Christmas break

Seattle, Washington, outside my son's house.

For the past ten days, I've been under the weather and neither motivated to blog nor to read other blogs. So I've decided to stop feeling guilty about it and just take an official break until after the New Year.

So Merry Christmas and Happy New Year and I'll be back to join with all of you after the first in the countdown to the Inauguration.

Christmas: the myth vs. reality

We have invented a wonderful myth about Christmas, which can be summed up in the words of a Christmas song: "It's the most wonderful time of the year."

Humbug.


Every year I believe that nonsense and every year I'm disappointed, exhausted, and ready for the whole thing to be over.

First of all, I hate shopping. I enjoy getting things for my family, and the giving of gifts, but every year I go overboard, usually because I've gotten one too many things for one of my family members, and then I have to even it up by buying another item for each of the rest of them. What was once a nice sentiment - giving gifts in imitation of the three wise men - is now another chore to be performed at the busiest time of the year - when you have no time.

And I positively despise being in stores before Christmas. The music is dreadful ("Have a holly, jolly Christmas," "Oh by gosh by golly, it's time for mistletoe and holly," "Jingle bell rock," to name just a few that grate on my nerves. ) And they are all sung by artists who are deceased. Believe me, listening to dead guys sing Christmas songs does not cheer me up one bit.

How about decorating? You can't have Christmas without decorating the whole damn house - at least that's what they tell you on HGTV, where decorators come into homes with $2000 budgets to prepare the home of some rich guy for his "annual Christmas party." Wow! Somebody rich enough to have an annual Christmas party. My husband's company cancelled their annual Christmas party - hopefully the entire company won't fold in this disastrous economy.

So back to decorating. In our house, decorating involves hunching over in the closet beneath the stairs to get at all the lighted houses, tree decor, candles, flours, garlands, santas and snowmen I have collected over the years and then finding places for everything. When your back finally recovers from bending over and lifting heavy boxes, it's time to put everything back. So this year I cut the decor in half. I put out half the snowmen, half the santas, a couple of garlands, no lighted houses, and no tree.

Then there's the uncertainty over what to do on Christmas and what family members will be here. Will my sons come down from Seattle? Will there be a mad dash to the airport an hour away the night before Christmas to pick someone up? Will we have time to visit with my family and my husband's family on Christmas day without it becoming insane? Will my grandchildren be healthy so they can come for dinner?

Speaking of health, every Christmas it seems, I get sick. I've missed a few traditional Christmas eves at my mother's house because I couldn't get out of bed. Last year I missed a family wedding three days before Christmas because I had an intestinal virus. This year I have a miserable cold which doesn't seem to want to leave. And my husband is just as sick as I am.

And finally, of course, is the Christmas feast. So many dishes, so much preparation, so much time on my feet cooking, cleaning, setting the table, washing dishes. I was so exhausted last year after preparing dinner, my son's wonderful girlfriend told me she would like to cook dinner this year. So I'm letting her. I don't care if she cooks grilled cheese sandwiches (she's not - she's a great cook) I'm going to let the younger generation take over.

In spite of the songs that promise this will be the most wonderful time of the year, I find that many people dread the coming of Christmas and are glad to see it go. This year, for the first time ever, even though I always grumble about the work involved, I wish we could just cancel Christmas.

This year Christmas marks the end of a terrible year for me, my family and the country. The economy has decimated my husband's 401K, his company is drastically downsizing because they are connected to the building industry, and money is tight. My parents are both terribly ill, my mother has leukemia and my father has a progressive degenerative neurological disease. I have spent most of this year accompanying them to doctors, labs, and hospitals. And the country has had to endure one more year of an idiot in the White House, with all the disaster he brings with him.

So this year, Christmas is not the most wonderful time of the year. It's just a huge source of work to top off the most dreadful year of my life. And my guess is that all the people who have lost their jobs, their homes, their health insurance, and their health have suffered a dreadful year as well.

It goes without saying, I guess, that I am not looking forward to Christmas. I am, however, looking forward to January 20th. I know everything won't change that day, but at least January 20th doesn't involve cooking, going to the airport or decorating, and we can all watch history being made as we gleefully wave bye bye to Bush.

Now that really will be the most wonderful time of the year.

Applause for Bush

I never thought I would say this, indeed I never thought I would be able to say it because I never thought it would happen, but George W. Bush has done a good thing.

By helping out the auto industry, Bush has shown a willingness to put practicality above ideology, and maybe finally show some of that "compassionate conservatism" he talked about in the 2000 campaign.

What's wrong with the Bush administration, and the thirty year old conservative movement in this country, is that they rely almost exclusively on ideology and thus make a lot of stupid decisions. Ideology is fine for academia, and for think tanks, but it can be deadly in government where it breeds stubbornness, insularity, and stupidity. When one holds the fate of hundreds of millions of citizens in one's hands, and a signature or a veto may determine whether people have jobs, houses, incomes, and health care, ideology isn't appropriate. What is needed is common sense and practicality.

That's why Barack Obama is such a promising politician and president elect. He is a practical man, a problem solver, a unifier, a listener, a leader who gathers facts and opinions from all corners before deciding on the most sensible action.

As for Bush, eight years into his presidency, his reputation in tatters, he finally has done the right thing, the practical thing, the good thing, and for the first time ever, I applaud him.

Caroline vs. Arnold: Double standard?

Sitting out here in California I have to admit I know nothing about New York politics. So I find the current dust up over Caroline Kennedy's interest in being appointed to Hillary Clinton's Senate seat for the next two years extremely fascinating. So, apparently, do many op-ed writers, most of whom are criticizing the possibility of such an appointment.

Caroline has never been elected to state or national office before, they say. She hasn't paid her dues. It's a sneaky way to enter into politics. What does she actually know about the Senate and the issues? Is being a Kennedy alone a qualification for the Senate? Aren't there other candidates who have paid their dues and are more deserving of the appointment?

Well, just to put this into perspective, knowing very little about Caroline's qualifications myself, I have one name for you: ARNOLD SCHWARZENEGGER.

The current governor of California, Arnold Schwarzenegger, a relative of Caroline's by marriage, had also never been elected to national or state office before he helped recall the then governor of California, Gray Davis, and run for his seat. Arnold had in no way "paid his dues" either. Ousting a sitting governor and running for his seat is also a sneaky way to enter politics and at the time we knew nothing about Arnold's political views other than that he was a conservative Republican. We also knew he was married to a "Kennedy." And there were plenty of other candidates who held better political qualifications for the job of governor. But Arnold had starpower. He was a movie star, a celebrity, and a member by marriage of the best known political family in America.

Frankly, I don't see the difference between Arnold and Caroline in terms of experience and qualifications. Except, of course for two things. Arnold was well known as a movie star and an obvious showman and extrovert. Caroline is not as well known for her accomplishments, because she is more of an introvert who has worked quietly behind the scenes for decades on issues such as education.

Well, there are a few other differences. Caroline has been raising her children for the past twenty-five years even as she worked as a volunteer on many issues of importance to the state of New York while Arnold worked as an actor in Hollywood. Caroline is low key while Arnold's personality is larger than life. Arnold is a man and Caroline is a woman. And finally, Arnold is a Republican and Caroline is a Democrat.

Make of all of that what you will...

Snow Beast

If you want to start your day with a smile, check out this video of my son's little Westie, "Marlowe," playing in snow for the first time at his home in Seattle.

The regrettable death of newspapers

This week, in addition to the never-ending stories about the governor of Illinois, and the Republican assassination of the American car industry, there was the news that America's newspapers are in trouble. Some are filing bankruptcy, many are laying off reporters, some are going under, and at least one - The New York Times - has taken out a huge mortgage on its headquarters in order to keep going. Some on cable are speculating that the internet has killed newspapers. Others are saying that the economy means fewer advertising dollars and that is killing the papers.

I stopped subscribing to papers years ago, not so much because I don't think they are valuable, but because I never had time to read them and because they got black ink residue all over everything when I did. I also got tired of all the supplemental ads that usually went into the trash immediately. I saved the papers themselves for a week, thinking I would get around to reading them, but I usually didn't. Now I read a few newspapers online - the big ones like the Washington Post, New York Times and L.A. Times. Occasionally I read an editorial from the WSJ, especially Peggy Noonan (for her excellent writing even when I disagree with her) and Thomas Frank (for his brilliant thinking, with which I usually agree), but mostly I stay away from its Republican propaganda.

Actually, I have a different theory for why people don't read newspapers anymore. I think cable news killed newspapers. It's so much easier, isn't it, to just click on the television and watch some blowhard on FOX or CNN or MSNBC tell you what to think? No, I don't think they report unbiased news. I think they tell you what and how to think.

FOX tells you to hate Democrats, to suspect Obama of being a Muslim, a terrorist, a radical, or a corrupt associalte of the now disgraced Illinois governor. MSNBC tells you Republicans are crooks or idiots in the evening, when Keith Olbermann and Rachel Maddow headline, and just the opposite in the morning when Morning Jo(k)e Scarborough bloviates. CNN is more subtle. They pretend not to take sides, but many of their well-coifed female anchors like to make subtle but snide comments about Obama. Actually, what all of these cable networks are trying to do is stir up controversy and trouble, and raise the blood pressure and the attention level of their viewers so they get good ratings. They have to fill 24 hours with something that will grab your attention, so they say controversial things and often incite anger, fear or hatred against someone or something.

Cable has made it unnecessary for anyone to think, to read, to investigate, to see both sides and to make up their own minds based on the evidence. If you watch Keith, you don't have to question his facts. If you watch Hannity, and trust him, you simply believe what he tells you. And these television personalities tell you things in sound bites, quick emotionally laden opinions, and funny presentations. You don't have to strain your brain to pay attention because they are so entertaining you naturally want to stay focused.

Not so with newspapers. With newspapers, you first have to have a fairly good reading ability. You have to comprehend words with more than two syllables. I contend that most Americans don't have that ability anymore. Next, you have to have the attention span and the willingness to spend some time wading through complex investigative articles to determine the facts of some political story. You have to have a tolerance for long, dry, complex writing that doesn't necessarily entertain you, but that may require you to read the same paragraph over and over again when your mind wanders, as it inevitably will when you are accustomed to watching "news" on television. Finally, you have to send in a monthly check and tip that damn paperboy at Christmas, as well as haul all that paper out to the recylcing bin each week. In an era of convenience and instant everything, who has time for all that?

Television has done a lot of damage to our ability to think and concentrate, to our intelligence, and to our physical well being as we spend so much time sitting instead of moving. And now the 24 hour cable news shows have just about killed newspapers, in addition to disseminating false and biased information. They have not just made us stupid. They have divided us and made us hateful people who judge each other on the basis of propaganda that get good ratings and high salaries for the propagandists.

Frankly, I would much rather see the cable shows die than the newspapers - even if it means I have to endure a little black newsprint rubbing off on my hands and furniture.

Republican crimes

If I hadn't already lost all respect for Republicans, I would have lost the final ounce last night.

Senate Republicans, led by the good ole boys from the South, killed the $14 billion dollar bridge loan to the big three automakers, two of which may now go out of business and spill millions of workers into the pool of the unemployed.

At a time when our economy is already in recession, with large numbers of decades old businesses closing their doors, millions of Americans being thrown out of their jobs and homes, and the rest of us holding our breaths that somehow we can weather the growing economic storm without being thrown out of ours, the Republicans decided now was the time to get stingy with the only big manufacturing industry left in America.

They weren't stingy two months ago when their buddies on Wall Street nearly destroyed our economy with their deregulated creative banking instruments, their risky sub prime mortgages packaged into securities, and their credit derivative swaps to insure those bad investments. They gave those idiots $700 billion without blinking. This was supposed to free up credit so that banks would begin loaning again, businesses could remain open and homeowners could restructure their mortgages so they wouldn't lose their homes. Only this hasn't happened. Businesses are closing left and right and millions of homeowners hear the knock of the marshall at their door, serving them eviction notices. Soon, the soup lines may start.

One has to scratch one's head and ask why. Why give $700 billion to Wall Street and nothing to Detroit? Why demand workers wages be reduced in Detroit, but nothing of the kind regarding wages on Wall Street? It makes no sense, unless you live within the failed and destructive ideology of Republicanism.

Republicans say they are guarding the taxpayers' money and demanding accountability from the automakers who managed their businesses badly. What? No one managed businesses more horribly than the Wall Street bankers who made bad loans, created bad securities and then insured them against loss so that they could win either way. Except when the insurance money was demanded once the bankruptcies started, there was no money. So Congress had to fork over $700 billion for starters. Is that really worse than building gas guzzling SUVs instead of hybrid cars? Is it more of a crime?

And lest we forget, it was always the Republicans who voted against higher fuel efficiency standards for the automakers. Republicans, like the president and vice president, have always been in bed with oil companies, and wanted to see those gas guzzling vehicles because it was good for the oil business. Wasn't it the Republican Congress along with Bush that came up with the huge tax deduction for businesses that buy Hummers and other gas guzzling monstrosities? Now the Republicans want to blame Detroit for not building the kind of fuel-efficient cars that can compete with Toyota and Honda. What a crock! What hypocrisy!

No, the Republicans see several opportunities here and they are determined to take advantage of them. The workers be damned! The country be damned!

First, they want to break the union. The UAW has always been an enemy of Republicans, partly because they largely support Democrats, but also because they have contributed to the growth of the Middle Class, which the Republicans are determined to destroy. Republicans have never liked unions, which - by demanding decent pay for their hard work - threaten to eat into the enormous profits of stockholders, whom the Republicans think are much more valuable in a capitalist economy than workers. The current financial trouble of the carmakers is the perfect opportunity to do what they live for - destroy a union and keep the wealthy class wealthy. In Republican land, capital is king, investors deserve to be billionaires, and workers are slave labor that deserves the lowest of wages for their pay. Is it any surprise that the leaders of this attempt to lower the wages of autoworkers are Southern Senators: Corker, De Mint, McConnell, Shelby, among others?

Second, these Southern Senators also are protecting the foreign car plants in their states. Mercedes, BMW, Toyota, Honda and Hyundai have all built plants in Southern states where anti-union laws allow them to pay lower wages to their workers, and giant federal tax breaks allow them to succeed. In other words, our tax money helps foreign car companies employ Southern workers at low wages, which helps to bust the unions of domestic car companies. Sounds real patriotic to me! Help the foreign companies and destroy the domestic ones. Keep wages low for American workers and enrich stockholders and investors in those companies. Punish the American companies that dared allow themselves to be unionized.

Of course, getting jobs and money for your state is always the name of the game for elected officials. But I always thought our elected representatives were also interested in keeping a healthy economy for the entire nation. Apparently, some of them are not.

Once again, we see what the Republican Party stands for: a wealthy class and a poor class and no middle class; low wages for workers and high profits for owners; socialism for Wall Street and the "creative destruction" of the market for Main Street; government intervention in people's sex lives, but not in their economic survival (unless they're millionaires).

There'd better be a special place in hell for these people.

Blagojevich

Something stinks about this Blagojevich story. Sorry, but I just don't buy that things are as simple as the federal prosecutor claims they are.

Already the wing-nuts are accusing Obama or his chief aide David Axelrod of lying about whether or not Obama talked with/met with Blagojevich. They see this as an opportunity to taint the upcoming inauguration of the new president. Prior to this arrest, they tried other ways to tarnish his reputation, just as they did Bill Clinton even before Clinton was sworn in. They have used Jeremiah Wright, Bill Ayers, and Tony Rezko to try to diminish his popularity and good reputation. And now that Blagojevich has been accused of trying to sell Obama's senate seat, they are trying to imply that somehow Obama was in on it, or that he is now lying about it. This, even though Blagojevich is allegedly heard on tape calling Obama a crude name because all he would give Blago for appointing Obama's preferred candidate was "appreciation."

Obama is being attacked because maybe he spoke to the governor about the senate seat. Well, I'm sure Hillary Clinton has talked to David Patterson about her senate seat. Or she will in time. And more to the point, a lot of senators talked to Ted Stevens in the days, weeks and months before his corruption conviction. Does that taint them? Talking is not a crime.

So I am simply asking this: why did Patrick Fitzgerald come out with this now, in such a spectacular way, and why read excerpts of the taped conversations? Most high profile people are not woken up by the FBI and handcuffed at their estate. Their lawyers are notified and they turn themselves in. This was intended to get as much media attention as possible. Why?

Why read the tape transcripts at a press conference? Isn't this something you usually present to a jury and not the public so that you don't taint the jury pool?

There is some motive behind this that I don't quite understand. Perhaps the prosecutor is hoping he can put pressure on Blago who will make a deal with him and spare everyone the spectacle of a trial. That's the only good option I can think of. The other options are that Fitzgerald is playing with the Republican play book and trying to taint Obama by having such a high profile arrest of someone tangentially connected to Obama, or just the opposite. Perhaps Fitzgerald was playing with the Dems and doing a favor for Obama by trying to get Blago out of the business of appointing Obama's successor. Any appointment by a governor who was under investigation and soon to be arrested would be tainted in itself, the appointee probably likely to lose the next election. So maybe Obama wanted this to happen to get Blago to resign and let his successor choose Obama's replacement.

Time will tell, but in the meantime, the media and the wing nuts are out in force, milking the story dry. Already I'm sick of it.

A question for the military

Yesterday a jet from Miramar Naval Air Station crashed into a San Deigo neighborhood, setting several homes on fire and killing a family that included a grandmother, a mother and two small children. The pilot ejected safely. According to the morning news, the pilot reported losing an engine over the Pacific Ocean, which ultimately resulted in the horrible crash.

I can't even begin to express my outrage over this. It will be called an "accident" and will be quickly forgotten, except of course by the family of these four who were killed. Some will say it is the price we pay for our military maintaining their readiness to defend us. I say that's b.s.

I have lived in Northern San Deigo County/Southern Riverside County for nearly thirty years and during much of that time I have endured the annoying sound of low flying helicopters from Camp Pendleton. I don't exactly know how this happened, but my previous home in Fallbrook and my current home in another city are both directly in the flight path of these helicopters. On many, many occasions it has occurred to me that one of these choppers could crash into my neighborhood or even my home.

The people in certain San Diego neighborhoods must endure something even more frightening - the daily practice take-offs and landings of the screaming jets at Miramar. Every time I drive on the 805, the 15 or the 163, all of which surround the air station, I wonder if one of those low flying jets will crash onto the freeway and take out dozens of innocent motorists. Now the worst has happened and a family is dead.

I have so many questions about this horrible crash. Why did the pilot not stay with his plane and try to maneuver it to crash into a field or the ocean? Since he lost the engine over the ocean, why did he not eject and let the plane go down there? In saving his own life, did he not even think about the other lives that might be lost? If he was too young and inexperienced to know how to react in such an emergency, why was he not practicing out in the desert where he couldn't kill anyone?

I know very little about aviation, and certainly nothing about what it takes to fly a fighter jet, but if if I give the pilot the benefit of the doubt and accept that he did the best he could, I still am furious that this kind of thing could happen.

I have wondered for a long time why the military needs to do so many practice flights which cost millions of taxpayer dollars. Yes, pilots must learn to fly jets and helicopters, but must they do so many, and is a residential area the best place to do that?

I think it's time to relocate some of these air stations into unpopulated areas. San Diego is no longer an appropriate place for a naval jet training facility.

What good does it do to keep our military in a state of readiness if it kills civilians in the process?

Obama the socialist

I had a discussion yesterday with a local shop owner. We were talking about elderly parents and people she and I knew who were very ill and she said she believed that when there was no hope and you were suffering terribly, that you should have the right to take your own life in a dignified way. She didn't believe the state should stop you. She also expressed that she didn't believe abortion should be a political issue and the state should never force a woman to have a baby. She then went on to say she wasn't a religious person, but she knew many religious people and she respected their views on such things, and believed everyone should be free to follow their own beliefs as long as they don't try to impose them on others.

I wasn't sure what to make of her political views as in the past I was sure she said she was a Republican, and this didn't sound too Republican to me. Soon we were talking about politics and I mentioned that I had been enthusiastically for Obama. She scrunched up her face and said "Well, I'm a conservative and I could never vote for Obama because I know he's a socialist. Don't get me wrong, I didn't like McCain - he was the worst candidate - but Obama is a socialist so I couldn't vote for him. However, I do wish him well and hope he proves me wrong."

I asked her how she "knew" he was a socialist. She mentioned some interview on public radio from ten years ago when, according to her, he said he had read Karl Marx and been influenced by him. I asked if she could point me to the interview so I could hear it myself and she backed off - didn't know how to refer me to it. But she was certain of her view of him. I then replied that I doubted if Bush had read Karl Marx, but he had certainly become a socialist lately with the nationalization of the banks. It was then that she said everyone in Congress was to blame and brought up Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, which are the Republican talking points, so I decided it was time to go.

I thought about this all the way home.

Did this interview really take place or was it some Republican piece of propaganda from someone like Rush Limbaugh or Hugh Hewitt or Sean Hannity?

If the interview did take place, were Obama's words fairly represented? And why did we not hear more about this during the campaign? The Republicans control talk radio and FOX News. Couldn't they have broadcast this more effectively? Or was it one of those internet rumors?

If someone reads Karl Marx and is "influenced" by them does that make him a socialist? What does it mean to be influenced by someone? I, for instance, have been influenced by many writers but I don't agree with all of them. Sometimes they influence me to think of things a different way, or to question something I once believed in, or even to reject what they are writing.

My guess is that Obama has read a lot of great and influential writers and, in fact, if you are going to go into politics, people like Karl Marx would have to be on your reading list along with conservative writers, liberal writers, the founding fathers, and great philosophers through the ages. Politics is really the application of ideas to governing and reading Marx along with many others should not be an indictment of your governing philosophy.

And finally, I wondered what it is about the word "socialist" that so frightens Republicans. We have elements of socialism in our government, some of those elements like Social Security and Medicare being among the most popular programs in government. The reality is that we have a combined economic system, capitalism combined with some socialism, with socialism currently rescuing capitalism, which today would fail without the government's assistance.

When I came home I tried to find evidence of Obama's speech online and all I could find were websites where Obama was accused of knowing "socialists" or of having teachers who were "socialists."

I think a lot of people confuse the writer Marx with the political leaders Lenin and Stalin of the Soviet Union, where there was a perversion of Marx's ideas. But, if this woman is correct about Obama reading Marx, I am unlike him in that I do not know enough about Marx's actual ideas to argue effectively about them. So I've decided to read Marx, not because I want to be a socialist or a communist, but because I think to be informed citizens we ought to know what such a powerful and influential writer has said.

I suspect some of his ideas are similar to those of Jesus Christ, who I always thought spoke as something of a communist (communal living, sharing of goods, etc.) but I could be wrong. The point is I don't really know, and I suspect those who accuse Obama of being a socialist don't know either. I'm sure Limbaugh, Hewitt and Hannity haven't read Marx, as I don't consider them intellectuals by any means. I do consider Obama an intellectual, so it doesn't surprise me that he has read Marx and probably thousands more books that his critics haven't read.

I'll keep you posted on what I discover in my reading.

Was it worth it?

I wonder - what did those Wal Mart shoppers buy on Friday after they trampled a worker to death?

Was it a flat screen television, some Christmas wrapping, perhaps a few toys for the kids?

How much did they save by acting like fanatics, devoid of intelligence, mindlessly moving with the herd to secure their prizes?

And how much did Wal Mart make from the things they sold to the mindless herd who killed a 34 year old man?

Were either the purchases or the profits really worth his death?

Will we ever be civilized?