Cheney and the icy hand of death

If looks could kill...

Junior had better watch his back, eh, Dick?

Word has it that you're writing your own tell-all book about those dark days when you, Richard B. Cheney, lorded over le monde politique like Hades on his Underworld throne. There's gonna be some nuggets in this one, eh?

Speaking through an intermediary, you let it be known that you felt Bush "went soft" in the second term, conceding to public disapproval, retreating on some of your hard line policies. Poor, hapless Junior is soon going to be on the receiving end of that vampiric bite. He's going to relearn to his chagrin that Dick Cheney doesn't let trivialities like "truth" or "integrity" get in the way. Well, somebody has to be the goat, and it ain't gonna be you, right, Dick?

At first glance, the idea of a Cheney blab book is a mind-twister. According to associates, you don't give a tinker's damn about your low public approval ratings. They say that you are driven by concerns about a hostile state obtaining nuclear weapons and giving them to terrorists.

Real, patriotic motives, eh, Dick?

Well, sorry, but I don't take anything you say at face value. You've already uttered too many demonstrable lies for me or for any rational person to do that. I have absolutely no faith that your motives have anything to do with concern for anyone other than yourself and that narrow group of people that compose your "tribe."

And you've been pimping out that hideous daughter of yours, haven't you? Sending her out on the cable talkie shows to perpetuate your lies, to try to garner some faction to carry the flag for you. Between her and John Bolton, who whined about President Clinton getting those journalists out of North Korea, and Frank Gaffney, who shrieked that President Obama "actually may still be [a Muslim] himself" (heaven forfend!) you've got the makings of your very own Scream Machine.

But, now we're getting at the truth, aren't we?

I think what we've got here is a panicky reaction to the icy hand of death. We all know that your ticker is weak. (That's right, Dick, "weak." I know it rankles that anyone would associate that adjective with you, but there it is.) And now that your life's work is largely done (after all, you will never again hold public office), you've started to notice a chill spreading over that obdurate little black nugget that serves as your heart. But a man wants to leave something behind, yes? Some little marker for future generations.

I suspect that your aim is to rehabilitate the family name, to associate the Cheney appellation with hard-boiled patriotism, with true-blue no-apologies American exceptionalism. God knows there are plenty of dumb-ass rubes out there who respond to that kind of claptrap. If you get enough of them to buy into it, daughter Liz can continue on as you have done, eh? She can keep the Cheney dynasty rolling.

For most people, to be included in the memories of those they leave behind is enough. Or, maybe a family heirloom. But you've always held such quaint nostalgia by the plebs as pathetic, eh? For Big Dick Cheney, nothing less than full scale global conflagration will do. You're every bit as much an historical figure as some faggot like Alexander or that French midget with the funny hat.

So, here you are, with your fingers crossed, hoping that there will be a cataclysmic terrorist attack that will vindicate you in the eyes of a fearful public. This book you're writing, and the public appearances by that witch of a daughter are all part of the plan, eh?

Well, Dick, you're in a race against time. And with a ticker like yours, I'm betting on the latter.

Health care, capitalism, and angry tea-baggers

Bewildered tea-baggers

Good news, everybody! Congress is out for its August recess; its various members are holding town hall meetings to discuss health care reform. Now, we can all have our concerns and ideas heard, considered, and debated in the dignified and time-honored democratic tradition...

Heh. Right.

The reality, the phenomenon that is occurring all over the country, is that these town hall meetings have become passionate shouting matches, replete with crass insults and barely suppressed hatred... in short, they are real life replications of the nasty debates that occur daily on the internet.

So, what's behind all the passion? First, let's examine the health care issue.

Fear of Big Brother health care

There are genuine, legitimate concerns about health care reform. But those concerns aren’t being aired or debated. Instead, we have Sarah Palin talking about “Obama Death Panels.” We have private insurance companies hiring Freedom Works to perpetuate utterly false claims about government-mandated euthanasia.
The hard reality is that health care rationing is real. It always has been and always will be part of human society. It is an uncomfortable and difficult issue. I don’t pretend to know the correct course of action when, say, a 93-year-old is diagnosed with a kidney disease that can only be cured with very expensive treatments. I think those decisions are best left to the family.
But rationing is already being practiced by private insurance companies. Private entities deny health care claims based on the cost of treatments. Think about it: smaller payouts mean more profits! It’s capitalism. That’s the function of a corporation.
With a government-run health care system, modeled on the current successful and popular Medicare, the profit motive is removed. No one gets rich in government by denying claims.
Some of the objections to a public option are these:

1. A government program would "squeeze out" private sector companies.
   
   So, what's the problem? Why should a capitalist worry about the private sector? Laissez-faire capitalism is all about competition. If private insurance companies really are more efficient and provide better service than a government plan would provide, people will be willing to pay for their services, yes?
   
2. Health care recipients, who now ostensibly have legal recourse if their insurance providers deny claims, would somehow lose this option in a government run program.
   
   I don’t know what legal options will be presented to people who participate in a public option. But I do know that people go bankrupt all the time trying to challenge health insurance providers' claim denials. Generally, the providers are in much better position to afford legal bills than are private citizens. You can challenge private insurers in theory. But in practice you’ve got no chance. They can afford real lawyers.
   
3. A government health care program would be enormously costly.
   
   The Obama administration argues that reforming health care will actually save the government and the country money by containing health care costs. I shell out hundreds of dollars every month to my health care provider. Personally, I’d rather pay that same amount in taxes for a single payer plan run by the fed.
   
   (And, of course, this sudden concern expressed by conservatives for fiscal responsibility rings a little hollow when we make note that few of them complained about paying for the Iraq War, which has cost $3 trillion over 8 years. And Bush kept all of it off the books, paying with supplemental funding that was all borrowed directly from Chinese banks.)

Angry...so very angry
There's a lot of anger out there. I'm hesitant to complain about it. Fake patriots and deluded corporate shills have a right to scream and shout, just as left-wingers do (and did, throughout the Junior Bush years).

"I'm afraid, and it's your fault!"

Right-wingers, of course, have thrown all kinds of bigoted labels at people who protested the war in Iraq, people who demanded (and continue to demand) that the Bush administration be held accountable for torture and Constitutional abuses, people who despise Bush. So, no sense in complaining about the name-calling, eh?

But, I find it... amusing? interesting?... that there is so much passion around the issue. God knows, most of these people showing up at the town hall meetings have never before been to a public discussion. I believe that, at the core, there is an element of …something unseemly …in these town hall “protests.” I find it doubtful that the people at these town halls are all that angry about the health care proposal. I think what they are really angry about is that they lost the election; that they are politically exiled; that they are no longer dominant politically. They sense that the nation is fundamentally changing. Changing forever. And they will never again have the political dominance to which they have become accustomed.

They're afraid. They're bewildered and confused. And so they shriek and growl.
There is no political discourse in this country at the moment. I don’t know if we’ll ever return to anything that looks like civility.

Well, if it’s going to be mob rule, choose your mob and let’s get it on.

Bordeaux - St. Lo (Pt. XXI)

Note to readers: This is the twenty-first part of a recounting of my Grand European Tour, taken in the fall of 1999. You can read Part XX here.

French border guards waved me through when I pulled out my American passport. They couldn't be bothered.

These were the early days of November: the skies were cloudy, the temperatures, cool. Winter was approaching. Days grew shorter and colder. In my spirit there grew a wistful anticipation that my time on the road, my soul-searching pilgrimage, my Grand European Tour, was coming to its end. But not yet . . . not quite yet.

I went to Bordeaux in the Aquitaine: famous for its wine and moderate climate.

Bordeaux

Neanderthal came to the region, long ago, as evidenced by the cave discovered in 1881, where muscle-bound slow-witted Neanderthals buried their dead 80 thousand years before. But Cro Magnon, who came later, had little tolerance for competitive species, even older biological cousins. And so, Neanderthal went the way of the woolly mammoth and the mastodon and the saber-toothed tiger:  fallen before the onslaught of those who came in the wake of retreating ice.

The Celts settled the area around 300 BC, a mere two centuries ahead of marauding Roman legions, who subjugated and enslaved in order to control the tin and lead abundant in the area. Then the Romans too passed away. The Celts remain.

For me, Bordeaux was a brief sojourn. I hopped off the train, had a look around, made a quick pass through the museum, where French-only exhibits had little to offer. I knew already about Eleanor of Aquitaine and her role in the struggle for the throne of England. Eleanor wed Henry II in a political marriage that, nonetheless, produced children, including closeted homosexual Richard, Coeur de Lyon, and much-maligned King John. Richard and John were pawns in the high-stakes game between their parents. Eleanor spent most of her marriage locked up in a tower. Henry (schemer par excellence) knew well that softhearted kings were most often revered posthumously.

I went in search of companionship to a restaurant somewhere along the way. I entered, was greeted by a waiter. "S'il vous plaît, monsieur, parlez-vous l'anglais?" I inquired.

"Non," he said. He shook his head and turned away.

"L'espagnol?" I inquired.

"Non!" he replied, favoring me with a condescending smile. I spoke no French. He was through with me. I shrugged and left, angry.

Janelle, moi, et Rob

 But I found another place, where they were showing American basketball on the television and, where I met an Australian father and daughter (Rob and Janelle) touring France together. We shared pleasant conversation and food. They thought I was American Indian. I didn't deny it . . . they seemed to want it so much.

I spent one night in a drab hotel room. In the morning, I walked through a nearby open-air market where I haggled with an African immigrant over a hat to replace the one I had left in the church in Bergen. And then, I was back on the train. I was on my way to St. Lo where I hoped to see the Normandy beaches.

***

Normandy was where Eisenhower swallowed hard and pulled the trigger. Even that late in the war, he still feared the mighty Wehrmacht. He needn't have fretted so much. The cream of the German war machine was even then being destroyed on the Russian steppes, a thousand miles and more to the east. Never to diminish their bravery, but those GIs, Brits and Canadians, were facing mostly conscripted Ukrainians or Byelorussians.

On arrival, my hopes for a battlefield tour were dashed quickly enough. The beaches, Omaha, Juno, Sword, Gold, and Utah, are separated by miles. And I with no car, nor  desire to rent one, settled instead for a walk around the town. Just to see.

Memorial to Allied troops in WWII

St. Lo was the nerve center for Wehrmacht defense against the Allied beachhead. For six weeks, they fought in hedgerows. Pitiless fighting. St. Lo herself was reduced to rubble. Now, 50 years later, she is a nondescript little town in gentle French farmland.

St. Lo

The big rugby match was on tayvay when I went to the hotel to book a room. The clerk behind the desk would not be bothered, so intent was he on the game: France versus Australia with the World Cup at stake. Here is a key, monsieur. Go, go. You can pay tomorrow. His eyes never left the television screen.

Alas, France lost the match. When I arose the next morning to catch the train to Paris, there was nary a soul to be seen at the desk. I set the key on the counter and left. I'm sorry France lost, mes amis déçus. But merci for the complimentary night's rest. I am off to Paris. Au revoir.

To be continued...

• Pt. I Amsterdam - Arnhem - Copenhagen
• Pt. II Copenhagen - Oslo
• Pt. III Bergen
• Pt. IV Flam fjord - Goteborg
• Pt. V Stockholm - Gavle - Stockholm
• Pt. VI Berlin
• Pt. VII Prague
• Pt. VIII Budapest
• Pt. IX Vienna
• Pt. X Munich
• Pt. XI Salzberg - Innsbruck
• Pt. XII Venice - Florence
• Pt. XIII Siena
• Pt. XIV Rome
• Pt. XV Naples - Pompeii
• Pt. XVI Cinque Terre - Geneva
• Pt. XVII Avignon
• Pt. XVIII Arles
• Pt. XIX Barcelona
• Pt. XX San Sebastian
• Pt. XXI Bordeaux - St. Lo
• Pt. XXII Paris
• Pt. XXIII Brussels - Waterloo
• Pt. XXIV Brugge
• Pt. XXV Amsterdam at last

GOP reduced to neo-Confederates

We got too many Jim DeMints and Tom Coburns. It's the Southerners. They get on TV and go 'errrr, errrrr.' People hear them and say, 'These people, they're Southerners. The party's being taken over by Southerners. What the hell they got to do with Ohio?' --retiring Senator George Voinovich (R-OH)

I wonder, has Senator Voinovich been reading my blog? Now that he's retiring, Senator Voinovich seems to have recognized something that has been apparent to anyone not blinded by red/blue political zealotry.

The Republican party, in a sublime twist of historical irony, is now firmly in the hands of the descendants of the Old South. Some 140 years after Appomattox, the toxic spirit of the Confederacy lives on in the form of the very party that crushed and humiliated them in the 1860s. Alas, for Abraham Lincoln!

So, what is the basis for this assertion?

Firstly, so-called "conservatives" in the Republican party have very nearly succeeded in driving out anyone that does not adhere to the hard line. Senator Arlen Specter is the most recent example, of course. But, before him, there was Senator Jim Jeffords. And, as has been mentioned many times since the last national election, when Congressman Chris Shays (R-CT) was defeated, the GOP lost its last congressional seat in the entirety of New England.

The GOP is now, effectively, a single voting bloc, the largest of the multitude of factions in the legislative branch of government. Unlike the Democrats, who are an amalgamation of countless different interest groups (labor unions, racial minorities, gays, feminists), the Republican party has purged itself and is now a party almost exclusively for white Protestant conservatives.

Back in the days when this demographic was the unequivocal majority in the nation, the GOP could afford to tolerate other factions within its party. But now that national demographics have changed, the party needs lock-step unity; it can no longer suffer dissent within its ranks. And although there are white Protestant conservatives throughout the country, the old South is the one region where they still hold sway electorally and demographically.

Secondly, of course, there is the ugly not-so-subtle race-baiting, homophobia, and religious prejudice. These are the legacy of the nativism that Southern gentry exploited to such tragic effect in the early 1800s. As the national trends toward gay rights, immigration reform, and a diminution of Christian influence continues, conservatives will undoubtedly become even more recalcitrant.

Upon signing the 1964 Civil Rights Act, Lyndon Johnson lamented, "We have lost the south for a generation." Well, he was right on that score. But when you consider what we have gained in return --huge strides in racial and gender recognition, tolerance toward gays and everything else --it has been worth it.

Let the neo-confederates have their sh*tholes. Let them have the Republican party. We don't need it and we don't need them.

President Clinton saves the day

A picture is worth a thousand words...

The big story today is that two American journalists, Euna Lee and Lara Ling, arrested by North Korean military personnel somewhere along the border between North Korea and China have returned to the United States. The two had been convicted in North Korea of "acts against the State," and had been sentenced to 12 years hard labor.

Apparently, there has been an intense, and largely obscured, diplomatic effort to free them.

Yesterday, the news broke that former President Bill Clinton was on his way to Pyongyang to negotiate their release. And this morning, both are home with their families after 5 months in captivity.

The Obama administration has unequivocally denied any involvement in the negotiations, but it seems unlikely that President Clinton (who, after all, is married to the Secretary of State) went to Pyongyang without some authority to represent the United States in an official capacity. International diplomacy just doesn't work that way.

Further, reports state that President Clinton only accepted the mission on the condition that he could be assured beforehand that he would return with the two journalists. That means that something had been in the works for a while.

President Clinton met with North Korea's "dear leader," Kim Jong Il, after a long public absence by the latter, who is rumored to be in failing health and perhaps nearing the end of his life. They reportedly spent 3+ hours in intense and wide-ranging "discussions." Given North Korea's --uh --"eccentric" behavior in the international community, one can imagine that these discussions were loaded and perilous. It's doubtful that the substance of the conversation will ever be made public.

A couple of points to make about the whole thing:

1. For all the snide characterizations of President Clinton as a publicity hound, jealous of President Obama and Secretary of State Clinton for their time in the international spotlight, he has been very low-key with his involvement. Even when he stepped off the plane, freshly back from North Korea, he made no public remarks, leaving that for Vice-President Al Gore, who owns the company that employed the two journalists.
   
   
2. The happy result of this effort is yet another illustration by contrast of the ineptitude of the Bush administration. One wonders what fate may have befallen the captives had they been at the mercy of the diplomatic incompetence of Junior and the gang. Perhaps the singularly most offensive of the Bush diplomatic corps, John Bolton (the guy who couldn't even get appointed to an ambassadorship because of his boorish behavior and lack of tact) was sniveling all over the media yesterday and today. "It comes perilously close to negotiating with terrorists," he whined. (But, of course, this is precisely why the Obama administration avoided any public involvement in the negotiations.)
   

Safe and sound

So, to sum up, President Clinton has proven himself to be a better man than many of his critics were willing to admit; and we can all be thankful that there are now level-headed adults in charge of our foreign policy.

"Cash for Clunkers" working like a charm

One could argue that providing incentives to spur Americans into buying automobiles, even fuel efficient automobiles, is short-sighted and only delays the day when we are forced to transition our economy away from fossil-fuel energy. Certainly, there are some who make that argument and my tendency is to agree.

Nonetheless, for immediate relief from the agony of unemployment, the fall of housing prices, the general economic despair that has gripped the nation ever since the financial house-of-cards came crashing down last September, the Car Allowance Rebate System (id est "Cash for Clunkers") program seems to be doing a pretty damn good job.

The program is part of the stimulus package that passed Congress earlier this year. Participants can trade in their old vehicles and get up to $4500 in tax rebates with the purchase of newer, more fuel efficient vehicles. The primary requirement is that the old vehicle get 18 miles per gallon or less, and the new vehicle must get something better than that. You can find out the specifics and determine if your vehicles (the trade-in and the replacement) qualify at this handy-dandy government-run web site.

Originally, Congress had allocated $1 billion to this program, but demand has been so robust that the $1 billion is nearly gone already, a mere month after the program started. The response has been so big that Ford Motor Company reported an increase in sales of 1.5% for the month of July. This is the first increase in monthly sales that Ford has experienced in 2 years. Other auto manufacturers are reporting increased sales as well.

So, it seems that the stimulus package (or this small portion of it, anyway) may, in fact be working. Auto sales go up; auto workers keep their jobs; peripheral employment halts its slide; and to top it all off, overall consumption of petroleum in the United States goes down as a result. Lower CO₂ emissions! Less smog! Less demand for gasoline!

The US Senate is now preparing to extend the program to the tune of another $2 billion. Reinforcing success. That's good government, to my way of thinking.

But, of course, Republicans, and most specifically Senator Jim DeMint (R-SC), are whining that the program is unnecessary government intervention in the free marketplace. Can you believe it? Oh my God!

As unfathomable as it seems to me, perhaps there are those who believe that the Republicans are sincere in their objections. Such persons could argue that Senator DeMint and those like him are making an ideological point. Senator DeMint and other Republicans, they might say, are truly and sincerely against government interference. Laissez-faire capitalism! Let the Market rule! But that argument falls dead when one considers how greedily Republican governors buried their snouts in the federal trough when stimulus funds were being advocated.

I think the real objection that opponents of the "Cash for Clunkers" program have is that it just might work! Republicans know that their only path back to power for the foreseeable future is a weak economy and the perception that President Obama is ineffectual. A government program that is visibly effective at combating the recession is their worst nightmare. All their shrieking about socialism would be exposed as the demagoguery that it is. The feeble germination of their hopes for picking up congressional seats in 2010 hinges on extending people's misery.

"Aw, shucks. Guess I'll just have to try to kill health care reform instead."

The latest news is that Senator Harry Reid (D-NV) predicts that the program will be extended before the August recess. Jim DeMint even grumpily said he would not block a vote. Sucks to be him.

Movie Review: Orphan

You'd think I would learn. When it comes to movies, trust your instincts, Dade.

Maty and I went to see Jaume Collet-Serra's latest effort, Orphan, on Friday night. I had not seen any of his previous efforts, and he's a relatively new director on the Hollywood scene. It's good to give new folks a try, yes?

Not that I was expecting too much, mind you. The trailer conveyed the basic plot: a successful family adopts a young girl, brings her into their home, and then finds that she is fundamentally evil. I had visions of yet another remake of Richard Donner's 1976 film, The Omen (starring Gregory Peck(!)). Perhaps not high entertainment, but a welcome diversion to occupy a couple hours in air-conditioned comfort at the tail-end of this ghastly heat wave that we, in Portland, have been enduring.

Well, as the kids these days say, "FAIL!"

Five minutes into the flick I knew it wasn't going to meet my (already low) expectations. Aside from the over-the-top scenery-chewing of Vera Farmiga in her role as Kate Coleman, the young, successful composer with a drinking problem and a dark shadow in her past, aside from the milque-toast mail-it-in performance by Peter Sarsgaard as John Coleman, her equally-successful architect husband, towering above it all is the ham-handed and inept direction of Collet-Serra.

Monsieur Collet-Serra makes liberal use of cheap, amateurish techniques to try to evoke a sense of suspense and dread in the audience. For instance, early on in the flick, Kate is driving her deaf daughter, Max (played by child-actor Aryana Engineer) home from school when a semi truck appears out of nowhere and nearly t-bones mom and daughter at an intersection. The incident did cause me to jump. But as the movie went forward, there were many more such incidents, all accompanied by the sudden shriek of violins that is typical of B-movie horror flicks. Aside from having no bearing on the plot, they became not just boring, but irritating. This is the kind of cheap, manipulative crap that has me yearning for the roll of closing credits.

Isabelle Fuhrman turns in an adequate performance as the evil Esther, the adoptee: a seeming Russian prodigy with an obscure history. And I can't fault Jimmy Bennett, in the role of Daniel Coleman, or CCH Pounder as Sister Abigail, the habit-clad (think "Flying Nun") orphanage administrator, for their performances. There's not much you can do with a script like this.

Because the story itself is so contrived, so implausible, as to strain the credulity of even the most forgiving of viewers. No, I won't put any spoilers in here. God knows there might be some who enjoy this kind of tripe and I won't ruin it for them. Let's just say that the eventual revelations (all of which come rushing headlong in the last ten minutes of this agonizing ordeal) compose a crazy-quilt of preposterous unlikelihoods that would make any pulp fiction writer blush.

Horror flick? The real horror is that there are producers gullible enough to buy a pitch from hacks like Collet-Serra.