Monday's Mishegas

-        76 year old Michigan grandmother Bea Leach bagged a five-point buck last week.  Word out of Wasilla, Alaska is Sarah Palin has added Ms. Leach to her short list of potential vice presidential candidates for 2012.
-        George W. Bush makes no apologies for the tough decision he had to make during his presidency in his memoir ‘Decision Points’.  In all interviews he has offered no regrets or assessments of the results.  Perhaps his follow-up should be titled ‘Truth and Consequences’.
-        Clearly investing in additional border security has paid off.  Last week U.S. Border Patrol was able to apprehend and arrest Willie Nelson of possession of marijuana.  It seems the border guard smelled marijuana smoke when he boarded the tour bus in Texas. 
-        Let’s Make a Deal starts in Washington this week.  Will the Republicans get their tax cuts for their millionaire buddies?  Will the Democrats get an extension of unemployment benefits?  Do the Dream Act, Don’t Ask Don’t Tell, and START get placed on the back burner?  Who will show up to moderate Monty Hall or Howie Mandel?
-        I hope President Obama takes the initiative for the next two years; don’t be a politician, be a leader.  Inspire the nation with a vision of social progress (DADT and Immigration Policy) while laying out the necessary policies to keep the economy moving (short term stimulus) while reducing long term debt (entitlement reform and discretionary spending cuts).  You must be transformational: change the tax code, enable technology development, and eliminate unnecessary bureaucracy.  It will be tough medicine for Americans, but it must be done.   Tell the nation what it needs, not what it wants.  If you own the tactics by not delegating the work to Congress AND don’t allow the Republicans to take control of the dialogue, you will be successful.  Be Obama the leader, not Obama the politician. 
-        U.S. Poverty rate rose to 14.3% in 2009, the highest in 50 years.  Makes it difficult to call us the richest nation on earth when we are regressing as a society.
-        Our Afghanistan strategy is focused on two critical provinces: Helmund and Kandahar.  Unfortunately, in a recent Canadian survey only 8% of the Afghans in those provinces are aware of the 9/11 attacks.  8%!!!!!!  No wonder these Afghan citizens side with the Taliban and view us as the latest version of unwanted invaders.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

A Secular American Jew and a Love for Israel

As many of you know, I have dedicated many postings to the State of Israel on a range of topics including: it’s history, the present day government, the Jewish-Palestinian question, and the region in general.   Growing up in a liberal conservative Jewish household (the oxymoron is quite common as American Jews were almost exclusively political liberals and the conservative branch of Judaism the most common) and attending Hebrew school as a kid you obviously build an affinity for the State of Israel.   I do not remember the Six-Day War of 1967, but I have vivid memories of celebrating Israel’s 25 th anniversary in 1973 and the Yom Kippur War later that year.   As a ten year old attending Yom Kippur services I saw the worried looks on my parents and the other adults at the shul as members of the congregation would periodically step outside to get news reports from car radios and transistor radios (We still drove and used electrical appliances during the high holidays, though several fam
Read more

September 10, 2001 was a Monday

Where were you on September 10, 2001?   What were you worried about?   What occupied your thoughts, worries, hopes, and dreams?   What were you excited about?   What were you interested in? September 10, 2001 was a Monday. Cindy and I were still laughing about the recent visit from the Three Amigas: Leah, Roseanne, and Valerie, and the adventures of Sedona, a certain screen door, a forgotten carrot cake, and breakfast for champions.   We were also dealing with a 1995 Chevy Blazer that seemed to be on its last legs, surviving our first Arizona summer, thinking about what to remodel in the house, dealing with the concept of a Home Owners Association, thinking that my best shot at a World Series game maybe with the fledgling Arizona Diamondbacks, and looking forward to a visit from Scott, Lori, and the boys. But what about America?   We knew nothing about a tiny town in Pennsylvania called Shanksville; Guantanamo Bay was the setting for A Few Good Men, and we still taped shows and listene
Read more

Sunni and Shia: So who are the bad guys again?

Baby faces vs. heals?   Cowboys vs Indians?   Good guy always where the white hat.   “Dig is he a good guy or bad guy?”   Bad guys always, looked, well, bad. You’re either with us or you’re against us.   Iraq, Iran, and North Korea are the axis of evil. Americans, for the most part, have a pretty simple outlook on conflict: just tell us who the bad guys are and we’ll know who to root against.   We tend to lump similar races and peoples into larger buckets, mostly due to the media’s inclination to treat us like potential Jeff Foxworthy competitors.   But the world is anything but simple and as I have written previously, the Middle East is as confusing and confounding place as you can find.   During the Iran and Iraq war of the 1980’s most Americans took the position that “…as long as they kill each other, I’m good.”   When civil war ravaged Afghanistan, we joined the side of the Mujahedeen because they were fighting the Soviets and the Soviets were our archenemy, a position they occupie
Read more