The Man Who Cried Wolf

After dire warnings of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq and other blunders, I'm finding it hard to believe Bush's latest plea for a $700 billion bail out of Wall Street. Plenty of Joe Lunchbuckets out there are downright furious at the notion of the taxpayer shouldering the burden of rescuing wealthy investment bankers from their poor business decisions and rightfully so, when so many of them have lost homes and jobs as a result. Why should we have to pay for the mistakes of guys who sip lattés and drive BMW's and live in upscale Manhattan penthouses when most of us are hard pressed just to drive a decent car, pay our mortgages on our modest homes or rents on our apartments and pay plenty for a cup of decent coffee at the local Dunkin Donuts? How are we to believe this President who has cried wolf one too many times and wants Congress to rush through this bailout bill without more thorough vetting of whether or not it will work to begin with? This is the same President who rushed us into what has now become a war where we are left holding the tiger by the tail - we can't let go but we can't keep holding on, either, because either way, we're going to get bit. This President's credibility is at an all time low and frankly, I don't think that people are going to go along with this thing very easily. Even Congress is asking some very tough questions of Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson and Federal Reserve chairman Ben Bernanke. As well they should, given that they are coming to Congress with their hats in their hands begging for a whopping $700 billion from the taxpayers. That's more money than we've spent in all the years we've been ensnared in Iraq! On top of all this, we've got record budget deficits that our grandchildren, great-grandchildren and great-great grandchildren will still be paying for generations from now. It almost makes me feel a tad guilty as a member of the Baby Boomer generation, because it's our generation that has so badly fowled things up by insisting on living beyond its means instead of observing our Greatest Generation parents ways of thrift, sacrifice and savings.

So now we're being asked to shoulder a $700 billion payout to Wall Street tycoons who got us into this mess in the first place? No, thanks. That's going to saddle the next President with being unable to put forward any domestic agenda because there won't be any money to do so. I half wonder to myself if this is being done on purpose to hamstring the next President, which could quite possibly be a Democrat. Is this more partisan wrangling from Washington meant to screw the other party? Why do I smell a rat in all of this? Something just doesn't seem right in this "hurry up and pass this bailout bill" plea from Bernanke, Paulson and Bush. Given how much money that is, I would caution Congress and the government to take a closer look at what they are doing with our hard earned tax dollars. I don't want my money thrown down another sinkhole or wasted on some golden parachute for some billionaire banker to help maintain his lavish lifestyle while I struggle just to pay basic bills. I know that I am not alone in this thinking. Of course, Bush promised in his address to the nation last night that there would be no "golden parachutes" as a part of this package, but he seems so disingenuous when he speaks that I find it hard to believe anything that comes out of that man's mouth anymore. He's a serial liar who has spent his entire life doing just that, lying. Lying to himself and everyone around him. So why should I believe him now? Why should I believe that he has had a sudden change of heart and is all for taking golden parachute money out of this rescue package when up until yesterday, he had no desire whatsoever to do that? Is he, in his waning months as President, suddenly wanting to cozy up to the Democrats and work with them instead of trying his level best to screw them? Why don't I believe that when I know that Karl Rove still lurks in the picture even though he is no longer a part of Bush's staff? Rove is still as much a part of the Bush inner circle as he's ever been even though he doesn't directly work for the President anymore. So I still find anything that Bush says to be hard to take seriously. He's so damaged his already dwindling credibility that whenever he makes these kinds of dire warnings, he may as well be crying wolf, for all that it's worth. I think that the American people have wised up to his tendency to do this and refuse to believe in him anymore. Even if this time, the wolf cries are true and the rescue money is indeed necessary, he's already blown his ability to be taken seriously. He's nothing more than a badly damaged lame duck President who is probably biding his time until his administration is over. And I wouldn't put it past him to stick one more knife in the back of his opponents just to screw them one last time before he goes. He strikes me as the bully type who just can't leave well enough alone and always has to get in that last kick. This $700 billion is probably just that, one last way to get back at those who have mocked him all these years. But he's deserved every bit of that mocking.

A Walk in the Woods

There's nothing like a good walk through nature to soothe the soul. It being nearly autumn, the annual Summit MetroParks Fall Hiking Spree has begun, and now that my cast is off of my right leg, I can start in earnest going hiking along the park trails. So far this weekend, I've hiked two of the eight trails necessary to earn my hiking staff shield. The first trail I hiked was the Alder Pond trail at Goodyear MetroPark in east Akron. Pictured left is the pond (not my photo - thank goodness for Google Images!). The Alder Pond hiking trail basically goes all around the pond and even across it on a wooden causeway. There you can see waterfowl like geese, ducks and herons fishing and swooping and gently swimming in the shimmering water surrounded by beautiful wooded scenery. There are many very large trees in this park, some of which could easily be well over 100 years old, judging from their massive circumference. There was one very large tree that had obviously been blown over by last weekend's hurricane that could well have been a very old tree. It made me sad to see that it had obviously been uprooted very recently because its leaves were still green. Sadly, there's no way to right the tree and replant it once it's been uprooted like that. It will have to be cut apart and chipped and the hole left by its uprooting filled in with fill dirt. Doubtless in a few years, seedlings will replace the old fallen tree. This is the cycle of nature. Old trees die, or burn or get uprooted, new ones take their place. And the woods go on as the trees rise up toward the sun and the seedlings grow along side of the old trees, inching up year after year to eventually replace the ones that die or get blown down by high winds.

Today I hiked through the newest of the MetroParks, Liberty Recreation Area in Twinsburg. It has a fairly short and easy trail to walk, although they must have re-routed it since the last time I was there, because I distinctly remember part of the walk going through what looked like a small gorge, but I did not see it this time, so I suspect that the trail has been slightly changed. Still, I began to get the impression that part of the park had at one time been someone's old apple orchard, because I smelled that old familiar tart apple smell and looked up to see apple trees burgeoning with big, plump, ripe red apples, inaccessible due to being surrounded by heavy brush and other trees. It made me sad to see such beautiful fruit go to waste, especially given that these trees more than obviously survived the ravages of last weekend's hurricane. This year was said to be a bumper year for tree fruits in Ohio and judging from the number of big fat red and golden apples dangling on these trees, they're not kidding. I suppose the crows and other birds will have a feast on them since no one obviously harvests them anymore. Right next to the park, there is what looks to be a very large old house. Whether anyone lives in it anymore is hard to say, but I could imagine in the late 19th or early 20th century, when this home appears to have been built, it was probably lived in by a proud and prosperous farmer who also had an orchard on his property. Sadly, there are any number of decaying old farm houses in this part of the state that speak of our former agricultural heritage, and as the tart apple smell in the air filled my senses, I could almost close my eyes and imagine a scene from out of the past, a proud family harvesting apples in the fall, running a farm and caring for it with their own hands. But alas, over time, younger generations probably lost interest and probably wanted to go to the Big City (read that, Cleveland, just to the north) and work a real job, perhaps on the railroad, the canal or on Lake Erie. Who knows. I just let my imagination run amok as I walk through these parks and try to imagine an earlier time when all of Ohio must have been heavily wooded and birdsong filled the air as you walked through the forests. At least a walk through the woods is a balm from the hurly-burly of city life and its attendant stresses and a touchstone to our past when our state was nothing but heavily forested wilderness. If you close your eyes, you can almost take yourself back in time and imagine yourself a pioneer walking through these woods. Who says time travel isn't possible?

Autumn's bounty

This morning I ventured down to the local farmer's market, fearful that last weekend's hurricane had destroyed all of the tree fruits like peaches, pears and apples. My old pear tree shed just about its entire crop that now sits squashed in my driveway, a bounty for the local squirrels and yellow jacket wasps who for some reason seem to go a bit insane this time of year. So witnessing the destruction of my pear crop made me wonder whether local orchards had suffered the same thing and may have lost all of their tree fruits. Not to worry - I called our local orchard and all they lost was two trees of peaches that had gone unpicked, but they'd harvested their apple crop before the winds blew in, so they are in good shape where it comes to their crop being available. This time of year is so special because of the ripening of the tree fruits and the weather conditions have resulted in a bumper crop of them this year. Warm days and cool nights means an excellent fruit crop, including grapes, meaning that local wineries should also have a good year for their wines. I live for this time of year when I can purchase fresh pressed cider from the local orchard. I love that crisp, sweet flavor of fresh fruit pressed into cider. The local orchard, Beckwith's, has the best cider I have ever had anywhere. In fact, one of the great things about living here is how our town is beginning to recognise how special it is to have local farmers here by having such things as the weekly farmer's market, as well as specific festivals like the upcoming wine festival, which was postponed until early next month due to heavy rains on its scheduled day. This festival allows people to come downtown and to sample the wares of some of our local wineries. I went last year and I can honestly say that only one winery had what I considered to be downright undrinkable wine, but all the rest weren't bad. We also have an Apple Cider Festival in the fall where the local orchards get to come and press fresh cider and sell their fruit downtown. They give demonstrations on apple pressing and cider production which is fascinating.

Having events like this is good for business because it promotes our local farmers and orchards as a valuable resource to our area. I also see it as a bit of a "sprawl buster" because it means that if the local farmers do well enough, they're not as likely to sell their land to rapacious developers who want to erect McMansions on their land. Of course, with the bursting of the housing bubble, I don't see too many farms selling anymore. I think that this may be a good thing in that it also makes people aware of the carbon footprint of what they eat and the value of eating off of the local land instead of having stuff trucked in from California and Florida. Of course, during the winter months, this is what we have to do if we want produce (unless we buy it fresh this time of year then freeze it, but how many of us can both afford a freezer and have someplace to keep it?), so it becomes a necessity during the long, cold, dark winter months of NE Ohio. But the reward is the fresh produce in the summer and fall. Fresh picked fruits and vegetables just taste better and I see a movement toward local and sustainable agriculture, which is excellent. People are beginning to wake up to the idea that fresh food tastes better and is better for you, and it keeps sprawl at bay while you're at it. I also saw most people this morning at the farmer's market carrying canvas shopping bags, which is another encouraging trend. People are getting away from relying on plastic bags, which are dreadful for the environment. Most grocery stores now sell inexpensive reusable shopping bags for around $1, meaning just about anyone can afford them. I'm extremely encouraged by seeing things like this. Of course, this area has long been known as a haven of progressive thought, or in the words of the pundits, we're a "blue" county here as opposed to a "red" one (but there are pockets of rapid conservatives here locally, however, I suspect that they are in the distinct minority...at least I hope so for the sake of the upcoming Presidential election!). But that's what makes living here nice. People here appreciate the environment and sustainable practices. Even if it means paying a little more for things, people here will support it if it means saving our environment. And that includes supporting our farmer's market, which is a true gem here in our town. It is something I have become extremely grateful for. It makes living here a worthwhile experience, yet another thing to appreciate about Kent, Ohio. I may grumble and groan about all the things that are wrong with our town and need to be dealt with, but all in all, there are many good reasons to live here, not the least of which is our increasing appreciation of local agriculture and our local farms and farmers.

Your Tax Dollars At Work

So Uncle Sam is coming to the rescue of Wall Street and bailing out institutions that spent years binging on greed and risky investments. Wow, what a gift they've given us - yet another tax burden to shoulder. Glad the Feds think we have so much money to spare. Where'd they get all that money anyway - from China or the Saudis? I mean, sure, letting venerable blue chip financial institutions fail under the weight of all of their bad debt would send the economy into a very deep slump akin to the Great Depression, so I suppose this bailout will ultimately save us all. But still, the idea of government takeovers of failing financial institutions that fell under their own weight of bad debt just doesn't somehow sit right with me. It almost seems to reward them for screwing up by galloping to the rescue, and I'd be willing to bet that their CEO's got a golden parachute on which to bail out of the whole mess and are sitting pretty on multi-million dollar "severance bonuses" while the rest of us try to figure out how, month to month, to pay our bills. I read in this morning's paper that some of these CEO types are making as much as $17,000 an hour! Seventeen thousand - an hour! I mean, that's almost as much as I make per year! That's just obscene in my opinion. Sure, these guys are titans of Wall Street, people who run mega-corporations that keep our economy and that of the rest of the world afloat, but still......to make that kind of money somehow just defies logic. That kind of cash could be well spent feeding hungry people, providing health care for the uninsured or underinsured, rebuilding our crumbling infrastructure, retooling our schools to meet 21st century educational demands and more. All of this happened, quite simply, because the Republicans have so long favored deregulation of just about everything, and all that's resulted in is a complete total mess. Oh, but wait - suddenly they are in favor of regulation again! John McCain is sounding a downright populist line about wanting to swoop down on Wall Street and regulate things that up to now, he's been staunchly in favor of deregulating! Funny how this financial crisis has made him sing a new tune about regulation when he's been a longtime champion of deregulation and free market philosophy. Why, he's sounding almost like Dennis Kucinich these days, much to the chagrin of his more conservative constituency, and in a speech in the past few days where he vowed to clamp down on Wall Street, some Republicans walked out on him because they apparently still admire these business titans who are screwing them royally behind their own backs. Why people vote against their own financial interests is quite beyond me. I always thought that people voted "pocketbook first", but these days, it's different. Religious voters are trumpeting "moral values" as being their primary voting, although I don't know as the Religious Right is as powerful as it's been in past elections. I suspect that, given the scare on Wall Street this week and the rising tide of anger at other economic and financial issues, that the economy will probably be Issue One in this year's Presidential election. If Wall Street continues its see-saw swing that it's been on all week and fails to inspire confidence in the federal bail out to save it, then things could get downright ugly. I still worry about Obama's chances vs. McCain because of the race issue, and I suspect that this will be a silent but underlying issue in the election as things get down to the wire. Blue collar "Joe Lunchbucket" guys are not likely to vote for Obama because he's got a funny name, is black and people still think that he's really a Muslim bent on destroying the country (too many people listen to right wing screeds like Rush Limbaugh, Ann Coulter and Michael Savage and they buy into what they are saying as the gospel truth, sadly.....never underestimate the stupidity of the American people......). I also think that the Democrats need to learn how not to clutch defeat from the jaws of victory as they've done so aptly in recent elections. I don't know if it's just downright ineptness, a prevailing pessimism at being the minority party for so long or what, but these past two Presidential electoral cycles showed that candidates who, in effect, could have and should have won the Presidency didn't. As a result, we've been stuck with 8 long and grueling years of failed policies, a massive run-up in the federal debt, an illegal invasion of a sovereign nation that did not threaten us, a crumbling infrastructure, increased poverty, lowered lifespans due to lack of access to health care and a host of other failures that the Republicans brought on, including creating deep divisions in our country the likes of which have not been seen since the Civil War. So now the Feds are trying to clean up their own mess - at taxpayer expense. That's right, folks, once again, it's Your Tax Dollars At Work! Thanks, Uncle Sam, for more financial burdens that will be put at the feet of the nearly extinct Middle Class! Once again, ineptness rules!

The downward spiral continues...

The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell another 449 points today, continuing its downward slide in the wake of the demise of the Lehman Brothers firm, Merrill Lynch's being bought by Bank of America and the AIG bail out by the government. Frankly, that all of this is causing such a massive Wall Street meltdown is truly frightening. I don't really understand what's happened to cause all this save the fact that it had something to do with extremely risky investing in all kinds of shaky schemes where it all came crashing down like a house of cards. I read that the Dow Jones has shed some 800 points this week alone between today's crash and Monday's 500+ point freefall. It makes me wonder whether it'd even be worth it for me to invest in any kind of retirement account like a 401(K) or an annuity or something of the kind, seeing as how Wall Street is melting like Arctic sea ice. I don't feel at all secure in the idea of doing any kind of investing right now. I don't care how safe it may be on the surface. Ultimately, any and all investments are tied to these big investment and brokerage firms that are going belly up like beached whales, and there will doubtless be ripples felt throughout the entire financial sector. It almost makes me glad that I don't have one penny in any kind of investment portfolio. I've seen far too many of my friends have their portfolios wiped out by just such events as have been happening of late, and I refuse to lose that much money in what is basically legalized gambling on a massive scale. I all too well remember the lessons that my college history professor taught us about what led up to the Great Depression and frankly, I remember the lessons he taught way too well, and even 30 years later, they've stuck in my brain. I've seen too many parallels to then and now - massive overspeculation, easy credit and runaway greed led to an eventual crash that wiped out untold amounts of people's savings. Of course, we do now have the FDIC (which I am sure some of the conservatives, bent on a complete elimination of any of FDR's social programs, would just love to get rid of!), but still, something about all of this stuff makes me very nervous that even those of us with our money in regular banks are going to somehow feel the effects of all of this in some way or other. Our current administration has been hell bent on complete deregulation of just about everything and an insane devotion to free market philosophy. Let the markets take care of themselves, they say, and competition will drive down prices, but in point of fact, when freed from government oversight, they run amok and do stupid things that end up wiping them out and costing thousands of good paying jobs. Somewhere, somehow, something's gotta give. And soon. The sooner, the better. Because if this financial crisis continues unabated, I suspect that we're in for a long, ugly period of deep recession from which it will take many long years to emerge. If that happens here, it will be felt worldwide, meaning the entire world is going to feel the pinch, since economics is now all globalized. That can't be good for countries struggling toward peace and stability. If anything, it will destabilize them even more. And all that's going to mean is more war, more bloodshed, more lives lost in futility. Competition for scarcer and scarcer resources is the number one cause of modern warfare, and if no one's got any money, the gulf between haves and have-nots will widen even more than it is today. I just hope that there is someone, somewhere, with some wisdom who can staunch the financial bleeding before it's too late to do anything about it.

Cast off!

After three and a half long months, basically encompassing the entire summer, I am finally out of my air cast after a visit to the ankle specialist confirmed that I am making definite progress with my ankle injury. I have increased flexibility and I can do light jogging without too much pain and I am more than ready to get back to wearing both shoes again and starting some fall hiking. The county next door to us, Summit County, sponsors a hiking spree every autumn through their park system, and many of the parks fall within the scenic Cuyahoga Valley National Park. These trails are filled with breathtaking scenery and take you through all kinds of terrain - steep, rocky, flat, smooth and everything in between. Fall here is so beautiful with its splash of brilliant colors - scarlet, orange, gold, green, primarily from the maples that are so common in these parts. I always look forward to the hiking spree each year because of the gorgeous scenery I encounter along the trails, and now that my cast is off for good, I can get started in earnest hiking on the spree. I usually begin with a nearby park, Munroe Falls, which is only a few short miles from here. Its 2.2 mile trail takes you through some dense woods, a couple of beautiful ponds, some old growth trees, up and down moderate hills, along a spring and into at least one clearing. I always love walking along this trail and listening to the sounds of the water and the woods. So many of the parks have streams and ponds and there are plenty of waterfowl that frequent these places. You see herons, ducks, geese and other birds fishing in the streams and ponds in so many of these parks. I look forward to the serenity of nature as a balm against the hurly-burly of the city noise I encouter so often. It's very healing emotionally and it brings me back to myself when I feel like I need something of a touchstone to make me appreciate how wonderful life is, even when I'm feeling a bit down or low. So now that I have achieved enough healing physically to get started, I look forward to what hopefully will be some hiking friendly weather this weekend to get started on the spree while the weather is still favorable. I try to finish before October gets too far gone because the weather starts to turn in earnest in mid to late October and develop a downright chill in the air and the beginnings of bad weather with occasional early snows and sleet. Saturday is when I intend to get started, if not sooner, depending on the weather forecast the next few days. If it looks like it will be dry, then I will begin hiking maybe as early as tomorrow after work, depending on how I feel at the end of my workday. It all depends on Mother Nature and her eccentric whims here in Northeast Ohio.

DOWN, DOWN, DOWN.........

Yesterday's stock market nosedive of over 500 points caused many shockwaves through the financial sector. I can't say I really understand a great deal about the economy or anything having to do with economics, but I know that when I hear news like this, it makes me very nervous. I think that the stock market made some small recovery today, but a crash like that can still cost a lot of investors a lot of lost money. I don't understand how this whole subprime mortgage and credit crisis thing happened, but still, I always thought that there was some regulation in place to prevent such things from happening. I'm so baffled how these things got so out of hand in the first place. All I know is that every time I saw a "For Sale" sign out in front of a house with a "No Money Down" below it, something in my gut felt like there was something wrong about letting someone buy a house with no down payment. It sounded too good to be true. And it was. Those were the homes sold on subprime mortgages, and they are the same ones that are now being foreclosed on and leaving people homeless. There has also been a glut of what we call "McMansions" being built in every farmer's field and people took advantage of too easy credit to buy more house than they could realistically afford. So they, too, are losing their homes, and there is glum talk of those homes becoming "McMansion slums" of homes that are subdivided into apartments and rented out to less than desirable people, causing formerly upscale neighborhoods to become "the 'hood" of low income renters. Homes that formerly sold for $250,000 and up are sitting on the market not selling. People are realizing the error of their ways and not buying more home than they can realistically afford. The real estate market right now is so soft that homes just aren't selling because credit is so tough to obtain because banks are tightening up their credit standards in the wake of this whole subprime crisis. I suppose it's a buyer's market right now because if you have the money, you could probably snap up a lot of house for a lot less than they used to go for, so long as you get a good fixed rate mortgage and not an adjustable rate one like so many people got who are now losing their homes in the wake of this crisis. So the bloodbath continues on Wall Street, but as I see it, this is a necessary correction of an overly inflated market that spiraled out of control on a wave of easy credit. Now the time has come to pay the piper, and a lot of high flyers on Wall Street are losing their jobs as venerable old banks and investment houses go bust. These things happen from time to time, and it should serve as a LOUD wake up call about the dangers of flirting with too much easy credit and massive speculation. But then, since this happens over and over and over again, it's obvious that people just don't learn. Maybe this time they will, but I rather doubt it.

Hurricane Ike hits Ohio

The remnants of Hurricane Ike are currently hitting Ohio with extremely high winds, downed trees and power outages. We lost our power earlier in the evening and it's just been restored within the past hour or so. The fire department has had an insanely busy night, as every few minutes it seems that another fire truck or emergency vehicle goes racing past my house, sirens blaring. I suspect that they are responding to many trees going down and taking wires with them on the way. As I type this, the city is cleaning up the top section of one of the ancient mighty oaks that grace a house two doors down. It snapped off in the high winds and partially blocked access to our street. I've seen many downed trees all evening as I drove around earlier trying to find an open store that had power. I finally found that the south side of the city still had it so I went and did my shopping in a discount store there. When I got home, I found my power restored, thank goodness. I was afraid that I'd be in the dark all night, but it was probably just a downed wire from a tree falling on it that knocked it out in the first place. Right now, the high winds are dying down and there is a little bit of rain falling. I suspect that the worst of the winds are over and while it will still be windy while this dying hurricane blows through, it won't be nearly as bad as it was earlier in the evening. I'd begun to wonder just what was causing such high winds and darkened skies. I assumed that it was just another storm system or front moving through our area, but along with the winds, it felt weirdly muggy, suggesting tropical origins. I can't believe that this hurricane has packed such a punch for how long it's been over land. These things tend to lose all of their steam once they make landfall because they gain most of their fuel over warm water, but I heard it said that this storm was as big, size-wise, as Texas, so it doubtless could still pack quite a punch while over land for so long. We're getting the remnants of this storm and it's still throwing around very damaging high winds, so these things are nothing to be trifled with, even this long after making landfall. It should be interesting once day breaks to see the full extent of the damage this storm has managed to leave behind in its wake. Hard to tell now in the dark of night, but if my street is any indication of how bad things have been, then I suspect that there is a lot worse damage elsewhere in the city that will keep municipal workers busy all night long cleaning up. Guess they don't have a lot of sleep ahead for them tonight, but I'll bet they'll make great overtime pay!

HILLARY CLINTON VISITS AKRON, OH
I ventured over to Ellet High School in the eastern part of Akron today to hear Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton stump for Democratic Presidential nominee Barack Obama. Stuffed inside of a high school gymnasium that was obviously packed to overfilling capacity and was mostly standing room only, it was stiflingly hot with so many people so tightly packed in for the occasion. I was granted a bottom row seat on the bleachers owing to my still having an air cast on my right leg, but fairly soon, my view was blocked by all of the people standing in front of me, so I ended up having to spend the entire speech standing just so I could see Senator Clinton. I ran into a lot of people I know (naturally), so it was no surprise to see so many familiar faces. Senator Clinton gave a good, and thankfully fairly short, speech, touting all of the things that Obama will do when he is President, but what people fail to realize is that, with the massive budget deficits that our next President will inherit, whoever he is, he won't be able to deliver on all of those lofty campaign promises. There is simply too much red ink on the books to be able to do much of anything, so he'll be fairly hamstrung, whoever he is, to be able to do anything until the deficits are cut way down. And no President can deliver the goods he promises without the cooperation of Congress, and if they aren't in the mood to go along with the President's wishes, they won't. They'll see all that red ink and doubtless override any of the President's wishes. So whoever wins the race in November, their first priority, and what will doubtless consume their entire first administration, is to pare down the debt and cut the budget to do so. No soaring government programs, no promises of millions of good jobs, no universal health care, until the debt is managed. And that's going to mean some major reining in of excess government spending and fiscal discipline. The first thing we need to do is to end the war in Iraq and concentrate our energies where it's really needed, and that's Afghanistan, where we need to finish what we started there and stabilize that country so that it becomes less of a terrorist threat and a magnet for extremists. Iraq, sadly, is now a haven for terrorists as well, thanks to our ill advised invasion of that country, so it's going to be a tough job for any future President to deal with those two difficult foreign policy issues as well. So whoever wins, whichever party takes the White House, is going to need to tread lightly and work with Congress to cope with our massive financial instability first and foremost. Once we get our budgetary house in order, we can go on to do all the other things that need to be done, but we must balance the overdrawn checkbook first. And that, my friends, is doubtless going to take generations to accomplish, and probably won't happen in any of our lifetimes.

The desperation of the Right

Naturally, there are a spate of anti-Obama books coming out now that the nominees of both parties have been decided. Most of them are filled with outright lies, warning us of Obama's secretly radical agenda against the United States or some other ridiculous thing. It makes me crazy to see how desperate the Right has become that they are so utterly determined to take Obama down one way or another and cement for themselves another four years in the White House, when we all know too well of the failed policies of the past 8 years. Just this morning I read in the newspaper of both candidates plans for health care, a very big and important issue for me personally, and McCain's won't do diddly for most of us who are underinsured, let alone those who are uninsured. It's more of the same free market philosophy that we've already seen has failed this country big time. Letting the markets decide the prices has done nothing but make prices skyrocket on just about everything. They say that competition will drive down prices, but we've seen that this is contrary to what has happened lately. Deregulation has also driven prices through the roof on just about all of the commodities out there, placing many of us in financial distress over how we're going to pay for things. I cannot, for the life of me, figure out why my heating bill is so high when I live in such a tiny apartment. I keep it at 68º when I am home in the winter and at 58º when I am gone, and even so, I don't turn the heat on in the winter until after sunset because my living room windows face south and I get some natural solar heat that way. My place is also very well insulated, so no worries there. But ever since the Bush administration came into power, the prices on just about everything have skyrocketed out of control, and now they want to continue those same policies by electing John McCain for President, and an untested, inexperienced woman as their Vice President, a move certainly meant to pull away disgruntled Hillary voters who have said that they refuse to vote for Obama because he is the wrong gender. I'm so afraid that the culture wars will escalate as issues of race and gender will doubtless come to the forefront of this campaign as fall wears on and things tighten up in the race. I know that there are folks who are leery of electing a black President and who still don't trust black men to be smart enough to run our country. Racism is still very pervasive in this country in spite of the advances in civil rights, and it really upsets me that people would let the color of someone's skin determine who they would vote for as President rather than important "kitchen table" issues like the economy, jobs, health care, the environment, education and the like. But sadly, there are still plenty of people perfectly willing to vote against their own economic interests and vote for people who will continue to screw them royally. One has only to read books like Thomas Frank's "What's the Matter with Kansas?" and Joe Bageant's "Deer Hunting with Jesus" to find out how many people out there regularly vote against their own interests and instead support candidates who will continue to ship their jobs overseas and leave them wanting for the most basic necessities like access to health care because of some weird proclivity to support the candidates who don't care and won't look out for the little guy. I can't say that I understand this at all, but I'm really nervous about these anti-Obama books and how they may end up stoking up racial fears about Obama and the ever present rumors that he's secretly Muslim because he lived for a time during his childhood in Indonesia and his father, Barack Obama, Sr. was a Muslim, albeit a fairly secular one at that. Still, ever since 9/11/2001, anti-Islamists have stoked up all kinds of irrational fears of anyone who practices Islam, regardless of whether they are moderates. It's the continuning fear of Muslims in this country that has people suspicious of Obama's name and his father and step father's origins. And radical right wing screeds like Rush Limbaugh and Michael Savage still have huge listenerships on their radio shows that people freely buy into. It's so hard for us liberals to counter people like that, even in spite of Air America, which does not have the luxury of wide listernership like the Right Wing radio screeds do. I'm very concerned about the power that these folks wield in elections and that they will do everything possible to sway the electorate to vote for a white guy/war hero who is a known loose cannon and who won't do anything to change the current bleak economic picture and the unending war in the Middle East. So if McCain wins and the economy continues its slide south and the wars rage on with no end in sight, the electorate has only itself to blame for being dumb enough to fall for the fear factor that the Right is using so effectively to control people. I just wish I could be more optimistic that Obama has a snowball's chance, but it's going to be an uphill battle for him to get people past the race issue, which I am quite sure will be the ultimate deciding factor in this election, not who can best lead the country in a time of crisis, but who looks most like us. Sadly, I suspect that in the end, a white guy will win it because whites can't get themselves past their fears of blacks. Racism exists, and we've got a long way to go yet to get past our old fears and hatreds in this country. We've come a long way, but we've still got a long road ahead of us to put race to bed as an issue once and for all.

My car was vandalized......

My beloved 2007 Hyundai Accent hatchback (and first new car, ever) was badly damaged sometime on Sunday night by vandals or drunks or someone. I was gone all day Monday to the Cleveland Air Show and came home that night to find the windshield of my car smashed in and a sizeable dent on my front hood. From appearances, it looks like someone fell off the wall separating the parking lot in back of our house from the Wendy's parking lot, landing smack dab on my hood and windshield. I'll bet they were drunk and horsing around or something and just lost their balance. Sadly, our driveway has become the neighborhood short cut path to the Wendy's behind us. Everyone uses it now to get to Wendy's, jeopardizing the security of our vehicles. I frequently find trash and beer cans and bottles in my driveway in the mornings, evidence of people using my driveway as a cut through. Next to Wendy's is a student bar called the "Robin Hood", once an elegant restaurant where students took their visiting parents, but is now something of a sleaze bar where much trouble breaks out on weekend nights. I suspect that people also use my driveway as a short cut to get to and from the Robin Hood as well, as has been evidenced by the number of beer cans and bottles regularly found in my driveway in the mornings. I've complained innumerable times to the city to no avail. It seems the city has no money to enforce laws and codes, but more than enough to acquire property to tear down for development. It makes no sense whatsoever. In the meantime, student housing neighborhoods have more than their fair share of run down housing, trash, noise and security problems on weekend nights. It almost makes me think that the city is looking for our neighborhoods to become enough of a slum that they can spend more money acquiring our properties to put up more trashy upscale development that no one can afford. This seems to have been the prevailing pattern in our city in recent years and it makes me see red every time I think about it. It almost feels like we're being gentrified out of the city in favor of upscale folks who can afford trendy lofts and expensive condos. But in the meantime, residents of and near the neighborhoods that are mostly student rentals have to put up with the yahoos who get drunk every weekend and litter and vandalize private property, and no one's willing to step up to the plate and deal with it accordingly. And some of us have grown weary of coping with this year in, year out, at the beginning and end of every school year and many months in between. Now that my new car has been rendered undriveable and had to be towed to the dealership for repairs, it really makes me angry that this has been allowed to happen and that I can't afford to move to more upscale housing to escape the drunken yahoos who trash my neighborhood each weekend.

VATICAN SPLENDORS

I took advantage of being off work on Tuesday to go up to Cleveland to view the Vatican Splendors exhibit on display at the Western Reserve Historical Society. After settling on the car repairs and receiving my rental vehicle (a very nice Mazda 5 crossover vehicle), I drove to Cleveland to see this exhibit since it is in its final week on display here locally. It was quite spectacular and brought back many memories of my Catholic childhood. Inasmuch as I was wowed by the many beautiful art objects and jeweled sacramentary vessels, papal tiaras, richly embroidered papal robes and other gorgeous items on display, there was something also a tad obscene about such a blatant display of wealth and riches when so many in the world are wanting for basic necessities like food, housing and clothing. I don't personally think that Jesus would approve of such things, myself. Popes have lived like kings in palaces and have dressed in richly jeweled and embroidered robes and pectoral crosses. The Cardinals are like princes, and the bishops are like barons, and basically, you have a feudal system within the Catholic Church that mirrors that of mediaeval life. I suspect that a lot of this comes out of the Middle Ages, when Popes wielded far more power than Kings or Princes did. Unfortunately, it seems that few Popes have realized that the main message of Christianity is to minister to those who are the least of us and to live a life not surrounded by bejeweled wealth but instead to live a life of poverty like those who are suffering in similar circumstances. At least this is what true Christianity means to me. I just think that the Catholic Church can be a bit hypocritical at times, especially when it comes to papal wealth and opulence. So while I admired the beauty and richness of all of those things on display throughout the history of the Catholic Church, still, a part of me felt a bit angry that so much money has been wasted building up such richness and opulence while so many have suffered in poverty and silence for so many centuries. I had to smile when I read that Pope Paul VI, who I grew up with as our Pope, sold the Papal tiara that he was crowned with and gave the money to the poor (how many millions of dollars did that generate, given the heavily jeweled tiaras that were on display?). At least, I thought, one Pope got it. He also dispensed with the richly jeweled papal crosiers that have been the symbol of Bishops (since the Pope is also Bishop of Rome) and instead went with a very simple and humble pastoral cross that was used by Pope John Paul II as well. So at least the modern Popes seem to have gotten it that conspicuous displays of wealth are a bit hypocritical in times when so many suffer in poverty. I was glad that I had a chance to see this exhibit and to see many items which, up to now, have never before been seen in public. I am grateful to the Vatican for opening its doors and allowing us just a small glimpse inside its many treasures. I just hope that this sends a powerful message to people that the real mission of Christianity is not conspicuous consumption, but rather, to minister to those who need it most, the poor and the least of us.