1041 So How About Saving the World?

1041 So How About Saving the World?

A reader hiding behind a fake name and a faker email address scolds me for sitting here on Olympus and throwing bricks, while never offering solutions and asks for my resume of life-long activism, which he requested in a tone I infer expresses doubt there is such thing.  There is and he got it unless it landed in his spam folder.

But he was right when he criticized the lack of proposed solutions.  So here are a few... 20 questions on righting wrongs:

1.  The biggest ecological problem facing the planet is over population.  So how about more protected sex, more abortions and more adoptions?

2.  The Olympic games are useless, corrupt and run by a bunch of inbred Euro-trash.  This country shouldn’t be a part of it.  So how about we make London 2012 our last participation?

3.  Organized religion has caused more damage than all the wars, tornadoes, hurricanes and floods in history.  God, Allah, Jesus, Buddha, and all of the Hindu and Greek gods all have Skype accounts.  So how about dealing direct with the head instead of putting your children and your mind at risk in a house of worship?

4.  Politicians are dirty by definition and if they don’t start that way, they become that way pretty quickly.  So how about banning political contributions as a start, giving the candidates a limited amount of free air time to make their cases and restrict internet postings to unpaid blogs?

5.  You can never keep your eyeglasses clean.  So how about making some that are dishwasher safe?

6.  The house and senate are clueless.  So how about making every member read every bill they’ll decide and pass a test on it before voting?

7. Cell phone conversations by others in theaters, restaurants and on commuter trains and buses are among the most obnoxious forms of … um … obnoxion.  So how about blocking the signals in those venues?

8. Hyperinflation in the price of gold is largely a part of shady talk-radio advertising.  So how about bringing the price back down to earth by encouraging fat cat retailers to sell it as a “loss leader?”

9.  Banks are running amok.  So how about mucking out the stall by requiring them to sell their non-banking subsidiaries?

10.  Private equity firms tend to turn acquired companies to rubble.  If you need examples, try Cerberus and Chrysler, Bain-Romney and Clear Channel and Innovation Partners-Bono and both Forbes and Palm Pilot.  How about eliminating these fake job creators who really create nothing but human carrion?

11.  America is about factories, farms and mines.  We no longer have enough of any of these.  So how about building some and stopping tax breaks for those in #10 and others like them?

12. States are useless.  So how about eliminating them and dividing the country into four or eight time-zone related administrative regions?

13. Number 12, is pie in the sky, so as an alternative, how about making congressional districts that don’t look like Jackson Pollock paintings?

14.  We don’t need an “official” language any more than we need a state religion. But English is the tie that binds. So how about eliminating multi-lingual signs except those that warn of physical danger, like rat poison warnings posted on the subway platforms?

15.  Bike riders and joggers are menaces to each other, accidents waiting to happen.  So how about making them all obey the same traffic laws and then enforcing the laws instead of giving non-motorists a pass when they screw up?

16.  Illegals aren’t “stealing American jobs,” they’re living off the table scraps.  So how about making those table scrap jobs pay a living wage and encouraging legal immigrants and naturalized or natural born citizens to actually want the work and willingly seek it?

17.  Under the mantle of “foreign aid” we bribe crappy little countries to be our friends and allies.  How about using some of that money to help out at home and if there’s any left over, send stuff -- but not cash -- to those countries we still think are worth bribing.

18.  The debt crisis is phony.  We’ve been “forcing our children and grandchildren to pay for our ‘excesses’” since 1776.  You can’t stop it no matter what you do. So how about rolling it over, some of which we do, anyway?

19.  No one can understand an insurance contract.  So how about enforcing a rule that they be written in plain English, with coverage exceptions in boldface and that they never exceed three pages of type no smaller than 12 point, the font size used on this blog?

20.  Desegregation can work, but integration can’t because of our primordial tribalism. How about we try to make peace with that notion and conduct ourselves as if we were sane and not living in the Fred Flintsone era?



Shrapnel:

--If you throw your hat into the ring, it means you’re in it to win it.  If you throw your towel into the ring, it means you quit.  If you throw a white terry cloth hat into the ring, does it mean you’re in and out at the same time?

I’m Wes Richards.  My opinions are my own but you’re welcome to them. ®
Please address comments to wesrichards@gmail.com  and if you do, please type them instead of writing them in crayon and scanning them.  I don’t have enough storage space for those attachments.
© WJR 2012

1040 The Man Behind the Curtain

1040 The Man Behind the Curtain

It’s amazing how many pearls of wisdom you can find in the Wizard of Oz.  But chances are, you’re not going to like this posting.

Because in this case, the man behind the curtain -- the wizard -- is Rupert Murdoch.  Yes, Rupert Murdoch, the man of sensational headlines, naked women on page three, gossip on Page Six, the right wing propaganda machine we all love to hate: Fox News.  Rupert Murdoch of the phone hacking scandals.  Of the wife with the championship quality right hook.  (Good thing it was the right hook and not the left.)  The Australian who became an American Citizen so he could buy TV stations.  The union buster.  And lately, the lowly writer of tweets on Twitter.

The Last Press Baron.  Or at least the last one with actual presses.

You may not like him.  You might think he’s a political caveman.  A believer in a dying form of media: Newspapers!  Who wants newspapers?!  (Even Rupert concedes the future is digital.  But he’s in the minority of big money moguls who believes there’s a future for news at all.)

You might want to think that the New York Post is made up two weeks in advance.  You might think the Times of London has lost its virginity.  You might think that the Wall St. Journal is nothing more than a shill for big business.

You might.  But Murdoch saves dead newspapers. (The Journal is a trade paper. It may win Pulitzers, but it’s still a trade paper, like Women’s Wear Daily, Variety, the Journal of Pediatric Oncology and Modern Grocer.)

Murdoch is in his 80s and won’t live forever.  So when NewsCorp splits itself in two and the papers become a separate company, his heirs will be able to sell off this drag on its bottom line.  If they can find buyers.  

Anyone want a crack at “The Sunday Tasmanian?”  How about “The Bronx Times-Reporter”?  All kinds of hot print properties there.

Without Mama Fox to make up the shortfall, and with newspaper readership sinking like the Titanic it once was, Murdoch may be able to have it both ways.  If he can make the new newspaper division self-supporting (somehow) and keep the Fox balls in the air it’ll be life in Oz.  It’s a bad bet on the surface.  But you bet against this wizard, chances are you go broke.

---
Now, the latest from the Associated Wes:

US vs. Alvarez - Making Lies Legal

LOS ANGELES (AW) -- The US Supreme court has lowered the bar making it possible for all bottom dwelling liars, lawyers and fake I.D. makers to slither over it. The decision to let anyone lie in or out of  US courts also marked the official start of the US Pathological Liars’ Millennium – or Alternative Truth Millennium theorized by some truth seekers to already  be in full political and corporate swing.

At the center of the issue lies our first amendment right to freedom of speech which has been trivialized to include small untruths in court because there is no legal mechanism in place to find and punish the massive number of cheaters.  It sounds like a trick to provoke people to admit their lies in public so they can be held accountable.  But it isn’t.

The ruling instantly turned all fraudulent I.D.s and paperwork from unacceptably fake to acceptably fake.  

Ninety-five percent of diamond jewelry wearing smart phone users, surveyed on line at their local food stamp offices, agreed that the ruling to accept alternative truths made their own lies legally and morally acceptable.

Members of the Supreme Court who are expected to be charged with violating the laws of perspective later this month are said to be claiming plausible deniability and blaming the first amendment.

(Click here to read the full decision.)  

We’re both Wes Richards.  Our opinions are our own but you’re welcome to them ®
Please address comments to wesrichards@gmail.com or wescoastmedia@gmail.com
© WJRs 2012

1039 Happy Birthday, Fatso

1039 Happy Birthday, Fatso

7/4/12.  Happy Birthday, America.   You managed another year despite all the efforts to kill you.  But you’re not wearing your age well.  Or your weight.

We’ve grown fat and sloppy.  We value minutia over principle, and invoking principle when we defend our lunacy of the moment. We’ve become a nation of gunsels who start huge fires on tinder-dry shooting ranges and then, when those commies in Utah tell us to stop, we crab about our Second Amendment rights.  Legislators in Utah want a temporary stop to shooting on state land and that’s an abridgement of your right to bear arms?  What about public safety and the cost of fighting fires.

We’re hoarding gold, the principle behind which is a survivalist doomsday scenario in which the country collapses.  Eat your ingots when the Wal-mart is overrun by the barbarians (from Mexico.)

We’re using civil rights laws to dictate emotions.  White guy shoots black guy or vice versa and it’s a “hate crime.”  That makes death worth more?

We hide pedophiles.

We call the people who send jobs overseas “job creators.”  (Are you listening, MItt?)

And today, we shoot off fireworks celebrating... what?  The elevation of mediocrity to greatness?  Making heroes of the Kardashians and the Palins and the Ron Pauls and the Rush Limbaughs.

Let’s all watch Macy’s rockets’ red glare over the Hudson while Regis Philbin quacks and prattles about what a great country this is.

We’ve forgotten the difference between liberty and license.

We have no credible liberal establishment and a right wing establishment that can’t read, can’t think, knows nothing of history and knows nothing of compromise.

We’re focused on illegals, we’re focused on our third Vietnam -- Afghanistan -- and on 500 channels of TV and the red carpet (how many of them ARE there?)  Meantime, we send young men and women off to get killed and call it patriotic heroism.   We’re focused on calorie counts for movie popcorn and on the size of Pepsi cups.  And the country that parented (parented? Politically correct enough for you?) the mass production auto industry can’t build a car that holds up under use on the highways we also don’t know how to make anymore?


So happy birthday, America.  You managed another a year in spite of us.  But remember -- and you’ve heard this from this space before:  We didn’t get to be the way we were by being the way we are.

Shrapnel:

--Who is more American than L.L. Bean, whose centenary his company is observing this year with ruffles and flourishes and free shipping.  But if the voter ID law applied to Maine would mean L.L. couldn’t vote.  In his day, they didn’t issue birth certificates up there.


--Andy Griffith (1926-2012) may have been the most underrated major actor who ever worked on Broadway or in Hollywood.  While he was best known for the silly TV show that added "Mayberry" to the language, it hardly was a showcase for his talents.  Just ask anyone who ever saw "No Time for Sergeants" or "A Face in the Crowd."

Coming Friday:  The Man Behind the Curtain and the Los Angeles Associated Wes takes another swing at the the Supreme Court.


I’m Wes Richards.  My opinions are my own but you’re welcome to them. ®
Please address comments to wesrichards@gmail.com
© WJR 2012

1038 The Other Ruling

1038 The Other Ruling

Because so much of the reporting was focused on health care, a little noticed Supreme Court ruling went under the radar.  After Chief Justice Robot read his self serving and unnecessarily windy decision on the health insurance mandate, no one stuck around to hear Associate Justices Scalia and Thomas read their landmark decision in the case of Nature vs. Obama.

Nature took the president to court and charged him with trying to redistribute the weather.  Bring some tornadoes to places where there are no trailer parks.  Bring some hurricanes to Kansas.  Raise the average December temperature in Minneapolis to 85 degrees... bring a freeze or two each year to Arizona and Nevada.  That sort of thing.

The Federal Appeals courts upheld that.  But in a rare unanimous decision, the Supremes struck it down.  It helped that both the Tea Party and the Occupy movement filed friends of the court briefs on Nature’s behalf.

Briefly, there was an Occupy effort to force Scalia to recuse himself because he implies he is God and therefore has a vested interest in the outcome.  But the movement failed when he declared publicly that while he is the Vatican’s personal representative at court, is not the actual God.

There was no corresponding move to have Thomas recused because he never says anything and because he just copies Scalia’s notes anyway.

So no hurricanes in Cincinnati.  Or Minnesota, Arizona and Nevada.

The House Redistribution Subcommittee on the Environment considered a bill that might have circumvented the weather law.  And it passed on a mostly party-line vote.  But it later died in the Ways and Means Committee.

Unfortunately, the Tea Party’s planned celebration in central Colorado had to be cancelled because of fire.  And the Occupy celebration planned for New York was cancelled because the city wouldn’t issue the permit.

As for Nature... it stopped pre-production of weather systems during the appeals process and now has to work overtime to get everything in the hopper.  A tough spot to be in at the start of the hurricane season.  But they’ve put on some seasonal workers and contracted with suppliers in Bangladesh and China to pitch in and make some of the minor components.  We’ve been assured, though, that final set up, assembly and deployment will take place right here in the US.

Immediately after the ruling, forecasters at Fox TV and CNN predicted heavy rains for Denver and highs in the low 40s for Phoenix and Albuquerque.

Later in the day, President Obama issued a written statement saying “We were not trying to take away anyone’s weather.  We only wanted and still want fairness in the distribution of conditions.”

Now... the latest from the Associated Wes...

(WASHINGTON) -- A landmark decision reached after nine years of closed door deliberations between the US Supreme Court and Buddha was announced last night.  It centered on reversing the dictionary definitions of “incarcerations” and “freedom.” As of January First, all incarcerated US men, women and children will be released from jails.  At the same time, all so-called free men women and children will be thrown in the slammer.

Attorneys for incarcerated inmates say this is unconstitutional because all their clients would have to pay for their food, water and health insurance and may even have to get jobs to support such luxuries.  There was no opposition from the “free” side of the law on their impending long term vacations and holidays.  The only pending aspect still facing the US Supreme Court and Buddha is what to do with all the soon-to-be-empty “freedom cells.”  The massive surplus will begin January first, when for the first time,  more Americans will be living outside of jails than inside.


We’re Wes Richardses.  Our opinions are our own but you’re welcome to them. ®
Please address comments to wesrichards@gmail.com  or wescoastmedia@gmail.com
© WJRs 2012

1037 The Virtual Barbecue

1037 The Virtual Barbecue

You could call this the “virtual formal dinner,” or any other gathering if you want.  But in keeping with the season, we’ll make it barbecues.

There no longer is a reason to hold real ones.  We have Facebook, Twitter, Skype, MySpace, “Go to meeting.com,” and all these connection services.  All that we need to stay at home with virtual friends are CARE packages and a webcam.  And if your computer doesn’t have a webcam, you can buy one for less than the cost of gasoline enough to go to someone’s house.

In Pennsylvania and some other backward states, these cannot contain adult beverages.  But you can always improvise.  In the real world, they can.

So, invite your friends.  Not just from the neighborhood, but from anywhere on the planet.

Send each one a CARE package and let the fun begin.

Aside: Everyone can get drunk and pose little or no danger to himself or the people around him.  And if someone gets unruly or obnoxious, you can cut him out of the video conference without having to take him aside and shake your finger in warning, or having him sleep it off on your couch.

If someone overeats, it’s HIS bathroom’ll get messed up, not yours.

Why should all meetings be business meetings, right?  You no longer travel from Portland East to Portland West for a conference, so why would you do that for a picnic or a barbecue.

And if you want to leave early, just tell everyone you have a low battery or your computer has become unstable or you forgot to pay your internet bill.

No parking worries.  No drinking worries.  No food poisoning worries (probably.)  No stalkers or stalkees.  No screaming bratty kids, no slobbering dogs.  And if you don’t want to watch the ball game on TV, you can avoid it easily.

You can still say something stupid.  But you can’t DO something stupid.  And you don’t have to drive home in the dark.


Shrapnel:

--Chief Justice Roberts’ approval of the Obama administration’s health care mandate certainly came as a surprise to many of us.  Guy starting to look at his legacy, seeing what he’s done and trying to make amends?  Or just a fluke...  maybe having a bad day and didn’t read over what he wrote.

--Fox and CNN got the health law decision wrong at first.  Can’t really blame them.  News organizations often write versions of big stories to match all kinds of outcomes.  Usually, though, the people who push the buttons that put out the stories check which button they’re pushing before they push it.

--Ann Curry has a new job and in it will give NBC News an international presence it can well use.  And the Katie-like Savannah Guthrie will be a big hit.  What the media writers who cluck about all this don’t always tell you is that the ratings loss at the hands of Good Morning America was pretty short-lived.

I’m Wes Richards.  My opinions are my own but you’re welcome to them. ®
Please address comments to wesrichards@gmail.com
© WJR 2012

1036 The Fading Charlie

1036 Fading Charlie

The Lion of Lenox Avenue lives to roar another day.  Seven hundred thirty days, more accurately.  But make no mistake about it, this is Charles Rangel’s last term. His win in the primary pretty much assures his win in the general election, though there is a Republican candidate and a Libertarian.

Charlie, looking better than any time in the last year or two, should savor the victory and so should the residents of his newly-configured district.  He’s 84 years old, tinged by scandal (more about which in a moment,) and was first elected in 1970.

Working against him this year:  The 2010 census reshaped the district to include parts of the Bronx and the population of the new shape is majority-Hispanic.  Working for him:  too many opponents for anyone to make any headway against a savvy guy with a savvy organization and plenty of money.

Also working for him:  enormous popularity in Harlem, where voter turnout is historically high.

Rangel’s constituents don’t much care about his rent-controlled office or the big Cadillac, ethical “challenges,” and all the fodder for the political junkies in Washington and Albany and other places that don’t have a vote.

They still throw flower petals along his path along 125th St.  They still see him working the streets when he doesn’t have to.  They still see plenty of the results of his seniority.  He’s not just a sentimental favorite.  He’s a favorite because he brings clout to the clout-less.

But in the era of identity politics, that Hispanic majority is going to put one of its own in office next time.

The New York political establishment (and the Harlem political establishment which is not the same thing) was behind him this time.  It won’t be again.  

The 2014 campaign is already underway.  And while Rangel’s primary foes have “pledged to work with him,”  they won’t.  He doesn’t need them.  And they need him to retire.  

This space routinely shows support for this guy, and in that way, nothing has changed.

So congratulations, Charlie.  See you for the Gospel Brunch at Sylvia’s.

Shrapnel (Sandusky aftershocks edition):

--The usual high tide of hate mail came rolling in after the Sandusky/Fourth Monkey post of earlier this week.  Penn State people are nothing if not loyal.  And defensive.

--Headline on the local paper: “Construction Projects Underway to Improve Campus.”  Guys, there isn’t a shovel big enough to improve what needs improvement.  Later they changed the headline to “Summer Projects Under Way Across Penn State Campus.”

--This may be the right time and place to introduce a new feature by the Associated Wes.  That’s the eldest offspring, living far away from the thriving metropolis of State College.   He writes:

Jerry Sandusky’s career-long rise to infamy has catapulted him to the top of the breakfast, lunch and dinner menu in prison.  And guards cite his bowlegged tiptoeing around the showers looking for soap.

Other stories in the pipeline:  Why people wear ties... and the currency market.  Stay tuned.

I’m Wes Richards.  My opinions are my own but you’re welcome to them. ®
Please address comments to wesrichards@gmail.com
© WJR 2012

1035 Jerry Sandusky and the Fourth Monkey

1035 Sandusky and the Fourth Monkey

(University Park PA) --  So the serial predator Sandusky has been convicted of... serial predation.   But this is just the tip of the iceberg.  In wait beneath the now- roiled waters is the College Built on Lies... many of which will no longer require sonar to spot.

Here are some of them, starting with the official seal and the founding date: 1855.   What was founded in 1855 was the Farmers’ High School of Pennsylvania.  Seven years later, it became The Agricultural College of Pennsylvania.  It morphed into Pennsylvania State College only in 1875.  And it became the Pennsylvania State University only in 1953.  Pick any date you like between 1875 and 1953 as “minute one.”

Then there’s the location.  University Park?  It doesn’t really exist as a geographic entity.  It’s not a place, it’s just what they call the main campus.

So, you start with a lie, especially one that’s widely accepted, you continue down that path.

Here’s another.  The school has this peculiar ownership, part private, part state.  Answering to two masters is answering to none.  Which face is the real one, if either?  Pretty easy to play one part against the other.  Equally easy to hide behind either one, depending on the whim or perceived need of the moment.

Now, with the Sandusky boy rape issue out of the way, more or less, now let’s get to the real story, which is lies of omission.  

People knew about this stuff more than a decade ago.  Or at least they suspected.  So the fourth monkey won... Hear No Evil, See No Evil and Speak No Evil remained deaf, dumb and blind while the rogue or misnamed Do No Evil, founded in 1855, continued his/its rampage.

This school had been a two man show for a long time.  One star was the football coach, Joe Paterno, who may or may not have known about this stuff, but still is Saint Joseph to a lot of people and maybe he should be.  After all, what is Penn State without football?  The other was marathon president Graham Spanier, by all accounts a micromanager without whose advice and consent no one so much as sneezed.

Most colleges are rats nests of territoriality, ego and self delusion.  At Penn State, it’s not just a way of life, it’s on stone tablets and they confuse Mt. Sinai with Mt. Nittany.

No one knew about Sandusky?  Rubbish.  What else don’t they know about?  How deep did this deaf dumb and blindness reach.

Right now, the school is busy covering up what looks an awful lot like a coverup.  It has commissioned former FBI director Louis Freeh to conduct an internal investigation.  And the Freeh “Commission” as it’s being called around here, is bound to come up with some fall guys.  

But the real culprit is the corporate culture.  Penn State is General Motors.  Big, unwieldy, arrogant, slow to respond to its customers; a builder of mediocrity with lots of chrome and a horrible reliability record.

So, let’s hear it for the Fourth Monkey.  A pretty good run.  That’s going to end for awhile.  But no worries, it’ll be back before you know it.

The smart money is shorting this stock and buying banana futures.

I’m Wes Richards.  My opinions are my own but you’re welcome to them. ®
© WJR 2012

(A version of this appeared earlier at High Heels Hot Flashes)