God and Walmart in Arkansas - Oy vey!

From the Interfaith Coalition:

Wal-Mart Transforms Arkansas Town Into Multi-Faith Mini-Metropolis
“Residents of Benton County, in the northwest corner of Arkansas, are proud citizens of the Bible Belt. At last count, they filled 39 Baptist, 27 United Methodist and 20 Assembly of God churches.

For decades, a local hospital has begun meetings with a reading from the New Testament and the library has featured an elaborate Christmas display. Then the Wal-Mart Jews arrived.

Recruited from around the country as workers for Wal-Mart or one of its suppliers, hundreds of which have opened offices near the retailer's headquarters here, a growing number of Jewish families have become increasingly vocal proponents of religious neutrality in the county. They have asked school principals to rename Christmas vacation as winter break (many have) and lobbied the mayor's office to put a menorah on the town square (it did).

Wal-Mart has transformed small towns across America, but perhaps its greatest impact has been on Bentonville, where the migration of executives from cities like New York, Boston and Atlanta has turned this sedate rural community into a teeming mini-metropolis populated by Hindus, Muslims and Jews.” (New York Times, “In Wal-Mart's Home, Synagogue Signals Growth,” 06-20-06)

Democratic Panel Limits New Primary States

by HOLLY RAMER, Associated Press Writer

Published 12:13 pm PDT Thursday, June 22, 2006

CONCORD, N.H. (AP) - A Democratic National Committee panel considering changes to the presidential primary calendar voted Thursday to allow just two other states to join Iowa and New Hampshire in voting early in 2008.

If the full DNC adopts the recommendation, one state would be allowed to hold a caucus between Iowa's caucus and the New Hampshire primary, and a second would hold a primary shortly after the New Hampshire contest.

Supporters said limiting the new states to two instead of the four some had proposed would accomplish the goal of increasing racial and ethnic diversity without front-loading the calendar or diminishing the traditional roles of Iowa and New Hampshire. Both states have been criticized as unrepresentative of the country given their size and nearly all-white populations.

"I think the diversity we want to achieve in terms of race and union membership and geography and all those other things can be looked at from the context of achieving some, but not all, in the context of the extra primary, and some, but not all, in the context of the extra caucus," Ralph Dawson of New York said during a Rules and Bylaws Committee meeting by conference call. ....

But Mark Brewer of Michigan said the plan doesn't go far enough and suggested adding three or four other states.

"I don't think we're going to achieve the goals this reform is intended to achieve," he said.
Also voting against the proposal was Kathy Sullivan of New Hampshire, who said compressing four events into 18 days will force candidates to pick among them rather than participate in all four.

"I fully support the idea of having more diversity in the process. However, I don't believe this process is going to work to produce a field of candidates that will be running in all the states," she said.

She also noted that the plan could violate New Hampshire law, which requires the state's primary to be scheduled a week or more before any "similar election." The state could face sanctions if it doesn't comply with the Democrats' guidelines.

Ten states plus the District of Columbia have applied to fill the two slots: Alabama, Arizona, Arkansas, Colorado, Hawaii, Michigan, Mississippi, Nevada, South Carolina and West Virginia.

The committee will meet next month to select the two states.

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The Democrats needs to stop dancing around this stuff and just set up a phased series of primaries which each inludes a balanced lineup of large and small states. This could be partially regional in nature to hold down travel costs, but overall there should be a clear set schedule running from New Hampshire through June.

The current “frontloaded” system is a total wreck. Many of the candidates wade through snow drifts most of the way as every state back leaps everyone else to get to be first. Remember when Super Tuesday actually meant something? (Like giving Jesse Jackson frontrunner status, in one of the marvelous unintended consequences of Democratic political history.) The wholr thing is pretty much done by mid-March, leaving months and months and months of abolutely nothing until the summer conventions.

This is not rocket science. Everyone has a map. We see which states are big, which states are small, which states are industrial and which states are rural. Figure out a reasonable schedule and nag the relevant states to set it up. The Reps might even go along with it because a lot of them have a similar complaint about the process.

Let’s have campaigns instead of drag races. It’s a helluva lot more interesting when you get to run instead of roar. It builds drama, builds momentum and never quite know where it'll take you. And isn't that what politics is all about?

The Longest Day

Left - partygoers greet the summer solstice at Stonehenge.

Pagans have all the fun. They party when the sun comes up. They party when the sun goes down. They party when the moon comes up. They party when the moon goes down. They party when the days get shorter. They party when the days get longer.

It’s truly a testament to Christianity's sheer persistence that it won out over these folks in Europe.

Fortunately, kids still wanna have fun in, and all these pagan celebrations are just the thing for the frisky young partygoers in any era.

Summer solstice is a sad day for me. It means the days are getting shorter. It’s odd that the summer sun spends less and less time with you. Think of classic summer and you think of long hot nights which seem to go on forever. Maybe that’s part of the attraction. If the fun really starts after the sun goes down then maybe the ever shorter days are nature’s gifts to us.

Think spring and you think changing weather, rains and new flowers. Few think of long nights. But the day is as long on April 20 as it is on August 20. Yet even in Sacramento it’s rarely hot by that time. Despite the pagan calendar, to me, spring officially begins when daylight savings time arrives in early April. Spring to me means the start of long walks on pleasant evenings, a chance to reacquaint myself with neighbors and community. I even dedicate my first stroll after the clocks snap forward. It’s my own mental and spiritual spring fertility rite.

So now, after the summer solstice has come and gone, it’s BBQ in the back yard, meeting the neighbors at the community pool and taking in the sounds of the season on a quiet evening. Maybe it’s good that the days get shorter during summer. It reminds us that it doesn’t last forever.

Sign of the Times

Seen on a Sacramento area bumpersticker yesterday:

"I'm already against the next war."

Father's Day

It’s cool being a dad today. No one expects you to do anything so anything you do makes you look like Mother Theresa in boxers.

I loved driving around Oakland with Leroy, playing with him in the park, reading to him in the library and hanging with him in coffee shops. I got loads of “ooh, ahh!” looks, free snacks and coffee. “Be a dad and get stuff!” What a slogan.

Nothing beats changing a diaper in public if you’re a dad. There you are, swabbing poop off your son’s butt and people stare and nearly swoon over the sight. Since we’re still stuck in a social expectation that moms do all the work, dads get a handicap just for showing up.

The expectation is a pretty new thing. In a story I recall titled something like “The Short History of the Traditional Family”, the author noted that the experience of men leaving the home to travel far away to work is a consequence of the industrial age. Before the factories went up, most people like on farms and in small towns.

Dads simply didn’t have to go far to go to work. Farmers work at home, with the “office’ right outside the front door. Tradesmen, like blacksmiths or even professionals such as attorneys, kept offices at or near home. Dads could and often were instrumental in childrearing. Women often had to help bring in money too, in some way, so parenting had to be shared. Only when the industrial age arrived could many families afford to keep mom unemployed and at home.

For today’s dads who are working back toward the real “olden days”, not the crap we see on 1950’s and ‘60s teevee, it means a donation of latte or French fries as they work back to the real role of dads down through the ages. Don’t tell anyone that there’s nothing odd or unique about it. At four bucks a throw, a nice latte tastes best when it’s free.

The World (yawn) Cup

The photo to the left of two passionate supporters of Sweden's World Cup soccer team is all you need to know about why the US will never take the Cup as seriously as the rest of the planet. We simply can't meet this standard of devotion.

Not that I care. I honestly don’t care. I’m sick and tired of being told that I should care because Botswana, the Ukraine and Honduras care. If they want a world soccer championship so bad that it causes hometown women so cavort shamelessly then hey, cool. More power to them. But that doesn’t mean I have to care.

Soccer to me is bunch of guys kicking a ball and kicking a ball and kicking a ball until someone finally scores. It’s like hockey in that whenever anyone does score it’s so surprising that the announcer has a stroke, the players react with stunned disbelief and any player who does it more than three times gets nominated for sainthood in any Catholic country.

It's dull. Extremely dull. And unlike the Swedes and Brazilians, we'll never have the kind of fans who could make it a heckuva lot more interesting. Even the Poles know how to play. Their hooligans wanted to organize a World Cup ass-kicking tournament, my thug vs. yours, and make the best set of brass knuckles win.

Soccer looks like a sport which is a heckuva lot more fun to play than watch. I’ve had friends who play on the weekend and come in on Monday looking like they’ve gone to the mat with a horny mountain goat. But for me, yawn.

I write this as a local Sacramento sports writer goes on record against a local station choosing to honor its contract with the WNBA champion Sacramento Monarchs over the US vs. Italy game at the same time. Chill, the station says, we’ll run the game on tape delay after the Monarchs game. Horrors, says the writer. This is World Cup soccer and you’re letting lady basketball players trump ‘em?

Yes, because there are still probably more people around here who would rather watch ladies dribbling than Eyeties embarrassing Americans in a game few Americans really care about. Welcome to the real world of sports marketing, dude.

It’s not that I’ve never been exposed to soccer. I grew up near San Francisco’s Balboa Soccer Stadium, where marvelously named teams like the Hibernians and Sons of Italy took on Guadalajara and the Arab Americans. You could tell who played who after each game by the bottles left behind. Rose and Dos Equis meant the Sons vs. Guadalajara. Soccer was offered during gym class. But as a spectator sport I’d rather watch lacrosse. And I really don’t like lacrosse either.

So World, have your Cup. Enjoy your festive womenfolk. Party on like it’s 2099.

Just don’t bother me with it. I’m waiting for the Giants vs. Tigers in the 2006 World Series.

San Francisco Uber Alles

A shameless cross-post, but relevant:

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By Garrison Keillor

Jun. 07, 2006 / People who live in mud huts should not throw mud, especially if it comes from their own roofs. As Scripture says, don't point to the speck in your neighbor's eye when you have a piece of kindling in your own.

I see by the papers that the Republicans want to make an issue of Nancy Pelosi in the congressional races this fall: Would you want a San Francisco woman to be Speaker of the House? Will the podium be repainted in lavender stripes with a disco ball overhead? Will she be borne into the chamber by male dancers with glistening torsos and wearing pink tutus? After all, in the unique worldview of old elephants, San Francisco is a code word for g-a-y, and after assembling a record of government lies, incompetence and disaster, the party in power hopes that the fear of g-a-y-s will pull it through in November.

Running against Nancy Pelosi, a woman who comes from a district where there are known gay persons, is a nice trick, but it does draw attention to the large shambling galoot who is speaker now, Tom DeLay's enabler for years, a man who, judging by his public mutterances, is about as smart as most high school wrestling coaches.

For the past year, Dennis Hastert has been two heartbeats from the presidency. He is a man who seems content just to have a car and driver and three square meals a day. He has no apparent vision beyond the urge to hang onto power. He has succeeded in turning Congress into a branch of the executive branch. If Mr. Hastert becomes the poster boy for the Republican Party, this does not speak well for them as the Party of Ideas.

People who want to take a swing at San Francisco should think twice.

Yes, the Irish coffee at Fisherman's Wharf is overpriced, and the bus tour of Haight-Ashbury is disappointing (where are the hippies?), but the Bay Area is the cradle of the computer and software industry, which continues to create jobs for our children. The iPod was not developed by Baptists in Waco , Texas . There may be a reason for this.

Creative people thrive in a climate of openness and tolerance, since some great ideas start out sounding ridiculous. Creativity is a key to economic progress. Authoritarianism is stifling. I don't believe that Mr. Hewlett and Mr. Packard were gay, but what's important is:

In San Francisco, it doesn't matter so much. When the cultural Sturmbannfuhrers try to marshal everyone into straight lines, it has consequences for the economic future of this country.

Meanwhile, the Current Occupant goes on impersonating a president.

Somewhere in the quiet leafy recesses of the Bush family, somebody is thinking, "Wrong son. Should've tried the smart one." This one's eyes don't quite focus. Five years in office and he doesn't have a grip on it yet. You stand him up next to Tony Blair at a press conference and the comparison is not kind to Our Guy. Historians are starting to place him at or near the bottom of the list. And one of the basic assumptions of American culture is falling apart: the competence of Republicans.

You might not have always liked Republicans, but you could count on them to manage the bank. They might be lousy tippers, act snooty, talk through their noses, wear spats and splash mud on you as they race their Pierce-Arrows through the village, but you knew they could do the math. To see them produce a ninny and then follow him loyally into the swamp for five years is disconcerting, like seeing the Rolling Stones take up lite jazz. So here we are at an uneasy point in our history, mired in a costly war and getting nowhere, a supine Congress granting absolute power to a president who seems to get smaller and dimmer, and the best the Republicans can offer is San Franciscophobia? This is beyond pitiful. This is violently stupid.

It is painful to look at your father and realize the old man should not be allowed to manage his own money anymore. This is the discovery the country has made about the party in power. They are inept. The checkbook needs to be taken away. They will rant, they will screech, they will wave their canes at you and call you all sorts of names, but you have to do what you have to do.

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Again, ain't it funny that the people most afeared of the homos don't have any themselves? And that the places most likely to be hit by terrorists, like San Francisco, object the most to the "war on terror?"

School's Out

Whew. I never knew the end of the semester could come with such a rush. And I don't even go to school.

Last Friday was the last day of my son Leroy's second grade year. It was a good year, too. His record card was good, he's got a crew of buddies who want to get together over the summer and the P.E. teacher still calls him a model student. So why am I pooped?

I feel like I've just left my second job. Managing getting him out of the house, getting him into bath and bad and everything in between is a lotta work. A whole lotta work. The challenge of doing it tag team with your working wife is that you gotta manage the tag teaming on top of it. Someone's gotta keep track of whether the field trip form was returned, and who's attending the teacher's meeting and whether his library book is in his backpack to be returned to school. Oh yeah, today's kids get to bring a snack to school to eat during recess. Leroy helps us remember that in the morning.

Then we're off to school, a three block walk with the (literal) girl next door, a highly sociable kindergartener Leroy's been friends with for two and half years. It's like herding cats.

Walking to school got me involved in a local project to get more kids to walk and bike to school. I grew up in San Francisco, and walking was -the- way we got to school. My momma wouldn't looked at me liked I was nuts if I suggested she had some moral obligation to drive me to school, which was around ten blocks away, over a freeway and through a busy intersection near a BART regional transit station.

I wouldn't have asked her anyway. Heck, I'd miss the fun of walking in and walking back home with my own crew. But that was then. Today, kids more than not are driven in by parents, often on the way to work. It's rush, rush, rush, then drive, drive, drive and then start the school day in the middle of a small traffic jam outside school. It ain't right.

So some parents and I started the Bannon Creek Traffic Tamers to get more kids to walk and bike to school. We held events, put out a newsletter and got teachers to help us bring the message into the classroom. But it was work.

So now, summer is here, and the living is easy. Or easier. Now it's just getting Leroy to his summer camps, two weeks at his school year aftercare, a week at church camp, a week at a rock climbing camp (fake rocks) and a week at a Zoo camp. Nothing much to manage.

In The Year 2026

The Republican president, in the second year of his second term and needing a win, decided to take on immigration policy reform, to win a victory for his “legacy”, something to be remembered by. Presidents usually don’t have much political capital to spend at this point, so a win here would go far in the eyes of the pundits and historians.

The proposed measure was built around amnesty for illegal immigrants currently in the country and increased sanctions for employers who hired illegal immigrants in the future. Many conservatives thought it rewarded illegal behavior and worried about an army of papists overrunning the land. Liberals generally applauded, but felt it didn’t go far enough and worried about employer sanctions justifying workplace discrimination against legal residents. The proposal passed with enough cross party support to override these political concerns.

This isn’t a crystal ball’s look into 2007. It’s a look back to 1986.

We’ve been here before. We’ll no doubt be here again twenty years from now too.The forces pulling at immigration from down south is strong. It’s the only place where the First and Third Worlds live in such close proximity and along such a long border. There’s nothing natural about the border, except a murky ditch along the eastern end which came in handy when drawing lines after the Mexican War but has rarely been much of a hindrance to people going in either direction over it. People are going to come. There’s no stopping it.

So I figure that the “immigration reform” debate is just something we’ll have to put up with every generation. As the economy grows it will require cheap labor, and cheap labor will come to meet the need. Eventually, this will well up into a national debate, frightening many and encouraging others. We’ll have rallies, angry militias and congressional proposals. We’ll come up with a new amnesty, new requirements and sanctions for employers who hire (but unless we adopt a verifiable form of electronic national work I.D, it won’t mean anything) and we’re set for another generation.

So when my son Leroy is watching this play out again in 2026, I can yawn from my rocking chair and say, “been there, done that…twice.” And tell him to mark his calendar for 2046 when he too can see it again.

Family Ties

Ohio candidate's sons cost him county race

The Associated Press
Published 4:55 am PDT
Thursday, May 4, 2006 CASTALIA, Ohio

(AP) - You're both grounded!

Two voting-age sons of a northern Ohio candidate didn't go to the polls Tuesday, and their father's race ended in a tie.

William Crawford, trying to retain his seat on the central committee of the Erie County Democratic Party, and challenger Jean Miller each received 43 votes in the primary balloting.

Officials plan to conduct a recount, but the race may have to be settled by coin flip, said David Giese, the county's Democratic Party chairman and an elections board member.

Crawford was able to laugh about it Wednesday, but he said his sons are going to be getting an earful for skipping the election.

"Oh they will, let me tell you," Crawford said.

Son Jim lives across the street from Crawford's home in Castalia, about 45 miles southeast of Toledo, and son Andy is a college student who lives at home. Both are registered Democrats.

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This is what Dad gets for not getting his sons those race cars they wanted for Xmas back when.

"Revenge is a dish best served cold." - Noonian Khan

The Summer of 1970

A letter to SF Chronicle reporter Steve Tady, aka The Betting Fool:

The Fool Wrote:

A MAYS-ING MEMORY:

The year was 1970. I was getting close to reporting to sixth grade at Portola grammar school in Los Altos, but I went to a ton of Giants games that summer.

On July 18th, I saw Willie Mays poke a grounder to left past Montreal's Coco LaBoy for his 3,000th hit. Ron Hunt was hit by a pitch, Gaylord Perry twirled a masterful four-hitter and less than 30,000 witnessed it all.

The Giants' stock lineup for much of that summer was Bonds-Hunt-Mays-McCovey-Henderson-Hart/Gallagher-Dietz-Fuentes-Lanier. Perry and Marichal were backed by Frank Reberger, Ron Bryant and Skip Pitlock.

Happy birthday, Mr. Mays.

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Dear Fool,

My stars. I remember this game and this year. I was twelve and this was the first year I was old enough to follow the boxscore and the rest of the league. NBC’s “Game of the Week”, Saturdays at 11 am, had meaning. And how could you leave out Frank Johnson, Bobby Taylor and Russ Gibson?

This was the first game I attended on my own, the second game overall (my first was a trip for school crossing guards in ’68). Willie was set to get his 3,000th hit. I had my two younger brothers with me and we were going to have fun at the game like the grown folks. Boy, was I excited.

Except that I never saw the game. General admission tickets sold out and I didn’t have enough money for reserved. So we left. I remember hearing the cheer go up as Willie got his hit. I remember walking down Jamestown to get back on the 15 bus to go home as one of the worst feelings I’ve ever had as a kid. I remember my father asking me why I was home in the seventh inning with the Giants up 10 – nothing or something. I remember swearing that, as God was my witness I’d never miss another game like that as a kid.

So for the next couple of years, esp 1971, when the Giants won the division, I doubled the price of a seat when I asked my folks for a ticket to the game. Sometimes I ended up in general admission and wandered over to reserved (this before the ushers started speaking German and waving nightsticks at morally suspect migrating bleacher creatures). Sometimes I sat in reserved, out of the sun, and ate the sandwich I brought in to save a little money. But I always had enough for a seat.

Thanks for resurrecting the memory. Honestly, those early years of mine at the ‘Stick were great times, and recalling this game, as poor as it was, was a key part of it all. Thanks again. Sincerely.

'Trek' Revisited

From Variety.com

Trekkies have a new leader 'Star' treatment for J.J.
By DAVE MCNARY

J.J. Abrams is becoming the next Gene Roddenberry.

Paramount is breathing life into its "Star Trek" franchise by setting "Mission: Impossible III" helmer J.J. Abrams to produce and direct the 11th "Trek" feature, aiming for a 2008 release. Damon Lindelof and Bryan Burk, Abrams' producing team from "Lost," also will produce the yet-to-be-titled feature.

Project, to be penned by Abrams and "MI3" scribes Alex Kurtzman and Roberto Orci, will center on the early days of seminal "Trek" characters James T. Kirk and Mr. Spock, including their first meeting at Starfleet Academy and first outer space mission.

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The good news is, the Trek world is returning to me. The bad news is that it's returning the wrong way.

The series' chief problem is that it keeps trying to recapture Kirk/Spock and Co. instead of creatively expanding the Trek universe.

"Voyager" tried to give us Captain Kirk in a skirt. "Enterprise" tried to give us the whole original series crew redrawn, including the Vulcan science officer second-in-command. (Who did look much better in tight outfights than Leonard Nimoy.) Both failed.

"TNG" and "DS9" gave us something a lot more original. Although still TOS-style planet-of-the-week adventure for the most part, the complex characters which made up the crew was a refreshing change from the generally expected, up to having the brash American play second fiddle to a French captain. It worked, and extremely well.

I gave "Emterprise" points for trying to be fresh, and in its last season it actually got there, but by then it was too late.

What's fresh with the proposed movie? Little if anything.

Let's start with where everyone in the TNG/DS9 universe is right now. The TNG movies, with the notable exception of the one with the Borg and Zephram Cochrane in post-WW3 Montana, made the same mistake the TOS flicks did. No one went anywhere. Here you have a shipload of assertive, dynamic people and no one ever gets promoted or transferred. Everyone ends up waddling around covering up middle aged spread and grey touches in the hair. It's silly.

The cast should have changed. A few characters go, a few new charqcters come in, with the old characters referenced in the story for continuity's sake, and to play on the "where are they now?" angle.

Here's LaForge coming in to the scene in command of his Starfleet Engineering ship, here's Admiral Picard in charge of a major diplomatic initiative working with Captains Riker of the Enterprise and Data of some other ship. Meanwhile, former Bajoran Colonel, now Starfleet Commander Kira uncovers evidence of a plot involving renegade Romulans and Cardassians to assassinate Federation President Kathryn Janeway, and has to rely on Cardassian political security chief Elim Garak to deal with it, but Garak, it seems, has his own agenda. Bring it all together without looking back. Time, man, it marches on. Yet it rarely does in a fantasy universe where time travel adventure seems to happen to everyone almost all the time. It makes no sense.

But no, we're going to get Kirk and Spock in diapers, played by actors who certainly won't be Shatner and Nimoy, which will make it laughable as well as disappointing in terms of creative direction.

Sigh. I'd become a Battlestar Galactica freak but it's too dark for just before bedtime. I'm too old for nightmares. My saving grace is my TiVo and the pick of five hours of Star Trek's DS9 and TNG I can record from every weekday for my tuck-myself-in cup of warm milk and fantasy. While the cinema may let me down, cable, where nothing ever truly dies, still knows what I want. It's there for me.

Written in honor of TV Turnoff Week, a despicable un-Trekkie event which the Articles of Federation compel me to turn off and ignore.

Down Home Politics

COMMENTARY: Utah Senator’s Contributions Come From Alcohol, Tobacco, Gambling?“ (from the Interfaith Alliance)

For almost 30 years, Orrin G. Hatch has been an influential representative of Mormon-dominated Utah. Yet he has accepted campaign contributions from wealthy sinners in the alcohol, tobacco and gambling industries -- a fact that may surprise some residents.

These have not been token contributions. We're talking serious money, enough to put Hatch among the top recipients from these industries. In 2000, Hatch received $20,500 from the tobacco industry, putting him in eighth place in the U.S. Senate that year. This year, he received $17,000, putting him in fifth place (but, of course, the year is young).

Representatives of the beer, wine and liquor industries gave Hatch $34,600 in 2000 and $26,000 this year, putting him in 10th and fifth places respectively. The gambling industry contributed $19,182 in 2000, putting Hatch in sixth place in the Senate for gaming dollars… "Religion need not become an issue for public servants because what really matters is how one casts his votes while in office. And sometimes personal beliefs must be set aside in the spirit of compromise, or as a matter of law.” (Daily Herald, “Hatch's donors of ill repute,” 04-21-06)

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Good point. As the old Texas saying goes: if you can't drink their beer, smoke their cigars and (fornicate with) their women and still vote against them, you don't deserve to be in politics.

FYI, here's Hatch's voting record, via Project Vote Smart. Among other things, he was consistent in his love of agonizing misery, either through alcoholic poisoning or debilitating illness, expressed through voting down funds for AIDS drug assistance in 2005.

What a man.

The Fall (GOP-style)

There will be calls that the party has lost its way. The party, we will hear, has lost its way. It has lost its connection to the American public, and must suffer the consequences if it doesn’t find new vision, a new commitment to its principles. There will be calls for new leaders to step forward to re-ignite the fire of principle tied to action, to build a new path to political glory. Or else.

The funny part is that they’ll be talking about the Republicans this time.

As a result, the GOP race for the White House looks a helluva lot more entertaining than the Democrats’.

The Dems will have the usual lineup of several moderates, and one or two fire eaters from the left. One of the fire eaters will catch fire with the activist wing, but primary voters will go for “electability” and select someone who will then spend the rest of the year running as far from the fire eaters as possible. And people wonder why MoveOn.org is so successful.

The GOP, on the other hand, will be looking at an intriguing battle for the presumed soul (cold and dark as it is, it’s still in there somewhere) of the party’s principles and nothing’s more brutal than a holy war among holy warriors. Fiscal hawks will fight war against chickenhawks; social conservatives against “limited government” conservatives; moderates will call for reason and get bum rushed out of the door. It’ll be bloody; it’ll be cruel and for a liberal Democrat, just loads of fun.

The skirmishing has already begun. George Will has written extensively on the party’s need to re-affirm its principles. In 1995 he gushed over the radical changes the House Republicans would bring. Political newbies for the most part, they didn’t have the “go along to get along” personal ties to the Washington establishment to hold them down. Oh no, they were going to get things done, or get un-done as the case would be.

Ah, but then … temptation, sweet temptation.

Like all folks who feel they’ve been deprived of power for far too long, the soft chairs of the Big House proved too soft for them to resist. All those billions and billions of nice federal dollars just sitting there. Why shouldn’t the hard working men and women who command American business get their fair share? After all, they’re so generous in patriotically answering our call for support for campaign dollars to win power; they’ve certainly shown their public spirit. Service needs to be rewarded, and business certainly knows how to spend those billions and billions better than mere public employees could.

Perhaps the new GOP logo should be a serpentine Halliburton standing in Eden’s garden handing a nice golden(for money) apple to a naked elephant.

What the GOP doesn’t see is that the larger issue on spending and taxes is the larger issue we Californians are forced to look at. Simply put, Americans like more services than they’d like to pay for. The public service pie doesn’t get bigger because it’s being forced on a poor undesiring public. It’s the collective wishes of what that public wants. So you have even conservative wingnuts like my nearby Rep. John Doolittle saying that the GOP should be appreciated for supposedly holding down spending but don’t say we’re throwing the widows and orphans out on the street because we’ve actually expanded funding for them.

In short, people like spending on widows and orphans. They just don’t want to see the bill. That’s the conundrum in a democratic society where one party constantly hammers at the social contract, yet underneath it all, people still want it because they fundamentally recognize that we need it. Years of GOP hammering at the social insurance network has ended up tying the party into an ideological and governance knot it can’t get out of.

This is why it’s easier to be a nice tax-and-spend liberal. We don’t have to go through all this. Not that I have any sympathy for the Republicans on this one. They brung it on themselves. If they were true and pure they’d tell the public that there’s a gap between our hearts and our pocketbooks and that we need to find ways to bring them into harmony. But pounding on “government”, even when it’s them, and giving tax breaks to the rich are too tempting short term gains, and we see how weak the Republican spirit is in dealing with temptation.

So I get to watch them twist and turn and punch and kick and scream and shout over the next couple of years. Who knows, they may still end up back in the White House in 2009. Odder things have happened. But they’ll be picking over their own scabs after it's all over, which will serve as my consolation prize. I win, whether my party wins or loses.

Rendering Unto Caeser

COMMENTARY: Jesus Was Original Proponent Of Church/State Separation
“There is no such thing as a "Christian politics." If it is a politics, it cannot be Christian. Jesus told Pilate: "My reign is not of this present order. If my reign were of this present order, my supporters would have fought against my being turned over to the Jews. But my reign is not here" (John 18:36). Jesus brought no political message or program. This is a truth that needs emphasis at a time when some Democrats, fearing that the Republicans have advanced over them by the use of religion, want to respond with a claim that Jesus is really on their side. He is not. He avoided those who would trap him into taking sides for or against the Roman occupation of Judea. He paid his taxes to the occupying power but said only, "Let Caesar have what belongs to him, and God have what belongs to him" (Matthew 22:21). He was the original proponent of a separation of church and state.” (New York Times, “Christ Among the Partisans,” 04-09-06)

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Mr. Wills makes some interesting points in his commentary. But this isn’t a question of church/state separation. It’s a matter of political philosophy.

A personal decision to go down and volunteer in the storefront soup kitchen down on Skid Row because it’s what Jesus would do is just as valid as if the decision were based on Rousseau’s notion of the social contract or if it’s a nice day and there’s nothing on teevee, so why not? The underlying value which motivates the charitable act is a personal decision everyone has and should have the right to come to by whatever route they see fit. That’s one of the underlying foundations of the First Amendment’s protection of both religion and expression.

That’s the reason both protections sit on top of each other in the Constitution. There is what you value, one’s personal religion, so to speak; it can metaphysics or simple personal charity. There is also the consequent political expression which comes out if it. It can’t and shouldn’t be separated. How and what basis one reaches decisions regarding social and political behavior is a deeply personal matter, and must be respected in a free, democratic society. The Constitution does just that.

The issue is purely where, how and when the government should act for the common good in response to individual and collective expressions of values. The best guideline comes from Revolutionary War propagandist Thomas Paine, who held that your freedom to swing your arms ends at the tip of his nose. The government has the right and duty to step in and protect his nose but no further. Everything must be measured against this guideline. Is the act under question a matter of “arm swinging” or “nose defense?”

Now, proponents of various restrictions, including some feminists who hate girly mags, build ridiculous links between a specific act and social harm. The Socialist Right has us all clusterloving squirrels in the public square on Wednesday if gays are allowed to marry on Tuesday. The answer is just to rebut such silliness with sound argument. But that is the proper guideline to use.

Democracy is essentially an agreement to disagree without killing anyone over the disagreement. Americans have been remarkably tolerant politically over the life of the nation (yeah, we’ve had a couple of Red Scares and all but the overall record is pretty good compared to the rest of what was once called the First World) and I think that a lot of it has to do with the religious freedom provided by the First Amendment. When you agree to disagree on God and the nature of reality, disagreeing on who should serve in the state legislature and whether the road should go this way or that is a lot easier to handle.

I don’t dis the Socialist Right for bringing religion into the discussion. The Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr, did that and quite well. And we liberals right properly consider him a hero. I dis them because they’re ideological hypocrites regarding the role of the state and because they don’t see that they’re just being duped by Republican and conservative forces in a massive play to distract the public from what’s really at stake. Most of their ideas are silly too, but I can handle that as long as they aren’t allowed to implement any of them.

So, in the ongoing war over whether or not God and Jesus belong in the public square, I say that that’s not the question. They question is how far we let them swing their arms after they get there.

Now Batting: A Nice Colored Guy

I don’t think Barry Bonds is being picked on just because he’s black. I don’t think the feds and the media and all that are snickering to themselves, “we’ll get that black guy, heh, heh, heh …”.

I do think he’s getting more heat because he’s black, though.

Not directly. Indirectly.

Barry Bonds is an immensely self-involved critter who insists on having it his own way and living by his own rules. White guys can do this and get away with this because it makes ‘em look like cowboys, rugged individualists, real men, guys who do it –their- way.

Black guys act this way and it’s cluck, cluck, tsk, tsk, what kind of role model is that for Tyrone in the ‘hood, oh for shame …

There’s just no room for the black cowboy in our culture or any kind of “rebel, I do it my way” black image. If you’re black and a public figure you’re supposed to be warm, approachable, charitable, gosh darn it, someone the Average (White) Person wouldn’t mind living next door to. Dr. Cliff Huxtable, in other words.

There’s no middle ground. If you’re not Dr. Huxtable you’re Thug Rapper Deelite, a potential threat to all that’s good and decent. And what about poor Tyrone in the ‘hood?

Barry knows this, I can tell. That’s probably one reason why he can blow off the media criticism. He knows it wouldn’t be nearly as rough if he was Scooter Bonds instead of Barry.

Opening Day

One of the many things I just love about Northern California is that we know how to keep things in proper perspective. We know what's really important.

From the local papers, covering the SF Giants Opening Day:

"Anything short of murder or kidnapping", said Bay Area attorney Peter Rendstrom, echoing the sentiments of the majority of the fans in attendance "and we're going to support one of our own. If you're a Giants fan, you're a Barry fan."

"They ain't talking about rape or selling crack, so it ain't nothing", says another fan.

Cary Belzner, 38, was holding one of those signs up as he walked around the outfield wall. It read: "Keep Barry -- trade the media." The word "media" had an asterisk beside it ...,

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Play Ball.

April Fool

So my seven-year-old son decided to play a late April Fool's prank on dear old Dad.

What did he do?

He changed my password on my Windows XP login.

I sat there tapping away at the keyboard over and over, wondering what the heck happened.

He started laughing. He shouted "April Fool!" and laughed some more.

So I went in to his login and took away administrator privileges.

That'll show him. Spare the rod, spoil the child, the Good Book says.

Groupthink

There were three ATM’s in a row on the side of the bank, situated on the side of a busy community shopping center parking lot. There was one line of average folks waiting to use them. I noticed that the ATM in the middle of the three wasn’t being used, although it was clearly open for business. So I took my place in line, fourth from the front and awaited further developments.

One of the ATM users finished his work, put away his wallet and strolled off. The next person in line promptly took his place at the ATM on the right side of the three. The person in line behind him took one step forward and waited for another ATM to become available. The unattended ATM in the middle still sat there, waiting. The new person in the front of the line made no move toward it, nor did the person behind her make any comment about the open and available ATM.

The ATM on the left became then available, and the aforementioned person moved up to it and started to do business. The ATM to the right of them, the one in the middle of the three, was still unattended. The next first person in line made no move toward it.

The person at the left ATM got some quick cash and stepped off. The person in front of me stepped forward and took her place. I stepped forward to the middle ATM, entered my card and started punching buttons. The person at the ATM to my left looked at me curiously, looked at the ATM, then went back to finish what she was doing with a quizzical look on her face.

As I tucked my own wallet away, the person who stood behind me in line said, “Hmm, I thought that ATM was broken 'cause no one else was using it.” He looked at it, looked at me and then stared at the ATM's paneling, including the green "open" tag, even more closely, pondering the many apparently deep mysteries of what he'd just seen and experienced.

I’m just glad no one in front of me in the line wanted to walk in front one of the many cars driving by. It would have been ugly.

Where I Hope to Be in Fifty Years

Toward the end of the service, the Minister asked, "How many of you have forgiven your enemies?" About 80% held up their hands.

The Minister then repeated his question. All responded this time, except one small, elderly Lady.

"Mrs. Jones?" asked the Minister. "Are you not willing to forgive your enemies?"

"I don't have any," she replied, smiling sweetly.

"Mrs. Jones, that is very unusual. How old are you?"

"Ninety-eight," she replied. "Okay, Mrs. Jones, would you please come down in front and tell usall how a person can live ninety-eight years an not have an enemy in the world?"

The little sweetheart of a lady tottered down the aisle, faced the congregation, and said:

"I outlived the sons of bitches."