Getting it Down in Black and White

The reaction to Barack Obama’s speech about race last Tuesday has been generally favorable, with comments ranging from “a milestone in American political rhetoric,” to “a brilliant fraud.” I’ll leave the high-flying rhetoric and minute parsing to those who get paid (too much) to do it. All I know for sure is that Obama’s speech took me from the status of Supporter to Believer.

The comments about his white grandmother reeled me in. I’m from Western Pennsylvania, the area in the political headlights as being key to the now-crucial Pennsylvania primary. I know people like his grandmother well. I grew up with them. I’m related to them. I’ve made comments similar, if not identical, to those he heard his grandmother make. I know what he’s talking about, and it’s about time someone addressed it.

There are racial grievances, real and imagined, on both sides. Actually, more than both, as Hispanics and Asians now have to be included in the discussion much more than forty years ago. The crux of racial intolerance in America will always be black and white, as was ensured by the codification of slavery in the Constitution.

The point I heard Obama make is, no matter who holds the grievance, or whether it’s real or imagined, it doesn’t help. Creating scapegoats gives an excuse not to do anything to help yourself, because it won’t matter. Either The Man won’t give you a break, or some nigger took your job. Wash your hands of it, feel sorry for yourself, it’s not your fault.

Maybe it’s not your fault, but it’s in your best interest for it to get better, and it won’t ever get better without the cooperation of the group you feel is oppressing you. It’s not that The Man took your job, or the black guy got it instead of you. The problem is that the job went elsewhere when some big company cited “best interests of the stockholders.” The stock and profit boom that fed the myth of the Bush expansion was built by removing jobs from the very people the boom depended on to buy the products to sustain the boom. The side effects of this government subsidized Ponzi scheme are now being felt in a very real way.

What made Obama’s speech special was not whether he’s right or wrong; it’s the courage and leadership he showed in taking an uncomfortable and unfortunate situation by the horns and calling it for what it was, without pointing fingers.

White guilt has nothing to do with embracing Obama’a speech. Slavery is a blot on this country’s soul that can never be erased. That being said, no one reading this had anything to do with it—or with Jim Crow—therefore we share no responsibility or guilt. That doesn’t mean we don’t live with the consequences every day. Sooner or later we have to deal with them as a nation. Barack Obama is uniquely suited to start that discussion.

Iraq and Roll Politics

Before I had a blog, I used to torment personal friends only with my rants. Most of them are, thankfully, lost to history. In cleaning off my hard drive in preparation of getting a new computer, I found this one, originally written March 15, 2003, just a few days before shock and awe.

Okay, so the email petition against the war was a fake. Big deal. The point is still well taken.

The Bush Administration has not made the case for doing whatever the hell it wants to do. Colin Powell’s evidence was not a smoking gun, it wasn’t even a sputtering candle. The follow-up evidence of the medical attention provided to what’s-his-name isn’t worth talking about, either. Seems Iraq got rid of him as quickly as practically possible.

Sure, Saddam Hussein is the worst thing to happen to the world since reality television. The Bushies’ argument for his removal, once you wade through the raisons du jour, seems to be that Iraq is a rogue state who can’t be trusted to live respectably in the community of nations.

They’re right. He can’t. Unfortunately, Bush has squandered so much hard earned American prestige that we may be destined to be the losers here, whether Saddam survives or not.

This Administration has pulled us out of the Kyoto Greenhouse Accords. We refuse to accept the jurisdiction of the International Criminal Court in the Hague, lest any American’s be tried as war criminals. (I wonder what the reaction would be from Don Rumsfeld is another country had done that.) We have made mention more than once that we are willing to use nuclear weapons in Iraq.

A few weeks ago Rumsfeld went to Congress to ask that the Missile Defense System, better and more appropriately known as “Star Wars,” be excluded from operational testing before being deployed. He says we need it right now. The fact that there hasn’t been a single successful test doesn’t enter into the equation.

John Ashcroft makes daily forays into new and creative interpretations of the Constitution. The Orwellian-named Patriot Act essentially makes possession of a library card probable cause for a warrant. There is now a database to determine your “threat level” as an airline passenger. A red listing will deny you access to your plane, whether it’s accurate or not. Even the current poodle Congress finally has its hackles up at the proposed Defense Department database to track and cross-reference every financial transaction we make.

Are these the acts of an administration reacting to an overwhelming electoral mandate? Hardly. Let’s think back a couple of years. The votes finally got counted and Bush won, but more people voted for Gore. The fairness of the victory is not in dispute here, just the size of the mandate.

We said we didn’t need the UN, which we probably don’t, then went in for a resolution, anyway. We said we didn’t need another resolution, but we’re still fooling around getting one, unless it’s one of those days where we don’t think we have the votes. All compromises not suggested by us are deemed to be non-starters.

The rhetoric coming from our side has been so harsh as to alienate many of our regular supporters. (Screw the French, no one cares what they think. They have been irrelevant for many years and are just now figuring it out.) We have no place left to negotiate to. Over 150,000 troops can’t be kept in the field indefinitely. They either have to come home or get to work soon, and there’s no way they can come home now without Bush getting more egg on his face than Bill Clinton when they found Monica’s dress.

What has us in this situation? Reduced to its simplest form, it’s because George W. Bush thinks he is God’s instrument on Earth. His fundamentalist Christian beliefs have given him the moral certainty that he is right and anyone who opposes him is wrong. That explains much of what passes for diplomatic communication coming from Washington these days: You’re either for us, or against us. Anyone who disagrees must be wrong, and is therefore either the enemy, or sleeping with him.

I’m no bible scholar, but I don’t remember hearing a lot of that kind of attitude attributed to the man from whom Christianity has taken its name. It sounds a whole lot more like what we would hear from our current sworn enemies, where everything is in absolutes and annihilation of the infidels is the only recourse.

The Bush Administration has told us that the removal of Saddam Hussein will take care of everything from terrorism to Mid East peace to the common cold. Running amuck like a longshoreman on a three-day drunk will remove Saddam, but it is more likely to create more terrorists of those currently on the fence than it is to lessen the danger.

Then again, no matter what is said, lessening the danger isn’t the primary objective here anymore. All that’s matters now is that Bush is Right. And he is. God is on our side.

I hope God remembers that when we’re through there.

Economics 102

Let’s get this straight: Business, as a class of American society, wants the government to allow the free market to operate. True capitalism is messy, they say, but it works in the end. People will lose their jobs and houses, college educations may have to be skipped, retirements gutted by lost pensions, but the general trend will always be upward if business is left alone to let things shake themselves out. The better and stronger ideas will, eventually, overcome the lesser and weaker.

Until it’s them with their tit in the wringer.

Now we can see what it means for the government to keep its hands off business. It means business is free to do what it wants, take what it wants at whatever expense to the general welfare, then run to the same government it vilifies when its unsustainable greed comes around to treat them as it treated all the others who constituted collateral damage when times were “good.”

It is said the institutional investors can’t afford to lose too much of their investment in Bear Stearns. The stock’s fifty-two week high was $159.36; the buyout is for $2. The stock lost 99% of its value, and we’re going worry that California’s pension fund will go broke over the last one percent?

We can’t afford the ripple effects on the rest of the economy? How about the people who have already lost everything? What are we to tell them? I’ve said before, people who got into mortgages they couldn’t pay don’t deserve much sympathy. How much do the people who wrote them deserve, or, more to the point with Bear Stearns, how much sympathy is due those who based their securities packages on mortgages they never bothered to verify were liquid?

The stockholders – and taxpayers, for that matter – should have recourse to sue the hell out of the Bear Stearns managers responsible for this. They’ve banked their hundred million dollar packages and bonuses. They’ll get by if they’re fired. Still advocate reduced tax rates for fund managers? Why? They appear to have no risk. Take any chances – Bear Stearns’ culture demanded it – and walk away with however much you can carry before the music stops, in case you’re the guy without a chair.

September 11. Iraq. Katrina. Now this. Will January 20, 2009 for Chrissakes hurry up so there will be something left to hand over to the next guy?

Economics 101

It is often said the Republican Party is the party of business. That the economy does better when Republican administrations allow it to operate unfettered by oppressive regulation and allow the natural order of business to balance things out on its own.

If that’s true, how come Republicans seem to own the franchise on financial collapse?

1929 stock market crash, leading to the Great Depression – Herbert Hoover, President.

1981-1982 liberalization of saving and loan regulations leads to S&L crisis – Ronald Reagan, President.

“Black Monday” stock market crash, October 19, 1987 – Ronald Reagan, President.

Subprime lending crisis – George W. Bush, President.

Is it true that Republicans have a better understanding of economics, or that they can’t tell the difference between sound policy and unsustainable greed?

The MBAs can leave now.

An Open Letter to Giant Food LLC

March 8, 2008

Giant Food LLC
Consumer Affairs Department
8301 Professional Place
Suite 115
Landover MD 20785

Dear Sir or Madam:

I have been a regular Giant shopper since moving to the Washington area in late 1996. I have always thought Giant’s selection, store layout, and prices were the best value of any local supermarket. My recent experiences at your Laurel Store (0340) have forced me to re-assess my opinion.

The selection, layout, and prices are still the best around. The produce section, in particular, stands out. The produce manager is routinely there when I shop on Saturday mornings, and she is always cheerful, helpful, and willing to go out of her way to find what I need, even if it’s not in the produce section. That is true of most of the employees I have encountered.

Having found everything I need, and judiciously used my Bonus Card, whatever goodwill has accrued during my visit is erased when it comes time to check out. For months now, the number of full-service checkout lines has been woefully inadequate to accommodate the customer volume. The situation became so bad I shopped at Shoppers Food Warehouse for a few weeks before returning to the store I knew best.

My first week back at Giant 0340 found seven carts, all but a couple filled above the rim, lined up to use the sole open checkout lane. I complained to a manager, who apologized. Last week was marginally better, but I didn’t have time to speak to anyone.

This week was the final straw. Nine-fifteen on a Saturday morning, and not one full service checkout lane was operating. I got into the lengthy Express lane and asked the first employee I saw to get me a manager. I noticed as I was checking out that one of my items did not capture my bonus card savings, and the checker could not find it in this week’s flyer.

A manager finally arrived, the same gentleman I spoke with a few weeks ago. I pointed out the situation to him, and noted the cashier now working a full-service lane had only appeared in the past minute. He walked over to see to something and I went back into the store to verify I had been correct about the Bonus Card question. I found the tag on the shelf, but noted in the fine print the offer had expired on March 5.

Catching up with the manager, I asked about the Bonus Card tag, as the checkout lane question was now moot. The conversation went something like this:

Me: Since we don’t seem to be able to get enough checkers, can we at least keep outdated sale notices off the shelves. (Handing him the shelf tag.) I paid an extra buck-sixty apiece for these because the old tag was there.

Giant Manager: Did they give it to you for free?

Me: The tag’s outdated. The price she charged was correct.

Giant Manager: Go back through the line if the tag’s wrong. You can get it for free.

Me (pointing): That line? That’s what started this whole thing.

Giant Manager: (No response)

Me: Tell you what. You keep the tag and my three-twenty, and I won’t shop here any more.

Giant Manager: Okay.

So I won’t. A customer of over eleven years’ standing gone, because Giant 0340 can’t be bothered to take my money in a timely manner, and, apparently, doesn’t care if I shop elsewhere. I pass a Shoppers Food Warehouse and a Safeway to get to Giant 0340. It used to be worth it. No more.

Interesting Statistic

An Associated Press-Ipsos poll found people who consider themselves liberals read more books than conservatives. You know why?

Because they can.

Catch 23

Read Jonathan Turley's column in today's Los Angeles Times.

Is There a Doctor in the House?

Psychiatrists would do well to investigate a strange malady best described as Americanitis. It resembles bipolar disorder in many ways, with traces of messianic complex. It appears to occur uniquely in North Americans living in the United States.

Where else can you find people who spend so much time railing against government intervention in their lives, such as taxes, mileage standards for automobiles, affordable health care, keeping guns out of the hands of those likely to use them to harm others, to name a few. All of these are said to be improper uses of governmental authority, as the government cannot be trusted to keep the people’s best interests and privacy in mind.

Yet these same people have no trouble allowing that same government to listen to their phone calls, open their emails, and keep them under increasing photographic and video surveillance everywhere they go.

Maybe Americanitis isn’t quite the right term. Paranoia Republicania has a nice ring to it, and hits closer to the mark.

A Press Release From The Home Office

The Home Office is pleased to announce the publication of the short story, “Green Gables,” in the February/March issue of ThugLit magazine. Click here and scroll down to Issue 24 to read it.

Many thanks to Big Daddy Thug and Lady Detroit (Todd Robinson and Allison Glasgow) for their support, and for suggesting a key edit.

Sucking it Up

It must be the February blahs. Blogs all over the sphere are springing up with the periodic lament of a writer’s plight. Rejections, how meager our rewards are in relation to the quantity of our souls left on each page. It gets old, navel-gazing raised to the level of whining. Let’s refine the argument.

The question is: Why do you (personally) write? If you write solely for the joy of putting stories on paper, then you're already successful; have a ball.

If you write to get published, suck it up. There are more writers than publishing venues; it’s not going to change. I was an orchestral musician in a previous life before I turned my attention to writing. It's a lot less discouraging to get a rejection in the mail you paid 41 cents for than it is to fly across the country and book a night or two of hotel at mid-week prices so you can play a five-minute audition in competition with 150 others who are vying for the same spot, for a job that may not pay enough to live on. Send your story off and forget about it while you work on the next. It’s not such a bad deal.

If you're writing to make a living from it and aren't, then quit. The “I couldn’t live if I didn’t write” argument doesn't apply to someone who does it for the money.

I can name several good writers of personal acquaintance who might be published now if they spent half the time refining their writing they currently spend bitching about how tough the market is. I have had several short stories published, but publishers have so far managed to pass on all novel submissions, though they claim it pains them to do so. So it goes. (Sorry, Kurt.) The only way I see to keep moving forward is to accept each series of rejections with a simple phrase: The book wasn’t good enough. Make it – or the next one – better. That’s all I can control, so that’s what I deal with. To do otherwise makes it too easy to confuse reasons with excuses.

No Shame on the Right

Here’s a short piece from the current issue of Salon, describing the new Republican ad pushing for passage of the Protect America Act, also known as The Fourth Amendment is for Pussies Act.

My reply, to the Republican National Committee:

I have just watched your new ad, America at Risk. How can you shameless whores live with yourselves? It is President Bush who allowed this law to expire, through his "all or nothing" insistence, and refusal to accept an extension while a valid compromise is worked out.

Where do you draw the line between freedom and acceptable risk? It appears Republicans see no acceptable trade-offs; all freedoms are worth sacrificing for any scintilla of perceived safety.

You claim to be such patriots, and students of the original intent of the Founding Fathers. How do you reconcile these claims with the words of Benjamin Franklin "Those who would sacrifice liberty for security deserve neither liberty nor security?"

Shame on you all.

Mightier Than the Sword

The Music Education Correspondent (Retired) has written to a local paper, advocating a change to the lyrics of the Maryland State song.

The Home Office’s reply is below.

No wonder they pull you off of airplanes for extra security searches. This is yet another examples of how liberals are ruining this country, with their steadfast refusal to take a chance of offending anyone, as you proudly assert in your letter. (“We are quite certain no one will object.”

First, when did lack of content objectionable to anyone become a virtue? Would we not still writhe under the yoke of English tyranny, were it not for the actions of those willing, through word and deed surely objectionable to Crown sympathizers (“Crown-symphs” as Rush Limbaugh would call them today; except that he’d be one.) to speak out? And you posit this on the 276^th anniversary of the birth of the Father of Our Country? Shame on you, and may your next lunch with Michele Obama taste dry and stale in your mouth as you struggle to find reasons to be proud of this country.

Have you done your homework into the origins of the lyrics you find so objectionable? Once again, cherry-picking examples creates misleading imagery. “The despot’s heel is on thy shore;” “Avenge the patriotic gore / That flecked the streets of Baltimore.” Easy to claim to be unobjectionable when the callow reader is denied full access to the facts.

Who is this despot, with his heel upon Maryland’s shore? None other than Abraham Lincoln, savior of the Union, and freer of the slaves. Witness these words, from Verse Six:

Dear Mother! burst the tyrant's chain,
Virginia should not call in vain,
She meets her sisters on the plain-
"Sic semper!" 'tis the proud refrain
That baffles minions back amain,
Arise in majesty again.

The “sic semper” used in Line Four is a reference to “Sic semper tyrannis,” (Thus ever to tyrants), and was shouted by John Wilkes Booth as he fled from Ford’s Theater after shooting President Lincoln, whose birthday is also celebrated this month, thus doubling the calumny of your supposedly innocently timed statement.

The words of Maryland, My Maryland are the traitorous hymn of secessionists! Yet you, in your haste to be inoffensive, would but alter them, allowing their hidden meaning to seep through to poison the minds of generations of Marylanders yet unborn. You are not a native Marylander; may your covertly seditious intent have come from some hidden wellspring of liberalism far to the north? I suspect so.

If you find the song so objectionable, endorse its abolishment, as the man it so expressly defames abolished the taint of slavery from its shores with his “despotic heel.” What fear have you that a hidden sleeper cell of Confederate sympathizers will have their feelings hurt? Express the courage of your convictions, but do not blink at the precipice and claim to have crossed.

Not to mention that the tune is from a Christmas Carol, which excludes all of our Jewish, Muslim, Hindu, Buddhist, and Shinto residents who are just as patriotic as you claim to be.

A German carol, no less. Don’t get me started on World War II.

A Political Sports Analogy

I became a mature sports fan while watching the AFC Championship game that followed the 1974 NFL season. Pittsburgh had the ball, leading Oakland 17–13 early in the fourth quarter. The Steelers started one of their patented drives, which consisted mostly of running plays called traps. A trap play is an intricately timed and coordinated action; on television it looks like a guy running into a pile of other guys. Such is life.

What struck me after about five minutes and a few first downs was that the pile, which had moved two-three-four yards in the first quarter, was now moving four-five-six yards each time. I know the announcers didn’t mention it; Burghers hated Curt Gowdy with a vengeance, certain Raiders’ owner Al Davis had him on the payroll. Nothing spectacular happened. Pittsburgh was content to grind it out, moving the chains every two or three plays.

This was memorable to me because winning this game put Pittsburgh in their first Super Bowl. What made it pivotal was my ability, for the first time, to look ahead and know that Pittsburgh had won the game. Ten minutes left, and a turnover or bad penalty could still blow it for them, but Oakland had lost the ability to win this game. It was Pittsburgh’s to lose. (They scored and won 24-13.)

Now replace “Pittsburgh” and “Steelers” with “Barack Obama,” and “Oakland” and “Raiders” with “Hillary Clinton.”

One Small Step for Democracy

The Democrats finally found someone with some stones. Democrats being Democrats, of course it was a woman.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi not only didn’t bring the Senate’s version of the Protect America Act up for a vote before the House went on recess, she had the House cite two members of the Bush Administration – John Bolton and Harriet Miers – for contempt. (Republicans responded to this second action by storming out of the Capitol to denounce the Democrats’ “political theater” at a microphone-strewn podium serendipitously found on the building’s steps just in time for their “spontaneous” act..)

Bush responded, of course, by crying we’ll be dead by the time the House gets back if he doesn’t have the authority to listen to every phone call and read every email in the world, warrants be damned. Like the law has ever stopped him before. The Protect America Act is nothing more than a transparent attempt to legalize actions the Bush Administration has routinely taken for years. Immunity for the previously cooperating telecommunication companies – who would be the still cooperating telecommunications companies had their illegal collaboration not come to light – is amnesty by another name. Republicans are happy to grant amnesty to moneyed interests with the legal firepower to know they were violating not just laws, but the entire Fourth Amendment, but if your mother carried you across the Mexican border in her arms fifteen years ago, you’re SOL.

Meanwhile, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, who sent to the House a bill complete with immunity and no amendments the White House didn’t sign off on, wrote to Bush, "I regret your reckless attempt to manufacture a crisis over the reauthorization of foreign surveillance laws. . . . Your suggestion that the law's expiration would prevent intelligence agents from listening to the conversations of terrorists is utterly false."

The most temperate response I can come up with is: Fuck you, Harry, and the horse you rode in on. Bush has rolled you over so many times you can join the Greek hookers’ union. You’re not from Texas, but “big hat, no cattle” was written with you in mind. You sold out Chris Dodd and Pat Leahy, so your big talk now, while Speaker Pelosi has to carry your weight, impresses no one. You want to claim to be a Democrat while acting as Bush’s mole in Congress, fine. Just don’t be upset when people call you on it, as just about everyone has started to do. Let’s hope Senate Democrats can find a few onions of their own and elect a majority leader next year who actually believes in the co-equal branches of government.

I haven’t written this in a while, but it’s time again. For all of you who voted for George W. Bush in 2004 and see what has happened to Iraq, the deficit, the environment, the economy, and civil liberties, keep this in mind: It’s your fault.

What Game are They Watching?

Waterboarding is in the news again, now that Attorney General Mukasey has declared the Justice Department will not investigate individuals who followed DoJ directives, even if those directives were based on dubious or non-existent legal reasoning; nor can those who created, endorsed, or propagated these questionable rulings be held accountable. (To catch up on this week’s comedy, click here.)

First, no whining from any senators who voted for Mukasey; he said he was going to do this, and he has. No surprises. It’s your fault.

The United States of America (remember them?) prosecuted Japanese soldiers as war criminals for waterboarding American prisoners. The current administration’s position is that it might be illegal, unless some mid-level functionary in the Justice Department wants to make points with the White House and writes an opinion no one but Dick Cheney agrees with to say it’s legal. Then it’s legal. Honest to God.

I don’t understand how some employees can walk into the Department of Justice building and not get sick to their stomachs just reading the sign. DoJ has done little, if anything, for the cause of justice since Shrub took office. All departments of the Executive Branch serve the president; that doesn’t mean they’re his lackeys, toadying up to spread a see-through veneer of legality to whatever he wants. Torture? Warrantless searches? Renditions? Denial of habeas? Whatever Shrub and Darth Cheney want, someone at the Department of Injustice can be found to justify it.

This is not the United States of America I was taught about, and it’s not just the government that sickens me. Polls show 61% of all Republicans think Shrub is doing a good job. Obviously no one else does; his current approval rating overall is 30%. My question is, who in their right mind can possibly look at his record and say he’s done a good job?

Witnesses for the prosecution:

• Ignored warnings in August of 2001 that al-Qaeda planned to fly planes into buildings.
• Invaded Iraq with no evidence they had anything to do with 9/11, the UN (accurately) said they had no WMD program, and we had nothing resembling a plan for what to do when Saddam was gone.
• Destroyed America’s reputation abroad with our “you’re either for us or a terrorist sympathizer” rhetoric.
• Preached fiscal restraint while increasing the budget by over 63% since taking office. This does not include the cost of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Including those expected “emergency requests” would hike the increase to 74%.
• His brand of fiscal conservatism has increased the national debt 60% since he took over. This is impressive, considering we were running surpluses and paying down the debt when he took office.
• The disparity between the richest and poorest among us continues to grow to historic levels.
• Not even during the Red Scare and the height of McCarthyism have our civil liberties been so badly eroded.
• Torture is now condoned by the Executive Branch, as it feels necessary.
• Long-dismissed legal theories are trotted out as fact. (Unitary Executive, signing statements, ignorance of checks and balances.)

Yet well over half of all Republicans think he’s doing a hell of a job. Let’s see what they might point to:

• We haven’t been attacked in this country since 9/11. (Of course, we’ve now lost more killed and many times more wounded through our misguided responses than terrorists have ever killed here.)
• Their taxes are lower.
• He talks tough.

Shrub will leave office next year with this country improved in no way since he took over, other than relative incomes for those already in the top percentiles. For that, 61% of Republicans approve. A few conclusions can be drawn:

• They’re selfish. (I got mine, and I’m keeping it.)
• They’re cowards. (I don’t care what rights I sacrifice or who else has to die to make me 0.0001% safer.)
• They’re bullies. (Do it our way, or else.)
• They’re mouth-breathing, inbred idiots. (Self explanatory.)
• All of the above. (These are not mutually exclusive.)

If this pissed you off, I guess we know where you fall on the approval rankings. Suck it up.

A Knight Errant Hangs It Up

Basketball coach Bob Knight retired yesterday with an NCAA record 902 victories. Knight has been controversial for virtually his entire 42-year career as the enfant terrible of college basketball.

Knight couldn’t be a fictional character; his gifts are to profound, his faults too dramatic. He’s always fascinated me for that reason, the embodiment of the best and the worst sports brings out in a person, wrapped in the same psyche.

There’s no point in summing up the dichotomy that is Bob Knight, when John Feinstein has done it so well in this article in today’s Washington Post.

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.