Hell, I haven’t written since the 29th of last month.

Monday, July 11, 2011 21:07:59

So much for ‘daily’ and ‘just for me’. Every time the idea of writing again crosses my horizon, I have a million responses. Maybe that’s the fucking problem, assuming there’s a problem at all. I want to write, but more importantly, I want an audience. I think that’s been the most important thing, for as long as I can remember. I chased girls because I wanted the approval that I got from them, but you can’t work the audience one member at a time, like that. And besides, I’d rather have applause than get to see the promised land that hides up a skirt. I want applause, and/or laughter.

Most of my self-chosen heroes have been comedians of one type or another. Sure, I still root for the Reds, and stick up for Pete Rose (Derek Jeter’s got a long way to go. Think he’ll make it to 4000? Me neither.) but he was everyone’s hero when I was a kid in Cincy. So was Oscar Robertson of the Cincinnati Royals. Never heard of ‘em? And when we moved to Wisconsin, every kid wanted to be Bart Starr. So I learned to throw hard and fast, whether with a baseball or a football 9I was still too short for basketball,) but these were the socially-approved heroes.

The ones I made mom and dad let me stay up and watch were Red Skelton, Jackie Gleason, Marty Feldman on Dean martin’s Golddiggers. It was That Was The Week That Was, which linked Tom Lehrer’s records, which dad was playing, back to the TV. It was Bill Cosby, telling about life as a kid, then crossing over to TV as a truly cool spy. It was Jonathan Winters, the Marx Brothers, WC Fields, Dorothy Loudon Live at the Blue Angel (yea, you never heard of that album, and it ain’t at iTunes either.)

Rambling, reminiscing, regretting, all at once, all the time. I think it’s leaked into my voice. I think it’s why I really don’t have that many close friends, just a lot of solid acquaintances: I’m still too focused on trying to figure out what I am. Assuming, of course, that I’m anything, or supposed to be anything.

Something I realized or learned, not sure which, a few years ago, is reinforced by an old Broadway semi-joke: “It takes ten years to be an overnight sensation.” And ten years it is. But it only takes five for you and your immediate associates to recognize if you’re any good at what you’re trying to do.

This all struck me after I’d really thrown myself into ‘re-defeating Bush’, and when that didn’t work out, writing weekly and monthly for my Democratic Club’s newsletters. Soon I was the editor, and then on the Board, and then I was elected president of the Club. I ended up at the Democratic convention, I got pictures taken there with Franken before his election and with Joe Biden after he’d been nominated for VP.

And long before Obama won, in the summer after the Convention, my Congresswoman asked me to be her Elector in he won. All this in about 5 years. And maybe if I’d wanted to do something farther up the food chain than that, I could have gotten a paying gig with one of the local elected. A couple asked.

So here I am, at the end of or the beginning of another 5 and ten, feeling like a 5 and dime refugee, unaccomplished and unfulfilled. And instead of writing this, I should be trying to write something funny.

Now, as a parting bit of randomness, various thoughts that I wanted to write about: The Chinese military budget is growing, but is now exceeded by their Internal Security budget. So much for the success of their economic model. Meanwhile, all three branches of our government, at all levels, are operating at their unanticipated, unchecked extremes. The White House continues to run wars and security on the imperial model, the houses of Congress are locked down by an extreme religious ideology, the anti-taxers, and the highest court in the land is held by five people who vote in lock step, and have no ethical constraints except the ones they hold themselves to. And since those five have no ethics…Scalia’s lawnjockey, the Pinhead from Pinpoint, continues to line his pockets, fill his wife’s purse, and hand out favors to friends, all because a white patrician from Connecticut said that, of all the lawyers, all the black lawyers, all the black conservative lawyers in America, that misogynist was “the best man for the job” thus demonstrating the fine judgement that got him re-elected, er, uh…

And a last shot, in reaction to the various types of undead, whether zombies, vampires, werewolves, warlocks, demons, whatever, that seem to have taken over our media at all levels:

“Who Needs Zombies When You’ve Got The Tea Party.”

816 ~ Monday, July 11, 2011 21:44:25

A little light reading…

Wednesday, June 29, 2011 21:56:29

I was at a neighborhood meeting tonight to get in my two cents, or two minutes in this case, about various projects being built nearby. About seventy-five percent of the proceedings is repetition of what someone else has said. So I keep half-an-ear on the proceedings, and grind through articles and docs I’ve printed out for such an occasion. Yea, I know, ‘print out’? No, I’m not a Luddite, more of a ‘late adopter,’ living in an area where the lathe-and-plaster of the California bungalows and the concrete and steel of the public buildings often defeat 3G, 4G and wi-fi all at once. Besides, I have a red pen and like to use it on the articles, underlining things of interest, and writing my own thoughts down.

For example:

Reuters is doing a series on corporate secrecy, not in the Caymans or Switzerland, but here in the good ol’ USA

Specifically, Delaware, Nevada and, focus for this article, Wyoming. The small brick house at 2710 Thomes Ave, Cheyenne, Wyoming is corporate headquarters for Wyoming Corporate Services…and over 2000 other corporations. I learned about ‘shelf’ companies, which are paper companies that have been sitting on a shelf, gathering a credit history, bank account history, and tax history, doing nothing but waiting for someone who needs to look long-standing and respectable to come along. The older the shelf company, the higher the price to buy it.

Almost none of this is regulated, and only three states require companies to disclose who owns them. Sen. Levin keeps trying to get a bill passed, but lobbyists, and the Nat’l Assoc of Secs of State keep getting it killed. Watch for the ‘Incorporation Transparency and Law Enforcement Act’ to come around again.

Meanwhile…

The Berkman Center has published an exhaustive analysis of the state of Broadband in the 19 countries in the OECD. An excellent analysis of where it’s been and how it got to where it is now, and where various nations are trying to take it. Bottom line: American exceptionalism strikes again: once you get away from DSL, America has the least penetration, and the highest prices for the lowest speeds. We get beaten by almost every country in Europe, and we either are or will get our asses handed to us by Japan, South Korea, and Australia. Yet (does this sound familiar?) we spend more per year per person in infrastructure than any others.

I recommend reading the executive summary. It’s only seven pages, and the one color chart says a lot.

While you’re watching ‘Congressional DebtMatch 2011’ on TV, you might take a look at the CBO’s economic outlook for the next few years. Granted, I just read the summary, but they boil it down pretty well. After they get done waving their hands about how much they can’t know in advance, and how things will undoubtedly change, they project three economic paths.

The ‘extended-baseline’ scenario assumes Congress essentially does nothing new…so the ACA kicks in, the Bush tax cuts finally expire, and the AMT starts hitting more people. GNP might go down 2% by 2035, and revenues would climb to as much as 23% of GDP, significantly higher than recent decades. Which would reduce the rate of debt increase significantly, but not reverse it.

The ‘alternative fiscal’ projection is much bleaker, assuming the Bush cuts continue, and more tax changes would keep revenues at or below the usual 18% of GDP. I call this the Republican plan. Note the CBO’s use of the word ‘bleaker.’ Debt skyrockets, to almost 200% of GDP by 2035. Frighteningly, the CBO says that many budget analysts think this is the more realistic scenario, given the current policy situation. (See: Republicans hate America.) This scenario results in GNP plunging almost 6% by 2025, and by between 7 and 18% by ten years later.

There’s lots more detail just in the three and a half pages of the Summary. I got a perspective on the ‘run the nation’s budget like you do your own’ meme the GOP is selling. Our national debt, that’s everything the US owes, was about 40% of GDP when Bush left, and almost 70% now. That’s total debt versus annual production. If you total up your car loan, your credit card debt, and the balance on your mortgage, is that less than your annual gross? If we should run the national budget like our own, America’s got a lot of debt to rack up yet. Let’s (Democratic) Party!

746 ~ Wednesday, June 29, 2011 22:48:17

The First Amendment: The Best Friend Religion Ever Had. So Shut Up About It.

Tuesday, June 28, 2011 10:41:15

Now that the second most populous state in the union, New York, has joined five other states and DC in recognizing the rights of all their citizens, thus more than doubling the number of people covered, the right is going batshit. Tony Perkins' FRC is almost literally up in arms, demanding constant prayers to strike down this law, while Rep. Akins (R-Goatf**ker) has announced that all liberals hate God.

They've got a perfect right to say these things. Says so right there in the Constitution they claim to defend while wanting to rewrite it or ignore it. Right there in the First Amendment, the very first change that was made to the Constitution, by the same guys (yea, guys) that wrote it. "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof;" is how it begins. It lists four more rights, but this is the very first thing. It was important to them.

Much as they hate the Amendment that allows me to say I think most of them are full of crap, it is that same Amendment that allows them to sell their line to anyone who'll listen, without fear that the state will intervene, as it does in China, Russia, and most Islamic countries.

As much as the Christian Right whines about how marriage equality will force them to do something unsanctioned in their churches, that's just crap. No government agency anywhere in the United States can force anyone to get married, or force any religious institution to perform or recognize a particular marriage. I know Jewish couples that aren't married according to a panel of rabbis in Israel, even though the state of California says they are. And while the Greek Orthodox catholic Church recognizes my marriage, the Roman one probably doesn't. (We didn't have it at one of the Roman-sanctioned facilities. We had it outdoors.) Regardless, the state still recognizes these marriages, and gives certain rights, responsibilities and sanctions with that recognition, by issuing its own marriage licenses.

When I read that certain religious exemptions had to be carved out of the New York bill for it to become law, I know we're dealing with people who, despite their muskets and tri-cornered hats, have no idea of this nation’s history, or the foundation that it stands on. Hint: it ain't the Bible.

Meanwhile, the government keeps ‘respecting an establishment of religion’ by allowing these religious restrictions on abortion. Every time a law further restricting access, forcing indoctrination, or permitting the intervention between a doctor and a patient, (something that has never been done in the United States until this subject came up,) that government is violating the First Amendment.

A side note: Isn’t government telling you or your doctor what you can or can’t talk about, and when, and for how long, exactly what the teabaggers falsely accuse Democrats of including in the Affordable Care Act? Just asking…

I can see not forcing catholic hospitals to perform abortions. I can also see not giving tax dollars to entities that don’t do what needs to be done, just as No Child Left Behind, the right-wing’s baby, cuts off money for schools that don’t perform, and just like states that don’t raise the drinking age to 21 are cut-off from federal highway funds.

If an entire organization, Planned Parenthood, can have its Medicaid funds cut-off because, of its 24 locations in the state of Indiana, 3 perform abortions, then why continue to provide subsidies to catholic schools and catholic hospitals for any of their other functions? Not talking tax exemption here, talking actual tax dollars that buy school books, and send buses, provide hot lunches and special needs equipment, and that’s just at the schools.

Cause they’re all run by the same organization, the catholic archdiocese of wherever. And, even if some Supreme Court ruling have said these state contributions respecting an establishment of religion are legal, they can, as was done to Planned Parenthood in Indiana, just as easily be made illegal, and using the same logic.

Don’t get me started on using the same logic to justify making illegal all political donations, from any government contractor or recipient of an industry-specific tax deduction, to any politician who approved that program, because at least some of the funds donated came from the money that politician ‘gacve’ to that corporation. “Because it’s all fungible, and can’t be separated,” at least according to the Indiana legislature. Where the ends always justify the means.
Tuesday, June 28, 2011 11:45:54