Please Sir, Some More Info With That Food

KABC, Channel 7, Los Angeles, is spearheading a food drive for the hungry.  Very admirable, and I'm glad they're doing it.  But, I'd be more impressed if they'd also do some stories on why there are people going without food in the richest nation on earth.  Perhaps because of the upward migration of national wealth?  Who says wealth redistribution is a bad thing?

Please Sir, Some More Info

Why won't Mitt Romney release more of his tax returns?  Irregularities, financial malfeasance, deductions for strange bizarre habits,  child support for fourteen illegitimate kids, that his real first name is Willard?  I think it's because one of the richer men in America had a number of years where he paid no taxes at all.  And I'll bet he did it legally.

All Sports! All The Time!

"We are Penn State!"  I suspect the fans in Happy Valley won't be chanting that one for awhile.  Do I really need to write this?  Yes, I think child sexual abuse is wrong.  Yes, I think punishment is in order.  But a 60 million dollar fine paid to the NCAA?  Come on folks, get real.  In this day and age of budget cuts, big time college sports helps pay the bills. (My old home state has fallen under the evil influence of the Tea Party, so that money is needed now more than ever.)  A fine that large is about more than punishing the football program.  It's about shorter library hours, closed labs, staff cuts and tuition increases.  Tell the biology major that it's going to take an extra year to graduate because the NCAA wanted it's pound of flesh, and to get it, there aren't enough lab hours available anymore.  Oh, and by the way, that's another year of student loans.  Jerry Sandusky has gone to prison, and I suspect others will follow.  Penn State will be paying out even more millions in law suits for the foreseeable future. This should have all been left to the courts.   File this one under, doing something without thinking it through.

And they suck me back in.  With all this Lance Armstrong stuff, I swore I'd walk away from pro cycling.  Armstrong has been out of the pro ranks for almost a decade now, he's never tested positive, but the movers and shakers of cycling have decided to go back and destroy his legacy.  There's something about that sport that wants to self destruct.  I suspect it's because it's a professional sport run by an Olympics federation, and those are run by a bunch of silly old Europeans who don't understand why the French revolution happened.  Too, to return to a point I've made before.  Cycling has become a big time, worldwide sport because of television.  The TV people want hard climbs,. fast technical descents, and crash filled bunch sprints.  Really, it's making the sport worse.  The UCI wants the major teams in every major race, and the number of those races is increasing every year.  The sponsors want their corporate logos on the podium, the team owners are desperate to get those victories, and team managers are desperate to keep their jobs.  Basically, a system where it's almost impossible to survive without some help, but it's only the riders that take the blame.  To be honest, I don't even care if Lance Armstrong doped. More than likely every rider in the top twenty was on something. Yes, I swore to give up the sport, but then the Tour de France came along and I fell into line.  Oh well.

Is it just me?  Are there others out there who hope that the London branch of the occupy movement disrupts the Olympics?  For all the fine talk about pure sport the Olympics are a rich mans vanity event.  Only the 1984 Los Angeles Olympics has turned a profit.  If London ends up another money loser, it's the lower middle classes and the poor who will pay in the form of even more cuts in services.  Too, the land for all those bright and shiny new venues had to come from somewhere.  No rich people were harmed for the London Olympics.  No, it was the homes and businesses of the lower middle classes and poor that were sacrificed.

Auroroa

Just a bit of history.  Twenty years ago the tobacco lobby was considered to be so powerful as to be unassailable.  Tobacco companies marketed their products to children, they targeted minorities, women and college students as the next wave of smokers.  Tobacco company executives went to capitol hill, swore an oath, and then perjured themselves by saying that cigarettes were not addictive.  All with impunity.

After the Aurora theater massacre, we're now saying that the NRA and the gun lobby are so powerful that nothing can be done.  Republican senator Ron Johnson of Wisconsin has said that the possession of large ammunition magazines  is a constitutionally protected right.  And within a week, we'll probably all be hearing the tired old mantras that guns don't kill people, people kill people, that the actions of a single disturbed individual has nothing to do with the dangers of unfettered gun ownership.

Meanwhile, many of us on the left are saying the sensitive thing; that we should not politicize this tragedy.  That the families of the dead, wounded and damaged should not be drawn into a political campaign on the whole gun control debate.

This is wrong.  We politicize issues that need addressed, and the lightly regulated, absolute right to own any type of weapon is an issue that needs to be hammered in the public forge.  As long as we show sensitivity for the dead of this horrific shooting, the shootings in Columbine, Virginia Tech, Tucson, and others, the gun lobby and the NRA will rule the debate.  Their voices will not go challenged, and it will only be a matter of time before another crazy with a credit card and a deranged sense of self will buy an arsenal and gun down more people.

Twenty years ago big tobacco had it good.  But things change.  Joe Camel is gone, smoking in the workplace has disappeared from many states, and tobacco company execs consult with lawyers, fearing what they say may come back to haunt them.  It won't be easy, but gun lobbyists can be put on the defensive with enough pressure.  The first step should be a ban on large magazines.  A one hundred round clip isn't needed for hunting or self defense.  After that, a return to the full assault weapons ban.  But it won't happen if we are sensitive.  The twelve deaths in Aurora, Colorado should be the rallying cry for a new movement, no matter how cruel it may seem.

A Quick Thought on John Edwards

I'm not trying to defend John Edwards.  I'm not trying to attack Elizabeth Edwards.  But, my father cheated on my mother.  My mother was a horrible person.  What we can know of any marriage is what is seen from the outside.  What we know of the Edwards marriage is clearly not all there is to know.  Maybe John Edwards was just a garden variety bastard.  Perhaps things were far more complex.  The fact is, we can never know for sure.

Two of a Kind

Is it just me, or are there others out there who have noticed the parallels between Mitt Romney and George Herbert Walker Bush? AKA Poppy.

Both men are the sons of fathers who walked away from business success to enter politics. George Romney was the self made man who ended up running American Motors and being very well paid for it. Prescott Bush, with help from a father, uncle, and father-in-law, was a big deal on wall street. George would end up as a three term governor of Michigan, while Prescott was a two term U.S. Senator from Connecticut.

While I find little to praise in the political philosophy of either parent, both George Romney and Prescott Bush did have a core set of beliefs. Neither man played the race card to get elected, and Bush was willing to vote to censure Joe McCarthy when he was very popular among Republican voters in his home state. Both men seemed to have a sense that they owed something back to their states and to their country.

The sons, however, are both cut from a very different cloth. Neither George H. W. Bush nor Mitt Romney have any discernible core belief system. They both blow in the wind, taking whatever political course that will lead to electoral success. The famous wimp factor that dodged H.W. had more to do with a perception that he was Ronald Reagan yapping little lap dog, coming whenever he was called, rather than any perceived lack of personal bravery. Both men seem to have a sense of entitlement. They were born to politics, are wealthy, get what they want, and so they should be president in the natural course of events. It's a right they were born to. Both are willing to go the smear and hate route to get elected. So far, that's only worked for H.W. The clocks still ticking for Mittens.

Anyone But Streep

Let me start off with a confession. I am quite able to put aside my political beliefs and praise a great movie, play or novel that I consider to be on the wrong side of the moral divide. As a silent movie fan, I admire Birth of a Nation despite it's racism. I own a DVD of both Triumph of the Will and The Dark Knight. But, The Iron Lady is not a great movie. It's not even a good movie, so it doesn't get a pass. And now that awards season is upon us, neither does it's star, Meryl Streep.

For almost two excruciating hours, this film, a conservative's wet dream, ignores the true legacy of Margret Thatcher. Dame Maggie was a supporter of the far right government of Augusto Pinochet, a friend to President Botha of South African apartheid fame, and an enemy of those fighting for their freedom from right wing oppression. (Why is it that conservatives love to yammer about lose of freedom when liberals talk about banking regulation but get all misty eyed about third world, right wing dictators?) She hated the idea that poor people in her own country should get a helping hand from their government. Cut education, of course. Housing for the homeless, what an absurd idea. Worker's rights, how communistic.

Despite my hatred of all things Thatcher, I concede that a good movie could be made of her life. Thanks to post World War 2 left wing policies, the daughter of a small grocer could go to one of the world's great universities. Why not a movie about how she came to hate the very policies that allowed her the social mobility that the traditional British class system would have denied her just a few decades earlier? Instead, The Iron Lady is all about praising her rise to power, with the opposition to Thatcherism presented as liberal sexism that opposed her because she was a woman, (Talk about getting history backwards.) and the timidity of conservative men who didn't have the backbone to shift the tax burden from the wealthy, to where it belonged, the lower middle class, and poor. Margret Thatcher is portrayed as a lone defender of western civilization, standing against the dark hordes of the unwashed and their unreasonable demands for social justice. How brutish.

As great an actress as Meryl Streep is, she should not be rewarded for this white-wash of a truly despicable person. There are other equally worthy performances that can be given SAG awards and Oscars. Why not Viola Davis for The Help, or the long over due Glenn Close for Albert Nobbs? Please, anyone but Streep.