COCKROACHES

When LOST was in college, there were many compromises, and a whole lot of benefits. Among the latter was a vastly shorter list of monthly obligations - most apartments came with utilities during the college years, so beyond school, books and food - expensive but not "monthly," per se, there was rent, and a phone bill to pay. Those were the days.

Among the compromises on the west side of Los Angeles were cockroaches. They were everywhere in those years. The only satisfaction LOST derived out of the plague was confidence in the belief that every one of those Holmby Hills/Westwood/Brentwood/Bel-Air mansions ringing the campus suffered the same affliction. Nothing eradicates them. They can live in sewer environments, thick with hydrogen sulfide and all sorts of other unspeakables too disgusting to contemplate. They are impervious to microwave radiation, and - rumor has it- can survive nuclear blasts. And they breed, my how they breed.

There is one thing they loathe. Light. It will send them scattering back to their corners and crevices quicker than a garlic flavored crucifix would eradicate Dracula. Not dead, just contained. Not gone, but restrained.

The State of Ohio had a large cockroach a few years ago, named Kenneth Blackwell. He was the Secretary of State for Ohio, and the state chairman of the Bush Re-election campaign in 2004. The same year that there were innumerable anomalies in Ohio's elections - all the way down to the precinct levels - long lines in urban areas caused by fewer voting machines, Diebold voting machines with serious reliability problems, and magical precincts with more votes than voters. All overseen by the Secretary of State who chaired the re-election campaign for one of the candidates - nope, no conflict there.

Flash forward to 2011. Blackwell is not gone. But he needs a little light to shine upon him. At the recent "Faith and Freedom Coalition Conference," put on by Ralph Reed and blathering toe-fetishist Dick Morris, Blackwell appeared and spoke to supporters, as he is eyeing a Senate run. In a piece run by Slate.com http://www.slate.com/id/2296313/pagenum/all/ , here's what Blackwell had to say,

" On Saturday, former Ohio Secretary of State Ken Blackwell spent a little time away from the podium to meet activists and talk to reporters. He runs Reed's affiliate in Ohio; he's thinking about running for U.S. Senate. He was the only Republican in that position who said what the social conservatives believe.

'Clean water is important to us,' said Blackwell. 'Decent housing is important to us. But they're not rights. And we have to begin to say that what's important is that we in a rational way are able to reform these programs in a way to save them. And, yes, if it means that somewhere down the line individuals have to make sacrifices, because the rationalization of the system means we save it, but we are also doing it in a more efficient way. … I don't think too many Americans will object to that. At the end of the day we're going to get back to making sure we're in a position to finance the wars in which we engage. Does that mean we can do that without sacrificing? No. We have to make sacrifices. But what's more important? Our freedom and security or the gluttony of the federal government?'

The world according to Cockroach Blackwell. We don't need no stinking regulations to protect Americans from polluted water or unscrupulous lenders or landlords - those gluttonous bureaucrats be damned! We do need cash for wars. Lots of cash, for any wars to promote "freedom and security." Shine the light people, Shine the light.

FORTY THREE YEARS AGO . . . REMEMBER



June 5, 1968, just after midnight, one of the brightest stars in the progressive spectrum was senselessly snuffed out and taken from our country, from our society, from our government.
(reprinted and updated from 2009)
Robert Kennedy is almost a forgotten man in mainstream America now, a footnote on a page about his brother's presidency for some, a cameo appearance in a TV movie about Hoffa or McCarthy, or the Cuban Missile Crisis for others. He's been gone almost as long as he was here, only for a time, among his bretheren. Even this horrific anniversary has been obscured to some degree by the death of the conservative's modern day icon, Ronald Reagan.

Robert Kennedy was a real-life story of redemption, a real-life, modern day Ebeneezer Scrooge. He was himself transformed from a ruthless pursuer of perceived wrong doers and those who would attack or antagonize his brother, to a statesman who cared about the poor, the impoverished, the hopeless in ways that few politicians have since. He made enemies among the more vocal of progressives of his time for declining to immediately challenge LBJ for the 1968 nomination and on the disastrous course in Vietnam, only to jump in after McCarthy showed Johnson's vulnerability in New Hampshire; vulnerability that was itself the product of the American public's disgust with the Vietnam war. But he made up for lost time, and ultimately paid the dearest of prices for his efforts.

Given what happened to his brother, his campaigning was absolutely fearless. Many of his campaign events featured him standing on the back of open cars, riding slowly through neighborhoods of exuberant people, eager to touch him and shake his hand. So many seem convinced that his spirit and drive, and energy and charisma would help carry this country out of the Southeast Asian .quagmire, and on to better things and greater prosperity.

To watch the footage of that somber funeral train snaking from New York to Washington that funereal day, and view the sea of humanity in silent witness, was profoundly poignant. Thousands of ordinary-honorary pallbearers showed no regard for individual differences, and instead were united solely by the depth of their collective grief. In their sense of loss they showed appreciation for what the man was able to inspire in millions - an ability to emphasize common goals over specific differences. Scant few national leaders have succeeded in this effort to any significant degree since; President Obama has tried to scale this peak, but has not yet shown the depth of the wit, wisdom, and willingness to inspire people to emphasize unity over division.

Tonight, if you are so inclined, say a prayer for the soul of this decent man who was ripped away from us. Say one for our Nation, so that we will one day soon be blessed with a batch of public servants with Robert Kennedy's sense of social justice and yearning to improve our country as a whole. And most of all, let us all make sure that we will recognize such people when they enter the public arena, and support them as fervently as humanly possible.