The Not so Stupid Super Bowl. There is anti-intellectualism in football and its crowd. This IS an anti-intellectual nation but that is a huge generality, of course. Football does ooze machoness, god, family and country complete with the Air Force spectacle, of all things, wasting taxpayer money by flying over the Bowl which seems ridiculous. What is this an international war? The Bowl is often garish, glitzy and gaudy. STILL, having said that I love football and I LOVED last night's particular game.

Why do I love football? I cannot BELIEVE the physical agility, strength and talent of those men. I marvel at nature's construct of the human body and how much punishment it can take IF it is young, male and in the prime of youth. But it is even more than that. The intellect behind the strategy, minutiae and the announcing of it is complex. I am amazed at people who know and understand it all. It is difficult, when the game is over, to recount all the individual plays, who did what well and who missed. I know the basics and sometimes what to expect on each play. There are surprises that will live forever, too, like coach Sean Peyton's prep and the execution of a rare onside kick, the first in Super Bowl history NOT in the fourth quarter, that turned the game around for the Saints. It was GREAT fun.

Moreover, I LOVED the commercial of Betty White in her 80's where she got creamed playing football with young big men in the mud until she ate a Snickers bar which gave her energy. Tears of laughter rolled down my eyes for a LONG time. It was just plain hilarious!

One more thing, it was a victory for the downtrodden city of New Orleans and for all those who have suffered beyond measure in that city. It was symbolic of and a metaphor for a city coming back. It was a testament to the resilience of those people who are an example of the nature of the country itself. This was a Cinderella game where the last finished first. Americans (including me) LOVED that. Americans are, at our heart, I believe, a goodhearted positive people. Moreover, the Saints are made up of decent men especially the quarterback Brees who gives of himself to charity all the time and Scott Fujita who is a humanitarian in his political views. All reasons, I think, to support the Saints.

So what, I cried at America the Beautiful sung exquisitely by the black woman Queen Latifa and the national anthem sung beautifully by the white woman Carrie Underwood. It was an amalgamation of black and white. Our country has, indeed, come a long way.

Even the anti-choice ad didn't bother me. It was small, it was quick and there were OTHER ads selling other things which, I thought, had some homosexual overtones. So kudos to CBS the thing I was the most critical of didn't amount to a hill of beans. I am an unabashed liberal and feminist but I allow myself to enjoy the staggering feats in football. I would LOVE to be so strong!

Huffington Post had a blog entitled "Share Your Story" which asked people to write about how they discuss politics so, naturally, I obliged. It may be posted or not.

I am 61 years old. I became political when I attended the so called "Berkley of the East," Boston University in the late 60's. It was a turbulent era and I loved it. I listened and hung on every radical word of the most leftist professors, had all night bull sessions with fellow classmates and talked politics non-stop. I thought we were ushering in a new era with peace, love and flowers in the air always; when there would be no more war and wealth would be more evenly distributed. I truly thought men would always have long hair and most would walk around the world bare foot. The change I thought would be permanent. It wasn't but I never, since that transforming time, stopped thinking or talking about politics as I tried to figure out who was right, who was wrong and what the difference between left and right was anyway. I am still thinking about it. I loved that time and consider it the best time of my life by far.

I changed, of course, grew older, grayer, and suffered losses of parents, family and close friends. I never did become the radical I thought I always would be as moderation overcame my youth with age.

Because of that time though, I became freer, more in tune with my environment, am more health conscious and environmental friendly. I also managed to find a person who unconditionally loves me. Through it all I toughed life out despite its disappointments and because of the disability of polio, an anachronism now, that took its toll as I aged. I worked hard in the legal field until I could not work any longer as my will said yes but my body negated it. I worked not because I loved it because but because I had to. So when I retired I began to do what I always wanted to do and that is write political and social opinion. That is what I do 24/7 or just about.

I still discuss it with those who will suffer through it and I write opinion and blog continuously. The professors at BU like the deceased Howard Zinn gave me the desire to experience another day because of the window onto the political and historical world that they opened. The computer gave me the vehicle to write about it.

I cannot believe there will come a time when I do not exist and will never know how much of it turns out. I cannot believe that my era someday will be the ancient history that the Romans and Greeks were to me. It is hard to conceptualize one's end and because I never had children the only legacy, if I want to call it that, will be the things I write if someday, perhaps, some historian studying this era comes across in some dusty corner the many opinions I have written. Well, I can hope anyway. Otherwise, for me, what is life all about?

My Depth of Despair and My Heights of Anger -- I am emotionally spent. After the health care debacle and the Coakley election, all the hard work so many of us put in week after week, day after day, hour after hour, creating emails, letters, articles to papers, telephone calls, conversations and anything else one could do only to see our causes fail. I am SO dismayed and so sad about our president's lack of effective leadership and how to USE the power of the presidency and shape Congress I am thinking about stepping on my own toes and backing away from the political fray. The president INEFFECTIVELY in an attempt to return the balance of power to a Congress which does not know what to do with it handed power over to them with little direction. Congress has conflicting interests beholden to big pharma, big insurance or their own states, gets little done on the big issues of our time: bank regulation, jobs, and health care. Both parties, as Bill Moyers said, are equal opportunity employers of big corporate lobbyists and money. The lobbyists are gracious and will give to any party. It is beyond insane that in the middle of a near Depression and when health care and jobs for Main Street are in the mix to help get us out of this quagmire, to decide one is going to return power to an entity, Congress, that is spinning around blindfolded not knowing what to do next even begging for White House leadership.

This is NOT Harvard Law Review and it's not 1789 with a country of only thirteen colonies. It is 2010 with country population of over 300,000,000 on the heals of a near Depression with lives and generations hanging in the balance. If health care and a solid jobs bill die, my heart is dead for this president. I will not invest the time, money and emotional effort to support him. I have to see a change in him returning to what I thought he was in the first place especially on the big ticket items. I feel like a jilted lover. I am upset, furious, demoralized and just plain sad how a Democratic Party could squander the total control it had of Congress AND the presidency with a mandate from the people for change. This WAS my dream come true. The dream is turning into a nightmare because, I believe, the president has NOT led effectively. He speaks loftily with or without a teleprompter but he does NOT lead. He apparently does not know how or is relying on poor advice from his minions which turn its back on the desperate needs of the people. Maybe, too, big pharma and big insurance are simply even bigger than he.

Whatever the reason, he is the leader of our party. Yes, he has done some things that are laudable BUT on the big things he has fallen woefully short. How the Democratic Party did not see the handwriting on the wall with the Coakley election until it was MUCH too late, I will never know. The National Democratic Party and the president as its leader FAILED to keep Ted Kennedy's seat. I STILL cannot believe it. Teddy Kennedy would not believe it either that a party and a president could fail SO dismally when power was at their feet -- and still is -- waiting for them to grab it. It is a damnable thing to those of us who care about human rights and humanitarian principles. I thought Barack Obama was on our side. Often, I do not, so far, see that he is.

I just read on Huffington that Obama admitted health care may not pass. I am FURIOUS. I am FURIOUS because I invested so much time in this guy and I was WRONG about him. You know. I LOATH him now because his modus operandi is USELESS for the 21st century. This is not 1789. I am glad he is for the separation of powers OH SURE I AM NOT. That moronic over thought idiocy will mean people will die with no health care and I lay it at HIS feet. And the Republicans a huge MINORITY gloat with a HUGE DEMOCRATIC MAJORITY which we will NEVER have again. He did NOT and does not know how to work congress...he is INEXPERIENCED and does not know how to do it. What a shame. Yes, other peripheral things he got but it is NOT enough. On the BIG things he is a FAILURE and he was MUCH too late to rescue Coakley or better still have gotten a better candidate. Brown changed everything and Teddy is rolling around in his grave. What a TRAVESTY for Democrats. For the first time in my life of voting 40 years I will vote 2012 out of spite Republican even IF I have to step on my own toes to do it. Unless the Dems put up another candidate for 2012...I consider him a NON entity. ALL those hours and hours I spent either working for him or writing or sending emails by the hundreds.. He is ALL flowery talk and lousy leadership. My thoughts are stream of conscious. Speaker Pelosi is the ONLY one who knows how to use power and do it effectively. This criticism is NOT about her. It is about the president and other toxic members of the Congress.

NO one knows how much I hate Republicans BUT I am going to step on my own toes and work AGAINST Obama. I LOVED this guy and I am disappointed beyond repair unless something passes on health care. HE IS IMPOTENT...his method of using power is IDIOTIC This is NOT Harvard Law Review AND this is NOT 1789....THIS IS A COUNTRY THAT NEEDS GUIDANCE it needs a STRONG executive. I wasn't so much against Bush's ideas of a strong executive as I was against HIS POLICIES but Obama's policies I am for. HE WILL NOT NOT NOT get my vote in 2012. I will work against him that is how angry I am. I am a Democrat's Democrat but with all the hype and positive talking heads leading us into NOTHING I am FURIOUS..I don't care if the Republicans put up Attila the Hun...I am going to work HARD against Obama because of this health care MADNESS...how many wasted absolutely WASTED hours!!!!!!!!!!He stinks and many in Congress ESPECIALLY the Senate stinks. I will work against Obama because he has shown NO leadership for the 21st century on the BIG issues. This is NOT the 18th century!!!!!!!!!!!!

The STUPID Bowl -- the politics of religious extremism at the Super Bowl. On the issue of choice, I am pro choice. My position is if you do not want an abortion, fine, do not have one BUT allow this serious decision to be between the woman and her physician. Each circumstance is different and it should NOT reside with the government or be influenced for all people by a religious entity. These right wing groups are dedicated, even if it takes 100 years, to make abortion once again illegal, relegated to back alley abortions which were performed often in filthy conditions. Some want it illegal EVEN in the case of rape, incest, fetal deformity, intellectual deformity or if the mother's life is in danger. They will possibly have the corporate money to advocate for it. They can now even ADVERTISE for it which they are doing during this Sunday's Super Bowl. I have provided a link below which describes the ad.

What ever your views SURELY we can agree that a Super Bowl ad financed by an extremist right wing group like Focus on the Family devoted to the overturning of Roe v. Wade and the ruination of our interpreted right to privacy does not deserve air time during the Super Bowl, an event that is SUPPOSED to be fun. I suggest if it is allowed than a warning at the end of that should be required to say that a decision to bring a pregnancy to term, in some cases, may result in the death of the mother and the death or deformity of the fetus. Short of that an equal and opposite response by Planned Parenthood, NARAL (National Abortion Rights League), NOW (National Organization for Women) or others should be offered. As far as I know it is not.

I urge you to contact any of the numbers or web sites below to advocate for this position or find one of your choice. MOST ESPECIALLY let CBS know that if you watch the Super Bowl you will turn off that commercial and others during it OR that you will not watch the Super Bowl at all if the anti-choice Tebow commercial is aired unless disclaimers, disclosure or an opposition to it are allowed to be shown as well.

We cannot sit back and think the right wing will rest. It won't. I hasn't. Our rights on this issue have been chipped away one by one. Moreover, abortion providers have been killed. Whether a woman has an abortion or not should NOT be the prerogative of the public but should be between the woman and her doctor alone!


Online contact: CBS Contact: http://www.cbsnews.com/htdocs/feedback/fb_news_form.shtml?tag=ftr

CBS No.: 212 975 3247-- VOICE YOUR OPPOSITION

Planned Parenthood No.: 212-541-7800 -- Ask them to provide an opposing ad. They are a huge entity which surely must have the funds for at least one oppositional ad. They have very wealthy clientele in the likes of Norman Lear, Barbara Streisand, Stephen Speiberg and many others.

Planned Parenthood explanation and response to the Tebow commercial:


http://www.plannedparenthood.org/about-us/newsroom/local-press-releases/1310-lesson-tebow-family-story-respect-trust-women-make-important-medical-decisions-themselves-31405.htm?__utma=1.48141533.1265384460.1265384460.1265387410.2&__utmb=1.28.10.1265387410&__utmc=1&__utmx=-&__utmz=1.1265387410.2.2.utmcsr=google|utmccn=%28organic%29|utmcmd=organic|utmctr=Planned%20Parenthood&__utmv=-&__utmk=211296533

APOLOGIES: I just got an email from Scot Leigh of the Globe it WAS a spoof article. Whew. I feel better BUT I would not give ANYONE food for thought. It's too dangerous.

Scott Brown for President?? I am disappointed in Scot Lehigh. I thought better of him unless, of course, his editorial "Get ready for President Brown" in the February 3, 2009 Boston Globe is a spoof. If serious, that would be like my voting for Barack Obama because he was black. No, I voted for Barack Obama because I suspected that he was intellectually brilliant and infinitely more capable than anyone else the Republican party had to offer. He was and is driven by a sense of introspection and studious rigor about which President Obama's Republican opposition could only dream.

I suspect the enthusiasm for Scott Brown would be different if he looked like, for example, Henry Kissinger. His rugged good looks, brown suede jacket, truck and seemingly perfect family is, I believe, the kindling fuel that ratchets up the presidential timber tag. Presidential timber? What house nationally or even internationally has Scott Brown built? The answer is none but I am sure, sadly, people will be following this man for president not because we know he has the intellectual heft the presidency should require but because he looked great on the front page of Cosmo. How many books does Scott Brown read and what are they? What are his articulation abilities? Most importantly, what and how much does he know? We have no idea because he has not yet even taken his senate seat and Scot Lehigh, editorialist for the Boston Globe, is predicting Brown as president? Shame on you Scot Leigh I thought you were better than that.

Strategies: A bunch of thoughts in the order my mind thought of them on how we get our message out and the good messengers to support.

The President did SUCH a good job at his question period with Republicans. He is INFINITELY more capable than the cerebrally compromised Bush.

Does the American public see the OBVIOUS truth to that as Republicans and some Independents too think Fox News is the most trustworthy...OH SURE. That is infinite stupidity. No matter what the President does he will NEVER NEVER get Republican "bipartisan" help. They want to defeat him at all costs so they go with their tried and true as they insist Dems are tax and spend even though the deficit soared under the Bush because of his rotten tax cuts for the rich which curiously he was able to get Congress to agree using reconciliation and his totally horrendous, illegal, immoral and by many standards inhumane Iraq War. Wars cost HUGE amounts of money and the defense spending cannot be included in cost cutting. It's separate.

So what does anyone expect? A huge amount of the deficit could be eliminated if we curtailed our defense spending significantly. But the Republicans only want to cut so called "entitlement" programs that actually HELP PEOPLE and work. They want to privatize Social Security and Medicare .... in my posterior NO ONE will want that especially those who have paid into it. Can you imagine with the tanking of the economy brought on by another piece of work Reagan through policies of Bush even helped by Clinton (who I have great reservations about now) how seniors now would be affected if Social Sec. were gutted? Plus Bush took money to finance his war from Social Security and borrowed the rest from China. Their philosophy is really no government spending on anything but defense they really want to end all government spending on humans who need help that is what Republicans are REALLY about as an anti-tax "conservative" crusader Grover Norquist says.

Obama was handed a plate of you know what but the Republicans try to hang all the deficit on him with their tax and spend tired mantra. Salt and pepper in the OBVIOUS racism levied at the president and it's just a toxic situation. I have never seen such insulting and often racist disrespect for a president ... EVER.

STRATEGIES:

I think some GREAT strategies now are to call out Fox News and the Republicans for the liars they continuously are. That is the only way. Keep harping on it and harping on it. Call radio talk shows even conservative ones like XM Patriot and our liberal ones too like Sirius Talk Left or even Sirius Indy talk. I think A.M. radio has some rabid conservatives too although I don't know because I only listen to XM. Air America I think is going off ... not sure when. It's too bad as they have some good ones like Ron Reagan. Stephanie Miller is a very funny liberal commentator. I think The Young Turks with Cenk Yugar is on XM and online. Bill Press is wonderful as is Thom Hartman on XM, and there is PBS and PBS radio as of course is Bill Moyers a particular love of mine but it probably is playing to a selective audience. We want to reach the most people we can.

Blogs are another way to get your opinion out. Make it smart, not nasty if you can, and brevity is always good not that I personally follow those rules but they are good ones. Also try blogging or writing editorials (make them as well written and short as possible) as I have written many times on the Metro West News, the Globe, Times,Washington Post, McClatchy News, Newsweek and others. Metro West Daily News blog has a shortage of liberals. Many blog at the end of each article. I have done it so much that I stopped blogging in the MDN. It does get very tough to read comments against you so beware but the more of us out there the better, grow a thick skin if you can. Huffington Post too is great as is Salon.com ... another site I love is Democracy Now with Amy Goodman. Support for good liberal authors like Jane Mayer, Tom Ricks, Naomi Klein (The Shock Doctrine), JeremyScahill on Blackwater an expert, Michael Isikoff, NYT editorialists Paul Krugman, Frank Rich, Bob Herbert, Gene Robinson. Jeff Scharlet wrote "The Family" an expose on "C " Street religious fundamentalists and the Washington Congressmen. A Ugandan connection there too getting the kill/imprison the gays legislation in Uganda believe it or not. Support liberal publications like the Nation, Mother Jones, or internet Moveon.org. Glen Greenwald is BRILLIANT from Salon.com There are many others. Especially there are military guys out there who are wonderful. I can't think of their names at the moment but probably the Rachel Maddow site has them. Also some are involved in getting rid of the Don't Ask Don't Tell insanity like Dan Choi ... read them and support them if you can.

Some conservative stations if they screen calls and you are critical of them they won't let you on. So I say I just want to discuss such and such and don't sound angry and you might get on. Visibility is what the Democratic party and progressives need it for 2010 and 2012. I cannot BELIEVE that anyone with 1/2 a brain especially if they are middle class or blue collar would want to vote against their OWN economic interest and go back to a Republican party which is not about them, and fundamentalist religious wing nuts to boot and a party which nearly catapulted us into a severe Depression maybe worse than 1929 and possibly could have meant the end of this country as we have known it as a Depression that was avoided by the bailout could have been utterly disastrous. The potential for that was that huge. We do not realize how bad it really was and it was on Bush's watch. McCain sarcastically says BOB -- blame it on Bush .. well YES OF COURSE blame it on Bush who else? If the situation were reversed and it happened with Clinton can you imagine how they would play it and do?

Thank God for Keith Olbermann, Rachel Maddow and even Chris Matthews on MSNBC 7:00 p.m., 8:00 pm. and 9:00 pm. respectively. Try to watch them frequently if you can and write in supportive comments. See the Internet for their email. Rachel's is rachel@msnbc.com.....Be SUPPORTIVE they are the ONLY ones who point out night after night the hypocrisy and are supremely entertaining and BRILLIANT ... especially Rachel...she is a ph.d and it shows. She is just the best as she has on even those who disagree and holds their feet to the fire!

Support our PROGRESSIVE Journalists and media. OOPS almost forgot Ed Schultz on XM at 3:00 p.m. AND MSNBC at 6:00 pm. Onward.

Natalie

p.s. I am in mourning for my former professor, mentor and email correspondent Howard Zinn who recently died. I miss him every day! His book A People's History is excellent. He influenced my political philosophy like no other ever could. I just loved him. He was kind, inspiring and dedicated to a humane philosophy. I did not always agree with everything he said but his dedication to his basic principles of speaking truth, humanity and justice could not be doubted.

Glorious Bastards – a review of the film Inglourious Basterds: I am Jewish and I LOVED this film. I wasn't prepared to love it as I had heard about the violence which I often cannot endure but I did love the film. Why? I was born in 1948 after the greatest catastrophe, the Holocaust, was perpetrated on the Jewish people – my people. Thankfully, I never experienced it but year after year I absorbed the horror of it in film and by the word of mouth from parents and friends who knew about it or experienced themselves the evil that had befallen our people. I have viewed hundreds of hours of film footage of it, documentaries on it, bought and read books and anthologies about it, viewed TV drama devoting hours to it, viewed and participated in lengthy discussions and yet through all of that one burning question remains and it is not necessarily the word why. We can find thousands of rationales for the Holocaust but the question of what can we do about it remains illusive. As a naïve child I said to my parents but we won the war as if that were the happy ending of it. The answer always was an unsatisfying yes we won the war but … .

The trials at Nuremberg, the trial of Eichmann, the imprisonment and execution of some of Nazi hierarchy to be sure was some satisfaction but not the kind of satisfaction I desired for such unpardonable and unspeakable crimes. I had to face reality. There was no revenge huge enough and there was certainly nothing that could bring back the cerebrally unfathomable six million. What does six million mean? It is an utterly incomprehensible number made even worse because it is a number that COULD have included me. Only an accident of location and time of birth made me a learner about and not a victim of those events at that horrible time. Still, there is no revenge which is able to give purpose to the purposeless. That is a hard reality for a Jew who was born in America to swallow. Are not the good guys supposed to win? Do not the bad guys get sent to hell? The answer is a discouraging no the good guys do not always prevail and no, the bad guys probably do not end up in hell. Truly there is no good ending for this incredible story.

This film, though, albeit in fiction form, satisfied the desire for revenge for those dastardly deeds perpetrated within a historical minute slightly more than 65 years ago. The end of the film was the Dante’s inferno for the Nazi curse. It was glorious to watch as hell by Jewish hands was visited upon the entire Nazi hierarchy including Hitler himself in the confines of a beautiful theater as if the entire war was played out right then and there on film and I rejoiced. I felt like I took a bath in flames that cleansed the world and me of one of man’s most horrific crimes. It was as if God himself burned the screen, blew up the theater where Nazi big wigs sat and screamed to them this is Jewish revenge; this is Jewish punishment for what you have done. I loved it and wished it were true.

Alas, it is not true though as it is a work of fiction. So afterward I am bounced back to reality yet again and know there is nothing I can or will be able to ever do about it. I can as a Jew never exact my pound of flesh but I did, for over two hours, feel as if I had.

Boycott the Darkness: Recently a new film starring Mel Gibson called "The Edge of Darkness" has been or will be released in theaters. I ask that you boycott this film and ALL Mel Gibson films for that matter. This man is a Holocaust denier and blatant anti-Semite. I refer you to this link below in an article by Roger Friedman of Shobiz411.com that explains Gibson's anti-Semitism without my trying to compile a list of my grievances against him.

I refused to see the "Passion of the Christ" first because it was horrifically violent and second because a film emphasizing the death of Christ and the alleged Jewish involvement in it served only to inflame ancient absurd Christian anti-Semitic vitriol against the Jews and stoke the fires of potential violence in this age old insanity. He is not a friend either to the traditional Catholic church as he promotes his own brand of Catholicism.

Mel Gibson is vile and I ask you not to contribute to the success of anything he creates. The only way to hit him back is in his pocketbook and I ask you to consider never seeing anything Mel Gibson is in or creates.

Thanks.

http://showbiz411.blogs.thr.com/2010/01/27/mel-gibsons-father-goes-after-the-pope-and-catholic-church/

On Howard Zinn: There has been no one in my life since the historian Howard Zinn, left wing professor, at Boston University in the late 60's who had a more profound influence on me than he. I truly loved this man for over 40 years and remained in touch via email. I call that generation of the late 1960's the greatest generation as the values of peace it promulgated and the hope it engendered for me has gone unmatched.

Although he is gone, I will continue to re-listen to his lectures, re-read his book, and try to keep his spirit alive in my heart for the rest of my own life. I am saddened today but in my email from him just about three days ago when I felt so dispirited by the the election in Massachusetts as it seems yet again I am assaulted by the forces on the right standing on the precipice of regaining power (as if the last eight years were not enough), said that I should never lose hope, that I should always continue to remember that change comes not from the top down but from the bottom up. He said I should never give up my passion for justice and change. He lived that fight up even up until his death yesterday, January 27, and said there can be no change without hard work and that it is, as iterated in his recent documentary for the History Channel, the people who truly speak. I will always remember him.

SPOT ON! When I read, Frank Rich, NYT preeminent editorialist, write an op ed for the Sunday NY Times and says everything or near everything I have been complaining about the Obama administration for months, I am, if you will excuse my ego this one time, patting myself on the back. If Frank Rich has written brilliant columns, this was, in my opinion, one of his best. I can disagree with none of it because I have said most of it myself albeit not quite as elegantly.

I guess I do not "need my head examined" after all as I was accused by a relative of mine I did when I have been critical of Obama who for some walks on water. He does NOT for me. He has made, vis a vie the Scott Brown election, a GRIEVOUS if not fatal error and could if he does not change his modus operandi cost our country lives and fortune. Scott Brown is NOT a man of the people like the Republican mantra dupes people into believing and sometimes I wonder if Barack Obama is not as well. He needs to change course or, in fact, he will be a one term president. Sad, because his potential in November, 2008 was so overwhelmingly good.

I provide the link below for those who have not read it.! He is SPOT ON and the White House should take note and FAST!! Onward.


http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/24/opinion/24Rich.html?hp

Ramblings: I have had little sleep. My cat keeps screaming at 3:00 a.m., my eye is bothering me, I have to have a glucose fasting test at 9:00 so I can't eat OR think, my partner's mother has Alzheimer's and is in the Metro West hospital because they can't control her in assisted living, Haiti is well Haiti, my president who I used to be in love with has deserted me and is in la la egotistical, deluded, naive and denial land, the democrats around him are shaking in their boots blaming "leftists" for their plight!! Nancy Pelosi was nearly incoherent when she made her lovely announcement about health care she barely could get the sentence out, the Supreme court handed down a decision that is nearly as bad as the all time bad one Dred Scott decision and makes this country nearly a permanent oligarchy, I am hoping the Democrats can come up with something to stave that off but seeing how they act on health care forget it, we are ruled by one minority party vote of Scott Brown and the Republicans (sounds like a rock group ... hey we can make some money off that Scott Brown and the Republicans.) Republicans are breaking out the champagne and are thrilled that their bank accounts will reach the stratosphere.

So no one talked about the fact if there will be more billionaires so just who is going to service them, build their buildings, do all the things blue collar and middle America does, who will have the factory jobs when the factories are overseas, who will teach their kids, who will get into universities, who would even want to come to this country now with it's glorious rags to riches gone, it's minorities protected gone, where your child will be worse off than you not better??? Where people just will be continuing to die without health care.

Well I'm in my usual suicide mode :-( only kidding ... as that great racist Scarlett O'Hara said in Gone with the Wind that fabulous 1938 Academy Award supreme racist film that Americans were then flocking to: "Tomorrow is another day." Yes, it is and we are going backward. Reactionaries anyone?

Sorry, it's 6:30 a.m. I have to be cynical and mad or I'll just sit and cry and then after my glucose test look for a whiskey bottle AND I don't even drink EVER and I don't smoke gave smoking up a LONG LONG LONG time ago, I am a health food addict, a fanatic about trying to move as much as I can even though it could kill me if I fall. Why am I doing this? Maybe I could write a satire and make LOTS of money and then go to Denmark!

Sorry, I'm a little off this a.m. :-\ Need to regroup... Read the below link of Glen Greenwald. It's perfect!

http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/glenn_greenwald/

A DECIDEDLY BAD DECISION: If any of us on the left ever thought Obama would be the end to our problems have SURELY gotten a rude awakening. Feast your eyes on the most disgusting opinion ever written by the Supreme Court since Dred Scott. Corporations now have clear sailing to spend as much as they want on political candidates. Now the nation is TRULY bought and paid for by the corporation. They even rolled back McCain/Feingold.

If we thought it could not get any worse, welcome to the United States of Oligarchy!! More conservative justices anyone?

We are unraveling and fast but the people elect Brown and think HE will be an independent Republican and will be for them. Oh sure. In which universe? We are plagued by corporate swindles that nearly brought down not only the US economy but world economy as well and NOW they can buy all US elections everywhere with ad infinitum amounts of cash. Sure, let's get some more deregulation of the always good-willed corporation. I say great. Let's see how fast we will be selling apples on street corners while the phenomenally wealthy sip mint juleps in the Caribbean! Finally, sometime maybe in some distant future this country will have learned its lesson. 1929, 2008 and a few other depressions in addition, were simply not enough for the never-to-be-underestimated masses.

Here is the decision if anyone can stomach to read it.

http://msnbcmedia.msn.com/i/MSNBC/Sections/NEWS/A_Politics/scotus.pdf

p.s.: Here is Glen Greenwald's column for Salon.Com He is BRILLIANT and writes spot on opinion.

http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/glenn_greenwald/

My next prediction: Scott Brown/Mitt Romney 2010 or vice versa Romney/Brown

A Full Court Press: This was an email I sent to Bill Press in response to one of his opinions.


It's true, Bill, we did not have 60 votes anyway BUT and this is HUGE -- the right wing white entities are energized like they have not been before and will try to duplicate this ALL around the country.

Two days ago I got a robo call from it said Washington D.C. asking if I thought a marriage was between a man and a woman. I screamed of course NO but this is what they take from the Brown win. They go into other issues and no matter Brown did not characterize himself as Republican he is. He is 150 degrees the opposite of Teddy. This is more than about health care although that is part of it this is about a right wing crazy nationalistic base that is angry about our war losses after WWII and the inability to recapture that glory. It is an anger about that and an anger about race AND I would even say an anger about god and gays. It's ALL in the mix and this is why this THING that happened in Mass is so threatening. They will use this as their own ticket to ride their own rancid teabag extremist right wing agenda. For them it's full steam ahead and WE are in the cross hairs! Just my opinion.

Election Malaise: The special senatorial election is a pathetic loss for the Democrats. There is enough to go around in the blame game. In fact, in my opinion, it is everyone's fault involved in this election: (1) the candidate was utterly remiss and non existent literally on vacation until it appeared Brown was breathing down her neck. She seemed cold, like an iceberg and out of touch. Her gaffes were ridiculous (2) The White House because they are playing an over thought game. They are MUCH too removed and should be taking as I have been saying for ages a more Bushian approach. I.e. Bush got EVERYTHING he wanted done. Why? Because through Cheney, et al the mantra was a STRONG ultra strong executive. In my opinion, since FDR that is the essence of our politics. The Congress is impotent especially a Democratically controlled Congress. We have a big tent and many different opinions in the tent. He put the ball in their lap on health care when he SHOULD have carried it himself coming out STRONGLY against the idiocy of the teabag movement in the summer I call the summer with guns. He didn't. He went to Martha's Vineyard and let those town halls work their poison. Racism runs deep in this country and it should NEVER be forgotten.

If you have a 60 vote majority and a huge majority in the House and a so called "liberal" Democratic president you should lose NOTHING. NOTHING should be as hard as they have made it. The White House said the Coakley campaign didn't ask them for help. WHAT? Are you kidding me? As Keith Olbermann said "what the hell do you want an engraved invitation?" They should have moved in FAST with such a HUGELY important election. Coakley never should have run. She has as much exciting charisma as a rock and listening to her is as interesting as a course in advanced calculus. (3) The banks: Obama put in the foxes in to guard the chicken coup. I have been saying that from the beginning. His economic team of Geithner, Summers and by proxy Rubin are NOT Main Street. They are Wall Street. Those highly unethical bonuses should have been fought. (4) The Healthcare madness in general (5) The Democratic party for not vetting a GOOD solid candidate to replace the utterly charismatic Teddy. They got the opposite in Coakley (6) The Democratic people (including me) for not voting Capuano. He would have taken this race by 10 points. I learned my lesson. Take NOTHING for granted and look at candidates carefully. A 35 point lead has been absolutely squandered by a third rate candidate, Brown, who is the 100% opposite of Teddy Kennedy. I hear Teddy rolling around in his grave.

Prediction time: Stream of conscious: Not only will Brown win, he will win bigger than expected and a tip of the hat to Coakley, Obama, and the Democrats who shoot themselves in the foot ALL the time. She is a LOUSY candidate who ran a LOUSY campaign and Obama pure and simply LIES. Oh sure as he said yesterday a vote for Scott Brown is a vote for Wall Street. NO, Mr. President, a vote for YOU was a vote for Wall Street as he put in Wall Street hacks to fix the economy. They fixed it alright ... for themselves! I have gone from love of Obama to divorce inside of a year. This senate seat if it happens will be a HUGE HUGE loss and a BIG HUMILIATION and will dump Obama's health care OR what's left of the damn thing into the city dump. It's anemic and he is NOT what he said he was. Capuano would have been a MUCH better candidate. Coakley is about as charismatic as listening to a lecture on advanced calculus and now CNN is talking about her Shilling Red Sox gaffe. This is the intelligence of the media and the inability of her to handle a ridiculous question. Coulda, woulda, shoulda, it matters not. Sit back and enjoy the next three years of a worse economy, thousands dying from lack of proper health care, a climate disintegrate and eternal never ending war. The country should have great entertainment as long as the bombs do NOT fall on us!

Obama cannot rule, he cannot legislate and he is NOT accountable to his base. Why doesn't he just switch to the Republican party? That way he can have all the Republicans on his team he wants and obviously he wants them there. He is after one year in my opinion a FAILURE I don't care HOW HARD IT IS TO LEGISLATE. HE had a 60 vote majority in the Senate and a commanding majority in the House and he is a Democrat too. What would LBJ have done with his situation? Obama withdrew his power on health care when he shouldn't have, let the insanity of tea bagging rule the day and he reached out to Republicans that hate him. He did not rein in Lieberman by threatening to take his chairmanship away and he did not know how to manage the blue dogs. That's what we elected him for -- TO BE A POLITICIAN! He ratcheted up war, toned down his rhetoric on restoring civil liberties and became tone deaf to those who supported him the most.

Moreover, he forgot the racism of the past 300 years. It matters and is directed at him like a white very white laser. So many of us who were his base loath him now. But oh yeah, Rahm Emanuel says you can take your base for granted. BULL SH&^%. No you can't and I am proof of that par excellance. Am I furious about tomorrow YES! In my solidly blue state of which I was so proud to be a resident, Teddy Kennedy's 48 year seat possibly will turn Republican and his life-long dream of health care among so much other socially good legislation will be down the toilet. Am I mad at even the prospect of that? YOU BETCHA!

Both on the Mark: Two Boston Globe editorialists Joan Vennochi and Jeff Jacoby have competing op ed pieces about the impending special election between Coakley and Brown. One hangs Coakley's probable loss on the character or lack of it of Beacon Hill state government and Duval Patrick's unpopularity. The other Jeff Jacoby, hangs it on Obama. I had my own opinion which is as follows:

Both of your editorials are excellent. Naturally, I am an ardent Democrat and would not even think for one second about voting Republican no matter if they ran god for office, but I am utterly dismayed at the confluence of events which have collided into a potential head-on train wreck for Coakly, Obama, Democrats in general and any vision of health care Obama may have had. Rahm Emanuel was dead wrong, Obama cannot take his base for granted. They will not necessarily a priori support him. I think I will hear rumbling at Ted Kennedy's grave in Arlington if a Republican wins his former 48 year seat on Tuesday.

It's not that I do not think Coakley capable and bright. I do and I personally think she is yards smarter than Brown. If she looses, and I suspect that may happen, she will lose because of both Beacon Hill AND Barack Obama. You both are correct. Moreover, incumbency is out. I would add, however, one more rationale perhaps more important than the ones you site. I watched the gathering today of the Democratic big wigs online. The one with whom I was MOST impressed was Mike Capuano. He was riveting, charismatic and had passion. I asked myself why I voted for Martha Coakley in the primary when Capuano was CLEARLY more moving. Answer: I have NO idea. I did not watch the Democratic candidates carefully enough perhaps. It is my opinion that Capuano would have taken Brown and the element that is missing in Martha Coakley is passion. She looked tired and worn out to me. Moreover, Capuano has experience. There is something to be said when a candidate moves you. Besides the Boston police officer singing the national anthem which made me cry, Capuano was the most emotionally rich speaker. He was better -- much better -- than Kerry and Kennedy's cane, better than Vicki Kennedy, better than Martha's niece and better than Martha herself. She is missing passion and both Capuano and Brown have it.

But we must play the ball where it lies. Today's gathering was a hail Mary pass. I just hope like Doug Flutie she can run it into the end zone and win the game. I have my doubts!

Dismayed: A Letter to Howard Zinn: Hi Professor Zinn. Whenever I feel sad or down regarding the political trajectory of the country I go onto Utube and listen to one of your lectures which I did entitled "The Holy Wars." I loved that. Tonight we rented a film about Woodstock which, of course, catapulted me back to those late 1960's years that I loved so much. I love reliving those days when I thought all change was possible and continue to shake my head and wonder what happened. I thought, too, how just a year ago I was SO hopeful with the Obama presidency only to have those hopes dashed one by one as his policies reflected little and sometimes no change at all. So now we come to the Coakley race and believe me it's not that I love Coakley so much but it is the unbelievable boomerang that is the nature of the American public. Upset with the power that is go to the Democratic corner. Upset with that go to the Republican corner. It reminds me of a bouncing ball bouncing from one side to the other not knowing where to land and so it bounces in perpetuity never to find a safe place to rest.

I see something not so nice within the heart of this country. There is a nastiness, an anger and an almost fascistic quality to a large part of the electorate. I know that in the history of this country there have been times when the good shows through and major change occurs. Sometimes though that change takes centuries. Often those who fought the hardest for rights never make it to see those rights won. Yes, the Coakley race has taken its toll on me NOT because I love her so much at all but because of a HUGE disappointment in a president for whom I held out such ebullient hope just a year ago. Does the public especially in Massachusetts REALLY think Scott Brown or those other Republicans like him will be the key to extracting them from their malaise? It's like putting the same germ in your body to rid you of the illness. Can people be so incredibly stupid? I suspect they can and THAT is the etiology of my sadness.

Yes, we can continue to fight an uphill battle but now I am 61 years old and I have hoped since those wonderful days when all hope seemed possible that WE would create the better world. I know you say leaders cannot be counted on to do anything and that change must come from the people but when the people themselves disappoint one so, where is there to turn? If I were a religious person I would turn to god but I'm not a religious person. So I still do not see except when I hear you speak that the nature of this land can be molded for the better. I think it has a crudity, ignorance and an angry white racist strain running all the way through it -- north and south, east and west. So where do I look to recoup what I thought I had so many years ago -- hope?

What a disappointment -- a HUGE disappointment Obama has been. I think his use of his vast power has been dismal and he is not the man I thought he was. I think when he invited Rick Warren to his inauguration I SHOULD have seen the handwriting on the wall. How can one analyze him without thinking he lied. All his beautiful words were simply words and meant nothing. This loss will be STINGING and I can hear the Republicans crowing for days. It makes me sick. So back to Republican rule yet again. When will it end? I truly fear for the structure of the nation. It is split right down the middle. Pat Buchanan said that this is a "center right" country." If so how that change will come from the bottom up I have no idea. I simply do not see the good in man at all. I say Hobbs was right. Life is nasty, brutish and oh so very short and that is true in this country and is true nearly everywhere else.

Why I Love the Jews: I often wondered why in me there was an ever present lust for knowledge, a value for learning above anything else even money, an unrest because the shortness of life dictates there will be much I never know, a horrible sadness in my soul that I should be better than what I am, and a love for those who are blessed with the cerebral acuity and the collegiate success to prove it.

We must, I am afraid, play the hand we were given but I boastfully take pride in my people whose DNA I am thrilled and blessed to share. This article by David Brooks appearing in the New York Times (link below), even as I certainly know some of it, illuminated to me why I love the Jewish people so.


http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/12/opinion/12brooks.html

The possible Coakley crumble and eventual mid-term madness is another issue about which I have many thoughts. I am doing what I can and have all week and HOPE she is electable. The fault that she may not be is multifaceted. I will not get into it now as I have more fish to fry but I can assure you my thoughts about either the win (yes, God willing) or the loss (God forbid) are shall we say NOT mild.

Haitian Horror: It seems we've traveled this road before with Katrina. I think this time it will be different as we have a man at the helm who is so much more attuned than the last leadership disaster, pardon the pun at this time, or lack of it.

I have thoughts about this, of course, which are more complex than the obvious disaster. Haiti has a history of brutality of occupation (American), French/Spanish colonialism and slavery but at a time less chaotic I will write about it. Suffice it to say now is the time to show our common humanity and give. There are indications in every media where to send a donation. I sent mine to the American Jewish Committee Haitian Earthquake Relief Fund link below. There are literally dozens of other reputable organizations. MAKE SURE IT'S reputable. There is always the Red Cross. We also gave blood to the Red Cross yesterday.

https://www.kintera.org/site/c.ijITI2PHKoG/b.5719841/k.1795/AJC_Haiti_Earthquake_Relief_Fund/apps/ka/sd/donor.asp?c=ijITI2PHKoG&b=5719841&en=aiLNJXMAL8KIK5PPKcKIK3OJKkI3J9MJJjKQLWOHInJXJ1NKKwF

Glen Greenwald's Insightful Analysis: My latest hero is Glen Greenwald of Salon.com. I do not always agree with everything he says but on so many issues the man is a verbal veracity machine.

He said the following: "It's truly astounding to watch us -- for a full decade -- send fighter jets and drones and bombs and invading forces and teams of torturers and kidnappers to that part of the world, or, as we were doing long before 9/11, to overthrow their governments, prop up their dictators, occupy what they perceive as holy land with our foreign troops, and arm Israel to the teeth, and then act surprised and confused when some of them want to attack us. In general, the U.S. only attacks countries with no capabilities to attack us back in the "homeland" -- at least not with conventional forces. As a result, we have come to believe that any forms of violence we perpetrate on them over there is justifiable and natural, but the Laws of Humanity are instantly breached in the most egregious ways whenever they bring violence back to the U.S., aimed at Americans. It's just impossible to listen to discussions grounded in this warped mentality without being astounded at how irrational it is. What do Americans think is going to happen if we continue to engage in this conduct, in this always-widening "war"?"

For his whole post see: http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/glenn_greenwald/

My response:

Glen's editorial on why they hate us is brilliant. I call him my verbal veracity machine. And yet, assuming he is Jewish as I am, I am always uncomfortable at his indictment of Israel. Do I think Israel always does everything correct or always acts in a moral way? No, of course, I do not but when the left waxes generally lugubrious toward the Islamic or Palestinian cause it makes me squirm. I know his words have some truth but really, Glen, do you think if the US made a 360 degree about face foreign policy toward Israel that Muslims would cease all violent activity? I highly doubt it. Moreover, there is NO question in my mind if that were to happen the state of Israel, yes, the Jewish state of Israel would be dust.

Is that what you want? Truly, how would anyone, for example, who was homosexual fare in Muslim lands? How do they fare in Israel? I often use that as a yardstick for how democratic and humane a country is. I think homosexuals fare MUCH better in Israel and there is no about that. As you say the illumination of the would be suicide bomber was stated in Haretz newspaper in Israel. Is the Israeli position ever touted in any Muslim land? Rarely.

Glen does the Holocaust mean nothing to you? Is Jewish history meaningless? Do you think, given the chance, that Israel's neighbors would like nothing more than to, as they say so often, drive Jews into the sea?

I simply do not know WHY the left is so in love with the Palestinian cause. Is your memory so short that you cannot see the reality of what I think is your own people? How do you think you would survive in Arab lands? Not well I suspect and neither would I.

I cannot give up my support for the only democracy in that violent neck of the woods. I can, though, ask the government of Israel to think well when they decide to use force!

Mid-term Malaise: I am experiencing mid-term malaise. The loss of the problematic Senator Dodd was expected and leaves the door open for AG Dick Blumenthal to keep the seat in Democratic hands in Connecticut. North Dakota’s 30 year Democratic Senator Byron Dorgan is a huge loss but he probably would have lost anyway in November. He read the tea leaves and North Dakota is a red state. It is a year incumbents are in disfavor as there will be Republican loses as well which may eclipse the Democratic ones.

Those turnarounds are not at the center of my sadness. It is those dyspeptic tea leaves that have me concerned. Something much more profound and much more disturbing is the culprit. If I wrote a book I would entitle it "How I Went from the Heights of Hope to the Depths of Despair in One Year." Last year, at this time, I was ebullient. The same time this year I need Prozac pills. It’s a dramatic change. What accounts for it?

The president I loved and thought was different from all other politicians morphed into something I loath -- just another politician. In order of importance my reasons are as follows: First: the economy. Barack Obama picked a treasury team who were part of the very cause of the economic disaster. Geithner, Summers, their mentor Rubin, Bernanke and others are sunk knee deep into the swamp that is Wall Street and were, in fact, the choreographers of the exotic instrument dance which led to the fall. In other words, he put the foxes in charge of the chicken coup to pull us out of the quicksand they created. Should we be at all surprised that our tax money went to Wall Street bonuses? Those bonuses if not unethical should have been illegal. They should have been fought, if they had to, in the courts until the proverbial hell freeze over. It means that while Wall Street looks (for now) a bit improved. Main Street remains in double digit unemployment and worse the same exact bank/investment too-big-to-fail dance continues.

Second: Healthcare. He was NOT engaged when we needed him most during the right wing gun toting, Obama is a Nazi sign-carrying summer of insanity which saw people yelling at each other and literally biting fingers off. He decided a nice vacation in Martha’s Vineyard would be in order. He should have hit back hard at those intellect-starved tea baggers and sign carrying lunatics. He didn't until the autumn. By then it was too late and worse he abandoned the very thing he said was the most important part of healthcare during his campaign – the public option. He let a divided Congress tediously construct a complex bill with no one, seemingly, at the helm to steer the ship.

Third: Obama is losing his base. The president reneged on almost every promise of his campaign. He is not holding Bush illegalities accountable and he is committing this country to yet more expensive, never-ending and eternal war. He has abandoned gays as well as those who care about a small matter of Constitutional civil libertarian principles and who supported him 20 to 1. He fed them crumbs because Rahm Emanuel said it wasn't important to worry about the base. But it is very important because the base provides excitement and the fervor he needs to sustain his presidency. If we do not vote, he will not get re-elected.

Without jobs for Main Street Democrats and the president will have cooked their own goose malaise. He reached out to Republicans who turned their backs. He turned the other cheek which works nicely in religion but does NOT work in politics. You NEED your base and I need to take my pills!

Midterm Malaise: Here is my analysis of domestic political events now as I see them with the loss of Congressional Democrats for 2010. I posted them on McClatchy News. The second post was a response to a guy who thinks the American people are not so stupid as to vote for Republicans again in 2010. It is off the top of my head and not great writing as one is limited on a blog:

The BOTCH is multi-fold. FIRST is the economy that is the MOST important part. Putting the causes of the economic disaster the foxes in charge of the chicken coup was DISASTROUS. It meant the focus was on Wall Street and not Main Street where a good recovery has yet to be seen, bonuses that should NOT have happened even IF it fought out in the courts did. (2) Obama lost his base. To gays who supported him 20 to 1 he was unconscionable and fed them crumbs because Rahm Emanuel said it wasn't important to worry about the base. But it is very important because the fervor for him is critical to maintain power. (3) Obama reneged on almost every promise of his campaign, holding Bush illegalities unaccountable, civil liberties and war (4) Healthcare. He was NOT engaged when we needed him during the summer. He should have hit back hard those intellect STARVED tea baggers. He didn't. He let a divided Congress try to do it. They didn't. We needed him. He is a HUGE disappointment seemingly erudite and aloof. Something is missing in Barack Obama and I don't what.

Answer to a guy (Tom Degan) on McClathy News: YES, the American people are stupid enough not to think back a year when the Republicans were the worst curse on this nation and brought us to the brink of a HUGE depression and lied us into war killing hundreds of thousands. The bailouts were necessary but ignoring Main Street was a huge blunder as were the bonuses. The American people's memory is thin and they will care in November if their condition is better which means JOBS JOBS JOBS. Without jobs for Main Street Democrats with the help of Geithner and Summers and Obama have cooked their own goose. A Paul Krugmanesq economic team was needed. Obama picked the WRONG economic team! They better work miracles because they are SURELY going to need it in November and beyond. I was part of Obama's base. I LOVED him and had such hope. He is a HUGE disappointment to me. He reached out to Republicans who almost literally spit in his face. He turned the other cheek. Works in relgion does NOT work in politics. You NEED your base!

Linguistic Lullaby: I am listening to a Teaching Company tape entitled "The Story of Human Language." It is recorded by Dr. John McWhorter, a linguistic expert. To say he is brilliant does not do justice to his essence. If you have some free time and are interested I highly recommend it. I gathered from some online info about him that he is somewhat controversial in the African American community because of his Cosbyesque political views. Personally, I do not care where his politics lie. His lectures are a pleasure to hear. I was so impressed I sent the following email to the Manhattan Institute where he teaches:

Recently, I had the pleasant experience of viewing CD lectures from the Teaching Company entitled "The Story of Human Language" given by Dr. John McWhorter. I have not listened, admittedly, to it in its entirety but what I have listened to presents a stunning example of scholarly excellence. Dr. McWhorter's breadth of knowledge of language is astounding as is the silken expressive quality of his presentation. I am guilty of the crime of sometimes judging a person by the quality and the content of what they say and the grammatical preciseness of how they say it. Dr. McWhorter sets an example for all of us.

I looked Dr. McWhorter up and found some Wikipedia information on him. I must admit I was surprised that the Manhattan Institute where he teaches was characterized by it as a "conservative think tank." I will try not to hold that against him as I am an ardent Democrat and write opinion pieces www.natalierosen.blogspot.com from a moderately left wing point of view. Still, one should not, pigeonhole a person. If he is correct, well spoken and precise it should not matter where he sits on the political spectrum.

To me listening to Dr. McWhorter was like watching liquid silver poured into a glass. He is a fount of knowledge and I can only envy his brilliance and expressive linguistic abilities.

I hope one day our nation can reunite under the umbrella of intellectual achievement and recognize this country still holds its freedom of speech as one of its most important civil libertarian principles. Many have given their lives to defend a homeland that remains one of the freest on planet earth. I know this liberal is grateful for that!

Thanks to Dr. McWhorter for sharing his excellence with the Teaching Company who then makes it available to us.

Thank you, Elroy

Rush to Judgment: Rush Limbaugh is in the hospital with a possible heart attack. Can I wish Rush well as some liberals have said they do? I wish I were a better person. I wish I had the love and warmth that I had as a young left wing worker for all things peaceful and good. That was when I was 21. I am 61 now. I'm still left of center, my basic philosophy has remained in tact give or take a few divergences but I am not nice now. I do not have the love and warmth I once had. I'm jaded. I'm jaded by decades which saw ad infinitum war and a poisonously divided nation. I have felt the virulent tenor of the times which probably existed before the Civil War. No wonder we never forget that war. It divided us so.

My born-post-World-War-II life has basically known nothing but a nation at war in some foreign country or another far removed from me. We make war, we wage it, we invade hundreds of countries, destroy what infrastructure there is, set up hundreds of bases, kill/maim hundreds of thousands of people, stay for years and prop up the wretched of the earth costing trillions. How about if we provide health insurance to our people? Oh no, it's much too expensive as we end one war and go into another. Polticos promise the world and deliver little of what they promised. Barack Obama, that man who thrilled me back to those years of youthful hope, disappoints me again as he tries to kiss those who not only will not kiss him back, they spit in his face. He makes deals with the devil which have alienated his base and those of us who put him in power. A year later his approval rating is 47% down from a high of 67%.

I can show the love when something is achieved. But it is not. The right wing is amoral we all know that. Their opposition's life in their mind is as cheap as dirt. So my love dwindled and what's left is only embers of it. Thus, my dear Joan Walsh, a liberal commentator who wishes Rush Limbaugh well, I cannot because he so often wished liberals ill and hopes the president fails or worse. It would mean nothing if his viral words directed into his golden microphone did not spread a mutant infection and influence so many. They do and have helped fuel Republican intransigence and racist division in Washington and around the country. Rush Limbaugh more than any other toxic conservative commentator has resurrected the southern Confederate cause of whites and trumpets for glorious war this time against all things liberal, intellectual and humane.

No, I cannot be as good as you are, Joan Walsh. I do not wish Limbaugh well. I cannot turn the other cheek which has turned so much it's broken. I wish him the same he would wish for any liberal who was ill and has many times. I have no doubt because of his millions that big bag of gas will just keep rolling along. YEARS of being overweight, YEARS of drug addiction to Oxycontin and god knows what else, years of stress and angry hate toward anything liberal, years of smoking cigars and years of other probable nefarious activities have finally caught up with the biggest of all gasbags. I wish him no good and I admit it. In fact, a little suffering may go a long way so that we can say good how does it feel. Think of what a pickle you would be in, Rush, with no job, no home, no money and no health insurance. Maybe he could relate at least mentally to that. Then again knowing Rush Limbaugh he would not even think twice about it.

No, I do not wish Rush Limbaugh well.

Another Cross of Gold: The similes and metaphors of the deception in this decade and its politics are astounding as a relative of mine illuminated to me. From the balloon boy, Tiger Woods, and the Salahis to Iraq and to heath care, the recipients of that deceit are we the people and the change that is needed is systemic and all encompassing. That our oligarchic form of government is failing us cannot be disputed. Howard Zinn, professor of history at Boston University, says change comes from the bottom up. I think, at times, he is delusional to think we the people have the power to perfect that kind of change. Change, if it comes at all, is incremental measured in inches one century at a time. Revolutions in histories past often replace one tyranny with another, the hope dies and the populous is left in stuporous resignation to their repetitive fate.

I feel the next generation will have to perform the wizardry needed to redo our bleak house. Indeed, Dicken’s “Bleak House” captures the futile essence of it all. My politically aware life has been spent fighting causes. We and like-minded allies fought on college campuses the murderous anti-Communist hysteria with its trumped-up enemies duping the powerless to do the corporate bidding trading in their lives and lives of a million innocents so that others could make bundles of cash. Again, in this time, we fight in Iraq for oil, revenge and pure greed while people burn along with our planet from the filthy oil that makes a few inordinately filthy rich. The list is infinite as we trade in the people’s lives so that insurance companies can make their crosses of gold.

We have reaped the history and policies we have sewn and still want to know why other nations hate us. It is not our freedom they hate but our invasive policies which make the few obscenely rich at the expense of the many while the policy-makers’ lives are sheltered behind closed doors which see no light or blood on the many battlefields. Health care is no exception to this rule.

Obama, who really held out some hope for me, seems to be, at least initially, succumbing to the weight of the corrupt blocks of stone that are placed on his shoulders attempting to crush him like the block of stones in Arthur Miller’s “The Crucible” used unjustly to kill the innocent. Maybe even my hero FDR could not have endured its fury. This is a different global age and the culture of corruption is everywhere. The vastness of it stretches far beyond the boundaries of this country. Our fate and corruption are tied to other nations’ corruption as the Kharzi Afghanistan regime we are propping up is exemplar supreme. The press who often exposes this corruption sometimes is in bed with it. So where can the people turn? I can only hope there are a few ethical ones left and they will continue as Anderson Cooper says “Keeping them Honest”.

Robert Frost: “The woods are lovely dark and deep but I have promises to keep and miles to go before I sleep and miles to go before I sleep.” I feel, though, my energy waning and my sleep approaching all too quickly and I see promises which we may never keep. I face the harsh reality that my generation cannot do it all and, soon, the battle will be left to the next generation to fight.

Still, one has to reflect on our history, how far we have come and the human rights we have achieved. It gives me hope while it makes me see the thoughts we could do it all in 1968 were born out of the naive innocence of youth. The fight for a more just and honest world will, as long as we are not catapulted from this planet, go on even when I have long vanished returning to the earth from whence it all began.

I hope for a better year. Although my expectations are dimmed the fight continues. Happy, healthy New Year and a better year for our nation!

Not a Zero in Life: John Skoyles wrote a beautiful editorial (Boston Globe, Monday, December 21, 2009 link below) entitled “Pawing her way into my heart.” My heart ached and I cried at the end of it for the little bull dog runt-of-the-litter pup Mr. Skoyles embraced despite the blindness and other severe orthopedic disabilities with which the dog named Zero, was born. She could not see and barely walk but she tried and he stuck with her until the dog’s body couldn’t suffer anymore.

I could relate to orthopedic disability being a polio victim since age five. Now at 61, paralysis plus the cursed reality of aging, severely compounds my ability to do what I always wanted to since a child – dance, run, skate and ski. I marvel at the birds whose mighty wings catapult them to places about which I can only dream and envy my cats whose run is like a prance of lithe beauty with swift speed climbing trees and, best of all, they never seem to fall. How I wished and still do I could dance, run, skate, ski and most especially never fall.

The end of the article, though, touched me the most. John Skoyles says of his deformed and pain-plagued runt-of-the-litter bulldog named Zero“I could only think she never seemed meant for this world, and I recalled the hunchback’s words when he hugged the gargoyle along the ledge of the cathedral, ‘why was I not made of stone, like thee’?” I can relate to the harshness of life with its physical pain when one wishes, at times, to be even an inanimate object rather then face the pain a body not of one’s choosing can inflict.

Zero may have been the little pup’s name because of a white zero-like tuft of hair on her back. She was, however, anything but a zero in life despite the short one she lived.

http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/2009/12/21/pawing_her_way_into_my_heart/

A response to a blog about Santa -- The Health Care Sleigh Ride:

Yes, when Virginia grows up she will have a RUDE awakening. Things ain’t (pardon the colloquialism) what she was taught they were. One premise with which I take issue is that our country was founded upon great principles of freedom and equality. I do not think it was exactly so. Without the discussion of the inherent inequalities of slavery which the country had from its inception as a colony of Britain, the revolution was initially manifested because of a tax on tea. The initial spark was about money. The Bill of Rights ensuring our freedoms was an afterthought inserted as the first ten Amendments to the Constitution some ten years later when radicals within the revolutionary movement demanded something be written within it to guarantee a check on the power of government.

Moreover, our country was founded by men of privilege and class who changed the Constitution after the Declaration of Independence was written (which said people have a right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness) to people have a right to life, liberty and PROPERTY. That was an important change. It attached an importance of property that has remained to this day even within our attempts to create a more just nation. I do believe that that very concept of the importance of property and money made it possible for a corporation to be accorded the same rights as a person when in the 1886 case of Santa Clara County v. Southern Pacific Railroad Company, during the presidency of Grover Cleveland, the U.S. Supreme Court held that a private corporation is a person and entitled to the same legal rights and protections the Constitution grants to an individual. We all know what that did. Our entire government is controlled now by the corporation at the expense of the individual person’s rights simply because it has the wealth that the average person does not possess to essentially buy the government it wants.

Our present wholly watered down so called health care bill proves that point. The little guy of no pecuniary standing will ultimately have to pay huge amounts of money he cannot afford to the health care industries because Congress, the presidency and the political parties receive hundreds of MILLIONS of dollars from the insurance, health care and pharmaceutical industry and the bill without a public option will mandate coverage. The corporation and the state are now inextricably bound to each other and nearly impossible to untangle. The state is now a wholly owned subsidiary of the corporation.

Virginia will have to learn if she is not among the fortunate to have been born into wealth OR with the brains to acquire that wealth in this country she will be out of luck and even perhaps out on the street! Yes, Virginia there may be a Santa Claus for one day but the other 364 days belong to Wall Street.

Maybe I'll offer one other excuse for the president. He just does NOT know how to govern. He does NOT know enough as to how to do that, how to wield power and how to threaten those who will NOT tow his former liberal line. I don't get it, I may never know.

The Batty Beck: Glenn Beck presents, by far, the most insane and ridiculous inanity of any contemporary “news commentator” on the planet. He is, though, not the most frightening political phenomenon of our day. The most frightening phenomenon is that anyone with a brain could buy into his money gushing idiocy. He is no question capitalizing on the historically systemic white racism that exists in the country. One has only to look at signs so called “tea baggers” proudly carry at their events. This rancid racism has persisted in different forms for over 300 years and has not been completely eradicated even today. It shows its ugliness from Glenn Beck to Limbaugh and worse. The most frightening thing about it is that a nationalist fascist-like militarist movement is sitting as a cobra waiting for right moment to strike and unleash its venom intending toward, of course, a takeover of the power structure of the United States government.

I am hoping that this is not representative of most of the people in this country. There are many here who are much more intelligent than the cerebrally challenged and intellectually unsophisticated minions of Glenn Beck. I hope I am correct. Nothing less than the liberating fruits of the Enlightenment which took hundreds of years to cultivate are at stake. The Enlightenment, which our Founders knew, brought a science-denying violent barbarian from the darkness of irrationality and superstition into the sunlight of reason, truth and social advancement. This is in danger of subversion by right wing extremist movements which are the opposite of the very freedom and patriotism they claim to espouse.

I won't believe that will occur until I see it. I am seeing, though, disturbing images that say to me this nationalistic militarism hovers in the primitive arena of man’s limbic brain and within the muddy archeological muck of a distorted philosophical layer of some. I am hoping it lies deeply dormant and will not rise at the perfect moment to pose a threat overthrowing the ideational underpinning of our government as we know it.

Make no mistake, it is every bit as threatening as Islamic fundamentalism and maybe even more so because it occupies a place as a recessive gene within the chromosomal DNA of American politics. Now, it legitimizes itself in the tea bag and other right wing movements which Republican politicos are more than happy to milk for all the power and every penny they can.

Be afraid of that be very afraid!

Glen Greenwald a historian's historian: Here is another analysis as Obama’s polls are falling like a rock among his base (including me). Glen Greenwald gave a FANTASTIC analysis and even appeared on David Shuster’s MSNBC this afternoon. This may be even more explanatory as to just what is going on or NOT going on in the Obama White House. It hurt me to read it but Greenwald is one of the best historians and news analysts I have ever read. I urge you to read the following and pass it on. If any change is to happen it must happen at the grass roots level and we should put Obama’s feet to the fire. He has, in my opinion, abrogated his responsibility and down right lied to us. He has betrayed his sacred trust as every other politician has done since the beginning of time. I THOUGHT he was different. Wrong again. Here is the link:

http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/glenn_greenwald/

A suggestion: If Barack Obama continues to be this disappointing and downright mendacious to his own base we have the right to run opposition in the Democratic primary in 2012. Obviously, we should not jump the gun but rather remain vigilent and never forget we have this option. If he continues as he has I would want to see someone truly progressive defeat him.

The Powerless Power: I must be true to what I have thought for quite some time. There is SOMETHING missing in our president. He was beloved by the world and by me, initially, but he is NOT now what I thought he was. There is something that is vacant in him which I saw during Oprah’s Christmas interview. There is a coldness maybe some say aloofness but I am not so sure it is that. I believe it is something deeper. I perceive a controlled anger that, perhaps, if you can suffer some armchair psychology, has as its etiology his childhood and festers in him as a half black man whose father was absent. There is SOMETHING about him that is absent that a successful president should have but seems to be missing in him. He does not give me a sense of power or control that, for example, a Jack Kennedy or certainly LBJ and FDR had. He has charisma as the first African American president and he gives a wonderful speech but on an interpersonal level it appears to me he does not manifest the necessary ability to wield the immense power he has been given and is inherent in the presidency complemented most especially by a Democratic Congress.

I say, the white guy powers are steam rolling over him. Whether it’s the bank CEO’s three of whom including Blankfein of Goldman Sachs did not show up for the presidential meeting allegedly because of fog an apt metaphor or the generals in the ramp up of the war in Afghanistan which is slated to cost ultimately trillions not to mention the human cost in blood I believe he cannot stand up to power. At this ever so critical moment in history I am seeing a president who caves in the face of it. I am fearful. Today, Iran launched a test which could carry a nuclear warhead missile which could reach Israel and parts of Europe. This is a serious time and requires a president of IMMENSE power and the ability to use it presciently and masterfully as FDR knew how to do. I am NOT seeing that in this president.

I suspect the CEO’s left laughing when the President politely asked them to loan to small businesses. Oh sure, yes Mr. President, sure will, Mr. President, in a pig’s petuti, Mr. President. I think he cannot stand up to power especially white power and the white men know it. I truly think there is an issue with who he is and his blackness is a part of that. He’s trying like hell to fit into the white guys club by a pathological appeasement of a Republican foe who wants no part of him and kicks dirt in his face at every opportunity. Even African Americans are showing a disappointment in him as an article in, I think, Huffington Post today said.

Something is missing in Barack Obama and health care is merely a symptom and a reflection of it. Health care passed with a strong public option should have been successfully completed by now but the President waivers and equivocates to appease the conservatives. The conservatives should be appeasing US. I would like to see more Malcolm X in him than MLK. The ONLY way one fights power is by any means necessary and he simply is either too inexperienced or psychologically unable to do it. I believe he is less at ease with who he is than one might think but does a fantastic job of masking it and making us think the emperor is wearing clothes when it is clear he is not.

As a Jew I am disgusted. As an American I am simply sick. How Joe Lieberman, a pious Jewish man, could have sold us the American people, out is beyond anything I can fathom. He sold us out on something even HE advocated for as little as three months ago and even more strongly when he ran for vice president. He has been for universal health care all his political career EXCEPT now when we need him the most. Why? The blogs say he is angry at the weak support which was accorded to him by Democrats in 2004 and even angrier at his loss in the Democratic primary to Lamont in 2006 when he decided to do an end run around his party, managed to bamboozle the Connecticut people and get elected as an Independent. Understandable BUT that is about HIM this is about us. This is about lives our lives not his. He will have health care but SO many of us will not.

With the prodding of Rahm Emanuel, the President's front man and a pious Jewish person himself, we the American people are getting the rawest deal we have ever gotten in American politics bar none. The president's leadership abilities to me, a huge supporter, are SERIOUSLY in question. I am sad, depressed, and demoralized that he has betrayed all of us who were behind a huge movement to get him elected. Once we did, one by one he betrayed us on many issues but this is the epitome of madness. We should all be devastated.

All those politicians' words who went on to the progressive talk shows who sounded so upbeat and so positive are empty promises they mean nothing. To have one man, Joe Lieberman, a religious man, derail and subvert the destinies nay the very LIVES of millions is beyond anything I can fathom or words I can use to voice my fury and emotional destruction. It is a sad day, a very sad day and an even sadder day for the American who needs health care so desperately but will not be able to afford it even now with a Senate of sixty votes. Some no many will die because of this. I am simply disgusted and ever so depressed. If THEY are not for us who will be and if not now when?

If you get a chance to see it I suggest you view Bill Moyers "Pushing a People's Agenda" which included in the second half a discussion with Howard Zinn, a leftist professor of history at Boston University with whom I have been acquainted and who influenced me immeasurably in the late 1960's. They rebroadcast this discussion on PBS OR you can Google it and see it online.

Moreover, on the History Channel Sunday night at 8:00 p.m. (I think) there will a program entitled "The People Speak" and will include selections from Zinn's collection of voices of poets and writers from the American past performed by actors including Marissa Tomei, Matt Damon and many others. From the trailers I have viewed it appears it is extraordinarily inspirational as it reflects Zinn's view that social change is made from the bottom up by average people doing extraordinary things.

I wrote the following on the Moyers blog about this segment:

I am 61 and have known Howard Zinn nearly all of my adult life although he has not known me except in present day via email. I was a student at Boston Univ. in the late 60's and had the occasion to be involved in student protests and to have been fortunate to hear lectures of Prof. Zinn at that time protesting the Vietnam War.

I adored him and still do. I have read much of his "People's History" and his views of our government surely shed new light on some egregious, nefarious and destructive-to-human-life our government, in our name, has perpetrated. He opened up a world of thought to me which remained unknown certainly within the structure of a public school system which never told the flip side of the story. History nearly always is written by the victors and at that time the US, in my naive and innocent mind, was victorious (and good ... nay exceptional) in everything it did. So many told me that fact.

After hitting the steps of Boston Univ. in the late 60's, hearing Howard Zinn, Murray Levin, Edgar Bottome and others I swiftly did a cerebral about face concerning US history. Still, during the many years I have had to think about events, age brings a jaded cynicism as to just how much progressives can change a quagmire and how much can I do to affect that change within my lifetime. I began to question who is correct in their world view the left or the right. Perhaps, is it really somewhere in between.

I would love to have asked Prof. Zinn more questions. Does he really believe the basic nature of man is non violent? Does he really think no matter how non violent a society we could be there would not be another nation state somewhere at some time who would want to attack us? Negotiations with such a state would be fruitless and that if we did not strike first another country would.

Obama said that the United States has underwritten, like an insurance policy, the security of the world. Professor Zinn surely does not believe that. I suspect he believes quite the opposite. I would have liked Bill Moyers to have put some tougher questions to Professor Zinn the kind of questions we, who call ourselves progressives, have to answer when confronting the opposition every time we express an opinion.

Mr. Moyers came close when he talked about Palin as a populist and Prof. Zinn said yes she had some elements of that but she was militaristic. I wanted Moyers to follow up on that. I would like to know from Professor Zinn how threatening the populist tea bag movement, who loves Sarah Palin, is to the other populists or progressives of my ilk who would lock horns in mortal combat with Palin's populism if it came to that extreme.

How much civil disobedience is possible and how much will be tolerated? What if during the protests we meet up with various gun loving, god fearing, gay loathing populists who do not like our message and who would be stronger them or us?

There is a split, as I see it, in this country. Both the left AND the right hate what Washington is about and yet the left and the right hate each other possibly even more than they hate the nature of Washington DC itself.

Does Death Exist? New Theory says No.: I urge you to read a very interesting article written by Robert Lanza, M.D. entitled Does Death Exist? New Theory says No. It has a rather unique perspective in that it refers to quantum physics and its hypothesis of parallel universes which transcend time and space. It also says that matter can neither be created nor destroyed negating the reality of death as our human minds know it. Yes, it is a bit esoterically obtuse but nonetheless fascinating to contemplate. It is done so in the world of physics all the time but most of us know little of that. Here is the link: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/robert-lanza/does-death-exist-new-theo_b_384515.html

I have heard of parallel universes and watched a Science Channel documentary about quantum physics which dealt with the concept. I found this article endlessly interesting since, of course, being human I have thought about, been scared of and would do anything to avoid my own death. Except I know the time will come when one cannot, no matter how much tofu one eats, how many chips one avoids or how many miles on the treadmill one can run we will not be able to avoid the unavoidable or will we?

I believe, at some point I will cease to be. That is difficult for me to conceptualize. Is it possible that I will not hear or see what my brain sees and hears now? Worse is it possible I will not see ever again those I love, or another news broadcast or not know what happens in the Middle East with Israel and Palestine or know if the glaciers melt or if humans adequately adapt to global warming and even worse, will I not know ultimately if a Democrat will lose the White House? (Well, maybe I do not want to know that!) As much as it is inconceivable that I will probably not know the answer to some or all of those questions death will be something, I believe, I simply will not be able to avoid and that there is nothing else beyond it. Or is there?

When I was a student I took ancient history and stupidly, in my naïveté, thought those people did not apply to me. That was then and this is now. They, of course, apply to me because I will be like they and there is nothing I can do about it. It is life's conundrum. I envy my 19 year old cat who I am very sure has no idea she will, sooner rather than later, cease to be. Only Homo Sapiens is, sometimes unenviably, bestowed the understanding of that which is hard to understand – our own death. At the same time because we know that we also can appreciate its opposite – life, the beauty and wonder of it all the understanding of which seems to have been bestowed only upon us. So how can we just let it go? Maybe we do not have to.

This article, if I understand it correctly, is saying “death does not exist in a timeless, spaceless world.” The article goes on to say “immortality doesn't mean a perpetual existence in time without end, but rather resides outside of time altogether" and death can never be because matter is neither created nor destroyed. It says, I think, that when we die we will also live too and that because of parallel universes what we experience now lives somewhere else in another dimension. This is a positive contemplation. There is hope my energy will never die.

Still, will I know that? That is the question, indeed. Personally, I suspect not although I am open to other scientific hypotheses. I say, as I always do, prove it. Until then I suspect this is all there is that I will be able to understand and we should appreciate the beauty, stop killing one another, and honor the life, for however long it is that some energy somewhere has bestowed it upon us. We can always hope, though, in some parallel universe we will experience existence in another form once again.

A Minuet with the Minaret: Ross Duthart of The NYT wrote an opinion "Europe's Minaret Moment" (Link Below) to which I responded.

What a conundrum: to keep or not to keep minarets in Switzerland. Can't we all just get along? Apparently not. Mankind has been going at each other since he came down from the trees and probably even before then. It's one thing to fight over food, small swathes of territory or mates and it's quite another to fight over religion, cultural ideologies and power, with huge pieces of geography in play not to mention the possible threats of nuclear war or the acquisition of WMD's. The stakes are certainly higher than in Australopithecus Boise's day.

The events of 9/11 and George Bush's destabilization of the Middle East hardened Islamic resolve across the globe. It now walks hand-in-hand with the U.S.'s utterly failed economic con games and has catapulted not just the US but the entire globe into a threat which need not have existed IF the powers-that-be AFTER 9/11 played their hands right. They surely did not. They created a catastrophe initiated by Iraq helped in no small part by a stupid, unquestioning and derelict-in-its-duty media including the prestigious New York Times.

Islamic rebellion is now a global problem. Europe who needed the labor of immigrants and who wanted to purge themselves of guilt for their own sorry treatment of the "other" now reaps what they have sewn. The Europe that gave us the glorious Enlightenment is threatened and the US is leading the charge against the threat with more attacks through its Afghanistan surge. It has its own horrific Christian fundamentalism with which to contend as more and more of the power brokers seek to cozy up to their religious fanatical base. It is a poisonous brew.

One can only HOPE that more rational thought prevails in BOTH the Islamic and Judo-Christian world. I THOUGHT Obama would be the conduit to do just that. I thought he would give us hope by fundamentally changing US policy on a myriad of fronts. It appears in many ways he is mirroring his presidential predecessors. Admittedly, he was handed a can of rancid policy botulism. Still, he could do so much. Instead, he appears to be acting in the same old way listening to the same old folly of generals who are leading him and us into yet another abysmal trap to what end I have not the foggiest idea. I hope I am consummately wrong because the dance of the Minuet with the Minarets of Europe will pale in comparison to the threat of the all out war with its attendant nuclear peril the clash of cultures and civilizations could certainly bring!

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/07/opinion/07douthat.html?_r=1

To Go or Not to Go to the Jersey Boys That is the Question: In response to Betsy Hart’s December 5, 2009 Metro West Daily News editorial about her dilemma in taking her children to see The Jersey Boys because of its profanity I have some thoughts.

I absolutely want to see The Jersey Boys. The vulgarity of it, however, is the part of the cultural shift beginning in the late 60's that bothers me. Nothing is verboten and when nothing is verboten most EVERYTHING is permissible including not only a profanity of language but a violence of behavior. Things I would not have dreamed to have said to my parents are said by some of my acquaintances' children today with no hesitation. Worse they get away with it. It's the culture the adults say. What can you do? Well, if I had a child I know what I would do if disrespectful language were said to me. I have no children so I cannot fathom whether I would take mine to see The Jersey Boys or not. But I do believe, as the cultural raconteur Steve Allen once said, vulgarians are at our gate and have been for a long time.

I always thought if I had had children my home would be a vulgarity free zone. I thought, too, I would have introduced them to life by reading, reading and more reading. I would have showed them the great masters of classic literature, listened to classical music and made frequent trips to science and art museums. It is easy when one has no children to think of the perfect scenario. Unfortunately, it does not always work out the way one wants and at some point in time children, I suppose, must emerge from the domestic cocoon.

Yes, I have used profanity and yes I love some of the utterly necessary changes in culture of the late sixties which took place so that people could finally breathe free and not feel oppressed, suppressed and repressed. It is the dialogue between people, the illiteracy and ignorance of so many that to me is disheartening. One can hear public vulgarity used by even children to each other, who, in times past, never would have said such things in private much less in public. These relaxed attitudes of speech are reflected in how people dress or lack of it, modesty or lack of that, the high rate of divorce, and sexual promiscuity which allows for the higher transmission of disease, unwanted pregnancy, mothers who are children themselves and a generally unpleasant so often violent milieu. It takes a toll on all of us and even extends to the marketplace. On Wall Street anything and everything CERTAINLY was permitted which introduced a gilded age the excesses of which led to unparalleled greed resulting in the near catastrophic collapse of a global economy, and an economic system which became unhinged with all of its attendant social pathology.

The human animal needs structure, it needs a stable and loving home and most of all it need limits. Would I want to go back to the fifties when SO much was denied, and so many were unhappy and even suicidal but could not talk about it? No, absolutely not. However, I do wish there were some way to put that part of the liberated genie which has created such vulgarity, excessive greed, and an extremely angry divided country, back into the bottle. As an adult though, I still, hope to see The Jersey Boys.

The Audacity of Hope: I do not know as of 6:00 p.m. December 1, 2009 what Barack Obama is planning for Afghanistan. All signs point to a 35,000 or so troop escalation supposedly with caveats and boundaries for exit. I am worried. The President courts disaster and he courts a schism within his own party. Is he strong and right enough to hold us together? I do not know. Many Americans stand to die and many Afghans among the innocent will die as well. That is a given. In war many things can go wrong and often do. It is delusional to think otherwise.

There have been some decisions the President has made I clearly do not understand. This is one of them as it seems to go against what he stood for in the Senate. I am hoping he knows what he is doing and trusting he does. This one may be the most important decision of his presidency and, in fact, a second term could rise or fall on the success of it.

If one uses the yardstick of history in this particular country, Afghanistan, is probably the worst place besides Mt. Everest or Russia in winter to wage war. The conditions are brutal and our forces are stretched thin. Afghanistan has been the graveyard of other powers at other times. The stakes are high; as high as they have ever been. The die is cast. Our way of life, our economic life, and even our physical security depend on the success of this very risky venture. Quagmire is not an option.

Beyond knowing that there is not much I can do except harbor the audacity to hope that in the end it will have been worth it and those who live now, if they die, will not have died in vain.