Voldemort Votes Republican

Really, he does. I saw it on a bumper sticker.

Late last week, still President Bush emerged from his super-secret hiding place and announced that due to the extraordinary economic situation, and the obligation he feels to his successor not to hand over an economic catastrophe the day he leaves office, he has reversed course and will provide General Motors and Chrysler with between $14 and $17 billion dollars in loan guarantees. The money will come from the Troubled Asset Relief Program – which conveniently has about $15 billion remaining to be allocated – and is expected to tide two of the Big Three over until they can return to Congress in their hybrids with their hands out, begging for more money in the spring. Not wanting to be left off the Doom-and-Gloom Merry-Go-Round, Toyota revealed that it expects to post a fourth quarter loss – the first loss in the 70 plus year history of the company. In a related story, Chrysler has shut down production entirely for the next four weeks, and General Motors will follow suit beginning the week after New Years. I know that with that news you might think things couldn’t possibly get any worse for the automotive industry. You’d be wrong. In fact, the only vehicle manufacturer expecting to turn a profit this year is Volkswagen, and that isn’t expected to carry over very far into 2009. It is simply not a good time to be in the automobile business.

Is it possible that we the consumer might take a lesson from this economic depression we seem to be stumbling into? Probably not. History tells us that whatever lesson we may glean from unfortunate circumstances goes right out the window at the first sign of double-digit returns. But in case anyone is paying attention, understand that this recession is a result of an infatuation with excess and complete lack of restraint. Just because you can, doesn’t mean you should.

President-elect Obama rounded out his cabinet last weekend with the selection of several more highly qualified, competent individuals. Nobody seemed to care much about that. The story that made headlines was his selection of Pastor Rick Warren to give the invocation at Obama’s inauguration. For those unacquainted with Rick Warren, he is the evangelical pastor of the 23,000-member Saddleback Church in Lake Forest, California, fierce anti-poverty advocate, investor in African AIDS prevention and best-selling author of “The Purpose-Driven Life.” He is also a staunch opponent of gay marriage and took an active roll in advocating the passage of Proposition 8 in California, overturning the California Supreme Court’s decision allowing gays to marry. For the loudest voices, the first half of the above equation was irrelevant. The fact that Warren opposes gay marriage was enough to send some activists off the deep end. They claimed that Obama had abandoned them, thrown them to the wolves in selecting Warren to give the three-minute opening prayer at the ceremony. They essentially likened Warren to anti-Semites and white supremacists and demanded Obama revoke the invitation and replace him with someone “more inline with mainstream American values.”

I have largely refrained from commenting on the gay marriage debate to this point because the result of the debate has little to no effect on me whatsoever. This business about same-sex marriage somehow diminishing my own heterosexual marriage is bogus. Two consenting adults, who want to marry, settle down and build a life together does no harm to the institution of marriage. You know what diminishes marriage? The 52% divorce rate. But this latest outburst of fake outrage tweaked a nerve. I don’t like hyperbole and I am intolerant of the intolerance of speech. I am not going to stand in the way of two consenting adults who wish to be married. I’m not going to oppose them physically or verbally or in print, and I’m certainly not going to vote against them. But if homosexual Americans want gay marriage to be legal in this country, they are going to have to make that argument to the rest of the population. And when you get on television and try to liken opponents of gay marriage to the vicious history of racism and anti-Semitism in this country, you turn away many of the very people whose minds you are trying to change. In order to alter perceptions and benefit your cause, you need to understand what you are up against. Same-sex marriage is currently legal in only two of fifty states, and Warren’s book, has sold over 25 million copies since it came into print. Whether you like it or not, Rick Warren is more inline with “mainstream American values” than you are. The fight to legalize same-sex marriage is not a civil rights issue; it is a civil acceptance issue. Keep framing it that way and minorities will continue to vote against you. Marriage is not a right; it is a privilege, granted by the state based upon a certain set of criteria, like a driver’s license. What you are attempting to do is change the criteria upon with those licenses are granted. You can still shop at the same stores as straight people, eat at the same table as straight people, stay at the same hotel, work at the same job, go to the same school, live in the same neighborhood, run for the same office and vote in the same election as any straight person in this country. Yes, it bothers me to hear some of the very same arguments used against you that would have been used to prevent me from marrying my wife only thirty or forty years ago, and you should use every legal and persuasive tool available to you to affect the change you desire, but contextualize what it is you are fighting for and adjust your rhetoric accordingly. What Obama is attempting to do with Warren is to open and maintain an open dialogue by first finding certain issues that people with opposing viewpoints can agree to work together on, (in this case, poverty and AIDS in Africa), then once that relationship is established, work toward common ground on the other, more difficult issues. Believe it or not, most people outside New York and California don’t know any gay people, and don’t understand why it is so important for so many gay people to be able to say they are married. But shouting those people down and demanding they be silenced every time they speak does nothing to improve the discourse or change their minds. You have a much better shot at winning them over to your side if you can find something around which to build a relationship instead of attempting to bludgeon them into submission. Change does not happen overnight. It took 232 years for the land founded on the idea that “all men are created equal” to live up to that creed. You aren’t going to wake up Thursday morning and find a marriage license in your mailbox. And even when that day comes – and it will, you will still have work to do. The law can change what people do; it can’t change how they feel. And it’s a lot easier to change a heart you can talk to than one you have to shout at.

On a related note, to all the “liberals” disappointed by President-elect Obama’s cabinet choices, I have a question for you? What exactly were you expecting? This country is on the verge of entering a time unlike anything it has seen in more than 70 years. What it needs at this moment is a smart steady hand to correct mistakes and guide it through this troubled time, not a hand to sweep the entire existing system into the garbage and replace it with something completely new. If you expected to wake up on November 5th and find yourself living in France or Switzerland, you should have voted for Dennis Kucinich. Believe me, there is a reason he’s run for president three times and never been elected. And it’s not because he has a funny name.

My NFL thoughts for Week 16:

I hate the New York Giants. Hate them.

The Eagles have to be the worst good team in the league this year. How can you beat up on the league-leading giants two week ago, then roll into Washington and lay the three-point egg you did on Sunday afternoon?

It was 44-0 Patriots in a light fluffy blizzard in New England before Arizona scored for the first time. The Cardinals are division champions. The Patriots probably won’t make the playoffs. Something is wrong with that system.

The Bears got lucky again Monday night, defeating the Packers by a field goal in overtime. The temperature on the field at kickoff was –8 degrees Fahrenheit below zero. (That’s –22 degrees Celsius for my Canadian friends.) The only guys I saw out there with sleeves on were the quarterbacks. Football is a tough game. Wimps (and baseball players) need not apply.

Speaking of tough guys. Jeff Garcia is the toughest S.O.B. to strap on a helmet since Steve McNair. At six feet tall and 185 pounds, Garcia is the quarterback equivalent of a five-foot eight-inch NBA power forward. Yet every time he gets on the field he plays like a man twice his size. In attempting to slide for a first down he was crushed in the head by the shoulder pad of an oncoming defender. Taking only a moment to adjust his helmet, Garcia picked himself up and jogged back to the huddle, bleeding profusely from the bridge of his nose. He continued for the next several minutes throwing completion after completion with blood streaming down his eyes and face and into his mouth, until the drive was finally ended by an intersection off a tipped ball. He didn’t care about the pain or the blood. He just wanted to help his team win. It irks me to no end that hardcore football players like Garcia give everything they have year after year and never make it to the pinnacle of their sport, while prima donnas like Terrell Owens get all the accolades and trips to the post season.

Despite their best efforts, the Cowboys (America’s favorite soap opera) are still in position to make the playoffs. How does this keep happening?

Last year the Miami Dolphins finished the season with one win and fifteen losses. This year they are one win away from a division championship and the playoffs. Last year, the Atlanta Falcons finished 4-12, abandoned by their coach, their superstar franchise quarterback in federal prison, star veteran players fired and the team in absolute disarray. This year they are one win away from the playoffs and possibly a division championship. That’s why we play the games every Sunday.

My Superbowl picks for Week 16: New York Giants vs. Tennessee Titans.

If there are any science geeks out there, there is a fascinating episode of Nova on PBS tonight about the quest for absolute zero and something called the Bose-Einstein Condensate. Nature is absolutely bizarre, yet beautiful altogether. I should have been a physicist.

Apparently, Kanye West Milli Vanilli-ed his way through his big number on Saturday Night Live this past weekend. Ordinarily no one would care - pop singers and rappers lip-sync live performances all the time. The problem here was that he did it poorly, and he is such an arrogant pain-in-the backside that people take great pleasure in watching him fail miserably. Can you just give back the Grammy now?

If at first you don’t succeed, keep suing people, right? The D.C Circuit Court of Appeals rejected the appeal of former Judge Roy Pearson to hear his $54 million lawsuit against his dry cleaner for losing a pair of his pants. Yes, one pair of pants. That’s a 675,000% mark-up. For the last three plus years Pearson has been trying to soak Custom Cleaners and its owners, the Chung family for everything they have and much, much more over a single pair of pants the Chungs have offered on numerous occasions to replace ten times over. Dissatisfied with the latest verdict, Pearson has stated his intention to take his pathetic lawsuit, along with his pants, to the Supreme Court. Somebody should lock this guy away for attempted extortion and disgracing the human race.

Finally, Apple’s App Store has rejected listing an application called “iBoobs.” Yup. It’s pretty much what it sounds like. The application consists of an animation of a large pair of (computer-generated) breasts in a bikini top. Shaking the iPhone or iPod Touch then jiggles said breasts either up and down or left to right, depending on which direction the device is shaken. In denying the listing of the application at the store, Apple cited what it deemed “objectionable content,” encouraging the developer to remove the “objectionable content” from the application and resubmit it for approval. No word on what the developer plans to do, but I vote for leaving it just the way it is. I mean seriously. If you can’t use a three hundred dollar crystal clear 3.5-inch full color widescreen hand-held LCD display to jiggle a pair of buxom bikini-clad computer-generated boobs up and down and side to side, then what good is the damn thing!