Tag Archives: Hypocrisy

This is the media’s Hurricane Katrina

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I believe the Gulf disaster defies analogy.  

But we need to pigeon hole this one for the 24 hour news re-cycle.  Hmmm.  Hurricane Katrina.  Yeah, that’s it!  Let’s exploit another episode of human suffering for the sake of ratings.  That’s why the media asks, “Is this Obama’s Hurricane Katrina?”.  Because that was the most recent large scale disaster.  We can’t remember back almost 10 years to ask if this is “Obama’s 9/11”.

And it feeds our need, in a situation out of control, for symmetry with past events so we can pretend to understand the event and its ramifications and then go back to watching Britney Spears.   The pathology of fear symmetry.

Let’s not make this about President Obama, although it would make it easier if it were.  It is about greed and reckless indifference to our earth.  It is about a problem of unimaginable scope causing imponderable calamity for all living beings.

We elected President Obama because he is unflappable, at least in public.   Now, we are pissed because he doesn’t express constant outrage to satisfy CNN, FOX, and MSNBC and our own fear symmetry pathology.

Everyone, listen up:

Rule 1 of disaster reaction:  If the only people with the machinery to solve the problem are the ones who caused the problem, don’t piss them off.  If you make it so they can never get out from under the liability, they will take their marbles and go home and then all is lost.   Sometimes it feels good to yell at a given moment, but it hurts you in the long run (ever hear the old saw, “don’t cut off your nose to spite your face”?).

Rule 2 of disaster reaction:  There is no easy resolution to this problem because no one prepared for this disaster.  Not BP and not the United States.  Preparation would have required years of research and development by top scientists and hundreds of millions of dollars.  So, blame Reagan, Bush I, Clinton and Bush II.  Even throw Carter, Ford and Nixon under that bus while you’re at it.

Rule 3 of disaster reaction:  Everyone wastes time pointing figures at others.  And take out the mirror.  All of us.  We are the problem, too.  Consume too much?  Vote for the Drill, Baby, Drill ticket?

Rule 4 of disaster reaction: DON’T TELL THE PUBLIC THE TRUTH.  WE CANNOT HANDLE THE TRUTH (Jack Nicholson was right in “A Few Good Men”).  We also expect that everything will get fixed for us, preferably within a day’s trading session at the New York Stock Exchange.

Rule 5 of disaster reaction: The media feeds our ridiculous expectations and our hubris.  So, Anderson Cooper, Glenn Beck, Bill O’Reilly, Keith Olbermann, Maureen Dowd, Jack Cafferty, Wolf Blitzer and whoever else:  stop with the comparisons and come up with ways to heal our earth, ways to help our fellow Americans, our wildlife, etc.  Set up a disaster relief fund.

Reality No. 1 of Disasters:  The man in charge — President Obama — wanted this gusher plugged the minute it happened.  You think he wants to go down as the president who screwed up this disaster response?

Reality No. 2 of Disasters: Everyone is an armchair quarterback.  If you can help, then help.  If you can’t, then shut up.

Reality No. 3 of Disasters: If there weren’t a disaster, the media would create one. So, for the 45th President of the United States of America, what will be your Gulf Oil Spill Disaster?

This Blogger’s No. 1 Fear: If it is ever over, we will forget about it in a New York minute.

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Rand Paul, the Prophet with the Pitchfork

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That crazy Tea-Party-er is good for America.  You’re thinking: some crazy person is guest blogging.  Nope.

Rand Paul is a false prophet.  He is rationalizing our nation’s three-decade long drift into a selfish, ego-centric theocracy.  He is giving us a way to rationalize and even celebrate our nation’s screw-your-neighbor-because-it-is-your-G-d-given-right hypocrisy.  Yes, if we listen to him, we will surely perish.

He lays bear the essential pathos of the Tea Party movement — the fight for white supremacy and control over diminishing resources.  Neo-Nazis and Neo-Klansmen with an apocalyptic rapture.

I am over-reacting, maybe?

  • He said that the President’s criticizing British Petroleum was un-American.  Does being American mean I have to applaud and support corporate greed that despoliates the earth? (Psssst, Randy, BP is headquartered in Switzerland to avoid US taxation).
  • Then he drew a line in the sand — saying that an individual’s right to be a racist is improperly impinged upon by the Civil Rights Act.  (If a black proprietor refused to serve a white man, I don’t believe Mr. Paul would be so sanguine about the protections of the Civil Rights Act.)

No, I am not overreacting.

After thousands of years of human civilization and evolution, it still all boils down to the epic battle between good and evil.  On one side of Mr. Paul’s line is our common humanity and sense of decency, justice and fair play.  All the things that — we say — define us as Americans.  On Rand Paul’s side of that line, there are only Freud’s id, chaos and brutality.

Good versus Evil.  Yes, it is that simple.

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Justice, Souder and me

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http://m.yahoo.com/w/ynews/article/topstories/10?url=http%3A%2F%2Fxml.news.yahoo.com%2Fus%2Fnews%2Frss%2Frichstoryrss.html%3Fu%3D%2Fap%2Fus_congress_souder&.ts=1274229436&.tsrc=yahoo&.intl=us&.lang=en

Representative Souder, a G-d fearing family values man, joins the Rogue’s Gallery of the sanctimonious hoisted on their own petards.  I am not gleeful.  I don’t relish another’s embarrassments and defeats — even those people who would deny me my civil rights.

Each one of these holier-than-thou sinners begs for forgiveness and feels entitled to redemption because aliens must have inhabited his body in order for him to behave so.  Do we as a society enable the hypocrisy by forgiveness and opportunities for redemption?  What if we required that each one of these-who-have-fallen-THUD!-from-Grace accept that he is not the interpreter of G-d’s wills, G-d’s ways and G-d’s Bible?  [That is a way lot of “G-d”s for a religious conscientious objector like me.]

If pride goeth before the fall, then humility will come after it but only if we demand it of those whom we forgive. Humility and a quest for understanding of our common humanity. And maybe we will achieve peace and justice for all.

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If you love someone

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If you love someone, then don’t make him or her executor of your will.

It is one of the most thankless jobs.  Sifting through the detritus of someone’s life is bad enough (you simply don’t need to know some things), but, then, you have to file tax returns and speak to the IRS because one never really leaves one’s affairs in order.  And there are clerical errors and the wrong tax identification numbers are submitted and life gets complicated and you remember that you love this person who died peacefully knowing all was in your care, and you know he or she would never have asked this of you had he or she known what it really meant.  [SIDEBAR: Ok, that was one of those crazy long sentences reserved only for established writers who look elegant in smoking jackets and cravats.  I am just a journeyman lawyer.  If I were Hemingway, I would continue on: “That was a damn good sentence.  A f@#$ing good sentence.  They opened a bottle of wine — a damn good bottle of wine —  and took turns taking swigs from the bottle because they were too proud of that f$%^ing sentence to move from the table.”]

I live my life so government stays far away from me, even as I am willing to pay more in taxes for better education, health care, etc.  I believe in Obama’s presidency and what he wants to accomplish because all of my grandparents were immigrants who struggled to provide a better life for their children, my parents.  And my parents embody the American Dream.  And I represent downward mobility or “regression to the mean” (which means that subsequent generations will achieve the stupidity of Joe the Plumber).  I support the “system” because it really can work (witness my parents and their entire generation in our extended family); I just work hard not to rely on the “system”. Yet now I have to deal with the government for the taxes on the estate of a person whose life is now reduced to a spreadsheet of dividend distributions and capital gains.

Ok, worse is to be guardian of a mentally incapacitated person.  I know someone who took on that burden and I believe there is a place in Heaven waiting for her after what I hope is a long, happy and healthy life on Earth.  But I digress.

POB (partner of blogger) believes that, in light of all of this, we need to rethink our financial future so that we give everything away except for two nickels at the second in time immediately before our deaths. That way, no one needs to do anything for us except have a little shiva cocktail party and light a Yahrzeit candle every now and again.  But the two nickels are really important to her.   I think she never wants anyone to say that we didn’t have “two nickels to rub together”.  Which is why I love her so.  She doesn’t want a “pot to piss in” because that is too crass.  She also expects “a roof over her head” so that doesn’t factor in (although she would consider a reverse mortgage so that there is no fuss about the homestead when we “go”).

She picks her aphorisms and saws to conjure a picture that we timed it all with precision and aforethought.  And she wants to live — and die — by them.  Of course, being the disaster planner that I am, I need to have only “two nickels to rub together” but also a sack of gold just in case.  Don’t tell her I have an extra stash, ok?

I guess the point — and I do have one — is that I am one of the lucky few who can be generally self-reliant and avoid government.  And, I have no expectations of an efficient government because I believe that is frankly impossible to achieve and unrealistic to expect.  If we were looking for efficiencies, we would ascribe to the Wall Street model and we know how that turned out.  No, government is tedious, hopelessly inefficient, and sometimes catches the do-gooders in the web of bureaucracy.  It is easy to complain about government.  It is hard to defend government.  There is a lot of paperwork to get benefits, but remember you are asking for money from the government.  It should be hard to get.

So, SOB (sister of blogger), because I love you, I will relieve you of the executrix role.  You are asking, “no, really, why?” Ok the answer is: (i) you’ll torture me for it and I will never get the last word for ALL ETERNITY and (ii) Mom would not want this to come between her two girls.  I believe BOB (brother of blogger) is also protected because Mom would not stand for that either.

Did you think there would be a point to this? Are you a new reader?

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Don’t cry for me, Argentina . . .

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No, not “Evita!” the musical sensation of the 1970s about Eva Peron.

South Carolina Governor Mark Sanford is living out loud and proud, trying to patch things up with his girlfriend.  It was all a misunderstanding — when we heard Appalachian trail, he said “Argentinian tail”. [see http://40andoverblog.com/p?120]

But, at least he isn’t lying anymore and he maintains contact with his government on his weekends away.  If only other “family values” candidates would be open about marital issues, gay issues and the tough stuff of life that affects all of us, maybe we can re-calibrate expectations of our politicians and ourselves.  I am not saying that infidelity and lying are ok. I am saying live the truth so you don’t have to lie.  So many less lives get shattered that way.

He behaved like a child but he is trying to live as grown-up now.  It is a good start.

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Some questions actually tell us so much about ourselves

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Poor Solicitor General Elena Kagan.  Just because she is single, unattractive, overweight and intellectual, she must be a lesbian.

Laura Ingraham is single and, to some, intellectual.  So, she isn’t unattractive or overweight.  Is she . . . .?

So, former Secretary of State Condi Rice is single and intellectual.  She is not unattractive or overweight either.  Is she. . . ?

Ok, I get it.  If Elena Kagan were hot — or at least not unattractive and overweight, it wouldn’t be an issue.

If she were a man, like Justice Souter, no one would raise the issue.  How do I know?  Because no one did (loudly, anyway).

Has anyone looked at all of the unattractive and overweight women who are married and heterosexual?  Has anyone looked at all the gorgeous heterosexual women who are single?  And all the gorgeous lesbians who are “married”?

Maybe she is; maybe she isn’t.  But if unattractive and overweight were the markers, there would be only five heterosexuals in middle America.

Who will be the first politician to own up to this attitude?  And this “litmus test” only pertains to women.  Overweight and unattractive men?  Just look at the Congress.

GOP senators don’t have gaydar.  How do I know?   They didn’t figure out about Family Research Council George Rekers, who hired a gay male escort to carry his bags on a trip to Europe.  Or that televangelist.  Or the Senator who sits wide in aiport bathrooms.

Democrats assume that the Republicans will raise the issue, so they — including the White House — are “getting out ahead of it”.  In some publications, the Democrats are being criticized for not getting out ahead of it sooner.

So, even among the enlightened of our generation — including those in the White House — it is still a “smear” to say that someone is gay.   And being gay is deviant but fixable, or so says the Family Research Council.  Maybe it should rethink its view in light of the scandal rocking its founder.

We will allow gays to serve in the military so long as they hide under a rock.  Think of the patriotism of these men and women.  They are willing to shed their blood and give their lives to a country that won’t allow them to live, fight and die in dignity.

Aint that America.

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Out at Work

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I “out”ed myself today at work — not as a lesbian [remember, I am here, I am queer and I am over it] but as a blogger.

While I didn’t give away the site, apparently some of my coined phrases, like “schlepic” — in the passages I cut and pasted for a colleague — can lead straight to this blog.  So, the secret is out.  I will never be on the Supreme Court as a result of my writings.  That’s okay.  First, I am not qualified.  Second, I am one of the few New Yorkers who doesn’t look so good in basic black.  Phew, intellectual and sartorial disasters averted.  Our nation is safe again.

Although, come to think of it, I would dispense justice, tempered with mercy.  As in, “would you like extra fries with your LAST meal?”  I fear that most people would be horrified if every opinion from the bench started with, “Schmuuuuuck, what were you thinking when you . . . ?”  I would imprison people who tortured the words of laws or statutes beyond all recognition to fit their desired ends as violations of the Geneva Convention.  You know, the Geneva Convention, the so-called “quaint” doctrine discredited by Dick Cheney and his highly educated legal “scholars”.  Just using fancy words doesn’t make an idea good; it just makes it high-fallutin’ bullsh@t.  But I digress.  See, I would get on a roll and mayhem would ensue in my court room.  Maybe I should get the Presidential Medal of Honor for having the patriotism not to seek a judgeship.

Anyway, today was a regular day without many gross things to report.  Other than the fact that the Virginia governor forgot that slavery was part of Virginia history.  That’s like a Texan forgetting the Alamo, for G-d’s sake.  But the governor’s omission did hit an impressive trifecta:  gross, idiotic and inflammatory.

And then there is the mining company that put profits ahead of lives and now 25, possibly 29, miners are dead. I think Lady MacBeth found that blood stains your hands forever.  That crazy Bill Shakespeare.  Our very own Elizabethan Nostradamus.

Starvation in the Sudan is at a humanitarian crisis level.  (There are so many centers of humanitarian crisis, wouldn’t it be easier for the UN to list where there ISN’T a humanitarian crisis?)  We really should think about how lucky the majority of us are in this nation (and remember and help the less fortunate).  But, tea party-ers are crying over taxes, which most of them don’t pay anyway.  Children starving in the Sudan.  Spoiled Americans are protesting a functioning government that protects their liberties and provides a safety net from starvation.  Let’s put these two concepts on the scales and balance them.  Ok, why are the tea party-ers still talking?

Associate Justice 40andoverblog of the United State of America.  It has a nice ring to it.

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Doctor, heal thyself

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The urologist who put up a sign saying, “if you voted for Obama, go somewhere else,” got his information from the Internet and . . . wait for it . . . it was misinformation.  We did not “misunderestimate” him (my favorite moment of the otherwise bleak Bush years).  He was flat-out wrong.

The Internet is an amazing tool.  It also must be viewed in its context.  Opinions — informed, ill-informed and maliciously disinformative — are out there.  It is up to each person to glean the facts, evaluate the sources and come to one’s own conclusion.  Just because I can write an opinion that you might read doesn’t mean that I am right, that I have all of the facts or that, quite frankly, I am interested in the truth.

Everyone is entitled to his or her own opinion, but that doesn’t mean that each opinion deserves equal weight.  I spoke to a tea party goer about a year ago that heard on an unnamed “news” station (ok, FOX) that the health care bill would give social security benefits to illegal aliens.  Ok, let’s set aside the fact that we are not talking about E.T., The Extra-Terrestrial, or Martians, and that they are humans deserving at least the catch-all phrase of “illegal immigrants”.  I asked this woman if she ever dealt with the government.  She asked me to get to my point.  I responded that even if President Obama were seeking to give away the money in the Treasury (which he can’t because there is a 3 trillion dollar deficit), that the government needs a social security number to take any action with respect to a person’s benefits.  So if someone doesn’t have a SSN (let’s assume that an illegal immigrant hasn’t stolen one because why impugn someone who is seeking a better life here, while there are native born executives of Enron and Madoff enterprises who have committed heinous crimes and haven’t yet had their days of reckoning), then it is impossible to give that person social security benefits.  The commentator was either mistaken or intentionally misleading.

Ok, let’s be honest.  MSNBC is slanted the other way and sometimes uses inductive reasoning — basing a hypothesis on one fact — and gets the whole analysis wrong.  For me, sometimes, it is analogous to watching a show about law or maybe a doctor watching ER or Grey’s Anatomy.  It strains credulity and sometimes is farcical.

However, when I realized that I paid more in 2009 taxes than most, non-celebrity, tea party-ers pay in two decades, I realized that I put my money where my mouth is.  I believe in universal health care, medicare and a safety net for those like my grandparents who slept at night knowing that, if they lost their jobs in sweatshops, their children would not starve.  As a child of those children — the embodiment of the American dream — I pay my taxes for those like my grandparents and my parents, and not for the ungrateful masses who are the tea-party-ers.  Why?  Because this is America, the greatest nation on Earth.  But if you don’t want to buy in, that’s ok.  But there are consequences.  How about we mess with your medicare?  Would you be partying then? I hope you get along with your neighbors because if I join your group, there won’t be money to pave the roads outside your homes.  But because of my belief in America, and my indebtedness to my forebears, you get to be parasites sucking on the dream of America.  To tell you the truth, I cannot wait to heave the yolk of your entitlement of my already heavy burden.

How about that?  Let the generous, gentler and kinder America (thank you, Bush I) reclaim what is America.  I live America — I work hard, I pay my taxes, I pray that the government is good, right and just, I do not believe in torture and I give charity to those who need help to jump start their lives.  Yes, what Jesus would do.  And I am a Jewish, lesbian, Ivy League educated, Northeastern elitist.  And I embody the promise and opportunity of America more than most of the greedy, uncharitable, talking heads that pollute our airwaves.

Bring it on.

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The Health Care Debate

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Let’s just hold this space for my rant, once I get it under control.  Setting aside what you believe, there are people in the country who have behaved so abominably in the tactics they used and the violence they unleashed.  And they are maybe worse than unpatriotic, because what they did undermines our system of government and our society.  I believe that these people are traitors to our nation and its government because they want to win at all costs, without thought to the preservation of the union.  In contra-distinction, those opposed to government action under the Bush-Cheney years did not physically and verbally attack lawmakers who put us in debt for generations, have rifle scopes put on where lawmakers live, and say things like, “you’re a dead man!”

Sen. McCain wants to repeal some of the very things that were part of his platform, until he changed with the direction of the wind.  Some maverick.

Many of our representatives have breached their oaths of office.  And in the process, they have stoked class warfare and racial distrust and enabled fringe groups to deny the legitimacy of Barack Obama as president of the United States.

But, still, I haven’t gotten my thoughts together yet, so stay tuned.

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Tea Party-ers in Revolutionary Get-Ups

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Ok, I don’t get what was so great about the pre-Revolutionary War period.

Milk and water had deadly bacteria, “medicine” consisted of bloodletting and leaches, and the economies of the colonies went through more boom and bust cycles than we have in the 20th and 21st centuries combined.

Also, women didn’t vote, slavery was legal and an education was a luxury.  Life expectancy was short and infant mortality high.  You were either born into poverty or great wealth — no in-between.  There was war and its unspeakable human carnage.

In case the tea party-ers are not students of history, they are in the costumes of either the unofficial American aristocracy who made incredible fortunes from smuggling and the slave trade or those who were the impoverished masses and were controlled by that unofficial aristrocracy.  And the Boston tea party was a Samuel Adams’ instigated mob riot intended to rile everyone against the king of England.  All engineered by the wealthy colonials, not the “common people”.

If you are looking for grass roots democracy, try the Native American tribes on which Jefferson based his vision of government.

So, tea party-ers, what is your point?  If you want to go back to that time, well, have fun but count me out.  I would rather deal with a spoiled society on the verge of global devastation, but with the brain power and ultimately, I hope, the conscience and the technology and intelligence, to figure out how to save our earth and our humanity.

But if you just want to dress in knickers and wigs, then knock yourselves out.

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