R Blog

Secret Pleasures

Lots of people like to brag they don’t watch TV. We have joined that group. We no longer watch a TV either. Ha. We now watch shows on the internet on our gleaming 24” iMac. So, we can now make the smug claim that we own no TV and still watch Dancing With the Stars, Beauty and the Geek, America’s Next Top Model, The Bachelor, 30 Rock and The Office. For those who don’t watch TV I will bring you up to date. On Dancing, Mel B (Scary Spice of the Spice Girls, the one who is engaged in a child support battle with Eddie Murphy) revolutionized the Viennese Waltz by doing a series of four consecutive splits, a fantastical scissoring like move aided by her partner Max. You have to see it to believe it. Can’t really even explain it to those who don’t watch TV. Try and find it on YouTube someday.  On America’s Next Top Model, Heather (the one who is supposed to have Asberger’s syndrome that is—high functioning autism) is functioning like a sure winner. Heather is geeky enough to be on our other show but when they put a camera in her face she metamorphoses and proves once and for all that the camera loves some more than others and that maybe there is something to this modeling thing. (The bad thing about Top Model is that Tyra Banks is on it too). We were disappointed on Beauty and Geek when our favorite couple Shay and Joshua got the boot. Shay was a sassy, bossy, compassionate black beauty queen who was saddled with one of the homeliest little white fellows one could hope never to see. She liked him and improved him and benefited as a result. They should have won. The producers ruined the show this year by introducing two ringers, a guy beauty named Sam and a geeky girl partner. Sam wins all the challenges because, unlike most of the other beauties he knows stuff. The Bachelor ended with a stranger whimpering sound as too-good-to-be-true Brad Womack failed to offer the last rose to either of the two finalists, Jennie or DeAnna. It was as if Brad got tired of playing the TV game and said, “Screw it.” It was a stupid ending to a stupid show but one which always fascinates in a guy’s eagerness to love more than one woman at one time and with the willingness that the women go along with it. I could go on about 30 Rock and The Office, but you probably watch those already.

Noun + Verb + Sept. 11

Rudy says he doesn't talk about Sept. 11 as much as people think. (Video by TPM Media)

Date of Rank, Nov. 10, 1964

Once upon a time I went to Officer Training School:

"It took me awhile to get the hang of OTS (officer training school). At first I was too stressed out about it. Physically prepared. That wasn’t the problem. I’d run all summer getting ready and in the preceding year, my senior year of college, had worked my way up to three hundred pushups and as many situps a day. But I wasn’t ready for the head games that Captain Kafer sprung on us. He was the FTO (flight training officer), a regular Air Force captain (as opposed to a reserve officer). This was his permanent assignment, herding twelve OT’s (officer trainees) at a time through the ninety-day-wonder commissioning program that had been around since WWII.

Kafer was about five feet five and had the classic little guy complex. In fact, he looked a bit like Napoleon B. himself. Dark hair with a bit of wave, wide nose and thick lips. A bit heavy around the middle, he didn’t look like he could do half the stuff he made us do. But he ground on our flight with an amused smirk on his face, giving us the impression that none of us would ever make it.  And, it’s funny how when they work you hard, throw lots of strange stuff at you, and sleep deprive you, you could start to believe that this Mickey Mouse little program was something akin to airborne training. Not even close. It was serious, though, in that it temporarily screwed up the lives of those who washed out. You had to be a college graduate to get there, but if you failed the program you were looking at four years as an EM (enlisted man), a big ego buster though not the end of the world.

Kafer enjoyed making us miserable and his favorite form of misery was the room inspection. He’d show up early in the morning wearing white gloves and run his finger across the window sill or the floor. I’d be up way before reveille to clean the linoleum with my bare hands. This saved having to hide  a dirty rag.  Then he’d poke in the closet to see if uniforms were hung properly and according to the drill. We had one drawer that we could actually use to keep stuff in. Everything else was a display and not useful. Kafer’s favorite part of OTS was writing up “gig slips”—AF Form_____ with comments like: “Woolies in corner.”
I didn’t even sleep under my sheets. Once I got the sheet tightened down with a Rube Goldberg arrangement of paper clips and rubber bands and my blanket snugged in, I slept on top of it. It was warm in San Antonio from August to November. Hot when we got there; cooling off when we graduated.

We had arrived in San Antonio at dawn after a red eye flight from Seattle on a commercial airliner. The sun was coming up, back lighting some puffy, blackish clouds and the air was thick and warm at five a.m.. Five or six of us had taken the oath together at a recruiting office down by the Navy Pier, said goodbye to our folks and been loaded onto a military bus and run down to Sea-Tac where we had tickets on a Continental flight that had mechanical problems and sat at the gate for several hours before takeoff. They wouldn’t serve us a drink as we were recruits...
The whole thing here

Sicko

We didn’t see Sicko in the theater but finally caught it on DVD which might be better because of the excellent “special features.” It’s clear why opponents hate Michael Moore. The guy is a beauty and a master at inserting the needle at the most vulnerable point. Having worked in the insurance industry nearly thirty years I wouldn’t trust them as far as I could throw them. This wasn’t always the case. The insurance industry, before the eighties, had some integrity. I have to agree with Moore. They no longer belong in the health care business. The most chilling scene for me was Nixon and Erlichman discussing Nixon’s deal with Edgar Kaiser to begin the HMO concept. Most moving was in the “special features” where Moore arranged to have a street in LA’s skid row sealed off. He set up a large screen and had a premier of Sicko for the street people who sat outside in folding chairs and ate popcorn as they watched with rapt attention. Most effective was the Cuban interlude, where the Cubans gleefully cooperated with Michael to treat 911 heroes as well as the evildoers were being care for at Guantanamo. Moore makes the case strongly that we are victims of our own media propaganda machine and really don’t understand what’s going on in other countries. He spent a lot of time in France. Fox news and others pushed back hard against Michael Moore’s contention that the Canadian, British and French systems (and Norwegian in the special features) were superior to the US system. There was a segment in the film on SOS Medecin, the 24/7 house call service available in France. We actually used SOS Medecin on a trip to Paris in 1987. Twice. Both times doctors appeared in hotel room within an hour and charged a reasonable fee. Our health care system is a mess. It’s driven by greed and profit motive. Former Labour MP Tony Benn featured in the film and at length on the DVD special features had an excellent explanation about how government, not responsive to peoples needs and wants, is able to maintain control by managing the attitudes of the population. Sicko is a great documentary. It points out the moral bankruptcy of our system and presents a case study as to why the free market isn’t free and probably wouldn’t solve all our probems if it were.

Ron Paul Gains Traction

If you haven't watched the news this week you might not know that Republican/Libertarian congressman and medical doctor, Ron Paul of Texas, raised $4.2 millions in one twenty four hour period. Actually, he didn't raise the money. The money was raised for him by a website not directly associated with his campaign. As a result, Dr. Paul made all the news shows this week. It's been fun to watch. And, if you missed it you can catch up on  this web site, an always interesting libertarian site and big Paul booster. It's fun to see someone shake things up and Ron Paul is an attractive candidate for he seems like the last honest man, someone who has never taken a congressional junket, who won't participate in the congressional pension plan, who returns part of his office budget to the treasury, who voted no on the Patriot Act, the war, any tax increases, etc. Liberal blogger Kevin Drum writes him off telling his followers to  "grow up." His blog on Paul resulted in more emails from Paul supporters than he'd received before. Paul isn't a completely pure libertarian. His views on abortion, for example, fall out of the libertarian mold. But he seems pretty close to pure. And it's the purity of his views combined with the practicality gained through twenty years in the US Congress that makes one want to listen. I personally don't have the faith in the free market that Dr. Paul has. Libertarian ideas of government often seem a bit like science fiction and one wonders how they could ever be brought into the mainstream with so many of us on the dole and loving it. But the man with two first names is certainly a refreshing alternative to the posers running for the Republican nomination. I hope Ron Paul can keep raising money and does well in the early primaries so that his views, particularly his anti-war and personal liberty views get a fair hearing and become part of the Republican debate.

Losing Speed

I've been fascinated with this short video ever since my friend Dave sent it along. Dave and I have been sharing bits and pieces since the eighth grade. That's more than fifty years! If life's arc boils down to age then we've been on the same graph line for a long time. In the early days we would hold conference on sex and girl friends and whether or not to skip school. In the last few years we've conferred on things like when to start Social Security and where the best place to live out those last years might be. I laughed like hell when I first watched this clip. Actually, I still laugh each time I view it. But now I'm wondering if Dave isn't sending me a subliminal message and that message is—don't lose speed. One thing you notice as you get older is that you begin to lose your quickness, your ability to react. I think back to those days when I had two good knees and could juke and dodge, or spin out of control and get my feet back under me again. Then I think about a few years ago losing my nerve on a single track, going too slow and, as a result, flying over the handle bars of my mountain bike. The fact is that you need some speed in this life. Speed will carry you over some ruts and some bumps. You have to keep your speed up. You have to keep moving. Watch the video again. This old gent (I'm going to take a guess that he is early seventies) approaches the escalator. Granted, it is somewhat odd that he carries an old style sachel briefcase while wearing shorts and what appear to be running shoes. There is no one else in the security camera for the entire forty second sequence. There's no other human appearing anywhere in the frame. So, I'm going to guess that he's one of the old folks who go to the mall early to walk for exercise. Probably has his jacket and a book in the briefcase. He's probably ridden the escalator a hundred times. Why, then, does he lose speed on this day? Why does he lose his nerve? Why does he just stand there waiting for the escalator to tip him over? Why doesn't he move forward aggressively? Instead, he stands on that first step, letting the machine do the job. He even fails to keep his weight forward and the first step emerging out of the ground spills him onto his back. He does fight back. He isn't completely passive. The knockdown wakes him up. He holds onto the railing, manages a spin move, gets his feeble legs downhill and begins to recover as we lose sight of him. Hopefully, no one was there to witness his humiliation (if you don't count the 5725 people who've watched this on Youtube). I like to imagine that he had regained his composure and a standing position by the time the escalator made it to the next level and that he briskly stepped off the contraption and began to stride quickly around the mall perhaps setting a personal record for most laps walked. Hopefully, it was a reminder to him, as it is to me, and maybe to Dave, and possibly to anyone reading this to keep our speed up as high as we can avoiding the possible ignominy of starring in a widely circulated video. As my Aunt Peggy is fond of saying, "Old age ain't for sissies." As this old guy has taught us,  if you can't go fast, at least lean forward.

Performance Evaluation

Here's TPM Media's review of Bush's close advisor Karen Hughes job performance. Hughes was tabbed to improve our image in the Arab world.

UPDATE: Fred Kaplan in Slate Magazine thinks maybe she wasn't half bad.

Shutdown the Baghdad Embassy

Juan Cole has a pretty good idea. Cut off funding for the massive US Embassy in Baghdad to put pressure on Bush to pull out of Iraq. State Department personnel, who are not soldiers, are nearly being Shanghai'd to serve in Baghdad. Here's the gist of Cole's argument:
...here is how closing the embassy works for the anti-war movement and for the Democratic Party (and anti-war Republicans). The public just won't mind. If you cut off money to the troops, they will mind. Only a plurality of Americans wants all troops out now, immediately. And if the Dems embargoed the military budget, the hawks would run on the their having sent our boys off to duel "al-Qaeda" with "spitballs" (a la Zell Miller). But the Republican hawks, having spent decades tearing down the State Department, will be helpless before a measure that closes down the US embassy in Baghdad. It is quite delicious.