Post-Op

Six days since my rotator cuff surgery. Pain is constant but not overwhelming, and I’m down to one Percocet a day. The most difficult aspect so far is getting a decent night’s slumber; I have to sleep on my back, propped up with pillows, but force of habit makes me yearn to roll on my left side. Yesterday I took a walk in the neighborhood for the first time since the surgery, my arm encased in a navy blue sling. Except for almost being run down by a Quest Diagnostics SUV (pedestrians get no respect in Santa Barbara anymore), it was invigorating to be outside in the open air. I also washed dishes for the first time, a milestone I know my wife appreciated. Tomorrow I see my orthopedic surgeon for a follow-up.

Meanwhile, the earth keeps turning on its axis and the perfectly quaffed and sartorially splendid weatherman on Good Morning America, Sam Champion, reports on extreme weather in this or that section of the country, without ever, not once, offering an explanation for what’s causing the record breaking heat or spate of tornadoes or flooding. I don’t think I’ve ever heard Sam Champion or any mainstream weather hound, for that matter, speak the controversial words, “climate change.”

I read that Mr. Obama made a surprise and secret visit to Afghanistan. Inside a fortified aircraft hangar located inside a fortified perimeter, Obama pretends to speak to the troops when in fact his speech is directed at American voters; the setting, the timing, and the rhetoric is stage-managed to assure voters that our decade long Afghan misadventure has actually been a smashing success. Obama now sees a way forward in Afghanistan, a path to peace and prosperity for the long-suffering Afghan people. Hail and rejoice! Shortly after Obama left the country on Air Force One, the Taliban, who do understand a thing or two about political theatre, mounted an attack in Kabul.

What else? On April 30^th I watched Manchester United play Manchester City in an important English Premier League match. Seeing the squad Sir Alex Ferguson sent onto the pitch, it certainly appeared that the proud Scot was playing for a draw instead of a win. No Antonio Valencia to rampage down the right side, no Ashley Young, and no Danny Welbeck to operate in tandem up top with Wayne Rooney. Two days on, I’m still struggling to understand why Sir Alex started Ji-Sung Park, who hadn’t played since January. After creating a few early opportunities, Man U fell into a conservative, reactive posture, completely shorn of attacking verve. Rooney, star Man U striker, was alone up top, bereft of support, a deserted man on a deserted island. It was a very strange, timid performance by Man U. Goal differential favors Man City, and Man U fans are reduced to hoping for divine intervention.

The May Gloom is upon Santa Barbara. There’s a slight wind from the west, but little chance we’ll see the sun today.

Missing

Every weekday morning, or so it seems, Good Morning America features a dramatic story about a missing person: an infant stolen from a car parked outside a medical clinic; a young woman on vacation with friends in Arizona, here one minute, gone the next; a newlywed vanishes without a trace on her honeymoon. The details, such as they are, unfold in interviews with relatives, police officials, siblings and friends. Is foul play at work? Was the missing person living a secret life? Who had motive and means? Does the missing person’s husband or boyfriend have a history of cruelty or infidelity, drug use, gambling?

Why do so many people go missing in America? Compared to say, France or England or Italy, is America unique or does it merely appear that more people go missing here because our national media focus obsessively on these stories? And why is it that elderly people rarely go missing? Robin Roberts never opens GMA with “breaking news” about a grandmother who went out for an afternoon stroll and never returned. Is this because we don’t care about old people? Perhaps. Clearly, ABC News likes its missing persons young, female, attractive and/or wealthy, from a prominent family or an unusual background, because, if one or more of these criteria are present, the story is more likely to gain traction and run for several consecutive days, building momentum and drama and capturing an audience.

The American news media always claims to only give the viewing public the stories it wants to hear, which is why crime, sex, celebrity, and scandal rule, and important, but dense and complicated stories like climate change, food safety, war and peace, and how the economy really works and who it works for, are relegated to insignificant sound bites; people don’t care about these matters, not when Kim Kardashian’s marriage is tanking or Charlie Sheen is claiming to be a warlock or Ted Nugent threatens to shoot President Obama with a crossbow.

I wonder if there’s one producer at GMA whose only job is to troll for missing person stories. I can imagine the editorial meetings: what have we got in the way of crime, scandal, celebrity or missing persons? Any missing babies or toddlers or debutantes? You know what we need, what I dream about? Get this: Lindsay Lohan has a baby and then goes on a three-day drug bender during which time she leaves her child on a barstool in some Hollywood nightclub. Then, as she races around town desperately trying to remember what nightclub she was in last, she crashes her BMW into the back of a police cruiser on Sunset Boulevard. Ratings would go through the roof.

Yes, indeed, I can see it and hear it. Day after day, Robin and George breathlessly attempting to answer the burning question: where’s Lindsay’s baby? GMA would trot out its medical expert, its top legal analyst, a psychologist, a reporter covering the police department and another camped on the sidewalk in front of Lohan’s home, 360 degrees of coverage, morning, noon, and night, salacious and sensational, irresistible to the American viewing audience.

Even though it’s Sunday evening, I’m sure the dogged reporters at GMA are working hard to bring us a fresh missing person story for tomorrow’s broadcast.

Big Baby

Upon hearing that I had scheduled the procedure to repair my torn right rotator cuff, my wife said, “Are you going to be a big baby about this?” She proceeded to tell me that I was a wimp when it came to pain, no match for any woman. “Try pushing a baby out of your vagina and then talk to me about pain.” Childbirth, the ultimate trump card in the occasional war between the sexes. I tried mounting an argument in defense of my gender, but compared to a human coming down and out the birth canal, I didn’t have much to work with. A vasectomy hurts, to be sure, with alarming swelling of the testicles, but it can’t compare to 27 hours of labor.

I suggested we discuss the practical aspects of my post-operative recovery, what I would and would not be able to do with my arm immobilized by a sling. My wife rolled her eyes and reminded me that rotator cuff surgery is commonplace, routine, outpatient for crying-out-loud, an ice pack and an Rx for Vicodin, no big deal. Why did I insist on treating this run-of-the-mill procedure like open-heart surgery? O-u-t-p-a-t-i-e-n-t, she repeated, like going through the drive-in. For the first few days it was expected that I might need help buttoning my pajamas, tying my shoes or washing my hair, but if I anticipated her waiting on me hand and foot, well, I had better think again. “You make it seem like I’m having a planter’s wart removed,” I said. Poor baby. Did I have any idea how much childbirth hurt, what it did to a woman’s body, the force and pressure exerted on the pelvis, the stretching of skin and movement of bone? Even with an epidural, the pain could only be described as other worldly. But how could I know, a mere man? Unless I could imagine expelling a cantaloupe from my anus.

This thought concerning that lower region did occur to me: I’m on the can, post bowel movement, a natural right-hander with an incapacitated right arm…definitely a practical consideration of the first order. Brushing teeth or buttering toast with the left hand is one thing, doing a thorough job down there with one’s off hand another. For some reason a vision of Charles Darwin crossed my mind, evolution and adaptation, the triumph of the opposable thumb. Being forced to use my left hand all the time, I would improve the coordination and dexterity of that hand and stimulate my brain to boot, thus scoring a victory over my temporary disability. Evolution on a wee scale. My wife hooted at this: “Only you would make that observation. You’ve never wiped your ass with your left hand?”

No, never. Is this so odd? Does it make me some sort of freak?

Seeing that I was distressed at the thought of being away from kickboxing and weightlifting and running for at least three months, my wife kissed me on the forehead and assured me that she would be there for me, every step of the way, and, if it came to it, she would even clean my behind. That’s a measure of true and enduring love.

But of course I’m still the biggest baby around.

Eerie Echoes from 1984

I just finished re-reading George Orwell’s 1984. As my son is introduced to literature like All Quiet on the Western Front and 1984 in his sophomore English class, I am re-introduced to these books. We don’t talk about them too much, my son and I (he’s deep in that uncommunicative teenage phase), but I see the books lying around and pick them up, remember where I was when I first read them. Times change, cultural tools change, governments fall or reinvent themselves, world leaders enter and exit the stage, but these enduring books remind us that regardless of era or place or circumstance, people largely remain the same.

As I was reading 1984 I was reminded of how necessary it is for a nation to have an enemy. For four decades or so America feared the Soviet Union and Soviet-style communism, that grey, humorless KGB-Gulag-police state that lay like a heavy blanket across Eastern Europe, and we devoted economic, political and military resources to contain the Soviet threat wherever in the world it reared its head. Our spies shadowed their spies; our nuclear arsenal kept pace with theirs, warhead for warhead and tank for tank; our proxy states matched up against theirs. Tensions rose, tensions fell, but during the Cold War we always knew where to find our nemesis.

And then the Soviets invaded Afghanistan and got bogged down for nearly a decade in a hostile land that would not bend to their will, their centrally planned economy failed to expand as promised, Gorbachev began to loosen the reins of State control, the Soviet edifice creaked and cracked, the Iron Curtain went up in flames and the Berlin Wall crumbled.

Our primary global adversary had morphed into a free market opportunity.

But as if to prove that nature abhors a vacuum, a new bogeyman arose to take Communism’s place: radical Islam, represented by bearded men in flowing robes, with sandals on their feet and ammunition belts draped across their chests, AK-47’s held at port arms, and defiance in their eyes. Jihad, they cried. God is great and Death To America. Our new enemy, everywhere and nowhere, moving in the shadows and on the margins, until they brought the Twin Towers down and instigated the worldwide, never-ending War on Terror, which -- to bring this back to 1984 -- is reminiscent of Oceania’s ceaseless war against its enemies.

The other eerie echo of 1984 lies in the grotesquely oversized American surveillance state, much of it contracted out to private companies with minimal accountability. By now, most Americans grasp that our government routinely eavesdrops on domestic phone conversations, e-mail messages, tweets, Facebook posts, and other on-line activity, though little public protest has resulted from this massive assault against personal privacy. Posters of Big Brother may not be everywhere in contemporary America, but Big Brother is definitely watching and listening, ever alert for allusions, hints, associations or phrases that might be a harbinger of another attack. In a war without end, the threat never abates, and the citizenry is exhorted to exchange constitutionally protected freedoms for the illusion of security; thus it becomes permissible for the President of the United States to authorize the killing of American citizens on foreign ground, without bringing formal charges in a court of law; or authorize the military to indefinitely detain American citizens suspected of subversion or alliance with our enemies, right here on home soil. The current occupant of the White House assures us that he will never abuse these extraordinary powers, but once the genie escapes the bottle, there’s no telling what might happen two or four or six years from now.

Fanatics are always dangerous, and it makes little difference whether those fanatics are Muslim, Christian, Jewish, Capitalist or Communist, wild-eyed oil drillers or tree huggers; fanatics become blind to any cause but their own, and in the fanatical mind, the means always justifies the ends.

I fear America has passed a dangerous marker in its history as a functioning democracy, but outside of the ACLU and writers like Christopher Hedges, few people recognize the peril we are doing to ourselves. True liberty and total security from external threats are antithetical. Rights once relinquished don’t return. It’s worth quoting Christopher Hedges here:

“Totalitarian systems always begin by rewriting the law. They make legal what was once illegal. Crimes become patriotic acts. The defense of freedom and truth becomes a crime. Foreign and domestic subjugation merges into the same brutal mechanism. Citizens are colonized. And it is always done in the name of national security.”

I want to believe that Hedges is overstating his case, but I don’t think he is. Orwell described a dystopian country engaged in perpetual wars, constant surveillance of its people, and total control of information; citizens only knew what the Party wanted them to know. As I said before, all of this seems eerily familiar in contemporary America; we are at perpetual war with Muslim fanatics, under watch by our own government, and subjected to a corporate-owned media that filters, distorts and misinforms.

Very eerie indeed.

POEM: Later Than We Think

Empires rise and empires fall
Roman, Ottoman, British
The American empire lies on its deathbed
Heartbeat faint, breathing labored
Fingers growing cold

The powerful divide us and conquer us
With the politics of fear
Pit us one against the other
Tell us we are not our brother’s keeper
Ayn Rand’s twisted morality spills
From gilded lips

They divide us with God and unborn
Babies
Gay marriage and evolution
Gun control and contraception
Race and the color line

While we bicker at the margins,
They plunder and hoard
Destroy the commons on which
We all depend

Time to stand and be counted
Time to stand and be heard
Time to stand and be seen

Our flag still flies
But it doesn’t mean what it once
Did
The wine of our exceptionalism
Has gone rancid in the cask

Money bought the government
And the government delivers the spoils
To the doorstep of its masters
One nation under dollars,
Divisible
With property and prosperity
For the privileged few
Begrudged scraps for the many

Too much money in too few hands
Every banana republic’s time-honored recipe

Time to stand and be counted
Time to stand and be heard
Time to stand and be seen

It’s later than we think
It’s later than we think
It’s later than we think

Gluten Free

When I pulled into the driveway my ten-year-old daughter was waiting for me, arms crossed over her chest, a grumpy look on her face.

“Thanks a lot, dad,” she said before storming off.

“What’s the deal with our daughter?” I asked my wife when I walked into the house.

“Chloe can’t come over for any more play dates,” she said. “It’s your fault.”

“My fault? How can it be my fault? I couldn’t pick Chloe out of a police lineup if my life depended on it. Which one is Chloe? Why can’t she come over?”

“Because you called the President of the United States a pussy, that’s why,” my wife said.

“I did?”

“Yes, you did, in one of your blog entries. Chloe’s mother read it and was horrified. She thinks you’re a dangerous crank.”

I sat down at the kitchen table. “Well, that’s preposterous. Crank, yes; dangerous, no. Chloe’s mother read my blog?”

“She Googled your name and the Balcony popped up. Apparently, she runs background checks as a matter of routine because she thinks Santa Barbara is filled with perverts and illegal aliens – particularly on our end of Milpas Street.”

My wife set a bottle of petite syrah and two wine glasses on the kitchen table.

“Miranda’s in a dither. She’s lost her BFF. Last week Chloe was her mortal enemy and now she can’t live without her. Alliances change fast in fifth grade.”

“Have I met Chloe’s mother?” I asked.

My wife said -- her voice laden with sarcasm -- that I would have met Twyla Thorn if I were more involved in our daughter’s social life. Meaning, she explained in the same sarcastic tone, the endless phone calls and e-mails and text messages to coordinate pick-ups and drop-offs and sleepovers.

“I’m not emotionally equipped to deal with other parents,” I said. “You have more empathy and patience than I do, which allows you to connect with people easily.”

“That,” my wife said, “is a crock.”

“There’s an entire protocol to play dates that I will never understand,” I said.

“If you don’t stop talking I’m going to get really angry.”

“Admittedly, my character is hopelessly flawed,” I said. I poured wine in her glass. “Tell me about Chloe’s mother.”

In addition to being PTA president and chief fundraiser for the elementary school, Twyla was the wife of a super successful plastic surgeon (offices in Beverly Hills and Santa Barbara), and mistress of a nine-room, colonial style house on four acres in Mission Canyon. In her spare time, she ran marathons and rode horses and raised orchids. She was a committed, proselytizing vegan, and every Tuesday afternoon could be found at the farmer’s market on State Street, shopping for organic fruits and vegetables.

“Now I know who Chloe is,” I said. “She’s the lactose intolerant one!”

“That’s right. Twyla’s one of those stridently anti-gluten types. She gives very detailed instructions on what Chloe can and cannot eat.”

“Glutenites can be very self-righteous,” I said.

“Feeding Chloe is a nightmare.”

“I guess you won’t have to worry about that anymore,” I said. “I can’t believe Twyla Googled me. Seems a bit paranoid.”

“Maybe. She despises Obama, by the way. Buys into the whole Muslim-Socialist-Foreigner narrative. She voted for McCain in 2008 and – you’ll love this --- she believes Sarah Palin is the only person who can save America from social disintegration.”

“And she thinks I’m a crank? If she’s a Palin fan why is she so exercised about my calling Obama a pussy?”

“You insulted the office.”

“She took umbrage,” I suggested.

“Extreme umbrage,” said my wife. “But, look on the bright side – someone read your blog.”

“Ouch! Let me ask you something about play dates. When you take the girls to the movies are you obligated to buy Miranda’s friend whatever she wants? Suppose she demands a super-size slushy, a corn dog, a bag of M&M’s and a Snicker’s bar all at the same time?”

My wife sighed. I try her patience. “You have the right to be an adult and set reasonable boundaries,” she said.

“This would make a good blog subject,” I said. “Play dates, parents, the unwritten rules of reciprocity. I could do something with this.”

“Please don’t,” my wife said. “Please.”

I should listen to her.

Fire on the Water

My wife turned fifty a few days ago and we drove up the coast to celebrate. We left our children with their grandparents and hit the 101 north, along the Gaviota coast, with the ocean on one side and green hills on the other. We had two bottles of wine and a bottle of champagne, a couple of books, my iPad and Kindle Fire, and no obligations for two days. Chris Whitley was singing on the stereo; the sun shone through the windshield.

Every time I drive through San Simeon and see Hearst Castle high on the hill, I think of the laborers who hauled all the cement and lumber and pipe and nails and plaster and tile up that long, winding and – at the time – dirt road, and the craftsmen who turned all those raw materials into WR Hearst’s castle. Years and money, money and years, hundreds of trips up the hill, Hearst forever changing his mind, always wanting bigger and more grandiose. It’s hard to believe one man was so wealthy that he owned homes all over the country, warehouses full of artifacts, sculptures, paintings and tapestries, and hundreds of thousands of rolling acres in and around San Simeon – a ranch as large as a medieval kingdom. Thinking about the scale of the Hearst holdings staggers me every time.

The best thing about being in Big Sur – besides the raw beauty of the country and a visit to the Henry Miller Memorial Library – was being out of cell phone range, without access to the Internet, away from TV’s and newspapers, canned laughter and advertising. Time slows in Big Sur and one’s mind can get quiet enough to hear a different inner dialogue. We stayed at the Ragged Point Inn and the window of our room looked over a rocky cove. The tide rolled in and made a sucking sound when it went out, sea birds wheeled in the breeze and turkey vultures soared along the cliff line. We sat on the balcony with our books and a bottle of wine, our feet on the railing, completely at peace.

In the world we left behind, wheels turned and engines coughed, phones chirped and trilled, siblings bickered and parents quarreled, lovers made love, and sparrows built nests; Romney and Santorum and Gingrich and Paul played on, each trying to prove that he is the true Uber-Conservative, the Pure One who will bow to the financial markets, dismantle public education, privatize Social Security, bomb Iran, roll back the clock on reproductive rights, and dynamite the wall that separates church and state.

In far away Afghanistan, a deranged US soldier loaded his weapon and left his base without being seen by any of his comrades, and launched a killing spree that left 16 Afghan civilians dead. This is how military occupations generally end; sooner or later the occupier commits an atrocity the locals will not tolerate.

On our last night, we waited until nearly sunset and drove up Highway 1, climbing and then dipping, while the last of the day’s light set fire to the water.

The Long & Dubious War

I found the novel, All Quiet on the Western Front, in my son’s room, sandwiched between a biology textbook and a sheaf of math notes. I first read All Quiet when I was 18 or 19, a few years older than my son is now; at the time I was stationed at Yokota Air Base in Japan, and by happenstance I found the novel in the base library and checked it out because I had heard it was a classic.

My son was assigned All Quiet in his English class, and perhaps for that reason he found the novel “boring” and “tedious” though I give him credit for having the sense not to call it “irrelevant”, a term he often uses to describe his sophomore classes. Having no more need of it, he gladly loaned me the copy, and so, putting aside a volume of essays by Christopher Hitchens, I began reading All Quiet for the second time in my life.

The United States has been “at war” continuously for the past eleven years, in several countries, all of them Muslim. Afghanistan came first, of course, and then Iraq, and then, in no particular order -- Yemen, Pakistan, and Libya. The results have been sketchy at best, the objectives ever changing, and the milestones and timelines for exit elusive.

It’s astonishing to realize that the United States has been fighting in Afghanistan twice as long as World War I lasted. Obviously, the death toll in Afghanistan – on both sides – pales in comparison to the nine million or so human beings slaughtered in World War I. As any reader of All Quiet knows, slaughter is the correct word. Heavy artillery, poison gas, machine guns, grenades, tanks, bayonets; rain, snow, mud, disease, malnutrition; attack and counter-attack; and death, death, death, on all sides.

The civilian population during World War I also suffered, and this stands as a central difference between warfare in 1914 – 1918 and today. Food was often scarce in the countries at war in 1914, as were other everyday comforts. Able-bodied men were conscripted and sent to the front. Few civilians escaped some form of sacrifice for the war effort, and few emerged at the end of hostilities without suffering loss in one form or another.

Contrast that with modern, American-style warfare. Over the last eleven years, Americans have not been asked to sacrifice at all, and except for the constant tributes to our “brave men and women in uniform”, our “valiant warriors”, one could hardly guess we are a nation at war at all. Collective suffering is avoided because our wars are fought by an all-volunteer military – a professional standing army – backed by a multitude of contractors for hire. If the draft had been in effect in 2001 and 2003, it’s unlikely we would have invaded Afghanistan and then Iraq so cavalierly because there would have been a tangible cost, and undoubtedly a popular backlash against open-ended conflicts with a tactic rather than an enemy.

The war in Afghanistan drags on and on because the politicians and generals cannot devise a way to extract our troops without admitting failure. They assure us progress is being made, that the Afghans are nearly ready to assume responsibility for their own security, and that the Taliban is on the run. (After eleven years and billions of dollars expended, not to mention lives on both sides, wouldn’t you expect to see concrete results?) Of course our political and military leaders cannot admit the whole thing was a wretched mistake born of hubris and desire for revenge after 9/11, because to speak the hard, unvarnished truth would undermine many of our sacred beliefs and institutions. Imagine a government spokesperson informing a mother or sister or wife that her son, brother or husband died needlessly. “We regret to inform you that your son was killed because our nation’s politicians are cowardly and stupid.” No, the politicians and generals must make us believe the cause is noble even if it isn’t, just as they sell us the fantasy that in only one more year – or eighteen months at most -- the Afghans will be ready to defend themselves, allowing us to depart with honor.

The lads in Paul Baumer’s company had no beef against their French or Russian counterparts, not as individuals anyway. Soldiers were pretty much the same, regardless of the flag they fought for; they were called up, they went, they fought, they experienced terror and relief, saw comrades mutilated and killed, and each of them desperately wanted to survive to return to the life they had once known. The truth was that prime ministers, presidents, monarchs, industrialists and generals instigated wars and dispatched young men to fight and die in them.

As one of Paul’s comrades said, “There must be some people to whom the war is useful.”

World War I was never out of sight or mind; the same can’t be said for America’s long and dubious war against Muslim terrorists.

Armed & Deranged: A Visit with the Doctor

The last I heard from the good doctor he was on his way to Hawaii for what he called R & R. This was in July if my memory serves, mid-summer here on the Platinum Coast, the height of baseball season. July feels like a long time ago. I went by Duke’s place in Mission Canyon a few times between Halloween and Christmas to see if he had returned, but each time the rustic house looked deserted and my knock on the front door went unanswered.

I figured Duke was out of the country, shacked up with a new woman and up to his eyeballs in difficulties. I’ve never understood exactly what women see in Duke. He’s almost an official senior citizen, opinionated, unsentimental, obdurate, a devoted abuser of booze and illicit drugs, and on the radar of the FBI.

And yet, women fall for him.

But perhaps I’m being unfair. Duke can be charming and amusing when it suits him, and at heart I think he’s an old fashioned romantic. He’s also the only man I’ve ever known who reads Plato for fun.

A couple of days ago I dropped my daughter off at a play date not far from Duke’s house, and on my way home stopped by to see if there was any sign of him. A gardener’s pick-up bristling with tools was parked in the driveway next to Duke’s black Prius. From the back of the house I heard the whine of a chainsaw. Diffused sunlight filtered through the oak trees, glinting off the feathers of a large crow that hopped along the ridge of the roof.

The front door was unlocked so I let myself in, calling out, “Hey, Doc” as I did. I usually found the doctor in his cluttered study off the foyer – the same room where he had botched his suicide attempt. The bullet hole in the ceiling hadn’t been repaired. I noticed that the desk was tidy and someone – certainly not Duke – had rearranged the books on his shelves. Duke must have hired a new housekeeper because the floor and countertops in the kitchen gleamed, and the odor of pine cleaner still lingered. I opened the big Sub-Zero refrigerator expecting to see a phalanx of Heineken bottles, but instead found a dozen bottles of Evian water. The crisper was full of fresh broccoli, asparagus, cauliflower, snap peas, radishes, kale, carrots and celery. There were no meat or dairy products to be found. No eggs, either.

I walked through the living room, noticing immediately the empty space on the wall where the 50” flat screen TV had hung, and down the hallway that led to the den and bedrooms. “Doc, where the hell are you? What’s with all the water and vegetables?”

As I neared the den the smell of sandalwood incense became stronger. I pushed the door open and carefully poked my head inside. The room had been redecorated, the walls stripped of paintings and framed photographs and painted the color of a ripe pomegranate; the ceiling was now the color of mustard. The comfortable leather sofa and chairs I had always admired were gone, and the hardwood floor had been replaced with tatami matting. The only piece of furniture was a low table on which sat a black teapot and two small cups, and a single stick of incense in a porcelain holder.

And there was Duke, sitting on a black meditation cushion in the center of the floor, back erect and eyes half-closed, clad in a brown monk’s robe. He was barefoot and had shaved his head. “Doc,” I said, “what the hell is going on?”

“Tang-o,” he said softly. “Take your shoes off and join me. Get a cushion from the closet.”

I tossed a purple cushion on the floor and sat down. Duke’s eyes were still half-lidded.

“How’s the family?” he asked.

“Good. Kids are driving us crazy, but that goes with the territory. Terry’s wonderful. I don’t have much to complain about.”

“And the job?”

“Status quo. Huge budget cuts, potential layoffs, furlough days. Where’ve you been the past six months?”

Duke opened his eyes, but otherwise remained as still as a statue, a stillness so complete that I found it unnerving. His brown eyes were as clear as I ever remembered seeing them, his appearance serene and peaceful, two states of being I had never associated him with. The transformation was astounding. This was the same man who once railed against the burgeoning American police state and advocated armed revolution!

“Traveling. Nepal. India. Japan. Searching for answers in the ancient world, following the footsteps of the masters through ashrams and monasteries. I experienced revelations, epiphanies and insights about the way I’ve lived my life, what I’ve done, what I’ve valued. The decision to renounce my former life and pursue a spiritual path came quite easily. Surprised?”

“Flabbergasted,” I said. “You quit the booze and weed cold turkey?”

A tiny smile played on Duke’s face. “Well, at first I tried to have it both ways. I thought I might ease into spiritual practice, meditate for an hour or two every day, take a couple of bong hits, and go about my business. Just like me to attempt to purify my monkey mind and then pollute it with weed and hours of CNN. That’s why I removed all the TV’s from the house. Swore off sex, too, believe it or not. That was many times harder than giving up TV.”

“This is freaking me out,” I said. “Doc, what happened to your sense of moral outrage?”

“It wasn’t taking me anywhere,” Duke said, “except in circles. I was constantly at war inside my own being. But swimming in my own pond was killing me.” He closed his eyes and paused, as if trying to bring up a memory. Outside the window, the gardener was raking leaves and singing to himself in Spanish. “Sooner or later,” Duke said, “one must drain the pond and allow it to be refilled with fresh water.”

“That sounds like a message from a fortune cookie.”

“Useful wisdom is usually simple,” Duke said. “Tell me, what’s happening in the world?”

I gave him a rundown on Syria and Egypt, the ratcheting tension between Iran, Israel and the United States, the still sluggish economy that was punishing the poor, and the latest goings on with the GOP candidates for president. He listened impassively, his eyes never leaving mine until I mentioned Rick Santorum’s sudden surge. The moment I did Duke’s calm and serenity evaporated, and a look of loathing settled on his face.

“Santorum! You’ve got to be kidding! The GOP must have a death wish. Santorum is a certifiable Christian crackpot. Leave it to him and he’d sew every vagina in the country shut.”

“Can’t trust a man who wears sweater vests,” I said.

Duke rose to his feet and began pacing around the room. “No surprise that Gingrich hit the skids. The more people see of Newt, the less they like him. Romney’s a piss-ant who will say anything he thinks will get him elected. But Santorum…how in hell…that stupid bastard once said on the record that he had no problem with homosexuality, only homosexual acts. Can you believe he said that? The man has the brainpower of a worm and the soul of a cockroach. How can such a pinhead be the frontrunner! Sweet Jesus! It’s unthinkable. It’s monstrous. It’s preposterous.”

I didn’t know what to tell him, other than that democracy is messy and unpredictable, particularly in difficult times when hope is a scarce commodity and the future looks uncertain and the incumbent political leaders appear corrupt and bumbling. People quite understandably look for a savior, someone who seems to know the way to go, what to do. Santorum’s religious rhetoric and Ozzie & Harriet worldview is reassuring and comforting to some people.

“To the barricades,” Duke suddenly yelled. “Let’s go!” He dashed out of the room, his brown robe flapping around his knees. “To the barricades before it’s too late.” I ran after him, sure he was having a flashback to Berkeley in the 60’s, to the days when he was young and believed that he and his peers had the power to change the world, eradicate poverty and bring the war in Vietnam to a halt. Before I could catch him he was out the front door. I saw him veer toward the gardener’s truck and grab a pitchfork from the back. Then he was again running at full tilt, heading for Mission Canyon Road in his bare feet.

“Doc,” I called. “There are no barricades. Drop the pitchfork.”

Hypocrite's Ball

I own a Kindle Fire.

For work, I have use of an iPad and iPhone.

I admit these are remarkable devices, capable of all kinds of tasks and magic that just a few years ago was unthinkable or unattainable, from making the Brothers Karamazov -- among other books -- extremely portable, to answering e-mails, taking photographs, making notes, or playing Angry Birds while waiting in the doctor’s office.

I like the feel of the iPhone; it’s sleek and stylish, and its heft is solid and reassuring. I’ve got photographs of my kids on it, a few hundred songs, some useful apps.

My Kindle library spills over with digital editions from some of my favorite authors: Philip Roth, Walter Mosley, James Lee Burke, Shakespeare, Christopher Hitchens, Raj Patel, and Robert Scheer to name a few. My library is stored in the cloud, available whenever I want, and the volumes never gather dust or play host to silverfish.

My Kindle Fire, iPhone and iPad are arrayed on the table in front of me. As much as I admire them, I know these astounding gadgets are the products of Chinese workers, some of them very young, and some of them subject to dubious working conditions and treatment. I know what you’re thinking: why interject darkness into this otherwise upbeat tale of technological advancement. Why worry about some faceless workers on the far side of the world when here, on the fruited and blessed plain of America, we can purchase a Kindle Fire for $199 and an iPad for $500 or so?

Globalization isn’t our fault, right? It’s just the order of things, the logical result of “market” forces and trade agreements. It’s the reason we can buy so many of the things we need and enjoy at bargain prices; it’s why Wal-Mart and Costco thrive, and why Amazon wields enormous power.

Apple builds products in China because the work force is capable, cheap, plentiful and pliable. Annoying labor laws and costly environmental regulations are lax or nonexistent, and taken together these factors make China a manufacturing paradise, the sort of place corporate CEO’s have wet dreams about.

Apple claims to be unaware of any exploitation on the part of its Chinese contractors, but one would need to be deaf, blind and dumb to believe this. Coercion and exploitation hold labor costs down and push profits up.

Exploitation is the grease that makes globalization work and it doesn’t matter if the exploited are Mexican, Guatemalan, Vietnamese, or Chinese. Capital finds cheap labor the same way a Sidewinder missile finds its target. National borders are meaningless -- this is free trade, baby, not fair trade – and all rights and power and privilege are controlled and exercised by companies like Apple, HP and Dell.

The welfare of workers and the environment don’t factor into free trade equations; if they did, Old Navy might not exist.

Every time I buy a piece of clothing the first thing I do is look at the label to see where it was made, and invariably I find myself wondering about the people who made the item. Who are they? What are their working conditions like? How much are they paid? How many hours a day do they work?

A feel good aura surrounds Apple and Amazon, but that aura obscures a rapacious nature that leaves me unsettled. How much power is too much? Amazon plays hardball with book publishers, crushing the little ones, and forcing the big ones to make concessions. Small, local retailers cannot compete with Amazon’s economies of scale, its ubiquity and reach. It’s no less cutthroat than the days of Standard Oil and John D. Rockefeller.

My Kindle Fire, iPad and iPhone are mocking me. “You talk a good game,” they say, “but we dare you to take us out in the backyard and smash us to bits with an 8lb sledgehammer. Go on, put your principles into practice. Don’t be a hypocrite. If you’re so concerned about Chinese workers do something about it. C’mon, brother, talk is cheap. Bring the hammer down.”

I am a hypocrite.

Curse of the Gene Pool

The wind is out of the south and the sky is starting to cloud over. My wife calls to tell me that our son got a D on his latest math quiz. Going in the boy assured us he had this one in the bag, that the extra study time he’d invested would pay off; when he came home on quiz day he was confident of at least a B.

The kid is by no means incapable, he just dislikes math, and perhaps he comes by his aversion naturally, via the gene pool. I did okay with basic math but tanked when it came to algebra and geometry, to equations, solving for x; the language of math was like a buzz in my head, annoying and discordant, and no matter how hard I tried or how many hours I spent working out problems, I still felt like a man lost in a strange country.

My wife is better at math than I am, but understanding never came easily for her, either; she had to work extra hard at it.

What’s a parent to do in this anxious age, when the school curriculum moves like lightning, teachers are stressed and constantly under fire, school administrators and State officials are obsessed with standardized test scores, education budgets are gutted year after year because politicians in California don’t have the stones to confront the unintended consequences of Prop 13, and principals spend most of their time fund raising?

The public education system that was for many years the envy of the nation is a shell of its former self, and California now swims at the bottom of a muddy pool with Mississippi and Louisiana and Arkansas.

The Golden State, for reasons of politics and money, which in this era are indistinguishable from one another – decided to put prisons ahead of public education. It doesn’t seem to be working that great.

But back to my son and math: what to do? Private tutoring? Done that. Peer tutoring? Kid refuses. Threats, rewards, pleas? Tried them all.

People who hate exercise won’t go to the gym and kids who equate Algebra with torture shy from the subject. If you don’t like something, you won’t do it, at least not willingly.

When I lived in Japan in the early 1980’s, I remember the annual ritual of “Examination Hell,” a week of intense testing for high school seniors that determined what colleges they could enter. The better the college or university, the better the job prospects, and a position with a prestigious corporation often meant the difference between an affluent life and a mediocre one. Exam Hell Week was high stakes and even higher anxiety and stress, and every year some poor kid slashed his wrists or leaped to his death from an elevated train platform because his test scores didn’t measure up. Not only had the kid failed himself, he had failed his parents, his grandparents and his ancestors, shamed them all.

I always thought Japan’s system insane and inhumane, but in large part, America has adopted the same sort of madness. The curriculum has become dangerously narrow, focused on math and language arts and prepackaged “aligned standards,” and weeks before the annual standardized tests the kids are prepped and prodded and exhorted, while parents are bombarded with pre-recorded telephone messages reminding them to make sure their children are well rested and fed a nutritious breakfast on testing day.

It’s the AA age but by that I mean anxiety and austerity. The kid tanked on his test and I sit here feeling as if I let him down.

Big Box Blues

My wife and I went to Costco the other day to pick up a few items. Generally, I avoid big box stores in the same way I avoid beehives or jellyfish, but my wife promised we’d be in and out in no time. When it comes to shopping my wife is very adept, organized and disciplined, prepared to buy what she needs and no more, not the type of customer I associate with Costco.

I caught the big box heebie-jeebies right away. The entrance was jammed with people pushing mammoth carts. Before we got past the girl checking membership cards, a woman behind us rammed her cart into my heel. “That’s one reason I avoid this place,” I muttered under my breath. “Don’t start,” my wife said. I watched the woman who almost severed my Achilles veer left and make straight for the electronics, disappearing among the fifty and sixty inch HDTV’s. I felt dizzy, overwhelmed by the sheer size of the store, the industrial pallet racks stretching toward the ceiling, the sea of merchandise: stacks of books, piles of sweaters, jeans, shirts, tires, throw rugs, bath towels, BBQ grills, bicycles, golf clubs, vacuum cleaners, cases of wine, blocks of cheese. It’s enough to make my head spin. Everyone around us seemed to know one another and a quick vision of a Renaissance market passed through my mind. But this was a public square under a privately owned roof, a meticulously crafted business model, a machine of commerce.

570 stores, worldwide. South Korea, Mexico, Canada, Britain, and down under in Australia.

We’ve come to take it for granted, but the “warehouse” store is an innovative idea in the retail racket, and Costco has it wired. Concrete floor, no frills, no manufacturer’s coupons or blue light specials, big discounts on certain items, and the sense of being on a grand treasure hunt for something you didn’t know you had to have until you see it. Even in the midst of a hopeless recession the aisles are jammed with shoppers. Who has money to spend? I wondered.

A group of students from UCSB loaded a cart with breakfast cereal, toilet paper, bread, frozen burritos, Diet Coke and Dr. Pepper, orange juice, Cool Whip, dill pickles and bananas. By contrast, our cart is still empty. This makes me feel conspicuous, like an imposter. A woman in a red apron hands out Greek yogurt in tiny white cups. Two kids in soccer garb, parents nowhere to be seen, battle over a cup. “She gave it to me!” “No she didn’t!” “You can’t steal my yogurt!” “It’s not yours!” I told my wife that if we wanted to hear children squabble we could stay home. She shook her head at me and dropped a two and a half pound bag of coffee in our cart. Seattle Mountain, Costa Rican, whole bean. Alone in the big cart the coffee looked lonely.

“I feel like we should buy something large and substantial,” I said, “like 55 gallons of white vinegar. Something you have to wheel out with a pallet jack.”

She said, “Look for feminine hygiene products. I need maxipads.”

“How about five gallons of BBQ sauce?” I asked.

“Stop yourself.”

“Ketchup? We can always use ketchup.”

“Follow me, look for maxipads.”

By the time we finished our cart contained a whopping three items – the coffee, a jumbo pack of maxipads, and an oversized bottle of generic allergy medicine. The check out lines were backed up into the aisles and moving at a sloth’s pace. On the other side of the check-out area I watched people strain to roll carts overflowing with merchandise; once they got home with all that booty they would spend at least an hour putting it away. A squat woman in an eggplant sweat suit and black UGG’s pushed one cart and pulled another; she reminded me of a prospector during the gold rush, urging her pack mules up the trail.

“Let’s get a hotdog when we get out of here,” my wife said. “I’m hungry.”

“At this pace that will be tomorrow morning.”

“It’s not that bad. You up for a hotdog?”

“Can we get two or do they sell them by the dozen?”

Dispatch from Florida

Orlando, Florida, Gingrich 2012 Campaign HQ

The mood in the Gingrich campaign isn’t as upbeat as it was immediately after the South Carolina primary. Mitt Romney regained his footing after the last debate and once again looks like the presumptive GOP nominee.

Despite being despised and mistrusted by many members of his own party, Romney has opened a double digit lead over Gingrich in Florida.

Helping Romney’s cause is the fact that the GOP establishment -- or what remains of it, anyway -- hates Newt Gingrich with passion and prejudice. Bob Dole, a relic of the Establishment, always believed that Gingrich was a crackpot and a megalomaniac -- and now he’s not afraid to say so publicly. “Oh sure,” Dole said the other day, “Gingrich had a lot of ideas when he served in Congress -- and every one was nutty. He was never as smart as he thought he was, and all his grandstanding and grandiosity pissed off a lot of people. If he’s the nominee, the GOP is dead meat come November.”

Gingrich’s campaign staff play it close to the vest most of the time, but late at night, after a couple of rounds of drinks, when only the most intrepid reporters are still around, they let down their guard. While there are a few true believers in the group, most of the staff thinks Gingrich is full of shit, arrogant, and living in his own fantasy world where people like him get elected president.

“He’s serious about colonizing the moon,” one staffer said in the bar of the Sheraton. It was past 1:00 a.m. and the guy looked fried, like he’d been mainlining Red Bull for days. “Newt’s plan is to colonize and then send our illegal aliens and undesirables up there, in the same way Britain once sent convicts to Australia. Newt’s nuts, man.”

“The other day,” another chimed in, “Newt walked in and stood in the middle of the office and apropos of nothing announced, and I quote: ‘I am the smartest man in America and one of the great minds in the history of the world. I consider myself the equal of Aristotle and Plato and far superior to Socrates, and it’s a surprise to me -- truly a surprise -- that no sculptor has come forward to render my likeness in marble or granite. That will change when I’m elected president. The White House grounds will be peppered with statues of me.’ And then he turned around and left. How fucking bizarre is that?”

Nobody is willing to talk in detail, on or off the record, about Newt’s wife, Calista, though rumor has it that by comparison Calista makes Hillary Clinton look friendly and warm.

A female staffer looked up from her iPad and said, “The word is that Newt likes his sex kinky. He dresses like Julius Caesar and Calista like a slave girl, and they play out scenes involving leather restraints and oversized dildos. There’s videotape, apparently.”

It’s a weird vibe for sure, and South Carolina feels like a long time ago. National political campaigns are always strange, part circus, part revival meeting, part freak show. The candidate is “on” twenty-four hours a day, the pace is exhausting, and the news cycle short and unforgiving. A candidate as voluble as Gingrich is always one slip of the tongue away from disaster.

Rise of the Toad

I’ll be damned if the Human Toad (Newt Gingrich) didn’t win the South Carolina GOP popularity contest, easily besting Mitt “Easy Money” Romney. Now the Toad is atop this sad heap of would-be rulers and heading to Florida with what the politicos like to call the Big Mo’.

If the Toad appears capable to a segment of the Republican base it’s only because Easy Money is so incredibly wooden on the campaign trail, and so totally out of step with the people of this country. Referring to more than $350,000 in speaking fees (nine speeches in all) as chump change -- not that Romney said it quite like that, but the way he brushed off the income as almost not worth counting, like finding a couple of dollars in quarters between the sofa cushions -- is damned insulting when millions of Americans are struggling to put enough food on their tables.

Romney clearly doesn’t get it, and neither does the Toad -- the Toad is simply better at appealing to the baser instincts of his audience.

An egomaniacal crackpot without peer, the Toad treated his marriage vows like political promises, and did his best to have his cake (an open marriage) and eat it too (keep his mistress,) and now passes himself off as a righteous man, a reformed and rehabilitated philanderer, bathed in the light of the Catholic faith.

Make no mistake, the Toad is no stranger to hypocrisy and if the adulterer’s loafer was on Romney’s foot, you can bet the Toad would be howling about “character” from every rooftop. He’d quote Churchill, Gandhi and Rabbi Hillel on the dangers of backing a leader with questionable character.

More amusing still, Gingrich makes the incredible claim that he is a Washington DC outsider, the only candidate with sufficient independence to disrupt the culture of corruption in our capitol. Thieves, perverts, and con artists beware! Sheriff Toad is coming to town.

The claim strains credulity to the breaking point. Word to those of you not paying attention: Gingrich served in the House, and was in fact Speaker of that body, around the time P.J. O’Rourke dubbed it a Parliament of Whores. What P.J. meant was that almost every one of those so-called “public” servants was on the take in one way or another, doing political favors in exchange for campaign dough, plum private sector jobs, or sky box seats for the Super Bowl.

Not much has changed; the whores still have the run of the place.

When Gingrich left government covered by a shroud of disgrace and failure, he became a shill for private interests, using his contacts and knowledge of the political machinery to enrich his corporate clients and himself. Basically, the Toad graduated from common streetwalker to high-class hooker. Instead of servicing clients in the Men’s Room he began entertaining them in luxurious boardrooms. But let’s not split hairs here -- a blowjob is a blowjob no matter where it is administered. You can dress it up, call it fellatio, but it’s still a blowjob.

OK, glad we got that out of the way.

It doesn’t require any genius to see that the GOP is in disarray, tearing itself apart from within, lurching so far right that the party faithful would reject Dwight Eisenhower if he were running today. Gingrich is banking on naked fear to carry him along, and by that I mean the fear white people have of blacks, Mexicans, lesbians, gay men, skateboarders, transsexuals, vegans, and any person who drives a Prius.

Romney, on the other hand, believes that his business background qualifies him for the Oval Office, the theory being that he knows how to grow the economy and create jobs. While this may sound logical, it’s utterly batshit. I ask you this: after the colossal failure of corporate America during the first decade of this century, why would anyone trust a businessman?

Today the Toad may be rising, but we can take comfort in the fact that gravity is on our side.

American Mishmash

It’s been a number of years since Bob Dylan made the claim that “people are crazy & times are strange,” but the claim remains valid as ever. Here’s a case in point: according to the latest Harper’s index, today more Americans believe that human activity isn’t a cause of global warming than did so a decade ago. That’s a tribute to the power of massive PR from corporations and their media flacks and political allies. The more conclusive the science, the more industry -- and its vocal mouthpieces -- call science into question. BP is particularly masterful in this game of smoke and mirrors, having restored the Gulf of Mexico to its former condition less than a year after one of the worst oil spills in US history. What, you doubt BP’s sincerity? According to BP’s chirpy TV ads, the Gulf’s beaches are pristine, restaurants are open, restitution has been paid to anyone with a valid claim, and fish harvested from Gulf waters are free from deadly contaminants...enjoy your meal.

Moving on to more corporate manure...of late I’ve heard and seen many commercials for Anthem Blue Cross, all pumping the theme that Blue Cross is made up of kind and caring people who only have your health in mind; they have kids of their own, dreams of a healthy retirement, grandchildren and dogs, exotic birds and horses, so therefore they understand your needs. Clearly, none of these kind and caring people work in Anthem’s underwriting department, where denying care to patients is an art form. Your personal physician may possess sound medical reasons for ordering an MRI on your ailing knee, but if the underwriters at Anthem happen to be in an uncharitable mood, you can forget the MRI. Despite the self-reverent advertisements, Blue Cross is only in it for the dough. Nowhere does the average American get hosed more thoroughly than when it comes to health care. But we plow forward with our absurd, inefficient and wasteful for-profit system, paying more for treatment and medications than any other industrial nation. Bow and pay homage to the Free Market God and the angels from Big Pharma.

How many times did Madonna refer to “my film” on the Golden Globes the other night? She was nominated for a song she wrote, but in Madonna’s mind the song was an afterthought; she wanted only to talk about her film, her creation, her baby, her pride & joy. Good to know that Madonna’s ego is still intact after all these years, even though on her best day Madonna had as much talent as Lady Gaga on her worst. Lady Gaga with a wicked hangover, menstrual cramps, and an out of tune Steinway is still better than Madonna ever was. I can see why Sir Elton John was aghast, but then again, it’s the Golden Globes.

By the way, is it just me or does Angelina Jolie resemble an alien from a galaxy far, far away...?

Finally, a moment of levity from the campaign trail. Newt “The Human Toad” Gingrich’s presidential hopes were bolstered yesterday when Todd Palin, husband of Sarah, endorsed Gingrich. Wow! Talk about a seismic shift...Todd Palin is such an important political figure that his endorsement just may propel the Human Toad right to the top of the GOP heap. Perhaps Todd and the Toad will hit the campaign trail together, wow patrons of roadside diners and VFW posts with their wit and charm. I can see the reality TV show now...it will air right after My Strange Addiction...

Race to Nowhere

Mitt and Barrack. Romney versus Obama. Rich white guy against rich mixed race guy.

There’s your presidential sweepstakes match-up come November and everybody knows it, even the nitwits on Good Morning America. Gingrich and Huntsman and Ron Paul and Santorum will hang around a while longer, but when push comes to shove, Republicans will hold their noses and select Romney. Evangelical Republicans will demand that Romney throw them a bone, so Romney will come out in support of one or more of the Bible thumper’s pet issues. He will say that he has always supported this or that, even if his past statements or actions contradict his assertion.

It’s going to be a long year of political blather, and you can bet the farm that neither Obama nor Romney will say jack shit about the real issues facing our country. Persistent high unemployment. Continuing foreclosures. State budget deficits. Income inequality. Rising poverty. With Romney it will always be morning in America, while Obama will claim that if not for his crack team of ex-Clintonistas, things would be much worse than they are.

My wife watches our local ABC affiliate every morning and by default we are subjected to the GMA team -- George, Robin, Josh and Sam -- not to mention the hacks they habitually turn to for “expert” commentary and analysis. Top flight journalism it’s not, unless you happen to be a believer in corporate media, and extremely gullible to boot. I will give this group credit for being sunny and upbeat, but I can go no further than that. Most mornings they incite my inner crank and make me want to hurl a shoe through the TV.

Don’t expect Obama or Romney to challenge the stranglehold that corporations have on the country, or the fact that “predatory” capitalism doesn’t work worth a damn -- unless the goal is to enrich the few at the expense of the many. For doing that, predatory capitalism is unbeatable, and Republicans – and far too many wimpy Democrats -- have supported this atavistic version of capitalism since Reagan. But if the goal is to create a vibrant middle class, with decent jobs at living wages, with reasonable access to medical care and higher education, with due respect for the fragility of the environment, predatory capitalism isn’t the answer.

Romney claims that his experience running a venture capital firm makes him uniquely qualified to create jobs. This is one of those Republican tropes that sounds good on the morning news but means absolutely nothing in the real world. At the heart of the claim is the belief that the private sector can do no wrong, and that government is always wasteful, inefficient, and inept. The answer, of course, is to kneel before the all-powerful, infallible Market God.

There’s nothing left in the Republican economic playbook. The pages are torn and yellowed, stained with bourbon and blood. In a nutshell here’s what they’ve got: tax cuts for the wealthy and corporations, privatization of public assets, massive military spending, further deregulation, and a never-ending assault on “entitlement” programs. These ideas have failed. If you don’t believe me, look around.

Obama is vulnerable on the economy, but Republicans conveniently forget that Obama inherited an economic calamity from George W. Bush. This doesn’t excuse Obama – he’s governed far too timidly – but it does place his four years in the proper context.

Romney’s focus group tested attempts to pass himself off as a regular Joe are risible. He can roll up the sleeves on his plaid shirt all he wants, trot his wife and kids out for the obligatory photo, and eat corn on the cob with the yokels, but it cannot erase the fact that Romney is a man of privilege with a limited sense of what life is like for average folks.

The race is on, but it’s less a race to Pennsylvania Avenue than it is a race to nowhere.

Too Many Questions, Not Enough Answers

God doesn’t climb up to the Balcony very often. I figure the Lord (good Lord, bad Lord? I don’t know) has better things to do than visit an obscure man living quietly with his family on the California coast. But since I’ve been reading Christopher Hitchens, religion is on my mind, and I can’t help but ruminate on my own religious background and experience. Not that I can identify the year, month, week or day when the notion of a God, benevolent or otherwise, became impossible for me to accept. It must have been the moment when my questions about religion far outnumbered the answers religion offered.

I don’t believe that religious faith is a prerequisite for ethical or moral behavior in the world. Quite the contrary, some of the most unethical and immoral people can easily quote scripture, wear religious medallions, cross themselves for no particular reason or bow their heads in prayer at the dinner table, and then proceed to lie, cheat, steal and kill. Look at all the sexual scandals and child abuse episodes in the Catholic Church for a perfect illustration of my point. Priests known to the church hierarchy to be dangerous and predatory were protected rather than prosecuted.

My mother was raised a Catholic and so, carrying on the family practice, my brother and I were baptized into the faith without being consulted beforehand or given any other option. This seems cruel and unusual to me now, and is the reason my wife and I didn’t baptize our children. Having stood in the delivery room when they came into this world, all purplish-blue and covered with blood and fluid, it was perfectly clear to me that they arrived completely innocent, with no proverbial sin to pay for. When they’ve had an opportunity to consider the notion of religion for themselves they are welcome to adopt a faith and practice it. I will no doubt be disappointed if this should happen, but I won’t stand in the way or try to change their minds. If they choose to put faith in biblical fables like Adam & Eve or the Ten Commandments or Moses and the burning bush, that’s their choice, though I would obviously be far happier if they choose to believe in reason, skepticism and rational inquiry.

Religion is most obnoxious when it comes to sex. I was poking around a website called Catholic Answers and found this gem regarding contraception and procreation:

“Contraception is wrong because it’s a deliberate violation of the design God built into the human race, often referred to as "natural law." The natural law purpose of sex is procreation. The pleasure that sexual intercourse provides is an additional blessing from God, intended to offer the possibility of new life while strengthening the bond of intimacy, respect, and love between husband and wife. The loving environment this bond creates is the perfect setting for nurturing children.

But sexual pleasure within marriage becomes unnatural, and even harmful to the spouses, when it is used in a way that deliberately excludes the basic purpose of sex, which is procreation. God’s gift of the sex act, along with its pleasure and intimacy, must not be abused by deliberately frustrating its natural end—procreation.”

Well, isn’t that nice? Infantile, but very nice.

First of all, I don’t buy the proposition that God was involved in any way, shape or form in the design of the human species. Forget the six days to create the universe and everything in it; forget as well that humankind was forged in God’s image. Only humans, operating under the delusion of following God’s will, would place absurd and impossible prohibitions on something as pleasurable as sex. More often than not humans fuck for pure pleasure, not procreation, and I see nothing wrong with this. More marriages run off track because sex isn’t pleasurable rather than the other way around. How many times have you heard a married person complain that his or her sex life is too good?

I often see the unfortunate and inevitable result of religious indoctrination like that promulgated by the likes of Catholic Answers on the side of Santa Barbara where I live, near the eponymous high school or on the corner of Milpas and Cota streets. The sight is common: a Hispanic mother in her early to mid-20’s, pushing a baby stroller, with two young kids trailing behind and another in her belly. Quite possibly poor to begin with, she becomes poorer still every time she has another child. Perhaps she believes the tripe that bearing a lot of children is her duty and renders her rich in the eye of God, and that foregoing birth control scores her piety points and punches her ticket to heaven, but when it comes to feeding and clothing and educating her brood, she will receive no practical help from God.

Christopher Hitchens liked to say that religion was necessary when mankind was in its infancy, unable to rationally explain the workings of the physical world. When a volcano erupted or an earthquake rattled the ground, the explanation that the gods were angry made some sense. But just as children outgrow their fear of monsters hiding in the bedroom closet, our species matured and invented complex methods of scientific inquiry and rational analysis to explain the mysteries of the world.

I have no axe to grind with believers as long as they refrain from imposing their faith on me. I don’t appreciate having a posse of Jehovah’s Witnesses knock on my door, but neither do I run them off with a pitchfork. Faith and atheism can coexist. What really boils my blood is watching American political aspirants – regardless of party affiliation – pander to and grovel before the Christian faithful. Every candidate tries to out “Jesus” his or her opponents, clearly forgetting Article VI of the Constitution. Adding God to the corrosive cocktail of money and influence peddling only makes our political process more of a travesty.

Atheist and Rebel

It’s probably not wise to read Christopher Hitchens on religion during the holiday season, as doing so can create intense cognitive dissonance. I mention this from harsh experience. While Andy Williams croons in the background about this most wonderful time of the year (always a debatable assertion no matter how many times it’s repeated), Hitchens -- in his polemic God is Not Great -- shreds cherished religious traditions and pokes huge holes in dogma doggedly held by millions of believers. An equal opportunity atheist, Hitchens skewers Christians, Jews, and Muslims alike, and for good measure tap dances all over Joseph Smith and his Mormon tribe. While the lights on our tree twinkle, and Bing Crosby replaces Andy Williams, I find myself thinking about Almighty God, though I focus less on his (her?) supposed generosity and benevolence than I do on his darker utterances. For one supposedly all-powerful and all-knowing, he wasn’t very kind to women, children or skeptics. The eternal question enters my consciousness: if God created the universe and everything in it, who created God? Turn that question around any way you want, as many times as you want, and the logical answer is that we did, “we” being mankind.

If one is interested in an honest Christmas tune try The Rebel Jesus by Jackson Browne:

And once a year when Christmas comes
We give to our relations
And perhaps we give a little to the poor
If the generosity should seize us
But if any one of us should interfere
In the business of why there are poor
They get the same as the rebel Jesus

No surprise that Hitchens and Christmas are not a jolly mix. Mindless piety and crass commercialism collide head on, like two tanker trucks laden with jet fuel. Even though I take the silly season with a boulder-sized grain of salt, it’s next to impossible to ignore the general anxiety as Christmas Day approaches. People in the mall are grim and determined, focused on their shopping tasks, underpaid workers in the stores are sick and tired of dealing with demanding people, children are antsy, UPS drivers are harried, and nearly everyone who must attend one dreads the annual office party. There’s endless chatter on the radio and TV about happy families coming together in peace and harmony, and of course the obligatory stories about the holiday homecomings of brave American military men and women. There’s no harm in any of this, except when it reaches the saturation point, as it inevitably must, and then December 26th cannot arrive fast enough.

After the 18th the man who runs the Christmas tree lot in the County Bowl parking lot knows the jig is up, and that he will sell no more trees for $10 a foot. Optimistic to the bitter end, the man keeps the lot open morning till night the final week before Christmas, but his big red and white banner no longer entices passersby, and his giant inflatable Santa leans to one side in weary defeat.

For convenience sake we buy a tree from the man every year, no earlier than the 10th, no later than the 15th. As I write this, my wife and daughter are taking ornaments from the tree and packing them away in storage boxes. See you next year. Tomorrow I will saw the tree in two and place the pieces by the curb. We’ll pick pine needles from the rug for the next week or so.

And so it goes. I certainly have little to complain about, living here on the Platinum Coast, where the temperature on Christmas Day was in the mid-70’s, with blue sky overhead and a clear view to the Channel Islands.

Although I began with Christopher Hitchens I’ll give Jackson Browne the last word:

Now pardon me if I have seemed
To take the tone of judgment
For I’ve no wish to come between
This day and your enjoyment
In a life of hardship and earthly toil
There’s a need for anything that frees us
So I bid you pleasure
And I bid you cheer
From a heathen and a pagan
On the side of the rebel Jesus

Big Crazy

Would the American electorate choose a man named Newt for its president? Never mind that the Newt in question is an ethically and morally challenged blowhard, a fat toad despised by most members of his own party.
President Gingrich? Have we fallen so far so fast?

I don’t think this can or will happen – but then America in 2011 is a bizarre, unpredictable place. Look at the GOP presidential field and tell me we’re not in the middle of Big Crazy. Newt, Mitt, and what’s his name – the womanizer – ah, yeah, Herman Cain – though the Pizza King has been silent since dropping out of the race. Throw in Rick “I’m dumber-than-Bush” Perry and it’s no wonder that a pall of despair hangs over GOP headquarters.

But when one wing nut drops out another rises to take his place. The other morning Donald Trump was proclaiming that he might have to run for president after all – for the good of the nation, of course. How is it possible for one human ego to metastasize so grotesquely?

President Trump?

Every time Good Morning America does a segment on Jerry Sandusky, the alleged pedophile from Penn State, the more Sandusky looks like a man guilty of buggering young boys in the locker room shower. Once that suggestion is planted in your mind it’s not easy to let it go. No matter what clip of Sandusky GMA shows – walking from a black SUV into the courthouse, tossing footballs on the sideline, shoveling snow from his driveway, dropping coins in the collection basket at church – the man looks creepy, just the type to lure impressionable young boys into a dark, sound-proof basement.

And then there’s Tim Tebow, quarterback of the Denver Broncos, a strapping lad who thumps his Bible at least as well as he runs a 2:00 offense, a fact which captivates people and makes them say ridiculous things. When I heard Diane Sawyer on ABC News talking about Tebow and God I was sure she wet herself. Calm down, Diane, God has nothing to do with it.

Tebow for President? Tebow and Jesus!

While all this nonsense goes on something far more insidious and dangerous is happening in Washington D.C., where the House has passed legislation in the Defense Authorization Bill that would classify the American “homeland” as a battleground in the Global War on Muslim Terrorists. So what you say? The ramifications are chilling, and could lead to US citizens being detained indefinitely by military forces without formal charges, due process, or any of the protections set out in the Bill of Rights. If you’ve never heard of “indefinite detention” you might, soon enough.

As a commentator on KPFK radio put it: the distinction between dissent and terror is collapsing. A country that can’t tell the difference between the two, or have the confidence in itself to allow the former, is on the express lane to fascism.

On that cheery note…

The New Barbarians

How does the classic Christmas carol go, “It’s the most wonderful time of the year…” Not for me. Not when the TV and the radio are jammed wall-to-wall with commercials hyping Black Friday and Cyber Monday, and all the news anchors talk about is the great deals down at Best Buy. Not when it’s all Christmas all the time before the Thanksgiving turkey is even cold. The season has been elongated and stretched, expanded and super-sized by retailers in search of customers. Before the last scream of Halloween fades, up go the Christmas decorations, and the faux cheer spreads like a river of sewage across the land.

Never mind that the unemployment rate is high and holding steady or that banks continue to foreclose on delinquent mortgages or that every day more Americans slide below the poverty line; everybody is a potential consumer and if they have a pulse, however faint, and can walk, however unsteadily, then by all that is holy about American-style capitalism, they must have the latest LED flat screen TV, a new toaster, an iPad or a Kindle Fire.

It doesn’t make a whit of difference that many of the people lined up twelve hours before the stores open should be buying food for their children, not the latest electronic gadget.

Did you see the video footage of the human herds stampeding in search of Black Friday bargains? Did it make you want to hang your head out the window and puke? Fighting over an iPod dock? Slugging it out over a pair of boots? Putting other customers out of commission with pepper spray? What kind of nuthouse has America become? The mindless hoards are goaded and prodded and prepped and primed all week long, tantalized with promises of deep discounts on today’s must have products, mesmerized by visions of gain, and by Black Friday people have lost all contact with reason or common sense and descend on the local mall like the barbarians of old.

If Macy’s or Target advertised a one-pound block of cow dung at a 35% discount, some fool would stand in line for an hour to buy it. Yes, I know, people have free will and critical thinking capacity, and shouldn’t be manipulated so easily, but isn’t that what happens every November? Why else is Old Navy in downtown Santa Barbara open for business on Thanksgiving Day?

Bah humbug. Bah fucking humbug. The reason for the season is buried beneath a pile of gaudy sweaters from H&M, crotch-less panties from Victoria’s Secret, and Black & Decker power tools from Home Depot. Baby Jesus rides the escalator up and down all day long, unrecognized, ignored, pushed this way and that by caffeine and Red Bull addled shoppers. “Outta’ my way you little fucker.” Recognizing a lost cause when they see one, Mary, Joseph, the three wise men, the camel and the donkey have already fled for their lives.

Black Friday and Other Tales

New York City cops in full riot gear drive peaceful protesters from Zuccotti Park. Much the same thing happens in Portland, Oregon and on the campus at UC Berkeley. The powers that be in other places follow suit, citing concerns for safety and sanitation. Motionless, peaceful students at UC Davis are doused with pepper spray. Many protesters are arrested. Real democracy is messy and at times uncontrollable. The Occupy movement vows to continue.

Herman Cain, former pizza magnate, can’t keep his mitts off women. Sounds like Arnold Schwarzenegger all over again, and we know what happened to Arnold. Herman’s candidacy was doomed to begin with, so it will be no surprise when he drops out of the race for the GOP nomination. Cain’s name recognition is higher than it was when he began his quixotic quest for the White House, and this will help him sell books and keynote speeches on the rubber chicken circuit in the near future.

Have you noticed that the media never mentions Cain’s race or demands that he answer questions about race? None of the “Is he too black?” or “Is he black enough?” questions about Herman. In the corporate media, race disappears as an issue once a man passes the conservative litmus test.

In the meantime, that bloated toad Newt Gingrich is rising in some polls, though nobody understands why. Gingrich was a blowhard when he was Speaker of the House and has done nothing in the intervening years except suck up to corporate donors. As a self-styled “historian,” Gingrich should know that a blind, three-legged dog has a better chance of being elected president than he does. The American electorate can be dumb, but not that dumb.

All Mitt Romney has to do to secure the GOP nomination is avoid a total mental breakdown, like what happened to Rick Perry recently – or be sideswiped by some long forgotten scandal. Everybody has a skeleton or two in the closet. Hard to say what that might be in Mitt’s case, but candidates who piously preach family values and the sanctity of marriage (only between a man and a woman of course), are generally tripped up by a skeleton of the sexual variety. Who knows, maybe Mitt had a homosexual dalliance as a curious undergraduate or dabbled in cross-dressing.

Meanwhile, Barack Obama wanders around the White House late at night wondering what became of the magic. Liberals can’t stand him. Environmentalists want his balls on a platter. Labor leaders feel betrayed by him. Young people who worked their butts off to get out the vote for Obama in 2008 now fully understand how it feels when a politician fools them into thinking he is something that he is not. Those voters are likely to stay home in droves come 2012, a possibility that contributes to Obama’s late night strolls through a silent White House. Every now and then Obama is convinced that he hears the ghost of Richard Nixon whispering in the corridors. Though for different reasons, Nixon often felt hated and trapped.

But to hell with all that political garbage. What really matters in America at this moment – beside the fact that legendary football coach Joe Paterno has been dislodged from his pedestal and Demi and Ashton are calling it quits -- is that Black Friday is drawing nigh. All over the land shop-a-holics are polishing their credit cards and planning for that magic moment when the glass doors finally swing open at Wal-Mart or Target or Best Buy, and they surge forward with the rest of the herd, trampling security guards, unattended small children, elderly ladies, and sales clerks. There will be casualties on Black Friday, brawling in the aisles, fistfights in the parking lot, and many hospital emergency rooms will be forced to turn patients away. Serious Black Friday shoppers accept the risks of bodily injury in the same way a mountain climber on Everest does.

Benign Neglect

I have neglected the Balcony of late. Life interferes with my scribbling. Excuses? Well, there is the job, kids, homework, dishes, bills, laundry, Halloween, errands, grocery shopping, stuff that needs to get done or else the wheels fall off. Try letting your toenails grow for a few weeks and you’ll see what I mean.

The days here grow shorter. In the evening fog rolls in off the ocean, dense in some areas, wispy in others, and in the night we hear the warning beacon sound in the harbor. A waning crescent moon rises above the pines on Anapamu Street. The County Bowl concert season is over, closed out by Deadmau5. It’s been a while since we’ve heard coyotes howl from the canyon that runs west of the Bowl.

Bob Dylan sang that people don’t come and go as much as they float, and sometimes people float to places and positions they don’t belong. Sometimes circumstances and dumb luck conspire to produce an outcome that leaves you shaking your head. Trying to understand is fruitless; it’s like trying to penetrate the meaning of a Zen koan. Whatever and whoever, it just is, and the decision you must make is to fight it or go with it. Life or death it’s not. Worse comes to worse you say, “I’m done” and hit the road. Some windmills are not worth tilting at; they will keep turning no matter what.

The illusion of control, of making sense, of logic and pattern, of rationality, of cause and effect, of being the master of one’s own fate, of being the guiding hand on the cosmic tiller. It makes no sense and perfect sense at the same time. It’s cream in your coffee and sugar in your tea; it’s a trout on the end of your line and a clear mountain stream at the end of the trail. It’s a homeless woman giving birth in a cemetery under a full moon. It’s the smartest man in the room doing the dumbest thing imaginable. It’s a beloved preacher fornicating behind the church with an underage whore.

My son is watching a rerun of Gray’s Anatomy. The show has an MD for everyone: African-American and Asian, lesbian and straight, dashing and dorky. The voice over by the actress who plays Meredith offers canned wisdom: “No matter what’s going on, a surgeon must have a steady hand.” OK, no argument with this obvious observation. My son tells me that I’ve reached an age where I cannot suspend my disbelief, and for this reason I’m incapable of enjoying the TV dramas he finds so intoxicating. Gray’s Anatomy is apparently the best show ever…my loss for not watching it.

In the world but not of the world, wandering with the people who float, beyond the point where sense is made, past the place where we cease to be what we think we are.

Under the Influence

Every now and then Barack Obama opens the mini-fridge in the Oval Office and removes a mason jar left over from the Bush Administration. The jar contains the elixir first brewed by Bill Clinton but not perfected until Bush and Cheney moved into the White House to begin their long reign of error. It’s rumored – but only rumored, you understand – that the secret formula for this elixir resides in a slim silver tube that Dick Cheney slips into his rectum every morning after his bowel movement.

This morning, before being interviewed by Jake Tapper from ABC News, Obama unscrewed the lid and took a quick sip, just enough to take the edge off for a couple of hours.

The elixir is a potent concoction that induces politicians to make statements they don’t believe with total conviction. For example, when Bush claimed that tax cuts for the wealthy would produce an economic bonanza for the poor, he really believed it. Cheney was totally addicted to the elixir and for eight years ran around Washington D.C. making all manner of bizarre claims. Illicit substances are not for the faint of heart or those with weak constitutions. Bush and Cheney, two alpha males who enjoyed boasting about the size and hardness of their testicles, believed they could handle the stuff in small, consistent doses.

This was hubris at its best.

By comparison, Barack Obama is a weak-kneed wanker who shouldn’t mess around with toxic substances under any circumstances. Case in point: Obama telling Tapper that the Occupy Wall Street movement has many similarities to the Tea Party. Deeply under the influence and obviously out of touch with reality, Obama claimed he understood both points of view.

WTF! OMG! Is our president serious? All one has to do is follow the money behind the Tea Party to understand what it’s all about.

Obama was serious, in the moment, but don’t forget, he was crocked to the gills. A few hours later, after the elixir wore off, Obama realized the magnitude of his gaffe and called Dr. Drew Pinsky, the reality TV addiction guru.

“Dr. Drew, this is the President of the United States. It’s very possible that I have a problem.”

“I can help, Mr. President. What is it, crack cocaine, Oxycontin, booze, hash, smack, Internet porn?”

“It’s the elixir.”

“Holy shit,” said Dr. Drew. “That’s bad, very bad. I’m afraid you’re screwed, sir. The only thing worse than being addicted to that stuff is trying to kick it. Makes kicking heroin feel like a long weekend in Barbados. Ever been to Barbados, sir?”

“What does it mean, Dr. Drew?”

“Well, to be frank, Mr. President, it means that you will continue to make indefensible statements about movements you know nothing about, continue to put the demands of bankers and hedge fund managers above the needs of ordinary people, continue to insist that the way to put more Americans back to work is to export their jobs to low-wage countries. In short, for the rest of your presidency you will think and act, well, like a Republican.”

*Expert conjecture about the formula: Combine two drops of Newt Gingrich’s blood, four strands of Ayn Rand’s hair, one cup of Alan Greenspan’s urine, three teardrops from John Boehner, a pubic hair from Eric Cantor, a teaspoon of Ann Coulter’s menstrual blood, six drops of ether, four packs of Splenda, eight ounces of Kool-Aid mix, a generous splash of Jack Daniels, an ounce of high fructose corn syrup, and a tablespoon of water from the Hudson River. Mix thoroughly and serve chilled.

Awake, At Last?

I’m a fan of the Occupy Wall Street movement. What started as a small encampment has grown and migrated to hundreds of cities, and is now too large for the mainstream media to ignore, though that massive house organ for the corporate status quo has done its level best to downplay, denigrate and ridicule the protesters.

This is the way powerful elites react when threatened.

The next tack the elites take is to call on the Law.

But having seen in other parts of the world what can happen when the masses become aroused, you can bet the American political and business elite -- which is now one and the same thing -- are beginning to comprehend that their long run of privilege and prerogative is nearing an end.

That end can’t come soon enough as far as I’m concerned. The Ayn Rand philosophy that seeped into the political system like toxic sludge over three decades has now poisoned that system. All the talk about producers and parasites, the inherent merits of the wealthy and the inherent imperfections of the poor, the evils of taxation and big government, immigration and equal rights, has proven to be pure, stinking, steaming BS.

America is a weaker country today, a more divided and polarized country, and a country that has misplaced its mojo and is in danger of chucking its soul – primarily because of the unfettered and unaccountable corporate power that drives the economy and controls the political system.

The people camping on Wall Street and marching on Bank of America and Wells Fargo branches in other cities understand, even if they struggle to articulate their feelings, that something has gone terribly wrong in this country, and that it hasn’t happened overnight; they realize that the country has tipped off its axis, that too much power rests in too few hands, and that this arrangement severely limits the options of ordinary people. You can’t graduate from college toting $25 or $30 grand in student loan debt, work a wage slave job for $9 an hour because that’s all you can find -- sans benefits or health insurance, of course -- and expect to prosper. No matter how hard you work, you can’t get ahead under those conditions.

The Wall Street protestors and the diverse group calling itself the Other 99% understand that the working class and the poor are held accountable, while the wealthy absolve themselves of all responsibility. The people also understand that American-style capitalism is prone to choke on its own excess, and that we are living in one of these periods now.

Where is it written that ours is a nation of the wealthy, by the wealthy and for the wealthy?

One of the brighter aspects of the Occupy Wall Street movement is that it has shown staying power and resilience. This alone is reason for cautious hope that the movement – if it isn’t co-opted along the way -- might actually budge the status quo back toward the moderate middle. The lesson is clear as can be: when ordinary people decide they’ve had enough and take to the streets, they must be prepared to remain in the streets until the power elite sees them, hears them, feels them and, most critically, is bothered by their presence.

If you listen closely you can hear the faint stirrings of the American people – the real American people -- not the mythic people right-wing conservatives repeatedly invoke in their speeches. Listen, that’s Joe Hill stirring in his grave, and over there, Woody Guthrie is dusting off his guitar. Cesar Chavez is moving, Martin and Malcom and Medgar are moving, John L. Lewis is moving, Walter Reuther is moving, up toward terra firma and the light of day where justice is found.

A Strange and Savage Land

“He was born in a vat of snake oil.” Hunter S. Thompson on Bill Clinton

Well, that seems to aptly describe ninety-nine percent of the politicians in Washington and most state capitols. Honor is rare in politics these days, and most politicians wouldn’t recognize honor if they tripped over it. This is partly because the pols are constantly in fund raising mode, prostrating themselves before trade associations and industry groups, grubbing for cash and leaving their ideals and ethics at the door. The system is bought and paid for and the deals go down under a shroud of secrecy.

There was a time in America when we depended on print and TV journalists to expose political corruption and, for the most part, they did a decent job keeping the politicians somewhat honest. The corporate takeover of the mainstream media destroyed the muckraking tradition. Reporting now is sanitized and trivialized and delivered by friendly lightweights or -- in the case of Fox News -- shouted by rabid partisans. No average American can make sense of it all, a fact politicians from both parties use to their advantage. Confusing the hell out of the American electorate is relatively easy.

The US is now involved in several armed conflicts in the Muslim world, but most Americans are as clueless about that as we are informed about Amanda Knox -- former resident of Italy’s prison system. We know Amanda’s parents, her sisters, her lawyers (US and Italian), her minister and her childhood friends; we know her state of mind and what she ate on the plane coming home from Italy.

The Knox story is like a Lifetime network movie, replete with all the things we love: sex, drugs, murder and mystery. In comparison, our wars against Muslims are merely grim and depressing, endless and hopeless.

Dark times, Hagrid said to a young Harry Potter, dark times.

Indeed.

The forces of repression and stupidity are loose in the land, running amok, and growing stronger against feeble resistance. Mexicans in Alabama are running scared, packing up, pulling their children out of public schools, fearful of being persecuted by Alabama’s tough new immigration law. Mexicans, Arabs, Pakistanis, Ethiopians -- no arms wait here to welcome you and yours. America is pulling back, electrifying its fences, and screening undesirables like never before.

Dark times, scary times. Who will hold the line against these forces? Barack Obama? No, he was born in the same vat of snake oil that Clinton sprang from. Any of the crop of GOP presidential hopefuls? Sweet Jesus, no, those people are unhinged, as dangerous as starving jackals, and they pray to a wrathful God who doesn’t believe in redemption or forgiveness. If you’re poor, it’s your fault. If you get sick, too bad. If you get deep into debt and can’t crawl out, you will find no relief.

All our heroes sleep in the grave. We’re on our own, stumbling around in a strange and savage land where the customs of the locals are unfathomable and intruders are burned at the stake. The rich wall themselves inside environments they can control and hire private security guards to fend off undesirables; the poor are driven into shantytowns where raw sewage flows in the unpaved streets. At night the tolling of the mission bell is drowned out by the howl of coyotes.

Who's Next?

Good Morning America led with the news that the America-born terrorist mastermind, Anwar al-Awlaki, had been killed in northern Yemen. George Stephanopolous and Brian Ross were beside themselves with excitement, and if you didn’t know they were talking about the assassination of a man never charged with a crime or tried in a court of law, you might have thought they were reviewing a particularly exciting Super Bowl game.

I don’t know if Anwar al-Awlaki was as diabolical as he is being portrayed in the American media, or if he is just being used to justify the American War on Muslim Terrorists.

The Obama Administration speaks with the same certainty about Awlaki that the Bush Administration spoke about Saddam Hussein’s nuclear and biological weapons and the direct threat they posed to America.

Let’s not forget that the Bush gang cooked the intelligence books to buttress their justification for the invasion of Iraq; let’s also not forget that the American intelligence community frequently gets it wrong.

Osama bin Laden. Anwar al-Awlaki. Who will be the next terror czar to be taken out by the United States or its proxies? Who will be the next to die because of his “potential” threat to the United States?

I’m not making apologies for terrorists, but there is something deeply disturbing about the United States ceding to itself the power and authority to act as judge, jury and executioner, wherever and whenever it wants. How do such actions make the United States safer? Yes, Osama bin Laden is dead, and Anwar al-Awlaki is dead, but in killing them, how many additional martyrs has the United States created?

I felt a little sick to my stomach as I listened to George Stephanopolous and Brian Ross, watched as ABC’s slick graphics simulated how the American military’s technological wizardry tracked al-Awlaki’s every move. GMA’s infatuation with wizardry overshadowed any need to raise larger questions about the threat al-Awlaki posed or the legality of killing him without evidence or trial.

The website www.costsofwar.org estimates the monetary costs of the Iraq and Afghanistan invasions at $3.7 trillion. Six thousand two hundred and thirty American service people have died, thousands more have been maimed or scared for life. The number of civilian casualties in Iraq and Afghanistan is routinely underestimated by the United States, and a reliable count of the number of wounded or displaced human beings is almost impossible to come by, though after a decade of continuous war, it stands to reason that the number is very large.

And as the War on Muslim Terrorists drags on year after year with no end in sight, as the number of innocent victims grows, so does distrust and hatred of the United States.