Need Some Cheese and Crackers with My Whine

I was at the Portland airport over the holidays, preparing to fly home. The line through security snaked through 5 or 6 switchbacks. There were 3 TSA agents checking IDs for the entire line, which had to hold at least a couple of hundred people at any given time. A person would clear the ID check and we would all shuffle forward a step. Shuffle, stop; shuffle stop; shuffle stop.

I usually fly out of Columbus, which even though it calls itself an International Airport, is really quite small in comparison to Portland or Sea-Tac. I usually fly into and out of Burbank or Kansas City, where they do things a little differently. So it took me a while to catch on. As we were shuffling and stopping in the long and winding road of that security line, I noticed people walking by our queue and right up to a fourth TSA person checking IDs. Then I noticed the sign that said this was for first class and special club members of the airlines; in other words, they had their own TSA agent and special non-line to get through security. No fuss, no shuffle-stop, just a waltz in the park. 

When I saw one overly made-up silicon sister in faux fur, crack tight jeans and thigh high boots with 4 inch spike heels prance by and wriggle right on through with barely a wave of her ID and ticket I lost it. Cheryl tried to shush me and Eric acted like he didn’t know who I was.

Last time I checked, TSA personnel are employees of the federal government. They work for all of the citizens. Our taxes pay for their equipment, their salaries, and everything else about them. So why the hell does the TSA apply special privileges for first class passengers? The TSA is essentially using their power to force those of us who did not buy a first class ticket to do the TSA shuffle step, while rewarding those who do have a first class ticket with special access. It sure sounds like the TSA is trying to help the airlines sell more first class tickets. It’s like creating special parking places in front of government buildings exclusively for Cadillacs (GM you know).

To take that analogy one more step, we can easily imagine that one actually does not have to own the Escalade to use the parking space. In fact, how you got that big fancy car is immaterial; you could be a drug dealer or porn star or borrowed it from a friend.  Just like one does not require some special need, pay more in taxes or actually be a VIP to obtain a first class ticket. In the case of the flouncing floozy, it would not be surprising to discover that she doesn’t even have a job or pay taxes, but relies on Daddy, or just as likely Sugar Daddy, to buy the ticket for her.

It seems we have it all backwards again, which is all we can expect anymore for the idiots we have in charge of things. It’s bad enough that the people who are supposed to be preserving our safety won’t use common sense in their screening procedures, such as being extra cautious about checking young, swarthy men who smell of camel for fear of being accused of racial profiling. Oh the horrors of that indignity! So all of us, even the old ladies in wheel chairs and little girls, must go through the greater indignities of luggage searches, body scans, pat downs and, for you complainers, strip searches and body cavity probes just so that our government and the TSA can smugly state that no one has been profiled and by extension prejudiced against. Of course, in this twisted no sense logic, the TSA and the airlines, and apparently the rest of us by acquiescence, have no problem accomplishing the reverse and profiling based on the type of the ticket we carry.  

As for all of you who are aghast at the idea of stereotyping and profiling let me just say: Get Over It! Stereotyping works because it’s usually true. Little old ladies and 8 year old girls do not blow up airplanes. Women with artificial breasts who dress in bosom bulging blouses, short skirts and spiky heels to ride an airplane usually do meet the definitional requirements of floozy or bimbo.

If the airlines want to charge passengers more money for a wider seat, free liquor and the ability to board the airplane first, they can do that. But, simply by virtue of holding that ticket should not extend to receiving preferential treatment from our government. When the TSA gives special access to first class ticket holders it makes second class citizens of the rest of us.

The Non-Joy of Ranting

I won’t say I’m ranted out. Yet, it seems that every time I get revved up about something, I find that a whole bunch of pundits, journalists, editorialists, columnists, talking heads, friends and neighbors are already there, taking one side or the other. It’s depressing. What makes it worse is that my rants are all so obviously on point and correct that I can’t help wondering why these things go on and why they are still around for me to rant about.

For example, voter registration hit my rant button the other day. You know what I would say, right? Lots of folks are already saying it. If I were to rant, it would go something like this.

 How can it conceivably disenfranchise any possible voter to be required to show a government issued picture ID?  You need one of those things to open a bank account, drive a car, buy a beer and a pack of smokes, get on an airplane, and use your credit card. Does anyone honestly think there are legitimate voters out there who don’t already have a valid ID? If there are, why aren’t they, and all the Democrats and liberals, screaming bloody murder about how these poor abused IDless people are being denied the rights and privileges to which all Americans are entitled. You know the rights and privileges I mean: driving, drinking, flying, charging. That you do not hear anyone screaming about this is because there are no such people. 

That leads to the inevitable rant questioning why this anti-ID bullshit is happening in the first place, with the inevitable conclusion that it’s all a cover to prevent the public from keeping the Democrats from cheating at every election they can get their hands on. It’s why the Attorney General of the United States is refusing to even acknowledge a request from the State of Indiana to investigate voter fraud. It’s why some Black Panther brothers were able to force elderly conservative people away from the polls with clubs and threats to prevent them from voting in Philly, and, even after agreeing to plead guilty had the charges dropped by the same Attorney General. It’s why the State of Minnesota could elect a gasbag incompetent like Al Franken. It’s how the State of Washington kept finding ballots in forgotten warehouses until they finally had enough to win the governors election in a recount. In fact, we can sum it all up in one word: ACORN.

We all know what a bunch of lying cheating hose bags the Democrats are when it comes to registering voters and counting the votes. Mayor Daley, the infamous father of the just retired and not quite so infamous Mayor Daley, is famous for a lot of corrupt things, but one of his best was exhorting his Democrat supports to “vote early and vote often.” 

While this subject could prove a fine basis for a wonderfully insightful and witty rant, my heart just isn’t in it. We all know what is going on with voter registration fraud and the integrity of the polls. 

That is not to say that the Republicans are entirely clean. Perhaps it is only fair to point out that Florida incident where Al Gore accused Bush and the Florida election officials of cheating and thereby winning the election with the conspiracy of the Supreme Court. It was kind of funny though how every hanging chad was a vote for Gore, and none for Bush. Or that thousands of Florida based military personnel , who are overwhelmingly Republican voters, did not get their votes counted because they either did not get there overseas absentee ballots or they got them so late they could not be returned by the cutoff date. Further, did you hear that after a year of investigation and recounting by a bunch of “independent” journalists, it turns out they had to admit that Bush really did win the Florida election? 

Republicans also had that embarrassing series of incidents during the 2004 election here in Ohio when the lines at some polls were so long that some voters had to wait an hour or more in line to be able cast their vote. Apparently this was such a hardship and so painful that it caused a lot of Kerry’s supporters to give up their place in line and go home without casting a vote, which is why he lost in Ohio. Just as obviously, it proves how stupid, greedy and vindictive Republicans are because they didn’t have the sense of a turkey to come in out the rain. Instead, they mulishly and ignorantly stood in those long lines, even taking up those places vacated by the Kerry quitters, I mean abused and mistreated supporters. What is the matter with those Republicans? Didn’t they know that an hour in line is far too long to have to wait to vote for your candidate? Heartless imbeciles!

As I think about this voter ID thing I become depressed. It’s all so obviously wrong and stupid and insane, yet we let it keep happening. I really have to ask myself what is wrong with America and all of us citizens that we continue to put up with it. It is all of us honest vote casters who are being disenfranchised for crying out loud!

Then, as I think some more about it, I realize that it’s going to take hard work, guts and a certain amount of stubbornness to stop this nonsense. It is lots harder than standing in line for an hour.  Thinking about it that way, my heart just isn’t into it let alone finding any joy in ranting about it.

August Thoughts

Wilson’s Law of Unintended Consequences

Actions taken with the best of intentions by ignorant people will always have a bad result.

To explain this one we could talk about the results of creating an entitlement culture, results such as those Britain is suffering from her rioting youths. We could point to most of the progressive liberal agenda in America as well. Consider America’s inner city communities. The poverty rates, unemployment rates, single parent family rates, crime rates, drug usage rates, and just about every other bad “rate” you can think of are much, much worse now and the direct result of the War on Poverty begun in the mid ‘60s than they were before that “war” began.

However, rather than get too heavy, here is a simple little tale of what happens when a person thinks she understands something, but doesn’t, and then acts on that understanding with every intention of helping, and doesn’t.

My first wife and I were at a local plywood mill to get her paycheck. As we came out of the office, she noticed clinging to the side of the building a very large moth, at least 4 inches across, perhaps larger. It was one of those moths that could change its color and patterning to match the background. It was already starting to turn a sickly light green that was the building’s wall color. It was a spectacular creature, really.

“Oh, this poor thing isn’t safe here,” she said. Plywood mills are inherently dangerous places for people and she was imputing those dangers to the moth. After all, at least people understand and can mostly protect themselves from racing front end loaders, screaming saw blades, flying wood chips, slamming steel conveyor systems, overhead cranes carrying large heavy objects and the like. This poor moth had made a bad choice for a place to rest.

She scooped it up in her hands and said she intended to take it into town to set it free in a safer place. So we drove into town, and stopped on Main Street to go into the post office. Once out of the car, she flung her hands into the air, releasing the moth, which then flew straight upwards.

Free, free at last! And safe, for the first 10 feet, at which point a large bird swooped in and grabbed that moth in mid-air.

My wife was left staring open mouthed at the spot where a little puffy cloud of feathery moth wing particles hovered briefly and then slowly rained down on her upturned, horrified face.


MSM Follies

I have for a while been ranting, sometimes here, but usually just to myself or the boys at the bar, about the hypocrisy and basic dishonesty of the mainstream media. The bias is blatantly liberal and progressive. Unless, of course, you’re a liberal or progressive, in which case it is, as FOX says, “fair and balanced.”
Seriously, though, you would think even the MSM would start feeling just a wee bit embarrassed about being so obviously two-faced.

Rick Perry recently said that if Bernanke and the Federal Reserve print more money it would be “treacherous,” perhaps even “treasonous” and if he might get treated “pretty ugly” if he came to Texas. Did the MSM ever howl! They are still screaming to high heaven (oops, they don’t believe in that). Yet, Biden recently called the Republicans in Congress “terrorists,” a label that any number of progressive pundits and “journalists” routinely use to describe Tea Party members. Even Obama has exhorted his followers to bring “guns to a knife fight” with his “enemies.”

A lot of people, me included, get upset with the unfairness of it, thinking that the MSM has the power to and does shape opinion far and wide. If it weren't for the extremely liberal press we lament, the whole progressive house of cards would come tumbling down. Lately, however, I have been changing my mind about that.

Delusional is the word that often comes to my mind for those who believe the tripe the MSM is generally serving up as “journalism.” Indeed, I think that many in press themselves are delusional. According to my good old Webster’s ”delusional” (as I just used it) means “a false belief regarding the self or persons or objects outside the self that persist despite the facts and is common in some psychotic states.” (That means state of mind, not California. Or does it?) That whole idea of a delusional press has been tugging at me, suggesting to me that it’s not as bad as I may think.

Does anyone listen to a delusional person besides his therapist? When confronted by a delusional person don’t we quietly back away and try not to make any threatening or sudden moves. Whatever you do, don’t make eye contact!

Is anyone paying attention to the MSM other than those who already are of the same mind, the same thinking, the same delusions? I’m beginning to think not.

Recently I ran across a neat little essay/blog by Walter Russell Mead dated August 16, 2011 in American Interest.com. Mead’s basic premise is that the MSM, far from helping the liberal agenda, actually hurts it. By constantly affirming to liberals that they are always right and the conservatives are always wrong, the MSM lulls liberals into ignoring reality and getting walloped time and again by events and outcomes they don’t understand or didn’t see coming.

Mead has some wonderful turns of phrase. Here is one that I loved.

“To the extent that they think about it — as opposed to simply letting their little lights artlessly shine — liberal journalists seem to think that acting like cheerleaders strengthens their team. It doesn’t."

That’s just about the worst insult one can give to those journalists, the ones who are “letting their little lights artlessly shine…” Ouchy mamma!

Mead starts with a discussion of the coverage and commentary on the recent Wisconsin recall elections proclaimed by most of the MSM as a victory for Democrats because they picked up two Senate seats after all the dust had settled. As Mead points out, the Republicans still hold the majority, the union busting law is still on the books and deemed constitutional, the Governor appears to be as popular as when he was elected, and to achieve this “victory” the Democrats spent scores of millions. He goes on to point to other examples such as Kerry and his war record, Gore and his pretentious elitism, and even Obama with the stimulus and cap and trade. Mead summarizes this way:

“Over and over again in modern American politics, liberals have developed “frames” and strategies for key issues that they think will shift the debate their way. Over and over again the echo chamber of the liberal press resounds with praises of the new approach. And over and over again liberals “unexpectedly” get sucker punched by conservative counter attacks a more critical press would have forecast as both inevitable and deadly.”

Mead finishes with: “Sometimes one wonders: is the liberal press secretly taking the Koch brothers’ money?”

So maybe the blatant hypocrisy of the MSM, their complete willingness to forgive liberals anything, Obama especially, and their refusal to ask any critical questions, investigate or fact check anything progressive is a good thing.

I’m beginning to think so.