Obama, man in search of a legacy

In a way you can't blame him, every president wants a legacy and not a Carter legacy.  In the twilight of his second term his motivation is obvious from his opening up relations with Cuba to his attempted but failed for now trans-Pacific trade agreement.  It's not that these things make the most sense necessarily but in terms of legacy he needs stuff.  Probably as his last term comes closer to winding down he'll come up with even more things from his grab bag of Ideas one of the latest being he's somehow trying to tie in climate change with national security.  Not sure how this works, should ISIS go green?  Can he do something on race and the police? doubt it.  Your ponderings......

Why throw rocks at a junkyard dog?

The Garland TX Mohammed cartoon shootings, our little version of Charlie Hebdo - ISIS is now claiming responsibility which even if true you'd think they'd be a bit hesitant as it hardly came off in their favor, not their best work you could say. Pamela Geller of her American Freedom Defense Initiative coordinated this event in TX and from what I understand it was some sort of cartoon contest for who could come up with the best sketch of the Prophet Mohammed I guess. I might be in the minority but her subway ads in NYC which the MTA had a huge problem with I don't find them the least bit offensive. I'm sure you've heard of them and they always have the angle of radical Islamists are anti-Semitic which they are so it's kind of hard for me to unravel just why the MTA has their collective knickers in a twist. However having said that what was the point of this little sketchathon in Garland TX? Are they suddenly interested in this particular faith system? Are they contributing to global culture? Was the whole affair designed to be provocative? (x) I'm thinking we have enough to worry about. Thanks guys and gals and all you Bob Ross wannabes.

What's up with the cops in this country?

If Eric Garner were a coyote roaming around one of the five boroughs of NYC he'd be alive today but professionally and humanely relocated - I wanted to work this thought into some kind of workable blogpost-title but it's somewhat unwieldy. Watching the coverage of the Baltimore protests/riots on the Today show this morning and a very conservative person said to me "you can understand their frustration" to which I nodded and said they (black folk/African-Americans) hardly ever get justice. These controversial cop cases involving unarmed black man who later die are mounting in this country and while I like to take them individually and analyze them at my own pace and I do have a fairly strong law-and-order bias cumulatively I find myself asking what's up with the cops in this country? Now practically everybody and their grandmother has a built-in video camera in their cell phones these days but the cops don't seem to care, they keep doing what they're doing whatever they're doing and it usually doesn't wind up good for the unarmed black man. WHY should 25-year old Freddie Gray have a broken spine while in police custody??? Now your typical conservative response will be but we don't know all the facts yet (tin ear on Race those conservatives) but ya wanna know something? What's up with the cops in this country?

Battle of the Dynasties

Now that Hillary has made it official let's just say it's Jeb Bush finally on the Republican side. Yeah the normal one in a field of Huckabees, Walkers and maybe Trumps Bush coming across by default like the blonde woman on The Munsters and so is dynastic politics ultimately good for the country? Already the GOPers who are officially in the ring are salivating to talk about Hill's character and baggage but the usual Samsonite way when dealing with the Clintons ain't gonna wash imo. Folks who vote straight Democrat always vote straight Democrat and so it'd be much better for Rand and Cruz and co. to put some Ideas on the table, visions, foreign policy conceptions. Yeah yeah I know Hillary is from leafy Chappaqua and not Getty Square in Yonkers and she's gonna make it a cornerstone of her campaign to talk about economic fairness and the average American. Hypocrisy thy name is Clinton but get over that and tell the country where YOU stand. Hillary bores me I can't tell you and she looks like she's doing it because she has to. BTW has Obama tried a Cuban cigar yet?

It's not that I don't care about the Hillary e-mail scandal, it's that I don't care

Conservative commentators are sure riled up about this one and it doesn't even involve Sex. I have the barest skeleton knowledge of the scandal and that's because, well the title says it. For me it's like a scandal totally revolving around some technical violation like a worker not washing his hands after he comes out of the stall. Now there are still people who won't vote for Hillary Clinton because they feel the Clintons had Vince Foster murdered but at least this is more interesting subject matter. Look I watch quite a few of them true-crime shows like Snapped on the Escape channel and cops today are pretty sophisticated in these matters. A few of them are quite good at sniffing out the vaguest, the most subtle wisp of a major crime what with advanced forensics and all and believe me if there was really something there we'd hear about it. A couple conservative commentators are focused on Russell Brand's porn addiction and his new anti-porn stance (now there's an old subject I thought was kinda settled) but conservative commentary in general has been well-dispersed in its topics over the years. Instead of focusing on the things that really matter you'll get one that really goes off on a tangent, say Maggie Gallagher who starts ruminating about all things marriage and why this demographic group that never married is gonna be more unhappy and...it's just gets tiresome and all like this is gonna defeat ISIS. OK so about the scandal tell me why I should care.

Winnowing down the Republican field

The ones I would vote for: Scott Walker, Marco Rubio and Mitt Romney (not running as of now). The one I would NOT vote for: Jeb Bush as I simply don't like the notion of dynastic politics. Christie seems hopelessly tarnished by Bridgegate even though final reports have come out exonerating him of any knowledge of the scandal. Rand Paul? gosh I gotta think about that one. I suppose push comes to shove and on the other side why it is mandatory and in the stars that Hillary HAS TO be the Democratic nominee positively escapes me. She seems dull and tired even though she's trying to jazz up her image of late by being more peppy or something. Perhaps Bruce Jenner can be in charge of LGBT outreach in a Clinton Administration. Our old friend George Zimmerman has been totally cleared by the DOJ so he can continue going on messing up his life in private. Wondering how a President McCain would have dealt with the problem of ISIS. He'd probably just nuke the whole of Iraq and Syria and start over. "Jihadi John" has finally been positively identified according to all the newswires today, an educated man in his mid-20's from West London with a computer degree who went radical somewhere along the line. I fail to see the attraction of a 7th century-style caliphate and why some bored teen girls wanna join up so this is well over my head. Take it from there......

Radical Islam explained (sort of)

The best analysis I ever came across is from Pat Buchanan's book Where the Right Went Wrong (Thomas Dunne 2004) in the chapter "Is Islam the Enemy?" This short and very readable chapter (without footnotes thank God) gives a quick history of Islam from the Prophet Muhammed to the various caliphs which followed his death, the Crusades and the Ottoman Empire. Minority view on the Crusades here: they were originally the Catholic Church's response to the original aggressive and conquering behaviour of Islamic warriors (e.g. retaking Jerusalem from them). That's the history here's the theology. Islam along with Judaism and Christianity is a monotheistic and Abrahamanic faith system. Muhammed greatly revered Jesus as a great prophet and held in high regard His mother Mary but Islam fundamentally rejects Trinitarianism (big deal you say) so at first glance this presents a major puzzlement as to the radical Islamists' hostility to Christians in general as shown in that recent mass beheading of those 21 Egyptian Coptic Christians. Buchanan sheds light on this. Early in their history both Islam and Christianity were gaining millions of followers and so it wasn't the minor religions that presented the greatest threat to Islam's hopefully worldwide influence and dominance but Christianity. This is like a theological business model if you will where one major brand hates the competition and attempts to drive it out and would certainly explain why they focus on the Pope and Rome so much. Lest this become too long a dissertation we'll save everything else for the Comments section.

The conservatives' wet dream - Brian Williams suspended for six months

God they go on and on about it! Then the other thing you hear about ALOT is what is Obama doing exactly about ISIS and terrorism in general? Obama is the DroneMaster (sounds like a good name for an app) and has more hits of top terror leaders under his belt than Bush ever had and is leading that international coalition against ISIS in Iraq and northern Syria so I don't understand the nature of the question, in fact it verges on stupid. Bruce Jenner - I honestly think the man/woman has too much time and money on his hands. Maybe Kanye West can make a song about it. I've been doing alot of walking in the snow lately and people don't hike in the snow as much as they used to seems to me. They leave half-hearted footpaths in the snow and don't maintain them by walking everyday or maybe it's the coyote snowtracks I've been seeing lately so they turn around and go home and play with their smartphones and pack on a few more pounds that they could've lost by following the coyote tracks. Let's see what's going on in Space? For you eggheads out there they found these twin stars in some nebula out there that are gonna merge soon and die or explode or something. God a six-month suspension and he didn't even use steroids!! maybe he was just trying to get women with his barroom tales:)

Return to the Dark Ages in the age of the Twitterverse

Here's my rough and very imperfect knowledge of the history of terror. Not that long ago, in recent memory in fact most terror was politically motivated (the Red Brigades, Carlos the Jackal, the IRA, Munich) and much, sometimes most of it had to do with the eternal and never-ending Israeli/Palestinian conflict. FF to the present with Al-Shabab, Boko Haram and Islamic State and it's pretty much do you read the Quran? no? you have to die infidel! With the latest outrage, the burning in a cage of that Jordanian pilot I don't see how you can't have boots on the ground at this point. Airstrikes alone brings to mind using a can of Raid and you're shooting at the cockroaches scurrying around in your kitchen. Sure you'll get a few, perhaps many but the rest go in the cracks and crevices of your floorboards so basically you have to find a way to get in there, get to the root of the problem. So basically and this is what I don't get unless it has to do with protecting hostages ISIS has this safe and fairly large staging area in some desert somewhere in which they continue to produce a series of highly polished but gruesome videos along the line of Faces of Death. Apparently they feel safe doing this, some kind of drone-free airspace I guess which is only another reason we really need an international coalition of boots on the ground and I don't care if King Abdullah II quotes Clint Eastwood. Lastly many conservatives are blaming Obama himself for the rise of ISIS by not continuing Bush's adventures in Iraq indefinitely when truth be told Bush's original actions led to the rise of al-Qaeda in Iraq and Abu Musab al-Zarqawi which later metamorphosed into ISIS and it bears repeating while Saddam Hussein was a very bad man he had absolutely nothing to do with 9/11. Meanwhile Americans are continuing to flock to see that sniper film while Boko Haram just took almost 100 civilian lives in northern Cameroon.

Why I won't be seeing "American Sniper"

It's not that I think it's an immoral movie or the late US sniper Chris Kyle didn't do what was necessary during time of war but philosophically I'm not really into violence so I don't feel the compulsion to go out and see it. What he did in Iraq, his job if you will I can't really quibble with but should it be celebrated? Personally speaking I never held up the pilot of the Enola Gay as a hero of mine, I prefer to think of MLK, Ghandi or the police officers who are killed yearly in the line of duty. I very rarely actually go out to the movies anymore, maybe once or twice a year at best. Last one I saw was the Mockingjay movie only because I read the Hunger Games trilogy and I want to be consistent. Drone strikes against terrorists, sniping and all that - BB's more of a fan but the problem is more Hydra-like. You drone one or two terrorists and ten or twenty more are ready to take their place. I'm reminded of cockroaches and the problem is it's never really solved. In fact it's easier to get rid of cockroaches. OK so I'm not on this movie bandwagon to go out and see it at least not right now:)

I Am Charlie

No you're not. Most people don't like free speech. BTW is it still not about religion?

Maybe now he can have that philosophical discussion with God about abortion

No judgementalism towards pro-choice politicians intended in the heading here, just thought it would be a good working title. Mario Cuomo, former three-term Democratic Governor of the Empire State - I never liked him politically. I will have to say though he was intelligent, articulate and thoughtful and learned too even if he did pepperize his continuing pro-choice argumentation with bits and pieces of sophistry just for flavor. This came out or evolved out of his thing with the then Archbishop then Cardinal John O'Connor of NY, also the late O'Connor so maybe he can join in the divine discussion too. Cuomo did however impose his personal morality re the death penalty on the state of NY which probably went a long way towards Republican George Pataki taking over the state-helm. At least Cuomo took pains to say he was personally opposed to abortion unlike the son who's like full-bore ahead oil up the abortion machinery. Am I talking about ABORTION too much? Well yeah but my sitemeter's been kinda frozen of late but when I discuss the A-subject every once in a while the commenters who come out of the woodwork who I never heard of before scold me for always talking about The Topic but when I do post on other matters which is most of the time they're nowhere to be found. BB sticks around though. He did do other things as governor besides issue dissertations/philosophical treatises on abortion so gladly discuss. Mario Cuomo 1932-2015 RIP.

'Tis the season of politicizing tragedy

I'm speaking of course of the assassination of two NYPD officers in Bed-Stuy Brooklyn last Saturday afternoon. Consensus analysis is the psycho did what he did in revenge for the death of Eric Garner at the hands of the police. Pat Lynch head of the NY PBA has said Mayor de Blasio has blood on his hands. What in hell is that supposed to mean??? Lately Pat Lynch is always angry about something and he's coming across as a tad irrational. Then there's the coverage of all things cop in the NY Post the only right-wing paper in town. They seem to be saying the tragedy was caused by the last few weeks' nationwide protests over the deaths of Michael Brown and Garner. Um, protesting is a part of our very democracy, a democratic lynchpin or pillar and nobody has to agree with everybody but it's there your right to express yourself and be heard sans violence of course. It seems to me if more in the NYPD and the right-wing paper of record at least conceded that look excessive force was used in the Garner case it would go a LONG way towards easing national tensions across-the-board. There are those who are anti-cop and they're very anti-cop and those who are pro-police are pro-police no matter what the case or situation. Opposite hardcores imo never make for a better society, no room for compromise or even listening for cryin' out loud. Newtown happened in 2012 just about two weeks before Christmas and now this happened even closer to Xmas. Don't know what to make of that it's just an observation:)

The mistake of conflating Ferguson and Eric Garner

Everybody seems to do this, it's become generic trademark commentary on race. Civil rights activists act like a white cop in Missouri decided one day to shoot an unarmed black teen with his hands up and some (but not all) right-wingers see Eric Garner the same way they see Michael Brown (my God the guy was a criminal selling those loosies). My view: the grand jurors in Ferguson did not come up with an unreasonable decision though I might disagree with it whereas in Staten Island the grand jurors did come up with a perfectly unreasonable decision. I take these cases one by one as they come up which is the best way. In the case of Eric Garner it would be far easier and more productive for conservatives to simply admit this cop did wrong, admit it, learn from it and move on instead of hunkering down as they always do in defense of the cops and smearing those who disagree as somehow being anti-cop. It seems grand juries these days are reluctant to indict the men and women in blue. Righties will point out that they hear reams of more evidence than we ever get to hear but I think it goes deeper than this. It's a cozy-and-toasty emotionalism on the part of those hand-picked from society to become jurors that ultimately gives the police officer the bennie of the doubt. So far the NYC protests are far more civilized than what went down in St. Louis, a social model for proper but passionate protest. The ME in NYC says Garner died from a police chokehold, Det. Daniel Pantaleo said to the jurors he was using a technique he learned at the police academy. All I can say is God help us!

The fog of race

I have to say it was dramatic and intense coverage over on the CW Channel 11 News here, while the prosecuting attorney over there in Ferguson Missoui was droning on and on about the finer points of the grand jury verdict on the bigger split screen they were showing live and growing reaction among the large crowd gathered to hear the no indictment verdict against Ferguson PO Darren Wilson in the tragic Michael Brown case. It didn't take long for the first police cruiser to be set on fire and for the tear gas canisters to be shot in the air. I've noticed more and more in these type racially-oriented protests the increasing number of white protesters joining the African-Americans so it might sound contradictory to say we've made some racial progress but sometimes you have to look for it. There's no way in hell PO Wilson can go back on the streets in Ferguson or any predominantly black community across the country. He'll just have to make some sort of drastic career change so that's a kind of social price against him despite the verdict that was rendered by the jury.

Electile Dysfunction

The NY Times gives the Repubs a 70% chance of retaking the Senate by a slim margin, Wash. Post gives them 90% odds. Practically ALL the Democratic ads in my neck of the woods touted the candidate's strong pro-choicism but the Times recently had an article about the Dems highlighting birth control issues front and center while putting jobs and the economy on the backburner. Dunno, seems like they have some type of prurient interest. Cuomo will most likely get reelected Governor of the Empire State but Westchester County Executive Rob Astorino seems fairly popular just judging from all the lawn and road signs I've seen. I still kinda prefer the old-time voting booth with the curtain and the levers. You no longer have 100% privacy since if you're a little rusty you'll probably ask the election clerk for help with the ballot sheet going in the scanner. I'm actually surprised at this point you can't just vote from your smartphone. Sure there are issues to work out but everybody's confidently doing their banking on them. I was an election worker once in Dobbs Ferry. Had to be there like 5AM and stayed 'til 9PM. Never again. It'll be nice though when all the political ads are over and we can get back to those Cialis commercials where the husband gives his wife that goofy look in the kitchen.

In other Pope Francis news

Ebola and ISIS have kind of consumed the news of late but there's also the gay synod, I mean the synod that addresses gays and the Church. The draft of the draft is widely seen as being pro-gay, the only thing missing are the sex ads and Pope Francis always seems to be flirting with changing church teachings but then denies having led you on. He's a bit of a theological coquette but he still gives you that tingle. So the pre-draft/working paper talks about the gifts gays bring to the Church and society. Nobody's denying this (interior decorating, the arts, Chaz Dean's WEN Shampoo) but the more traditional wing of the Church wants to crack down harder on the sodomites and those couples in general who are living in sin. Now Francis always noted for saying Trendy Things has also said you can believe in evolution and God at the same time, there's no contradiction. I've no problem but do the evolutionists think that? Does Stephen Hawking agree with Francis? doubt it. OK so the church cafeteria is open and I'm gonna go grab me a bottle of abbey ale:)

Are you ready for Ebola?

It must have something to do with gay marriage. I'm not a medical authority but I do support a travel ban until it's contained. CDC Director Frieden is way over his head since the most serious thing he had to do as NYC Health Commissioner under Bloomberg was to try to ban big sugary drinks. The Drudge Report lately could be more accurately titled the Ebola Report and on the flipside the other school of thought that's been developing is that the media is talking about this way too much, a journalistic preoccupation or obsession or overkill. Then again I can understand it too since we have a decent chance at a real medieval plague here especially since nobody's on the same page. I myself get instinctively cranky whenever a subject is ground into a fine dust. As Saty once said everyone knows about the tits and I feel the same way about Ebola at least for now or I was but the CDC doesn't inspire me with confidence so I'm beginning to worry. FDNY now can't say "Ebola" over the dispatch for fear some nerd might be listening in on some scanner. OK so BB, Saty and maybe Dave can respond:)

The international coalition of the unwilling

My position which has evolved is that there needs to be an international coalition of boots on the ground in both Iraq and northern Syria to combat the psychopathic evil of ISIS. Also this constant conservative sniping at how Obama is handling this international crisis/tragedy is not part of the solution and usually at such times with such a real foreign threat out there their usual counsel is to get behind the president. Even Canada has gotten involved but whenever a new coalition partner makes an announcement it's usually along the lines of we're willing to do airstrikes in Iraq but not Syria. Well ISIS has adapted to airstrikes since they pretty much knew they were coming and Obama should never have ruled out boots on the ground so categorically when his own generals are saying otherwise. Lastly the FBI says they know the identity of "John the Beatle" or that masked hostage-beheader seen in those infamous ISIS videos but are withholding this information and not making it public for strategic reasons it is to be presumed. I don't know why since not making the name a matter of the international record has not stopped the latest hostage Brit Alan Henning from meeting the same fate. So those are my thoughts and I would say the matter is urgent.

Axis of Isil

I thought President Obama's speech last night detailing his global strategy for dealing with IS was rather brief and subdued. I thought it would be longer and more impassioned but I'm not against it and generally agree with the tenor. Obama has quite obviously chosen to use the label "ISIL" or Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant instead of the more popular "ISIS" and there are reasons for this. Using ISIS constantly the way most in the media now do makes it sound like we're in a war with the ancient Egyptian goddess and also using this term all the time has that "Get Smart"/comic book feel to it (remember Don Adams and his nemesis KAOS?). Another reason Obama prefers the term ISIL is it definitely refers to the threat IS poses to the nation of Israel since Israel falls under the definition of the Levant along with other countries like Jordan. I haven't really read the reviews yet in particular those of the always nitpicking right-wingers but the war and it is a war will eventually include airstrikes in northern Syria and it is the pundit's view that just like Bush left the Iraq war with Obama Obama will leave the Syrian mess to the next president. Syria has already bombed certain IS targets in the north and I couldn't help thinking if they could have they would have used chlorine gas again. The Sotloff family spokesperson has alleged the so-called moderate forces fighting Assad, the Free Syrian Army, sold Steven Sotloff for a price to IS but the State Dept. denies this. OK thoughts:)