Special Sunday Morning Election Edition

Class Warfare. Try this somewhat withering piece by Sam Schulman on why the Bill Ayers association has been so summarily dismissed. It does make sense. After all, it is mind-boggling that these two unrepentant types have been absorbed seamlessly into the upper echelons of the Chicago mainstream machine.

The Politics of Diversity. Class is just part of the reason Joe has been so savaged, as Carl Platt Liebau makes clear here. Joe- to the Democrats and the left- is incomprehensible. As she sees it, just as Clarence Thomas and Sarah Palin served as exemplars that nanny state philosophy is not the only valid one for African Americans and women and had to be destroyed, Joe presented a working man who wanted to make his own decisions. How dare he! The audacity!

Education Policy. I never thought I'd live to see the day. It is a horrendously sad state of affairs, when I have to link to Phyllis Schlafly, not because I think that Ayers will be sleeping in the Lincoln bedroom, but because this is the only bit I have found that concentrates on the effect Bill Ayers is having now. He is an irrelevancy and a wannabe. When confronted by O'Reilly's show, he demanded his private property rights and called the "pigs." His effect on young minds who don't know he is a poseur is an altogether different matter. He is more dangerous now that he ever was with his half-assed bomb making. Read it.

Market Economy. In my experience during election years, the market tends to run inversely proportional to the fortunes of the Democrat candidate. This year with all of the mayhem, it was hard to spot. Still, lately I was "suspicioning" that the market was reacting to the polls. Then here comes Charlie Gasparino on the first page of the NY Post. Those of us who follow the market know Gasparino as an ace financial reporter. Particularly scary in this article is the contention that Obama's ideology is trumping the advice of his own supporters. Savvy investors seem to be voting with their feet.

Next Election. Michael Medved here taps into my greatest fears about an Obama presidency, namely that much of the damage will be irreversible. As he phrases it, presidents may come and go, but "entitlements go on forever." His is not reform but re-formation. Read the column.

Come back for the regular Sunday edition later.

Literary Interlude: My Wood

And now I am myself again. How about something calming? Earlier this week, I posted on the "entitlement generation." Much of this campaign has been about economics, so I thought you might enjoy this one about the effects of property on the character.

My Wood

A few years ago I wrote a book which dealt in part with the difficulties of the English in India. Feeling that they would have had no difficulties in India themselves, the Americans read the book freely. The more they read it the better it made them feel, and a cheque to the author was the result. I bought a wood with the cheque. It is not a large wood--it contains scarcely any trees, and it is intersected, blast it, by a public footpath. Still, it is the first property that I have owned, so it is right that other people should participate in my shame, and should ask themselves, in accents that will vary in horror, this very important question: What is the effect of property upon the character? Don't let's touch economics; the effect of private ownership upon the community as a whole is another question--a more important question, perhaps, but another one. Let's keep to psychology. If you own things, what's their effect on you? What's the effect on me of my wood?

In the first place, it makes me feel heavy. Property does have this effect. Property produces men of weight, and it was a man of weight who failed to get into the Kingdom of Heaven. He was not wicked, that unfortunate millionaire in the parable, he was only stout; he he struck out in front, not to mention behind, and as he wedged himself this way and that in the crystalline entrance and bruised his well-fed flanks, he saw beneath him a comparatively slim camel passing through the eye of a needle and being woven into the robe of God. The Gospels all through couple stoutness and slowness. They point out what is perfectly obvious, yet seldom realized: that if you have a lot of things you cannot move about a lot, that furniture requires dusting, dusters require servants, servants require insurance stamps, and the whole tangle of them makes you think twice before you accept an invitation to dinner or go for a bathe in the Jordan. Sometimes the Gospels proceed further and say with Tolsoty that property is sinful; they approach the difficult ground of asceticism here, where I cannot follow them. But as to the immediate effects of property on people, they just show straightforward logic. It produces men of weight. Men of weight cannot, by definition, move like the lightning from the East unto the West, and the ascent of a fourteen-stone bishop into a pulpit is thus the exact antithesis of the coming of the Son of Man. My wood makes me feel heavy.

In the second place, it makes me feel it ought to be larger.

The other day I heard a twig snap in it. I was annoyed at first, for I thought that someone was blackberrying, and depreciating the value of the undergrowth. On coming nearer, I saw it was not a man who had trodden on the twig and snapped it, but a bird, and I felt pleased. My bird. The bird was not equally pleased. Ignoring the relation between us, it took fright as soon as it saw the shape of my face, and flew straight over the boundary hedge into a field, the property of Mrs. Henessy, where it sat down with a loud squawk. It had become Mrs. Henessy's bird. Something seemed grossly amiss here, something that would not have occurred had the wood been larger. I could not afford to buy Mrs. Henessy out, I dared not murder her, and limitations of this sort beset me on every side. Ahab did not want that vineyard--he only needed it to round off his property, preparatory to plotting a new curve--and all the land around my wood has become necessary to me in order to round off the wood. A boundary protects. But--poor little thing--the boundary ought in its turn to be protected. Noises on the edge of it. Children throw stones. A little more, and then a little more, until we reach the sea. Happy Canute! Happier Alexander! And after all, why should even the world be the limit of possession? A rocket containing a Union Jack, will, it is hoped, be shortly fired at the moon. Mars. Sirius. Beyond which . . . . But these immensities ended by saddening me. I could not suppose that my wood was the destined nucleus of universal dominion--it is so very small and contains no mineral wealth beyond the blackberries. Nor was I comforted when Mrs. Henessy's bird took alarm for the second time and flew clean away from us all, under the belief that it belonged to itself.

In the third place, property makes its owner feel that he ought to do something to it. Yet he isn't sure what. A restlessness comes over him, a vague sense that he has a personality to express-- the same sense which, without any vagueness, leads the artist to an act of creation. Sometimes I think I will cut down such trees as remain in the wood, at other times I want to fill up the gaps between them with new trees. Both impulses are pretentious an empty. They are not honest movements towards money-making or beauty. They spring from a foolish desire to express myself and from an inability to enjoy what I have got. Creation, property, enjoyment form a sinister trinity in the human mind. Creation and enjoyment are both very, very good, yet they are often unattainable without a material basis, and at such moments property pushes itself in as a substitute, saying, "Accept me instead--I'm good enough for all there." It is not enough. It is, as Shakespeare said of lust, "The expense of spirit in a waste of shame": it is "Before, a joy proposed; behind, a dream." Yet we don't know how to shun it. It is forced on us by our economic system as the alternative to starvation. It is also forced on us by an internal defect in the soul, by the feeling that in property may lie the germs of self-development and of exquisite or heroic deeds. Our life on earth is, and ought to be, material and carnal. But we have not yet learned to manage our materialism and carnality properly; they are sill entangled with the desire for ownership, where (in the words of Dante) "Possession is one with loss."

And this brings us to our fourth and final point: the blackberries.

Blackberries are not plentiful in this meager grove, but they are easily seen from the public footpath which traverses it, and all too easily gathered. Foxgloves, too--people will pull up the foxgloves, and ladies of an educational tendency even grub for toadstools to show them on the Monday in class. Other ladies, less educated, roll down the bracken in the arms of their gentlemen friends. There is paper, there are tins. Pray, does my wood belong to me or doesn't it? And, if it does, should I not own it best by allowing no one else to walk there? There is a wood near Lyme Regis, also cursed by a public footpath, where the owner has not hesitated on this point. He has built high stone walls each side of the path, and has spanned it by bridges, so that the public circulate like termites while he gorges on the blackberries unseen. He really does own his wood, this able chap. Dives in Hell did pretty well, but the gulf dividing him from Lazarus could be traversed by vision, and nothing traverses it here. And perhaps I shall come to this in time. I shall wall in and fence out until I really taste the sweets of property. Enormously stout, endlessly avaricious, pseudo-creative, intensely selfish, I shall weave upon my forehead the quadruple crown of possession until those nasty Bolshies come and take it off again and thrust me aside into the outer darkness.

EM Forster

Shame on the New York Times

The old gray lady has finally come out of the closet, although her ample rump has been peeking out of the garderobe for quite a while now. The New York Times has made it official by endorsing Obama in an editorial liberally laced with oil of vitriol. For added emphasis, the endorsement was not on the editorial page but on page 1.

That Obama is the chosen one is fine by me. I would expect no less. But I am fed up with mealy-mouthed individuals and entities donning the cloak of self-righteousness to complain about McCain's "negative campaigning." If the media, starting with the Times itself had been doing its job vetting the candidate, had they made clear to the public what all of BO's rhetorical flourishes meant, the McCain campaign would not have been forced to do it. But they have all fallen in love with the candidate. Had Senator McCain been as unscrupulous as they are accusing him of being, he could have made great hay out of the Rev. Wright angle.

Where is the indignation and the outrage at all of the "code words" for old the Obama camp has been hurling McCain's way or the sneers directed at "Joe the Plumber" by the same? And to scathingly dismiss Palin as completely unfit for the office, at the same time they endorse a man without a single qualification other than his ability to campaign reeks of the whited sepulchre.

What makes me see red, however, is the treatment they have ladled on Senator McCain, a man who has done more for this country than the entire lot of them at the New York Times, and to do so in the service of a man who has spent his whole life seeking out those who hate this country even as he was availing himself of everything it had to offer, who has not one legislative achievement on his record is vile. They are the dirty ones.

Journalism Lite

Today's absolute must read comes from Orson Scott Card, very well-known for such sci-fi classics as Ender's Game and Ender's Shadow. In a column decrying the lack of honesty on the part of the media, he demonstrates the political fallout of media inaccuracy and selectivity. Its hard to find an excerpt; the whole thing is so on target:

There are precedents. Even though President Bush and his administration never said that Iraq sponsored or was linked to 9/11, you could not stand the fact that Americans had that misapprehension — so you pounded us with the fact that there was no such link. (Along the way, you created the false impression that Bush had lied to them and said that there was a connection.)

If you had any principles, then surely right now, when the American people are set to blame President Bush and John McCain for a crisis they tried to prevent, and are actually shifting to approve of Barack Obama because of a crisis he helped cause, you would be laboring at least as hard to correct that false impression.

Your job, as journalists, is to tell the truth. That's what you claim you do, when you accept people's money to buy or subscribe to your paper.

But right now, you are consenting to or actively promoting a big fat lie — that the housing crisis should somehow be blamed on Bush, McCain, and the Republicans. You have trained the American people to blame everything bad — even bad weather — on Bush, and they are responding as you have taught them to.

CNN in the Tank: Expanded

This morning, caught John Roberts interviewing a writer from the Financial Times about whether Obama is a "socialist." How's this? After the guest gives a dictionary definition of the term, Roberts queries, very deliberately and leadingly, "So a tax cut affecting the rich cannot be classified as "socialist?" His guest, of course, points out that we have always had a progressive tax code. Nowhere, since Roberts has framed the "question" so leadingly, is their any acknowledgment that those who pay no income taxes (40% or so) will be receiving checks from the government. Heck, "from each according to his ability, to each according to his need." Maybe, they're right. It's not quite socialism. And Roberts: from child neglect to aguanta pata, such journalistic integrity.

The Obama Coalition and the Entitlement Generation

The picture I posted earlier points to the mass hysteria associated with Obama. However, he would not be leading without the support of other swaths of the population. For starters, there are the far left wing-nuts. These are characterized by an acute case of Bush Derangement Syndrome. Then there are the cynical political partisans. These make their home either in the halls of congress or on your television set. There are those who are disgusted with the rampant abuses brought to light by the economic meltdown and who looking to punish the party in power are not examining the alternative economic vision.

The segment of his supporters I'd like to highlight, however, are people who should know better. These are those who reside in the 40 something to 200 thousand dollar income range. The middle classes. What gives? A better question would be "Who gives?" In this case, the answer is Obama. He has answered the time honored question "What's in it for me?" by hitting upon the notion of pandering to the middle class. Anyone in this income range in the United States is blessed by global standards. No, in the lower reaches, such an income will not afford you a home in a gated community or a gas-guzzling SUV. It will allow you to live a decent and comfortable life, if you live according to your means.

I suspect my readers thought the entitlement up top referred to government programs targeted at the lower classes. No, entitlement here is a larger concept. It refers to a whole generation (baby boomers, anyone?) brought up in relative affluence, an affluence created by their parents who worked for it and lived within their means. It bred in them a sense of entitlement, a sense they passed on to their children. They do not start with the finite figure in determining their lifestyle. No, they start with the living standard to which they are accustomed and then worry about affording it. If doing the latter involves plastic, so be it. That's how you wind up with TV reports of the family lamenting its lack of health insurance over coffee in the half million dollar home with the two late model cars in the driveway. Take a look at countertops, appliances sold to the masses at Home Depot. Do you really need a thousand dollar stove? A countertop that costs as much as a used car?

What is terribly unhealthy here is that they want something for nothing, even if it is at the expense of someone else. And that is exactly what this economic plan is. Where is the concept of fairness? You worked harder, so you can help support me. And taxing corporations more? They can take their marbles and go elsewhere. If they can't, they'll just pass along the cost to rich and poor alike.

The worst part of this phenomenon is that in accepting the placebo of a failed economic philosophy, we are not addressing our true problems. While you worry about the cost of gas for your Escalade, 50 percent of households have an income of 31 thousand a year or less. CEOs make untold millions. No man is worth 100 million dollars. Our schools are failing those who most need the leg up economically. Teachers and administrators are afraid to discipline children because the lawsuit is always waiting in the wings. Children are trapped in failed public schools because the powerful teachers' unions fight vouchers tooth and nail. Politicians pander to them extolling the virtues of public education, all the while sending their own children to private schools. Educational reform is put in the hands of the likes of Bill Ayers. Need more?

Going to the Source: Sowell on Palin/Obama

Here is an elegant and reasonable distinction between the two tickets. First, about the question of experience:

Sarah Palin's record is on the record, while whole years of Barack Obama's life are engulfed in fog, and he has had to explain away one after another of the astounding and vile people he has not merely "associated" with but has had political alliances with, and to whom he has directed the taxpayers' money and other money.

Then the takeaway:

Whatever the shortcomings of John McCain and Sarah Palin, they are people whose values are the values of this nation, whose loyalty and dedication to this country's fundamental institutions are beyond question because they have not spent decades working with people who hate America. Nor are they people whose judgments have been proved wrong consistently during decades of Beltway "experience."

Read the article on RealClear Politics here.

H/T National Black Republican Association

Et tu, Mexico?

There have been some items of interest lately. In addition to the announcements of untold oil wealth beneath the waters of Cuba, celebrations of "Russia Day" and the like, two items caught my attention. On Monday there was the announcement that Mexico will begin repatriating Cubans fleeing the island. On Tuesday came the proclamation of increased amity and trade between the two countries.

Given the recent "restructuring" of over 400 million worth of debt Cuba owes Mexico, it's not surprising that trade has increased 80 % in the first 8 months of this year. Nor given their long history of doing so, only sporadically interrupted, is it surprising that the Mexican government has chosen to side with the oppressors. Guess it just goes to show the only illegal immigrants they deem worthy of compassion are their own citizens.

Thrilla in Manila

American conservatives aren't the only ones to have doubts about OB. Have to share this goody from The Manila Times. Although the English is somewhat stilted, the opinion piece relies on both Sowell and Freddoso to express doubts about the candidate. Most charming, however, is the following assertion:


Most non-Americans -except perhaps the Cubans both in Cuba and in Miami—are somewhat anti- American.

A Funny Thing is Happening on the Way to the Election

I was reminded of Peter Finch's "I'm mad as hell, and I'm not taking it anymore" as I read this Byron York report describing a recent McCain rally. The point of interest here is the after rally as a Columbian immigrant construction worker, along with others, takes on the media. Read it. It's like a scene from An American Carol. Incroyable. If not, the crux is here:

The scene turned into a mini-fracas when David Corn, of Mother Jones, defended press coverage. Munoz was having none of it. Why, he asked, would the press whack Joe the Plumber when it didn’t want to report on Obama’s relationship with William Ayers, the former Weather Underground bomber? “How come that’s not in the news all the time?” Munoz said. “How come Joe the Plumber is every second? I’m talking about NBC, MSNBC, CBS, ABC, and CNN.”A black woman with a strong Caribbean accent jumped in the fray. “Tell me,” she said to Corn, “why is it you can go and find out about Joe the Plumber’s tax lien and when he divorced his wife and you can’t tell me when Barack Obama met with William Ayers? Why? Why could you not tell us that? Joe the Plumber is me!”

“I am Joe the Plumber!” Munoz chimed in. “You’re attacking me.”

I've run across that before. After all, I am Joe the Plumber, too. There are many of us, and we've had it. Funny thing, though, while the revolutionaries are on the other side: the proletarian revolution is happening on this one.

The Powell Endorsement: A Personal Loss

I confess to having been an ardent supporter of President Bush, President George HW Bush. I am actually pretty much a moderate Republican, by which I mean that I abhor extremes on both sides. I did not vote for W because I loved him but because I could not stomach the alternative and he came closest to my views.

I am a Cuban American, which parlays into a belief that "that government governs best which governs least." It also means I believe strongly in traditional values and in the ability of the individual to rise above his circumstances. In sum, I am a natural Republican.

It is in this context that I have always admired Colin Powell. As a Republican and a Hispanic, brought up in the bad old days of rampant discrimination, I saw Mr. Powell not only through the lens of his achievement, but also with the hope that his open party affiliation would serve to break the stranglehold of the patronizing culture of victimhood fostered by the Liberal Left, that he would serve to show that you can do it. "Entitlements" because you cannot take care of yourself tell you you can't. Powell gave the lie to that assertion. He also stood for my views, a bulwark against the extreme right wing of the party.

So what does he do yesterday? Against every value one would assume he had, he endorses Obama, one of the most liberal of Senators, a man who not only opposed the war Powell helped get us into, but who would have pulled us out in defeat. And his rationale? In addition to the usual Liberal contortions regarding Palin's lack of experience for number two while disregarding completely Obama's lack of experience for numero uno, he objects to the tenor of the campaign, the Ayers story. Memo: if the media had done its job, McCain would not have been put in the position of having to educate us about the educator. These associations would have been brought up during the primaries and McCain would probably be running against Hillary Clinton right now. When there is no record to judge, when the associations are so unsavory to most Americans, what can be more important than the character of the man? Perhaps it is all irrelevant, but that is a decision for the American people and not the American Media to make.

Most hurt by yesterday's actions was my measure of the man: "You dance with them that brung you." That he would be deliriously happy to see an African American within striking distance of the presidency is understandable. I would be. It is an emotion, however, he should have experienced in the privacy of the voting booth. I am no fan of Rush Limbaugh, but he struck a chord with me. Powell owes much to the Republican party, no matter how contentious the relationship, and he should have acted accordingly. This last minute endorsement begs the question as to whether he ever believed in the political philosophy he espoused previously or whether it was just expediency. Frankly, my only hope this election is that his candidate has similarly used the left.

This endorsement is more about the Secretary than it is the candidate. I suspect he feels he was misled into the UN appearance that damaged his credibility. I think he would have been served by waiting for the judgment of history than trying to rehabilitate his image with the cultural elite. I am terribly saddened.

Without Comment

What's Wrong with This Picture?

borrowed from Drudge

Sunday Morning: Ain't That America

No Thanks. Some smaller community banks are not at all happy about the intrusion of the federal government, according to this article in The Washington Post, preferring to let the market take its course. Many of them have been a heck of a lot more conservative in their lending practices and stand to lose out if depositors flock to banks they perceive as safer. A pretty good view of how this part of the program will work. Speaking of the bank meltdown, here's an interesting read from BusinessWeek which takes a look at some of the fallout, the cities and towns that will be hard hit in the present difficulties.

Shabby Chic. As if its not enough that the ring dings in Hollywood and beyond are backing OB, the Miami Herald has joined the collection of once great dowagers in endorsing "the One." The sound you hear is their circulation figures circling even further into the toilet.

The Bradley Effect. According to Ann Coulter in this, it's not racism; its fear of being considered racist. We just want to be cool. Having worked in enemy territory my whole life, she' correct. You're better off admitting to being in the Man/boy love association than acknowledging you're a Republican. Despite the many egregious things she says, she generally has a point and always wields a verbal scalpel.

The American Spirit. A sad story that has received little play between the election and the collapse. Millionaire adventurer Steve Fossett's plane has been discovered, along with human remains. Article here.

The Wuss Factor. A 35 year old Pompano, Florida man is suing the "Booby Trap" because a stripper flung her shoe which hit a glass ceiling (no pun intended) and rained glass down upon him. He had a cut to his eyebrow and suffers nosebleeds. Read it here.

Rabble Rousing

Judging from Biden's performance on the campaign trail, it seems the "Senator Government" sobriquet should be joined by "Senator Meltdown" for the running mate. Who's erratic now? In any case, the treatment of poor schmo Joe the Plumber has been despicable. As someone called in to the radio today, how come we know more about Joe/Samuel in 24 hours than we do about Obama in 2 years?

You see, Joe's crime is to have dreams and the audacity to think he can reach them without 3 bureaucrats, 4 lawsuits, and 2 unions- ohmigosh! without liberal largess. Biden's withering contempt for the man is a positive development. Hopefully, it will open the eyes of those of us in the great unwashed, neither ivy league graduates nor inner city denizens, to how they really see us. More importantly, the "spread the wealth around" answer should be an eyeopener for those who believe the moderate tone of OB's rhetoric.

Making It Real

So often when non Cubans, whether well-meaning or fellow traveler, make sweeping statements about the island, they do so in generalities and abstractions. Please note the following post from a new blog, a first person testimony of life after the revolution. Here's an excerpt:

One year sometime in the seventies, during election time, my mom, who was a rebel, decided to go visit her sister in a neighboring town. She said she wasn't about to participate in a election with just one candidate. It was a nice try, but not successful. Our CDR watch found out from the neighbors we were and went all the way to her sister's house to pick us up so she could vote. We had no choice, but to get in the car and my mom reluctantly voted for the one and only candidate-Fidel Castro.

H/T Jose at Cubanology

They Just Don't Get It

After the debate last night, I was anticipating the political commentary. It should have been safe. After all, I was watching Fox. I've had to seek refuge there, because of the incredibly disgusting lack of objectivity of the other "mainstream media." At least there I know what I'm getting, theoretically, at least.

Anyway, so there I am waiting for the post mortem to a debate in which I was sure McCain had done remarkably well, waiting for the reference to the line that sent me to the computer to post, when it was one depressing critique after another. Even Frank Luntz's "independents" gave the debate to Obama. Stop! Did these people watch the same debate I did? Huh? So I give up on the TV and have my sanity restored at Pumpkin Seeds and Townhall where others shared my impressions. Aah.

And today, Joe the Plumber is all over the TV. Of course, they're already starting to savage him. He's not really a plumber. His name isn't Joe. Even one commentator on Brit Hume's show stated that Joe's taxes would not be raised, that Joe would be better off with OB's plan.

He would buy the company with an SBA loan. If he stayed under the 200 thousand mark, he would pay no capital gains; and if he hired someone, he'd get a tax break. Notice the intrusion of the government here. All of this is put into perspective by Joe himself.

Joe is on TV. He is the salt of the earth American, "flabbergasted" but unphased by all the media attention, calling it his "fifteen minutes of fame." In his own way, he makes a strong case. He was brought up to work hard and get a bit more from his family, not have it given away by someone else. If he feels like giving it away, fine. Let others work 10 and12 hour days for years to get their own slice of the pie. And those tax increases are going to trickle down to him. These things don't "trickle up." Sounds right to me.

The Obama camp's reaction is tin-eared. Both the man who would be president and his sidekick had a bit of fun, snickering at a "plumber" who makes a quarter million dollars. Wink, wink, nod, nod. No, they're not elitist. The only people who matter are people who reside in their mainly urban, sophisticated circles, and the pathetic victims of their governmental munificence. Their personal generosity seems to stem from giving away someone else's money. Biden has given less to charity than I have. Do I hear 1 percent? Gimme a break!

The reaction of the the political pundits also demonstrates a lack of sensitivity. As Bernie Goldberg once noted, these people all travel in the same circles. So help me, there ought to be a "man on the street beat" at media outlets with the requirement that the reporter live among the working or middle class.

I have a sneaking suspicion that all is not what it seems. Perhaps it is the phenomenon Ann Coulter describes in this week's column. The "Who, me, a Republican?" effect. As I watched four of the "undecideds" declare for Obama, I asked myself how many were afraid to acknowledge that they would opt for McCain. I observe that the today the polls are tightening. Food for thought.

I Interrupt this Blog to Give You the Line of the Evening

Listening to the debate, where the line of the evening is "If you wanted to run against George Bush, you should have run four years ago." I was actually disappointed by Obama's comeback.

National Book Award Finalists Named

Included in the group are two names with which readers of this blog will be familiar. First off, there is Rachel Kushner and Telex from Cuba, an intriguing book. I'm glad to see my opinion seconded. Ditto with Peter Matthiessen's reworking of his Everglades trilogy, Shadow Country,
a sentimental favorite of mine. Article here.

What McCain Needs to Say: Part 2

My friends (you know he's gonna say it), the American people are faced with a choice not between two candidates, but two philosophies. One- that of my opponent- holds that government should exist in loco parentis, so that it should take care of its citizens from the cradle to the grave. Like children you are not competent to make decisions about housing and healthcare, energy consumption and how you are going to spend your money for yourselves. Such a view means that like a parent, the government will determine what it deems good for you and enforce it. It punishes success and rewards dysfunction.

Senator Obama, who has a lifetime pattern of surrounding himself with people who dislike America all the while he was availing himself of all it had to offer, speaks of America as if it is irretrievably broken, as if it is a third world failed state. This is his vision. His change is not any kind of reform. The Senator seeks no less than to change the American system as we know it. Take his much vaunted healthcare, another massive entitlement program. Our system is flawed, yes. But is the answer really to take away choice? To force small businesses, many of which are suffering greatly and are barely making ends meet, to insure themselves. Now Senator Obama says the government will give you 50 percent. That's all well and good, but where is the other 50 percent coming from?

And his tax proposals. The Senator knows that truly wealthy people will find loopholes he hasn't even dreamed of. The brunt will fall on people who have studied and/or worked their hearts out for decades. Nowhere in his calculations are local taxes. At present, many of these people pay 50 percent of their income in taxes. Think about that: they work an entire half year without making a single cent. Where is the incentive to become a doctor, or lawyer, or small business owner? Now my opponent maintains that 95 percent of American taxpayers will get a tax cut. Since 40 percent do not pay taxes, what does this mean? Many who do not pay receive checks from the government. So is this increased subsidy another version of welfare? It is certainly income redistribution.

And what about the big corporations? Our corporate tax rate is one of the highest in the world. Raising it will lead to increased outsourcing and job loss. Many corporations no longer manufacture in the United States. They export their customer service overseas. Why wouldn't they move to say, Ireland, which has an 11 percent corporate tax rate? The truth is that at a time when we need every job we can get, we need those very corporations. The opposition has repeatedly jeered that the "trickle down" effect doesn't work. Well, I ask you, have you ever seen anything "trickle up"?

Yes, we have difficulties. But it is not our overarching philosophy of freedom and opportunity that is broken. It is the very government Senator Obama would empower that is broken. Think about it, my friends. Yes there are many, deep problems in our economy, much caused by the twin evils of government intrusion into the private sector where it doesn't belong and lax enforcement of the regulations where it does. Think of the congressional leadership. Is this what you want for America?

Now I believe deeply in the promise of America. I have fought for it. And I will continue to fight the excesses and corruption of big government. I will reform our financial system. But I will fix what is broken, not insinuate a revolution in the sheep's clothing of "change." I seek reform; my opponent seeks a mandate to change the system.

The Cuban Model

Ran across an interesting tidbit today. Seems Namibia is donating the equivalent of a million dollars to the castro relief fund. How sad are the straits to which Cuba has been reduced? The required propaganda motifs make an appearance in the article/press release: the big, bad embargo; the marvelously efficient machinery of evacuation, etc. But then, what can you expect from the usual cheering section of allAfrica?

I was reminded, though, of an article I came across recently on that website which advocated "learning from Cuba." My first thought was pobrecitos, poor fools. Haven't they gotten enough "bloody instruction"? But I was wrong. Although his view of the Cuban regime is the source for some dramatic irony, he does make a valid point:

At the same time, Cuba has invested heavily in ensuring the rest of the world sees the injustice of America's policy towards Havana; from supporting terrorists, barring US tourism to that country to blocking companies that want to from even buying a banana from the island.

In some 100 countries across the world, people have established various official solidarity organisations and pressure groups that lobby their home governments to press the US to change its policy towards Cuba as well as to simply educate the indigenous populations on what is happening on that island and how shameful Washington's behaviour is.

Zimbabwe has a Zimbabwe-Cuba Friendship Society and a Free the Cuban 5 Committee (which lobbies for the release of five Cuban patriots who are being unjustly kept in American jails), and this is something that one will find in many countries across the globe.

The point is that Cuba has created a foreign policy that is geared towards fighting the illegal sanctions that it has had to live with for nearly half a century now.

More importantly, they have not only moulded such a foreign policy, but they have invested heavily in it in terms of both financial and human resources.

Staff at Cuban embassies and consulates all over Southern Africa -- and this is likely the case across the world -- are known to be extremely proactive in defence of their revolution and in spreading the word to the people of their host countries so that they are fully aware of what is going on.

That is why America has found it hard to sell the lie that Cde Fidel Castro presided over an evil system and his brother Cde Raul is the new great Satan overseeing a diabolic communist administration that enjoys imprisoning people and executing them for expressing a contrary view.

That is why since 1992 -- and without fail this will be the 17th consecutive time -- the world has overwhelmingly voted for a lifting of America's illegal sanctions regime.

I had to boldface that particular paragraph. It demonstrates the accuracy of his claim, namely Cuba has effectively marketed its thugocracy and set a shining example for others of like mind.

Cross posted at Babalublog

Some Parallels for a Monday

The Sound of Silence. On Townhall, David Limbaugh calls Obama, "The Stealth Candidate," raising the idea that it wasn't just "association" with Ayers. Rather as Melanie Phillips points out in this most excellent piece in the Mail, it was "participation." It is sad that it takes a foreigner to point out the Barackian reality in a cogent, well-written column.

The Nature of Responsibility. At the New York Post, Kirsten Powers makes the most excellent point that Americans helped bring us to this economic pass by living well beyond our means. Where's the outrage now?

The Divine of Domesticity. In a change of pace, here's an interesting read from Nathan Jeffay about Judaism and the holidays. I post it, because as someone with a lone Jewish relative, I have often been struck by the beauty of religious observance in the home. It makes the divine more immediate, somehow.

The March of Progress. At the Times(UK), we are informed by a leading geneticist that evolution has hit a dead end of sorts. The engine of change has apparently been stifled by our social mores and the advances in curbing infant mortality, or some such. It's pretty interesting stuff.

The Kindness of Strangers. I'll leave you with a human interest story. In Port Orange, Florida, an apparent operator malfunction at an amusement park ride left a mother entangled 40 feet up, clutching onto her toddler. All is well, as the crowd caught the little girl. Read it here.

Aha! Some of the Barackian Mystery Revealed

A post by Cigar Mike on Babalu may shed some light on the Obamamiam penchant for unsavory associations. He presents some highlights of Dreams from my Father:

On page 100, Obama says he went out of his way to choose Marxist professors as his friends. Obama wrote: "To avoid being mistaken for a sellout, I chose my friends carefully, the more politically active black students, the foreign students, the Chicanos, the Marxist professors and punk rock performance poets.

Now I really have to question his judgement. The "punk rock performance poets" alone would do it for me. I've heard my share of flying squirrel poems recited, but I don't think I've ever come across that combination. As to the book, I won't read it because I'm afraid of turning into a mindless automaton a la sci fi.

Book Notes for a Friday Evening

Today I had an advance copy of Toni Morrison's new book, A Mercy, in my hand. My first thought was "Great." I've read quite a bit of her work. Although I tend to find her uneven, she is unequaled in the excruciatingly painful, powerful moment: the ending of The Bluest Eye, the origin of the Beloved title. I stopped in my tracks.

I just recently came across a paean to Fidel Castro by Ms. Morrison. It occurred to me that I am supposed to feel sorrow for her people; all her fiction is constructed around that notion. Yet she shows no such consideration for mine. In fact, she extols the oppressor of my people. So thanks, but no thanks.

But then that isn't fair. In my heart, I believe that Ms. Morrison is misguided, because she is misinformed. She has fallen prey, as have many others, to the pretty picture of healthcare and education and equality painted by the dictatorship. And who is to disabuse her? Leftist professors, scholars who use only Cuban government sources, teachers trained by Bill Ayers, journalists who do not believe a singly word uttered by the Bush administration but swallow whole reams of propaganda put out by the junta? Don't take my word for it. Here's a clue, Ms. Morrison, how many AfroCuban faces are there in the ranks of the rulers? What color are some of the most famous political prisoners and dissidents? Those are less than pretty pictures.

On a more pleasurable front, The Eight by Katherine Neville has been reissued, doubtless as the result of the popularity of The Da Vinci Code and the publication of a sequel, Fire, available this week. For those who haven't read the original, published twenty years ago,the plot centers on Charlemagne's chess set, which is a bit more than it would seem. In Fire, the story is continued with the daughter of the original characters. It's on my list. The first one was quite good.

New entries on the horizon include a new Jonathan Kellerman, Nelson DeMille, Jeffrey Deaver, Clive Cussler, and Patricia Cornwell. Some of these franchises are getting a bit worn, but like old friends, I'll welcome them anyway.

While I'm in the Advice Business

I've been working on some common sense joe six pack reforms. Try these on for size:

1. If a company is too big to fail, it is too big to exist and should be broken up. Use national
security as a pretext if you have to. No more bailouts needed.

2. If an investment instrument can not be explained in language a sixth-grader can understand in one sentence, it should not be allowed. That way, maybe, our politicians can understand what they are supposed to oversee.

3. Here's a novel thought. The sum total of insurance on a bond should not surpass the face value of the bond. At present, there are incredible multiples of the bonds involved in the credit swaps. Only those who present the bonds should be able to collect.

4. You've heard of "insurable interest," right. In order to short a stock, you must own the stock. In order to insure a bond, you must own the bond.

5. Insurance, by another other name- call it credit swap or not- should be subject to insurance regulations.

Just another two cents offered facetiously, maybe.

What McCain Needs to Say: Part 1

He should be mad. He should be presidential. He should attack Obama. He shouldn't attack Obama. Admonitions to the Republican candidate seems to multiply like tribbles. Well, I'll add my two cents here.

Americans do not like attacks. They do, however, work. The trick is to get someone else to do the attacking. But since the media has abnegated its role this election cycle, and there is no "swift boat" equivalent here, McCain has to do it. Obama, realizing his opponent's quandary, has coyly said, "Gee, funny he didn't say anything to my face," as if McCain were afraid of him. Still.... Let me propose something revolutionary. It doesn't have to be an attack.

The choice here is not between Senator Obama and Senator McCain, but between two competing visions of America. It is not important if the Senator was bosom buddies with Bill Ayers, although that would show poor taste. What is important is that Obama was the first chairman of the board of the Chicago Annenberg Challenge, the dreamchild of Mr. Ayers. During his tenure, the CAC used 50 million dollars of education reform funds to raise the political consciousness of inner city kids. This, of course, is in perfect keeping with the education philosophy Mr. Ayers explained as he praised Hugo Chavez:

We share the belief that education is the motor-force of revolution. . . . I look forward to seeing how . . . all of you continue to overcome the failures of capitalist education as you seek to create something truly new and deeply humane."

Ayers told the great humanitarian Chavez: "Teaching invites transformations, it urges revolutions large and small. La educacion es revolucion." It is that form of socialist revolution that Ayers, and Obama, have worked to bring to America.
source

The real problem with the association is that Senator Obama helped carry out the agenda of someone who is not only an unrepentant terrorist, but who has spent the past decades as a professor of education undermining the system he was unable to blow up.

Then there is the pastor in whose church he sat for twenty years. Now the Senator claims he never heard the Pastor's "God damn America" diatribes. For the sake of argument, let's assume that's true. Is it believable that he never ever got wind of it? Given the nature of church gossip in general, I'm sorry, it's not likely.

The Rezko matter we can drop, because that just smacks of routine cronyism. But what of ACORN, which has emerged as a insidious Hydra with tentacles that reach into the Capitol? The Senator maintains that he only worked on a lawsuit on their behalf. Fair enough. But he also paid a branch of that organization which is perennially accused of voter fraud $800,000 to register voters. At the same time, this summer, the parent organization was given hundreds of thousands by a Democrat congress in a housing bill. In fact, they were planning on forking over 20 percent of any taxpayer monies retrieved from the bailout bill until outrage stopped them.

This same organization organized sit ins at banks, followed bankers home, and applied pressure to lower lending standards on, you guessed it, the Democrats in congress- the first step in the Fannie/Freddie debacle which ultimately resulted in the present economic implosion. This is the same organization whose workers are reputed to have turned in thousands of fraudulent registration forms, threatening to subvert a fair and free election. Has anyone anywhere heard of conflict of interest? Unseemly, at best.

So Senator Obama did not make an unfortunate choice of a friend or two. He has set a longtime pattern of professional associations with people who don't seem to like America, some who have actively worked for its demise. That is the problem.

For me the scariest is this ACORN business. Who are these people? When did they start pulling the strings on the three stooges on Capitol Hill? And how did they get away with doing it surreptiously? But that is beside the point here. If the Senator does not espouse this hatred of America, it apparently does not bother him. There is another possibility, almost as inpalatable, that he used this fifth column simply as a means to further his ambitions. Of course, there is also the possibility that Barack Obama was walking along the street, minding his own business when Mssrs. Ayers et al yanked him into their web. Yeah, right.

Reflections on the Second Debate

There was one winner last night, and it was not McCain nor Obama. I've heard all the pundits complaining about how boring it was, how badly Tom Brokaw moderated, etc. I beg to differ. As I sat there listening initially, then lured into watch, my chest swelled with pride. Whatever my own preferences might be, here were two intelligent men with competing visions for America essentially asking for the support of the American people. Each did a more than adequate job of explaining that vision. I happen to side with one. And Tom Brokaw did a marvelous job of ensuring that there were no questions from melting snowmen and the like, that there were no "gotcha" questions. Yes, it was boring, particularly if you've been reporting on the campaign for two years. And policy, itself, is boring to all but wonks. But the debate was an excellent primer for those who are going to be called upon to pull that lever in November.

On that day, there will be no white smoke issuing from the Capitol building. There will be no bells tolling. It will not be the advent of a Messiah. Those who think he came already don't need one, and those who await his coming will still be waiting. There will, however, be the promise of a new administration, freely chosen by the citizens of this great Republic. There is no more beautiful a thing in the civic sphere.

I may or may not agree with the people's choice on that day, but I can countenance that there are opposing points of view, that people are entitled to their own opinions, that they can disagree without being immoral or stupid. I, of course, think I'm right; but so do they. In either case, there is always the next election. Fancy that! Stop, think, and marvel. As an Eastern European I knew used to say, "Ameriiica, Great Country!"

On Guevara: A Tale of Two Executions

Humberto Fontova has an uncanny ability to shake the cobwebs of history and extract a single shining moment which encapsulates reams of dry polemic. This talent is especially valuable to the Cuban cause, because no one wants to hear it. The purveyors of information in the United States, no, most of the world, have made up their minds to accept the Venetian carnival mask of the Cuban regime. They do not want to be confused by the truth. Humberto, however, a master storyteller, holds a mirror up to the seamy underside of all that revolutionary mythology.

In response to the paeans to the iconic "Che" on the anniversary of his execution in Bolivia, where he was fomenting revolution in yet someone else's country, Humberto gives us a description of another execution, one dictated and carried out by the "Che" apparatus of death:

In 1961 a 20 year-old boy named Tony Chao Flores took his place at the execution stake, but he hobbled to it on crutches. He'd taken 17 bullets from their Czech machine guns when the Castroites captured him. On the way to the execution stake at the old Spanish fort turned to a prison and execution ground by Che Guevara, Tony was forced to hobble down some cobblestone stairs. Tony tumbled down the long row of steps and finally lay on the cobblestones at the bottom, writhing and grimacing. One of Tony's bullet-riddled legs had been amputated at the hospital, the other was gangrened and covered in pus. The Castroite guards cackled as they moved in to gag Tony with their tape.

Tony watched them approach while balling his good hand into a fist. Then as the first Red reached him — BASH!! right across his eyes.

"I'll never understand how Tony survived that beating," says eyewitness Hiram Gonzalez who watched from his window on deathrow, screaming in helpless rage at the Communist guards. The crippled Tony was almost killed in the kicking, punching, gun-bashing melee but finally his captors stood off, panting and rubbing their scrapes and bruises. They'd managed to tape the battered boys mouth, but Tony pushed the guards away before they bound his hands. Their commander nodded, motioning for them to back off.
Now Tony started crawling towards the splintered and blood-spattered execution stake about 50 yards away, pushing and dragging himself with his hands as his stump of a leg left a trail of blood on the grass. As he neared the stake he'd stop and start pounding himself in the chest. His executioners seemed perplexed. The crippled boy was trying to say something. But his message was muzzled by the gag the gallant friend of George McGovern made obligatory for his thousands of execution victims.

Tony's blazing eyes and grimace said enough. But no one could understand the boy's mumblings. Tony kept pushing himself, shutting his eyes tightly from the agony of the effort. His executioners shuffled nervously, raised their rifles, lowered them. They looked towards their commander who shrugged. Finally Tony reached up to his face and ripped off the tape that George McGovern's sparkling dinner companion required for his condemned.

The 20 year-old freedom-fighter's voice boomed out. "Shoot me RIGHT HERE!" roared Tony at his gaping executioners. His voice thundered and his head bobbed with the effort. "Right in the CHEST!" Tony yelled. "Like a MAN!" Tony stopped and ripped open his shirt, pounding his chest and grimacing as his gallant executioners gaped and shuffled. "Right HERE!" he pounded.

On his last day alive, Tony had received a letter in jail from his mother. "My dear son," she counseled. "How often I'd warned you not to get involved in these things. But I knew my pleas were vain. You always demanded your freedom, Tony, even as a little boy. So I knew you'd never stand for communism. Well, Castro and Che finally caught you. Son, I love you with all my heart. My life is now shattered and will never be the same, but the only thing left now, Tony . . . is to die like a man."

"FUEGO!!" Castro's lackey yelled the command and the bullets shattered Tony's crippled body, just as he'd reached the stake, lifted himself and stared resolutely at his murderers. But Castro's firing squads usually murder a hero who is standing. The legless Tony presented an awkward target. So some of the volley went wild and missed the youngster. Time for the coup de grace.

Normally it's one .45 slug that shatters the skull. Eyewitnesses say Tony required . . . POW!-POW! . . . POW! — three. Seems the executioner's hands were shaking pretty badly. But they finally managed. The man Time magazine's hails among the "heroes and icons of the Century" had another notch in his gun. Another enemy dispatched — bound and gagged as usual.

Castro and Che were in their mid-30s when they murdered Tony. According to the authoritative "Black Book of Communism" their firing squads riddled another 14,000 bound and gagged freedom-fighters. Many (perhaps most) of their murder victims were boys in their late-teens and early 20s. Some were even younger. Carlos Machado and his twin brother Ramon were 15 when they spat in the face of their communist executioners and died singing their national anthem as lustily as they cursed Che Guevara's Internationale. Their dad collapsed from same volley alongside them.

Compare Carlos and Tony's death to Guevara's capture: "Don't shoot!" whimpered the arch-assassin to his captors. "I'm Che! I'm worth more to you alive than dead!"

Then ask yourselves: who's face belongs on T-shirts worn by youth who fancy themselves, rebellious, freedom-loving and brave?

Then they wonder why we're intransigent? Read the whole article on Newsmax here.

An Evening at the Movies: An American Carol

Like any self-respecting semi-conservative, I went to vote today. No, not at my local polling place, but at my local theater. In other words, I went to see An American Carol, adding my little mite to the box office receipts. I suspect others had the same idea, as the limited audience, although not bad for a Monday night, seemed to consist of middle-aged couples. They had the look, if you know what I mean. I've never actually seen Naked Gun or any of Zucker's other films, so I don't really have a basis for comparison, particularly since I'm not a big fan of comedy.

So there I was, sitting in the theater, when the trailers came on. The first one was for W. "Oh, that one's a Bush bashing film," I whisper to my husband. The next one was for Maher's Religulous. Again,I whisper to my husband, this time saying, "Oh, that's an anti religion film." The third one was for Milk, who I had no idea was a Moses type figure.

At first, I wondered whether there were no thrillers, or love stories, or plain fluff being made in Hollywood anymore. Then I thought about it. There were other movies playing. Could someone have figured that that the type of people drawn to the Zucker opus would be attracted to politically-themed movies? Or was it more pointed? The jury's out.

An American Carol, itself, was actually fun. The best scene takes place on a campus when in a Godspell moment, the professors rip off their tweeds and stage a musical number in their hippie gear. There are inspired moments, but it's all pretty silly. I did have a lift in my step as I left the theater, however. And I struck a blow for the God Bless America crowd. Not bad for a Monday Night.

The Market: Another Learning Experience

I've been getting phone calls from investing buddies, asking my thoughts about whether they should sell their stocks. First off, I've got very little to lose. Thus for me, it is a bit of an academic exercise. Sometimes not having money to risk is a blessing.

"What would I do?" I ask myself. The first thing is a no brainer. If I were going to need my money soon and maybe even later, I'd sell out, the operative reasoning being bird in hand better than two in bush. But what about longer term? Well, some point out that the market over time goes up. I recall the average rate of return was 7% or 11% a year, depending on your source. Of course, the exact figure is irrelevant now. I reply, yes, but it took over twenty years to return to pre1929 crash levels. Still savvy investors like Warren Buffet are snapping up some goodies. Of course, they're getting perks you or I would never get.

Given time, even were we to go into a depression, the American economy will right itself. Al Queda pronouncements aside, the rumors of our death are greatly exaggerated. The money of investors, however, might never be recovered. I have owned stocks that have ceased to exist overnight, although the companies bearing the name continue to carry out business. Talk about unfair. I wanted those suckers to die. I don't know what I would do, but I do know I'd have to ask myself, "How much am I willing or able to lose?" Common sense.

Which leads me to my real point. The "irrational exuberance" of investment, entitlement, and irresponsibility has overwhelmed this nation for decades. However angry they may be at whomever, Americans are no different than the investment giants that have collapsed- over leveraged and under capitalized. I know the lunacy was contagious. I used to chide myself for not investing my pension in the market. As it is, we're a tad overextended. And I'm not a particularly materialistic type.

The moral of the story is that our parents and grandparents were right. There is something to be said for saving, living within your means, and handling money with respect. I can still hear my father exclaiming, "Le han perdido respeto al dinero" when he saw house prices. He was right. If there is anything good to come out of this, it is to force us to take a look at our priorities. And right about now, my mattress is looking pretty good. 'Nuff said.

Sunday Business Briefs

Given the recent near or impending economic meltdown...

The Origin of the Specie. Didn't get the chance to highlight this interesting take on the situation, circa the 27th. It contains a dollop of reassurance that something had to be done, as well as a few clues to the derivation of the crisis. Also, if you get the chance, be sure to watch FoxNews' documentary, "Saving the Economy." Worth watching if only for the professor's clear and cogent exploration of the genesis of the problem, not to mention an edifying explanation of the alphabet soup of debt instruments. Did you know that there have been six mortgage blow ups since the Civil War? I didn't.

The Wheel of Fortune. Also from the Wall Street Journal comes "The Intelligent Investor" with an upbeat and serendipitous view of the markets. Wall Street may be dead, but only as we know it. His advice: don't bail. I personally advocate no position, as to my mind at least the casinos comp you drinks.

The Nature of the Beast. On Townhall, Ken Connor introduces the moral dimension when he categorizes the current situation as an outgrowth of moral relativism. I'm not sure I have the same rosy view of possibilities going forward. To my mind, Wall Street types will always be greedy, money-grubbing characters, subject only to the fear of God. However, he is correct in the deleterious influence of the new morality on our society: the lack of absolutes has led to an arbitrary Chinese menu of prejudices and preferences, most of them self-serving.

The Tipping Point. This one by Frank Silverstein, I include as a public service because it is timely. Coming from a family of entrepreneurs, I have seen the phenomenon up close. The true measure of a businessman or businesswoman is knowing when to cut your losses.

Survival of the Glibbest. And how about finishing up with an inspirational list? From Fortune comes a top ten list of remarkable coups in the annals of salesmanship.

Literary Interlude: History Repeats Itself

What could be more natural than an excerpt from one of my favorite novellas: Heart of Darkness? Given the prose here, it has always boggled my imagination that Conrad, a Polish Seaman, learned English as an adult.

"Instead of going up, I turned and descended to the left. My idea was to let that chain-gang get out of sight before I climbed the hill. You know I am not particularly tender; I've had to strike and to fend off. I've had to resist and to attack sometimes--that's only one way of resisting-- without counting the exact cost, according to the demands of such sort of life as I had blundered into. I've seen the devil of violence, and the devil of greed, and the devil of hot desire; but, by all the stars! these were strong, lusty, red-eyed devils, that swayed and drove men--men, I tell you. But as I stood on this hillside, I foresaw that in the blinding sunshine of that land I would become acquainted with a flabby, pretending, weak-eyed devil of a rapacious and pitiless folly. How insidious he could be, too, I was only to find out several months later and a thousand miles farther. For a moment I stood appalled, as though by a warning. Finally I descended the hill, obliquely, towards the trees I had seen.

"I avoided a vast artificial hole somebody had been digging on the slope, the purpose of which I found it impossible to divine. It wasn't a quarry or a sandpit, anyhow. It was just a hole. It might have been connected with the philanthropic desire of giving the criminals something to do. I don't know. Then I nearly fell into a very narrow ravine, almost no more than a scar in the hillside. I discovered that a lot of imported drainage-pipes for the settlement had been tumbled in there. There wasn't one that was not broken. It was a wanton smash-up. At last I got under the trees. My purpose was to stroll into the shade for a moment; but no sooner within than it seemed to me I had stepped into a gloomy circle of some Inferno. The rapids were near, and an uninterrupted, uniform, headlong, rushing noise filled the mournful stillness of the grove, where not a breath stirred, not a leaf moved, with a mysterious sound--as though the tearing pace of the launched earth had suddenly become audible.

"Black shapes crouched, lay, sat between the trees, leaning against the trunks, clinging to the earth, half coming out, half effaced within the dim light, in all the attitudes of pain, abandonment, and despair. Another mine on the cliff went off, followed by a slight shudder of the soil under my feet. The work was going on. The work! And this was the place where some of the helpers had withdrawn to die.

"They were dying slowly--it was very clear. They were not enemies, they were not criminals, they were nothing earthly now,-- nothing but black shadows of disease and starvation, lying confusedly in the greenish gloom. Brought from all the recesses of the coast in all the legality of time contracts, lost in uncongenial surroundings, fed on unfamiliar food, they sickened, became inefficient, and were then allowed to crawl away and rest. These moribund shapes were free as air--and nearly as thin. I began to distinguish the gleam of eyes under the trees. Then, glancing down, I saw a face near my hand. The black bones reclined at full length with one shoulder against the tree, and slowly the eyelids rose and the sunken eyes looked up at me, enormous and vacant, a kind of blind, white flicker in the depths of the orbs, which died out slowly. The man seemed young--almost a boy--but you know with them it's hard to tell. I found nothing else to do but to offer him one of my good Swede's ship's biscuits I had in my pocket. The fingers closed slowly on it and held--there was no other movement and no other glance. He had tied a bit of white worsted round his neck--Why? Where did he get it? Was it a badge--an ornament--a charm--a propitiatory act? Was there any idea at all connected with it? It looked startling round his black neck, this bit of white thread from beyond the seas.

"Near the same tree two more bundles of acute angles sat with their legs drawn up. One, with his chin propped on his knees, stared at nothing, in an intolerable and appalling manner: his brother phantom rested its forehead, as if overcome with a great weariness; and all about others were scattered in every pose of contorted collapse, as in some picture of a massacre or a pestilence. While I stood horror-struck, one of these creatures rose to his hands and knees, and went off on all-fours towards the river to drink. He lapped out of his hand, then sat up in the sunlight, crossing his shins in front of him, and after a time let his woolly head fall on his breastbone.

Bejing Raises Leopold's Ghost

I interrupt the election to bring you an article that caught my jaundiced eye. I am familiar with the Chinese presence in Cuba, not one I consider particularly helpful to the cause of Cuban freedom. I had not, however, heard of their involvement in Sub-Saharan Africa. Reading it immediately brought to mind a very good book, King Leopold's Ghost by Adam Hochschild, which details Belgium's involvement in the Congo. It is eminently readable for a work of nonfiction.

It is a variation of the phenomenon Hitchens (Peter, not Christopher) describes that I fear for Cuba. As he researches the story, his life is in peril because the Africans in abject misery fear that if light is brought on the situation, the Chinese will leave, and they will be even worse off. And who's to blame them? Here is the crux:

These poor, hopeless, angry people exist by grubbing for scraps of cobalt and copper ore in the filth and dust of abandoned copper mines in Congo, sinking perilous 80ft shafts by hand, washing their finds in cholera-infected streams full of human filth, then pushing enormous two-hundredweight loads uphill on ancient bicycles to the nearby town of Likasi where middlemen buy them to sell on, mainly to Chinese businessmen hungry for these vital metals.

To see them, as they plod miserably past, is to be reminded of pictures of unemployed miners in Thirties Britain, stumbling home in the drizzle with sacks of coal scraps gleaned from spoil heaps.
Except that here the unsparing heat makes the labour five times as hard, and the conditions of work and life are worse by far than any known in England since the 18th Century.

Many perish as their primitive mines collapse on them, or are horribly injured without hope of medical treatment. Many are little more than children. On a good day they may earn $3, which just supports a meagre existence in diseased, malarial slums.

We had been earlier to this awful pit, which looked like a penal colony in an ancient slave empire.
Defeated, bowed figures toiled endlessly in dozens of hand-dug pits. Their faces, when visible, were blank and without hope.

We had been turned away by a fat, corrupt policeman who pretended our papers weren't in order, but who was really taking instructions from a dead-eyed, one-eared gangmaster who sat next to him.

By the time we returned with more official permits, the gangmasters had readied the ambush.
The diggers feared - and their evil, sinister bosses had worked hard on that fear - that if people like me publicised their filthy way of life, then the mine might be closed and the $3 a day might be taken away.

I can give you no better explanation in miniature of the wicked thing that I believe is now happening in Africa.

Of course, as we are often reassured, conditions in Cuba are much better than in darkest Africa. But then, they always have been. Anyway, read the article. The analysis is incisive; the judgement; mordant.

Updated Meanderings: A Moment in Time and Nature

In the midst of political and economic high drama, it is well to commune with natural world. For instance, walking along the portico of my favorite bookstore this morning, I caught a glimpse of a dried leaf out of the corner of my eye. My brain began to process the sight when it announced an anomaly. How did the leaf get in that position halfway up a faux masonry column? Automatically, I turned and took a closer look. It was a moth, but not just any moth. It was a mega moth, confident in its camouflage and wisely ignoring me. A little down the way, I caught sight of one of our local wasps tending its nest above of my head. In the grass alongside the building industrious fire ants were busily constructing a mound.

Marveling at all this fauna in the unlikely location of a strip mall, I was reminded of the first time I stood by the Gulf of Mexico. Used to the beaches of the Caribbean islands, the East Coast of Florida, I was surprised that the waters of our local beaches are not generally the azure as those of the aforementioned locales, although they can be at times depending on their mood. They generally have a green tint. Over the years, I've come to see the color as symbolic of the fecundity of the natural setting.

We share the sugary sands of our beaches with countless birds, whole phalanxes of avian life. There are sand pipers and plovers, an odd ibis or two. There are diving birds and birds like pelicans and very sneaky white herons who challenge you for your bait as you fish. Our waters teem with the tiniest of bait fish. Go out a few yards, and you can catch mangrove snappers, grouper, snook. Incredible. Of course, if you're going in the water, it pays to practice the stingray shuffle. Although they are beautiful when you see them gliding in a school as I did off an abandoned trestle in Boca Grande, hidden in the sand under your feet, they are awesome in another way.

Inland, the ubiquitous lizards are kind of like mice up North, except that you ignore them, until they show up dessicated in the washing machine, etc. Then there is the dread Palmetto bug. Despite having grown up in South Brooklyn, inured to committing mass cockroach homicide, I cannot bring myself to stomp one. It's the splat factor. The same one that came into play, when we found the mother of all spiders, at least three inches long, in the living room. The hubster, as befits the man of the house, defended his castle with a shoe he had carelessly tossed by the sofa, only to unleash a sci fi channel horror as hundreds of spider babies fled in all directions from their mother's crushed body. Memo, use an inverted cup and slip a piece of paper under it.

I've learned to love nature here in all of its manifestations. Here in my part of Florida, we live much closer to Mama Nature, not only her beaches, but her skies, her weather and her minions. I love the blazing cardinal and screeching jays, the owl somewhere in the backyard, and the gorgeous birdsong outside my window, even at 2 AM. I know not to approach piles of brush directly or inverted planters. Snakes, you know. I've even learned not to get too freaked when the black racer that lives here visits the lanai, probably gaining access the same way the jays I occasionally have to liberate do and in search of the same prey- the seemingly endless supply of dead beetles that have given their all straining toward the light, as we all do.

Update: And today in the same spot, I came across the remains of a beautiful little bird, a yellow warbler of some sort, I think. I looked up at the plate glass window and read its demise in the smear. The last time I came across one of these little fellows, he had become hopelessly enamored of his reflection in the shed window. Sad.

The Vice Presidential Debate: Parting Shot

I wonder if we will be subjected to a clip of Senator Biden's multiple errors of fact ad infinitum in the media tomorrow, including- Oh, my gosh!- one about the Constitution.

Media Malice

Charlie Gibson's behavior in his interview with Palin was reprehensible, but Katie Couric was an absolute bitch, and that's a word I don't use lightly in this blog. Just where does this woman get off? First she wants Palin to quote McCain's regulatory history. Of course, she couldn't have done the same to Biden had she dared, because his running mate doesn't exactly have one. Then she wants Palin to come up with specific Supreme Court cases with which she disagreed. What'd she expect? Oh, yeah, I disagreed with Plessy vs. Ferguson but agreed with Brown vs. the Board of Education. My "Journalism Degree" required that I study Supreme Court cases. And the attitude. It really deserved a George HW Bush/Dan Rather moment. What was the campaign thinking? Why didn't they start her on Hannity and Colmes?

I have not been particularly impressed with Palin's performance. But the elitist left may well overplay their hand. While they're running around sniggering at the rube, they risk alienating moderate people. Check out Frank Luntz's bit on O'Reilly where he tracked the response of independents to The View. The people expect fairness.

And now tomorrow, the debate is going to be moderated by a woman who has written a book about Obama as a breakthrough candidate to be released on inauguration day? I don't think I have ever been so disgusted at the media. The fix is in and has been since day one.

I have come to the conclusion that in the future, historians will present journalism in this era very much like they now teach of "yellow journalism" in the lead up to the Spanish American War. How's that for a little history?

Do You See What I See?

The Election: My Cassandra Moment

There is something terribly scary in the air. Obama's latest campaigning reeks of confidence and condescion toward his opponent, perhaps because he feels his ship coming in as this article indicates. Over at Newsweek, Fineman is taking a victory lap for the candidate before the election.

I was listening to Obama yesterday. The list of those who were to receive government help was seemingly endless. I kept asking myself, "but who is going to pay for it? The top two percent?" I am no fan of Wall Street or the elites, but I had to ask myself whether those who study, struggle and/or even steal their way to the top should have to support those who, many by dint of their own choices- not going to school, addictions, inability to defer gratification- linger at the bottom. Better yet, even those in the middle will now function as their economic foster children. There is some thing categorically wrong with this picture. But believe it or not, that's not what made my hair stand on edge.

It was this link, I received courtesy of George. Mr. Obama's associations with some pretty dark characters has long perturbed me. His prime early influences included a Marxist poet. His pastor for 20 years chants "God damn America." His associates include an indicted businessman who just happened to be involved in Mr. Obama's purchase of a humble million dollar home, and two unrepentant terrorists. (I would advise any Cuban American to take a look at the pictures around the internet at the approach to the guy's office.) Still, I said to myself, "maybe the guy is the only virgin in the cathouse," which while it strained credulity, kept me from full panic mode.

But then I found "Obama Camp" and went into melt down. Why, I had to ask myself. Well, the name Saul Alinsky has been bandied about in terms of Obama's time as a "community organizer." Well, as I understand it, one of Alinsky's principles was that you had to use stealth. Here's a bit from an article (read it) in The Spectator about his views:

Alinsky was a ‘transformational Marxist’ in the mould of Antonio Gramsci, who promoted the strategy of a ‘long march through the institutions’ by capturing the culture and turning it inside out as the most effective means of overturning western society. In similar vein, Alinsky condemned the New Left for alienating the general public by its demonstrations and outlandish appearance. The revolution had to be carried out through stealth and deception. Its proponents had to cultivate an image of centrism and pragmatism. A master of infiltration, Alinsky wooed Chicago mobsters and Wall Street financiers alike. And successive Democratic politicians fell under his spell.

What, I had to ask myself, was it about Camp Obama that caused me such panic? Try this excerpt:

During these training sessions, people like you will be taking their support for Barack to the next level by learning the organizing principles that this campaign and our movement for change are built on.

Camp Obama attendees will receive real world organizing experience that will have a direct impact on this election. Graduates of Camp Obama will go on to become Deputy Field Organizers who will lead this campaign to victory in crucial battleground states around the country.

"Support to the next level." Is this a cult? Is it like Scientologists where you only get their true identity doled out in soupçons as you prove your dedication to the religion? Most damning of all is "Deputy Field Organizers," which smacks of the paramilitary organization. Why? When does politicking cross the line into propaganda? Are we electing a politician? A Savior? A Very Big Unknown?

Those of us who have lived or have lived to see the terrible price paid for the cult of personality have no choice but to fear this candidacy, not because of race, but because of reach. Obama might just be your run of the mill Liberal, and he seems like such a nice guy, albeit a tad arrogant and patronizing. But I for one can't contemplate giving him the keys to the kingdom. I hope my fears are unfounded. I really do. But to me, the sound of approaching hoofs is more likely horses than zebras. Be afraid, people. Be terribly afraid. The best we can hope for is that the man is a shameless opportunist.

A Sunday Sense of Place

On the Brink. Thankfully, a deal has been brokered in Washington. It looks like it worked out. Supposedly the "affordable housing"/ACORN component is not included; there are provisions to protect the taxpayers "investment" and somehow limit the compensation of failed CEO's. The government will be insuring the banks somehow against the mortgages, Republican demand. Don't know the details, and we know who resides there. But all in all, it looks like cooler heads prevailed. Rumor has it, it was Pelosi. (See, I'm fair.)

Back the Way We Came. In this, Victor Davis Hanson reminds us that Frankenstein was the name of the inventor, not the creature, as he seeks to assign blame for this mess. Hint: "We have met the enemy, and he is us." Read it. It seems an opportune moment for some self-examination.

Up the Road A Spell. Now we turn to the upcoming Vice Presidential Debate. I'm not particularly optimistic about Palin's performance. It is fortunate it's against Biden, who I like by the way. But unlike the oh-so-syrupy condescending author of this column in the New York Times, I think it's because she's been ham stringed by not causing McCain grief. She's trying too hard to toe the company line. My advice to her: Screw it. Be who you are. Nobody expects you to be a foreign policy whiz. As to the writer, to paraphrase a country song, "Take your cheap sympathy and shove it." Cleanse your palate. Take a look at this

In the Rear. Here's an oldie but goodie about the common man. "Ten angry beer drinkers" are looking to stop the planned InBev purchase of Budweiser. They've filed suit in Federal Court alleging anti-trust. Not a hothouse chance in hell, but ya gotta love 'em. And don't forget to read the best explanation of the Castro stratagem- using the suffering of his people to advance his agenda- to be found in the Wall Street Journal here. Is it a strategy or a tactic?