.
You're afraid they'll turn violent? Hmm. Is that because you view gays in general as somehow sub-human creatures, predisposed to assault you for your opinions? After all, you are trying to put them in a second-class box.
Let's expose hate and discrimination for what they are. Let's have the signatures out in the open, like they have been for every other initiative in state history, and let the chips fall where they may. If a signer of R-71 gets beat up, prosecute the offender for a hate crime, but please, let's not begin to operate this government in secrecy and fear. Instead, may the best ideas win.
P.S. 1. Oh yeah, I don't think excluding gays from civil rights married couples have access to is going to be that best winning idea. But knock yourself out.
P.S. 2. I will be posting extensively on this topic.
(R-71 is an citizens' intiative here in Washington aiming to remove civil rights the legislature granted gay couples earlier this year.)
But I want to get into the public-record side of things. The group that got R-71 on the ballot, Misguided So-Called Christians With Nothing Better To Do, er, I mean Protect Marriage Washington, is fighting the release of the names of folks who signed their petition.
Those signatures are public record, under state law; the group's attorneys are asking for the names to remain sealed. A Tacoma judge says he'll review the case and might rule as early as Thursday as to whether anonymity is granted.
From R-71 attorney Sarah Troupis, quoted at seattletimes.com: releasing the signatures "directly leads to the threats, harassment and reprisals that we worry citizens of Washington will be subject to."
Let me get this straight. (No pun intended.)
You want to use our system of government, which operates on the assumption of open records, to further marginalize a group of citizens, and you want the folks who support your efforts to remain anonymous.
You're afraid that the people you are trying to take civil rights away from will get upset? I grant you that. I'm hopping mad, and it's not even my rights you're directly messing with.
You're afraid they'll turn violent? Hmm. Is that because you view gays in general as somehow sub-human creatures, predisposed to assault you for your opinions? After all, you are trying to put them in a second-class box.
Let's expose hate and discrimination for what they are. Let's have the signatures out in the open, like they have been for every other initiative in state history, and let the chips fall where they may. If a signer of R-71 gets beat up, prosecute the offender for a hate crime, but please, let's not begin to operate this government in secrecy and fear. Instead, may the best ideas win.
P.S. 1. Oh yeah, I don't think excluding gays from civil rights married couples have access to is going to be that best winning idea. But knock yourself out.
P.S. 2. I will be posting extensively on this topic.
Saturday, July 25, 2009
Same old, same old? / 7-25-09
As I touched on in yesterday's post, I've been with Obama from the beginning. Initially, I hoped he WOULDN'T run in '08 because as a matter of principle, people should finish what they set out to do, and he was only two years into his first Senate term. Plus, if you're applying to lead the free world, it's nice to have as much political experience as possible.
But once the Iowa caucuses approached, I concluded Obama was the best the Democrats had to offer this time around, and I threw myself passionately behind his campaign. I read "The Audacity of Hope." I deeply lamented that I was not 22 and a senior in college with mountains of free time I could dedicate to volunteering to his historic campaign. I sent money instead, in small, non-sequential bills in unmarked briefcases. And I devoured every piece of campaign news I could get my jaws around. Shoot, I went through eleven computer monitors last calendar year alone.
All hysterical witticisms aside, I glommed on to Obama for three main reasons: future Supreme Court appointments, the need to repudiate eight years of Republican mis-rule, and most fiercely because I believed BHO was a different kind of politician. A guy who might follow his conscience, not his ideology. A guy who invited competing points of view instead of squashing dissent. A guy with some gray matter.
I still believe most of that. But a measure of disappointment might be settling in over the land as the president is forced to put his money where his mouth may or may not be.
Try these Google search results on for size.
"disappointed liberal blogger" yields 41,100 hits.
"buyer's remorse Obama": 195,000
"disappointed Democrats": 242,000
"disillusioned Democrats": 261,000
"disillusioned with Obama": 608,000
"disappointed Obama": 4,060,000
Granted, the last number just barely covers every Republican left in America, so it's no smoking AK-47 (used for deer hunting exclusively). But you get my drift. People all over them internets sure is gettin' antsy. What if our Dear Leader is just another politician, clothed in conciliatory biracial Rorsachness? Let's do some more fun irrandom searches, and pretend they're useful.
(Before we do that, please acknowledge that nobody in the history of the world has typed a paragraph even remotely resembling the one you just read.)
"pleased liberal blogger" yields 40,200 hits.
"no buyer's remorse Obama": 48,100.
"pleased Democrats": 1,850,000
"energized Democrats": 2,170,000
"satisfied with Obama": 3,370,000
"pleased Obama": 4,760,000
Interesting. A media narrative that's been flowing as a persistent undercurrent lately is how Obama supporters are, well, disillusioned en masse after six months of his administration. Since journalists are trained (in J-School, by their editors, by the ratings) to seek out conflict and report it, not harmony, color me unsurprised. The numbers don't bear out a nationwide backlash against the President. Yet.
Still, all that near-nonsense having been said, I do find myself channeling my inner Dennis Green, and wondering if HE IS WHO WE THOUGHT HE WAS! (Repeat until self is worked into a lather.) I mean, he cuddled up to antiwar protesters, built the foundation of his candidacy on undoing Little Bush's warmongering ways, and now we're diving deeper into Afghanistan... And he pledged to close Guantanamo, but results on that one are hard to come by... He railed against immunity for phone companies who played along with dubious wiretapping practices, then changed his mind on that one... He touted the stimulus bill as a buffer against 9 percent unemployment, and here we stand today at 9.7 and rising... He promised his administration would be a model of openness, but last week the White House fought a request to release a list of visitors related to health care reform... It's not pretty.
On the other hand, as I wrote in my last post, his ambitious plans could save America as we know it. That's worth something. OK, I feel better.
But once the Iowa caucuses approached, I concluded Obama was the best the Democrats had to offer this time around, and I threw myself passionately behind his campaign. I read "The Audacity of Hope." I deeply lamented that I was not 22 and a senior in college with mountains of free time I could dedicate to volunteering to his historic campaign. I sent money instead, in small, non-sequential bills in unmarked briefcases. And I devoured every piece of campaign news I could get my jaws around. Shoot, I went through eleven computer monitors last calendar year alone.
All hysterical witticisms aside, I glommed on to Obama for three main reasons: future Supreme Court appointments, the need to repudiate eight years of Republican mis-rule, and most fiercely because I believed BHO was a different kind of politician. A guy who might follow his conscience, not his ideology. A guy who invited competing points of view instead of squashing dissent. A guy with some gray matter.
I still believe most of that. But a measure of disappointment might be settling in over the land as the president is forced to put his money where his mouth may or may not be.
Try these Google search results on for size.
"disappointed liberal blogger" yields 41,100 hits.
"buyer's remorse Obama": 195,000
"disappointed Democrats": 242,000
"disillusioned Democrats": 261,000
"disillusioned with Obama": 608,000
"disappointed Obama": 4,060,000
Granted, the last number just barely covers every Republican left in America, so it's no smoking AK-47 (used for deer hunting exclusively). But you get my drift. People all over them internets sure is gettin' antsy. What if our Dear Leader is just another politician, clothed in conciliatory biracial Rorsachness? Let's do some more fun irrandom searches, and pretend they're useful.
(Before we do that, please acknowledge that nobody in the history of the world has typed a paragraph even remotely resembling the one you just read.)
"pleased liberal blogger" yields 40,200 hits.
"no buyer's remorse Obama": 48,100.
"pleased Democrats": 1,850,000
"energized Democrats": 2,170,000
"satisfied with Obama": 3,370,000
"pleased Obama": 4,760,000
Interesting. A media narrative that's been flowing as a persistent undercurrent lately is how Obama supporters are, well, disillusioned en masse after six months of his administration. Since journalists are trained (in J-School, by their editors, by the ratings) to seek out conflict and report it, not harmony, color me unsurprised. The numbers don't bear out a nationwide backlash against the President. Yet.
Still, all that near-nonsense having been said, I do find myself channeling my inner Dennis Green, and wondering if HE IS WHO WE THOUGHT HE WAS! (Repeat until self is worked into a lather.) I mean, he cuddled up to antiwar protesters, built the foundation of his candidacy on undoing Little Bush's warmongering ways, and now we're diving deeper into Afghanistan... And he pledged to close Guantanamo, but results on that one are hard to come by... He railed against immunity for phone companies who played along with dubious wiretapping practices, then changed his mind on that one... He touted the stimulus bill as a buffer against 9 percent unemployment, and here we stand today at 9.7 and rising... He promised his administration would be a model of openness, but last week the White House fought a request to release a list of visitors related to health care reform... It's not pretty.
On the other hand, as I wrote in my last post, his ambitious plans could save America as we know it. That's worth something. OK, I feel better.
Thursday, July 23, 2009
So is he Carter or Lincoln? / 7-23-09
I donated to the Obama presidential campaign in December 2007. I share this not as a badge of honor, but as a way of illustrating that my support for his candidacy and his presidency is relatively deep-seated. I'd never given money to a politician before, for Taosakes. I'd always been a big fan of campaign finance reform and the prospect of publicly funded races at any level of politics.
(That stance made me a fan of John McCain, by the way, in the early part of this decade. The pre-Sarah Palin version of McCain, I like quite a bit. That's a guy who bucked the system on issues dear to his heart. He teamed up with a liberal Democrat to combat the corruptive influence of big donors; he embraced the fight against climate change despite the anti-scientific wing of his party. But I digress.)
So I sent off some of my semi-hard-earned dough to a heavy underdog in the race for the Democratic nomination. I re-donated several times in small increments throughout 2008. $25 or $30 at a time. I'm not wealthy. Just hopeful.
And my guy won. Twice. He cleaned clocks belonging to Clinton and that McCain fellow, who I think would have won every other general election since Reagan. Obama won blood-red states like Indiana. He took North Carolina. And Florida. And Virginia. He threatened in Georgia, Missouri and Montana. It was a good year to be a inexperienced biracial candidate with the middle name "Hussein" -- which still blows my mind -- and a big fat "D" next to your name on the ballot. (Let's get real. A gay atheist might have won the presidency last year with all the sh*t Bush handed down to McCain.)
Well, after the election, then came the small matter of governing. Hey Barack, welcome to the Oval Office, how about the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression? And how about a bank failure each day for a year? And crashing housing markets? And a stock market plunge? And bankruptcy for GM and Chrysler? Did we mention spiraling health care costs?
What I'm trying to say here, as I finally, at last, none too soon, reach the actual point of this post, is that BHO has the opportunity to be the greatest president in the history of the United States.
Sure, you can call that an easy statement. Every president has that opportunity. Even Little Bush. Imagine a 9/11 followed by a surgical strike on Al Qaeda leaders, the capture of Bin Laden, and all the fortune spent on two ill-conceived wars instead funneled to preserving Social Security benefits, establishing a fair health care system (even from a conservative vantage point) and continuing the balanced budget reached by Clinton and the GOP Congress of the nineties. Imagine no waterboarding memos, no dismantling of the Justice Department, no bungled response to Katrina. Remove that myriad of catastrophic errors -- and others -- and we'd be looking for a way to rescind the two-term limit we impose on presidents. (Also, the Democratic Party might have ceased to exist, so there's that to consider.)
I believe Obama will make some egregious mistakes. He's not actually ever been president before just this January, so some on-the-job learning is inevitable, and some of his ideas will probably crash and burn, maybe even after they're enacted into law.
But the man could leave office with the following accomplishments.
1) An overhaul of the health care system that empowers the little guys, like the needy families and the small businesses. And saves us trillions of dollars really quickly.
2) A revamping of our energy policy that places new emphasis on energy independence, nuclear power, renewable sources and greens our economy and our world while reducing our dependence on foreign oil, which threatens our national security. And saves us trillions of dollars in the long run, not nearly as quickly.
3) A replenishment of the prestige of America on the world scene. This is an important thing; even when overstated, it remains underrated. And saves millions of lives.
4) The establishment of a formula that preserves most Social Security benefits through the end of the century. And saves millions of heartaches.
5) Finding an acceptable conclusion to the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan. Bush got a clue regarding Iraq just in time, now Obama has to stay the course there; his job is much more challenging in Afghanistan. I'll add, predictably, that victory or something close to it in both places would save millions of lives and some insane amount of euros /yuan.
And he could muck it all up on a grand scale. The recovery could take years to arrive, health care reform could turn into a colossal waste of money, our troops could continue to die in Afghanistan for decades because of a poor decision he makes. Out-of-control budget deficits could cripple us and cause long-term economic crisis or the elimination of the dollar or a serious setback in our living standards. All that is possible.
Or he could be. The. Greatest. President. Ever.
(That stance made me a fan of John McCain, by the way, in the early part of this decade. The pre-Sarah Palin version of McCain, I like quite a bit. That's a guy who bucked the system on issues dear to his heart. He teamed up with a liberal Democrat to combat the corruptive influence of big donors; he embraced the fight against climate change despite the anti-scientific wing of his party. But I digress.)
So I sent off some of my semi-hard-earned dough to a heavy underdog in the race for the Democratic nomination. I re-donated several times in small increments throughout 2008. $25 or $30 at a time. I'm not wealthy. Just hopeful.
And my guy won. Twice. He cleaned clocks belonging to Clinton and that McCain fellow, who I think would have won every other general election since Reagan. Obama won blood-red states like Indiana. He took North Carolina. And Florida. And Virginia. He threatened in Georgia, Missouri and Montana. It was a good year to be a inexperienced biracial candidate with the middle name "Hussein" -- which still blows my mind -- and a big fat "D" next to your name on the ballot. (Let's get real. A gay atheist might have won the presidency last year with all the sh*t Bush handed down to McCain.)
Well, after the election, then came the small matter of governing. Hey Barack, welcome to the Oval Office, how about the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression? And how about a bank failure each day for a year? And crashing housing markets? And a stock market plunge? And bankruptcy for GM and Chrysler? Did we mention spiraling health care costs?
What I'm trying to say here, as I finally, at last, none too soon, reach the actual point of this post, is that BHO has the opportunity to be the greatest president in the history of the United States.
Sure, you can call that an easy statement. Every president has that opportunity. Even Little Bush. Imagine a 9/11 followed by a surgical strike on Al Qaeda leaders, the capture of Bin Laden, and all the fortune spent on two ill-conceived wars instead funneled to preserving Social Security benefits, establishing a fair health care system (even from a conservative vantage point) and continuing the balanced budget reached by Clinton and the GOP Congress of the nineties. Imagine no waterboarding memos, no dismantling of the Justice Department, no bungled response to Katrina. Remove that myriad of catastrophic errors -- and others -- and we'd be looking for a way to rescind the two-term limit we impose on presidents. (Also, the Democratic Party might have ceased to exist, so there's that to consider.)
I believe Obama will make some egregious mistakes. He's not actually ever been president before just this January, so some on-the-job learning is inevitable, and some of his ideas will probably crash and burn, maybe even after they're enacted into law.
But the man could leave office with the following accomplishments.
1) An overhaul of the health care system that empowers the little guys, like the needy families and the small businesses. And saves us trillions of dollars really quickly.
2) A revamping of our energy policy that places new emphasis on energy independence, nuclear power, renewable sources and greens our economy and our world while reducing our dependence on foreign oil, which threatens our national security. And saves us trillions of dollars in the long run, not nearly as quickly.
3) A replenishment of the prestige of America on the world scene. This is an important thing; even when overstated, it remains underrated. And saves millions of lives.
4) The establishment of a formula that preserves most Social Security benefits through the end of the century. And saves millions of heartaches.
5) Finding an acceptable conclusion to the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan. Bush got a clue regarding Iraq just in time, now Obama has to stay the course there; his job is much more challenging in Afghanistan. I'll add, predictably, that victory or something close to it in both places would save millions of lives and some insane amount of euros /yuan.
And he could muck it all up on a grand scale. The recovery could take years to arrive, health care reform could turn into a colossal waste of money, our troops could continue to die in Afghanistan for decades because of a poor decision he makes. Out-of-control budget deficits could cripple us and cause long-term economic crisis or the elimination of the dollar or a serious setback in our living standards. All that is possible.
Or he could be. The. Greatest. President. Ever.
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