A Really Smart Politician

This is Sunday September 2, 2007 and Leo Le Port is talking about digital radios and now they’re not cheap and they by dezign don’t have any provision for recording directly from them because that’s the way the industry wants it. Apple is having some big announcement on Wednesday September 5^th. Zachery’s birthday. He’s be 32, but I doubt he’s the “expected attraction” to this big event. The roomer is that since all of the individual Beatles already have their stuff computerized, they’re going to announce that the Beatles music is available now at I Tunes. Paul and Ringo are even roomered to be there to perform live. There is also a mystery third Beatles song recorded by the three surviving Beatles in 1993 but that the song was never finished but they didn’t use it to kick off record three as they had planned. The song is called “Now and Then” and of course they didn’t play it. They had Patty Boyd Harrison in an interview, and she has a new book out. George and The Clapper continued to be friends.

You know, George Bush has to be about the smartest politician around. He’s not as dumb as he looks. Here is a guy who’s got it all wired. He’s pretty much “Set” for the rest of his administration with all that “political capitol” he got from his 51% victory in the election of 2004. Even though his party lost both houses of congress there is no way the opposition can pull a sixty percent plurality, let along a two-thirds majority to override any presidential Veto. There is no way this congress can put a stop to the war. Bush is stubborn and everyone on Chris Matthews states this, but he can afford to be. He can pursue the war to the last hour of the last day of the last month January 2009. He doesn’t have to run again. He can do what he likes. I don’t suppose he’s even concerned much about the republican candidates or whether or not Hillary wins. He knows he’s gone in January 2009 and what happens after that doesn’t matter. It’s stated that Bush has been lobbing “unanswered baskets” to use an NBA metaphor. He’s trickled out to the media who repeats it, all the minor successes the troops have had in Iraq The whole Chris Matthews crew believes it doesn’t matter what the General Petrayas report will say. But the report has been leaked already. Of the eighteen “critical benchmarks” the administration has failed on all except three. That doesn’t matter. Of course all of these political sex scandals to hit the Republican party will no doubt take their toll on next years Republican election hopes. The senate demographics look good for the democrats with over double the current seats in Republican hands and hence as risk. It will be a piece of cake for the democrats to pick up five or six senate seats. It doesn’t matter how morally outraged the Republican leadership pretends to be now because the American public have already made up their minds that (a) the republicans are corrupt hypocrites and (b) that the Iraq War is lost, no matter what the general Petrayas report says in a couple of weeks. I guess some could compare Bush to Adolph Hitler in the waning days of World War II. He knows he’s done for and that all is lost but it doesn’t matter; he’s safe and secure in his bunker. He’s long ago been afraid to go out to the public and interact with them in any non rigged setting. He says he’s shooting for his place in the History books. Hitler said the same thing. But even people appealing to History have to have SOME facts out on their side. The situation in Iraq is actually getting worse because now not only the Sunnis but the Shiites are fighting amongst themselves. Meliki’s government is weaker and more impotent than ever as any glue to hold everything together. More and more people are talking about a mandentory year of compulsory national service in one for or another, not necessarily in the military. I bet even Hillary would not turn that idea down if a bill showed up on her desk. They had lots of political stuff on ‘Meet the Press” and “This Week” also but most of that stuff was a yawner. But Chris Matthews was the show to watch last night. during the surge.

There is still no guarantee that Fred Thompson’s campaign will catch fire. He may well have waited too long and next year it will be a Rudy – Hillary all New York election campaign. It’s hard to imagine is that happens there won’t be some third party developing whose consequences are unforeseen. Huckabee wants to stress how different he is from Hillary and to my way of thinking that’s an excellent approach. Hillary will be the most polarizing candidate to run for President since Richard Nixon in 1960. He was never able to overcome all the imbred hatred for him out there in the grass roots. He had sewn too many bad karmic seeds over the years, just as Hillary has. All someone needs to say is Johnny Chung, or Travelgate, or Whitewater, and the pavlovian response will be in progress as scads of republicans turn out at the polls like never before to vote against Hillary in November. I haven’t positively made up my mind about Fred Thompson. I’m inclined not to like him, but he just might change my mind with a good campaign.

A lot of people say the way to solve personal conflicts is “to look at the question from another angle”. Well I could see my house on fire and go outside and look at it from the front, and then go around to the left side and the right side and the back yard and say, “Yep, it’s on fire alright”. My teenage years were like a house on fire while parents argued over the brand of olives to use at the next cocktail party. There are certain problems where you can actually invest more time in “trying to look at the situation from a different angle” than just rolling up your sleves and starting to solve the problem. I think the “defining moments” were January 1964, late summer 1965, late November of 1966, early 1973 and two more: the summer of 1980 and June of 1991. I once told Eileen that therapist “I’d be prepared to forgive everything my parents said and did up to the start of the decade of the nineties”. Her response was “Why not forgive them for EVERYTHING?” The word “forgiveness” has suffered a lot of abuse in meaning lately. The word isn’t the Jesus Christ definition of, “You can forgive them but forgiveness does not mean reconsiliation and once you have forgiven you cut them out of your Life for good”. In my view of forgiveness, it IS reconciliation. But that requires communication. In many ways Christianity has gotten mixed up with people wanting to define it in strange ways. Like Jesus Christ on KFI says “all that stuff about giving in helping out your neighbor are null and void if your neighbor is a “Swine”. There are two phraises that linger in my mind. One is “You make void the Word of God by your traditions” and you can substitute “screwy ideas” there. The other is, “They have a form of spiritual authority but deny the power of God”. They want to divorce themselves from any accountability to God and what God does doesn’t matter to them, just as what the American people think no longer matters to George Bush. (Selah) That’s the problem

I don't know why the print looks different with the last paragraph just above than the others do. I'd now like to take you back to the waning days of August, last month, for some more commentary. Part of my own personal problem with Christianity is that people from both my family and the church have used it as a weapon to screw me over, devoid of any Biblical authority, of course. I think we're all smart enough to know Christian conduct when we see it, and are also able to spot actions and attitudes which clearly are NOT Christian.

There is one more dream I’d like to discuss only this one is sort of a waking psychic revelation I may have mentioned before but it’s worth repeating if I have. It dates back to the Green Harbor days when we played bingo. And they had this one announcer who talked of doing the B, N, and O collums. Hearing his voice I flashed on a scene at a time like early November in the early evening just after or just before a Santa Ana wind when the air had that dryness to it. The almost full moon was out in the sign of Aries or something. There was this amusement park like Nu-pike or something where things were laid out east-west, only with a big parking lot to the north and no bluff. There were all the usual carnival attractions and rides and everything such as a ducks shooting gallery, and spill the milk bottles and basketball hoops that are too small. There was also a guy in the distance calling Bingo and his amplified voice resonated and he was talking about B, N, and O. The housekeeper was in here briefly just now.

Breakfast was uneventful. I went to the bakery for coffee but at nine. But at eight I tried to get Drive radio on, which I finally did only the computer was slow to boot, and the play control kept reverting back to stop position when I hit play. The year was 1973 and I heard the whole thing. 1973 was the last year that your typical “pop hit” was respectable with songs like “Frankenstein” and “Angie”. The artists that hit it big were main stream “classic rock” artists to a large extent. This is the first year I really started making a lot of trips to the record store to buy albums to a large degree. 1973 was a first for a lot of things. I grew a mustache for the August 1973 Church Directory family photograph. This was the first year the OCTD was in business. Early in the year and according to my writings, I and my family argued about money issues a lot and we all know how those were resolved. It was the year I inherited all of grandpa’s suits but I suspect I wore the ones that he never did. Every Sunday at church it was like I was trying out for a part on the Sunny and Cher show. This is the first year I began drinking alcohol regularly. This started in late August on that trip to the northwest and Reno. I believe it’s also my first drivers license, although this is hard to believe. It’s the oldest one I still have a copy of, that’s for sure. I remember I went to the DMV in March of 1971 and I mused whether it would be a good idea to cheat on the eye test. In November 1972 I got new glasses from Dr. Ebee, which is the last time I ever saw him. I remembered I didn’t like the glasses I had gotten in April 1968 at that other place and as late as December of 1970 wore the ones I’d gotten from Dr. Ebee in 1965 till they broke, and I was furious at parents for not getting me new ones then but said I should wear the ones from April 1968 I didn’t feel confortable with. I found out Becky was getting married to that convice in late February of 1973. I think the fact she was connecting with him was something she kept from me but I don’t know how long. Relations with parents in late February were so tense they could snap like a twig. I felt like they were out to rob me of my happiness any way they could. Thom Hartman had Bernie Sanders on his first hour. Basically there isn’t a lot of news. Randy Rhodes played her usual Friday anthem at noon.

Larry Craig is resigning today. Fred Thompson says he’s going to declaire his candidicy for the Presidency on the Tonight Show or something on Wednesday. I have predicted that one candidate we don’t expect will suddenly withdraw under strange and premature circumstances. I don’t see the Thompson campaign going anywhere.

It’s funny but of couse 1973 was not the last church photo featuring all five family members. That was in early 1977. Our family gets an A in family unity even when all three kids have left home and one of them is already divorced.

Richard gave me the dollar he owed me without my even having to ask today. In that chess game I second guessed myself a lot in my moves and there were times when I’d see my move and take two minutes to think about making sure I wasn’t making some horrible mistake. Tune in tonight for the conclusion at seven. Bill is watching his TV.

If I were Sean I’d definitely worry about Belle shaking up with Philip. There’s enough attraction there that it could blaze into a raging forest fire before you know it. I don’t know how they’re going to fake Stephano’s death. I have an idea. Let’s tell everyone we’re faking his death and do it for real! On Passions we still don’t know who Gwen’s mystery boyfriend is. I bet the answer will turn out to be bizarre in some way.