04/26/2001

Great Expectations

It’s not whether you win or lose that counts, but did you beat the point spread? Anyone who’s ever risked a friendly fiver on a football game knows the truth of that statement. If you bet on the underdogs, you don’t need them to win, you just need them to make it close enough to put you in the money.

In last year’s presidential campaign, George W. Bush spoke of the “soft bigotry of low expectations” and yet Mr. Bush turned low expectations to his advantage and sneaked into the Oval Office with that same soft bigotry picking the lock.
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By floegel | Posted in Commentary | Comments (0)
04/19/2001

Couldn’t Be Clearer

Welcome to history week, 101. It kicked off Monday, Patriot’s Day in Massachusetts, a commemoration of the Battle of Lexington and Concord, moved to the nearest Monday. One of our sharp-eyed correspondents spotted Paul Revere trotting along Mass Ave. in Boston at noon with a police cruiser in front, two mounted state troopers and backed-up traffic creeping behind. It was a hat trick – wrong hour, wrong day, wrong place. “Listen my children and you shall hear of the daylight ride of Paul Revere?”

Other commemorations this week include the actual anniversary of the Battle of Lexington and Concord, the Branch Davidian-ATF shootout at Waco, Texas, the bombing of the federal building in Oklahoma City, the shooting at Columbine High School in Colorado and Adolph Hitler’s birthday. Friday is 4:20, and if you don’t know what that means, don’t worry, it doesn’t apply to you.
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By floegel | Posted in Commentary | Comments (0)
04/12/2001

The Absence of War

I suppose it’s my own fault for watching television. It was, I don’t know, a month ago and I was watching “The West Wing” – I know, I have no excuse – and one of these White House jerks – the bald one – was leaking bile because he had to talk to anti-globalization activists, who, by the way, were portrayed as inarticulate and just plain wrong. At one point, grumpy bald guy said, “Globalization prevents war.” That was it. I turned it off and I refuse to watch anymore, I don’t care how often Marty Sheen marches with the farmworkers. I’m done.

It’s bad enough to have people like Tom Friedman at the New York Times constantly crowing about how no two nations that have McDonald’s have ever gone to war, now we have knee-jerk neoliberalism pouring out of the tee vee. No wonder it’s called the Idiot Box.
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By floegel | Posted in Commentary | Comments (0)
04/05/2001

Conspiracy Theories

Now that the Republican Party controls the White House, the Senate and the House of Representatives, certain people along the American political spectrum are feeling free to indulge their paranoid fantasies, more so now than at any time since Ronald Reagan was declaring trees cause pollution and announcing we would begin bombing the Soviet Union in five minutes. Many of these people have my e-mail address and think nothing of sharing their conspiracy theories with me. Don’t they know the FBI monitors that stuff?
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By floegel | Posted in Commentary | Comments (0)
03/29/2001

Green, As in Greenback

Over a week has passed since the vernal equinox, daylight savings time begins on Sunday, there’s still three feet of snow in my front yard, March madness will not end until April second and if your phone is ringing, don’t answer it.

Chances are, the person at the other end of the ringing phone is a telemarketer, wanting to sell you lawn care service. And why not? Your back is aching and your hands are blistered from shoveling all that late-winter snow, who wants to consider hours of sunburn while out tending the lawn?
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By floegel | Posted in Commentary | Comments (0)
03/22/2001

Responding to Realities

Who, exactly, is the president of the United States? The occupant of the Oval Office’s first name is George, his last name is Bush, and his middle initial – at least one of them – is W. But is this the presidency of George W. Bush, the son or George H.W. Bush, the father?

In 1988, on the campaign trail, George H.W. predicted his political rivals would want to raise taxes. Mr. Bush promised he would not raise taxes, going so far as to predict he would say, “Read my lips – no new taxes.” That prediction was incorrect, George H.W did raise taxes and was sent to Houston after one term.
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By floegel | Posted in Commentary | Comments (0)
03/15/2001

Ecumenism is a Four-Letter Word

“The Catholics hate the Protestants, the Protestants hate the Muslims, the Muslims hate the Hindus and everybody hates the Jews.” Those aren’t my words, they’re Tom Lehrer’s, written many years ago and meant as satire. Like all good satire, there is truth at their core and some three decades later, the barb is still on target.

The Bush administration announced early this week that it will delay action on certain parts of its plan to route federal social services funds to religious charities. The most significant policy setback for the Bush White House to date and the congressional Democrats had nothing to do with it. The so-called “liberal media” had nothing to do with it and – God knows – internet commentators had nothing to do with it.
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By floegel | Posted in Civil Liberty, Commentary, Electoral Politics | Comments (0)