GOOD NIGHT, FAITHFUL GUARDIANS

The nation is more spiritually impoverished this week, due to the loss of two great American liberal thinkers. Jesuit Priest-turned Congressman Robert F. Drinan, and today the inimitable Molly Ivins have left this world for the better one.

Of Drinan, it was written:

With all the goodwill he generated, Drinan was a natural to run as an anti war candidate in 1970. He defeated the Democratic incumbent and was invulnerable to conventional opposition during his 10 years in office. But he remained a Jesuit to the core, one of those remarkable men who used the skills acquired in the order to improve the world. When the pope insisted that priests could not serve in governmental office, Drinan chose the priesthood over more traditional ambition.

He became a professor at Georgetown Law School, headed Americans for Democratic Action, and worked on international issues for the American Bar Association. He returned often to Boston College, notably in October 2004, when he received the Distinguished Service Medal on the 75th anniversary of the law school. He urged the students to consider a career in international law. "Think beyond Boston," he said, "and if you don't want to go to Beijing [or London or Nairobi] to work, stay in Boston to help the poor get the legal aid they deserve." Drinan honored Boston by encouraging his hometown and his alma mater to stretch for greatness.

Molly Ivins succumbed to a third bout with breast cancer. She was 62. She was incisively funny in a homespun sort of way, and was particularly on her game when savaging the "Shrub." Molly's fiery brand of liberalism was complimented by another dimension of her personality, described as follows by Anthony Zurcher, one of her editors at Creators' Syndicate:

For a woman who made a profession of offering her opinion to others, Molly was remarkably humble. She was known for hosting unforgettable parties at her Austin home, which would feature rollicking political discussions, and impromptu poetry recitals and satirical songs. At one such event, I noticed her dining table was littered with various awards and distinguished speaker plaques, put to use as trivets for steaming plates of tamales, chili and fajita meat. When I called this to her attention, Molly matter-of-factly replied, "Well, what else am I going to do with 'em?"

Thanks for the h/t, CAMOON! And, praise God that Molly saw the beginning of the reining in of this Crawford cabal of evil dunces.

PULLING A BOEHNER?

Ohio Congressman John Boehner first gained national notoriety while trying to shove one of creepy Mark Foley's bloated and distended limbs under the bus wheel. Then, after the election day trip to the woodshed, we heard Boehner whine about needing time off from Congress so he could board somebody's corporate jet and fly to Arizona to watch the College Football Championship Game (Aside to Boner, oops, I mean Boehner, how'd that game work out for ya, John?)

This week, though, in the midst of the dwindling dweezel rally round the Decider's big plan for Victorifying Iraq, here was Boehner fully engorged, demanding that Dems cut The Prez some well-deserved slack:
Boehner also released a letter to Speaker Nancy Pelosi (news, bio, voting record), D-Calif., urging her to appoint a special committee of equal numbers of Republicans and Democrats to oversee the "implementation and progress of the president's new strategy for success in Iraq."

Gee, John wasn't that what the 9/11 Commission was? How much of what they recommended was implemented by your boys in congress? And wasn't James Baker's (oops, almost said Jim Baker - speaking of a different brand of weirdo) Iraq Survey Group made up of "equal numbers" blah, blah blah. . . . ?

Its funny enough that a guy from Ohio could have the swarthy tan that Boehner sports. It's out and out hysterical that after being humbled in the election by a public fed up with the disastrous course in Iraq and a do-nothing Congress, this Bonehead would suggest more of the same inertia.

DOESN'T THIS JUST SAY IT ALL?



Yep. More than a thousand words worth.

DAY AFTER DAY, ALONE ON A (GRASSY) KNOLL

Two odd happenstances to report on. First, a visit to that bacchanalia of excess and welled up emotion that is an NFL game, followed today by a viewing of the docu-flick, "Who Killed the Electric Car?" Sandwiched in between, a viewing of the "Decider" letting us know how content he is to "educate us" on why his "Plan in Iraq will succeed, and why that success is so important for 'Merica."

Seventy thousand people dressed in partisan gear, most liquored up enough to be healthily buzzed, and all screaming and waving in unison for the same thing - for a team of exhorbitantly paid men who barely made it out beyond high school to achieve a higher score in a game that won't matter at all in 5 years. These people paying 115 - 300 bucks a head for the privilege do so so, plus all the cash associated with the trappings - food, booze, parking, apparel. Quite an investment for such a transient passion. How many of these folks would expend a tenth of that effort to vote? To write a Senator or Congressman? To write a letter to the editor and lodge a complaint or protest about some universally bad idea - like adding more cannon fodder in Iraq? It isn't that damn hard to visualize, is it? It shouldn't be out of peoples' minds, right? After all, there's part of the Marine Band on the field. There's a multi-dimensional military color guard on the field, accompanied by dozens of other uniformed personnel to attend to an oversized flag. There's a squadron of jet fighters overhead, after the National Anthem. Would it be too much to ask for this crowd - or even half of it, to gather and petition their government for redress- to ask for sanity, for pause?

Juxtapose that with the "Electric Car" movie. A great idea catches on with a consumer public in Southern California. A public sick of poor air quality, foreign oil dependence, and maybe, just maybe, a little tired of having American manufacturers lag behind their world competitors. Presto, here comes a car from what once was the biggest company on earth - it has zero emissions, it has a 120 mile range between charges, it's quiet, it's fast enough for freeways, and it can be re-charged at home, and its maintenance costs are significantly lower. But, uh-oh, with it comes public expectation - if you can do this with one car, you can do it with ALL of 'em, right? So what do to? Make it impossible to buy, and difficult to lease. Publicize it with commercials that are ominously frightening, and lacking the allure of all other car come-ons (no girls, explosions or peppy music), co-opt the key people who can block the path, and then litigate, litigate LITIGATE! When it is all done, the car goes away, replaced by a "new," unattainable technology that is "better," but far off on the horizon - like the rising moon. And every last bit of the effort is done in plain sight - in the daylight, with nobody covering it, no pre- or post-game show, no detailed analysis, no TV network devoted to dissection, just a handful of docu-pic film-makers covering a group of diehard activists who can be easily labeled as crackpots. The air quality deteroriates, GM almost literally replaces the EV1 with the Hummer, the Government gives monster tax breaks to the businesses who buy the Monster truck, and billions get shoveled into a new research boondoggle.

Why does the game get the Network, the big money and the screaming horde, and the good idea car get the "move along, nothing to see here" treatment? It isn't just money, or power, or influence, or gullibility, or desire to escape/de-stress, or control. Its all of these things and several others. But it becomes abundantly clear that if these things can co-exist side by side this way - with one crying out for exposure and the other being devoid of all but the most fleeting significance - then some group really could have been on the Knoll in that Dallas November, or in Los Angeles on a sweaty night in June, or in Memphis in an early Spring evening nearly 4 decades ago, using only their fear as cover, and taking from all of us a real chance for something different, something better, something, perhaps, more meaningful than simply whose team won this week, and moves on to the Bigger game next week. It could be done, and the doubters simply shouted down.

HEY TROJANS, LOOKY HERE!!!

JUST LIKE FOOTBALL!!!!!


Or have y'all forgotten, in your Post - Michigan Euphoria?

SLIP-SLIDIN' AWAY . . .

It's 9;30 am on Saturday morning, here in this corner of So Cal, tucked in below some foothills, about 18 miles to the coast line - as the crow flies) and its 45 friggin' degrees out there. Last night at 10:05 it was already 36 degrees. Tell me Al Gore isn't on to something . . . Earlier this week found Mrs. LOST and I in a local grocery store that shall be nameless, well, its the one that rhymes with Shawn's and the line of 5 people ground to a halt, while the cashier sauntered over to get "help" from someone behind the deli counter a good 45 50 feet away. There was a loud discussion between the two, then a disgusted look from the deli person, who then disappeared behind the counter. Minutes later the cashier came back, acting like nothing had happened, and we were back to being processed. At that hour of the morning on a weekday, people are there to get in and get out. THe point is that "Shawns" may have padded its bottom line by breaking the union's back a few years ago with its cruddy, drudge level two-tier wage system, but it has also become yet another bottom feeding employer, taking on employees who treat customers poorly without a second thought. The cost of providing good service has simply been externalized to the customer. Cornelius Vanderbilt lives - "the public be damned" has been resurrected.

This grocery experience is showing up all over. Years ago, Home Depot abandoned its mantra that "we have contractors on staff" in favor of hiring cheap labor. Rumor had it that this was the brainchild of a Jack Welch devotee, recently picked up by General Electric. The resulting bump to Home Depot's profitability has come at the expense of service. In all the local 'Depot's, the orange apron wearers act like rabbits when they see a bewildered customer approach. They bolt - rapidly in the opposite direction. You're on your own in that big ol' stupid warehouse. Hope you know exactly what you're looking for, buddy.

Tom Petty was right, in his "Last DJ' song:

As we celebrate mediocrity
all the boys upstairs wanna see
how much you'll pay for what you
used to get for free

So . . . some corporate bottom lines have been bettered. Yee haw. Service stinks, and the people paid these kind of wages feel justified in offering none. Moreover, at 8 bucks an hour, few if any of them will ever be able to afford a decent living space on their own - let alone a home or a condo. LOST remembers the day - Hell, LOST had some high school classmates who left the hallowed halls of "the academy" and went to work for the grocery chains, and made a tidy enough living to afford a small home, and raise some kids. That's gone, now, just like the Rams, the "E-Ticket", and Movieland Wax Museum. That is money taken out of communities, sacrificied on some marble corporate alter - assertedly for value-demanding shareholders, but silently filtered into upper management's pockets for big bonuses and thickly larded retirements. Is anyone paying attention to this stuff, or are we still collectively broken up over Britney and K-Fed?

FAREWELL, AND HOW COULD YOU NOT LAUGH?

Today's news reported that professional animator Iwao Takamoto passed away this week, at the age of 83. Takamoto learned his trade as a young man in the Manzanar Internment camp, then caught on with Disney in the 50s, where he worked on feature films. In the 1960's he jumped over to animation upstarts Hanna Barbera, where he worked on famous toons of all shapes, sizes and species.

Perhaps Takamoto's greatest creation was the lovable, snack munching Great Dane known as Scooby Doo. According to a family spokesperson, Takamoto got the name for his creation from an ad lib in Frank Sinatra's version of "Strangers in the Night."

My Lawdy, that's funny enough to ALMOST make me like Sinatra. Goodbye Mr. Takamoto.

ALRIGHT, EVERYBODY BACK IN THE BOX!!!


So the Holidays are over . . . the Carols are off the play lists, stuffed back into their boxes marked “archives” for another year. Light strands are wound back up and boxed and hauled into the crawlspace . . . The houses, yes, they seem to move back where they were, having crouched a little closer together for the period of time from November until now. They all looked so beautiful for those 5 weeks of precious adornment . . . The smells change, too, Gone are the intoxicating scents of cinnamon, pine, ginger, and chocolate. It is still cold outside, and the sky is still starkly beautiful in SoCal, as the sun languishes on the edge of the horizon in mid-afternoon, illuminating vague rogue clouds but providing little of the heat to which we’ve grown accustomed during the balance of the year. It is the one joy left at the joyless end of revelry.

Taking a Christmas tree down is like saying goodbye to a good friend who is moving away without a specific destination and no means of contact. Sure, if you’re lucky, your 10 year old will blithely say to you that “there’s always next year.” Once LOST passed beyond 40 there was this barely-above-a-whisper-prayer in deep the recesses of the brain, echoing into thesoul, “Please God, let him be right about that.”

The boxes of ornaments, some almost 30 years old in their own right, are carefully, painfully repacked, and past years are reflected upon. The very boxes in which they were packed are marvelous in their disrepair. Some of their boxes still sport price tags from a store long since closed, bought by a child more than three decades ago; meaningless pieces of history, still carefully preserved and still quite functional. Then there are the trinkets, the baubles, the (as LOST's sister would say) chotchkes, bits and pieces from the past, representing places visited, specific events (the multiple commemorations of “Baby’s First Christmas), and simple gifts from close family members and friends. Here’s the one we got in Colorado, the two from Hawaii, there’s the one we just picked up this year. All put away until next November, such a long time from now, and so much stuff standing in between us. How stangely sad it is to say so long, and know that there is so much to do between now and then.

MEDIA BIAS, ALIVE AND WELL AND LOCAL AS HELL

Yep, right upside the head, LOST has been smacked with the reality that bias in the media remains undaunted by election results, poll numbers or even the lingering spirit of Christmas. Both local fishwraps - the Union Tribune and the North County Times - have posted big articles on the recent arrest of on Jim Lampley - locally based sports broadcaster and erstwhile critic of all things Bush-Cheney, for "Domestic Violence" when in fact his arrest dealt with his violation of a restraining order obtained by his fiancee. Lengthy article, salacious headline, the NC Times all-too-happy to point out Lampley's political activism. Guilty, evil Lib'rul!

But wait. Here's another story. Widely syndicated political cartoonist arrested for DWI, and its apparently his second alcohol related arrest in four months. Big news, right? Maybe not man bites dog, but certainly a mouth ful or two of ol' Hair-o-the dog, don't you think? Especially when the cartoon is apparently a popular fixture in the most local of the aforementioned local wraps? No story. And not a story, especially when that cartoonist is the creator of terminally unfunny "Mallard Fillmore," Edward Bruce Tinsley. One has to go all the way to the Indianapolis Star News to read about Tipsy Tinsley's Transgressing Trip. Okay, well a Google search picks up a few more, but nothing here in Dukester land, to be sure.

Now LOST doesn't write to praise Lampley or exonerate or excuse his alleged conduct. LOST writes to pose this question: Should the publicity surrounding a recognized public figure's legal trouble be proportionally related - either way - to that figure's political ideology, and it's fit (or lack thereof) with the perceived bent of a paper's readership? This would appear to be the case with both local reads - particularly the North County Times. A search of their paper's online archives reveals mention of Tinsley only in letters to the editor, and those are overwhelmingly in favor of praising the (apparently) carousing cartoonist. Call it both ways, NC Times. Let your readers know about the drunken duck.

WHO SAYS CONSERVATIVES DON'T DO CRACK?

Yep, the following piece, written by Larry Cudlow - who used to hang around with investment crackhead Jim Kramer - demonstrates the need for intervention, if ever such a thing existed. Entitled "John Edwards stil doesn't get it" it brazenly even implicitly refers to the author's psychogenic substance of choice.

So, John Edwards has thrown his hat into the presidential ring.

Unfortunately, he has a losing message.

His ultra-liberal approach will elicit only a small niche of support among the ultra lefties in the Democratic Party.

Democrats know (or at least, I think they know) that their success in the 2006 midterm election was largely a function of their best efforts to imitate Republicans. It was the conservative Blue Dog Democrats who were the tail successfully wagging the entire Democratic dog.

REALLY? War weariness and disgust with majority party corruption didn''t bring about the Congressional reversal?

That said, if John Edwards somehow managed to reverse this tide and win his party's nomination, he would lead his party to a crushing defeat in 2008.

For starters, he wants to cut and run from Iraq. Such an ill-conceived policy would leave this budding nation in shambles, with terrorists following us back to the United States. It would extinguish the candle of Iraq's democracy experiment -- an experiment that could still pay enormous dividends if the United States follows through with a bold, new troop surge strategy and a refurbished plan of economic reconstruction. These are the actions that will stabilize Baghdad and their democratically elected government, not cutting and running.

See,we just haven't killed and maimed enough people - ours or theirs. Like a store seeking its millionth customer, the sirens and bells and lights will go off, and BINGO, democracy will shine forth. Really, ya gotta beleive me, PLEASE

On the domestic side, Edwards fares just as badly. He's recycling an old page from the liberal Democratic playbook, saying that he wants to make fighting poverty the great moral issue of our time. He says he'll accomplish this by taxing the rich in order to help the poor. Oh, really?

Tax capital in order to create new jobs? Huh? Haven't we learned that you can't create new jobs (for the poor or anyone else) without healthy businesses and plentiful new business creation? And that businesses require capital in order to expand? And haven't we learned that punishing success through higher tax rates that make it pay less to work, save and invest will only reduce investment, jobs and prosperity?

Well, Edwards forgets that entrepreneurs, not government, create long-lasting jobs and growth. Rather than government spending, it is economic freedom, through a strong incentive structure inside a market economy, that opens the door to new opportunities so that the non-rich can get rich.


What's more, Edwards has failed to consider that poverty has fallen steadily for decades.

"Ya want fries with that? Or maybe rice with that Bullshit burrito? That's why all the formerly poor have bought houses, moved to the 'burbs, and joined the country clubs, right?

Pro-growth, market-oriented policies launched by Ronald Reagan BOW before the name of SAINT RONALD, KNAVE!25 years ago unleashed record wealth creation and economic growth that continues to this very day. In fact, economist Diana Furchtgott-Roth has shown that total compensation and consumer spending for all five income quintiles have steadily increased over the past three decades.

Furthermore, Alan Reynolds has shown that the percentage of households with income (adjusted for inflation) lower than $35,000 has actually fallen from 52.8 percent to 40.9 percent since 1967. (Wait -- it gets even better.) Households with a real income higher than $50,000 rose from 24.9 percent to a remarkable 44.1 percent.

In other words, the middle class is shrinking because America's families are getting wealthier. And the reason lower-class jobs are vanishing is not due to some Lou Dobbs protectionist conspiracy theory, but because our technologically driven, knowledge-based economic pie keeps expanding.

See, the FAMILIES are geting wealthier. Least the ones I know are. Its them single people and gay types that are poor. They die younger, too - disease, drinking and imitating movies like 'Jackass," so, the middle class is getting rich. Making everything we use in the same country holding a mass of our bond debt is a great thing that can last forever - or at least til I"m dead. After that, who gives a rats ass?

Edwards doesn't understand that without incentives to reward successful investing, entrepreneurship and risk-taking, everyone gets poorer -- right on down the line. Additional investment taxing is precisely the wrong policy to improve wealth or poverty.

Class warriors on the left are loathe to admit it, but America's poor are also a whole lot less poor when public assistance programs like Social Security, Medicaid, the earned income tax credit and other social benefit plans are included in the poverty data. But Edwards, and others of his misguided ilk, have a nostalgic yearning for the Great Society plans of the mid-1960s. You'll recall that these policies dramatically succeeded by raising poverty and reducing wealth. What a neat idea.

Yeah, see if you set the definition of "poverty" low enough - or just lower it periodicall to, um, keep pace with inflation, pretty soon all the poor are gone!

Edwards just launched his campaign in New Orleans with a plea to spend even more taxpayer dollars for that beleaguered city. Well, why not -- we've already thrown $120 billion bucks at it!

Yeah, we need that money for the big Democracy Surge in Iraq, damnit! If them NOLA people die of neglect, guess what - EVEN LESS POVERTY!!! WOO HOO.

Instead of Edwards' hackneyed, 1960s Great Society, anti-poverty approach to New Orleans, the United States and New Orleans would have been much better off had we made the entire city a tax-free zone -- with the tax burden limited only to what people spent or consumed, not what they invested or earned. This supply-side approach would have delivered swift currents of investment. It would have all but guaranteed a swift recovery.

See if them poor, wiped out folks who lost everything didn't have to pay taxes on the things they could now not afford to buy, those houses would have rebuilt themselves! Or at least, the Trumps of the world coulda moved in and built some really cool high rise condos in the Lower 9th Ward for 'em. And they'd be sooo affordable without them taxes.

But Edwards appears unable to grasp this. This class warrior fails to recognize that when you slam wealth, you raise poverty. Is that what we really want?

Yep, Larry, and when you slam rationality and truth, what do you raise?

BALANCING OUT THE UNINTENDED SILLINESS
Just across from the TV Cameras, in the foreground of the Norton SImon Museum grounds, some daring Quixotic soul has dangled an "IMPEACH" spell out sign, with one page per letter, in a perfect spot to get it featured in nearly every entry's close up. Yes, it's not likely to happen, but what ever it takes to keep our Chimperor on his heels and backpedaling these next two years is a good thing. Maybe he's forcing Condi to stick her hand in front of the TV every time it comes on. Nahhh, that's probably Snow's job. Condi and Dick are too busy developing invasion plans . . . .

. . . for whatever reason, LOST ain't sure why, but that UM fight song has always resonated better than Ohio State. Probably because in the late 60's and early 70's, when those schools were led by their respective misanthropic head coaches, Michigan always seemed to be the one that was a few points short of the Pasadena trip? Just a thought anyway. Happy New Year you readers of the upper midwest (both of you)!!!!

OH, GOOD LORD!

It's been years since LOST watched the Rose Parade on TV, but the irony of what just happened needed to be recorded. Some bleach blonde C & W star (Kristen Chenoweth?) just twanged out a C & W song to celebrate "Our Good Nature" (the good nature of man), followed immediately thereafter by a slaveringly praised (by the sycophantic TV hosts)low overflight of a B-2 Stealth Bomber. Good Nature, Indeed. The New Year can only get better from here, one hopes