Tragic Day for Our Nation

All week long, I have been unable to get an image out of my head.  On Wednesday, the ticker in one of the elevators in our building relayed the story of Salman Taseer assaination in Pakistan. The story did not stick out, but rather the image of Mr. Taseer’s bodyguard, the man accused of killing Mr. Taseer, smiling in custody. I remember thinking to myself, how sick and twisted someone must  be to kill someone and then smile for the journalists as you are carted away by the authorities. Without reading anything but the headline, I assumed the murderer must have been a religious radical, upset with a political moderate, reading the Washington Post story, it sounds like this suspicion was not too far from truth.

On that same day, we experienced–and I wrote about–the peaceful transfer of power in the House of Representatives in this great country. The image of Nancy Pelosi handing the gavel off to John Boehner was also branded in my mind on that day. The juxtaposition of these two images instilled great hope in me for this nation. Yes, we have our problems and, yes, we are deeply divide, BUT at least we do not execute our elected officials.

Then came the news from today that Rep. Gabrielle Giffords (D-AZ) had been shot–in the head–at an event in Tucson. By all accounts, Rep. Giffords was the type of elected official Washington desperately needs–affable, smart, private-sector experienced and willing to listen to the other side. In and of itself, the shooting of Rep. Giffords is tragic and my thoughts and prayers are with her family.

I fear this could turn out to be an even greater tragedy if this shooting is determined to be politically motivated and the fallout from both sides of aisle. Already, some of the biggest progressive names on social media are pointing the finger at conservative activists. It’s truly unfortunate. It’s my prayer that this event will not be politicized in any manner, that Rep. Giffords makes a full and speedy recovery and the person responsible for this action is punished to the fullest extent of the law.  Today, it’s sad to think that our country is lot more like Pakistan than the good ol’ USA.

The Political Importance of Health Care Repeal

Day 2 of the 112th Congress and we’re already seeing some positive results. In addition to getting back to basics and reading the Constitution aloud on the House floor, the GOP led House also opened up hearing meetings on the repeal of the health care legislation. It looks like a vote in the House could come as early as Wednesday. While it’s likely that the repeal would pass easily in the House, Democrats have plenty of votes to block the repeal in the Senate and the President has indicated, as expected, that he would veto the repeal should it reach his desk.

Why even try? Isn’t it hypocritical for Republicans to introduce a piece of legislation they know has no chance of passing, when they were elected to address our country’s economic woes?

Not at all.

First, Republicans believe, and I tend to share the opinion, that the 2010 health care bill will hurt our already fragile economy.  I’ve already noticed some disturbing trends in my own, employee-sponsored health coverage, and everywhere you look you see stories about the negative impact of the bill on job creation. Taking every step possible to repeal this legislation shows Republicans are serious about tackling the tough economic issues of the day.

Consider also that many of the Republicans elected in November ran against the health care bill and promised to do all they could to reverse it if elected to office. By taking on this hot-button issue on the second day of the session, Republicans are following through on not one, but two of their campaign promises–the economy and repealing the health care bill.

So President Obama has vowed to veto the repeal, no big deal. This is actually the area where Republicans stand to gain the most. The health care debate was contentious the last time around and it cost many a politician their seat in November. Since that time, Obama has been able to score some key political victories–“Don’t Ask Don’t Tell”, tax cut extensions, etc. Indeed, the “lame duck session” in December turned out to be be anything but “lame” for the Obama administration. Pushing for the repeal of the health care legislation moves one of Obama’s most unpopular pieces of legislation back to center stage. The President and Senate Democrats will be forced to once again to debate an issue that several key Democrats, Obama included, cannot afford to debate again.

Transfer of Power

Regardless of your political affiliation, the peaceful transfer of power we witnessed today, during the opening of the 112th session of Congress, should make us all proud to be Americans. Critics regularly criticize House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) for being too emotional, but I must admit, watching the pageantry associated with selecting him as Speaker, made me a little emotional. It’s the same type of emotion I experienced two years ago when I watched Barack Obama become the first African-American to be sworn in as President of the United States.  The potential energy contained in the peaceful transfer of power drives our nation in a positive direction. It is, and I don’t believe I am resorting to hyperbole here, the reason we went from a colony to a super-power in 200 years, and why we remain an exceptional nation.

In order for this potential energy to be released and make as an ever greater nation, those who inherit the power must simply remain true to the principles on which this country was founded, the same principles that helped us evolve through the years. It seems as if Democrats forgot this simple fact over the last two years, looking to the outside for some secret to unleash this purely American energy. We need not look to the East or West, North or South, across the Atlantic or across the Pacific, to find the catalyst for this release of energy, but merely within ourselves.

Republicans now control the House, while the Democrats maintain the Senate. However, the electorate sent a strong message to all politicians in Washington in November–Americans are sick of “politics as usual” and want change. In order to see that change come to fruition, we must tap into to the bottled up potential energy. This means those Republicans voted in with the confidence that we would return a sense of fiscal responsibility and Constitutional accountability to our government will do exactly that. If not, the voters will hold them accountable in the next election.

It all sounds good now. Republicans will read the entire Constitution out loud on the House floor tomorrow. On Friday, they may vote on a repeal of the health care bill. They have vowed to slash spending. It sounds like a government we can all be proud of,  but we also know these politicians to be human first and politicians second, so they will definitely not live up to all their promises, but will they do enough to release this powerful, transformative energy?

For now, we can only hope. Until then, I know for a fact that America is better today than it was yesterday. As long as we have more days like that over the next few years, we will be making positive steps to harnessing this energy.

Hate the Game, Not the Playa!

A tweet from Slate caught my eye tonight—@Slate: Ever wonder how much news is created by under 140 characters from @SarahPalinUSA? Introducing the Palin Tweet Index! http://slate.me/gKIhfT . For the past two years, Slate writers have dissected literally every one of the Palin family’s social media mumblings, no matter how mundane. I sometimes wonder if the writers are like the homophobe who tries to shield his true sexual orientation by constantly casting disparaging remarks at other gay people, or do they suffer from something even more pathological.  They certainly obsess over her enough; their site features a “department” called “Palinisms”, which exists solely to memorialize Palin’s speaking snafus. One Slate writer, Jacob Weisberg, even published an entire book on the subject.

Let’s be clear, pundits on the right are guilty of equally egregious ad hominem attacks on progressive figures. If you ever have the misfortune of landing on an ABC radio affiliate in the afternoon, you will hear Sean Hannity and Mark Levin try with every ounce of their being to come up with some utterly juvenile nickname for Democratic politicians. Indeed, Hannity and Levin spend far more time name-calling than addressing real issues. Similarly, the right-wing blogs focus a majority of their attention in attacking the character of adversarial politicians.

Politics evoke emotions and these emotions are sometimes hard to channel constructively, yet we must if we ever want engage in positive political dialogue. This does not mean we need to cave-in on issues. On the contrary, we should be even more vociferous on the issues. Debating the issues requires us to examine an opposing point of view and rationally construct a rebuttal. It is how we nurture and grow our democracy. When we focus our attention instead on the PEOPLE we disagree with, we function a little less like our “founding fathers” intended and a little more like the rest of the world.

More on Ezra Klein

Yesterday, I dared to ask the question, “who is Ezra Klein?” Today, I read his Washington Post blog with great interest as he took on “inequality and income.” By all means, please read his entire entry and the accompanying graphs. So Klein attempts to formulate an original thought, something I attacked him for being void of yesterday, yet in doing so embodies one of the worst progressive traits–guilt/worry.

Reading this post, I felt sympathy for Mr. Klein. This dude is young, healthy and has a great career laid out before him yet he pours over economic data, charting income disparity, and I’m worried he’s one graph away from a coronary.

Klein needs to realize no degree of worrying, nay, nor any graph he draws, will shrink the income divide. The Federal government has no Constitutional authority to worry about the income gap and neither do we as citizens. As moral humans, we have an innate desire to help those less fortunate than us, but we can only do this after we take care of our own needs. If you feel bad about the income disparity and you’re financially secure, donate to your favorite charities, spend time at a local school mentoring kids, but don’t suggest that the Federal government has any obligation to play any role in bridging that divide–that job exists for Americans to do on their own and should not be compulsory.

Relax Ezra. Go to iTunes, download Naughty by Nature’s “Everythings Gonna Be Alright” and listen to how a kid from the streets climbed out of poverty and know “everythings gonna be alright” for everyone else out there caught in a struggle.

Who is Ezra Klein?

Last week, The Washington Post’s Ezra Klein puzzled many when he said the Constitution “…is confusing because it was written more than a hundred years ago.” Klein’s popularity, especially on MSNBC, has long puzzled me, but this statement took it another level and begs the question, who exactly is Ezra Klein? Reading his Wikipedia bio, it sounds like Klein is just another kid with a blog, yet progressives view him as much, much more.

I’ve tried reading Klein’s work in the Post, but it comes off very amateurish, repeating worn out progressive talking points, adding nothing original to political debate.  For example, consider his December 30, 2010 column, “What the tea party wants from the Constitution.” It begins with an ad hominem attack on the GOP and then opens into a passive voice-filled, incoherent tirade against tea party affiliated politicians’ intent to require all legislation to carry with it “a statement from its sponsor outlining where in the Constitution Congress is empowered to enact such legislation.” In the end, the article merely mimics what Klein’s colleagues at Slate have been writing for months. Stripped down to its core, Klein’s writing is nothing more than a “tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.” Clearly, the Post bought into Klein for his image and nothing else.

Klein comes off as nothing more than a beard-less hipster parrot, incapable of forming an original thought, but because he started blogging before blogging was cool, and because he can tweet about Bon Iver or the Avett Brothers, the Post felt he could score with young readers. Landing a job with the Post offers many perks, chief among them working for a prestigious American newspaper, but also the ability to work with all of the subsidiaries of the Washington Post Company and the Post’s cozy connections with MSNBC–all of which are darlings of the Left.  Now, instead of running out Eugene Robinson for the millionth time, the Post can run out Klein, someone far more palatable to a younger demographic.

A Cowboys Fan’s Guide on to Rooting Interests in Super Bowl XLV

Next week, the NFL wraps up the most boring, uninspired regular season of my lifetime. The following weeks will feature playoff football, which will end on February 6, 2011 in Super Bowl XLV at Cowboys Stadium in Arlington, Texas. As a Cowboys fan, it will be tough to watch any team lift the Lombardi Trophy in our stadium, but some will definitely hurt more than others (i.e. Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, or New England).

With the Cowboys out of contention, I thought I would put together a list of possible playoff teams Cowboys fans should be rooting for to make it to Arlington.

1.) Atlanta Falcons – The Falcons are the least offensive of the possible playoff teams (and the team on the list with the most realistic shot of winning it all). They have never won a Super Bowl, so the Cowboys legacy factor is not at stake. They have no natural rivalry with the Cowboys like the Eagles or Packers. Most importantly, the team’s low profile makes them extremely likeable.

2.) Kansas City Chiefs – Yes, this pick is wishful thinking. The Chiefs have a tough road if they plan on making it to Arlington. In the AFC, all roads go through New England and history shows this is an almost impossible place to win in the post-season. BUT, the Chiefs began as the Dallas Texans and there are still a lot of fans of the franchise in the D/FW area.  It would be fitting for the Chiefs to raise the Lombardi Trophy in the Metroplex.

3.) Chicago Bears – It seems the Bears and Cowboys are never “good” at the same time. This has prevented any real rivalry forming between the two teams. Plus, Bears’ head coach Lovie Smith is from nearby Big Sandy, Texas. When in doubt, always root for the Texan.

Is Tron Legacy About Socialism?

One of the things I love about WordPress is the site-stats page, which gives you a detailed report on how many people view each page and what search phrases direct people to your site. I noticed one of the search phrases that directed someone to my site today was the question, “is Tron Legacy about socialism?”

I don’t know if you can definitely say the movie is “about socialism,” but you can definitely say it is not very free-market friendly.  One of the memorable early scenes in the movie takes us inside the board room of ENCOM just moments before the launch of their software platform. Ed Dillinger, the chairman of ENCOM’s board, is portrayed as a money-hungry antagonist who wants to exploit the poor by releasing virtually the same platform every few years, with only minor changes, in order to increase profits. Sam Flynn, the youthful ideologue, swoops in just in time to upload the platform to a public domain for the public to download for free. Profits are definitely treated as evil by this film, which is ironic considering the huge profit the film is set to rake in over the holidays.

Also, please remember this film stars Olivia Wilde who is a radical Leftist even by Hollywood standards. However, all things considered, I think it would be more accurate to say that Tron Legacy promotes an “ultra-progressive” agenda than garden-variety socialism. The philosophy spouted by Kevin Flynn is definitely a Utopian view shared by socialists, Marxists and communists, but it takes a much more spiritual (Eastern based) approach than the average socialist could stomach.

 

TRON: Legacy

Perhaps I should have revisited the original TRON (1982) before venturing out to catch the sequel TRON: Legacy, maybe it was the $16 tickets at the newly remodeled Highland Park Village Theater or wearing 3D glasses for two hours. Whatever the case, I left the theater far less impressed with TRON: Legacy than my wife.

During the entire film, I kept searching the far-reaches of my memory for clips of the the original movie, trying to remember faces, places and events relevant to the storyline. Unlike most sequels with huge gaps between releases, TRON: Legacy spends very little time refreshing the moviegoers’ memory before jumping in to the new version. It had been nearly twenty years since I had seen the original, so many of those clips had been permanently lost in my head. I remember discs, motorcycles and tight-fitting uniforms, adorned with neon lights, but not much else.

The story picks up in 1989, seven years after the original, and immediately the audience sees one of the greatest feats of the special effects team. No, not the 3D shot of the house, but the way they make Jeff Bridges look twenty-years younger. It’s here that the audience is reminded the basics–Bridges’ character, “Kevin Flynn” created a way to travel to “the grid”–an information superhighway of computer programs and users. During this process, he creates a program in his own image, “CLU” and befriends another program, “TRON”, along the way. We soon learn that “CLU” has joined the dark side, and now controls “the grid;” we don’t see “TRON” until nearly the end of the movie. Again, for those of us who haven’t seen the original in twenty-something years, it can be a bit confusing.

The next two hours of the movie play out exactly the same way I remember the first–disc battles, motorcycle races with neon chem-trails, and good conquering evil. To be sure, there are no new ideas explored in this film. That said, some of the best films ever made recycle stories and retell them in creative, entertaining ways, and at the end of the film I was entertained, mainly by the special effects, but it was entertaining nonetheless. However, I left the theater wanting to re-watch the original and not the sequel.

The Beginning

Buried among cuff links, coins, and receipts on my nightstand is one tiny slip of paper I received inside a fortune cookie three years ago. I rarely open fortune cookies, and put about as much faith in them as I do the e-mails I receive from the progeny of Nigerian royalty, asking me to help free up their inheritance. However, I found the simplistic text of this particular fortune to be poignant and I continue to keep close by my side.

It reads, “You are a lover of words, someday you should write a book.”

As a 9-year old child, I wanted my own newspaper route. From watching television and the movies, it seemed like the perfect job for a boy my age. Unfortunately, I lived in a small town without a daily newspaper, so the prospects of getting a paper route were not great. Armed with my parents’ Brother typewriter, I decided to start my own newspaper, The Neighborhood News, for the sole purpose of creating a paper route, but soon discovered an affinity for the written word. For a dime an issue, the dozen folks in my neighborhood could find out where their neighbors had gone on vacation or which summer camps the neighborhood kids were attending. They could even check the box scores and standings of their favorite baseball team or read a movie review of Who Framed Roger Rabbit, Big, or Twins.

The Neighborhood News lasted three summers, but the experience sparked my fascination with writing.

In high school, I worked for a couple of different publications covering high school sports, a career I would revisit later in college. A couple of weeks ago, I shared how as a college sophomore I started an underground newspaper and as senior in college I worked for a website covering high school football, but writing was always more of an avocation than a vocation for me, and like most English majors, I wrote poetry and even wrestled with penning a novel on the side.

Like most college students, I failed to finish my first attempt at a novel, although I did manage to spit out seven chapters and approximately 200 pages of narrative. I still feel as though I have stories (plural) to tell and that I am capable of producing at least one work of contemporary fiction before I turn 40, hopefully much sooner. For the past few years, I’ve kicked around a few ideas, even returned to retool my college novel on occasion, but never made any real progress on developing themes or putting word to paper (screen).

It’s time to begin again–new idea, new characters, new focus, but the same overall desire, to explore my love of the written word.