If I Were Vladimir Putin

This post has been moved to my ideas blog.

Decline of the U.S.: Where It All Started

Where did it all start? Where did the United States, superpower of the free world, start to slide downhill? It started last year, in something that the President or the Supreme Court or someone else said or did. No, it started before that, when so-and-so did such-and-such. We can trace it back, all the way to whenever and whomever. But here's my take on it. Logically speaking, the decline of the U.S. began from its peak. Right? It was at a peak, and then it ceased to be at its peak, and that's where the decline started. So, then, when was the U.S. at its peak? There was something resembling a peak in the 1990s, when Clinton balanced the budget and the economy was in a long-term expansion. The Soviet Union had collapsed; the U.S. was the world's sole superpower. But in the 1990s, the world was no longer the property of the United States. Japan had soundly thrashed us in manufacturing in the 1980s. Those jobs were gone, as Bruce Springsteen sang, and they weren't coming back. An increasing amount of our stuff was being made abroad. Billy Joel's song "Allentown," commemorating the decline of the Rust Belt, actually came out way back in 1982. In the 1990s, Bill Clinton of the balanced budget was also the Bill Clinton who was humiliated by thugs in Somalia, and who could not lift a finger to stop the Rwanda genocide in 1994. In the 1990s, wages for the average person stagnated. Families were able to keep up economically, in many cases, only because both husband and wife were now working full-time-plus, while struggling to raise the kids. There was no longer so much money for the poor; people were feeling the pinch and were angry about having to pay taxes (for welfare payments, they believed) that bit into what money they did make. The U.S. did have an international adversary, the Soviet Union, from World War II through most of the 1980s. That Cold War rivalry cost the U.S. a great deal in time, money, and anxiety. We lived under the threat of nuclear annihilation. Yet we still do, strictly speaking: the Russians still have their missiles, and so do others. We are not preoccupied with this on a daily basis now, and we were not preoccupied with it then. Yes, we have our photos and, in some cases, our memories of schoolchildren practicing for nuclear war by getting under their desks or going down to the basement. But that threat eventually slipped into the fabric of daily life, in the way that you make sure to clean your dishes so you don't get food poisoning. You mostly don't worry about it until something goes wrong. What we had in the 1960s and thereabouts, that we don't have now, is confidence. Things had kept getting better, and we thought they were going to continue to do so. We had surplusage -- we had enough to waste. Cars had fins in the late 1950s and, a decade later, men had long hair. It was not crucial for young people to get their careers together: they could hitchhike around the country; they could be hippies. The United States, as king of the postwar world, had built layer upon layer of security and control to protect itself. We didn't just have NATO; we also had SEATO and CENTO. We weren't worried about Mexicans sneaking into Texas, not nearly as much as we were worried about Communists sneaking into Vietnam, half a world away. Vietnam. That, I propose, is where the downhill slide began. Eisenhower, especially, had built a stable and prosperous country. JFK's assassination cast a long shadow; but the liberal policies of the time continued to march forward under Lyndon Johnson. The country could afford a lot. But it could not afford Vietnam. Not financially, and not politically or socially. People were worried that Vietnam might tear the country apart. To some extent, it did. Construction workers beat, and young National Guardsmen murdered, young college students who were protesting it. There were riots. The international image of the United States took a drubbing. By present-day standards, the country was in flames in 1968. LBJ did not run for re-election in 1968. Primarily because of his Vietnam policies, he was essentially disgraced. The chant of the day, for antiwar protesters across the street from the White House, was "Hey, hey, LBJ -- how many kids did you kill today?" There hadn't been anything quite like that before. Johnson's departure opened the door for Richard Nixon, who kept us in Vietnam -- who, in fact, escalated the conflagration -- and who would eventually lead us into the oil shock of 1973. Nixon's own disgrace and resignation yielded the ascent of his second vice president, Gerald Ford (the first, Spiro Agnew, having also been disgraced). Ford was a good man, but not a great politician. He was defeated by the hapless Jimmy Carter, another good man of insufficient temperament and experience, who was in turn defeated by Ronald Reagan. Thus we passed the 1970s with an unusual number of presidents and vice presidents, bouncing from Kent State to Watergate to the Iranian revolution to a severe recession. In important ways, we started downhill in 1968. The assassinations of Bobby Kennedy and the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. that year (and the nationwide riots and city-burnings that followed the latter) had a powerful negative impact. So did the police beatings of protesters at the Democratic convention in Chicago. Many experienced a profound alienation from the Establishment. Rather than participate in the world of Nixon et al., it became increasingly reasonable to "turn on, tune in, and drop out," as Timothy Leary proposed. The generation gap, as it was called, was so large that Jerry Rubin could gain a wide following for his adage, "Never trust anyone over 30." People of greater age were precisely the ones who were sending young men off to die in that absurd, counterproductive war. After 1968, the oil shocks of 1973, and the global humiliation of having to flee Saigon in 1975, the confidence and the power never returned. Ronald Reagan could promise "Morning in America" in 1980, but he could deliver that new day only by adding enormously to the national debt; and when he left office, he left us with a savings and loan crisis that cost more than $100 billion to fix. It had been encouraging to see a confident face in the White House. Reagan was a leader. But he was delivering a pipe dream. Had he not perpetuated the fantasy of an America that could continue to boss the world around, perhaps the next generation of Republicans would not have imagined that it made sense to waltz into Iraq so nonchalantly. This is not to say that the U.S. will have entirely failed in Iraq. Important good things may come of that adventure. Indeed, at this point important good things seem ever more likely to come of it, thanks especially to the leadership of General David Petraeus. But it was an adventure that the nation could not afford. The hundreds of billions (if not several trillion) that it will ultimately cost were badly needed at home, as were the thousands of people who went over there to fight and die. The Vietnam era was the time to face up to that kind of adventure -- to think and talk about it, sort it out, and convert its learning into national policy and consensus. We did not achieve that. People still argue that we should have tried harder to win that war, instead of recognizing that we didn't belong there and didn't really need to be there. It took more leadership than we could find, at the time, to knock our heads together and make us decide what we were all about. None of the presidents during or following the Vietnam era -- Johnson, Nixon, or Ford, or subsequently Carter or Reagan -- were up to that. And so we had to repeat the experience, thirty years later, in a different form and place. God only knows what kind of world we could have produced if we had stood so strongly and had spent so much, not for anticommunism and capitalism, but for human rights and democracy. Especially since 1968 or thereabouts, we have stood, too often, for the bad guys, because they have said and done what our leaders wanted. This has given us a legacy of powerful anti-American movements around the world. In a bid to keep what we used to have, we have done what aging institutions do: we have supported the status quo, which tends to mean the rich and powerful, at the expense of the ordinary person. That's the story of Musharraf in Pakistan, of Mubarak in Egypt, of the Shah in Iran, of Pinochet in Chile, of Batista in Cuba, of Thieu in South Vietnam ... the list goes on. It is also, increasingly, the story of America itself, whose growing gulf between the poor and the super-rich takes us ever closer to the example of Latin America in decades past. Any nation will have many small rises and falls, as it climbs toward or descends from its peak of influence, power, and wealth. A nation has many dimensions, with myriad people and activities underway at every moment. In a very rough and overall sense, however, I submit that 1968 was the year when America reached its peak. Economic and political indicators have lagged at differing rates since then, but that was close enough to the high point. I would also suggest, incidentally, that the nation's decline from that peak has been facilitated, not retarded, by dirty, deceitful, and violent efforts to cling to the past. The United States still stands for special things. One hopes it does not completely squander that reputation, and the power and influence that go with it, in a foolish bid to avoid the future. The future is scary, and it often brings unpleasant changes. But let us not fight reality. Let us rather make the most of it. It is, indeed, morning in America. The nation is older, and some things that were once easy are not so easy anymore. But life is to be lived nonetheless. Let us live it right.

Catching Up: Best of 2005: April

Here's another installment in the continuing effort to distill the best postings from my personal mailing list. These are from April 2005. * * * * * Late-Night Political News from About.com "If it wasn't bad enough that it was tax day, President Bush says he's anxious to sign the new bankruptcy reform bill, which makes it a lot tougher for people in financial trouble to get help. He says that we Americans need to learn fiscal discipline. He says that as a young man he only carried one credit card and that was just to chop up the coke." --Bill Maher "Stocks plunged again Friday, suffering their worst day since 2005 and third-straight triple-digit loss for the Dow Jones Industrial average. On the bright side, your Social Security money isn't in there yet." --Amy Poehler "President Bush's approval rating has now dropped 10 points to a record low of 45 percent. Do you realize if the presidential election were held today, John Kerry would have to work twice as hard to lose?" --Jay Leno "President Bush said this week he will ask Congress to further loosen the immigration laws. Apparently he found out there are still some people in Mexico." --Jay Leno "The nation's second-largest oil company, Chevron Texaco, announced it was buying rival Unocal Corp. A spokesman for Chevron Texaco, which made a $13 billion profit last year, says the new company will be called 'Bend Over, America.'" --Dennis Miller "You know the difference between Jane Fonda, President Clinton and President Bush? Jane Fonda's the only one that actually went to Vietnam." --Jay Leno "Between the praying that people are doing for the Pope and the praying for Terri Schiavo, the switchboard is backed up. Christians are furious, they realize a lot of people are just talking to some guy in Bombay." --Bill Maher "They say this time there will be repercussions. The officers who told Bush the lies he wanted to hear will either be fired, suspended, or transferred to work on Social Security." --Bill Maher, on the latest report on Iraq intelligence failures "One in four returning Iraqi veterans have been diagnosed with a mental disorder. I know that sounds high, but it includes everybody who says, 'Am I crazy, or were we sent there under false pretenses?'" --Bill Maher "Anti-war protesters have now showed up at the Michael Jackson trial because they realize, hey, cameras and free publicity. One embarrassing moment, a protesters had a sign the other day that said, 'Bring our boys home.'" --Bill Maher "The College of Cardinals has set the date of April 18th for the secret vote. What they do is an elite group of robed figures meet behind closed doors and they choose the new leader. Today Bush said 'Yeah, that's how I got elected the first time.'" --Jay Leno "Executives at the Fox News Channel announced they're going start a Fox News financial channel. Yeah, the Fox News financial channel will be different because whenever the stock market goes down, they'll blame it on Hillary Clinton." -- Conan O'Brien "It was the biggest funeral ever in the 2000-year history of the Catholic church. People were waiting in line to get a glimpse of the pope's body for 24 hours. By the time they got to the head of the line, they smelled worse than him...Well, they didn't embalm him. He was laying out all week. And he still looked better than Michael Jackson." --Bill Maher "Forty members of Congress also went to the funeral. They said it was great to be out of Washington and to get a break from all that prayer and Bible quoting." --Bill Maher "When President Bush was shown on the giant TV screens, during the Pope's funeral today, the crowd at the Vatican booed. When president Bush heard this he said 'what does boo mean in Eye-talian?'" --Conan O'Brien "Dick Cheney was saying a couple of things to the press, he said he fully expected to see a woman president in his lifetime. And I was thinking, well, hell, he'll be lucky if he sees Thursday in his lifetime. ... Say what you will about the vice president, he is an optimist. He also said he fully expects to see a Hollywood celebrity convicted in his lifetime." --David Letterman "Federal authorities are investigating whether or not Martha Stewart violated rules of her house arrest when she attended a Time magazine gala last week. Meanwhile, there is no news yet on the whereabouts of Osama Bin Laden." -- Jay Leno "Before Social Security, Americans had to keep working long after they were past retirement age -- kinda like the way Cher has to now." --Jay Leno "In honor of Earth Day, Congress passed the Bush energy bill, which gives billions of dollars in tax breaks to the coal and oil companies and opens up Alaska for drilling. It's hard to hide the glee in the White House. Today President Bush appeared in front of one of those backdrops that just said 'F--- You.'" --Bill Maher * * * * * Clippings WASHINGTON (Reuters) -- The U.S. penal system, the world's largest, maintained its steady growth in 2004, the Department of Justice reported Sunday. . . . The United States has incarcerated 726 people per 100,000 of its population, seven to 10 times as many as most other democracies. . . . Criminologists attribute the growth in the prison population to "get tough on crime" policies that have subjected hundreds of thousands of nonviolent drug and property offenders to long mandatory sentences. . . . It costs around $22,000 to lock up one person for a year. . . . In addition, the United States jails around 283,000 people with serious mental illnesses . . . . Mice forced to breathe hydrogen sulphide — known best for its rotten egg smell — go into a kind of suspended animation . . . . Finding a safe way to do this in humans could lead to new ways to treat cancer and prevent injury or death from blood loss, or help people undergo and recover from surgery better . . . . "We think this may be a latent ability that all mammals have . . . ." Many cases have been documented of small children, and the occasional adult, reviving from near drowning in icy water after their body temperatures had dropped, their metabolism rate lowered and they had stopped breathing for more than an hour. . . . After years of telling athletes to drink as much liquid as possible to avoid dehydration, some doctors are now saying that drinking too much during intense exercise poses a far greater health risk. . . . [Runners in the 2002 Boston Marathon] gave blood samples before and after the race. While most were fine, 13 percent of them - or 62 - drank so much that they had hyponatremia, or abnormally low blood sodium levels. Three had levels so low that they were in danger of dying. Budget Living magazine, April/May 2005, p. 81, advises that you can save a lot of money on dental work by getting it done in Mexico. "Right now, the most popular dental destinations appear to be India, the Philippines, and Hungary -- all countries with a surplus of well-trained professionals. Hungary is especially rich in tourist- friendly dental school grads, and getting treated there costs around a third of what it does here -- a crown will run you about $135 in Budapest; $600 in the U.S." * * * * * Unitarian Jihad (Appreciating this item requires a general awareness of Unitarian tendencies.) The following is the first communique from a group calling itself Unitarian Jihad. It was sent to me at The Chronicle via an anonymous spam remailer. I have no idea whether other news organizations have received this communique, and, if so, why they have not chosen to print it. Perhaps they fear starting a panic. I feel strongly that the truth, no matter how alarming, trivial or disgusting, must always be told. I am pleased to report that the words below are at least not disgusting: Greetings to the Imprisoned Citizens of the United States. We are Unitarian Jihad. There is only God, unless there is more than one God. The vote of our God subcommittee is 10-8 in favor of one God, with two abstentions. Brother Flaming Sword of Moderation noted the possibility of there being no God at all, and his objection was noted with love by the secretary. Greetings to the Imprisoned Citizens of the United States! Too long has your attention been waylaid by the bright baubles of extremist thought. Too long have fundamentalist yahoos of all religions (except Buddhism -- 14-5 vote, no abstentions, fundamentalism subcommittee) made your head hurt. Too long have you been buffeted by angry people who think that God talks to them. You have a right to your moderation! You have the power to be calm! We will use the IED of truth to explode the SUV of dogmatic expression! People of the United States, why is everyone yelling at you??? Whatever happened to ... you know, everything? Why is the news dominated by nutballs saying that the Ten Commandments have to be tattooed inside the eyelids of every American, or that Allah has told them to kill Americans in order to rid the world of Satan, or that Yahweh has instructed them to go live wherever they feel like, or that Shiva thinks bombing mosques is a great idea? Sister Immaculate Dagger of Peace notes for the record that we mean no disrespect to Jews, Muslims, Christians or Hindus. Referred back to the committee of the whole for further discussion. We are Unitarian Jihad. We are everywhere. We have not been born again, nor have we sworn a blood oath. We do not think that God cares what we read, what we eat or whom we sleep with. Brother Neutron Bomb of Serenity notes for the record that he does not have a moral code but is nevertheless a good person, and Unexalted Leader Garrote of Forgiveness stipulates that Brother Neutron Bomb of Serenity is a good person, and this is to be reflected in the minutes. Beware! Unless you people shut up and begin acting like grown-ups with brains enough to understand the difference between political belief and personal faith, the Unitarian Jihad will begin a series of terrorist-like actions. We will take over television studios, kidnap so-called commentators and broadcast calm, well-reasoned discussions of the issues of the day. We will not try for "balance" by hiring fruitcakes; we will try for balance by hiring non-ideologues who have carefully thought through the issues. We are Unitarian Jihad. We will appear in public places and require people to shake hands with each other. (Sister Hand Grenade of Love suggested that we institute a terror regime of mandatory hugging, but her motion was not formally introduced because of lack of a quorum.) We will require all lobbyists, spokesmen and campaign managers to dress like trout in public. Televangelists will be forced to take jobs as Xerox repair specialists. Demagogues of all stripes will be required to read Proust out loud in prisons. We are Unitarian Jihad, and our motto is: "Sincerity is not enough." We have heard from enough sincere people to last a lifetime already. Just because you believe it's true doesn't make it true. Just because your motives are pure doesn't mean you are not doing harm. Get a dog, or comfort someone in a nursing home, or just feed the birds in the park. Play basketball. Lighten up. The world is not out to get you, except in the sense that the world is out to get everyone. Brother Gatling Gun of Patience notes that he's pretty sure the world is out to get him because everyone laughs when he says he is a Unitarian. There were murmurs of assent around the room, and someone suggested that we buy some Congress members and really stick it to the Baptists. But this was deemed against Revolutionary Principles, and Brother Gatling Gun of Patience was remanded to the Sunday Flowers and Banners committee. People of the United States! We are Unitarian Jihad! We can strike without warning. Pockets of reasonableness and harmony will appear as if from nowhere! Nice people will run the government again! There will be coffee and cookies in the Gandhi Room after the revolution. Startling new underground group spreads lack of panic! Citizens declare themselves "relatively unafraid" of threats of undeclared rationality. People can still go to France, terrorist leader says.

Another Cynical Bush Foreign Entanglement?

In December 1992, after he had lost the election to Bill Clinton, the internationally knowledgeable outgoing president George H. W. Bush sent U.S. troops to Somalia. In effect, he saddled Clinton with a foreign entanglement that he had known would likely be a failure and a mess. It was a cynical political move, done at the expense of American lives and prestige. So now I see reports that his son, George W. Bush, is contemplating an attack on Iran shortly before he leaves office. Would anyone care to bet that the odds of such an attack rise if a Democrat wins the White House in November?

Catching Up: Best of 2005: January & February

Here's another installment in the continuing effort to distill the best postings from my personal mailing list. These are from January and February 2005. It was a big time for attacks on President Bush and his policies. I thought about editing them out more aggressively, but for future reference I decided to hold onto these reminders of the political climate of that time. * * * * * Why You Should Have Boycotted the 2004 Presidential Election Excerpt from S. Templeman & L. Mitchell, "Challenging the One-Size- Fits-All Myth: Findings and Solutions from a Statewide Focus Group of Rural Social Workers," Child Welfare, September/October 2002, pp. 757-772 (at p. 761, citations omitted): "A study by the Children's Rights Council [in 2000] ranked Texas 48th among states for raising children, down from 25th in 1995. The status of children in Texas lags far behind that in most other states. This places rural children in Texas among those Americans at greatest risk on numerous indicators of well-being. For example . . . Texas ranks 41st in the percentage of children in poverty and 50th in the number of children without health insurance. It also ranks 44th in the percentage of babies born to mothers who received early prenatal care and 48th in childhood immunizations for 2-year-olds. Texas is among the 10 worst states in the United States on most factors related to teen pregnancy. CDF found the teen birthrate among Texans to be 70.9 per 1,000; the national rate is 51.1" These may sound like reasons to have voted against George Bush in 2000, not to mention 2004. But since a majority did not do that, at least in 2004, the question arises whether the majority does not care about these indicators of child maltreatment in the state that George Bush governed. I think the majority does care. But I did not notice that these issues were front and center during the election. The process is broken. Instead of focusing upon the outcomes for hundreds of thousands (and in some instances millions) of Americans, the election process, for some years, has been fixated upon such questions as whether George Bush is smart, whether John Kerry flip- flops, whether Bill Clinton is a sleaze, whether Ronald Reagan was senile. Until we can have perfect candidates, these personal attacks are worse than useless. They are a positive distraction from what counts. And that is what our elections are all about now. They are a joke -- and so, in too many instances, is the person who becomes president. We can't expect to fix the process without acknowledging that it is broken. When we talk and act as though voting is a good thing, we endorse the process as it is. And that is, increasingly, a mistake. [The situation appears quite different, so far, in the 2008 campaign.] * * * * * Late-Night Political News from About.com "So the president doesn't read the papers. The only real information he gets he gets from his loyal aides and even when he goes to a town hall meeting, to meet the people, they have been pre-selected. Our president is living in the 'Truman Show'. Nothing happens around him that isn't planned. I don't even think he knows we're out here watching." --Jon Stewart "Did you hear about this? The U.S. is sending a top secret reconnaissance team into Iran. How secret can it be if a dumb ass like me knows about it?" --David Letterman "Some groups are calling on people to fast and pray on the day of Bush's inauguration to protest the re-election. That's not going to work. The people who fast and pray are the ones who voted him in. That's his audience." --Jay Leno "News from Washington -- Condoleezza Rice ... says there are no plans to invade North Korea, which can only mean one thing -- they don't have any oil." --Craig Ferguson "Traditionally the president's inaugural committee pays for these expenses; this time around it's stiffing the District of Columbia with a 12 million dollar security bill -- just their way of saying 'thank you' to the community that went nine-to-one for the president's opponent." --Jon Stewart "In an interview in USA Today, President Bush said he is not wasting any more money on programs that are not working. Well that's good news. I guess the war in Iraq is over." --Jay Leno "You know there was a bounty on Osama bin Laden -- $25 million and they have now doubled it. $50 million is the bounty on Osama bin Laden. And it makes sense because if you're a goat farmer in Tora Bora, $25 million just isn't going to get your attention." -David Letterman "How about this for a mystery? Over in Iraq, United States authorities have admitted that $9 billion is missing. They have misplaced $9 billion in Iraq. Wow. I am fairly confident they'll find it though. It's probably somewhere with the weapons of mass destruction." -David Letterman "President Bush said today he wants another $80 billion in Iraq funding. So when he said Iraq isn't free yet, he ain't kidding." -- Jay Leno "The president announced today new budget slashes. And he's slashing education. It is a genius plan -- when the kids graduate they won't have the math skills to calculate how much debt they're actually in." --Craig Ferguson "Former baseball star Jose Canseco has a new book out. It's a tell-all autobiography in which he claims he injected his former teammate - - superstar Mark McGwire -- with steroids. He also claims that President Bush, who was then a co-owner of the Texas Rangers, was aware of steroid use among players. A White House spokesperson says Bush was not aware of it -- nor was he aware of most anything during the early '90s. Mark McGwire vehemently denies the accusation - he got so angry when he heard about it, he picked up his house and threw it onto the freeway." --Jimmy Kimmel "As you know President Bush has been traveling around the country trying to sell his new Social Security plan. He wants to take our retirement money and invest it in the stock market. He says nothing can go wrong. I'll mention that to Martha Stewart the next time I see her." --Jay Leno "Today they announced the big winner of the Iraqi election -- Halliburton." --Jay Leno "Attorney General Alberto Gonzales started his first week on the job. Remember those two naked statues that John Ashcroft had covered up when he took the job? Well, they're naked again, but now they just have leashes around their necks." --Jay Leno "Everybody was commenting that Stephen Breyer was the only Supreme Court justice at the State of the Union. But it turns out that is not true. It turns out Justice Scalia was there. He was in Dick Cheney's pocket." --Jay Leno "In his State of the Union Address, President Bush announced a new initiative to keep young people out of gangs, a new program called Do Right And Follow Through (D.R.A.F.T.)." --Tina Fey, Saturday Night Live's "Weekend Update" "A Marine general who served in Iraq is in trouble this week for saying said it is fun to shoot people. Thanks to his remarks he now has now received a job at the LAPD." --Craig Ferguson "According to a new poll, Democrats are favoring Hillary Clinton for the Democratic presidential nominee for 2008. Democrats say they are looking for a fresh and exciting new way to get their asses handed to them." --Tina Fey "Bush's new budget proposals cut $1.1 billion from the federal food stamp program. I guess the president feels if rich people aren't going to get their full tax cut for a while, the poor people with food stamps should have to help out too." --Jay Leno "The U.S. Postal Service issued a new stamp of Ronald Reagan today. I can't wait for the George W. Bush stamp. That's when your letter goes to Iraq for no reason and the stamp can't explain why." --Craig Ferguson "Right now President Bush is in Europe, he's in Germany, and he stopped in Frankfurt and he got off the plane and he electrified the crowd with 'Ich bin ein Frankfurter.'" --David Letterman "President Bush had dinner last night with the French President Jacques Chirac and in one, kind of awkward moment, President Chirac gave Bush a souvenir statue of the Eiffel Tower and Bush said 'Oh this is great a little oil rig! I love it!'" --Jay Leno "President Bush said when he goes to Europe, he's looking forward to talking about how we can extend peace even further around the world. Then the Pentagon told him, 'You know, Mr. President, we really don't have enough ammunition left to do that.'" --Jay Leno "In a speech today President Bush said contrary to reports, he has no plans to attack Iran. The president said 'That's ridiculous. We didn't even have plans when we attacked Iraq.'" --Conan O'Brien "It seems a friend of the Bush family, Doug Wead -- I think he's Linda Tripp's first husband if I'm not mistaken -- secretly taped a number of conversations. Bush admitted as a young man he smoked marijuana but he quit when it interfered with his drinking. ... Although he acknowledged trying marijuana, no one has come forward to verify they've actually seen him do marijuana, so it's like the National Guard thing all over again." --Jay Leno "Jeff Gannon ... He is a White House correspondent who has been lobbing softball questions at the president and his press secretary, turns out he is actually a paid escort for wealthy homosexuals. ... He actually had two jobs -- one obviously was sleazy and shameful and the other was a gay male prostitute. ... I think I know what Bush meant now when he said he has a mandate." --Bill Maher "Amid this stuff with Jeff Gannon what is our new Attorney General Alberto Gonzales doing as his first act of office -- going after the porn industry. ... Apparently this is the guy who is pro-torture but anti-porn. You can put somebody on a leash and wag wieners in his face but don't film it." --Bill Maher "The Bush administration is proposing a change in the social security system. They want to cut benefits in nearly a third in the next twenty or thirty years. The new program is called 'good luck grandma you're on your own.' You've fallen and you can get up." -Jay Leno "Here in New York, thousands of people partied in funny hats and popped balloons in Times Square. Those who were there said it was just like the Republican Convention, but with black people." --Conan O'Brien "As you know, Time magazine has named President Bush 'Person of the Year' -- quite an honor. Although I'm not sure Bush understands it. Like he said today, he can't decide if he wants the free travel alarm clock or the tote bag." --Jay Leno "The international space station is running low on food. They asked Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld about this. And Rumsfeld said, you go to space with the food you've got, not the food you want." -- David Letterman "President Bush said that he is standing by Rumsfeld. And you know what that means, he'll be gone in a week." --David Letterman "A lot of Americans are worried now. They say they can't rely on Social Security anymore. And you know something, they're right. If you want the government to pay for your housing and your food and your medical bills until your 80 or 90 years old you're just going to have to kill somebody and go live on death row because that's the only way it's going to happen." --Jay Leno * * * * * Top 50 Bushisms (abridged) 48. "You teach a child to read, and he or her will be able to pass a literacy test.'' -Townsend, Tenn., Feb. 21, 2001 44. "I'm the commander - see, I don't need to explain - I do not need to explain why I say things. That's the interesting thing about being president." -as quoted in Bob Woodward's Bush at War 42. "The war on terror involves Saddam Hussein because of the nature of Saddam Hussein, the history of Saddam Hussein, and his willingness to terrorize himself." -Grand Rapids, Mich., Jan. 29, 2003 40. "Oh, no, we're not going to have any casualties." -discussing the Iraq war with Christian Coalition founder Pat Robertson, as quoted by Robertson 38. "Haven't we already given money to rich people? Why are we going to do it again?" -to economic advisers discussing a second round of tax cuts, as quoted by former Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neil, Washington, D.C., Nov. 26, 2002 37. "We need an energy bill that encourages consumption." -Trenton, N.J., Sept. 23, 2002 35. "Do you have blacks, too?" -to Brazilian President Fernando Cardoso, Washington, D.C., Nov. 8, 2001 32. "It is white." -after being asked by a child in Britain what the White House was like, July 19, 2001 31. "I couldn't imagine somebody like Osama bin Laden understanding the joy of Hanukkah." -at a White House menorah lighting ceremony, Washington, D.C., Dec. 10, 2001 27. "I'm the master of low expectations." -aboard Air Force One, June 4, 2003 26. "I'm also not very analytical. You know I don't spend a lot of time thinking about myself, about why I do things." -aboard Air Force One, June 4, 2003 25. "I know what I believe. I will continue to articulate what I believe and what I believe - I believe what I believe is right." - Rome, Italy, July 22, 2001 21. "The really rich people figure out how to dodge taxes anyway." - explaining why high taxes on the rich are a failed strategy, Annandale, Va., Aug. 9, 2004 20. "My plan reduces the national debt, and fast. So fast, in fact, that economists worry that we're going to run out of debt to retire." -radio address, Feb. 24, 2001 18. "See, free nations are peaceful nations. Free nations don't attack each other. Free nations don't develop weapons of mass destruction." -Milwaukee, Wis., Oct. 3, 2003 11. "Can we win? I don't think you can win it." -after being asked whether the war on terror was winnable, "Today" show interview, Aug. 30, 2004 9. "I trust God speaks through me. Without that, I couldn't do my job." -to a group of Amish he met with privately, July 9, 2004 8. "Major combat operations in Iraq have ended. In the battle of Iraq, the United States and our allies have prevailed." -speaking underneath a "Mission Accomplished" banner aboard the USS Abraham Lincoln, May 1, 2003 7. "We found the weapons of mass destruction. We found biological laboratories … And we'll find more weapons as time goes on. But for those who say we haven't found the banned manufacturing devices or banned weapons, they're wrong, we found them." -Washington, D.C., May 30, 2003 4. "There's an old saying in Tennessee - I know it's in Texas, probably in Tennessee - that says, fool me once, shame on - shame on you. Fool me - you can't get fooled again." -Nashville, Tenn., Sept. 17, 2002 3. "Too many good docs are getting out of the business. Too many OB- GYNs aren't able to practice their love with women all across this country." -Poplar Bluff, Mo., Sept. 6, 2004 2. "Our enemies are innovative and resourceful, and so are we. They never stop thinking about new ways to harm our country and our people, and neither do we." -Washington, D.C., Aug. 5, 2004 1. "My answer is bring them on." -on Iraqi insurgents attacking U.S. forces, Washington, D.C., July 3, 2003 * * * * * Bird Brains In a laboratory, when a crow named Betty was given metal wires of various lengths and a four-inch vertical pipe with food at the bottom, she chose a four-inch wire, made a hook and retrieved the food. ... Clark nutcrackers can hide up to 30,000 seeds and recover them up to six months later. Nutcrackers also hide and steal. If they see another bird watching them as they cache food, they return later, alone, to hide the food again. Some scientists believe this shows a rudimentary theory of mind - understanding that another bird has intentions and beliefs. Magpies, at an earlier age than any other creature tested, develop an understanding of the fact that when an object disappears behind a curtain, it has not vanished. At a university campus in Japan, carrion crows line up patiently at the curb waiting for a traffic light to turn red. When cars stop, they hop into the crosswalk, place walnuts from nearby trees onto the road and hop back to the curb. After the light changes and cars run over the nuts, the crows wait until it is safe and hop back out for the food. Pigeons can memorize up to 725 different visual patterns, and are capable of what looks like deception. Pigeons will pretend to have found a food source, lead other birds to it and then sneak back to the true source. Parrots, some researchers report, can converse with humans, invent syntax and teach other parrots what they know. Researchers have claimed that Alex, an African gray, can grasp important aspects of number, color concepts, the difference between presence and absence, and physical properties of objects like their shapes and materials. He can sound out letters the same way a child does. * * * * * Funny Definitions Rectitude (n.), the formal, dignified bearing adopted by proctologists. Pokemon (n), a Rastafarian proctologist. Oyster (n.), a person who sprinkles his conversation with Yiddishisms. Circumvent (n.), an opening in the front of boxer shorts worn by Jewish men. Take a word from the dictionary, alter it by adding, subtracting, or changing one letter, and supply a new definition. Bozone (n.): The substance surrounding stupid people that stops bright ideas from penetrating. The bozone layer, unfortunately, shows little sign of breaking down in the near future. Cashtration (n.): The act of buying a house, which renders the subject financially impotent for an indefinite period. Giraffiti (n): Vandalism spray-painted very, very high. Sarchasm (n): The gulf between the author of wit and the person who doesn't get it. Inoculatte (v): To take coffee intravenously when you are running late. Hipatitis (n): Terminal coolness. Osteopornosis (n): A degenerate disease. Decafalon (n.): The grueling event of getting through the day consuming only things that are good for you. Dopeler effect (n): The tendency of stupid ideas to seem smarter when they come at you rapidly. Arachnoleptic fit (n.): The frantic dance performed just after you've accidentally walked through a spider web. Beelzebug (n.): Satan in the form of a mosquito that gets into your bedroom at three in the morning and cannot be cast out. Caterpallor (n.): The color you turn after finding half a grub in the fruit you're eating. Ignoranus (n): A person who's both stupid and an asshole.

Catching Up: Best of 2004: July

Here's another installment in the continuing effort to distill the best postings from my personal mailing list. These are from July 2004. * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * Clippings Thousands of mentally ill American children, some as young as seven, are locked up in juvenile detention centers because there is nowhere else for them to go. In one recent study, children who sat in front of the TV for more than two hours a day were at higher risk of smoking, gaining excess weight, and having high cholesterol as adults. Ideally, youngsters should be rationed to less than an hour a day, researchers said. About one in six soldiers returning from the war in Iraq shows signs of post-traumatic stress disorder or other emotional difficulties. Marie Antoinette never said "Let them eat cake." We have that on the authority of biographer Lady Antonia Fraser, who spoke on the subject at the 2002 Edinburgh Book Fair. Historians have known better all along, actually. A study published in Cerebrum in late 2000 demonstrated that childhood abuse and neglect results in permanent physical changes to the developing human brain. Anthropologists have long suspected that older people may have played an important role in the development of early human societies by providing extra care for children, helping to accumulate useful information and strengthening kinship bonds. Children taking cough syrups showed a dramatic reduction in cough frequency, but those taking the placebo -- essentially flavored water -- had the best results. On four other measures, the three treatments had virtually identical outcomes. Dr. Schneider said, "We've found that using virtual reality during chemotherapy helps relieve some of the symptoms that patients experience in the hours and days after therapy. I had one patient say after she was finished, 'That was fun! I was kind of frustrated when the chemotherapy ended because I didn't get to finish the game.'" * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * About Marijuana -- Police make about 700,000 arrests per year for marijuana offenses — roughly 87% of those are for nothing more than possession of small amounts. -- Enforcing marijuana laws costs an estimated $10-15 billion taxpayer dollars per year in direct costs alone. -- More than 50% of Americans between the ages of 18-50 have tried marijuana at least once. -- 72% of Americans favor decriminalization—applying a fine, not jail time. -- Unlike alcohol and many other drugs, no one has ever died of a marijuana overdose. -- Alabama locks up people convicted three times of marijuana possession for 15 years to life. -- The federal Higher Education Act prohibits student loans to young people convicted of any drug offense; all other criminal offenders remain eligible. -- More than 80% of high school students report that it's easy to get marijuana. -- In Holland, where cannabis is decriminalized, it is no more popular than in the U.S. [By the way, I don't use marijuana. I have tried it twice, however -- most recently in 1978.] Several websites name famous people who have tried marijuana, including: http://www.cleartest.com/testinfo/not_the_bad_guy.html http://frankdiscussion.netfirms.com/who_celebtokers.html http://www.slatts.fsworld.co.uk/famous.htm http://www.veryimportantpotheads.com/ http://www.norml.org/index.cfm?Group_ID=4439 People named at those sites include: Margaret Mead NYC Mayor Michael Bloomberg Carl Sagan George W. Bush Winston Churchill Bill Clinton Nobel Prize winner Richard Feynman Friedrich Nietzsche Pablo Picasso William Shakespeare George Washington Arnold Schwarzenegger Bill Gates Nobel Prize winner Francis Crick * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * About the Law BOSTON, Massachusetts (AP) -- A police officer stops you on the street, then taps something into a device in the palm of his hand. The next minute, he knows who your relatives are, who lives in your house, who your neighbors are, the kind of car you drive or boat you own, whether you've been sued and various other tidbits about your life. ... Recently the Supreme Court ruled that people who refuse to give their names to police can be arrested, even if they've done nothing wrong. Purna Raj Bajracharya was videotaping the sights of New York City for his family back in Nepal when he inadvertently included an office of the Federal Bureau of Investigation. He was taken into custody, where officials found he had overstayed his tourist visa. Mr. Bajracharya wound up in solitary confinement in a federal detention center for three months, weeping constantly, in a 6-by-9 cell where the lights were never turned off. He might have been in there much longer if an F.B.I. agent had not finally taken it upon himself to summon legal help. * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * Website of Note Come up for air http://www.mamselle.ca/error.html * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * George Bush Quotes "Like you, I have been disgraced about what I've seen on TV that took place in prison." —George W. Bush, Parkersburg, West Virginia, May 13, 2004 "Recession means that people's incomes, at the employer level, are going down, basically, relative to costs, people are getting laid off." —George W. Bush, Washington, D.C., Feb. 19, 2004 "The recession started upon my arrival. It could have been — some say February, some say March, some speculate maybe earlier it started — but nevertheless, it happened as we showed up here." —George W. Bush, Meet the Press, Feb. 8, 2004 "Then you wake up at the high school level and find out that the illiteracy level of our children are appalling." —George W. Bush, Washington, D.C., Jan. 23, 2004 "The ambassador and the general were briefing me on the — the vast majority of Iraqis want to live in a peaceful, free world. And we will find these people and we will bring them to justice." —George W. Bush, Washington, D.C., Oct. 27, 2003 "See, free nations are peaceful nations. Free nations don't attack each other. Free nations don't develop weapons of mass destruction." — George W. Bush, Milwaukee, Wis., Oct. 3, 2003 "I glance at the headlines just to kind of get a flavor for what's moving. I rarely read the stories, and get briefed by people who are probably read the news themselves." —George W. Bush, Washington, D.C., Sept. 21, 2003 "First, let me make it very clear, poor people aren't necessarily killers. Just because you happen to be not rich doesn't mean you're willing to kill." —George W. Bush, Washington, D.C., May 19, 2003 "The war on terror involves Saddam Hussein because of the nature of Saddam Hussein, the history of Saddam Hussein, and his willingness to terrorize himself." —George W. Bush, Grand Rapids, Mich., Jan. 29, 2003 * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * A Few Kind Words One day a teacher asked her students to list the names of the other students in the room on two sheets of paper, leaving a space between each name. Then she told them to think of the nicest thing they could say about each of their classmates and write it down. It took the remainder of the class period to finish their assignment, and as the students left the room, each one handed in the papers. That Saturday, the teacher wrote down the name of each student on a separate sheet of paper, and listed what everyone else had said about that individual. On Monday she gave each student his or her list. Before long, the entire class was smiling. "Really?" she heard whispered. "I never knew that I meant anything to anyone!" and, "I didn't know others liked me so much." were most of the comments. No one ever mentioned those papers in class again. She never knew if they discussed them after class or with their parents, but it didn't matter. The exercise had accomplished its purpose. The students were happy with themselves and one another. That group of students moved on. Several years later, one of the students was killed in Viet Nam and his teacher attended the funeral of that special student. She had never seen a serviceman in a military coffin before. He looked so handsome, so mature. The church was packed with his friends. One by one those who loved him took a last walk by the coffin. The teacher was the last one to view the coffin. As she stood there, one of the soldiers who acted as pallbearer came up to her. "Were you Mark's math teacher?" he asked. She nodded: "yes." Then he said: "Mark talked about you a lot." After the funeral, most of Mark's former classmates went together to a luncheon. Mark's mother and father were there, obviously waiting to speak with his teacher. "We want to show you something," his father said, taking a wallet out of his pocket. "They found this on Mark when he was killed. We thought you might recognize it." Opening the billfold, he carefully removed two worn pieces of notebook paper that had obviously been taped, folded and refolded many times. The teacher knew without looking that the papers were the ones on which she had listed all the good things each of Mark's classmates had said about him. "Thank you so much for doing that," Mark's mother said. "As you can see, Mark treasured it." All of Mark's former classmates started to gather around. Charlie smiled rather sheepishly and said, "I still have my list. It's in the top drawer of my desk at home." Chuck's wife said, "Chuck asked me to put his in our wedding album." "I have mine too," Marilyn said. "It's in my diary." Then Vicki, another classmate, reached into her pocketbook, took out her wallet and showed her worn and frazzled list to the group. "I carry this with me at all times," Vicki said and without batting an eyelash, she continued: "I think we all saved our lists." That's when the teacher finally sat down and cried. She cried for Mark and for all his friends who would never see him again. It is easy to forget that life will end one day. And we don't know when that one day will be. So please, tell the people you love and care for, that they are special and important. And pass this reminder on.