If
you're normally not a fan of the Daily Show or of Jon Stewart, for
whatever reason, please... set that aside just this one time and watch
last night's (April 3rd, 2014) opening segment on SCOTUS's ruling this week regarding
McCutcheon v FEC.
This ruling is not a Left-Right issue. It's a central
issue of fairness.
If money is free speech, as SCOTUS has ruled, then fewer than 700 ridiculously rich people in the USA
have just been allowed to use their ginormous, giga-watt sound systems
to project their "free speech" far and wide, while the rest of us are
left to one vote, to one voice.
We all took an American History class at
some point in our lives. Who among us ever read that gobs and gobs and
gobs of money in politics was a good thing?
Democracy took a
big hit this week, and the decision to hit it now and with the 2010
Citizens United v FEC ruling, was made by a handful of people who were
appointed, not elected, to their positions, but who have managed to make
the term "free speech" oxymoronic and ironic.
Friday, April 4, 2014
Thursday, March 13, 2014
Oh, irony...
Even as some fundamentalist Christian groups are upset and bewildered and angry about the return of the "Cosmos" on network television, with some calling it a "war on Christianity," and one Oklahoma TV station "accidentally" running a news program promo over the mention of evolution, fundamentalist Muslim groups in Bahrain, Qatar, and United Arab Emirates are actively censoring portions of the new "Noah" motion picture, claiming it might "provoke the feelings of [Muslim] believers." Oddly enough, even some Catholics are upset about "Noah" as well.
Both situations say a great deal about fundamentalist groups: intolerance seems to be a fundamental.
Both situations say a great deal about fundamentalist groups: intolerance seems to be a fundamental.
Wednesday, March 12, 2014
Preaching the prosperity gospel, indeed...
In recent current events, it's been reported by several national news agencies that Joel Osteen's Lakewood megachurch in Houston TX was allegedly robbed of approximately $600,000 earlier this week. Thieves either cracked or otherwise opened a safe in the church's office, which allegedly contained the collection plate proceeds for the most recent Saturday and Sunday services. This news is shocking... and on several levels.
If you're not aware of Mr. Osteen, he is fond (as are a number of other megachurch preachers) of what's called "prosperity theology," which, in a nutshell, is the idea that financial success and its attendant prosperity are the will of God (for Christians), and that by giving to (Christian) ministeries, the givers will be receivers of abundant financial rewards in kind, even as those very (Christian) ministries are, themselves, made prosperous by default.
Yup. You're right. There sure seems to be plenty of prosperity to go around.
Obviously, theft by anyone, of anything, from anyone, is wrong. Duh. My two rules for living a good life are #1, "Do your job" and #2, "Don't be a dickhead." This is really a pretty simple philosophy. Clearly these thieves followed Rule #1 by doing their jobs as thieves, but they could never adhere to Rule #2. Why? Because they're dickheads for being thieves in the first place, as in, "Thou shalt not [do it]." (See also "Duh.")
So, this theft is already heinous from a religious person's perspective in terms of the eighth commandment, but the double-down is because some of these very same folks probably can't afford what they're offering in the first place; then they have to swallow that the hard-earned money they freely gave away (although, giving in order to receive something in return might not qualify as doing so "freely") is denied even its intended benefactor? Sucks to be them, that's for sure.
But what is perhaps most heinous is what the reported $600,000 figure suggests in a larger, grander, more opulent picture. Given there are 52 weekends in a year, this means that Mr. Osteen's church—alone—is capable of taking in $31,200,000 in a year!?
Now let this ginormous number sink in and then remind yourself that neither Mr. Osteen's church—nor any other United States church of any other denomination—pays one dime in property taxes, even as every one of their giving brethren do. So I guess the theology that these prosperity pushers preach (oops, I meant "preachers push," of course) doesn't necessarily apply to US taxpayers, who are apparently the suckers who do have to pay property taxes even as they invest in this mutual prosperity love-fest.
So at this point some might be thinking, "Great work if you can get it," and that Mr. Osteen, et al., are those who are benefiting most from all this giving. And although it probably has to be taken on faith that the givers have actually become receivers (i.e., prosperous), all one has to do is perform a simple Google search on the homes and other properties owned by Mr. Osteen, Creflo Dollar, Robert Tilton, Benny Hinn, and other prosperity preachers like them, to see that prosperity does indeed flow from prosperity theology: it flows straight into their coffers, directly or indirectly.*
It does suck for all the little guys, yes it does, yet I'm having a really hard time feeling bad for them because even as they do believe that giving money to a gigantic, incredibly opaque ministry that earns, potentially, $31,200,000 yearly, they don't believe this arguably obscene, clearly materialistic theology is something Jesus Christ Himself just might have been a tad put off by given His purported (and Matthew 19:24's known) stance on rich men's chances of attaining heaven being about as likely as camels getting through needle eyes.
But I guess it says a lot that this guy is willing to give up his place in heaven by allowing his church to take all that dirty money from all those clean hands.
Gee... what a guy. No wonder he smiles so much.
* It's widely reported that since 2005 Mr. Osteen's salary has not been drawn from his megachurch where he preaches (about prosperity theology), and instead comes exclusively from what he writes (wait for it... about prosperity theology). Well OK. So to the camel-and-needle analogy please add the following questions:
A) How many angels can fit on the point of that needle?
B) How finely must that poor camel's hairs be split?
C) Has Mr. Osteen never heard of the logical fallacy, "distinction without a difference?"
Update: It seems Creflo Dollar has spoken to God, and God told Creflo he needs a new $60 million jet.
If you're not aware of Mr. Osteen, he is fond (as are a number of other megachurch preachers) of what's called "prosperity theology," which, in a nutshell, is the idea that financial success and its attendant prosperity are the will of God (for Christians), and that by giving to (Christian) ministeries, the givers will be receivers of abundant financial rewards in kind, even as those very (Christian) ministries are, themselves, made prosperous by default.
Yup. You're right. There sure seems to be plenty of prosperity to go around.
Obviously, theft by anyone, of anything, from anyone, is wrong. Duh. My two rules for living a good life are #1, "Do your job" and #2, "Don't be a dickhead." This is really a pretty simple philosophy. Clearly these thieves followed Rule #1 by doing their jobs as thieves, but they could never adhere to Rule #2. Why? Because they're dickheads for being thieves in the first place, as in, "Thou shalt not [do it]." (See also "Duh.")
So, this theft is already heinous from a religious person's perspective in terms of the eighth commandment, but the double-down is because some of these very same folks probably can't afford what they're offering in the first place; then they have to swallow that the hard-earned money they freely gave away (although, giving in order to receive something in return might not qualify as doing so "freely") is denied even its intended benefactor? Sucks to be them, that's for sure.
But what is perhaps most heinous is what the reported $600,000 figure suggests in a larger, grander, more opulent picture. Given there are 52 weekends in a year, this means that Mr. Osteen's church—alone—is capable of taking in $31,200,000 in a year!?
Now let this ginormous number sink in and then remind yourself that neither Mr. Osteen's church—nor any other United States church of any other denomination—pays one dime in property taxes, even as every one of their giving brethren do. So I guess the theology that these prosperity pushers preach (oops, I meant "preachers push," of course) doesn't necessarily apply to US taxpayers, who are apparently the suckers who do have to pay property taxes even as they invest in this mutual prosperity love-fest.
So at this point some might be thinking, "Great work if you can get it," and that Mr. Osteen, et al., are those who are benefiting most from all this giving. And although it probably has to be taken on faith that the givers have actually become receivers (i.e., prosperous), all one has to do is perform a simple Google search on the homes and other properties owned by Mr. Osteen, Creflo Dollar, Robert Tilton, Benny Hinn, and other prosperity preachers like them, to see that prosperity does indeed flow from prosperity theology: it flows straight into their coffers, directly or indirectly.*
It does suck for all the little guys, yes it does, yet I'm having a really hard time feeling bad for them because even as they do believe that giving money to a gigantic, incredibly opaque ministry that earns, potentially, $31,200,000 yearly, they don't believe this arguably obscene, clearly materialistic theology is something Jesus Christ Himself just might have been a tad put off by given His purported (and Matthew 19:24's known) stance on rich men's chances of attaining heaven being about as likely as camels getting through needle eyes.
But I guess it says a lot that this guy is willing to give up his place in heaven by allowing his church to take all that dirty money from all those clean hands.
Gee... what a guy. No wonder he smiles so much.
* It's widely reported that since 2005 Mr. Osteen's salary has not been drawn from his megachurch where he preaches (about prosperity theology), and instead comes exclusively from what he writes (wait for it... about prosperity theology). Well OK. So to the camel-and-needle analogy please add the following questions:
A) How many angels can fit on the point of that needle?
B) How finely must that poor camel's hairs be split?
C) Has Mr. Osteen never heard of the logical fallacy, "distinction without a difference?"
Update: It seems Creflo Dollar has spoken to God, and God told Creflo he needs a new $60 million jet.
Monday, January 20, 2014
So near and yet no nearer...
The Seattle Seahawks played a good game, especially their offensive line and defensive... well... almost everything. But in the end, I think it was poor second-half decision-making by Colin (and not the 12th man) that made the difference in this one. As good as he was in the first half, he was just about that bad in the second. And although a classy Colin readily accepted his part in this loss, there was plenty of blame to go around:
- Boldin’s two drive-killing drops;
- Poor third-down play;
- An almost complete lack of a conventional running game;
- An occasional inability to contain Wilson or to cover who he eventually threw to;
- Stopping Lynch in the second half as well as they did in the first half;
- etc.
These issues notwithstanding, and arguably absent those
three turnovers, Niners win. Colin’s going to be great; he’s just still learning
how to get there.
As for blown calls, maybe they made some difference. The
no-call on Bowman’s obvious fumble recovery comes to mind, but SF recovered another fumble on the next play. The bad personal foul call on Whitner’s first-quarter hit to a receiver’s
shoulder (and not his head) probably kept a drive alive that should have
otherwise died. But regardless of the part the refs might have played, the Niners didn’t have all their parts working when they
needed them, SF has never been a great come-from-behind team, and
last time I checked, none of the refs was on either team’s roster.
Going forward, I do hope Iupati and Bowman are able to come
back, for their own sakes. Maybe the Seahawk’s cornerback Sherman, who I’ve
enjoyed watching heretofore, can get back to behaving like Richard and not like
Dick, regardless of how large a small-d-dick he perceived Michael Crabtree to be in the moment. Someone just has to be the bigger person, and nothing is cheesier than someone telling you how great he or she is. Mohammed
Ali was able to pull it off: Sherman isn’t. Although I can’t blame him for
going off talking to Erin Andrews (her voice is enough to send me screaming
from a room), he need only look to his QB for how to stay classy,
win or lose.
Thursday, January 2, 2014
Cautious prediction, for the record....
In the last two seasons, the San Francisco 49ers have had the Green Bay Packers' number, beating them handily twice in regular season play and once in the playoffs. But for some statistically anomalous reason, 12-4 SF is visiting 8-7-1 GB in this weekend's wild-card play-off game.
The Packers are NFC North leaders, sure, but their anemic record (did I mention 8-7-1?) is nowhere near the Niners' record, especially with one of those 12 SF wins being the season-opener win against GB, who are division champs, but in, perhaps, the worst division in the entire NFL. Therefore, when these facts are combined with a couple of teams having better records than Green Bay's, it could easily be argued that the Niners should be at The Stick against someone else, but here we are with a play-off game at Lambeau, so c'est la vie + QED = WTF in the NFL.
These are the playoffs, after all, and to paraphrase Mitt Romney's 2012 campaign staffer's gaff, they definitely do "shake the Etcha-Sketch" in terms of what's come before them. The cocked hat into which this wild card will also be thrown is the weather, which at game time might yield an insanity-inducing, Barbados-beckoning high of z-z-zero degrees F. That's -17.7 for all you Canadians who might tune in and a brutal "brrr" in either country.
The frigid weather could force a turn to the ground game by both teams, and even though Aaron Rodgers has the passing advantage against the Niners' struggling secondary, throwing effectively could be difficult, at least, which might very well play to the Niners' advantage as their run defense is so stout, and the Packers' run offense is, well, not. Yes, Aaron Rodgers can run too, but the Niners pretty well hobbled him in their previous three meetings, even as The Packers could find no restraints for Colin Kaepernick's ankles in the latter two. Certainly, other teams have managed to contain Colin at times this season, but the fact remains that Dom Capers is a fairly one-dimensional Defensive Coordinator, so watch Colin, Frank Gore, Kendall Hunter, and the Niners' tandem team of Will Tukuafu and Anthony Dixon get loose and make things happen on the ground this Sunday.
Don't get me wrong, having grown up watching the Packers beat the Lions black-and-blue on black-and-white TV, I love both teams, but my affection edge is clearly in San Francisco's favor these last 25 years (and after SF's narrow loss in last year's Super Bowl, I know they'll be back even if GB prevails at home), and as the song suggests, I know where my heart is, so all this said, here's my prediction: Niners will prevail 30 to 24. I don't mind being wrong, as I do it so regularly and so well, but I wanted to post this cautious prediction, for the record, nevertheless.
The Packers are NFC North leaders, sure, but their anemic record (did I mention 8-7-1?) is nowhere near the Niners' record, especially with one of those 12 SF wins being the season-opener win against GB, who are division champs, but in, perhaps, the worst division in the entire NFL. Therefore, when these facts are combined with a couple of teams having better records than Green Bay's, it could easily be argued that the Niners should be at The Stick against someone else, but here we are with a play-off game at Lambeau, so c'est la vie + QED = WTF in the NFL.
These are the playoffs, after all, and to paraphrase Mitt Romney's 2012 campaign staffer's gaff, they definitely do "shake the Etcha-Sketch" in terms of what's come before them. The cocked hat into which this wild card will also be thrown is the weather, which at game time might yield an insanity-inducing, Barbados-beckoning high of z-z-zero degrees F. That's -17.7 for all you Canadians who might tune in and a brutal "brrr" in either country.
The frigid weather could force a turn to the ground game by both teams, and even though Aaron Rodgers has the passing advantage against the Niners' struggling secondary, throwing effectively could be difficult, at least, which might very well play to the Niners' advantage as their run defense is so stout, and the Packers' run offense is, well, not. Yes, Aaron Rodgers can run too, but the Niners pretty well hobbled him in their previous three meetings, even as The Packers could find no restraints for Colin Kaepernick's ankles in the latter two. Certainly, other teams have managed to contain Colin at times this season, but the fact remains that Dom Capers is a fairly one-dimensional Defensive Coordinator, so watch Colin, Frank Gore, Kendall Hunter, and the Niners' tandem team of Will Tukuafu and Anthony Dixon get loose and make things happen on the ground this Sunday.
Don't get me wrong, having grown up watching the Packers beat the Lions black-and-blue on black-and-white TV, I love both teams, but my affection edge is clearly in San Francisco's favor these last 25 years (and after SF's narrow loss in last year's Super Bowl, I know they'll be back even if GB prevails at home), and as the song suggests, I know where my heart is, so all this said, here's my prediction: Niners will prevail 30 to 24. I don't mind being wrong, as I do it so regularly and so well, but I wanted to post this cautious prediction, for the record, nevertheless.
Tuesday, November 19, 2013
Open letter to Canada...
Dear Canada,
Hey.... it's the USA dropping a line! Just wanted to write and tell you how sorry we are for your Rob Ford. He just has to be our fault and we're very, very sorry. No matter how patient, sane, well meaning, or positive anyone is, no one can stand up to the onslaught of stupid shit going on here, which is probably spilling over into your country.
Being so close to us, you have to watch and listen to our far-right politicians whining that Obamacare is government intrusion and over-reach even as these same knuckleheads pass law after law that allows that very same government to reach farther and farther into the vaginas of American women.
You stand as a silent witness as we keep walking to the edge of the fiscal cliff, almost bringing about global depression by playing childish games with our debt-ceiling.
You suffer as we put up more and more impediments to your crossing our northern border, a border shared by a staunch ally and one of our largest trading partners.
You have to put up with spilled-over TV and radio broadcasts that include pathologically stupid people like Rep. Louie Gohmert (R-TX), Rep. Steve King (R-IA), Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX), Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN), and the far-right-of-right-wing voices of Sarah Palin, Michelle Malkin, Rush Limbaugh, Ann Coulter, Mark Levin, and any number of Faux News folks paid to speak without thinking. Even some of our left-wingnuts, like MSNBC's own Martin Bashir, can be mean-spirited and crazy-making as they practice their own special brand of ready-fire-aim commentary.
It's small wonder that anyone could wade through this flood of fools and stay dry and clean.
So it's not at all surprising that Toronto's own mayor, the Honorable Rob Ford, has finally... er... cracked and turned to drugs and alcohol, as well as to the Olympic-class gibberish-spouting usually reserved for our most dumb-assed politicians and mean-spirited talking heads. Sure, you fairly and squarely elected Stephen Harper as your PM, but it could be argued that he'd been hanging around with folks like Bush 43 and his handler, Darth Cheney, so Mr. Harper is probably our fault as well. Anyway, please know that it's not been easy for us either and we all (well, some of us) feel really badly about all of it.
Hey, look at the bright side! Before you know it, Mr. Ford will be a distant memory and you'll be back to being aghast and agog at one of our holier-than-everyone politicians once again opining about this or that end-of-times-inducing activity or at our absurdly abiding anxiety that someone from Canada might try to bring a gun into a country that already has five times more guns in it than Canada has people. You might even miss Rob, who knows?
Please take care and write when you can.
Your friend,
The United States of America
Hey.... it's the USA dropping a line! Just wanted to write and tell you how sorry we are for your Rob Ford. He just has to be our fault and we're very, very sorry. No matter how patient, sane, well meaning, or positive anyone is, no one can stand up to the onslaught of stupid shit going on here, which is probably spilling over into your country.
Being so close to us, you have to watch and listen to our far-right politicians whining that Obamacare is government intrusion and over-reach even as these same knuckleheads pass law after law that allows that very same government to reach farther and farther into the vaginas of American women.
You stand as a silent witness as we keep walking to the edge of the fiscal cliff, almost bringing about global depression by playing childish games with our debt-ceiling.
You suffer as we put up more and more impediments to your crossing our northern border, a border shared by a staunch ally and one of our largest trading partners.
You have to put up with spilled-over TV and radio broadcasts that include pathologically stupid people like Rep. Louie Gohmert (R-TX), Rep. Steve King (R-IA), Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX), Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN), and the far-right-of-right-wing voices of Sarah Palin, Michelle Malkin, Rush Limbaugh, Ann Coulter, Mark Levin, and any number of Faux News folks paid to speak without thinking. Even some of our left-wingnuts, like MSNBC's own Martin Bashir, can be mean-spirited and crazy-making as they practice their own special brand of ready-fire-aim commentary.
It's small wonder that anyone could wade through this flood of fools and stay dry and clean.
So it's not at all surprising that Toronto's own mayor, the Honorable Rob Ford, has finally... er... cracked and turned to drugs and alcohol, as well as to the Olympic-class gibberish-spouting usually reserved for our most dumb-assed politicians and mean-spirited talking heads. Sure, you fairly and squarely elected Stephen Harper as your PM, but it could be argued that he'd been hanging around with folks like Bush 43 and his handler, Darth Cheney, so Mr. Harper is probably our fault as well. Anyway, please know that it's not been easy for us either and we all (well, some of us) feel really badly about all of it.
Hey, look at the bright side! Before you know it, Mr. Ford will be a distant memory and you'll be back to being aghast and agog at one of our holier-than-everyone politicians once again opining about this or that end-of-times-inducing activity or at our absurdly abiding anxiety that someone from Canada might try to bring a gun into a country that already has five times more guns in it than Canada has people. You might even miss Rob, who knows?
Please take care and write when you can.
Your friend,
The United States of America
Wednesday, November 13, 2013
Honk if you haven't heard this...
I've watched and read a considerable amount of what's been televised and published about the ACA rollout's undeniable cockup, but in all of it I've yet to hear any one of the Republicans blasting away at Secretary Kathleen Sebilius say, "How can we help to get this working?"
Not one.
Not one.
Monday, November 11, 2013
Beware the buzzkill...
Several years ago I started reading Noam Chomsky and became a total buzzkiller. Allow me to explain.
A good friend had been raving about Chomsky for years, about his intellect and perspectives, and my friend suggested I give Chomsky's stuff a look. I did. I was so taken with Noam that I bought everything I could find at the time and just immersed myself in it all. After ingesting about four or five books over a two-week period I found myself in a funk, a dark place in which I'd never before found myself.
I couldn't seem to shake it. I couldn't view anything around me without this state of thinking and feeling coloring what I was seeing, what I was doing, what I was perceiving. I was finding cause to rant about just about everything, driving my friends nuts. "Hey, lighten up," they'd tell me. I couldn't hold a normal, civil conversation with anyone without interjecting some aspect(s) of what I'd read in a Chomsky piece. This started to happen during seemingly innocuous conversations, about music, or about sports, or about pretty much anything. I was driving my friends nuts, which was driving me nuts.
During a conversation about this with my wife, she suggested I try backing off reading so much Noam, and maybe interspersing it with something a bit lighter, a bit less weighty, like fiction.
It worked.
I'd always enjoyed reading, and this was coupled with a strong feeling that I was out of touch with current and historical events. Reading Chomsky seemed to be the perfect solution: read about what I felt I was lacking.
My overload was not Noam's fault. Noam was just being Noam. He still is and you have to love him for it. I still read him, as well as Chris Hedges and many, many others, but I do so in much smaller pieces and always intersperse it with escapist fiction to maintain balance. I've not fallen into the funk overload since then and I'm far happier, and so are my friends, I'm sure. I know my wife sure is.
Long, long ago I came to realize that what I thought at the time were original, unique ideas and views I was developing were actually nothing of the sort. I was merely thinking along lines shared by others, maybe millions of others. The important part, though, was what I did with those ideas and thoughts: did they offer balance or buzzkill? I wonder, therefore, if something similar happens to anyone who might be immersing his or herself in the writings of folks who are sure they have the truth, who are sure they're right, and these could be folks on the right or on the left. Maybe people who watch too much Fox News are doing the same thing to themselves as I did with too much Noam Chomsky, who is as far from what Fox News espouses as one can get. But maybe there is a parallel.
Finding balance is the key, I think, and leaning one way too much, right or left, makes it impossible to balance yourself, figuratively as well as literally. Balance or buzzkill? Which will it be?
A good friend had been raving about Chomsky for years, about his intellect and perspectives, and my friend suggested I give Chomsky's stuff a look. I did. I was so taken with Noam that I bought everything I could find at the time and just immersed myself in it all. After ingesting about four or five books over a two-week period I found myself in a funk, a dark place in which I'd never before found myself.
I couldn't seem to shake it. I couldn't view anything around me without this state of thinking and feeling coloring what I was seeing, what I was doing, what I was perceiving. I was finding cause to rant about just about everything, driving my friends nuts. "Hey, lighten up," they'd tell me. I couldn't hold a normal, civil conversation with anyone without interjecting some aspect(s) of what I'd read in a Chomsky piece. This started to happen during seemingly innocuous conversations, about music, or about sports, or about pretty much anything. I was driving my friends nuts, which was driving me nuts.
During a conversation about this with my wife, she suggested I try backing off reading so much Noam, and maybe interspersing it with something a bit lighter, a bit less weighty, like fiction.
It worked.
I'd always enjoyed reading, and this was coupled with a strong feeling that I was out of touch with current and historical events. Reading Chomsky seemed to be the perfect solution: read about what I felt I was lacking.
My overload was not Noam's fault. Noam was just being Noam. He still is and you have to love him for it. I still read him, as well as Chris Hedges and many, many others, but I do so in much smaller pieces and always intersperse it with escapist fiction to maintain balance. I've not fallen into the funk overload since then and I'm far happier, and so are my friends, I'm sure. I know my wife sure is.
Long, long ago I came to realize that what I thought at the time were original, unique ideas and views I was developing were actually nothing of the sort. I was merely thinking along lines shared by others, maybe millions of others. The important part, though, was what I did with those ideas and thoughts: did they offer balance or buzzkill? I wonder, therefore, if something similar happens to anyone who might be immersing his or herself in the writings of folks who are sure they have the truth, who are sure they're right, and these could be folks on the right or on the left. Maybe people who watch too much Fox News are doing the same thing to themselves as I did with too much Noam Chomsky, who is as far from what Fox News espouses as one can get. But maybe there is a parallel.
Finding balance is the key, I think, and leaning one way too much, right or left, makes it impossible to balance yourself, figuratively as well as literally. Balance or buzzkill? Which will it be?
Tuesday, November 5, 2013
Created a Healthcare.gov account...
Today I was able to create a HealthCare.gov account and have it verified, all on line. This was the first time I tried it.
The server did seem a little pokey, but no worse than many business servers I've encountered and better than others. The account creation process was intuitive and logical. It took me no more than 10 minutes. Most of the effort I expended revolved around taking some easy steps toward account identity protection, which involved selecting security questions and answers and responding to three or four "trick" questions having to do with a simple credit history check. This really was a painless process.
We're applying for health insurance under the ACA because our $1200-per-month COBRA health insurance will expire in January 2014. Today was the first step. The next step will be to shop on line, which is a pretty cool feature considering every attempt to shop for health insurance prior to the ACA involved having to talk to really annoying insurance brokers and receiving (and occasionally responding to) their incessant, prying, and equally annoying phone calls and emails.
So far so good.
The server did seem a little pokey, but no worse than many business servers I've encountered and better than others. The account creation process was intuitive and logical. It took me no more than 10 minutes. Most of the effort I expended revolved around taking some easy steps toward account identity protection, which involved selecting security questions and answers and responding to three or four "trick" questions having to do with a simple credit history check. This really was a painless process.
We're applying for health insurance under the ACA because our $1200-per-month COBRA health insurance will expire in January 2014. Today was the first step. The next step will be to shop on line, which is a pretty cool feature considering every attempt to shop for health insurance prior to the ACA involved having to talk to really annoying insurance brokers and receiving (and occasionally responding to) their incessant, prying, and equally annoying phone calls and emails.
So far so good.
Wednesday, October 30, 2013
ACA Rollout Hearing: I could be wrong, but...
I've been watching the hearing in which HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius is being questioned about the stuttering, stumbling roll-out of the Affordable Healthcare Act website. The hearing has been remarkable in its consistency, left and right.
The folks on the left side of aisle keep showing their ACA support while expressing irritation and frustration, but it's clear these folks want the ACA to work (even though many of them wanted single-payer Medicaire for all, ideally).
Meanwhile, the folks on the right side of the aisle keep proving they have no desire to see it work and are clearly delighted that the rollout has stumbled, even as they express their mock irritation and want us all to believe they're suddenly deeply concerned that things aren't working too well.
A couple of things come to mind.
A large number of states refused to declare their own state-based exchanges, which were the original plan for the ACA, and they instead entered the national healthcare exchange, whose portal is the healthcare.gov site, which is having so many implementation problems and about which this hearing is being held. In almost every case, the states with their own exchanges are seeing popular support of the ACA, seeing thousands of people enrolling, seeing premium prices going down on average, and seeing users having little to no difficulty/problems with their web portals or their state-based implementations of the ACA.
On the other hand, in almost every state that deferred starting its own health exchange and whose state representative(s) is(are) at the hearing today, problems are being reported, albeit being reported anecdotally (and possibly being exaggerated but I will admit if I'm wrong about this). Many if not all of these same states sued the US Government (or the IRS) to get the ACA repealed because of their disagreement with the individual-mandate portion of the ACA (which was ruled to be constitutional by the SCOTUS), many of these same states are run by the very people who have publicly stated they want the ACA to fail, or simply be repealed, defunded, or all three (and have unsuccessfully voted over 40 times to have this happen), and many of these same states have representatives who routinely cry "states rights" when they perceive overreach by US Government yet are blithely willing to give themselves over to a federally run portal for the ACA.
Is it possible that there is a real connection here? Is it possible that the implementation of the ACA, which, again, had state exchanges as its original intent (i.e., not a single national exchange), might have gone far more smoothly had these complaining states instead chosen to help everyone, and to at least help their own populations, by creating their own exchanges?
Put another way, is it possible that the implementation of the ACA, which was voted on, passed, became law, survived SCOTUS oversight, and is now up and running might have had a cleaner rollout if all the United States of America had taken part, had pulled together, and had worked earnestly to make this thing happen, rather than to complain, resist, sue, waste time, posture, obfuscate, and generally demagogue, deny, and decry something that such a truly small portion of the US population really needs?
It's amazing to me that these same folks who have so obviously worked against the ACA --- none of whom has offered any alternatives aside from repealing or defunding it --- are now asking us to believe they are genuinely outraged that the ACA's rollout isn't going more smoothly. They are now also the ones bitching most loudly about the money that has been spent on this rollout, which is a pittance compared to the good it will eventually do but plain miniscule when compared to the $24 billion these same fools cost us all by shutting down the US Government in order to try to get the ACA repealed, defunded, or both, which everyone (including these same fools) knew was not going to happen, ever!
The truth is that they're delighted the ACA's rollout isn't going more smoothly, and any one of them who says otherwise is just lying. Meanwhile, folks in their states are suffering and being grossly misrepresented by these posers.
The folks on the left side of aisle keep showing their ACA support while expressing irritation and frustration, but it's clear these folks want the ACA to work (even though many of them wanted single-payer Medicaire for all, ideally).
Meanwhile, the folks on the right side of the aisle keep proving they have no desire to see it work and are clearly delighted that the rollout has stumbled, even as they express their mock irritation and want us all to believe they're suddenly deeply concerned that things aren't working too well.
A couple of things come to mind.
A large number of states refused to declare their own state-based exchanges, which were the original plan for the ACA, and they instead entered the national healthcare exchange, whose portal is the healthcare.gov site, which is having so many implementation problems and about which this hearing is being held. In almost every case, the states with their own exchanges are seeing popular support of the ACA, seeing thousands of people enrolling, seeing premium prices going down on average, and seeing users having little to no difficulty/problems with their web portals or their state-based implementations of the ACA.
On the other hand, in almost every state that deferred starting its own health exchange and whose state representative(s) is(are) at the hearing today, problems are being reported, albeit being reported anecdotally (and possibly being exaggerated but I will admit if I'm wrong about this). Many if not all of these same states sued the US Government (or the IRS) to get the ACA repealed because of their disagreement with the individual-mandate portion of the ACA (which was ruled to be constitutional by the SCOTUS), many of these same states are run by the very people who have publicly stated they want the ACA to fail, or simply be repealed, defunded, or all three (and have unsuccessfully voted over 40 times to have this happen), and many of these same states have representatives who routinely cry "states rights" when they perceive overreach by US Government yet are blithely willing to give themselves over to a federally run portal for the ACA.
Is it possible that there is a real connection here? Is it possible that the implementation of the ACA, which, again, had state exchanges as its original intent (i.e., not a single national exchange), might have gone far more smoothly had these complaining states instead chosen to help everyone, and to at least help their own populations, by creating their own exchanges?
Put another way, is it possible that the implementation of the ACA, which was voted on, passed, became law, survived SCOTUS oversight, and is now up and running might have had a cleaner rollout if all the United States of America had taken part, had pulled together, and had worked earnestly to make this thing happen, rather than to complain, resist, sue, waste time, posture, obfuscate, and generally demagogue, deny, and decry something that such a truly small portion of the US population really needs?
It's amazing to me that these same folks who have so obviously worked against the ACA --- none of whom has offered any alternatives aside from repealing or defunding it --- are now asking us to believe they are genuinely outraged that the ACA's rollout isn't going more smoothly. They are now also the ones bitching most loudly about the money that has been spent on this rollout, which is a pittance compared to the good it will eventually do but plain miniscule when compared to the $24 billion these same fools cost us all by shutting down the US Government in order to try to get the ACA repealed, defunded, or both, which everyone (including these same fools) knew was not going to happen, ever!
The truth is that they're delighted the ACA's rollout isn't going more smoothly, and any one of them who says otherwise is just lying. Meanwhile, folks in their states are suffering and being grossly misrepresented by these posers.
Tuesday, October 29, 2013
Squeezebox Rebuffering Problem with Netgear 4G Router
Posting this for anyone doing a search on Squeezebox buffering problems. This is not a "normal" blog entry. Please ignore it if you do not have a Verizon/Netgear 4G router and a Logitech Squeezebox Classic Wi-Fi music player.
I recently started using my Squeezebox player again to play music in the music library I have stored in a 500 GB external hard drive. Almost immediately I started getting a rebuffering problem that I had never before encountered with this player and custom-built desktop PC running Windows 7. This system always worked flawlessly.
The problem manifested itself in the form of my Logitech Squeezebox player stopping playing momentarily but frequently as this rebuffering took place. The rebuffering message would appear on the Squeezebox player's screen. The problem seemed chronic and was certainly annoying.
I tried a number of things to fix the problem, but it kept happening. I finally found a forum page that suggested changing the Wi-Fi channel, as some are more commonly used by Wi-Fi users. I found that channel 6 seems to work much better: so far, no rebuffering problems. Perhaps no one close by our home is using channel 6 as much as the channel I was on, which was channel 3.
So, if this information can help someone else out there, cool!
I recently started using my Squeezebox player again to play music in the music library I have stored in a 500 GB external hard drive. Almost immediately I started getting a rebuffering problem that I had never before encountered with this player and custom-built desktop PC running Windows 7. This system always worked flawlessly.
The problem manifested itself in the form of my Logitech Squeezebox player stopping playing momentarily but frequently as this rebuffering took place. The rebuffering message would appear on the Squeezebox player's screen. The problem seemed chronic and was certainly annoying.
I tried a number of things to fix the problem, but it kept happening. I finally found a forum page that suggested changing the Wi-Fi channel, as some are more commonly used by Wi-Fi users. I found that channel 6 seems to work much better: so far, no rebuffering problems. Perhaps no one close by our home is using channel 6 as much as the channel I was on, which was channel 3.
So, if this information can help someone else out there, cool!
Saturday, October 26, 2013
Again, and again, and again...
Right after the last national election, an election that easily put President Obama into his second term, the Republican Party was seen to be doing some wholesale soul-searching, trying to assess where they went wrong, attempting to address those issues for the future.
Was it the Romney candidacy and his 47% comment? Was it the lack of appeal to minority voters? Was it the lack of an appeal to middle-aged white men? Was it the wrong-headed messaging about women's health and reproductive issues (see "forcible rape," "rape is God's will," et al.)? Was it general mean-spiritedness seen in the forms of truthers and birthers and voter ID laws? Was it just thinly veiled racism?
Whatever it was, it would seem little was learned by the GOP, and so little appears to have changed for the GOP.
Since then we've seen...
...a Republican official in Alabama referring to "lazy blacks";
...a North Carolina GOP representative facetiously not calling President Obama a traitor because he hasn't seen the president do anything against Kenya;
...the GOP's junior senator from Texas suggesting Kenyan email scammers built the Healthcare.com website;
...a Minnesota GOP senator saying she sees signs of the end times because of Obama's weapons deliveries to Syrian rebels;
...numerous new state initiatives to curtail women's health and reproductive rights;
...numerous new state initiatives to disenfranchise minority and senior voters, who routinely don't vote for the GOP;
...the far right of the GOP shutting down the government for political gain;
...the far right of the GOP bashing the GOP moderates to an unelectable pulp.
And now, as a result of all this and more, we have little-to-no evidence that the GOP learned anything from the last election.
Put another way, we have enormous evidence that GOP hasn't learned a damn thing and that it's doing the same things again, and again, and again and expecting something different to happen, which is... well... we all know what it is.
If they're expecting a result that's different from the last election then they'll prove to be every bit as crazy as the crazies who are doing and saying all these crazy things already appear to be, and the GOP will hurt itself again... and again.. and again...
Update, 3/24/15: With the GOP now having regained control of congress, it is once again about to park the Campaign's Clown Car at the curb so that a dozen or so would-be candidates can emerge and do the same thing they did last time: tear one another down so badly that no one will be left standing who has even a prayer of being elected. It's not because the Dems have unbeatable candidates; it's because for the last couple of election cycles, the GOP has been ensuring the Dem's candidates are unbeatable by repeating the same proven-to-be-doomed behaviors. Will they make it three in a row?
Was it the Romney candidacy and his 47% comment? Was it the lack of appeal to minority voters? Was it the lack of an appeal to middle-aged white men? Was it the wrong-headed messaging about women's health and reproductive issues (see "forcible rape," "rape is God's will," et al.)? Was it general mean-spiritedness seen in the forms of truthers and birthers and voter ID laws? Was it just thinly veiled racism?
Whatever it was, it would seem little was learned by the GOP, and so little appears to have changed for the GOP.
Since then we've seen...
...a Republican official in Alabama referring to "lazy blacks";
...a North Carolina GOP representative facetiously not calling President Obama a traitor because he hasn't seen the president do anything against Kenya;
...the GOP's junior senator from Texas suggesting Kenyan email scammers built the Healthcare.com website;
...a Minnesota GOP senator saying she sees signs of the end times because of Obama's weapons deliveries to Syrian rebels;
...numerous new state initiatives to curtail women's health and reproductive rights;
...numerous new state initiatives to disenfranchise minority and senior voters, who routinely don't vote for the GOP;
...the far right of the GOP shutting down the government for political gain;
...the far right of the GOP bashing the GOP moderates to an unelectable pulp.
And now, as a result of all this and more, we have little-to-no evidence that the GOP learned anything from the last election.
Put another way, we have enormous evidence that GOP hasn't learned a damn thing and that it's doing the same things again, and again, and again and expecting something different to happen, which is... well... we all know what it is.
If they're expecting a result that's different from the last election then they'll prove to be every bit as crazy as the crazies who are doing and saying all these crazy things already appear to be, and the GOP will hurt itself again... and again.. and again...
Update, 3/24/15: With the GOP now having regained control of congress, it is once again about to park the Campaign's Clown Car at the curb so that a dozen or so would-be candidates can emerge and do the same thing they did last time: tear one another down so badly that no one will be left standing who has even a prayer of being elected. It's not because the Dems have unbeatable candidates; it's because for the last couple of election cycles, the GOP has been ensuring the Dem's candidates are unbeatable by repeating the same proven-to-be-doomed behaviors. Will they make it three in a row?
Thursday, October 10, 2013
Inside the echo chamber...
Currently there seems to be a rippling disruption in the right-wing blogosphere regarding an Arkansas teacher’s recent assignment to have students perform an academic exercise to “rewrite” the Bill of Rights. The text of the assignment is available in several places and, while not exactly perfectly written, clearly suggests, at least to me, a hypothetical case with hypothetical parameters. The use of hypotheticals is a common tool for teachers. I know because I used them a great deal (and to good effect) in my classrooms. Perhaps this teacher didn't point this out to students. I don't know.
Anyway, this particular assignment makes the following (I believe hypothetical) statement: the
government of the United States is currently revisiting the Bill of Rights. Please
note the lack of quotation marks, which is intentional.
Now, back to the assignment. Doing a simple Google search on the text string, the government of the United States is currently revisiting the Bill of Rights, I found it, verbatim, in the following places: infowars.com, prisonplanet.com, storyleak.com, facepunch.com, personalliberty.com, endtimebibleprophecy.wordpress.com, ashtarcommandcrew.net, grasscity.com, dailycaller.com, 3rdeyevision.wordpress.com, thedailysheeple.com, darkpolitricks.com, oldironsides-thesilentmajorty.blogspot.com, freerepublic.com, abovetopsecret.com, mminutemennews.com, conservativesagainsttyranny.wordpress.com, patdollard.com, beforeitsnews.com, thomhartmann.com, baptistboard.com, askmarion.wordpress.com, rickmick.com, sodahead.com, and drhotze.com… to name just a few.
Meanwhile across the country, an educational initiative is underway, called
Common Core, to standardize curricula across state lines and among states, and is being
sponsored by the National Governors Association and the Council of Chief State
School Officers. Even as a majority of states have adopted these Common Core standards, a majority of conservative
groups are, perhaps not at all surprisingly, criticizing these standards. Moreover, some in
the conservative media (Michelle Malkin, Glenn Beck, and Rush Limbaugh, among
others) have suggested Common Core is a naked power grab by President Barack Obama,
referring to it as "Obamacore."
Now, back to the assignment. Doing a simple Google search on the text string, the government of the United States is currently revisiting the Bill of Rights, I found it, verbatim, in the following places: infowars.com, prisonplanet.com, storyleak.com, facepunch.com, personalliberty.com, endtimebibleprophecy.wordpress.com, ashtarcommandcrew.net, grasscity.com, dailycaller.com, 3rdeyevision.wordpress.com, thedailysheeple.com, darkpolitricks.com, oldironsides-thesilentmajorty.blogspot.com, freerepublic.com, abovetopsecret.com, mminutemennews.com, conservativesagainsttyranny.wordpress.com, patdollard.com, beforeitsnews.com, thomhartmann.com, baptistboard.com, askmarion.wordpress.com, rickmick.com, sodahead.com, and drhotze.com… to name just a few.
Almost every one of these sites is commonly viewed as a conservative,
right-wing site or blog, with the exceptions perhaps being inforwars.com,
beforeitsnews.com, and prisonplanet.com, which to some might qualify as pure wack-job hate
sites, but this isn’t my point.
My point is that all these sites and blogs have picked up
and run with the “quote” that… the government of the United States is currently
revisiting the Bill of Rights (again, please note my lack of quotation marks),
and have put it out there as proof undeniable that the US Government is running
amok (is there ever another way to run?), that Barack Obama is behind it all, that
our rights are being taken away (some are, I admit, but this has been ongoing
since the whole “war on terror” began in the last administration and is another
issue), that children are being indoctrinated by said government, and that the
end times are upon us because of Common Core, Barack Obama, and a falling sky
in the form of, God forbid, educational standards.
But let’s be clear. The real source of the assignment's original statement, the
government of the United States is currently revisiting the Bill of Rights, is
never disclosed in the assignment, further suggesting, at least to me, it’s a hypothetical
academic exercise to get students to think critically and to actually read something
(in this case the Bill of Rights), which are two fundamental skills that far
too many teachers struggle to get students to master. (And raise your hand if you’ve
actually read the BofR all the way through yourself. Uh huh… see?)
More importantly however, the true source of the statement (aside
from pulling it from the teacher’s assignment) is never offered (or,
conversely, questioned) by any of the blog sites or websites on which this
statement appears, because there isn't one! And this is exactly the issue: a teacher wants to get
students to think critically, even as dozens of conservative bloggers and pundits
prove there is a real need for critical thinking skills by not thinking
critically, by not questioning if the assignment is a hypothetical exercise, and by, instead, repeating a statement as if it’s gospel, as if it’s a
direct quote from someone in the US Government who is “currently revisiting the Bill
of Rights.” Rest easy, dear reader: the echo chamber continues to function perfectly.
My hunch is that this whole assignment imbroglio is a
function of all these folks believing yet another Obama-as-tyrant shaggy-dog story,
and faithfully repeating it as if its gospel via the echo chamber.
Thursday, August 8, 2013
Your call is very important to us...
These seven words, "Your call is very important to us," are heard every day by thousands of people calling into scores businesses around the world. These seven words are typically uttered via a recorded voice as someone waits on hold for a human to take the call, which requires the caller to navigate a bewildering gauntlet of predetermined guesses as to why the caller is calling in the first place, which never seem to satisfy the voice making these guesses or the person trying to guess at which guess to respond to, distorted music that could probably cause an Epileptic person to seize spontaneously, and occasional moments of silence that typically precede the seven words being repeated... again.
I'm always willing to admit I'm wrong about something or at least off base, but I would argue that if the intent of these seven words was sincere, was honest, then a human (not a machine) would have answered the phone, rendering as unnecessary the very need to utter the seven words in the first place.
Put another way, prove my call is important to you by actually taking my call!
Look, I get that hiring enough people to field these calls is probably expensive, but it's the cost of doing business; however, if these businesses want repeat business --- and just go ahead and name a company that doesn't want this, I dare you --- then they should treat each call as if it's directly connected to its bottom line, to its bonuses, to its chances for success, to its very future in business.
But I'm a realist: failing this, failing the ability to field every call by a human, just stop saying, "Your call is very important to us." It's disingenuous at best and tiresome at least.
And lose the damn crappy music too. That's just annoying.
I'm always willing to admit I'm wrong about something or at least off base, but I would argue that if the intent of these seven words was sincere, was honest, then a human (not a machine) would have answered the phone, rendering as unnecessary the very need to utter the seven words in the first place.
Put another way, prove my call is important to you by actually taking my call!
Look, I get that hiring enough people to field these calls is probably expensive, but it's the cost of doing business; however, if these businesses want repeat business --- and just go ahead and name a company that doesn't want this, I dare you --- then they should treat each call as if it's directly connected to its bottom line, to its bonuses, to its chances for success, to its very future in business.
But I'm a realist: failing this, failing the ability to field every call by a human, just stop saying, "Your call is very important to us." It's disingenuous at best and tiresome at least.
And lose the damn crappy music too. That's just annoying.
Wednesday, June 19, 2013
The book that each new president must read in week 1...
I've been working on a theory that I'll probably never be able to prove, and which is probably total bullshit, but my hypothesis goes something like this...
Since, perhaps, the end of WWII, and during the first week of his first administration, each new president has been handed a book that he's asked to read cover to cover. From Eisenhower to Obama, this book documents the reality of "the state of things." The book grows constantly because it has to encompass more and more and more. It covers everything: the domestic economy; domestic issues; the international economy; international issues; the environment; everything. It presents the "real deal," the way things are, the inside skinny on the reality each incoming president has to face. It contains all the bad news. It presents the historical record of programs and policies put in place by previous administrations and congresses and provides the rationale for why those programs and policies must continue, must stay in place; call the book the "Law for Inertia."
The book provides the overarching reality each incoming president must face regardless of promises he might have made during his campaign. It's what causes a liberal person to move right, a conservative person to move left. It's what forces each president to seem, simultaneously, to ignore his supporters even as he angers his opponents. It's what influences many if not most of the decisions each president must make.
Presidents are not nearly as powerful as people give them credit (or blame) for, but they do have the advantage (or the curse) of having to read "the book." And once read, the reality contained within cannot be ignored as the new president is now painfully aware of what's going on. Each new president's choice is how to deal with all this new knowledge; his (or her) choices are clearly limited because of the book. She's riding a wave of history and has to do her best to keep from falling off the surfboard. He's along for the ride (as are we all). Given this, I might argue that John Kennedy read the book and might have chosen to fight against portions of it, and look where doing so got him and his brother. (But please note I said, "might argue." I won't do this now. What's the point.)
But my hypothesis doesn't consider who might be the keepers of this book. Let's do that now.
Someone has to be the keeper of the book, and if you examine history, if you look at almost every administration, there always seems to be a sort of dark under-lord (and it's almost always a man) who is the man, behind the man, behind the man.
As each administration goes away as they all do, this person will often stay in the public eye. He might appear on Sunday news shows, might do interviews on late night talk shows, will certainly appear on cable news shows. He might appear at symposiums, on C-SPAN, at rallies, and at other public events. While the profile of this person varies from rarely seen to too-often seen, this former dark under-lord will maintain some presence, some place in the scheme of things even after his administration has gone away. Call him an elder-statesmen, although this seems far too generous. But his place is to watch, to monitor how the book is being respected or disrespected and to comment accordingly, but always without mentioning the book. The book goes beyond politics, beyond left and right and center, beyond anything but the reality it presents.
Perhaps it's the fraternity of these former under-lords, the Cheneys, the Kissingers, that comprises the keepers of the book. Who knows. But they just might be the ones tasked with watching over it, making sure their administrations and each new administration adhere to what the book presents, adhere to its reality, and make certain the new president adheres to it as well.
Anyway... this is my theory and hypothesis. Probably unprovable, possibly paranoid, and certainly silly. Nevertheless, this possibility has fascinated me for years.
Since, perhaps, the end of WWII, and during the first week of his first administration, each new president has been handed a book that he's asked to read cover to cover. From Eisenhower to Obama, this book documents the reality of "the state of things." The book grows constantly because it has to encompass more and more and more. It covers everything: the domestic economy; domestic issues; the international economy; international issues; the environment; everything. It presents the "real deal," the way things are, the inside skinny on the reality each incoming president has to face. It contains all the bad news. It presents the historical record of programs and policies put in place by previous administrations and congresses and provides the rationale for why those programs and policies must continue, must stay in place; call the book the "Law for Inertia."
The book provides the overarching reality each incoming president must face regardless of promises he might have made during his campaign. It's what causes a liberal person to move right, a conservative person to move left. It's what forces each president to seem, simultaneously, to ignore his supporters even as he angers his opponents. It's what influences many if not most of the decisions each president must make.
Presidents are not nearly as powerful as people give them credit (or blame) for, but they do have the advantage (or the curse) of having to read "the book." And once read, the reality contained within cannot be ignored as the new president is now painfully aware of what's going on. Each new president's choice is how to deal with all this new knowledge; his (or her) choices are clearly limited because of the book. She's riding a wave of history and has to do her best to keep from falling off the surfboard. He's along for the ride (as are we all). Given this, I might argue that John Kennedy read the book and might have chosen to fight against portions of it, and look where doing so got him and his brother. (But please note I said, "might argue." I won't do this now. What's the point.)
But my hypothesis doesn't consider who might be the keepers of this book. Let's do that now.
Someone has to be the keeper of the book, and if you examine history, if you look at almost every administration, there always seems to be a sort of dark under-lord (and it's almost always a man) who is the man, behind the man, behind the man.
As each administration goes away as they all do, this person will often stay in the public eye. He might appear on Sunday news shows, might do interviews on late night talk shows, will certainly appear on cable news shows. He might appear at symposiums, on C-SPAN, at rallies, and at other public events. While the profile of this person varies from rarely seen to too-often seen, this former dark under-lord will maintain some presence, some place in the scheme of things even after his administration has gone away. Call him an elder-statesmen, although this seems far too generous. But his place is to watch, to monitor how the book is being respected or disrespected and to comment accordingly, but always without mentioning the book. The book goes beyond politics, beyond left and right and center, beyond anything but the reality it presents.
Perhaps it's the fraternity of these former under-lords, the Cheneys, the Kissingers, that comprises the keepers of the book. Who knows. But they just might be the ones tasked with watching over it, making sure their administrations and each new administration adhere to what the book presents, adhere to its reality, and make certain the new president adheres to it as well.
Anyway... this is my theory and hypothesis. Probably unprovable, possibly paranoid, and certainly silly. Nevertheless, this possibility has fascinated me for years.
Dark Under-Lord: "Mr. President, you must read this book."
President: "Gulp... OK."Hail to the chief.
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