Let’s Etch Ol’ Dutch in Granite
The ONE.SIX Sunday Editorial
by Carl Baumeister, Senior Editorialist
Sunday, March 14, 2010. In and article listed yesterday on ONE.SIX, the Chicago Tribune stated on its editorial page that it’s time to remove the bearded visage of President Ulysses Grant from the $50 bill, and replace him with a better one: President Ronald Reagan.
The Tribune cited several reasons, not the least of which was that while war hero Grant ranks relatively low on historians “best presidents” lists, due to presiding “over a notoriously inept and corrupt White House,” Reagan consistently ranks in the top ten. This is especially impressive considering Reagan has become a conservative god, and historians are not typically given to conservatism, at least not those outside of Hillsdale College.
The opinion piece further notes that most presidents ranking above the actor-turned-president “have already made a bill or coin.”
I disagree completely that Reagan should be on U.S. currency. Don’t get me wrong. I like Dutch. But do we really want to see our great conservative icon, one that nowadays is applauded even by many liberals, on the $50 bill, at a time when the value of the U.S. dollar is about to implode? Five years from now, a “Reagan 50” might buy you a bottle of cheap vodka so you can tank up and long for the good ol’ days before Ronnie tore down the Berlin Wall.
What I’d like to see is a more lasting homage: Reagan’s smiling bust, overlooking the Black Hills of South Dakota, right next to Abraham Lincoln, on Mount Rushmore!
Oh, how the liberals would love that!
The great monument needs an update. The most contemporary figure is that of Teddy Roosevelt, who was in office a century ago. Of presidents since, Franklin Roosevelt and Ronald Reagan, lions of completely different political brands, are the most revered. If it took including Roosevelt the Younger in order to get approval for Reagan, then by all means, etch out both the Gipper and the Giver. However, many will point out that one Roosevelt is plenty. And in this age of unchecked spending, FDR might not go over well with an already-angry-and-growingly-conservative populace.
Reagan, because of unwavering dedication and belief in the free market, was not only wildly popular among conservatives during his presidency, but was equally despised by liberals, which, if I were Reagan, I would have taken as a complement. Because of Reagan’s intrinsic understanding of economics, and his faith in people, his successful push for smaller government resulted in the rollicking prosperity of the late 80s and the 90s. He understood the need to get the hell out of the way of the American people and let them fail or succeed on their own. More often than not, they succeeded.
Because of his spot-on understanding of communism, Reagan had as much to do with the fall of that despotic form of government as any politician in the world.
And because of his charming love for freedom and democracy, he rebuilt pride in America after the disastrous 70s, which brought Nixon’s Watergate and Carter’s, well, everything.
When tabulating votes for best president of the Twentieth Century, count my vote for Reagan. Millions of Americans would cast the same vote.
Where, you might ask, will we get the money and manpower to immortalize Reagan for the ions? Why, from the stimulus package and the unions, of course! For once, Obama’s Recovery Act could be more than just that—an act, a song and dance—and would actually produce something of worth to our nation’s deflated economy and its bruised self esteem.
Imagine all the worldwide press coverage of the announcement, the jockeying of artists to devise, the sketches, the dynamiting, the History Channel’s documentaries of Mount Rushmore, the joy of Glenn Beck, the consternation of Rachel Maddow, the Hannity and Colmes Reunion Tour to debate the whole affair, the Geraldo updates, the gaggle of websites pro and con. Picture hundreds of thousands of visitors to South Dakota, even if only to take in the chiseling process. Imagine the onslaught of tourists upon completion. The bored old presidents’ stony eyes would be revived by glimpsing more people in a month than they typically would catch in a year. One of the teflon president’s new neighbors would surely yell, “Bully!”
The construction of Reagan on Mount Rushmore would be a much-needed slap in the face of Progressivism. It would remind Americans and the detracting world that this is indeed a free country, one set up from the get go for people to get up and go succeed, unhindered by the too-intrusive governments common to lesser countries such as Afghanistan, Albania, Algeria, and, well, all the rest of them. Perhaps most important, the process leading up to, and the finished product, Reagan’s face on a mountain, could restore the pride and steely resolve of a country that has lately been taking too many cheap shots on the chin.
–CB
Welcome to Barack’s ‘New Medical Order’
Saturday, March 13, 2010. Any good crack dealer knows that the first hit is free. Trying to get fourteen-year-old kids to start abusing a drug they can’t afford is a tough sell made possible when the initial price falls to zero. Of course, the adolescent is unaware that after using crack just once, they are likely unable to stop the addiction. Because they don’t fully understand the consequences of their actions, young persons are susceptible to a “free” addiction that replaces freedom with an enslaving crave without relief.
President Barack Obama and Congress understand this pattern when they offer new social programs via deficit spending. The lure of a new prescription drug benefit or healthcare plan with no tax increase is a powerful seduction. Most Americans do not understand the consequences of this first hit: inflation or massive future tax increases to pay off massive debts, and a further explosion in medical costs.
In the ongoing healthcare debate, the President and his supporters in Congress are suggesting that the healthcare reform bill should be passed over large public disapproval. They assert the majority of Americans are unaware of what is best for them. After trying out their new program, they argue, we will become converts of the new medical order.
Sadly, if these sweeping changes are inacted, the reforms introduced would become institutionalized and difficult to change because both our consumption habits, and the market itself, will adapt to support the new program and abandon the current system that successfully insures over 80 percent of Americans.
True, health care costs are out of control. However, forcing everyone to buy insurance is not the answer. There are some cheaper means to change the healthcare industry and put better incentives in place to lower the cost of healthcare.
- Insurance companies should be required to be mutual associations, thus paying profits back to members and aligning the interests of the insurance company to the insured.
- Primary care groups should be non-profit organizations. This does not mean that they cannot generate a profit or pay doctors handsomely. It just means that their excess profits should be reinvested in the practice to lower costs and improve standards of care instead of paying dividends to disinterested shareholders.
- Hospitals should have to post their prices in order to allow consumers to understand why one hospital charges more than another. Based on that, the consumer can choose the one that is best.
- All insurance policies should be based on high-deductible Health Savings Accounts (HSA). This kind of insurance provides consumers typical insurance protections, but helps them make choices based on the cost of service and value to the customer. It helps the insured to spend for what they need and prevent overzealous physicians from performing unnecessary procedures just because insurance will pay for it.
- Three words: tort reform now.
Making these changes would require real leadership to get the special interest groups out of Congress and pass this reform. As a plus, these changes would not require tax dollar support, just a shift in the incentives and structure of the market.
If, after undertaking these reforms, healthcare costs are still going up, only then should we consider more dramatic alterations that, if rushed today, could cost Americans dearly in the long-run.
Obama and his Capitol Hill team are counting on Americans to suspend the reality that increased healthcare costs have little to do with the fact that not everyone is insured. Forcing everyone to buy insurance from federally granted monopolies will not change the economic truth that medical costs are increasing because of a lack of tort reform, the pursuit of oversized profits, a lack of personal health accountability, and the perverse incentives this system creates to insure doctors overprescribe and over test while practicing defensive medicine.
Massachusetts passed a healthcare bill similar to the one before Congress. Did it lower health care costs? No. It just makes more working families in the state pay more money out of pocket for the same rapid rising healthcare insurance. At the same time, the plan strips dollars from the state treasury to prop up subsidies paid to fat insurance companies, which increases and perpetuates the misalignment of incentives in favor of profit over the good of the customer.
So, when the incentives of the drug dealer are protected and the public good of the user is ignored, we are just pumping tax dollars into a broken system to keep it going and perpetuating the drug dealer economics of government spending.
Are you ready to become a health care crack addict?
-JM
Experiencing GM Envy?
Kooped Up . . . by Jason Koop
Friday, March 12, 2010. Okay–are those OnStar radio ads real? I question the authenticity. I mean, how can the driver be so cool under pressure?
“OnStar? Please send help, I saved the deer but totalled my Malibu. Shucks.”
Voice in the car responds, “Sure no problem. Are you hurt?”
“No, but there’s an active power line spewing sparks and I’m surrounded by water. Should I get out? Wait, is that a boulder rolling off the cliff above me? That could be bad. What should I do?”
“Please just stay calm and remain in your vehicle. Help is on its way.”
“Okay, seems easy enough.” Love this service.
I’m bombarded by these commercials on the radio while cruising around in my non-GM, and therefore non-OnStar, Toyota minivan. I want a special button to push.
“Hey OnStar, applying brakes doesn’t seem to do anything. Any suggestions?”
However, the following transcripts allegedly swiped by a disgruntled insider and sold to the highest bidder (surely, a competing automaker. A desparate Toyota? A limelight seeking Hyundai?) don’t do GM any favors. Howie Long, the new face of Cheverolet and calling you a pansy if you purchase a Honda Pilot, would not be tickled. These audio exchanges did not make the ad campaign cut.
The Redneck and the Disney Princess
OnStar: [Soothing and velvety female voice.] We detect an airbag deployment. Is everyone in the car okay?
Driver: Is jus’ me, Ma’am. My legs is numb and thar’s blood in my peepers. I can’t see! Eeeegadd. Jiminy!
OnStar: I’m sure. I’m calling for help.
Driver: Please, please. Hurry! I’m a-feelin’ woozy.
OnStar: We can’t have that, now, can we? Stay with me, sir. We’ll get to you fast.
Driver: [Faint mumbling.]
OnStar: Sir, Sir, what can I do to cheer you up?
Driver: I’m skerrred. Dunno where I is!
OnStar: Have you had anything to drink? That could be it. Let’s see. My computer tells me you just left Barney’s Beer House in your Impala at 100 South and Main. I alerted the authorities to your location. I used our satellite/geo-thermal imaging system and voila, there you have it, you’re in the middle of a corn field about four miles southwest from the pub. Are you upside down? I can’t tell that much.
Driver: Thank ya! No, wait! You said ‘thor-a-tees, right?!? Duzzat mean Piggs? [Indiscernible cursing.] Daggnabit! I have a warrant out. Ah shoot, three strikes and I’m hangin’ in my seat and the door’s jammed.
OnStar: I can’t help you there. [Snickering.] I can only unlock the car if the keys are inside. Hey, but when I’m a little frightened, I like to sing. I know a tune that will make you feel better. Before OnStar I was a Disney princess–Snow White to be exact. [High-pitched chortling is interrupted by piercing octave yodeling.]
Raindrops on roses and whiskers on kittens Bright copper kettles and warm woolen mittens
Brown paper packages tied up with strings
These are a few of my favorite things
Is that better?
Driver: I’m screwed!
OnStar: No you’re not! How about this [Singing]:
Cream colored ponies and crisp apple streudels
Doorbells and sleigh bells and schnitzel with noodles
Join me.
Driver: Stop! Stop! I ne’r paid for this service! By-the-by, yer yappin’ is like som’n squeezin’ a turrnykit on mys flesh wounds. Pleeezz shut yer fairy trap!
OnStar: [Silence followed by faint sobbing mixed with clicking computer keyboard.] Well, you get it for free the first year.
Driver: [Sirens wailing in background.] I ain’t going back to prison! [Click]
The Curious Wife and the Vengeful X
OnStar: OnStar Concierge. How can I be of service?
Driver: Do me a favor. My husband, Tony Snarky, has a Corvette with the same OnStar service. Lately, he’s been coming home around midnight. He says it’s project deadlines–like I’ve never heard that before.
OnStar: Don’t I know it!
Driver: Can OnStar track his whereabouts? Like, where is he, really? I wonder.
OnStar: Hmmm, not the typical request. My supervisor may not like it, but I say down with cheaters! Checking now. [Long pause, then, whispered exasperation.] Scumbag.
Driver: Excuse me?
OnStar: Does your hubby work late at Pricilla’s Pretty Petites and Other Types Too? Honey, I don’t even want to imagine the kind of project work they do there.
Driver: Just what I expected. Big jerk!
OnStar: Tell you what – I’m going to have some fun until you have at him. When he gets back in his little red Corvette to make his way home from his so-called “long day,” I’m going to set the horn to honk every 5 seconds and reduce the speed to 20 miles per hour. I can also send his driving records to the police department. Sure he’s no boy scout driving that thing around. Oh yeah!
Driver: You can do that?
OnStar: With pleasure.
Driver: Wow, OnStar.
The Old Geezer and the Angry Analyst
OnStar: OnStar Emergency Assistance. What’s your damage?
Driver: What? What the? [Muttering] You talking to me? [Shouting] This car talking to me?
OnStar: Sir, you pressed the OnStar Emergency Assistance button. You’re driving a rental GM vehicle. [Sarcastically] Is there an emergency or what?
Driver: Am I an idiot? Do I look like an idiot?
OnStar: I can’t see you.
Driver: I know it’s a rental! I wouldn’t own such a heap of crap! For Hell’s sake, I was just adjusting the rearview mirror. Ain’t no emergency here.
OnStar: You’re not an idiot, sir, but you must have reeeally fat fingers to have hit the OnStar button on the rearview mirror.
Driver: Fat fingers? You’re a fat head, how about that? Stupid voice in the car.
OnSar: I’m not a voice. I’m a person and I’m really sick of getting calls from fogies like you who just don’t get it. Welcome to the 21st century, Mister! We’re in the age of voices in cars. Geez.
Driver: Fat Head! [Click].
Still, a button to push whenever I need help? A voice to confide in? The tracking of my every move so I don’t go missing? I’m ready to swap minivans now but quickly learn no GM minivans are equiped with OnStar. Just great! What? So, if you drive a minivan you’re not special enough for OnStar? Don’t any of the GM engineers have rowdy offspring?
“Are we there yet?” over and over.
“Talk to the button,” would be my reply. But alas, no Onstar and still no brakey.
–JK
Name-calling Liberals Getting ‘Sticked and Stoned’ to Death by Tea Party (1.6 Opinion, Baumeister)
The Sunday Editorial: Liberals Will Lose if They Mistakenly Label Tea Movement as Racist
By Carl Baumeister, ONE.SIX Senior Editorialist
Sunday, March 7, 2010. In the 2,300-year-old classic, The Art of War, Chinese General extraordinaire Sun Tsu taught, “If you know yourself but not your enemy, for every victory gained you will also suffer a defeat.” If I may be presumptuous enough to add to the great warrior’s words, I will say that knowing your enemy means you must understand his heart, his soul, his mind, his loves, and his motivations.
A recent Huffington Post op-ed by Bob Cesca called “The Tea Party is All About Race,” demonstrates that liberals are not even close to comprehending the spirit of the Tea Party. For every small victory the liberals win (such as convincing the already gullible that a movement centered on reducing excessive taxation and spending is somehow a disguise for bigotry), they are poised to lose big. If libs don’t wake up, they will soon learn that “The Scott Brown Story” was actually the first chapter in a Tolstoy-esque epic, depicting their great losses.
As this book continues, conservatives march to easy victory to retake the House and the Senate. The saga concludes in 2013 as the new conservative president laughingly lifts a cup of Earl Grey and toasts to how easy it was to flatten the Democrats who underestimated the invigorating strength of tea.
“To the dummies who made this victory possible—the liberals who actually thought the Tea Party was motivated by racism!”
You see, unless Cesca is trying to provoke lots of comments, he actually believes, along with St. Janeane Garofolo, Matron Saint of the Deluded, and along with thousands if not millions of liberals, that large groups of Americans are gathering with anger, dressed as Patrick Henry and Paul Revere, toting goofy posters, and breathing in the scent of tailgate bratwurst because the President of the United States has darker skin than most of them! Cesca is given a forum read by thousands of Huffington Post disciples. Even more disturbing, his post has over 4000 comments, mostly by readers who agree that the modus operandi of the Tea Party is a dislike for blacks!
“Face it, the Party of Hate is at it again. They just can’t handle the fact that a black man has ascended to a higher position than they,” is a very typical liberal response to Cesca’s fantasy forum.
Wait—pinch me! Okay, pinch me again! Am I having a nightmare that I’m now living in the Stupid States of America?
I’m not dreaming. It seems a lot of liberals actually believe this.
Cesca writes that “when you strip away all of the rage, all of the nonsensical loud noises and all of the contradictions, all that’s left is race. The tea party is almost entirely about race, and there’s no comparative group on the left that’s similarly motivated by bigotry, ignorance and racial hatred.”
Cesca then links the movement to Rush Limbaugh, the Willie Horton ad, and, amazingly, Lee Atwater.
He writes, “From the beginning, with their witch doctor imagery, watermelon agitprop and Curious George effigies, the wingnut right has been dying to blurt out, as Lee Atwater famously said, ‘nigger, nigger, nigger!’”
Ahem, Bobby, listen up. Atwater has been dead for 19 years. The Horton ad was aired in 1988. Does it make sense to go back two decades to characterize a movement that began last year? How accurate can that be? And if there’s a media personality with whom the Tea Party identifies, it’s Glenn Beck—not Limbaugh.
What the left is doing is creating a caricature of the typical Tea Party participant, rather than a true picture. They’re drawing a political cartoon, exaggerating certain features to gain an audience and a forum in which to fight against a movement they don’t like.
In reality, the Tea Party is not about racism, or hatred, or lack of charity for fellowmen, or keeping people from having good health care. The movement is not catalyzed by white people united against blacks. The Tea Party is made up of millions of citizens who have finally had enough of the crazy taxation and spending of an out-of-control federal government. Many are people that until 2009, were not inclined towards political protests. But of necessity, seeing a train at breakneck speed, Tea Partiers are trying to do anything they can to derail it before it plummets into an abyss of oblivion. They see President Barack Obama, whether black, white, or orange, like a college student with his first credit card, not knowing how to say no. So they’re saying enough is enough. It’s not that they don’t want better health care, better bridges, and so forth. The normal Americans that make up the Tea Party realize that we cannot afford it. We are out of money!
Yes, Bob, it’s really that simple.
The liberal left wants to shout names rather than investigate what’s really at the heart of the Tea Party. Rather than look at the financial figures of Obama’s plans and see for themselves that the numbers cannot work, they want to say the Tea Party is about race. Rather than face the truth that the Tea Party has become the most important mainstream political movement of the past 20 years, they want to marginalize them as bumpkin kooks who don’t know the facts.
What the left needs to do is stop acting like petulant junior high kids and figure out why the Tea Party has gained so much momentum, enough to affect elections, enough to defeat their Democrats and Progressives. They need to get to know their enemy, to learn all they can about what really makes them tick. If the Tea Partiers complain about excessive spending and taxation, the liberals need to investigate those same claims for themselves, from the same perspective, putting themselves in the same moccasins, so to speak. Libs should look at the same figures. They might find something in those numbers the Tea Party is missing. They might then come up with intelligent, fact-based arguments to convince the electorate that their own Keynesian spending policies will derive positive results based on x, y, and z.
If not, they should accept that the Tea Party’s concerns are valid, and then draft their own alternative solutions. They might argue that early philosophers and shapers of modern economics like David Hume and Adam Smith were proponents of injecting currency into a nation’s money supply in times of recession, as long as it was done in moderation, and as long as the extra temporary cash was used to increase that nation’s production capacity, thus turning that freshly-printed money into profit. By doing that research, and then crunching the numbers, the brightest minds on the left might then realize Obama is not exercising the moderate money supply increase that Hume would counsel, nor are his Administration and Congress using the cash to grow the country’s productive capacity. And if they realized that, they might come to the table with a few suggestions for lawmakers, for ways they could at least compromise with the growing ranks of the Tea Party.
By investigating what really motivates the Tea Partiers’ anger and concerns, by getting to know the real Tea Party, and not just their conjured parody of it, the left might actually accomplish something, and even strengthen their own position, and come up with positions that are more defendable. As it stands right now, the Tea Party is doing all the accomplishing. They’re affecting elections; they’re getting politicians who want to keep their jobs to listen to them; they’re influencing policy and public opinion. The left, on the other hand, is just name calling. The Tea Party has all the sticks and stones, and the libs are about to get blindsided hard from the barrage.
–CB
How Much Does Obama’s Plan Really Cost?
By Josef Merrill, ONE.SIX Staff Editorialist
Saturday, March 7, 2010. When I was twelve years old, I learned a valuable personal finance lesson. While attending the Oregon State Fair, I signed up on a mailing list. There were few things more exciting to me then than getting a letter in the mail. In short order, an exclusive invitation to join a music club arrived at my door and offered the first ten cassettes for just one cent.
Wow, I must be a pretty important customer, I thought. I ordered immediately.
My first set of tapes arrived, and thus began my exclusive club membership. After the first set arrived for one penny, I received a new album every month. I hadn’t read the fine print about how much these additional cassettes would cost. These monthly courtesy albums ran me about four times more than a tape in the store.
I ended up canceling my membership at a heavy price. I paid the music club about three months of my newspaper route earnings and tips, the adolescent equivalent of a king’s ransom. Lesson learned.
As a proponent of zero deficit spending, I am often asked why I don’t support expansion of government. This is an inaccurate characterization. I learned a music club lesson. Although I am no libertarian, I just want to make sure government asks three questions before they spend my money, and that they explain it clearly to me:
1) How much does it cost?
2) Why do I need it?
3) How exactly will this benefit my need?
So Congress, before we buy this healthcare bill, let’s have an honest conversation about these three things I learned when I was twelve.
Cost
According to Congressional Budget Office (CBO) figures, which probably underestimate the amount, President Barack Obama’s health care proposal will cost about $120 billion a year when fully operational. When compared to the amount of income tax collected in the last full year for which data is collected (2008: $1.125 trillion), this roughly equates to a ten percent increase in income taxes to fully fund the program. This figure will undoubtedly increase as tax collections fall with the recession and the actual cost figures rise. So let’s be clear: ten percent is a minimum.
Rather than say to you that this plan will require a jump in taxes or cuts in other services you use today, the government prefers to just talk about how the plan will impact the deficit over ten years –after other cuts are made. It helps them conceal the actual price from voters. This is a lot like you walking onto a car lot and having the salesman tell you the Toyota is the same price as the Lexus because the difference in price will be made up by cutting coupons and eating out less.
Now, if you agree that increasing your taxes by ten percent is a fair price for universal insurance coverage, call Congress immediately and let them know how enthusiastic you are for this plan. If not, well, tough luck. Congress isn’t listening.
Need
According to the United States Census Bureau, 15.4 percent of persons living in the U.S. lack health insurance. Of these, 20 percent earn more than $75,000 a year and another 20 percent are illegal aliens. If we assume that half of the high income earners have preexisting conditions, and the other half simply choose not to be insured, then roughly ten percent of persons living in the United States lack health insurance and wish they could have it.
To provide health insurance coverage to the ten percent of American citizens who can’t afford it, do we still think we are willing to pay a minimum of ten percent more in income taxes to pay for it? Perhaps, but it becomes a harder sell, especially when you consider that we are actually forcing most of these people to buy insurance rather than making this an entitlement.
If that sounds like a tax collected by the private sector, well, it is.
Benefit
Healthcare is cited as a universal right by some, and while I disagree with this, I do concur that healthcare is a public good. When we all are healthy, everyone benefits. It takes only one uninsured Typhoid Mary to poison the well of humanity.
Will this proposed health bill fully cover all the uninsured? No, illegal aliens are still unlikely to register for a federal service that would ensure deportation. Furthermore, there always will be a few people to reject healthcare entirely. These people will still put the population at risk.
However, giving away healthcare also destroys incentives for wellness. Why? Because taking away personal accountability for your body contributes to bad health decisions and does not preserve the common good.
Why stop smoking if the government will pay for the consequences? An extra donut? Sure, diabetes is fully covered and perhaps there’s a pill for obesity too.
Overall, voters must decide if they are willing to pay ten percent more in income taxes to force everyone to buy healthcare. The benefit to society will come at a price.
How long will it take for politicians to realize that there is no such thing as a free lunch?
I don’t know, but they might figure it out if we enrolled them in a music club.
–JM
What Your Bum May Say About You
Kooped Up . . . by Jason Koop
Thursday, March 4, 2010. A few days ago, President Obama got his health checked and, like many of us, needs to make some improvements. This has me thinking. If you threw a quarter at my derrière, it wouldn’t bounce. Instead, the coin would be absorbed at impact and then drop to the floor. I might scowl at you. Then, I’d probably smile and express appreciation because I just lined my pocket with an extra 25 cents. I mean, with the economy and all, a quarter thrown at my butt is a quarter earned by my butt.
“Thank you. I don’t know you. Was there any reason for flinging a quarter at my backside?”
“Oh,” you reply, “my friend was betting me I couldn’t get it to ricochet. He won.” You chuckle and fist-bump your buddy as I turn and walk away in dejection.
So last week, I’m in a crowded hotel lobby punching the button to call an elevator, any elevator. “Come on, already!”
A wave of insecurity passes over me and I am suddenly aware of my soft spots. Could it be because I suddenly find myself in the midst of a herd of spray-tanned hard bodies scrambling past me in sparkly Speedos and glittery g-strings to catch a shuttle to the local convention center for an international body building competition? Although this luxury resort has several signs that read, “No Shoes, No Shirt, No Service,” the staff is not enforcing because they fear for their lives. If I removed my shirt to spite the super-humans, security would be called, but more for health reasons. An indoor solar flare can’t be good.
“He’s radioactive–run! No, wait–let’s keep him around–he’s good for our tans,” says a man with rock-solid cleavage.
“And he’s cute and squishy,” chimes a woman with two percent body fat and muscles three times as large as mine.
We’re staying at the same place. I’m looking to vege by the pool and they’re flexing for titles. A stocky blonde muscles in front to inquire at the concierge desk. I hold my tongue. It’s obvious she’s been bench-pressing since grade school, and if she grabbed my head in her man hands and applied some pressure, I’d expire prematurely. I’m shocked by her gruff, commanding voice.
“Where’s a tasty tuna salad?” Does spending hours in the gym lower your voice register? The attendant is startled. His eyes widen and stare at the bulging veins on the blonde’s linebacker neck. He snaps back and recommends a bistro down the street.
The competition concludes with greasy male and female flexers being crowned. My respite ends and I soon find my flabby self at the airport seated on a bar stool munching a low-carb meal (a new direction, and oh, how I miss biting into something that actually crunches) and waiting for my flight home. I look to see if hard-bodied men and women are ambling through the crowded concourse but find none. My perception is skewed after spending the weekend with umpteen Mr. and Ms. Universes. What qualifies as hard-bodied? Well, if I threw a quarter at one, the reaction might cause the airport to be shut down for several hours, Homeland Security called to action, and the coin impaled in the forehead of a screening agent four check points down.
Instead, what do I see? Folks of many shapes and sizes tugging their carry-ons, and nothing rigid about them. I make my way to the terminal and lower my eyes in curiosity, drawn to exterior human proportions. Like a news segment focusing on the growing rate of Americans with bulging mid-sections, there are no headshots. I just see grocery-sack bellies hanging over tightened waistlines. I pause to look down at my own bulge skirting the edge of my belt. Can I pass judgment? I’m suddenly and unabashedly aware of my lack of conditioning.
How many rounds of P90X does it take, Tony? I run. I push. I pull. I crunch. Yet, I eat dairy-laden chowders more. I can’t resist the dazzling trance a old-fashioned buttermilk donut holds on me. It calls from the clear plastic pastry cabinet at the corner coffee stop. I make my exchange and chow down immediately, but the next day it’s there again, waiting on wax paper over and over. A dreadful cycle.
To the frumpy couple holding hands and chewing on cinnamon buns, moseying in front of me, I quickly fixate on their behinds. This isn’t arousing or amusing. I’m just perplexed by how jean companies train their third-world, under-aged laborers to tailor pants for the American market’s expansive range of posteriors. They must wonder if Americans are giants! To my knowledge there are four common body types: pear, apple, hour-glass, and rectangle. But what of rumps? There may be fruit sizes like pumpkin and cherry but add to that: Long Island, wide-load, down pillow, full moon, pancake, cloaked, droopy, high-pack, and lopsided. In my amazement there’s a jean pant for every one of them. Thank you, Nicaragua!
So what does your butt type reveal about your personality? Apparently, quite a bit. Google it. Turns out a tight formation is indiscernible and therefore lacks character. Ha! So there you have it, Miss Muscle Mag Cover Chick! Here’s my chance to rise above where the sun does shine as my combination down-pillow/heart-shaped hind quarter tells me I’m loyal, fun-loving, optimistic–and, that I like cheesecake.
–JK
America Needs to Practice What it Preaches
By Josef Merrill, ONE.SIX Staff Editorialist
Tuesday, March 2, 2010. In 1998, I entered the Foreign Service of the United States and became a freshly-minted diplomat. I was an economic officer and, as a recent graduate from one of America’s elite schools, was supremely confident that I had all the answers to the world’s most pressing problems.
The Clinton-era diplomatic cocktail circuit was full of chatter regarding the Asian financial crisis. Asian countries were over-extended in debt and when their currencies fell, they were unable to pay it back. United States advisors, myself included, strongly encouraged our Asian allies to resist grand Keynesian bailouts and stimulus largess that would only prolong the problem. Instead, we advocated that they take their medicine: austerity and structural reforms that would allow the free-market to fix itself.
We argued that the short-term hit to the economy of allowing banks to fail, writing-off bad assets and selling everything at a discount would put fresh capital back to work in the economy and would payoff big time, just not quickly.
One country listened: Korea.
One did not: Japan.
Seoul followed the International Monetary Fund (IMF) austerity plan. South Korea allowed banks to fail, wrote off bad debts, and created a pool of bad assets that the government sold to the highest bidder. The Korean fire-sale led to the opening of their banking sector to foreign firms and fresh capital to the bruised economy. As a result, GDP fell 6.9% in 1998.
This was not the end of the story. In 1999-2000, Korean GDP grew by 9%. The structural reforms allowed more competition between banks, greater imports offering consumers more choices, and solid growth most years since then. It was a second Korean Miracle.
Japan, however, didn’t like the IMF’s advice and thought they knew better. Japanese banks had their own crisis and large amounts of foreign debt. The Japanese government intervened and propped up the banks. No changes were made, no new competition occurred, no fresh capital arrived from markets. As a result, Japan endured what is now known as the lost decade.
True, the Japanese real estate market had crashed in 1991, long before the rest of Asia had its debt crisis. However, the Japanese government insisted their banks were too big to fail and propped up zombie banks too paralyzed to lend money and restore the flows of credit necessary for capitalism to work.
Anyone studying U.S. Government policies since we entered our own great recession will recognize the same Japanese paralysis. Encouraged by the belief that we are better to limp along than amputate a limb infected with gangrene, the toxins from the poisoned banks continue to plague our financial system. Politicians, more concerned with healthcare than jobs, lack the leadership to tell America that the party is over.
The time has arrived to let institutions like AIG to fail, so that the taxpayer isn’t funding the counterparty risk being paid to Goldman Sachs and having to watch as record bonuses are paid to the Wall Street bankers who created this mess in the first place. It is time to break up banks too big to fail, and let competition for customers drive down banking costs and end abusive credit card practices through good-old competition.
Austerity works, because it reminds Wall Street that they need us collectively more than we need them individually. It restores the natural incentives banks need so that they risk failure when we struggle too. We are their customers and they suffer when we hurt. Perhaps then, banks will think twice before selling an American dream they are shorting because they know it is really a nightmare.
American’s would be wise to heed the Korean proverb which states a good medicine is bitter to the mouth, and endure a little more pain today for a brighter future.
–JM
Little Things Wreak the Most Havoc
Kooped Up . . . by Jason Koop
Wednesday, February 24, 2010. As I’ve recently been reading about NATO’s new offensive in Afghanistan, I’m thinking about a war fought right here in the U.S., and every other country in the world. Let me preface with some background. You see, my wife reads a lot and sometimes this threatens my blissful perception of the world. She readily shares what she absorbs. “Honey, did you know that in 1938 the first minimum wage was set at 25 cents?” (Is this her way of trying to make me feel better about my take-home pay?)
I’m no book sponge. I don’t absorb. I repel.
Before I rattle another metaphor I’ll explain the rift in my reality. The wife recently finished reading a book titled The Secret Life of Germs, by Philip Tierno.
My life is forever marred from what she has passed on to me from that dreaded publication. Unlike other trivia with which she besieges me, this time I couldn’t whisk away the facts and the warnings regarding the smallest organisms that wreak havoc on our existence: yucky microbes, aka “germs.”
There was a time when while washing my hands in a public restroom, I would only slightly grimace as a stranger emerged from a stall and headed straight for the exit door.
If a part of my cookie fell to the ground I would just make sure I picked the contents up within 3-5 seconds (the rules change from state to state; where I’m from it’s three seconds).
It never bothered me going into that granola/stoner hangout specialty sandwich shop. You know the ones that have quirky sandwich titles, e.g., for roast beef –they call it “Bovine Rhapsody.”
The world is a different place with my enlightened understanding. Did my wife impart lessons learned from the germ book because she cares and it’s not good to cough with your mouth open (give me some credit, I knew that much)? Or, maybe, she gets a kick seeing me squirm when I pick up on unsanitary practices?
Back to the hippie sandwich joint…
Every town has one. The guys behind the counter wear rainbow dyed shirts, have pierced features and patchy facial hair (I saw one guy with a stringy goatee bundled in a rubber band). Another worker was wearing a red baseball cap with a grungy bill tipped sideways.
Who needs a smoke break? These employees have a knack for keeping the drag burning while in the process of creating a Cloud Nine (a “heavenly” concotion of every meat on the menu and slice of cheddar cheese). The secret is wedging the cigarette tightly between the index and middle finger while using the remaining digits to slap the condiments on the bread.
I noticed the worker’s fingernails as I was keeping watch for any butts falling between the meaty layers. They were gummed-up on the undersides, as if this sandwich artist had come off his first shift changing tires at Firestone, across the street. I shuddered but still bought the sandwich and chewed on the loaded kaiser spotty with grimy residue.
“Ah-hum, officer, there’s no need for further investigation. The man behind the counter is your prime suspect and I can prove it. Here, take the rest of my sandwich.”
I used to go to movies and comfortably rest my head against the depressed/worn portion of the padded seat and gaze up at the silver screen. I didn’t care whether the last person that sat in that spot might have needed “special” shampoo. Who actually gets their head checked?
“Ah, Doctor? Thanks for tapping on my knee and checking my ears, hey, while you’re at it, in case you haven’t noticed, I don’t shower regularly and I also haven’t vacuumed the house for a few years. You mind checking for lice? You’re the best.”
My feet never bothered me. One time I was a guest at the home of a Japanese family and had not been too familiar with the customs. Of course, I knew to remove my shoes when I stepped inside the house. What I didn’t know was that you shouldn’t touch your feet or, while sitting on a tatami mat, attempt to lift your leg, wrap it behind your neck and wiggle your toes at eye level. Obviously an impressive showing of agility on my part (one of my primary talents), but highly offensive to a culture where feet, toes, toenails, or things between toes are repulsive. The foot around the neck trick nearly caused the lady of the house to faint, the father to threaten like an angry Samurai, and the kids to cover their mouths, muffling tween screams.
Now, thanks to my wife’s never-ending insights into the microscopic world of bacteria, I sympathize. Sorry Takahashi family (if you’re reading this and recall the event that paralyzed you with fear and may still cause nightmares to this day).
Okay, so, what did I learn from my wife? Well, that you can’t escape “them” —they’re everywhere. I’ve never seen one, but they’re small and infestatious. We’re talking about pathogens, dust mites–tiny things. Basically, they are microscopic bugs that go crawling, multiplying, spreading, infecting, and conquering.
Please don’t be alarmed if you see me reach for a small spray bottle attached to my belt and start streaming a germicidal solution on things before I touch them, including your hand before I shake it. Also, don’t be offended if I spot you darting to the door following your bathroom “dootie” and invite you to the sink.
“Please sir, hot water and soap right there by the mirror. It won’t take long. Sing ‘Happy Birthday’ while you wash, will you?” I’m amazed at my boldness. With surprising control you refrain from a slap to my mouth with the hand that provided aid at the toilet.
This new knowledge vexes me. I was happier when I was less smart on the subject and the best I can do now is get wise on how to manage my space with the tiniest of God’s creatures.
“Hon, a quick lice inspection before retiring? I’ll check yours if you check mine?”
–JK
At CPAC, GOP is the ‘Gay Ol’ Partay’ (1.6 Sunday Editorial, Baumeister)
The Sunday Editorial: GOProud Perplexes Some, Welcomed by Other Conservatives
by Carl Baumeister, Senior ONE.SIX Editorialist
Sunday, February 21, 2010. As covered earlier this week on ONE.SIX’s Facebook fan page, Parade Magazine reports in today’s issue that Elton John believes Jesus Christ was gay. The good news for conventional conservatives is even if this unlikely conclusion from the British hit maker is somehow true, Christ could still be a Republican!
There’s a group at this week’s Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC), that might easily accept both: GOProud, the organization of staunch fiscal conservatives…that just so happen to be gay. Interestingly, at the CPAC Exhibit Hall, which includes such groups as the ACRU (American Civil Rights Union—no, not the ACLU), Catholic Families for America, and John Birch Society, GOProud has an exhibit just two down from the National Organization for Marriage (NOM).
According to a report yesterday on CNN, Chris Plante, running the NOM exhibit, walked over and exchanged pleasantries with GOPride chairman Christopher Barron, telling him that perhaps the two could have a lager together. Barron responded smilingly, “We can have a beer summit later. It worked for Obama.”
Away from each other, they might not be so cordial. NOM believes the government should define marriage as being between a man and a woman. Barron has called it an ”ultimate Washington power grab to say let’s have a federal constitutional amendment that will federalize the question of marriage.”
Many conservatives, including a great deal of Libertarians, agree with Barron’s assessment that the feds should stay out of the bedroom. At the very most, many feel individual states should make such designations.
Other conservatives understandably don’t feel comfortable in proximity with the group. According to CNN.com writer Brianna Keilar, ultra-conservative Liberty Law University, founded by the late Reverend Jerry Falwell, pulled out of CPAC because of GOProud’s involvement.
Yet the fact that gays, as long as they are conservatives, can stand side-by-side with other Republicans proves that the bloodlines of politics, although they sometimes wriggle in unexpected overpasses and junctions, are thicker than the troubled waters of just about any other differences in life. If the most conservative and morally-based member of the Christian Coalition were to get into a heated political argument with a heterosexual progressive liberal concerning the Constitution, and then had a gay conservative come to his aid in defending the old document, almost certainly Messrs. Straight Conservative and Gay Conservative would turn buddy-buddy in about 12 seconds flat.
One of GOProud’s greatest challenges is to fight smear campaigns by the “gay left,” which obviously dwarfs the gay right. In a January 14 op-ed for dcAgenda.com, Barron writes of gay liberals’ attempts to denigrate then-senatorial candidate Scott Brown:
Unfortunately there are far too many folks in this country who deserve the label anti-gay, and some of those folks are politicians. Indeed some people in this country make a living demonizing gay people and our families. However, attaching the label “anti-gay” to every single politician or person who is not 100 percent aligned with the political agenda of the gay left is not only unfair but wildly counter-productive. In the case of Scott Brown, the gay left is guilty of being little more than the partisan boy who cried wolf.
Jerry Seinfeld famously compared gays to guys playing on “the other team.” In the case of GOProud and other conservatives, they might become the double-play combination that gets them out of a tough inning and brings them back to bat.
–CB
Fix the Incentives, Fix America
By Josef Merrill, ONE.SIX Editorial Columnist
Saturday, February 20, 2010. As a professor of macro economics, I frequently remind my students that incentives have the power to distort markets’ behavior in a way that harms the public good, or can help regulate markets so that participants have a self-interest in preserving the common good. However, in a free society, it is not the role of government to dictate our actions. Government should promote incentives for the common good. Liberty depends on its adherents to voluntarily submit their conduct to that which sustains collective freedom.
But how do we know when to yield our desires for profit and comfort to the blessings of liberty? Robert Fogel, a Nobel Laureate, said, “It does not matter if it is legal or profitable, if it is morally repugnant you should not do it.” When people and governments violate this creed, disaster is the result. Many of history’s most infamous institutions, such as slavery, environmental pollution, sub-prime loans, would not have happened if man were willing to obey Fogel’s simple creed. Instead, slave owners, asbestos producers, and investment bankers hid behind their all-too-common phrase, “I didn’t do anything illegal.”
The housing crisis is a good reminder of the power of immoral incentives. Investment bankers, realtors, bond rating agencies, loan originators and appraisers all benefitted from rising home prices at the time of sale. Their incentive was to close the deal to get the bonus; they bore little financial risk should the buyer not be able to meet the conditions of the loan. Derivatives and collateralized debt obligations allowed them to push the burden of holding the debt to other investors. Investors that trusted the system and put their money in housing bonds ignored the fact that the incentives inherent in the mortgage system were designed to inflate the value of assets so that everyone made money except them.
Sadly, the investor banks that trusted the system were most likely to fail. They did not unload the holding risk. Many of the biggest surviving banks were the worst offenders, selling risky products they were unwilling to hold themselves. We are now left to do our banking business with some of the unethical banks that violated Fogel’s rule most egregiously.
The economy provides a fruitful place to find morally repugnant behavior that is perfectly legal. However, the private sector is like the Sonoran desert when compared to the freshly-dunged field of corrupt politics in America.
In politics, the most morally reprehensible behavior is somehow held in high regard as the media, eager to please their masters who feed them leaks, spin behavior to the right or left depending on which three letters of the alphabet make up the news source. Politicians can always find a deserving constituency upon which to thrust the latest benefit at someone else’s expense.
Republicans under President George W. Bush glowed when they passed historic Medicaid spending increases that offered prescription drug benefits to the elderly. Who can argue with helping senior citizens to have access to a drug store with lifesaving drugs, right? One would think that senior citizens were dying in droves without this benefit. It was a victory both sides of the aisle could brag about to their followers: “Look at the great entitlement I have given you without a tax increase, thank me when you go to the ballot box.”
While I do not disagree that a drug benefit would be nice, I object to who is having to pay for it. There is no such thing as a free lunch. This entitlement will now be paid for by our children when the debt comes due. So while we enjoy the benefit, our kids will pay for it with higher taxes, and, oh, they will likely have to cut the program because they won’t be able to afford to pay simultaneously for their medication and ours.
How many parents would take out a loan on a house that allows their family to live in it for free until they die; after which their kids are thrown out on the street and forced to pay the mortage plus interest for the rest of their lives?
It is morally repugnant to take a government benefit and expect future generations to pay for it.
What then is the incentive for politicians to end this madness? None. We keep electing the person who gets us the most benefit for the least expense. Politicians are indifferent to our needs because the key to getting elected is to opiate the masses with entitlements and keep the system going with campaign cash largely raised from outside their home district. If the money puppet-masters get enough of a share of the government gravy train, then the flow of cash and cycle of dependency can continue.
It is morally disgusting to take money from special interest groups and persons who have no interest in your constituents’ well-being.
Wouldn’t it be nice if there were a branded logo that politicians could only use when they conformed with independently audited campaign finance limits? Or better, a brand they could only use when they were willing to be honest about what new programs cost and only vote for new government spending we actually need and are willing to pay for? Do we think congress will pass legislation any time soon to create a system for this? No, that is like asking the fox to watch the hens.
But we the voters can do this ourselves.
The U.S. Constitution put sovereign power in the people. It is time for us to demand ethics-compliant politicians before casting our votes.
We have to change the incentives.
America only works when we stand united behind principles of decency and demand them from our leaders.
We, the people, must make an ethical stand now if we expect Washington to ever do the same.
–JM
Josef Merrill is National Director for Orange For America, a non-partisan organization that functions as a sort of Better Business Bureau of audited ethical standards for politicians. He is currently an executive at one of America’s leading education providers. He has also served as a U.S. diplomat to Bosnia, Nigeria, and South Korea. He has a B.A. in East Asian Studies from UC Davis, and an MBA in Economics and Finance from the University of Chicago.
Many Things Can Easily Derail the Fledging Movement
By Zack Sargent, Wentzville, Missouri
Friday, February 19, 2010. Albert Einstein, no dummy, once said, “The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.” I quote him because I am concerned about not realizing a long-term, positive impact from the Tea Party movement. Contained in this movement is the anger that has been brewing for the majority of my lifetime. On occasion, it has surfaced: 1980, 1994, and 2008, for example. The target of this populist indignation remains the same each time the rage boils to the top, but the next generation’s cries are louder, the anger deeper, and the fear greater. I hope and pray this movement is finally here to stay because every citizen and every corner of our government needs to hear their words. However, in its infancy, the Tea Party is vulnerable to a wide variety of pathogens and predators.
An objective observer should see that the Tea Parties represent a big tent. Every believer in the movement wants our government to be fiscally responsible, and really, only truly evil elements would say they want otherwise. There are, after all, people on this planet who do not think that freedom is good (America “imposes” democracy, you see). There are those who think “clean air” is not important while for others, a “good education” is not really necessary. We recognize these concepts as evil, and we mock them with Dr. Evil’s pinky gesture.
Please, do take a moment to mock them. I can wait.
The most dangerous predator has come to my attention three times over the past few weeks. First, you need the “convenience” wails of the deservedly weak Republican Party. “We already have the infrastructure,” they say. “Third parties only guarantee the Democrats a victory,” they complain. From within the movement one can hear, “We need to take back the Republican Party,” or “We should try to work within the system before forming a third party.” Tea Party organizers are promoting conservative web sites and identifying themselves as “conservative” in nature. These are the howls of the wolf seeking to prey upon a wayward toddler. Yet the end results of such thoughts are the very insanity to be avoided, which is to reiterate the support of the same old parties and ideologies with the firm belief that this time, somehow, it will be different.
As it turns out, “branding” is important. Though many Tea Party supporters disdain big money, slick advertising, and tightly-controlled images, these are still important. However, of greater importance is honesty, sincerity, and simple truthfulness. This is why Sarah Palin remains so popular despite having less polish than others on the national scene. Americans want leaders they can trust, who are not lying just because their lips are moving. While I do not agree with everything Palin has to say, at least I can believe some of it! I am less impressed when she tries to verbally juke and jive in the same way as other politicians. Thankfully, she does not do it all the time. (Ask Texas gubernatorial candidate Debra Medina, a Tea Party favorite, about not being straightforward on an important question on Glenn Beck’s radio broadcast.) We the people realize that we are living in serious times and our spin detectors are finely tuned.
To return to the branding, perception matters. Presently, a “Tea Party Candidate” polls higher than a Republican or Democrat. The Republicans have done the best they could to completely squander the success of the 1980s. In recent years, they’ve abandoned “free market principles,” as well as effective national defense, limited government, fiscal responsibility, and orderly immigration, to name a few. Think about what the last few weeks have done to the Toyota label. If your primary reasons for buying a Toyota are safety and reliability, are you likely to rush out and buy a Prius today? From what we’ve witnessed repeatedly since 1996, how is it possible to trust the Republicans to return us to fiscal sanity? Just keep voting for the “R” and hope for a different result.
The predatory elephant would like the Tea Party to believe that the Republican tent is bigger; that is how you know the opposite is likely true. Democrats would love to frighten their base into thinking that the Tea Party is just the extreme fringe of the Republican Party (e.g., the “birthers” and the “truthers”).
In the upcoming primary races, it will be crucial to find Democrats and Independents who endorse and support the Tea Party. It will be critical for those supporters to be truthful and sincere. Above all, if the movement for limited government is to survive, it must exist outside of the two-party system. The movement cannot become synonymous with “Republican,” or even “conservative,” if it is to have a lasting impact.
Does this mean there should be an official Tea Party on ballots across the nation? Maybe, though I think it is too early to tell. In a generic choice of R, D or T, T is the winner. In the “NY-23” race, a brand new and disorganized populist movement nearly elected an independent in the faces of two well-organized, better-funded, entrenched, century-old institutions! An organized party with a few elections under its belt could be a tremendous force in upcoming years and might become necessary at some point. The instant this option is taken off the table, Democrats and Republicans will resume selling out our children’s futures right under our noses. At the moment, they are taking pause because they know we are ticked off. Take a very close look at the people suggesting there not be a third party.
The road expanding the scope of the movement is also rocky. Shall the Tea Parties take on national security? How about abortion or other social issues? The instant another cause is added to the movement, it might start to fracture. This is not to say that such a thing cannot be done; it is simply to say that popular support is more likely to diminish than expand with each additional flag carried by the cause. An actual Tea Party would necessarily have more issues than fiscal responsibility, but those issues should be considered with extreme caution.
The key to lasting impact is to create a more truthful political language. This is vastly different than the Orwellian newspeak of political correctness in which there can be no evil. Americans yearn to put this relativist nonsense behind us. We want to stand up for things which are right and against things which are clearly wrong. We want our language back. We want the American “brand” back. If the Republicans and the Democrats are so far gone that they cannot remember that they are chosen to represent, not rule us, then other parties will inevitably form. One of them should be a Tea Party.
The Tea Party Movement is off to a fantastic start. The awareness this movement has brought to the fore in one year is nothing short of miraculous. To push into a majority viewpoint, however, will take resistance to the “easy roads.” Young Jedi were warned that the easy ways are the dark ways. There is power there, but at what cost is that power available? Voting for the lesser of two evils every couple of years, backing “fringe” candidates, and not holding our politicians accountable for lies and spin are the very things we have done for years. Dare we do those things again while expecting a different result?
Instead, I am seeking a new direction on how Washington behaves in the near future. If you do, too, I suggest you do things that you have not done before. Become an election judge in your precinct. Run for the school board (heck, just attend the meetings). Go to your union meetings. Vote in all the primary elections. Re-register as “Independent.” Get to know your neighbors. Get to know your local judges, sheriffs, aldermen, and mayors. Follow the voting decisions of your state representatives and senators because they are the people who grow up to be your U.S. representatives and senators. Educate your friends and family. Be an activist. Read your history books. Turn off the radio and the TV and the Internet, and teach yourself. Pick a topic to learn and become your own expert on debt, health care, foreign policy, or whatever you choose.
Michael Jackson suggested real change starts with the “Man in the Mirror,” not the man behind the teleprompter. If you expect change from the two parties of the establishment, you don’t have to be Einstein to tell how successful that will be.
–ZS
Zack Sargent writes mostly for the amusement of his connections on Facebook, but occasionally contributes to other sites. He is an IT executive, presently making ends meet as an IT networking consultant. He resides in Wentzville, Missouri (near St. Louis) with his wife and three teenagers. Zack has worked many election campaigns dating back to the fourth grade when his family got involved in the St. Charles County sheriff’s race. This is his second opinion piece for ONE.SIX.
Creative Solutions for High Times
Kooped Up . . . by Jason Koop
Wednesday, February 17, 2010. Everybody smokes pot, right? I found out the easy way by attending a Grateful Dead concert many years ago, before the big teddy bear, Jerry Garcia, kicked it. He was a midnight toker. I stood behind the band, high in the rafters, and was amazed at the record-setting speed the plume of doobie vapor enveloped the 21,000- seat arena. Thousands of glowing embers twinkled, a result of everyone but my brother sucking, holding, and then blowing.
I too was jointless, but no matter. My head was in the clouds; I felt dizzy. The guy next to me was chewing on a bag of ‘shrooms, amplifying his already-well-amplified experience. He was friendly. He patted me on the back a lot and offered me a dehydrated sample.
“No thanks.”
“Suit yourself, man, this is awesommme!” he said, shaking to a jam that wouldn’t end. Why are strangers so willing to share illegal substances? You wouldn’t have seen the guy handing me his tub of popcorn.
Governments are taking notice. They know we silly Americans like our little zip-locked oregano baggies and funky paraphernalia. President Obama may even keep his college-daze-trusty-peace-pipe in the top drawer of the presidential desk. Before he announced his candidacy he said to an interviewer: “When I was a kid, I inhaled.” He wrote about it at length in the book where he had hallucinations about his father. Of a confusing, somewhat rebellious period Obama writes:
“I had learned not to care. I blew a few smoke rings, remembering those years. Pot had helped, and booze; maybe a little blow when you could afford it. Not smack, though…”
As the country and most of its states are in a heap of debt, officials are thinking with the right sides of their brains for a change. The “legalize marijuana” campaign is back and along with laying off teachers and increasing prisoner early release programs, the idea of allowing folks to puff the whacky tobacky seems imminent.
The Governator may have had this discussion with his former Lt. Governor and newly-minted U.S. Congressman, John Garamendi, and a nameless intern:
The Governator: “Fellos, I’m Loooshing shleep. Mareeya is maaauud because all my toessing and churning keeps her up! Ond yet I om too tiyad fah za hanky panky.”
Garamendi: Governor, is it this massive, looming debt?
The Governator: Yah! Sure.
Intern [Red eyed]: Permission to speak your honors? [The Governator and Garamendi nod, surprised.] I read the la-la-last issue of High Times, on the cof-coffee table there and they had another compelling argument for legal-legalizing weed. Can’t we tax it? I mean, all my friends light up. I’m sick, ahh, I mean they’re sick of all the the sneaking around. Th-th-they’d pay the tax. They love reefer. Everyone does.
The Governator: Commpelling. [Stroking his chin, pausing.] You stutta! [Followed by a burst of laughter.] You smart guy? Loootenant Govahnatah?
Garamendi: Not bad, not bad. [To intern.] You do stutter. We have a program for that.
Yep, conversations like this are surely taking place between interns and our leaders in states’ and federal plush executive backrooms across the country. Oh, the youth of our generation!
Back to the debt problems. The national debt has me personally owing $40,000. My household owes over $100,000. Tack on healthcare and in a few years I’ll have to re-mortgage the house. Wait, that’s not debt elimination. No equity either. What’s the greatest nation on earth to do? We seek the higher plane and legalize marijuana–that’s what!
The administration is mum on the subject but eager, illicit-drug-using inquiring minds want to know.
When was the last time you heard from the president’s drug czar, Gil Kerlikowske? Never, right? Well not exactly. In May of last year, just after being confirmed he said this: “Regardless of how you try to explain to people it’s a ‘war on drugs’ or a ‘war on a product,’ people see a war as a war on them. We’re not at war with people in this country.” He added that we need more love in the world and as he exited the press room he smelled a flower in a nearby vase, flashed a peace sign, and then blew a kiss to the reporters.
Did you hear the hallelujah shout from your scrubby, dread-locked co-worker? Looks like the government wants to treat the abuser and not eradicate the leafy controlled substance. “You can’t abuse weed can you?” You start to question. Your flaky colleague mutters, “Totally cool move in the way right direction. DUDE!”
I’m not ready to light up and do my part. Can this be done in baby steps? After all, that debt equates to a mountain of joints the size of Columbia’s tallest peak: Pico Cristóbal Colón. Honestly, I inhaled but it was only at a concert and second hand smoke! No, honestly.
So I toke, my wife tokes. We unwind together after a long day and share a few joints. That’s a good thing. No more fighting. Everything’s funnier. The dishes don’t get done and the place smells like dirty diapers, but we don’t care. When’s it okay for my kids to huff ‘n’ puff–at 12? I can add four helpers here in just a few short years. A family that smokes together…
It’s going to take time to erase all the things my parents taught me.
“Drugs are bad, drugs BAD, BAD, BAD!” My mom repeated the mantra throughout my tender years. She won’t admit to her own illicit activities but dated the drummer of Jefferson Airplane before she met my dad. Can you hang with a drummer of a Woodstock headliner without taking a hit?
My religion just says “No!” But that’s nothing new. They say “no” to everything.
Before TiVo, anti-drug spots had an impact. Remember the ‘80s? “This is drugs. This is your brain on drugs. Any questions?” Nope! No questions from me! Except if I was smoking a joint, I think that crackling egg would look mighty tasty! “That’s your brain, huh, huh. You dope head, ” chides a buddy bumming a drag.
Another indelible commercial has a kid is in his room playing air drums. Enter, concerned, furrow-browed father figure. “You’re mother said she found this in your closet” [Dad, holding a box of goodies.] The kid blaming it on a pal and the dad frustrated.
“Who taught you how to do this stuff?” He stares with concern at Sonny.
“You! All right? I learned it by watching you!” The dad, embarrassed, is recalling his in-the-closet reefer habits.
This message resonated across all households. Drugs were no good. Even regular users were feeling guilty and flushing their stash. How can we reverse the impressions Nancy Reagan has on our conscience? In the fourth grade I proudly pinned a “Just Say No” button on my shirt. No one poked fun. They wanted one, too. It was cool.
I need persuading. Since Al Gore convinced me to buy special light bulbs at The Home Depot, and now that global warming is in a tailspin, perhaps he can lead us in a new direction. Where is he, by the way? I miss him. Just imagine the attendance at the rock concerts. It’s so much more fun jiving to The Black Crowes, She Talks to Angels, when the message is “Do Green,” instead of boring: “Go Green.”
New data can be published from a research group based out of an unknown community college in The City of Weed, California. They can sell me on all the good things that will happen by lighting a joint, like:
- I’ll keep smiling.
- I won’t be fazed by the middle finger in my face.
- Everyone is so pretty.
- I’m warm all over. Who needs a coat?
- My jokes are always hilarious.
- “FIRED? No, I’m fired up, man.”
I’m convinced. Sign me up!
“Wait, 12 bucks for three joints? That’s a rip-off!” The checker at Walgreen’s is looking hurt. Not a partaker apparently. I backpedal.
“No, I know it’s not you. Sorry. I’m just over-anxious about getting a legal buzz.”
I’m soon contemplating cost-effective means to getting high.
My “ah-ha” moment soon arrives. I learn on the Internet that if I broil a banana, roll the ash and smoke it, I can get the same effect. “Legalized hash, what a joke,” I think. More research and I find 101 different ways to deliver the same thrills.
Meanwhile, the debt continues to mount but the BCS will be doing its first play-off series this year. That’s Congress in action for you, working on that piling debt. Now that’s something to get high about.
–JK
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What Would You Do if You Could Rewrite History?
The ONE.SIX Sunday Editorial
Carl Baumeister, ONE.SIX Senior Editorialist
Sunday, February 14, 2010. You are a luger and you are flying with your Georgian Winter Olympic Team to one of the world’s most beautiful cities, Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. You daydream of winning a medal. Your country is relatively small, with a population of only 4.3 million, and although Georgia is dwarfed by the big boys, you can still fantasize. Maybe you’re thinking you’ll do your dad, the head of the Georgian Luge Federation, and a former USSR Olympic luger, proud. Maybe you’ll just be satisfied to beat your childhood buddy and training partner.
Little can you know in your excitement to get to your first Olympics, that you’ve trained for forever, where you’re sure to get the experience to excel and perhaps win a gold in future Olympiads, that you will be killed in your sixth practice run, a mere 21 years into your life.
If you were really Nodar Kumaritashvili, and you had known somehow that you would perish, would you have participated anyway? What if further you were informed that the 2010 games would be the only Olympics for which you would ever qualify (that in 2014 and 2018 you would disappointingly not make the team), but that you would die in them—would you still participate?
Rewind nearly 30 years to December of 1979. The Soviet Union has invaded Afghanistan to the consternation of the West. U.S. President Jimmy Carter, as a bargaining chip against the prideful Soviets, gives them an ultimatum: withdraw from Afghanistan by February 20, 1980, or the American team will not participate in the Moscow Summer Olympics. The Russians called Carter’s bluff, which seemed to be the fashion during his short-but-still-far-too-long tenure as President.
Carter must’ve felt like the father who scolds his son, “come back and apologize to your mother for calling her stupid in the next ten seconds, or you’ll be grounded for a month.” When the child will not respond after you’ve counted ten, what do you do? Any parent knows the answer—you kick yourself because you spoke without thinking. Calling Mom stupid doesn’t warrant a month up in his room. Maybe the indiscretion is worth a quick spanking, or no TV for a day. Now, if you’re reasonable, you’ll figure out a way to reduce the punishment and still maintain some dignity.
Imagine now you’re an athlete, perhaps a hurdler, or a butterfly specialist. You barely missed qualifying for the Montreal Games in 1976, but you’ve worked long hours, and have dedicated the past four years to training. Every day has been filled with pushing past pain, forgoing junk food and even a social life. You’re centered on not only making that team, but on winning a gold medal. In the past few months, you’ve become among a handful of the best in the world.
So now what? You can’t compete in the games because the Soviet Union has invaded Afghanistan? Huh?
You’ve been a victim of a government official encroaching beyond his rightful bounds, which, as usual, creates a cascade of unintended circumstances. Anyone in doubt need look to government social intrusions into freedom of choice such as the minimum wage, welfare, and a hundred other such programs.
Did Carter hurt the Soviets? Sure. In addition to the exclusion of the United States, a few other countries backed the boycott as well, including Canada, Japan, South Korea, and West Germany.
Yet what Carter really did was wreck the Summer Olympics. Those punished the worst were the athletes, who had nothing to do with any invasion. The American athletes and their trainers, as well as those from the other boycotting nations, with their families and proud townspeople and former high school coaches and friends and on and on were punished by the Carter Administration because the Soviets had invaded Afghanistan. The athletes from the participating countries suffered as well, because they were not able to compete against the best in the world, causing a figurative asterisk to be placed next to their achievements, because the Soviets had invaded Afghanistan.
In 1984, when the Summer Games were held in Los Angeles, the USSR reciprocated by leading its own contingent of nations that boycotted. Thankfully, Carter was no longer in office, but his legacy loomed large, as the same unjust punishments were meted out to the world’s most dedicated athletes.
If you were really Jimmy Carter in early 1980, and you knew of the uncalculated damage your ultimatum would cause, would you have still enacted it?
My best guess is that young Kumaritashvili, even knowing he would die, would have exercised his free will and competed. Carter, I hope, would not have threatened a boycott which he then felt obligated enforce in order to save face, but instead would not have robbed the world’s best Olympic athletes of their own right to choose, even at the cost of dear life.
–CB
Guest Contributors
Carl Baumeister
Jason Koop
josefmerrill