Cruz Missile

A Harvard education isn’t what it used to be, if Senator Ted Cruz is the yardstick of that fabled institution’s efficacy. How can a Harvard law school graduate say so many outrageous and stupid things? More astonishing is that anyone takes Cruz seriously, though the hacks in the mainstream media hang on his every whacky pronouncement, and the big network talking heads have already determined that crazy Cruz is definitely presidential material.

It’s possible, I suppose, that Senator Cruz really believes the crap that pours from his mouth, but it’s more likely that he is simply the latest in a long line of ambitious politicians who will say and do anything to grab and hold power. 

The American political landscape is like Chemical Alley down in Louisiana – a deep cesspool of toxic chemicals that is slowly killing everyone who comes into contact with it.

The extremists in Congress want to defund the Affordable Care Act, and in order to accomplish this perverse objective they are willing to cripple the entire federal government. Obstruction and destruction is what passes for politics in this country now.

Are things any better on the vast frontier of the American empire? Not really. American drones still hover over the tribal areas of Pakistan, and American soldiers continue to chase shadows in the hills and valleys of Afghanistan. Our failed colonial experiment in Iraq left that nation wrecked, unstable and dangerous. ABC News reports that “Iran is America’s most formidable adversary,” keeping alive the shibboleth that Iran is the next Bogeyman that must be contained, confronted and conquered. American military outposts may surround Iran, and Iran may live in the same neighborhood with nuclear-equipped Israel, but Iran is the dangerous nation with nuclear ambitions that must be checked.   

But getting back to Ted Cruz…I wonder if what Cruz and his Tea Bagger followers are really afraid of is that the Affordable Care Act might work, in the same way Medicare and Social Security have worked for generations of Americans. Cruz and Co. believe in market solutions to every problem, not government programs, and if the Affordable Care Act succeeds in making it possible for more Americans to gain and keep medical insurance coverage -- and slows the increase in the cost of care -- it might undermine their ideological certainty that the free market is the only solution to social problems.

But what do I know? I’m just an average citizen watching this nutty spectacle from afar. To me Washington D.C. is like a giant lunatic asylum where the padded doors have been ripped from their hinges, freeing the inmates to run wild in the corridors and recreation room, loot the infirmary, and smash every window in the institution. When the crazed ideologues find the matches and the gasoline they will burn the place to the ground – in the name of liberty for the American people, of course.

I’ve said it before but it’s worth repeating: Hunter S. Thompson was right -- we are locked in a downward spiral of dumbness. 

Daddy's Girl

Nobody ever said parenthood would be a cakewalk, or even much fun. My son, who just turned 17, is finally beginning to walk, talk, and act like a human being. My 12-year-old daughter, on the other hand, has overnight turned into a she-devil. One moment she’s calling me “Daddy” in her sweet little girl voice, and the next she’s screaming, “you’re a sonofabitch” and trying to kick me in the groin.

Before slamming the door to her room, my daughter has this to say: “All you and mom care about is my education!” Guilty as charged, kid, guilty as charged. The child is upset because her math teacher recommended her for an after school math class. Instead of taking this recommendation as an offer of help, my daughter takes it as a form of punishment, like being drawn and quartered or tied to the back of a mule and dragged through a field of cactus. “Don’t you want to get better at math?” my wife and I ask. “I don’t give a crap about math!” shouts our daughter.

Behind the locked door of her room my daughter wails. To escape the noise I go outside to the deck, but I can still hear the kid; I’m sure everyone in our neighborhood can hear the kid, and half of them are probably dialing 911 to report a homicide in progress. By agreeing, happily and with gratitude, to place her in the after school math program, we have sentenced her to an extra hour of school, every day for two excruciating weeks.

Why can’t we understand what this means?

We are tyrannical parents, unfeeling brutes, though I’m pretty sure the kid will thank us later. Our son is finally coming around, proving that there is hope. For several months I feared the boy was lost to us, as if aliens had swiped his soul and replaced it with their evil spawn. I swear he was barely recognizable. Every time I saw him I wanted to ask, “Who are you and what are you doing in my kitchen?”

If our experience with our son is any guide, we have approximately four years of hell ahead of us. We can expect to be second-guessed, insulted, slighted, ignored and blamed for everything wrong under the moon. When our daughter forgets to pull her overripe gym clothes from her backpack until Monday morning, three minutes before she must leave for school, the fault will lie with us for not reminding her.

This isn’t the saccharine stuff of Hallmark cards. Some nights I look back with nostalgia to the days when it was my wife, our Jack Russell terrier, and me. The dog ate a couple of pairs of shoes, devoured one fine fountain pen, and shredded his share of carpet, but at least he never called me a sonofabitch.

LIFESTYLE

I’ve been very remiss about the Balcony of late. No urge to write in the past month or so, even though there are plenty of outrageous things happening in the world. It’s the end of summer here on the Platinum Coast, land of red tile roofs and chic restaurants. Seems as if the foodies are taking over, fighting tooth and nail with yoga studios and wealth managers for retail space downtown. The rich and beautiful people who call SB home need to be in tip-top physical shape in order to fully enjoy the fabled “Santa Barbara” lifestyle, whatever the hell that is. I’m just a working-stiff with a full-time job, no trust fund, and no BMW in the driveway; on the rare occasions when I flip through the glossy pages of Santa Barbara magazine in my doctor or dentist’s office, I get the feeling that I’m looking at a foreign country. Where are the brown people, the homeless, the loons, the panhandlers, the street musicians, the grizzled surf rats? Look in vain, boy, look in vain; you won’t find any trace of misfits in the sanitized pages of Santa Barbara magazine.

***

Hot yoga, baby: that’s the newest way to physical beauty and spiritual clarity. Rev up the heat to 99 degrees and strike the downward dog pose. Hold it, hold it, feel the burn, the fat melt away as the stress of trying to decide which trendy SB restaurant to have dinner in flees your neck and forehead. Count the sacred drops of sweat tumbling from the bridge of your surgically sculptured nose. This is the good life and you are now untouchable; you’re drinking fine wine produced by your new best friend, and eating organically grown vegetables blessed by a Tibetan monk. No doubt about it, you are a chosen one -- you will live to be 110, without a wrinkle on your face, without experiencing erectile dysfunction or menopause, psoriasis or toenail fungus. SB is magical – if you’ve got the coin.

***

The new iPhone 5S is out – stop the presses and hold back the dawn. Nerds were lined up outside the Apple store early this morning, slurping coffee from Starbuck’s and hoping their bladders hold out until they get through the door and to the front of the line. Apple dangles the cheese and the mice lose their minds, run headlong into plate-glass windows and cinder-block walls.

***

Another mass killing in the US of A, this time right in the belly of our nation’s capitol. President Obama will take another star turn as commiserator-in-chief, bemoan how easy it is for mentally ill Americans to obtain Glock’s and go on a killing spree; Obama will say Americans are better than this, more compassionate, and it will sound great and be totally meaningless by the next morning. If only Congress would do the right thing and approve some mild reforms…but no…the NRA and the gun-happy Right has nothing to fear. The 2^nd Amendment is a sacred cow, like Prop 13 in California, perpetual foreign wars and the War on Drugs. How many days will it be until the next big killing? Some kook is stockpiling ammo this very minute; the manifesto is written and ready for posting; his few friends don’t suspect a thing.

***

Life is the number 1 killer of people. Life breaks bones and hearts.

Turning a Blind Eye

“The violent destruction of life and property incident to war, the continual effort and alarm attendant on a state of continual danger, will compel nations the most attached to liberty to resort for repose and security to institutions which have a tendency to destroy their civil and political rights. To be more safe, they at length become willing to run the risk of being less free.”  Federalist Papers

It’s reassuring to see the American public push back against President Obama’s itch to bomb Syria. After more than a decade of continuous wars in the Middle East and Afghanistan, plus lesser skirmishes in Somalia and Yemen and Pakistan, with no end to the War on Terror on the horizon, the people have soured on war.

This doesn’t mean that gun-slinging politicians like John McCain or swaggering diplomats like Secretary of State John Kerry have lost their fascination with Shock & Awe military operations, and I expect my own senator, Dianne Feinstein, to jump on the bandwagon and beat the war drum with both of her manicured hands.

As usual, the hypocrisy of the United States is staggering. When Iraq employed chemical weapons against Iran in the 1980’s, we didn’t bat an eye because Iran was by then our sworn enemy. We helped Iraq’s dictator acquire the materials needed to produce chemical weapons, with full understanding of who he intended to use them against.

Nor should we conveniently forget – during the media barrage to convince us that the US has no other option but to attack Syria -- that the US is the world’s foremost arms dealer, purveyor of fine cluster munitions, land mines, drones, fighter aircraft and attack helicopters. Quite often these weapons wind up in the hands of autocrats; today’s ally can quickly turn into tomorrow’s enemy. The US clearly has the military power to act as the world’s constable, but when it comes to moral authority, it has no standing whatsoever.

If President Obama’s full-court PR press works and Congress authorizes military action against Syria, and the cruise missiles fly, and the Smart munitions zoom at their targets with much-hyped precision, what will be the result? By “degrading” the Assad regime’s military capability who will the US be aiding? The rebels? But who are the rebels and what are their aims for Syria? Will they be more or less aligned with the evil regime in neighboring Iran? More or less hostile to Europe and the US? Does anyone have any idea?

After the blatant lies and propaganda that preceded the invasion and occupation of Iraq, the revelations of widespread domestic spying by the NSA and other arms of the national security apparatus, the attacks on journalists and their sources, the killing of innocent civilians in Yemen and Pakistan, after all this I can’t see how any sober person can believe any pronouncement coming from the US government. President Obama talks about transparency at the same time he shuts out the lights and locks the door.

The use of chemical weapons is barbaric, and the world is right to condemn Syria, but there are other ways – diplomatic and economic – to punish Assad.