Bites from Edwin

Monday, March 19, 2012

Observations from Ft. Myers, Florida

Mon. March 19, 2012:

Gentle Readers: From a spotty computer in some sunny Ft. Myers gated development's lobby, one has to make a few overdue Observations about the state of the world beyond Ft. Myers.

1. The anti-Palin HBO film Game Change, whatever its partisan flaws, had a couple outstanding points about our beloved USA. By far the most valuable was the line from Woody Harrelson's character, in helping prepare Sarah for her debate vs. Joe Biden: "How many answers will she have to be ready for, and how many minutes will her portion of the debate fill?  Roughly 25 answers to study, ultimately to fill 45 minutes of Palin talk? Any person can be made to memorize such answers, to fill up those 45 minutes."

Can there be such a thing as too much democracy?
Herein lies a fundamental flaw in our democratic republic.
Safe to say, this was not what conservatives' esteemed Framers of 1787 had in mind.

2. Game Change got another thing right: John McCain at least wants to be a better citizen than politician.
But it must be just as impossible to do this, as it is to be a normal civilian after someone has tried to kill you once you put on the uniform of any military in the world -- including the military of our beloved United States of America. Through World War II, if not McCain's Korean War, our troops were the cowboys in white hats, and did not seem to commit atrocities. But the sad truth is, military combat taints soldiers the world over, and our boys are not immune. German novelist Erich Maria Remarque made that clear in the 1920's, for those paying attention. In 2001-2012, for every 500 American soldiers who hugged & heroically tried to protect an Afghani or Iraqi child, there was probably 1 who thought nothing of urinating on a local's body, or burning a local's Koran, or shooting & burning 16 local sleeping innocents in their beds.

And now, the same genuinely decent Citizen McCain who tried to put a stop to Sarah Palin's fear-mongering nonsense about Obama being an "Arab," is currently arguing on "Meet the Press" that surges & more tours are essential in that graveyard of empires -- Afghanistan.  The brave & fundamentally honorable citizen of Game Change reverts to just another Republican politician vs. Obama's war strategy toward the 2012 Election. Is this what the 1787 Framers expected?

3. Obama & his strategists are doing a stunningly lousy job of defending their actions/inactions about
"delaying" [and why not be clear on this, too: not totally killing!] the Keystone Pipeline, and about frightening rises in gas prices.
If Keystone drilling & fracking are so dangerous to nearby aquifers & visible rivers, Make The Case. Evidence is apparently plentiful, but we receive none of it from Obama's team. Why not show footage of the horrendous damage fracking has done to certain Michigan rivers? At the very least, run an endless loop of disastrous oil spills like Exxon Valdez & BP in the Gulf! The consequences were real, still around, and shocking.
That might give pause, to at least a few independent drill-baby voters.

And what about a clear, simple presentation of how little any president can do about gas prices, at any time? Over 75% of such prices get determined by worldwide demand, right? And another 20% by commodity speculators?  [If these figures are incorrect, then the White House should be correcting them; if they are correct, Why In Hell aren't we being told about them?]
Is Obama tired of being president? Is he throwing the election? Even if not, what good will he do even if re-elected? He has to be able to clean up such messes -- with "dogged" resolve if not intelligence.  At least Romney got out of the car and hosed it down, along with Seamus.

Thursday, March 8, 2012

Australia's Guy Rundle, on USA's Republican Primaries

Thu. March 8, 2012:

http://mail.google.com/mail/?shva=1#inbox/135f04b82dfc42c4

Still, any Democrat who thinks the General in November will be a slam-dunk is in for the Big Chill.
By November, Romney's super PACs will be going full-bore vs. Obama's super PACs.
If Auzzie observers -- and other horrified global onlookers -- tune in to our spectacle, they will wonder how we ever won The War.

Obama's limp economy, high gas prices, nixing the Keystone Pipeline, appeasing & apologizing foreign policy, stomping on the "freedom of religion" clause of the 1st Amendment -- these will be problems for a country who still thinks he is not One Of Us.

Believe it or not, "Hardball's" Chris Matthews had the most hopeful line for Obama's reelection chances:
Romney's campaign reminds you of the story about that luxury high-priced, beautifully labeled dog food.
"Trouble is, the dog don't like it, plain & simple, and walks away."

Wednesday, March 7, 2012

Note to Mitt: Presidential Is as Presidential Does

Wed. March 7, 2012:

From the Best Advisor a Bloggist Ever Had:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/03/06/iran-crisis-efraim-halevy-israel-romney-mossad_n_1323639.html

Sunday, March 4, 2012

Mute for Mitt: Michigan as Romney Clincher

Sun. March 4, 2012:

Love him or hate him -- or, as in most cases, neither one! -- we shall look back on Mitt's Feb. 28 narrow win in Michigan as the primary that won him the nomination. Disappointed vultures within both parties, and especially within the media, had to fly away. Their prey escaped.

For Obama voters, be somewhat afraid: Romney will prove by far the hardest among the 7 Republican Dwarves to defeat in the General.

Still, perhaps Michgan will prove to be an Obama blessing in disguise. If Santorum had won just 2 more delegates from Michigan, Republican establishment bigwigs might have forced a Chris Christie to enter the race and accept the nomination. And judging from Gov. Christie's virtuoso performance last Sunday on "Face the Nation," he would be a huge worry for Obama. Christie may be the most glib, quick-witted, spontaneously brilliant political talker of the age -- arguably even sharper than that champion bullbleeper Bill Clinton, and at least as dangerous a bully & demagogue. Jeb Bush or Mitch Daniels? Not so much, but at least they don't appear to suffer Mitt's ham-mittedness.

But it's all mute for Mitt, who is home free now. And he has Rick Santorum to thank.
Michigan was Santorum's to win, but as Republican closer, Santorum gave up 5 runs in the 9th inning.

Lest anyone forget: Mitt will have won this 2012 Republican nomination without the force of a single compelling idea -- other than, "I may be able to outspend & out-organize even Barack Obama, just as I've done to Pawlenty, Bachmann, Perry, that other Mormon, Gingrich, Santorum, and Paul."

Saturday, February 25, 2012

In Praise of Allegheny College, Clinton High, Oak Ridge High

Sat. Feb. 25, 2012:

Ever noticed how, after days & days of Television as the wasteland that Marshall McLuhan had predicted,
suddenly comes a windfall of worthwhiles?

Well, it finally happened last night, within the space of about 120 minutes:
1. At about 7:35 pm E.S.T., David Brooks & Mark Shields got congratulations from PBS News Hour's Judy Woodruff for being awarded Allegheny College's "civility in public discourse" award.
For a fleeting moment, this viewer felt restored faith, that other folks -- like Allegheny College -- are out there wishing that the Bill O'Reillys, Sean Hannitys, Rush Limbaughs, Keith Olbermans, and Rupert Murdochs, would dry up & blow away.
Even better, when Judy Woodruff announced the award & looked at Brooks & Shields,
Mark Shields replied: Allegheny College's honor is gratefully received, but the credit should go to the Gold Standard of civility in public discourse, the News Hour's founding fathers Robert MacNeil & Jim Lehrer and the expectations one feels when one walks in the newsroom of PBS.
It tells you all you need to know, when trying to assess anyone who labels such broadcast journalists
"lamestream media" and "liberal elite media."
Nobody needs to be "elite" or "liberal" to appreciate last night's Allegheny College moment.

2. A little after 9:15 pm, surf to MSNBC's Rachel Maddow. She is interviewing guest Karen Tumulty, another admired PBS reporter.   Maddow tries to goad Tumulty into ridiculing another set of apparent gaffes by the Romney campaign:
First, staging Mitt's "major economic speech" in Detroit's cavernous 65,000-capacity Ford Field, which naturally miniaturized (and swallowed whole!) Romney's respectable audience of 1,200 listeners. [For those of us old enough to remember Watergate revelations of 1973, the "dirty tricks" of guys like Dick Tuck and Donald Segretti come to mind -- such as, arranging for your political enemy's major campaign event to be held in a venue way too big for your audience.]
Second, Mitt's reassuring Michigan voters that his wife drives 2 GM Cadillacs of their 4 cars in 2 of their several residences -- so don't worry about those Massachusetts rumors that Governor Romney kept his foreign-bought BMW out of sight back then.
Don't get me wrong. As lefty as Maddow usually is, she frequently says so, and admits errors occasionally.
But this time, even Republicans have to be asking Maddow's question: "Is candidate Mitt Romney bad at his job?" And, to Karen Tumulty's credit, she quietly kept her PBS clothes on, and refused to ridicule Romney during her guest gig on partisan MSNBC.  Candidates make missteps, she agreed. But she would not pile on.

3. Finally, c. 9:31 pm, "World Network" aired an inspirational, obscure story, "the Clinton 12," about the 1956 self-integration of schools in Clinton, Tennessee. Black & white folks of tiny Clinton did it themselves, with virtually no help from the Feds or from state protection. "The Clinton 12," USA's first black students braving 1954 Brown v. Board implementation anywhere, were of course courageous beyond anything that any people of any race can fathom today in 2012 -- especially in the face of determined resistence led by the local White Citizens Council who burned Clinton High School to the ground. But black students got help from unexpected sources.  One of several white sympathizers was a local white Christian minister -- cheered on by none other by Billy Graham -- who did do what Jesus would do. The white Clinton minister got severely beaten for protecting as many of "the Clinton 12" as he could.
And Clinton High's bitter sports rival Oak Ridge High, welcomed Clinton's school-less students, arriving by bus, to Oak Ridge facilities. Before a huge crowd of Oak Ridge parents & students, its marching band played Clinton's alma mater, right after the Clinton kids got off their buses. [Youtube may have the aerial photograph.]

Walt Kelly's "Pogo" comic strip was right: "We have met the enemy, and they are Us."
The good news is, amidst our Fear & Ignorance, there is also the Better Angels of our Us -- even on TV.
Long Live Allegheny College, the Clinton 12-plus, and Oak Ridge High!

Friday, February 24, 2012

Valdosta, Georgia: "A Region of Opportunity"

Fri. Feb. 24, 2012:

Gentle Readers,
After the long absence during an ongoing roadtrip until March 31, this blog comes up for air, at a Residence Inn near Gainesville, Florida.
But let the record show: Yesterday, we were in Valdosta, Georgia, which its water tower's logo claimed is "A Region of Opportunity" and a "Community without Limits."

Time for a new appeal to optimism -- for Valdosta, for the USA, and for the planet:

1. Invent a "pacify chip" -- and a "schooling chip" -- to implant in every human being on the planet. Then maybe "Christian" extremists like Billy Graham's son Franklin Graham, of all people, won't accidentally discredit Jesus on MSNBC's "Morning Joe," as he did recently. There, sadly, he instinctively jumped into the same "man of faith" pit that chipless inhuman yet all-too-chipless human fundamentalist-Islamist extremists occupy. Witness the Taliban's latest dupes in Afghanistan, rampaging in fury about the burning of Korans by clueless U.S. military personnel. Here we have mindless religious zeal on both sides, plus a total lack of meaningful schooling -- among too many so-called "Christian" ministers, U.S. soldiers lacking any real world awareness from their highschool classrooms, and Taliban leaders urging poor jobless uneducated young men to kill every Western Occupier in Afghanistan that they can find. Franklin Graham is right to say that Western Leaders should demand that innocent Christians be protected from Islamic harrassment & death in places like Egypt -- contrary, by the way, to the Koran's own teachings. But "Christians" like Franklin Graham seem to ignore the countless times over the ages when "Christians" slaughtered Islamic victims just for being Islamic. Wound Jesus condone such hatred?
Only thing left is a pacifying chip.

2. As for the "schooling chip": Try sitting in on classes in nearly any high school or community college of the USA in 2012. Nearly every student has admirable courage, and at least a spark of hope for the future, or they would be absent or dropped out from high school, and not have bothered to enroll in community college.  But courage aside, most of these students have so little awareness of academic culture, and so little confidence in their brain's ability or need to study, that as a soldier in the middle east, How Will You Recognize the Koran When You Stumble Upon It?
Google Edward Banfield's The Unheavenly City Revisited [c. 1970].  He was no liberal -- President Nixon appointed him as an advisor, and Banfield scorned reformers as mostly "limousine liberals."
But over 40 years ago, Banfield recognized that for any student to advance, he/she required a "future-oriented" time horizon. For the overwhelming students you visit at a U.S. high school or community college,
these students have never had a chance to hope or plan -- and therefore care & save & work -- for the future. Dysfunctional family & middle school, have not been able to future-orient them; pre-school & elementary school may have a slightly better chance, but whatever gains happen there seem to get tsunamied in present-oriented resignation thereafter. Charter schools, Magnet schools, No Child Left Behind, brave schooling experiments of thoughtful visionaries like the late Ted Sizer [google!] -- so far, drops in a huge bucket.
Research & develop that schooling chip, and fast.

3. Meanwhile, USA's or international political systems seem totally incapable of solving global "faith-based"
violence, or global ignorance & present-orientation [climate change a "ruse" impairing "energy now," anyone?].  Can we really expect a President Romney, or a re-elected President Obama, plus a metasticized financially beholden new Congress, plus a delusionally activist ideological majority in the Supreme Court, to deliver meaningful change after November 2012? Will the United Nations suddenly hold sway to create peace and harmony, while Steve Martin's "children of the world hold hands"?
Valdosta, Georgia = "A Region of Opportunity?" "A Community without Limits?"
Valdosta, Georgia, the USA, and the Whole Wide World -- not to mention Henny Youngman -- all plead:
"Implant my chips! Please!"