Parallel Houses of Worship

I didn’t watch Barack Obama’s speech regarding race, his former preacher and contemporary politics. Frankly, I really don’t need to. Any attempt on his part to distance himself from the Rev. Wright’s volatile comments will be met with suspicion and doubt by many whites and resentment and mistrust by persons of color.

Sunday remains one of the most segregated days in America. The vast majority of African Americans and whites continue to go their separate ways for their religious observances.

In era when many Americans spend more time watching Oprah Winfrey than having conversations with their spouses or children, we still go to different places to find God.

At a time when most Americans are filling out their office pools eagerly anticipating a basketball competition that is overwhelmingly led by African American athletes, we cannot sit in the same pews to hear about the beatitudes or sing hymns.

For the first time in our nation’s history, many of us are seriously considering electing someone who is not white for our highest office. Yet, few of Obama’s white supporters have ever been inside an African American house of worship.

For all our progress, most African Americans and whites worship and pray in parallel universes.

I will not defend Rev. Wright’s most disturbing comments. However, I will defend his right to interpret Jesus’ gospel through the challenges and struggles of his congregation. Since the time Africans were brought to America as slaves, the black church has been a sanctuary. A safe place that permitted people of color to gather, sing and worship without fear of reprisal and prejudice. It was the early black preachers that started the civil rights movement through their sermons and calls for social justice. I can only imagine how whites would have reacted to the black preachers of an earlier era demanding equal rights and the end of segregation. We didn’t have Fox News scouring YouTube for the most incendiary comments 50 years ago!

Rev. Jeremiah Wright is a person defined by his life experience. Over his seventies years he has witnessed the worst forms of racism and its debilatating affects on African Americans. I never lived in the Southside of Chicago. I never suffered the affects of grinding poverty, racism, or violence that continues to plague much of the poorest neighborhoods of Chicago or Cincinnati. I don’t believe his comments are intended to be political statements. His sermons are his attempt to help his congregants find a way to transcend a culture of hopelessness and despair. Did he cross the line at times? Perhaps. But I will not judge him by the excerpts on YouTube. I will take a measure of his life in all the good works he has done to lift his people up.

Barack Obama will repudiate Rev. Wright’s most volatile comments; just as he did when pundits asked if him he appreciated Louis Farrakhan’s support. Obama’s candidacy is a watershed moment in American politics. He isn’t asking the electorate to vote for him because he is solely a person of color. Both whites and blacks are drawn to his candidacy because he understands that we no longer can worship in separate pews. Our common humanity will determine our success in responding to the enormous challenges facing this country right now. Rev. Wright was a leader during a period of religious isolation. Barack Obama’s inclusive politics is moving beyond the racial divisions of the past.

Yes, he was a member of Rev. Wright’s church. But he can’t be held responsible for Rev. Wright’s worldview. Barack’s message emphasizes reconciliation and cooperation. He clearly has move beyond Rev. Wright’s rhetoric. Do we have the courage to join Barack Obama in the same pew? For a few of us, it may never happen. Being an optimist, I believe in the good judgment of my fellow Americans. We have the capacity to join Barack in forming a new body politic.

Portions Should be the Size of My Head

Fatboy Tom is back! Needless to say it has been some time since I offered my keen insights and biting sarcasm. First, the holiday season was just too damn busy! Second, I need some inspiration. Third, I am notoriously lazy.

Parodying some of the buffoonery that is regularly exhibited on the Presidential campaign trail is just too easy and frankly stale. For the record, I really find “Tweety” Chris Matthews to be an absolute dolt. He is enamored with his squeaky voice and just can’t help trashing the Clintons whenever he has the opportunity. The stuff he bilged about Hillary during the New Hampshire Primary was just outrageous. I go back to one of his choice comments that he repeated during the Iowa Caucuses. He kept on saying, “Well over two thirds of the Democratic electorate are rejecting Hillary Clinton this evening. This should be of grave concern for the Hillary and her campaign.” I’m sitting here listening to his spin and thinking, “Using Tweety logic, didn’t 2/3d’s of the participants in the Democratic Caucuses also reject Obama and Edwards?”

The caucuses were not about rejecting candidates but exhibiting voters’ preferences. I am sure those Democrats that stood in a particular corner of the room for Obama will most likely vote for Hillary or Edwards in the general election against any of the pretenders running as Republicans. Tweety’s anti-Clinton antics are becoming legendary. I did love it when Mr. Montana Ranch, Tom Brokaw, reminded, Tweety, that it is important to the let the voters decide and not the pundits after Tweety was flummoxed by the New Hampshire primary victory for Hillary.

Enough about politics…….

I was at the YMCA exercising last night. While I was stretching my hamstrings, I glanced at an old copy of “Shape,” a women’s fitness magazine. It was open to page about, you guessed it, “healthy eating.” For most of us foodies the title of the article is an oxymoron. It is not about reducing bad fats or using fresh ingredients. I am all over that. It’s about portion size.

This article was touting how you can make a piece of pita bread into a wonderful pizza by adding sauté vegetables, some herbs and a few slivers of low fat cheese. Now most pita bread slices are about 8 inches in diameter. Once you add a few vegetables and some micron slices of cheese, it still does not become dinner. It remains just that, a piece of pita bread with some stuff on top. The editors of “Shape” are delusional if they think anyone will walk away from reading this article and start having an 8-inch pita with stuff as their primary source of calories for the day.

I am sure there are those women readers who will try to limit themselves to one pita with stuff and find out very soon that they are still hungry and will remain hungry until they find some rice cakes to consume! Women who try to meet “Shape’s” dietary expectations and fail to limit their intake to one pita with stuff will walk away feeling guilty and gluttoness! The guilt will translate into depression and ultimately to a late night date with a pint of the Ben and Jerry’s ice cream.

It is not only Shape Magazine that perpetuates this false narrative about healthy eating. Has anyone tried to live on Healthy Choice entrees? I mean actually live on them? They clearly are smaller than a pita pizza.

My general philosophy is a portion should be about the size of my head and not my gall bladder. Most Healthy Choice entrees are promoted with coupons that offer the buyer two for one. There is a reason for that. Unless, you plan on joining Mahatma Gandhi for a long slow fast, the only way to eat healthy choice entrees is in multiples of two! And you still need that pita pizza in reserve to hold off late night hunger pangs.

I am all for eating healthier. And we should limit the total number of calories. I just think this obsession with dieting and body image is ruinous to most people. Very few people have the will power or they come from a pre-determined gene pool that inhibits their ability to live up to the stupid and unrealistic expectations promulgated by our popular culture and Shape Magazine.

By the way, our friends at Weight Watchers have caught on to this idea. I just saw a commercial for Weight Watchers with a byline, “Diets don’t work!” They have been marketing their diet plan for years, and at the same time, making a fortune on every person who joins and rejoins their program. You no longer are just dieting; you are altering your lifestyle. You still buy their stupid food products and go to their meetings. Marketing is often about repackaging.

Give me a dinner the size of my head and I am happy. Feed me an 8-inch pita with stuff and I will eat two Healthy Choice entrees, 8 rice cakes and still have room for a pint of Ben and Jerry’s!

A Quart of Milk, a Dozen Eggs, and Peace of Mind

I had the radio on this morning, as I was examining my countenance in the mirror in preparation for a hard day of answering and sending e-mails and pointless meetings. I was listening to the local ESPN station providing glowing highlights of Monday Night Football. My beloved Steelers trounced the Baltimore Ravens. AM radio is increasingly a pointless enterprise. It is an endless round of commercials and more commercials intermittently interrupted by snarky and mean spirited call-in shows. I do wonder who are these people who have the time or inclination to wait with phone in hand to ask a question or to argue with radio show host?

Anyways, a particular commercial got my attention. Local sports radio always has interesting ads that appeal to a particular demographic including mail order male enhancement products, hair replacement pills or lunch specials at local strip clubs. This ad was a little different. It was female voice that had a touch of resignation in it. It went something like this: “I know my husband questions if he is the biological father of our daughter. It really nags at him. I keep telling him Heather is our daughter. He says he believes me. I can tell he still has doubts.” I kept listening and ask, “Where is this ad going?”

She goes on. “Anyways, a friend of mine told about a new DNA kit that you could buy at any Meijer Supermarket. It’s easy and inexpensive. You just bring it home, swab the inside of your cheek and send it away to the lab. Within a few weeks you receive the results in the mail. The results are 99% accurate. I know this will give my husband the peace of mind he is looking for.”

Wow! Paternity validation in aisle four! Meijer truly has become a one-stop shopping experience for food, clothing, cosmetics or to resolve your past indiscretions. I thought you had to go on the Maury Povich show to discover if you are the father of your girlfriend’s or cousin’s twins! No longer. When you stop by the local supermarket for that quart of milk you can also find out if your DNA chain continues or was broken after your girlfriend went to Las Vegas with her friends a few weeks before your got married.

We truly do live in amazing world! I turned off the radio and headed out to vote. Interestingly enough one of the ballot initiatives in Ohio this November is a referendum to limit the hours of operations of strip clubs. The initiative also wanted to restrict physical contact between patrons and dancers. Naturally, I voted against it. I have stock in Meijer. I am against any ballot initiative that will hurt the burgeoning DNA home testing kits market. I may be a softheaded liberal, but I’m not stupid.

The politics of pppppandering!

Pander as a Verb

-to pander (third-person singular simple present panders, present participle pandering, simple past pandered, past participle pandered)
-(intransitive) To offer illicit sex with a third party; to pimp.
-(intransitive) To tempt with, to appeal to (improper motivations etc.); to assist in the gratification of.
"His latest speech simply panders to the worst instincts of the electorate."

The Iowa Caucuses are not until January. Already, we had to live through a least 100 Presidential Debates. Or it seems that way. Most of the candidates have been fund raising since Gutenberg invented movable type.

I am suffering from campaign fatigue. Obama, Hillary, Mitt, Rudy and the rest of the wannabees are overexposed, overanalyzed and are over-reaching. We continue to hear from the talking heads on cable news that this campaign started way too early and money raising will ultimately define who will win the nominations in either party. Yet, the same nitwits invite these money vacuums on to their shows for interviews and dissect the good and the bad of the various campaigns ad nauseam. At the same time they bemoan how this new era of Presidential campaigning has become a circus of sound bites, fundraisers and gotcha moments. It is a never-ending cycle of fawning, castigating and then more fawning.

Frankly, most of what all the candidates are saying on the stump or during their contrived debates is irrelevant to the grit and reality we are living in right now. The Democrats and Republicans pander to their base voters who actually will go to the caucuses in Iowa and vote in the primaries. These people who watch these debates and are actually paying attention to what these candidates say reside in a parallel universe. They have no children, trouble falling asleep at night or no mortgages to pay.

In a recent poll of so-called evangelical white voters, the top two issues were Iraq and health care. Same sex marriage, immigration and abortion were at the bottom of the list of concerns. Yet, if you watched any of Republican debates or stump speeches, all the candidates climb over each other to express their hatred of illegal aliens, gay people and their love for the so-called unborn. These folks in the conservative base of the GOP apparently will only vote for candidates who love fetuses and hate any foreigners south of Texas, homosexuals north of Mexico, and anyone else who doesn’t believe our ancestors rode on dinosaurs.

The Democrats pander in different ways. Although they don’t play the race or fear card like our Republican counterparts, they make proclamations that are unrealistic or downright stupid. Almost all Democrats want out of the Iraqi morass and regret deeply the present condition of our foreign policy and standing in the world. Barack Obama, John Edwards and others proclaim if they are elected they will withdraw from Iraq immediately. There is no way in hell we can pick up and leave Iraq within 3 months, 6 months or a year. Their policy people know that and yet the candidates pander to our naive wishes. It is pandering. Perhaps not as bad as the seven dwarfs on the GOP side but it still is pandering to the very narrow corner of the Democratic Party that will take an active role in the upcoming primaries.

Let’s commit ourselves to ignore the next three months of Presidential politics. We have Halloween candy, Thanksgiving Turkey and Christmas cookies to focus on. Personally, I prefer to learn more about salacious details regarding Larry Craig’s wide stance, Paris Hilton’s difficulty buying an airline ticket to Rwanda, or why Ellen DeGeneres can’t house train her dog. These are real stories, affecting real people with real pathos. That Presidential political stuff is all puffery, posturing and pretense.

“People in Hollywood are not showmen, they're maintenance men, pandering to what they think their audiences want.”
Terry Gilliam, movie maker and original member of Monty Python.

The "Let's Help Dick Nap Campaign"

Yesterday, Vice President Dick Cheney once again made some rather bellicose claims about Iran. Apparently, he is ready to send in the marines or the cruise missiles to bomb them back to the Stone Age. Later that same day, he found time to take a quick cat nap during a Cabinet Meeting. Dick is either filled with paranoia and rage or shuts down for a few winks. There apparently is no middle ground for our Neo-Con shoot them first Veep. He’s either ready to shoot now and aim later or rollover and snore.

Here some recent examples of the Vice President nodding off into dreamy land.




For most of us who still have a few reservations and concerns about the viability and rationale for war with Iran, we need to encourage more of Dick’s latter behavior rather than the former. What can we do to ensure Vice President Cheney’s sleeps through the next 16 months of W’s Presidency? If we can find ways to help Dick to get drowsy eyes, the more likely we can avoid WWW III in the Middle East.

Here are some ideas that I have cooked for what I label my “Let’s Help Dick Nap!” Campaign.

1. Tie him up in a chair and force him to watch any recent movie featuring Lindsey Lohan.
2. In the same chair, have him watch reruns of George Stephanopoulos interviewing Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice.
3. After watching Condy Rice, force him to listen to excerpts from his wife’s novel, “The Body Politic: a Novel.”
4. Serve him hot turkey and gravy sandwiches for lunch followed by large piece of New York Cheese Cake.
5. Force him to watch W’s most recent State of the Union Address.
6. Keep him tied up, put him in an airplane blindfolded and fly him to REDACTED for an intense but entirely legal interrogation by the CIA. Oops, I’m sorry I want him asleep not comatose!
7. Force him to watch one of the recent Republican Presidential Debates. Any of them!
8. Have him take a hot bath and then have a professional manicure and pedicure. (It may not make him fall to sleep, but it will make him a nicer person.)
9. Force him to watch CSAPN when Joe Lieberman gets up to address the Senate.
10. Slip some Rozerem into Dick’s daily IV drip.

If you have some suggestions, please forward them to Fatboy Tom’s new “Let’s Help Dick Nap” campaign.

Chartered by Whom and for What?

In a parallel universe, the state of Ohio is handing over nearly $540 million of tax money to 300 private enterprises providing basic services that also are provided by state and locally financed agencies. The intent is to create greater competition and choice so that the consumer is not solely dependent only on the publicly supported agencies. Because of competition and choice, the privately run enterprises should in theory provide better services. There is little or no oversight of the business and management practices of these enterprises. They can operate with a much larger degree of flexibility and independence that the state supported ones. Given our undying faith in power of the marketplace and need to offer choice, one would assume that the privately run agencies would provide better service and outperform the state run enterprises.

Unfortunately, that isn't the case. This Ohio experiment has been an abysmal failure. The privately run agencies with public funds, charter schools, have been an enormous disappointment. Fifty-seven percent of these schools are either in Academic Watch or Academic Emergency and the State Attorney plans on closing 30 very soon because of illegal business and management practices. Of our publicly funded schools, only 12% are either in Academic Watch or Academic Emergency. Over $2.7 billion have been allocated to charter schools in Ohio for past 10 years and this is the result.

If these were not charter schools that were receiving the funds, can you imagine how loud our cave man caucus (state legislature) in Columbus would be screaming about wasting tax dollars? Somehow because our Republican led house and state senate hold on to specious notions that school choice works, they continue to pour money down this rat hole of educational failure.

On the national level, charter schools have not faired any better. In a recent study compiled by the Department of Education, fourth graders attending charter schools in urban settings consistently tested lower in math and science than did children from the same socioeconomic setting in publicly-funded urban schools. These disparities are consistent when comparing students by race, income or geography.

Millions of tax dollars are turned over to these schools, and in most cases, to private companies who run charter schools with no oversight by the state of Ohio. These schools are not required to meet many of state requirements that do public schools. If students are not performing or are expelled for behavioral issues, they are disappeared. They become the problems of the public schools.

The wing nuts that continue to advocate for choice in schools will ignore these data or trash these studies. They really don't want to come out and admit that their support for private or charter schools has very little to do with improving student performance. Their irrational advocacy for school choice is grounded in their suspicion and mistrust of all forms of public education due to their religious or personal beliefs. Don't bother them with the data or the facts, competition and choice is just one-way to dismantle the common good public education has brought to this country. Deregulation or competition may work in particular areas to reduce costs and improve some efficiencies. Unfortunately, it does not and will not work in schooling or airline travel. Schools are just too important to leave up the whims and vagaries of the marketplace. And airline travel? Has anyone recently flown out of JFK in New York? What a nightmare!

The Swiftboating of Johannes Kepler

A Recent Program on a Reputable Cable News Station:

TV Talking Heads Show Host: “Good evening ladies and gentlemen. There continues to be a great deal of controversy about Al Gore’s Nobel Peace Prize. To ensure fair and balanced coverage of this recent announcement and implications for public policy in this country and the world, we have invited 2 experts to come to the studio to discuss the fallout from the recent Nobel Prize announcement. Is global warming real? And will Al Gore’s new celebrity help advance the cause to combat global warming?

We are fortunate to have Dr. Johannes Kepler, a well-regarded astronomer and mathematician, is recognized for first advancing the theory that all planets including the earth moved in an elliptical orbit around the sun. His mathematical computations were a major scientific breakthrough in the 17th century. His theory changed science and astronomy forever.

And to make sure we cow tow to the right wing nut cases in this country under the pretense of being fair and balanced, we also have on our show, Dwayne Fuchs, a lifelong Republican, a state representative from Salinas County, Kansas, and a co-chair of the Brownback for President Committee. Mr. Fuchs refutes Al Gore’s assertions that global warming is man made and doesn’t believe the earth rotates around the sun.”

Dr. Kepler: “Thank you, Mr. Talking Head. I am really not a climatologist and have been dead for over 400 hundred years. Nevertheless, I do believe in the scientific method and reject superstitious beliefs. Therefore, when there is scientific evidence that is substantial and there is a established consensus among almost all scientists that global warming is real and a danger to our world, I believe we should be concerned.”

Mr. Fuchs: “This is another example of the moveon.org’s and secular humanists’ efforts to undermine the American way of life. Everyone knows life started in the first chapter of Genesis and the earth is only 6,000 years old. I know many authors that I can cite on the World Wide Web who believe the earth is flat and the sun is stationary in the sky.”

TV Talking Head: “Mr. Fuchs makes a good point there Dr. Kepler. He has his experts and you have yours. Which set of experts can the American people trust?”

Dr. Kepler: “I am not familiar with the experts Mr. Fuch’s references. Remember, I am dead and don’t know anything about the World Wide Web. Is that a new institute in Vienna?”

Mr. Fuchs: “Once again we have a European telling us Kansans what to believe and what not to believe. The American people know God. They don’t what Europeans or other foreigners telling us their crazy theories about gravity, the earth is round or car exhaust is melting glaciers in Switzerland.”

TV Talking Head: “Once again, Mr. Fuchs makes a good point Dr. Kepler. Isn’t this effort by Al Gore and the UN to combat global warming a way to erode USA sovereignty and a slippery slope to a one world government?”

Dr. Kepler: “I am not familiar with this UN or a one world government. I lived in Styria under the influence of the Bundesländer of Austria. I thought I was asked to appear today to provide my support for good science and why we need to support advances in scientific discovery. I lived in an era where people were governed by fear, their prosaic religious beliefs and superstition. Astrology was often confused with astronomy. In my small way, I helped to show that science and math could help us learn much more our world and the solar system. I believe Mr. Gore is trying to do the same thing.”

Mr. Fuchs: “Once again, Kepler is belittling my religious beliefs and the beliefs of many other God-fearing Americans. If he is the kind of person who supports Al Gore, then we are really in trouble. My beliefs are just as valid as his. After all didn’t you, Mr. TV Talking Head, invite me on this program to provide a fair and balance debate?”

TV Talking Head: “That’s right Mr. Fuchs, on this network we try to make sure that both points-of-view are properly represented. I am not in a position to judge which opinion is more valid than the other. Do you have any closing comments Dr. Kepler?”

Dr. Kepler: “Not really. I’ve been dead for four hundred years and my throat is a little dry. Do have any wine to drink?”

Mr. Fuchs: “Kepler keeps avoiding the issue. When he is on the hot seat he apparently needs alcohol. He knows and we all know George Soros and his fellow travelers are behind this global warming scam. I am introducing legislation in the Kansas House tomorrow morning to deny visas to any Swedish citizen who tries to visit this country. If they want to welcome Al Gore to their country, by God we don’t have to let any of them into our country.”

TV Talking Head: “Thank you, Mr. Fuchs and Dr. Kepler for visiting with us today. I think we have shed some important light on this very controversial topic.”

Dr. Kepler: “What? No wine? You only have water? We don’t think water, it carries bad bile. Don’t you have some hard cider or beer? I am very thirsty.”