The National Elections of 2012 began with a titanic clash over the 2011 budget, which has been followed by a still in progress Olympic contest over raising the debt ceiling (normally done almost automatically with groans.) This death defying high wire act will lead to a gargantuan battle over the 2012 budget, assuming the country hasn't been downgraded to Dogpatch status. Then Barry's Baby will soon be upon us.
This term may not be familiar to you yet, but just wait. The existence of a baby sired by Barry Obama will surface on the internet just as soon as the Swift Boat crews can recall the details, courtesy of some Texas zillionaire just doing his civic duty to inform the public. I could be wrong about this, Michelle way be their target, involved possibly with former Rep. Anthony Weiner or former Sen. John Ensign. Regardless it's coming.
The billion dollar 2012 presidential election campaign will be the dirtiest ever, as well as the most expensive. The idea is to take your target's strongest point and then attack it, no matter how bizaar the claim. Remember John Kerry whose medals and courage were successfully sullied in the 2008 national election? So if President Obama seems decent, youthful, energetic, calm and cerebral, it is necessary to drag him down, get him to blow up and appear that he's been faking it all for the cameras.
Here's why. First, the Republican party will not be able to find an experienced candidate for president able to excite an old lady's sewing circle. On tap of that will be a string of revealing debates demonstrating that the GOP is so far to the right that it has fallen off the edge of the known world. Ron Paul will explain how we really aren't constitutionally supposed to do anything for the people except deliver the mail and defend our shores, while Michelle Bachmann will prove that the President is the Antichrist and has no reflection standing in front of a mirror. Rick Perry will probably be in the race by then, replacing Newt and Callista who will have returned to Greece. He will announce that if he loses, Texas will secede from the union. Mitt will defer appearances until the Tea Party people get off his lawn and so on. All this will prove to be so stupefyingly boring that the nation will be chanting for scandal when Lee Atwater finally reveals that he isn't dead and has actually been doing undercover work investigating Barry's Baby.
Described above is the bright side. There could be a total collapse of the world economy long before Labor Day thanks to John Boehner and the ever vigilant rating agencies. Only a few months ago, the GOP looked like it could take over the entire government in 2012, so they shot themselves in the foot by dropping "jobs, jobs, jobs" and going after unions, Planned Parenthood and grey wolves instead. The Ryan Budget, which all but 4 House Republicans voted for, went over like poison ivy at a nudist picnic as did dismantling Medicare rather than tax cuts for the rich. Then "Obama got Osama" and suddenly Boehner and those people dressed up as Revolutionary War Militia began to look ridiculous, refusing even to consider taxes on the rich or removing billions of taxpayer subsidies for big oil companies awash in profits. The idea of recouping the profligacies of the past off the backs of the vanishing middle class just won't work. Scandal maybe their only hope, so look out for Barry's Baby and remember you heard it here first.
Tuesday, June 21, 2011
Friday, June 17, 2011
"Troussage de Domestique"
For Americans, entitlements are spelled out in the Bill of Rights part of the Constitution. To Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness, have been added some others, namely the right to a decent retirement, as in Social Security and the right to medical attention after retirement, as in Medicare, both programs that Republicans have always wanted to eliminate as too costly from a viewpoint that puts business interests above all others. It's too soon to kn0w if the Affordable Health Care Act of 2010 will survive Republican hypocrisy and develop fully into another entitlement, thereby bringing the United States finally in line with all the other industrial countries of the Western world in bringing quality health services to their peoples. These rights are precious and always in danger, especially in times of recession.
No where is there any Droite de Seigneur, the outrageous 16th century feudal fancy that the local lord had a right to bed the daughters of his vassals at the time of their marriages. A custom dead everywhere except among the fading aristocrats and moguls of Europe lingers on and it is called "troussage de domestique" an employer's right to lift the skirt of a female servant. It's based on domestic servants being so desperate for work that they will tolerate any indignity to continue getting a regular paycheck.
There is no right to sex on demand, no matter how handsome, powerful or wealthy one may be, but you can't tell that to "Ahnold" who build his fortune and career on his spectacularly muscular bod. He had the brains, education and charisma to be many things, serving as the Republican governor of California was just one of them. Whatever else might have been possible is rather iffy because of his all to obvious sense of sexual entitlement and what it implies. Almost as egregious as his uncontrolled sexuality is his cowardice in concealing the affair with the family housekeeper for 10 years!
Men are designed to be more aware of their sexuality than women; God intended them to be more aggressive than women so that the human race would survive and multiply and he surely built all kinds of redundancy into his plan. One result is that some men believe they are entitled to to a certain frequency and quality of sex. They are not! God provided strict rules of engagement, so to speak, and they are well understood in Western society. If Arnold knows about his responsibilities as a man, he has decided to ignore them because he has been dazzled by his so called good fortune. His downfall is, and will be terrible, not only because of his antiquated and juvenile sexual proclivities, but also because he made a complete fool of his wife, a remarkable woman in her own right who needs neither his money or name.
Schwarzenegger is joined in his narcissism by millions of men who don't know the meaning of the word. To them, sexual abuse is culturally endemic, a symbol of their sacred masculinity and, in some cases, may provide the only pleasure available in very harsh and difficult lives.
I know many people who have been raised with a sense of general entitlement. Indeed, I am one of them, but things have changed immensely in just my lifetime. It is no longer enough to be comfortable in the halls of privilege. One has to prove himself everyday or he/she will be eaten alive by legions of competitors springing up seemingly from nowhere who have zero respect for legacies or unearned freebies. They are largely a thing of the past except for a dwindling base of the super rich. Moreover, the race today is much longer and more complicated than previously. Just consider among them the totally different aspirations of women, to say nothing of the changing role of men. In the current affairs of men and women, anyone thinking about entitlements is delusional. Poor Arnold, he is doomed now to being just a late night comedian's joke, if that. Worse, he is a disgrace to his sex.
Now comes before us, the newly married Representative Anthony Weiner, age 46, and his explicit internet sexting with half a dozen young women. Leestake is that the congressman's "crie de coeur" indicates he needs psychiatric help of the inpatient variety. He may be merely a victim of his physical endowment, though I haven't seen pictures because the NY Times doesn't print that, I think the word now is, junk, but if I'm right he may have done men everywhere a favor. So called locker room heroes are doomed to the same kind of fate that often befalls high school and college sports stars who marry the Homecoming Queen and then spend the rest of their lives with no place to go except down with their dreams of the pros. If a guy regards his penis as his primary asset, he is in as much trouble as the beautiful gal people snicker at for wasting her life fighting to stay looking like 25. Mr. Weiner may be a talented legislator, but to many people he's always going to seem like a creep with a serious mental health problem who disgraced himself and the US House of Representatives. Regrettably, Anthony and Arnold have plenty of company.
No where is there any Droite de Seigneur, the outrageous 16th century feudal fancy that the local lord had a right to bed the daughters of his vassals at the time of their marriages. A custom dead everywhere except among the fading aristocrats and moguls of Europe lingers on and it is called "troussage de domestique" an employer's right to lift the skirt of a female servant. It's based on domestic servants being so desperate for work that they will tolerate any indignity to continue getting a regular paycheck.
There is no right to sex on demand, no matter how handsome, powerful or wealthy one may be, but you can't tell that to "Ahnold" who build his fortune and career on his spectacularly muscular bod. He had the brains, education and charisma to be many things, serving as the Republican governor of California was just one of them. Whatever else might have been possible is rather iffy because of his all to obvious sense of sexual entitlement and what it implies. Almost as egregious as his uncontrolled sexuality is his cowardice in concealing the affair with the family housekeeper for 10 years!
Men are designed to be more aware of their sexuality than women; God intended them to be more aggressive than women so that the human race would survive and multiply and he surely built all kinds of redundancy into his plan. One result is that some men believe they are entitled to to a certain frequency and quality of sex. They are not! God provided strict rules of engagement, so to speak, and they are well understood in Western society. If Arnold knows about his responsibilities as a man, he has decided to ignore them because he has been dazzled by his so called good fortune. His downfall is, and will be terrible, not only because of his antiquated and juvenile sexual proclivities, but also because he made a complete fool of his wife, a remarkable woman in her own right who needs neither his money or name.
Schwarzenegger is joined in his narcissism by millions of men who don't know the meaning of the word. To them, sexual abuse is culturally endemic, a symbol of their sacred masculinity and, in some cases, may provide the only pleasure available in very harsh and difficult lives.
I know many people who have been raised with a sense of general entitlement. Indeed, I am one of them, but things have changed immensely in just my lifetime. It is no longer enough to be comfortable in the halls of privilege. One has to prove himself everyday or he/she will be eaten alive by legions of competitors springing up seemingly from nowhere who have zero respect for legacies or unearned freebies. They are largely a thing of the past except for a dwindling base of the super rich. Moreover, the race today is much longer and more complicated than previously. Just consider among them the totally different aspirations of women, to say nothing of the changing role of men. In the current affairs of men and women, anyone thinking about entitlements is delusional. Poor Arnold, he is doomed now to being just a late night comedian's joke, if that. Worse, he is a disgrace to his sex.
Now comes before us, the newly married Representative Anthony Weiner, age 46, and his explicit internet sexting with half a dozen young women. Leestake is that the congressman's "crie de coeur" indicates he needs psychiatric help of the inpatient variety. He may be merely a victim of his physical endowment, though I haven't seen pictures because the NY Times doesn't print that, I think the word now is, junk, but if I'm right he may have done men everywhere a favor. So called locker room heroes are doomed to the same kind of fate that often befalls high school and college sports stars who marry the Homecoming Queen and then spend the rest of their lives with no place to go except down with their dreams of the pros. If a guy regards his penis as his primary asset, he is in as much trouble as the beautiful gal people snicker at for wasting her life fighting to stay looking like 25. Mr. Weiner may be a talented legislator, but to many people he's always going to seem like a creep with a serious mental health problem who disgraced himself and the US House of Representatives. Regrettably, Anthony and Arnold have plenty of company.
Monday, June 6, 2011
TIAGAIG
Many years ago, sitting in a luxurious private dining room at 21, and participating enthusiastically in a black tie dinner for my roommate who was the scion of a famous Wall St. family, I puffed on my cigar (I don't smoke.) warmed my cognac and thought, if I was thinking at all, TIAGAIG, this is as good as it gets. Today, I think TIAGAIG when my family gets together for hamburgers in the park. The intervening years have taught me a great deal about "as good as it gets." And so when I read that almost 50% of this year's brightest and best of Ivy League colleges are going straight to Wall St. to "securitize things that don't exist" I get a sickish feeling in the pit of my stomach. Maybe it's still that cigar. Forget the fact that my roommate is long divorced, his famous firm absorbed by another giant Wall St company which has, in turn, been swallowed up in a fire sale and that the Street now resembles a casino for the rich rather than an opportunity to own your share of America, There are now so many threats to feeling good that an hour in the park breaking bread with people whom you love and who love you, seems almost like the religious experience it once was. TIAGAIG squared is when the park visit comes at a time when no one in the family is desperately sick, struggling or in harm's way. They are rare and marvelous events.
As one moves through the checkout line, it becomes increasingly clear that recognition, applause and grandiosity are less satisfying than really simple stuff. Old goats like me are less responsive to maitre'ds who know my name than to someone who passes on the street with a smile that says "I bet you were fun 100 years ago." We're not looking for gavels, framed resolutions and the like, but rather the feeling that maybe we were useful somehow and didn't hurt anyone much in the process. There's a certain disdain now for all the boardroom games and pretenses and even a little contempt for the performers. The final arbiter awaits after all.
At this point, most of us have discovered how to handle life's slings and arrows. Nothing can be done about the pains of ill health, but an immunity has accumulated for most of the other stuff, especially if you're blessed with a strong hook up to your higher power. Did the Great Recession mess up you're plans? Too bad. Moses didn't make it into the promised land, six presidents struggled in vain a national health plan and Gauguin never sold a painting. Such disappointments don't matter as much as hamburgers in the park.
As one moves through the checkout line, it becomes increasingly clear that recognition, applause and grandiosity are less satisfying than really simple stuff. Old goats like me are less responsive to maitre'ds who know my name than to someone who passes on the street with a smile that says "I bet you were fun 100 years ago." We're not looking for gavels, framed resolutions and the like, but rather the feeling that maybe we were useful somehow and didn't hurt anyone much in the process. There's a certain disdain now for all the boardroom games and pretenses and even a little contempt for the performers. The final arbiter awaits after all.
At this point, most of us have discovered how to handle life's slings and arrows. Nothing can be done about the pains of ill health, but an immunity has accumulated for most of the other stuff, especially if you're blessed with a strong hook up to your higher power. Did the Great Recession mess up you're plans? Too bad. Moses didn't make it into the promised land, six presidents struggled in vain a national health plan and Gauguin never sold a painting. Such disappointments don't matter as much as hamburgers in the park.
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