Midwestern Suburban Dad

Whither W?

With this now rumbling out of Washington, it's beginning to look a lot like Christmas for Democrats. Even tho' I'm standing squarely on the porch of The House of Middle Age, and even tho' 3 kids under the age of ten will turn one's brain regularly into something that resembles Swiss cheese left out in the car in July, I remember quite clearly the Republicans throwing argument after argument - most of them quite sound - at the Dems when they were after the very same thing some 6-8 years ago.

De-politiciztion of the arts, letting free markets decide, returning responsibility to artists . . . golly, these all seemed like really keen ways to go about it. So, to quote the Mencken of our time, PJ O'Rourke, "What the f**k? I mean, what the f**king f**k!?!" (Parliament of Whores. Don't sue me.)

I always thought that the Republican Party was against government intrusion. I always pictured the Democrats as the ones with the snappy latex gloves, cooing, "You may feel some mild discomfort but it's for your own good."

It seems, though, that instead of the Republicans being the party of "That's bad and we won't let you do it." they're more the party of "That's bad when you do it so we won't let you do it so we can do it."

W has grown government (not counting the War on Terror or Iraq) more in 3+ years than ol' Bubba did in his long and derisive 8. So, not only are the Democrats getting everything they wanted domestically (but couldn't get when one of theirs was in the White House), they're also getting a tremendous boost from bad intelligence (and you can take that any way you want) which has put a shadow over W's foreign policy.

Still and all, the election is still a good spring and long hot summer away, and then some. Lots can happen. National Review gives good reason to overlook things and punch a chad in the W bracket. But Radley Balko from over at Cato has another idea:

Vote Dean, Light GOP Fire

Thursday, January 15, 2004
By Radley Balko

Federal spending is out of control. Federal regulation continues its creep, weighing ever heavier on private enterprise. We have a new Cabinet department, the largest one ever established, and we were just handed the largest federal entitlement in 40 years.

A few of us had our taxes cut, but that hardly matters when government keeps spending the way it is. Sooner or later, the waiter will come by with the check, and it’s those of us under 30 who will be reaching for our wallets. As election 2004 nears, what’s a good limited-government soldier to do?

Vote for [a Democrat]

Read the rest here.

As well, another consistently Red State blogger, Spoons, has this take on the NR piece:

Actually, Clinton is pretty much the perfect example of why conservatives need to defeat George Bush this year. Remember, that immediately following Clinton's 8 years of relatively conservative Democrat-ish-ness, the Democrats put up a candidate that was virtually a carbon copy.

Here's the full text.

Hmmm . . .

Truth in Reporting

DO NOT OPEN AT WORK OR AROUND YOUR KIDS.

The Real reason she was fired.

It seems not even small-to-mid market media outlets are immune to the aftershocks of public disclosure of falseness and contrivance by reporters and others who put their names out there for the consuming public.

Just like The New York Times, CNN and other major entities, Youngstown Ohio's WKBN is reeling from the uncovering of a couple of fabrications that had been operating in their midst for some time.

"What's disturbing," uttered one unnamed colleague, "is that these things get pumped up way out of proportion. I mean, really, there's not all that much to it."

Twist of Faith

According to widespread account, Mel Gibson's film "The Passion of The Christ" has evidently PO'd some of the more, umm, intense Jewish associations in the land.

The Anti-Defamation League says on its website:

After ADL representatives attended a screening of Mel Gibson’s film “The Passion of The Christ”, the League renewed its concerns about the film’s potential to promote anti-Semitism through its “painful portrayal of Jews” as being responsible for the death of Jesus.

While this is an understandable viewpoint, I would say that it stems more from an ironic twist of faith than anything else, including and especially anti-Semitism.

Coming from a Christian background (raised Episcopal, journeyed through everything from lefty-feelgood Disciples of Christ to Bible-thumping Assembly of God, finally arrived at Catholic), I can pretty much state that from a purely historical standpoint, Christ was crucified by Jews. After all, He was one. He preached in what was then Judea and is now Israel (Isr-a-el, "Land of God"). His ministry came to its fruition in Jerusalem (City of Peace) and the first major schism in the early sect was whether or not to require adherence to Mosaic Law in order to become "Christian." (St. Paul v St. James).

But that's History. He was there, at this time, and that stuff happened. Period.

When you look at the theological standpoint, though, it can be stated - because I do - that we have the Jews to THANK for the gift of Emmanuel, "God Among Us." God took a band of nomadic wanderers - people who history tells us were probably the least powerful group of people on the planet, people who had no home, no prowess, no anything - and took an old man and his barren wife and from them created a people whose history and legacy lead to nothing less than The Birth of Christ. Not bad for a bunch of itinerant root-eaters.

To make a 2000-year-long story short, if somebody is a studied, practicing Christian (specifically Roman Catholic, as Mr. Gibson is) then the only conclusion possible is that God chose the Jews to be not His executioners, but to be the machinery of His holy redemption.

To fault the Jews for the sins of all mankind is not a viewpoint rooted in Christian tenet. To hold them as honored, to study their history as the perfect parallel of our faith, and to believe that they are as much a part of our faith as any other group of people is the only logical viewpoint.

The twist is that one must be Christian to believe Christian theology. Duh. It is entirely believeable that, considering Jewish history over the past 1000 or so years, especially at the hands of those who used Christianity the same way Al-Qaeda uses Islam, they're going to be sensitive to anything that paints Jews and Judaism in an interperably bad light. And since Christ, being Jewish, was crucified not by Roman law but by Judaic hubris, an accurate and graphic portrayal of the events of the Passion will be disturbing. (The Roman backdrop is critically important, and Ponitus Pilate is a HUGE metaphor, but there isn't enough bandwidth here to go as deeply into it as necessary.)

To be frank, anybody who believes that the sins of Jesus' contemporary Judaic crucifiers (and hence their sole responsibility for his death) were exclusive to them misses the entire point. God is eternal; He knows no time. His choosing of the where, when, who and how of His greatest gift to us is the essence of what transpired. To examine those aspects per se is to look at the wrapping instead of the gift. We are all sinners. We all share the same shortcomings and failings that Caiaphas and his cohort had. They were instruments, God the composer and the Redemption of Christ the music. One has only to listen. If Mr. Gibson is doing a cover tune, then the truer to the score he keeps, the better.

And anybody who does come away with anti-Semitic sentiments is stone-deaf.

So, What Would You Call Him?

I mean, really?

If the kid in question is from South Africa, and he's now an American citizen, what else would you call him?

It's good to see that kids are thinking. It's also good to see that kids are still raw, immature, leap-before-they-look kids. That's what being a kid is all about.

They will learn from this. They will learn that points made are not necessarily points scored, and that unanticipated repurcussions can be hell to deal with. Especially when they don't make much sense.

Nonetheless, calling out the Pigment Fascists, especially on the holiday that embodies "content of character, not color of skin" is never a bad idea.

Here's hoping that next time their discretion will match their valor.

Barren & Unfriendly

Is it me, or does anybody else think that the pictures from Mars look an awful lot like Iraq?

UPDATE: As soon as I made this post, this happened.

Hmmm . . .

Every spring, the buzzards return to Hinckley, Ohio.

Now we know where they live the rest of the year.
From cnn.com

City misses out on lotto windfall

Winnings not taxable on outdated city charter

SOUTH EUCLID, Ohio (AP) -- Rebecca Jemison, who emerged as the true winner of last month's $162 million lottery drawing, is suddenly even richer. This Cleveland suburb is suddenly much poorer.

South Euclid city officials were stunned to learn that they can't collect $1.4 million in income taxes from the winning Mega Millions ticket since the city charter wasn't updated to include lottery winnings as taxable income.

"It's not a good day for the city," Mayor Georgine Welo said Monday. "We were all excited until we went to go for the money (emphasis added) and learned that we are not entitled to it. We are very saddened by the news."

Rebecca Jemison took the lump sum payment option of the $162 million jackpot, walking away with $67 million. Now, she's $1.4 million richer.

The news came at a bad time for South Euclid, which laid off six workers and made other cuts to help bring its $16.5 million budget down to $13 million, Welo said. The city had planned use the windfall to rehire some workers and improve parks and recreation programs.

City Law Director Michael Lograsso said former Mayor John Kocevar's administration failed to act on a 1996 letter from the Regional Income Tax Agency advising the city to amend its charter if it wanted to tax lottery winnings.

That year, the Ohio Supreme Court ruled that in order for cities to collect the tax, they would have to specifically state "lottery winnings" as taxable income in their charters, Lograsso said.

First of all, if the city considers itself poorer, it needs to change its outlook. Nobody took anything from them. They have no less money in their coffers today than they did last week because of this. CLUE: IT WASN'T THEIRS TO BEGIN WITH.

It doesn't matter how Ms. Jemison came by her windfall. It's hers, by contract with the Powerball people and the State of Ohio. This is just another example of how bureaucrats believe that everything belongs to them and is used by the people only with permission of the government.

And you know what? This would probably never occur to them, but if they asked Ms. Jemison for a little help, she might just be nice enough to work in her own community and assist in some of the park and recreation projects that they were going to extort the money from her to pay for. She might even do a better job since she'd be using her own money and not somebody else's.

Were I her, though, knowing the attitude they've taken, I'd bolt from that suckhole and move someplace a lot kinder and more respectful of individual citizens' rights before they start bleeding her with new laws and taxes. Who knows what they may cook up to get back what they thought was theirs to begin with?

Real Losers

On Sunday, the Indianapolis Colts were shown exactly how far they'd come, and conversely, how far they had yet to go before they were real Super Bowl contenders. As the time-honored saying goes, " . . . and defense wins Championships."

The Colts have yet to establish one and the Patriots have perhaps about the best around. It is easy to see who the better team was in that game. The Patriots are winners.

And here's why: Very few, if any, are actually from New England.

If even half of the team hailed from the local area, the Patsies (as they'd be affectionately known by their whiney neighbors) would be 0-16 year after year, and would blame everybody but themselves for their failure. There would be no cohesion, no element of sportsmanship, no class, no grace, no anything positive.

Just like their current fans.

When the Denver Broncos showed up at the RCA Dome 3 weeks ago, the Colts gave them a punishing taste of revenge. Denver fans expected the same, but received something quite different. Many letters were received by the hometown paper here from Broncos fans commenting on how gracious and classy Colts fans were; the thrust was that we had the savvy to know that the revenge takes place on the field and that the stands are for cheering.

When the Colts went to Kansas City, it would have been easy for Chiefs fans to take their frustration out on the handful of Blue Faithful who made the trip. The reality of it was exactly the opposite. KC fans were sportsmanlike, welcoming and well-versed in both football lore and the art of hosting. Each team's fans wished us well and said they'd be rooting for us. All were true sportsmen - they all knew it was still only a game and that real people know what their lives' priorities are. BTW, the same can be said for Tennessee fans, but that's a different story.

SO. Now we go to Taxachusetts, the home of the Kennedys, Martha's Vinyard and Nantucket, from which a famous and talented if unnamed man once hailed. The home of surly attitudes and chronic self-loathing. Liberal, anti-American, shallow, snotty, rude, graceless, hateful and xenophobic Mass-of-chewed-shit.

Colts fans there were subject to verbal and sometimes physical abuse; snowballs and drink containers were constantly hurled at them along with continuous epithet and derogatory remark. Patriots fans were not content with simply cheering for their team, oh no. They evidently are of the kind of people for whom no victory is complete without the opportunity to take pleasure from the pain of others, and if there isn't sufficient pain to start with, then they'll just have to inflict some of their own. Their behavior was brutish and nasty. Most of them were not tall, either. A true Hobbesian crowd.

To call them blue-collar would be an insult to working folks anywhere west of the Berkshires. To call them rowdy would demean energetic exuberance. To call them loyal would undermine the essence of team spirit. In fact, Gillette Stadium was full of people (in that they were identifiably human-ish) whose sole commonality was that they were just bright enough to know that something called football was going on, and that meant a fresh crop of outsiders upon which to take out their frustration. The frustration of living in the one state that over 50% of Americans would kick out of the country if they had a chance, that is.

It's a good thing that very few of the actual teams' fans will get a shot at Super Bowl tickets. If 10 or 20 thousand Pats fans went down to Texas with the attitudes they have at home, it's more than likely that there'd be more than a few empty seats on the plane rides back. "Texas is a big place, boy. Easy to get lost in, y'know? Y'all might jus' wanna be clampin down on that there hole in yer face, less'n y'all wanna see fer yerself."

*Sigh*

If only. We could do with a little less dead weight in this country.

So, Pats fans. If you can read this, congratulations on the victory that the team that leases it's stadium space from your local multi-millionaire racked up last Sunday. Good thing for you that so few of 'em are natives.

Should you ever visit us, you will most likely go back home just as frustrated as you always have been with our friendliness and sportsmanship. Figuring out superior behavior has always been difficult; you know what they say about trying to teach a pig to sing: It wastes your time and pisses off the pig.

Which is why you're always so mad. Even when your collection of paid athletes wins, you still have to live there. They all get to go home.

This Means What?

OKLAHOMA CITY, Oklahoma (AP) -- White men still dominate university professorships at the nation's top science and engineering schools, even where many of the doctoral students are women and minorities, according to the results of a survey released Thursday.

And, this is important . . . why?

Lifted from cnn.com, this piece goes on and on about how there are no "mentors of the same gender" in contemporary engineering schools, specifically in the field of computers.

Again, this matters . . . because?

Machines and math do the same things whether it's a fella or a gal plugging away at the keyboards. They don't know from sex, nope, not one little bit.

And, in case anybody's too dim to figure it out, full professorships aren't just given out like public high school diplomas. They're earned, usually after years of study and publication. Which means, OBVIOUSLY, that it will be a few years before any of the current crop of students - which make the quota police oh so much happier - will be eligible to grab some of those department chairs. If there aren't enough women there now, it's because there weren't a lot of girl geeks 10-15 years ago.

It's called time. Something most social engineers don't understand. Maybe they should go back to school.

But I Didn't Do It

So.

Something close to $5 billion (that's with a 'B') will eventually be paid out from Federal coffers to the families of those killed in the 9/11 terrorist attacks in New York, DC and the Pennsylvania plane crash.

Why?

The question is not why does anybody want or even need to have their livlihoods protected when the main earner is yanked so violently and horrendously from their lives. The question is not even should there be a way to protect families in extraordinary circumstances.

The question is why should I be forced to pay for it through my taxes when I would be perfectly willing to donate of my own free will to such a fund if asked and given a place to send my support? The $100 or so I'd be willing to send somewhere becomes nearly $300 Federal dollars when bureaucratic administrative costs are factored in.

Think about these things:

1) If life insurance companies are reluctant to pay for this out of some "Act of War" clause, then the 'generosity and compassion' demonstrated by the fund administrator is meaningless. It's not his money, and the insurance policy issuers can make claim to their funds. It is they who are in the place to be 'generous and compassionate.' Surely there are ways to prompt them to be so, and:

2) If they aren't, it's because they do not want to set a precendent. What happens when (God forbid) 35,000 or 50,000 or 100,000 people are killed by a terrorist attack on a large city or sporting event? Think "Sum Of All Fears" here. Yes, it's unlikely, but if one person can be granted $7 million, then do the math. Are we going to compensate from the Federal coffers everybody who has a claim?

3) What about the soldiers who have, throughout our history, gone off to die in the snow, mud or sand? What about their families? Does this mean that the families of the folks on Flight 93, since they acted in an heroic and self-sacrificing manner - like our soldiers - don't deserve any more?

Americans will rally to any good cause. Families of those who were in the WTC, Penatgon and high above Pennsylvania on that day are surely a perfect definition of this concept. Why must some bureaucrat and a bunch of power-snarfing politicians get credit for what our nation would gladly do to a greater and better degree?

It's like handicapped parking spots. When they were only a good idea, they were obeyed out of respect and grace for those whose use of them made sense. When they became law, they also became nuisance and political tool, and were no longer looked at as 'a nice thing to do' which decent people respected. Look at all the wheelchair tags on rear-view mirrors on cars that have 30- and 40-something people exiting and walking, perfectly well, up to the door of the shop or center. It's the law - you have a tag, you use the spot - and there's no amount of social pressure or visible disrespect that will change that.

So, instead of 3,000 families being taken into the arms of their countrymen and made better by our national spirit, they are now nothing more than Federal Welfare Victims.

And, as a wrap up, think of this: As a nation of 280 million people, if only 1 in 4 put in $100 (many would put more, many would put less, but I think the average would be significantly higher; this is easy math), then the fund would be $7 billion. That's an increase of 40%, tax-free and directly attributable to the cohesive spirit and defiant attitude of the American people. Of the two systems, which would make the biggest statement to potential enemies?

Jackomalarkey

I really don't know which is worse, the fact that so many people's lives are empty and vapid enough to give a damn about it, or that the media are so willing to continuously refill the Jacko buffet.

In my neck o' the woods, there's a man who's been accused of child molestation. I even worked with this guy for awhile, and, apart from his 'Harry Potter' reading habit in the smoking lounge, there wasn't anything outwardly goofy about him. But he's been accused of convincing a 12-year-old girl to 'lap dance' for him.

Maybe that's it. He's an otherwise unnoticeable schmoe - just a working stiff who crossed a major no-no line; Michael Jackson is a media event in and of himself, whether it be baby-dangling, hair on fire or a 7th new nose.

For my money, though, I'd rather get the lowdown on the guy who'd diddling 7th graders in my back yard than any California contrivance. The national media have more important things to spend their limited time and bandwidth on.