A Very Small Gift List

By David Sherman

It was my intention to write something of a more non-political nature for the December issue, granting a sort of Holiday ceasefire, if you will. But, as I would be the only one ceasing fire, that idea, however originally well-intentioned, seems a bit pointless, and more than a little naive.

While I still respect the sanctity of all the upcoming Holy Days, I would ask that you still take some time out to remember, and try to understand, that there are people out there in the world fighting for you right now. I do not speak of those men and women currently serving in U.S. Armed Forces abroad, though I acknowledge, applaud, and honor their service. I speak of those civilians currently gathered in protest on Wall Street, and the thousands like them in cities and towns across this nation.

Most people would agree that the men and women of our military are standing up for the rest of us, but too few seem to get that standing up for the rest of us is exactly what the Occupy Wall Street protestors are doing. They are exercising their First Amendment rights to peaceably assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances. Personally, I think a little more emphasis on a specific list of grievances would go a long way toward garnering popular support, but I bet half the guys dressed as natives at the Boston Tea Party didn’t know much about the details of any political grievances either. They were just lucky enough to be drunk enough in the wrong tavern at the right time. One minute it’s hot buttered rum at the Broken Barrel, next thing you know, you’re running through the streets of Boston half naked and chucking tea in the harbor. C’mon, who among us hasn’t done that at least twice?

I’ve heard these protestors maligned as hippies. Really? Hippies? What is this, Haight Ashbury? Yes, many of these people are young, and their choice of hairstyle, clothing, makeup, and body art and/or piercings might be different than your own, but there are also many 40-, 50-, and 60-year-olds mixed in there as well — even an entire cadre calling itself the “Granny Peace Brigade.” This wasn’t a drum circle that got a little out of hand. This isn’t just a bunch of rich college kids with nothing better to do for months on end. This a mixed group of Americans whose only common bond appears to be their willingness to stand up (at long last) and decry the outrage of our own political system being openly bought and sold. They dare to cry foul at a system that allows the corporate elite to knowingly gamble with our entire economy for the their own profit, and ultimately the near ruination of our entire nation, and then laughingly walk away from the train wreck they caused to cash the bonus checks they earned causing it. They also seem pretty upset that no one has gone jail. (Me too!)

I wrote a piece in the April 2011 issue of The Beachside Resident entitled “Double Entendre,” wherein I noted that the last time such an inequality of wealth and power existed in western culture was in France in 1789, just before Bastille Day. I warned that such top-heavy abuse of wealth and power had always led to revolt, if not rampant chaos. Six months later, thousands take to the streets. After eight months, it’s tens of thousands in over 450 different cities around the U.S., and in other nations as well. Will their numbers dwindle in the face of harsh northern winters? Undoubtedly. But in what numbers will they return in the spring, or more importantly in what numbers by next November?

Make no mistake, there is a third battle line drawn, aside from those in Iraq and Afghanistan. It is manned by Americans, in defense of Americans, and may well turn out to be the first salvo of another American Revolution. Just to be clear: I do not advocate bullets; I advocate votes. I would also advocate taking the time to actually read the truth about the Occupy movement before simply taking the word of someone desperately trying to keep you in the dark. ”We the People” was never meant to include corporations. The Citizens United ruling of the U.S. Supreme Court must be undone!

That’s my only gift request this year. (And hot buttered rum, a new native costume, and a trip to Boston.)

Political Colic

• By David Sherman • 

Twenty-seven years, two wives, and three kids ago (it’s how I tell time), my first wife, Joie, and I owned two horses: Rigel, a big, bay quarter Morgan mix gelding, and Stardust, a beautiful strawberry roan Appaloosa mare. The divorce left my ex with custody of both, because in Florida the wife almost always gets the kids. Sadly, in this case, the cost of maintaining both horses was more than she could handle, but rather than selling either horse, Joie elected to lease Stardust to a family near Orlando. They would handle the costs of room and board, plus any vet bills, and their daughter would have a horse of her own. The hope was that when Joie’s finances improved she could take Stardust back and all would live happily ever after.

Stardust was delivered along with all of her tack and eight bales of hay. It was stressed that she was “a bit colicky” and needed a good amount of hay in her daily diet, and her new family agreed to maintain this. Despite the scrawny appearance of the other horses in their small barn and the close-cropped nature of their pasture, Joie believed them. Any parent has dealt with a colicky baby knows that there’s lots of crying and nobody sleeps. Though it’s admittedly terrifying for first-time parents, the condition is easily remedied. With a horse, the condition can be much more severe. Too much sand, which a horse might ingest grazing on too-short grass, can cause an obstruction in the bowels. With no fiber to sweep it through, the obstruction will eventually cause the intestines and bowel to rupture, killing the animal…  slowly and painfully.

Stardust’s new family remembered the warnings about her diet until Joie’s car was out of sight. Their word on the matter, given verbally and in writing on the lease agreement, lasted as long the free eight bales of hay. Then she was just turned out with the rest of their near knackered boarders to fend for herself amid the close-chewed pasture and all that sand. The end was inevitable. I will always remember the night Joie turned up at my job to say, “I have the final divorce papers for you to sign, and Stardust is dead.” As in most cases, the love and compassion so prevalent in the beginning of the relationship were in short supply at its end.

I tell you all of this because, as usual, I see parallels between this tale and our own current political climate. In the beginning, a vast untamed nation lay before us, a virgin field waiting for the plow and seed of boundless future generations. We the People held the reins, and the government was both the horse and plow with which our dreams would be tilled. Somewhere along the way we allowed the reins to be passed to political parties, just as Washington himself had forewarned, and We the People became We the Horses, existing on whatever diet our new family deigned to give us. But the nation was vast and each year saw more fields planted, so we went along with it. There was hay.

Today the plow is made in China, and We the Horses are no longer needed to pull it; workers in India or East Timor will do that for a fourth of the cost. Today we languish, our strength forgotten and our potential largely unfulfilled, shut away in ever-shrinking stalls of political impotence. Our new families only take us out for a ride during election years, and even then, the reins are held too tightly by uncaring hands, and the bit is cruel.

There is no more hay, as we are fed a regular diet of sand — purposeful misinformation, with no fiber of truth to push it through — and the more aware among us can feel our insides starting to knot up. Illegal immigration, the need for corporate tax breaks, the wealthy are overburdened, Social Security is broke, Bernanke and the Fed are the worst ever for driving inflation, global warming is a myth, creationism is as valid a theory as evolution — these are all lies, all just so much sand, and they are killing us.

Illegal immigration is at its lowest levels in over thirty years. Corporate tax rates are already lower than they have been since World War II. The tax rates on the wealthiest Americans are the lowest they have ever been since the 1920s. Social Security is solvent through 2038.  Bernanke has the lowest inflation rates under his watch of any Federal Reserve Chairman over the last fifty years. The only scientists who disagree with global warming are paid to do so by those who profit from continuing its root causes. The earth is not 6000 years old, and Sunday school and science class are not interchangeable. These points are all the truth, the hay that could clear out our systems and at least allow us to debate matters political based on fact rather than outright lies.

No one knows how long Stardust lay in agony in her stall until someone found her. It could have been as long as four hours. It was another two hours after that before the vet arrived to announce there was nothing he could do but “put her down.” That’s up to six hours with her intestines so knotted up inside that they burst within her, her own digestive fluids then digesting her, while the rank filth of her bowels exploded within her body made everything around them go septic and rot.

How much longer will We the People tolerate such abuse before we remember that it is we who are supposed to hold the reins? How long before we insist that our facts cannot be dismissed by them as opinions and their opinions will not be accepted by us as facts? How long before we at least start demanding the hay?

As-Salaam Alaikum
By David Sherman

My time of late has been grossly over-monopolized by the silliest of things: a computer game on Facebook. I know it’s a ridiculous waste of time for a man of 50, but I don’t give you grief about golf, so there. For me, one of the fascinating aspects of the game are the Facebook “Friends” I interact with during the course of play. You are encouraged at every turn to add “Friends;” indeed you cannot go far without scads of them. One thing led to another and now I have “Friends” playing this game with me from all around the world. (The game has over 5 million players!)

Reading the posted messages of these diverse people is as riveting for me as the actual game itself. I’ve commented on several, and thus now interact regularly with other players in Scotland, Turkey, Thailand, Canada, and of course all around the U.S. The game is primarily one of industrial development and military conquest, and players are constantly requesting various items from one another. It amused my liberal conspiracy-tinged mind to think of someone in a post-Patriot Act office somewhere whose computer is suddenly deluged with messages from people with names like Ahmed and Mohammed that read “I need torpedoes. Can you send me one?” or “I need to upgrade my bombers!”

This is how I was spending my idle hours when the recent turmoil erupted in Egypt. One of my “Friends” was a man from Cairo named, you guessed it, Mohammed. I inquired after his safety and that of his family and asked him for his views on it all. A series of messages followed, during which virtual Facebook “Friends” became actual friends. Among other items of note, Mohammed once said of Israel, “I do not hate Israel. I do not like them because they kill Palestinians, but I do not hate them. I am neutral.” It struck me that for this alone Anwar Sadat is smiling somewhere. Mohammed also told me that “evil” men who grew rich doing illegal and “evil” things are spreading lies to try to return to power. You all know my liberal mindset, so you should not be surprised that I saw parallels here.

Then, without explanation, Mohammed went silent. His corner of the game was obviously untended. Concerned messages went unanswered, and I began to fear the worst. After two weeks of anguish on my part, Mohammed finally contacted me. He was fine. His father, Mahrous, was not. No bullets, no military police, no rioting accident had befallen him. Instead it was cancer, the spectre that has no regard for political niceties, the reaper’s blade that cuts ever-widening swaths through both the fair and the foul of our world. They gave Mahrous two weeks. Mohammed tried to hide from his grief in this silly game, but it was no help. Mostly, as a good son, he spent his time at his father’s bedside. He asked me to pray for his father.

Many of you know that I am not Christian, but I do pray. Mohammed and I had never touched on topics of faith, but considering his name and his Egyptian heritage, I assume he is Muslim, just as I imagine he assumed I was Christian. It did not matter. He asked me to pray for his father, and so I did. I prayed for Mohammed and his own family as well, for a lessening of their grief. In this I found a greater lesson than any of the trivial, politically motivated parallels that had occupied my thoughts before. This was my newfound friend from the other side of the world, but suddenly the man who had lost his own father years ago found deeper commonality with the man who was facing that loss now. A man named David and a man named Mohammed.

When I first conceived this article, I had thought to ask you all to put aside whatever preconceived notions or fears you may have about Arab peoples, Muslim peoples, and to pray for the father of a man named Mohammed. I just learned that Mohammed’s father went ahead on Friday, in what for Muslims the holy month of Ramadan. I will still ask you for those prayers, but now I would ask that you pray for the safe journey of Mahrous, a father gone ahead. I would ask also that you pray for the son and the family left behind. I would also ask that when you see the chaos in the Arab world playing out on your nightly news, you see not people who are inherently different from you — Arabs, Muslims. See people. See fathers and sons. See mothers and daughters. Maybe it will mean more. And perhaps if it comes to mean more to us, we can make it mean more than profit and military considerations to our leaders. Maybe we can help assure that our nation chooses more wisely which regimes to support in the future.

For Mohammed, my friend, who has a keen mind, a good heart, and a kind Soul. As-Salaam Alaikum. (Peace be upon you.)

The Big Heist
By David Sherman

It was a brittle, bright Tuesday, not unusual in the middle of January, not unusual in any way, save that this was Audit Day. It happened at the Bank every year. Perhaps the only indications that this was no normal Audit Day were the names of the Auditors themselves.  Credentials presented at the security desk showed them to be Rick Pekoe, Michelle Oolong, and Rand Darjeeling. The head of the team was John Lipton. John had been a member of several previous Auditor teams, though this was his first time heading one. The odd part was that John’s last name had never been “Lipton” before. Many would later surmise that John had changed his name in order to ingratiate himself with his newfound friends. It seemed they had a common theme. They certainly had a common goal.

The Auditors were shown to the offices set aside for them, and apart from a few snickers around the water cooler about the whole “Tea” thing, business returned to normal. Then the CEO of the bank showed up and tried to log onto his computer. The moment his security password was entered his entire terminal shut down, as did every other terminal in the building. Frantic calls to the corporate Tech Division showed that the same thing had happened in every office, every branch, and every home computer affiliated with the Firm! Then came the demands… at which point “ominous” and “weird” were both up-graded to “bizarre” and “stark raving mad”!

“We have seized control of your entire financial system,” said the note delivered by a local courier service. ”We shall not relinquish control of your system until our demands are met. We know you are the largest single bank in the world. We know that with your funds, those of your depositors, and those of your investors locked away and at our control, thousands may suffer,” the note went on to say. ”We do not care!”

The note continued:  “We realize that this may cause businesses to fail, rents to lapse, and mortgages to go into default. We realize that the entire economies of many developing nations rely on this bank, and this may cause their collapse. We further realize that food and medications may not be purchased, and some may even die. To all of this, we repeat: WE DO NOT CARE!” It took every scrap of control the CEO possessed not to smash something. Anything. The note was signed: ”The Tea Party.”

Security rushed to the offices of the Auditors only to find them calmly sitting at their desks. Only the smug little smirks on their faces betrayed the fact they had any hand in the chaos that had gripped the entire building. ”Without us,” John (newly) Lipton calmly told the CEO, “It all disappears! Harm us and it all comes crashing down!” Despite his rage, the CEO recognized the precarious nature of his firm’s situation. He sat down, and after taking a few moments to compose himself, asked about the demands. The demands were without doubt the most mind-numbing twist of the entire affair:

Every account holder in the Bank who had assets in excess of two million dollars would receive a gift of a full million dollars. The money for these gifts would be taken from the accounts of the less wealthy account holders. Also, every corporation with accounts in the Bank would receive a bonus of two million dollars, the funds again to come from the accounts of the less well-to-do. Furthermore, the Bank would amend its bylaws to include said gifts and bonuses every year from that day on.

Beyond these points, on which all the Auditors were in complete agreement, each of the four had their own individual demand as well. Mr. Pekoe wanted Western Union to be forced to change its name to Western You Can All Be Replaced. Ms. Oolong wanted all of those swishy people to stop being so swishy, and to stop calling her husband at all hours and trying to get him to be swishy, too. Mr. Darjeeling wanted somebody, anybody, to make him a doctor, not a pretend doctor, mind you, but a real Doctor, one other doctors would acknowledge as an equal. Saddest of all was Mr. (newly) Lipton, who wanted a lifetime’s supply of spray tan, and a law forbidding that he or any of his descendants ever be picked last for anything or ever be beaten up behind the big slide.

I cannot tell you how this story ends, for as I am writing this, the “Drama at the Big Bank” is still playing out. Rest assured that in the end, in this story, they will all go to prison… for EXTORTION! (There may also be some mental health counseling involved.) What confuses me is why, when the same scenario is played out on an ever grander scale with our nation’s economy, as well as that of the rest of the world, no one is screaming, “EXTORTION!” from the highest rooftop. It is surely nothing less.

Dim Light
By David Sherman

For all of you conservative readers who have cringed, if not outright railed and raged, every time I have sung the praises of our current president, this is the article you have all dared me to write. At least it’s as close as I can get, which is much further than any of you probably ever thought a self-proclaimed, far-left, tree-hugging, hippy wackjob would dare to go.

I recently found myself in a political discussion with a gentleman who is highly placed in conservative politics — and “highly” in this case is a conservative estimate. (Pun intended!) He asked me if I ever felt that “my president” had lied to me. I equivocated, reluctant to air my home team’s dirty laundry in front of the opposing bench, but the gentleman pressed on. Surely there must be some things that Obama promised during the campaign on which he failed to deliver. I had to admit it was a valid point. Sadly, it was a whole fistful of valid points. I even went so far as to list the most disappointing of the lot:

* The codified bigotry of “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” was to be abolished. It’s still there.

* The elimination of Bush tax cuts for the top 2%. He caved!

* The closing of Guantanamo as a prison site. It’s still there.

* The reestablishment of the Rule of Law, in that accused terrorists would be publicly tried in open court. He caved.

* Holding Wall Street accountable for the nearly averted financial collapse that began with the failing of Lehman Bros. Still waiting.

* Comprehensive, socialized healthcare, built around a single payer, public option. He didn’t really even seem to try. (You’re welcome, Insurance Industry.)

* The reining in of industrial control of Federal watchdog agencies. Check who got the first new oil leases in the Gulf of Mexico, with safety plans that pre-date Deepwater Horizon.

This was just my bullet-point hit parade, but it was enough for my conservative friend to reply with, “Then why do you still support him?” That answer was easy: ”Because even with all that, Barack Obama is still a better alternative than allowing the Republicans back into the White House.” Reasons for that viewpoint abound in every state where the GOP took control in 2010.

GOP-controlled Wisconsin and Ohio have tried their best to destroy union bargaining rights in those states. In Maine, the GOP is actually trying to roll back child labor laws! In most of these Republican-controlled states several laws have been passed to make it very difficult, if not impossible, to have any sort of voter registration drive. Many also go so far as to restrict voters’ accessibility to vote! None of these is the act of a Free Democracy.

In Michigan, the Republicans have pushed through a law which allows the Governor to declare a city fiscally unsound and then appoint one person, an Emergency Financial Manager, to take over that town. That person has unlimited power to void any union contracts entered into by the town’s duly elected officials. He can even sell off property in that town, including property he seizes through eminent domain. This is not an exaggeration. It’s happening right now in a small town called Benton Harbor.

Lastly, in every Republican-controlled state multiple laws have been passed, or are in the works, to restrict a woman’s right to choose. In our own Florida, any woman seeking an abortion must listen to her doctor reading a prepared text citing false medical information specifically geared to dissuade her from her choice. This from the party that just two years ago was screaming that “government has no business coming between a doctor and their patients”? The Republican Party, in flagrant pandering to their most conservative base, will stop at nothing until Roe v. Wade is overturned. The problem is that this will not eliminate abortions in this country; it will merely drive them underground to back-street butchers and fly-by-night after-hours charlatans. Thousands of women will die.

That’s what a Republican-controlled White House in today’s political climate will lead to. With that as my alternative, even a watered down Obama is better than any Republican alternative. Could “my president,” as the gentleman called him, do more to live up to his campaign promises? Absolutely! Has he proven to be everything I had hoped he would be? No. I guess what I really want in a president is a man (or woman, I don’t care which) who has the bulldog tenacity of Winston Churchill, the compassion of Mother Teresa, the strategic acumen of Scipio the Elder, the swagger of Teddy Roosevelt, and the oratorical skills of…  well, Barack Obama. Oh well, I guess I’ll just have to make do with one-in-five and hope for the rest. I’ll still take dim light over total darkness. If nothing else, “my President” got Bin Laden!

DOUBLE ENTENDRE
By David Sherman

The last time a major western nation experienced this level of disparity in wealth, with so much being held by so few while so little is held by so many, was in France, just before Bastille Day. How did that one end again?

I recently lobbed that line over the net in an exchange with a longtime friend of mine, whose political affiliation shall remain nameless (though it’s purportedly both Grand and Old). He immediately fired back with, “Don’t you mean America in the 1920s?” I’ll give my friend this. He has an encyclopedic mind, and in political conversations he plays the net like a ninja possessed. It’s quite frustrating, sometimes withering, and always impressive. It’s why I still enjoy discussing matters with him over which I know we will never agree, even after almost 24 years.

I’ll leave the Bastille Day vs. 1920s America debate for another day. Mainly because, for the moment, both serve my purpose. In the case of France, an overextended and near-bankrupt government sought to alleviate its debts by disproportionately adding additional taxes to the poor and politically weak rather than the wealthy and powerful. (Sound familiar?) In modern scientific terminology, “THEY FREAKED!” And we got the French Revolution. (And you thought the peasants were revolting before…)

In 1920s America the Roaring 20s were truly roaring. I believe the scientific terminology here is, “Train kept a rollin’ all night long.” That is until the tracks ran out at a place called Wall Street. And we got the Great Depression. (And you thought you were depressed before…) While I will applaud the ultimate democratic results of the French Revolution, make no mistake: its immediate effect on the populace of France was every bit as dire as that of the Great Depression 140 years later.

Is it just coincidence that in both cases specific words stand out in double meaning — “revolting” and “depression”? Or, as I suspect, is this really a cynical and sarcastic sentient universe’s way of slapping us in the face with a big, sloppy, wet double entendre as a way of hoping to underscore what should be, to all but the most obtuse of students, a glaring fundamental fact of socio-economic existence: THIS S@#% DOESN’T WORK! When your economy becomes a pyramid stood on its point, it will topple. Usually with disastrous results.

After the Great Depression regulations were set in place to stop the sort of reckless, irresponsible, and often intentionally predatory and deceitful practices which led to that calamity. Practices that, while unchecked, had contributed to an ongoing cycle of boom and bust since our nation’s inception. The systematic dismantling of these safety measures has been the sole aim of the monied interests in our country ever since. The evidence of their success and the inevitable results thereof was the collapse of Lehman Brothers in 2008 and the near collapse of the rest of our economy in the chaos that followed. I would love to lay all the blame at the feet of the Republican Party, but the truth is that no small number of Democrats had their hands in this betrayal of public trust as well, hands no doubt just as tainted by corporate and special interest campaign funds as those of their Republican colleagues. Need I repeat what we should have already learned: THIS S@#% DOESN’T WORK!

Now, Republican-controlled state governments are cutting millions in spending on education and assistance to the poor, while at the same time granting billions in tax breaks for wealthy corporations, many of whom made millions in campaign contributions, and most of whom shall undoubtedly express their thanks with millions more. Our own Governor, Rick Scott, proposes cutting education by $3.3 billion; that’s $703 per pupil. This is in a state that ranks 35th in primary and secondary spending, 50th in higher education spending, and 48th in overall education spending! On top of this, Scott also wants to gut the prison system, slashing 1,690 jobs from a department already dangerously understaffed. If this weren’t enough, our new governor wishes to reduce the corporate income tax from its current 5.5% to 3%.  That’s a loss in state revenues of over $1.5 billion over the next two years. He hopes to phase it out completely by 2018! That’s less for our children so we can give more back to the corporations! (And the pyramid gets fatter at the top.)

If we the people don’t come to our collective senses and see this systematic plundering of the public coffers for corporate profit as the irresponsible abuse of public power that it so obviously is, our entire socio-economic infrastructure will collapse. We will be bankrupt. We will be France in 1879. We will be us in 1929 (again). The pyramid will fall. Again.

I wonder what double entendre history and a snickering universe will slap us with this time?

BARK RINGS

Much fuss has been made of late about the approaching end of the Mayan calendar on December 21, 2012, though most of those doing the fussing are wearing aluminum foil hats.

I often wonder what they would do if they were told that the odometer of the car in which they’re riding just hit 99999.9? Would they shriek, “We’re all DOOMED!” in a girly voice and jump out the window? Could we be that lucky? Were there any Mayans still with us, I know what they would do on 12/22/2012; they would do the same thing we do on January 1. They would chuck out the old calendar and go out and get a new one. Of course, first they’d have to gather some friends to help carry it home.

Our calendars are paper with images of kittens, or NASCAR drivers, or scantily clad young women, who only posed for those pictures to pay for college so they can become teachers and missionaries (the women, not the kittens or the NASCAR drivers). The Mayan version was carved in stone and usually weighed over a ton. Maybe that’s why it was meant to last for 5,126 years. No one wanted to carry one twice.

I only bring this up because I am facing my own big odometer moment, and I’m having some trouble wrapping my head around it. What’s another bark ring? Turning 30 bothered me for about 20 minutes when I was 28, and I fretted over 40 for a good two hours when I was 38, but aside from those brief bouts of paranoia, I was fine. Facing 50 is proving to be a bit more daunting. Perhaps this is because I can’t figure out how I got here. It seems like I was 22 just couple of weeks ago, and then I blinked. I think maybe someone broke into my house and stole half my hair and replaced my neck with a mismatched assortment of chins. What bothers me the most is, judging by the second trimester look of my waistline, they also had their way with me, which is just wrong! What happened to the good old days when people just stole your TV, your stereo, and the odd glass sculpture with a metal bowl attached?

I tried telling people that I’m still 22, but my hairline, my waistline, my flat feet, my bad knees, my shot ankles, my carpal tunnels, and my trifocals all say I’m full of… Well, let’s just say it’s the same thing so many of our nice Republican readers have been kind enough to tell me I’m full of. On the upside, I now wander my condo complex at night quietly telling my version of my life’s story to all the plants. Apparently my own brand of B.S. makes excellent fertilizer, because the place has never been greener. One piece of advice though, should you wish to try this yourself: When the man in the patrol car asks what you’re doing out at 3:30 a.m., don’t say, “Fertilizing!”\

So now I find myself resigned to the inevitability of my fiftieth bark ring, and with it the sobering thought that my yesterdays now probably outnumber my tomorrows. I’ve long maintained that I intend to live to be 129, the same number as my birthday, but as a two-pack-a-day smoker who thinks breakfast is four eggs cooked in butter and bacon fat, the odds of that are about the same as my beloved Dolphins making it to the Super Bowl next year. This is where all of you pink lung people preach to me about the evils of tobacco and someone has the temerity to use the words “diet” and “exercise.”

To the first group I say, if you legalize my other option I’ll switch over completely, though it will almost certainly entail a spike in my Dorito consumption. To the second I would note that I’m already on a diet. It’s called the “B Diet”: Beef, Bacon, Butter and Beer! To suggest that any of these four primary food groups is in any way harmful, will only cause my finely honed B Diet reflexes to kick in. This is similar to the whack on the knee with the rubber mallet to make the foot jump, save that in this case when someone tries to talk me out of my Beef, Bacon, Butter, or Beer, my fist clenches up and my middle finger shoots skyward.

As for exercise, I do 20 oz. Harp curls every Tuesday, I occasionally walk seven blocks to the store when I’m out of cigarettes (if Jacquie has the car) and at least once a month I walk down and stick my head in the workout room in the condo clubhouse. I don’t go in, mind you, because I remember what happened the last time, and my chiropractor doesn’t need a new boat yet! Beyond that, I always take the stairs instead of the elevator (unless I’m inside) and I regularly watch people play tennis. Plus there’s the pool. I dearly love the pool. Pool is a sport, right? Hell, add some 20 oz. Harp curls between rounds and it’s practically a biathlon event!

All that remains is how to celebrate this auspicious event. Enter my dearest Jacquie, a woman whose only flaw is her apparent horrid taste in men. On my fiftieth she will be taking me to a bar where dancing on the tables is not only allowed, but encouraged! It’s also on the Mexican island of Cozumel! It’s either going to be “Goodbye stoicism, hello Mescal,” or  “Goodbye dignity, hello floor!” Whichever, or both, it’s been a hell of a ride thus far, and I’m not getting off any time soon (off the ride that is!).

I understand Cozumel also has Mayan ruins. Maybe I’ll pick up a calendar… If the new one’s out yet, and I can find enough people to help me carry it back to the boat!

On a more personal note: The women Jacquie works with think it’s sweet when I call for her and ask to, “Gaze upon the radiant hub of my universe.” I call it grievous understatement. Were it not for her, I might not have made it to 40, let alone 50 and the years beyond.  Only when you’ve walked in darkness can you truly appreciate such a Light.

MAURICE

Every even numbered October, I face the same dilemma: What topic now? The election which has worked me into a frothy-mouthed frenzy will be fait accompli by the time this hits print, so whatever shall I do to maintain the illusion of purpose? On this occasion I found myself again drawn to thoughts of Thanksgiving, more specifically, to someone for whom I have been insufficiently thankful for far too many years: Maurice.

“DAMNIT! I thaid not to come behind thith line, you little peckerwood!”

That should have been the end of it, but Jerry the dishwasher was never the sharpest spoon in the knife drawer. As if to prove this point as he walked away, Jerry muttered one word. It began with “N.” I told you, Jerry wasn’t very bright. He was also not very quiet. Just as the last hateful flavors of the aforementioned idiocy spewed from Jerry’s mouth like verbal halitosis, an impossibly large and strong hand grabbed a fistful of Jerry’s shoulder-length hair while another hand hoisted his entire lower body by his belt. Suddenly Jerry was horizontal, and on a collision course with the very machine from which his own title was derived.

The dishwasher in the restaurant in question, which shall remain nameless (Holiday Inn, Merritt Island ) was a two-rack Hobart, with hanging rubber slats at either end, rather than the more common close-and-play arrangement. Jerry entered this rubber- lipped maw at what must have felt like 90mph, whereupon he ground to a complete and quite cleansing halt. His belly had been slapped like a rag doll onto a standard 64- spine industrial dish rack, at which point said belly and the rest of his dumb ass had been thrust into a machine whose sole educational use was a 180-degree rinse cycle. The iron hands held Jerry by the ankles until he had experienced 180 degrees of social disapproval for a full two cycles. It sucked to be Jerry. (Of course, it usually sucked to be Jerry, but this was a much hotter level of suckage than even Jerry had ever known.)

Some will find these actions severe, but no one went to the hospital, no one went to the morgue, and no one went to jail. All in all, I consider that a win-win scenario, considering the importance of the lesson learned. I have two sons and a daughter, and should any of them speak as Jerry did (which I can’t conceive, because I neither foster nor condone hatred in my home), I would consider such a lesson cheap.

That was one of my earliest memories of Maurice Jones. Moe was not by nature a violent man; hell, he was what most would term a “teddy bear.” I worked with Moe in four different restaurants over nine years, and I am proud to call him my friend. Moe taught me a lot; most notably, Maurithe’s Rule: Once you snap their knee, they’re all only four feet tall. Then you just keep kicking them in the head until they go to sleep! Moe was understandably never happy to hear his lisp played back to him, but any who read this and think they may have known him, will be certain because of its inclusion. We had a deal, Moe and I; I was allowed to say, “Maurithe,” during Steve Miller’s “Joker,” and he was allowed to call me “Peckerwood.” Neither would take offense.

Moe taught me other things as well. He taught me of the value of finding that one special woman who would make your life complete. He also taught me the folly of screwing it up, as he did. He warned me about how a strong woman could make you pay for such stupidity. (Specifics withheld out of respect, but DAMN!) He also taught me why it was worth anything to fix it if you could, which he did. He talked me through a depression that almost killed me, and I believe that along the way I helped him through a few that may well have been just as dangerous to him. In ’89 he taught me that enough force is enough force. He taught me the value of restraint.

Moe was working as a manager at Herbie K’s, a ’50s-themed diner in Cocoa Beach, when he found himself escorting three very large, very drunk sailors out of the bar. They also had three other slightly less drunk friends tagging along, all of which looked eager to join in if things went awry. It could have been much worse, but Moe didn’t mind that they were Squids, and they didn’t know he was a Marine. He did have two bouncers with him, but there were only six sailors, so on this particular night they were completely unnecessary.

Moe had managed to herd the three largest and most volatile of the drunks to the door. At this point one of them said, “Yeah, let’s take this outside!” Moe followed them outside… and then turned around to go back in. When one of them called him back, he replied, “I thaid get out. You’re out.” That was all he wanted. He was done. Then the largest of the three, a dreadnaught in his own right, punched Maurice in the back of the head while uttering the same word that had gotten Jerry the dishwasher in such trouble nine years earlier. Maurice’s reply took less than ten seconds, and left all three much more respectful. (Also much more prone!) The lucky two were only unconscious; the big guy’s knee was snapped, and the arm that had dared to sucker-punch a Marine in the back of the head was broken. Not one of the other three felt obliged to respond. As he passed them on the way back into the bar, Maurice looked them in the eye and said, “Themper Fi, BITCH!”

Which brings me to the other things I learned from Maurice Jones: Never use THAT word. This rule was already part of my life, but I thank Moe for the demonstrations of what could, and should happen to those who don’t follow it. Never punch a Marine in the back of the head. It only pisses them off! And, if you ever encounter an angry black man with a lisp, just run!

Moe was a phenomenal breakfast cook. I once saw him serve over 200 — by himself! Granted, the line looked like a bomb went off, and his pants were 1/3 eggs, 1/3 pancake batter, and 1/3 grease by the time it was over, but, by the Goddess, he did it! I once saw him push a cook off the line in Herbie K’s and serve four tour buses solo! (Restaurant people will understand!.) This was the day after he heard his son had a brain tumor. The son survived. Years later, my friend Maurice was diagnosed with the same type of tumor. He did not fare so well. I worked four different Thanksgivings with Maurice Jones, and I will remember him on this and every other, and I shall try to do so on all the days in between. And every time I say, “Maurithe,” during the “Joker,” I shall hear, “Peckerwood,” whispered from wherever it is that Marines go.

Themper Fi, my friend.

(Peckerwood!)

Been There. Done That. No Thanks!
• David Sherman •

Many of you will remember Sherman and Mr. Peabody of “Rocky and Bullwinkle” fame. (Younger readers should Google now. Go on. We’ll wait.) You may also recall that their escapades revolved around a time traveling contraption called the Wayback Machine. What you can never know is how many times I heard about it growing up with the name Sherman. You can never know because none of us can count that high! The original amount was staggering enough, but when I started wearing glasses in the sixth grade it went exponential. When I was briefly pursued by a doe-eyed girl named Peabody in the tenth grade, the math got so complex, I believe the numbers became self-aware. They live on to this day, locked away in a sound-proof closet in the back of my mind, *quietly doing origami and working on string theory.

I only drag them out now, under heavy guard, because of their fleeting relevance. For they are my credentials. They illustrate that when I speak of the Wayback Machine, I speak as someone who has heard more about it than all of you combined! Still, in all of those unending references to the Wayback machine, even I have never heard anyone suggest that the whole country should climb into one. And then came the Republican Party of 2010 and its runaway political Franken-Monster, the Tea Party Movement. They’re not clearly agreed on many points, but one shines through any Fox Noise program: THEY WANT THEIR COUNTRY BACK.

This would, of course, only make sense if someone had taken their country away. And by that I mean someone other than the majority of the people in it during a free election. Barring that, it just sounds like so much crying because your team lost the big game. Surely there’s more to them than that. Oh, yes, less taxes; the original Tea Party was about taxes, right? But they’re already paying less taxes. No socialized medicine, because we all know that’s just evil! But we already have Medicare and the VA, both of which are socialized medicine! No fascism! Good, but fascism refers to corporate control of the government, which their party demonstrated with a vengeance. Maybe they’re not using that word correctly? There must be more!

And now we finally have a clear picture. Ron Paul’s son, and best argument for birth control, Rue Paul, a Tea Party candidate for the U.S. Senate, “has problems with” the Civil Rights Act. Sharron Angle, another would-be Tea Party senator, wanted to scrap social security and Medicare, though now she only says “privatize.” That’s Tea Speak for “turn your retirement money over to Wall Street.” (Because we know we can trust them!) Angle also thinks fluoride in the water is a communist plot! And Delaware Tea Party darling Christine O’Donnell made a career out of telling kids that sex is evil (even with yourself) and that condoms don’t work! She also thinks witches are satanic! (Confused be, little Sister!) Now it’s getting clearer. When they say they want their country back, they mean way back — as in the Wayback Machine — and we’re going all the way back to the ’50s.

You remember at least reading about the ’50s — The Good Ole Days, when a Coke was a nickel and entertainment was a yoyo. Those halcyon days when women knew their place and minorities knew better than to step out of theirs. It was glorious, back before that nasty Rock N’ Roll or the evil computer and its mysterious series of tubes called the InterNets. Good times, when thousands of women were rendered barren or bled to death from back-street abortions, and no one protested the uppity black man’s body hanging from a tree. Who couldn’t long for that? Just simpler, happier times! You could almost say “gay,” because that meant happy back then. What it means now could get you killed… back in those Happy Days.

Of course, that is just the Tea Party candidates. The mainstream Republicans couldn’t possibly be that far out. Could they? No, they just want to take us back to the way things were under Bush the Younger. I know you all remember the glory days of Duh-bya. Let’s recap, shall we? Gave away billions in U.S. resources to corporate donors; started a war based on lies; authorized use of torture on U.S. prisoners; ran up the largest deficit in U.S. history, and let Wall Street drive us to the brink of the second worse depression in U.S. history. Those are, of course just the high points. I’m not even getting into gutting the budgets for roads, public schools, scientific research, and college tuitions. (Okay, maybe a little.) Just in case you think it’ll be different this time, the House Republican Leader, John Boehner (a man wearing so much tan-in-a-can he looks like the Great Mothership of the Oompa-Loompas) announced that, “We’re not going to change!”

These people had control of this country for eight years, during which time they drove it into a wall. It’s as if we let crackheads housesit for us and then forgot we had a house. By the time we got them out, the furniture was gone, the appliances had been stolen, and the walls had been gutted as they ripped out the plumbing to sell for scrap. I don’t know how so many people let them stay as long as they did. Maybe they set out to watch every episode of “Law and Order” ever made. If that’s the case — if you’re one of them– you’re only reading this because your wife brought it home for you to leaf trough during commercials, because you’re STILL watching. And the only reason you have to sit through commercials is that you haven’t figured out how to run the DVR into the flat screen you mounted in the bathroom. So I’ll sum it up for you:

The last time a republic suffered this level of damage, Nero watched it burn. That much damage, laughingly inflicted over eight years, is not undone in under two. But just because the house isn’t all fixed yet is no reason to let the same people who destroyed it move back in.  We don’t need a Wayback Machine, we just need to remember the social, moral, and economic devastation wrought during those eight years. What will they do for an encore? The plowing and salting of the fields at Carthage? (If you have to Google that one, it’s probably because of those gutted public school budgets!)

*The numbers say this page can be folded into a swan or a four-dimensional model of a barium molecule. (Which will seem appropriate to many!) And if anybody sees Chris Peabody, tell her I’m sorry I was such an ass!

Fiscal Analogy
• David Sherman •

Once upon a metaphorical time, in a land called Analogy, which is never very far, far away, a group of people set out to cross a vast expanse of desert known as the Uncertain Future, which is not really such an odd name in a land called Analogy. They knew two things about the desert: that it was a huge trackless waste where reliable water sources were few and far between, and that there was a rich and fertile land on the other side. Their own land had once been rich and fertile, a veritable Land of Milk and Honey, but that too is the sort of thing one would expect in a land called Analogy.

Unfortunately, over the years since its inception, the analogies had become platitudes, which in turn had become catch phases, which were then turned into slogans and jingles. And no one wants to live in a land called Jingle! Somewhere along this torturous linguistic path, the Power of Analogy had become diluted, and any similarity it once had to Reality had long since been stripped away in the pursuit of greater profit margins. In short, in a land once flowing with milk and honey, all the milk had either gone sour or was contaminated by salmonella because the dairy inspectors had been bought off, and the honey was fast disappearing because massive insecticide use by corporate mega-farms had killed off most of the bees. This is why the people were forced to cross the Uncertain Future.

The people realized that it would take a great deal of water to cross the vast desert. They knew as well that many of the weaker among them, their children and their elders for example, would never be able to carry their own share. Indeed, many of them would surely perish if forced to survive only on what they could personally bear. Thus it was agreed that the weight of the water would be shared out among the individuals of the group, each in proportion to his or her strength. Each would contribute to the group, and the group would look after each.

This could have worked, had not the meaning of the word agreed become so diluted over the years that for many it had lost its first letter, so that all that remained was simply greed, which is only an analogy for, “Just wait and see what happens when I get you in the middle of a desert!” But, hey, what’s a little play on words between friends for whom fairness, trust, and honor had become hollow slogans and catch phrases?

From the beginning the journey has difficult, and many of the elderly faltered quite early on. Others stepped in before being asked and carried their burdens for them. Many of the children struggled as well, and again, others took up their load without complaint. Some began to suggest that the group trust one of the many caravans that plied their trade in vastness of the Uncertain Future, but everyone knew that recently the caravans had become shallow husks of their once honorable selves. Caravans were now more likely to lose any water entrusted to them, if not steal it outright. No, the caravans were not to be trusted.

So the people pushed on deep into the wilderness, the scorching days and the freezing nights interrupted only by howling windstorms and biting, driven sand. Others began to falter. Once strong individuals lost hope surrounded by desolation on all sides. Some were injured and could barely carry themselves forward, let alone any appreciable weight of water, and still others gave in to resentment of the added load they now bore. Seeing the people in such disarray, those who had only agreed because they heard the word greed and had instinctively raised their hand decided to take control of the group.

At first there was resistance, as saner minds recalled the agreement to all. They had no problem with someone being in charge. There had always been someone in charge, but the duty had been rotated, and even those in charge had carried their share of the water. This new group that emerged, however, not only wished to be in charge, they wished to seriously reduce their own burden. The true Leaders of a people, they suggested, had no business carrying water, as they had better Leadership-type things to do. Surely anyone could see that. What’s more, they maintained that if they were free of their burdens, they could roam ahead and search out new supplies of water for the group. Everyone else would be better off as soon as their loads were lightened. It was quite logical.

It was of course nothing more than a transparent, self serving fabric of half-truths and outright lies, but the people had become so accustomed to such in recent years that they no longer knew the difference. Thus the Party of Greed took control.

Their first order of business was to give everyone a big long drink. Rations be damned, desert be damned, and the next time anyone questions our motives, let them be damned as well. Just as the drinks had been doled out, a great windstorm came up, worse by far than any seen in years.  It was as if the very desert of Uncertain Future were laughing at the temerity and stupidity of anyone who would so squander water when crossing a desert. Even in a land called Analogy, stupider things had rarely happened.

Their supporters now firmly behind them, the Party of Greed took further steps they claimed would reduce the burden on the common people. They cut the water rations of the elderly, and then the children. Neither group contributed much, so let their rations reflect this. If anyone wanted them to have more water, let them supply it out of their individual share, but the group would no longer support such drains on the welfare of the whole people. Next came those who had been injured, many of whom only needed a little while longer to rest before they could resume their earlier loads. Shirkers! That’s what they were. If they wanted water so badly, let them get up and go dig for it!

Any rational person, anyone even reasonably conversant with mathematics, could have told them that this was no way to get a large group of people across a desert. But here’s the kicker: The Party of Greed didn’t give a damn about a large group of people. They were completely unconcerned with the mathematics, and the only ration they cared about was their own, which they had managed to enlarge despite the trials faced by the group. All they were really concerned about was sticking with this group so they would have someone else to carry their water for them.

Even this would last only to the point where they could see the fertile land beyond the desert. Once their destination was in sight, they would leave this group of easily manipulated sheep to die in the last stretches of sand. What did they care? They had made it; life would be good. They wondered what the market price would be for all the extra water they would have.

We are still in the desert, my friends. Are you really going to vote for the Party of Greed?

Wackjob Wisdom
• David Sherman •

Ladies and gentlemen, this is your captain speaking.

Welcome to Aquarian Wackjob Air. Please fasten your seatbelts and prepare for take-off. You need not return your trays to their upright position, as a cocktail may actually prove helpful during this flight. Any of you who are running BS filter technology my wish to turn it off now, as the following page is certain to overload it completely. Those of you who’ve flown with us before know this to be true. Please enjoy the flight, and remember our motto at Aquarian Wackjob Air: ”We are the Dreamers.  We are the vorpal blade which slays the jabberwocky of pedantic thought and soars beyond the excremental ether of all that cannot be.” 3 – 2 – 1 . . .

Modern science is a wonderful thing. At least it could be, were it not hijacked at every turn and perverted for profit. We used to cure things, but now it’s far more profitable to just treat them. The victories over measles, malaria, and polio are forgotten in the profits of a boner pill and restless leg syndrome. No one read Sinclair Lewis’ “Arrowsmith”! We are the constant proof that while genius has limits, stupidity is under no such restraint. We invented cars — we got smog. We invented elevators — we got urban crowding that would make a microbe claustrophobic. We invented computers — we got 37 quadrillion ways to stream porn to the phone in our pocket! We built rocket ships that could fly to the moon — and then we just quit and walked away. What?

I remember when they told us in school that the planet had just reached a population of 4 billion. It was a big deal. Now we are over 6 billion, which in modern terms is 6 giga-people, and no one bats an eye. There are currently more people walking around on this planet than all of those who have come before combined. At our current rate, it won’t be long before the pressing question of any evening won’t be where to eat, but rather, “Will we eat?” Famine will no longer be something Sally Struthers goes on about; it will be our everyday existence. People, there’s only so much food. This beautiful little blue ball of ours might just as well be a terrarium when it comes to matters of finite space. We’re cool for now (Though we certainly don’t share well. Hence, Sally Struthers.), but eventually we will have overpopulated beyond a level the planet can sustain. Then what?

Then we will kick ourselves in the place where we keep our collective heads, because we couldn’t be bothered to fund NASA! Yes, NASA, the people who once built a vehicle out of materials they had to invent along the way, equipped it with a computer with one thousandth the capacity of the one your daughter is texting on right now, crewed it with three lunatics whose bravery still transcends mortal norms, and then launched it to the moon. They are also the same people who are our best hope for ever finding a way to reach out so far into space as to find planets suitable for colonization, which is our only way out of the terrarium. Maybe that will be our epitaph: “They couldn’t be bothered to find a way to fund the group who had the best chance of ultimately saving their entire species?” Or will it be something more succinct, like: “Don’t bother me, I’m tweeting!” We live in a terrarium, and we won’t fund glass cutter technology. That’s just stupid.

With that sort of mindset man would have never gone from hide-covered coracles to the sleek little caravels of Columbus, and thus to a “New World.” I realize that it will be just as hard to go from, “Houston, Tranquility Base here. The Eagle has landed,” to “I’d like two tickets for the Altair Colony, with a layover on Ganymede.” But every journey begins with a first step. Neil Armstrong took our first step, but since then we’ve become bored with the whole concept of travel and have pulled over to the side of the road for a nap. Our forty winks have turned into FORTY YEARS! Even the Griswolds did better than that!

Yes, the sheer magnitude of distances involved can be a little daunting. Even estimating the size of our universe is difficult, and that’s for people who have the math skills. For those of you who can’t calculate gratuity, perhaps analogy will better serve. Fortunately, all members of Aquarian Wackjob Air speak fluent analogy, so here goes: Think of Earth as the universe. Brevard county is our galaxy. Our solar system is an unnamed, undeveloped, unpaved block in south Canaveral Groves. Our planet is the trailer. (And, no, it is not even a doublewide.)  Those who let NASA go unfunded would have us living under the bed. They would discourage any attempt at crawling, they would dismiss walking as the stuff of fairy tales, and they would denounce vehicular travel as the rantings of delusional minds. And they think we’re crazy?

Now for a final Aquarian twist to it all — the planet moves. As it nears and recedes from the sun its atmosphere expands and contracts, i.e. the planet breathes. By way of both the fires at its core and the decay and re-absorption on its surface the planet eats.  Hell, the planet even poops. What do you think oil and coal are? Planetary feces. Colon-clogging Quarter Pounders from eons gone by. In Aquarian Wackjob Science (an oxymoron, if ever there was one), if it moves and breathes, eats and poops, IT’S ALIVE!

“But it can’t reproduce!” cry the myopic masses. Neither can a four-year-old… yet. I say the planet can reproduce. That’s our job. We are the seeds, and our role in the planetary scheme of things is to spread across other worlds, reproducing not only ourselves but also all that is best and most noble from our world. Unfortunately, we have gotten a bit sidetracked. We based our entire infrastructure on the bodily waste of our planet. We were meant to be seeds, but we morphed ourselves into intestinal parasites! Maybe that will be our tersest epitaph: ”E.S.A.D.”

Thank you for flying Aquarian Wackjob Air. We now return you to your polling place.

Ditch Fish
• David Sherman •

In years gone by, it was common practice for political candidates to hire a wagon with a band to head a parade through town. Bands being rather scarce at the time — even more so bands riding on wagons through the streets of a town — this would invariably draw a crowd. A crowd would follow until the bandwagon stopped, only to find that when the wagon stopped, the band stopped, and the polly-tickin’ began.

Most would listen, at least for a little while, if for no other reasons than curiosity and simple politeness — after all, the man had hired a band on a wagon! Some would stay longer. Nothing else to do. Maybe this guy would be better than the last one. They might even stay through the whole speech in the desperate hope that the band would play again. Some would stay to the bitter end, however many speeches that might entail, and usually just stared at the purdy wagon and that shiny-big-brass-tuba-horn. The curious, the bored, and the slack-jawed, these were the founding members of most modern political parties… and whoever collected the most of them WON! Is it any wonder, with such a system for choosing our leaders, that we bestride an empire whose influence spans the globe?

Note, I do not say “the founding fathers;” that would be an altogether different group. The people in that group were never even in the crowd, nor were they on the wagon. They were not even among those who simply watched the bandwagon go by their homes yet chose not to follow. Truth is, their homes are far away, in another part of town where such a coarse spectacle as a bandwagon would be neither appreciated nor allowed. They can barely hear the band from their homes… But they’re the ones who paid for it, as well as the shiny-big-brass-tuba-horn and the wondrous, purdy wagon on which they ride. They’re also the ones who picked the politician who’s giving the speeches they told him to give.

Here’s the scary part: We, the electorate, have not changed very much over the intervening years. Some of us will follow politics for a little while, just before elections. Hey, it’s a wagon with a band on top! Some of us listen for a long time. Maybe this man (or woman, now that those years have gone by) will be better than the last one. Sadly, the slack-jawed crowd is still in attendance. In fact, in recent years their numbers have exploded. Unfortunately, the largest group of all got no mention above. They are the ones who never even bothered to look out their windows, and that group comprised the overwhelming majority of the town! It still does!

Scarier still: The Founding Fathers (now very well capitalized, thank you very much!) have changed even less, save that their techniques have been somewhat refined over the years. For the most part, the wondrous wagon with the band on top has been replaced with TV ads.  For the lovers of music, there’s talk radio. And for the slack-jawed, you can even buy an entire alleged “News Network” (Fairness and Balance subject to negotiation). Once in while they even trot out a wagon, just to give things that “folksy” air. Of course the new wagon is much purdier than the old one, but this one is also plastered with links to websites, and the band has been replaced by a killer PA system and that shiny-big-brass-tuba-horn in now just somebody’s MP3 player.

Many of the new wagons also now have Bibles, lots of Bibles. I’m not sure why. If I held something to be as Holy as I believe many of these people hold their Bibles, I surely would not want it sullied in the dirty waters of politics. But that’s just me. Hey! What if the Bibles were just put there by The Founding Fathers as a way to lure in those to whom the Bibles are Holy? No, that’s going too far. No one could be so callously disrespectful of the sanctity of someone else’s Faith as to co-opt the words of their Holy Scripture, and thus through their duplicity, many of its followers, just for political gain. Could they?

I think I would check those Bibles for hooks — hooks that might be attached to pole held by one of those Founding Fathers just waiting to reel in another one. (More likely a paid flunky thereof, as Founding Fathers rarely do their own reeling anymore.) I guess the same might be said of their internet links, their radio, their TV, and all the rest of it as well, though I can’t imagine where one would set the hooks.

Lastly, and before anyone gets too enamored with the whole fishing analogy, let me clarify one thing: We, the electorate, are not viewed by The Founding Fathers of either party as sly barracudas or huge and powerful tuna or grouper. We are not fierce marlins ranging the deep open Sea. We are tilapia, and we live in a ditch. For the most part, we have been farm-raised, in very small ponds, on a strictly limited diet whose nutritional essence would make gray water vomit.

Sinclair Lewis, meet Upton Sinclair.

Dark Reflections
• David Sherman •

In the wee morning hours of Memorial Day weekend I sit on my balcony looking down on the lake below. Twin lines of golden fireflies mark the lights of the two piers spanning the water and their shimmering reflection. In beautiful contrast, or perhaps compliment, the scattered yard lights shine a brilliant white with a tinge of blue, like ice on fire. They too have their own reflections mixed among the more numerous gold. Even the streetlights, so often garish and harsh, are beautiful as they cast long swaths of light across the lake. By comparison, the unlit waters between the lights are as black as ink. The incessant tiny footprints of an onshore breeze gives the scene the illusion of motion, making the still waters of the lake appear to be those of a fast flowing river. Countless unseen frogs and cicadas try their level best to drown out the sound of the nearby sea. Their best is not good enough; I hear her still. I hear her always.

I imagine many of you in the days and months to come will find similar beauty in the sea, or the lagoon, or even your own backyards. But as you do as I imagine, I would ask that you also imagine as I do just how fragile such beauty truly is.  Imagine how quickly it could all be cast into ruin.

Perhaps this will help with the visualization: Imagine every single gas station in our barrier island towns turning on their pumps, locking the handles open, and then just dropping them to the ground to spew out into our soil and thence to our lagoon and the sea. Then imagine all the stations on Merritt Island and in the river edge communities of the mainland doing the same. Sick yet? Now imagine all the trucks sent to resupply those stations going instead into your neighborhoods and repeating the same sort of behavior in your own front yards — you know, where your children play. Pissed yet? All of that wouldn’t even be a drop in the bucket compared to what has been done in the Gulf of Mexico.

Hopefully, by the time you read this, the horrific tide of Paleozoic Plague will have been stemmed. I am not that hopeful, mainly because I remember another spill, over 30 years ago.

On June 3, 1979, the oil rig known as Ixtoc 1 experienced a “blowout,” which the ironically named “blowout preventer” completely failed to prevent. This was also in the Gulf, just off the northwestern coast of the Yucatán peninsula. The Mexican government was quick to respond… by putting the oil company itself in charge. (With government supervision, of course!) First they used a heavy cover called a “sombrero” to contain and pump off the spill. It failed. Also attempted was the blowing of mixed debris down into the well to staunch the flow. That failed. Then came burying it under successive layers of mud and concrete. That failed, too. The only thing that worked was the eventual completion of a relief well, and that wasn’t until March 23, 1980, 295 days after the initial disaster. The total estimate of that spill is 140 MILLION GALLONS!

I do hope this travesty of trial and error seems familiar to you all, because it is the exact same progression of desperation that has been laid out as BP’s game plan for our current debacle. What disgusts me, and I would think you as well, is that while the drilling technology has advanced since the days of Ixtoc 1, the cleanup technology doesn’t seem to have improved in the least. Also, the 1979 blowout occurred in just over 200 feet of water, whereas today’s fiasco is at a depth of over 5,000 feet. Apparently BP believes what was useless ignorance in the shallow end of the pool will become insightful logic if reapplied down by the drain at the deep end. Other countries, for this very reason, require that any wells dug in their territorial waters also have a relief well dug at the same time. Or, to put it another way, before the oil companies get to hit the “On” switch, they have to install an “Off” switch. Seems logical, unless the people defining your logic, the people you empower to supervise and regulate the oil industry actually work for the oil industry!

Back to my twisted imaginings, it seems some people might not even freak out when those trucks start pumping, just so long as it’s only on their neighbor’s yard and not on theirs. What they don’t understand is that it’s all their yard! It’s all our yard! This is our country, and Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama are every bit as much a part of our yard as our own beloved Florida. I would even go so far as to say that that entire pretty blue ball orbiting three doors down from the sun is our yard, but some minds, and thus some imaginations, are like thin rubber bands, and I wouldn’t want to break them. If that happened, the whole attached brain might cease to function and the poor people so afflicted wouldn’t be able to do anything but mindlessly chant whatever short, simple phrases someone happened to spoon-feed them, like, say, “Drill, baby, drill!” Personally, I’m more partial to “Arraign, baby, arraign!” and “Incarcerate, baby, incarcerate!”

Note: At 140 million gallons, the Ixtoc 1 spill is the second largest in history. The number one spot — between 240 and 460 million gallons — goes to the intentional mass release of oil from Kuwaiti tankers and wellheads by Iraqi troops in 1991, as ordered by a tyrant too drunk on his own blood-bought power to care about the consequences. (Let’s see, what did we do to him?) Government estimates of the current spill range from 20.16 to 42 million gallons… thus far. That estimate will go up at a rate of between 15.12 and 31.5 million gallons a month. As for those of you who see this as just a matter of greed with no actual blood on anyone’s hands, the families and friends of 11 of our countrymen would disagree.

The Hole in the Fog
• By David Sherman •

I have lived so long by the Sea that I can no longer even imagine not doing so. I would miss the quiet lullaby of the surf at night, the taste of the salt air, the added weight of that air on my skin, so heavy is it with the very Water of Life.

These things are such constants in our lives that we usually take them for granted. Those who are new to the area or just visiting may perceive them as that nagging noise at night, corrosion, and stifling humidity, but they don’t get it. They don’t understand the whole Mother Ocean thing, and so they don’t understand that our Mother sings us to sleep every night. We smell her perfume everywhere. We feel the touch of her kiss our cheek. Without these things in our life — without these things in my life — there would be a hole. The place where my Mother should be.

For me, this place by the Sea holds another allure, as the very same beach that has been a playground for so much of my life is also my favorite Church. Usually, I use it as such at night or at the Rising of the Sun. At such times, my Church grants me serenity. It grants me solace. It Heals my very Soul.  My Sun Rise and Moon Rise are more beautiful than any stained glass windows. The Stars overhead are more majestic than any frescoed ceiling, and the Patterns I see there remind me of a history just as long as any depicted in even Michelangelo’s masterwork. Through those Patterns I am joined to every man, woman, or child since the dawn of Humankind who has ever looked to the skies seeking serenity, or solace… or Healing.

The night of December 18th, 2009 was foggy. Not wispy little tendrils of atmospheric intrigue foggy, but rather an otherworldly, all-obscuring, total visual shutdown sort of foggy, easily equal to any of London’s best pea soup. It offered all the visual acuity of Ray Charles on a three-day bender, but I thought of it as the perfect mood lighting as I recalled a line from a verse that had gotten me through the pain of my first divorce: ”Let the clouds obscure the stars, and the grayness be as my mood…”

With all the “Mother” symbolism I attach to the Sea, it’s only fitting that I should go there speak to my own Mother, to speak to Mom, one last time. This was not that final, teary, sickbed farewell talk over the phone; that had taken place the day before. In the quiet hours of the night that followed, Mom had Gone Ahead. Rapt and wrapped in my shroud of fog, the song of the surf near at hand, I waited for the deluge of tears that I was certain would come. I have known loss before — my Father in ’85, my first wife in ’92 — both had left big, gaping wounds in my heart that had taken years to Heal. I always expected that Mom’s passing would be the greatest blow of all, so I stood there waiting for the waves of grief I had held at bay all day to finally wash over me. Ironic that I stood on a beach waiting for a wave that did not come… at least not the wave I expected. I anticipated pain and loss, sorrow and emptiness, a great, gaping hole in my heart; what I got was memories.

A woman who had loved sledding as a girl in Iowa, who when faced with no hills and little snow in Virginia for her children had used a ski rope and a ’67 Thunderbird down a long driveway. The same woman leading child after child down that same drive on a pony in the stifling heat of a class picnic in June. The woman who filled my house with books, and when I had burned my way through them, always had time to stop at a bookstore for more. The Cub Scout den mother who sewed fringe down the legs of our pants and cut our hair in Mohawks, just like on Daniel Boone, for a whole weekend of Indian wars. The best “Good Cook” who ever lived — her baked beans were high art, her pork tenderloin sandwiches transcendent, her sugar cookies the stuff of dreams. She bought me paints and brushes, she paid for art lessons, she corrected my grammar. I love having Artist and Poet as aspects of myself; both were gifts from her. The memories seemed to go on forever, years of Love compressed into an hour by the Sea.

It is not easy to have spent much of your childhood as a bit of a favorite, only to spend far more of your adulthood out of favor. Trust me on this — there were many years in there when I wore “out of favor” like a martyr’s robe, but all the negatives seem meaningless now. This isn’t about math; it’s about Love, and unlike matters mathematical, when calculating the enduring aspects of Love, negatives have no value. All that has value, all that truly lasts, are the positives, and the list of the positives has no end. Somehow the negatives now seem dim, almost forgotten; they are irrelevant. Perhaps they always were.

I won’t say my Mother died, not because I’m afraid of the word, but because I do not believe it applies. When you move from one home to another, you don’t die, and that is all I believe she has done, all anyone ever does. She’s not gone; she’s just Gone Ahead. I had gone expecting a hole in my heart, but what I found was a place so filled with Love that there could never be a hole. Then I looked up. The fog that was so thick around me that I wouldn’t have seen another person approaching until they were twenty feet away, yet above me was a hole. Through that hole the stars shone through. Did my Church reach out to me through the fog of my Grief? In the center of that hole was Orion, the constellation I have felt most drawn to my whole life, Man at home and at ease in the Patterns of the Cosmos. Just as I was beginning to wonder if it was some sort of “sign,” a shooting star passed right through Orion’s belt.

I know the science behind meteors, but this wasn’t a science sort of night. I know others may have seen that same shooting star. For them it can be science. For me, it was Mom, and she was correcting my grammar yet again. I had been thinking in terms of a period, an end to the sentence. She was reminding me that what was needed was a comma. For where I had thought to have one last talk, I knew then that our conversations would go on as long as I live. Then they’ll continue face to face.

You might think, with Mother’s Day approaching, that I miss her even more, but for me to miss her, she would have to be gone, and that’s just not happening. I was, and have been, and still am well and truly Loved. As is she. And that shall ever endure.

Blessed Be.

SURPRISE!
By David Sherman

My college roommate in the mid 1980s had a younger brother who was a member of The Young Republicans.

I used to love to throw this line at him: ”So long as a single child has to cry himself to sleep at night, suffering for want of proper medical care in the richest country on the face of the earth, something is woefully wrong!” The effect on my Young Republican friend was nothing short of mind boggling; in that instant, an otherwise intelligent and articulate young collegian was reduced to a sputtering, frustrated mass of Does not compute! He looked to be just one twitch away from a full Linda Blair head spin! Ah, those silly college games!

The fact that I enjoyed tweaking him so should come as no surprise to anyone. After all, I have long identified myself as a “Tree-Hugging-Hippie-Liberal-Wackjob,” and proudly so. What will surprise many of you is this: that I am furious about the recently passed, so-called “Health Care Reform Bill.” Where I differ from most of those most virulent in their protests about this legislation is that I hate it because it does not go far enough! I can deal with a mandate to purchase heath insurance, I even expected it, but I fear such a mandate without a viable public option to offer an alternative to the “for-profit” insurance industry will prove a certain recipe for further rate abuse by an industry that already pretty much gets to write its own rules. Where I truly differ from most of my discontented, hardcore Right Wing counterparts is this: I don’t plan on threatening anybody.

Since the recent passage of what the Right has dubbed “ObamaCare,” at least ten House Democrats have received threats to their person, their lives, their families, and even, in some of the more fervent cases, their immortal souls, which apparently Republicans now have the power to damn to eternal hellfire! (Now that’s old school!)

Democrat Suzanne Kosmas, the U.S. Representative from New Smyrna Beach, whose district also includes portions of northern Brevard County, was one those threatened. The messages to her office, as well as to her family and her staff, says she, was that they should look to their personal safety. Apparently someone in New Smyrna is taking political tips from old Smyrna… say 1922.  (Look it up.) In Rochester, NY, a brick was thrown through the window of a county Democratic Party office. The note attached read: “Extremism in defense of Liberty is no vice!” In Niagara Falls, NY, another brick was hurled through the window of the offices of House Democrat Louise Slaughter. (Let’s hope that name’s not prophetic!) The worst, however, came in Charlottesville, VA, where someone cut a propane line leading to the house of House Democrat Tom Perriello’s brother. This, and the threatening letters received at the home as well, was the result of someone publishing the wrong address for the congressman online.

What concerns me even more is that after relating these incidents to several Republicans, just over half responded with, “Well, that’s what you get,” with many even going so far as, “Good! That’s what they deserve!” Only a handful so far have had any problem with such behavior, and only two have seemed to be in any way disturbed by such a turn in the practicing of politics in the United States. Granted, mine is a very limited sampling, and I would like to think that a broader cross-section of self-identified Republicans would yield a more civil array of responses. Still, attempts to sway a political viewpoint through threats or actual physical coercion are the sorts of things one would expect in a police state rather than a respected, once globally revered forerunner of modern Democracy. What I find ironic, in the saddest of extremes, is that those currently utilizing the tactics of a police state are the very ones who decry ObamaCare as the workings of a police state!

If they’re not the same people, they’re certainly in the same far-right political corner, and everyone else in the political ring should stand up and speak out against such behavior. I should think those in the rest of the Right side of that ring would want to speak the loudest, before the rabid zealots of your greatest extremes seize control of your entire political hemisphere, though such thoughts presuppose that it’s not already too late. It will surprise many that I hope such is the case.

I know several good people who are intelligent and rational… and also Republicans. They do not seem to have any problem being all three at the same time. I don’t think they’re bad people, though I do find them “sadly mispersuaded,” which is only fair, as I’m sure they think the same of me. I also know that vigilantism is neither a traditional nor widespread Grand Old Party requirement, though I do wish the current leadership of that party were a bit more outspoken in their denouncement of these threats. The history and honor of your own party should require it! Last surprise: this Damned Yankee named Sherman has a bit of a traditional fondness for the Party of Damned Yankees named Lincoln and Grant. It was also the lifelong party of Stan, my father. So if you won’t speak out for the GOP, speak out for Lincoln and Grant. Speak out for Stan!

If that’s not enough, speak out for the United States of America. Not the Rabid States of America into which some seem to want us to devolve, but the real United States of America, the one that truly is all the things we’d like to believe it could be. If not, we become the nation that strides across the world claiming to build civil democracies while refusing to insist on one at home — in short, a laughing stock. But again, I presuppose that it’s not too late. Sarcasm? Surprise! (I had one left over!)

Many years ago I read the great biographical work “Murrow: His Life and Times,” by A. M. Sperber. Since that time I have owned six copies — each had to be replaced because I kept giving them to journalism majors. Most of these students were specifically hoping for careers in broadcast journalism, and it was my hope that learning more about one of the first, and still the finest, broadcast journalists ever, might inspire them to focus their careers on the pursuit of the Truth rather than the Buck. Then someone turns on FOX News, and I wonder if there are enough books in the world.

Farce News, FIX News, FOX Noise, Vexed Views, Uncle Rupert’s Babbling Menagerie… I don’t care what you call it, just so long as you don’t call it broadcast journalism. Journalists are supposed to report the news, not fabricate it, yet every day that is what they do on FAUX News. Over 30% of Americans still believe Saddam Hussein was behind the attacks of 9/11. Why? It was never proven, in fact it has been fully disproven, but FOX News said it enough that they still believe it. Let’s just look at a few of their other greatest hits:

WMD’s in Iraq: Ran all the Bush White House photos long after they had been debunked. See, this is a satellite photo of a portable sarin gas lab. (No, that’s just a truck!) See, this aluminum tubing is for rockets to carry sarin gas or a dirty-bomb. (No, that’s for a chain link fence!) These papers show that Iraq was buying uranium from Niger. (No, the seals are wrong, the dates are wrong, and four of those people were dead or out of office at the time!)

Katrina: Without a doubt the worst failure of emergency infrastructure since Pompeii, yet they ran stories on how low it was for “the Liberal Media” to capitalize on pain and suffering by criticizing the Bush administration’s response. (Ted Williams has a faster response time, and he’s a frozen head in a jar!) They also ran stories on how the real blame lay with the Democrat Governor and the Democrat Mayor. (Granted, both idiots, but that doesn’t give Brownie’s FEMA a pass.)

Abu Ghraib: This one blew my mind. Do you know who the villain was there? The U.S. Soldier whose broke the story! Not only the villain, but called “traitorous” because her actions would inflame the enemy! I’ve got some non-FOX News for you: It inflamed ME! We used to be the good guys, or at least that’s what we told ourselves and our children. Now we’re one of those countries that tortures prisoners? Which brings us to…

Guantanamo: We hide prisoners away, many of them on the barest of evidence, and deny them any trial. Many of these are also Americans, locked up on suspicion alone, and denied their rights as citizens under the U.S. Constitution! And again we torture! FOX News gives us Jack Bauer stories and jokes about waterboarding. (We tried Japanese prison guards after WWII for waterboarding and shot them — for torture!)

Valerie Plame: An operative of the CIA is publicly outed during a time of war. FOX News trivializes the whole matter, calling her a “secretary.” Did it ever occur that every cover name she used, every fake office or company, every front of any sort associated with her travels were also now compromised, as were any other people also using those same fronts. That’s not just one agent, that’s dozens! Dozens of U.S. Intelligence operatives betrayed during a time of war as political payback? You don’t get a few years for that like Scooter Libby; you get a firing squad. (Mr. Cheney!)

Death Panels: I could go on for hours on the lies spouted on FOX during the Obama campaign, but my favorite is this one: The proposed Health Care Reform bill allows for end of life counseling, something proposed three years ago as a Medicare covered need by a Republican, which would include covering the costs of preparing living wills and durable power of attorney. A lobbyist for the healthcare industry calls it a “Death Panel.” Hell, even Sarah Palin can remember that! FOX News is still repeating — or I should say misreporting — that!

Sarah Palin: Since I just mentioned the Bumbling Bimbo from You Betcha, let’s wrap up with her. This is a woman everyone knew was unqualified for the office of Vice President. The woman thought Africa was a country! They had to explain to her that North Korea and South Korea were actually two separate countries rather than the top and bottom parts of one! How does an allegedly “fair and balanced” news channel handle the subject? They LOVE her! Anyone else who dared to suggest that Bimby wasn’t the sharpest spoon in the knife drawer… well, they’re just part of the Evil Left-Wing Media. The truly mind-numbing part of this one is that after her failed election bid, after recent books have only served to underscore the depths of her ignorance on all matters political, historical, and geographical, FOX News hires her! As (this would be funny, if it weren’t so sad) a POLITICAL COMMENTATOR!

There might be a young Murrow out there somewhere, but he’s damned sure not showing up on FOX News. Right down the line this company has spouted whatever distortions, half-truths, and outright lies the Bush administration fed them, and now they’re continuing the same effort for all Far Right-Wing Conservatives. They are the true American “Pravda,” and just as it was ironic that the name of the propaganda arm of the U.S.S.R. meant “Truth,” so it is now ironic that FOX News hails itself as “Fair and Balanced.”

They’ve never been fair, most of them are imbalanced, and that transparent party line tripe is NOT news. If their bi-polar buffoon Glans Beck wants something to cry about, how about this:

I miss my country. The one that didn’t TORTURE! And if their pet zealot, Pat Robertson, really wants to know who made a deal with the devil, maybe he should look closer to home. In numerology, there are three letters in the English alphabet that have a value of “6.” They would be the 6th letter, the 15th letter, and the 24th letter. That’s right, F-O-X equals 6-6-6!

Who’s made the deal with the devil now, Mr. Robertson?

The parable: The dear, elderly widow, Mrs. Whatever, dies in her sleep at the age of 93. The coroner says it was a heart attack, her doctor concurs, adding that it was her fifth, the police don’t feel any need to investigate. Her only son, Steve Whatever, inherits her vast fortune. Everyone agrees it’s sad, but no one thinks anything is amiss. Enter Squirrely Yates, a local bag lady whose only outstanding features are her addictions to eyeliner, the sound of her own voice, and the sound of all the other voices in her head. She also has a burning and abiding hatred for the young Mr. Whatever. Squirrely Yates says the son killed the dear widow with rat poison. No one with a rational mind believes her, but every community has its share of conspiracy nuts and just plain idiots with nothing better to do. Their town has quite a few, all of whom start protesting, waving around signs calling for an autopsy. Just to shut them up, an autopsy is performed: no rat poison. You would think this would be the end of the matter, but idiots will be idiots so now they add signs claiming the autopsy was a cover-up.

Enter Wm. Tulip, a local politician. Mr. Tulip doesn’t bear any particular ill will toward Mr. Whatever, but he has noticed that all of those idiots with the signs are also registered voters! Thus, despite his country being involved in two wars, and it’s economy just barely pulled back from the brink of a full scale depression and riddled with rising unemployment, Mr. Tulip decides to pass a law requiring all persons purchasing rat poison to provide three forms of identification, and be subjected to a 30-day waiting period. He’s adamant about not implying anything about the Whatever family tragedy, he’s just saying… rat poison, that’s what’s important… and, P.S., all idiots, conspiracy nuts, etc., VOTE TULIP!

The Reality: Sen. Barack Obama wins the 2008 presidential election by a popular margin of 53% vs. 46%, or an electoral margin of 68% vs. 32%, thus becoming the 44th President of the United Staes of America. No one felt any need to investigate. There were no hanging chads in Florida, no funky, voting machine irregularities in Ohio, or Supreme Court involvement. Done Deal. Enter Orly Taitz, a Russian born dentist/real estate agent/lawyer/2nd-degree black belt, a woman who is just two curved brush strokes away from Tammy Faye Bakker, and most definitely fascinated by the sound of her own voice (and, I suspect, many other voices as well!). This woman is Zsa Zsa Gabor with better diction, but much less class. An agenda without the impulse control. No Mr. Haney, but a lot of Mr. Cheney.

According to Dr. Taitz (or “Tate,” her Americanized name) our new President was born in Kenya and not the United States and is, therefore, ineligible to run for, or serve as, President of the United States. People checked. Certificate of Live Birth, on file. We’re good. “A forgery!” cries Dr. Taitz, who then produces a Kenyan birth certificate. Those of you packing a full chromosome load can guess what came next: Obama’s Hawaiian certificate, confirmed; Taitz’s Kenyan rag proven to be the forgery. Several subsequent Kenyan certificates follow, each disproven. I think we’re on four or five by now. Mostly by now, this quixotic cause is only still followed by the most frayed of the very, far right fringe. (This is sounding eerily familiar!) They’ve even been given a name, “The Birther Movement,” which I guess does roll off the tongue better than “Cro-Magnon, Tin Hat Freak Show!”

Enter Bill Posey, a local politician. More specifically, the U.S. Representative from Rockledge, serving Florida’s 15th District, which is to say myself and many of you. Mr. Posey’s country is involved in two wars, its economy has just barely been pulled back from the brink of a full- scale depression, and is riddled with rising unemployment. (Again with the familiar!) Yet Mr. Posey thinks that what is really needed right now is a law requiring all candidates for president to produce their birth certificate. On the surface, Congressman Posey’s bill does make sense. He has also said that his bill is not meant to cast aspersions on President Obama’s legitimacy, but rather to forestall any such confusion in the case of future candidates. He’s just saying… birth certificates, that’s what’s important… and, P.S., all idiots, conspiracy nuts, etc., VOTE POSEY! (Eerie off the charts!)

Just as in our parable, it’s hard to pin the politician’s actions down on true intent, but the timing sure sounds like flagrant pandering to the looniest of the fringe. The fringe is certainly taking it that way. Mr. Posey’s bill is being waved all over the news circuits as yet another chapter in the “Birther” saga. What fires me up about it is that I know Mr. Posey is not an ignorant man. He is not a wingnut, cro-magnon or otherwise; he’s actually by all evidence, save this stunt, a very intelligent man. BUT…if that’s the case, then why is he wasting my time, your time — our time — on this drivel? I would love to believe that Congressman Posey is motivated purely by non-partisan patriotism, and that he seeks only to close a loophole in the wording of our must cherished documents. Hell, it’s even a good idea… but not right now! I’d like to buy as much dollar-a-gallon gas as you could find for me, but don’t bring it by while my house is on fire! I’ll have more pressing concerns, and you would only be making matters worse. Surely, Mr. Congressman, you can find something to fix that needs it more than this. Maybe something less divisive, something that won’t just throw more gas on the fire. Don’t be a parable, don’t be a cliché, and don’t be a party hack. Be the person many of us non-Republicans thought you could be when we helped elect you.

As for those of you out there who still subscribe to the Birther theories, I know I’ll get e-mail. Let’s face it, conspiracy nuts and computers go together like meth labs and mobile homes, and we’ll probably never be best of friends. Still, I will offer some advice, spoken directly through those fixed and dilated double doors right into that dingy, dim duplex of delusion and dementia you’re using in lieu of a fully functional brain. Here it is: turn off FOX News, take off your tin foil hat, put on some pants, and move out of your mother’s garage, because if you don’t start talking to people outside your front door instead of the people under the stairs, you’re gonna wind up in a harshly lit place with pastel padding run by people named “Doctor” and “Nurse”; a place where 1 in 4 of your new roommates thinks they’re either a papaya, a pirate, or a panda bear, and the big girl next to you in finger paint class hears even more voices than you! I know that sounds a teensy bit severe, and it would be quieter if I just agreed with you… but then we’d both be wrong! (Oh, and Bill — for most of us, there was never any confusion!)

Blessed Yule to all, and to all a good night.

Everyone has heard this little facetious gem from time to time, some of us hear it quite often; for me, it seems like theme music. It is the “Evergreen” to my “Star is Born;” the “One Tin Soldier” to my “Billy Jack;” the Ba-bah-bump-ba-da-bump-bump to my “Beverly Hills Cop,” and I for one have grown weary of its gross overplay. Thus, I will set the record straight once and for all: To the best of my knowledge, I was never dropped on my head as a baby… For me it was the Jeep.

Glenview was never really a working farm, at least not while we lived there. Thirty-eight acres of mostly woods and marshland with one horse, two ponies, eight Muscovy ducks and one mallard, all with names and none ever butchered, hardly constitutes a working farm. Glenview was more of an expensive hobby than a farm, but even a good hobby-farm needs vehicles: a tractor, two old flatbed trucks, and an early 50′s pickup. But the pride and joy of the Glenview motor pool was a jenyuwine Korean War surplus U.S. Army Jeep. She was named “Elvira,” and she would prove to be a truly spiteful bitch.

Behind the house, the yard, and the corral, were the Woods, the traditional sanctum sanctorum of boyhood. On the far edge of the Woods was the Marsh, a sinister wasteland crawling with water moccasins, man-eating fish, and possibly crocodiles as well. Over the years, I had come to suspect the Marsh was sentient. It certainly abhorred clean clothes, and would contrive all manner of ways to trip unwary boys, thus covering the offending garments in the stinky, black slime that was its very essence. As for getting a mom to believe this… forget it. You cannot win. Come back slimed: “You tracked mud in the house!” Hose off all the slime first: “You tracked water in the house!” Strip down to your underwear before coming in: that’s the day the pastor has dropped by to visit! I’m telling you… you cannot win.

Of course, the more forbidden the Marsh became, the more we would venture into it. One of my best tree houses was on an island in the Marsh itself. Okay, technically speaking, the island was only six feet in diameter and was only separated from the mainland by a three-foot stretch of murky water a foot deep, and the tree house itself only consisted of five rungs worth of ladder leading up to four boards going every which way in two trees. It was still a vast improvement over my first tree house: a cardboard apple crate fastened about five feet up a pear tree with no less that 30 nails. It lasted until the first good rain. (So shoot me; the design needed work… I was five!)

All was well until my father marked about two-dozen trees with a big white “X,” including the trees on my island. How he failed to notice nine pieces of lumber, all painted bright white in said trees is beyond me. I would have preferred camouflage, but the boards were already painted white when I found them …lying around …in a pile of boards …meant for a white fence! No amount of pleading could dissuade him. My appeals exhausted, the final day found me perched in my doomed outpost with two peanut butter sandwiches, a “G.I. Joe” canteen, and dozens of small squares of wood. (All coincidentally about the size of a fence-post cap and painted white.) With food, water, and ammunition, I was ready for a siege.

It was only fitting that the enemy arrived in a jeep, the enemy in this case being Walter Carey, a young black man who did odd jobs around the farm. He was armed with an axe and a chainsaw. Walter was strong as an ox and had the sort of patience that causes most Christians to cite Job, especially where my twin brother Don and I were concerned. Today would prove the greatest test of that demeanor, for as soon as Walter came in range, I opened fire. Which is to say I started whipping blocks of white, rough-cut 1×6 at poor Walter who was just trying to do his job. Don just stood to the side laughing at the whole affair. At times, Don and I got along, but this was not one of those times; this tree house had never been shared territory. If the “No Trespassing” sign didn’t make that clear, the “This Means Don” painted on it certainly did. In fact, Don had been taking great pleasure in this all week, now his laughing only meant he got 1x6s chucked at him as well. For his part, Don chucked them right back along with any sticks he could find. It was a glorious battle …until Walter finally had enough.

One arm up protecting his face, Walter jumped to the island and climbed the ladder, with me raining down a wrath of lumber. He caught a foot and dragged me close until he could grab the back of my belt and then, hauled me down like a sack of potatoes …though a sack of potatoes rarely kicks and screams. Walter plopped me down in the back of Elvira and growled at me to stay there. We’d never seen Walter get mad. I stayed. With tears in my eyes as Walter dropped both trees with the chainsaw, I stayed. As Don taunted me while Walter wrapped a chain around the first tree, and fasted it to the front of the jeep to pull it out of the Marsh, I stayed. When Don caught me across the face with a well-thrown branch just as Walter put Elvira in reverse, I went ankles over elbows… right off the back.

Any earlier kicking and screaming was nothing to what ensued at that point. Walter hit the brakes, and immediately realized that his view of the area was deficient by one boy. The worst part was that when he found me pinned under Elvira, with my arms and legs flailing wildly in twelve directions at once, it only got worse. Walter had not just run me over, he had stopped and gotten out with the back right tire of that damned jeep still on my HEAD! (Hence the flailing!)

Fortunately for Walter (and certainly for me!), the ground was quite soft that close to the Marsh. My hard little head just got smashed down into the muddy soil. Yeah, the thorns under my right cheek dug in pretty deep, and the tire left clear tread-marks on my left, BUT my head did not pop like a grape, as it would have in most other terrain. It was months before Walter stopped apologizing to my parents. Virginia in the ’60s was not a good place for a young black man to drive over little white boys, but my mother eventually convinced him that she blamed Don and I rather than him.

To this day I’m not sure how I was to blame, and after all these years I don’t even blame Don. (Anymore.) You can’t very well blame the enemy for simply returning fire.

I just figure that sometimes JEEPS HAPPEN!

The Eyes…
By David Sherman

Preston looked down at his hands, dim in the flickering light of the lone candle. The water running over them was cool, though he noticed that only the hot faucet was turned. The basin was of antique design, enameled cast iron and chipped on the front edge. He bent to splash water onto his face, and straightening, saw his own reflection in a corroded oval mirror just as ancient in appearance as the rest of the tableau. Sluggishly, his mind tried to make sense of it all. He knew this place… and yet he didn’t.

A flicker of movement in the mirror caught his eye, something in the darkness over his right shoulder. In the deeper shadows beyond the candles feeble reach he thought he could discern the vague outline of a human form, then it was gone. Nothing but anonymous rows of old books and heavy brocade draperies at a rain-spattered window. That must be it, Preston thought, the drapes had moved in the breeze. Then, just as the explanation came to him, so did the certain knowledge that all the windows were closed. That’s why it was so stiflingly hot in this place. A sudden flash of lightning lit the room for a split second even as the simultaneous crash of thunder made the man almost leap out of his own skin. In that moment of illumination, he saw it again!

There was a faint outline of a human form standing just in front of the musty bookshelves. Not just human, but female, judging by the slight build and the wild, disarrayed volume of hair. Rather than turning to confront this person directly, Preston leaned closer to the mirror, as if seeking details in a reflection was somehow safer than a face-to-face examination. It was then that he realized he could still see the books… through the woman! A chilling tide swept over him, raising every hair on his arms and neck. Even his scalp seemed to bristle. Slowly, he raised his eyes to the face of the translucent form. He could feel his pulse racing, the blood pounding in his ears. His knees trembled for a moment and he could feel a new wash of perspiration over his already sweltering body.

Finally, he was gazing directly into the face — into her face — for with effort the details became clear. She was wearing a gauzy, tattered rag, perhaps once a nightgown, with smudges of soot here and there. Her hair was a tangled mass, seemingly dank and matted in some places, while wispy and windblown in others, the whole littered with bits of debris and soot much like the gown. Her face remained vague. Preston squinted, trying to bring it into focus, but only succeeded in reading two titles on the shelf beyond. Then the eyes opened!

All that had been vague was now clear. That which had been translucent was suddenly opaque, and the addition of detail only served to multiply the terror tenfold. Frozen now in his horror, Preston could only watch helplessly as the apparition in the mirror — the woman behind him — slowly raised her arms and began to move toward him. He didn’t notice that the gown betrayed no movement of hip or leg, no hint of walking; he barely even registered the arms now coming up as if to embrace. His gaze, his attention, indeed his entire self, was now hopelessly locked on those eyes. They were blue, so fair as to be piercing even in the dim light of the candle… Perhaps they had once been beautiful, but now they were milky and filmed over. Now, they were dead! Impotent in his fear, Preston could only watch as the dead woman floated toward him, her arms reaching out, her dead eyes locked on his, cold… cold and… hungry! “A-A-A-AGH!”

Even as his scream still echoed in the night, Preston Lane bolted upright in his bed, bathed in sweat and gasping in a fear more intense and primordial than any he had ever known. No nightmare from his childhood had ever come close to this. Glancing frantically about the dark, unfamiliar room, Preston struggled to understand where he was. Lightning flashed through a window lashed by a heavy, windblown rain, revealing a high ceiling and a four-poster bed surrounded by mismatched antiques. As his fear passed, another sensation shoved its way to the forefront of consciousness. A headache of mythic proportions seemed to grow with every roar of thunder. Along with the pain, glimpses of his day also rejoined the Preston previously in progress.

He’d passed three police checkpoints warning of the approaching hurricane, but had stubbornly continued on, even finding back roads to circumvent the final barrier where the deputy had refused to let him pass. Shortly after noon, Preston had rolled into Sweetwater, Florida only to find the streets deserted and all the windows boarded up. Except for the Cantina Grill and Bait Shop. The pillbox building hadn’t been much to look at, but it was open. Inside the Cantina, someone had simply knocked a large whole in the wall between a filthy, old marina bar and a very small convenience store, using either drunks with sledgehammers or drunks with dynamite. The layer of dust and nicotine said it was not recent work. The stuffed armadillo and the Texaco sign said the money saved had not been spent on décor. The place also smelled as if it had been insulated with dead shrimp and the walls painted with perch. Thankfully, there was no grill to be seen.

If the locals were surprised at a tourist showing up hours before a hurricane, it was nothing compared to their reaction when they heard the address he was looking for. “Did you say 722 Front Street?” one grey-haired old man asked, whipping his head around so suddenly it took Preston a second or two to notice the cleric’s collar peeking out from behind a sweater and a raincoat. “You got some timin’, darlin’,” a vaguely slutty bartender had said, “Movin’ in on Halloween, and with a ‘Cat 2′ on the way!” Muttered phases of agreement rippled through the little bar. Over the next three hours, Preston learned exactly why Welcome Wagon does not encourage a twelve-pack and tequila shots before visiting the nice new people. It was drunken word association with a strong dose of Halloween Mad Libs. One word in particular kept showing up… “Wait, waaait, WAIT!” Preston slurred. By this time, he had learned that everybody was running a tab, to be paid after the storm. This had led to his own twelve-pack and his own tequila. “Did you say ‘haunted’?

As he got unsteadily out of bed and headed for the bathroom, Preston was amazed that drunken drivel could have spawned such a vivid nightmare. He noticed how loud the storm was and allowed that had something to do with it as well. When the switch failed to work, he remembered the power was out, and quickly found the lighter and candle he had left by the sink.

Preston looked down at his hands, dim in the flickering light of a lone candle. The water running over them was cool, though he noticed that only the hot faucet was turned. The basin was of antique design, enameled cast iron and chipped on the front edge. He bent to splash water onto his face, and straightening, saw his own reflection in in a corroded oval mirror just as in… No! The chill bumps raced up his arms and legs… It wasn’t possible! A flicker of movement in the mirror caught his eye, something in the darkness over his right shoulder. NO! In the deeper shadows beyond the candles feeble reach… THE EYES OPENED!

—

A small group of people stood around the old stone. Marilina Armitage. Born Oct 31, 1928, Died Oct 31, 1946. “Wonder who we’ll get next year,” one voice said.” “I’m tired of being the Preacher,” another put in. “Fine, you be the slut next time!” a female voice replied, “I kinda liked hi…” “Don’t! You know if we don’t find somebody to send in, she’ll just start coming out to get one of us again. Hell, there’s only the nine of us left in this damned town,” said a voice, which really shouldn’t have belonged to the preacher.

Big Red Pill

“The Matrix” painted a grim future where humans were grown by machines as a source of energy. We haven’t quite hit that point yet (so far as we can tell!), but I believe an eerie parallel has developed. In our case, the megalithic menaces tending the crops and culling the herd are the Triumvirate of Greed known as The Insurance Industry, The Pharmaceutical Industry, and The Health Care Industry.

Over 47 million Americans currently live without any form of health insurance, and the Congressional Budget Office estimates that number will rise to over 54 million by 2019. This has been called a travesty. I would call it criminal. Many of those who had health insurance find themselves “dropped” as soon they develop major illness. If not dropped, they find that the costs not covered are still so enormous as to bankrupt them. According to the New England Journal of Medicine, health care costs were the main factor in 62% of all bankruptcies in 2007. I could wax for hours on the further depredations of the insurance industry in matters of home insurance (particularly here in Florida!), but we’ll leave that for another time. The point is we pay and we pay, and as often as not, when the time comes, THEY DON’T.

Sinclair Lewis, a demigod of American literature (and my personal favorite), wrote the novel “Arrowsmith” in 1925, wherein he sought to expose the rampant greed and mercenary heartlessness of the pharmaceutical industry. Nothing has changed, unless you count the exponential growth of profits.

Lewis warned of the questionable relationship fostered by the pharmaceutical companies with private physicians as well as hospitals. Today you can find a dinner hosted by a drug company at the finest restaurants available on any given week. They serve the best food, they pour the best booze, they drink the finest wines. Then they pitch their latest products.

If that weren’t enough, we now allow drug companies to advertise directly to the consumer. This has become so widespread that I would like to take the cartoon gremlin which apparently lives in my toes, and using my restless leg apply it to someone’s anal leakage, but that’s just because I found the Chantix I took to stop smoking can cause suicide, which depressed me enough to want Zoloft, which may cause anal leakage as well, and then I would need… Well, you get the picture, leaky as it may be!

Promotional spending in the pharmaceutical industry went from $11.4 billion in 1996 to $29.9 billion in 2005. At the same time the number of notices regarding violations of the rules governing pharmaceutical promotion sent by the FDA dropped from 142 in 1997 to 21 in 2006! These are the people who are supposed to be our watchdogs for this industry? Sounds like our dog is now wearing their leash!

We also pay more for the same drugs. A study done by the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development listed the average per-patient spending on drugs at $401 in 2005. American patients paid an average of $792! Heaven forfend you or anyone you know should get cancer. But if the pain and human suffering inherent in the disease aren’t enough, wait till you get the bill for the meds! Many of the leading cancer drugs costs thousands a month, some over $25,000! I guess when they say say “leading,” they mean leading in profits.

As for the Health Care Industry, and by that I mean the FOR PROFIT Health Care Industry, when did we as a people become so morally bankrupt as to think that making a profit from such a source was acceptable. And make no mistake, I’m not talking about generating enough extra cash to build a new wing on the hospital, or to buy the latest in high-tech diagnostic equipment. I’m talking about TENS OF BILLIONS of dollars in profit! That’s what compassionate giants like Aetna and Blue Cross Blue Shield posted. I guess when a single Tylenol runs $12 and one day in a hospital bed exceeds $1000, it’s got to go somewhere. I once had a broken sewing needle removed from my foot. It cost $1,475, and that was in 1989! (Damned Halloween costume that year = $1,600!) I could not begin to count how many houses and condos are sold by heirs in Cocoa Beach each year just to cover the hospital debts left behind when the parents or grandparents passed.

Which brings me back to my point. We pay as we go… until all of our pay goes. Then we pay more. Anything we thought we had put aside for a rainy day winds up going as well. Whatever we thought to leave our children or our children’s children… in the end they’ll take that also. We live in the wealthiest nation on the face of the planet, yet We the People of that nation continue to be deceived by those who feed upon our very life’s blood. We are deceived into believing that “Socialized” Medicine is the first step to Communism. England, Canada, France, Sweden, Germany all have it, and they’ve not gone Communist, yet we still believe the same old lies? Why? So long as a single child cries in the night for want of proper affordable health care in the richest nation on Earth, something is WRONG!

That is your Big Red Pill. If you want the blue pill, just continue to believe FOX News.

It was a beautiful hypothetical morning. Spring had barely gotten a word in edgewise before an early summer took over the conversation well ahead of schedule, but such is often the case in Flowery-in-Spanish, a fictitious state just south of Tongue-in-Cheek and just short of Sarcasm. The balmy, little seaside town of Native-American-Port-Shore was situated on the eastern edge of this fairytale land, between a tropic lagoon and the deep blue sea. All was lovely, and bright, and right with the world… Except for Joe Citizen.

Joe was late for work. Joe wasn’t really even supposed to work that day, but he didn’t know that. The new schedule hadn’t been posted when Joe last worked, and a friend had told him he was due in at 10:30. The friend meant well, so none of what follows is his fault. Irony sucks just fine all on its own. I know this isn’t ironic yet, but Joe thought he was hurrying to make money, when in fact he was doing exactly the opposite. That’s ironic. Of course the man with the badge and the radar gun who stopped Joe on his way to work didn’t really care about irony.

Joe had seen the two fictional patrol cars parked trunk to hood when he had turned off Highway B4B. He had assumed that radar guns were present; Joe was in a hurry, not a coma. As he turned onto the side street that was his usual route to work, he found himself brought up short by a van moving very s-l-o-w-l-y. Joe glanced at his speedometer. 20 f@#%*&g mph! If only Joe had a week to get to work! Surely they were slowing to turn into the shopping center… No! There went the turn and they were still just crawling along.
“You’ve still got four lanes for a block yet,” thought Joe, “Pass them on the right.” It seemed the only way to make it to work on time. “What about the cops?” thought Joe, “CRUISE CONTROL!” This wasn’t a leap; Joe drove this road every day with his cruise control set at 29mph. It was just too easy to creep up over the 30 line, and Joe knew the cops wouldn’t bother with 4 mph over the limit. Hell, state websites even said so, and county tickets didn’t even begin until 6 miles over!

Joe moved to the right and accelerated to 29, hit the cruise control, and watched the point where the four lanes merged into two. Either Joe was a master of vector mathematics or the two old guys in the van saw him and slowed to let him in. Either way, he made it with room to spare. He checked the speedometer again just out of paranoia. 29mph — YEAH! Joe continued down the road rather pleased with himself…until he saw the blue lights in his mirror.

The man with the badge seemed polite enough. He asked if Joe knew the speed limit. Joe said, “25mph.” The cop asked Joe how fast he had been going. Joe said, “You mean when I passed the old guys?” Joe knew he was safe on this one.

“No,” said the cop, “Before you got to the ‘old guys’ as you call them.” His tone left no doubt that he found the term somehow disparaging, which confused Joe for a moment. He hadn’t meant anything negative by it. He had seen them when he passed. The one was at least in his 70s and the one driving looked to be his father! Damn it, that’s old. Joe knew he had been going 20mph once he got to the van. (Remember he had looked.) But before that? Not a clue. He admitted as much. “38mph,” said the cop. Then the paperwork began. A ticket for 38 in a 25, another for a bad tail light, and yet another for no registration in the car. Apparently even hypothetical cops don’t accept hypothetical registration. Somewhere in the middle of it all Joe’s day had ceased to be beautiful.

Joe went on to work, met Irony face to face, cussed quietly to himself in seven languages, and headed back home. Another light came on as he passed by the turn “the two old guys” had not taken. This light was thankfully not blue. It was, however, quite bright, and it shone down on the speed limit sign directly opposite the road not taken. For the first time in his life, Joe Citizen would fight a ticket.

He thought it would be a simple matter. He drew a detailed map of the road. It showed every detail, especially the speed limit sign — the one he had not yet reached when he cop had clocked him. When Joe had been doing 38 (a number he still doubted) he was still in a 45mph zone! Joe was what many would consider “old school” in some things, among them that he still believed that all cops were made of somewhat finer stuff. They chose to “serve and protect.” They were men of honor. Of course, Joe had never tried to fight a ticket before. Hell, he’d only ever had six in over 48 hypothetical years. Surely in the face of Joe’s map the cop would admit his error and that would be the end of it.

Imagine the shock on the face of poor Joe Citizen, when the officer, having just been sworn in, calmly told the judge that he had been shooting radar that day three blocks in from Highway B4B! He recalled nothing of any van, any old guys, and no cruise control had been mentioned. He could “prove” that because there was no mark on the ticket. He always made a mark if cruise control was mentioned. Apparently in this hypothetical court of of purely fictional law, the complete absence of evidence is considered evidence!

Joe stood dumbfounded as his map was rendered useless by the lies. To make matters worse, when he told his account of the day’s events, including the passing of the van, the “Judge” (a term used here with hypothetical truckloads of sarcasm) even went so far as to ask the cop, “Is that even possible?” Joe could hear a lifetime’s worth of lofty ideals crashing to the ground as a “Judge” asked one person in an adversarial setting if the other was telling the truth! Joe began to furtively cast about, fearing to see the waterboards any minute! Would they bend him over the ruinous pile of his shattered reality and have at his wallet all at once, or would they take turns?

Joe Citizen’s once beautiful day: Ticket he never should have gotten: $160. Added Court Costs: $60. Civics lesson in just how fragile the fabric of law truly is, how quickly in a state crying out for more money from tickets, in a town doing the same, a cop who may once have known honor will lie through his teeth under oath: Priceless.

As for myself, I still believe as Joe once did. Hypothetically. But I also know that there are a lot of hypothetical travesties in our system. People who serve no purpose but to add all-too-real stains on our collective, and increasingly fictional honor.

“Oh yeah? Well, if the South seceded again today we would win ’cause now we’ve got Fort Bragg, and NASA at Cape Kennedy and Houston, and we’ve got the guns at Dahlgren!”

I remember this exact argument coming from one of my best boyhood friends in Virginia around ’71 or ’72. While Fort Bragg in South Carolina is a military installation of major significance, NASA never became the sort of missile super site my friend mistakenly believed it to be. The big guns at the Naval test range at Dahlgren on the Potomac approach to Washington, D.C. were quite impressive. We could often hear them firing from our homes over 45 miles away. But their location, 63 miles downstream, hardly qualified them as the looming threat to D.C. my friend imagined. I countered with, “What about all the missile silos in Nebraska and the Dakotas?” He wisely pointed out that those didn’t really exist. They were just what the government wanted the Russians to think. We would never really let anyone know where our missiles were.

I know this all sounds silly, but we were 10, he was a proud Southerner, I was a damned Yankee, and things like logic and hard facts rarely entered into our debates. He knew in his heart that the South would one day rise again, and I knew just as adamantly that if it did it would be crushed…again. What brings such obvious nonsense back to mind is that more and more of late I have heard a word bandied about that I never thought hear from rational adults in this country: secession.

First the topic of secession showed up when we learned that Sarah Palin and her husband were once members of the Alaskan Independence Party. This organization, rightly dubbed by most as a “fringe group” advocates the secession of Alaska from the United States. Many of us had already suspected that considered forethought might be a trait somewhat lacking in the Palin household, but this was hard to believe even of them. While the affiliation was genuine, and the group sincere, the impact of both facts proved negligible in the long run, proving for once and for all the answer to the age old question: If a group of rednecks dressed in flannel and mukluks, drunk on beer and moonshine, and huddled together in a quonset hut in the middle of Alaska start shouting about secession, and there’s no one with an I.Q. over 100 there to hear them, do they really make a sound? NO!

Most of us just shook our heads and got on with life. For me it was a matter of a Wackjob being able to immediately recognize a Wingnut, and write them off accordingly. For those of you unfamiliar with such technical political terminology, a Wackjob is a Liberal who’s “way out there.” A Wingnut is a Conservative with the same credentials. Each can instantly recognize the other, and both usually spend as much time laughing at the antics of the other as they do shouting down their every suggestion. One of each trapped in a small room and made to listen each other can be wildly entertaining. If the room also contains alcohol, EMTs and police should be on hand. (Preferably in full riot gear.)

If this were the only instance of such babble, I would be content… but, alas, it is not so. Over the last two weeks Governor Rick Perry of Texas has made no less than six public speeches wherein he alluded to the possibility of, you guessed it, secession by the state of Texas! When pressed on the issue, the Governor claimed that “The Treaty” which admitted Texas into the Union allowed Texas, “at its discretion,” to sub-divide into five smaller states. He suggests that the state, in protest of the current administration’s tax policies should exercise this option. At this point Gov. Perry notes that the state of Texas would NOT actually secede, but that Congress, specifically the Senate, fearing the influx of eight new senators from former Texas territory, would vote to reject the treaty and would let them be an independent republic once again.

The first problem with Governor Perry’s “logic,” and I shudder to call it that, is that “The Treaty” which was first proposed to admit Texas to the United States was soundly defeated in both the U.S. Congress as well as the Texas legislature. In the 1840s, the thought of even one slave-holding state entering the Union was a point of great contention. The suggestion that said state would be allowed to effectively clone itself, bringing in not two but ten pro-slavery Senators… Well that’s just stupid! Texas was in fact admitted into the Union by a Joint Resolution of Congress. President Polk called his Vice President, George M. Dallas, back from his Christmas holiday to preside over the Senate and push the documents through in the last days of his term. The actual transfer of authority occurred on February 19th, 1846 at the log cabin capitol of Austin, but contrary to Governor Perry’s version of history there was no treaty involved. The provision for possible later sub-division of Texas was still mentioned, but it was to be at the will of Congress, with the approval of the citizens of Texas, not the other way around.

Now I understand that many fiscally and politically conservative Americans are having difficulty reconciling the actions of the Obama administration. I understand because it wasn’t that long ago that many of the actions of the Bush administration made me frothy at the mouth. So I do get it. Still, the long and short of it is this: You lost. They are now in power. Deal with it. We did. Complain if you must. Protest if you like. Unlike the previous administration we will not call you “Un-American” for exercising what are clearly your rights as Americans.

No American, however, should be so reckless, so shortsighted, as to advocate secession. This was tried once before and led to the bloodiest chapter in our nation’s history. The memory of over 600,000 dead Americans should be sufficient to remind any rational citizen that secession is not an answer. As a Damned Yankee named Sherman, I recall a member of my own family had a rather large hand in the last debate on the topic, and while I doubt it’s even possible to burn a 60-mile wide swath across sagebrush and tumbleweeds, I have little doubt there would truly be hell to pay for any second attempt at such treasonous action.

The Secession of Rational Thought is in reality the Cessation of Rational Thought. I said earlier that I never thought to hear secession bandied about by rational minds. I still haven’t. Unfortunately, rationality is not apparently required for public office, or access to a microphone, for that matter. But when such stupidity rears its head, especially stupidity masquerading as reasoned thought, we should all, as Americans, remind one another that armed insurrection is nothing short of suicidal nonsense. We should also remind each other and ourselves that, “We don’t do that!” We are not some third-rate, third-world backwater that has a coup every time things don’t go our way. We are the United States of America, dammit! We are better than that! We must remind ourselves that as Americans we already have in place the instrument whereby citizens may redress government actions contrary to their wishes. It’s called The Vote. If you don’t like what’s being done in your name, vote to change it.

That’s what we did.

(‘Cause we’re not 10 anymore!)

April’s showers bring May’s flowers — at least that’s how it works in most of the rest of the northern hemisphere. Here in Florida, where “showers” is synonymous with, “Oh, it must be 3:30,” we tend to get a little less worked up over seasonal change. I suppose our version would be, “April’s tourists pay May’s taxes,” though admittedly it’s not the same without the rhyme. One thing, however, does tie us together with our northern neighbors: We are all approaching the First Sunday after the first full moon after the Spring Equinox, or as most of you know it, Easter.

Now I could belabor certain similarities to an ancient German festival of Spring called Oester (pronounced “AY-ster”) which included such things as rabbits and eggs as symbols of fertility and rebirth, but we’ll leave that for another year. Suffice it say that for thousands of years, and for much of the planet, this has been a time to reflect on rebirth. The more spiritually preoccupied among us naturally take this to the next step of spiritual rebirth after physical demise, life after death. I wrote in January about my father and how he truly LIVED life, unconsciously milking every minute to its fullest. Now I will tell you what that great radio personality, Paul Harvey, himself only recently Gone Ahead, would term, “The Rest of the Story.”

My father Went Ahead on October 3rd, 1985. What I failed to mention in January was that at the time of his passing we still had many unresolved issues. Most of these stemmed from a very contentious divorce during which parents didn’t do enough to keep the kids out of it, and kids didn’t know enough to keep their mouths shut. It was like far too many divorces, a civil proceeding in which no one was civil. As the years passed, and I attained some level of sentiency, I grew to regret my behaviour more and more. My father had “relocated” to the Bahamas, coincidentally a place where the IRS has no jurisdiction, and I tried through one outdated address after another to write him and repair the damage of my actions years before. I failed.

This all came crashing back in the wee hours of April 10th, 1988. I was in Wuestoff Hospital awaiting the birth of my first child, Michael. My wife had gone through 24 hours of “pre-labor” (though I’ve got to tell you, it looked to me like there was a damned lot of labor involved!) followed by another 10 hours after her water broke. They’d finally given her something that allowed her to pass out between contractions, thus conserving her strength for the final moments. In that room, alone save for my unconscious wife, I realized that this baby, who we already knew was to be a boy, would be the Eldest Son, of the Eldest Son, of the Only Son, of the Eldest Son – The Heir to the Line by old reckoning. I know that sounds silly today, but anyone who’s been there will tell you that in those moments, in those hours, all kinds of bizarre things run through your mind.

These thoughts naturally took me back to all the other unresolved matters of years before, and so keenly did I feel the loss of my father, that I actually said out loud, “Oh, Daddy, I wish you could have been here!” That was when I heard the voice of my father, nearly three years after his “Death.” He spoke quite clearly in my right ear. He said, “I am!”

It was real. I didn’t waste the slightest second on disbelief. What I did do was fall all over myself in my mind trying to say all the things I had put into all of those letters years before — a lifetime’s worth of “I’m SO SORRY,” and years of “I miss you,” all jumbled together. My gibberish, for that’s all it would have been had it been spoken aloud, was cut short by a simple calming, “Sh-h-h,” followed by, “I know. It’s okay.” And suddenly…it was. All the years of guilt and self recrimination just melted away. Then I felt what I can only describe as wave after tangible wave of pure Love washing over me. My father’s Love.

Modern psychologists will tell us that the human mind is fully capable of manufacturing such things for itself in times of great physical or emotional need. But they weren’t there. I know what I heard, I know what I felt, and I KNOW it was real. Faith is wonderful thing, and I deny no one theirs. It is a great comfort to believe. I had always believed, but it is an entirely different thing to KNOW. Since that day I KNOW. I know that the Spirit survives the passing of its physical form. I know that the petty trivialities on which we waste so much of our lives do not matter at all. I know that only the Love survives. My father and mother gave me life, and they gave me love, their generation might have been awkward about expressing it, but I always knew it was there. Then, years after his “physical” death, my father found a way to give me even more. To believe is wonderful, but to KNOW is a whole new world.

The last chapter in this tale took place years later. Michael, then just over 2 ½, saw a picture of my father (the same one that appeared in the January issue). He looked up at me and said, “I remember him.” I told him, “No honey, you never met him…” Before I could finish he said, quite emphatically, “Yea I did.” I suddenly got chills. I asked Michael, “When did you meet him, Honey?” He looked up at me with that innocent look that only the very young still have and said, “When I was in Mommy’s tummy.”

“Who is he?” he asked me. “That’s your Grandfather,” I told him, “That’s Daddy’s Daddy.” My wife had never told him about my experience on the night he was born, and no one else knew. No one else was there. No one but my father… and a child not yet quite born. No one dies. No one “Passes Away.” They merely Go Ahead.

I usually only share this tale with people who have lost someone dear, in the hope that it will help them deal with their loss. Over the years, I have heard similar tales from others as well, stories of the spirits of those recently Gone Ahead speaking to them, sometimes even appearing. Always they bring words of comfort. Thus I am not unique. On a lighter note, and I do not attempt to deify myself, nor is it my intent to blaspheme against the tenets of anyone’s faith, but the Christians among you may smile to realize that for a moment in the early hours of April 10th, 1988 a small room on the 4th floor of Wuestoff Hospital actually held a Father, a Son, and a man who was Wholly Ghost.

As the late Paul Harvey would say, “Now you know… The Rest of the Story. Good Day.”

“What is a Haridopolos?” This question was first put to the voters of Brevard county in 1999. It’s been repeated in every election cycle since. It was a cutsie way for aspiring politician Mike Haridopolos to turn what may for some be a tongue-twisting Greek surname into a catchy campaign slogan. Corny? Perhaps, but it worked. Mr. Haridopolos, a history and social sciences professor from Brevard Community College served as our Florida State Representative from 2000 through the spring of 2003, when he ascended to the Florida State Senate where he languishes still.

Haridopolos’ own website still bandies about the old slogan, playfully citing some who thought a “Haridopolos” might be sea turtle or a dinosaur. It might still be mildly amusing if not for his most recent fantastical forays into the realm of school financing. One would think that a man of his background would know better. Remember, “Senator Mike,” as he likes to call himself, came from a career as an educator, so it’s only fair that his constituents expect him to have at least a working grasp of matters in that field. Unfortunately, Senator Mike’s recent actions have proven this not to be the case.

In a recent form letter sent to every public school principal in Brevard county, our illustrious Senator so misrepresented the state of Florida’s public school system funding, specifically that of Brevard County, that I, for one, am left with only two possible explanations. Either his understanding of school funding, indeed even simple mathematics, is so grieviously lacking as to be laughable — or, he’s just flat out lying through his teeth. I have heard Mr. Haridoplos speak on several occasions over the years, and I’ll admit he has an easygoing, affable manner about him. He comes across as a likeable young guy, so my first instinct is to give the man the benefit of the doubt. Unfortunately, even though every single graph and assertion made by the Senator in his recent letter has been thoroughly refuted by the very principles he sought to slip it past (as well as the financial offices of the Brevard County School Board. ) Mr. Haridopolos still has these false and misleading figures posted on his website. That benefit is wearing thin.

Specifically, Senator Mike maintains that in the last two years the state’s funding of the school budget has been cut by only 3%. The reality is 6.1%, or $445 per student. If that’s not depressing enough, School Boards throughout the state have been told to expect another 2% before June 30th, this year, (another $140 per student), and as much as 16% in the coming year (a staggering $1,120 per student!). All of this in a state which already ranks 48th in the nation in public school funding. The reality, Senator Mike, is that from 1989-90 to 2004-05 our “Sunshine State” went from 20th in the nation to 42nd, and we are now one of only three states in the union whose public schools are so woefully under-funded that we don’t even qualify for the education stimulus package recently signed by President Obama. The sun might shine on our beaches, but the forecast for our schools is “dark and stormy with no end in sight.”

As noted above, funding for public schools is a consitutionally mandated resposnibility of the State. In 1985, before the Lottery, the state of Florida devoted 61.48% of it’s General Revenue to funding education. We were told that all Lottery funds would be added to that amount, but the truth is that same portion today (without Lottery funds) is 50.93%. So I guess they lied, huh? As for those Lottery funds: in 1988, just under 60% went to K-12 public schools; that has now dropped to 36%. I guess they lied again. If only we knew who “they” were. Oh yeah,”they” includes you, Senator. Perhaps instead of cherry-picking data or twisting numbers beyond reason to support an indefensible position you and the rest of “they” could start closing the corporate loopholes in the Florida tax codes, and start to actually fund our public schools as you are required to do by our own Florida State Constitution!

What is a Haridoplos? Now we know. It’s just another politician who talks the talk, but refuses to walk the walk. It’s a creature possessed of Hari-brained logic and a very bad grasp of Mathemopolos, who looks on the world through Grand Old Party-colored glasses. Thus far it has shown no ability to buck party dictates and actually stand up for what’s best for the children of this State. I had remained hopeful. Perhaps it would evolve. Perhaps that likeable guy with the toothy smile that we elected so many times would surprise us yet. Alas, this was NOT TO BE. On monday Feb. 23rd, our Senatoropolos showed up in front of 10,000 concerned parents and educators at a town hall meeting at the King Center in Melbourne and had the TEMERITY to trot out the same DEBUNKED charts and graphs. His reaction when his gross misinformation was again shown up for the tripe it is… Well, suffice it to say “CHILDISH” would be an understatement! Had he come to listen, I would have held out out hope. I would have remembered. Instead he behaved as a petulant demigogue, and I assure you, Senator, that I WILL remember. As will the 10,000 concerned parents and educators in attendance. As will the both the 8000 employees of the Brevard County Pulic School system and the 1000 teachers and service personell who will be potentially unemployed if this trend is not reversed. As will every parent and grandparent with a child in our public school system.

I have always thought that a good measure of the moral priorities of a society is how well they treat their Teachers. I myself usually capitalize the word Teacher at all times, out of respect. (I only chose not to do so in this piece because it would have made my editor’s head explode!) This country pays it’s Teachers on a par with it’s garbage men. What does that say about our priorities? Do we truly value our children so little that we care nothing for those noble individuals who dedicate their lives to the education of those children? The United States of America now ranks 39th in the world. That’s 39th and FALLING FAST! I know such a trend is not revesed overnight, but it has to start somewhere. One child. One Teacher. Perhaps, (Dare we dream?) one politician? Obviously, not the politicianopolos!

To Mr. Fumero, Ms. Bryant, Ms. Howard, Ms. Scott, Ms. Collier, and all the rest of you ( Even you, Doc): This one’s for you!

Fortunately for me, thinking of any numbers usually leads to thinking of ALL numbers. This may very well be adult ADHD at work: “O-o-oh, im getting old… LOOK, a puzzle!” Don’t panic. No one’s going to start talking about math, especially fractions, though it may get a little metaphysical here and there. The numbers I usually tend to focus on are 11s. By that I mean any set of numbers that adds up to 11 — like the year 2009; Aquarius: the 11th House; my own birthday, the 29th, or more specifically my entire birthday: 01.29.1961. I’ll also note as important any multiples of 11, like the upcoming holiday on February 2nd (Imbolc for some of us), but numerologically: 02.02. I also can’t help but point out the 44th President.

This is not just me going off some twisted algebraic deep end. This is Numerology. Pythagoras, the Greek philosopher and mathematician, called numbers the “Music of the Spheres,” and if he was correct, we are in for quite the ride. You see, in Numerology, 11s and multiples of 11 are Master Numbers, and carry with them a higher vibration, if you will — a greater potential. That greater potential can be for either success or failure. There has always been but a razor-thin edge between genius and madman. Great potential, especially in times of great chaos or opportunity may be used to for salvation and positive leadership, or oppression and tyranny.

Certainly the current state of affairs in the world would qualify as great chaos. The very pillars of our financial institutions are at best shaky, where not actually crumbling. Much of our energy, industrial, and transportation infrastructure, once the marvel of the entire world, lies in shambles, rotted by apathy, greed, and neglect. The Fires of War, the quintessential embodiment of Chaos, burn in several places with no immediate end in sight, while sparks which threaten to set off others smoulder in many more. Many scientists even warn that our planet’s very ability to maintain life life as we know it, on the scale we know it, is so threatened that we may even now be very near the “tipping point.” That sounds bad enough in a canoe, let alone when we’re talking the whole planet.

Still, I choose to counter this laundry list of dire concurrence with the knowledge that, thus far, when most threatened by chaos, the United States has persevered. In fact, on every such occasion, we have come out of the smoke and the rubble stronger than we were when everything started going to hell in a handcart. Indeed, this entire nation was founded during such a time. For us, chaos has always been turned into opportunity. We must take care, however, to not get so wrapped up in our well deserved patriotism that we forget there have been missteps along the way as well. The refusal to acknowledge a mistake only robs you of the chance to learn from it, and often increases the chance that the same mistake will be made again.

Yes, we survived the Civil War, (or “The War of Northern Aggression,” for my southern friends!) but we followed it with the years of oppression and economical rapine that were the Reconstruction. We ended slavery, but it took us another hundred years to pass laws to insure even the most basic of civil rights to black Americans, and in many areas, we’re still a long way from making equality anything more than a hollow promise heard around election time. We didn’t even truly reunite as one nation after the Civil War until the stupidity of the Spanish American War and the necessity of World War I. We went from a third-rate military force with less than one armored division at the outset of World War II to being the greatest military force on the planet by that war’s end. But we also locked up innocent Americans in places like Manzanar solely because of their race. We have seen markets tremble several times. We have seen them all collapse. BUT WE ARE STILL HERE! And this metaphysical, tree-hugging, patriotic, liberal wack job has no doubt that, just as the United States survived all of those dark yesterdays to make it to today, so shall she weather these stormy days to see a brighter tomorrow.

All those 11s just underscore the certainty of it. They just serve to remind me why I literally wept on January 20th. They remind me that 2009 is a Master Year, and in a time of such staggering challenges We the People have a Leader again, and I stress that as “Leader” with a capital “L.” I wept tears of Joy that in such a time such a man stands as our 44th President. As someone who chided his political rivals on so many occasions for “drinking the Kool-Aid,” it certainly sounds as if I’ve now had a healthy dose of that served up by the other camp, but… Oh, who am I kidding? Guilty as charged! But I also remember that, just as I mentioned, such potential can go either way. Trust me, with all my 11s, I have seen just as many shadowed valleys as I have sunny mountain tops. But however dark this valley may seem now, I’m telling you, I feel a mountain top coming on!

So I will listen for Pythagoras’ Music of the Spheres and wonder as the notes of a dirge are slowly transferred into a hymn of rejoicing.

Enjoy the Music, and Blessed Be.

This is not me being maudlin. The most important part of any sentence is not the period at the end. “Going Ahead from a sudden heart attack while living on a 50′ Hatteras in Freeport, The Bahamas after coming home from the golf course?” That’s not exactly a bad period for most sentences. Hell, it’s probably what my Dad would’ve picked for himself, had there been a menu! Either way, it’s not the period that’s important; it’s the sentence. The sentence that was my Father’s life read like a globetrotting adventure/comedy.

Racing hydroplanes as a kid: Adventure. The series of old black and white photos showing that kid launched over 60 feet through the air while the boat cartwheels after him: Pure Comedy. U.S. Army Air Corps: Adventure. Having to bail out of two trainers: Comedy (Crashing that Piper Cub over 20 years later: Both.) Boating every creek and minor tributary river off the Mississippi for 300 miles, and later the same for the lower Chesapeake: Adventure. 42,612 bent prop shafts, 1,204,785 fried water pumps, enough various gaskets and fan belts to carpet the entire earth to a depth of four feet, all lovingly swathed and fervently embraced in a ribald blanket of profanity whose intricacy and artistry would make Botticelli weep: Highest comedy. It was a rip-roaring, laugh-’til-you-cry sorta life. John Wayne and Jackie Gleason were equally revered, but I think he channeled Bogart and Red Skelton! The best thing about my Father’s life was that he LIVED.

There is a vast difference between just being alive and actually living. I know. I’ve done woefully even amounts of both; I’m sure many of you have. The tricky part is that, so often, if you don’t focus on the latter you usually wind up settling for the former. You put off that book, that movie, that nice dinner. You put off that trip. Then suddenly you’re using phrases like, “Where did the year go?”

Fortunately, the solution is simple, and it doesn’t have to cost anything. You don’t have to travel or risk your hide in small aircraft. (Though it is a rush!) You don’t have to be Lewis or Clark. What you do have to do can be as simple as just talking to people. I mean really talking to them — not at them — and really listening when they talk to you. Read a book. Call a friend. Do anything, but do something! Most importantly, whatever it is, REVEL IN IT!

As I flip through the scrapbook of my own admittedly cluttered mind, I see far too many wasted moments, far too much of my past that just… passed. I also see the high points, shining like a string of coastal lighthouses amid a fog of apathetic, self-imposed mediocrity. Just like lighthouses, many of those bright spots occurred when I was sailing far to close to the rocks, but as lighthouses are supposed to do, they often pierced the darkness just in time for me to avoid dashing my hull to bits. I also note that most of those brighter points cost nothing at all. One sunset that you take the time to truly enjoy is worth 50 that you just happen to see. One brilliant, starlit night, truly considered, is worth 100 barely glimpsed. Birdsong and the laughter of children are free smiles granted by a universe littered with joy, but only if you take the time to hear them, to appreciate them — and “Free” is an excellent price for just about anything.

I will always treasure the memories of the trips to Quebec, and Nova Scotia, and Bermuda that my parents were able to provide in my youth, as well as the ponies, the seasonal migrations to Florida, and more boat rides than I could ever count. But I will also treasure Scrabble and Chateauneuf on the beach at Canaveral, lost weekends in St. Augustine, and many sunsets and bottles of champagne spent with that special someone. The chess games at the Hut with an 84-year-old Brit on holiday, the mockingbird near my house on Johnson Ave., and the weekend camping trips at Sebastian. The first time I held my children. Every single time Jacquie looks at me and smiles.

My point is simple, and it is the one New Year’s wish I would wish for you all (regardless of who you voted for!). That you not settle for just being alive, but rather that you should LIVE every day to its fullest. For, contrary to the popular old saying, Time is NOT Money. Money not spent is money saved, and can usually gather interest, but time not spent is not time saved, but merely time wasted, and thus of very little interest at all. I don’t care if you’re 20 or 70, any day when they still refer to you in the present tense is a gift. Treasure it as such.

Bobby Burns’ poem, “Auld Lang Syne,” literally means “Old Long Since.” It is a caution that the memories of the good old times not be lost in the bustle of the new. I would also ask that you remember when they sing Auld Lang Syne, that old acquaintances NOT be forgot. Remember those who have Gone Ahead, but do so with joy for their lives and for the things they had to share with us. Perhaps with each such remembrance you will find, as I have here with my Father, a new lesson to be learned, something new that they can still teach you. “Gone Ahead” doesn’t have to mean gone away. Tears should be fleeting, while smiles and laughter should last forever.

Happy New Year to you all.

(You, too, Dad.)

That’s how it feels. Against all odds, in spite of some of the most hateful, bigoted, and despicable lies I’ve ever heard in a presidential campaign, in a country where far too may people still believe that “White makes Right,” we finally elected the smartest man in the room. Oh yeah, he also happens to be black. Okay, “technically,” he’s half black, but that’s enough to make the Bigots in Bedsheets go completely frothy at the mouth, even in a year when Linens and Things is having a huge going-out-of-business sale!

For those of us who prefer to look beyond such external details and weigh the true worth of the man, it feels like the dawn of a new day. Of course after the last eight years under the bumbling partisan “leadership” of George W. Bush, a night light would seem like the dawn of a new day. After a President whose only grasp of economics upon attaining office was how much to pay for an 8-ball and a bottle of Jack in 48 states, a man who referred to the country to the north as “Canadia,” a man who gave us such immortal moments as “My Pet Goat,” “Mission Accomplished,” and “Brownie’s doing a fine job,” a trained ferret would be a quantum leap up the intellectual food chain!

Let’s face it, “Dubya” could only make Smartest Man in the Room if the room were filled with broccoli, cauliflower, and brussel sprouts — and even then, I’d have to lean toward one of the vegetable contenders (and that’s my list of Most Hated Vegetables!). Lentils he could beat… Well, one lentil. Maybe. Just so long as it didn’t talk too fast, or bring up complex topics like “vegetable protein.” You know he would still call it a little brown pea.

As for Darth Cheney, I’ll still only believe him truly gone when I see it. I think he’s going to lock himself in that man-sized safe and go rogue. Only in America can you mix cocktails and quail hunting, shoot an old man in the face, avoid the police until you sober up, and then have the old man publicly apologize to you! That may be a bit misleading. “You” could not do any of that and not go to jail. What I should have said is that only in America could a politically connected, corporate mogul with Evil Super Powers from the Dark Side do those things! Also, only in America could a man stand up before the nation and explain all the reasons for NOT invading Iraq, including that it would take decades to fix it once it was smashed, and then, just 8 years later, orchestrate that very same invasion, and THEN act shocked that reconstruction was not an overnight affair.

I know. The fans of Kool Aid’s new “Bushie Berry” flavor, are near apoplectic hearing me continue to cast aspersions on their tag-team champions, but I remember hearing “Slick Willy” jokes loooong after the end of the Clinton administration; so fair is fair. I will ask that they understand we never “bashed” Bush and Cheney as stupid and evil just because we hated them. We did it because they WERE stupid and evil (Hell, they still are! ). The hatred was just a bonus. A spoonful of sugar, if you will, to make the taste of bile go away.

It’s also not as if the hate hasn’t already begun on the other side for Obama. I don’t recall the world hanging on every word of a President Elect before. It took the Republicans under Dubya and Darth Cheney 8 years to gut environmental controls, ravage public schools and universities, steal the nation blind, start a war on false pretenses, and drive our economy to the very brink of ruin, yet now voices from that side of the aisle (or the bar) are snidely saying, “What change? I don’t see any change!” Come on, people! The man’s not even in office yet! You’re filling out his First Year Performance Review and he hasn’t even clocked in? Now that’s some bull feces !

My latest favorite is the sarcastic commentary on Obama’s proposed Public Works Program. “That’s nothing new! Whine. Whine. We saw that with Roosevelt. Whine. Whine.” Really? If you get caught out in the rain and I hand you an umbrella, are you actually going to refuse it just because you’ve seen it before? News flash: IT’s POURING OUTSIDE! Just take the damned umbrella! Or would you rather have the guy who tells you that his Pet Goat likes it when Jesus makes the clouds cry?

I know many people only wanted one thing in their stocking this year: Bimbo Barbie with the Caribou Kung Fu Grip. They also assumed it would be brought by a really, really old white guy who’s not sure whose house he’s in. Me? I’m looking forward to a Holiday Season when I already know I’m getting the one present I wanted more than anything else. The Smartest Guy in the Room will be in charge! (Oh, and this year, my present… It’s not being brought by a white guy! )

So Blessed Yule, Happy Hanukkah, Merry Christmas, and a Joyous Kwanzaa. May whatever God you embrace embrace you as well, and may you embrace others in turn. (And may the clouds only cry when the grass is thirsty.)

Many will wonder just how much racism could have really touched a little white boy and many will wonder why it remains such a burning issue for the white man that little boy became, but if I said that my neighbors had been beaten, that my neighbors had been raped, and that my neighbors had been killed, they would understand. What if it were members of my own family? Everyone could appreciate the lasting nature of such scars should close neighbors have been involved; they would certainly get it had my own family been subjected to such horrors. But that’s the point. They were my neighbors. They were my family. They still are.

We would not dream of condoning random beating of our neighbors; we would be livid to think of a rapist getting off scot-free. That a murderer in our own neighborhood should go unpunished is out of the question. The problem lies in how very small many of us perceive our neighborhoods to be. Here are few simple rules to put it into perspective:

We are ALL neighbors.

We are ALL family.

The child of any man or woman is the child of EVERY man and woman, to be cherished and nurtured and protected as their own.

Now do you get it?

The teenage boy jumped on his way home from work and savagely beaten by a dozen grown men with baseball bats was my brother. That his skin happened to be black does not change that. The young mother repeatedly raped by her landlord while the local police ignored her repeated cries for help was my sister, as was her daughter who suffered the same fate. The fact that they were black does not change that. The harmless old man caught out alone on a back road at night and hung was my brother as well. That he was also black does not change that. All of these actual crimes, as well as the countless thousands like them that occurred in those idyllic “Good Ole Days” were perpetrated on people who were at the very least my neighbors, at best my own family. The fact that my own logic has me related to the gang with the baseball bats, the landlord, and the faceless cowards with the noose as well sickens me. It should sicken us all.

As I write this, the presidential election is just three days off. If events unfold as every single reputable poll indicates, we will elect a black man as President of the United States of America. Many herald this as a breakthrough for us as a nation, a point I certainly will not dispute. But this is, in reality, just a baby step in the right direction. The real breakthrough will come when a candidate’s race isn’t even considered worthy of mention. The real breakthrough comes when we, as a nation, have finally learned that the measure of a man or woman has absolutely nothing to do with the color of their skin, the shape of their eyes, what church they attend, or where their parents or grandparents came from. We are all a long way from that day.

The danger lies in believing that now the work is done. The work is only beginning. Much of our nation has been stolen from right before our delusional eyes, those few tattered scraps that remain are being systematically choked to death. Prying the gnarled claws of corporate power and greed from our very throats will be no small task. Many politicians remain, on both the state and national levels, who are little more than the paid and pampered watchdogs of one industry or another. Rooting them all out will take time. Teaching their replacements that such behavior will no longer be allowed will take even longer. But we can get there.

We can rise up in numbers never before seen in this nation and effect nothing less than a revolution, and we will do it one vote at a time. Once the votes are cast, however, is NOT the time to stop taking an interest. Watch what’s being done on your behalf by those you have elected. Call them, write them, let them know you are watching. Most importantly, let them know you will remember come the next election. And while we’re at it, let’s throw a few of the worst offenders in jail. Those who have knowingly allowed, if not actually assisted, one defrauding of the nation after another.

Politicians are supposed to be our watchdogs. They are supposed to answer to us. We hold the leash. Those who have chewed through that leash, those who have slipped that leash to run groveling to the feet of some other monied master, have gone rabid. It is time for them, or at least their political careers, to be “put down.”

I have always hoped that I might see the day when my Nation grows up. I have dared to dream of a day when we value each other based on our deeds and on our potential for greatness, rather than an antiquated and vile agenda of petty hatreds. There is still much to do to overcome such thinking, but now, God willing, that day is before us.

It’s also DAMNED LONG OVERDUE!

With November just around the corner, I will tilt one last time at the GOP windmill. This should not come as a shock; I’ve hardly been shy of late. Sarcastic? Yes. Truthful? Absolutely! But shy? Me? Never! I would still ask that those of you who are undecided to read on. I will even ask that those of you who plan on voting a straight Republican ticket to read on as well, in the fervent hope that you might come to see the truth about the Emperor’s New Clothes.

Barack Obama was raised by a single mother with some help from her parents. None of them were rich. Today Barack and Michelle Obama own one house and one car. John McCain is the son of a four-star admiral and the grandson of a four-star admiral, all wealthy. Today John and Cindy McCain own eight houses and thirteen cars! So how does McCain still get away with calling Obama an Elitist?

Barack Obama went to Harvard on a full academic scholarship, and graduated magna cum laude. John McCain attended the U.S. Naval Academy at Annapolis, and graduated 5th from the bottom of his class of 899. Again, that’s 894th place out of 899! So how does John McCain expect us to believe that he understands so much, but Obama doesn’t know the difference between a strategy and a tactic?

Barack Obama wants to stop the existing tax breaks and loopholes for the very wealthy and for corporations. He wants to end the war in Iraq. He also wants to stop letting Wall Street run amok with our  money and no government oversight. John McCain wants to continue the G.W. Bush tax plan AS IS; his campaign is riddled with lobbyists for the same corporate interests that backed Bush. He says he will stay in Iraq for 100 YEARS if need be. He also helped to remove the very government rules and regulations in 1982 which led to both the savings and loan crash of 1987 as well as the disaster facing us today. So how does he get away with claiming to be the obvious choice for CHANGE?

Barack Obama provided his medical records: Four pages covering his entire life. John McCain provided only those records covering the last eight years: 1,200 pages. In all fairness, the earlier part of McCain’s medical history was lost due to the poor quality of the papyrus! So how does McCain get to say he’s ready to hit the ground running? If he hit anything running, he’d drop dead! Then we’d be left with the Pretty Puppet with the Pompoms!

This is the one that will make some people’s heads explode, but were the political roles reversed, the Republicans would have been SHOUTING it for years! 9/11 HAPPENED ON THEIR WATCH! The Clinton White House got daily briefings on Bin Laden. They knew something was up and were hunting hard after the details. They told the new administration repeatedly! Yet two weeks into the Bush Regime during a briefing, Donald Rumsfeld yelled at George Tenet, the head of the CIA: “Will you SHUT UP about Bin Laden!” This was reported and confirmed by three different men present, two of them high-ranking generals. So how in the HELL do the Republicans get to claim that they are the ones who can keep you safe?

Yes, John McCain was in the military. But the details of his early military career show an endless series of drunken parties and womanizing by a spoiled son of a powerful military family. He passed flight school despite crashing on a test flight. He then crashed a plane he had borrowed to fly up to the Army Navy game. Next, he flew one into power lines over Spain. The result of this stellar air record? Promotion to — wait for it — FLIGHT INSTRUCTOR! Yes, he endured five-and-a-half years of nightmarish captivity at the hands of the North Vietnamese. But when he returned, he was promoted to Executive Officer of Replacement Air Group 174 out of Jacksonville, a post normally given to a man with at least Squadron Commander experience. During all of this, he repeatedly took planes for flights to parties often with subordinate female military staff — WHILE MARRIED! These should have been courts martial offenses, as the Uniform Code of Military Justice is quite clear on forbidding adultery and fraternization with subordinates. This is the man who claims his military service qualifies him to be Commander in Chief?

The TRUTH is that John McCain’s military career qualifies him for only three jobs: Pimp, bartender, or falling object! The fact that he was instrumental in stopping all further government efforts to locate POWs or MIAs still in Vietnam should disqualify him from even mentioning his military career! Yes, John, we know. You refused early release until the rest of the men with you were released as well, BUT YOU ABANDONED ALL THE REST!

(Note: Stealing the White House AGAIN for your corporate backers so you can continue to let them have their way with our nation’s resources and economy is a “strategy.” Claiming to be against corporate influence in government to mislead the voting public is a “tactic”!)

The political world… Scratch that. The entire world was rocked, shocked, and flat-out dumbfounded on Friday, August 29th, when John McCain announced Alaska Governor Sarah Palin as his Vice Presidential running mate. Low flying satellites, alien observers, and all those guys tapping phones for Michael Chertoff were all amazed to hear more than two thirds of the planet say, “Huh?” at the same time. Only slightly less surprising was that they all did it in Scooby voice! This was followed, quite understandably, by, “R-r-r-who?” Personally I think McCain should have saved us all from several minutes of confusion by adding, “That’s right. I said it! Governor Sarah Palin of Alaska!”

In all fairness, I will admit the “entire world” might be stretching it a bit. Many glassy-eyed Republicans just smiled and nodded. Outwardly, many could be heard to say things like, “Oh yes, I hear she’s good,” or “Excellent choice!” and “Ooh, pretty!” But let’s get real; most of them would say that if the GOP told them they were going to be voting for Lulu the Dancing Chimp! Inwardly they were all murmuring, “Yes, Master. We hear and obey!” This is the effect of drinking wa-a-a-ay too much “Grand Old Koolaid,” while listening to a 24-hour loop of Gay Bashing Svengali Speak and Creationist Siren Song punctuated by the Greatest Hits of the NRA all brought to you by FOX News and sponsored the good folks at Halliburton, Exxon and Pfizer.

But for the rest of us, the shock is only now giving way to… well, laughter. This has got to be the single most transparently desperate political move since… since… Okay, EVER! Sarah Palin spent two years as a city councilwoman, followed by another two years as Mayor, all in the booming metropolis of Wasilla, Alaska, population 6,700! Don’t worry though, she’s had two years as the Governor of Alaska. You know the state with 120,000 fewer people than JACKSONVILLE? Oh yeah, she’s ready to be one heartbeat away from being President of the United States. Especially when that heartbeat is the thready pulse of John McCain. In McCain’s defense, his first choice was a boyhood friend with great experience in government, but he was crushed to learn that Ramses I had died chasing Hebrews into the Red Sea.

McCain is apparently no slouch, though; he has already started referring to his running mate as “a partner and soul mate.” I wonder how comfortable Cindy McCain is with that terminology? Even I couldn’t make this stuff up! In addition to her staggering political resume, Palin is also an Evangelical Christian who is staunchly anti-abortion. I can deal with that. Her rights. Her choice. What I can’t deal with (see last month’s Resident) is that she is also in favor of teaching Creationism in the Public school system! Could this pick be any more about sucking up to the hardcore right-wing fundamentalists who want to drag us all kicking and screaming right back to the Bronze Age?

Far and away the most obvious reason for such an outlandish Vice Presidential running mate is that she is a ploy to attract some of the more disgruntled female supporters of Hillary Clinton. I would expect women to be far more upset about this than me, because it implies that you will vote for your gender with absolutely no regard to whether or not the woman is qualified for the office. It implies that you think below your waist, which is exactly what women have been saying about men since the dawn of time. Are you really going to take that?

Many will reply here that Obama is counting on “the black vote,” and they would be right. BUT Barack Obama has a BA in International Studies from Columbia, and a J.D. (Law Degree) from Harvard — Palin has a BA in Communications/Journalism from Idaho. Obama used his stellar education not for a high-paying corporate job, but to help Chicago’s inner city poor. Palin worked the TV News sports desk. Obama served as an Illinois State Senator for seven years, then as a U.S. Senator for more than two years. Palin was on the City Council of a town 1447.7 times SMALLER than Chicago for two years and served as its Mayor for another two, whence she ascended to the lofty post of Governor of Alaska, a state 14.5 times SMALLER than Chicago! Yeah! She’s got it all!

The whole “who has/should have a lock on which demographic” argument can be summed up quite simply. If Barack Obama were white and named Bob Johnson, he would be up in the polls by probably 25%. If Sarah Palin were a man named Jimmy Palin, he would still be the most unqualified candidate for vice president EVER ! (And that even includes Dan “Potatoe Boy” Quayle!)

I will give her credit on one point, though. As a popular bumper sticker in Alaska says, “Coldest State — Hottest Governor”! She is a stunning woman, and she’s doing things to a pants suit that Hillary can’t even remember. But is that truly the only criteria for the Presidency of the United States? If so, I’m nominating Halle Berry and snagging every demographic there is! Let’s face it: John McCain is 71, and he has a medical history longer than… MEDICAL HISTORY! The odds are his VP may very well see some game time, and there is no way anyone can honestly say that the G.I.L.F. is up for for the BIG game. G.I.L.F., for those of you who don’t know, means Governor Intended to Lure Feminists!

Why? What did you think it meant?