Myrhaf

Forty Years Past

2009-07-20T00:23:00.001-07:00

Full forty years ago the giants leapt,
And made the moon a place that man can go;
The solemn glory that is science kept
All eyes focused on a black and white glow.

Though I was twelve and must have watched it too,
I can’t remember clearly if I did.
I took it all for granted, nothing new;
“Man on the moon? Of course” -- thus shrugged the kid.

For Asimov and Heinlein had my mind
Already colonized with flying ships,
And flown me to the farthest star to find
The galaxy in hyperspatial trips.

And Bob Kane, Gil Kane, Ditko, Kirby, Lee,
Buscema, Infantino, Gardner Fox,
Roy Thomas, Barry Smith: they gave to me
Imagination far beyond the box.

Now forty years have passed, and some I miss;
I look back at that triumph and I sing,
The man is still the boy except for this:
He nothing takes for granted. Not a thing.

Poetry

2009-07-19T14:53:00.001-07:00

I know that shall never see
A vegetable as poetry.
To see some goddamned tree as art
Is hearing Mozart in a fart.

Shape of Things to Come

2009-07-18T22:44:00.001-07:00

I missed the US Postal Service when they knocked on my door yesterday with an important package I've been waiting for impatiently. The postman left a note on my door that I could pick up the package at the post office on Saturday between 9-11am.

So today I went to the post office at 9am today to pick up the package before going to rehearsal at 10am. I waited until 9:30am, but the window that is supposed to be open from 9-11am never opened. I'll have to wait until Monday to get my package.

It says on the sign that the window is open from 9-11am on Saturday, but it takes a human being with initiative and a sense of responsibility to actually open the window and serve the public. This is probably too much to ask of government employees on many Saturdays. They're busy, life is rough, and customers suck, so if they just evade the window long enough, then they can do other things. It's not like they'll be fired for ignoring the public.

My local supermarket is open from 6am-11pm every day except for a few holidays. They always open at exactly 6am. The manager never says to his employees, "Let's open a hour late today. That way we can sit around out back and smoke cigarettes and gossip. Screw the customers!" They open at 6am because they don't want to lose any of their profits.

Government bureaucrats don't pursue profits. They follow regulations. The customer is just a nuisance, one of the many unpleasant obstacles to happiness they must deal with throughout the day. The supermarket manager delights to see more and more customers because it means more and more profits. The postal worker sees more customers as just more work, and he gets paid the same regardless of how many customers he makes happy.

When we socialize medicine in America, going to the doctor will be like a combination of going to the post office and the DMV. We're talking lines, bureaucratic procedures, and little incentive for government workers to give a damn. Imagine: doctors who resent every new patient as just so much more work they are forced by the system to do.

We're destroying our country, and when you ask Obama voters why they voted for him, they don't really know. He made them feel warm and fuzzy. That's good enough, isn't it?

UPDATE: Revision.

The Land of Happy Slaves

2009-07-14T03:34:00.001-07:00

Community is built around a lie
To shield the meek from looking to the sky.
Religion is a structure of excuse
To have believers tying their own noose.
The modern state’s a king without a throne
To stop free men from standing all alone.
The state’s a wiseguy nudging with his gun,
"You need protection; pay me and it's done."
And politics is nothing but a fog
Of words designed to make each man a cog,
An oiled function in the great machine,
All higher aspirations left unseen.
“Obama!” cry the million mindless slaves,
Their stunted, blighted lives like living graves.

God Sees the Truth, But Waits

2009-07-04T11:29:00.001-07:00

I read short story by Leo Tolstoy called "God Sees the Truth, But Waits." Ghastly, just ghastly.

I will tell the entire plot. If you want to read it unspoiled, stop reading NOW.

You've been warned.

Ivan Dmitrich Aksyonov decides to travel to Nizhny Fair. His wife begs him not to go because she had a bad dream about this trip. He laughs her off and leaves anyway. Halfway to the Fair he stops overnight at an inn. He is awakened the next morning by the police because there has been a murder at the inn that night and he is a prime suspect. He is not worried as they search his things because he knows he did not not commit the murder. The police find a bloody knife in his bag.

Aksyonov protests that he is innocent, but no one believes him, not even his wife. Aksyonov is condemned to flogging with a knout and life imprisonment in the mines in Siberia.

After 26 years in Siberia Aksyonov's hair is white and his happy spirit is broken. He prays to God a lot and the other prisoners respect him.

A new prisoner, Makar Semyonovich, who comes from Aksyonov's hometown, arrives. After some discussion, Aksyonov suspects that Semyonovich is the real murderer. He finds Semyonovich digging a hole to escape in the night. The next day the authorities ask Akyonov who dug the hole. Aksyonov says he does not know.

That night Semyonovich falls to his knees before Aksyonov and confesses that he committed the murder 26 years ago and hid the knife in Aksyonov's bag. He begs for forgiveness and weeps as only guilty Russians can.

The last three paragraphs I must transcribe completely for them to be believed:

When Aksyonov heard him sobbing he too began to weep.

"God will forgive you!" he said. "Maybe I am a hundred times worse than you." And at these words his heart suddenly grew light and the longing for home left him. He no longer had any desire to leave the prison, but only hoped for his last hour to come.

In spite of what Aksyonov had said, Makar Semyonovich confessed his guilt. But when the order for his release came, Aksyonov was already dead.

Now, that's a Christian short story -- real, medieval Augustinian Christianity, not the watered down American stuff. Justice on earth is meaningless because God knows who is guilty and innocent. We humans should turn the other cheek and leave justice to God in the afterlife.

Tolstoy dramatizes his theme perfectly. It is a powerful story. But what a theme! Tolstoy's is not a philosophy for living on earth, but a philosophy of self-abnegation and renunciation of values and happiness. In every fundamental respect Leo Tolstoy and Ayn Rand are opposites, despite their both being brilliant writers of long novels who were born in Russia.

Great Minds of Western Civilization, Hollywood Series

2009-07-01T07:46:00.001-07:00

Proof that one need not have even average intelligence to be a good actor:

"The title of the film is 'Public Enemies,' but I don't see John Dillinger as an enemy of the public," Depp told the Los Angeles Times. He noted that J. Edgar Hoover was the man who sent federal agents after Dillinger, and remarked, "I mean, who's the real criminal?"

Lakers Win

2009-06-14T21:01:00.001-07:00

After the Lakers blew away the Magic in the first game I wanted to write a post announcing that the series was over. No way the Magic beat the Lakers. I resisted because, as Yogi says, it ain't over till it's over. I also resisted crowing when the Lakers won the second game and went up 2-0. It's hard for a team to come back after losing the first two games.

The fourth game was pivotal. The Lakers went into it with a two games to one edge. If the Magic win that game, the series is tied, 2-2. But the Lakers won in overtime, making it 3-1. The difference between 3-1 and 2-2 is immense. At 2-2, it's a best two out of three series. At 3-1, the team with one win is facing elimination and has to win the next three in a row. But I kept my quiet after game four because of what Yogi says.

Okay, now it's over. Hollywood beat Disneyworld. It took the Lakers five games to beat the Magic. The Magic lived by the three-point shot and died by it.

Dwight Howard, the Magic's center, is the best center in the game, but he has never shown that he deserves to be ranked among the best of all time. Sometimes he disappears in games. He has a million dollar smile -- he really should try acting -- but it's still a question whether he has the toughness and will to be a champion. His Superman dunk in last year's all star game was, as the kids say, sick. At best he might end up basketball's Ted Williams -- a great player whose best moment was in an all star game. (Or in the slam dunk contest on all star game weekend.)

Kobe Bryant proved he has what it takes to be a champion. He will be considered one of the very best that ever played the game when his career is all over. If he stays healthy and productive for another five years, his points total will approach Kareem Abdul-Jabbar's 38,000 and some.

Phil Jackson won his 10th ring as a head coach. Derek Fisher was asked what makes Jackson a great coach. He said something to the effect that he's not a dictator. He leaves you free to be you and make your own choices. Oddly enough, that's exactly what I like in a stage director. I hate the directors who have all my blocking plotted out before the first read-through.

The Lakers got a little lucky this year. Both Yao Ming of Houston and Kevin Garnett of Boston were injured in the playoffs. A healthy Boston is a much harder team to beat than Orlando. It would be great to see the Lakers beat the Celtics for the championship next year.

The Lakers also got a little lucky when they picked up Trevor Ariza. I think they made that trade mostly because they wanted to dump Maurice Evans and Brian Cook. Ariza looked like he would be a guy who comes off the bench in defensive situations. He played so well that he became a starter. He defends well, he can shoot the three as well as drive to the basket and dunk, and he is the most talented thief in the game. I've never seen anyone steal the ball as well as Ariza.

Maybe the Lakers also got a little bit lucky when they picked up Pau Gasol, the most skilled seven-footer in the league, for, like, nothing. But as either Branch Rickey or Winston Churchill once said -- I've seen the quote attributed to both -- luck is the residue of design. Give General Manager Mitch Kupchak his due.

It's amazing where the Lakers are today, considering the disarray they were in just two years ago, with Kobe demanding a trade.

Next year the Lakers are the team to beat. Every place they go on the road will sell out their seating all the way to those nose bleed seats next to the air conditioning ducts. The opposing teams will play at their adrenaline-fueled best against the champs. The 2009-2010 season will be a gauntlet that will leave the Lakers lean and mean for the playoffs.

The dynasty began tonight.

Star Trek

2009-05-20T02:26:00.001-07:00

I watched "Star Trek" at the IMAX. It was cleverly written. The actors all look like youthful versions of the original cast, and that's fun. Nice eye candy.

Of course, as with all summer blockbusters, you have to check your brain at the door. (Skydiving from space?) These movies pile improbability on improbability until one stops caring about the people or the plot and just absorbs the special effects and spectacle in a kind of numbness. If my praise sounds faint, it's about as much as I can muster for a Hollywood action-adventure flick.

To think that people used to go to plays by Schiller and Hugo, and now they're happy with sound and fury signifying nothing.

This being Hollywood, the movie had the obligatory "Don't be logical, trust your feelings," line. How original! If they ever made a movie that shows reason as a value, I'd faint. (Actually, I've never fainted. I'd probably say, "Hm. Didn't see that coming.")

I shiver in dread to think how Hollywood will f**k up Atlas Shrugged.

New York Memories

2009-05-07T18:24:00.001-07:00

When I lived in New York City in the '80s, I went to see about a room for rent on the Upper West Side. It was in a beautiful neighborhood just a block from Central Park. As I recall, the room was going for $300. Why was a room in this neighborhood going so cheap, I wondered?

The man who owned the apartment had been drinking when he let me in. He liked me at first sight and wanted me to take the room.

"Before we go any farther," he said,"I need to tell you about my thing."

"Okay. What's your thing?"

"I like to go into Central Park at night and hide in the bushes and give guys blow jobs."

"That's your thing?"

"Yes."

"That's quite a thing."

"Oh, yes! I meet the most interesting people."

"I'm sure."

"I've done priests. I make them hide their cross before I'll do them."

"Why?"

He seemed surprised at the question. "Everything it stands for. I think it's better for them if they put the cross away while I'm doing it. I also did a policeman. He let me ride on the back of his motorcycle."

The fellow shivered in delight at the memory of riding that motorcycle.

"I dunno," I mumbled, "I think I better look elsewhere."

"Why?!" he cried in dismay.

"I just... I'm a little uncomfortable with your thing. Not that there's anything wrong with it, if, you know, that's your thing. I'm conservative."

"So am I!"

"Right. I mean... my mother would disapprove," I said rather lamely.

"Oh, I know! Mine does, too."

I got out of there as fast as I could.

Thus did I end up taking a room in a loft in the Williamsburg section of Brooklyn. When I moved to New York in 1984, I took along a book on how to move to New York. Yes, I would buy such a book. It advised against moving to Williamsburg -- too dangerous. By the time I left New York in 1995, Williamsburg had become trendy. You saw lawyers and Wall Street types coming over to the bars.

I liked Williamsburg. There were three main types of people there at that time: Hasidic Jews, Puerto Ricans and young artists. It was a bizarre mix of people that made the place seem exotic and romantic, in a decaying urban sort of way.

I remember quite vividly walking across the Williamsburg Bridge on nice days when the crisp air came down out of Canada and blew away the humid Caribbean air. The buildings of Manhattan shone with clearly defined lines on such a day.

When I would return to California on vacations I was surprised at how big and clean the suburban streets were. I was stunned the first time I saw a supermarket check out counter with an electronic reader beeping as the items were passed over it. The bodegas of Williamsburg had no such science fictional technology. As exciting as New York City was -- nothing like it in my experience -- the quality of life in California was higher. More boring, but easier. I never did get used to the winters back east.

Reminiscing On Rock'n'Roll and Sex

2009-03-26T12:05:00.001-07:00

I hated Queen in the '70s. I thought they were just a Led Zeppelin wannabe. The idea amuses me now, because the two bands could not be more different. Led Zeppelin is the ultimate heterosexual band. Queen is gay -- campy and gay. ("Fat Bottom Girls" is not how heterosexual men lust. Well, except maybe for Sir Mix-A-Lot.)

Led Zeppelin had no wit, godawful lyrics, and little care for formal tightness. They were the blues on steroids, and they managed to take everything too far. As Eric Clapton said, when he first saw them perform in 1969, "They overstated their point." Their live concert film, The Song Remains the Same, is tedious and unwatchable now, but at the time it was exactly what I wanted. Nobody else compared. I was, and still am, in awe of Jimmy Page's guitar prowess. He got sounds from his guitar that no one else gets to this day. He was also one of the few hard rock guitarists who could play intense jazz chords with distortion and make it sound good. (It's because he sold his soul to the Devil, dude! He lives in Aleister Crowley's house!)

Queen's homosexual sensibility completely eluded me in the '70s. But then, it was not until years later that I realized I was one of the few straight male high school thespians. All those other guys were flaming gays, and I never realized it.

Another thing I never realized was how sexual a lot of lyrics were. I'm stunned now that our parents let us listen to this music and play it in our garage band. For instance, take the Rolling Stones' "Honky Tonk Woman."

I met a gin soaked, bar-room queen in Memphis,

She tried to take me upstairs for a ride.

And,

I laid a divorcee in New York City

When I was a child it never occurred to me that Jagger was singing about sex.

Or take one of my favorite jamming songs, "Good Morning Little Schoolgirl" by Ten Years After.

Good morning little schoolgirl,

Can I come home with you?

And,

Baby, I want to ball you

I want to ball you all night long.

Not only is that blatantly about sex, but it's perverted and sinister. The singer is, I presume, a grown man trying to pick up a schoolgirl. We used to sing this song in our band in high school, and our parents never said a word about it.

Before I went into the Air Force, my mother took me aside and told me not to linger in bus station bathrooms because homosexuals hang out there. I did as she instructed, and went in and out of the bathrooms as quick as possible, without making eye contact for fear that one of these mysterious homosexuals might seduce me with his secret powers. She gets terribly embarrassed when I tell this story now, but I always do tell it at family gatherings because it's just too hilarious.

We're more open about homosexuality now. It's out of the closet. This is probably a good thing: people fear what they don't understand. On the other hand, I suspect that with the rise of religion, parents are not as uncaring about sexual lyrics as they were back then.

I don't know if America is more puritanical now or then.

UPDATE: Slight revision.

Huh?

2009-03-22T13:20:00.001-07:00

Kathleen Parker has stumped me with her latest column. What does this mean?

Tragicomedy, in which gods and men reverse roles, may be an honored dramatic genre, but is this any way to live?

I have no idea what she is saying. Here is the complete paragraph, in case the context helps makes sense of this sentence.

Obama's appearance on Jay Leno's show Thursday night -- joking lamely that his bowling is "like Special Olympics or something" -- is symptomatic of a broader blending of the serious and the comic that makes sane people feel slightly displaced. Infotainment isn't a new topic, but the lines are becoming increasingly blurred. Tragicomedy, in which gods and men reverse roles, may be an honored dramatic genre, but is this any way to live?

Tragicomedy, was first defined by the playwright John Fletcher, whose early plays with Beaumont, such as Philaster, were popular hits that brought tragicomedies in vogue on the London stage.

(Shakespeare's last plays, called romances, follow the tragicomedy fad. This is one of the better reasons that the Earl of Oxford could not have written the plays, as he was dead when all this happened. For us to believe Oxford wrote Shakespeare's plays, we would have to accept that he wrote tragicomedies years before anyone else did, and the King's Men did not happen to produce these plays until after 1608, when Beaumont and Fletcher happened to make the genre profitable.)

Where was I? Oh, yes. Tragicomedy. Fletcher's definition:

"A tragicomedy is not so called in respect of mirth and killing, but in respect it wants [i.e., lacks] deaths, which is enough to make it no tragedy; yet brings some near it, which is enough to make it no comedy."

I don't what Parker means about men and gods reversing roles. If anyone can explain that, please do. For extra credit, explain what all this has to do with President Obama.

Rehearsal Update

2009-03-18T16:31:00.001-07:00

I'm doing the Ghost in Hamlet and First Gentleman/Elbow/Friar Peter in Measure For Measure in the 2009 Redlands Shakespeare Festival. Hamlet is a masterpiece of drama that combines a thriller plot with philosophy and poetry. Measure For Measure is a fascinating play of religion and politics that has never been an audience favorite. Me, I would much rather do it than A Midsummer-Night's Dream again.

Last night's rehearsal of Measure For Measure was good. We paraphrased what we were saying in one scene; after that our acting improved greatly. It's funny how something obvious and fundamental like understand what you're saying makes all the difference -- and yet, actors sometimes default on this basic responsibility.

I was in a show by Beaumont and Fletcher once, long ago. B&F were Shakespeare's contemporaries, and for about 100 years they reigned as the most popular playwright in the English Language. Shakespeare regained the throne in the early 18th century and holds it to this day. The B&F body of work, over 50 plays, should be attributed to Fletcher and Friends, as Beaumont was involved in less than 15 of the plays.

Anyway, after a performance of Knight of the Burning Pestle, someone asked the leading man what he was saying in a certain speech. He confessed, "I have no idea what I'm saying."

He was just standing onstage, saying the words. If you know no one in the audience will care and if you don't have much pride of craft, then it's easy to get lazy.

Lakers Update

2009-02-09T05:14:00.001-08:00

The Lakers are the best team in the NBA. This is not merely a homer opinion. They just went 6-0 on a six-game road trip in which they lost their star center, Andrew Bynum, in the second game. They finished the trip beating the two best teams in the East, Boston and Cleveland. In Cleveland they ended the Cavaliers' 23-game winning streak at home.

Four years ago the Lakers were Kobe Bryant and the other guys. Beating them was easy: stop Kobe and make "the other guys" beat you. This strategy no longer works. In the Cleveland game on Sunday Kobe had the flu, requiring an IV during halftime; Lamar Odom, Pau Gasol and the rest stepped up their game. Their defense kept the great LeBron James on the perimeter most of the game.

A lot of times when teams attempt to "rebuild," they fail. "Rebuilding" is often just a euphemism for lousy. Look at the Clippers; they have been rebuilding for decades. Look at the Dodgers in the 1990's. The Mavericks were perennial basement dwellers until Mark Cuban bought them.

It has been amazing watching the Lakers rebuild after the departure of Shaquille O'Neal and do everything right. Or if they got something wrong at first, such as acquiring Smush Parker, they corrected their mistake fast enough. They drafted Andrew Bynum out of high school and got Kareem Abdul-Jabbar to mentor him. It has been a joy watching him develop, and maybe he will join the great Lakers tradition of centers that stretches back to George Mikan. They resigned point guard Derek Fisher, who brings leadership and experience to a young team. They traded Brian Cook and Mo Evans for Trevor Ariza, who has been brilliant; I've never seen a player steal the ball as well as Ariza. They traded Kwame Brown and others for Pau Gasol, a 7-foot power forward who scores and passes and fits perfectly in the triangle offense. (If you just look at the players involved, the trade does not make sense. The Lakers gave Memphis salary cap relief, which is what they wanted most.) You have to give General Manager Mitch Kupchak credit.

In the last week the Lakers traded away Vladimir Radmanovic to the Charlotte Bobcasts for Adam Morrison and Shannon Brown. I don't know if those two players will help LA, but like most fans, I'm not mourning the loss of Vlade. The "Space Cadet," as Phil Jackson called him, was a serious problem. He broke his contract last year and went snowboarding and hurt his shoulder, which is a stupid mistake. Then he lied about it, which is inexcusable. The Lakers fined him $500,000, but they should have voided his contract and waved good-bye. Dr. Buss was being kind by just fining the Space Cadet.

Kevin Ding writes,

In his final Lakers practice on Friday, Radmanovic didn’t wear basketball shoes. He wore Vans – the low-top, slip-on kind of sneakers favored by skateboarders and, yes, snowboarders.
Seriously.
Or not seriously … because what undermined Radmanovic, 28, in every attempt to make his mark as a Laker was a lack of seriousness about his profession.

Worst of all, the Serb could not defend Paul Pierce in the finals last year. If nothing else, you can think of the trade as an "adjustment," as the Lakers look to the playoffs in '09.

Now the 41-9 Lakers have many scoring options, a hustling defense and one of the best benches in the league. And they have Kobe Bryant, one of the greatest players of all time, a guy who can make something happen all by himself in crunch time.

Plus they have Phil Jackson's Jedi mind tricks, which seem to freak out the opponents. When Jackson said over the weekend that LeBron James "gets away with murder," he was playing tricks that he learned from Obi-Wan Kenobi. Sure enough, the Lakers held James to 16 points; he did not get away with murder.

Oops, I Did It Again

2008-12-30T16:18:00.000-08:00

It's been so long since I posted on this blog that I almost forgot my username and password.

The other blog is going well. I hope you visit there. My sister does not like it as much as this one. But then, she's a liberal who can barely tolerate what I write, so I'm sure reading six other Objectivists is asking too much from her.

I swore I would stop acting. I really need to focus on writing. I saw an audition notice for Much Ado About Nothing, and told myself not to audition for Dogberry even though I've wanted to do the part for 35 years. Then the director called me and asked me to play Dogberry. I said no. Then I said yes.

I feel like Michael Corleone in The Godfather II. They keep dragging me back in!

Miss World

2008-12-14T16:18:00.000-08:00

Well, I guess I wouldn't kick her out of bed for eating crackers.

It Ain't Lookin' Good

2008-12-14T13:43:00.000-08:00

Woke up to the sound of a civil war,
Wondered what the screamin' was for.
Looked out the window to get a peek
Bobby Joe asked, "How's the weather, Zeke?"

It ain't lookin' good.
It ain't lookin' good.
Daddy's done been drinkin',
Mama's got a gun.
It won't be much fun.

My Daddy is a family man, you bet.
About as good a man as you can get.
Got too much love for just one family.
Got another wife in Franklin, Tennessee.

It ain't lookin' good.
It ain't lookin' good.
Daddy's done been drinkin',
Mama's got a gun.
It won't be much fun.

We're a tight-knit family, I guess,
Tighter than Aunt Eloise's dress.
If you want some proof, I know you do,
My Dad's my father and my uncle, too.

It ain't lookin' good...

My daddy took to gardening this spring,
But he don't grow no ordinary thing.
His agriculture makes me scratch my head,
He grows some funny weeds out in the shed.

It ain't lookin' good.
It ain't lookin' good.
Daddy's smokin' something,
Mama's got a gun.
It won't be much fun.

(Copyright William Greeley 2008)

Something's Coming

2008-11-24T21:03:00.000-08:00

I'm sorry that posting has been light, but I'm about to start posting on a new blog with Bill Brown and others. In fact, I've already written a post for it, "The Purpose Of It All," about the tsunami of spending and regulation Obama has in store for us. As soon as the new blog gets going, we'll let you know and you'll be able to read it there.

I will leave this blog intact for more personal posts and offbeat stuff. If I ever sell a play or get my songwriting project off the ground, I will use this blog to promote those efforts. Who knows, I might sneak in some self-promotion on the other blog as well.

UPDATE: The new blog is ready for you. It's called The New Clarion.

Around the World Wide Web 82

2008-11-19T05:09:00.001-08:00

1. The Mayor of Batman, Turkey is suing Warner Brothers for using their town's name. The case is being followed closely by the mayors of Conan the Barbarian, Finland, Plastic Man, Uzbekistan and Captain America, Nigeria.

2. Cafe Press has a line of Impeach Obama gear. He's not even president yet. Needless to say, he has not done anything to deserve impeachment. This is just partisan politics hatred combined with the urge to be the first kid on the block to wear a hip new t-shirt. This is the kind of thing I would expect from the left. Disappointing.

3. This will cheer you up.

4. Recently in my day job I listened to an Urban station that celebrated Obama's election as President by playing clips of guests explaining why they supported Obama. Most answers broke down to two reasons:

a. It will be historic to elect an African-American president.

b. Obama makes us feel hopeful.

One person got specific and said that Obama would give everyone health care. (How does he do that? Is he magical?)

John Ziegler has interviewed Obama supporters in How Obama Got Elected. It is astonishing how ignorant people who depend on the MSM for news are.

5. Victor Davis Hanson has interesting thoughts on the death of the media and on recession.

6. Funny. They go down like bowling pins at this wedding.

How Socialism Comes to America

2008-11-15T07:52:00.001-08:00

Robert Tracinski writes of Obama's planned $50 billion bailout of the "Big Three" Detroit auto manufacturers:

It is actually a plan for de facto nationalization which will turn the Big Three into permanent wards of the state whose purpose is not to make a profit but to serve the "social goals" set by government.
Obama is backing a plan to pump $50 billion into the big American automakers, while also establishing "a czar or board to oversee the companies"—call it Gosplan—which will supervise "a restructuring of the auto industry." That's exactly what Detroit needs to recover: the benefit of government central planning.
In essence, this is a plan for nationalization of the American auto industry under a new government-appointed board of directors who will supposedly tell the Big Three how to make a profit again.

Blinkered pragmatists will sputter, "But the government is not seizing the property, so it's not socialism!" No, that would be socialism on the communist plan. This is socialism on the fascist plan, in which the property remains nominally in private ownership, but the government dictates what the owner will do with his property. In America the dictation is called "regulation." In this case the dictator will be an "auto czar."

As Tracinski goes on to demonstrate, this is being done to protect a powerful pressure group, the unions. If the Big Three went bankrupt and were bought up by other auto makers, the power of the United Auto Workers would suffer.

American fascism makes corporations bureaucratic managers of the welfare state. Instead of just paying workers, corporations also provide health care and retirement pensions. These functions, along with a sea of regulations, give corporations two missions: make a profit and serve as a mini-welfare state. By passing welfare state functions to the corporations, the government expands the welfare state, but evades any censure for the expansion or any blame for the corporations' failures.

The Democrats are driving this intervention in auto manufacturing, but is there any doubt they were emboldened by the Republicans' bailout of Wall Street? (The Republican led bailout started at $700 million, then was revised to $1 trillion. Now the cost is estimated at $1.8 trillion. The plan has been around less than two months.)

Michael Barone writes,

The Detroit Three are taking advantage of the passage of the $700 billion financial bailout to argue that they, too, need government money to go on.

The conservative David Brooks thinks the bailout is a bad idea, but gets the cause wrong:

It is all a reminder that the biggest threat to a healthy economy is not the socialists of campaign lore. It’s C.E.O.’s. It’s politically powerful crony capitalists who use their influence to create a stagnant corporate welfare state.

But if America had a laissez-faire capitalist economy, then C.E.O.'s would have no influence and no recourse but to pursue a profit in the free market. By Brooks' thinking, if we just had virtuous people in the private sector, then statists such as Obama would never dream of increasing state intervention in the economy.

America's descent into fascism proceeds by the script written by Ludwig von Mises. Government intervention (regulations and government backed union power) have created a crisis in automobile manufacturing. This crisis does not inspire the government to withdraw its intervention, but to increase it with a $50 billion subsidy and the creation of an auto czar who will dictate even further to the industry. In the end we will have the same result as communism, but with private ownership serving to hide the extent of state control.

We are at a turning point in America. The state is about to make an enormous power grab. In addition to the de facto nationalizing of Wall Street and the auto industry, House Education and Labor Committee Chairman George Miller (D-CA) and Rep. Jim McDermott (D-WA), Chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee’s Subcommittee on Income Security and Family Support are plotting to nationalize 401k pension funds. This plan would give the government trillions of dollars in pension funds to spend now; the money would be replaced by government IOU's like the nonexistent social security trust fund. With Obama in the White House and increased Democrat majorities in the Senate and House, can this looting be stopped?

Is There a There There?

2008-11-11T10:14:00.001-08:00

It is early yet. The election was one week ago. Obama will be President-Elect until January 20, 2009.

After one week it looks like the defining theme of Obama's presidency will be his famous self-definition, "blank screen." I think it was Tallulah Bankhead who said, "Deep down I'm really quite shallow." I'm beginning to think this a good description of Obama. At his core he has no core. He is a man whose essence is the desire to show other people what they want to see.

What would you expect from a Democrat blank screen? The Democrat status quo. Ron Radosh writes,

The appointment of Rahm Emanuel is more evidence for what I suggested the other day, that Barack Obama will seek to govern from the political center. As Ben Smith and John Harris suggest on Politico.com today, one must not confuse Emanuel’s tough game playing with ideology. As they and others have argued, Emanuel’s reputation is that of a centrist, who has often sought to reign in the left-wing of his party, “who does not share the reflexively liberal views of many of his House colleagues.” That judgment was seconded by Rep. Jim McCrery (R-LA) who said that Emanuel “is closer to the center, from a policy standpoint, than many of the Democratic Party.” It was also shared by Lindsey Graham, who said that while a “tough partisan, he understands the need to work together.” Graham called him “honest, direct, and candid” and a man who will “work to find common ground.”

Max Boot sees Encouraging Signs From Obama:

I worked for the other guy in the presidential race, but I have been cheered so far by the early indications of how the Obama administration is shaping up. Scuttlebutt has it that the front-runners for Treasury secretary are economist Larry Summers and New York Fed President Timothy Geithner. Either one would be a good, centrist choice. So, too, would be Jim Steinberg, a deputy national security adviser for Bill Clinton, who is now a rumored choice for national security adviser in the Obama administration.
It goes almost without saying that nothing would signal Obama’s moderate credentials more than retaining Bob Gates at Defense. So it is encouraging to read in the Wall Street Journal that the president-elect is “leaning toward” such a move, and that Gates “would likely accept the offer if it is made.” As the Journal notes: “the defense secretary strongly opposes a firm timetable for withdrawing American forces from Iraq, and his appointment could mean that Mr. Obama was effectively shelving his campaign promise to remove most troops from Iraq by mid-2010.”

Going with the status quo is better than the wildest fears of the right, that Obama would try to create a socialist dictatorship from day one. However, in a time when Republicans socialize Wall Street with some trillion dollars and Democrats want to nationalize 401k plans, the status quo is bad enough. There is no widespread movement to cut spending and dismantle government intervention in the economy.

But what choice does Obama have, if he wants experienced hands in his administration, than to choose from, well, those who have experience? Radical leftists are a double risk in that they have no experience. In today's climate, when politicians are terrified of taking blame for anything that goes wrong, it's hard to see how the Democrat establishment would let Obama fill his administration with unknown faces.

Another sign of Obama's deep down shallowness -- an amateurishness that merits watching in the coming years -- is his uncertainty and flip-flopping, the same stuff we saw during the campaign.

First, he was for involuntary servitude for college students, then he decided that it should be voluntary and pay $40 per hour! Then he deleted his website and we have no idea what he wants.
Then, he was for the Polish missile-shield when he was talking to Poland's president, but backtracked when he was talking to the U.S. press. (Now, Poland is kowtowing to Obama, saying it was all a misunderstanding.) This is an echo of Obama's NAFTA gaffe with Canada, which was also blamed on a misunderstanding with one of Obama's advisers.
This morning he was for closing Guantanamo Bay, and having the detainees face criminal charges in U.S. criminal courts, courts using the Uniform Code of Military Justice, or new, specially created national security courts. This evening, he has backtracked yet again.
"There is absolutely no truth to reports that a decision has been made about how and where to try the detainees, and there is no process in place to make that decision until his national security and legal teams are assembled," said Denis McDonough, a senior foreign policy adviser for the transition team, in a statement.
So where did those original reports come from? According to the AP, Obama's legal advisers.
One hand doesn't know what the other is doing so we end up with many conflicting statements. Mr. President-elect has to keep "clarifying" the positions his subordinates keep releasing on his behalf. It's almost like he has no leadership experience whatsoever.

If this goes on, then Obama will quickly disappoint his more intelligent supporters.

Competence isn't just a technique you learn from reading management books. It rests on having firm convictions. A man who can be blown one way or another by any gust of wind will be incompetent. All the evidence we have so far, from the campaign and one week as President-Elect, points to a man without principles, a man who can change 180 degrees on an issue if the need of the moment requires it.

I find all this immensely encouraging. If my analysis is correct, then Obama will be the second Democrat president in a row who was a social metaphysician -- a man who primary orientation to reality was not the facts but what others think of the facts.

A man without a core is easy to push around. Look at what the Republicans did to Clinton, a Democrat who was so intimidated by the right that he declared the era of big government to be over. The best thing that could happen to America right now is a neutered Obama worrying about uniforms for school children.

But it is still early and Obama could have big surprises in store for us. Clinton had to suffer the national health care debacle before his presidency diminished. Plus, Obama will not be hampered by Clinton's sexual appetite and risky behavior.

Gertrude Stein said of Oakland, "There is no there there." Will Obama be an Oakland president?

UPDATE: From Gabriel Melor:

Obama appears to be abandoning his promised commitment to end government torture.

Melor concludes:

The Administration-elect is only a week old and already it's foundering because of a lack of leadership.

Cartoon Politics

2008-11-10T09:30:00.001-08:00

John Derbyshire writes,

What routinely happens with a pointed NRO column is that you get a flutter of emails from appreciative conservative readers, some perhaps taking you to task on some particular point or other, or scolding you for grammatical faults (NRO readers are terrific grammarians). Then there's a pause. Then your piece get out into the Lefty blogosphere somehow, and you get a second wave of emails from ourtraged Lefties.
This is, as I said, routine. It's happened often enough, I have the measure of it, and know what to expect. Last week's Lefty emails were, though, quite unusually vituperative. I noticed the same in the weekend Letters columns of the New York Post. The Post editorialized for McCain, and carries some good conservative Op-Ed writers (including some of ours), but treated Obama with kid gloves, as McCain did. Yet they got some really vituperative letters from scandalized Obamarrhoids, furiously indignant that anyone should criticize The One.

It occurs to me that the left treats Obama the exact opposite of how it treated Bush. Bush was reviled as evil. For eight long years the left hated Bush intensely. Leftists mocked, screamed, chanted, fund-raised against, demonstrated and wrote furiously, clogging the internet with some criticisms that had something to do with reality and a lot of lies, smears and fantasies.

Just as the left demonized Bush, it beatifies Obama. It writes hagiographies. It ignores any potentially embarrassing investigations. It obsesses about how happy America is at the election of Obama. (In Topeka, Kansas, there is a movement afoot to make a national holiday after Obama. Never mind that Obama has achieved nothing but to be elected president; these people think Obama deserves a national holiday simply because of the way he makes them feel.)

In both cases the left makes a cartoon of reality -- or perhaps a Soviet propaganda poster would be a better fit. Leftists cannot think of politics in a sophisticated, adult analysis; they look with the eyes of a child or a savage. Bush is Chimpy McHalliburton, and Obama is the One.

I'm not making a pragmatist case for complexity-worship here. I'm not saying there are no absolutes, only shades of gray. I'm saying the left simplifies reality in accordance to its ideology and looks no further. The left evades reasoning about either Bush or Obama.

This cartoon version of politics is what happens when a faction loses confidence in reason and believes that force only is useful. Leftists demonize or beatify depending on the emotion they feel. No further examination is necessary. What's the point? Bush evil, Obama holy; the truth is obvious. Who needs evidence, analysis or a decent respect for the opinions of mankind?

The criticisms of Obama from the non-left will continue, much to the dismay of the President-Elect's supporters. The left does not want to answer disagreement, but wants to stifle it. With help from the MSM, Democrats will demonize the Obama deniers. How far will the left go to shut up the opposition? A better question: how far will the American people let the left go in shutting up the opposition?

A Nation of Followers

2008-11-10T00:04:00.001-08:00

My brother is a tattoo artist. He reports he is getting college girls who want the Obama O tattooed on them. (Is this better than a tramp stamp?)

Have you ever heard of people getting a tattoo of a politician's symbol? Did any Republican girls get W tattoos in 2000? Obama is an entirely new phenomenon. He brings a cult of personality into American politics.

Peggy Noonan notes,

...[The GOP] lost the vote of two-thirds of those aged 18 to 29. They lost a generation!

Two thirds of young voters voted for Obama. Most of these people, I suspect, did not question Obama when he said in his typically gaseous victory speech,

The road ahead will be long. Our climb will be steep. We may not get there in one year or even one term, but America - I have never been more hopeful than I am tonight that we will get there. I promise you - we as a people will get there.

It did not occur to them to ask, "Where? What the hell are you talking about, Obama? Exactly what is your goal?" Instead, they cheered. Wherever you want to take us, our leader, we will follow.

Some Obama supporters, like Peggy Joseph, who thinks voting for Obama means she won't have to pay for her own gas or mortgage, are the product of the welfare state. These people have been taught all their life to look to the state for handouts.

Others are the fruit of progressive education. These are socialized people. They are collectivists terrified to think for themselves. They want to be told by the group what is cool, what is hip, what bears the stamp of approval of the group. Obama is so cool! Let's get his tattoo!

Those who do not go along with the group will be denounced as unpatriotic, racist and selfish. The popular phrase, "They just don't get it" will be used. It's a convenient phrase for those who follow the vibe of the group, as it obviates any rational argument. You either feel it or you don't, you get it or you don't.

These people are ready for a dictatorship. They are a collective waiting to be told what to do.

You can't have a dictatorship without a significant portion of the population that is willing to follow orders blindly. Benjamin Franklin's words haunt us. When asked what they were creating in the Constitutional Convention, he said, "A republic -- if you can keep it."

We cannot keep it with a nation of people who are unquestioning, passive sheep.

UPDATE: Revision.

Around the World Wide Web 81

2008-11-08T13:24:00.001-08:00

1. Obama made an ungracious joke about Nancy Reagan today in his press conference, for which he has since apologized. He has an odd juvenile streak, as when he scratches his face with his middle finger. I don't want to psychologize, but I have to wonder if these moments of inappropriate humor are expressions of a frightened little man, way in over his head, who does not want to be taken completely seriously.

2. How nice that Maya Angelou does not have to apologize for America any more. Unfortunately, the rest of us still must apologize for bad American poetry.

3. Imagine if the MSM had supported the Bush presidency. Imagine them not opposing everything Bush did, not searching for scandals in everything from Enron to Halliburton to torture to the Patriot Act. How different would the last eight years have been? We're about to see in the Obama presidency. Chris Matthews said his job is to help make the Obama presidency work -- not to judge it fairly or to examine it with an eye to keeping it honest, but to help make it work. I have never in my life heard a member of the media say something like this.

The danger here: an administration that knows the MSM will look the other way will have less fear of being caught in corruption.

4. Nancy Pelosi, in her first press conference after the election, warned of diminishing options.

Nancy Pelosi gave her first post-election press conference Wednesday, offering a sober analysis of the Democratic agenda in the near term.
“Many of our options have been diminished because of the downturn in the economy over the last couple months,” Pelosi said.
Pelosi said the economy is “the top item” on the agenda moving forward and said she plans to continue to push for a second economic stimulus package. She also mentioned a children’s health care bill and stem cell research legislation as key priorities in the short-term.
The speaker acknowledged the enormous expectations facing Obama after Democrats increased their majorities in both chambers, but warned that Democrats will face some tough decisions in the coming months.
“We have to choose our priorities very carefully according to what is achievable,” she said.

She also said Obama should govern from the middle. Why the caution? Democrats are in control of the Presidency, Senate and House; why don't they go all out?

The Speaker of the House counsels caution because things could go wrong and politicians are terrified of getting the blame for anything. They remember Clinton's first two years, which led to Newt Gingrich and the Republicans winning the House in 1994 with the Contract for America. (The Republicans collapsed like a cheap lawn chair during the budget battle of 1995, and have been a me-too big government party since, but that's a different story.)

Imagine if laissez-faire capitalists were in the Democrats' position. Would they fear going all out? Would they fear being blamed for failure? No, they would not, because they would know their policies are both moral and practical. They would know that dismantling the welfare state would generate tremendous wealth and increase every American's standard of living. They would know that repealing laws and regulations that violate individual rights is the moral thing to do. Just as a man cannot have too much health, a nation cannot have too much liberty.

The Democrats must proceed with moderation because they are dispensing poison. If they give America too much poison, it will die; they must temper their poison so that the state can ride the private sector as a parasite.

5. Don't be fooled by Obama's changing the wording of his national service plan from "require" to "setting a goal." Can you imagine how much intimidation an individualist student who refused to participate in the program would get from the thugs of the left? Service to the collective will be as voluntary as our tax system supposedly is.

6. There is a lot of talk that Republicans need another Great Communicator like Reagan.

Two related points: First, the Great Communicator was a smear created by leftists who thought Reagan fooled the American people into accepting what was bad for them -- you know, all that nonsense about the free market. The left painted Reagan as all style and no substance.

Second, GHW Bush, Dole, George W. Bush and McCain have all been lousy communicators because they had nothing to communicate. Pragmatism is not a banner to rally around. "I'm not as bad as a Democrat" does not give voters a positive value for which to vote.

Reagan was the last Republican presidential candidate who had something to say. He was indeed terribly flawed, but compared to his successors he had principles.

And remember, when Reagan developed an interest in politics he studied Austrian economics and was familiar with the Foundation for Economic Education. Although he was smeared as an "amiable dunce," he was actually the intellectual superior to most politicians these days. His effectiveness was tragically undercut by pragmatism and religious values, but he knew that government was not the solution, it was the problem.

Here It Comes

2008-11-07T19:57:00.001-08:00

Obama has called for a "draft" to force young people to do compulsory service:

The Obama Administration will call on Americans to serve in order to meet the nation’s challenges. President-Elect Obama will expand national service programs like AmeriCorps and Peace Corps and will create a new Classroom Corps to help teachers in underserved schools, as well as a new Health Corps, Clean Energy Corps, and Veterans Corps. Obama will call on citizens of all ages to serve America, by developing a plan to require 50 hours of community service in middle school and high school and 100 hours of community service in college every year. Obama will encourage retiring Americans to serve by improving programs available for individuals over age 55, while at the same time promoting youth programs such as Youth Build and Head Start.

Wow. Obama gets elected and the first big idea he floats is forced labor. I don't know what is more stunning, Obama's plans or the fact that America just shrugs and yawns like a nation of sleepwalkers. The state forcing people to work? No big deal. What's on TV tonight?

Well, Michelle Obama did say, "Barack Obama will require you to work." We can't say we were not warned.

Obama's Chief of Staff, Rahm Emanuel, has called for compulsory service in a book he co-wrote:

It's time for a real Patriot Act that brings out the patriot in all of us. We propose universal civilian service for every young American. Under this plan, All Americans between the ages of eighteen and twenty-five will be asked to serve their country by going through three months of basic training, civil defense preparation and community service. ...

Here's how it would work. Young people will know that between the ages of eighteen and twenty-five, the nation will enlist them for three months of civilian service. They'll be asked to report for three months of basic civil defense training in their state or community, where they will learn what to do in the event of biochemical, nuclear or conventional attack; how to assist others in an evacuation; how to respond when a levee breaks or we're hit by a natural disaster. These young people will be available to address their communities' most pressing needs.

J.D. Tuccille goes on to note,

Emanuel and co-author Bruce Reed insist "this is not a draft," but go on to write of young men and women, "the nation will enlist them for three months of civilian service." They also warn, "[s]ome Republicans will squeal about individual freedom," ruling out any likelihood that they would let people opt out of universal citizen service.

Emanuel does not seem worried that Democrats will squeal.

I'm not so sure many Republicans these days will squeal at Obama and Emanuel's dream of enforced servitude. I told my Christian friend, who is certainly no liberal, that Obama wants compulsory service for young people. He thought it was a great idea, that all young people should have to do time serving our country and learning good values in the process. The conservative loon Michael Savage thinks it's a great idea. William F. Buckley thought it was a great idea.

So now, finally, we know what change means. Change means bringing slavery to America.

The Bright Side

2008-11-05T09:54:00.001-08:00

Barack Obama had to lie in order to win the presidency.

Obama had to lie that he would cut taxes. He had to act tough toward our enemies. He had to turn his back on radical anti-Americans he has allied with over the last 20 years.

Despite the urging of the netroots, Democrats still cannot campaign proudly and honestly as who they are. They cannot say, "I am a liberal. I want to expand government control over your lives. I want to raise your taxes and deny you the right to bear arms. And I intend to appease our enemies abroad."

So maybe America has not moved to the left. Maybe Obama won for superficial reasons in a country full of voters who don't give politics much deep thought. Given a choice of statists, they went with the charismatic young one.

The Republicans have a great thing thing going for them for the next two years: the Democrats control the Presidency, Senate and House.

Remember, the Jimmy Carter presidency led to the second best president of the 20th century, Ronald Reagan.