Patience

Maybe its because I'm older now that I have more patience with almost everything.  I've seen enough to know that sometimes it just takes a bit of waiting on something.  Like letting bread rise.  You can't rush it.

It is also one of the best things about democracy and maybe the least understood.  I have thought for some time that one of the greatest things about democracy is succession.  All other forms of government have a problem with succession.  Sure kings and queens have succession but eventually that falls apart, strong men can't live forever and their heirs can't maintain the strong rule forever.

Once I realized this critical difference in the world's governments, it seemed to me that democracy was inevitable.  You just need patience.  Sure it isn't perfect and the road is long and painful but patience will pay off.  What is the alternative? 

Well we tried the alternative in Iraq.  Depose an evil strong man and democracy will flower.  Yeah right.

Imagine if we had patience.  Eight years after Iraq, something happened in Tunisia.  People just got sick of their leader and decided to try democracy.  Amazingly the process was reasonably peaceful, it might even work.  We won't know for quite a while.  Patience.

Then this idea spread to Egypt where, again, it was reasonably peaceful and, again, we will have to be patient.

Imagine if we had waited, had not invaded Iraq,  What do you suppose would have happened then? If this movement had arrived at an Iraq that was still dominated by a strongman,  I can't think it would have been peaceful.  There was too much tension I expect that Iraq would have been more like what is happening in Libya - ugly.

Speaking of Libya, where is the patience there?  There is pressure to establish a no-fly zone there but it turns out that Step One is an act of war - destroy Libya's air defenses.   Yet we do feel we must do something because Libyans are dying.

I did say being patient was not easy.

Its the stupid economy

You couldn't see this coming? 

Companies ship jobs overseas for cheaper labor
Here in the US people lose good paying jobs
Desperate,  they start taking lower paying jobs

But they keep getting ecouraged to Buy Buy Buy
They charge things
They pull money out of their homes, often by shady or even fradulent mortgages

Somebody points out that the king has no clothes, that is,  many mortgages are bad

Housing prices fall
A recession sweeps the planet
Now the companies want consumers to spend money to improve the economy and create jobs

Oh, crap, we've spent all our money, borrowed all we could, maxed our credit

If only we had good paying jobs ...

Wasn't it Henry Ford that raised his workers' wages so they could buy his cars? 

Smother's Brothers Sketch

I' ve searched thru various video's on the Internet but can't find this sketch - so I'll describe it from my memory - which means it is probably distorted.  Somehow I find it comforting to figure out what to do in ambiguous situations.

The sketch opens with a soldier claiming his side will win because God is on their side.  Switch to the opposing side where another soldier claims God is on his side.  I think it then cuts to the brothers who look confused and maybe even discuss how God can't be on both sides.

Then fast cut to some rock-looking thing that is struck by lightning and split in two.  Tommy Smothers goes over to it and finds a piece of paper in the split.  He reads the paper and looks up, amazed at what he's read.  Dick Smothers comes over and looks up too.  Tommy pokes Dick, laughs at him and says, "Made you look!"

W

You ever think that getting George W. Bush elected was a plot by lazy comedians?  Me neither.

Telephone tips

I used to call one of our large customers and I got his voicemail all the time.  The thing was that his message said he was on vacation but every time I left a message he would call back in a couple of hours.  I just got it one day - he was really at work but could return my call or not.  either that or he just forgot to update his message when he came back from vacation. 

I adopted that technique but now I'm going to claim that I'm on a 'special assignment' of unspecified duty and length (probably forever) so I might not be able to return your call in a timely manner. 

Back in the days when the long distance carriers were fighting over customers like hyenas over carrion, I was working in a very small company.  We would get inundated by people urging us to switch to their long distance plan.  We invented Brian.  Brian was our telephone guy that would make that decision to switch but -wouldn't you know it? - Brian is on vacation for two weeks.  That seemed to satisfy them and we always had a great laugh.  It turned the annoying phonecalls into fun.  One time we actually got a call back for Brian after two weeks!  Those guys were persistent.  I told him Brian wasn't back yet or something.  Then I thought I should have told the guy that Brian got fired because he drove the boss nuts when he was always switching long distance carriers.

The latest blessing in the fone wars is caller ID.  Our phone tries to say the name of the caller and sometimes it is hilarious.  Caller ID is a great way to avoid calls you hate - use it, be merciless.  I've even programmed the phone to drop specific phone numbers so they barely ring - that is cool and I wish the phone had more memory so I could ignore more numbers.  Still, for having a land line this makes it tolerable.

Actual Journalism by Progressives

If someone tells you cable news is all fluff and biased tell them this story.

Rachel Maddow interviewed Rand Paul about his primary victory in Kentucky and ended up pressing him about his stand on civil rights.  This turned into a big deal andThe New Yoirk Times published a story under the headline Tea Party Pick Cause Uproar on Civil Rights about it and said that Rand was asked if he thought businesses should have the right to refuse to serve black people.  The paper said Rand Paul said 'yes'.  This could be a huge point for Paul's Democratic opponent in the Kentucky general election and you might think the Rachel Maddow Show would be all over reporting what the Times had said.  But no, last Friday Chris Hayes was the guest host and went to great lengths to correct the paper's article going so far as to play the part of the interview where it was obvious Rand Paul did not say yes to that question even though Rachel kept asking.

Here's my point, The Rachel Maddow Show went out of its way to correct something that played to the liberal audience but was wrong.  They corrected something that could have been a great talking point but they chose accuracy over spin and  corrected a misreading of the interview.  I call that Real Journalism.

Challenge your friends to find an example from the conservative side of the news. 

Here is the link but there's no guarantee it will last, if it doesn't work search msnbc.com for Rachel Maddow and Rand Paul or New York Times

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/26315908/#37285934

Obama and the presidency - so far

With the nomination of Elena Kagan as a Supreme Court justice I had a revelation. I was hoping for a progressive nominee that would somehow balance out the c-c-c-conservative justices appointed under W.  I thought Obama's first nomination was too conservative but I think she will be a great justice, just not as liberal as I might like..

What hit me today was that President Obama is running his administration the way he thinks the Constitution envisions it.  He is not running it to win the next election or to help his friends or to be popular, he is being The President.  In short, he is an honorable guy trying to ignore the political wrangling and actually improve things for everyone.

You may not agree but try looking from that perspective at what Barack doe.