[WARNING: THIS POST CONTAINS SPORTS-RELATED TOPICS THAT MAY CAUSE INJURY TO CERTAIN READERS.]
I like sports. But I'm not such a fanatic that I go overboard. Karen, bless her heart, may think otherwise, considering she's accused me of having bromances with guys at sporting events when all I'm doing is talking with them about, well, sports. But there are certain things I've never done and probably will never do.
For example:
I've never painted my face or body with my teams' colors.
I've never taken my shirt off in arctic weather at a sporting event.
I've never played hookey either from school or work for Opening Day.
I've never bid outrageous sums -- or any sums, frankly -- for sports memorabilia.
I've never stood in line to get an athlete's autograph.
I've never gone to Vegas for March Madness.
I've never paid over face-value for must-have tickets.
I've never gone to a victory parade.
I've never gotten a tattoo of one of my teams' logos.
I've never had season-tickets.
I've never attended a celebrity auction.
I've never had trading cards.
I've never bought sports memorabilia.
I've never driven over fifty miles to go to a game.
I've never bet on a sports outcome.
I don't root for teams just because they're successful.
I'm a Cubs' fan.
(c) 2013 The Truxton Spangler Chronicles
Tuesday, November 26, 2013
Monday, November 25, 2013
Celebrities and the First Amendment
I saw another celebrity political effort this weekend, this time directed against fracking. Fracking, for those not in the know, is the fracturing of rock by pressurized liquid. Critics cite a number of negative impacts on the environment. The benefits are, of course, increased natural gas production which, in turn, would have a huge impact on the economy.
Celebrities are entitled as any other American is to their thoughts and the right to express them. I don't begrudge them that. But what irks me is the disingenuous and inconsistent nature of the exercise of their rights.
First and foremost, aside from being wealthier than the average American, celebrities, especially those in the entertainment industry, have access to so many more means of communication with which to spread their messages. From television to radio to movies, from sound technicians to artists to computer graphic designers, these people have at their fingertips things that ordinary Americans don't have or don't have in the volume the celebrities possess them. And to argue that an ordinary American can post something to Youtube and claim that it's the equivalent of putting a PSA on a network is simply stupid.
Furthermore, there's the caché of celebrity. Celebrities are, for better or for worse, relied upon more readily than some anonymous blogger because their faces and voices appear repeatedly, whereas the anonymous blogger typically isn't known beyond the radius of the subscribers who have found the blog. Various attributes come into play, not the least of which is a physical attraction to the celebrity making the appeal. Add to that the curious imposition of knowledge or wisdom to a person whose sole claim to fame is imitating other people and it's a very intimidating force with which to contend.
To be sure, there are some celebrities who take the time to get informed on issues that matter to them. In this regard, they are at least as well informed as ordinary citizens and in some cases are quite well informed, setting themselves apart from the hoi polloi. But getting informed doesn't always mean that the information-gathering was done in a balanced fashion, and the risk is that scientists and academics, eager to bring attention to themselves and their causes, not to mention donations that such attention brings with it, latch onto the celebrity to indoctrinate him to the cause. It's amazing to me that a person with a basic high school education, sometimes a person with an avowed distaste for studying, is suddenly not only the spokesperson but a self-proclaimed expert on a given topic, merely from having met with an expert or two in the field.
Partly, the blame rests with the public for putting these people on such a pedestal that whatever comes out of their mouths is treated with the same respect as if Moses were coming back down with the two tablets. The public can't distinguish, sufficiently, that all that's happening is that another person, albeit one with some visibility and access to media portals, is exercising his or her First Amendment rights. Instead, because so-and-so says X, X must be correct and I should support X, or so goes the thinking. And this is especially true among the youth and young adults.
This leads to the most unconscionable part of the equation. Celebrities protest that they are merely exercising their rights as Americans to air their views. Although this is partially true, by no means is that all they're doing, and they know better. Any celebrity who's ever been on a press junket knows the effect of persuasion, especially on younger listeners. I can't recall how many times I've seen celebrities tout this or that film that is wretched in interviews only later, fifteen or twenty years later, admit what a horrible movie it was. But at the time, whether for lucre or self-gratification, they went out there and shilled the project so that it would bring in enough money or garner them enough fame to set them up for the next project or get a prestigious award that would further their careers. For them to act the part of the concerned citizen who's only speaking his or her mind and try to blend into the masses is ludicrous. They know, better than many, the effect their presence has on a project. And if that project is something they believe in, all the better.
I don't begrudge celebrities their right to speak their minds. But they have to come clean: They have greater means, they have a too-receptive audience that's predisposed to like them and hence their message and their message is usually one-sided and not thought out. For them to argue that they're only doing what any other American has the right to do is overly simplistic and shameless. If they're merely exercising their rights, why is the Obama administration reaching out to the celebrity community for assistance on Obamacare?
Curiously, this tendency is something the Left favors over the Right. When was the last time a right-wing campaign was put out in mass-media for anything? Whether it be abortion, or gun rights, or immigration, or fracking or anything? The Left seems to recognize the value of utilizing media to its advantage far more than the Right does which, ironically, undercuts its argument that it's merely exercising its rights under the Constitution. It is, more rightly, engaging in propaganda, something still protected by the Constitution but propaganda nevertheless.
Americans need to wake up and reject the assault on speech by the Left. As Jorge Santayana famously said, those who forget the past are doomed to repeat it.
That being said, I simply need to mention two names to summarize this argument:
Josef Goebbels and Leni Riefenstahl.
(c) 2013 The Truxton Spangler Chronicles
Celebrities are entitled as any other American is to their thoughts and the right to express them. I don't begrudge them that. But what irks me is the disingenuous and inconsistent nature of the exercise of their rights.
First and foremost, aside from being wealthier than the average American, celebrities, especially those in the entertainment industry, have access to so many more means of communication with which to spread their messages. From television to radio to movies, from sound technicians to artists to computer graphic designers, these people have at their fingertips things that ordinary Americans don't have or don't have in the volume the celebrities possess them. And to argue that an ordinary American can post something to Youtube and claim that it's the equivalent of putting a PSA on a network is simply stupid.
Furthermore, there's the caché of celebrity. Celebrities are, for better or for worse, relied upon more readily than some anonymous blogger because their faces and voices appear repeatedly, whereas the anonymous blogger typically isn't known beyond the radius of the subscribers who have found the blog. Various attributes come into play, not the least of which is a physical attraction to the celebrity making the appeal. Add to that the curious imposition of knowledge or wisdom to a person whose sole claim to fame is imitating other people and it's a very intimidating force with which to contend.
To be sure, there are some celebrities who take the time to get informed on issues that matter to them. In this regard, they are at least as well informed as ordinary citizens and in some cases are quite well informed, setting themselves apart from the hoi polloi. But getting informed doesn't always mean that the information-gathering was done in a balanced fashion, and the risk is that scientists and academics, eager to bring attention to themselves and their causes, not to mention donations that such attention brings with it, latch onto the celebrity to indoctrinate him to the cause. It's amazing to me that a person with a basic high school education, sometimes a person with an avowed distaste for studying, is suddenly not only the spokesperson but a self-proclaimed expert on a given topic, merely from having met with an expert or two in the field.
Partly, the blame rests with the public for putting these people on such a pedestal that whatever comes out of their mouths is treated with the same respect as if Moses were coming back down with the two tablets. The public can't distinguish, sufficiently, that all that's happening is that another person, albeit one with some visibility and access to media portals, is exercising his or her First Amendment rights. Instead, because so-and-so says X, X must be correct and I should support X, or so goes the thinking. And this is especially true among the youth and young adults.
This leads to the most unconscionable part of the equation. Celebrities protest that they are merely exercising their rights as Americans to air their views. Although this is partially true, by no means is that all they're doing, and they know better. Any celebrity who's ever been on a press junket knows the effect of persuasion, especially on younger listeners. I can't recall how many times I've seen celebrities tout this or that film that is wretched in interviews only later, fifteen or twenty years later, admit what a horrible movie it was. But at the time, whether for lucre or self-gratification, they went out there and shilled the project so that it would bring in enough money or garner them enough fame to set them up for the next project or get a prestigious award that would further their careers. For them to act the part of the concerned citizen who's only speaking his or her mind and try to blend into the masses is ludicrous. They know, better than many, the effect their presence has on a project. And if that project is something they believe in, all the better.
I don't begrudge celebrities their right to speak their minds. But they have to come clean: They have greater means, they have a too-receptive audience that's predisposed to like them and hence their message and their message is usually one-sided and not thought out. For them to argue that they're only doing what any other American has the right to do is overly simplistic and shameless. If they're merely exercising their rights, why is the Obama administration reaching out to the celebrity community for assistance on Obamacare?
Curiously, this tendency is something the Left favors over the Right. When was the last time a right-wing campaign was put out in mass-media for anything? Whether it be abortion, or gun rights, or immigration, or fracking or anything? The Left seems to recognize the value of utilizing media to its advantage far more than the Right does which, ironically, undercuts its argument that it's merely exercising its rights under the Constitution. It is, more rightly, engaging in propaganda, something still protected by the Constitution but propaganda nevertheless.
Americans need to wake up and reject the assault on speech by the Left. As Jorge Santayana famously said, those who forget the past are doomed to repeat it.
That being said, I simply need to mention two names to summarize this argument:
Josef Goebbels and Leni Riefenstahl.
(c) 2013 The Truxton Spangler Chronicles
Friday, November 22, 2013
Sherman and Custer Update
An update about our favorite pets has long been overdue, and since we're heading into another holiday week that includes another trip to Kentucky, what better time to wax proud about our boys?
With the cooler weather, the duo have been much happier. Bulldogs, because of their strange anatomy, have trouble in hotter weather. When it hits autumn, look out! Sherman especially is energized by the cooler weather, as evidenced by the fact that he runs around outside like a fool. Custer acts like a fool regardless of the weather, so it's hard to tell if the cooler temperatures have a positive effect on him.
Our days start around 5.30a with the obligatory walk around the block. Although the law says they're supposed to be on a leash, I'm a law-breaker and let them roam free. The truth is that they are both pretty obedient, and if they begin to stray they come back to me in short order, unless an unbelievably attractive nuisance presents itself. We go out when it's dark, so there aren't many other dogs and owners out, but every once in awhile there's one, and I have to keep the boys on a short leash so to speak.
Now that it's autumn, leaves are on the ground. It never fails, but one of them likes to leave his deposit in the leaves, making it one especially smelly Easter egg hunt for me. Usually after one's done dropping his load, he sprints off as if lightened by his burden. The fun really takes off for me if both of them are doing the deed at the same time, just in different directions. That tasks me with keeping an eye on both of them and the locations of their dumps, then reminding them to stay near me while I try to locate the fecal matter without stepping in it. Sherman's added a new twist to this, taking dumps a few minutes and a few yards apart, thus adding another back to the joy of being a good pet owner.
During the summer when we had to leave them at other houses, they picked up this notion of covering their droppings with grass, dirt or debris by brushing it with their back paws. This leads to some unintentionally funny scenes where one is standing behind the other as he finishes and begins pawing the ground, or thatching the lawn as we call it. The trouble is that the dog behind the thatcher gets covered with grass and dirt and can't easily shake it off.
Heaven forbid that it be raining out, which it does quite often in November. I've opened the door only to have the two of them take two steps out and turn right around to go back in the house. You'd think their lives were in danger because of the rain.
We've taken them to farmer's markets where they become the star attraction for about half the crowd. The old routine of explaining bulldogs, Sherman and Custer's paths to us and assorted other trivia stops us about four to five times a trip. The boys eat up the attention and it gets us to meet new people.
They've gotten into several routines, not the least of which is my coming home at lunch to let them out. After they do their business, they curl up in their beds and sleep. Then it's time to put Cus back in the laundry room, where sadly he spends his time because of pooping and peeing issues. I wish we didn't have to do it, but there's just no other alternative.
When we walk them around the place, they investigate every post, every seat, every upright installation in search of smells. Karen heard a comedian who says that those are the dogs' equivalent to Facebook, and that could be. But when we walk, it slows us down just a tad.
We're headed to Kentucky for Thanksgiving and we'll have to leave the boys behind, which we hate to do. They're so well-behaved, but there's simply no room at the inn. Not to mention that carting all their stuff and them limits what we can do and how we travel. It's an added expense to leave them behind, but there's no way around it.
As far as pets go, Sherman and Custer are a dream. I wish everyone who loved dogs had a Sherman and a Custer in their lives.
(c) 2013 The Truxton Spangler Chronicles
With the cooler weather, the duo have been much happier. Bulldogs, because of their strange anatomy, have trouble in hotter weather. When it hits autumn, look out! Sherman especially is energized by the cooler weather, as evidenced by the fact that he runs around outside like a fool. Custer acts like a fool regardless of the weather, so it's hard to tell if the cooler temperatures have a positive effect on him.
Our days start around 5.30a with the obligatory walk around the block. Although the law says they're supposed to be on a leash, I'm a law-breaker and let them roam free. The truth is that they are both pretty obedient, and if they begin to stray they come back to me in short order, unless an unbelievably attractive nuisance presents itself. We go out when it's dark, so there aren't many other dogs and owners out, but every once in awhile there's one, and I have to keep the boys on a short leash so to speak.
Now that it's autumn, leaves are on the ground. It never fails, but one of them likes to leave his deposit in the leaves, making it one especially smelly Easter egg hunt for me. Usually after one's done dropping his load, he sprints off as if lightened by his burden. The fun really takes off for me if both of them are doing the deed at the same time, just in different directions. That tasks me with keeping an eye on both of them and the locations of their dumps, then reminding them to stay near me while I try to locate the fecal matter without stepping in it. Sherman's added a new twist to this, taking dumps a few minutes and a few yards apart, thus adding another back to the joy of being a good pet owner.
During the summer when we had to leave them at other houses, they picked up this notion of covering their droppings with grass, dirt or debris by brushing it with their back paws. This leads to some unintentionally funny scenes where one is standing behind the other as he finishes and begins pawing the ground, or thatching the lawn as we call it. The trouble is that the dog behind the thatcher gets covered with grass and dirt and can't easily shake it off.
Heaven forbid that it be raining out, which it does quite often in November. I've opened the door only to have the two of them take two steps out and turn right around to go back in the house. You'd think their lives were in danger because of the rain.
We've taken them to farmer's markets where they become the star attraction for about half the crowd. The old routine of explaining bulldogs, Sherman and Custer's paths to us and assorted other trivia stops us about four to five times a trip. The boys eat up the attention and it gets us to meet new people.
They've gotten into several routines, not the least of which is my coming home at lunch to let them out. After they do their business, they curl up in their beds and sleep. Then it's time to put Cus back in the laundry room, where sadly he spends his time because of pooping and peeing issues. I wish we didn't have to do it, but there's just no other alternative.
When we walk them around the place, they investigate every post, every seat, every upright installation in search of smells. Karen heard a comedian who says that those are the dogs' equivalent to Facebook, and that could be. But when we walk, it slows us down just a tad.
We're headed to Kentucky for Thanksgiving and we'll have to leave the boys behind, which we hate to do. They're so well-behaved, but there's simply no room at the inn. Not to mention that carting all their stuff and them limits what we can do and how we travel. It's an added expense to leave them behind, but there's no way around it.
As far as pets go, Sherman and Custer are a dream. I wish everyone who loved dogs had a Sherman and a Custer in their lives.
(c) 2013 The Truxton Spangler Chronicles
Thursday, November 21, 2013
Happy Birthday, Sweetheart
Today is Karen's birthday. She's lamenting the onset of years, but she doesn't seem a day older to me, much less a year. She's the love of my life; why would she?
My life changed for the better the day I met my love. That first phone call, the first time I heard her voice, melted my soul. I had never hung the receiver up shaking before. Mind you, I think she's the most beautiful of all women, but on the phone, physical considerations aren't in play. It was her voice, the essential goodness of her person, that had me smitten.
Karen is the best person I'll ever know. She has kindness and thoughtfulness that few people ever know. She revels in others' happiness unlike any person I've ever known. She's not jealous of other people's successes or happiness and seeks only to put smiles on other peoples' faces.
She's not perfect. She can have a redheaded fit when I don't clean the way she likes, or I don't hear what she says or I do something incredibly stupid. She gets tired. Her physical ailments upset her. I'm under no illusions that I have Mother Teresa trapped in a goddess's body. But she's still the best person I know.
She does more for me than any person has ever done for me in my life, my Mother included. She loves me unconditionally even when she thinks I'm a dumbhead. She cooks me my favorite meals and then makes sure I don't eat too much so I'm healthy. She plans fun things for us to do and then enjoys them to the hilt. She sees things in stores she thinks I'll like and buys them for me rather than buying herself things. For example, I posted something to her uncle about a movie that's coming out and the book on which it was based, and without being asked, she bought me the book because I wanted it. And this despite the fact she says I have too many books.
I'd like to think she makes me a better person for having been with her, but the jury's still out on that one. She's supportive of me and defensive when anyone slights me. She takes care of me as if I were her own child despite the fact that I'm bigger than she is. She does the laundry and makes sure I have clean clothes to wear. She fusses over the clothes I wear, making me take off those that she thinks don't go together or are slightly wrinkled, no matter how much I bridle.
Traveling with her is a delight. We have so much fun together on our trips and discover new and interesting things together. She's opened new worlds to me with her natural curiosity.
I love to her laugh. The other day she was watching one of her favorite movies and she was laughing out loud and having such a good time. It made my heart smile. To see Karen happy is to watch the sun rise.
She is the sweetest, nicest, kindest, most thoughtful person God ever put on this earth. I may not deserve her -- nay, I know I don't -- but I'm so thankful she's in my life. I wish everyone had a person like Karen in his life, for he would then know what true love is.
Happy birthday, sweetheart. Thank you for being in my life and making it wonderful.
(c) 2013 The Truxton Spangler Chronicles
My life changed for the better the day I met my love. That first phone call, the first time I heard her voice, melted my soul. I had never hung the receiver up shaking before. Mind you, I think she's the most beautiful of all women, but on the phone, physical considerations aren't in play. It was her voice, the essential goodness of her person, that had me smitten.
Karen is the best person I'll ever know. She has kindness and thoughtfulness that few people ever know. She revels in others' happiness unlike any person I've ever known. She's not jealous of other people's successes or happiness and seeks only to put smiles on other peoples' faces.
She's not perfect. She can have a redheaded fit when I don't clean the way she likes, or I don't hear what she says or I do something incredibly stupid. She gets tired. Her physical ailments upset her. I'm under no illusions that I have Mother Teresa trapped in a goddess's body. But she's still the best person I know.
She does more for me than any person has ever done for me in my life, my Mother included. She loves me unconditionally even when she thinks I'm a dumbhead. She cooks me my favorite meals and then makes sure I don't eat too much so I'm healthy. She plans fun things for us to do and then enjoys them to the hilt. She sees things in stores she thinks I'll like and buys them for me rather than buying herself things. For example, I posted something to her uncle about a movie that's coming out and the book on which it was based, and without being asked, she bought me the book because I wanted it. And this despite the fact she says I have too many books.
I'd like to think she makes me a better person for having been with her, but the jury's still out on that one. She's supportive of me and defensive when anyone slights me. She takes care of me as if I were her own child despite the fact that I'm bigger than she is. She does the laundry and makes sure I have clean clothes to wear. She fusses over the clothes I wear, making me take off those that she thinks don't go together or are slightly wrinkled, no matter how much I bridle.
Traveling with her is a delight. We have so much fun together on our trips and discover new and interesting things together. She's opened new worlds to me with her natural curiosity.
I love to her laugh. The other day she was watching one of her favorite movies and she was laughing out loud and having such a good time. It made my heart smile. To see Karen happy is to watch the sun rise.
She is the sweetest, nicest, kindest, most thoughtful person God ever put on this earth. I may not deserve her -- nay, I know I don't -- but I'm so thankful she's in my life. I wish everyone had a person like Karen in his life, for he would then know what true love is.
Happy birthday, sweetheart. Thank you for being in my life and making it wonderful.
(c) 2013 The Truxton Spangler Chronicles
Wednesday, November 20, 2013
JFK mythology
We're approaching the fiftieth anniversary of the assassination of John Fitzgerald Kennedy, and the hagiography threatens to put Obamacare on the back-burner. There is no doubt that the assassination changed the country, putting a turbo-boost into the modernization of a country still asleep from the halcyon days of the fifties. And to be fair, Kennedy was a son, a father and a husband, and for that alone, his murder should be mourned. But that recognition shouldn't color an honest assessment of the man as president.
To be fair, he only governed for less than three years of his term. But in that time, he faced some serious challenges: The Cuban Missile Crisis, the escalating Vietnam War, civil rights, the integration of the University of Mississippi with the assistance of U.S. Marshals, the murder of Medgar Evers, the erection of the Berlin Wall -- there are more, no doubt, some of much lesser importance that kept the man busy. Some he handled capably, others he stumbled on. But in this regard he was no different than any other president.
Kennedy's shortcomings were largely personal. The fact that he was electable is owed not only to his war hero status, but his father's enormous wealth that was amassed bootlegging liquor during Prohibition. Of course his father, Joseph Kennedy, always did what was expedient: He used insider information to trade stocks that were later ruled to be illegal. He was also an anti-Semite, a charge he disputed.
Perhaps the biggest boost to Kennedy's candidacy, aside from his father's fortune, was that Kennedy, as the first viable Catholic candidate, was an novelty. Electable, married to a photogenic wife, he gave voters a reason to overlook the concerns from some quarters that his Catholicism meant rule directed by the Vatican, a silly assertion in any event but back then an eminently believable one.
But as a person, Kennedy fell far short of the mark. In recent years, his string of extra-marital affairs has tarnished the shining image of Camelot. Numerous women, not the least of which was Marilyn Monroe, were rumored to be his mistresses. It's even said that his wife, Jackie Kennedy, knew of his dalliances. What's more, they were covered up by the attorney general, his brother and future presidential candidate in his own right, Robert Kennedy.
For years, I've been saying that the greatest myth about Kennedy was his supposed support and love for the black community. Although it would seem natural that an Irish kid excluded from Brahmin Boston's largely Protestant circles would find common cause with blacks, he really didn't know them at all. This fact was set forth in Juan Williams' history of the civil rights movement, Eyes On the Prize. Instead, the politically savvy candidate took a page out of his father's Playbook of Expediency and realized that in order to defeat Nixon in the 1960 presidential campaign, he'd have to woo the black vote, which he did successfully.
Why this is of any consequence now is that the anniversary is approaching but also because in the lead-up to the anniversary, black activists are coming out with the real story. Harry Belafonte has come out and said the following to the NBC affiliate in Philadelphia last week:
Harry Belafonte, an American musician and social activist, supported Adlai Stevenson during the 1960 democratic primary, but agreed to meet with Kennedy, who tried to recruit him. The meeting left Belafonte unimpressed with Kennedy.
To be fair, he only governed for less than three years of his term. But in that time, he faced some serious challenges: The Cuban Missile Crisis, the escalating Vietnam War, civil rights, the integration of the University of Mississippi with the assistance of U.S. Marshals, the murder of Medgar Evers, the erection of the Berlin Wall -- there are more, no doubt, some of much lesser importance that kept the man busy. Some he handled capably, others he stumbled on. But in this regard he was no different than any other president.
Kennedy's shortcomings were largely personal. The fact that he was electable is owed not only to his war hero status, but his father's enormous wealth that was amassed bootlegging liquor during Prohibition. Of course his father, Joseph Kennedy, always did what was expedient: He used insider information to trade stocks that were later ruled to be illegal. He was also an anti-Semite, a charge he disputed.
Perhaps the biggest boost to Kennedy's candidacy, aside from his father's fortune, was that Kennedy, as the first viable Catholic candidate, was an novelty. Electable, married to a photogenic wife, he gave voters a reason to overlook the concerns from some quarters that his Catholicism meant rule directed by the Vatican, a silly assertion in any event but back then an eminently believable one.
But as a person, Kennedy fell far short of the mark. In recent years, his string of extra-marital affairs has tarnished the shining image of Camelot. Numerous women, not the least of which was Marilyn Monroe, were rumored to be his mistresses. It's even said that his wife, Jackie Kennedy, knew of his dalliances. What's more, they were covered up by the attorney general, his brother and future presidential candidate in his own right, Robert Kennedy.
For years, I've been saying that the greatest myth about Kennedy was his supposed support and love for the black community. Although it would seem natural that an Irish kid excluded from Brahmin Boston's largely Protestant circles would find common cause with blacks, he really didn't know them at all. This fact was set forth in Juan Williams' history of the civil rights movement, Eyes On the Prize. Instead, the politically savvy candidate took a page out of his father's Playbook of Expediency and realized that in order to defeat Nixon in the 1960 presidential campaign, he'd have to woo the black vote, which he did successfully.
Why this is of any consequence now is that the anniversary is approaching but also because in the lead-up to the anniversary, black activists are coming out with the real story. Harry Belafonte has come out and said the following to the NBC affiliate in Philadelphia last week:
Harry Belafonte, an American musician and social activist, supported Adlai Stevenson during the 1960 democratic primary, but agreed to meet with Kennedy, who tried to recruit him. The meeting left Belafonte unimpressed with Kennedy.
“I was quite taken by the fact that he knew so little about the black community,” Belafonte said in a NBC News interview with Tom Brokaw. “He knew the headlines of the day but he really wasn’t anywhere nuanced or detailed on the deep depths of black anguish of what our struggle was really about.”
Belafonte, a confidant of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., said he had asked Kennedy during the meeting about Dr. King and found that the future president “knew very little” about the civil rights leader.
He “just knew that somewhere there was this force and he was out there making some mischief,” Belafonte said.
Kennedy wanted to keep distance from King, Belafonte said, in order to secure votes from “the most important element within the democratic party, which was the southern Democratic oligarchy, the Dixiecrats” – a short-lived segregationist political party.
The civil rights movement was not on Kennedy's radar, according to Clarence Taylor, professor of history at Baruch College and at The Graduate Center of the City University of New York.
"He had other concerns as both a candidate and as president," Taylor said. "Major concern was foreign policy, so civil rights was an annoying issue for JFK."
Based on the meeting, Belafonte declined to support Kennedy in the primary. But after Kennedy secured a Democratic nomination and exhibited a broader understanding of the civil rights movement, Belafonte got on board.
“As events grew and as events revealed themselves, and he had to make decisions, he became more caught up with us,” Belafonte said. “The moral persuasion of our cause made him take a hard look at who we were.”
When Martin Luther King Jr. was arrested on October 19, 1960, in Atlanta for a sit-in and sentenced to four months of hard labor, Kennedy called Coretta Scott King directly to express his sympathies, Belaftonte pointed out. Bobby Kennedy called the judge in Georgia and King was released on bail a few days later.
Taylor said Kennedy's phone call was a shrewd political move to win black votes. The African-American community took notice of that gesture. During the 1960 election the black vote was crucial in the swing states of Illinois, Michigan and South Carolina that Kennedy carried.
But as president, Kennedy couldn't ignore the civil rights movement. In 1962 he sent hundreds of U.S. marshals to enforce a court order to admit James Meredith, a black student, to the University of Mississippi. And in 1963, after a series of protests from the black community, he addressed the nation to ask for support of the civil rights bill "giving all Americans the right to be served in facilities which are open to the public—hotels, restaurants, theaters, retail stores, and similar establishments."
After the assassination, it was Kennedy's successor, Lyndon Johnson, who pushed the bill through Congress and signed it into law in 1964.
"JFK couldn’t walk away from [the civil rights movement]," Taylor said. "It became the major issue of the day. But I think it’s overblown, portraying Kennedy as a civil rights president. Johnson should’ve been given much more credit."
The notion that Kennedy was the savior of the black community is not only misleading but it's false. LBJ, as Belafonte says, deserved far more credit. Yet LBJ was more coarse than Kennedy and he lacked the photogenic wife. Marilyn Monroe never sang him Happy Birthday. So the more convenient myth for Democrats is to give Kennedy the credit for civil rights advances, just as it blames Johnson for Vietnam, when in fact it was Kennedy who started us down that slippery slope by sending advisors in 1961 and bankrolling the South's military.
Hindsight is 20/20, they say. It also serves to put targets in a smaller focus so as to obscure their true image. Kennedy, like wine, has only improved with age.
(c) 2013 The Truxton Spangler Chronicles
Broken Promises
A new report has surfaced that the American and Afghani governments have reached an agreement that would set forth guidelines for continued American involvement in Afghanistan for years to come, including pay for Afghani soldiers combined with military outposts and training in the country.
On the heels of the failed Obamacare rollout, this is stunning. When the President was elected, he made two very strong promises regarding our military operations abroad: We would be withdrawing from Iraq and Afghanistan and we would be shutting down Gitmo. With the new announcement, it's apparent, that neither promise will be kept. This raises several concerns, not to mention that there are implications beyond the broken promises to the American people.
First and foremost, can President Obama be trusted anymore? Since the disastrous Obamacare rollout, the President has been hammered from both sides for repeatedly promising that citizens could keep their doctors and their health plans, both of which, it is appearing, were bold-faced lies. The Gitmo promise has been acknowledged but largely ignored because it affects so few people directly. Even so, it's a promise that candidate Obama made that he's broken, and no one seems the slightest bit concerned.
Obamacare hits people in the pocketbook and for that reason resonates; Gitmo was so far away it didn't matter. But this recent broken promise splits the difference: Despite being thousands of miles away, Americans will be in harm's way, ideal targets for Al Qaeda or any Afghani with a bone to pick. The President is falling all over himself to make nice with the Afghans, going so far as to write a letter apologizing for mistakes made during the way, which was prompted by that gifted diplomat John Kerry. What neither of these tools seem to realize is that the only things feared or respected by the people over there are force and muscle.
Underlying this incredibly boneheaded maneuver is the fact that military spending has been cut. Not only are forces being reduced, spending on military hardware is being cut back severely. That means that although we're going to pay the Afghans to defend themselves -- and no doubt give them hardware for which we'll never be paid -- our troops will be underpaid and undersupplied, making their sacrifices that much more difficult. Meanwhile, the President has repeatedly promised that he was going to ensure that our military was the best in the world. Simply declaring it to be so doesn't make it so; the military relies on morale and materiel, and with funds being cut and reductions being made, the troops are more stressed than ever, with concerns on the home front, problems with supplies and hardware, lack of replacements in men and materiel and the continuing specter of blue on green attacks.
At some point, the people have to begin to call out both the President for his lies, the Democrats for conspiring to assist him maintain the lies and the MSM for turning a blind eye to all of it. But conservatives also bear some responsibility for this, insofar as they have not put forth a plan with any traction that can restore them to power. With the midterm elections coming up, this is the time for Republicans to start acting like they can govern. They can't just sit back and complain about the waywardness of the Democratic party; they have to put forth viable plans that actually entice the people to place their trust in them as leaders.
But still, this is a government of the people, by the people and for the people. Without greater discernment on the part of the populace, without the testicular fortitude to make difficult choices, we'll surrender our sovereignty to a bunch of technocrats.
(c) 2013 The Truxton Spangler Chronicles
On the heels of the failed Obamacare rollout, this is stunning. When the President was elected, he made two very strong promises regarding our military operations abroad: We would be withdrawing from Iraq and Afghanistan and we would be shutting down Gitmo. With the new announcement, it's apparent, that neither promise will be kept. This raises several concerns, not to mention that there are implications beyond the broken promises to the American people.
First and foremost, can President Obama be trusted anymore? Since the disastrous Obamacare rollout, the President has been hammered from both sides for repeatedly promising that citizens could keep their doctors and their health plans, both of which, it is appearing, were bold-faced lies. The Gitmo promise has been acknowledged but largely ignored because it affects so few people directly. Even so, it's a promise that candidate Obama made that he's broken, and no one seems the slightest bit concerned.
Obamacare hits people in the pocketbook and for that reason resonates; Gitmo was so far away it didn't matter. But this recent broken promise splits the difference: Despite being thousands of miles away, Americans will be in harm's way, ideal targets for Al Qaeda or any Afghani with a bone to pick. The President is falling all over himself to make nice with the Afghans, going so far as to write a letter apologizing for mistakes made during the way, which was prompted by that gifted diplomat John Kerry. What neither of these tools seem to realize is that the only things feared or respected by the people over there are force and muscle.
Underlying this incredibly boneheaded maneuver is the fact that military spending has been cut. Not only are forces being reduced, spending on military hardware is being cut back severely. That means that although we're going to pay the Afghans to defend themselves -- and no doubt give them hardware for which we'll never be paid -- our troops will be underpaid and undersupplied, making their sacrifices that much more difficult. Meanwhile, the President has repeatedly promised that he was going to ensure that our military was the best in the world. Simply declaring it to be so doesn't make it so; the military relies on morale and materiel, and with funds being cut and reductions being made, the troops are more stressed than ever, with concerns on the home front, problems with supplies and hardware, lack of replacements in men and materiel and the continuing specter of blue on green attacks.
At some point, the people have to begin to call out both the President for his lies, the Democrats for conspiring to assist him maintain the lies and the MSM for turning a blind eye to all of it. But conservatives also bear some responsibility for this, insofar as they have not put forth a plan with any traction that can restore them to power. With the midterm elections coming up, this is the time for Republicans to start acting like they can govern. They can't just sit back and complain about the waywardness of the Democratic party; they have to put forth viable plans that actually entice the people to place their trust in them as leaders.
But still, this is a government of the people, by the people and for the people. Without greater discernment on the part of the populace, without the testicular fortitude to make difficult choices, we'll surrender our sovereignty to a bunch of technocrats.
(c) 2013 The Truxton Spangler Chronicles
Monday, November 18, 2013
Favorite Short Stories
Everyone talks about the great American novel and there are lists upon lists of the best novels ever written. For the longest time after Gutenberg changed the world, novels were a rarity. Back then, shorter stories and poems dominated, if only because of the cost, not to mention the limits on literacy. I enjoy novels as much as the next person, I suppose, but there are some frightfully good short stories that have garnered my respect and that deserve mention.
Here, then, is my list of my favorite short stories:
To Build a Fire: I've since come to realize that as a person, Jack London left a lot to be desired. But this short story is one of my favorite. The suspense builds throughout and one can almost feel the cold and the desperation as death nears with each passing hour.
The Most Dangerous Game: Richard Connell wrote four novels, none of which I've ever read, but this story still resonates with me. The concept of man hunting man for sport is at once vile and intriguing.
The Lottery: As chilling a story as The Most Dangerous Game, one can easily see this as an episode of The Twilight Zone. That it was written by a woman makes it even scarier.
La muerte y la brújula: A story by the great Argentine writer Jorge Luis Borges, it translates to Death and the Compass. A detective follows clues leading to a potential murder victim only to discover that he's been led to his death by his murderer.
El milagro secreto: Another Borges work, The Secret Miracle involves a Czech denounced in pre-war Prague who's then imprisoned in a jail by the SS. The protagonist is a composer with Jewish blood in his background, hence the reason for his arrest. He bargains for time to finish his great symphonic work, which he's granted as the physical world stops to allow him to compose. The minute he's finished with his work, he's shot dead.
Silvina y Montt: The names of the two protagonists, this is a tragic May-December story that isn't really a romance so much as it is a horror story. Montt is friends with Silvina's parents, who's some twenty-two years his junior. She views him as almost an uncle until the time he has to go away for business reasons. Years later he returns to find a ravishing young woman of roughly eighteen years of age and is immediately smitten. Given the mores of the times and his close friendship with her parents, combined with the awkward age difference, Montt leaves suddenly and goes to a seedy neighborhood, gets drunk and wakes up the next morning in bed with a woman who's now his wife. Shortly after he awakens, a note is slipped underneath the door from Silvina, telling him that she loves him and no matter the backlash, is coming to be with him as his wife.
A la deriva: Like Silvina y Montt, another excellent work by Horacio Quiroga. Quiroga, a devotee of Edgar Allan Poe, wrote gothic horror stories set in the jungle. Here, a man is bitten by a venomous snake in the depths of the jungle. The only doctor who can cure him is miles away, accessible only by river. The bitten man gets on a raft and drifts down the river, hopefully towards salvation.
There are more, but I can't remember the names of all of them. One of Cervantes' novelas ejemplares tells the story of Lela Marien. Hemingway wrote a short story about a bear hunt he experienced as a youth, I think, that I liked. There's another one by Quiroga whose title escapes me that involves a man cutting sugar cane who trips over his horse's reins and falls on his machete, mortally wounding himself. But there are some very good short stories that I read as a youth that I recall as well as the better novels I read. To conflate two common sayings from another area completely, sometimes size doesn't matter that much, and good things do come in smaller packages.
(c) 2013 The Truxton Spangler Chronicles
Here, then, is my list of my favorite short stories:
To Build a Fire: I've since come to realize that as a person, Jack London left a lot to be desired. But this short story is one of my favorite. The suspense builds throughout and one can almost feel the cold and the desperation as death nears with each passing hour.
The Most Dangerous Game: Richard Connell wrote four novels, none of which I've ever read, but this story still resonates with me. The concept of man hunting man for sport is at once vile and intriguing.
The Lottery: As chilling a story as The Most Dangerous Game, one can easily see this as an episode of The Twilight Zone. That it was written by a woman makes it even scarier.
La muerte y la brújula: A story by the great Argentine writer Jorge Luis Borges, it translates to Death and the Compass. A detective follows clues leading to a potential murder victim only to discover that he's been led to his death by his murderer.
El milagro secreto: Another Borges work, The Secret Miracle involves a Czech denounced in pre-war Prague who's then imprisoned in a jail by the SS. The protagonist is a composer with Jewish blood in his background, hence the reason for his arrest. He bargains for time to finish his great symphonic work, which he's granted as the physical world stops to allow him to compose. The minute he's finished with his work, he's shot dead.
Silvina y Montt: The names of the two protagonists, this is a tragic May-December story that isn't really a romance so much as it is a horror story. Montt is friends with Silvina's parents, who's some twenty-two years his junior. She views him as almost an uncle until the time he has to go away for business reasons. Years later he returns to find a ravishing young woman of roughly eighteen years of age and is immediately smitten. Given the mores of the times and his close friendship with her parents, combined with the awkward age difference, Montt leaves suddenly and goes to a seedy neighborhood, gets drunk and wakes up the next morning in bed with a woman who's now his wife. Shortly after he awakens, a note is slipped underneath the door from Silvina, telling him that she loves him and no matter the backlash, is coming to be with him as his wife.
A la deriva: Like Silvina y Montt, another excellent work by Horacio Quiroga. Quiroga, a devotee of Edgar Allan Poe, wrote gothic horror stories set in the jungle. Here, a man is bitten by a venomous snake in the depths of the jungle. The only doctor who can cure him is miles away, accessible only by river. The bitten man gets on a raft and drifts down the river, hopefully towards salvation.
There are more, but I can't remember the names of all of them. One of Cervantes' novelas ejemplares tells the story of Lela Marien. Hemingway wrote a short story about a bear hunt he experienced as a youth, I think, that I liked. There's another one by Quiroga whose title escapes me that involves a man cutting sugar cane who trips over his horse's reins and falls on his machete, mortally wounding himself. But there are some very good short stories that I read as a youth that I recall as well as the better novels I read. To conflate two common sayings from another area completely, sometimes size doesn't matter that much, and good things do come in smaller packages.
(c) 2013 The Truxton Spangler Chronicles
Friday, November 15, 2013
Scandalous Suspension of Disbelief
I like to think I'm picky about my television shows. Call is snobbism, but I don't fall for just any type of show. I imagine I have my guilty pleasure here and there, but typically, if a show is too stupid -- see, How I Met Your Mother -- I don't watch it.
I almost didn't watch 24 because I wasn't a fan of Kiefer Sutherland. I saw the first episode and was hooked, until it started getting goofy in the third season. Dexter followed a similar trajectory, saved only by the wildly entertaining Trinity arc.
About a year ago I happened to catch an episode of Scandal, the latest rage in prime time television. The plot involved election rigging, not to mention the usual Olivia Pope messianic acts saving the damned from messes of their own making. Throw in a somewhat tenuous affair between Ms. Pope and the President, a shadowy off-the-books government agency and an interesting cast of characters with skill sets that could command a very high salary in the open market, and it was eminently watchable. The cliffhanger at the end of the season was pretty nifty, and the flashbacks showing the evolution of Huck were pretty cool. So I decided to watch it.
That is, until last night. Last night's episode rivals the infamously bad Hawaii Five-0 episode mocked in this space some months ago for its jumped-the-shark qualities. Considering I had a very busy day that started at five in the morning and ended around nine o'clock, I might be a little muzzy on some of the details, but here goes:
The episode begins with Ms. Pope wavering on answering her Batphone to take a call from her estranged lover the President. She does and barks at him despite the fact he's hopelessly forlorn about her safety, telling her cryptically to leave it alone for her own good. Undeterred, Ms. Pope angrily hangs up on the leader of the free world and storms out of her swanky apartment ready to delve into the deepest, darkest secrets of the espionage world.
Next we're treated to some montage of the president's jilted wife, Mellie, rejuvenating her image with some film crew as she takes them on a tour of the White House and a nostalgic journey down Memory Lane to revisit how she and the president started out. Barry Bostwick, of Rocky Horror Picture Show fame, appears in the flashbacks as the domineering father of the now-president who is, to say the least, pushy about his son's political aspirations. At turns goading and then figuratively shoving his son -- always with a drink readily at hand -- Bostwick cajoles his war-hero son -- who of course is Rhodes Scholar this and Navy SEAL that -- into running for governor of California, the first step on his fictional road to the White House. As the episode develops, it appears that the future president, who at the time was one of the top fighter pilots in the military (Top Gun, anyone?), shot down a commercial airline on which a dirty bomb had been smuggled.
Now, try to follow the Super Ball that's been thrown into the room: On that plane, in a tragic coincidence, was Ms. Pope's mother. Yes, the very mother of the woman with whom the president would cuckold his wife, was shot down in this action. But the shoot-down was blamed, publicly, on a mechanical failure. And who orchestrated the cover-up? None other than the conniving, power-hungry father.
Meanwhile, a late night talk between the father, who's a known womanizer, and the future First Lady turns into a rape. Yes, the father-in-law rapes the comely daughter-in-law on the couch while the son-husband is asleep upstairs. As fantastical as this seems, the wife not only keeps the rape to herself, she encourages the father to apologize to the son the next morning at breakfast to persuade him to run for governor and inject his war record into the campaign.
Taking a breath from this stratospheric flight of fancy, we turn to one of Ms. Pope's trusted aides whom she rescued during the vote rigging that got her paramour elected. This woman cozied up to Huck last season, sensing that she had a taste for black ops. In a turn that I don't quite understand, she's now cozied up to Huck's former tormentor, a member of the same black ops unit that plagued Huck. The Stanford-educated lawyer buys this guy's story that he's left black ops and is now just a private dick. Without so much as batting an eye, she ceases her surveillance of him and begins to have feelings for him, wooed no doubt by the two passionate kisses they've shared on screen. He convinces her to go into this building late at night and convince the security guard to turn his back so she can inject him with some drug that will make him pass out, allowing the newly-minted private investigator to slip into the building and do his investigating. Without giving it a second thought, she does just that, only to become horrified when he first starts foaming at the mouth and then starts bleeding. Soon enough, he's lying dead on the floor and her hands are literally covered in blood. She runs from the lobby screaming, forgetting, of course, about the security cameras that have to be all over the place.
Why is this important at all? Because this person is a key witness in the goings-on at the airport from which the doomed plane that the now-president shot down before he went political. Ms. Pope has eschewed her former lover's advice and began poking around looking for answers about her mother's death. The security guard had worked at the airport and was considered a key witness with crucial information.
We next turn to the now-frantic employee of Ms. Pope's agency who is with her would-be lover and former-black-ops-agent-turned-private-investigator asking what happened, only to be shown a tablet with the security tape showing her doing the deed. With a sneer he looks at her crestfallen face and welcomes her to the very black ops agency he claimed to have left. So much for her Stanford legal education, not to mention her law license.
So in the short space of forty minutes of so, we've had incestuous rape, the revelation that the future president shot down his future lover's mother, only to have his deed covered up by the very father who raped his wife while he slept upstairs and a Stanford-educated lawyer being dooped to commit murder. I nearly forgot to mention that the president's chief of staff has just learned that the vice president, who is an archly-conservatie Moral Majoritarian (although not by that name), is married to a closet gay man, as he sees him hitting on the chief of staff's husband. Why is this significant? Because the Veep is a potential challenger in the next election.
So. Incestuous rape. Mass murder and a cover-up. Black-ops and a tainted Stanford legal education. Not to mention the revelation that Ms. Pope's own father sanctioned the hit on the plane on which his wife was flying, causing Ms. Pope even more angst.
One would think it couldn't get any more convoluted.
One would be wrong.
The last scene of the night is of Ms. Pope's father going to some ultra-secure, underground bunker behind Get Smart doors guarded by HGH-enhanced soldiers in camo where he takes a seat in front of a cage within which is someone lying covered by a blanket. Lo and behold, Ms. Pope's long-dead mother is actually alive and has been kept in this cell; she never got on the plane.
Yes, people, this is what passes for creativity in prime time. And they have the audacity to look down their noses at soap operas. I won't be watching any more Scandal.
This also serves to explain why I prefer shows like Yukon Men and Alaska Frontier.
Sometimes, truth isn't stranger than fiction. Sometimes fiction is just....strange.
(c) 2013 The Truxton Spangler Chronicles
I almost didn't watch 24 because I wasn't a fan of Kiefer Sutherland. I saw the first episode and was hooked, until it started getting goofy in the third season. Dexter followed a similar trajectory, saved only by the wildly entertaining Trinity arc.
About a year ago I happened to catch an episode of Scandal, the latest rage in prime time television. The plot involved election rigging, not to mention the usual Olivia Pope messianic acts saving the damned from messes of their own making. Throw in a somewhat tenuous affair between Ms. Pope and the President, a shadowy off-the-books government agency and an interesting cast of characters with skill sets that could command a very high salary in the open market, and it was eminently watchable. The cliffhanger at the end of the season was pretty nifty, and the flashbacks showing the evolution of Huck were pretty cool. So I decided to watch it.
That is, until last night. Last night's episode rivals the infamously bad Hawaii Five-0 episode mocked in this space some months ago for its jumped-the-shark qualities. Considering I had a very busy day that started at five in the morning and ended around nine o'clock, I might be a little muzzy on some of the details, but here goes:
The episode begins with Ms. Pope wavering on answering her Batphone to take a call from her estranged lover the President. She does and barks at him despite the fact he's hopelessly forlorn about her safety, telling her cryptically to leave it alone for her own good. Undeterred, Ms. Pope angrily hangs up on the leader of the free world and storms out of her swanky apartment ready to delve into the deepest, darkest secrets of the espionage world.
Next we're treated to some montage of the president's jilted wife, Mellie, rejuvenating her image with some film crew as she takes them on a tour of the White House and a nostalgic journey down Memory Lane to revisit how she and the president started out. Barry Bostwick, of Rocky Horror Picture Show fame, appears in the flashbacks as the domineering father of the now-president who is, to say the least, pushy about his son's political aspirations. At turns goading and then figuratively shoving his son -- always with a drink readily at hand -- Bostwick cajoles his war-hero son -- who of course is Rhodes Scholar this and Navy SEAL that -- into running for governor of California, the first step on his fictional road to the White House. As the episode develops, it appears that the future president, who at the time was one of the top fighter pilots in the military (Top Gun, anyone?), shot down a commercial airline on which a dirty bomb had been smuggled.
Now, try to follow the Super Ball that's been thrown into the room: On that plane, in a tragic coincidence, was Ms. Pope's mother. Yes, the very mother of the woman with whom the president would cuckold his wife, was shot down in this action. But the shoot-down was blamed, publicly, on a mechanical failure. And who orchestrated the cover-up? None other than the conniving, power-hungry father.
Meanwhile, a late night talk between the father, who's a known womanizer, and the future First Lady turns into a rape. Yes, the father-in-law rapes the comely daughter-in-law on the couch while the son-husband is asleep upstairs. As fantastical as this seems, the wife not only keeps the rape to herself, she encourages the father to apologize to the son the next morning at breakfast to persuade him to run for governor and inject his war record into the campaign.
Taking a breath from this stratospheric flight of fancy, we turn to one of Ms. Pope's trusted aides whom she rescued during the vote rigging that got her paramour elected. This woman cozied up to Huck last season, sensing that she had a taste for black ops. In a turn that I don't quite understand, she's now cozied up to Huck's former tormentor, a member of the same black ops unit that plagued Huck. The Stanford-educated lawyer buys this guy's story that he's left black ops and is now just a private dick. Without so much as batting an eye, she ceases her surveillance of him and begins to have feelings for him, wooed no doubt by the two passionate kisses they've shared on screen. He convinces her to go into this building late at night and convince the security guard to turn his back so she can inject him with some drug that will make him pass out, allowing the newly-minted private investigator to slip into the building and do his investigating. Without giving it a second thought, she does just that, only to become horrified when he first starts foaming at the mouth and then starts bleeding. Soon enough, he's lying dead on the floor and her hands are literally covered in blood. She runs from the lobby screaming, forgetting, of course, about the security cameras that have to be all over the place.
Why is this important at all? Because this person is a key witness in the goings-on at the airport from which the doomed plane that the now-president shot down before he went political. Ms. Pope has eschewed her former lover's advice and began poking around looking for answers about her mother's death. The security guard had worked at the airport and was considered a key witness with crucial information.
We next turn to the now-frantic employee of Ms. Pope's agency who is with her would-be lover and former-black-ops-agent-turned-private-investigator asking what happened, only to be shown a tablet with the security tape showing her doing the deed. With a sneer he looks at her crestfallen face and welcomes her to the very black ops agency he claimed to have left. So much for her Stanford legal education, not to mention her law license.
So in the short space of forty minutes of so, we've had incestuous rape, the revelation that the future president shot down his future lover's mother, only to have his deed covered up by the very father who raped his wife while he slept upstairs and a Stanford-educated lawyer being dooped to commit murder. I nearly forgot to mention that the president's chief of staff has just learned that the vice president, who is an archly-conservatie Moral Majoritarian (although not by that name), is married to a closet gay man, as he sees him hitting on the chief of staff's husband. Why is this significant? Because the Veep is a potential challenger in the next election.
So. Incestuous rape. Mass murder and a cover-up. Black-ops and a tainted Stanford legal education. Not to mention the revelation that Ms. Pope's own father sanctioned the hit on the plane on which his wife was flying, causing Ms. Pope even more angst.
One would think it couldn't get any more convoluted.
One would be wrong.
The last scene of the night is of Ms. Pope's father going to some ultra-secure, underground bunker behind Get Smart doors guarded by HGH-enhanced soldiers in camo where he takes a seat in front of a cage within which is someone lying covered by a blanket. Lo and behold, Ms. Pope's long-dead mother is actually alive and has been kept in this cell; she never got on the plane.
Yes, people, this is what passes for creativity in prime time. And they have the audacity to look down their noses at soap operas. I won't be watching any more Scandal.
This also serves to explain why I prefer shows like Yukon Men and Alaska Frontier.
Sometimes, truth isn't stranger than fiction. Sometimes fiction is just....strange.
(c) 2013 The Truxton Spangler Chronicles
Tuesday, November 12, 2013
Hazing and Sports
When I was younger, I played basketball and baseball. I was never hazed, thankfully, although I'm sure I was the butt of some practical jokes and pranks from time to time. Anyone who's been in an athletic locker room is familiar with the hijinks that go on there. From what I remember, our high school's hockey club had a particularly aggressive hazing ritual that involved dragging the newbies out in the snow buck-naked and then over bushes that were exposed. We had no such rituals.
Professional football and baseball are notorious for their hazing of rookies. From what I've seen, football rookies are made to sing their alma maters' fight songs in training camp cafeterias, buy donuts for practice and carry the veterans' equipment off the practice field. They may get taped to the goal post, too. Baseball rookies are made to wear outlandish costumes on team flights, carry the veterans' bags and engage in vandalism in cities they visit during the season. One such example of the latter involves getting rookies to paint the testicles of the horse on a statue along Chicago's lakefront just south of Wrigley. It's tradition, and everyone is expected to participate. It's a right of passage, a way of making sure the rookie joins the brotherhood of the team. Outsiders will see it as infantile and immature, and to a certain extent it is. But unless and until critics have been in the locker room, they really don't know of what they speak.
Of course, nowadays the talk is about the ongoing scandal with the Miami Dolphins. Rickie Incognito, a veteran, used coarse and racist language with a teammate, Jonathan Martin, both to haze him and to toughen him up, according to some reports. Incognito may or may not have had the support of the coaching staff and management. Martin may or may not have been too soft. In an odd twist, reports indicate that other players actually support Incognito, not Martin, even though Martin left the team because of Incognito's actions.
Beyond the alleged bullying, the sophomoric attempt to toughen Martin up and sundry other issues, the use of nigger is troublesome for so many different reasons. First of all, the word is repugnant. It brings up a past that is vile and murderous and wrong by any standard. Yet, blacks use the word almost with impunity. Therein lies the problem: Among blacks the word is somewhat acceptable, a badge of honor that only those baptized in the struggle can claim. And to an extent, I can appreciate that. But it becomes murky after that.
Within professional sports, the notion of a brotherhood develops, especially in football. Units, such as the offensive or defensive lines, the defensive backfield, or the kickers, tend to hang out and work out together. They endure many of the same challenges and hardships equally. As a result, certain teasing or kidding that would be intolerable in pleasant society is acceptable within these hermetic groups. Allowable, apparently, within these groups is the use of nigger by black and white athlete alike...provided it is used in a certain way. It isn't necessarily condoned so much as allowed, with the apparent understanding that the word will not be used outside the group or in an offensive manner.
To be honest, I haven't followed the Incognito-Martin brouhaha that closely. Each day new revelations whipsaw my attention. Some players accept what Incognito was doing or trying to do. Coaches apparently encouraged him. Ex-players have condemned not only his behavior, but also his use of the word nigger.
Professor and legal scholar Randall Kennedy wrote the book Nigger: The Strange Career of a Troublesome Word. Professor Kennedy gives a historical view of the word's origins, its development as an epithet and its acceptance within the black community for use by blacks to other blacks. Somewhere along the line, whites have been allowed to use the word, but always in the very narrow and limited context. Professor Kennedy, that I recall, addressed this phenomenon briefly, if at all.
Over the years, white celebrities have run afoul of this opaque area of linguistics. Gwyneth Paltrow, not exactly my idea of a person with whom I'd like to share an airplane much less share drinks, once ran afoul of this unwritten rule when she tweeted Ni**as in paris for real while at a Jay-Z concert in Paris. Ms. Paltrow caught a lot of flak for this, even after claiming that she was merely repeating the name of a song. Ms. Paltrow is close friends with Mr. Z, allegedly, so she meant no hostile intent. But it did raise the question of when, if ever, a white person can use the word.
Seven years ago Damon Wayans wanted to trademark Niggaz for a clothing line. Fortunately, Mr. Wayans saw reason and withdrew his application, if he ever filed it. No matter what license blacks have to use the word among themselves, putting such a label on clothing only invites trouble.
The Incognito-Martin kerfuffle involves more than just the use of an incendiary term. It involves bullying, threats and other things in which grown men should not engage. What Incognito -- who apparently is quite the boor, no matter how well he cleans up -- did was sophomoric at best and actionable at worst. To blame this in Martin is idiotic. But it brings to the fore the nettlesome issues of use of the word nigger and black-white relations tied to that word.
There has to be a better way to discuss this.
(c) 2013 The Truxton Spangler Chronicles
Professional football and baseball are notorious for their hazing of rookies. From what I've seen, football rookies are made to sing their alma maters' fight songs in training camp cafeterias, buy donuts for practice and carry the veterans' equipment off the practice field. They may get taped to the goal post, too. Baseball rookies are made to wear outlandish costumes on team flights, carry the veterans' bags and engage in vandalism in cities they visit during the season. One such example of the latter involves getting rookies to paint the testicles of the horse on a statue along Chicago's lakefront just south of Wrigley. It's tradition, and everyone is expected to participate. It's a right of passage, a way of making sure the rookie joins the brotherhood of the team. Outsiders will see it as infantile and immature, and to a certain extent it is. But unless and until critics have been in the locker room, they really don't know of what they speak.
Of course, nowadays the talk is about the ongoing scandal with the Miami Dolphins. Rickie Incognito, a veteran, used coarse and racist language with a teammate, Jonathan Martin, both to haze him and to toughen him up, according to some reports. Incognito may or may not have had the support of the coaching staff and management. Martin may or may not have been too soft. In an odd twist, reports indicate that other players actually support Incognito, not Martin, even though Martin left the team because of Incognito's actions.
Beyond the alleged bullying, the sophomoric attempt to toughen Martin up and sundry other issues, the use of nigger is troublesome for so many different reasons. First of all, the word is repugnant. It brings up a past that is vile and murderous and wrong by any standard. Yet, blacks use the word almost with impunity. Therein lies the problem: Among blacks the word is somewhat acceptable, a badge of honor that only those baptized in the struggle can claim. And to an extent, I can appreciate that. But it becomes murky after that.
Within professional sports, the notion of a brotherhood develops, especially in football. Units, such as the offensive or defensive lines, the defensive backfield, or the kickers, tend to hang out and work out together. They endure many of the same challenges and hardships equally. As a result, certain teasing or kidding that would be intolerable in pleasant society is acceptable within these hermetic groups. Allowable, apparently, within these groups is the use of nigger by black and white athlete alike...provided it is used in a certain way. It isn't necessarily condoned so much as allowed, with the apparent understanding that the word will not be used outside the group or in an offensive manner.
To be honest, I haven't followed the Incognito-Martin brouhaha that closely. Each day new revelations whipsaw my attention. Some players accept what Incognito was doing or trying to do. Coaches apparently encouraged him. Ex-players have condemned not only his behavior, but also his use of the word nigger.
Professor and legal scholar Randall Kennedy wrote the book Nigger: The Strange Career of a Troublesome Word. Professor Kennedy gives a historical view of the word's origins, its development as an epithet and its acceptance within the black community for use by blacks to other blacks. Somewhere along the line, whites have been allowed to use the word, but always in the very narrow and limited context. Professor Kennedy, that I recall, addressed this phenomenon briefly, if at all.
Over the years, white celebrities have run afoul of this opaque area of linguistics. Gwyneth Paltrow, not exactly my idea of a person with whom I'd like to share an airplane much less share drinks, once ran afoul of this unwritten rule when she tweeted Ni**as in paris for real while at a Jay-Z concert in Paris. Ms. Paltrow caught a lot of flak for this, even after claiming that she was merely repeating the name of a song. Ms. Paltrow is close friends with Mr. Z, allegedly, so she meant no hostile intent. But it did raise the question of when, if ever, a white person can use the word.
Seven years ago Damon Wayans wanted to trademark Niggaz for a clothing line. Fortunately, Mr. Wayans saw reason and withdrew his application, if he ever filed it. No matter what license blacks have to use the word among themselves, putting such a label on clothing only invites trouble.
The Incognito-Martin kerfuffle involves more than just the use of an incendiary term. It involves bullying, threats and other things in which grown men should not engage. What Incognito -- who apparently is quite the boor, no matter how well he cleans up -- did was sophomoric at best and actionable at worst. To blame this in Martin is idiotic. But it brings to the fore the nettlesome issues of use of the word nigger and black-white relations tied to that word.
There has to be a better way to discuss this.
(c) 2013 The Truxton Spangler Chronicles
Monday, November 11, 2013
Questions for POTUS, Hillary
Since most of the MSM is too twitterpated to believe that its chosen one could mislead them, spy on them, investigate them and deny them their daily bread, and because the only viable alternative can't wangle an interview with either the President or Hillary Clinton, I thought I'd take a stab at posing questions that I'd ask either of them, knowing full well that no job I'd ever be interested in having would be jeopardized by my insouciant questions.
For Ms. Clinton:
When pressed by the congressmen during one of your hearings on Benghazi, you replied, in essence, What does it matter? As President, would that be a sufficient answer from an underling in response to congressional inquiry about an incident in which four Americans were murdered?
Why was the controversial movie used as an explanation about the attack on the consulate in Benghazi?
Does being the first woman president drive you to run?
How would you deal with the Iranians?
What role did you have with the ARBs and their release?
What do you think should be done with the members of your staff who took the fall for you and were removed from their posts and reassigned? Should they be be fired?
What steps are being taken to locate the consulate's attackers?
Is Rahm Emmanuel going to be your running mate in 2016, or is there another woman whom you would choose instead?
What Republican candidate do you least want to see in 2016?
For Mr. Obama:
Why do you criticize Fox News so much?
What does it take to be fired in your administration?
What is your definition of transparency?
Do you really like Hillary Clinton?
How is it that a man as educated as you, a Harvard graduate and a former professor at the University of Chicago, is so hopelessly uninformed about the goings-on in his own administration that he only learns of things when they're reported in the media? If it is true that you only learn of them in the media, does that mean you're guilty of dereliction of duty?
How do you explain that after you pitched woo at the Arab world, more fighting broke out in it than during the entire tenure of George W. Bush?
Why haven't you closed Gitmo yet?
Why won't you delay Obamacare until the problems with the website are resolved?
When did you first learn about the attack on Benghazi and the real reason behind it?
Why were no liberal groups targeted by the IRS?
Why was Big Business given a break on Obamacare requirements but not small businesses?
Why did you choose Joe Biden as your running mate?
How do you justify the seizure of the AP's phone records?
Why did you choose to comment on the Trayvon Martin case before a verdict was rendered but not on the murder of the Australian exchange student in Oklahoma, the murder of the World War II vet in Washington and the assault and battery of a thirteen-year-old student on a bus by three older black youths?
Why did you waffle on support for Libya and Syria?
Why did you not appoint an independent counsel to investigate Eric Holder on his sundry questionable actions?
Why were immigration reform advocates allowed usage of federal lands during the government shutdown but veterans were kept out?
Is there any limit to amnesty for illegal immigrants?
Why were you so obsequious toward foreign leaders when the NSA eavesdropping was revealed especially when it is widely known that those very leaders' governments are spying on the United States.
Is Edward Snowden a traitor? If so, would you order his elimination as you have Americans who have actively supported Al Qaeda?
Why won't you release the pictures of Osama bin Laden? On a similar note, why has aid to both Pakistan and Egypt not been curtailed? Furthermore, why are funds being funneled to the Muslim Brotherhood?
Are you in favor of the rhetoric employed by Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid and other supporters directed at the Republicans, calling them arsonists, terrorists and worse?
Do you believe the Republicans are right about anything?
Why were no liberal groups targeted by the IRS for investigation?
Why do you feel it's all right to target Americans working with Al Qaeda without giving them Due Process but you feel compelled to give Al Qaeda enemy combatants Due Process instead?
There are more questions, but time constraints would limit the number I could ask.
(c) 2013 The Truxton Spangler Chronicles
For Ms. Clinton:
When pressed by the congressmen during one of your hearings on Benghazi, you replied, in essence, What does it matter? As President, would that be a sufficient answer from an underling in response to congressional inquiry about an incident in which four Americans were murdered?
Why was the controversial movie used as an explanation about the attack on the consulate in Benghazi?
Does being the first woman president drive you to run?
How would you deal with the Iranians?
What role did you have with the ARBs and their release?
What do you think should be done with the members of your staff who took the fall for you and were removed from their posts and reassigned? Should they be be fired?
What steps are being taken to locate the consulate's attackers?
Is Rahm Emmanuel going to be your running mate in 2016, or is there another woman whom you would choose instead?
What Republican candidate do you least want to see in 2016?
For Mr. Obama:
Why do you criticize Fox News so much?
What does it take to be fired in your administration?
What is your definition of transparency?
Do you really like Hillary Clinton?
How is it that a man as educated as you, a Harvard graduate and a former professor at the University of Chicago, is so hopelessly uninformed about the goings-on in his own administration that he only learns of things when they're reported in the media? If it is true that you only learn of them in the media, does that mean you're guilty of dereliction of duty?
How do you explain that after you pitched woo at the Arab world, more fighting broke out in it than during the entire tenure of George W. Bush?
Why haven't you closed Gitmo yet?
Why won't you delay Obamacare until the problems with the website are resolved?
When did you first learn about the attack on Benghazi and the real reason behind it?
Why were no liberal groups targeted by the IRS?
Why was Big Business given a break on Obamacare requirements but not small businesses?
Why did you choose Joe Biden as your running mate?
How do you justify the seizure of the AP's phone records?
Why did you choose to comment on the Trayvon Martin case before a verdict was rendered but not on the murder of the Australian exchange student in Oklahoma, the murder of the World War II vet in Washington and the assault and battery of a thirteen-year-old student on a bus by three older black youths?
Why did you waffle on support for Libya and Syria?
Why did you not appoint an independent counsel to investigate Eric Holder on his sundry questionable actions?
Why were immigration reform advocates allowed usage of federal lands during the government shutdown but veterans were kept out?
Is there any limit to amnesty for illegal immigrants?
Why were you so obsequious toward foreign leaders when the NSA eavesdropping was revealed especially when it is widely known that those very leaders' governments are spying on the United States.
Is Edward Snowden a traitor? If so, would you order his elimination as you have Americans who have actively supported Al Qaeda?
Why won't you release the pictures of Osama bin Laden? On a similar note, why has aid to both Pakistan and Egypt not been curtailed? Furthermore, why are funds being funneled to the Muslim Brotherhood?
Are you in favor of the rhetoric employed by Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid and other supporters directed at the Republicans, calling them arsonists, terrorists and worse?
Do you believe the Republicans are right about anything?
Why were no liberal groups targeted by the IRS for investigation?
Why do you feel it's all right to target Americans working with Al Qaeda without giving them Due Process but you feel compelled to give Al Qaeda enemy combatants Due Process instead?
There are more questions, but time constraints would limit the number I could ask.
(c) 2013 The Truxton Spangler Chronicles
Friday, November 8, 2013
Obama Celebrities
President Obama rode the crest of a wave of celebrity endorsements into the White House. He was feted by many big-name celebrities in Hollywood who were either devout liberals or just wanted more free face time with an adoring public. For his part, the President certainly reveled in the adulation of people who command big salaries for imitating other people. It would seem, oddly, that birds of a feather truly do flock together.
But where are the President's celebrities now?
Alec Baldwin, Robert Redford, Janeane Garofalo, Kerry Washington, Scarlett Johanssen, David Letterman, Jay Leno, Bill Maher, Keith Olbermann, Will.I.Am, Katy Perry -- where's all the support for those people who stomped for him on the campaign trail, telling us nattering nabobs what good things the President was going to do for the country? Mind you, this is pure sarcasm, because most of Hollywood has the spine of a rubber band. But the silence from the beautiful and powerful is deafening.
A while back there were reports that Hollywood types were being sought to make PSA's asking those of us who were under- or ill-informed to sign up for Obamacare. Not surprisingly, Hollywood balked. If there's one thing most people in Hollywood understand it's bad press and the effects it can have on a career. And if they don't, their agents do.
Sure, the late night comics are tweaking him, but they almost have to. Even so, they're immune from being attacked. If the IRS were to investigate them, it would signal that the rumors about criticism drawing attacks are true, something the White House resolutely denies. But actors and actresses aren't so immune. Although the IRS might not investigate them, they could be shorted when it came to roles. Invitations to White House dinners could dry up. Photo ops would disappear. Take away the spotlight and where's the celebrity?
The irony is that these people refused to listen. They were so hidebound in their support of the man that they refused to listen. Critics of the President were labeled racists; just ask Garofalo and Redford what critics are. In fact, that very fact may be the reason so many liberal activists are silent: Ed Asner boldly told the media that many in Hollywood were afraid of speaking out against the administration lest they be branded racists. Remember, Mr. Asner is himself a dyed-in-the-wool liberal.
Excuses, explanations, sophistry at its best: No matter how liberals try to paint the spate of troubles visited upon the country by this administration, problems exist because of the decisions made by the President and his administration. What's fair for the goose is fair for the gander: Were this a conservative president, liberals would be screaming bloody murder. How did the cat selectively get their tongues once a liberal president took office?
Celebrities cannot take the good without the bad. Cognitive dissonance from a group that thought itself so superbly informed to the point where it could lecture the hoi polloi about how it should vote just won't cut it. Admittedly, it's not easy standing by a man who lied to the American public and then tried to pass if off as a misunderstanding. Liberals do not have a monopoly on brains: There are plenty of conservatives who not only foresaw the debacle that now exists but heard the President's repeated promises. To claim otherwise now passes no test known to man: Sniff, smell, eyeball or lie detector.
What this portends for the mid-term elections and beyond only time will tell. But for Hollywood supporters of the President, it would be refreshing for one of them to come out and say he or she was wrong, that the President's platform and execution thereof was wrong and that for those reasons he or she can no longer support him.
Frankly, I don't know what's holding them back. They're actors, aren't they?
(c) 2013 The Truxton Spangler Chronicles
But where are the President's celebrities now?
Alec Baldwin, Robert Redford, Janeane Garofalo, Kerry Washington, Scarlett Johanssen, David Letterman, Jay Leno, Bill Maher, Keith Olbermann, Will.I.Am, Katy Perry -- where's all the support for those people who stomped for him on the campaign trail, telling us nattering nabobs what good things the President was going to do for the country? Mind you, this is pure sarcasm, because most of Hollywood has the spine of a rubber band. But the silence from the beautiful and powerful is deafening.
A while back there were reports that Hollywood types were being sought to make PSA's asking those of us who were under- or ill-informed to sign up for Obamacare. Not surprisingly, Hollywood balked. If there's one thing most people in Hollywood understand it's bad press and the effects it can have on a career. And if they don't, their agents do.
Sure, the late night comics are tweaking him, but they almost have to. Even so, they're immune from being attacked. If the IRS were to investigate them, it would signal that the rumors about criticism drawing attacks are true, something the White House resolutely denies. But actors and actresses aren't so immune. Although the IRS might not investigate them, they could be shorted when it came to roles. Invitations to White House dinners could dry up. Photo ops would disappear. Take away the spotlight and where's the celebrity?
The irony is that these people refused to listen. They were so hidebound in their support of the man that they refused to listen. Critics of the President were labeled racists; just ask Garofalo and Redford what critics are. In fact, that very fact may be the reason so many liberal activists are silent: Ed Asner boldly told the media that many in Hollywood were afraid of speaking out against the administration lest they be branded racists. Remember, Mr. Asner is himself a dyed-in-the-wool liberal.
Excuses, explanations, sophistry at its best: No matter how liberals try to paint the spate of troubles visited upon the country by this administration, problems exist because of the decisions made by the President and his administration. What's fair for the goose is fair for the gander: Were this a conservative president, liberals would be screaming bloody murder. How did the cat selectively get their tongues once a liberal president took office?
Celebrities cannot take the good without the bad. Cognitive dissonance from a group that thought itself so superbly informed to the point where it could lecture the hoi polloi about how it should vote just won't cut it. Admittedly, it's not easy standing by a man who lied to the American public and then tried to pass if off as a misunderstanding. Liberals do not have a monopoly on brains: There are plenty of conservatives who not only foresaw the debacle that now exists but heard the President's repeated promises. To claim otherwise now passes no test known to man: Sniff, smell, eyeball or lie detector.
What this portends for the mid-term elections and beyond only time will tell. But for Hollywood supporters of the President, it would be refreshing for one of them to come out and say he or she was wrong, that the President's platform and execution thereof was wrong and that for those reasons he or she can no longer support him.
Frankly, I don't know what's holding them back. They're actors, aren't they?
(c) 2013 The Truxton Spangler Chronicles
Wednesday, November 6, 2013
W
Lost amid the cacophony of the lies emanating from the scandals perpetuated by the White House is the fact that the much-vilified former president, George W. Bush, has faded from memory. Long the whipping boy of not only the Left but also the incumbent, W has been all but forgotten by the pundits who reveled in lambasting him or showing how the foibles of the present administration could be traced back to problems from the Bush era. At least for now, W's reign as the flogging post is over.
And that's how it should be. W was far from perfect. Katrina, WMD's, his malapropisms, his folksy ways with foreign leaders -- it all combined to make Bush the laughing stock of the MSM. But when the ledgers are balanced for Bush and Obama, Bush is going to look better than Obama, and it won't be close.
Bush had a quiet dignity about him. Sure, he was goofy at times, but in that he was real. His creation of near-words, his mistakes when talking with press, actually made him more like the electorate than Obama, ironically, because Obama was supposed to be the man of the people and Bush was supposed to be the distant elitist. Obama is a gifted speaker, no doubt, but he comes across as leaden, more programmed than natural. Although the MSM laughs about it, his use of teleprompters is actually laughable. For someone allegedly as gifted as he is, Obama can't talk extemporaneously, or won't.
Obama's gaffes are glossed over. Whether it be about speaking Austrian or visiting fifty-seven states during a campaign, the MSM is quick with the excuses. Bush was given no such quarter. He was dumb. He was a blockhead. No one ever confused Bush with Stephen Hawking; the MSM did confuse Obama with Hawking.
Bush's main failures were his handling of the Katrina emergency and in relying on bad intelligence to launch the attack on Iraq. I don't think the MSM blames him for 9/11; it shouldn't, because Bill Clinton could have taken care of that years ago had he had testicular fortitude. Sure, he declared Mission Accomplished prematurely. But what of Obama's failures?
He promised during the 2008 campaign that he'd close Gitmo. It remains open today. He declared he'd pull out the troops within a couple of years; they're not scheduled to return until next year, some six years after his promise, and in so announcing gave the enemy our battle plan. His use of drone strikes exceeds whatever overreaching the Bush administration -- that evil cabal comprised of Bush, Cheney and Rumsfeld -- ever committed, going so far as to target American citizens without court authority (I actually agree with this; traitors do not deserve Due Process, even though as a lawyer I would argue they do). In military matters, think how Bush would have been pilloried by the MSM had he done these things.
Scandals abound in the second term: Syria, Benghazi, the IRS, the AP, the rollout of Obamacare, the NSA spying. One of Bush's failures, according to his critics, was the reliance of flawed intelligence to attack Iraq. First, Obama permitted leaks to occur and sanctioned spying on American citizens and foreign leaders under the authority of the Patriot Act which he criticized as a senator. But there were also plenty of other grounds for attacking Iraq, not the least of which were attacks on US warplanes in the no-fly zones by the Iraqis.
Obama's flawed policy toward the Muslim world has caused more wars to flare up than at any time under Bush's two terms. The President who apologized for American policy has confusedly been involved in Libya, Egypt and Syria with no clear definition of America's position. No one ever mistook Bush's policy in the region.
There were no complaints about transparency in the Bush White House. Now, even admirers of the present chief of state complain that the transparency of this White House is opaque at best. Lies are tossed around like pennies. The President, clearly a smart and educated man, knows nothing about the goings-on in his administration until he reads about it in the newspapers. Recent revelations are proving that those statements are at best a fib and at worst an outright lie. His recent restatement about what he meant about insurance policies under Obamacare plainly contradicts what he said repeatedly in the run-up to the rollout. Bush never lied, but if he did, he didn't do it with the frequency or the shamelessness of Obama.
Obama has caused our standing in the world to sink ever farther than it did under Bush. People complained loudly about the cowboy in the Bush White House. What do they call the man occupying the Oval Office now? How do they compare his misdeeds to the errors committed by Bush? Where is the balanced approach?
No president is perfect, no matter what we'd like to believe. But fairness in criticism should be expected. Bush was far from perfect, as even he'd admit. But Obama can't even admit when he's made a mistake in judgment, let alone admit he'd lied. This seems to be a recurrent them among Democratic presidents, at least insofar as the last two are concerned.
My wise liberal friend commented to me that the MSM had let the country down when it refused to report accurately what was happening with Benghazi. I think that assessment can now be tweaked a bit: The MSM let Obama down by not holding him to the same standard as it held Bush. By giving him too much rope it allowed Obama to slowly hang himself.
The trouble for the MSM now is that it has to be the one to open the trap door beneath Obama's feet, lest it be accused of complicity.
(c) 2013 The Truxton Spangler Chronicles
And that's how it should be. W was far from perfect. Katrina, WMD's, his malapropisms, his folksy ways with foreign leaders -- it all combined to make Bush the laughing stock of the MSM. But when the ledgers are balanced for Bush and Obama, Bush is going to look better than Obama, and it won't be close.
Bush had a quiet dignity about him. Sure, he was goofy at times, but in that he was real. His creation of near-words, his mistakes when talking with press, actually made him more like the electorate than Obama, ironically, because Obama was supposed to be the man of the people and Bush was supposed to be the distant elitist. Obama is a gifted speaker, no doubt, but he comes across as leaden, more programmed than natural. Although the MSM laughs about it, his use of teleprompters is actually laughable. For someone allegedly as gifted as he is, Obama can't talk extemporaneously, or won't.
Obama's gaffes are glossed over. Whether it be about speaking Austrian or visiting fifty-seven states during a campaign, the MSM is quick with the excuses. Bush was given no such quarter. He was dumb. He was a blockhead. No one ever confused Bush with Stephen Hawking; the MSM did confuse Obama with Hawking.
Bush's main failures were his handling of the Katrina emergency and in relying on bad intelligence to launch the attack on Iraq. I don't think the MSM blames him for 9/11; it shouldn't, because Bill Clinton could have taken care of that years ago had he had testicular fortitude. Sure, he declared Mission Accomplished prematurely. But what of Obama's failures?
He promised during the 2008 campaign that he'd close Gitmo. It remains open today. He declared he'd pull out the troops within a couple of years; they're not scheduled to return until next year, some six years after his promise, and in so announcing gave the enemy our battle plan. His use of drone strikes exceeds whatever overreaching the Bush administration -- that evil cabal comprised of Bush, Cheney and Rumsfeld -- ever committed, going so far as to target American citizens without court authority (I actually agree with this; traitors do not deserve Due Process, even though as a lawyer I would argue they do). In military matters, think how Bush would have been pilloried by the MSM had he done these things.
Scandals abound in the second term: Syria, Benghazi, the IRS, the AP, the rollout of Obamacare, the NSA spying. One of Bush's failures, according to his critics, was the reliance of flawed intelligence to attack Iraq. First, Obama permitted leaks to occur and sanctioned spying on American citizens and foreign leaders under the authority of the Patriot Act which he criticized as a senator. But there were also plenty of other grounds for attacking Iraq, not the least of which were attacks on US warplanes in the no-fly zones by the Iraqis.
Obama's flawed policy toward the Muslim world has caused more wars to flare up than at any time under Bush's two terms. The President who apologized for American policy has confusedly been involved in Libya, Egypt and Syria with no clear definition of America's position. No one ever mistook Bush's policy in the region.
There were no complaints about transparency in the Bush White House. Now, even admirers of the present chief of state complain that the transparency of this White House is opaque at best. Lies are tossed around like pennies. The President, clearly a smart and educated man, knows nothing about the goings-on in his administration until he reads about it in the newspapers. Recent revelations are proving that those statements are at best a fib and at worst an outright lie. His recent restatement about what he meant about insurance policies under Obamacare plainly contradicts what he said repeatedly in the run-up to the rollout. Bush never lied, but if he did, he didn't do it with the frequency or the shamelessness of Obama.
Obama has caused our standing in the world to sink ever farther than it did under Bush. People complained loudly about the cowboy in the Bush White House. What do they call the man occupying the Oval Office now? How do they compare his misdeeds to the errors committed by Bush? Where is the balanced approach?
No president is perfect, no matter what we'd like to believe. But fairness in criticism should be expected. Bush was far from perfect, as even he'd admit. But Obama can't even admit when he's made a mistake in judgment, let alone admit he'd lied. This seems to be a recurrent them among Democratic presidents, at least insofar as the last two are concerned.
My wise liberal friend commented to me that the MSM had let the country down when it refused to report accurately what was happening with Benghazi. I think that assessment can now be tweaked a bit: The MSM let Obama down by not holding him to the same standard as it held Bush. By giving him too much rope it allowed Obama to slowly hang himself.
The trouble for the MSM now is that it has to be the one to open the trap door beneath Obama's feet, lest it be accused of complicity.
(c) 2013 The Truxton Spangler Chronicles
Tuesday, November 5, 2013
Random Thoughts, Redux
A wild weekend away in Kentucky has kept me out of the loop for many stories, so I'm going to mail it in and post some things that I've been pondering while driving the back roads and by-ways of Ohio and Kentucky:
Putting mixed candies and chocolates in the same bowl ruins the chocolates.
People who merge in whenever they see a sliver of daylight are probably rude in other ways as well.
I have too many frigging passwords to keep track of them, and writing them all down on a single sheet of paper kind of defeats the purpose of having passwords.
This year I may actually read about thirty books, which isn't too bad considering all we've been doing this year.
Having a contest involving a photograph and then having the photographer win the contest is shady at best, dirty pool at worst.
Our bulldogs are the best pets ever.
Why I stayed up to watch the finish of that ballgame when I don't even care about football I'll never know.
A pistol or a rifle for my first firearm is an interesting question.
I'm sure glad I no longer have Illinois license plates on my car.
This is just so wrong on so many different levels: http://chicksontheright.com/posts/item/24924-run-a-stop-sign-get-ready-to-be-anally-violated
Wet noodles are the equivalent of cooked eggs for me without the awful smell.
I'm still waiting for Jesse and Al to speak out against all the black-on-white violence that's occurred since the George Zimmerman verdict.
I think those people who grew up playing music or speaking foreign languages have a leg up on the rest of us.
It's still funny to me that someone tried to surreptitiously take my photograph at the family reunion.
Anyone who invites me to talk about the Troubles is inviting a very animated lecture.
There is nothing that could induce me to enter politics.
I've never understood the concept of hazing on any level.
Sports talk radio really does prove Plato's point about democracy.
Is the president now a liar?
There is no way I'd film a sex tape. Nothing good can come from it. Well, you know what I mean.
I prefer an ergonomic keyboard. It takes me longer to type on the standard keyboard.
I'm glad I stopped drinking diet drinks.
Giving a massage is one thing, but I don't have any interest in getting one.
How do they put anchovies in a tin?
I have a unicorn hair.
Fruit in beer is just...repugnant.
One of these days I'm going to read The Federalist Papers. No, really, I am.
It just hit me I'm never going to have Salerno's pizza again. O' well.
If someone had told me five years ago I'd be taking glucosamine, I'd have laughed at them. Now I take it all the time and although I don't know how, it does lessen the aches and pains.
I wonder what ever happened to that bus driver from Soria with whom I chatted in Avila.
For that matter, I wonder how José Luis and Luis are doing.
I'd love to drum, but I doubt I'd be any good at it.
(c) 2013 The Truxton Spangler Chronicles
Putting mixed candies and chocolates in the same bowl ruins the chocolates.
People who merge in whenever they see a sliver of daylight are probably rude in other ways as well.
I have too many frigging passwords to keep track of them, and writing them all down on a single sheet of paper kind of defeats the purpose of having passwords.
This year I may actually read about thirty books, which isn't too bad considering all we've been doing this year.
Having a contest involving a photograph and then having the photographer win the contest is shady at best, dirty pool at worst.
Our bulldogs are the best pets ever.
Why I stayed up to watch the finish of that ballgame when I don't even care about football I'll never know.
A pistol or a rifle for my first firearm is an interesting question.
I'm sure glad I no longer have Illinois license plates on my car.
This is just so wrong on so many different levels: http://chicksontheright.com/posts/item/24924-run-a-stop-sign-get-ready-to-be-anally-violated
Wet noodles are the equivalent of cooked eggs for me without the awful smell.
I'm still waiting for Jesse and Al to speak out against all the black-on-white violence that's occurred since the George Zimmerman verdict.
I think those people who grew up playing music or speaking foreign languages have a leg up on the rest of us.
It's still funny to me that someone tried to surreptitiously take my photograph at the family reunion.
Anyone who invites me to talk about the Troubles is inviting a very animated lecture.
There is nothing that could induce me to enter politics.
I've never understood the concept of hazing on any level.
Sports talk radio really does prove Plato's point about democracy.
Is the president now a liar?
There is no way I'd film a sex tape. Nothing good can come from it. Well, you know what I mean.
I prefer an ergonomic keyboard. It takes me longer to type on the standard keyboard.
I'm glad I stopped drinking diet drinks.
Giving a massage is one thing, but I don't have any interest in getting one.
How do they put anchovies in a tin?
I have a unicorn hair.
Fruit in beer is just...repugnant.
One of these days I'm going to read The Federalist Papers. No, really, I am.
It just hit me I'm never going to have Salerno's pizza again. O' well.
If someone had told me five years ago I'd be taking glucosamine, I'd have laughed at them. Now I take it all the time and although I don't know how, it does lessen the aches and pains.
I wonder what ever happened to that bus driver from Soria with whom I chatted in Avila.
For that matter, I wonder how José Luis and Luis are doing.
I'd love to drum, but I doubt I'd be any good at it.
(c) 2013 The Truxton Spangler Chronicles
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)