A Shyster's Christmas Card

Last spring, in a rash moment of adulthood, I decided to put my affairs in order. Will, living will, power of attorney, the whole nine yards. I realize this can be done by downloading forms off the internet for fifty bucks, but I had a couple of unorthodox things to take care of, and wanted them handled just right, so I violated one of my most cherished principles and hired a lawyer.

We met for forty-five minutes, and he offered me the whole package for $1600. (That’s right, I’m sixteen hundred dollars stupid.) As many consultation as I needed, unlimited hours until we get it right, exactly what you want, blah blah blah.

We was right about the unlimited hours; I can’t begin to tell how much time I spent correcting typos, errors of fact, and incorrect interpretations of my instructions. I finally took his boilerplate, a few lessons I’d picked up from his unsuccessful attempts, and finished it myself. Didn’t even go back to his office for he signings; found a notary and witness on my own. Sent the last check and blotted the whole unfortunate episode from my memory.

That was in May; in December, he sent me a Christmas card, soliciting for more business.

I wrote a reply, which I am willing to share with you below:


Please take me off your Christmas list,
I can’t believe you thought
That I would want to hear from you
So soon since last we talked.

You charged me sixteen hundred bucks
So I could spend my time
Correcting careless errors that
Should not have cost a dime.

I will not be referring you
To anyone I know,
I like to keep friends, so I must
Consideration show.

Your reputation’s safe with me,
Your legal skills are slick,
You meet the highest standards of
A greedy, slimy prick.

The Danny

I love rooting against the Washington Redskins. Not the Redskins themselves so much as their owner, Chainsaw Dan Snyder. (A nod to Gregg Easterbrook of ESPN.com’s Tuesday Morning Quarterback for the “Chainsaw Dan” sobriquet.) It was hard to root against the Redskins when that meant rooting against Joe Gibbs, but now that Gibbs has retired again, let the games begin.

Rarely has anyone made cheering his demise as easy as Chainsaw Dan. He stepped up right away with the current job search. Gibbs hired Assistant Head Coach – Defense Gregg Williams four years, with a strongly rumored understanding that Williams would be the Head Coach in Waiting. (The Redskins invented bloated coaching titles. On any other team, Williams would be the Defensive Coordinator. Granted, he can get pretty defensive when anyone questions his methods, but that’s a different story. Don Breaux, the Offensive Coordinator, is third on the offensive coaching depth chart, behind the Associate Head Coach – Offense, and the Assistant Head Coach – Offense. The Redskins were also the first to hire a Quality Control Coach. The team has made the playoffs three times in the past eleven years. That guy should definitely be renting.)

I digress. Assistant Head Coach – Defense Head Coach in Waiting Williams has been interviewed by Chainsaw Dan four times in the three weeks since Gibbs re-retired. This is after watching him work every day for four years. If ever anyone is looking for an excuse not to hire someone, this is how you do it. Sooner or later Williams will get pissed off, pass gas, or pick his nose in an interview, and Snyder will have his reason. Unless, of course, Chainsaw Dan only wants to keep Williams hanging long enough for all other coaching vacancies to be filled, thus preventing him from coming back to haunt the Redskins for at least a year.

In related news, the current coaching staff was finally called by Gibbs sixteen days after his retirement with updates on their status. This is the first any of them has heard from anyone in the Redskins’ hierarchy about their jobs. Like Williams, their contracts run through this season, so they won’t be sleeping in cardboard boxes under the Sousa Bridge any time soon, but still, this is classless.

So far we’ve established why you might root against Snyder: he’s an asshole. To his credit, he goes out of his way to make it easy for you, so he’s also a douche bag.

Earlier this week, the Washington Post reported that former New York Giants head coach and Robin Williams look-alike Jim Fassel was the front runner for the Redskins’ head coaching job. This prompted a storm of protests from fans to the Post web site, and sports radio stations. One day later, Fassel was no longer acknowledged by the Redskins as their front runner. The reason given: poor fan reaction.

This is why the Redskins win every off-season and suck the rest of the year. It’s all about the media, and the spin. Snyder made his billions in marketing; he talks people into buying stuff they don’t need for a living. He sells out that white elephant of a ballpark by whipping the fans into frenzy of high expectations every year with flashy free agent signings and coaching changes, then weathers the storm all year when they alternately suck, or play barely well enough to make the playoffs. (This year’s combination of things breaking exactly as they had to would, in a different context, be more than enough for Shrub to justify invading China.)

The best thing about sports is that the true bullshit stops when the teams take the field, rink, floor. Sooner or later, someone has to hitch up his jock and kick ass, or go home. Snyder doesn’t get this. He still thinks he’s so smart he can market other teams into laying down for him like they’re rednecks who can barely make the rent on the trailer who think they need a hemi to drive to the bank to cash their welfare check. It hasn’t worked, and it won’t. Which leaves me with endless vistas of enjoyment spread before me, watching the petulant look Chainsaw Dan gets in the owner’s box every time the Redskins disappoint him yet again.

I Got Your Tough Right Here

Ray Lewis thinks he’s tough. Administers punishment, has friends who carry knives and carve people up at Super Bowls. Big bad Ray-Ray, the middle linebacker from hell.

Pacman Jones a bad motherfucker, right? Shooting up strip clubs, earning a year’s suspension for repeated – actually continuous – bad behavior. There are entire criminal law firms who don’t spend as much time in court as the Cincinnati Bengals.

Know what they are? Pussies.

In Pittsburgh, the city where “tough” got the H, wide receiver Cedric Wilson’s girlfriend held off police for twelve hours on Sunday before being arrested. Not his homie, or his boyz, or who he run with; his girlfriend! And Wilson’s a wide receiver, which is only a notch above punter on the football tough guy chart. (Hines Ward excepted, but, then again, he plays in The Burgh, too.) Wilson’s only the 42^nd toughest guy on the Steelers, and his squeeze is O.G.

Oh yeah. I’m ready for next year.

Hearty Congratulations

I spoke with my cousin Ted yesterday. This is not normally blog-worthy news. I speak with lots of people every day. Okay, maybe not lots, but handfuls. And sometimes they reply with more than just hand gestures and restraining orders. But now I’m off the subject.

Speaking with my cousin might not seem like news, unless you take into consideration that until a few days ago there was a legitimate fear I might not get to do it again.

Ted had ten hours of open heart surgery to replace a worn-out heart valve about ten days ago. Valve jobs are no big deal to him; he’s had at least three, I think. The issue here was that enough scar tissue had been formed to create a concern there might not be any place to hang the new one.

Lucky for all, the doctor was able to clean things up, and found the aorta to be in good shape, so another valve could be supported when the time comes, maybe on twenty years. He also inserted a small piece of Velcro to make future procedures easier.

Ted’s home now. Complete rest for a week, off work six to eight weeks after that. He sounded good – and well – on the phone yesterday, the Ted we all knew, and the collective sigh that left my parents, Craze, and I almost blew out the windows.

So that’s all the news about that. No big deal to most of you, but sixty-three years of my cousin Ted is nowhere near enough.

The American Dream

The local sports radio station is playing a series of ads promoting the newest get rich quick scheme: foreclosed real estate. There’s a testimonial from a guy who paid $25,000 for a house and sold it a month later for a $65,000 profit. It’s a reasonable assumption he was looking for three more 25 grand specials on his way home from the settlement.

This is great for those who have the cash on hand to pay for these discount houses. Period. No one else. It does not help the economy. The banks took a bath, and the construction industry isn’t going to build something new when you can pick up something almost new – that the original owner worked the bugs out of – for ten cents on the dollar.

It also doesn’t help those who are trying to get into the housing market for the first time, unless they were fortunate enough to have their financing lined up well in advance. More likely they’ll pay the speculator three to five times what he paid for it. His value add? Call me if you think of something.

What we have here is another wedge driving incomes apart. Those with money will make more; those without have probably already lost it through the mortgage payments they were able to make before the ARM went up, or the balloon payment kicked in. No sympathy here for them; they accepted terms they couldn’t afford. That’s life. Others shouldn’t get rich from their misfortune.

This is a golden opportunity for Congress to take action that won’t cost a cent, and will actually do some good. Since housing prices are going to fall anyway, let’s stabilize them and get some new homeowners set up. Impose a confiscatory tax rate on any property bought at a distress sale that is flipped in less than five years. If you bought it to live in, you’re cool. If you bought it solely to get someone else to pay you more for it, then who is it really hurting if you don’t make all that much off of it?

They won’t, though. Know why? Because they have money, and most people figure they will too, someday. They don’t want to lose their opportunity to screw someone else when it’s their turn. It’s what’s made America what it is today.

Such a Deal I Have for You

The Home Office received a piece of junk – er, unsolicited mail yesterday. I’m sharing it to show not only politicians are out of touch with reality in the metropolitan Washington, DC area.

The front of the tri-fold mailer invites me to “Come Enjoy the Best of Both Virginia’s!” I immediately wondered, “Who’s Virginia?” and, “Both of her whats?” This looked promising until I saw the mail was from Ryan Homes. The housing market is bad, but offering up both of Virginia’s whatevers to close a deal seemed extreme, especially when I thought of what most home sales representatives look like. (Not what they think, or act as if they look like. “Both Virginia’s” could refer to chins, for all I know.)

The inside screams WHY ARE YOU RENTING??? The reader is informed that single family homes start at just $1,396 per month; town homes from just $1,118 per month. Each claim is followed by asterisks galore, referring you to the disclaimers at the bottom of the page, presuming the purchase of a stripped-down home I hope includes exterior walls and a roof. One hundred percent financing is also assumed; apparently developers haven’t got the word about the sub-prime lending crisis.

Closer inspection reveals these attractive features: your brand new home will be within seven miles of the commuter train, from where it is “just a 1 ½ hour train ride to DC!!!” (“Just” is a key word in such brochures, as are exclamation points and asterisks directing you to small print. Example: Payments as low as 3 cents a minute!!!*

* - based on an average month of 43,200 minutes.)

Here’s the deal: you drive ten to fifteen minutes to get to the station, where you’ll wait for a train before spending ninety minutes of your life (Just $2.70 in mortgage payments!!!) to ride to Union Station, where you can walk, take Metro, or hail a cab to work. At the end of the day, the same in reverse. This is at least four hours a day just getting to and from work. That leaves the rest of your day to get dressed, eat dinner, and watch one episode of “Curb Your Enthusiasm,” assuming you have any left to curb.

The area codes give them away: 304. West Virginia. The best of both Virginias they’re talking about means you can live in Appalachia, only passing through the execution capital of the world on your way to and from work. That’s what’s worth $1,396 a month. Just $7.20 in mortgage payments for each day’s commute. And people will jump on them.

You can’t make this shit up.

Oh, yeah. Happy New Year.

What is a Liberal?

“Liberal” has become a dirty word in American politics, for two primary reasons. Liberalism has allowed its leftmost wing to set its public agenda, while allowing conservatives to frame the discussion. In this quote from a 2002 interview with Reese Fuller, author James Lee Burke lays out the most accurate, and eloquent, definition of what a liberal is. If only more liberals would read it. (Read the entire interview; it’s well worth the time.)

Do you consider yourself a liberal?

I consider myself pretty traditional, really. People of my generation, who were born in the Depression, tend to be traditionalists. If I had to call myself a name I'd say I was a Jeffersonian liberal. But, see, something has become askew in American thinking. Liberals now are tarred in every way by people who want to associate in the popular mind liberalism with some kind of fanatical movement.

Traditional liberalism has involved certain kinds of movements that gave us Social Security, minimum wage, public healthcare, environmental and consumer protection, the civil rights acts of the 1960s, the fair hiring act, the equal employment act, public education. What is it that is so objectionable about Medicare for God's sake?

I remember on many occasions when liberals, or people who were supposed to be liberals, were called liberals and they shrink. It's beyond me, absolutely beyond me. I mean, do people think that the right wing gave us Social Security, collective bargaining, clean water? I don't know. I think it's one of those deals where you say it enough times, people began to believe it.

Now, there are people, to my mind, who are libertine, who have taken on the guise of being liberals and they are not liberals. They are involved in something else. I'm not knocking them, but this stuff about correctness in language, this hyper-sensitivity about ethnicity and the notion that people are not accountable for what they do, this is not liberalism.

Liberalism is founded on the Jeffersonian notion that ultimately the individual deserves the protection of his government, that the government has to give power to and protect those who have no voice, who are disenfranchised. The government is there to make the society work in an equitable and just way. That's the spirit of and the tradition of the liberal movement in this country. This other stuff has nothing to do with it.

Empowering an adult bookstore to open up shop in a neighborhood filled with elderly people who lack political power, whose finances are immediately compromised and their property values plummet, that is not, in my mind, enforcement of the First Amendment. It has nothing to do with the First Amendment. This is a misinterpretation of the constitutional views of people like Adams, Jefferson, Franklin and all these other early guys. They weren't there to protect pornographers who create victims out of defenseless people.

The libertine view of life has much more to do with fashion than it does politics. There's nothing liberal about Hollywood. That's just nonsense. The Disney Company violated minimum wage laws in Haiti. I mean, you've got to really work to violate sweatshop laws.


Thanks to Reese Fuller for graciously allowing this partial reprint.

Fertility Meds for the Goose

Never has the concept of selling sizzle over steak been as obvious as in the ludicrous display of greed and pettifoggery known as the NFL Network.

The NFL has become the sports behemoth of America through careful management of what is, essentially, saturation coverage of its games over free, or basic cable (ESPN), television. Every NFL game is televised. Every fan sees all of the local team’s away games, and any home games that are sold out 72 hours before kickoff. ESPN games must be made available to the local markets of the participating teams via free, over-the-air television. The Golden Goose cranked out eggs at an unprecedented rate for an industry that doesn’t really make anything.

The NFL, not content with billions of dollars a year from the television networks, decided last year to cut out the middle man, and started showing games on their house organ, the NFL Network. That was okay, as far as it went; NFL Network was on most basic cable systems.

Then the league held a gun to the goose’s head, and started demanding cable providers pay more for NFL Network than for such staples of basic cable as CNN. Cable companies responded by making the NFL Network either a subscription service (like HBO or Showtime), or by including it in a “tier” of sports channels, available for an additional fee. The uproar was great across the land, peaking when Dallas and Green Bay played a critical game in November; neither city had the NFL Network available in its local cable system. The league relented, cried crocodile tears, and started selling the rights to local stations. Channel 20 here in Washington paid upwards of $700,000 to air the Redskins-Chicago Bears game a few weeks ago.

Now the New England Patriots, led by Bill “Dr. Strangelove” Belichick, are gunning to be the only team in history to win all sixteen regular season games. (“History,” in this case, means thirty years, as the sixteen-game season has only been in place since 1978. Hardly a time span of Biblical proportions, even if you go with that “the world is six thousand years old” thing they’d have you believe.) Stations in the New York and Boston areas paid through the nose for the rights; the rest of the country was still held hostage by the cable/NFL standoff.

This is America. Health care and a proper education are negotiable, but watching a football game on free television is a God-given right. Senators became involved; Patrick Leahy’s (D-VT) staff continued negotiations even on Christmas day. (Senator Leahy, Chairman of the Judiciary Committee, has apparently resolved all the civil liberties, unwarranted searches and wiretaps, and Justice Department scandals to his satisfaction.)

On Wednesday, the NFL announced both CBS and NBC would simulcast NFL Network’s coverage. This gives viewers across the country at least two channels to pick from; those in the metropolitan New York and Boston areas get four! (NBC, CBS, whatever local channel bought the rights originally, and NFL Network, for those who get it.) And it’s the same coverage! Literally. You’ll have the chance to flip from channel to channel and see the same thing, described by the same announcers. Bryant Gumbel available on four New York outlets at once! (He’ll probably wank his elbow out of its socket reading the newspaper articles.)

Here’s the best part: the game doesn’t mean dick. Both teams have clinched their playoff spots. The Pats’ opponent, the New York Giants, get the fifth seed whether they win or lose. Their goal is for no one to get hurt. The Pats can be expected to play pedal-to-the-metal; they’ve done it all year in meaningless situations. (Such as being up 40+ points.) Giants’ coach Tom “Rat Face” Coughlin has said he’ll play his starters; how much is questionable, with a playoff game to follow in a week.

I’m skipping this one. I missed the Steelers against St. Louis last week, and survived with no obvious psychic scars. (I live out of market for Steelers games and won’t pay for NFL Network.) I hope the Pats win, complete their 16-0 season, then lose in the playoffs, making it meaningless. Maybe a key player’s injury in this meaningless game could render him unavailable. Nothing career-threatening; a sprain or a pulled hammy will do.

Don’t get me wrong: I like football, and watch a fair amount of it. The NFL would do well to remember their success grew from providing free access to their fans, and not jerking them around any more than necessary. Golden geese are not immortal.

Christmas Eve

Christmas Eve, and Craze and I are driving to Germantown, Maryland to visit her niece’s family. Niece, hubby, and adorable daughter moved from Germantown to Houston last spring so hubby could get an advanced degree from Baylor University. (Note to grammarians: “Advanced Degree” and “Houston” may properly appear in the same sentence when accompanied by “Baylor University.”) They’re staying at hubby’s parents’ home, where we are to visit them.

Craze and I drive along the Beltway, north on 270, exit at Father Hurley Boulevard, stop for ice, and make the turn onto Wynnfield. About this time, it occurs to me to ask the immortal question: “I know we’re close, but where’s the turn for [names redacted]’s house? I only know how to get to [niece’s name redacted]’s house.”

Oh.

Fortunately, it was close, and we’d already passed it when I asked; since I’d also been there before, I’m not blameless. (I try to accept as much blame as possible for everything, so as not to give Craze a complex.) Thank God for cell phones.

As a special bonus, I learned what might be the single greatest thing for a father with a teenaged daughter to know. When explaining the curfew to a boyfriend, end your politely worded and helpful comment with, “I’m not afraid to go back to prison.” Works every time.

It's Better to Remain Silent and be Thought a Fool

I had budgeted time to write a thoughtful piece on Shrub’s mortgage rate freeze. Then I watched my beloved Pittsburgh Steelers get torched by the still undefeated New England Patriots, 34–13 this afternoon, after Steelers safety Anthony Smith guaranteed a victory earlier this week.

It is my sincere hope that Mr. Smith has learned his lesson. If not, I’ll lay it out for him.

Anthony, you are not the best player on the team. You are not even the best player at your position, and wouldn’t be playing if Ryan Clark wasn’t out for the season. Shut the fuck up.

Anthony, if you’re going to shoot your mouth off, be ready for them to come at you. Biting on run fakes to let Randy Moss get fifteen yards behind you and getting suckered on a trick play are not options for a free safety who runs his mouth the way you did. Shut the fuck up.

Let’s hope young Anthony has learned not to let his whale mouth overwhelm his hummingbird ass again. At least not until we have a chance to trade him.

A Huckabee By Any Other Name

Looks like Mitt Romney’s not as open-minded about religious choice he’d like you to think. "Freedom requires religion, just as religion requires freedom," to use a direct quote, is not the blanket call for tolerance the Mittster would like to claim it is. Recent polls show 18% of Americans define themselves as either agnostic or atheist. The number is probably higher if you include those who may believe in some greater power, but not in what passes for organized religion. Deists, for example. (For those might say Deists don’t qualify, let me cite one who is clearly germane to the discussion of religion versus politics in America: Thomas Jefferson.)

Freedom is supposed to be for everyone, regardless or what they believe. Or don’t. There’s no litmus test for it. It’s supposed to be an inalienable right, whether you believe in God, don’t believe in God, believe God “set the clock and got out of the way” (to quote Chris Matthews), believe in reincarnation, or pagan rituals.

Freedom in the United States is not handed down from God; it’s guaranteed in the increasingly fragile parchment of the Constitution. The framers may have thought they were divinely inspired – and they may well have been – but God does not actively dedicate Himself to the rights and liberty of every American. Want proof? The greatest assault on our allegedly guaranteed liberties in the 220 years since they were handed down from Philadelphia has taken place under the watch of, and with the encouragement of, the only President in history who considers himself to be God’s messenger on earth.

You can think your liberty comes from God, but you’d better be prepared to defend it yourself. Mitt Romney isn’t going to.

Holier Than Thou

Mitt Romney officially declared himself a Christian today, thus observing the unwritten third qualification to be president. (The Constitution puts forth the other two: at least thirty-five years old, and born in the USA. Sorry, Arnold.)

Romney's guilelessness can be debated elsewhere. It may be unseemly to question someone’s sincerity on a matter of faith, but Romney’s earned it, since he’s as sincere as a whore’s orgasm the rest of the time. As political theater, the speech was unmatched since Lloyd Bentsen told Dan Quayle, “I knew Jack Kennedy, and you’re no Jack Kennedy.” Of course, Bentsen went on to lose the 1988 election behind Michael “Helmet Head” Dukakis, so that might not be the image Romney hoped to convey.

On the surface, Romney’s move is brilliant politics. No one doubts his real audience today was Mike Huckabee, who’s hot right now, and misses no opportunity to coyly diss Romney as a Morman. Romney’s speech leaves Huckabee with a Hobson’s choice: welcome Mitt into the Christian tent, or risk becoming the candidate of exclusion. Tom Tancredo would seem to have that gig pretty well wrapped up, but there’s always room outside today’s Republican tent.

The real loser in this Romney vs. Huckabee jihad is Rudy Giuliani. He’s dropped off the media radar faster than anyone since Philip Michael Thomas when Miami Vice was cancelled. This might not be a wholly bad thing for Rudy, as most of his recent coverage had been of the Judith Regan-Bernie Kerik “can my associations be any sleazier” variety.

I almost feel bad for the Republicans. Romney believes in whatever he thinks will get him elected at the time you ask what he believes. (Sort of the Republican Hillary Clinton, with better hair.) Giuliani has more skeletons in his closet than Alfred Hitchcock. Huckabee may be the nicest guy in the world, but he runs the risk of being the Republicans’ potentially most divisive candidate in the general election. John McCain seems to have just enough support to do what he did in 2000; win a surprise primary, excite people for a few weeks, then pull a Howard Dean. Paul, Tancredo, and Hunter? Come on, that sounds more like a firm of ambulance chasers advertising on TV at 3:00 AM than three potential presidents.

The big implosion could be on the way. “Faith” has become such a litmus test for Republican politicians that the radical right could provoke a discussion it can’t win by waking up the sixty per cent of the population who don’t have strong feelings about it one way or the other. The possibility exists that the Republicans, having opened the Pandora’s box of religion, could nominate a candidate to walk into the biggest defeat since Reagan clipped Mondale in 1984. Not saying it will happen; if it does, you heard it here first.

There They Go Again

Conservatives have done it again. This time columnist Charles Krauthammer is the point man.

In today’s Washington Post column, The Hammer is moist with praise over Shrub’s steadfast refusal to allow stem-cell research from human embryos, in light of the recent discovery of a better way to find the medically valuable cells. Krauthammer writes: “The verdict is clear: Rarely has a president -- so vilified for a moral stance -- been so thoroughly vindicated”

Whether or not Bush took a moral stance or threw a bone to the Christian right isn’t at issue here. As James Thomson said when he first isolated human stem cells, "If human embryonic stem cell research does not make you at least a little bit uncomfortable, you have not thought about it enough." No one truly knows when to call a embryo or fetus a human; we all have opinions. With that in mind, anyone with a facile attitude toward anything to do with the topic has not thought about it enough.

Neither have Bush, Krauthammer, and their cohort. Their moral ground is only high enough to forbid the use of embryos grown for that purpose, or from abortions. In Krauthammer’s words, “I have long argued that a better line might have been drawn -- between using doomed and discarded fertility-clinic embryos created originally for reproduction (permitted) and using embryos created solely to be disassembled for their parts, as in research cloning (prohibited).”

So farming embryos for fertility clinics is all right, even though many of them will be discarded? Aren’t those (potential) lives as sacred as any others? A similar faulty logic is applied to abortions. The conservative line is that abortions should be illegal in all instances, except for pregnancies resulting from rape or incest. Don’t those defenseless babies deserve some protection, too?

There’s a good reason conservatives are willing to stain their self-proclaimed moral certainties with the fertility clinic, rape, and incest exceptions. They know they don’t have the votes to be pure. Most people in this country see the shades of gray in such cases. Conservatives can’t afford to, because it’s a moral issue, and morality is either right or wrong. They try to cover the nakedness of their arguments with bright line exceptions, but the truth is still there, and its name is hypocrisy.

Hell May Have Frozen Over

The Lingerie Correspondent and I do not often agree on matters political. Even rarer is alignment of planets and asteroids that brings me into concurrence with Lou Dobbs, who may well be the poster child for what’s wrong with the Mainstream Media today. True as that is, I’d like to think the Lingerie Correspondent for passing along Fat Lou’s comments of September 5. (Apologies for taking so long to get to this. Between the start of the Sole Heir’s school year and the baseball playoffs, it’s been busy at The Home Office.)

Lou Dobbs is a one-issue, one-inch depth panderer to the basest American instincts. Still, when he’s right, he’s right. Felipe Calderon’s desire to be president “wherever there is a Mexican” is demagogic drivel on an unprecedented scale. I wonder what jefe Calderon’s thoughts would be if the President of Guatemala said the same things, since Mexico’s policies toward Guatemalans compares to our policy toward Mexicans roughly as the Inquisition’s treatment of heretics compares to a modern Catholic confessional.

Things would be substantially better if Calderon spent more time being presidente to Mexicans while they’re still in Mexico. A much overlooked fact in the heated immigration debate, legal or ill-, is that Mexico is a shitty place to live. Forget Cancun and Cabo San Lucas and Puerto Vallarta; they’re tourist traps, no more representative of Mexico than the Las Vegas Strip is of the rest of this country. Try to imagine going to the lengths many illegals take – stowing away, hanging off truck axles, paying smugglers – to end up in a country where you’re not wanted, if there was any reason to stay. Bear in mind, these aren’t people who have had great expectations snatched from their grasp. Mexicans have an historical, almost genetic, tolerance for poverty. I watched the classic Western, The Magnificent Seven, last night. I’d be willing to bet a lot of Mexicans aren’t much better off economically today than they were in the movie, after factoring in a few technological advances.

Two primary things have to happen to stem, or at least slow, the rate of illegal immigration. First is one we have control over: dry up the supply of jobs that makes this country so much more attractive. Enforce existing laws that require employers to get the documents needed to substantiate someone’s work status. We all have to complete the I-9 form whenever we start a job. The federal government takes it so seriously that the form, once completed, cannot follow us from job to job, even though the information contained never really changes.

What about forged documents? With all the computing power available to scan our phone records and emails for anyone who might ever had ridden on a bus with someone who met someone who once spoke to someone who was ever in Afghanistan, the feds should be able to check the legitimacy of a Social Security Number pretty quickly. Round his ass up ay work the next day. Sneaking into the country is one thing; forging official documents is something else altogether.

The benefit to Step One is that it shouldn’t cost much. The Great Wall of America shouldn’t be as necessary if the hardship of crossing the desert is less likely to lead to a better life. Step Two is the hard one: we have to help to make Mexico a better place to live, so people won’t be as desperate to leave.

We’re probably going to have to take that on, too, because we’re the ones with the vested interest. Do you think Calderon cares of a few million of his poorest citizens head north? He’ll hold the door for them; they have nothing he wants. If the wall does get built, don’t be surprised to see the Mexican government distributing breaching technologies. We’re going to have to do it, and NAFTA is the way.

I don’t like NAFTA any more than most of you probably do. Hear me out. Any job exported to Mexico should have to pay roughly the same as it paid here, including benefits. This will slow the outsourcing of jobs that deprive American workers of employment, while creating a middle class in Mexico that will be less inclined to come here (except as tourists, cha-ching!) and more likely to vote for more responsible political leaders.

Calderon and the Mexican elite aren’t going to like this one bit. Such is life. If we’re going to get along with the government to our south, let’s at least make sure it’s because we’re getting some benefit from it.

Dear Dr. Dean

I recently received a “grassroots” survey from the Democratic Party. I was, of course, free to make any contribution I wished when I returned the completed survey. Below is what I enclosed in the envelope.

Dear Dr. Dean,

I am returning your survey with mixed emotions. While I agree in general with the principles the Democratic Party has aligned itself with, I am disappointed at the shallow nature of these questions. Many of my responses are indicative of the choice that is the least unlike my views, as they were written with too broad a brush.

My greatest disappointment is with Question 1. Asking me to rate my ten most important issues, and leaving civil liberties off the list completely, shows how seriously out of touch the party is with what is important to me. Aside from Senators Leahy, Dodd, and Biden, I see little interest in rolling back the curbs on the freedoms our elected officials have sworn to protect.

I began this year with great hopes for the Democratic majorities in Congress; those hopes have been largely dashed. Majority Leader Reid is regularly outflanked by his Republican counterparts. His tepid responses, and continued compliance with the Bush Administration have become an embarrassment. Whether he lacks the courage of his convictions, or any convictions at all, is difficult to say, almost as difficult as deciding which is worse.

I gave $100 to a grassroots organizer on Connecticut Avenue in Washington last year; this year I will limit my contributions to specific candidates, such as Senators Dodd and Biden, until the party as a whole shows itself not only concerned about the issues I hold most dear for the good of the country, but willing to act on those beliefs. The politics of appeasement have failed us for almost seven years now. I am not arguing for confrontation, but merely that it is time for the politics of conscience to have its turn.

Tim McCarver is the AntiChrist

Call of the Green Monster is the best baseball fan blog going. For proof, here are his comments about Fox television's Tim McCarver.

This is dead on; I can only add one thing. During Game 2, the ever-obvious Mr. McCarver noted, "once you drop the bat, baserunning is the most important element for scoring runs." Really?! Why didn't I think of that? I mean, I've only watched several thousand baseball games in my life; why didn't such a precise observation ever spring to my lips when enlightening The Sole Heir about the finer points of our National Pastime?

Maybe it's because, once you drop the bat, baserunning is the only element for scoring runs, dumb ass. Offense in baseball consists of two elements:
1. Hit the ball.
2. Run the bases.

Disgusting and incurable diseases abound. There are drug-resistant viruses and flesh eating bacteria. Do you expect me to believe there isn't permanently disabling, incurable disease that only attacks vocal chords? A just and merciful God would have given it to McCarver years ago, if He really answered prayers.

Unless McCarver works for a different employer. Let's think about this. He works for Fox, which is owned by Rupert Murdoch. We might be onto something here.

Like Things Aren't Bad Enough in California

President Bush today dispatched Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff and FEMA Administrator David Paulson to Southern California to aid with the wildfires that have devastated the area for several days. Suicide hotlines were overwhelmed with calls when word of the impending “assistance” leaked.

The Bush Administration made it clear that the lessons learned from Hurricane Katrina will be used to assist California. Boats are on the way now to shuttle displaced persons to the Superdome.

An Organized Crime

There’s an ad making the rounds on the local sports station with a disturbing undercurrent about the current state of America. The ad promises a “garage organization system” uniquely designed for you. Call today, and they’ll take $500 off.

How much do they charge to clean your garage if they can lop off five Benjamins and still make money? I know, you’re thinking the same thing Craze and The Sole Heir thought. “They do more than just clean your garage.” Okay, so they’ll take $500 off for cleaning your garage and building shelves.

Someone willing to spend that kind of money to make sure there’s room in the garage for their car needs a lot more than a “garage organization system.” They need behavior modification. Without it, the garage organization company will just be back next year. If they really want to help these people, they’d have some system to keep their customers away from yard sales. Something like, if you leave the house on a Saturday morning, the kids stay with us. You come back empty-handed, the kids can come home.

There’s a much easier way to handle this. The next time you think of putting something in the garage, make sure the car’s in there first.

Worse and Worse

I can't begin to tell you how the current government disgusts me. Dahlia Lithwick gives you an idea of why here.

The Truth Hurts

The mainstream media may finally have a clue. Read Frank Rich's dead-on column about our conduct in Iraq and at home. I will gleefully debate anyone who disagrees, so long as you don't do it anonymously.