Don't Say We Weren't Warned

Melek makes a reasoned and empassioned plea in Cubanology, asking the most basic of questions: "What has happened to our standards for Commander in Chief?" Not long ago, Dick Morris made the point that because of his associations, Obama were he not the elected official would not pass an FBI investigation to serve in the White House. But all of that is prelude.

On Tuesday, the American people may well elect a candidate because they desire a change in the policies of the past 8 years and instead get a president who has sworn to "fundamentally change" the United States. How many know that with a Democrat supermajority in congress, they are offerring a "carte blanche" to a transformation of government as we know it? When the inevitable rude awakening comes, they can not pretend they were not warned. Obama, although cloaked in the language of moderation and wearing the breastplate of media collusion, has provided enough clues to his vision of America.

Obama's America is not a nation where even the poor are considerably better off than they are almost anywhere else on Earth, where it is possible by dint of ability, hard work, and a little help to go from Chicago's South Side to its Hyde Park. It is a nation replete with misery and suffering. A nation crying out for economic redistribution, where wealth is going to "trickle up."

It gets worse. The Constitution is a "flawed" document. This I can partially understand, as this same qualified a slave as three fifths of a man. But the framers of this document were prescient enough to produce what has served as the backbone of a free and prosperous people for centuries. (How many Republics did it take France?) Messr. Obama complains that the founding fathers concentrated on negative liberties. Well, I'm not a Constitutional scholar, but as a Cuban American, it seems to me that there is something to be said for limiting the powers of government, any government, be it ever so well intentioned.

But even if we grant him the point, on what ground does he presume to attempt an end run around a document that most Americans consider sacrosanct? Is it only his own vision that he relies on? And what informs that vision? Here is where the these influences and associations become particularly troublesome. With the lack of any real record, it is difficult to say what exactly inhabits his dreams. Therein lies the crux of the problem.

So what can be gleaned from the subtext of all that he has said? He wants to "spread the wealth" and "fundamentally change" the country and the world. He would meet as equals with the most despised of totalitarian rulers, and Jesse Jackson assures us disregard the "Zionists." Regime officials in Cuba are already bruiting it about that the embargo will be lifted. Doubtless, in each instance, it will all seem terribly reasonable. Despite the rationale behind the prohibition of using the armed forces in the country, he proposes a civilian armed force within its borders. He pins energy policy on what are at the moment pipe dreams, technology that will take decades to mature and would destroy whole industries, seemingly without a qualm; seeks to raise taxes in the midst of a major economic downturn, characterizing as "selfish" those who would like to keep more than thirty percent of what they earn (factor in payroll, state, and local taxes); and looks down upon those who "cling" to their guns and their God; a man who punishes the few intrepid souls in the media who have the audacity to ask difficult questions or endorse the other candidate and mocks the dreams of a humble plumber for the same.

Make no mistake about it: this is a fight over the soul of America. I cannot help but think that a vote for Obama is a vote to change those values of independence, self-reliance, and self-determination that made this country and its people great. Now unlike my more liberal brethren, I believe that you are entitled to your own opinions. I further believe that two people may differ for valid reasons. I also acknowledge that I may be wrong. A President Obama may go down in the annals of history as another Lincoln. I hope I am. I do know, however, that in Greek tragedy, the Gods always punish hubris. I pray that we may not wind up as the chorus, witness and victim to the downfall of greatness.

Sunday Seasons Pass

Cross Currents. Should the seemingly unthinkable occur and the Grand Obamameister go down flaming in defeat, there will be many to ascribe it to the "Bradley Effect." However, as Wynton Hall reminds us here, there is such a thing as the "Spiral of Silence." Basically, people just want to be cool, making the secret Union ballot all the more important.

***

Escaping Gas. Read this in a variety of places, but this article lays it out clearly. Scientists are somewhat baffled by the seemingly spontaneous generation of methane. Upshot, while there is no denying that man's activities must have an impact, there are natural processes at work here. Speaking of which, snow in October?

H/T George

***

Melting Ice. Iceland, that is. In the midst of our own financial chaos and election year hubbub, the story of Iceland's near collapse has gone little noticed. I was curious, however. This entry from The Weekly Standard delves into how one government's response nearly brought down a country and became a self-perpetuating rationale for a government takeover. Food for thought.

***

Trembling Earth. From Fox News, we have the possible discovery of King Solomon's mines, the real ones. Forget Stewart Granger and Patrick Swayze. The mines, located in Jordan, were also a source of copper, not gold and diamonds. Another wonderful myth bites the dust.

***

Falling Temperatures. Six months after being launched, the Hard Rock Park, a rock-roll themed amusement venue is for sale. They ain't bringin' in the bucks. Management blames the economy, I like to think nobody but the boomers think them all that "groovy," and the boomers at their advanced age risk whiplash riding the "Life in the Fast Lane" roller coaster. Story here.

Thought for the Day: A Query

How many of those voting for Obama realize that they are voting to "fundamentally transform" America?

I'll let Hugh Hewitt comment:

When Obama declared last night that it was five days until he "fundamentally transformed" America, he let slip just as candid a moment as when he told Joe about his plans to "spread the wealth," and as when Joe Biden told us to "Mark my words."

Meanderings: Spare My Feelings, Please

I'm standing on line for coffee at me local bookstore, when I hear the velvet tones of the "One" issuing from a cell phone behind me. It wasn't difficult to figure out the story, as OB had been in town the previous day. Apparently, Mom and/or Deb had been at the rally with the trusty cell phone and were now in the midst of reviewing their cinematography. They were so thrilled that it did not occur to them that someone, me, standing within earshot might not feel the same way. I turned and took in the duo, both tall, blond and somewhat horsey. From Mom's striped tailored shirt to her pressed khakis to her modish loafers, her appearance spoke money. A**, I thought to my self, you're the one that's gonna pay not me. Enjoy it. I couldn't decide if it was real money, in which case she could afford to donate to her favorite politician in the form of increased taxes. I suspected it was wannabe. Wonder how she's gonna feel in a few years.

Henry over at Babalu has been quoted as saying that he has been interested in politics since he was five. Some have mocked him. I understand. In Cuban American households, politics is the mother's milk of discussion. One of my earliest memories is of sitting on my father's lap with the Daily News in front of us. I just focused on the pictures, as I did the evening my uncle was forcefully kidnapped from Anguilla Cay, causing an international incident.

The point is that as a voracious reader and watcher of news, I find myself at loose ends. To describe the loathsome transformation that has overtaken the media as bias is the mother of all understatements. There is no limit to the scurrilous, the mean, the petty when it comes to this election. I've been giving Newsweek and Time a wide berth for some time now. Just reading the table of contents is repulsive. I don't read the tabloids. And I made the mistake of picking up Harper's the other day, figuring I would read the nonpolitical stories. I never made it past the editor's letter in which the most civil description of John McCain was that he was "senile."

I have been reduced to watching Fox and only Fox News these days. Their evening line up has been incredible recently. On the web, I float between Babalu and Drudge with the occasional visit to Townhall or NRO. Although reassured that there are still those who have not become pod people, I am saddened. This is not what I want.

I don't read or watch to have my opinions reinforced; I read and watch to learn about people, events, places to which I have no access. I learn to form my own judgements. And I am old enough to remember a time when I was a loyal subscriber of Newsweek, when I could even read the New York Times, the paper with a record at this point. Although to be perfectly frank, I only read the Sunday edition. The layout has always sucked. They no longer write for me. By becoming shills for the Obama campaign, they have lost a reader. Maybe, they don't care. Maybe they only want Democrat readers. Have the business brains given a thought to the effect on diminishing circulation? As it is, some of them already look like circulars.

I have been so turned off by the flouting of journalistic ethics, the patronizing ethos that I am so stupid that I must be instructed by those who never broke a sweat in their lives on whom to vote for president. It is beyond repulsive. I don't know who will win this election. However, it is the press that has lost; and in losing the press, the country has lost. How the mass of citizenry is to make educated decisions is beyond me.

Today's Quote

Goes to the Governator:

"John McCain served longer in a POW camp than his opponent has in the United States Senate"

In the Cuba News: All Embargo All the Time

As we all know the yearly ritual of the UN vote against the embargo ended in the same result. This year, though, Perez Roque was particularly impassioned as he waxed eloquent, pointing out that the embargo is older than Obama. Also older than Obama is the oppression of the Cuban people by the Cuban Capos not mentioned by the same Perez Roque nor condemned by the UN. But that's nothing new.

Today's headlines, however, present an interesting proposition. Not content with the UN results, the "Latin American Leaders" at the IberoAmerican Summit in San Salvador on Friday also urged the repeal of the embargo because it hurts the Cuban people. Frankly, their concern for the wellbeing of the Cuban people has been less inspiring than conspiring.

On the very same page is a story about the Cuban regime owing Sherritt $393 million. Prospect of repayment looks shaky, although the debt will be "restructured." Sure is a lot of that restructuring going around. Sherritt is a familiar name here. As the story indicates in something of an understatement, Sherritt International is one of the "pioneers of foreign investment" in the country. Recently, they were in the headlines when they pulled out of a deal to develop Cuba's purportedly boundless offshore oil deposits.

Connect the dots. As at least one presidential candidate knows, it sure is easy to give away other people's money.

Thought for the Day: A Query

LAPD Commissioner Bratton has endorsed Obama. When I worked for the government, we were not allowed to publicly support any candidate, even to the extent of bumper stickers, although the liberals invariably flouted that one. I used to joke about our lack of rights. So how come he gets to endorse Obama? I am presuming that the people who pay his salary include Republicans among their number.

The Barackomercial

I confess I watched the beginning. The hubster- with the fascination of the train wreck- insisted. I on the other hand make it a policy not to place myself in the sway of the Chicago Svengali, preferring to read his pronouncements, lest I get infected. Anyhow, I made it through the beginning in the heartland deco study and the first two stories before an impending fit of apoplexy made me race to the computer and the solace of the Babalu radio show.

Now, I don't want to seem heartless, but I am always suspicious of these hard luck cases. To wit, I'm thinking to myself that the first family whose distress was touted was maybe in no position to buy a suburban home. "But they have four children," the hubster remonstrates. "Yeah, and...," I reply. He was speaking to someone whose bed was the sofa of a three room rental apartment until we could actually afford the house in the suburbs. "And what about the vehicle?" I ask. Something tells me that's a 30 something thousand Ford SUV or mini van. I mean no disrespect, but life is full of hard choices.

Then there were the poor old folks who had their home paid off and were struggling to pay her medical bills. Now with an elderly and infirm geriatric relative in the family, this is something I know much of. I know how prescription drug costs can kill an entire lifetime's worth of work. I also know other things. For instance, joining a Medicare HMO or PPO basically renders most medicine free or cheap and cushions the donut hole. By the way, please remember that the Democrats voted against the Medicare prescription bill because it wasn't Good Enough! In the meantime, senior citizens watched their resources dwindle or had to decide between food or medicine. Back to the infomercial, even if these nice folk live in an area where one is not available, they can contact the drug companies who have very good programs for the economically challenged patient. Remember those commercials? Well, they're true. And if all you have is your home, there is always Medicaid. I hope that other than make hay of their distress, the Obama camp put these nice people in touch with resources. There is much that needs reform, but programs to help these people exist.

By that point, I took off, so I didn't see the others. I had expected to see people starving because they didn't have the resources, people trapped in areas with failing schools. What I saw were people who had other choices to improve their lives, whether they knew about them or not.

Over Hill and Tale

The ending of this article which posits San Juan Hill as emblematic of US-Cuba relations could have been written by the regime. Oh, wait, it probably was, at least indirectly. I'll dispense with the usual explanations, except to say that the comparison is oversimiplified and not quite accurate. Still, there is truth there, particularly the notion that the perspective of American History is different than that of even preCastro Cuba.

Like many of my generation, the Cuban history I know is a mix of American textbooks, familial retelling, and research. That's why the earliest chapters of Bacardi and the Long Fight for Cuba: The Biography of a Cause by Tom Gjelten which focus on the family and its ties to Santiago proves valuable. Mr. Gjelten attempts to convey the Cuban view of the American intervention and its results within the context of telling the story of los Bacardi. Doubtless a delight for students of history and Bacardiphiles, I've been unable to finish it in the one week time frame decreed by my local public library, even with fines. Still from what I've managed to read in the interim, it strikes me as an important book.

Translation: I can't vouch for his treatment of the brothers Castro. I leave you with this excerpt from the author's website:

Over many tellings, the Cuba story has hardened around a few stale themes—Havana in its debauched heyday or Fidel Castro and his dour revolution—and it has lost much of its vitality and wholeness. This book originated in my search for a new narrative, with new Cuban characters and a plot that does justice to this island that produced the conga line and “Guantanamera” as well as Che Guevara’s five-year-plans. I have tried to give a nuanced view of the nation’s experience over the last century and a half. Cuban history was not preordained. There were choices made and paths not taken, and the men and women who were excluded and then exiled deserve to have their contributions recognized, if only to understand why so many became so angry. The Bacardi saga serves all these purposes.


The New York Times reviewed it here.

Tony Hillerman: RIP

For me, the best writers are not necessarily those who make profound statements about the nature of life. I've lived long enough to forgo any instruction on the topic. The most enjoyable writers are those who create a microcosm, their own small world in addition to vibrant characters.


Tony Hillerman was just such an author. It was Hillerman who introduced me to the Four Corners region in the Southwest. What little I know of Navajo customs, crafts, and politics, I learned from his mysteries. Over the years, I have followed the career of his Joe Leaphorn through his wife's illness and death, through retirement, and any number of solved cases; as I have followed Jim Chee, a young man wrestling with his identity, torn between his heritage and the modern world.

Invariably Hillerman's books were well-plotted; his characters rich; and his setting, alive. If you like mysteries and haven't read one, treat yourself one Friday afternoon. As for me, I have lost some friends. Rest in Peace.

Thought for the Day

Brent Crude hit $59.00 a barrel today. Does that mean global oil consumption has fallen to less than half? So much for speculators not being a major driver of meteoric oil prices.

Today's Absolutely Must Read

If you have not listened to the audio of the quote below, you really must do it. Just click on the headline at Drudge. It's not just one quote. I have repeatedly maintained that there is a difference between reform and reformation, and I don't think Americans are signing on for juryrigging the Constitution. In this column, Bill Whittle zeroes in on what is so terribly wrong in this election in three "circles of shame," each with at least one quotable quote:

On Obama's philosophy as explained in the audio-
We have, in our storied history, elected Democrats and Republicans, liberals and conservatives and moderates. We have fought, and will continue to fight, pitched battles about how best to govern this nation. But we have never, ever in our 232-year history, elected a president who so completely and openly opposed the idea of limited government, the absolute cornerstone of makes the United States of America unique and exceptional.

On the discovery of the audio by a citizen-
I do not blame Barack Obama for believing in wealth distribution. That’s his right as an American. I do blame him for lying about what he believes. But his entire life has been applying for the next job at the expense of the current one. He’s at the end of the line now.

I do, however, blame the press for allowing an individual citizen to do the work that they employ standing armies of so-called professionals for. I know they are capable of this kind of investigative journalism: It only took them a day or two to damage Sarah Palin with wild accusations about her baby’s paternity and less time than that to destroy a man who happened to be playing ball when the Messiah decided to roll up looking for a few more votes on the way to the inevitable coronation.

On the repercussions of the audio-
This discovery will hurt Obama much more than Joe the Plumber.

What will be left of my friend, and my friend’s family, I wonder, when the press is finished with them?

Quote of the Day: This is What They are about to Elect

If you look at the victories and failures of the civil rights movement and its litigation strategy in the court. I think where it succeeded was to invest formal rights in previously dispossessed people, so that now I would have the right to vote. I would now be able to sit at the lunch counter and order as long as I could pay for it I’d be o.k. But, the Supreme Court never ventured into the issues of redistribution of wealth, and of more basic issues such as political and economic justice in society. To that extent, as radical as I think people try to characterize the Warren Court, it wasn’t that radical. It didn’t break free from the essential constraints that were placed by the founding fathers in the Constitution, at least as its been interpreted and Warren Court interpreted in the same way, that generally the Constitution is a charter of negative liberties. Says what the states can’t do to you. Says what the Federal government can’t do to you, but doesn’t say what the Federal government or State government must do on your behalf, and that hasn’t shifted and one of the, I think, tragedies of the civil rights movement was, um, because the civil rights movement became so court focused I think there was a tendancy to lose track of the political and community organizing and activities on the ground that are able to put together the actual coalition of powers through which you bring about redistributive change. In some ways we still suffer from that.

Barack Obama in a 2001 radio call-in interview. Boldface mine.
Borrowed from post on MichelleMalkin.com

Sunday Through the Ages

Over the Hill. On Foxnews, we learn that middle-aged white women are driving up the suicide rate. Cause is as yet unknown. I have an idea that it may have to do with our appearance-driven, youth-venerating society compounding hormonal changes. But, heck, what do I know? Article here.

At the Top. On a brighter note, Malcolm Gladwell in The New Yorker builds an examination of late bloomers around the story of writer Ben Fountain. A "late bloomer," his recognition came at age 48 after 18 years of trying. With repeated references to Cezanne as well as Fountain, Gladwell makes the point that late bloomers rely heavily for funds and support on those around them. So that's it. He says a lot more, so read it if you're in a New Yorker mood.

Out of the Past. A biologist at the Grand Canyon has lost his life to plague, apparently the same one that wiped out a goodly portion of the European population in the Middle Ages. The means of transmission is thought to be from rodent to mountain lion to biologist, who seems to have contracted the disease while autopsying the cat. Just in case you thought the plague was eradicated. Read all about it here.

By the Numbers. In honor of our financial meltdown, I offer, courtesy of Fox Business News, what not do with the "10 Dumbest Ways to Go into Debt." And finally, to finish off on a high note, I present the RealClearSports' "10 Most Infamous World Series Moments." Go, Rays, go! (They are still playing, aren't they?)

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.