The Saturday Morning Roundup

Permit me a few random observations on current issues that have been on my mind, and on the mind of many others.

We can't escape from the incessant Tiger coverage, it seems that every day a new revelation emerges, now that the list of bimbos seems to be exhausted, there are reports that offer a tenuous link between the world's greatest current golfer and most recognizable athlete with the one thing that can truly bring him down in the eyes of sports fans, that being performance enhancing drugs. The suggestion that Tiger used HGH to bulk up and gain an unfair competitive advantage in the gentleman's game of golf is disturbing, albeit given the current climate in the sports culture not altogether surprising if it does turn out to be true.

Tiger may well have lost much of his marketing and cross-over appeal, no doubt many women and more casual golf fans will no longer find themselves rooting for Woods when he inevitably comes back to the game and just as sure is making a charge in his trademark red polo on Sunday afternoon. But die-hard sports fans, most of whom are male, will I believe still enjoy seeing Tiger coming down the backstretch with the focus and determination that we have come to know and love. I know that I will be enjoying the scene when it happens, and most likely will be rooting for him. I don't defend his actions in any way, neither do I have sympathy if his image suffers irreparable harm, he made his bed and he can lie in it, apparently with any of the multitude of hoochie-mama's who lack the pride that would otherwise cause them to reject the advances of a married man with kids. But as for Tiger the golfer, I don't see how anything has changed, and I suspect that if I feel this way, most of my male counterparts in the the world of sports fandom will agree.

I've been following the climate talks in Copenhagen with some interest, and now that the conference has concluded it appears that the main effect on the climate was the damage done by all of the participants who flew thousands of miles to attend. There has been a non-binding agreement by some of the major powers, including America, India, and China, to do something. The developing countries are pissed off because they got left out of the final decision and feel that they will be hurt the most by effects that are exacerbated most by the actions of the major powers.

I'm on the fence as far as climate change is concerned, I believe that the effects are very real, and that there is much physical and even more circumstantial evidence to suggest that humanity is the main culprit, as opposed to long term geological cycles. The increase in carbon in the atmosphere since the advent of industrialization is too marked to be simply coincidence in my opinion. Yet while I don't support the chicken little assertions of many, I also reject the notion that we should bury our heads in the sand and wish this away as some great radical conspiracy as others would suggest.

The costs of inaction are potentially great, but so are the costs of action, and the question is what to do, and how much to spend doing so. While I don't have all the answers, I do think that a key is to finally get serious about reducing our dependence on oil as our primary energy fuel source. Wind and solar offer viable alternatives that if given the proper investment on both public and private levels, can accomplish three things. We can reduce the amount of carbon dioxide in the environment by lessening the amount of fossil fuels we burn. We can eventually reduce the financial costs of transportation, thus freeing up money to be spent boosting our economy. And lastly, and perhaps most importantly in the short to medium term, is that we can bring what Thomas Friedman refers to as the petrol-dictatorships, most of which are hostile towards our interests, to their knees. Without revenues from oil, the oppressive and damaging policies of the Saudi, Iranian, Venezuelan, Russian, and Nigerian governments to name a few can no longer be funded. This alone ought to be a rallying cry that unites both environmentally concerned liberals, fiscal conservatives, and hawkish neo-conservatives.

Last on my mind is the health care debate, another vexing matter with no easy solutions. I don't know if we are better off passing a flawed bill and hoping that it can be improved in time, or if it would be better to junk everything and start from scratch. I have even heard an interesting suggestion that health care is only possible with a republican president and a moderate congress. This has some merit, but as I'm in no mood to see a republican president again anytime soon, nor do I hold much hope of a moderate congress, I suggest that we have to deal with the reality of the political situation that we have. It is probably best to have some form of legislation passed now, not big enough that it can cause any serious damage, but enough to at least start the long, gradual process of reform to the system, which is simply unsustainable in the long run. I don't trust the government to run the health care system, but neither do I trust private for profit insurers. Surely there is some grand bargain that can be struck, but until we reach that point, it is better to make smaller changes that can be built upon once we have a chance to see what works, what doesn't, and what all of the costs and unintended consequences of such reforms are.

Freedom of Choice

I am currently reading Dostoevsky's novel "Notes From the Underground", which is a first person narrative by the Underground Man, who is largely a self-imposed exile from society. One of the major themes is the free will of the individual, and that the exercise of this will is not based on a certain logical formula that always leads us to act in ways that are rational. Despite the arrogance of modern science, including the social sciences of economics, psychology, and political science that claims to have figured out why humans behave as they do and proscribes the best ways for people to behave, our species is often one that defies logic. Furthermore, it is individual freedom that is at the core of our existence. It is the ability to utilize this freedom that is one of our most fundamentally human desires, to do what we want to do for our own reasons, even when we can't even identify what those reasons may be.

In our society today there is a great deal of paternalism, which is to say everybody seems to want to mind each others business. We are constantly being told what we should and shouldn't be doing, and along with these directives is the inherent judgment that if we don't conform to the norms then there is something wrong with us. We shouldn't smoke or drink too much, we shouldn't eat certain foods and should eat others. We should raise our children a certain way, support certain political candidates and policies, we should believe in some theories and reject others, we should drive certain types of cars, buy certain products, and avoid engaging in risky behaviors.

I am not claiming immunity from such paternalism, I have my opinions on matters and often fall prey to the temptation to suggest how others should live their lives and what they should believe in and reject. To an extent it is human nature to try to convince others of the validity of our own ideals, and admittedly there is a line between persuasion and paternalism and that line isn't always clear. Yet it is also human nature to reject being told what to do, at least it is part of my own nature. Quite simply, if I want to live my life according to how I choose to do so that is my business, and it is your business to live yours according to how you choose to do so.

While I may disagree your beliefs and even on occasion make fun of those I find particularly silly, I nonetheless respect the right of grown men and women to make those decisions. So if you want to support Sarah Palin, spend $500 on a designer handbag, drive a gas guzzling SUV, and eat meat at every meal that is your prerogative. Don't get me wrong, I wish you wouldn't do certain things that have a negative effect on the common good, but is it really my place to be the arbiter of what is right and wrong and to impose those judgments on you? I certainly wouldn't want you telling me what to do or how I should be living my life. It is for this reason that I generally reject formalized institutions, at least to the extent that practicality allows.

I do not belong to nor do I support a political party, I consider myself a progressive libertarian when it comes to politics and support policies that accord with my views regardless of where they come from, likewise I reject policies that are in discord with how I view the world. I do not adhere to a particular creed or belong to any church, I consider myself a Christian Pantheist, guided by the basic tenets of the Christian faith but not limited by it. I have no desire to pursue formal education beyond that which I attained 15 years ago by gaining my bachelor's degree, reading what some professor thinks I should read and writing what someone else assigns me to write about seems both limiting and mostly a misuse of my time. I am not prone to join any groups or clubs, I much prefer to do my own thing in the manner in which I choose to do it.

This is not to say that there aren't certain standards by which individuals and societies should be judged, or to argue for some form of complete moral relativism. There are clear examples of right and wrong, just as there are representations of good and evil, there are sound policies and faulty ones. It is reasonable to judge matters based on the results that they produce. What is not reasonable is to believe that everything, or even most things can be judged in anything approaching an objective manner, or that it is the business of one person to tell another how they should live their lives. Or at least that's how I see it, you of course may or may not agree, as is your right as a free thinking human being capable of exercising free will and rational, or irrational thought and action.

C'mon Man!

My favorite segment this year on Monday Night Countdown, the pregame show to Monday Night Football, is one where the hosts show clips of players doing dumb stuff on the field and at the end of each clip they give a resounding, c'mon man! As in, are you kidding me, or to quote the great John McEnroe line directed at a line judge, you cannot be serious! So in that vein, I present today's column.

Apparently in Sarah Palin's new book there is a quote that is attributed to the legendary UCLA basketball coach John Wooden, a quote that has nothing to do with basketball or even resembles any lessons on life that a coach might impart. But this didn't prevent Mrs. Palin from using it, and also escaped the fact checkers that are supposed to find such obvious errors. The quote is from an American Indian chief named John Woodenlegs. Oops. I guess that's what happens when somebody who doesn't even read books writes one, the whole notion of accuracy and actually doing research and knowing what you are talking about goes by the wayside. Of course when your target audience for the most part shares and even basks in the glory of anti-intellectualism why sweat the small stuff, like knowing who you are quoting when you are making some inane commentary on politics and the world as you see it. C'mon man!

We'll come back to Sarah Palin later, but now it's time to move across the political spectrum to that one, the man who offered such great promise and hope but has so far delivered very little of either, the man, the myth, the reigning Nobel Peace Prize winner, President Barack Obama. As far as I can tell, his peace prize resume included giving a heck of a speech in Cairo a few months back speaking intelligently and respectfully towards the Arab and Muslim world and offering hope on both sides of the cultural divide for more peaceful relations between the West and the Greater Middle East. For that I commend him. He also paid some lip service to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, promising to serve as a more neutral honest broker in a way that President Bush, influenced by his born again Protestant beliefs and brainwashed to view Israel as being in the right regardless of little annoyances like actual evidence, could never be.

But then as Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu proceeds to do everything in his power to perpetuate the situation by allowing settlements to continue unabated in the West Bank, Obama remains as silent and middle of the road as he can be. Ditto on the issue of Tibet-China relations, unwilling to do anything to antagonize our financial benefactors in Beijing, he has failed to support the Tibetan cause of independence by refusing to meet with their moral and spiritual leader the Dalai Lama. Apparently our freedom initiative only extends so far, we'll spend the lives of thousands of soldiers and hundreds of billions to fight for the freedom of Iraqis and Afghans (or so we're led to believe) but for Palestinians and Tibetans our leadership is unwilling to even talk the talk, let alone walk the walk.

And for these grand accomplishments, the Norwegians in their infinite wisdom have awarded our president the highest honor in the realm of international diplomacy. To my way of thinking, in order to fight for something you have to be prepared to stand up to opposition. Martin Luther King didn't stay silent regarding Bull Connor, nor did Gandhi try to appease the British, or Nelson Mandela excuse the behavior of White South African apartheid leaders. The bar has certainly been lowered for this award, maybe Tiger Woods will be next year's recipient. C'mon man!

Speaking of the world's greatest golfer, how about good old Tiger. This guy seemingly had it all, wealth, prestige, respect, admiration, and accomplishment. Not to mention a beautiful wife and family. Turns out he also had a Cadillac Escalade with a faulty GPS system, led him right when he should have gone left. I'm sure if his jerk off caddy Steve Williams was in the passenger seat that night he would have given him better directions, or at least would have beat the crap out of the TMZ photographers who showed up on the scene and then proceeded to destroy their cameras.

If Tiger was such a player and enjoyed the company of multiple women, why not stay single and enjoy the life of wealth, celebrity, and constant companionship? Why not do it like Derek Jeter, nobody has a problem with Jeter showing up at events with a different girl on his arm, heck most guys and probably women too think it's cool. But memo to Eldrick, when you make the decision to get married and have kids the rules of the game change. We've seen the son of Earl get out of some impressive jams on the course over the years, this will be one of the biggest he's ever had to negotiate, and while time usually heals all wounds and most reputations, right now his chances of salvaging par aren't looking too good. Sanctimonious and cocksure sure looks different on the way down, you had it all Tiger but you just couldn't keep the putter in the bag. C'mon man!

A few quickies before the finale, starting with the Snowbowl ski resort north of Flagstaff, Arizona. The high country just got hit with a big winter storm earlier in the week that dumped a couple feet of fresh powder, the perfect motivation for city dwellers to pack up and head north for a day or two of local skiing. Only problem is that the mountain won't be opening for another week or two, by which time the fresh powder will have crusted over and the snow making machines will no doubt be pumping out snow cone ice that tries to pass itself off as the real thing. Who runs this place, and what kind of ski resort would fail to open after such a gift from nature, especially in Arizona which isn't guaranteed to get another such present anytime soon. C'mon man!

The person in line in front of me at Starbucks who delays my getting a refill on my cup of gold old-fashioned American coffee with an order that requires reference to note cards to execute. As if it wasn't enough to order your triple shot mocha latte yuppie bastachino with 18 pumps and extra whip, you've got to grab a blueberry bliss pumpkin spice cake from the pastry display. And you wonder why your fat ass is so big that you qualify to drive solo in the car pool lane during rush hour. C'mon man!

I can't leave this column without going back to old faithful, Sarah Palin, who I am rooting for by the way to gain the GOP nomination in 2012. My hope is that a race between the King of the (Middle of the) Road and the Nanook of the North will spur the American electorate to finally junk the two party system in favor of a third party, or even a multi-party system that could offer a true shot at reforming a largely broken political system. I heard that Sarah Palin recently wrote an op-ed in the Washington Post, so first off I have to shout out to the Post for allowing such an uneducated and ignorant blowhard and demagogue to write in their editorial pages, good job Washington Post. I hope the increased sales you got on that day and the hits on your website were worth the loss of credibility with intelligent citizens. C'mon man!

But back to Palin, the topic of her column was that Obama should not go to Copenhagen for the recent conference on climate change, because that would only encourage the radical environmental movement that is behind this sinister plan to destroy the world economy by facilitating the great lie that is global warming. Of course no one has of yet explained to me who benefits from such a nefarious plan, one that would be unprecedented in the extent of world leaders, scientists, and observers who would all have to be in cahoots to pull off this scam in the first place. The climate change deniers make about as much sense as the people who are convinced that 9/11 was an inside job, but common sense and logic have never been the strong suits of good conspiracy theories. Better to believe that the New World Order and the cabal that controls the world's money supply will somehow benefit from the great climate hoax and therefore we should all be wary of those who present scientific data and evidence.

Look, science is never settled, and there are legitimate arguments to be made that the effects of climate change may be less than anticipated and that the costs of taking certain action may be too high in relation to the benefits they will provide. We should be continuing to research and accumulate data and debating over consequences and solutions. But to suggest that nothing is really happening is to bury our heads in the sand, the overwhelming evidence in so far, both scientific and anecdotal suggests that plenty is indeed happening. To propose that nothing can be done is ridiculous, there are plenty of steps that individuals, corporations, and governments can and should take, starting with getting serious about using renewable energy sources to replace fossil fuels such as carbon to meet our increasing global energy demand. And to listen to Sarah Palin as some sort of expert on the matter is just plain silly. Yet no doubt many of her legions of loyalists will take her word on the matter as gospel and refuse to support common sense legislation dealing with the issue. Score that one as a victory for (Grand)Mama Palin and a setback for Mother Earth, and for those of us who care about her long term health and the impact on our own lives if we continue to mess up the planet we live on. C'mon Man!

Foreign Entanglements

Our nation’s first president warned in his farewell address, among other things, to avoid unnecessary foreign entanglements, advice that our current president would be well served to heed. Our last president, strong in resolve but sorely lacking in wisdom, as befits the anti-intellectual he portrayed himself to be, got us into two such entangling messes. The first one seemed reasonable enough at the time, go after the people who attacked us and prevent them from repeating the process. Perhaps had we kept after this mission, which had early success, we would have been able to accomplish what we set out to do. But we didn’t and we haven’t, and here we find ourselves closing in on a decade later and still clinging to the same rationale that gave us the impetus to invade Afghanistan in the first place despite evidence that seems to blatantly suggest that the original casus belli was flawed, and that our ability to carry out such a flawed strategy is suspect.

The notion that we can, with our military, keep our homeland secure from a terrorist attack by eliminating so-called safe havens is naïve and unrealistic. The world is a big place, and even if we could somehow create a stable centralized government in a place that hasn’t known such government control since antiquity, there are countless other swaths of anarchy across the globe where sworn enemies could migrate.

Furthermore, we have neither the will nor the ability to create such stability, and even if we did it still wouldn’t be a wise course of action. Liberals like to see the world as a place where if only a little tender love and care were applied then everything would just magically fall into place, and everyone would live in peace and harmony, happily ever after. Conservatives like to imagine that might makes right, and by the sheer strength of our military prowess we can remake the world in our image. If only it were that simple. We could bomb the bad guys into submission, convert the natives to Christianity and Western liberal political ideology, then pour in financial aid to build their societies into utopian gardens. We would be loved and respected and feared worldwide and we could all go back to feeling safe and secure in fortress America, full of paternal satisfaction.

It’s not that simple of course, but don’t try telling that to the majority of the public, who would rather believe the fairy tale version of foreign policy because it’s simpler and easier to grasp. And don’t try telling that to our political leaders, who would rather pander to people’s desire to feel that complex issues can be solved with minimal effort or sacrifice on their behalf. President Obama has come up with the brilliant plan, backed without dissent by his minions in the cabinet, that we can go in with some extra troops, train the Afghans to handle their own business, and be out within a couple of years. Sounds like a story I’ve heard before. Imagine FDR telling us on December 8, 1941 that we were going to fight the Nazis for a couple years and then pull out by the summer of ’43, by which time the French would be ready to handle things on their own and our boys could all come home.

Even if a military and nation-building strategy had even a remote chance of success, the cost alone is much too great given the return on the investment to our national interest such a mission would actually achieve. We are broke and are having to figure out how we are going to pay for basic social services here at home, states can’t fund education adequately, infrastructure is in disrepair, healthcare costs continue to put a drag on personal finances and the larger economy, the interest on our ever increasing deficit promises sooner or later to make the cost of borrowing, the lifeblood of our economy, more prohibitive. Amidst all of this, we are supposed to believe that we have the financial resources to put into rebuilding, or more appropriately building since you can’t rebuild something that never existed in the first place, a nation racked with poverty, illiteracy, and a culture that shows complete disregard for the fundamental rights of half of their population. Not to mention the situation in Iraq, which we would like to believe is miraculously all taken care of simply because our government and our media have conveniently forgotten about it, but which seems likely to explode into civil war and anarchy in the not so distant future, all while over 100,000 of our troops remained trapped there.

There comes a time when you must walk away from the table, cash in what few chips you have left, chalk up the losses and learn lessons to prevent the same thing from happening in the future. That time has come, and no amount of going all in with the hope of somehow salvaging a hopeless situation can change this reality. I realize that it won’t happen, our leadership doesn’t possess the wisdom and the courage to do so, and our electorate is as yet too immature to demand such measures. The only question that I have is how long it will take, how many more lives will be needlessly lost, how much more money will be wasted, before we grow up and figure it out. My hope is that we are close to a tipping point where the American public will say enough is enough, and our government will have no choice but to heed our demands. My fear is that we are still living in denial and that the realization of the error of our policy decisions won’t be realized until the situation reaches crisis proportions. My strong belief is that if we are waiting for our political leaders to guide us we are in for a long wait, and that our best hope of achieving a rational and realistic foreign policy won’t come from the so-called best and the brightest, but from the wisdom and common sense of ordinary citizens with the courage to see the world for what it is and demand policies that reflect that reality.