A Salute to Albert Gore

I read today that Al Gore testified on "Global Warming" before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. I didn't bother to read what he said because life is just too darn short. I have to give it to him though. Al is probably the greatest con artist of modern times. First he scares the crap out of everybody with his silly movie - a combination of propaganda and pseudo-science - all the while raking in the box office dough. Then he travels around the world spreading more fear and helplessness - and collecting generous speaking fees, of course. Meanwhile he starts a company that sells something called "Carbon Offsets" so that the guilty can buy (at bargain prices, I'm sure) to cancel out their "Carbon Footprint". [Sort of like the Church selling indulgences to frightened sinners during the Middle Ages.] When he's not zipping off to exotic locales in private jets and stretch limos he stays in one of his several houses, including the family mansion which uses something like eighteen to twenty times the electricity of the average American household. While he's there he can count the profits he's raking in from his shares of Occidental Petroleum. One wonders how much the price of oil has been affected by his crusade to "Saved the Planet". It's no wonder he didn't want to run for President again - he didn't want to take the pay cut - and who needs the grief anyway. Bernie Madoff is under house arrest for stealing billions in a failed Ponzi scheme and Governor Blagojevich is facing impeachment for selling a seat in the Senate. Al gets a Nobel Prize, an Academy Award and the adulation of millions of gullible idiots. Is this a great country or what?

Just Another Hater

I was once an avid reader of newspapers. I like the feel of the paper and the wide variety of stories, from state and local news to sports and even Dear Abby. My very favorite part (besides the funnies, of course) has always been the editorial/opinions section. I've made it clear in a previous post that I enjoyed reading the "Letters to the Editor", but I also liked the columnists. I tried to read both conservative and liberal columnists so that I could at least try to understand both sides of the controversial issues of the day. One of my favorites was a fellow named Leonard Pitts, who wrote for the Miami Herald the last time I checked. Mr. Pitts is Black and a flaming liberal and I rarely agreed with anything he said, but he wrote with such beauty, power and passion that he was a joy to read anyway. Over the last few years, however, Mr. Pitts slowly succumbed to hatred. Like so many in his profession he drank the Kool-Aid, drank it to the last drop and gradually became just another hater. No more intelligence, no more reason - just column after dreary column repeating the same old crap that every other wild eyed liberal hater was spewing. His growing hatred affected his style as well as his substance and I finally quit reading his column because it just wasn't worth it. I'm sure I wasn't the only one. I learned a long time ago that you can't reason with a hater. You'll never change their mind and you'll wind up angry, tired and sad. Hate isn't rational and in the end it generally harms the hater far more than the hated.

I hope now that we have a new president Mr. Pitts will be able to recover some of his former abilities. Like so many others I get my news from the internet now. Newspapers are dying, many deservedly so. Someday I may Google Mr. Pitts and check out his writings to see if he is able to recapture his style, but not anytime soon. There is too much hate in the world already. I don't need any more from him.

I'm Back

I'm not really sure why I stopped. I've had a lot to say, but with the election and all there was already too much political B.S.on the internet and I guess I didn't want to add any more. After all, what do I know? I'm a middle aged white guy living in a small town in the middle of Texas. I haven't traveled the world (I have been to Canada, Mexico and Colombia) or participated in anything historically significant. I took the same history and political science courses in high school and college everyone else took (I did make A's, though). The only elected office I've held in recent memory is president of the local Rotary Club. As passionately as I care about the politics of my country, I guess I felt as though I didn't have anything worth saying that others weren't already saying much better than I ever could. In the end it all made me so very tired of the whole mess. I just wanted it to be over with and didn't feel like writing much of anything and so I didn't.

I can't say I'm pleased with the man we elected as president (to be honest, I can't yet say I'm upset with him either). To be honest I wasn't all that excited about John McCain. There are some reasonable conclusions one can draw, however, from the last few months.

The first is that the old saw that anybody can grow up to be president is true. Any student of American politics who knew Mr. Obama's life story would have to be amazed at the utter unlikelihood of his election. He is of mixed race, and his black father was African, not African-American so there was no guarantee that Black America would accept him as one of their own. Despite notable clashes with Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson he was able to win them over completely. He had to overcome the ferocious Hillary Clinton and her massive machine to win the nomination. To this day I don't know how he did it. Perhaps the Clintons' hold on the Democrats isn't as powerful as everyone thought. Here is a man with nothing going for him but his race, his looks and his speaking ability. His political achievements and executive experience are non-existent. He isn't a war hero or a well known actor. He has no business experience and (I may be wrong) I don't think he's ever had a paying job outside of politics. Yet against all odds he was able to pull it off. I didn't vote for him and remain dubious about his abilities but I can certainly understand the pride and joy in the African American Community. [I think the first thing Mr. Obama should do during his inaugural address is apologize to John McCain and the RNC for suggesting that they would try to use his race against him. It was a despicable, divisive thing to do and he owes the Republicans and the nation a sincere apology.]

The second conclusion one can draw is that the national news media is overwhelmingly biased when it comes to politics. It is a known fact that something like 80% of journalists in newsrooms across the U.S. vote Democrat. How can anyone who watched the deranged, hysterical coverage of Governor Palin after her nomination not admit otherwise? Really? She faked pregnancy while serving as a governor? Can anyone seriously suggest that had she been a Democrat and Mr. Obama had chosen her for a running mate that things would have gone much differently? She would have been portrayed as a political goddess and the most difficult question Charles Gibson or Katie Couric would have asked would have been something like, "how did it feel when you found out your teenage daughter was pregnant?" or "how do you manage to make time for your family?" Hell, she'd be more popular than Oprah. [If you think about it, she and Mr. Obama have a lot in common. She is a woman (also an "oppressed minority"), good looking and well spoken. Other than being a Republican the only significant difference was that she had some (albeit not much) executive experience.] Now it has become impossible to trust the likes of CBS, NBC, ABC, Fox News and CNN when it comes to political news. Venerable organizations like Reuters, AP, The New York Times, Washington Post, Boston Globe etc, etc... have lost my trust and the trust of many more like me. They don't much seem to care and their response has been to either deny the obvious truth or pretend that it doesn't matter. Many of these institutions are failing and I guess they'll be replaced by internet news outlets. We'll have to wait and see if this is a good thing or not. Probably not.

The last conclusion is probably the most significant. It is painfully clear that our educational system has failed. Way too many people in this country are woefully ignorant about our history, our economic system and the way our government works. Even worse - they don't want to know. This does not bode well for the future. Especially when you consider that so many people have come to see themselves as dependent on the government for their well being. I believe that it is a disaster in the making and we have no one but ourselves to blame.

I wish Mr. Obama well and I will pray for him as I prayed for President Bush. He seems like a happily married man who loves his kids, and a guy like that can't be all bad. For better and for worse he is our President now (at least he will be after the 20th) and his success will be our nation's success. He will certainly begin his term with more good will than did his predecessor, and he has an almost worshipful news media to boot. I suspect most of his problems will come from his own party, at least at first. A significant percentage of his most ardent followers are utterly convinced that the first thing he's going to do after the inauguration is arrest Mr. Bush for war crimes and bring home the troops. They are going to be sorely disappointed when he does neither. Considering the degree of hatred they exhibited toward President Bush they may be even worse when they realize their hopes have been betrayed. Everybody knows what happens to messiahs.