Hall of Lame

The 20th Century has had a number of personalities whose fame far exceeded their ability. Can we say that their grasp exceeded their reach? Here, in my opinion, are a fair number of them:

Architecture – Frank Lloyd Wright
Art – Andy Warhol (honorable mention, Salvador Dali)
Business – Bill Gates
Dance – Martha Graham
TV – Walter Cronkite
Movies – Mae West (honorable mention, Joan Crawford)
Music – Bob Dylan (honorable mention, Madonna)
Poetry – Maya Angelou
President – Woodrow Wilson (honorable mention, Jimmy Carter)
Royalty – Princess Diana (honorable mention, Prince Charles)
Science – Carl Sagan (honorable mention, Al Gore)
Sports – Wilt Chamberlain
Stage – Ethel Merman (honorable mention, Carol Channing)
Writing – Norman Mailer

If anyone wants my rationale(s) for these pick(s), leave a challanging comment and I will respond.

Juxtaposition II

 I can't help myself ...

Juxtaposition

Sorry, I couldn't resist ...

Potato Head

The federal government is making one more insane intrusion into the life of its citizen sheep.  It is considering baning the potato from its child nutrition programs.  See Baning Potatoes.

I recently wrote a blog about another chuckle-headed move by the feds ... its banning of certain incandescent light bulbs.  See Junkier Science.  Now Big Brother has sharp-elbowed his way into our lives once again.  When will he stop?  When he pushes his way into our bedroom?  Oops, of course not, government bedroom intrusion will only be allowed when food or tobacco is included (but not involving cannabis, underage children, or illegal immigrants.)  One medium baked potato has only 160 calories and it is loaded with potassium and vitamin C.  Yet, it is now to be "relegated to the secular arm."  Those in favor of this insanity say that it is not so much that the potato is evil, but it is the butter, sour cream, and salt that we put on the potato ... or the fat in which it is fried.  Isn't that the same argument that was once use against marijuana ... that it was what went along with pot usage that was evil?  (It was a "gateway drug.") Can now we call this carom-shot morality?

Our Next President …

* Will have, as a campaign slogan, “Hype and Something Else”
* Will have, as a campaign motto, “A Newer Ending”
* Will have written a book titled “It Takes a Neighborhood to Dream of My Father Going Rogue”
* Will be androgynous (shemale?)
* Will admit to doing designer drugs in the past but be vague about present-day usage
* Will have been born in Ethiopia inside the U.S. Embassy
* Will be a Navaho/Vietnamese cross-breed
* Will have, as a campaign theme song, “There’s No Tomorrow”
* Will have, as a campaign manager, Phil Spector
* Will promise not to raise taxes [too much]
* Will have raised, through the Internet and Iphones, $25 billion in campaign funds
* Will choose Barney Frank, the defeated House incumbent, as Vice President
* Will name George Soros as Secretary of the Treasury
* Will name Dennis Kucinich as Secretary of Defense
* Will name Chelsea Clinton as Secretary of State
* Will name [the disbarred] Sandy Berger as Attorney General
* Will name Richard Simmons as Surgeon General
* Will redecorate the White House in the style of a bordello
* Will pardon Bernard Madoff
* Will win the Nobel Prize in Economics, Physics, Medicine, and Peace
* Will also win an Oscar, a Pulitzer Prize, a National Book Award, and Megabucks
* Will have a pet mongrel dog named “Rush”

Phobia-phobic

Let me tiptoe into this subject. Carl Paladino, the GOP candidate for governor in New York State, recently said that parents should not expose their young children to Gay Pride parades. See this story. Now, I did a quick scan of the Internet via Google and came up with the following images taken at these parades … see above and below. And believe me; I have excluded a great many frontal-nude pictures that are even more egregious (showing what is said in “Monty Python” as the “naughty bits”). Yes, I go along with candidate Paladino in his assertion about such parades are damaging to young minds.  It just seems that a civilized society should have its limits … unfortunately, most of which have been trampled on decades ago.  Why, to show that I have no problem with gays, must I also have no problem with such out-of-bounds behavior?  And more to the disturbing point ... are all the homosexuals taking part in these festivities "proud" of these all-too-frequent images?

And on a similar theme … what’s with this term “homophobic?” I don’t think many in our modern culture are irrationally fearful of gays. Just as most labeled “racists” are not irrationally fearful of blacks. Yet, I am a little “islamophobic” in that I have seen what some people in this religion are capable of doing to apostates.

Dirtbag Award

This blog site has just instituted the "Dirtbag Award."  This will be a periodic prize given to that person or persons in the national news who have distinguished themselves by craven behavior far beyond the call of civilized behavior.  There is no voting for this award beyond the gag reflexes of the keeper of this blog.

Now for the first bestowing of this prize (see picture above) ... trumpets please.  Our initial recipient is John Tierney, Congressman from the 6th District of Massachusetts, whose wife, Patricia, just pled guilty in federal court to money laundering and tax evasion.  These charges stem from Patricia Tierney's management of a bank account that illegally funneled $7 million of proceeds from the off-shore (Antigua) on-line gambling operations of her brothers, Robert and Daniel Eremian, indicted in August of this year on charges of racketeering, money laundering and operating an illegal gambling business.  Although congressman Tierney denies any hint or knowledge of his wife's illicit activities, he did vote in 2006 (along with Barney Frank and six other Massachusetts congressmen) against the bill that made the laundering of such gambling proceeds illegal (the bill passed in the House 317-93 and became law).  Read the whole story here.

Representation without Taxation

47% of Americans pay no federal income taxes and I would speculate a great many, who work off the books, also pay no FICA taxes either. Yet everyone, including I suspect, many non-citizens get to vote for national representatives who turn around and vote for laws that perpetuate these inequities. (Motor-voter laws, lax voter registration processes … taken advantage by “community organizers” such as ACORN, and the rapid growth of absentee ballot usage are making a mockery of traditional voter-fraud checks.) Thus, we have turned the slogan of the original tea-partiers on its head … now a growing number of people in this country are enjoying “representation without taxation.”

Even in local elections, many who pay absolutely no property taxes get to vote. All colleges and other non-profits nevertheless get to elect their community officials. (In Wellesley, MA, Wellesley College professors and administrators who live in rent-free and property-tax-free housing … and who send their children to local schools … still get to vote for their local candidates. And the colleges and other non-profits themselves enjoy fire/police protection and other community services without having to pay the taxes or, too often, the “fees-in-lieu-of-taxes” needed to pay for these services.) And even more egregiously, students at these institutions of higher learning now get to vote for town administrators where they go to school as opposed to where they (or their parents) actually pay taxes – even though many might also absentee-vote back at “home” too. Such up-side-down logic seems to me to be gross miscarriage of the tenants of our democracy.

“Don’t tread on me,” has unfortunately become “Everyone, who wants to, tread on me.”

Hope and Change

Here is the change that Obama's economic policies has brought us.  Now for the hope.  Perhaps ...?

Sour Grapes

Here are a few of Obama's recent sour-grapes comments:

“And then there are probably some aspects of the Tea Party that are a little darker, that have to do with anti-immigrant sentiment or are troubled by what I represent as the president.”

"When we passed a bill earlier this summer to help states save jobs -- the jobs of hundreds of thousands of teachers and nurses and police officers and firefighters that were about to be laid off -- they said no. And the Republican who thinks he's going to take over as speaker [John Boehner]... when he was asked about this, he dismissed those jobs as 'government jobs' that weren't worth saving. That's what he said, I'm quoting -- 'government jobs.'"

“Looks like the ‘Tan-Man’ [Boehner] keeps drinking from the tanning oil bottle with his buds.”

“We've got a tradition in this country of a press that oftentimes is opinionated. The golden age of an objective press was a pretty narrow span of time in our history. Before that, you had folks like Hearst who used their newspapers very intentionally to promote their viewpoints. I think Fox [News] is part of that tradition — it is part of the tradition that has a very clear, undeniable point of view. It's a point of view that I disagree with. It's a point of view that I think is ultimately destructive for the long-term growth of a country that has a vibrant middle class and is competitive in the world.”

“ What I'm seeing out of the Republican leadership over the last several years has been a set of policies that are just irresponsible. And we saw in their 'Pledge to America' a similar set of irresponsible policies.”

“ [The GOP Pledge promotes] the very same policies that led to the economic crisis in the first place. It is grounded in the same worn-out philosophy: cut taxes for millionaires and billionaires; cut the rules for Wall Street and the special interests; and cut the middle class loose to fend for itself. That’s not a prescription for a better future. It’s an echo of a disastrous decade we can’t afford to relive.”

“After they [the Republicans] drove the car into the ditch, made it as difficult as possible for us to pull it back, now they want to keys back. No! You can’t drive. We don’t want to have to go back into the ditch. We just got the car out.”

"It is inexcusable [for Democrats] to stand on the sidelines [this election year, given the prospect of big Republican gains]."

“Folks [Liberal audience] wake up! This is not some academic exercise. As Joe Biden put it, Don’t compare us to the Almighty, compare us to the alternative.”

"People [Democrat voters] need to shake off this lethargy. People need to buck up, if people now want to take their ball and go home, that tells me folks [his voters in 2008] weren't serious in the first place.”

All delivered in that snide, haughty, condescending, cadenced, high-handed, smirking manner that typifies Obama.  I ask, do these swipes sound Presidential?

Rush to Judgment

Let me begin by saying that I am a big fan of Rush Limbaugh. He, almost daily, offers insights that enlighten the political and social dialog. But in the last two days he has said two loopy things that have me worried.

Yesterday (or Monday) he said that the U.S. stock market is up in September because the Federal Reserve is buying stocks to prop them up before the elections in November. This clearly is nonsense. The Fed is prohibited from such equity speculation. After a while Rush tried to back off this statement (after his e-mail inbox went viral?) by saying that he meant that the low interest rates that the Fed was charging banks was essentially inflating the money supply which was then being used to buy stocks. Even this is not totally true. Most of the money that banks borrow overnight from the Fed (for essentially the doughnut) is then reinvested in government securities for a small marginal profit. However, the huge dollar amounts of these money flows still make a healthy return for these banks nonetheless.

Today, he opined on Obama’s comments in Albuquerque on how Obama’s Christianity taught him to be “his brother’s keeper.” Now, this reference comes from the Old Testament when God asks Cain where Abel was and Cain says, “Am I my brother’s keeper.” (Rush sounded very much like he had been reading a reference to this incident on the Powerline blog. See here.) However, Rush called this concept the Golden Rule (“Do unto others as you would have others do unto you,” said by Jesus Christ in Matthew 7.12). This mixing of religious dogma was later backtracked by Rush (after another e-mail storm?) but he never really dumped the Golden Rule reference.

Now these brain farts were so unlike Rush that I am concerned that something is afoot. I won’t speculate on what it is here, but, if something transpires in the near future, remember you heard my concern here first.

Radical Change

Our nation’s shameful K-12 education system is in the spotlight this week. President Obama has called for radical change … see here. I think that many education reformers are in the process of verbal fibrillation insofar as their suggestions for improving things. They, as expected, are generally calling for more spending, more competent teachers, smaller classrooms, more responsible parents, longer school sessions, and better testing standards. Some of these things I somewhat agree with, but, unfortunately, many are also arm-waving canards that will accomplish nothing.

I have been tutoring in the public school system for the last three years and have had an opportunity to observe a microcosm of our education system from the inside … so I have a modicum of credentials … and therefore humbly offer my suggestions on this matter:

1) Deemphasize (or eliminate) educational degrees. Any pedagogues who did or do not spend 90% of their learning experience within the subject that they are teaching does not deserve to stand in front of a blackboard. Teaching how to teach makes little sense if the recipients do not know their subjects to a fair-thee-well.
2) Cut the administrative overhead in our education system. The budget of Arne Duncan’s Department of Education has doubled this past year. We are now spending over $160 billion a year on this bunch of bureaucrats who teach not one single student and who, with shameless pomposity, spend most of their time trying to justify their bloated salaries. At one time, many years ago, New York City (NYC) had more school administrators than the entire country of France. I’m reasonably sure that this situation has not improved in the interim.
3) Cut the fiction that classroom size has anything to do with results. Class sizes in the Far East are often two to three times what they are in this country and educational results there are usually much better than they are here.
4) Create and enforce rigid, standardized testing for teachers that assesses them on their competency within their subject. The result of this test should be used not only as a basis for hiring, but also used partly to determine their salary. The remainder of their salary should be based on the change in the standardized testing scores of their students … not on how long they have been teaching or how well they are liked. Department heads should also be evaluated on how well their stable of teachers performs.
5) Eliminate the recently created national student tests … since there is no guarantee that they will work as promised … and the penalty for a sub-standard result is too great. Force all states to develop their own testing process. Reward the states whose tests produce better educational outcomes so that poorer performing states can adopt them.
6) Utilize, nay emphasize, tried and true software programs (on the internet or in the classroom) to improve students’ subject comprehension. This past year I used such a program to teach a problem student his multiplication tables. It worked better than I had any hope for. However, this cannot be a hands-off experience. It must be carefully monitored. The fact that it may be “software” does not necessarily make it good. All such software must be peer-reviewed and back-tested.
7) Textbooks should also be peer-reviewed and back-tested. I have found egregious factual errors and agenda-derived propaganda in some of the textbooks I have had to use. Such substandard stuff never should be allowed in our classrooms.
8) Bring back personal discipline to our schools. Stricter dress codes, tighter truancy standards, reduced grade inflation, increased failure rates, and stronger hall monitoring should convey the message that schools mean business. Helicopter parents who insist on unreasonable special treatment for their precious ones should not be indulged by our legislators, our courts, and/or our school administrators/teachers.
9) Any teachers’ union that strikes for irrationaly higher pay or benefits (e.g., NYC's “rubber rooms”) should lose its rights to arbitration. In fact, eliminating teachers’ unions entirely (at least for a while … until the pendulum swings back the other way) might not be a bad idea. (I also would have everything that Albert Shanker, the late President of the United Federation of Teachers union, ever wrote burned on a pyre of the thousands of other go-nowhere books by “education reformers” preaching the new math, phonic spelling, etc.)
10) This seems a small point but I think that the scrapping of cursive writing training in early education has introduced enormous inefficiencies for students in note taking, creative writing, and test answering. Bring it back.
11) I could be wrong, but I kind of buy the idea that the women’s movement and the resultant transposition of the best and brightest women out of K-12 education and into the corporate world is one reason for our deteriorating educational system. This sea change obviously can’t be reversed, but I have an alternative idea. Why don’t we tap the great reservoir of talent in our retired and out-of-work communities and encourage them to enter pedagogy? I, myself, have taken this step and I believe that there are many more who are brighter and more energetic than I who could augment our teaching ranks with their specialized knowledge and work experience. This of course would require a change to our rigid teaching certification processes … but why not, if it is the right thing to do?
12) Lastly, the most radical idea of all … let’s start privatizing our public school system … an expansion of the charter school concept. This might cut property taxes in half and dramatically reduce local, state and federal income and sales taxes. Let the free-market system start working to weed out inferior educators and schools. Now this is a very complex subject and would need to be solved without political agendas (an unique approach), but I feel confident that the money would be there to provide scholarships to the very poor under such a system. In 2006-07 the national average educational spending per student was $10,900 whereas the average spending per student in the New York metropolitan area is currently around $27,000 (see here). Public schools are a social experiment that did indeed work well for many, many years but seem to have stopped doing so for at least the last quarter century. Radical change is due, indeed required.

Which Witch?

Christine O’Donnell , the Republican candidate for the Senate in Deleware, admitted a number of years ago on the Bill Maher Show that she had briefly dabbled in witchcraft when she was in high school.  The question then is: was she Glinda, the Good Witch of the South?  Or perhaps, was she the Wicked Witch of the West?  Nah, that title already belongs to Nancy Pelosi ... who, instead of having a house fall on her, is crushing the House.

The X Factor

Male chromosomes are described as X-Y’s whereas female’s are X-X’s. The tides that are sweeping clean the political seashore have been variously described as the Tea Party Express or an anti-incumbency fervor or Palin’s picks. However, I have yet to hear any talking head attribute chromosomes as a major contributor to these surprising primary upsets, Christine O’Donnell in Delaware, Kelly Ayotte in New Hampshire, Sharron Angle in Nevada, Linda McMahon in Connecticut, Meg Whitman in California, etc., etc. And I strongly suspect that this gender-bending will carry over to the general elections in November. (Remember, you heard it here first.)

One only has to listen to talk radio for a few days to realize that the preponderance of emotional call-ins who decry what is happening in Washington are coming from women. Yes, many men are upset with what has transpired, myself included, but it seems to be the “Momma Grizzlies” that are the most distraught. If one has ever watched a wildlife movie in which the smaller female bear ferociously attacks the much larger male bear to protect her cubs, you will understand this phenomenon. Mothers seem incensed that Washington is besmirching the future prospects for their offspring. Interestingly, many of our erstwhile political pundits, Carl Rove and Joe Scarborough included, seem to be tone-deaf to this building symphonic crescendo. Therefore, if many of the above mentioned X-chromosomers win in November, Sarah Palin will have again shown her political adroitness by coining the term “Momma Grizzlies.”

Semantics

Sarah Shourd (arrested about a year ago for wandering over the Iraq/Iran border with her two male companions) has been released by Iran on $500,000 "bail."  The exact circumstances surrounding this release and the future disposition of this case are confusing, much like the country Iran.  See here. The questions that I would like to have answered by our media would be:

- How much was this "bail"?  Was it the full amount or just 10% as is customary in the United States?
- Who paid this money and under what conditions?
- Must Ms. Shourd return to Iran for her trial ... or if she does not return will this money be lost?

However, my primary purpose here is to decry the American press's continued blind acceptance of the semantics of our antagonists.  I strongly suspect that this money paid to the Iranians is really a ransom ... particularly if Ms. Shourd is to leave Iran and not return.  And if this is a ransom payment, then I also condemn our naive press then giving Iran credit for compassion when it is really blatant and dastardly greed.

Flagging Democracy

My two children went to school in Amherst, Massachusetts and I realized, even back then, that tinfoil hats were a hot item there. My white son, in his youthful liberal zeal, tried to join a black students’ group and was told to “take a hike.” He also wore a Pravda tee shirt to his graduation.

Now, thankfully he is older and wiser, but it seems that the Amherst ivory-tower dingbats have gotten even more loopy. A year or so back the Amherst Town Meeting voted to invite Gitmo detainees to relocate there. Even a very liberal friend of my daughter (and UMass graduate), who lives with her family in nearby Belchertown, was rightfully incensed at this decision.

Now this same town’s Board of Selectmen recently decided that it was “inappropriate” to fly the American flag there to honor the anniversary of 9/11. I therefore believe that it is equally inappropriate to spend any more of our Massachusetts tax monies as viand for the fuzzy-brained skittering cockroaches in this town who call themselves professors. Perhaps we can even ask them to start educating our children instead of indoctrinating them.  What say you?

Buddha's Pest

It's a good thing that the followers of Buddha are a peaceful lot.  Otherwise imagine what would have happened when the Taliban (whom I recall are Muslims) in Afghanistan destroyed the gigantic statue of Buddha there about ten years ago.  Watch it happen here.

As they say, everything in life is relative.

Peck’s Bad Boys

When I was a naughty child, my grandmother would often call me “Peck’s bad boy,” an impish character from early dime novels … or “skeezicks,” an equally mischievous character from the “Uncle Wiggily” series of children’s books. I don’t recall being that puckish, but clearly I was getting under her skin. And my punishment was often mild and loving.

Today we have grown-up versions of Peck’s bad boy populating what remains of our newspapers and the wall-to-wall frenetic coverage on our cable news networks. These recent headline grabbers, Reverend Terry Jones of the threatened Koran-burning, and Imam Faisal Abdul Rauf of the Ground Zero mosque are annoying 15-minute-of-famers who I would prefer not intruding into my life. They are ticks sucking on the juices of our world’s popular culture, much like Lady Gaga, Al Sharpton, and that bloated comb-over of a tick, Donald Trump, who couldn’t resist entering the current 9/11 mosque fray.

I kind of wish my grandmother could return and make them all sit in the corner.

A Message ...

to Obama, Biden, Reid, Pelosi, those in Congress, all the POTUS's advisers, and those Republicans about to be elected in November ... the thing on the right is an elbow.

The Wages of Sin

Mexico is rapidly becoming a place of brutal Afghanistan-like anarchy. Recently 72 men and women were massacred in north-eastern Mexico in what is believed to be a mass execution of Central Americans hoping to slip across the United States border. See: Mexican Massacre. These killings are attributed to a Mexican drug cartel branching out into human trafficking. It is believed that the four-year total of deaths attributed to these drug cartels now exceeds 28,000. Mexico, itself, seems unwilling or unable to curb this violence. And we in this country seem conveniently to paper-over this horrendous bloodshed.

Why do we ignore it? I think that many in our ruling class and glitterati find the work of these drug cartels to be quite utile. (By glitterati I mean many in the entertainment and sports industries who have more money than they can possibly rationally spend. And by ruling class, I mean our politicians and industry titans who turn their backs on our illegal immigration problem.) These cartels supply the cocaine that the glitterati (and some in the ruling class) stuff up their noses … and offer the ruling class a steady supply of cheap labor and emotional voters who are useful to their power-hungry purposes.

What is even more galling is that our glitterati and ruling class too often pontificate on how we, who decry this massive illegal immigration and this manic drug abuse are the baddies … and that they are the compassionate ones. Bull hockey! Tell it to the families to these Central American victims.

PORC

The Republicans have come up with a number of nicknames for the $26 billion “Second Stimulus” bill that the Democrats just rammed through Congress … just in time to try to buy enough votes in November to keep their porcine asses from being run out of town on a rail. See: Second Stimulus. A few of my favorites from this article are:

”-- ‘Recovery Summer’ Bailout Act (Cash for Flunkers)
 -- Delivering Unions a Major Boost (DUMB) Act
 -- Helping Election Expenditures, Hurting American Workers (HEEHAW) Act
 -- Frivolous Act of Ineffective Largesse (FAIL) Act”

If this is not another example of Obama/Pelosi/Reid ruling against the will of the American people, I have no rejoinder. Although, the Democrats claim that this bill will not add to our country's deficit (much of the money will supposedly come out of the Food Stamp program in 2014), such chimeral rationalization stinks of the sty. To the oinked cheers of the public service unions, we have taken one more mindless step toward this country’s financial Armageddon.

I myself have another name for this self-serving legislation – PORC (Progressives Only Rule Congress)

Ditch the Republicans?

Yesterday at a Democrat fundraiser, our august prexy, Barack Obama, gave his partisan argument as to why a Democrat Congress deserves to win the elections in November. Basically, he said that Bush and the rest of the Republicans drove our economy into the ditch in 2008. Obama was subsequently elected and thus he [sigh] was required to patch up this accident. With that sly grin of his, he went on to say that the Democrats have gotten the car (our economy) out of the ditch and back on the asphalt. And he added with a snide guffaw … now the Republicans want the keys back. In his best sophomoric manner, he said, “No! You can’t drive. We don’t want to have to go back into the ditch. We just got the car out.”

Perhaps what he said has a modicum of metaphoric truth to it, however please allow me to modify and extend his remarks with the following observations:

- The Republicans were not alone in driving our economy into the ditch. Clearly, by insisting on the irrational expansion of sub-prime mortgages, Barney Frank and Chris Dodd and their cronies in Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac did their share of reckless driving. The major sin that Bush and his Republican compatriots in Congress can be accused of is not pushing back hard enough.

- Yes, the Democrats have stopped our economy from sliding further into the ditch. But to say that we are back on the asphalt is, at best, political hyperbole. At worst, it is demagoguery. Economic growth is clearly anemic and unemployment still hovers around 10%. In fact, we are in serious jeopardy of slipping back into negative GNP growth. And this is occurring after monstrous government deficit spending that cannot be sustained. Such a Keynesian economic experiment has once again been proven misguided … and if the Bush tax cuts are left to expire this coming January, it is quite likely that Obama’s stretch limo will also end up back in the economic ditch.

- Even public opinion has now decided that it is Obama’s recession. See: Obama's Fault. After 18 months in office, Obama needs to stop pushing his ultra-liberal agenda at the expense of job seekers and economic growth. He is rapidly losing Bush as a scapegoat and would be advised to start accepting responsibility for our economic malaise. Perhaps, as Obama was decrying at the fundraiser, the Republicans might make an equivalent mess of things if they win back majorities in Congress this fall, but then we would still have some hope that things will finally change. I kind of suspect that if the tea partiers have anything to say about it, things will.

Jumbo Shrimp

The example that is most often used to exemplify the term oxymoron is "jumbo shrimp".  I have a new candidate.  How about "opinion journalist"?

A Few Insolent Questions

President Obama has stopped all oil well drilling in the Gulf of Mexico until we find out the reason(s) for the failure at the BP oil rig.  My question is: how come BP is still allowed to drill the two relief wells to stop the oil from coming out of the original well that exploded?  Do not these relief wells carry the same risks as any other wells that were being drilled? 

Others have also asked these questions:
- If one airliner crashed, would we stop all airline flights until such time as we knew exactly what happened?
- What if we never find out the reason(s) for the explosion, does that mean that we never will be able to drill again for oil in the Gulf?
- What about other countries that are drilling in the Gulf (China, Mexico, Iran), does this order apply to them?  And, if so, how do we enforce it?  And, if not, aren't we being economically foolish? 
- If, as a result of this moratorium, these oil rigs pick up shop and move elsewhere in the world, how do we entice them to come back?
- Who will insure that the extra-legal $20 billon slush fund just pledged to Obama by BP is spent wisely ... and who will keep it from becoming a huge Democrat honey pot?

Being Deferential

In the southern United States, whenever a funeral procession nears, all the cars on both sides of the road, pull over in respect to let the it pass. This type of behavior is archetypically deferential. May I suggest that this seems to be the type of treatment that Barack Obama has experienced most of his adult life. People have been deferential to him at college, in his community-organizer life, during his stints in state and national legislatures, throughout his campaign for President, and even now as POTUS.  He has respectfully been given the benefit of the doubt by the public and the media … very likely because of his race, certainly because of his oratorical skills, possibly due to his attractive family, and, to summarize, as Joe Biden bluntly said it, he is “the first mainstream African-American who is articulate and bright and clean and a nice-looking guy.”

Now things are beginning to unravel for our ass-kicker-in-chief (see: Ass Kicking). He seems to be unable to demonstrate his management skills to the degree that voters expected when they overwhelming elected him about twenty months ago. I have previously detailed his numerous crisis management failings in another of my blogs: Crisis Management. But, herein I want to briefly explore why he may be so inept administratively. To me, all indications point to the fact that his preparation for the Presidency has been sadly bereft of management experience and successes.

When he was the head of the Law Review at Harvard, he never had to express his own legal adroitness in writing … as was customary for such a position. The fact that his academic records in college have been sealed suggests that there are also some damaging personality failings therein. College professors (rather “senior lecturers” as was the case for Obama) are notoriously unable to manage their associates and departments. (This is why former college professors often make lousy college presidents.) And community organizers seldom have to deal with serious management crises. And lastly, continuously voting “present” in his legislative career suggests that Obama too frequently opted to hide under his desk rather than face difficult governance issues.

Yes, Obama did successfully run (with the help of the Chicago political machine) a stellar campaign for President in 2008. But again, I suspect that he let the wave of deferential media enthusiasm carry him into office rather than having to fight hammer-and-tongs through an even-up political battle. One gets the distinct impression that, now that the exigencies of running the most powerful nation in the world have imposed themselves on his previously unflappable universe, he is in way over his head. His early apology tour of the world, in which he seemed to want to curry favor … particularly with many of our adversaries ... by proudly fouling his own nest … has bought him only a fistful of guano dust. Nowhere has this humble-pie foreign-policy reset solved any of the United States's stickier diplomatic issues. One may argue that he has made most of them far worse. He has kept his own counsel all too frequently and now can only point at others instead of confessing to his own bad advice.

The only hope for us as a nation is that Obama is a quick-study and can mid-course correct while on the job. If not, we will likely suffer some very painful two and a half more years of “hope and change.”

Optics

These days, television, in particular cable TV, seems to be increasingly able to shape public opinion. Be it the Israeli commandos rappelling down on a Turkish ship running the Gaza blockade … or a live shot of that broken British Petroleum “containment valve” one mile down spewing a cloud of evil oil into the pristine Gulf … or President Obama kneeling down on a Gulf of Mexico beach to examine a tar ball … it is all about the visuals that the news editors can effect on their viewing audience. The term that has gained current popularity for this phenomenon is “optics”. And, I don’t know about you, but I am getting a little tired of seeing that same ten yards of Gulf Coast wetlands with the BP oil slick lapping on its marsh reeds or those same Turkish militants (soon to be martyrs) wailing on the Israeli commandos. And now we are beginning to see oil coated pelicans (pelican?) consigned to bird heaven … covered in immoral BP petroleum.

These visuals can’t be the whole story by any stretch, but the gullible American public seems to be wedded to this form of information pabulum. I may be swimming against the tide here (so to speak), but 45 days into this BP drilling rig explosion, there seems to be remarkably little ecological damage (numerous pelicans die every day from shark attacks) relative to what we have been led to expect by the hysterical video and copy editors. (This morning on Morning Joe they graphically extrapolated the oil slick moving into the Atlantic and polluting shorelines all the way up to Cape Cod.) “A majority of Americans see the massive oil leak in the Gulf of Mexico as a major environmental disaster.” (The Pew Research Center on May 11th)

These dire predictions may in fact transpire if this leak is not contained for months to come, but I for one am skeptical … particularly when I see the environmentalist and politicians expeditiously stepping in to take advantage of the publics’ angst. Viz: President Obama has shut down all drilling for oil in the Gulf for six months (a far bigger economic disaster) and the Democrats in Congress are smacking their lips about using this incident to push through their Cap and Trade (read carbon tax) legislation this summer.

May I suggest that famous Clintonista line? “Let’s all step back and take a deep breath.”

Associative Illogic

The Obama administration has tapped James Cameron (the Director of Avatar) as a consultant on how to solve the Gulf oil-spill crisis. This is because he has had some experience with submersibles, presumably during the filming of Titanic. Now this seems to me to be the ultimate in thinking outside the box on the part of the White House. As a consequence, I have the following suggestions for future administration appointments:

- George Lucas (creator and director of Star Wars fame) to help us plan for NASA’s future after our last space shuttle flight this fall.

- George Lopez (Mexican-American comedian and star of The George Lopez Show) to opine on how to solve our illegal immigrant problem.

- Homer Simpson (star of The Simpsons) to help us plan on how to expand the number of our domestic nuclear power plants … and get rid of our nuclear waste.

- Ray Croc (deceased McDonald’s founder) on solving our unemployment problem.

- Suze Orman (financial consultant and host of The Suze Orman Show) on solving the U.S. national debt crisis.

- Kevin Costner (of The Untouchables fame) to help us wipe out organized crime.

- George Soros (billionaire monetary speculator and former Nazi collaborator) on unwinding the world’s monetary crises.

- Kiefer Sutherland (of 24 fame) on preventing future domestic terrorist attacks.

- Peter Shin (Korean-American and director of The Family Guy) on how to pacify North Korea’s nuclear belligerency.

- Christiana Amanpour (Iranian-American, CNN newsreader and future anchor of NBC’s This Week) on convincing Iran to give up their nuclear ambitions.

- Barbara Streisand (star of Yentl) to help us solve the Palestinian/Israeli conflict.