Christmas Wishes 2008

I wish that everyone would get a life of their very own so that crap shows like “Moment of Truth” would disappear from TV forever.

I wish that modern Christians would let go of enough of their dogma and “beliefs” to allow room in their embrace for the words of Christ.

I wish that Stephen King would write another novel equal or superior in quality to “Bag of Bones”.

I wish that no one would even think about shooting president-elect Obama. Failing that, I wish that no one will ACTUALLY shoot him.

I wish that all of my loved ones will have all of the peace, prosperity and well-being that they need.

Mostly, I wish for the words of the Herald Angels at the birth of Christ… peace on Earth and goodwill toward men.

Merry Christmas and happy new year.

Peace.

Randal

How NOT to Treat Kids

This is going to be a blog entry that talks quite a bit about my personal life, so anyone not interested in that can move along. It involves my divorce.

When my ex-wife and I first got together, we were going to change the world! We were going to redefine marriage and redefine parenthood. Well, I don’t know if we did that or not, but we sure wound up with the standard-issue ugly divorce.

Let me come clean right off the bat and say that I did something stupid. I lost my temper with my kids. This is not an excuse, but I had come home from a crappy day at work and discovered that the kids had broken a piece of furniture. I swatted my son on the butt with a dowel from the broken piece of furniture, and then went to swat my daughter’s butt – except that she put her hand behind her and I whacked her on the wrist instead. Of course, I immediately regretted it, but that’s not something that you can take back once it’s done. I asked her if she wanted to go to the doctor to make sure that it was okay, knowing full-well that I faced legal consequences for doing that. We did and she was, thank God, fine. In fact, she was playing with her brother in the waiting room as if nothing had happened.

The upshot of this is that I was charged with misdemeanor domestic violence and pled guilty. I wound up on probation.

Years after this, my then wife decided to leave me. How did she do this? She said that her mom had bought tickets for she and the kids to visit her in Alaska. Nothing unusual in this. I didn’t get along with her mom, so they would always make that trip without me. As a matter of fact, I wasn’t really ready to visit Alaska at all at that point. What haunts me to this day and probably will for the rest of my life is that the last thing that my son said to me as they left for the airport was “I want to stay with you, dad.” I told him that everything was fine and to enjoy his visit. I wouldn’t see my son for a year and a half. When I did see him, it would be for about fifteen minutes, and I wouldn’t see him again. That was in 2001.

After they had been gone for a couple of days, I discovered that my wife had returned and – there’s no other way to put it – ransacked the apartment. There was no division of property, she just came in, took what she wanted (including CD’s that I had owned before we got together and about half of my collection of dragons, including a cauldron with a dragon lid that a friend had given me and I have not seen one like since).

Here’s the kicker, though, and where the title of this piece comes in to play. When I started talking to her about joint custody or visitation, she used my guilty plea of domestic violence to tell people that I had “abused” my step-daughter, and we all know what that means. She flatly told a few people that I know of that I molested my daughter, which is utter and complete bullshit. When I contacted a lawyer, she told me that because of my guilty plea and because neither of the kids were mine biologically (I always thought my son was until she insisted on a paternity test), I would have to be prepared to give her a $5000 retainer and that the entire case would probably cost $10000 to $20000. As I stated in an earlier post, my day job is electronic sales. I simply don’t have that kind of money. If I sold everything that I owned, I still wouldn’t be able to come up with the retainer. And I would have to be prepared to fly to Alaska “frequently” for court appearances.

The upshot of this piece is that, because of her lies and manipulations, my children were taken out of my life. She knew that she couldn’t hurt me with her absence, so she hurt me the only way that she knew that she could.

So two things.

Guys, if you marry a woman with kids, ADOPT THE KIDS. If you don’t, you lose all legal rights in a divorce.

And women, NEVER lie about your kids. EVER. Especially about molestation. It does irreparable damage to the kids, and makes it harder for people who actually HAVE been molested to be believed.

I wanted to get that off of my chest because, even though I try not to spend too much time missing my kids, I have been thinking about them and missing them a lot lately.

Thanks for listening.

Peace.

Randal

Arrogant Ignorance

Let me explain one thing before I get on to arrogant ignorance.

In my day job, I work in electronic sales. Part of this job is to check over returns and make sure that everything that they are sold with is with them when they come back. If it ain’t all there, we ain’t taking it back. Concurrent with that, we ask them why they’re returning the item to see if we can fix the problem without a return.

Okay.

So I had a customer today returning a Sony Blu-Ray player. This is damned near a top-of the line player – Sony invented the technology. So I ask her why she’s returning the product. She explained that she bought the Blu-Ray of “Horton Hears a Who” with Jim Carrey and Steve Carell. If you haven’t seen it, by the way, watch it. It’s a fabulous film. When she put it in her player, it said that she needed an update to her Blu-Ray player in order to watch the film. She got pissed that we would sell a product in November that would stop working in December without some kind of update. I tried to explain to her that the update was relatively easy to get (either through Ethernet connection on the back of the unit or by downloading the update to disc and installing it to your Blu-Ray), and that ALL Blu-Ray players will require periodic updates as they figure out ways to make it better. At this point she started insisting… a little PROUDLY, I think… that she knows absolutely NOTHING about computers.

Before I get on to arrogant ignorance, let me fill you guys in on some facts about Blu-Ray, just so’s you know…

1) Within the next couple of years, Blu-Ray DVD’s will be all that you can buy or rent. Blu-Ray will supplant DVD just as DVD supplanted VHS and VHS supplanted just watching TV.

2) All of your current DVD’s will play BEAUTIFULLY on a Blu-Ray player. This is one advantage that the DVD to Blu-Ray transition has over the VHS to DVD transition.

3) Although they’re expensive now, around $200 to $300 for a player and around $30 for a new movie, the prices will drop to about half that over the next few years, from all indications. The players were introduced on a large-scale to the commercial market less than a year ago, and have already dropped to about 1/3 of their original price. In five years, we’ll be wondering what all the fuss was about.

4) If you like games, buy a PS3. They’re typically about $200 more than a Blu-Ray player, but will play Blu-Ray movies as well as PS3 games, and stream media from your PC and all sorts of other fun stuff.

Any more questions about Blu-Ray, attach them as a comment and I’ll try to address them.

Anyway, I think that this customer kind of typified modern Americans. We are ignorant and arrogant, and DAMNED PROUD OF IT!

I am forcibly reminded of years ago when that Martian meteor fragment came to earth bearing bacteria. When scientists went to Congress for funding because this could give us amazing insight into our own genesis, some representative (I think that it was that paleontological marvel Strom Thurmond) said “The Bible provides me enough of an explanation for where we came from for me.” In other words, he was trying to block this potentially earth-shattering revelation about science and investigation into it because of ARROGANT IGNORANCE!

As a Christian, I have a question for people like this… why did God give us brains? I can’t help but think that when things like this happens, God put his mighty head in his celestial hands and mutters “Oy vey!” (He was Jewish long before he was Christian, remember.)

Anyone who steadfastly refuses to learn anything about computers is going to get left behind. With the upcoming transition from analog to digital, the amount of things possible via computer is going to explode in ways that we’ve never seen before. Domino’s pizza is already launching a plan where, when you see a Domino’s commercial on TV, you can use your cable box to go to Domino’s website, insert a credit card into your cable box and order a pizza! And that’s just a very small tip of a very LARGE iceberg. In the seventies, when “new math” was introduced, my math-savvy dad felt helpless to help me with my homework. It’s going to be that times a million when it comes to communicating with your kids. In other words

IT’S A VERY BIG DEAL!

Computers have gone from something that you play games on and look at porn with to a viable part of our everyday lives, and it’s just going to get better and more prevalent.

And it’s not just computers. It scares me the number of school boards who insist that the non-science of creationism be taught in science class along with the SCIENCE of evolution.

So guys, do yourselves, your kids and everyone else a favor. USE YOUR GOD-GIVEN BRAIN for something other than keeping your ears apart!

Peace.

Randal

A Letter To Representative Smith

I decided today, when i discovered that Congress was inches away from socializing the auto industry, to write to my representative, Adam Smith, and ask how i might apply to Congress for my own bailout money.

By the way, i encourage everyone else who thinks that these bailouts are utter bullshit to write to their representatives and ask for your own personal bailouts. I mean, we've ALL made stupid decisions at some point in our lives, right? And if the last six months has proven nothing else, it has proven that Congress is willing to relieve people and corporations who make stupid mistakes of all personal responsibility and give them money. So i want a piece of that. It IS our money, after all.

The first thing that you have to do is go to this site http://zip4.usps.com/zip4/welcome.jsp to discover what your "zip plus four" is if you don't know it. Then go to this site https://writerep.house.gov/writerep/welcome.shtml to go to a form to write to your representative.

I'd love to see these people SWAMPED with letters to understand that WE DO NOT LIKE THIS DECISION!

Peace.

Randal

Australia Has Lost It's Mind

An Australian court recently decided that a man who had a cartoon of Bart and Lisa Simpson on his computer getting it on was guilty of possessing child pornography. When the man appealed the case on the ground that they are CARTOON CHARACTERS, NOT CHILDREN, the judge, Michael Adams said that simply because the Simpsons characters were “not realistic representations of human beings did not mean that they could not be considered people.”

Wrong, dingleberry. They cannot be considered people because they WERE NEVER BORN, DO NOT LIVE, AND WILL NEVER DIE! They cannot be considered people because THEY DO NOT KNOW JOY AND CANNOT SUFFER PAIN! They cannot be considered people because THEY ARE NOT PEOPLE!

I’m getting worked up about this because our supreme court, in the dark ages of the last eight years, has been considering similar legislation. If I may, let me point out some problems with this that strike me as being rather obvious…

1) By focusing law enforcement efforts on fiction… make-believe… pretend… you are taking resources away from protecting REAL children. You know… the important ones. Who gives a rat’s ass if Homer Simpson is giving the high hard one to Lisa in some cartoonist’s imagination? I’m more concerned about the little girl who’s being raped by her daddy on video so that he can send it to his sick-ass friends. I think that part of the reason that this is being considered is that, as much as I love technology, digital photo technology and the internet has made it very difficult to catch the purveyors of kiddie porn. They no longer have to take their film to the photomat to be developed and then send it to their peers through the US mail. Technology has made all of our lives easier. Sadly, that includes the purveyors of kiddie porn. So, since they can’t catch and punish the guilty, they’re going to go after the artists.

2) How large of a step is it from prosecuting cartoons as kiddie porn to prosecuting libraries for carrying Lolita and Bastard Out of Carolina? (If you haven’t read these excellent novels, SHAME ON YOU and go read them.)

3) You cannot prosecute crimes against fictional human beings. How much of our fiction, both graphic and textual, including movies, deals with murder? Maybe the makers of the “Saw” films should be tried – but for making a bad film, not for virtual murder.

4) America seems to be growing less and less logical. I’m thinking of marketing a bumper sticker that says “Honk If You’re A Dumbass”. I haven’t because I’m afraid of being deafened by the blare of horns. We are not just arrogant and ignorant, we are DAMNED PROUD OF IT! One of the places that this shows most clearly is in our disdain for the simple little question “Why?” I think that all laws that are on the books should be subjected to the question “Why?” Why is this a law? If no reasonable answer can be given, then the law should be stricken from the books. Why is child pornography illegal? Because a child… a REAL child… had to be victimized to make it. QE fucking D.
5) Justice Adams gave the same old tired argument that I’ve heard until I’m sick of it, so please allow me to disabuse it. He said that the animated cartoon could "fuel demand for material that does involve the abuse of children," and therefore upheld the conviction for child pornography. This is the most ignorant argument that I’ve ever heard. Do you know what fuels demand for material that involves the abuse of children? PEDOPHILIA! If a person is already bent toward being sexually attracted to children, then yes, this cartoon would incite them. So do children beauty pageants, the Sears catalog, any television show or movie involving children and the very existence of children. Should we then outlaw all of these things? Not only that, but, again, the same argument could be made against any piece of fiction involving murder. How many budding sociopaths and psychopaths were brought to full bloom by being able to watch the murders through the killer’s eyes in Friday the 13th? It’s as much of an unanswerable question as “How many budding sociopaths and psychopaths are KEPT from living out their fantasies of killing by being able to release that urge through watching the fictional murders of fictional characters through the eyes of a fictional killer in Friday the 13th?” I am not alone in thinking that these kind of films… as well as sexual fiction about children… provides a necessary release valve for these anti-social tendencies. If this Australian dude can get his sexual ya-ya’s off looking at naughty pics of Bart and Lisa Simpson while leaving real children THE HELL ALONE, I say more power to him.

Peace.

Randal

December Holidays

For anyone interested, here's a list of the holidays celebrated around the world in December. Yes, that includes in the U. S. A. (The Unparalleled Self-indulgence of America)

December 6 is the feast day of St. Nicholas.

December 7 is Pearl Harbor day.

December 8 is Bodhi Day, the day celebrating the Buddha's enlightenment.

December 9 is the Muslim feast day Eid.

December 12 is the feast day of the Virgin of Guadalupe.

December 13 is Santa Lucia's day

December 16 to 25 is Las Posadas in Mexico - when they celebrate the nativity by carrying representations of Jesus, Mary and Joseph through the towns looking for shelter.

December 19 is my birthday. Well, it SHOULD be a federal holiday. I will be 44 this year. Anyone interested in making a donation to charity in my name, let me know and i'll e-mail a list of my favorites to you.

December 22 to 29 is Hannukah

December 22 is also the solstice.

December 25 is Christmas day

December 26 is Boxing day in the UK and Canada. I think that we should adopt this holiday in the states. It's a day for boxing gifts and giving them to the needy.

December 26 to January 1 is Kwaanza

December 31 is New Year's Eve

So, when someone wishes you "happy holidays" this year, pick one from the list and thank them. Don't get pissed off because they didn't specifically name YOUR holiday. I'm looking at you, Christians!

Peace.

Randal

Lacking Christmas Spirit

Well, I got chewed out again today for a lack of “Christmas Spirit”, whatever THAT is.

Since I’m already wishing people “happy holidays” and whistling, humming and singing Christmas carols, I’m going to chalk this up to “you just can’t please some people”.

Here’s what precipitated this accusation.

We have a terrific radio station here locally called WARM 106.9. Here’s their website, in case you want to listen: http://www.warm1069.com/

At any rate, from Thanksgiving to Christmas, these guys play nothing but Christmas music. Or at least, that’s what they say.

So this morning, I started chuckling after a couple of songs and a coworker asked what I was laughing at. I said “These aren’t Christmas songs.” She said “No, they’re technically “holiday” songs.” I said “No, they’re just songs. Some are winter songs, but they aren’t holiday songs. If they want to play the Dreidel song, that’s great… I love that song. But these aren’t about any holiday.”

That’s when she accused me of being lacking in Christmas spirit.

For the record, your honor, I feel that in order to be a “Christmas” song, a song has to mention one or more of the following three things:

A) Christmas. Seems like it would go without saying, but…

B) Santa. An icon of Christmas. If I remember the lyrics correctly, Christmas itself isn’t mentioned once in “Santa Claus is Coming to Town”, but it’s still pretty clearly a Christmas song.

C) The Nativity. Oh, yeah… THAT’S what we’re celebrating.

The first song in question was Frosty the Snowman. I realize that the Christmas special based on (or inspired by) the song said that Frosty was made of “Christmas” snow and at the end, Santa rejuvenates him with “Christmas” magic, but NONE of that is in the song. Check the lyrics.

The next song was “Walking in a Winter Wonderland”. Great song. Not about Christmas. Actually a love song.

Then comes “Let it Snow, Let it Snow, Let it Snow”. Fun song. NOT a Christmas song. I’m not entirely sure how Americans have come to associate snow so closely with Christmas anyway, given that most of us don’t get snow at Christmas.

The final straw for me was “Favorite Things” from The Sound of Music. Although I find the play and movie itself a little saccharine, I like this song. Of course, my version goes “Handcuffs on hookers and tightly bound beauties… brunettes and redheads and all sorts of cuties… multiple hotties all tied up with string… these are a few of my favorite things…” But even the original version is NOT a Christmas song. This one really puzzles me.

This attitude, though, kind of exemplifies why I disdained celebrating the holiday for so many years. Christmas seems to have become a catch-all for anything cute and sweet. I mean, the stuffed polar bears with the Santa hats made little enough sense to me. Now, over the last several years, PENGUINS have come to be associated with Christmas. One person tried to tell me that it’s because penguins live at the north pole with Santa. Nice try, but penguins live at the SOUTH pole. As far from Santa as they can possibly get. I guess that it’s because they’re associated with snow, which MOST OF US DON’T GET AT CHRISTMAS ANYWAY!

I guess that what I’m trying to do here is to get people to get a little pickier about what they lump in with Christmas. Even if you don’t celebrate the religious aspect of the holiday, let’s keep it to Santa and Christmas trees and stuff, can we?

Peace on Earth, goodwill toward men. (And women. And children. And animals.)

Randal

The True Meaning of Christmas, American-Style

Several years back, a woman was trampled at a Wal*Mart on black Friday when she went in to get a discounted DVD player.

This year, today, black Friday 2008, we have a shooting at a Toys R Us in California leaving two dead, and an employee at Wal*Mart in New York trampled to death.

The Wal*Mart story is absolutely gruesome. Shoppers literally pushed the glass and metal doors down on top of an employee while he was trying to open. Several HUNDRED people then stampeded across the man to get into the store. A pregnant woman was knocked down. (She was treated and released, thank God, the baby’s okay.) When police officers arrived, they found themselves buffeted by the crowd. And people were leaving with their shopping THROUGH AN ACTIVE CRIME SCENE! I wonder how many of those people should have been detained by the police. Let’s face it, if you’re reading this, and you went through the door with that employee under it, you need to go turn yourself in to the police. At the very least, you’re guilty of manslaughter.

It seems like every black Friday, in honor of Christ’s feast day (Christmas) we hear reports of violence and death at these “Black Friday Sale”s.

Doesn’t this indicate to us that we need to change the way that we’re doing things? I mean, I’m one of the first to bitch about the commercialization of Christmas, but this is beyond mere commercialization.

And yes, I’ve already heard, when I’ve talked to people about this “Well, that’s just a few examples out of hundreds or thousands of sales.” Okay, but how many people are an acceptable margin of loss before we figure out that it’s a bad idea?

Human beings seem to turn into savages on this day. LET IT GO, PEOPLE! It’s simply not that important to get to a sale before anyone else. Let’s make an attempt to turn “Turn-your-children-into-greedy-little-bitches-and-bastards” day, and turn it back into Christmas. The first step is going to be to eliminate this black Friday madness, and thereby stopping this bullshit violence…

…in the name of Christ.

Peace on Earth.

Randal

Censorship is Alive and Well

Isn’t it amazing that you have to have a license to drive a car, own a gun, or walk a DOG, but any idiot with working genitals can have kids. That never ceases to astound me.

I bring this up because of something that happened at work today. The store that I work at sells magazines. One of the magazines that we sell is the amazingly informative and user-friendly “Digital Photographer”. I walked into the office to do some stuff today and noticed a stack of about 15 “DP” magazines on one of the desks. I flipped through it, glancing at a terrific article on black and white photography (a personal favorite), noting some very tasteful nudes on my way to this article.

I happened to bump into my store manager on the way out of the office and asked if he wanted me to display them. “No.” He responded. “They contained inappropriate images.”

Okay.

Who gets to decide what’s inappropriate, I wonder? And if my manager made this decision, rather than it being made at the corporate level, then I have to say “Shame on you. You call yourself a Christian and yet you have the gall to refer to ANY of God’s handiwork, especially something as wonderfully-wrought as the female body as “inappropriate”? Who are you to judge the work of God?”

For the record, if anyone wants to see these apparently wildly pornographic pictures, they are in Digital Photographer, issue 75, page 43.

I think that a large part of this is people who simply don’t want to explain the complexities of nudity, nude photography and sex to their kids.

I am reminded of a conversation that I had with my daughter when she was about seven. She was looking at one of my photography magazines and came across a similar photograph to these. Beautiful woman, bare-breasted, standing in a cornfield. (The woman in DP is in a courtyard and a pool, but otherwise…) Conversation went as follows:

Daughter: Daddy, why is this woman naked?

Me: Because that’s the way that they decided to photograph her.

D: Isn’t she cold?

M: (Glancing at photo) Yes, I think that she is. What do you think of the picture?

D: (Looking hard at photo) The background’s too dark. You can’t see any of the corn.

See guys? Not all that hard.

Peace.

Randal

Let the Free Market Work!

Since my last post, I have received several “Shame on you”s from people about saying that we should just let the “big 3” hang.

Well, allow me to modify that slightly. What they have proven is that they are fully incapable of running their own businesses anywhere but into the ground. They proved this in the eighties when president Reagan issued long-term loans to them (I think of that as the first bail-out for the big 3), and they’ve proved it again in the nineties and this decade.

So let me put it this way…

Let them continue in business, and, yes, bail them out… but only under the following conditions…

First off, treat them as receiverships. In other words, don’t ASK those three ding-dongs to sell their private jets… MAKE them sell their private jets. And whatever other luxuries they have. THEY RUN FAILING BUSINESSES. MAKE THEM REALIZE THAT. They are private businesses. If you ran a business and it started failing, what would your first response be? To go whining for the government to bail you out because YOU’RE too dumb to run a business? No, you’d probably SELL SOME SHIT. Make these idiots sell some of the luxuries that their ill-gotten millions or billions or whatever have gotten them. Make them sell their estates and move into apartments. Make THEM pony up at least some of the dough to save their own asses, which they seem unwilling to do.

Secondly, make rules for them. You remember the Café standards that I mentioned in the last post? Put them back into place, but make them stricter. No car rolls off of the assembly line that exceeds a certain level of emissions and/or gets under thirty miles to the gallon city. Of course, RV’s and trucks would be exempt from the gas mileage rules, but a separate set of standards could be set for those. And no more Hummers or Expeditions. EVER.

Third, set up a strict repayment plan WITH INTEREST. If they fail to make their payments, treat them like any other debtor.

Fourth, require them to move the lion’s share of their jobs back to America. Everyone keeps saying that doing that would make the products too costly, but trust me – when you get to the point of “private jet” wealthy, you can afford to live a little more frugally. Alan Mulally, the CEO of Ford made four million dollars last year. But here’s the kicker – when he was hired in 2006, he was given an EIGHTEEN AND A HALF MILLION DOLLAR BONUS! So from 2006 to now, the guy has made more than twenty million dollars! And the company says that they can’t afford to employ Americans? Balderdash! Cut this dipwad’s salary to a million a year, and he’s STILL making a damned good living, and you can afford to employ Americans.

Finally… and I know that I risk sounding like a broken record here… but come up with a plan to get this money that DOESN’T require borrowing more from foreign powers or our children and grandchildren. Let’s not go further into debt bailing out businesses that have PROVEN that they can’t operate in a free market.

Now I’m back to my original point. If you can’t do this… if you can’t live by these rules… LET THEM FAIL. It’ll hurt, no question about it, but we’re Americans, damn it! We’ve lived through a depression, more recessions than I can count, a civil war, two world wars and George W. Bush. We can live through ANYTHING!

Look, we keep being told over and over again by rich people, corporations and Republicans that the free market works. Let it work!

Peace.

Randal

Bad for Business

Something that I saw recently made me realize why American businesses are imploding, and makes me rather pessimistic that it will ever be changed.

To rewind a little, let’s get in the Wayback machine and return to the Carter administration. During the OPEC oil embargo, President Carter and the Congress placed gas mileage standards on automobiles. In 1988, under President Reagan, these standards were largely overturned. We didn’t really notice it at the time, because we were still enjoying a minor oil boom in America.

A large part of the reason that these standards were overturned was pressure from the automobile manufacturers of America, collectively known as the “Big 3”. Chrysler, Ford and GM. They didn’t want to spend the research money on making cars more fuel efficient. So began a decade and a half of decadence in automobiles that culminated in the nauseating Hummer.

So now, twenty years later, the auto manufacturers have come begging to the American people, hats in hands, to help keep them in business after so many bad business decisions. Yes, Congress did reauthorize a gutted version of the CAFÉ fuel efficiency standards, but it was way too little, way too late.

Carter’s CAFÉ standards called for minimum fuel mileage of American cars to be increased to 27 MPG. There would be exemptions available for vehicles used for commercial use and RV’s. If the Big 3 had followed these standards, instead of lobbying so hard to get them gutted, they would now be making vehicles that competed with the fuel-efficient marvels being produced by America’s REAL “Big 2”, the two car companies that employ more Americans than the “Big 3”, Honda and Toyota. Instead, they screwed up and now expect us to pay for it.

Having said that.

I saw a clip the other day from the appearance before Congress of representatives of the “Big 3”. In this clip, a Congressman revealed that all three of these men had arrived for their inquisition in PRIVATE JETS! Then the Congressman asked for a show of hands of how many of them would be willing to sell their private jets and return home on commercial airlines. “Downgrade to first class” was how he put it. He followed that with “Let the record show that no hands were raised.”

In other words, after years of lobbying the Republican party to convince us that they needed no regulation, and the Republicans also telling us how important “personal responsibility” is concerning everything from welfare to unemployment, these guys are willing to do ABSOLUTELY NOTHING to help themselves and insisting that, after being deregulated to the point that they’re killing themselves, that we need to give them money to bail them out.

Balderdash.

Let them hang, I say.

By the way, America’s corporatized media has kept insisting that they are looking to “Congress to bail them out”. Not right. It ain’t Congress’ money, folks. It’s OUR money.

Peace.

Randal

Good For Business

In order to justify the corporate malfeasance of the last eight years, you’ve heard something a lot – both from Republican politicians and supporters of them. That is “What’s good for business is good for America!” In other words, let business do whatever it wants, and everything will be fine.

This is balderdash.

Let me explain.

First off, if what’s good for business is good for America, then why do we no longer allow child labor? Why do we no longer allow sweatshops? These things were GREAT for business, but sucked for America. Research the history of the Singer factory fire if you don’t believe me.

Once upon a time, if you worked in a factory and your poorly-maintained machine blew up in your face, blinding you, guess what you got? FIRED! You obviously can’t do your job blind, so they would just replace you with another expendable drone. No pension. Social security wasn’t invented until the thirties, so you were just screwed. Time to make your wife and kids go to work in a sweatshop so that your family wouldn’t starve.

Then there were workhouses and debtor’s prisons, where you had to work for corporations FOR FREE if you had an outstanding debt. These were wonderful for business, but lousy for everyone else.

A republican Senator recently commented that there is no indication in history that increased regulations improve working conditions or prevent the kind of financial meltdown that we’re having right now.

More balderdash.

We have regulations preventing businesses from unsafe working conditions. OSHA, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration is an example. And, until about six years ago, credit card companies and banks faced regulation that prevented them from loaning to unqualified people, which is what led to our current financial crisis.

You may also hear the panic-mongers scream that if we regulate businesses and force them to adhere to stricter environmental regulations they won’t be able to survive. I guess that I have a more optimistic view of the resilience of American businesses than that.

When slavery was outlawed, people said that was the end of American industry. Same thing when child labor was outlawed, when the unions were formed, when corporations had to start paying into social security, and when environmental regulations were placed on them in the seventies. And yet, somehow, they survived all of this.

Another piece of sheer nonsense is that if we take away their tax loopholes and make them pay their fair share of taxes that it will somehow hurt the American economy. We’ve been giving these gifts to corporations for the last twenty-five years or so, and watched sadly as jobs fled America.

Don’t listen to them, people. Corporations need regulation, and they need to pay taxes. And they will continue to thrive.

Peace.

Randal

You've Gone Too Far

This blog entry is addressed to the faction of the republican party that the so-called “moral majority” brought into the party to elect Ronald Reagan in 1980, okay? The rest of you can put your fingers in your ears and go “la la la la la” until I’m done.

That’s right. I’m addressing the redneck, snake-handling, inbred hillbilly faction of the republican party.

The democrats have been mollycoddling you… and I admit that I’ve been mollycoddling you right along with them… and it’s over now, all right?

I’m going to speak plainly to you, and in a politically incorrect fashion, because I’m tired of your bullshit.

I want to say that you people should be ashamed of yourselves. I hope that your mother scolds you thoroughly every time that you open your mouth. I know that if I spoke in the kind of disrespectful, empty-headed, small-spirited way that you guys do, my mom would wash my mouth out with soap. And not just any soap. LAVA! Have you ever tasted Lava soap? It’s the worst! You gargle with dog poop after you’ve had it to get the taste out of your mouth!

So what am I talking about?

I’m talking about the disrespect that you hillbillys are showing to President-elect Obama. Especially after screaming for eight years that to show disrespect to the chief executive is to show disrespect to America itself.

It was bad enough when you morons screamed “terrorist” and “kill him” at a political rally, and hillbilly queen Sarah Palin didn’t call you out for it. It was bad enough that a church reader board had the idiotic question “Osama… Obama… hummm… are they brothers?” on it during the election. What would Jesus do? NOT THAT! It was bad enough that the Karl Rove misinformation machine had that one poor little old lady convinced that Obama was an “Arab”. Nothing wrong with Arabs, that’s just misinformation. The same machine had one poor guy at a McCain rally convinced that his children would not be safe in an America where Barack Obama was president. It was bad enough that you boo’d the president-elect’s name at Senator McCain’s concession speech. Did you idiots see the look on his face when you did that? He is an intelligent, sensitive man and you guys were hurting him by doing that. Of course, that pain may be penance for making the mistake of hiring Karl Rove, a man who assassinated HIS character in 2000 to run his campaign. It was BEYOND bad enough when Mr. Broun compared president-elect Obama to a Nazi.

Now… NOW… you people have crossed a line.

By birth, I am a southerner. And I have done nothing over the years to hide that fact. I love southern cuisine and constantly have sweet tea in my fridge. I retain a slight hint of an accent that comes out most prominently when I am tired or stressed. Right now, if I were reading this aloud, you would hear my southern very clearly.

But now… you people make me ashamed of being a southerner. Ashamed!

A loved one of mine in Kansas told me about a news story on her local news about a Spirit One Christian Center reader board in Wichita, KS that said “America, we have a Muslim President. This is sin against the Lord! Ex 20:3”. Exodus 20:3, for those who don’t know, says “Thou shalt have no other God before me.”

Before I start parsing the completely invalid words on this board, let me start by saying that, from my understanding of the Gospels, our Lord would not approve of this bullshit being posted in His name. Jesus was all about love and tolerance, not this kind of nonsense. And also, just to be clear here, JESUS WAS A JEW! HE WAS A MIDDLE-EASTERNER, BORN AND RAISED IN ISRAEL!

Now, to the words themselves.

Most importantly, and hopefully for the last time, Barack Hussein Obama is NOT a Muslim! He is a Christian! His grandfather was an observant Muslim. His father was a Muslim, albeit a not very observant one (he married a white Christian woman, after all). Obama is not. My father and grandfather were Catholics. I am not a Catholic. See how that works?

Next, you narrow-minded morons need to understand that the God of the Jews, the God of the Muslims and the God of the Christians is the SAME GOD! “Allah” means nothing more or less than “God”. That’s it.

The “pastor” of this church insists that the point is not (despite the words on his sign) that Obama is a Muslim, but rather that he’s not a “real” Christian because he supports the legalization of abortion. Look, clowns… simply because president-elect Obama doesn’t share your rather narrow interpretation of Christianity doesn’t mean that he’s not a Christian. You obviously don’t share my all-encompassing, all-loving interpretation of scripture, but I won’t stoop to saying that you’re not Christian. I may say that you’re a bunch of stupid assholes, but I won’t say that you’re not Christian.

Next, you guys have to understand that America is as the founding fathers designed it. It is a nation where ALL religions and those who hold NO religion are all welcomed and equal. You want to live in a Christian theocracy? Great. Research it on Google, find a country that IS a Christian theocracy and MOVE THERE!

Finally, for the sake of argument, let’s say that Obama IS a Muslim. He’s not, but let’s pretend. SO WHAT? The Constitution stipulates that no religious test is to be given for federal office, and the office of President is a federal office. WHO CARES if he’s a Muslim or an atheist or a Jew or a snake-handler or a holy roller. WHO CARES?

The propaganda outlet for you people, Fox News, claimed that Mr. Bush’s three-tenths of one percent victory in 2004 was a great mandate of the American people. So what does that make Obama’s almost six percent victory? It was a landslide. Deal with it.

One final thought. God is all-powerful, right? If God didn’t want Obama to be president, do you think that he would have won?

Grow up.

And re-read the words of Christ and do your best to live by them.

Please.

Peace.

Randal

Obsessive Tradition Disorder

If you went to a mental health professional and said “I tend to do the same thing over and over on a set schedule with no idea as to why I do it. What would you say that is?” I would be willing to bet dollars against doughnuts that the shrink would say “Well, those are signs of obsessive/compulsive disorder.”

Now.

Having said that.

Why do you put a tree in your house and decorate it every year? And “Because I’ve always done it” or “because it’s Christmas” aren’t acceptable answers. Both of these equal “because I’ve always done it”. Repetition of a compulsion does not make it NOT a compulsion. Why do you put a wreath on your door at the same time? What do eggs have to do with Easter, the celebration of the risen Christ? And why do you say “Easter”, when in fact, you’re trying to celebrate a resurrection day?

Do you see what I’m getting at? I get a lot of flack about not celebrating “holidays” (meaning = “holy day” when, in fact, we’ve removed just about all of the holiness from them) the same way that “everyone else” does. (“Everyone else” in this context means “me, the person making the statement”)

So why do we celebrate these holidays the way that we do, and what do they REALLY have to do with the Christian celebrations that they are meant to represent? The answer to the second question is “not much”.

For instance, we can’t really be sure when Jesus was born, but we can be fairly confident that, if the statement about shepherds watching their flocks by night is true, then it wasn’t on December 25th. Why? Because Shepherds watch their flocks by night when it’s hot so that they don’t have to suffer the heat of the day. In December in Bethlehem, the average temperature is 10 degrees Celsius, which is about 50 degrees Fahrenheit. Which means warmer than 50 degrees during the day, colder than fifty degrees at night. I tend to think that, by that statement, we should be celebrating the birth of Christ sometime around summer solstice, not winter solstice.

Which brings me back to the first question… why do we celebrate these holidays the way that we do? When the Christian church starting expanding outside of Judea and Rome, they had to make their beliefs palatable to the pagans that they were now serving. (And pagan, by the way, is not meant as an insult, nor should it be taken as one. It is from the Latin “pagani” meaning “simple folk”.) As modern conservatives who insist that there is some sort of inane “war on Christmas” have discovered, there are MANY holidays celebrated in December, and many of that many predate Christmas. So by putting our holidays in the midst of THEIR holidays made it much easier to celebrate.

All of the other things have the same sort of genesis (Greek for “beginning”). For instance, the “Christmas” tree? When Christians went into the frozen Norse lands, they discovered that every year around winter solstice, the Vikings and Vandals would drag an evergreen tree into their longhouse, and cover it with lighted candles. Not to celebrate the birth of Christ, mind you, but because they were fearful at that point that they were never going to see the sun again. So they wanted to lure it back with these smaller lights. And the evergreen, with it’s logic-defying and mind-boggling greenness in the middle of all the snow seemed like the perfect metaphor for life in lifelessness. Hence… the Christmas tree.

And the wreath? Well, the tradition that surrounds that comes from a little farther south. The Celts had a god called “The Green Man”. He was the god of nature and wildness and sexuality. When you wanted a child, you appealed to the Green Man to bless you with a child. One way to do this was to have intercourse in a wild place. I mean a thicket or glade, not on your mother-in-laws steps. Another way to do that was to make a simulacrum of the place through which we all entered the world. A hole surrounded by a thatch in other words. They did this by weaving the branches of a tree into a circular shape. I’m not ENTIRELY sure how the Christians associated this faux-vagina with Christmas, but that’s how the thing got it’s start.

And what about Easter? Well, let’s start with the name. Anybody know what Easter means? I mean the word? Anyone? No? Well, would it surprise you to find out that it’s the name of an ancient fertility goddess? More properly “Eoster”, but the pronunciation’s the same. Eoster’s day is celebrated on the Spring equinox. Now, as any learned Christian knows, Jesus was crucified the weekend after his Passover satyr (the last supper) and resurrected three days later. Passover is celebrated on the 14th day of Nisan, the first month of the Jewish religious calendar. (ALL calendars except the modern Gregorian calendar celebrate the beginning of the year at the start of spring, not in the damned stupid middle of winter.) So, we celebrate the resurrection during Passover, right? Wrong. The early church fathers had a driving need to separate Jesus from his Jewish heritage as much as possible. So how do we figure Easter, anyone know? I mean, sometimes it’s in March, sometimes April. Seems to me that I’ve even seen it celebrated in May, although I could be wrong. Anyone? No guesses? Well, believe it or not, it’s the first Sunday after the first full moon following spring equinox. I’m NOT kidding. So, when the Christians wanted to force their religion on the Anglo-Saxons, naming the celebration after their fertility goddess seemed the way to go.

And what about the egg? And the chick? And the lamb? Along with spring itself, these are all symbols of rebirth. So, even though they have nothing directly to do with the resurrection story, they seem to fit the theme. And the “Easter” bunny? Pure fertility, man. I mean, what are bunnies most known for? That’s right… like the wreath… they’re just more fucking symbolism. (Sorry, couldn’t pass it up.) My favorite line about the confusion that this clash of religions creates came from a child. When asked what we celebrate on Easter, the tyke responded that it’s the day that the Easter bunny brought chocolate eggs to Jesus on the cross.

So all that I’m asking, folks, is that you take the time to consider these traditions before you blindly follow them. That’s all.

Peace.

Randal

America: Land of the Deluded and Home of the Moderately Insane

I’m not entirely sure where to begin on this, so I guess that I’ll just dive right into it.

America has lost its collective mind.

Having said that, let me be clear that I don’t like generalizations. For instance, when Michael Moore referred to Americans as the “stupidest” people on Earth, I didn’t like it. Not because I think that he’s wrong, necessarily, but because he’s not talking about Americans per se, but rather about the American public consciousness. So it’s more an imprecise generalization than an incorrect statement.

Having said THAT, let me be clear that I’m sticking with my generalization. Because I’m not talking about Americans here… I’m talking about America’s collective consciousness.

So what do I mean by that? Well, take for instance our gullibility. Again, I’m talking collectively. I’ve spoken before about how badly our bullshit detectors have been damaged from all of the spin and advertising over the last thirty years. Mine still functions pretty well, but I seem to have been born without the gene that makes us susceptible to advertising and spin. And no, my conservative loved ones, that is not a partisan statement. For instance, in our last general election here in Washington state, we had a democratic candidate for representative named Darcy Burner. Ms. Burner stated in a debate that I watched with my own four eyes that she “liked economics so much” that she “got a degree in it from Harvard”. Her opponent’s campaign discovered that she did not, in fact, get a degree in it (economics) from Harvard. She got a degree in computer sciences with a minor in economics. When I wrote to Ms. Burner’s campaign about this misrepresentation, her representative sent an e-mail to me saying that Ms. Burner had been “quite clear” about her education, and that her opponent was trying to spin the statement. Balderdash. She had been quite UNclear about her education and was now trying to spin it.

A perfect example of this is a quote that I heard today from Steve Moore, an editorial writer for the Wall Street Journal. Now bear in mind, please, that this is America’s preeminent economical publication. Mr. Moore stated that the policies of Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s new deal led to the great depression in America. This set my bullshit detector off, so I took all of about a minute to do the following research: I entered “stock market crash great depression” into Google and discovered that the stock market crash that prompted the great depression was in 1929. I then entered “Franklin Delano Roosevelt inauguration” and discovered that FDR was inaugurated in 1933, four years later. We were already deep into the depression by the time FDR came into office. But how many Americans would just accept that statement at face value?

By the way, if you study logic and debate, you discover that this is called an “argument from expertise”. In other words, he’s an editorial writer for our economic paper of record, why not believe him on this economic statement? The problem is, of course, that he’s utterly wrong.

Here’s another example… show of hands… how many of you believe that Bill Clinton was guilty of any wrongdoing in the Whitewater affair? Personally, I know at least two or three people who do. And yet, the Clintons were absolved of any culpability for that not once… not twice… but THREE TIMES, the last time by Clinton-hater Kenneth Starr. So why do Americans still believe this?

Bill O’Reilly would have you believe that America is a moderately conservative country. When Jon Stewart challenged him on this, O’Reilly stated that Stewart simply had to leave New York City to discover moderately conservative America. Yes, once you get past the cities and the suburbs, Americans tend to be moderately to extremely conservative. The problem with this argument is that the majority of Americans reside in cities and suburbs. So that would make the MINORITY of Americans conservative moderates. (A quick side note: I, personally believe that the majority of Americans are either moderate conservatives or moderate liberals. I think that the extremes of either of those views represent minority views.)

So why do we still swallow this stuff wholesale? I think that it’s largely education and isolation. As you leave the cities and the suburbs, you get into areas where the people are less-educated and more isolated. Take, for instance, a boy who is raised in rural America. Maybe a high school education. No internet. Almost his entire experience of anything other than his little rural pocket of America is television. He makes his first trip to the city, and what is he confronted with? Strip clubs, sex shops and homeless people begging for money or food. He has a very negative impression of city life that he then takes home to his rural community. There are exceptions to this rule, of course. I have the good fortune of having been raised by a man who has an excellent bullshit detector despite having lived most of his life in rural America and is also a high school dropout.

I said all of that, mostly, so that I could say this.

Here is a quote from Paul Broun, republican representative from Georgia. “"It may sound a bit crazy and off base, but the thing is, he’s the one who proposed this national security force. I’m just trying to bring attention to the fact that we may — may not, I hope not — but we may have a problem with that type of philosophy of radical socialism or Marxism. That’s exactly what Hitler did in Nazi Germany and it’s exactly what the Soviet Union did. When he’s proposing to have a national security force that’s answering to him, that is as strong as the U.S. military, he’s showing me signs of being Marxist.” Of course, later, Broun said that he apologizes if anyone “took offense” at this statement. In other words, he’s not sorry for saying it, he’s sorry that we’re not bright enough to understand what he was trying to say.

The problem is that he said it. Have you ever seen a TV courtroom drama where someone says something on the stand and the judge directs the jury to disregard it? It’s impossible. You cannot un-hear something that you’ve already heard. And then, of course, Fox news, lapdog of the far right, took that statement and ran with it. So how many Americans now equate President Elect Barack Obama with Nazi Germany and communist Russia? Probably the same number of people who still sincerely believe that Obama is a socialist Muslim terrorist. Too many, in other words. Personally, I think that if you want to compare a presidency to Nazi Germany, you have to look back at the last eight years, and even that is an imprecise characterization at best.

Here’s what the response of sane, rational people would be… a mass call for Mr. Broun’s resignation. He’s obviously a badly deluded person with an extremely ideological viewpoint. Is that really the type of person that we need representing us?

Turn your bullshit detector on and think about it.

Peace.

Randal

The Governor Has New Clothes

Before I talk about Governor Sarah Palin for, hopefully the LAST time in my life, I need to tell another story. Don’t worry – they relate.

I have frequently heard the phrase “Let them eat cake”, but rarely have I heard it used correctly. So, since I am going to use this phrase correctly in this entry, please allow me to take a moment to explain it.

The quote is attributed to Marie Antionette, the queen of France who was executed during the French revolution. When representatives of the peasantry came to her and explained that the peasants had no bread to eat, her response was (supposedly) “Let them eat cake.” In modern times, this has been taken as a phrase of arrogance, kind of a “so what?” But that isn’t the case. Instead, it shows her ignorance of the state of the people that she ruled. It didn’t occur to her that if they had no bread then they wouldn’t have any cake either. So, ignorance, not arrogance. Okay?

Okay.

Now… for hopefully the very last time… Governor Sarah Palin of Alaska.

I read her first post-election interview today (taken in her Wasilla kitchen… appropriate, considering that’s where she seems to want to stick all women but herself). In this interview, she stated for the five thousandth time since the election that she never asked for the hundred and fifty thousand dollar wardrobe that she received during the election.

In other words, “Let them eat cake.”

I sent an e-mail to governor Palin when I read this, hoping that maybe I could resolve that ignorance for her.

The problem for most Americans, I think, is not that she asked for the clothes – she didn’t. The problem, although she’ll probably never believe this, was not the clothes AT ALL. It was about the fact that she and Senator McCain painted themselves as a different type of republican from Mr. Bush and his crowd. I don’t know how many times one or the other of them used the word “Maverick” during the last election, but I think that it would be easier to count the atoms in the stars. The problem is that spending a hundred fifty thousand on clothes to dress up “Vice Presidential Candidate Barbie” while America’s economy falls down around our ears shows a real lack of understanding of the people that she wished to rule.

As to your personal responsibility, Ms. Palin… you ACCEPTED the clothes. Whether you asked for them or not. Kind of like Senator Stephens trying to get around his prosecution by saying that he didn’t ASK for any of the gifts that he received. Whether you ask for something or not kind of becomes academic when you accept it.

Please allow me a small tangent here… WHEN THE HELL DID THE REPUBLICAN PARTY BECOME THE PARTY OF “IF YOU DON’T GET CAUGHT THEN YOU DIDN’T DO ANYTHING WRONG?! Add those two to Tom Delay who said that he couldn’t be prosecuted for conspiracy in Texas… not because he didn’t commit conspiracy, mind you, but because TEXAS DOESN’T HAVE A CONSPIRACY LAW ON THE BOOKS! Man, you turn your back on the republicans for a decade or so and they go from being the party of business and the law and order party to being a bunch of crooks who smile while they pick our pockets and fuck our kids. What the hell?

Anyway. (Deep breath, exhale…)

Ms. Palin, there has been talk of you running for president in 2012. I would STRONGLY recommend that you learn that Americans do like seeing our elected officials behave like royalty while we starve in the streets.

You have all of the cake, Ms. Palin… while the rest of us scrimp for bread.

Peace.

Randal

Baloney for Steak

I know that I’ve asked this question before, but WHAT THE HELL HAS GONE WRONG WITH AMERICANS?

I don’t know about YOUR mom, but my mom taught me that I can expect to get what I pay for. Not more… not less. And yet somehow, Americans have come to feel that they can pay for baloney and get steak. Think back to all of the problems that we had with Chinese stuff over the last couple of years. Lead paint in the toys, mercury and lead in the toothpaste and pet food. Now’s there’s melamine in Chinese milk. Thank God we don’t import milk from China, right? Well, that same melamine has found it’s way into some canned produce that we DO import.

Why am I bringing this up? Simple. President-elect Obama has promised to close the tax loophole that allows corporations millions of dollars in tax breaks for outsourcing America’s jobs. This program, begun under Bill Clinton and processed with a vengeance under George W. Bush, has played a large part in ruining America’s economy. So, if President-elect Obama is able to fulfill that promise, what does it mean? Well, first off, that it would not be as financially sound for U S corporations to send our jobs overseas. That means that more jobs would stay in America. Yay, right? Except for the fact that American corporations repeatedly remind us of… if they manufacture products in America, the products are going to cost more. Because, God forbid that Phil Knight should cut his income by a million dollars per year or so to manufacture in the states, so he’s going to pass that expense on to you, the consumer. SO PAY IT!

That’s right folks… if you want steak… YA GOTTA PAY FOR STEAK! That’s because our laws here force employers to pay a living wage (we call it the minimum wage) and we have safety oversights in place… all of which cost money… that keeps the lead paint OFF of our kid’s toys and the melamine OUT of our milk.

Here’s the way that corporations paint this… American employees = higher cost = inflation = bad.

Before I type this next statement, I want everyone to turn their bullshit detectors on. I realize that all of the spin and advertising and commercial news in the US has caused our bullshit detectors to be damaged, but trust me – turn it on. Here’s the real equation… American employees = higher cost = larger wage base = inflation balanced by higher wages = good. What happened to us in the seventies is that we had high inflation coupled with high unemployment. That’s bad. That’s REALLY bad, and that’s one of the primary reasons that we put Reagan in office. There’s a lot of credit that’s given to Reagan for reigning inflation in. He didn’t really. What he did was to kick the outsourcing of American labor into high gear, thereby lowering the cost of goods and reducing inflation. The reason that I asked you to turn your bullshit detector on is because I want you to run this sentence through it… we cannot have the standard of living that we used to enjoy in the US and low inflation. It doesn’t work. And by standard of living here, folks, I ain’t talking about goodies. Okay? I’m not talking about how your daughter has an Ipod to match any color in her wardrobe. I’m talking about less unemployment. I’m talking about less homeless people. I’m talking about more money in our public coffers to help addicts and the mentally ill. I’m talking about quality of life, not material possessions. I think that one of the most important lessons that Jesus tried to hand down to us in the gospels is that material possessions do not make one happy.

Speaking of Jesus, I’d like to take a second here to address my fellow Christians about another benefit of bringing our jobs back from overseas.

If Bill Gates said “I’m going to open an American plant to manufacture my software. I’m going to staff that plant with twelve-year-olds, make them work twelve hours per day for a dollar an hour, six days per week,” what would our response be? “You go, Bill, because that’s capitalism, and that’s what America is all about”? I think not. I think that we would run Mr. Gates out of town on a rail. But every time that we buy goods made overseas, we make that contract. What would Jesus do, you think?

Democracy and capitalism are only compatible when the capitalism is controlled by the democracy… not the other way around.

Peace.

Randal

What Now?

All right.

We did it.

We got Barack Obama elected president.

Now what?

Well, the first thing is addressed to my democrat brothers and sisters. You must not… MUST NOT… behave like the republicans did when they had all they toys. Unless you want to find yourselves exiled like you did in 1996 and 2000, and like the republicans are now, you MUST remember who you are. Remember who our president is. A perfect example of how NOT to behave is the partisan rant that Nancy Pelosi delivered after the first financial rescue package failed. You also must not allow yourself to become corrupted. I know – it’s difficult. Do you imagine that so many republicans have fallen to corruption because they’re bad people? I remind you that the rain falls on the just and the unjust alike. In other words, they aren’t bad people – they simply were tempted and surrendered to the temptation. I hate to break it to you, democrats, but YOU’RE the ones who are going to be tempted now because you’re the ones with the power to do stuff. Do not give into it.

Another thing that we can do is to END the federal contract with Diebold. Also use whatever leverage you have in other states to get them to end THEIR contracts with Diebold. We don’t need voting computers. We can keep the ballot tabulators, because as long as we continue to print ballots with the candidates and propositions arranged in different orders on each ballot, these cannot be corrupted. And for voters with disabilities, who cannot use a paper ballot? Maybe contract with another company… a company that will actually allow the congress to look inside their machines, understand how they work, and play with them to make another voting computer to be used ONLY by people with disabilities. I mean, in theory, voting computers are a great idea, but oversight on them has to be STRICT. Not non-existent like it was with Diebold. And if they try to claim that their work has to remain “secret” from the congress like Diebold did, then no contract. Escort them from the building.

Which reminds me – can we, while you guys have power, eliminate the electoral college? It served a purpose once upon a time, when it was impossible to count every single vote by hand in a timely fashion. It is now possible to do that. You don’t continue to use training wheels on a bike once you’ve learned to ride. Let’s take those training wheels off.

Hopefully this goes without saying, but let’s also either severely modify or eliminate the USA PATRIOT act. This thing is an unconstitutional mess with too little oversight and too much of a possibility of abuse.

I think that president-elect Obama is already planning this for his staff and cabinet, but invite the republicans to play with the toys, too, okay? Again, think of how it felt for you when the republicans were destroying everything that you tried to build. And when you think of that, instead of giving in to the baser urge for revenge, try to be the better person, okay? Maybe while they are (as Ari Fleisher put it) in the wilderness, we can encourage them to be a kinder, gentler party. Oh, and republicans? It might help matters somewhat if you try to broaden your base a little. The snake-handlers, rednecks and robber barons that you have narrowed your base to over the last couple of decades no longer serves you. This might also discourage you from trying to nominate Sarah Palin for president in 2012. Frankly, I think that if you try that, she’ll get her ass handed to her by president Obama anyway.

Hand in hand with that, I think, is to change the discourse in American politics. When the republicans go all Sean Hannity and Ann Coulter on you, remain calm and continue intelligent discourse. I am reminded of Whoopi Goldberg’s much too short lived talk show. One time she had the founder of WAR (the White Aryan Movement) on her show. She said that she knew that if he started to rant and rave the only way that she could keep any kind of dialogue going was by remaining calm. Don’t question their patriotism. Don’t call them names. Stay cool.

Work with the republicans to get civil recognition for homosexuals and stem cell research going. Having you guys in charge will encourage the moderate republicans to come out of the shell that Bush and his cronies have forced them into.

The last thing that I can think of for tonight is a biggie. IMPEACH BUSH AND CHENEY. Or at least try. I kind of suspect that you guys were hoping for a super-majority so that you could do this, but you didn’t get it. Frankly, I’m kind of glad that you didn’t. But try anyway. But make it clear if you do that it isn’t the kind of partisan witch hunt that they pulled on Clinton, but only an attempt to make these men pay for the crimes that they’ve committed. Yes, Hillary Clinton, that will make Nancy Pelosi the first female president for however long from the end of the impeachment process until president Obama is sworn in on the twentieth of January. Deal with it.

Okay, that’s all that I can think of for tonight, except for maybe the most important one. Do your best, while you have power, to bring something to America that we haven’t had in a long while, in the world and between the parties. And that is…

…peace.

Randal

All That I Can Think To Say Tonight...

It looks like America's long night... and long nightmare... is over. Thank God.

Peace.

Randal

Isn't It Funny

Some final thoughts before election day…

Isn’t it funny that when our democratic governor in Washington said that our economy was strong it was cause for republican ridicule, but when John McCain said it on a national level, we simply misunderstood what he said.

Isn’t it funny that when we have a candidate who wants to give our money to rich people, the republicans call it “capitalism”, but when we have a candidate who wants to get some of that money BACK for us, the republicans call it “socialism”.

Isn’t it funny that when the republicans give WalMart an advantage over other businesses, they call it “economic stimulus” and it’s good… but when we give a member of a minority race an advantage to help them get caught up, they call it “affirmative action” and it’s bad.

Isn’t it funny that when billions of dollars are given to corporations for absolutely nothing, they call it “the free market” and it’s good, but when we give $1000 per month to a single mother to feed and clothe her kids, they call it “welfare” and it’s bad.

Okay, guys… we have the chance to get America back to where we were before the terror and the constant, exhausting fear, and back to the hope, energy and success that used to define America. And if you vote for McCain or don’t vote, then don’t come whining to me in four years when we find ourselves in the same mess that we’re in today or worse.

Vote Obama.

Peace.

Randal

Single-Issue Voters

Politics has been a major topic of conversation in the break room over these last few months, and I’m very happy of that. It’s said that you can never, in company, talk about sex, politics or religion. Personally, I think that once you’ve eliminated those three topics of conversation, pretty much all that you’re left with is the weather. And I HATE talking about the weather.

So anyway, I overheard one guy in the breakroom say that he had voted for Bush in 2004 simply because of Bush’s simple-minded views on abortion and evolution. When I heard that, I think that I figured out a big part of our democracy’s woes right now. Single-issue voters. This guy was willing to perpetuate the most unconstitutional, undemocratic presidency of all times, simply because the “president” in question believed that God literally created the world in six days and promised to do everything that he could to overturn a woman’s right to have a safe and clean abortion.

Look, I don’t expect anyone to agree fully with everything that a presidential candidate says, ever. I, myself am a little troubled that Barack Obama won’t come right out and clarify his views on gun control. I do, however, agree with most of what the man says, therefore I’ll vote for him.

So that got me thinking about these single issues, what they are, and how they might be resolved. So let’s start with the first one that I mentioned here.

1) Abortion. I honestly don’t believe that a woman’s right to a safe and clean abortion will end under any president in the foreseeable future. I think that the narrow-minded idealogues who want that had their chance under GWB and didn’t get it. He tried, but it didn’t happen. I, for one, would love to see the court revisit Roe Vs. Wade and address some issues in it that weren’t addressed the first time around, such as the FATHER’S rights when a woman wants an abortion. We keep insisting that men have a greater role in the lives of their children, while denying them this vital role. The woman didn’t make the baby alone, and you can bet that if she has it, she’s coming after the father for support, so he really should be a participant in the decision whether or not to terminate. But I digress. Yes, this is an important issue. No, it is not the only issue upon which to cast your vote. If you’re pro-choice and the pro-choice candidate doesn’t want to do anything about the pathetic state of American health care, do you vote for him or her anyway? And what if you’re anti-choice, and your candidate wants to continue rewarding corporations for outsourcing American jobs?

2) Religion. Oh, holy God! Religion! As a Christian, I gotta tell you that this is the BRICK-DUMBEST reason to vote for a candidate. As I stated when I wrote about the acceptance speeches at the conventions, I wish that politicians would quit attaching God’s name to every piece of crap pet peeve and dragging it through the mud. Guys, the first amendment prohibits Congress from interfering with or being influenced by religion when it comes to pass laws. The Constitution prohibits ANY religious test from being required for elected office. Also, you really can’t be sure if what a politician says in public is the same thing that he practices in private. Abe Lincoln said something that most modern politicians would do well to remember… that it is less important that we believe that God is on our side than it is for us to endeavor to be on God’s side. I think that the last president that we had who truly understood the role of religion in a president’s policies was Jimmy Carter. Carter, a southern Baptist, found both abortion and the death penalty to be in conflict with his personal religious views, but bowed to the will of the American people in both instances. And I think that the last president that we had who, blowjob notwithstanding, truly understood Christianity was Bill Clinton. When a woman asked him if he was “born-again”, he said “Ma’am, only God gets to make that decision.” Mr. Bush, on the other hand, talks ceaselessly about what a good Christian he is, while disregarding the poor and leading our country into an unprovoked and unjustifiable invasion and war.

3) Guns. No president CAN OR WILL take away your guns. Ever. It would take an act of Congress to overturn the second amendment and it WILL NOT HAPPEN. EVER! The second amendment places the possibility of regulation on firearms in America and some presidents (like Bill Clinton and the assault rifle ban) act to institute new regulation. THAT’S IT. It both tickles and distresses me that the candidates who talk most boldly about state’s rights say that states have no rights to control the firearms of their citizens. I remind you that in the so-called “wild west”, TOWNS were allowed to regulate their citizen’s firearms.

4) Small government. Every president from Jefferson through GWB that has run on a platform of small government has acted to increase the size and power of the federal government exponentially. Whereas President Clinton, who didn’t make this a campaign issue, reduced the size of the federal government considerably. Given that information, I would say that if you are TRULY interested in smaller government, then vote for the candidate who doesn’t make it one of the planks of their platform.

I guess that what I’m saying here, folks, is to take ALL of a candidate’s views into account when voting. Don’t just pick one issue and ride it to death.

Peace.

Randal

The Theft of Our Democracy

Okay, guys. As of today, we’re on a countdown. It is 10 days until the presidential election.

There are those of us who believe that the last two elections, 2000 and 2004 have not been handled fairly or in good faith, so I want to take a moment to address these issues.

Believe it or not, after the 2000 presidential election, I was one of these people who walked around for about a year saying “Gore lost. I don’t like it either, but get over it.” As certain facts became clear to me, however, I discovered that my simplistic attitude was not at all accurate.

1) When it was all said and done and the smoke had cleared, Gore had half a million MORE votes than Bush. Bush “won” the election by taking the electoral votes of the embattled state of Florida. For those who don’t know, the electoral college was set up by the founding fathers in an attempt to make sure that every vote got counted. It simply wasn’t feasible to count every vote from every state at that time. So what they did was to count the votes BY STATE, and then have “electors” ride to DC to express their vote as the will of the people. Now it IS possible for every vote to be counted, and so it should. The electoral college should be eliminated.

2) In the state of Florida, George Bush’s brother was governor.

3) The Florida secretary of state, responsible for a fair and legal vote was Katherine Harris, who also happened to be co-chair of the “Bush for President” campaign in Florida. This is a little like suing someone and then discovering that the judge is the brother of the person that you’re suing.

4) The night of the election, long before the votes had been counted, GWB said in an interview “I know that I’m going to take Florida – my baby brother (Florida Governor Jeb Bush) promised me that I would!”

5) You may have seen the “protests” on TV that featured “angry Floridians” demanding that the vote be counted. In fact, every single one of those young men were aides and assistants to republican congressmen, sent there by their bosses to shut down the recounts.

6) Among several Diebold voting machine irregularities was one in Broward county, Florida where the voting computer was counting Gore’s vote BACKWARD, ultimately subtracting 13,000 votes from his total. Lord only knows how many of these machines were doing similar mischief, but were never discovered.

7) Punch-tab voting machines in predominately poor and black districts (historically large turnouts for the democratic party) were old machines that had not had the chads (the small pieces of punched paper) emptied out of them in an unknown period of time. The result was that many of the ballots didn’t punch all the way through, resulting in the famous “hanging chads” which allowed these ballots to be cast out.

8) Florida state police set up “vehicle inspection points” in these same neighborhoods, delaying some voters in some cases for hours, until finally they were just too fed up and went home without voting.

9) Felons lose their right to vote. This is the law. Every election cycle a “purge” list is printed up so that felons can be removed from the voting record. For Ms. Harris, this was simply not enough. She also instructed the private firm that she had employed to do this not only to purge the felons, but to purge anyone with the same NAME or BIRTHDATE as the felons. The result was that, as later court documents stated, “tens of thousands” of African Americans were denied their right to vote including police officers, judges and grannies. In one small district, I forget which one immediately, the entire district (all African American) were illegally denied their right to vote.

10) When a Jewish resident of one old-age home in Florida discovered that ALL of the votes from his home went to anti-semite Pat Buchanan, when he intended to vote for Gore, he said “I would have sooner voted for Louis Farrakhan than Buchanan.”

11) Speaking of Buchanan, when he discovered how many votes he got in largely Jewish Florida, Mr. Buchanan said “As much as I’d like to see Bush win this election instead of Gore, it’s pretty clear to me that those votes should have gone to Vice-President Gore.”

Isn’t it strange that all of these “errors” favored George W. Bush? Finally, Mr. Bush took the case of the Florida recounts to the supreme court. The court, in violation of all state’s right’s laws, stopped the recount and declared GWB the winner of Florida and thus of the election. They also bizarrely stated that this case could NEVER be used as precedent for another case. My question is now and has always been that if GWB had nothing to hide, why did he work so hard to hide it?

So along comes 2004. Personally, I hoped that Kerry would defeat Bush, but knew that this was historically unlikely. America has NEVER unseated a president during wartime. The battleground state that this election came down to was Ohio. So what happened in Ohio that year?

1) The republican Ohio secretary of state refused to allow international election observers into the polling places.

2) A consulting firm called Sproul and Associates, hired by the Republican National Committee was caught shredding new democratic voter registrations.

3) In Miami county, a largely republican district, an astronomical (and nearly impossible) ninety-seven percent voter turnout was reported. A polling place in a poor area of Cleveland (a democratic stronghold) reported an equally bizarre seven percent turnout.

4) In Warren County, officials concocted a non-existent terrorist threat to prevent the media from monitoring the elections.

5) One quarter of Ohioans turned up at the polls only to discover that they were not listed on the voter registration forms.

In Ohio and other states, in districts where Diebold (a major republican supporter) voting machines were used, independent exit polls showed Kerry the winner, but those districts were almost unanimously given to Bush by exactly the same percentage. So, for instance, if the exit poll had Kerry winning by 54 percent to 46 percent for Bush, the numbers came out flipped, so that in that district the result came out for Bush by 54 to 46 percent.

In one town, I forget which one it was, with a population of around 300 people, the vote came out as 3000 votes for Bush, ten times the population. A voter turnout of 1000%, in other words. When Diebold was confronted with this, they said that the machine was “fatigued”. I wonder how many other machines this happened to that were not reported?

So how can we stop this? Use a paper ballot rather than a computerized voting machine. The machines are too easy to rig, and leave NO paper trail.

KNOW YOUR RIGHTS. Many democrats in battleground states received phone calls, supposedly from the elections office, telling them that the election had been postponed until Wednesday, the day AFTER the presidential election. It was later discovered that this fraud was perpetrated by republican operatives.

If you live in a battleground state such as Ohio or Florida, be prepared to spend as long as you have to getting to the polls. If you can, take the day off work and go first thing in the morning. If you have kids, get a sitter so that you don’t feel pressure to give up. In these states in both 2000 and 2004, poor and overwhelmingly democratic districts were given far too few voting machines for the population, resulting in people spending hours in line to vote. In the freezing rain in a lot of cases, so bring a raincoat and some layers of clothing.

If you can, volunteer. Election offices are in dire need of volunteers. Also, offer to shuttle people with no transportation to the polls. It will cost you some gas, but think of the good that it will do for our democracy. Besides, gas is back on the cheap side… at least until AFTER the election.

If you are voting on a “punch” machine, make sure that your punch is clean with no “hanging chad” before you put it into the lockbox. If it didn’t go through at all (a “dimpled chad”), then repunch the ballot. If the chad hangs, either repunch the ballot or brush the chad clear of the ballot. If you are using a “fill in the dot” ballot, and you make an error, ask for a new ballot. They are required by law to give one to you. Do not try to erase your erroneous mark, or mark the ballot twice. These will be discarded.

Check with your local elections office to see if your state is offering “early” voting. If they are, take advantage of it, especially if you live in a battleground state.

I kind of feel bad that I live in such a “blue” state. Washington state hasn’t elected a republican president in twenty-odd years, so there’s not a lot that I can do from here, except encourage others.

Okay, brothers and sisters. That’s all that I can think of for now. As someone said recently, “It’s not enough for Obama to win this election… he has to win by such a large margin that the election cannot be stolen.”

Peace.

Randal

Socialism and Democracy

I would like to make a few precepts perfectly clear here, because America seems to be confused on them. If you know anyone who is confused on the following points, please forward a link to my blog to them. Thanks. The reason that I’m doing this post at this time is because Barack Obama’s opponents, having run out of every other thing both insane and sane to attack him on are now calling him a “socialist” because he wants to REdistribute the wealth that was redistributed over the last eight years. So I want, if I may, to clarify the idea of socialism somewhat.

1) Socialism is an economic system, not a political system. In other words, socialism is NOT in opposition to democracy, it is in opposition to capitalism. America is, by definition, a democracy… we are not, by definition, capitalist. As a matter of fact, if you think about it, socialism is much more in line with democracy than capitalism is. Socialism is primarily concerned with the people. Keeping the people healthy, educated, sheltered and happy. Sounds awful, doesn’t it? Capitalism, meanwhile, values only one thing: the bottom line. Where health care is concerned, for instance, capitalism has failed miserably. Between insurance companies lobbying for the right to increase their premiums while decreasing their coverage, McDonald’s lobbying to have their food sold to our kids without regulation and Dow Chemical lobbying to continue poisoning our earth, air and water, health care in this country is somewhere between a dirty joke and an epic tragedy. Oh, and let’s not forget the alcohol and nicotine lobbyists. To be clear, neither candidate is suggesting that we socialize our health care system, but if either one did, I’d probably vote for them. It’s worth a try, and about anything has to be better than what we have now.

2) To expand on that point… there ARE socialist democracies in the world, they are all our allies, and apparently their systems work quite well. The four that spring immediately to mind are England, Canada, Denmark and France. Of course, Denmark has taken our idea of democracy and run with it, keeping the government almost entirely out of the lives of the people while giving the people ultimate authority over their government. Prostitution and marijuana, for instance, are both legal there.

3) America is now, and has been since around the civil war, partially socialized. Socialized sectors of the economy include: libraries, schools, police, fire department and roads. The argument at the time, concurrent with the introduction of a national income tax, was that areas of education and public safety should NOT be put into the hands of private, for-profit companies. Back to health care, I would firmly put that in that category. It has not always been this way. Prior to that, if you wanted someone to come put your house out if it caught on fire, then you hoped that the volunteer fire department in your area was able to get to you, or you had a seal on your house for a nearby for-profit fire department. It was kind of like fire insurance. You bought coverage from your local fire department and then put their seal somewhere on your house where it could be seen from the street. On some historic farmhouses and barns in the east you can still see these marks. If an engine from another “company” came by your house while it was burning, that was just too bad. So, to you people who say that America should be free of socialism, I say “be prepared to have a credit card handy if your son gets mugged or your daughter gets raped.” Would you like to be personally responsible for the staggering costs of one of these investigations? I sure wouldn’t.

Am I a socialist? No way. I like money. I like the things that it can buy for me. I’m about to finish my first novel, and when I do, I hope that someone pays me a lot of money to publish it. Enough to comfortably quit my day job, at least. But that doesn’t mean that I think that America can’t adapt aspects of socialism as we have done so magnificently in our past.

One part of this argument that really bothers me is that the very same people who are arguing against American socialism are the people who are PRACTICING socialism for the rich. John McCain, who, when defending his decision to vote against Mr. Bush’s tax cuts for the wealthiest 5% of Americans said “I think that the rich can afford to pay a little more”, has recently spent a lot of time attacking Barack Obama for using the term “Spread the wealth”. Economist Thomas Friedman recently made a statement that I thought was absolutely brilliant. He said “In America, we have socialism for the rich and capitalism for the poor.” When a multi-millionaire CEO gets into a bind because of stupid decisions that he’s made, the republicans are right there to “bail him out”. If, to use a recent media celebrity as an example, Joe the Plumber loses his job, his house and his health care because of that CEO’s bad decisions, well that’s just too bad. We don’t want to be socialist, after all, do we?

Sarah Palin, at the vice presidential debate, said that Obama wanted to institute redistribution of wealth, which is one of the precepts not only of socialism, but also of communism (which, by the way, is another economic philosophy, not a political one). What I want my middle and lower class brothers and sisters to understand is that, over the last eight years, we have witnessed the largest redistribution of wealth in human history. The reason that we don’t recognize it as such is because it has been redistributed from the poor to the rich rather than the other way around. Ending Bush’s tax cuts and instituting new tax relief for the middle and lower classes is only an attempt to balance that.

Am I a socialist? No way. But, at the same time, I see that America is the wealthiest country in the world. Because of that, I think that it’s reprehensible that there are Americans who have to struggle for food, shelter and health care. I think that every American should be guaranteed a roof over their head, food on their plates, and the care and medicine that they need to be well. These things should no more be privatized than the police or fire departments. And if we need to have Phil Knight make only six billion dollars next year than eight billion, so be it.

I know that it isn’t “PC” in America today to invoke Europe, but I’m going to. I can’t think of a time when anyone has accused me of being politically correct, except in the fact that say “happy holidays” instead of “Merry Christmas”, so I’m not too worried about the accusation of political incorrectness now. There is a concept in Europe called “Noblesse Oblige”. What that means is “the obligation of nobility”. The rich have an OBLIGATION to help out those less fortunate. This is also a Christian precept, by the way. Some rich people in America already do this such as Stephen King and Bill Gates and they deserve all credit for doing that. I said earlier that I hope someone pays me a lot of money to publish my book. If they do, I have already made a promise to God that if he sees fit to reward me in this way, ten percent of any money that I achieve from my writing will go immediately to charities that help people. Food banks, AA, homeless shelters. I challenge all people in America who are rich or potentially rich to do the same.

Peace.

Randal

I'm A REAL Fake American

I would like to address Sarah Palin’s recent comment about “real” America and also all of the babble about small towns in this election in general. First off, let me say that Ms. Palin DID apologize… kind of… by saying that she was sorry if people “misunderstood”. I think that “misunderstood” is one of these words like “exceptional” that Ms. Palin only has a vague understanding of herself. You are “misunderstood” when you present an idea that can be taken in more that one way, and someone takes it in a way other than what you meant. The rule here, though, is that there has to be some leeway in the meaning of your words. For instance, if you want a lot of paper clips, and ask your assistant for a handful of paper clips and she only brings you two or three, you just have to understand that her hands are smaller than yours (to steal an allegory from Gib Whiteman).

So help me out here… let me give you Ms. Palin’s comment… which seems fairly unequivocal to me… and tell me how many interpretations there are for it. She said “We believe that the best of America is in these small towns that we get to visit, and in these wonderful little pockets of what I call the real America, being here with all of you hard-working, very patriotic, very pro-America areas of this great nation.” Here’s the way that I read it – cities… and, presumably, city-dwellers… are not the best of America, we are not very hard-working, not very patriotic and anti-American. This statement strikes me as what would be called in a debate class an “either/or statement”. Either/or statements are unequivocal, meaning not open to interpretation or debate. Or maybe I’m just not bright enough to see any other interpretation. Help me out if you do, please.

So what does Ms. Palin’s apology mean? Sadly, I think that it means that she doesn’t think her words out very well before she says them… probably one of the reasons that the Bush loyalists love her… she reminds them of their hero. Also like Bush, she presents very complex ideas (such as hard-working and patriotic) in such simplistic terms that the authors of the Dick and Jane books would look at them and go “Oh, come off it!” I’m flashing back to “You’re either with us or you’re with the terrorists” here. She isn’t sorry that she said it, she’s sorry that it bit her in the ass. Like a little kid – she’s not sorry that she did wrong, she’s sorry that she GOT CAUGHT. That’s one thing that peeves me about the modern republican party – it’s okay if you don’t get caught seems to be their mantra.

I’m also a little confused about whether that makes me a “real” or “fake” American according to Ms. Palin. I mean, I was born in Altus, Arkansas (population 80 at the time, about 800 now), a town that passed small and hit tiny on it’s way to nonexistent. I was raised in Chugiak, Alaska, which had a population of 26,000 in 2005, but was much smaller when I lived there. Still… a very small town. After that, I moved to Anchorage, which currently has a population somewhere around 260,000. No longer a small town, but still a VERY small city. I currently live in Renton, Washington, which currently has a population around 50,000, but lived for a while in Seattle (population around 580,000), which is my favorite city. I live in cities now because I love cities. I was tickled pink a couple of years ago when I visited some loved ones of mine from high school, when the husband of the couple referred to Anchorage as “the big city”. So… what I’m wondering is, where is the cutoff between “small town”, “large town”, “small city” and “big city”? To my loved ones in Fall River, Kansas (population 156), Renton would probably seem like an unbearably big city, although it’s twice as large as the town in which I was born. To someone in New York (population 8,000,000 plus) Seattle must seem hopelessly rural. So I guess that makes me a REAL fake American.

Look, I don’t like big cities. I live in Seattle instead of New York or Los Angeles because I choose to. Although I like cities, those cities are just too big in my opinion. But that doesn’t mean that I think any less of the people who live there. Several of my loved ones throughout my life have come from New York or Los Angeles.

So what’s with the romanticization of small towns in this election? I think that it’s largely that small towns contain largely what the republican party considers it’s second “base”. Their first base, of course, consists of the very rich, big city people that the republican party verbally denigrates, so this kind of nonsense is nothing more or less than playing to their base.

Personally, having come from small towns, I get a little sick of hearing Ms. Palin blow the inhabitants of small towns with talk about how wonderful and law-abiding and hard-working these people are. And I’m not saying that they’re not – simply that they are no more or less so than people in cities. There are crooked people, and lustful people, and kinky people in small towns, just like in big cities. The difference is that in big cities people are living right on top of each other, so it’s harder to hide these things and easier to indulge in them. And yes, for a thief or a rapist it’s much easier to find victims in big cities, where you have ten or twenty or more residences within the space of a block than in a small town where you have one residence every mile or so. Your odds of finding an unlocked house or car, or vulnerable victim are exponentially increased in a city.

Realistically, though, you also have higher per capita rates of domestic violence and drug abuse in small towns than you do in big cities. Anchorage has the highest per capita suicide rate in that nation. Ms. Palin’s town, Wasilla, has been called the Meth Lab capitol of the world. Texas, which, like Alaska, is mostly small towns with a few cities thrown in has the highest per capita murder rate in the United States.

Also, people in small towns have a very “It’s none of my business” attitude. People like Ms. Palin like to trot out the idea that people in big cities will just walk past someone laying on the sidewalk, whereas small town people won’t. Well, Ms. Palin, you have to understand that, in a city, that person may be hurt, or they may just be laying in wait for someone to get close enough for them to steal a wallet or purse. Sad but true. And let’s face it… in Wasilla, or Chugiak, or Fall River you may see a person lying on the sidewalk once per year or so… in a city, even a fairly small city like Seattle, you see ten or twenty or fifty every day. It does eventually get to the point of “am I going to spend my day doing the stuff that I need to do, or am I going to spend my day checking on every person that I see in a potentially sketchy situation to see if they’re hurt, or drunk, or just waiting to rob me?”

So what am I trying to say here, at the end of it all? Well, I believe that it was the eminent philosopher and mage Pogo Possum that said “People is people.” People living in New York are no more or less righteous or patriotic, or gentle or loving than people in Frog Balls, Booger Holler or Bug Tussell Arkansas. People is people.

But, Ms. Palin would do well to remember something that Bill Maher said recently. “Big cities have one thing that small towns don’t… VOTERS!”

Obama for president.

Peace.

Randal