Dark Matter

Light fare this week. My brain still hurts from all the healthcare hysteria from last week.

In the wake of violence and threats to members of Congress following the passage of the healthcare reform bill, some members of the “Tea Party Movement” have expressed irritation with the way they are being portrayed in the “mainstream” (read non-ideologically conservative) media. Their complaint is that the most extreme, racist, violent element of their movement is being used by the press to paint the entire group with the same broad brush. The “movement,” they say, has been, and is being unfairly portrayed as little more than a frantic, baseless, insensitive, racist, paranoid protest by America’s lunatic fringe. Given the actions demonstrated and the rhetoric extolled on behalf of “the movement” since its inception last year, one could argue as to how unfair that description actually is, but the essence of their complaint does contain an element of truth. During the healthcare debate in particular, there have been no shortage of media images of delirious tea baggers and their supporters disrupting town hall meetings, misspelling threats on cardboard signs, forwarding racist e-mails to donors, spitting on congressmen and mocking disabled homeless people. And the media has made no serious attempt to point out the obvious truth that membership in a group does not necessarily mean that the words and actions of one member are condoned by all the others. But that isn’t really the function of the media, is it?

What the Right has yet to understand is a lesson effective protest movements on the Left learned almost fifty years ago. Unfortunately, the media cannot be relied upon to present an accurate, balanced portrait of anything, let alone a protest movement. That’s not their job. Their responsibility is to sell advertising. More eyeballs glued to the screen translates directly into more advertising dollars in the networks’ pockets, which translates into happy network executives, journalism be dammed. And nothing glues eyeballs to the screen quite like representations of the President in whiteface and a group of privileged angry white men mocking a disabled veteran by throwing dollars at him so he can “pay his healthcare bills.”

The Civil Rights movement learned very early on that if you want to be viewed with any sort of legitimacy, you have to take complete control of your own image. Dr. King drilled into every single one of his marchers the importance of conducting one’s self like a civilized human being, regardless of the indignity being suffered. Anyone who engaged in violence during a march was certain not to be present at the next one. Why? Because King knew the newspapers were just itching to print headlines proclaiming white people’s worst fears, that Negroes couldn’t even walk down the street with starting a riot. So, he purged any unsavory element from his ranks, robbing his enemies of ammunition to use against him, and when they had nothing left but to resort to violence against his dignity, the country was forced to accept the fact that black people were in fact people, and deserving of respect like everyone else. The image the media got of his Civil Rights movement was the image he presented to them, not one they created of him. I am assuming that at some point the Right, particularly the tea baggers, will learn this lesson too. Although, if you purged the racist, homophobic, xenophobic, isolationist paranoid element from the “Tea Party Movement,” I’m not sure just how much of a “movement” would be left.

Italian sports car maker Ferrari announced recently that they will no longer produce a fully manual transmission for any of its vehicles. Sigh. First Porsche develops an SUV, then they (among others) market a “four door coupe,” and now this. As if the decline of the sports car wasn’t enough, now, the manual transmission, which has been dying a slow death since the early 80’s has received the first nail in the coffin. I have never purchased a car with an automatic transmission. I hoped never to have to do so. My hope may have been in vain. I have died a little inside.

The Large Hadron Collider is up and running again. Anybody have the Vegas odds on the earth being destroyed by a man-made black hole in the next ten days or so?

On his website early this week, Latin heartthrob Ricky Martin admitted that he has been “living la vida loca” – with men. In perhaps the most stunning sexual orientation revelation since Clay Aiken, admitted that he is indeed, gay. I’m shocked. I really am. Next you’ll want me to believe that Ellen DeGeneres is a lesbian. Come on.

Finally, in news that may interest only me, rumors are swirling that the bankrupt Phoenix Coyotes of the National Hockey League (formerly the Winnipeg Jets) maybe, just maybe, might return to Winnipeg. As a native of Winnipeg I must admit, I haven’t been this excited about hockey since Team Canada won the gold medal at the Olympics. (I don’t mean to rub that in, really, I don’t.) I had already moved to Ontario by the time the Jets left for Arizona in 1996, but I remember being thoroughly depressed for weeks at the thought of the pride of my city being transplanted to a place where the only ice people had ever seen was floating in their martinis. At the time, the NHL was in full expansion mode, and was convinced that placing teams in large U.S. markets like Florida and California where people thought hockey was some sort of nifty French pastry would be more profitable for the league than keeping teams in smaller, Canadian markets where the game was a way of life. They were wrong. Perhaps now they’ll have a chance to reverse a terrible error in judgment and bring the Jets home.

All Along the Watchtower

So, Monday was the first day of autumn. Which means that Sunday was the last day of summer. I’m sure that depresses a lot of people, but not me. Nope. Not me. Wanna know why? I am part owner of two mortgage companies, an insurance company, oh yeah, and half of the rest of the U.S. economy. I wonder when my dividend cheque will arrive?

In case you missed it, the government took over the world’s largest insurance company last week. Then they apparently decided that owning an insurance company is totally useless without some crap to insure, so they asked Congress for 700 billion dollars with which to purchase the bad debt of any financial institution willing to pawn their garbage off on the federal treasury. If one chooses to include the five trillion dollar mortgage liability the government assumed in taking over Fanny Mae and Freddy Mac two weeks ago, Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson has more than doubled the size of the national debt in only fifteen days. And it’s not over yet. No one knows exactly what these “toxic assets” the government intends to buy are worth. So, it’s quite possible that 700 billion just won’t cover it.

How did we get to this point? Well, that’s a long story, and my head hurts from the constant blathering I’ve been hearing all day long. But the Cliff notes version goes as follows: Some homeowners borrowed some money they probably should never have been allowed to borrow. Not content to rake in payments from people who couldn’t really afford them, banks packaged up these loans into securities and sold them multiple times to other financial institutions. The institutions then turned around and borrowed 30 times more money than they held in those mortgage assets, and lent that money to other people. When home prices started to fall, people decided to cash out their investments. But because the banks had borrowed exponentially more than the capital they had on hand, they couldn’t afford to cover their losses. Investors got wind that something was wrong and began withdrawing more of their money. Bank borrowed more money to cover increasing losses, and the rest is recent history.

But it didn’t have to end this way. Some – if not most of this – could have been prevented if only someone – preferably an adult – had been minding the store. But the geniuses on Wall Street playing roulette with everyone else’s money insisted they could host the party without a chaperone, and the chaperones, the United States government, allowed them to do just that, with horrendous results.

It should be obvious to everyone at this point that the unregulated free market is an unmitigated disaster. If you allow the market to do whatever it pleases, with boundless profit the only motive, the market will cannibalize itself, and then turn to the very public it violated for rescue when times go bad. Unfortunately, we’ve past the point where we can simply say to hell with them and let the entire system fail. Good people need work, good people need credit and good people need to know that at the end of the day their money is going to be worth the paper it’s printed on. The government has to rescue the system, and make up for its complete lack of oversight. Some undeserving financial institutions will continue to operate on the backs of the American taxpayer. But the penalty for destroying the public trust should and must be steep. There has to be some substantial disincentive for Wall Street to repeat this performance.

Treasury Secretary Paulson has come up with a plan to stop the bleeding on Wall Street he calls the Troubled Asset Relief Program – or TARP. That’s right, his solution to this crisis is to throw a tarp over it. Nice. I hope it work better than it sounds.

The stock market chaos seems to have returned the presidential polls to where they were before the election. Recent surveys now show Obama ahead of McCain by 4-5 points – with Obama crossing the 50% threshold in one CNN study. What can we learn from this? When this election is about lipstick, McCain leads. When it’s about issues, Obama leads.

In a related story, the Associated Press release a poll/study over the weekend detailing the role race might play in November. According to the AP, a significant portion of white Democrats hold negative opinions of blacks – enough to cause them to cast their vote against their own candidate. I’m stunned. I can’t express how surprised I am by this mind-blowing revelation. Right. I could have saved them six weeks of work and millions of dollars if they had only asked. Their numbers indicate that if racist white Democrats where to suddenly convert to non-racist white Democrats, Obama’s support among Democrats would increase between six and nine percentage points. It’s a sad commentary on America that there are so many people in this country willing to vote against their own self-interest just to avoid voting for the black guy.

Chevrolet released production images of its all-electric Volt last week after images of the car were leaked on the Internet. Unfortunately, the production car looks nothing like the concept General Motors has been masquerading as the Volt for the past two years. The production Volt is an angular four-door Dodge Stratus, instead of the two-door sport coupe advertised. According to people who keep track of such things, most comments to the company have been negative, including people who want to be taken off the waiting list for the car. Is there any doubt as to why the U.S. automakers are begging congress for money to stay afloat?

My NFL thoughts for Week 3:

The only difference between the 1995 Dallas Cowboys and the 2008 Dallas Cowboys is the cocaine.

The St. Louis Rams could improve the team by replacing their entire offensive line with actual rams. Sheep might actually block somebody.

Dolphins running back Ronnie Brown was responsible for all five Miami touchdowns in their win over New England Sunday. The once mighty Patriot defense was done in by trick plays from a high-school playbook. I thought Belichick was supposed to be a genius.

Seahawks quarterback Matt Hasselbeck made a statement Sunday afternoon. After Julius Jones escaped a pile of Rams defender and headed down the sideline toward the end zone, Hasselbeck ran ahead and launched himself head-first into the last two Rams defenders, knocking them flat on their backs and allowing Jones to waltz in for the score. Matt Hasselbeck is not just a quarterback; he’s a football player.

The states of Ohio and Missouri are a combined 0-12 so far this season. The ’76 Buccaneers might get to finally uncork the champagne this season.

My Superbowl picks for Week 3: Dallas Cowboys vs. Denver Broncos

In lighter news, the Large Hadron Collider will be shut down for several weeks due to an electrical failure and coolant leak that cause the machine to malfunction. Guess we’ll have to wait until next month for the black hole to destroy the earth.

Transformers vixen Megan Fox admitted to GQ Magazine that four years ago she fell in love with a female stripper. News that I’m sure makes a lot of people, very happy. According to Fox, “Nikita” performed beautiful slow dances to Aerosmith music (really?) and Fox would bring her gifts to inspire her to quit dancing. At this point the story gets a little strange. Fox claims she’s not a lesbian, but has the ability to be attracted to both sexes, and could see herself in a relationship with a girl. In fact, “Olivia Wilde is so sexy,” said Fox, “she makes me want to strangle a mountain ox with my bare hands.” Huh? What on earth does that even mean? And where do I get my ticket?

And finally, sorry ladies, but it’s official. Clay Aiken is gay. It’s true. People Magazine said so. Word is they will also announce that the earth is indeed round, and the sun will, most likely, come up tomorrow.

One Down, One to Go.

These are my post-convention thoughts for the week.

A four day long pat-on-the-back should not warrant the kind of media attention these conventions get.

Michelle Obama acquitted herself quite well on opening night. Not only did she not do any harm, she may have repaired some of the damage she may have caused earlier in the campaign with voters who either didn’t understand or didn’t want to understand what she was saying.

Hillary Clinton “womanned-up” Tuesday night and gave the speech she needed to give. It was a little less enthusiastic than many would have preferred, but I understand why she did what she did. She couldn’t get up in front of a packed arena (a significant percentage of which were fervent supporters of her primary campaign) and with any credibility, give a glowing twenty-minute speech extolling the virtues of the man she had run a fierce against for the past 18-months. Her speech needed to be about her. It needed to be about what she and her supporters had accomplished. But more importantly, it needed to be about why her supporters had supported her. Since the day Senator Clinton suspended her campaign the media narrative has been that her supporters are so upset with her loss that they may not be able to put it behind them and cast their votes for Senator Obama. But whether out of loyalty to the party or political self-preservation, Clinton made it clear that anyone who believed in her because of what she stood for could not in good conscience consider casting a vote for John McCain or even refuse to vote in November. And as a result of her efforts, the hysteria over what the die-hards would do began to die out by the time the much debated roll-call vote came around Wednesday afternoon.

I’ve said a lot of not-so-nice things about former President Clinton during this campaign. And I still stand by many of those things. But on Wednesday night, Bill Clinton manned-up in what must have been an awfully difficult situation, and gave Barack Obama exactly what he needed - an unambiguous assertive endorsement of his presidential candidacy. Kudos to Bill.

I like Joe Biden. I still think he’s a bit of a loose cannon and I’m a little nervous he’ll say something he’ll regret during the next eight weeks, but I think he’s a solid addition to the ticket.

On the 45th anniversary of the March on Washington, Barack Obama stood up in front of 80,000 people at Invesco Field in Denver, Colorado and delivered an historic acceptance speech. Less so for what he said than for the fact that he said it at all. The speech itself was good. Not the best he’s ever delivered, but very good. He did what the media and some voters have been demanding he do since his arrival on the political scene - he defined, in no uncertain terms, his vision of change. From this point on, anyone who says they are undecided about voting for or against Obama because they don’t know what he stands for is not only lazy, but also a bold-faced liar. In addition to defining himself, Obama drew bright-line distinctions between his policies and those of his opponent, while still finding some room to point out potential areas of compromise between the two sides. As usual, he rose to the occasion, looking very presidential in the process.

However, not every Democrat was impressed with the speech. Some of the comments heard in the post speech analysis were that Obama’s attacks on McCain were too sharp, that he didn’t spend enough time discussing broader themes, that the speech was long on policy and short on “feel-good.” These, of course, were many of the same people who have spent the last 18-months complaining that Obama hasn’t been specific enough, or pointed enough in his criticism of McCain. But the criticism that tweaked me the most came from several prominent members of the African-American community who accused him of ignoring African-American issues in his speech. I’m not entirely sure which issues they were referring to, but I’m willing to bet that whatever they are, they are not exclusive to the Black community. Education, health care, energy and equal pay are relevant to everyone, regardless of their color or creed, and the sooner the Democratic Party figures that out, the less divided they’ll be.

Barack Obama has done a phenomenal job of walking a very fine line under incredibly difficult circumstances and unrealistic expectations. In order to be elected president of these United States of America, Obama must be the consummate “everyman.” In fact, he must be better than that. He cannot show any weakness, he cannot show any uncertainty, he cannot show any of the normal human emotions and/or reactions any other candidate in his position would have. The fastest way for him to torpedo his candidacy is for him to come across as the “angry black man.” Everything he does, every speech he gives, every political point he makes, every response to an attack must be filtered through that prism. Older white America is petrified of people of color showing any kind of human emotion that isn’t a laugh or a smile or a reassuring handshake. If he were to respond to the inane attacks on his character with the slightest inkling of righteous indignation, voters would dismiss him as yet another disturbing angry black activist unworthy of a first look - let alone a second. As the first mixed-race man ever to be this close to the presidency, Barack Obama has to be the equivalent of Sidney Poitier’s Dr. Prentice in Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner. He took an enormous gamble last Thursday night in criticizing McCain as sharply as he did. The consequences of that risk remain to be seen.

These are my non-political thoughts for the week.

Olympic gold medal gymnast Shawn Johnson returned home this past week to cheering crowds, packed arenas and marriage proposals. Seriously people, she’s 16-years-old. Perverts.

The Large Hardron Collider (or LHC as it is affectionally known in scientific circles) was partially powered up for its test run, passing with flying colors. The world’s largest particle accelerator based primarily in Switzerland is set to come online later this month, after which time critics believe it will set about its task of creating miniature black holes with which to destroy the earth. Hope you’ve got your starship ready.

Mattel, owner of the Barbie doll franchise, was awarded $100 million in winning its lawsuit against the makers of Bratz dolls. I always knew Barbie was a gold digger.

And finally, the NFL has decided to reinstate now Dallas Cowboys cornerback Adam “Pacman” Jones following a year-long suspension for multiple arrests. The Pacman claims he is reformed, even going so far as to request the sports media no longer refer to him as Pacman. So far this season Mr. Jones has been true to his word. But with role-models like Terrell Owens and Jessica Simpson to guide him along the way, one can’t help but wonder how long it might be before we find him in a Dallas strip club “makin’ it rain.”