Episode 66: Hope & The Hooverites

And on your left, ladies and gentlemen, another aspect of the Miracle on the Hudson, just in case you thought we had achieved a classless society.


Do the dwindling number of conservative Republicans in Congress really, truly, believe the convictions they trumpet without end or variation? We are in this heart-wrenching mess due exclusively to the failed policies and actions/inactions of the administration in power over the last eight years. Yet these yahoos still insist that lower taxes for the rich and the initiation of preemptive endless war worked, not to mention that the exploding national debt and out-of -whack budgets are okay (except when they occur under Democrats).

They ignore the fact that this current disaster was visited upon us by them and instead nitpick our new president's stimulus plan. They brush aside the reality that the last time the unemployment figures were this bad was in 1992, during the failed administration of the first Bush. They wave away the truth that the last time our economy was in worse shape than today was in 1974, during the Nixon-Ford years in office.

They demean the efforts of Jimmy Carter, the most genuinely humanitarian of any president in memory, to overcome the miserable conditions left to him by his Republican predecessors. They venerate the simpleton Reagan, whose three-note policies of lower taxes, less government, and opposition to the "evil empire" only succeeded in making his friends richer. (Contrary to what his acolytes routinely declare, government expanded under the actor-prez and the Soviet Union died of its own dead weight, as it would have done even if this here Geezer had been in charge.)

Did I mention who was at the helm during the onset of the Great Depression? For those of you who weren't around before the moon landing, it was Herbert Hoover. Republican.

Fair & Balanced
Fox News assembled the following panel of right-thinkers to analyze the Inauguration: Steve Forbes, Mike Huckabee, Mitt Romney, Reagan economic advisor Art Laffler, and Ron Paul. In that crowd, Paul must have been the token Liberal.


Geezer hasn't hidden the fact of his devout atheism.
It was gratifying, then, to hear the newly-minted President add "nonbelievers" to his roster of patriotic Americans in the obligatory incantations of Christian, Jewish, Buddhist, Hindu, and Muslim citizens. We people of no religious faith comprise an estimated 16% of the U.S. population.
Why then can we not be accorded the same political and societal deference of gays (2.9%), African-Americans (12.3%), Hispanics 12.5%, Jews (2.2%), and Asians (3.6%)?

Why do ELEVEN states forbid, directly or by clear implication, nonbelievers to hold political office?

No Comment
* The critical ingredients for most antibiotics are now made almost exclusively in China and India, according to the New York Times. Further, of 1,154 pharmaceutical plants in generic drug applications to the F.D.A. in 2007, only 13% were in the U.S. The rest were in China or India.
* A study by Brookhaven National Laboratory found that women were less able to suppress their hunger when faced with their favorite foods, suggesting a reason for the higher obesity rate among females.
* The Czech government had to apologize for commissioning an art installation that depicted Bulgaria as a series of hole-in-the-floor toilets, Romania as a Dracula-themed amusement park, Sweden as a giant Ikea box, and Germany as a maze of highways that resemble a swastika.


Geezer Reflects
There was a time when an "afternoon delight" meant something other than a really good nap.

Things Aren't Bad Enough?
Gary sends along news from the Great White North that help is on the way from someone "Dedicated to building America's future, supporting fresh ideas and candidates who share our vision for reform and innovation...to confront the challenges of the 21st Century with integrity, innovation, and determination."


Who might this shining knight be? Why, yes! It's the Guv Lady and her new SarahPAC! We're saved!

Annoyance In A Minor Key
There are people who are merit attention for their cataclysmic ineptitude or overweening arrogance or unwarranted self-regard. Dubya, Rush Limbaugh, Karl Rove, John Boehner, Darth Cheney, Sean Hannity, and vast numbers of CEOs come immediately to mind.

Then there are those whose actions and attitudes simply send prickles of irritation through those more thoughtful people with whom they come in contact: Drivers who thumb their directional signals only after they begin turning. Moviegoers who behave as if sitting on their couches at home. Cellphone users who punch the walkie-talkie buttons on their devices so we not only hear their high-volume prattle but the responses from the callees.

Add your own. I will. For one, there is the guy who makes a fetish of announcing that he doesn't own a TV. Too busy curled in front of the fire with his golden retriever and the two Arthurs, Rimbaud and Schopenhauer. Or his variant, the man who only has a TV - the little black-and-white one in the kitchen - to watch PBS documentaries and the occasional curling tournament.


Then there is the woman who enrolls herself in an expensive gastronomical tour and announces - with frequently expressed regret for the circumstances of sentient beings - that she is a vegan. This requires her hosts, chefs, and fellow travelers to frantically seek substitutes for the foie gras and lamb shanks that were intended on the daily menus, all while she crinkles up her face at the very thought of hamburgers.

An Announcement
Readers may have noticed with pedagogical horror that Geezer split an infinitive in the above paragraph. Be aware that the chairman of the usage panel of The American Heritage Dictionary has recently freed us from the split-verb myth. We can now aspire to boldly go to far galaxies.

Budget Tip: At a restaurant on a recent trip into the city, I happened to mention it was my birthday. The waitress congratulated me and removed the price of my martini from the bill ($12). That was good, so I mentioned the birthday when we signed up for a tour of the Lower East Side Tenement Museum. They waved the admission fee ($13). Afterwards, the bartender at Little Giant bistro down the street, advised of my deeper move into my eighth decade, poured me a free wine refill ($11). Total saving: $36 (not counting the larger tips I felt compelled to leave).

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