In the aftermath of the Tucson massacre, what does right-wing hate talk radio have to say for itself? Not much, if a casual scan of the AM dial on Monday was any example. I listened with a certain degree of incredulity as one right-wing host seemed to suggest that Barack Obama’s “combative” rhetoric was to blame, while another suggested that listeners of a mind to do so ought not jump to the conclusion that Obama and the Democrats were responsible for creating the climate of violence that led to the shooting. Outside of local conservative commentator John Carlson, there was no discussion about what role the over-heated pro-gun rhetoric had in the shooting, let alone the anti-government propaganda that targeted Democrats almost exclusively.
In the evening I heard right-wing academic John Lott arguing that the shooting would have been prevented if everyone in attendance was packing a gun; he was a guest on “Coast to Coast,” a radio program that gained notoriety when hosted by Art Bell, and now hosted by George Noory—who when not providing a criticism-free setting for conspiracy theories, paranormal, spirituality and UFOs, supplies a forum for often extreme-right ideology. Some of Lott’s arguments were quite bizarre and tainted with hypocrisy; many gun-rights advocates are paranoid, racist whites, but Lott tried to twist the issue away from right-wing extremism by claiming the people who most need had guns are inner city blacks who are often the victims of crime; I doubt that most people concerned with inner-city crime and violence believe that more guns are the answer. I’ve never owned a gun and don’t plan to; my own feeling is that guns cause more trouble than they prevent. The Tucson shooting could have been prevented not by a people who thought that a routine meet-and-greet was a get-together at the target range, but merely by the presence of a police officer.
Tucson shooter Jared Loughner, whose smirking mug shot reminds one of a shaven-haired Charles Manson, apparently had a fixation on Rep. Gabrielle Giffords since 2007, but one must remember that it wasn’t until almost four years later that he decided that the time was “appropriate” for taking her out—and two years of some of the most violence-suggestive and racially vitriolic rhetoric from the right heard in many decades, made more palpable by anger at the election of a black president in certain extreme quarters. Loughner’s simplistic political ideas (How is one supposed to supply a rational answer to an absurd query like “What is government if words have no meaning?”) and the typical anti-government fanatic’s fixation on Democrats is a “mental illness” that many people seem to suffer from; it must be pointed out again and again the need to recognize that there are “crazies” out there, and there must be some recognition from the right that their hate-inducing rhetoric does have consequences.
This message is not getting across, if Sarah Palin is any example. She claims it is “blood libel” to suggest that the “political climate” she helped foster had anything to do with the shooting; Palin’s ignorance is once more exposed by her use of the term “blood libel,” which refers to the ancient belief that Jews engaged in blood sacrifices of Christian children. Palin’s Facebook page carries a video attacking her critics, but she fails to express any personal responsibility or acknowledgement of the possibility that her violent rhetoric or use of gun target “metaphors” might be taken too seriously by some of her listeners. This is not an issue about whether one “agrees” with Palin on the “issues” or not; Palin’s grasp of the issues is only fit for people who view the world in paranoid clichés. This is about the use of rhetoric that heightens the atmosphere of hate and the “suggestion” that only people packing guns have the capability of setting the country “straight.”
Palin is hardly the only person who uses such subliminal messaging that can be easily “misunderstood” by the wrong people; but given the expected denials of responsibility, the question now is whether people like Palin, Michael (Weiner) Savage and Glenn Beck will conduct some self-examination and moderate their tongues, just as Art Bell decided to avoid inflammatory topics like gun rights following the Oklahoma City bombing, realizing that the wild anti-government conspiracy theories that he gave a forum for on "Coast to Coast" may have had a role in fostering an atmosphere of unwarranted fear and paranoia; of course, there are "alternative" sources for the paranoid mind in search of "proof," such as on Tea Party libertarian Jesse Ventura's TruTV show "Conspiracy Theory." The elites buying up the Great Lakes to control the nation's water supply, the CIA conducting experiments to turn citizens into assassins, internment camps for citizens deemed threats, biological weapons research that could poison the country's food supply--some people don't necessarily believe this is merely "entertainment."
Given the lack of coherent reasoning in their thought processes of the right, it seems unlikely that Bell's example will be followed. Even now, right-wing hate-monger Michelle Malkin is telling her readers not to be “cowed into silence” by the left, referring to the violent rhetoric of the right as merely “peaceful” and “vigorous," while Rush Limbaugh continues to implicate a "majority" of Americans as supporters of the kind of right-wing hate talk that created the atmosphere within which something like the Tucson massacre could occur. Republicans continue to insist on "business as usual" in the current tenor of their propaganda. In other words, nothing was learned.
Wednesday, January 12, 2011
Sunday, January 9, 2011
How many must die before the ugly truth is faced?
While Fox News and CNN have predictably covered their eyes and ears to the ugly truth, several people—such as Michael Daly of the New York Daily-News—are making this “startling” claim: Sarah Palin has the blood of Arizona Democratic congressperson Gabrielle Giffords on her hands, along with six other persons killed at a routine constituency get-together in Tucson. He might as well have added the publishers of the white supremacist screed American Renaissance and several of the irresponsible paladins of hate on Fox News. Hell, why not throw in Arizona politician Russell Pearce, Sheriff Joe and the anti-immigrant hate group FAIR in there as well? What about the right-wing extremists in the Tea Party movement? I’m not being facetious; all these people have played their part in creating the poisonous atmosphere of incivility in Arizona and in much of the country.
The right will claim that Jared Loughner was merely another “lone nut” listening to voices in his head--voices that told him to go to a Democratic lawmaker’s function in a state shot-through with right-wing extremism in its governing bodies and local media, shoot Giffords in the head point-blank, and murder a half-dozen innocent people to make his "point" more clear. But even a “lone nut” can’t formulate homicidal notions within a political and social framework without influence from “respected” sources. Few people in Arizona didn't know that Giffords was one of Palin’s “targets” in her “Don’t retreat! RELOAD” campaign last year; the Palin Facebook page targeting Democrats included a photo of Giffords in a rifle cross hair. Giffords apparently didn’t appreciate the possibility of violence even after a gun incident in a similar setting over a year ago; both Republican and Democratic politicians in Arizona bend over like licorice sticks to appease the gun-nut crowd even though there is nothing to hunt in Arizona—save people. Palin, as we may recall, also inspired people to shout “kill him”—as in Barack Obama—during campaign rallies in 2008, and she often uses terms that suggest violence when attacking Democrats and the left. Metaphors? Maybe, but Palin has shown little aptitude or patience for such intellectual exercises, let alone dignified speech, tolerance, moderation or self-control. Did I mention responsibility, let alone personal? If nothing else, this incident should end any serious consideration that Palin might entertain for the presidency. That is, of course, if so-called “news” networks report the truth instead of treating her like a rock star; experience tells us that this is unlikely—given how Dick Cheney was given lots of airtime on CNN to snarl at Obama despite “accidentally” pumping a hunting companion full of lead, and refusing to publicly apologize for it. His victim, Harry Whittington, recently declined to say if Cheney even apologized to him privately.
Meanwhile, the Department of Homeland Security has taken a break from manufacturing “terrorists” and is reporting that Loughner apparently had more than passing interest in the racist propaganda of the American Renaissance, a white supremacist and anti-Semitic publication founded and edited by Jared Taylor, who is what the Southern Poverty Law Center calls one of the "faculty" of academic racists. Although the publication has the look of academic legitimacy, in fact it is a clearinghouse for anti-Jew, anti-black and anti-immigrant paranoia that wouldn’t be taken seriously by legitimate scholarly journals. Naturally, Taylor and the American Renaissance functionaries deny any “connection” to Loughner, but that doesn’t excuse them of the racist content of what he read in their publications either in print or on their website.
Right-wing extremists are a dime-a-dozen in states like Arizona, where the illegal immigration issue is just a useful excuse for whites fearful that their “heritage” is “under siege” to “legitimatize” anti-Latino bigotry; this kind of thing has been expressed frequently by Pat Buchanan, who once shocked his McLaughlin Group colleagues into uncomfortable silence when he fulminated that “Hispanics are out to destroy this country.” The fact that none of them took him to task for the comment is also indicative of the way the media has allowed for the mainstreaming of hate and bigotry. In Arizona, state senator Russell Pearce has the dubious distinction of cavorting in public with neo-Nazi types like J.T. Ready, and once exhorted supporters against “tales” of equality of the races, the Holocaust, and the “flood of nonwhite aliens.” People like this are not interested in addressing issues in a logical and coherent manner that examines how we arrived at a problem and how to solve it; reforming the work visa program so that it adequately addresses the needs of employers in difficult-to-fill sectors like agriculture must be part of any solution. But the fact that bigots like Pearce, the Buchanan brother and sister combo, and Tom Tancredo refuse to countenance any scenario that includes the legal immigration of Latinos reveals their true motivations.
As pointed out before, the right will deny all responsibility for the Tucson shooting, which doctors now confess may leave Rep. Giffords in a barely-functioning state even if she survives. Republicans say that this isn’t a “partisan” issue; it is a partisan issue, because they made anti-immigrant, anti-government paranoia a partisan issue. CNN commentators, meanwhile, have the audacity to deny Palin’s part in fomenting an atmosphere of hate, while communicating her self-serving "condolences." It doesn’t matter if there is no direct evidence that Loughner was a “fan” of hers—she still helped poison the atmosphere that “inspired” him. Arizonans will have to do some soul-searching to explain why they allowed an atmosphere of hate and violence to permeate their state. While Republicans, Fox News, Rush Limbaugh, Michelle Malkin, Lou Dobbs, Palin, Taylor, Pearce and their Tea Party ilk will remain in denial, one thing cannot be denied: killers like Loughner did hear “voices” alright—their voices. How many deaths will it take before the “mainstream” media decides that the purveyors of hate must face their responsibility and be taken to account? When will the “mainstream” media confess its own guilt for giving racists and anti-government extremists mainstream “credibility?” When will the media finally do its duty to the public? When will it analyze and expose the irresponsible speech of the right, and how it inspires hate, intolerance and fanaticism? Fox News is just a part of the problem, while CNN’s lily-livered hypocrisy on the matter is palpable.
For thinking people, one “lone nut” followed by another eventually adds-up, as well as the death toll. It should have only taken the first one to face reality.
The right will claim that Jared Loughner was merely another “lone nut” listening to voices in his head--voices that told him to go to a Democratic lawmaker’s function in a state shot-through with right-wing extremism in its governing bodies and local media, shoot Giffords in the head point-blank, and murder a half-dozen innocent people to make his "point" more clear. But even a “lone nut” can’t formulate homicidal notions within a political and social framework without influence from “respected” sources. Few people in Arizona didn't know that Giffords was one of Palin’s “targets” in her “Don’t retreat! RELOAD” campaign last year; the Palin Facebook page targeting Democrats included a photo of Giffords in a rifle cross hair. Giffords apparently didn’t appreciate the possibility of violence even after a gun incident in a similar setting over a year ago; both Republican and Democratic politicians in Arizona bend over like licorice sticks to appease the gun-nut crowd even though there is nothing to hunt in Arizona—save people. Palin, as we may recall, also inspired people to shout “kill him”—as in Barack Obama—during campaign rallies in 2008, and she often uses terms that suggest violence when attacking Democrats and the left. Metaphors? Maybe, but Palin has shown little aptitude or patience for such intellectual exercises, let alone dignified speech, tolerance, moderation or self-control. Did I mention responsibility, let alone personal? If nothing else, this incident should end any serious consideration that Palin might entertain for the presidency. That is, of course, if so-called “news” networks report the truth instead of treating her like a rock star; experience tells us that this is unlikely—given how Dick Cheney was given lots of airtime on CNN to snarl at Obama despite “accidentally” pumping a hunting companion full of lead, and refusing to publicly apologize for it. His victim, Harry Whittington, recently declined to say if Cheney even apologized to him privately.
Meanwhile, the Department of Homeland Security has taken a break from manufacturing “terrorists” and is reporting that Loughner apparently had more than passing interest in the racist propaganda of the American Renaissance, a white supremacist and anti-Semitic publication founded and edited by Jared Taylor, who is what the Southern Poverty Law Center calls one of the "faculty" of academic racists. Although the publication has the look of academic legitimacy, in fact it is a clearinghouse for anti-Jew, anti-black and anti-immigrant paranoia that wouldn’t be taken seriously by legitimate scholarly journals. Naturally, Taylor and the American Renaissance functionaries deny any “connection” to Loughner, but that doesn’t excuse them of the racist content of what he read in their publications either in print or on their website.
Right-wing extremists are a dime-a-dozen in states like Arizona, where the illegal immigration issue is just a useful excuse for whites fearful that their “heritage” is “under siege” to “legitimatize” anti-Latino bigotry; this kind of thing has been expressed frequently by Pat Buchanan, who once shocked his McLaughlin Group colleagues into uncomfortable silence when he fulminated that “Hispanics are out to destroy this country.” The fact that none of them took him to task for the comment is also indicative of the way the media has allowed for the mainstreaming of hate and bigotry. In Arizona, state senator Russell Pearce has the dubious distinction of cavorting in public with neo-Nazi types like J.T. Ready, and once exhorted supporters against “tales” of equality of the races, the Holocaust, and the “flood of nonwhite aliens.” People like this are not interested in addressing issues in a logical and coherent manner that examines how we arrived at a problem and how to solve it; reforming the work visa program so that it adequately addresses the needs of employers in difficult-to-fill sectors like agriculture must be part of any solution. But the fact that bigots like Pearce, the Buchanan brother and sister combo, and Tom Tancredo refuse to countenance any scenario that includes the legal immigration of Latinos reveals their true motivations.
As pointed out before, the right will deny all responsibility for the Tucson shooting, which doctors now confess may leave Rep. Giffords in a barely-functioning state even if she survives. Republicans say that this isn’t a “partisan” issue; it is a partisan issue, because they made anti-immigrant, anti-government paranoia a partisan issue. CNN commentators, meanwhile, have the audacity to deny Palin’s part in fomenting an atmosphere of hate, while communicating her self-serving "condolences." It doesn’t matter if there is no direct evidence that Loughner was a “fan” of hers—she still helped poison the atmosphere that “inspired” him. Arizonans will have to do some soul-searching to explain why they allowed an atmosphere of hate and violence to permeate their state. While Republicans, Fox News, Rush Limbaugh, Michelle Malkin, Lou Dobbs, Palin, Taylor, Pearce and their Tea Party ilk will remain in denial, one thing cannot be denied: killers like Loughner did hear “voices” alright—their voices. How many deaths will it take before the “mainstream” media decides that the purveyors of hate must face their responsibility and be taken to account? When will the “mainstream” media confess its own guilt for giving racists and anti-government extremists mainstream “credibility?” When will the media finally do its duty to the public? When will it analyze and expose the irresponsible speech of the right, and how it inspires hate, intolerance and fanaticism? Fox News is just a part of the problem, while CNN’s lily-livered hypocrisy on the matter is palpable.
For thinking people, one “lone nut” followed by another eventually adds-up, as well as the death toll. It should have only taken the first one to face reality.
Friday, January 7, 2011
Republican health care "plan": file not found
The Republicans are planning to have a vote with the intention of repealing the recently passed health care reform bill. They want to scrap the bill entirely and start from scratch, they say. If the Republicans had their way to begin with, we wouldn’t be talking about all this reform business at all—you know, let the “free market” make a mess of things, and it will all "work out" in the end. Of course in the “free market,” health care means weeding out all the sick people and making huge profits off the healthy people. However, since there is a health care law on the books, the Republican leadership cannot simply scrap it and say they won’t replace it; everyone except the Republican rank-and-file, Tea Party people and the insurance industry knows that there are serious problems with the health care delivery system in this country and its ever ballooning costs, and it will only get more out-of-control with no tinkering at all.
The Republican leadership knows this. This why they have just installed a new webpage with “details” of their health care ideas; it’s a mistake to call them “reform.” When I clicked on the “summary” and “text” PDF links to the Republican health care plan, I was redirected to a “file not found” page. But not to worry; the Republicans do have certain propaganda “principles” that Der Fuehrer Boehner wishes you all to know and understand (I couldn’t help myself: “Leader Boehner” has a fascist feel to it).
For example: “Let families and businesses buy health insurance across state lines.” This idea has already made the rounds and has been found wanting. The problem is that health care costs—and thus insurance costs—vary from state-to-state. You might live in California and purchase a North Dakota plan, but if the Dakota plan has a coverage ceiling that is applicable to that state and is much lower than a similar cost in California, the purchaser of that insurance may soon rue his or her choice. This “plan” thus hurts consumers and is a fraud.
Principle number two: “Allow individuals, small businesses, and trade associations to pool together and acquire health insurance at lower prices, the same way large corporations and labor unions do.” Sounds like a fine idea; the problem is getting insurers to get on board without the government regulation that Republicans and tea partiers abhor in “Obamacare.” Insurers will fight tooth-and-nail against creating a “pool” of individual insured. An individual might pay a $100,000 in premiums while never seeing a doctor over a ten year period, until they can’t afford the annual rises in premiums meant to price them out of the market. There will always be somebody else to replace them, so this is a cash cow for the insurance industry.
Principle number three: “Give states the tools to create their own innovative reforms that lower health care costs.” Most states already do have their own “tools,” like Washington’s Basic Health; since it is a bare bones program strapped for cash, it is unlikely that either unspecified or the usual unworkable “free market” ideas without regulation are “innovative” enough to be of any use.
Principle number four: “End junk lawsuits that contribute to higher health care costs by increasing the number of tests and procedures that physicians sometimes order not because they think it's good medicine, but because they are afraid of being sued.” In other words, tort reform. The idea is that doctors will be more apt to do the functions they are paid for if they have no fear that if they end-up killing someone on the operating table because they left a scalpel in the patient’s liver, they can’t be sued for very much. Isn’t there something called the Hippocratic Oath in the job description?
There are, of course, actual “bills” that were discussed and discarded during the formulation of the current health care law. They are worth noting only because of their habit of redundancy, although the “page not found” that greeted me when I hit the link for “Medical Rights and Reform Act” probably best defined their utility as “reform.” “Empowering Patients First” actually encapsulates most of the Republican “ideas,” and perhaps not surprisingly has very little to do with “empowering” patients. Tax credits are fine, except that the Republican idea is to expand them so far that their ultimate effect is to increase the federal deficit dramatically while being only sufficient to pay for bottom-barrel coverage; it’s just another backdoor tax cut. In place of affordable preventative medical coverage, there a “self-responsibility” wellness “incentive” that allows employers to determine if an employer is following “healthy” habits and institute a premium discount; if it sounds like BS, it probably is. There is a “cost-cutting” proposal that seeks to establish “health court tribunals” which essentially give insurers the decision to determine “best practices.” Of course, insurers already do that in the name of denying needed care; the Republican “plan” merely enshrines it into accepted practice. There is also a proposal that grants states “incentives” to establish “high risk” pools for people with pre-existing conditions, and expands federal block grants to help pay for these “pools”—which, of course, sounds vaguely familiar to the current reform law. I’ll grant one useful idea: providing incentives for medical students to become primary care physicians instead of high-paying specialists, such as loan payment assistance and deferrals. There is also an employer auto-enroll option with an employee “opt-out” clause—which is just a fig leaf to Tea Party types upset by the allegedly “unconstitutional” portion of Obamacare that will eventually oblige people to pay a stipend if they do not want insurance, just as they do Medicare taxes; in fact most states already allow employers this “option.”
But the over-all thrust of the Republican “plan” is that same hands-off market-oriented shibboleths they have pushing as an “alternative” to the Obama plan from the beginning. The “market” has failed us as a mechanism for social good not just in health care, but in ever increasing income disparities and off-shoring jobs. One must confess that the current reform package is greatly wanting in that it does not offer an affordable public option that is not subject to the whims of insurance companies, but what it does to do is address most of the insurance company abuses that habitually denied care not just for pre-existing conditions, but post-existing conditions; the Republican “plan,” such as it is, allows insurance companies to roam free without hindrance. The ultimate effect of their "ideas" is to raise the deficit far more than what they claim for “Obamacare” while failing to address the abuses by insurance companies that have led to the problems to begin with. That is to say, of course, that Republicans eventually formulate a "plan" at all.
The Republican leadership knows this. This why they have just installed a new webpage with “details” of their health care ideas; it’s a mistake to call them “reform.” When I clicked on the “summary” and “text” PDF links to the Republican health care plan, I was redirected to a “file not found” page. But not to worry; the Republicans do have certain propaganda “principles” that Der Fuehrer Boehner wishes you all to know and understand (I couldn’t help myself: “Leader Boehner” has a fascist feel to it).
For example: “Let families and businesses buy health insurance across state lines.” This idea has already made the rounds and has been found wanting. The problem is that health care costs—and thus insurance costs—vary from state-to-state. You might live in California and purchase a North Dakota plan, but if the Dakota plan has a coverage ceiling that is applicable to that state and is much lower than a similar cost in California, the purchaser of that insurance may soon rue his or her choice. This “plan” thus hurts consumers and is a fraud.
Principle number two: “Allow individuals, small businesses, and trade associations to pool together and acquire health insurance at lower prices, the same way large corporations and labor unions do.” Sounds like a fine idea; the problem is getting insurers to get on board without the government regulation that Republicans and tea partiers abhor in “Obamacare.” Insurers will fight tooth-and-nail against creating a “pool” of individual insured. An individual might pay a $100,000 in premiums while never seeing a doctor over a ten year period, until they can’t afford the annual rises in premiums meant to price them out of the market. There will always be somebody else to replace them, so this is a cash cow for the insurance industry.
Principle number three: “Give states the tools to create their own innovative reforms that lower health care costs.” Most states already do have their own “tools,” like Washington’s Basic Health; since it is a bare bones program strapped for cash, it is unlikely that either unspecified or the usual unworkable “free market” ideas without regulation are “innovative” enough to be of any use.
Principle number four: “End junk lawsuits that contribute to higher health care costs by increasing the number of tests and procedures that physicians sometimes order not because they think it's good medicine, but because they are afraid of being sued.” In other words, tort reform. The idea is that doctors will be more apt to do the functions they are paid for if they have no fear that if they end-up killing someone on the operating table because they left a scalpel in the patient’s liver, they can’t be sued for very much. Isn’t there something called the Hippocratic Oath in the job description?
There are, of course, actual “bills” that were discussed and discarded during the formulation of the current health care law. They are worth noting only because of their habit of redundancy, although the “page not found” that greeted me when I hit the link for “Medical Rights and Reform Act” probably best defined their utility as “reform.” “Empowering Patients First” actually encapsulates most of the Republican “ideas,” and perhaps not surprisingly has very little to do with “empowering” patients. Tax credits are fine, except that the Republican idea is to expand them so far that their ultimate effect is to increase the federal deficit dramatically while being only sufficient to pay for bottom-barrel coverage; it’s just another backdoor tax cut. In place of affordable preventative medical coverage, there a “self-responsibility” wellness “incentive” that allows employers to determine if an employer is following “healthy” habits and institute a premium discount; if it sounds like BS, it probably is. There is a “cost-cutting” proposal that seeks to establish “health court tribunals” which essentially give insurers the decision to determine “best practices.” Of course, insurers already do that in the name of denying needed care; the Republican “plan” merely enshrines it into accepted practice. There is also a proposal that grants states “incentives” to establish “high risk” pools for people with pre-existing conditions, and expands federal block grants to help pay for these “pools”—which, of course, sounds vaguely familiar to the current reform law. I’ll grant one useful idea: providing incentives for medical students to become primary care physicians instead of high-paying specialists, such as loan payment assistance and deferrals. There is also an employer auto-enroll option with an employee “opt-out” clause—which is just a fig leaf to Tea Party types upset by the allegedly “unconstitutional” portion of Obamacare that will eventually oblige people to pay a stipend if they do not want insurance, just as they do Medicare taxes; in fact most states already allow employers this “option.”
But the over-all thrust of the Republican “plan” is that same hands-off market-oriented shibboleths they have pushing as an “alternative” to the Obama plan from the beginning. The “market” has failed us as a mechanism for social good not just in health care, but in ever increasing income disparities and off-shoring jobs. One must confess that the current reform package is greatly wanting in that it does not offer an affordable public option that is not subject to the whims of insurance companies, but what it does to do is address most of the insurance company abuses that habitually denied care not just for pre-existing conditions, but post-existing conditions; the Republican “plan,” such as it is, allows insurance companies to roam free without hindrance. The ultimate effect of their "ideas" is to raise the deficit far more than what they claim for “Obamacare” while failing to address the abuses by insurance companies that have led to the problems to begin with. That is to say, of course, that Republicans eventually formulate a "plan" at all.
Wednesday, January 5, 2011
Don't we have better things to do?
I must be bored today. It appears there is a speed bump on the road back to Green Bay for Brett Favre. No doubt in Favre’s mind, Green Bay management is to blame for sending him misadventuring to the Big City, where being “Broadway Brett” turned out to be more like “Midnight Cowboy.” We had heard about the complaints of two “massage therapists” who claimed that Favre gave undue attention to their posteriors before. One of them, Shannon O’Toole, received the following text messages on her cell phone:
“Brett here. ou and crissy want to get together im all alone.”
Followed by:
“Kinda lonely tonight I guess I have bad intentions.”
Obviously Favre had some kind of friendly contact with O’Toole and Christina Scavo, the other therapist. Frankly, I don’t know what to make of this; it’s hard to say if Old Greybeard was serious or just goofing off. Favre’s Jets teammates at the time admit that he brought a certain “enthusiasm” and “fun” that had been lacking before his arrival, but it is probably also true that he probably wasn’t comfortable with the big city life. Apparently the therapists didn’t appreciate his “loneliness,” because Scavo informed her husband, who then called Favre and “angrily” told him his attentions were not appreciated. We don’t know exactly how that conversation went, but I suspect that Favre’s “ah shucks” demeanor did not mesh with that of a typical New Yorker.
Scavo claims that Favre looked at her as if she was a “hanging slab of beef.” There is a picture of Scavo in the New York Post; frankly, I think that’s being generous. This and the two aforementioned texts are the basis for a lawsuit against Favre and Jets. O’Toole and Scavo claim that the Jets fired them from their positions because they “rejected” his advances, which is to assume that Favre mentioned the phone call to Jets personnel. But the Jets claim they never heard anything about the complaint until recently, and their law suit has no merit. They did their work for the season and they were not rehired for the following season. No seasonal contract employee has a "right" to expect to be rehired every year (update: now the women admit they entered into talks with the Jets that were a transparent effort to blackmail the team in order to get "their" jobs back, which the Jets rejected).
The Jets did provide the NFL with contact information for Scavo and O’Toole during their investigation of the Jenn Sterger matter; if they cooperated with the NFL investigation into Favre in regard to their own claims of workplace conduct, the NFL apparently found these claims without merit or greatly exaggerated. It certainly did not rise to the level of sexual harassment, since there is no claim (yet) that Favre ever had further contact with them again after the initial texts—which were “suggestive” only to the prurient imagination.
(Update on the case of Sterger--who was not a "media personality" with the Jets as the NY Post keeps calling her, but a "team hostess": Sterger's lawyer claims that in a "secret" meeting with Roger Goodell, she cried and insisted he hadn't led Favre on and felt no one supported her, although it was not mentioned if Goodell had asked her about her initial comments to Deadspin:"They were fun to laugh at amongst friends." Nor mentioned was any curiosity by Goodell concerning the testimony of her friend, Allison Torres: Sterger seemed to "enjoy" the attention and texted Favre back, not to mention had hundreds of naughty pics stored on her computer from friends, celebrities and "star athletes." Nor was it mentioned what Sterger's response was to those queries. No doubt Sterger's unhappiness would be somewhat less if her former employers at Comcast had shown greater appreciation of her "talents.").
Meanwhile, ESPN fired long-time play-by-play announcer Ron Franklin for calling sideline reporter Jeannine Edwards a “sweet baby” when she tried to force her way into a conversation he was having with two other announcers; when she expressed displeasure, Franklin told her to go and do a certain something with herself. This is unprofessional conduct that should not be tolerated, but is it a firing offense? Franklin had been working with the network since 1987; was this an isolated incident, or was it part of a pattern? Judging from various media operations’ past actions, it doesn’t matter if it is an isolated slip-up by an individual or a pattern. You upset a female colleague with a demeaning comment, you’re history.
The problem with this is that it is mainly political. Maybe these two have some kind of personality issue with each other. But you can’t speak to a woman in a manner that is an affront to her ego and tender sensitivities. Last year, Tony Kornheiser was suspended from ESPN after commenting on Hanna Storm’s short skirts on his DC radio show; apparently he thought they was a little much for a woman pushing 50. I don’t have a problem with her skirts, but what’s the crime about expressing an opinion? Why should it be deemed creating a “hostile” work environment if someone criticizes a colleague for her choice of clothes? Can a woman criticize a male colleague, or a woman can criticize another woman and not be similarly punished? No that I’m aware of.
I mentioned in a previous post how I was once “mistakenly” placed in temporary work environment where the female supervisor deliberately tried to maintain a female-only workplace. For four months I listened to these women “bashing” men all day. I read an article on some website written by a man who said that "giving women the intellectual space to be anti-male is necessary.” I guess I just take a dim view of this kind of double-standard--especially since "intellect" rarely invades that space (see the various American Association of University Women "studies"). The problem with one part of the world today is that we don’t know to how to adequately balance the right of free expression with gender sensitivities. It seems that there is an assumption that if men and women are de facto equal, then questions of personality and competency have no relevance; “sexism” is the only variable that has meaning in this environment. If most businesses ran on that assumption, they would have other problems to deal with. But the media lives in its own bubble chamber, where image is being fobbed on the public, and everyone is keenly aware of their own image and out to protect it at all costs. Egos collide with egos, and some egos are less certain than others. If you are former CNN host Rick Sanchez, you find yourself without a job. If you are a Jeannine Edwards, you can be sure your boss won’t even think twice about insuring the offender is out of a job.
I’ve come across masochistic comments from white men who think it is alright to take the slings and arrows of gender politics, and I tell myself “I wish these self-flagellators would speak for themselves; after all, they are currently in control of most of the elements of worldly success, and so they have less to lose. But for minority males, this bashing business just adds to the level of prejudice and justifies discrimination against them. In the “real world,” if white men are number 1 in this country, then white women are 1A. I have eyes. I know what I see. A survey released by some entity called Business First recently confirmed this: that in the Seattle metro area--as in many cities--racial disparities in income are wider than in the country as a whole; the per capita income of blacks is 54 percent that of whites, while that of Latinos is 46 percent that of whites. When I used to read the local newspapers, for "fun" I would check-out the mug shots in the "Who's moving up" segment of the business page; I need not mention that I was never surprised what people were on the list. This country still has a plantation mentality; even a few well-paid dark-skinned “gladiators” to entertain the masses doesn’t disguise that fact.
“Brett here. ou and crissy want to get together im all alone.”
Followed by:
“Kinda lonely tonight I guess I have bad intentions.”
Obviously Favre had some kind of friendly contact with O’Toole and Christina Scavo, the other therapist. Frankly, I don’t know what to make of this; it’s hard to say if Old Greybeard was serious or just goofing off. Favre’s Jets teammates at the time admit that he brought a certain “enthusiasm” and “fun” that had been lacking before his arrival, but it is probably also true that he probably wasn’t comfortable with the big city life. Apparently the therapists didn’t appreciate his “loneliness,” because Scavo informed her husband, who then called Favre and “angrily” told him his attentions were not appreciated. We don’t know exactly how that conversation went, but I suspect that Favre’s “ah shucks” demeanor did not mesh with that of a typical New Yorker.
Scavo claims that Favre looked at her as if she was a “hanging slab of beef.” There is a picture of Scavo in the New York Post; frankly, I think that’s being generous. This and the two aforementioned texts are the basis for a lawsuit against Favre and Jets. O’Toole and Scavo claim that the Jets fired them from their positions because they “rejected” his advances, which is to assume that Favre mentioned the phone call to Jets personnel. But the Jets claim they never heard anything about the complaint until recently, and their law suit has no merit. They did their work for the season and they were not rehired for the following season. No seasonal contract employee has a "right" to expect to be rehired every year (update: now the women admit they entered into talks with the Jets that were a transparent effort to blackmail the team in order to get "their" jobs back, which the Jets rejected).
The Jets did provide the NFL with contact information for Scavo and O’Toole during their investigation of the Jenn Sterger matter; if they cooperated with the NFL investigation into Favre in regard to their own claims of workplace conduct, the NFL apparently found these claims without merit or greatly exaggerated. It certainly did not rise to the level of sexual harassment, since there is no claim (yet) that Favre ever had further contact with them again after the initial texts—which were “suggestive” only to the prurient imagination.
(Update on the case of Sterger--who was not a "media personality" with the Jets as the NY Post keeps calling her, but a "team hostess": Sterger's lawyer claims that in a "secret" meeting with Roger Goodell, she cried and insisted he hadn't led Favre on and felt no one supported her, although it was not mentioned if Goodell had asked her about her initial comments to Deadspin:"They were fun to laugh at amongst friends." Nor mentioned was any curiosity by Goodell concerning the testimony of her friend, Allison Torres: Sterger seemed to "enjoy" the attention and texted Favre back, not to mention had hundreds of naughty pics stored on her computer from friends, celebrities and "star athletes." Nor was it mentioned what Sterger's response was to those queries. No doubt Sterger's unhappiness would be somewhat less if her former employers at Comcast had shown greater appreciation of her "talents.").
Meanwhile, ESPN fired long-time play-by-play announcer Ron Franklin for calling sideline reporter Jeannine Edwards a “sweet baby” when she tried to force her way into a conversation he was having with two other announcers; when she expressed displeasure, Franklin told her to go and do a certain something with herself. This is unprofessional conduct that should not be tolerated, but is it a firing offense? Franklin had been working with the network since 1987; was this an isolated incident, or was it part of a pattern? Judging from various media operations’ past actions, it doesn’t matter if it is an isolated slip-up by an individual or a pattern. You upset a female colleague with a demeaning comment, you’re history.
The problem with this is that it is mainly political. Maybe these two have some kind of personality issue with each other. But you can’t speak to a woman in a manner that is an affront to her ego and tender sensitivities. Last year, Tony Kornheiser was suspended from ESPN after commenting on Hanna Storm’s short skirts on his DC radio show; apparently he thought they was a little much for a woman pushing 50. I don’t have a problem with her skirts, but what’s the crime about expressing an opinion? Why should it be deemed creating a “hostile” work environment if someone criticizes a colleague for her choice of clothes? Can a woman criticize a male colleague, or a woman can criticize another woman and not be similarly punished? No that I’m aware of.
I mentioned in a previous post how I was once “mistakenly” placed in temporary work environment where the female supervisor deliberately tried to maintain a female-only workplace. For four months I listened to these women “bashing” men all day. I read an article on some website written by a man who said that "giving women the intellectual space to be anti-male is necessary.” I guess I just take a dim view of this kind of double-standard--especially since "intellect" rarely invades that space (see the various American Association of University Women "studies"). The problem with one part of the world today is that we don’t know to how to adequately balance the right of free expression with gender sensitivities. It seems that there is an assumption that if men and women are de facto equal, then questions of personality and competency have no relevance; “sexism” is the only variable that has meaning in this environment. If most businesses ran on that assumption, they would have other problems to deal with. But the media lives in its own bubble chamber, where image is being fobbed on the public, and everyone is keenly aware of their own image and out to protect it at all costs. Egos collide with egos, and some egos are less certain than others. If you are former CNN host Rick Sanchez, you find yourself without a job. If you are a Jeannine Edwards, you can be sure your boss won’t even think twice about insuring the offender is out of a job.
I’ve come across masochistic comments from white men who think it is alright to take the slings and arrows of gender politics, and I tell myself “I wish these self-flagellators would speak for themselves; after all, they are currently in control of most of the elements of worldly success, and so they have less to lose. But for minority males, this bashing business just adds to the level of prejudice and justifies discrimination against them. In the “real world,” if white men are number 1 in this country, then white women are 1A. I have eyes. I know what I see. A survey released by some entity called Business First recently confirmed this: that in the Seattle metro area--as in many cities--racial disparities in income are wider than in the country as a whole; the per capita income of blacks is 54 percent that of whites, while that of Latinos is 46 percent that of whites. When I used to read the local newspapers, for "fun" I would check-out the mug shots in the "Who's moving up" segment of the business page; I need not mention that I was never surprised what people were on the list. This country still has a plantation mentality; even a few well-paid dark-skinned “gladiators” to entertain the masses doesn’t disguise that fact.
Monday, January 3, 2011
A day in the life
I had been putting it off for awhile, but I decided I needed to get that replacement Social Security card. You see, a year ago (give or take three or four months) my wallet wiggled its way out of my back pants pocket while I was sitting down in this coffee shop. It had a nasty habit of doing that, but this time I didn’t notice its displacement until 15 minutes after I left the shop; when I returned in consternation, naturally nobody had seen it. Besides my driver’s license, library cards and contact addresses and phone numbers that I didn’t bother to memorize, my Social Security card was gone. I don’t know why exactly I kept that card in my wallet, except that it seemed handy when Homeland Security and ICE people were giving me the evil eye at the airport.
Anyways, I made my way to the downtown Seattle Social Security Administration office, and I no sooner stepped in the door when this guy wearing a Nazi storm trooper outfit stepped out of nowhere and demanded that I hand over my small carrying bag, which I use to carry around my netbook. I knew the drill with these guys and watched him shuffle his fat, pudgy hands with affected lack of haste inside the bag; within a side pocket he discovered, to my surprise, a pair of scissors. I had completely forgotten about those scissors. I was asked for an explanation about this offending item, and I told the storm trooper that I used them to cut my hair; I heard a chuckle from some guy sitting behind the glass a few feet away. Likely story. But it was true: I keep my hair shoulder length (but it’s not so long because I hardly have a neck). I decided a few months ago that maybe I should get a haircut, which is usually accomplished using a hand mirror and scissors in front of a bathroom wall mirror. I found the hand mirror but not the scissors, so I had to buy a new one. I always carry my netbook bag with me, everywhere, so when I made the scissors purchase I put it in the side pocket of my bag. Predictably, I not only forgot about the haircut, but leaving the scissors in the bag. I was certainly more surprised than the storm trooper, who probably assumed that scissors are the weapon of choice for “Mexicans” and “Muslims,” since white folks have such a hard time distinguishing the two when it suits them. The storm trooper told me that I had two choices, either remove the lethal weaponry from the property, or he’d keep them and have them destroyed; he apparently couldn’t just keep them until I was finished with my business. What a load of bovine scatology. I took the scissors from him and went outside across the street and tossed them in a garbage can so I could retrieve them later. Good thing I didn’t mention the half-inch key-chain knife I had in my pocket, or the threat level would have been raised to Peppermint.
I came back just in time to hear somebody calling my number, and when I explained my situation to the person behind the counter, she started reading me the Patriot Act, and I was saying “Yes, Yes, Yes” just to stay awake. Before I could forget why I was even there, she asks me the standard interrogation about names and places, and when that was finished, she started reading that damned Patriot Act again. Before I get a chance to say something ornery I’m given a receipt and I’m finally out of there. The next thing I know I riding up an escalator in the Seattle Convention Center; now, what the hell am I doing in here?! Oh, yeah, I’m going to the restroom. Inside the restroom there is this man making animal noises and speech patterns that must have been King’s English around 500,000 B.C., give or take a few 100,000 years. I figure he must have been released early from Western State Hospital for good behavior. In no time I’m going back down the escalator, and I notice the entrance to the ACT theater: “A Contemporary Theater.” Get it? I wonder what clever bastard dreamed that up; probably someone who thought he or she was clever.
It’s getting dark now, so that must mean my day is over. As usual, none too soon.
Anyways, I made my way to the downtown Seattle Social Security Administration office, and I no sooner stepped in the door when this guy wearing a Nazi storm trooper outfit stepped out of nowhere and demanded that I hand over my small carrying bag, which I use to carry around my netbook. I knew the drill with these guys and watched him shuffle his fat, pudgy hands with affected lack of haste inside the bag; within a side pocket he discovered, to my surprise, a pair of scissors. I had completely forgotten about those scissors. I was asked for an explanation about this offending item, and I told the storm trooper that I used them to cut my hair; I heard a chuckle from some guy sitting behind the glass a few feet away. Likely story. But it was true: I keep my hair shoulder length (but it’s not so long because I hardly have a neck). I decided a few months ago that maybe I should get a haircut, which is usually accomplished using a hand mirror and scissors in front of a bathroom wall mirror. I found the hand mirror but not the scissors, so I had to buy a new one. I always carry my netbook bag with me, everywhere, so when I made the scissors purchase I put it in the side pocket of my bag. Predictably, I not only forgot about the haircut, but leaving the scissors in the bag. I was certainly more surprised than the storm trooper, who probably assumed that scissors are the weapon of choice for “Mexicans” and “Muslims,” since white folks have such a hard time distinguishing the two when it suits them. The storm trooper told me that I had two choices, either remove the lethal weaponry from the property, or he’d keep them and have them destroyed; he apparently couldn’t just keep them until I was finished with my business. What a load of bovine scatology. I took the scissors from him and went outside across the street and tossed them in a garbage can so I could retrieve them later. Good thing I didn’t mention the half-inch key-chain knife I had in my pocket, or the threat level would have been raised to Peppermint.
I came back just in time to hear somebody calling my number, and when I explained my situation to the person behind the counter, she started reading me the Patriot Act, and I was saying “Yes, Yes, Yes” just to stay awake. Before I could forget why I was even there, she asks me the standard interrogation about names and places, and when that was finished, she started reading that damned Patriot Act again. Before I get a chance to say something ornery I’m given a receipt and I’m finally out of there. The next thing I know I riding up an escalator in the Seattle Convention Center; now, what the hell am I doing in here?! Oh, yeah, I’m going to the restroom. Inside the restroom there is this man making animal noises and speech patterns that must have been King’s English around 500,000 B.C., give or take a few 100,000 years. I figure he must have been released early from Western State Hospital for good behavior. In no time I’m going back down the escalator, and I notice the entrance to the ACT theater: “A Contemporary Theater.” Get it? I wonder what clever bastard dreamed that up; probably someone who thought he or she was clever.
It’s getting dark now, so that must mean my day is over. As usual, none too soon.
Sunday, January 2, 2011
Will the 112th Congress see the lunatics running the asylum?
Will the lunatics be running the asylum in the 112th Congress, at least in the House? One thing for certain is that they’ll be off to a running start, opening their first session with a reading of the U.S. Constitution, which I suspect will be the first time that most members of Congress (including the new Tea Party element) have taken the time to familiarize themselves with it. Understanding what they are reading is another question altogether; If you ask a tea-partier what the Constitution says, they’ll mumble something about gun rights, not paying taxes and allowing people to do whatever they damn well please (that is to say, real white Americans). Or in other words, the Constitution guarantees the right to trample on the rights of others in the name of “freedom.” It just depends on who’s doing the trampling; for the white Tea Party movement, the only rights they understand is the one’s the white folks respect: their own. That is why if we didn’t have a black president, there wouldn’t be this “movement.” It all goes back to the paranoid days of 1950s and 60s. They have the right to be as prejudiced and discriminatory as they want.
The reading is really nothing more than grandstanding and showboating, a fake moment of piety; I’m sure it never occurred to John Boehner that anything slimy and illegal was going in the offices where Dick Cheney and Karl Rove left their stench in, or in the Bush Injustice Department, or in the various regulatory agencies where employees seemed to have been less interested in regulating than checking out Naughty.com and skankwire (according to news reports). I’m also fairly certain that the violations of civil rights that are written into the Patriot Act were only meant to discomfit dark-skinned people—in fact I’m certain of it.
This farcical exercise is indicative of one thing: That the Republicans are deficient in ideas. The incoming Republicans and tea-partiers have no actual plan at all on governing; the only thing that they have promised to do is roll-back health care and finance reform. Or maybe extend gun rights, or try to cut more taxes, or cut those commie “leveling” social programs. Their intentions are inherently destructive, not constructive. The health care system was broken and leaves people even with insurance without needed care for the sake outrageous profits. It was a financial industry that gambled with our money that took down the economy, with “assistance” from federal regulators who were essentially instructed to ignore what the financial gangsters were doing. During the Bush administration, the country lost a net 3 million manufacturing jobs; with renewed profitability, corporations are, however, now making new hires—outside the country.
Most Americans are not tea-partiers, and they have a slightly more long-term outlook than all this pea-brained fake “constitutionalism" that is all about “leave me alone and damn everyone else.” They want things fixed, which means doing something requiring some thought, which Republicans seem congenitally adverse to. What is the Republican “plan” to reverse outsourcing and increase domestic hiring? After all, the business community used the employment blackmail card to get their Republican friends back in office. Well, according to Boehner all this past year, renewing the Bush era tax cuts would do the trick. But that has already been done. So what is a Boehnerhead to do now? The CBO and a study by the Brookings Institute has reported that allowing all of the Bush tax cuts to sunset would only increase hiring by .3 to .8 percent. Forget the fact that the tax cuts had in the end a net negative impact on hiring; much of the tax revenue squelched in the Bush years would have been passed on to states to aid in their economies and maintaining employment. And tax cuts for the top 2 percent are of no assistance whatever to small businesses.
Some are calling this “the tea party-ization” of Congress. Sounds wonderful, doesn’t it? Let’s talk about our “rights” and watch the country go to pot. The media, of course, continues to portray the Tea Party movement as something other than what it actually is: The same expression of extremist white paranoia that has cropped-up from time-to-time in U.S. history, this time cloaking its xenophobia and racism with simple-minded slogans about patriotism and individual rights. The frontmen and women newly elected to Congress might strike a “rational” pose, but the people behind them are nothing but fearful bigots talking nonsense about Communism, socialism, terrorism and perceived anti-whitism, stoked by Fox News blowhards spewing out noxious vapors like possessed people from “The Exorcist,” paid for and supplied propaganda lines by Republican PACS and billionaires for cynical personal and political gain.
We will see if Republican/Tea Party governance is any different than what we have seen before from this ilk: government by subtraction. When the country is need of “fixing,” they do nothing--or more typically, do less. Cutting taxes is not doing something. Cutting regulation has only been shown to have long-term negative consequences. A CBO report last year states that scrapping the health care reform bill would end-up increasing the federal deficit by $455 billion over current projections (because of increased dependence on Medicare and Medicaid) over the next ten years—as opposed to a $30 billion surplus. One cannot escape the conclusion that these Tea Party people have not thought things through. They keeping talking about the deficit, but they didn’t seem to mind it when it was all spent on guns; but when it’s spent on butter—it’s baaad. But as the CBO report pointed out, if we did everything the Republicans wanted to do—no health care bill, no stimulus bill, no rollback on all the Bush tax cuts, we would have a 10 percent higher budget deficit over the next ten years than projected now.
We can be certain of one other thing: The 112th Congress will be nothing like the 111th—one of the most production sessions in almost 50 years. Besides the stimulus package, health care and finance reform, this Congress passed reform bills dealing with abuses by credit card companies, fraud enforcement, weapons system acquisition, and drug-related sentencing guidelines that targeted blacks disproportionately; “Cash for Clunkers” proved to be both popular and effective. These and many other accomplishments will only be appreciated in time; what happens next is unclear, if only because the Republicans have yet to release a “plan,” only “principles” which they have not precisely exercised with precision in the past. If it is anything like previous right-wing dominated Congresses, it will be giving more “rights” to individuals and corporations than they know how properly to use.
The reading is really nothing more than grandstanding and showboating, a fake moment of piety; I’m sure it never occurred to John Boehner that anything slimy and illegal was going in the offices where Dick Cheney and Karl Rove left their stench in, or in the Bush Injustice Department, or in the various regulatory agencies where employees seemed to have been less interested in regulating than checking out Naughty.com and skankwire (according to news reports). I’m also fairly certain that the violations of civil rights that are written into the Patriot Act were only meant to discomfit dark-skinned people—in fact I’m certain of it.
This farcical exercise is indicative of one thing: That the Republicans are deficient in ideas. The incoming Republicans and tea-partiers have no actual plan at all on governing; the only thing that they have promised to do is roll-back health care and finance reform. Or maybe extend gun rights, or try to cut more taxes, or cut those commie “leveling” social programs. Their intentions are inherently destructive, not constructive. The health care system was broken and leaves people even with insurance without needed care for the sake outrageous profits. It was a financial industry that gambled with our money that took down the economy, with “assistance” from federal regulators who were essentially instructed to ignore what the financial gangsters were doing. During the Bush administration, the country lost a net 3 million manufacturing jobs; with renewed profitability, corporations are, however, now making new hires—outside the country.
Most Americans are not tea-partiers, and they have a slightly more long-term outlook than all this pea-brained fake “constitutionalism" that is all about “leave me alone and damn everyone else.” They want things fixed, which means doing something requiring some thought, which Republicans seem congenitally adverse to. What is the Republican “plan” to reverse outsourcing and increase domestic hiring? After all, the business community used the employment blackmail card to get their Republican friends back in office. Well, according to Boehner all this past year, renewing the Bush era tax cuts would do the trick. But that has already been done. So what is a Boehnerhead to do now? The CBO and a study by the Brookings Institute has reported that allowing all of the Bush tax cuts to sunset would only increase hiring by .3 to .8 percent. Forget the fact that the tax cuts had in the end a net negative impact on hiring; much of the tax revenue squelched in the Bush years would have been passed on to states to aid in their economies and maintaining employment. And tax cuts for the top 2 percent are of no assistance whatever to small businesses.
Some are calling this “the tea party-ization” of Congress. Sounds wonderful, doesn’t it? Let’s talk about our “rights” and watch the country go to pot. The media, of course, continues to portray the Tea Party movement as something other than what it actually is: The same expression of extremist white paranoia that has cropped-up from time-to-time in U.S. history, this time cloaking its xenophobia and racism with simple-minded slogans about patriotism and individual rights. The frontmen and women newly elected to Congress might strike a “rational” pose, but the people behind them are nothing but fearful bigots talking nonsense about Communism, socialism, terrorism and perceived anti-whitism, stoked by Fox News blowhards spewing out noxious vapors like possessed people from “The Exorcist,” paid for and supplied propaganda lines by Republican PACS and billionaires for cynical personal and political gain.
We will see if Republican/Tea Party governance is any different than what we have seen before from this ilk: government by subtraction. When the country is need of “fixing,” they do nothing--or more typically, do less. Cutting taxes is not doing something. Cutting regulation has only been shown to have long-term negative consequences. A CBO report last year states that scrapping the health care reform bill would end-up increasing the federal deficit by $455 billion over current projections (because of increased dependence on Medicare and Medicaid) over the next ten years—as opposed to a $30 billion surplus. One cannot escape the conclusion that these Tea Party people have not thought things through. They keeping talking about the deficit, but they didn’t seem to mind it when it was all spent on guns; but when it’s spent on butter—it’s baaad. But as the CBO report pointed out, if we did everything the Republicans wanted to do—no health care bill, no stimulus bill, no rollback on all the Bush tax cuts, we would have a 10 percent higher budget deficit over the next ten years than projected now.
We can be certain of one other thing: The 112th Congress will be nothing like the 111th—one of the most production sessions in almost 50 years. Besides the stimulus package, health care and finance reform, this Congress passed reform bills dealing with abuses by credit card companies, fraud enforcement, weapons system acquisition, and drug-related sentencing guidelines that targeted blacks disproportionately; “Cash for Clunkers” proved to be both popular and effective. These and many other accomplishments will only be appreciated in time; what happens next is unclear, if only because the Republicans have yet to release a “plan,” only “principles” which they have not precisely exercised with precision in the past. If it is anything like previous right-wing dominated Congresses, it will be giving more “rights” to individuals and corporations than they know how properly to use.
This weekend in football
Here’s my weekly sports ticker: It was a horrible sight seeing the Big Ten go down in flames on New Years. Actually, I didn’t mind seeing Michigan State being embarrassed by Alabama; at least we definitely know now that they were not the best team in the Big Ten. But I was extremely disturbed after the Rose Bowl. TCU was very fortunate to win that game. Wisconsin clearly out-manned them on both sides of the ball. Outside of a couple of big plays on three drives, TCU’s offense was completely stifled. Wisconsin proved that they could run the ball against TCU, but at head-scratching times they went away from what worked for them all season and threw the ball. In the first half, they marched down the field with ease until they started passing, and failed to complete drives; the missed field goal turned out to be crucial. In the second half, after TCU scored on the opening drive, Wisconsin played scared, not trusting their run game until it was too late. All the pundits are praising TCU to high heaven, but Wisconsin lost this game; TCU didn't win it.
Brett Favre didn’t play in the final game of season, because he didn’t have time to pass all the conditioning tests after finally passing the concussion test. I’ve already talked about all the “legacy” stuff. I doubt he will come back next year (you think?), but who knows. One thing I do know is that the Brett Favre saga is far from over. He has to reflect on his career and figure out how to repair the damage to his reputation with Green Bay fans. It won’t take much, he just has to make the initial feelers, and maybe make a “surprise” appearance in town, try to explain himself a little better than he has in the past, tell the press that he will always think of himself as a Packer. Something like that.
One other story of interest is the firing of Mike Haywood as coach of the Pitt football team barely two weeks after he was hired, over a domestic battery arrest. The story goes something like this: Haywood and the mother of his child were arguing over visitation when he grabbed her and somehow she ended-up with bruises in various places on her body. The charges against Haywood were upgraded from misdemeanor to felony, which prompted the school to fire him. However, on the ESPN webpage there was comment from a friend of Haywood who provided a more detailed story: Haywood had visitation rights for the child over the New Years weekend, but the mother threatened to take the child away unless Haywood gave her a large amount of money, since she believed that his new job would allow that. Haywood gave her a check for $9,000 but this did not satisfy her. When Haywood refused to give her more, she announced that she was going to leave with the child. When Haywood tried to stop her, she attacked him, which involved trying to poke his eyes out. Haywood then grabbed her arms to stop the aggression; at some point she stood up and tripped over some toys, causing bruises on her back. When the woman said she was calling the police, Haywood contacted his attorney, who was present when the police arrived, but apparently to no avail. It should be noted that Haywood is black and the woman is white. The friend ended his account by warning black men about white women, because they’ll ruin your life. Needless-to-say, it is also indicative of how women use children as pawns in order to get money.
Haywood was an up-and-coming young coach fresh off a successful Miami, Ohio program he guided; with a domestic battery charge, he is ruined, if it sticks. He will never get an opportunity to coach a major college program again--or any college if he is convicted and sent to prison. Note that the school didn’t even bother to wait to hear Haywood’s side of the story before they fired him. Was it just because the school was afraid of the backlash from women’s advocates? Were they convinced that Haywood could not prevail in a trial regardless of his story? Or was it something else? Haywood’s hiring was extremely unpopular with Pitt's Alumni and boosters, most of whom had no idea who he was. His case resembles that of Mike Price, whose hiring at Alabama was also extremely unpopular. When Sports Illustrated reported that Price had a drunken fling with a stripper at some event in Florida, Alabama officials wasted no time in firing him. It turned out that the SI story was mostly fiction, and the magazine was sued by Price and eventually settled for significant damages. But the message from Alumni and boosters was clear: If you make us unhappy, we will threaten to withdraw contributions to your program. That is to say, follow the money.
Brett Favre didn’t play in the final game of season, because he didn’t have time to pass all the conditioning tests after finally passing the concussion test. I’ve already talked about all the “legacy” stuff. I doubt he will come back next year (you think?), but who knows. One thing I do know is that the Brett Favre saga is far from over. He has to reflect on his career and figure out how to repair the damage to his reputation with Green Bay fans. It won’t take much, he just has to make the initial feelers, and maybe make a “surprise” appearance in town, try to explain himself a little better than he has in the past, tell the press that he will always think of himself as a Packer. Something like that.
One other story of interest is the firing of Mike Haywood as coach of the Pitt football team barely two weeks after he was hired, over a domestic battery arrest. The story goes something like this: Haywood and the mother of his child were arguing over visitation when he grabbed her and somehow she ended-up with bruises in various places on her body. The charges against Haywood were upgraded from misdemeanor to felony, which prompted the school to fire him. However, on the ESPN webpage there was comment from a friend of Haywood who provided a more detailed story: Haywood had visitation rights for the child over the New Years weekend, but the mother threatened to take the child away unless Haywood gave her a large amount of money, since she believed that his new job would allow that. Haywood gave her a check for $9,000 but this did not satisfy her. When Haywood refused to give her more, she announced that she was going to leave with the child. When Haywood tried to stop her, she attacked him, which involved trying to poke his eyes out. Haywood then grabbed her arms to stop the aggression; at some point she stood up and tripped over some toys, causing bruises on her back. When the woman said she was calling the police, Haywood contacted his attorney, who was present when the police arrived, but apparently to no avail. It should be noted that Haywood is black and the woman is white. The friend ended his account by warning black men about white women, because they’ll ruin your life. Needless-to-say, it is also indicative of how women use children as pawns in order to get money.
Haywood was an up-and-coming young coach fresh off a successful Miami, Ohio program he guided; with a domestic battery charge, he is ruined, if it sticks. He will never get an opportunity to coach a major college program again--or any college if he is convicted and sent to prison. Note that the school didn’t even bother to wait to hear Haywood’s side of the story before they fired him. Was it just because the school was afraid of the backlash from women’s advocates? Were they convinced that Haywood could not prevail in a trial regardless of his story? Or was it something else? Haywood’s hiring was extremely unpopular with Pitt's Alumni and boosters, most of whom had no idea who he was. His case resembles that of Mike Price, whose hiring at Alabama was also extremely unpopular. When Sports Illustrated reported that Price had a drunken fling with a stripper at some event in Florida, Alabama officials wasted no time in firing him. It turned out that the SI story was mostly fiction, and the magazine was sued by Price and eventually settled for significant damages. But the message from Alumni and boosters was clear: If you make us unhappy, we will threaten to withdraw contributions to your program. That is to say, follow the money.
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