The Grumpy Forester

TAKING UP THE CHALLENGE

...sometimes it's difficult to ignore an obvious challenge. You run across somebody who, in misreading a situation, thinks that he is operating from a position of far greater strength than he actually is and starts mouthing off in a most unseemly way. In that light, I offer today for your consideration James C. Dobson, founder of Focus on the Family and self-recognized leader of the new conservative Christian wave that he perceives sweeping this sinful confused nation of ours. Mr. Dobson has declared jihad (and that is the only term that should ever be used in the context of this issue) against six so-called red-state Democratic Senators if they opposed the sordid little band of wacko's that Gee Dub intends to renominate to federal judgeships. He states in a rather threatening and un-Christian manner that they will be "in the bullseye" in 2006 if they oppose the President's desire to appoint what we are apparently now supposed to think of as "strict constructionist" judges to federal benches (even though that's not what they really mean, since strict constructionists would have pilloried Gee Dub on every one of his misguided steps on the road to Baghdad)...

...well, let's get it on. His Daschle example is a good place to start. Much of the noise used to defeat Daschle in his reelection effort was, of course, raw misrepresentation; that's the way things work in politics. One would assume that the voters who put these six Senators in office knew what they were voting for, so it would be necessary to twist and extend and bend the facts into a new reality in order for them to be an effective tool against these incumbents; that's how politics works, too. Unfortunately, that's not how Christianity works, at least not out in the real world. Twisting and bending and distorting aren't' part of the package; Jesus did not encourage his followers to play fast and loose with the truth in order to create a government more to their liking. The challenge that Mr. Dobson has been so kind to lay down for us is to help him with his fact-checking. Any misrepresentation of the position of a Democratic incumbent Senator, no matter how innocent or inconsequental, is a lie. Telling a lie is a sin. Tailoring a lie so that it seems to have some sort of basic organic relationship with actual truth is still telling a lie. Dr. Dobson has invited us to shine the bright Christian light of Jesus' teachings on his proposed efforts to unseat Senators who don't conform to his particular efforts to tailor a government more theocratically comfortable to his particular group of mullahs. Let's do that...

ACTIVIST JUDGES?

...sometimes it seems obvious that there needs to be some sort of Hippocratic Oath for judges, especially down at the roots of the judicial system where so much of the natural action really happens. Some sort of "First, Do No Harm" blood promise would be helpful in cases where judges - whether through some misguided misapplication of case law, philosophical bias, or simple lack of intellectual rigor - have the power to screw with the fundamental basis of peoples' lives in a fashion that makes folks with common sense shake their heads and say "huh". Today's example of just such a circumstance comes to us courtesy of Judge Paul Bastine of the Spokane County Superior court in the divorce case of Shawwna Hughes....

...the facts themselves seem simple enough in the story: husband beats wife; she leaves him; he's convicted; she files for divorce and subsequently becomes pregnant by the new man in her life. It is at this point that, courtesy of Judge Bastine, that this thing leaves the pavement. In his zeal to assure that the child is not born "illegitimate" (nonwithstanding the question of who the hell even talks like that anymore), the judge refuses to grant the divorce. This will make the worthless thug that beat her the presumed father of the child, even though Ms. Hughes, who would presumably be pretty well up to speed on such things, says that another fellow is the father of the child...

...if this weren't so stupid it would be fascinating. The judge is attempting to create a situation where, if some bad thing were to happen to the mother after the child's birth, her all-but-former husband who loved her so much that he criminally beat her will be the legal guardian of the child she created with another man. One would thing that it would be hard to imagine a circumstance less likely to create a nurturing environment for a child, but apparently that isn't the case in the minds of 'some' members of the legal community. Judge Bastine speaks of the "rights of the child" in the fashion of some sort of visitor from a replicate universe that is a few degrees out of parallel with our own, while preventing the mother from getting the divorce she needs to be able to marry the child's actual father. The judge apparently he believes that he is doing The Right Thing, somehow protecting the interests of the unborn child in some manner that is completely and opaquely unapparent to most common-sense observers, regardless of any almost quarter-century-old State Supreme Court ruling. Yes, sir, we are certainly getting the New Year off to the right start, especially in Spokane County...

ANOTHER TRIP AROUND THE SUN

...and so here we are, simple hours away from saying goodbye to a strange and difficult year, honoring an arbitrary demarcation of time's passage cooked up by some long dead Mesopotamian and later ratified by a Roman Catholic Pope back in the day when the Roman Catholic hierarchy had the kind of power they would like to pretend they have now. It began with strong Democratic hopes for unseating an unelected figurehead of a president whose handlers had mis-handled enough issues from Iraq to Medicare medicine programs to make him the weakest incumbent heading into an election since Gerald Ford. Quickly, the SuperBowl halftime antics by Janet Jackson and Justin Timberlake, actually seen live by far fewer people than the number who expressed raw outrage at this example of the depths to which moral depravity has dragged our great country, launched us on a year-long debate over moral values that touched on wide-ranging and generally unrelated topics: abortion, gay marriage, Howard Sterns, a second visit to stem-cell land. Although the issue of gay marriage seems to command most of the oxygen in the political atmosphere, the revisitation on the stem cell debate was the most fascinating, stirred up as it was by the family of the closest person Republicans have to a demigod, Ronald Reagan, and fostered at the state level by the current Republican national heartthrob Arnold Schwarzenegger. The end of the political story in November sucked, of course, giving a gang of so-called true-believers some bizarre and unverified mandate to institutionalize their peculiar version of God into American politics and society and launching the Democratic on another round of soul searching and breast-beating that would be unnecessary if the national party leaders could ever get beyond the idea that the country wants to turn itself over to some corporate version of Mr. Rogers, but all of this has been supplanted in the last days of the year, suddenly and viciously, by a simple act of nature. Whether it was by the hand of God or by a random natural event (depending on your belief system), the simple release of a point of built-up pressure along a subduction fault in the Indian Ocean has had a more profound effect on a far larger number of people than if Janet and Jason has shed their clothes over the shouted exclamations of panic by the MTV control room staff and begun thrashing around in a procreative fashion on that fine green near-grass on the floor of Reliant Stadium in Houston back in January...in Living Color, as it were....

...none of the petty fights over differing political beliefs really matter in this context, although you can be sure that there are plenty of people who unfortunately are allowed by an accident of birth to call themselves Americans who can find a context to express not the slightest sliver of sadness that has befallen millions of our fellow citizens on this planet, as demonstrated by South Knox Bubba's brave scumdive into their twisted, hate-filled little world. It would be recklessly unsupportable, but all the same tremendously gratifying, to attribute a quiet concordance with these views as being the reason for the initially embarrassingly paltry assistance offer by the United States, but one could never be able to prove that and the style-over-substance boys in the White House have now upped the ante ten-fold to $350 million dollars to insulate Gee Dub from the growing rumbles within his own party over our response to the growing crisis around the perimeter of the Indian Ocean...

...all in all, this is a tenuous framework from within which to begin the new year. It is difficult to find any reason to even attempt to endure Regis friggin' Philbin hosting the Rock and Roll New Year's Eve and toast the advent of a new year with any sense of hope or promise. The millions in harms way in southern Asia will soon enough fall off the media radar screen, the "Made In America" horror of Iraq that has been crowded off the TV over the last couple of days will continue unabated (earning a sameness of its own), and we will still be left with the continuing local onslaught by a strange hoard of latter-day Elmer Gantry's and other thugs, punks, fixers, and various mechanics who are convinced they are on a mission from God to steer us like stockyard hogs down their own perverse path to redemption in a new society of their own atavistic creation. It may be emblematic of this dark era in which we are gripped that my country-music radio has a new building hit by - of all people - Jimmy Buffett. Long honored by other popular music formats primarily in the breach, he's now getting commercial air play in a duet with Martina McBride on a remake of a song of his called "Trip Around the Sun" which, despite its timing, is actually about another birthday rather than the completion of a calendar year...

...any sense of hope or promise will have to come with the new year, because it isn't readily apparent on this cold snowy last night of 2004 huddled up against the east shoulder of the Orygun Cascades under the weight of a half-hearted National Weather Service promise that I will spend at least the first couple of New Year's Day Football games digging out from under an impending snowstorm. None of this means that I will quit writing on whatever blog is functional or fighting or standing up for what I believe is right, and it doesn't mean that I can't draw enjoyment from the agonies of my poor Republican in-laws across the border in Washington as they get horsewhipped by the very system they thought existed to preserve their right to muscle electoral outcomes away from the actual voters. No matter how that one turns out, I am taking the opportunity to openly enjoy the hell out of their plight, and if that means I have to make it known in family circles that my children will be opening all birthday and Christmas presents addressed to me from here on, so be it. In a world where Keith Olbermann can be named the Sexiest Broadcaster by Playgirl Magazine, there is hope for the emergence of truth amidst the cacophony of lies, sloppy reporting, and misinformation that has plagued this expiring year...

...in any case, I do hope for you a safe, personally happy, and productive New Year, and I would like to thank you for stopping by over the last year as I've explored this wild ride in the world of blogtopia (y!sctp!) at Ruminate This and - during it's recent troubles - the Grumpy Forester. Eat, drink, and be merry, because on Monday we need to get back to work fixin' what ails us...

A ROAD TRIP FOR JEBBIE

...so Gee Dub has decided that he will be sending brother Jeb along with lame-duck Secretary of State Powell to visit the tsunami-stricken areas in Asia. Can it be that there is so little time left before 2008? Does the positioning for the next election begin so soon? While I'm sure that the Bush-Monkeys could whip up some ephemerally legitimate-sounding reason for picking the Prez's brother (all that experience with natural disasters after this most recent hurricane season, etc., etc.), it seems that there would be any number of more ably qualified people capable of providing the Administration with a clearer and more concise analysis of assistance and recovery needs - like, oh, say, at least half the employees and the Federal Emergency Management Agency. This seems, at the very least, like another classic example of this gangs' inability to resist the urge to employ style ("...and I'm sending my own dear brother...) rather than substance when it comes to taking Presidential action. The people affected by the tsunamis don't need Jeb and Colin "assessing" the situation, unless Jeb and Colin are traveling to the region squeezed in between pallats of water, medicine, and survival rations in a big-ass C-5A transport plane...

...just, please, Lord, no photo op's of Jeb passing out food packets to starving children. Nobody, even in the best of circumstances, should have to deal with that sort of cheap, bloodless hackery...

A SMALL DROP IN A VERY BIG BUCKET

...so after a first official offer of merely $15 million dollars in aid in response to the Indian Ocean tsunamis, an offer so paltry that it tempted me to begin claiming that I was Canadian, the administration has upped the offer to $35 million dollars, although you can be sure that the stinging comments by UN officials had nothing to do with that. Think of it: scores and scores of oceanside and island communities severely damaged or completely destroyed; infrastructure destroyed, the death toll hovering even now near 60,000 but destined to climb higer, perhaps much higher; hundreds of thousands if not millions of people without food, water, or shelter. The richest nation in the world responds to this with $35 million dollars...

...that's roughly the equivalent of the payments made to a dozen or so 9/11 victims' families. It is the loan amount you would need to get from the bank to buy 5 or 6 M1A2 Abrams main battle tanks. If you are a favored ally of the United States, it's what you would be charged for one stripper model F-15 Eagle (but not even half the cost for a shiney new F-15E Strike Eagle with all the bells and whistles). It is one third the purchase price for one state-of-the-art F-22 Raptor stealth fighter. There is, of course, the invisible cost that will be incurred by various military operations conducted in conjunction with relief efforts. In terms of cash assistance, however, it is certainly to be hoped that we will eventually raise our contribution to a level commensurate with our national wealth. Colin Powell says that our contribution will increase, and I have no reason to doubt him (well, as long as he isn't talking about Iraqi WMD production), but I will freely admit that, given the grim descriptions coming out the areas hit by these recent tsunamis, to hear that the United States was offering an initial relief package of merely $35 million dollars was just simply embarrassing...

...we can do much better than that....

AN NFL FOOTBALL RANT

...there's no reason to deny it; I've said it or implied it often enough. I am a Northwesterner, a native of the upper left hand corner of the continental American map. I am the product of western immigrants who brutally supplanted the Nez Perce nation from their ancestral homeland, and the direct product of an odds-breaking meeting between a young Idaho wheatland farmer WWII veteran and the dozen-year younger daughter of a Swedish North Dakota farmer and his German/Austrian wife who's family fled the early behaviors of what became Nazi Germany. As such a product, I have always supported the Trailblazers and Sonics in the NBA, I have been through two iterations of professional baseball to settle on the Mariners in Major League Baseball, and - more to the point - have lived and died on every down with the Seattle Seahawks through all of their years, a few of which have been good but mostly have been bad. This year, my Seahawks are facing the prospect of winning the Western Conference of the National Football Conference; a loss tonight by their conference competitor St. Louis Rams, playing against the highly favored Eagles of Philadelphia, would clinch the division title for my long-suffering Seahawks...

...the Eagles have decided to mail it in. Neither this game or the next game mean all that much to them with regard to home-field advantage (which they already have secured). As a result of their situation, they have pulled their starting quarterback and most of their other key players prior to the fourth quarter, giving the Rams what amounts to a free pass at potentially supplanting my Seahawks as the NFC Western Division Champions. These are, of course, tactical decisions that any smart team would do in order to protect their interests for the upcoming playoffs....

...unfortunately, it doesn't work for me. Henceforth, from now until the game is over for me, I will consign the Philadelphia Eagles to the same hallowed status that I have only reserved for the Dallas Cowboys and Oakland Raiders. They are now the enemy, and I will root agaisnt the Philadelphia Eagles in every contest, under all conditions and circumstances, for years to come. These tax-cut sucking pretty boys have once again served to offer the true definition of what professional athletes and their team and corporate managers are all about. Integrity isn't a word to be tossed around meaningfully in the world of professional sports, and tonight's embarrassment by the Philadelphia Eagles, making a mockery as it does of the whole concept of honest competition, shows exactly why that's the case...

...here endth the sports whine...

STARTING 'EM YOUNG

...it's good to know that some of the classic but innate characteristics of today's Republican Party are being instilled in it's members at an early age. Shady dealings and shifty fund-raising are par for the course for the big boys in the party, but now we can see that there is apparently a fertile training ground for the future bagmen, fixers, shysters, and other henchmen that will be needed to lead the party to its glorious destiny as the dominant force in American life...

...once I get beyond the question of how the heck it is that a thinking person starts out adulthood as a conservative (without having suffered all those hammerblows to the psyche that supposedly are needed to finally craft a full-blown philosophical conservative), it's pretty easy to see - given my natural profound bias against the basic humanity of conservatives in general - how a bunch of College Republicans can embrace that native sense of thievery, thuggery, and outright connivance that would lead them to reducing elderly Americans to fighting with Fluffy over the last of the SeaFood Surprise cat chow with apparently the same remorse that the rest of us would reserve for spiders menacing us from the bathtub. While young liberals rally to the cause, anxious to make the world a better place and bring a sense of egalitarianism back to our society to raise all boats equally, young conservatives are a party to bilking old people out of their medicine money. They then compound what should be a criminal offense by, in the words of their leader, Eric Hoplin, seeking to see the story "go away" and characterizing the reporting as being by a "well-known liberal", rather than actually, you know, seeing if there was a problem that needed to be addressed and people who needed to be contacted about having their life savings restored ("proactive" is not a word these people understand in a positive sense)...

...this is almost enough to offend the professional sensibilities of the aluminum siding and driveway repair phone solicitors who just happen to be in my neighborhood this weekend and can "save me a lot of money". Times are getting tough...