2011

We’ve come to the end of another year and everyone who’s any one is doing a retrospective of some sort.  Even everyone who’s basically nobody is doing one.  And so that’s where I come in.  Sure I’ll do a retrospective.  Maybe I’ll do two; one on the stories that are important, you know all that news shit and one on my story, although the story of my own year is actually more important to me even if it isn’t to you.  Got that?

What appears in a retrospective is of course entirely dependent on what the writer thinks is significant.  There are a lot of stories that are going to get included on some heavy hitting columns and blogs that wouldn’t get on my list.  Some of those are:

                The royal wedding.  Aside from the fact that Britain could ill afford an eight figure party who gives a damn that a well-heeled pair are tying the knot.  Yeah I know lots of people but suffice to say I don’t get it.  The fact remains that the world, Great Britain included, is in a sick financial state.  To that end, the royals promised to make the wedding more austere than royal nuptials of the past so William and Kate had to scrimp by on 34 million dollars.  For a lot less they could have eloped to Reno and got one of those themed weddings.  Probably could have had an Elvis impersonator perform the ceremony and still not broken the bank.

                Top however many movies.  I went to see True Grit and that’s about it.  Did True Grit even come out in 2011?

                Top however many TV shows.  There weren’t any but I’ll make a list anyway.

                                Mash

                                All in the Family

                                The Honeymooners

                                Have Gun, Will Travel

                                Cheers

                                Johnny Carson

What’s that you say?  All of those shows were discontinued long ago?  Okay I go back to, there weren’t any.

Not on my list you're not

                Top songs of 2011.  I’m not qualified to judge this.  I’m not sure that I’ve heard any songs of 2011.  I’m not hating here mind you but my musical tastes start circa 1400 and end somewhere in the 70s.

                Anything to do with the Kardashians, Lady Gaga, Lindsey Lohan, Oprah, Kate plus 8 or Regis Philbin. Maybe Regis is a funny, entertaining guy but his moving on will carry no weight before we reach mid-January, but if it does then we really need to get a collective life.

              The significant stories are those that have global and national significance, that will affect our lives for months and years to come and that reflect or reveal what we are as a society.  There were indeed many in 2011 and so, in no particular order:

                The killing of Osama Bin Laden.  Nearly ten years to the month after he unleashed 9/11 the face of terror was found and killed.  It won’t necessarily mean the end of Al Qaeda but it put a dent in the terror group and it marked a milestone in the war on terror.  That he was found in an oversized million dollar compound in the veritable shadow of Pakistan’s military academy gave a sort of final credence to the notion that Pakistan really isn’t our friend.  That we still have a presence in Afghanistan becomes something of a mystery now.  I thought we went in there to get Bin Laden and then too quickly took our focus off the mission by going into Iraq (see below).  Well we got Bin Laden.  Are we really going to try to oust the Taliban for good and install a western style democracy into a nation that is, with borders that are in flux, a nation in name only?

               

Packing up and leaving

                  The end of the war in Iraq.  A misadventure that cost this nation dearly in lives and dollars will no longer devour our national treasures.  It was a trumped up war based on doctored information at best and outright whoppers at worst.  Remember WMD?  Seems almost quaint and nostalgic now doesn’t it.  An obsessed president full of his own hubris and steered by a cabal of neocons called the Project for the New American Century waged an illegal war and burned up the goodwill of a world that mourned with us after 9/11.  

                The earthquake and tsunami in Japan.  A disaster of biblical proportions significant not only because of its horrific magnitude and the loss of life and property but also because it revealed the fragile nature of nuclear power.  Was it nature’s way of reminding us that nuclear is an anagram for unclear?

                The Penn State child sex abuse case.  This is the creepy case of Jerry Sandusky, a “trusted” adult who took advantage of the most vulnerable and toppled a collegiate football program that for decades was recognized as a squeaky clean model for all collegiate athletic programs.  The university president, the athletic director and the head football coach all lost their jobs for lying to cover up the scandal in the case of the two administrators and essentially turning a blind eye in the case of the coach.   The significance of this story is that it once again shined a glaring light on the continuing problem of pedophilia.  And while some would say that the dismissal of a venerated football coach is secondary I would counter that maybe there is some hope that the firing of Joe Paterno will stand as a warning to any and all who would try to sweep the abuse of children under the rug.  It is also another indicator of the corruption that runs rampant through intercollegiate athletics. 

Power to the people

                The Occupy Movement.  No they don’t always seem to be on the same page; sometimes not even in the same book.  But the movement has managed to bring attention to and create a dialogue about a growing gap between the rich and the poor and the impending extinction of the middle class.  It also marked the end of what seemed an interminable malaise; a dearth of protests of any significance since the days of the Vietnam War.

                The shuttering of Borders.  Remember, my criteria for significance includes what a story reveals about our society.  It was a sad day when a major bookstore chain closed its doors.  Was it because bound books are being replaced by e-readers or because we just don’t read very much anymore?  I hope the reason is the former because if it is the latter we’re being exposed as a society drifting towards ignorance and away from literacy and culture.

                Legislative gridlock.  Symptomatic of a malignancy in government, legislatures are working feverishly at getting nothing done.  The prognosis is dire with indications of intransigence, demagoguery, chronic ideology and severe addiction to special interest money.  But perhaps the gravest symptom is an extreme allergy to compromise.  Our so called leadership is suffering from a stubbornness that makes a two year old look Solomonic by comparison and threatens the health of our nation.  And what make is all so maddening is that these folks have approval ratings that at 11% absolutely plumb the depths and they DON’T SEEM TO GIVE A DAMN.     

Time Magazine’s Person of the Year; The protester.  Related of course to the Occupy Movement, Time awarded kudos to the everyday person who decided that the status quo is not necessarily the way things should be.  Time not only recognized Occupy but also those protesters who toppled tin horn dictators in the Middle East and who continue to protest injustice.  Managing editor Richard Stengel remarked that the protester is, "the men and women around the world, particularly in the Middle East, who toppled governments, who brought democracy and dignity to people who hadn't had it before."  The Protester includes those who protested corruption in Greece, Spain and Israel as well as those who took to the streets in Russia to protest against Putin.

Vinia Hall. You go girl

Vinia Hall.  Maybe the most satisfying story was that of Vinia Hall a 103 year old woman who was threatened with eviction from her home of 53 years.  When a loan servicing company sent the movers to Hall’s home the movers had a moment of pause over what they were being asked to do and said screw this and left.  When the servicing company called in the sheriff the officers had a similar moment of pause and they also said, screw this, and left.  Don’t you just hate it when you’re trying to evict an old woman and your flunkies come down with a case of morality?  As it turned out the bank renegotiated the loan and Vinia Hall was allowed to keep her home.  One would like to think that there was a hint of morality in the bank’s decision but someone in marketing likely came up with the brilliant notion that kicking a centenarian to the curb is bad for business.  Okay so maybe this isn’t a world shaking story but it sure is nice to see a little old lady bring a big old bank to its corporate knees.

There were some notable quotes in 2011 and continuing a six year tradition Yale Law School's associate librarian Fred Shapiro came up with a top ten list.  Among my favorites:

                “We are the 99 percent.”  As a supporter of the Occupy Movement what can I say besides, I love it.

                "My friends and I have been coddled long enough by a billionaire-friendly Congress." — Warren Buffett

                "Oops." — Texas governor Rick Perry.  Real presidential Governor Perry. 

   "There is nobody in this country who got rich on his own. Nobody. You built a factory out there—good for you! But I want to be clear. You moved your goods to market on the roads the rest of us paid for. You hired workers the rest of us paid to educate. You were safe in your factory because of police forces and fire forces that the rest of us paid for." — 2012 Senate Candidate Elizabeth Warren

And finally if you want to impress at tonight’s New Year’s Eve party, regale them with the new words that were added to dictionaries this year.

                Fist bump.  The closed hand version of the high five.

                Bromance.  Related to the fist bump?

                M-Commerce.   You know, buying something with your smart phone.

                Walk off.  A game ending home run.
                Cougar.  This word made it to the dictionary in 2011.  But it isn't these cougars.

John Cougar

                                                                      And it isn't this Cougar

But it is a kitty, uh, in a manner of speaking.

 Happy New Year and best wishes for 2012.

A Christmas Potpourri

“Mail your packages early so the post office can lose them in time for Christmas.”

                                                                                              Johnny Carson

Every holiday season the stores offer up Christmas potpourri a fragrance that mixes spices, citrus, berries, evergreen, apples and probably a variety of chemicals.  My daughter loves the stuff.  Loves it to the point that she bought some potpourri spray.  I know this because a few weeks ago she brought over her son Jackson.  I was untangling Christmas lights in the garage and as he waddled in I took a sniff, “What in the hell smells like Christmas?”  Turns out Jackson had got hold of the spray and anointed himself with it.  He smelt like Christmas half a block away.

So what follows is my own Christmas potpourri.  You the reader might find it has a pleasant Christmassy air about it.  Others of you might just think it stinks.  This Christmas offering is a stocking stuffed with historical vignettes and some personal stories and observations.  Or maybe it’s not so much a stocking as a ratty gym sock.  I suppose the reader will be the judge.

(Sources for this post include the books, Christmas in America by Penne Restad and Silent Night by Stanley Weintraub)

A tannenbaum by any other name..:
       An evergreen in the home wasn’t always a symbol of a Christian celebration.  The Romans decorated their homes with evergreens as pagan symbols of fertility and regeneration.  In the early 19^th century the Pennsylvania Dutch introduced Christmas trees to America but there was resistance usually owing to the influence of Calvinism.  That no fun bunch couldn’t stem the popularity of the Christmas evergreen and by the 1830s the tradition of Christmas trees had spread beyond the German community.  

       By the 1840’s Christmas commercialism began in earnest.  In 1840 a woman from New Jersey schlepped some pine trees to New York City to sell along with some hogs and chickens.  By 1843 newspapers in New York were advertising Christmas trees and ornaments for sale.

The hideous aluminum tree

       Franklin Pierce introduced the first White House tree in 1856.
       In the 1950’s and 60’s aluminum Christmas trees were all the rage.  And they were hideous.  I still recall them in all their ugly glory.  The classic A Charlie Brown Christmas alludes to them when Charlie Brown and Linus go tree shopping.  Most of them were silver but pink and blue were not uncommon.

On the American Frontier Christmas was a Spartan holiday.  In 1805 William Clark described Christmas dinner at the mouth of the Columbia River with Meriwether Lewis as consisting of “pore elk so much spoiled that we eat it thro’ mear necessity, some spoiled pounded roots and a fiew fish.”  Fur trader Francis Chardon and his men celebrated Christmas 1836 with a “feast of eatables but no drinkables” and the firing of a few gunshots.

What would Christmas be without Christmas lights?
       One of my personal favorite things to do at Christmastime is to go for a run through the neighborhoods in the early evening; a sort of harrier’s Christmas light tour.
       When my children were younger we would drive through various neighborhoods to see light displays.  We drove through San Francisco, around Union Square, up Nob Hill, along the Marina and into the rich enclave of Seacliff.
       In local El Cerrito a gentleman who hailed from India, Sundar Shadi put up a Nativity display on the hillside grounds of his home.  He would begin working on the figures for his display in September which would be ready for viewing two weeks before Christmas.  It was one of the most popular displays in the Bay Area, a traditional holiday attraction dating back to the 1950s.  Mr. Shadi passed away in 2002 at the age of 101.  For some years the Soroptomist Club, the El Cerrito Fire Department and other dedicated volunteers have maintained the exhibit which is up again this Christmas season.

Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol presents empathy for the poor and working class.  Was this inspired by Dickens’ own life experiences of his father serving time in a London debtor’s prison and Charles himself having to leave school to work in a factory?

Christmas in the slave south while hardly benign was at least a time when slaves would be afforded a break from their labors.  Sara Crocker told of holidays in which the slaves would be able to rest and sleep into the day and eat a big dinner prepared by the whites, with roasted pigs and chickens and demijohns of whiskey.  Solomon Northrup who wrote of his experiences in the book Twelve Years a Slave, told of an open air feast of roasted chickens, ducks, turkeys, pigs, vegetables, biscuits and pies.  A slave in Texas, Charley Hurt recalled that on Christmas the master “puts out a tub of whiskey or brandy in the yard and colored folks helped themselves.”  It was also a time when slaves were given valued gifts of extra provisions or clothing.  Former slave Levi Pollard recalled that slaves received extra flour and rice, a whole ham, 5 pounds of cane sugar and winter clothes.

But for all of those who got a break from the cruelty of everyday life there were those for whom Christmas was just another back breaking day of labor.  One slave recalled that “Christmas was just like any other time with the slaves.  We never had anything extra.” 

It just wouldn't be Christmas without company parties.  You know, those events that spawn everlasting anecdotes about someone who got as lit as a Christmas display and created a ruckus of historic proportions. Over the years my Christmas party experiences have run the gamut from none at all to pretty extravagant (at least by my standards).
       A company that I worked for some years ago, owned by a tight old skinflint, went for years without a party.  He was a rich fellow who squeezed a penny so tight that poor old Abe suffocated.  One year the old bastard came up with the brilliant idea of having a Christmas luncheon….in the conference room.  The meal came complete with turkey…a warmed, pressed turkey breast.  It was a depressing affair in which everyone left their desks, stood in the buffet line, ate at the conference table and made desultory small talk.  After lunch we all shuffled back to our desks.
       There was consolation in the fact that my wife works for Clif Bar which throws lavish parties.  There were two years in which we had dinner and overnight accommodations in the Napa Valley.  One year dinner was served in the aging caves beneath a winery.
       I have a faint recollection of some parties in the 70s when I worked a retail job at a Downtown San Francisco hardware store.  These parties were for the most part pot luck.  Everyone brought a dish and the owners would throw for a turkey or a ham neither of which was the main course.  The main course was alcohol.  One of the more memorable ones was at the store manager’s swank Russian Hill flat.  He had a beautiful white couch right up until the moment that Dan Alonso, the lecherous old locksmith, added some color by vomiting potluck all over it.  It was a Christmas classic.
      Shortly after old Alonso’s historic hurl the store suspended Christmas parties so my housemate Scott and I decided to fill the breach.  I do recall making eggnog which was mostly brandy, or whiskey, or both; I don’t know, I can’t remember.  That was the year that I came up with the brilliant idea of inviting both my just still barely girlfriend Linda and Cora (now my wife) who I had just started taking an interest in.  Luckily neither showed up; it was not my finest hour.  If memory serves this was the party in which our other housemate got out of the trolley down the block and followed the blaring music to our home (this during the wee hours) and opened the door to find Scott and I passed out blissfully oblivious to Led Zeppelin at jackhammer decibel levels.

A yummy holiday treat

I’m one of the few people I know who likes fruitcake.  The trouble with fruitcake is its reputation precedes it.  I’d be willing to bet a big tin of fruitcake that most people who say they hate it and make those slanderous remarks have never sampled the moist, nutty goodness of fruitcake.  But then again I like black licorice too.

Santa Claus has traveled a long way and I don’t mean from the North Pole.  His beginnings go back to St. Nicholas, a monk born around 280 AD who lived in what is now present day Turkey.  Nicholas’ reputation was as a pious fellow who gave away much of his inherited wealth and gave comfort to the sick and the poor.  The name of Santa Claus is a derivation of the nickname Sinter Klass which was a shortened version of Sinter Nikolaas, Dutch for St Nicholas.

Thomas Nast's Santa

After going through several iterations, Thomas Nast a cartoonist for Harper’s Weekly drew the prototype for today’s “jolly old elf.”  Nast’s Santa, one of my favorite versions, might not be entirely PC these days.  Amongst the gifts under his arm the rotund one has a sabre and a belt with a U.S. buckle.  Worst of all Nast’s Santa carries a pipe.  He’s seriously overweight as well; probably too much fast food so he can’t be a suitable role model for children.

It seems that everyone has a list of best ever Christmas films so just for the hell of it here are my top five.

1.       A Christmas Carol (the George C. Scott version)

2.       Home Alone

3.       A Charlie Brown Christmas

4.       It’s a Wonderful Life

5.    Joyeux Noel (about the WWI Christmas truce).

I’m awarding honorable mention to Lethal Weapon which isn’t a Christmas movie per se but has a sort of Christmas subplot.

Finally, it would be hard to find a better of example of the power of the Christmas spirit than the events of 1914 along the Western Front of World War I.  To understand the events of Christmas 1914 it is necessary to understand the circumstances of the soldiers occupying the lines of trenches that stretched from the English Channel to the Alps.  It was a war that was fought with an insane and deadly combination of outdated tactics and modern weaponry.  Life in the trenches was horrific, described by a German as, “lice, rats, barbed wire, fleas, shells, bombs, underground caves, corpses, blood, liquor, mice, cats, artillery, filth, bullets, mortars, fire, steel…the work of the devil.”  In the winter of 1914 the trenches were filled with water and mud, and the area between the trenches, no man’s land, was a barren muddy moonscape littered with the dead and the debris of war. 

        As December 25^th approached the soldiers discovered that they had a commonality; Christmas.  For a short time an unofficial truce took place; a truce unauthorized by high command.  Commanders ordered a cessation of the truce but the commands went, in most cases, unheeded.

       The truce often started on a quiet night when soldiers of one side heard soldiers of the other singing Christmas songs.  Those on the other side often responded with cheers or joined in the singing.  There were shouts of holiday felicitations between the two sides.  The Germans adorned the parapets with candlelit tannenbaums and signs that read, "you no shoot, we no shoot"  Finally a brave soul would stand up on the parapet and approach the other side to work out a Christmas truce.

       In some instances the soldiers traded souvenirs such as uniform buttons and patches.  They also traded food, tobacco and other items of comfort.  Soldiers shared drink such as in one section in which the German side rolled two barrels of beer to the British on the other side.  In another section the two sides met to celebrate mass led by priests from both sides.  Soccer games were held in no man’s land with the trenches on each side serving as sidelines. 

       Wrote British soldier Charles Smith, “We ate their sauerkraut and they our chocolate, cakes, etc.  We had killed a pig just behind our lines.  We cooked the pig in no man’s land sharing it with the Boche (Germans).

       Following a soccer match between the Germans and the British in no man’s land Bob Lowell of the 3^rd London Rifles wrote, “Even as I write, I can scarcely credit what I have seen and done.  It has indeed been a wonderful day.”

       William Dawkins, another British soldier recalled a soccer match in no man's land and an angry lieutenant colonel, "the Germans came out of their protective holes, fetched a football and invited our boys out for a little game. Our boys joined them and together they quickly had great fun till they had to return to their posts.  I cannot guarantee it but it was told to me that our lieutenant colonel threatened our soldiers with machine guns.  Had just one of those big mouths gathered together ten thousand footballs what a happy solution that would have been, without bloodshed."  The big mouths didn't learn then and they haven't learned now.

Merry Christmas and peace on Earth. 

.

There But for the Grace of God

“There but for the grace of God go I.”

My dad used the expression often, when he saw a fellow down on his luck, a homeless person, someone out of work or on relief.  My father’s greatest fear was that he would lose his job.  It was a fear that he came by honestly.  He was twelve when the Great Depression hit and he saw firsthand the human toll that the depression brought.  He saw the fear, the frustration and the anger that consumed men who only wanted one thing; to work.  When he was older dad worked in the Civilian Conservation Corps (C.C.C.) and when America entered World War II he served his country in Europe.  He returned to The States with an Italian bride and after bouncing around Utah and West Virginia they settled in The San Francisco Bay Area where they spent the rest of their lives.  And while the war deeply affected him, making him a pacifist, it was the Great Depression that made the greater impression on my dad. 

By the time that I was in my teens my parents had been working in well-paying jobs, had paid off the house in San Mateo which had appreciated wildly since they bought it for 16 thousand dollars and their income had been supplemented greatly when my mom sold some property in Rome that she’d inherited.  In the seventies and eighties they invested in Certificates of Deposit which in those heady days yielded as much as 15% (compare that to the less than 2% yield on today's 50000 dollar five year CD).  And while my parents were materially comfortable, some might say well off, dad was never really comfortable in his own mind.  That nagging phobia of being out of a job dogged him.

When dad was finally forced into retirement at a relatively young age the dire consequences he’d imagined never came to pass.  That’s because they were savers.  They always paid themselves before they paid the bills or made purchases.  They weren’t wasteful.  When I grew up jeans sporting holes in them were neither a ridiculously high priced fashion statement nor where they retired to the rag bag in the garage.  They were a pair of perfectly good pants that needed a patching; handy iron on denim squares that looked silly but gave new life to a pair of jeans.  Food was rarely scraped off the plate, down the disposal.  You cleaned your plate and tonight’s leftovers were tomorrow’s lunch. 

My parents weren’t skinflints, they were frugal.  There’s a difference; one that isn’t always appreciated these days.  Their frugality was formed by their early life experiences; my dad’s during the depression and my mom’s in war torn Italy.  They’d had intimate knowledge of scarcity and so they valued all that they’d worked hard for.  They valued the very fact that they had jobs.

Just as the Great Depression left a mark on dad, it left one on me.  This despite the fact that I was born 24 years after that Black Thursday in 1929; or maybe because of it.  I wasn’t really that far removed from those dark times was I?  Not only did I hear my dad’s stories but those of aunts and uncles and many of the other adults who lived through it.  All of them carried memories, some carried scars.  And after all, I was only 12 years or so removed from the final vestiges of those times.    

It was a week ago that a co-worker and good friend was let go by the company.  I don’t know the circumstances behind her dismissal; I just know that it saddened me.  As she turned to go for the last time my dad’s words came back to me; “There but for the grace of God go I.” It isn’t the first time those words have come to mind.  They came back to me often in my previous job when, during our great recession, I watched many of my co-workers turn and leave for the last time.  I often wonder what became of those people who were forced to stare into the abyss.  

As far back as I can remember I’ve always feared being out of work, being homeless, wondering where the next meal would come from.  I came by it honestly, born of my dad’s phobias, my parents’ frugality and nurtured by the stories of their contemporaries.     

In 30 years of marriage my wife and I have rarely been wasteful.  We’ve valued the gifts of a roof over our heads, food on the table and the opportunity of a day’s work.  Somehow we’ve remained immune to the rampant consumerism that’s plagued our country.  We don’t own a 40 or 50 something inch flat screen high definition TV, not because we can’t afford it but because we know that we don’t watch enough TV to really care about it.  We don’t own smart phones, not because we dislike the technology but because we don't feel the need for them.  We shed ourselves of credit card debt long ago; our combined credit card balances are usually somewhere between 0 and 500 dollars.  If we can’t pay for it we don’t need it.  We’ve always refused to buy into the get rich quick snake oil schemes that have ruined so many families.  Like my parents, we always pay ourselves first whether it’s putting money into the 401k or the savings accounts.  We got here by using common sense, learning by mistakes, remembering the experiences of those who came before us and realizing that personal catastrophe can be a final paycheck away.  

Will the same be said of those who follow us?  We’re going through the worst economic downturn since that Great Depression.  Are my children and their own contemporaries heeding the warnings of what is so far the signature economic crisis of their times?  Aside from a couple of downturns in the savings rate, Americans have been salting away more of their disposable income.  The question is, will they keep it up? 

I would like to think so but I’ve seen that Americans have short memories.  I can recall every run on fuel efficient cars after each gas crisis and then the ensuing amnesia as Americans returned to the four wheeled behemoth.  And Americans are suckers for planned obsolescence.  If you don’t believe that just wait till the next iteration of phone, notebook or computer unveiled by Apple that will spawn the usual “gotta have it” hysteria.

Will Americans return to the days of rapacious consumerism or will frugality and common sense be lasting legacies of this recession? 

I'm Dreaming of a Right Christmas

In the spirit of Christmas the right wing is going all out to out-Scrooge old Ebenezer.  Whether it’s campaign ads, bigotry, piling on the poor or just plain mean spirited orneriness the only thing on their gift list is the shaft.

Tis the season.  No not that season.  We’re 11 months away from the presidential elections, the Iowa caucus is looming and the crapola (read; campaign ads) is in full flow.

                Physician thyself self:  Former physician Ron Paul has aired an ad representing himself as the big dog who’ll trim, well maybe that’s the wrong word; let’s say hack, 1 trillion dollars from the budget in his first year.  His notion is to basically eliminate the government starting with the Departments of Interior, Commerce, Energy, Education and HUD.  Paul is the darling of the Libertarian Party which advocates laissez faire which is essentially unfair.  With no real mechanism to account for the poor and the marginalized its simply Social Darwinism dressed up as a political party.  Ron Paul would like us to believe that the system will regulate itself.  Well, it won't; never has, never will.  Do you think Paul remembers the days of pollution with impunity, price fixing, consumer gouging and unfair employment practices?

                The God fearing cowpoke:  Governor Rick Perry is unleashing God in his recent campaign ad.  Ambling up a grassy knoll Perry admits that he’s a Christian and not ashamed of it.  He goes on to say that a problem with this country is that, “gays can openly serve in the military but our kids can’t openly celebrate Christmas or pray in schools.”  Perry continues, “As president, I’ll end Obama’s war on religion and I’ll fight against liberal attacks on our religious heritage.”  I’m not sure what war Rick Perry is talking about.  Prayer was abolished by the Supreme Court in 1962, when Barack Obama was about one year old give or take a couple months.  As for that religious heritage, Mr. Perry should probably avail himself of a history book where he’ll find out that the founding fathers were pretty clear about not favoring any one religion over another.  He should probably steer clear of a history text from Texas; they’re trying to rewrite history in the Lone Star State.  Correct me if I’m wrong but didn’t we just recently go through a long strange trip with another buckaroo who was a religious zealot and former Governor of Texas?

I’m a Christian and I’m ashamed of it:  Well sometimes anyway, like when a bunch of sanctimonious bluenose Fundamentalists twist the corporate arm of a home improvement chain to pull it's ads from a show on TLC called All-American Muslim.  As the TLC website describes the show, “All-American Muslim takes a look at life in Dearborn, Michigan--home to the largest mosque in the United States--through the lens of five Muslim American families.  Each episode offers an intimate look at the customs and celebrations, misconceptions and conflicts these families face outside and within their own community.”  Essentially the series portrays Muslims as real every day Americans while putting down that popular notion that they spend their time stoning women and making bombs in the basement.  In stepped the bluenose Florida Family Association which decried the show as “propaganda that riskily hides the Islamic agenda’s clear and present danger to American liberties and traditional values.”  And so under pressure from the religious right Loews pulled it's ads from the program.  It seems that the FFA didn’t get the memo that those American liberties include freedom of religion.  And if we want to look for an agenda all we need to do is to lift up the wet rock of the religious right to find an agenda that would seek to impose its notion of morality on the entire nation while quashing not only religious freedom but a legion of other freedoms.  California Senator Ted Lieu has threatened to sue Loew’s if it doesn’t reinstate the ads.  While his heart might be in the right place Senator Lieu might want to rethink that lawsuit.  While Loew’s action is reprehensible and cowardly it has every right to advertise where it wants.  Just like I have every right to avoid Loew’s like a Biblical plague.  

Mitt Romney goes 5 thousandths of a percent in:  In last Saturday’s Republican debate Rick Perry insisted that Romney has never admitted to flaws in the Massachusetts health care plan passed in 2006.  Romney insisted back that he has and backed it up by offering to wager Perry 10,000 dollars to settle the issue.  Outrage ensued that by suggesting such a bet Romney is clearly out of touch with average Americans.  No shit.  But I didn’t need to see a man worth 202 million dollars offer to bet 10 grand to know that he’s out of touch.  They’re ALL out of touch.  Are Rick Perry at 2.8 million or Newt Gingrich at 6.7 million any less out of touch for having a couple less zeroes than Romney?

Hey mom I got a “A” in toilet scrubbing:  Now for something that we should really be outraged about let’s consider Newt’s suggestion that poor children should do janitorial work at the neighborhood school in order to learn a work ethic.  In his own twisted words here is Newt’s rationale; "Really poor children, in really poor neighborhoods have no habits of working and have nobody around them who works so they have no habit of showing up on Monday." So Newt’s idea is to get rid of janitors and put children to work.  Now that’s what I call killing two birds with one stone; putting janitors out of work en masse and rolling back child labor laws.  Oh yeah, I forgot to mention that Newt declared that some child labor laws are “truly stupid.”  Gingrich is just the kind of fellow who would call Tiny Tim a malingering little brat and order him to either produce a doctor's note or get rid of that crutch.

If this is victory I'd sure hate to see defeat: It's mid (fiscal) year in California and a revenue shortfall, a result of the GOP digging in it's heels against temporarily extending existing taxes, will force billions of dollars in cuts to balance the budget.  And guess what programs are getting the ax.  That's right, school bus service, education and programs to help the disabled.  But the most breathtaking part of this story is the gloating of Republican Assemblyman Jim Nielsen who declared victory, saying "We have proven again and again that those tax increases were not necessary to balance the budget."  Huh?  Well by that logic lets just cut everything; no services whatsoever just so we can balance the budget. Hell, create a surplus.

The Boehner that stole Christmas:  The House passed the GOP version of a bill to extend the payroll tax cut for 160 million workers.  Now let me say right off that I'm willing to pay more taxes.  This country needs more revenue and if the sticking rich aren't ready to step up to the plate then I am.  The problem with the Republican bill is that not only is it extortion but in keeping with the GOP penchant to kick a man when he's down it contains a number of odious add on provisions.  It would stigmatize the unemployed by allowing states to administer drug tests in order to collect unemployment benefits.  The bill would shorten unemployment benefits by nearly one half from 99 weeks to 59 (I guess they're betting that those mythical job creators will finally put up and create jobs in a little more than a year.).  But give the Republicans credit because in order to finance the bill they're hitting the wealthy right where they live by preventing them from getting food stamps.  In case you didn't get that the first time, let me repeat; the Republican bill prevents the wealthy from getting food stamps.  "But Thurston how will we ever be able to afford our caviar and Dom Perignon if we lose our benefits?"

So on this Right Christmas don't forget to hang that stocking with care so the right wing can stuff it to the brim with coal; and then tell you that it burns clean. 

Cain Was Not Able

"But Cain answered the Lord, "My punishment is too great to bear!"

           The biblical Cain after learning God’s punishment for 

killing his brother Abel

"The pundits would like me to drop out, shut up and go away."

                                                                          Herman Cain

It was just two short months ago that an unlikely candidate rose to be the front runner in the Republican presidential race.  In the last quarter he had raised a paltry 2.5 million dollars in campaign funds, his organization could best be described as ragtag and he had an uncanny penchant for stepping in a steaming pile when presented with basic policy questions.

Herman Cain’s presidential run has now ground to an ignominious halt.  And while I thought he was at best a caricature of a presidential candidate I can’t say that I’m happy about the circumstances of his exit.   He hit the wall in the presidential marathon not because he wasn’t presidential material but because of allegations that he had a long running extramarital affair and had tried to kindle a few other out of wedlock fires over the years. 

Make no mistake, I am not a Cain supporter.  He should have disappeared back to pizza nation a long time ago.  But his exit should not have been for allegations but for the considerable evidence of his lack of qualifications to be president.  And it’s this evidence that should have been damning.   

                There was Cain’s stance on gays.  Cain declared that homosexuality is a matter of personal choice.  He also stated that he supports a constitutional amendment banning gay marriage; a statement that came a mere week after he called marriage a states' rights issue and suggested that he did not back an amendment.

                His very apparent disdain for the first amendment. Some time back Mr. Cain declared that communities should have the right to ban mosques.  Not only does that run smack into the constitution but by his horribly twisted logic (and I use that term loosely) Islam is not just a religion but a set of laws and by allowing mosques and by extension Islam we run the danger of a religion insinuating its laws into our government.  Mr. Cain seemed to have forgotten that insinuating religion into government has been the Republican modus operendi for years, ever since it decided to bow in supplication to the religious right. I’ll buy his reasoning when I see him call for the banning of Christianity the next time some fundamentalist group pushes for prayer in public schools.

               His apparent bigotry.  Isn’t it terribly ironic that a black man in America seems to harbor such unabashed prejudice as Herman Cain?  In relating a story about his colon cancer surgery, Cain told a crowd that before the procedure he found out that the surgeon was named Abdalla.  I can hardly do justice to Mr. Cain’s anecdote so I’ll defer to his very own words.

“That (Abdalla) sounds foreign.  Not that I had anything against foreign doctors, but it sounded too foreign.  My mind immediately started thinking, ‘wait a minute, maybe his religious persuasion is different than mine,’”

            Upon being assured that Dr. Abdalla is Christian Cain reportedly said, “Hallelujah.  Thank God.”

            Reading the story brought me back to an episode of “All in the Family,” in which Archie Bunker blanched at the prospect of getting a transfusion from a black female doctor; afraid to mix his white hemoglobins with her black “shemoglobins.”  Archie seemed abashed by his racism as opposed to Cain who seemed to revel in telling the story.

           His Palinesque lack of any conception of foreign affairs and what the presidency entails.  Most recently Cain gave a blithering, hamana-hamana-hamana response to the question of whether or not he supported Obama’s Libya policy.  Cain always gave the impression that he didn’t understand the magnitude of the job, always falling woefully short in describing what he could bring to the table.  He always came off as the mailroom clerk aspiring to CEO. 

All of these are the reasons that Herman Cain should have ridden long ago into the political sunset.  Instead, despite all of his gaffes and apparent dearth of knowledge he rose to be, for a short time, the Republican front runner until his alleged peccadillos came out of the woodwork, ending his presidential run.

Do I feel sorry for Herman Cain?  Not one whit.  If the stories are true then he’s guilty of the kind of  hubris that marked a recent former president and governor of Texas.  Did the names Tiger Woods, John Edwards and Mark Souder never ring a bell? 

If the stories are false then Cain is indeed a victim of, at best, some vindictive women or at worst political dirty tricks.  My sense is that dirty tricks were not at play here.  Despite his recent front runner status it’s doubtful that the other candidates saw Cain as a viable long term threat.  You don’t risk opening up your bag of dirty tricks to derail a campaign that’s on a track to nowhere.  We may never know the truth except for one truth and that is that someone is not telling the truth.   

But, you say, if he had the affair and denied it then he lied.  Well of course he lied.  Who doesn’t lie about an affair?  You and your partner can be caught dead to rights, nekkid and rolling in the hay and the first thing you do is come up with a cockamamie excuse; “Uh, I lost a contact and she was helping me look for it.” “You don’t wear contacts.”

I don’t really care who the president does nasty things with as long as it’s not children or animals and I don’t care if he lies about it.  I would prefer that he lie about who he’s coupling with than, for instance, telling a lot of stretchers to get Congress and the nation behind an illegal war that he’s jonesing to wage.  If he’s going to be doing some naughty undercover things I’d rather it be under the bed covers than in the covert sense of, oh, illegally wiretapping his fellow citizens.  I’m looking for a good president not a priest (although let’s face it priests seem to be challenged when it comes to avoiding sexual misconduct).  If he, or she, can keep us out of questionable wars, get the economy righted, find a way to work with a fractious Congress and generally gain control of a drifting ship of state then it doesn’t matter to me who the president sleeps with (although to be precise is sleeping really the issue?).

There’s something of a naiveté and hypocrisy at work when it comes to all of the righteous hoo-haw over the sexual misadventures of politicians.  Is there some illusion that politicians don’t lie?  Ever see a campaign ad which the candidate rubber stamps (“…and I approved this message.”)?  Ever see a poll that overwhelmingly damns politicians as unabashed lying crooks?  It’s generally accepted that politicians are a bunch of unrepentant Pinocchios yet when they deny their naughty misdeeds; “Oh my God! He lied! We can’t have a lying politician.”

So Herman Cain is gone.  In the end Cain was not able. Not able to get out from under the stories of sexual misconduct and, he determined, not able to continue his campaign.  What those who supported him should long ago have realized is that Cain would never be able to handle the world’s most powerful, and difficult, of jobs.

Black Thanksgving: A Real Turkey

There is one day that is ours. Thanksgiving Day is the one day that is purely American.

                                                                                                                       O. Henry

 "Money
It's a hit
Don't give me that do goody good bullshit”

                                Roger Waters (Pink Floyd)

Thanksgiving is upon us once again.  It is as O. Henry said a purely American holiday.  It’s a day that sparks a national homing instinct causing the great migration on the fourth week of every November, jamming the highways and stuffing airport terminals.  It’s a holiday laden with traditions; some like turkey, stuffing, pumpkin pie and football are common to all while others have a dear, personal, family significance.  For instance there was one memorable, special tradition that my family had when I was a kid.  After dinner the adults would get together for a full blown, all out, shouting, argument.  My dad and my Aunt Donna euphemistically called it “political discussion” and that’s usually how it started.  But as the level in the Early Times jug receded and the level of Early Times in the adults increased discussion clearly turned to argument (For the teetotalers and the under age, Early Times is bourbon whiskey.  It isn’t to be mistaken for Woodford or Maker’s Mark which are smooth and go down easy. Early Times is cheap and has an edge; sort of like swallowing splinters).  After an hour or so the red faces and raised voices would reach a crescendo of outright billingsgate and then the participants, spent from exertion and hooch retired for the evening.  In the morning peace was restored and a little hair of the dog was enjoyed; well maybe it was a lotta little hair of the dog, usually screwdrivers and Bloody Marys.  To this day, whenever I hear, “you goddamn right wing bastard” or “you Socialist son of a bitch,” I get a little teary eyed. Remembering cherished traditions can do that to you.

There’s another Thanksgiving tradition that’s been with us since the 19^th century.  The day after Thanksgiving has long been the traditional beginning of the Christmas shopping season, though the name Black Friday is relatively new. Originally Black Friday referred to Friday, Sept. 24, 1864, when a stock market panic was set off by a plunge in the price of gold.  Black Friday was attached to the Friday after Thanksgiving in the 1960s when the Philadelphia Police Department used the term to describe the traffic tie-ups, automotive and pedestrian, that resulted from the crush of shoppers; it wasn’t a term of endearment. But just as tradition can run amok from too much Early Times so it can also get out of hand when we overindulge in greed and consumerism. 

Retailers have promoted Thanksgiving weekend with sales and even parades, an example being the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day parade. Thanksgiving newspapers bulging with coupons and store circulars make the Sunday papers look like puny pamphlets.  Store openings have gone from relatively normal hours to 8 A.M. to 7:30 AM to the crack of dawn to the wee hours of the morning.  Stores have tried to outdo each other offering so called door busters; forty dollar Blu-ray players, nineteen dollar printers and 42 inch TVs for under 200 dollars.  

And while the price tags look inviting there are extra costs associated with these deals.  In many cases there is very limited stock on hand of the most attractive deals.  Want that bargain 42 inch LCD television?  How do you feel about waiting in line?  No not 15 minutes before the store opens; try closer to 15 hours before the store opens.  There are websites out there to teach fools, err, folks how to plan for a successful Black Friday; tips on scoping out the stores, making lists, falling in line in teams, provisioning, planning potty breaks, avoiding frostbite and not getting into arguments or fights or getting robbed (by that I mean getting held up by bad guys before the doors open as opposed to getting plundered by the retailers after the doors have opened).

Don’t look for any of that Christmas goodwill towards men on Black Friday, particularly from those looking for items that are “in limited supply.”  Black Friday is a Darwinian lab experiment, a study of survival of the fittest. And if you don’t get one of the coveted rare gems, retailers are counting on you to wander around the store, dazed, disappointed, dumbfounded and depressed and  looking for something, anything; “geeze I just spent my Thanksgiving on line, I can’t go home empty handed.”  Finally you have your treasures in hand and you head to the front of the store to see a line reminiscent of the one you’d see at Disneyland on a summer afternoon.  And when you’ve finally reached the front of the line you don’t get to ride the Matterhorn or Space Mountain; you’re going to deal with a cranky store employee who had his last nerve worn out long ago from dealing with rude, tired, impatient customers.  This is not the happiest place on Earth.  

Look, I really never had much of an opinion on Black Friday up until the point that braving crowds on a Friday morning turned into midnight mayhem that basically kicks a beloved, traditional holiday to the curb.  And so you say, well if you don’t want to shop on Thanksgiving night or get up early on Friday you don’t have to.  And you would be right.  But someone has to mind the store, restock the shelves, put the money in the till and clean up the mess created by this shopping bacchanal. 

There was a time when I worked retail and believe me it was a real drag to get out of bed to work Black Friday. But now if you work for Target or Best Buy or Kohl’s or any number of other retailers, you don’t have to roll out of bed to go to work.  You can get up from your Thanksgiving festivities and get to work by midnight.  No Early Times for you, unless you’re describing your work hours.  And if you work for Wal-Mart you best have your name tag and best smile on at 10 P.M on Thanksgiving Night because that’s when the doors open.

It wasn’t always like this.  There was a time when everything, and I mean everything, was closed on Thanksgiving.  Forgot the eggnog?  Run out of Early Times (the relatives usually didn’t as they would buy the giant economy size)?  If you were lucky there might be a mom and pop store that would stay open until two-ish before the proprietors locked up to join their families.  For us it was Frank’s Liquors in the nearby strip mall.  Frank kept a stock of staple items like milk, bread and eggs and he did a brisk little business on a holiday morning.  If Frank was closed we had to make a run all the way to downtown San Mateo.  It was a veritable ghost town except for little knots of cars parked in front of the liquor stores.  Everyone else was home with family. If you needed to gas up the car it would have to wait until the next day.  That’s right, the stations were all closed.  After all, gas jockey’s had family too. 

And it wasn’t that way just on Thanksgiving.  That’s the way it was with every holiday and that’s the way it was on Sundays.  These were rest days, family days.  We were all doing quite well with the arrangement until the retail suits discovered that they were losing a day’s revenue; “Oh my God, do you mean we could be making money on Sundays and holidays?” We’ll never see those days again.  Holidays are marginalized now. The Fourth of July and New Year’s Day hardly count as holidays anymore.  After all there are sales to take advantage of. Money to be made.

And why do retailers put people to work on holidays?  Why are people pulled from their Thanksgiving family gatherings?  It’s simple. Because they can and because they know something that we don't, and that is that we’re a nation of sheep.  A bunch of wolves in suits declare a sale and the flock dutifully queues up to fork over their dollars.  They don’t have to have a sale at 10 P.M. on Thanksgiving night.  The suits can declare a Christmas sale on June 6^th, July 23^rd or September 19^th if they want.  The flock will gather at the door and wait to be fleeced on any day they designate.  So why not make it some other random Saturday?  I know the answer to that question.  It's because they don't give a damn about people's holidays. Their hearts are tucked away in their wallets. Those un-merry gentlemen don’t intend for you to be God resting; or any other kind of resting for that matter.  If you’re a Kohl’s “associate” (gee I love that term, associate) there’s nothing like getting that early jump on Christmas by having your employer drop a lump of coal on your life before you’ve even expelled your post-Thanksgiving turkey belch.  There’s nothing that says Christmas like modern day retail executives playing the role of Scrooge to your Bob Cratchit.

But let's be honest here. It isn’t just the suits that are to blame.  We’re all to blame.  As I write this there’s a Kolh’s commercial on TV playing in the background a cheery yet annoying and insipid little jingle; “It’s Black Friiiiday, Black Friiiiday.”  It’s the siren song of consumerism, the real national pastime. Up to 152 million people are expected to take part in the orgy.  The largest ever flock of sheep; gathering because they’re told that they need to be there, to buy things that they can't afford.  We’ve allowed retailers, companies, corporations to take the human element out of our holiday; hell to take our holiday, period.  

There is something that the dreamer in me would love to see.  I would love to see people everywhere say, “You know what, take your midnight door buster and jam it. I’m staying home and spending Thanksgiving with my family. I’m going to watch all three football games, throw the ball around with the kids at halftime, eat too much and play board games till midnight. If I’m going to go shopping I’ll sleep in a bit and show up at 10 tomorrow morning.  I’m spending Thanksgiving on my own terms and not on your greed driven terms.”  And while I’m sure it won’t happen I urge all of you to stay home with your family, enjoy the warmth of your home, have a few drinks and call some relative “a goddamn son of a bitch.”  Happy Thanksgiving.