Where have our priorities gone?

We subscribe to the Ventura County Star.  Since they refuse to deliver the NY Times, the LA Times or even the Bakersfield Herald to my mailbox, I have by default come to call the Star The World’s Greatest Newspaper.

If the Star didn’t have the NY Times Crossword and their own Letters to the Editor, I’d probably cancel the paper and save a lot of trees.  I might even survive the loss of the Crossword, but Letters to the Editor…never.  Some of the funniest lines ever written find their way to the Letters page.  I’m fairly sure the writers never intended that their carefully thought out and meticulously researched letters be laughed at, but it’s something that can be depended on in nearly every issue.

So I start with the Star’s Section B cause that’s where the fun is.  It also has local news, something that you can’t get on CNN, FOX or MSNBC.  Saturday’s edition was no exception and it even showcased a story close to home.  “Ojai Girl Fights Rare Condition” the masthead screamed.  And a very cute picture of adorable four-year old Aubrey smiled at me from the center of the page.  I wondered if I knew the family so I began to read the story.  A not yet fully diagnosed illness has plagued Aubrey since she was born.  Compounded by a number of medical mis-steps, little Audrey has been in and out of the hospital and now suffers the added burden of a feeding tube attached to a backpack full of nutrients.  Poor baby.

Five hospital stays in the last four months have compounded the family’s problems and depleted their financial resources.  The There but for the grace of God go I story ended with the promise that a fundraiser would soon be held.

Starved for something funny to counterbalance this tale of woe, I turned to the Letters page, skimmed an indecipherable Bill O’Reilly opinion piece and scanned the Letters.  I unanimously voted Lois of Oxnard the Bozo of the Day award.  Using the documented evidence always present as the cornerstone of Republican thinking, Lois reminded us that George Bush brought down gas prices in the first few days of his tenure and then concluded her Harvard thesis by imploring God to dump Obama in November.  But even this hilarity wasn’t enough to soften the heartache of the Aubrey story.

So I did something I rarely do.  I turned to the front page of the newspaper.  Taxes and school deficits were nicely counterbalanced by the chance to win a bazillion dollars in the Mega Millions jackpot.  Not bad.  I went on to page two and was amply rewarded with the picture of a smiling couple who had just engineered a double suicide.  Sa-weet.

Page three chronicled the story of the state Democratic campaign treasurer who embezzled $7 million from the party coffers, showing I suppose that Democrats can’t be trusted either.

And finally there was a photo of Leon Panetta quoted as saying “military cuts are rash.”  You may remember that these cuts are part of the absence of an agreement between the Democrats and Republicans on how to save $1.2 trillion buckeroos.  Since the twelve disciples on the special committee couldn’t come up with a plan, the default position was to cut the funding half from Defense and, putting a local face on things, half from little Aubrey.  Secretary Panetta concluded his remarks with this sage statement about Congress…What they essentially did is put a gun to their heads and the heads of the country.  Or to put a local face on it, little Aubrey’s head.

I’m a big supporter of our armed forces.  I don’t want to slash their budget to the point where Fidel Castro can easily maneuver his walker into my bedroom and suffocate me with a super burrito.  We even went to see Act of Valor where we patriotically joined seven other bewildered people on a Saturday evening.  The other three hundred people were next door watching Hunger Games, a story about little kids killing other little kids.  Inspiring.  No, I don’t want to slash the military budget but maybe a surface abrasion or even a painful papercut would be in order.

I’m sure little Aubrey is a big fan of the armed forces too.  Maybe she even understands why her parents need to have a fund-raiser so she can get the medical care she needs and rid herself of that backpack.  Maybe she even appreciates why Congressman Ryan wants to slash medical benefits while giving even larger tax breaks to those folks who might then be more inclined to attend her fundraiser.  But I doubt that even little Aubrey can understand how Justice Scalia can equate her medical disaster to broccoli.

No Time to Wait for Superman

We went to the movies with Yoram and Bert yesterday and saw Sarah’s Key.  A somewhat schizophrenic movie, it vacillated between engrossing and boring.  It should have ended thirty minutes earlier.

As is our custom, the forty minute ride to Ventura went quickly as we made the rounds of politics, the economy, the British riots, the astoundingly dopey letters-to-the-editor in the Ojai Valley News, and my recent, somewhat less dopey, Waiting for Superman blog.  We especially marvelled at the inability of the Democrats to mount an understandable, mind-grabbing offensive to counter the simple-minded missives delivered by the bad guys.

It appears that lots of folks are waiting for Superman, including Timothy Egan who wrote a similarly named New York Times article on the same day I penned mine.  Egan compiles a compelling, and basic English list of points that should be taped to every Democrat’s refrigerator door and repeatedly shouted from their windows much like crazy Peter Finch did so eloquently in Network.

As Egan points out, given the present composition of the House of Loons, the Senate’s sixty vote obstruction provision and the upcoming (isn’t it always upcoming) election, any economic solutions offered by Obama will never see the light of day.  You can read Egan’s column, but to save you time and to make the list compact enough to fit on your refrigerator, I’ve taken the liberty of providing a Fredified version of it.

Rich people should pay more taxes.  Period.  Leave the rest of the folks alone.  Let the Republicans be the champions of the rich in a country where 5% of the population owns 60% of the assets.  Even more amazingly, 1% of the population owns about 33% of the wealth.

Higher taxes never stopped a business owner from trying to sell more and make more profits.  It’s better to make an extra buck even if you gotta pay half of it to the IRS.  Let the Republicans do the math.

Higher taxes never stopped any owner from hiring people.  As long as they made money for him, he hired them.  Let the Republicans prove the opposite.  Oh, and point out their intent to reduce corporate income taxes.

And, while we’re talking about the unemployed, ask anyone to name a single jobs creation bill proposed by a Republican since Obama took office.

Instead of falsely claiming that the financial stimulus bill was a failure, you might point out that Obama created more jobs in 2010  than Bush did in eight years.  If anything, the stimulus should have been three times larger.  Instead, the Republicans focused on debt reduction in spite of its job killing effects.

Nearly 50 million people don’t have healthcare insurance.  Obama’s healthcare reform act, though imperfect, chips away at that contemptible situation.  Let the Republicans tell us why these folks should go without insurance.  Rick Perry might be qualified for that assignment since 1 in 4 Texans have no insurance.

Repeat the mantras of the leading Republican candidates.  Especially those dealing with reliance on the bible for solutions, the age of the planet, disputing man’s contribution to climate change, the abolishment of the Federal Reserve (accompanied by the guillotining of Ben Bernanke), a moratorium on environmental regulations  (leave it to God),  the claim that Social Security is a Ponzi scheme, their refusal to allow a woman to determine how to manage her own body, elimination of the minimum wage, getting folks to be more responsible starting with the elimination of federal disaster relief, and their ideological shackle to the National Rifle Association and single-minded Tea Party dim wits.

If all that doesn’t work, try scaring the undecided with the prospect of more Supreme Court justices like Thomas, Scalia and Alito…or worse.

So take that blanket off your face, quit being a woe-is-me wuss,  get up off your duff, and be more like Peter Finch…even if he was a loon.  Oh, and stop worrying about getting the facts straight.  They don’t.

Still a good idea…apparently

A couple of years ago I told you about the movie Night Shift.  That’s where Henry Winkler manages the after dark goings-on at the local morgue.  His buddy is Michael Keaton, a loveable neer-do-well who has nothing better to do than hang out with Henry and his quiet companions, and conjure up money-making ideas that come well short of Einstein’s theory of relativity.  One night Michael says “Ya know, we spend far too much time squishing mayonnaise into a can of tuna.  It’s tough, hard work.  We could save time by simply feeding the mayonnaise to the tuna before we bash its brains out.”

I was reminded of that clever idea when the Huffington Post  published a summary of Senator McConnell’s proposal to solve the debt limit conundrum.  If I’ve got it right, Mitch wants to cede responsibility for raising the limit to Obama so long as the Prez also proposes expense reductions equal to the debt increase.  Congress (i.e. Republicans) could vote against the debt increase, but Obama could veto the negative vote thereby becoming solely responsible for further indebting the country.  Independently, Congress (again, i.e. Republicans) could vote against the expense reductions and Obama could veto the negative vote, thereby being solely responsible for taking food out of the mouths of the hungry, healthcare from the sick and guns from the troops.

Good idea, says Mitch.  “That way we can say we Republicans didn’t want the debt limit increased.  And we sure as hell didn’t want to cheat grandma out of her visits to Dr. Kildare.  Obama did it, so elect Michelle.”

Playing the Henry Winkler role, the Prez said that Mitch (playing Michael Keaton as though he were vying for an Oscar) had an interesting idea.  But that maybe it was better to address the problem head-on even if it cost Mitch a trip down the red carpet in November.

Supporting the Prez by pooh-poohing Mitch and, in the process continuing her insatiable quest for the Judy Holliday  Zany Brainie award of the year, was Michelle Bachmann.  Disputing the very idea that the government’s credit standing might be tarnished and that checks would surely continue to be mailed to her government subsidized husband, she said…“I’m a ‘no’ on raising the debt ceiling right now because I have been here long enough that I have seen a lot of smoke and mirrors in the time I have been here…”   Who’s to argue with that?

John Boehner, tearing himself away from coddling the Tea Party members of the House, offered praise for Mitch’s idea on Fox News…“I think everybody believes there needs to be a backup plan if we are unable to come to an agreement, and frankly I think Mitch has done good work.”   Deftly playing both sides of the street he added…“I don’t think such a proposal could pass the House in any way, shape or form…”  So there.

Well, I suppose the good news is that they are still talking.  And I wouldn’t be surprised if they eventually come up with a thought as eloquent as this snippet from Night Shift that focuses on the use of the movie morgue as a house of prostitution.

Henry: (disgustedly)  As we sit here and idly chat, there are women, female human beings, rolling around in strange beds with strange men, and we are making money from that.

Michael: Is this a great country, or what?

 

Rewriting History

My brother-in-law, Sandy, changed my reading habits dramatically when he bought me a subscription to the New York Review of Books.  Every two weeks an ungainly magazine arrives in our mailbox relatively devoid of advertising other than new books and the personals at the end of the magazine that include the pleas of widows and divorcees seeking the company of similarly oriented men.

What I enjoy most are the occasional glimpses of history that accompany the book reviews.  Being a relative neophyte whose exposure to history ended in the eighth grade, the information is fascinating.  Yes, some of the articles are beyond my comprehension such as a recent one dealing with the brain and how we think; that one might as well have been written by the ancient Greeks.

The June 23 issue contains an article entitled A New Approach to the Holocaust.  I am somewhat more conversant with that subject than others and, no matter how often I read about it, continue to be simultaneously repulsed and fascinated by the events contained in that human tragedy.  Like a moth to the flame, I am drawn to anything written about it.

The article contains the usual story line that the Nazis had not intended the extermination of the Jews.  Rather, deportation was the original preferred method of solving the problem.  But things change, especially when your plans begin to go awry.  And 6,000,000 died.  In particular I found the following intriguing…

The Final Solution took place, but not according to plan.  Rather than being a war aim, it became part of the war itself.  Hitler in August 1941 spoke of a war against Jews.  That December, after the Soviets began a counteroffensive at Moscow and the Americans entered the war, Hitler spoke of a world war brought about by the Jews.

One of my brain synapses clicked and I remembered Sunday’s call from our darling daughter Nancy.  A good girl, she regularly calls to check on the emotional and clinical status of her parents.  Following the usual organ recital, the conversation occasionally switches to politics and, in particular, the elected imbecile of the day…which, with the recent exception of Anthony Weiner, generally focuses on Republicans.  Must be genetic.  Nancy launched into a five minute dissertation of Michelle Bachmann’s recent confusion of Founding Fathers and slavery.

Asked by George Stephanopolous if she stood by her earlier comments that the Founding Fathers fought to eliminate slavery, Michelle incorrectly identified John Quincy Adams as one of the Founders.  Stephanopolous, with a far greater grasp of history than I, pointed out that it was John Adams, Quincy’s dad, who was the Founder and that many of those guys were inveterate slave owners.  Given the opportunity to recant and admit her mistake, she did not.  In support of the Bachmann version of history, her supporters altered the John Quincy Adams page on Wikipedia to include him as a Founding Father (he was eight years old when the Declaration of Independence was signed.)  That alteration has since be corrected.

Michelle also misspoke the day before while in Waterloo, Iowa announcing her run for president, saying that John Wayne was born in Waterloo, Iowa, when in reality John Wayne Gaycee the serial killer was born in Waterloo, Iowa. The Wikipedia page for John Wayne was also changed to make his birthplace Waterloo, even though John Wayne was born in Winterset, Iowa.  Good thing the Duke isn’t around.

Having laughed this off as something not worth worrying about and having said good-bye to Nancy, I was then confronted with the Ventura Star’s Monday headline…GOP Pins Budget Cuts on Democrats.  The world’s greatest newspaper then went on…

Republicans hope to pin the blame for massive spending cuts to social  programs and higher education on Democrats, while claiming credit for holding  the line on taxes. Assembly Minority Leader Connie Conway, R-Tulare, stressed  that the budget was “not ours…They’re the ones that chose who got cut. They are the ones that made their  priorities, and so if people are suffering and hurting, they need to contact the  people that did that to them.”

What?  Duh?  Refusing to negotiate any kind of revenue increase, these minority party bozos sat by and watched the Democrats slash and burn in order to try to balance California’s budget.  They gleefully participated in the travesty that allows a minority of the legislature to block any kind of tax increase.  And the Star, knowing full well that most of their subscribers only read the 16 point print, stoop to being co-conspirators.

Maybe I should go back to the eighth grade and pay more attention.  And maybe we should all stop laughing.

Shame on you

I’ve been somewhat delinquent in writing to you but things have been a bit difficult for us the last few months.  When I’d see something outrageous on TV or read it in print, I’d think that’s a subject I can get my teeth into.  I’d stare at the computer screen and, like Satchel Paige, I’d wait til the feeling had passed.

Yoram and I were talking the other day about how we both seemed to be weary of world events…wars without end, the dizzying economy and, in particular, the inability of our leaders to work together toward any common good.  My energy had been sapped.  My mind wandering.  My writing at a standstill.  Solitaire an ever-present friend on the glowing tube.

And then I read about Eric Cantor.

Names are important to me.  They tell me something about the person.  In particular, like most Jews,  I parse the name and mentally ask…Is he Jewish?  Boesky,  Milken, Blankfein, Spitzer, Madoff, Weiner.  Their names are a perpetual parade before me.  How can they do this to me?  After all we’ve been through.  When the name is Mazillo, Lay, Dahmer, Nixon, Edwards or Gingrich why don’t I say…look, a Christian…how shameful.  I think…thank God he’s not Jewish.

And now comes Cantor.  The only Jewish Republican in the House of Representatives, and the leader of the Republican majority.  Against stem cell research, a recipient of a perfect score from the National Right to Life Committee and a big zero from NARAL.  Voting against prohibiting job discrimination based on sexual orientation, he also supports making flag burning illegal.  His failing grade from the NAACP accompanies his A rating from the NRA.

Today, putting an abrupt halt to budget negotiations that have so far only produced billions of dollars in expense reductions, Mr. Cantor said that he would not return to the table until Democrats crossed their hearts and promised to stop talking about taxing the rich.  He insists that they continue to focus on enfeebling the poor, dumbing down our kids, and supporting our troops.  Sort of a reverse Tikkun Olam.  His grandparents would be proud.

Compromise is uncompromisable.  My way or the highway.  Debt limit…who cares.  And, he’s probably going to get his way.  He learned from California Republicans.  A small minority that merely sat on their hands, closed their eyes and nyah, nyah, nyah’d their way to getting what they wanted.  If those bozos can do it, a yeshiva bocher should be able to do it without breaking a sweat.

Now if I really believed that Eric didn’t given a damn about the debt limit or the inability to pass even a Rube Goldberg budget, I’d be the one breaking out in a sweat.  No, he’s smarter than that.  He knows the Dems will cave even if it happens just before the carriage turns back into a pumpkin.  No guts no glory.  Sissies.  Pushovers.  Mama’s boys.

As Satchel would say…better to lay down and wait til the feeling passes.

 

Big Oil, Bigger Fools

I’m surprised that I haven’t seen bell ringers and kettles on the corner of Signal Street and Ojai Ave.  No, not for the Salvation Army.  For the oil companies.

After listening to the CEOs of the five largest oil companies testify before Congress, I feel it’s my patriotic duty to support them in their hour of need.   And I used to think it was school kids, poor people and seniors who needed help.  How could I have been so addled?

The five guys who expressed indignance and scorn at the idea of giving up $2 billion in annual tax subsidies have impeccable logic.  If they give up the $2 billion, prices will go up at the pump, exploration will be halted, and they will pout a lot.  Even worse, it will lead to more endangered subsidies, like for corporate farmers and stock brokers.

Sure, $2 billion is a lot of billion.  It’s almost two percent of the annualized first quarter profits of these five behemoths.  The oil companies only make about five percent on every dollar sent their way.  So, their annual revenue is about $2 trillion.  For those who can’t get their heads around a trillion, it’s a thousand billion.  And big oil’s got two of those.  Confiscating $2 billion in subsidies would leave them with only $1,998,000,000.  No wonder they’re upset.

But the Republicans will rise to the occasion and once again champion the underdog.  The Senate will never get to vote on the $2 billion reduction because the Democrats won’t get enough votes to block a filibuster.  And even if they did, the Katzenjammer Kids in the House will sit on their hands.

But no matter.  We’re headed for Armageddon anyway.  I watched Senator McConnell smirk on the NewsHour last night and realized that he has the winning hand.  He threatens economic meltdown by refusing to increase the federal debt limit if he and the chief Katzenjammer Kid, John Boehner, don’t get $2 trillion lopped from the federal budget.  It was a glorious display of my way or the highway.

Then I realized that the expenditure reduction demanded by Mitch and John is exactly equal to the total annual revenue of the five oil companies…and a solution to the problem leaped into my head.  Rather than gutting Medicare, privatizing Social Security, and limiting Medicaid benefits to only those folks who have been trampled by dinosaurs, let’s nationalize the oil companies, take their $2 trillion, and reduce the deficit.

Then we can pay closer attention to important things, like whether Moammar Ghadafi is really going to star in a remake of the Three Stooges.

Just say no.

I rowed this morning.  Not on Lake Casitas.  On the carpet of my cubbyhole just off the bathroom.  With all the international, national and personal stress filling my head, rowing seems to focus the mind on something other than “how in the world did this happen!”

My endorphin infusion was interrupted when Mitch McConnell, the Michael Pollard look-alike of the Senate Republican minority, appeared on the TV screen eager to express his views to David Gregory, the latest incarnation of Meet the Press’  Grand Inquisitor.  “So”, David said, “do you think there will be a compromise on tax cuts.”   Responding with a smile, Mitch offered “I hope so.  We’ve had more discussions with the President in the last two weeks than in the last two years.  We certainly hope for a compromise.”

The reality of it is that by holding 98% of Americans hostage, the Republicans are likely to win a big one for rich folks and add a bizillion dollars to the migraine-inducing deficit.  Their strategy of resisting an extension of unemployment benefits and allowing tax cuts to lapse for the middle class appears to be working.  Obama is ready to cave…again.

Like the kid who, having placed a tooth under his pillow, expects to find that the Tooth Fairy has left a surprise, I look forward to each new day in the hope that Obama will shed his politically correct clothes and appear on TV with a big red S on his chest.  Announcing…truth, justice and the American way are here.  Beware all you who tread on me and the people who made this country a shining beacon in an otherwise cruel world.  I shall not be compromised in my quest to return this country to greatness.

Alas, as the clock ticks away, I fall further down the rabbit hole.  Expecting to wind up in the usual place, before the Queen of Hearts and the Mad Hatter.  My confidence in our leader wanes.  My belief that the forces of right will triumph over the Morlocks, the Dark Lord Sauron, and the Snow Queen ebbs with the passing of time.  I need something to shock my system.  Something that says now is the time to stand up and be counted.  The time for compromise has ended.  Two years of cowering over the lack of a Senate super-majority is fini.  Damn the torpedoes.  Rammmming speed.

Here’s what I suggest.  Refuse to extend the tax cuts for the 2% who’ll put in the bank anyway.  Let the Republicans continue to block the continuation of all the tax cuts.  Let tax rates go back to where they were when we had a robust economy, a surplus and full employment.  If anyone complains, blame it on the Republicans.  They did the blocking.  Take the additional tax dollars and reduce the deficit, invest it stuff that creates jobs, shores up our decaying infrastructure and restores our educational system to its former glory.

Bring legislation to the hill next year to a Republican House and a more Republican Senate (including my favorite Republican in drag, Joe Lieberman) that provides tax relief to those who most need it.  Let them vote it down because it doesn’t provide tax cuts to the 2% who don’t need it.  Keep pointing at Mitch, John and their cohorts as the guys who don’t care about the middle class.  Then do it again and again.  For two years.

I’m tired of bending over and saying “may I have more please.”   It’s time to stand up.  It’s time to say no…loudly.

 

Starve the beast

Drove the bus on Monday.  Pretty much the usual routine.  Charley in his wheel chair going to the cardiologist.  Joann in her chair off to school.  Bridget to Oak Tree house makes it a trifecta of wheeled conveyances.  Neatly topped off by the lunch bunch with assorted walkers and canes.  A good morning for them and for me.

And then I headed back up the hill.  KCRW’s Warren Olney in the background with Which Way LA.  I like Warren.  His style is non-confrontational, but incisive.  He tries to hide a liberal streak, not very well.  My kind of guy.

The subject was the Census Bureau poverty statistics in our rich nation.  44 million people below the poverty line.  One in seven of us.  Twenty percent of all children.  You qualify if there are four in your family and you earn less than $22,000 a year.  $1,833 a month.  If you spent it all on food, each meal would cost about $5.  With nothing left over for rent, medical care, cell phones and Starbucks.

Warren spoke with Beverly Damore.  She is with St. Mary’s Food Bank in Phoenix and serves the needs of three-quarters of the same state that brought us their own version of immigration reform.  Beverly’s food bank has doubled in size the last two years distributing 72 million pounds of food annually to 500,000 Arizonans.  Many of her customers say “I used to be a donor, now I need your help.”  Or, “I can’t believe I’m here.”

Stephen Moore, chief economics writer for the Wall Street Journal thought it tragic that so many people were in need.  When asked if the current government safety net programs should be continued, he said “I’m not familiar with most of those programs, but I am an expert on unemployment benefits.”  Continuing, “We need to get people back to work and unemployment benefits stand in the way of that objective.  When people get those benefits, they are less inclined to take any job that comes along.”  He topped it off with ” The government stimulus programs haven’t worked.  The Reagan tax cuts did.”

Heidi Shierholz, an economist with the Economic Policy Institute chimed in.  “I agree with Steve.  In normal times, unemployment benefits do postpone the worker’s need to jump into the first thing that comes along.  But one of the explicit purposes of those benefits is to make sure that people seeking work and available jobs are properly matched.  But this isn’t normal times.  There are five workers for every available job.  And, by the way, the only problem with the stimulus programs is that they aren’t big enough.”

Jason Perkins Cohen of Baltimore’s Job Opportunity Task Force added, “Few of the people we see are sitting home because they’d rather not be working.”

Which brings me to tax cuts.  I won’t bore you with details.  Enough to say that Obama wants to end the Bush tax cuts for two percent of taxpayers and take the money to help some of the 44 million folks we just talked about.  Now I know that a 3 percentage point increase in rich folks’ marginal tax rates is likely to be devastating.  American industry will grind to a halt.  Business owners will cease to expand their companies because of the horror of paying extra taxes on their increased sales volume.  And their annual vacations will be geographically restrained to this hemisphere.  What has this world come to!

So maybe the Snow Queen was right when she said…”the way to stop unnecessary government spending is to starve the beast.”  All 44 million of them.

Save your old shoes

Headed down the hill today to visit John Long at Ojai Valley Imports.  Time for an oil change.  John was a bit scruffier looking than usual but, in his happy way, greeted me with ”Hi Fred, how you been?”  For whatever reason, I still think an oil change costs $39.  And I’m always surprised to discover that’s only the half of it.  Must be an age thing.

Sort of like my view of buying shoes.  I remember when Florsheim meant something.  Spend $35 on a pair of Florsheims forty years ago and they were an investment that kept on giving until your wife ripped them off your feet and threw them in the garbage.  I always get wide-eyed at the cost of any kind of shoe, regardless of price.  Must be my upbringing.

I waited under that old fir tree on the corner of Summer and Ojai Avenue, trying to twist old, dead needles into a useful survival tool.  Mercifully, Don arrived and we drove to the Ojai Cafe Emporium for our usual coffee and half a sweet roll.  Like Florsheims, I think their cinnamon rolls have suffered a bit over time.  But their muffins are the best, especially pumpkin.  I could probably eat a whole one but I feel psychologically fitter if I only get a half ration of white flour and sugar.  Besides, I usually bring two home for Sweetie and help her with the eating part.

The place was nearly deserted at 8:15, an unusual event.  I asked the lovely lady behind the counter where everyone was.  No clue.  I joked “maybe they’re all staking claim to prime spots on the avenue for the July 4th parade.”  And then I remembered that the parade is on July 3 because the 4th is a Sunday.

I admit to a certain amount of bristling about the parade being moved to Saturday.  And I remember the brooha that ensued when the parade sponsors made the same decision a few years ago in order to let folks attend church.  Back then I almost wrote a letter to the Ojai Valley News to remind the sponsors that Saturday was a holy day for us desert wanderers.  But then I haven’t been to a temple Saturday service in a long time.  So why should I bitch.  Even so, a July Third parade seems all wrong.

Don and I began with an organ recital (how’s your health), a less than argumentative discussion of who’s really at fault for the state of the economy, Joe Barton’s whole-hearted but bonehead apology to BP, and a review of our latest literary explorations.  I was proud to announce that I was actually reading a piece of non-fiction.  Nothing to Fear by Adam Cohen (who probably would also be ticked at the thought of a July 3rd parade) recounts FDR’s first hundred days in office in 1933.  In the depths of the depression, here comes a guy who had an easy act to follow, Herbert Hoover.  Some would argue that Obama had the same advantage.

As I read the book, I found myself comparing then and now.  Killer unemployment, a banking system on life support, stocks in the toilet, a media that thrives on bad news, and conflicting views on the role of government in an economic holocaust.  FDR and the Democrats win the election in a landslide.  A lock on both houses of congress and the key to the Oval Office.  On Day One, FDR plops himself behind the desk and hasn’t a clue as to what specific steps should be taken.  All he knows is that the banks need oxygen and people need jobs.  And the rest is history.

The only difference between then and now is the sense of urgency.  Not enough people selling apples.  No army of the unemployed on the steps of Congress.  Too few market manipulators leaping from the fifth floor.  And an election cycle that has no beginning and no end.

Who knows, maybe we’ll get lucky and things will get worse.  Meanwhile, save your old shoes.

It’s easy to say “no”

Thank goodness.  Congress is on the verge of passing a financial reform bill.  Like real people, Barney Frank and Chris Dodd stayed up late to push the damn thing over the finish line…even though nary a Republican felt inclined to be associated with it.

No more shudders when I go into my local bank, queue up to the tellers and wonder “how is this big, bad institution going to screw me today.”  No more worries about how much money my bank is putting into those nasty hedge funds.  No more giving me a big mortgage without asking me if I actually have a source of income to repay the loan.  And the real biggy…I can get a discount for paying cash instead of shoving plastic at the waitress.  Whew.  It boggles the mind.

And a big thumbs-up to the auto dealer lobbyists.  They managed to exempt their angelic clients from scrutiny by the new Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.  Doubtless because no senator has been victimized by bait and switch, inflated loan fees and expensive, unnecessary add-ons like rust protection in California.

No surprise that the Party-of-No decided to continue its unblemished record of contributing nothing, doing nothing and hoping for nothing.  It’s at times like this that I think back to the good old days when we were the minority and could relish lack of achievement, point fingers, and look forward to reading the NY Times every hour on the hour…hoping for more bad news.  News that would turn us back into the majority.  As someone once said, be careful what you wish for.

But if we were the minority, I wonder if we would have deep-sixed the extension of jobless benefits like the current minority-in-residence did.  Forgetting about the late-lamented trillion-dollar financial institution bail-out, and using the shop-worn argument that deficit reduction trumps the extension of the princely sum of $309 a week in jobless benefits, the Party-of-No deftly avoided the real impetus for their intransigence…the protection of tax breaks for those who earn considerably more than $309 a week.

At a time when nearly every economist in the country agrees on the importance of consumer spending in digging us out of the recession, the Party-of-No is willing to keep jobless benefits out of the hands of those who spend it on food and shelter…as a wedge to maximize the wealth of those who need it least.

I hope that, come November, the 1.2 million folks who lost their benefits will remember who to thank.  In particular, they might consider the following statement by that great deficit hawk, Senator Orrin Hatch.  Proposing an amendment that would require drug testing of all who apply for jobless benefits or welfare, he said…This amendment is a way to help people get off of drugs to become productive and healthy members of society, while ensuring that valuable taxpayer dollars aren’t wasted…Too many Americans are locked into a life of a dangerous dependency not only on drugs, but the federal assistance that serves to enable their addiction.

Then again, maybe it would be better if we stay in charge.  It could be a whole lot worse.