Let the Games Begin

As of an hour ago, the games of the XXIX Olympiad had begun with pomp and circumstance galore. Tune in to NBC tonight for the endless tape-delayed recap with Bob Costas.

Athletes will compete, medals will be awarded and, as sure as the Pope wears a funny hat, the Chinese are going to do something stupid. And then get their backs up when the world media call them on it...which will piss them off even more.

I don't know what's going to happen, but it's going to be fun to speculate.

The problem lies with the concept of an authoritarian government inviting the world over for two weeks and expecting them to play by the house's rules. There's something like 10,000 reporters in China. Note to the Chinese government: Reporters are individuals who, by their very nature, don't like to play by any rules but their own. The stricter the rules? The more fun they have trying to get around them. The first reporter expelled for telling a story the Chinese don't like will be a hero ... they also won't have to buy their own booze for a year.

It'll almost be a competition to see who can win the reporters' gold medal by getting booted, kicking and screaming, first. Even better than spending time in jail for refusing to give up a source.

Here's what I see happening, and it's not like I had to visit the Delphi Oracle:

1. Sombody's going to protest something in a spectacular way in view of the media.
2. The Chinese will commence their obligatory beat down which may or may not include said members of the media.
3. News will happen.
4. The Chinese will try, and fail, to control the story.
5. World outrage will ensue.
6. The Chinese will get even more pissed.
7. Rinse, repeat.

Anyone else care to speculate on how it's going to go down? Chime in in the comments.

Back On Topic

“Democracy never lasts long. It soon wastes, exhausts and murders itself. There was never a democracy that did not commit suicide.” – John Adams, April 1814.

How many of you out there think we have a two-party system here in America? C’mon, raise your hands if you think that’s true (it’ll make everyone in your office wonder what’s going on and what they’re missing).

There are now two (major) political organizations out there vying for your fealty come Nov. 4. At noon on Jan. 20, 2009, one of our presumptive candidates will raise his right hand and swear to “preserve, protect and defend” the bedrock of our republic, the U.S. Constitution.

And that right there, my friends, is why we don’t have a two party system.

Those of you with your hands still up, put ‘em down. You’re starting to creep out the other inmates of your cube farm.

What we have here in America is a one party system divided by ideology. You see, despite their alleged differences, both the Republicans and the Democrats believe first and foremost in democracy. They just have different ideas about how they should work it to better control you.

They are both with a little “d” – drum roll please – democratic organizations. The members, well most of them, believe in this little experiment in representative democracy we have going here. There are extreme ends, who either want to take your guns away or make you go to their church for three hours every Sunday and Wednesday, but we’ll ignore them as it is only right and correct when dealing with shrill extremists.

As P.J. O’Rourke says in “Parliament of Whores,” his classic book on the federal government, “The Democrats are the party that says government will make you smarter, taller, richer, and remove the crabgrass on your lawn. The Republicans are the party that says government doesn't work and then they get elected and prove it.”

With the exception of Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), a self-described democratic socialist, the other 536 elected members of our federal government are all Ds or Rs. Yeah, even Joe Lieberman, despite the (I-Ct.) after his name.

We have no communists (despite the dire warnings about some on the left), no fascists (again, despite the dire warnings, but this time about those on the right), no religious-based parties and no Greens lurking the halls of Congress or the White House.

In fact, except for their variation on one white-hot button issue (abortion), there really is virtually no difference between John McCain and Barrack Obama because, in the end, they both believe in democracy.

And on some of the only slightly less white-hot issues often dividing Americans – immigration, social security, the death penalty – both offer basically the same ideas. Both also support civil unions, but oppose gay marriage.

Ahh, you noticed I ignored the war in Iraq and energy. The reasons are twofold and simple. Despite what Obama or McCain claim and promise, America’s involvement in Iraq is like riding a tiger, and we’re stuck on that ride until it ends. And, even if they started punching holes off the Florida coast or building windmills tomorrow, neither of their energy plans will provide noticeable relief until long after they’re term-limited out of the White House.

They’re both going to take about the same amount of money out of your paycheck one way or another. Why? Because, once it has it, a government is exceedingly reluctant to give up either money or power. Come this time next year, you’re not going to be significantly better or worse off financially, all things being equal.

But, what would happen if a third party (also believing in democracy, of course) were thrown into the political Mix Master? A new ideology created to reclaim the center of the American debate both Dems and Reps have ground into dust.

An interesting idea (insert a Rock-like raised eyebrow here). Neither the Republican “Party” nor the Democratic “Party” offers us anything besides stagnation. When stagnation happens elsewhere, in business, science, art or literature, innovation takes over. It’s time for some innovation. Time for a better idea. Time for a political (r)evolution or, if you like, some political intelligent design (words you’ve never heard said before).

Viva la (r)evolution!!

Eyeing the Storm

I watched with particular interest yesterday as tropical storm Edouard churned through the Gulf headed for the Texas coast.

First of all, what’s with the spelling of the name? Seriously, is the National Hurricane Center trying to avoid complaints by picking names only a minuscule number of people have?

It’s not like the folks there at the NHS have to worry about a call like this:

“Hello, National Hurricane Center, how may I help you?”

“Yes, my name is Gustav and people are giving me a hard time because I have the same name as the storm that just wrecked Miami. I’d like you to change it.”

Is your name lurking in the future as a possible Hugo (1989), Fran (1997), Katrina (2005) or Rita (2005)? By the way, these are just four of the more than a dozen hurricanes I’ve lived through or reported on in the past 15 years. But more on that another day.

Just for fun, here are the names for this year and next year so you can check.

2008 Tropical storm names
Arthur

Bertha

Cristobal

Dolly

Edouard

Fay

Gustav

Hanna

Ike

Josephine

Kyle

Laura

Marco

Nana

Omar

Paloma

Rene

Sally

Teddy

Vicky

Wilfred

2009 Tropical storm names
Ana

Bill

Claudette

Danny

Erika

Fred

Grace

Henri

Ida

Joaquin

Kate

Larry

Mindy

Nicholas

Odette

Peter

Rose

Sam

Teresa

Victor

Wanda

Apparently, the NHC is not too worried about offending those of Spanish and French heritage.

You know, if they wanted odd names they could have gone with Aiden, Braden or Kaden (WTF?)…Oh, wait a minute…Damn it, those are the top three, seriously, the top three, baby boy names for 2007 according to babynames.com. Parents, seriously, put down the crack pipe. You think you’re being cute, but you’re not. Note: I’m saddened not to see my own moniker in the top 100, especially seeing how it lost out to Reece/Reese/Rhys, number 69; Mattox number 77, (isn’t that another name for a type of pick ax? Why not just name your child “Tool”?); and Colton number 96, which, to tell you the truth, sounds like a brand name for a type of stainless steel.

You’ll notice I’m not making fun of 2007’s baby girl names. Two reasons for that: One, for the most part, the top 10 are pretty nice names with the top two being Ava and Abigail. And two, I’m single and I don’t want to offend any possible dates by making fun of their names.

As it turns out Edouard did knock down some power lines and topple some trees, but that was about the extent of the damage. And, according to my friends at The Beaumont Enterprise, the utilities expected to have the power restored by later today.

That said, it’s still a silly sounding name for a hurricane.

Talking ‘bout my Generation

Late last night, laying there with my hed on my enormous pillow and totally unable to sleep, I did what any guy would do: got up and clicked on the TV.

Not wanting to flip endlessly from channel to channel, I went straight for the video on-demand to check out a show I’ve been wanting to watch, but consistently missing: HBO’s Generation Kill.

If you’re unfamiliar with GK, here’s the background: Before the 2003 invasion of Iraq, Rolling Stone writer Evan Wright embedded with a platoon from Bravo Company, 1st Recon Battalion, 1st Marine Division (oo-rah). The first part of a three-part article he wrote for RS, “The Killer Elite,” eventually morphed into the episode I watched early this morning: “Get Some.”

Now I don’t know how accurately Wright portrayed the invasion or the incidents and firefights he experienced along the way to Baghdad, but I’ll tell you one thing he got right: He absolutely, positively, 100 percent nailed the Marines he was with. He may not have gotten them individually correct; in fact, some of them later took issue – they physically threatened him after the articles were published – with how they were depicted. I think this is the best indicator Wright got it right. His subjects looked in the mirror and didn’t like what they saw.

But the overall picture of life as a Marine getting ready to go to war? Right. The fuck. On. It was fun to watch, and a whole hell of a lot better than Jarhead (Swoff's a good writer, but me thinks he's full of it).

I found myself smiling (and laughing) at the Marines' behavior and comments, things most people would probably cringe at seeing or hearing. Why is this you ask? Because I remember doing, saying, hearing and seeing similar things in January of ‘91 when my unit, the 2nd Marine Division, was getting ready to invade Kuwait the first time we tried this whole regime change thing.

Holy crap! Has it really been 17 years since the first go round? Damn.

To put things in the proper context, I’ll point out that although I was a Marine I was not, nor have I ever claimed to be a Marine infantryman. Let alone a member of one of the Recon battalions. But I have friends who were and as hyped and manic as my platoon’s antics were, I imagine the Marines shown in GK actually were that...and probably much more.

Not to put too fine a point on it, but Marines are not soft and cuddly. Their job, if I remember my brainwashing correctly, is to “locate, close with and destroy the enemy by fire and maneuver.” Marine (reservists) may collect Toys for Tots every year and look nice in their dress blues doing it, and that’s nice, but their real job is finding and killing America’s enemies. Period.

I have six more episodes left and I’m looking forward to them. Not so much for the trip down memory lane, but to see something I’m guessing is as close to the truth as you’re going to get in this day in age.

A walk in the park

I went for a walk yesterday (Sunday, Aug. 3). I’m usually not a big walker to tell you the truth. Most of the time when I want to get out and about, I put on my padded shorts and helmet and climb on my bike. But yesterday I decided to slow down a bit, although my walking and riding speeds aren’t significantly different. For good measure I decided to haul my camera with me. 

My destination on Sunday was, in my opinion, one of D.C.’s more lightly visited spots: the Theodore Roosevelt Memorial on Roosevelt Island. For those of you who haven’t visited T.R. lately – or ever – I highly recommend the trip. While you’re walking along the island’s paths it’s difficult to believe you’re just a hop, skip and a jump from downtown D.C. and Rosslyn.

The memorial consists of the obligatory statue (actually a pretty nice one), a plaza, two fountains (interestingly, they seem like they’re shaped like bathtubs), some reflecting pools and four stone monoliths. The monoliths are inscribed with T.R.’s quotes on the State, Nature, Manhood and Youth.

Many are quite interesting, such as:

Youth: “Alike for the nation and the individual, the one indispensable requisite is character.” – American Ideals, 1897.

Manhood: “It is hard to fail, but it is worse never to have tried to succeed.” – The Strenuous Life, 1900.

The State: “A great democracy has got to be progressive or it will soon cease to be great or a democracy.” – The New Nationalism, 1910. (Keep in mind, ol’ Teddy was a Republican.)

And, finally, Nature: “The nation behaves well if it treats the natural resources as assets which it must turn over to the next generation increased and not impaired in value.” – The New Nationalism, 1910.

There are more, but I wouldn’t want to ruin it for you.

OK, after that long and winding lead-in (kind of like the paths on Roosevelt Island), I’ll get to my point. In a campaign commercial the comment was made the greatest threat facing America today is the threat of global terrorism.

I disagree.

The greatest threat facing America today is our dependence on foreign dealer to supply our energy habit and the influence terrorism has on our uninterrupted fix of raw materials. Instead of searching the armpits and assholes of the world for the folks who don’t like us in a futile attempt to protect our access to oil – in areas of the world I note, where the United States is decidedly unpopular – wouldn’t it just be easier to say, “Fine, keep it. We don’t need your stinkin’ oil.”

Now, what I’m not saying is along with a chicken in every pot and a car in every garage there should also be a pump jack in your backyard. Oil was the fuel of the 20th century. We need to move on and develop the fuel of the 21st century and beyond. (Hint: it’s like the sun, but not solar.)

We need a new idea, but neither of the “presumptive” candidates for the position of our fearless leader, nor most of the candidates for the lesser offices on the Hill, offers us any new ideas.

Let’s concentrate on the principles, shall we? According to the Boston Globe’s candidate platform section, John McCain “[H]as pledged to end U.S. reliance on foreign oil and says America must modernize the way it generates and employs energy. As president, would support ‘declaration of independence’ from foreign oil suppliers and rely on technological innovations to achieve that goal.”

Barack Obama’s platform, on the other hand, “Pledges to invest $150 billion over the next 10 years to develop and implement ‘climate-friendly energy supplies, protect our existing manufacturing base and creates millions of new jobs.’ Pledges to double federal clean energy research spending. Supports efforts to reduce dependence on foreign oil, and to reduce oil consumption by 35 percent by 2030.”

Ehhhh, we need more. Obama just says he will “reduce” dependence. McCain, on the other hand, will “end” reliance on foreign oil, but at the promised price of more drilling here at home, which won’t do a damned thing. That’s like selling your flat screen to get money for smack. The truth is there just isn’t that much oil here in the good ol’ US of A. But, good news, we have plenty of other options.

“The nation behaves well if it treats the natural resources as assets which it must turn over to the next generation increased and not impaired in value.”

Along with proven reserves of coal and natural gas, we also need to vigorously fund nuclear, wind, solar and anything else that will produce (preferably in a clean sort of way) a kilowatt of electricity. I’m pretty sure we can do this because another of our greatest natural resources are Americans’ creativity and ingenuity.

What we need is something Kennedy-esque, something inspiring (and I know I’ve already used this quote, but it’s a pretty good one), “We choose to go to the moon. We choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard, because that goal will serve to organize and measure the best of our energies and skills, because that challenge is one that we are willing to accept, one we are unwilling to postpone, and one which we intend to win, and the others, too.”

JFK said this on Sept. 12, 1962. Less than seven years later, on July 20, 1969, Americans walked on another planet for the first time. Not too bad: seven years to go half a million miles (round trip). It was hard, but we did it with more than five months to spare.

We need to force politicians to give us concrete details about what they're going do if we vote for and elect them. No more waffling (ummmm, waffles). I don't mean make them promise what they're going to accomplish, no one can predict that and I wouldn't believe them anyway. But they've got to promise us in hand-in-the-air, cross-your-heart-and-hope-to-die, pinky swear concrete terms what they're going try to do to solve the problem.

I don’t care what other people say and think, I believe Americans are still, collectively, the smartest and most innovative group of people around. With the proper motivation, inspiration and leadership (from government and business) we, as a country can solve this problem.

The folks who hate us aren’t going to stop hating us because we stop buying their oil. In fact, the governments and terrorists in the Middle East (and idiots in South America) will probably hate us more because we’re no longer dependent on them. But I think it’s gonna be a lot easier to fight them when we’re no longer paying for the bullets and explosives they’re using on our troops in the first place.

Two Voices

One of these is not like the other, but which is which?

R.I.P.

Alexander Solzhenitsyn
Dec. 11, 1918-Aug. 3, 2008



And, despite my loathing of the Atlanta Braves:

Skip Caray
Aug. 12, 1939-Aug. 3, 2008

Back for more…

OK, that wasn’t so hard. While I know I started off this blog with a long, Dennis Milleresque type rant, that’s not all I want it to be about. I’d like The Foggy Dew to be funny and entertaining as well as thought provoking.

Don’t know how I’m going to do that yet, but this whole thing is a work in progress. That said, until something better comes along, I’m going to continue my line of thought from yesterday.

I subscribe to no particular political ideology. I’ve been a newspaper reporter, a group of people – with the exception of Fox News and CBN – everyone knows are total left-wing liberals if not, in fact, parlor pinks. But before that I was a member of that most humble brother(and sister)hood, the Marine Corps, and we all know that every member of the military is just a jackboot away from a party meeting with Benito and Adolf.

To quote Ferris Bueller: “A person should not believe in an ism - he should believe in himself. I quote John Lennon: ‘I don't believe in Beatles - I just believe in me.’ A good point there. Of course, he was the Walrus. I could be the Walrus - I'd still have to bum rides off of people.”

(After searching for that quote, I also noticed it’s kinda popular in the ‘sphere. Oh well, good writers borrow, great writers steal outright.)

People are so caught up today in -isms and labels it makes it impossible for you to have an honest disagreement with someone. Labels have made it impossible for politicians to compromise because we live in an age of absolutism (see, another ‘-ism). And, God forbid, you accidently listen to someone and decide, “Hey, maybe they’ve got a good point there,” and change you mind. You’d be kissing off any chance of ever getting elected again.

Looking back over the history of the United States you begin to wonder what happened to all the great leaders. “All we have to fear…” and “We choose to go to the moon…” have been replaced with “I did not have sex with that woman…” and “I’m the decider…”

Where are the men and women today who are willing to risk it all for something they believe in? Are you?

Is anyone today willing to “mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our Sacred Honor.” (Yeah, that pesky document again.)

We often forget, 232 years into our republic, this country — this experiment in democracy — was founded in bloody revolution. The fight then was a long and difficult struggle. A battle to literally rip the 13 colonies away from Great Britain. Like the first settlers to set foot in the undiscovered country of North Carolina and Massachusetts, the founders left everything behind when they revolted against their king.

And, let’s be clear, George Washington, John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, Ben Franklin and all the rest were risking their lives and committing treason when they stood up for what they believed in.

For these men there were no retractions on the news and, perhaps, some community service to apologize for offending the George III. If the Revolution failed the 56 names on the Declaration of Independence would have quickly appeared on headstones (if they were lucky) after they swung from the gallows.

For example, from the inspiration of our namesake, check out the section on the signatories.

What’s happened to the legacy of that treason that created this country? Washington, who said, “Our cause is noble, it is the cause of mankind,” would be stunned at how we’ve trashed the dream.
Remember the Keep America Beautiful ads? Just imagine Rembrandt Peale’s portrait of Washington with tears running down his face.

If Washington and the other founders could see the United States today, they’d be searching for a meeting room and, for good measure, having the air conditioning turned off.