Should we criminalize the past?

just like in 1984 and Brave New World

The past was about real romance, not match.com. The past had a breadth and depth to it that the modernists don't know they're doing away with. The past climate that is said to have produced an Imus is said to be bad and the past, pre-Clarence Thomas, that encouraged men to ask the same woman out more than once was bad too. Conservatives are about preserving the past and liberals want to change it. Why is the past bad?

From the New York Times for April the 14th, "Shock Talk Without Apologies", by Robert Wright. He's all for political correctness and feels Ann Coulter should be held to the same standard as Don Imus but the liberals of a bygone era said free speech means nothing if it doesn't protect the ugly and offensive. If people like Mr. Wright had their way things would be, well, perfectly boring. Anyway he makes this rather common but flawed point when he says:

"If social harmony is the goal sanctions should be focused along the ethnic fault lines that are most precarious. The black-white boundary is such a line given both the history of oppression and ongoing economic disparities between blacks and whites" (emphasis z's). I've lived close to a public housing project for much of my life and have noticed just as many poor whites living there as blacks. I myself, white as snow, have never lived high on the hog, most of the time I struggle like the rest of us. I wish I had a little more economic disparity to boast about, I would't have had to sell my used fishing boat a few years back because it was like having two cars.

Abandoning the past is not progress.

Finally some good writing on TV for a change

I've only sampled a few episodes of "30 Rock" on NBC, starring SNL's Tina Fey and actor Alec Baldwin, but the script crackles and pops with some bold writing. The show is about the goings on and inner workings at some sketch comedy show. The Tina character doesn't get along with some black guy and the guy says "you don't like me because I'm black" to which she replies "no, it's because you're a jerk. Why can't we all just not get along?" In another episode she falls madly in love with some guy she saw at an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting who spills every secret in his life to his group and she later says she was faking alcoholism to meet him, "ok, I'm a real nut-Anne Heche job". Then to make it up to him she spills some of her own secrets like "come next election I'm going to tell my friends I'm voting for Barack Obama but secretly vote for McCain."

anything politically incorrect is dear to z's heart.

That other 9-11 conspiracy theory

Though for the record it can be said the Bush Administration never officially said the former Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein planned or had anything to do with 9/11 the idea that our campaign in Iraq was to avenge the events of that fateful day somehow took firm root in the popular conservative mind. A co-worker of mine, from the time the war started, said good, we're finally doing something about bin-Laden! On the other hand Bush never cleared the air on the matter and let the conspiracist notion float to the point where today we still think we're fighting a War against Terror that is connected to al-Qaeda and 9/11. It's a War against Terror in the sense that it's far better to have another democracy in the Middle East besides Israel but this is in a general sense. A real test for whether you are a true neocon - if you had to choose (and you can't choose both) which would you prefer, that we did what we did and captured Saddam and that the Iraqis hanged him or that OBL face ultimate justice?

conspiracy theories - and we make fun of Charlie Sheen. Now Rosie is a dope, she has demonstrated this well, of that there is no longer any doubt, but Bill O'Reilly is strongly hinting that she should lose her job over her saying that the U.S. government planned 9/11. This is very dangerous to a free country, that only those who think inside the box like O'Reilly should have full unabridged free speech rights, I mean where would the z-man be? This is very selfish Bill, very selfish.

I mean it's one thing to be a little edgy

Leftie commentator Christopher Hitchens has just published a new book damning all the world's religions, yeah, he's that same Hitchens guy who once wrote a book bashing Mother Theresa in The Missionary Position. Being edgy without being charming is an unpardonable mannerism of style, you're just a hater, you may as well just flush yourself down the toilet. I mean is there anyone or anything this man likes? He's like Dante's Lucifer in his Inferno in the innermost core of hell encased not in fire but in a block of ice. You'd hate to bring such a guy to see your aging father in some nursing home - "yeah, when I get in that condition I'll tell ya what, you all can have some fun and have a game throwing peanuts in my mouth." Nice guy.

When celebrities bitch and moan it ain't the same thing

"Today" show co-host Meredith Vieira is now complaining that she has to get up at 3 in the morning every weekday and be driven into Manhattan at 4:30 to do her show. She calls it sleep deprivation but I ain't feeling her pain. I too get up early every day but I don't have my lack of sleep compensated by millions of dollars a year. Celebs also court fame but hate the paparazzi. I ain't defending them but stop acting like Britney and Lindsay and Paris in public, be low-key and operate under the radar. I don't recall seeing too many stories and photos about Danny Aiello.

24 is starting to resemble a bad comic book

Milo has taken an interest in Nadia. Now they both have very important jobs to do at CTU preventing the End of the World As We Know It but somehow Milo sees himself as God's gift to the female species and cornered this Islamic hottie last week and planted a nice wet one on her face and she seemed to like it. I found the whole thing annoying, it's not the z-man's style, and then there's President Wayne Palmer who has been working diligently to foil Vice President Noah Daniels' plan to nuke the Middle East. Palmer keeps asking his doctor for adrenaline shots to keep him from lapsing back into a coma and letting Daniels take charge of foreign policy even though this is raising his blood pressure through the roof. Palmer didn't like Daniels calling him weak and decided to launch the nuke strike anyway to prove what a man he is. This Oval Office definitely needs a Dr. Phil type. The show is just jumping the shark every week and it wouldn't surprise me if this is 24's last real season. It's more a graphic novel now than a drama, wrap it up and call it a season, put it on DVD and put something else on next January.

Some people got upset because they lost their jobs

Travelgate was of course the nefarious work of the VRWC but today's AG scandal just bores me no end, I DON'T CARE, watching the news these days is like prison boredom. Most of the msm are now owned or run by corporations and so it's all the same product. The CBS Evening News with Katie Couric, for example, reports uncritically on anything coming out of that formidable monolith known as the cancer industry. The Newshour with Jim Lehrer is the most objective, nonbiased mainstream organ of the press out there today precisely because PBS is not beholden to corporations, it is run by the public so to speak although for some reason you get alot of queen stuff on this channel at which time I surf on over to the Home Shopping Network.

The more modern a society becomes the more laws we pass. We like to feel nurtured and protected by the State especially women which is why they vote so heavily Democratic as compared to men. There's nothing like getting that ripe government teat overflowing with milk and honey. Laws are commonly passed of which we have no knowledge and what would be our views on burgeoning legislation are not always solicited. Congress has to relevant at all times in every nook and corner of our lives. We'll never get back what we lost, that original vision of the Founding Fathers of minimal government, our loss.

Secular Humanism - man is a god

A god, given thirty years starting when President Nixon declared an all-out war on cancer, would have cured it by now. This is not to put down all those sincere scientists diligently working for a cure but to make the case that secular humanism, or what Bill O'Reilly calls the secular-progressive movement, exalts and celebrates man but does not acknowledge his limitations (and also by extension his propensity for evil). This is brought to mind by the recent news that the wife of Democratic presidential candidate John Edwards has a return of her breast cancer and now White House spokesman Tony Snow also has a return of the very cancer he had thought he beat a few years ago.

It's time to turn the page on the chemo and the radiation. I've known a few people who've had cancer and passed away and it seems that once they go for the conventional "treatment" it's pretty much a death sentence, the pattern is always the same, they have hope of improvement but in a few weeks time at best they are gone. Now a more conspiratorial-minded person might see this all as a subtle form of euthanasia but as for myself I open up the question - in such cases does the original cancer kill the patient or is it the "therapy"? This is why I don't give any money to the various cancer societies, I feel that one day chemo/radiation will be seen in the same light that electro-shock therapy is today, an attempt to do good because we really don't have all the answers and are desperate but barbaric nonetheless.

We now know that we all have genes in our bodies that can cause cancer to develop, such genes are called proto-oncogenes. Science is looking for the triggers but one theory goes that once a person wants to die the body breaks down. It's like the brain is a computer and sends out a program for everything to self-destruct. Perhaps this is a more holistic and philosophical approach but it doesn't bode well for the secular-progressives that the last dread disease we were really able to do something about was polio.

Man is a wonder in many ways but I'm with the Rev. Pat Robertson on this one, I can't worship such a creature and the movement based on it. We need something outside of ourselves and that something is usually called God. Man has an apparently limitless supply of opportunities for letting you down.

Broward County ME Joshua Perper's Sylvia Browne moment

Though she died of a drug cocktail of no less than nine (!) different prescription drugs including chloral hydrate and methadone the coroner assures us that foul play was not involved in the tragic Anna Nicole Smith case, not only that it wasn't even suicide which end a reasonable person might draw. Seminole tribal Police Chief Charlie Tiger seconds the motion and says no cause for concern here (would twenty prescription drugs in a person's system be the barest minimum for concern?). In the wake of the controversial Schiavo case it is now the politically correct thing to do to go out of our way not to demonize people even if this means we should ask far more questions than we do or even that justice has to take a back seat to sensitivities. To this day we don't really know with any metaphysical certitude what caused Terri to collapse on that fateful morning of Feb. 25, 1990 and likewise we cannot state with any metaphysical certitude, as Broward County ME Joshua Perper has done, that Anna Nicole's death at such a young age was purely an accident. Is our legal and justice system no longer intellectually curious anymore? Is enabling a person's drug dependency no longer a crime? Is it just easier these days to let the dead rest with their secrets? WHY must I rely on sources like the National Enquirer for really vital new information in the case?

What of Howard K. Stern?

The prisons are full of innocent people

I've never gotten greed. I mean I can understand lust but greed is well over my head, if I had 1/20 or even 1/30 of the salary of ex-Tyco chief Dennis Koslowski in his prime I'd be more than happy, you wouldn't hear a peep from me for the rest of my life, I might even be in a charitable mood and charter a few private jets and get the people subjugated under Zimbabwean dictator Robert Mugabe the hell out of there (hey W is he on your list of foreign leaders to be overthrown? didn't think so). You can be warm-blooded but help the poor but greed just feeds on itself and devours your soul and it is not for nothing that the Good Book says the love of money is the root of all evil (I'd like to say simply money but people keep correcting me) and I'd rather go before the Lord in the end as poor as I am. But there was Mr. Koslowski in prison garb chatting with Morley Safer last night on "60 Minutes" (Morley still remembers what he was doing the day Honest Abe was shot). Now an innocent person wrongly sent to prison would be more angry and indignant about the whole affair but Kos just rather blithely said, and I'm paraphrasing here, "yeah, you know, I was railroaded." He said the timing of his trial for grand larceny was bad what with the other big corporate scandals in the news at the time, the Enron boys and Worldcom. He pretty much chalked it up to here he was, a big fat corporate pig CEO being judged by a group of average people, you know, how could there be any other outcome?

Our prisons are teeming with innocent people, it's a national scandal.

The age of voter romanticism

With his interesting multi-ethnic makeup he's Tiger Woods with a better personality but in a far more rational world a one-term Democratic Senator from Illinois would never be taken seriously as a presidential contender. What the rational pragmatists don't understand though is that when you're in love with somebody nobody else will do ("if I can't have you I don't want nobody baby, if I can't have you..."). To be sure this is in large measure the same romantic spirit that drives Rudy's supporters but in his case he is at least far more competent and capable. Barack Obama is too young and inexperienced to handle the world right now in its present state but that's besides the point. He gives you that magical feeling that McCain and Edwards are incapable of. The Goracle (to use a John Podhoretz phrase) might be a movie star now but he couldn't inspire lust in a woman going through a twenty year dry spell (and we're to believe he and Tipper were the inspiration for Love Story)?. Now Barack working in a Giuliani administration, the two of them together, now that's dreamy.

The MSM on the couch

It is a major theme of this blog that everything can be psychoanalyzed and so let's dispense with the myth that we have an objective press in this country (the media professor Marvin Kalb's position), there is no such beast whether we are talking about FOX News or CNN which makes Democratic presidential candidate John Edwards' recent refusal to participate in a FOX debate all the more hilarious. It would be far more honest and easier to swallow if shows like "Dateline" and "Primetime Live" preceded their broadcasts with this disclaimer - "what you are about to see is an opinion piece where facts and various 'experts' were selectively marshalled to make the case."

The msm are:

(1) Secular - religious stories important to other people are not even a blip on the msm radar screen. Interested in the life of St. Padre Pio? then go to EWTN, you niche people you.

(2) Feminist - this goes a long way towards explaining why so much of the msm are anti-porn but also pro-abortion, it's a Gloria Steinem thing. It also may help explain the media's heavy emphasis on crime stories of late especially as it affects women (men getting raped in prison ain't no big thing). In real life people may be lovesick and obsessed but in media land there is no such thing as the harmless stalker. In fact there is nothing but CRIME on CBS nowadays, real and imagined.

(3) Question authority at all turns, especially when it comes to matters of race - as in the tragic Sean Bell case which a Queens NY grand jury is now considering. On Nov. 25 of last year the 23 year old Bell, an unarmed black man, and his two friends, also black, also apparently unarmed, were shot by 5 NYPD detectives outside the Kalua strip club in Jamaica Queens. Bell, who was to be married later that day, was killed and his two friends were wounded but survived. With the notable exception of the more right-wing New York Post nobody in the NYC mainstream press bothered explaining how Bell allegedly attempting to drive over a cop who identified himself may have precipitated the whole thing. Now there is talk if the jury doesn't hand up the "right" verdict the fit will hit the shan.

Geraldo Rivera, more honest than most, when asked why he became a journalist famously said "to make the world a better place." Anyone else want to confess?

Newt dipped his toe in the lake

and it felt good but for those chilly currents swirling around Giuliani, wade slowly Newt, tuck your tummy in and splash some on your shoulders and then take your dive. The writing is on the wall, Rudy is not resonating with social conservatives, and whether Newt Gingrich's mea culpa the other day on the Rev. James Dobson's radio show was a result of

political calculation or moral epiphany (to use a George Will phrase)

he did what Rudy never did, admit to personal weakness and say, yes, adultery is technically wrong. While leading the charge for Clinton's impeachment then House Speaker Gingrich was cheating on his second wife with a woman who became his third (talk about a Giuliani parallel!) As one analyst said last night this probably won't bother Christian conservatives who are used to forgiving people anyway so long as Newt espouses a political philosophy that is close enough to theirs (I don't think it'll be a problema). You have to have a pair of brass balls (I'm talking about Giuliani here) if you're a Republican your whole life and say things like you'd pay for your daughter's abortion and then, years down the road, expect to get the wholehearted support of your base. Your political compass is in the Bermuda Triangle. Newt is smarter than that, without getting into the abortion quagmire he can simply repeat what he's always said, that Roe was a judicial abomination, a gross usurpation of the principles of federalism and leave it at that. Makes the cut in my book.

I'd vote for the guy.

Why Rudy still loses to Obama in '08

Dick Morris, as if to stay one step ahead of the z-man, says in today's column that Obama's support among the black leadership is not as strong as one might expect and that this in turn will lead to less black voter turnout for him in '08. The Morris analysis seems to be that he's too white but isn't this the same stereotype that Joe Biden recently engaged in? Is he supposed to be more like a rap star and say "a'ight"? At any rate if it's Rudy vs. Obama, as I suspect (as Beth says) that Hillary will beat herself out of the race, blacks will turn out for Obama or, put another way, they will vote against Rudy. I've heard African-Americans talk about Giuliani over the years and their dislike runs deep, he's a definite lightning rod for blacks. Blacks will not vote for him simply because, let's say there's a high-profile case of police brutality or the shooting death of an unarmed black man and the black leadership, feeling justice isn't being done, wants the Dept. of Justice to take over, it won't happen in Rudy's house.

There's also the issue of partial-birth which he supports, this hardly makes him a "moderate" on the abortion issue. He could therefore turn off pro-choice voters who want some restrictions placed on the practice but there is a new breed of conservative out there for whom the social issues are not as important as, say, the war or law and order, people like Sean Hannity. 9/11 does not entitle him to be president of the United States and anyway Americans are not going to elect someone who will prolong the Iraqi quagmire ad infinitum.

Bottom line, all things considered, by my calculus Rudy loses to Obama in '08. Take that Dick!

What exactly is our way of life anyway?

This comes to mind because conservative writer Dinesh D'Souza says that the radical Muslims don't like us for our coarse and pornographic anti-life culture. Leaving aside for the moment how could flying planes into buildings be considered pro-life D'Souza has touched a nerve with other "conservatives" tired of the culture wars, people like Victor Davis Hanson who calls it "one righty writer's terror tantrum." So how does one define our "way of life"? Are our soldiers dying in Iraq to protect legal abortion and hardcore porn? I myself would like to think they're giving up their lives to protect the nobler aspects of the American democratic experiment. Be that as it may why can't we just say Dinesh has the God-given American right to think out loud and leave it at that. Myself? I had a very bad day at work today.

Let's bring back the Charles Dickens workfare program

Remember not too many moons ago there was all this talk that we'd have more leisure time, technology would do our jobs for us? There was even talk of 3 day weekends whereas now the norm is one day off, in Japan nobody has a day off! Are Republicans running the show? Take chefs. Most chefs I talk to work something like 14 hour days on average and never take an official lunch break, 5 minutes maybe tops to wolf something down. In many jobs today, especially in retail, nobody takes 15 minute breaks anymore even though it's in the union handbooks, too much work to do and so people don't bring up the subject, your Republican boss certainly isn't going to. This is like a retrogression to an earlier era. This is a civilized, advanced society?

According to veteran conservative journalist Bob Novak the GOP, aka "The Stupid Party", doesn't want to listen to veteran Republican pollster Frank Luntz who's been telling them how the public at large reacts to their ideas. Take NR editor Rich Lowry and conservative pundit-at-large Thomas Sowell, both bright guys but they now devote more and more inches of column space to defending the extremely wealthy like corporate CEOs and criticize those Democrats who take on greed (you see, even though greed is one of the 7 deadly sins it's really a good thing). Now Lowry and Sowell may have a couple of valid points to make but let's face it, the vast majority of people are nowhere near being rich themselves and will never be and can't relate to it. A Luntz piece of advice might be to talk less about the country club set and more about the middle class and even the poor. So Luntz is now persona non grata within his own party just like a Republican will be persona non grata in the next White House. People who masturbate your mind

If Mom were a supermarket honcho

I am thoroughly convinced that Moms have more wisdom than 10 men with retail business degrees combined. Take today's Game. So I'm walking through the produce department at my local supermarket and all I see at the salad bar are tons of these special platters, things with carrot sticks, celery stalks and broccoli. I ran this by my Mom. She said "men don't eat that stuff."

A group of dietetic men are sitting around the tube and one gets up and knocks the veggie platter over, "man! did you see that play?!?"People who masturbate your mind

Shrillary, the Oprah Candidate

Hillary resents that George Bush may leave her his war to deal with which would be akin to Richard Nixon saying he resented LBJ leaving him the Vietnam mess, real, um, men deal with these matters everyday. Agree or disagree with the war in Iraq presidential candidates of true fiber generally do not talk like this, if the mess persists into a Hillary term she can deal with it her way by simply bringing the troops home. This is Dr. Phil talk, imagine the late Margaret Thatcher talking like this!

People who masturbate your mind

Conservatism defined

The instant gratification generation and change as the illusion of stability

I know of many young couples who, having been married only a few years, have bought houses. Many times it is the pressure from the wife to get out of apartment living and an older generation would have said wait a while, save some money before you become saddled with a mortgage but these are people who each have a car in their own name. The idea of taking public transportation to save and getting a new car down the road, in short the very idea of suffering and discomfort in the now for long-term gain, is alien to the age that wants it all and wants it today, pay now to save later is a relic from a wiser but extinct generation. We want to make love by the fireplace with the Barry White music pumping

NOW,

this hovel we call an apartment is cramping our STYLE.

You can pretend all you want the house is yours but job security ain't what it used to be, what with the New World Order and all, and one only look through your local Pennysaver to see so many romantic illusions shattered. Conservative values this ain't, things like forbearance, sacrifice, patience, financial prudence (this is the credit-card generation after all), in other words living within your means. We'd rather be in debt than go without. Me? I now pay cash on the barrelhead wherever I go even if it means people look at me like a fossil.

liberalism = change, conservatism = keeping traditions

Conservatives, in marked contrast to liberals, as a cardinal rule do not question government or its institutions, not in the general sense anyway, or law and order, in a word, authority. Social and political stability is this movement's highest value even at the expense that they should question things more from time to time. Liberals, by contrast, seem to be all about social unrest, an attitude that began in the '60s and continues today. Witness the Revs. Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson and the hundreds of their followers protesting last November's NYPD police shooting death of the 23 year old black man to be married that day, Sean Bell, who was unarmed but may have been trying to run a police officer over with his car. The conservative would say what was he doing at a crime-infested strip joint in a bad part of Queens at that time of night (or why hold a bachelor party at all for that matter) but all these elements of proper social order and living are irrelevant to the activists. The overriding need for political and social stability is why, to this day, conservatives can't bring themselves to question the Vietnam War and they have only now brought themselves around to accepting the historic rightness of the Civil Rights Movement of the '60s.

to be continued..... People who masturbate your mind

Change vs. stability - why change is overrated

We recently had two of our best workers leave. One, a talented and hardworking young chef was with us for a year and a half and the other was a chef/manager who stayed a couple of years longer than him. The consensus at work is that change is good, it is exciting, everyone needs a change and so good for them but in my view it can look lousy on a resume or job application. Yeah, change is jazzy for the person leaving, new adventures and mountains to climb, but to a potential employer it looks like you get bored easily with your jobs or disgruntled or something at least after a time. Stability is boring though and to preach its value over the idea of change leaves you in the definite minority. It bears noting that both of these men who left are young, in the mid to late 20's range, and so being young they haven't yet discovered the wisdom of traditional values like stability. In this sense a job is like a marriage and these two guys haven't settled down yet.

Some will say personal responsibility is the key behind the conservative movement but personal responsibility is only one thing that leads to social stability. It is stability, stability in the social and sexual sphere, in one's work, in life in general that is the real driving force behind conservatism. This is why conservatives preach marriage is between a man and a woman, why committed relationships, while not as strong as marriage, are far preferable to promiscuity, why many times it is better to stick with one job even though it may cause you no end of grief (Mom's wisdom), that boss you may hate may be transferred soon if you just hang in there. Young people like motion and movement is inherent to change, the wisdom of stability doesn't appeal to them yet as it represents inertia, sexually, socially, workwise and in every way.

They say most people start out more liberal in their earlier years and become more conservative with age. I don't know if this is true for Kirk Douglas who still feels the immature male need to brag about the sexual conquests in his youth (his controversial new autobiography Let's Face It - 90 Years of Living, Loving and Learning) but for me conservatism makes the most sense. A society without stability is chaos.People who masturbate your mind