Some Pig

Letter From A Broad: By The People, For The People Edition

Dear elected representatives in Congress,

Being an eighth-grade US History teacher, I have been appointed as an emissary from the American people to help you refocus your energies on the significant task at hand.  In other words, get your collective thumbs out of your hindquarters and do your job, which right now is to prevent our country's economy from going into the tank.  Back in the good ole days of June, I thought there was no way we'd be in this fix at this point, but it is and we are and now we have to get down to business.  Or rather, we elected YOU to get down to business, so if you don't mind terribly much, we'd all like to see you stop the whinefest and get on with it.

I think a brief civics lesson is in order here.  Our founders wanted to ensure that passing legislation would require deliberation, reflection, negotiation, and debate.  Why?  Because they were concerned about two potential problems:  First, they wanted to ensure that a majority could not rush popular but poorly-conceived legislation through to become law, and second, that a minority could not band together to prevent passage of legislation that reflected the will of the majority.  As we can see from recent events, their concerns were prescient.  This brings me back to the major point, which is that the process requires, even demands, give-and-take among differing factions.  Regardless of ideology or party affiliation, then, that is what you have been elected to do:  Come together to mold legislation that works in the interest of the nation as a whole.  That means you can't issue ultimatums, dictate terms, or otherwise subvert the process before the process has had a chance to work. 

Let me explain a few simple realities to you:  Reality #1:  We owe a buttload of money to a lot of other countries. This is called "debt" or "deficits".   Reality #2:  We do not have a buttload of money.  Reality #3:  There are a lot of people - a lot of the ordinary, middle-class Americans you so love to praise - who rely upon the government to function in order for their daily lives to run smoothly.  And in (gulp) three days that government is going to run off the rails unless you WORK TOGETHER TO FIX IT.  Here's the other reality you need to come to grips with:  There are no sacred cows in this discussion.  Everything has to be on the table.  Stating at the outset that you won't agree to raise taxes, or cut entitlements, or make any other compromises, simply dooms the process at the start.  Back when I was young, dumb, and chewin' gum, I made the typical mistake of living beyond my means.  After running up a bunch of credit card debt, I realized I was digging myself into a hole.  You know what the first rule of getting out of a hole is, don't you?  When you realize you're digging yourself into a hole - STOP DIGGING.  So I stopped going out to eat and going shopping for entertainment.  However, I still had rent and student loans and credit cards and car loans to pay.  So I went out and got a second job, and sometimes a third and fourth job, to raise my income.  We are going to need all the tools at our disposal to fix our financial situation.  Refusing to consider any solution that includes a specific tool because of an ideological stance borders on criminal negligence, if you ask me.

What's at stake here is more than just a balanced budget or a stable economy.  We are on the brink of becoming a second-rate nation.  I've made no secret of my concern that other nations are outpacing us.  In the past, our government structure allowed us to respond to these challenges.  Lately, though, the legislative branch seems to have calcified into a rigid structure that doesn't allow anyone to step outside their self-drawn boundaries.  Do you want to be known as the Congressional session that allowed partisan self-interest to trump the national good?  Or do you want to be remembered as the visionary group that lived up to the ideal of government by the people, for the people? 

So here's what you do:  Raise the debt limit, with no preconditions and no threats.  Just raise it.  Set a deadline of six or nine or twelve months, whatever length of time you need.   Then, appoint a bipartisan commission of legislators from the full range of the political spectrum to sit down and negotiate a budget proposal that includes serious deficit reduction and budget reform.  There will be no sacred cows in this discussion.  Everything, from cutting farm subsidies to reinstating the estate tax, will be up for consideration.  Bring this budget proposal to the American people and let them have a look at it.  After a full and vigorous review process, vote on it.   I guarantee you that such a budget would have the support of the majority of the American people, even if it includes proposals that certain groups dislike.  We, the people, are smart enough to know that getting out of this budget mess is not going to be easy or painless.  We realize that sacrifices will have to be made, but if we all share in that sacrifice, we are willing to bear them.  What we can't bear is the continuation of this three-ring circus you are passing off as running the country.  As Abba Eben once said,  “History teaches us that men and nations behave wisely once they have exhausted all other alternatives.”  Well, guess what?  You have exhausted all the other alternatives.

Now get to work.

Sincerely,

A concerned citizen

P.S.  I can't resist a little history lesson along the way:  The Boston Tea Party was a response to the Tea Act of 1773.  It has popularly been understood as a reaction against higher taxes.  In fact, the Tea Act lowered the taxes on tea.  What irked the colonists was that the British government simultaneously gave the British East India Tea Company, a quasi-governmental entity, a monopoly on the sale of tea to the colonies so that the government's significant investments in the shaky tea trade would not be lost.  The colonists didn't object to paying a tax on tea; what made them irate was the fact that the British government thought the colonists would be so distracted by the reduced tax on tea that they wouldn't realize or care that colonial trade was being manipulated.  The colonists felt that the government's actions showed they were considered second-class citizens, without the full rights and privileges of British citizenship.  So next time someone starts spouting foofaraw about this country needing "a new tea party" because taxes are too high, call shenanigans on 'em and point them toward the nearest eighth grade US history teacher.  So there.

 

The Body Politic

This is not a political blog.  I keep up with the news, sortakinda, and I try to be conscious of what's going on, but I don't follow events closely enough or understand them well enough to commit my views to writing most of the time.  But I can't keep quiet about what's going on in our country right now.

The budget mess at the federal level makes me sick to my stomach.  The thought of the US, once the most powerful nation in the world, teetering on the brink of default, should be a horrifying enough spectacle to make all parties involved get down to work - but it hasn't.  The prospect of us becoming has-beens among the community of nations should be enough to jump-start our efforts to get our affairs in order - but it doesn't.  The current quandaries faced by a lot of the individual states should be an object lesson about what will happen if we don't get our financial affairs back on track - but no one seems to notice.  

I'm not going to point fingers or pontificate about who's to blame for this fine mess we're in; the people who share my political leanings already know what those are, and I'm not looking for an argument with the people who don't.  The point is that all our political leaders, of all stripes and persuasions, need to get their thumbs out of their asses, set aside their desire to score points and look important, and do the unpleasant work of making difficult decisions.  And some pet projects are going to have to get set aside along the way.  The fact is, if we are going to right this ship, we are going to have to raise taxes AND cut spending.  Here is what I don't understand:  Why NOT raise taxes on the wealthiest class of Americans?  These are the people who have benefited the most from the American way of life; why the hell shouldn't they pay more freight than Joe and Jane Average?  Why do so many average Americans get riled up at the thought of the Bush-era tax cuts ending, when those tax cuts don't even benefit them?  Why NOT close loopholes in corporate taxes so that oil companies and agribusinesses pay more of the freight?  They place huge demands on the infrastructure of the country; shouldn't they help support that?  The defense budget needs serious examination.  Do we really need to raise the defense budget by billions every year, year after year?  (I'm not talking about cutting pay and support for military families - that's not where the majority of these budgetary increases go anyway.)  Every time the military talks about closing a base or ending a program, the related Congressional delegation goes apeshit trying to protect their piece of the pie.  That's understandable, but the fact is, the world has changed, and the military has to change with it.  Keeping Cold War-era military installments or weapons projects functioning because the local area has become dependent upon it is just another form of welfare.  And yes, entitlement programs need serious examination.  Why are my parents, who retired quite comfortably, getting free medical care?  Why can't they pay what they can afford into the system?  Why do we send Social Security payments to millionaires?  Yes, they paid into the system, but I go back to my central argument that those who have benefitted greatly from the American way have an obligation to help support it.  If said millionaires find themselves living to 103 and running out of funds, then they can start tapping into the support system. The fact is, the free ride has to be over for EVERYONE.

Once we get past this immediate crisis, we need to ask ourselves what we need to do to get back to being a world leader.  Our infrastructure is crumbling.  Asian countries, specifically China, are showing the political will to invest in high-speed rail and green technologies at a far greater rate than we are.  Our social structure is ossifying into the haves (including yours truly) and the have-nots, and the gulf between the two groups is widening and deepening. The great engines of social advancement - comprehensive education, gainful employment, and dependable benefits (many of which are supported by government spending) - are faltering.  Yet we seem contented to look the other way while hoping someone else makes it all go away, with no sacrifice or adjustments on our part.

The fact is, if we are going to get ourselves out of this mess, we eed to make some painful decisions - decisions that might not be pleasant to live with in the short term.  We are all going to have to live with some things that we don't necessarily want to have happen, whether it's raising taxes or modifying entitlements.  We have to grow up, and recognize that we have been living beyond our means for far too long.  The average American reaps more in government payouts than they pay into the system; I don't know the exact figures, but anyone with a basic understanding of finances knows that's unsustainable.  Now for a little history lesson:  Our founding fathers deliberately created a government that would function slowly and with much deliberation.  It was their way of ensuring that no one individual would accrue too much power and influence.  At its worst, this system leads to the morass we're in right now.  But at its best, it allows our leaders to build broad support and consensus for major initiatives across constitutencies and geographic regions.  Fixing our economic mess certainly qualifies as a major initiative, and every one us, regardless of age or location or politicial affiliation, has a stake in it.  We just need our elected leadership to do what they were elected to do, and lead.  Is that too much to ask?

Oscar Mayer and Nathan's Called, and They Are Pissed

Things that went through my head after hearing about Anthony Weiner's recent travails:

1) Any man who thinks a picture of his junk is attractive is truly out of touch with reality.  I realize that possession of that particular - ahem - implement was de rigeur for thousands of years if you hoped to have any chance of wielding any kind of power, authority, or influence in this world, but that doesn't make it attractive.  I'm convinced that men HAD to be authoritarian and power-hungry to keep everyone else (i.e., women) from feeling free to point out to them that their magic wands actually look a lot like turkey necks. 

2) If you have to go to work and confess to your employer that your husband made a complete arse of himself in front of God, another woman, the New York Times and the whole damn Twitterverse, you could do far, FAR worse than having Hillary Clinton for a boss. 

Yeah! What He Said!

When I talk about this issue, I just start spluttering and stammering.  A typical sentence would sound something like this:  "Why they - I just - I mean - I get so - ooooooooh!!!!!1"  So I'm glad this guy said what I've been thinking, only without the incoherent, babbling rage part.

It's Rant O'Clock!

As those of you who know me are already aware, I'm a total FB addict.  If I'm  puttering around the kitchen, chances are I've got my home page up and I'm checking statuses (stati?) on a regular basis.  I have a fairly egalitarian friending policy, which is that I only make friend requests of people I know well and really like, but if you want to friend me and I know who you are; well, what the hey.  I venture to guess that like many FB devotees, a healthy percentage of my FB friends consist of people I really don't know very well and/or fell out of touch with long ago - kindergarten playmates, people I went to summer school classes with once, acquaintances of that ilk. Since I've parted ways with a lot of these people some years ago, I don't usually comment negatively on status updates that express a philosophy or world view that I don't share personally.  After all, everyone has the right to voice their beliefs appropriately and publicly.  If you feel moved to tell your FB friends that you're going to church or the bar or divorce court, fine.  If you want to voice your support for a particular political candidate or Oscar contender or Dunkin' Donuts invent-a-donut contestant, that's great.  I may prefer not to engage you in that conversation, or I may choose to respond by airing my own views.  Either way, this is what you get when you sign up for Facebook and if you don't like it, you can choose your friends more selectively or you can sign out.  As the Romans said (and they said something about almost everything), caveat emptor.

Then a one-time acquaintance posted this:

WELCOME TO THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA Press 1 for English. Press 2 to disconnect until you learn to speak English. And remember only two defining forces have ever offered to die for you, JESUS CHRIST. And the AMERICAN MILITARY. One died for your soul, the other for your freedom. If you agree... copy and paste in your status.

This, my fellow human beings, is where I officially lost my temper.

Requiem For A Man-Child

When I was a kid in the 70's, all my parents listened to was public radio.  I knew Robert J. Lurtsema's sonorous baritone well before I knew about Top 40 radio.  I had to go over to my best friend Kari's house to listen to WIGY on the clock radio (the kind that had the numbers written on flaps that flipped over every minute with a definitive snap) or to her big sister Kelli's record albums.  That's how I became familiar with ABC, 1, 2, 3 and Rockin' Robin and the other Jackson 5 hits.

When I was a preteen in dance class, we did cross-floor moves to Don't Stop 'Til You Get Enough and Workin' Day and Night.  Years later I sampled a couple bars of the latter for my JV cheerleaders' competition dance routine.

I was a sophomore in high school when Thriller went supernova.  Michael Jackson, Madonna, and Prince presented an alternative version of pop culture in a corner of the world that had previously been much more aligned with Foghat, Bad Company, and Lynyrd Skynryd.  They were an urbane, edgy, and glamorous presence on MTV and Friday Night Videos, and I loved every minute of watching them.  One kid in my class even wore one glittery glove to prom, and if you don't think that took huge cojones in rural Maine, circa mid-80's, think again.

I rolled my eyes in college when Michael Jackson tried to protest in that sweet, high tenor that he was really, really Bad.  MTV stopped showing videos, Nirvana and Pearl Jam made rain-soaked, plaid-shirted West Coast ennui cool, and Michael Jackson became increasingly known for his eccentric behavior and appearance as he retreated farther and farther into a world of his own making.

In wedding reception after wedding reception in my 20's and early 30's, white people danced awkwardly and enthusiastically to the old Jackson 5 hits.  They were songs the DJs knew would get people my age up and dancing without offending the older generation.

I started coaching cheerleading.  Michael Jackson only made the news when he did something weird or was brought to court, while I tried to teach the girls to mimic the sharp-yet-fluid, totally synchronized dance style he made famous (with widely varying degrees of success). 

I was at home on the porch when my coworker (who was in eighth grade the year I started teaching) texted me the news that Michael Jackson had died.  Thriller came out literally a lifetime ago.  The Jackson Five were long ago consigned to the oldies stations.  Shawn Johnson danced to PYT on Dancing With the Stars last season.  And Michael Jackson had been working long, hard hours to prepare for a tour he was hoping would bring him back to relevance.

I know many people will say he died too soon, too young, tragically.  I hesitate to say that.  For this man-child, the boy who performed like an adult and the man who hid behind the mask of childhood, I wonder if this isn't the kindest outcome.  The consummate performer and artist always was an enigma as a person, unreachable behind the sunglasses on his increasingly altered face.  Some part of him seemed forever trapped in his heyday, longing to return to that time period.  We all know people like that, people for whom high school or college was the apogee of their experience and who struggle to recapture that part of their lives until you become embarrassed for them.  It's sad enough to witness in your high school classmate who can't get over not being in the popular crowd anymore; it was tragic watching Michael Jackson do it for so many years.

I feel sad for his children.  Their existence can't be an easy one to begin with, and now they have lost the central parent figure in their lives. 

I feel sad for his family, many of whom went on their own strange tangents as well.  Fame ultimately was not kind to them on the whole.

I feel sad for my generation.  We stand on the cusp between young and no-longer-young, and, as much as I would never go back nor give up anything I have, loss of youth is always a melancholy thing.

I wish peace for Michael Jackson, who looked to be such a lonely and ultimately solitary soul.  Whatever troubles or struggles he knew in this life are behind him now. 

He stood with one foot in our past, the past that included the hit-making machine of Motown and disco beats and 8-track tapes, and one foot in the first days of globalized, visually-based, 24-hour information and entertainment.  Whatever else he may have done, perhaps his most lasting legacy is that he both witnessed and helped to usher in this era.

So long and farewell, Michael.  So long and farewell.

Fashion Distraction, Winter Edition

Those of you SP readers with long memories may remember a public-relations kerfuffle a few years ago involving the first President Bush (motto:  Looking better by comparison to the other Bush presidency all the time!).  The brouhaha revolved around Bush pater and mater claiming their legal residence as an anonymous hotel in Houston for tax purposes when the only residence they owned was the family compound at Walker's Point in Kennebunkport. So the question arose, Are the Bushes considered Texans or Mainers?  Steak or lobstah?  Rodeos or the Fryeburg Fair?  Tall tales or Yankee reticence? 

Well, after many years and several subsequent presidencies, I finally have an answer.  Bush pere is clearly much more aligned with New England than the Lone Star state.  How do I know?  Well, I have photographic evidence.  I couldn't figure out how to save a screen shot of this, but I was able to link to it here. I'll wait while you take a look, then meet me back here.

So, did you notice what I meant?  I'll give you a hint:  It has to do with the thing that looks like a large, dead wolverine perched smack dab atop George 41's head.  Yep, on that most significant day in our nation's history, the former leader of the free world was wearing - an ear-flap cap.  Millions of eyes the world around are trained on that stage, and George Herbert Walker Bush looks like he bought it when he saw it at Marden's (That phrase may be meaningless to those of you who live south of the Piscataqua Bridge, but trust me, it resonates for us.).  From the neck up, he could have been going to the inauguration or down to the Paris Farmers Union for some more rock salt, there's no telling which.  And that is proof positive the Maine ethos is lodged deep in his soul.  Jeezis, it's cold as a bahstid up theyah on that stage in Janu'ry; no point gettin' the pee-neumonia just 'cause a buncha them teevee peoples are lookin' atcha, is theyah?

To elaborate:  Living through winters in Maine deprives one of all concerns for fashion, style, or even general aesthetic sensibility when it comes to outerwear.  The point of one's outer garments is to keep the elements far, far away, and if something works, form comes way, waaaaay behind function in priority.  This is why I continue to wear my shapeless, dorky, and totally unflattering winter hat even though it resembles (as I have already mentioned) a large gray fleece marshmallow and makes me look like a 'tard. (Sorry, all you politically-correct-type peoples.  There's just no other way to describe the total effect and do it justice.) (Oh, excuse me - to stay true to my roots, I'd have to say "it makes me look like a wicked 'tard."  My oversight.)  This is why, when I am fully decked out in all my winter gear, I can safely say that not one item coordinates even slightly with any other item.  It is also why, now that India's choice of accessories is under my purview, I am bringing her up to follow in my aesthetically uncoordinated footsteps. Just recently she was rocking a pair of red and white striped gloves with her pale lavender coat, navy snowpants, a pink fleece hat, and bright-purple-and-black boots.  Celeste, on the other hand, often looks like she stepped out of a winter-wear catalogue (courtesy of the gp's largesse), but soon I will have her mixing and mis-matching with the best of them.

Now that I am older and wiser and possessed of disposable income, I suppose I could make more of an effort to present a coordinated front, but some part of me just won't do it.  There's a small, stubborn spark of New England Calvinism in me that sees such efforts as wasteful or show-off-y.  After all, if it's dry and warm and keeps the snow out, that should be good enough, right? And given that this winter has been, in the words of a friend of mine, "relentless," there will be many more opportunities for me to look completely devoid of fashion sense in the near future.  That ear-flap cap may not be such a bad idea!

P.S. That Maine sense of, um, eclecticism isn't limited to outwear.  I ask you, what's an appropriate outfit to wear to a second wedding taking place in the early afternoon?  Apparently the answer is, anything from jeans and a oxford shirt with your favorite baseball cap to a long velvet evening gown and all points in between, ranging from a black cocktail dress trimmed with electric green to a sweater and khakis.  Gotta love a place where you can point to what you are wearing and call it your "best dressy T-shirt" with a straight face, which is how one man of my acquaintance identified his clothes.  A former principal of mine tells a story of going to a wedding in Brownsville Junction, to which she wore a pantsuit she often wore to work.  In her words, "I was dressier than anyone else in the place, including the bride." 

Toasty Sent Me

FIVE DAYS TO GO!!!
Damn, but I get the shivers. Every. Single. Time.

Strange Days Indeed

I never thought I'd see the day when my opinions would be simpatico with those of Mitt Romney. But in this case, they are.

Keep your eyes peeled.  I expect pigs to fly and fish to ride bicycles any minute now.

What Didn't Happen Today

I think it's important for all of us to note, whether we be Dems, Republicans, independents, PUMAs, Naderites, Trotskyites, McCainiacs or Obamabots, just what is so remarkable about the American election process.

Yesterday, people all across the country went out and voted.  Yes, there were issues, such as hacked emails and ballot readers that didn't work and various and sundry lawsuits threatened in the offing - but they affected only a small percentage of the total electorate when you look at the numbers (I'm not saying any issues are acceptable, I'm just saying the issues were negligible comparatively speaking).  The votes were tallied and reported, and even though the MSM is too eager to prognosticate the outcome and jumps the gun rather too often, the final vote count so far supports the conclusions reported last night.  One candidate lost, and he admitted as such.  One candidate won, and was accepted as such. 

Now here's the borderline-miraculous part:  There were no bloody riots. There was no widescale looting or pillaging or destruction.  Seventy-four days from now, the current resident of the White House will be finished with his term of service.  Presumably there will not be a coup d'etat betweentimes, and a new resident of the White House will take his place.  And life will continue on for us all, Luddites and technophiles, boxers and briefs, standard and automatic alike. 

Lest we forget, the idea that power could be held outside a single person, to be transferred peacefully from one individual to another, particularly when those individuals do not hold the same philosophies - well, that idea was so revolutionary at its inception as to be thought laughable.  When this neophyte country first put that "Constitution" of theirs into practice, the established nation-states of Europe waited gleefully for the grand experiment to fail, for the people to awake to chaos and confusion and beg for a global power - any power - to step in, set things to rights, and not incidentally to take over the resources and manpower available in the new and growing land.  Much to their surprise (and subsequent annoyance), the nascent nation stubbornly refused to descend into anarchy.  This so irritated the global superpower of the time that Great Britain eventually lost patience with waiting for the inevitable and tried to force the issue, resulting in the War of 1812.

For many years after that, conventional wisdom held that a system involving transfer of power would never last.  After all, George Washington was a brilliant leader and outstanding statesman, so of course the US would hold together under his rule, but no one else's.  Then Adams and Jefferson and Madison and Monroe followed, but they were all founders, and surely once their generation passed the system would collapse on itself.  Then a son of a founder was followed by the first "man of the people" who was neither a founder nor a direct descendant of one, and by that time the ideas of separation of powers, of divided leadership, of checks and balances were so well-established that they ceased to be novelties.

Now consider the rest of the world.  Think about Mugabe, that corrupt asshat in Zimbabwe who had his opposition arrested and accused of murder, then promised to agree to a "powersharing" agreement, and finally simply refused to relinquish power.  Look at Castro, who led a revolution and wound up liking power so much he stuck around.  Look at any number of tin-pot dictators, corrupt oligarchs, party apparatchiks, and ideologues currently and formerly active on the world stage.  Then think about our system:  As corrupt, venal, hidebound, money-driven, and superficial as our government is, it is a model of transparency, openness, and accessibility compared to most of the others.  This is why I agree totally and absolutely with Winston Churchill's view of our governing philosophy, to wit:

"Many forms of government have been tried and will be tried in this world of sin and woe. No one pretends that democracy is perfect or all wise. Indeed, it has been said that democracy is the worst form of government, except for all the others that have been tried from time to time."