Farewell to a Friend

Last week, I lost a beloved friend to cancer.

Although I never met Molly Ivins in person—she was ranked near the top of my “friends I haven’t met yet” list—I was familiar with her work. She was the quintessential political pundit who understood, better than most, the malevolent machinations of government; she was one of the brightest lights shining into the dark corners of American politics to expose the corruption that festers there.

Each week I looked forward to Molly’s column in The Oregonian, and many weeks, during the past couple of years, I read those same columns, again, on AlterNet. Always, Molly informed, enlightened, and entertained. Hers was one of the few voices linking sanity and reason to a world that’s increasingly devoid of both. Now, that voice is silent.

It’s true that Molly wrote with style and humor and wit and wisdom about things that matter, but the thing I most admired about her was her courage to speak truth to power. It was her courage that best defined her character. Her audacious temerity in calling Bush “Shrub” may have rankled the President, but it made the rest of us laugh.

Molly’s gone, but not forgotten. Her brief stay on Earth made the world a better place; her passing made it poorer. Like other great humorists (Mark Twain and Will Rogers come to mind), Molly will be long remembered for her many contributions to society, not the least of which was her wish that her many readers " . . . keep fightin' for freedom and justice, beloveds, but don't you forget to have fun doin' it.”

Good golly, Ms. Molly, I’m truly going to miss you.

Bailing Out the Speculators

Not long ago there was talk about convening the Oregon Legislature every year, instead of every other year. This, of course, requires a change to the Oregon Constitution. As one might expect, most of the people weighing in on the subject objected to the proposal, ostensibly because more-frequent legislative sessions would give legislators more opportunities to commit legislative mayhem by giving more bad ideas the force of law.

Now that I’ve had ample opportunity to grok the idea (as Heinlein’s Martians were wont to do when a vexing problem asserted itself), I’d like to weigh in on the subject, too. I think it’s a helluva good idea—with one stipulation. Instead of meeting every year to enact new legislation, why not use the newfound time to review legislation passed in prior years? Why not use that time to rectify past mistakes?

Not all laws are good laws, and most laws are subject to the law of unintended consequences. When laws prove burdensome to the people, there should be a relatively quick and easy process to strike those laws from the books. Laws that benefit a few at the expense of many must not be allowed to stand. Measure 37 is such a law.

Voters passed Measure 37 by a substantial margin, giving some property owners a way to get around zoning restrictions that were imposed after they bought the property. Property owners would either be allowed to develop the property in ways that were legal at the time of purchase or receive compensation for the loss of value if the waiver was denied, at the government’s discretion. Oh, what a great idea that turned out to be.

With some 6,000 Measure 37 claims now on the books, various government entities find themselves on the hook for millions of dollars, or at risk of making policy decisions that make a mockery of zoning laws. Oops! The taxpayers just shot themselves in the foot—again.

Buying property is about more than just making an investment; it’s also about speculation. When you buy real property, you hope that its value goes up. That doesn’t mean that taxpayers should bail you out if it doesn’t, or that you should be compensated whenever property zoning laws change. You gamble. You win, or you lose. Place your next bet, or cut your losses.

If we treated other investors/speculators the same way that Measure 37 treats a certain class of property owners, we’d quickly find that there’s not enough money in the entire world to cover all the claims for compensation or dispensation. Anyone and everyone could speculate without fear of loss.

While measure 37 is a testament to the power of democracy, it also attests to the reason why democracy can’t endure. Most people aren’t smart enough to live in one.

Does Bush Have a Hidden Agenda?

The Neocon Fundamentalist wing of the Republican Party keeps insisting that President Bush (or Duhbya, as he’s sometimes called in certain other circles) was right to invade Iraq. They also think that Bush is doing a good job of executing the war in Iraq, proving once again that Neocon Fundamentalists are willfully ignorant and terminally, if not criminally, stupid.

What is Bush’s agenda in Iraq? We already know that it wasn’t to destroy Saddam’s weapons of mass destruction; he had none, and Bush was aware of that fact prior to the invasion. It seems unlikely that Bush intended to bring democracy to Iraq because he’s systematically destroying democracy at home. What, then?

Could it be that Bush wants to exert control over Iraqi oil? At the onset of the war, that seemed as plausible an explanation as any. But, now, as new theories come to light, I’ve been given cause to change my mind.

After reading, today, an AlterNet article and the many responses to it, it seems just as likely that the Iraq war is but a subterfuge, a catalyst to initiate a US attack against Iran. Maybe what Bush is really after is total dominance, by the US and its Israeli ally, of the Middle East.

There’s another theory that’s been circulating for awhile (although its received scant attention and thus avoided much serious debate) that paints a scarier and more chilling picture of what might actually be the true Bush agenda. What if Bush is not quite as inept as most people think he is? What if Bush’s real goal is to bring down the US to fulfill his father’s vision of a New World Order?

With the nation running on credit and the nation’s credit running on empty; with the nation’s treasury depleted and it’s social and political infrastructures in disarray; with the military overextended and the nation losing face in the court of global opinion, it’s not too much of a stretch to say that that’s been Bush’s objective from the beginning.

If, indeed, that’s the case, and Bush continues to follow the course he’s set for himself and for the nation, then I’ll give him credit for being closer to success than he’s ever been. In fact, I’d say his success is imminent.

Lynch Mob Justice

One thing I noticed about Saddam Hussein’s execution was that Saddam, faced with imminent death, maintained a higher degree of poise and dignity than did his executioners. While Saddam, like all tyrants, deserved his fate, I couldn’t help but feel that his hanging was more like a lynching than it was an administration of justice.

And did anyone else notice that Saddam looked so alone as he stood on the gallows platform, awaiting his plunge through the trapdoor? If killing Iraqi civilians was the crime for which he was hanged, then I can think of at least three others, who were complicit in the deaths of far greater numbers of Iraqis, that should have been hanged at the same time. Saddam probably would have appreciated the company.

Advertising Overload

A longtime advocate of freedom of speech and freedom of the press, I have, of late, begun to question the rationale supporting my position on these issues. One need only open e-mail or switch on a TV set to learn the reasons why.

Let’s face it! Spammers are a major pain in the ass, with their semi-literate subject lines, bogus return addresses and worthless messages that no one reads taking up mailbox space and wasting precious time. I have no idea what they might be trying to sell; I delete all of them, without exception, without opening.

And what about TV commercials? Most of them are so mind-numbingly stupid, loud and obnoxious that they make you wonder if anyone actually pays attention to them. Worse, they make you wonder if the people who thought them up have any brains.

Still, it can’t be denied that a few TV commercials have actual entertainment value.

Take this one, for example, from a few years back, which was a cartoon featuring an opossum hanging by its tail from a tree limb above a country road. The viewers (and, presumably, the ‘possum) see a bright, glowing yellow disk rising above the horizon. The ‘possum visualizes one thing, but in fact it’s something completely different. In the next scene, we see a truck motoring off into the distance, while the ’possum, still attached to the limb by its tail, makes a few orbits of said limb and gradually swings to a stop. Big surprise, eh, Mr. ‘Possum? (Anyone who’s familiar with the aerodynamic devices mounted atop the cabs of many trucks that ply our nation’s highways can appreciate the inherent humor of this particular TV commercial.)

Then, there’s this one, introduced more recently, in which a guy walking downhill trips, falls, and begins to roll, collecting garbage cans, pedestrians, a food cart and vendor, cars and an assortment of other odds and ends into a conglomeration that builds mass like a rolling snowball in its inexorable rush to the bottom of the hill. It’s the absurdity of the situation that makes this commercial so funny.

Or this one, which features a couple of talking crows that trick a human into walking into a closed patio door. As the crows yuck it up, one says to the other, “C’mon, let’s do it again!”

Although the humorous aspects of these few commercials are memorable, the products they advertise are not. I can’t begin to tell you which products the first two examples advertise; I’m totally clueless. The last example might have been an ad for Windex. Or, maybe, for that other brand of window cleaner. What’s it called?

The point I’m trying to make is that, as a society, we’re so inundated with commercial ads that some of us, and perhaps many of us, simply tune them out. Advertising, at once pervasive and persistent, is such a commonplace part of our existence that we've become immune to it.

Even though I deplore the thought of freedom-of-speech prohibitions for individuals and the various forms of media, I’d welcome it for corporate advertisers. After all, corporations aren’t people. And damn those Supreme Court Justices who, so many years ago, made it possible for corporations to behave as though they were.

Pink Floyd's "Pulse"

Last night’s OPB presentation of Pink Floyd’s 1994 Pulse concert (the group’s last full concert) provided welcome relief from typical Friday evening TV fare. It was the second Pink Floyd concert I’ve seen on OPB this year.

It’s hard to pigeonhole Pink Floyd’s music because there’s nothing else quite like it. It seems to embrace several musical disciplines; a melding of a little bit of jazz, a little bit of rock, a little bit of contemporary, and a little bit of easy listening. It’s all of those things and a whole lot more. Maybe avant-garde rock describes it best.

For sure, the music is innovative, distinctive and original, with David Gilmour’s sometimes-weak vocals being the only downside (and a small one, at that), which is more than offset by talented musicians who finesse their various instruments to generate a purity of musical sound unrivaled in the industry. It’s highly unlikely that any other group could be mistaken for Pink Floyd.

Unlike the pyrotechnic displays that accompanied some of the earlier concerts, the high-tech light show that accompanied the Pulse concert complimented the performance rather than distracted from it.

In a testament to the timeless quality of Pink Floyd’s music, the roughly 40-year old psychedelic rock band played some of their earlier songs—among them Money and Dark Side of the Moon—that were popular in the early ‘70’s to an audience of the ‘90’s. That the same music played so well to an audience that’s crossed the threshold of a new millennium is further proof of Pink Floyd’s ability to leave its imprint on every generation it touches.

Screw 'em!

Early last week, a young entrepreneur paid 20 people $200 each to wait in line until Friday, when the Sony PlayStation 3 went on sale, so that each of them could make a purchase on his behalf. His goal was to acquire as many PlayStations as possible so that he could resell them, at a profit, on e-Bay. It was his way of getting around the store’s one unit-per-person policy.

On Saturday, the high-tech toys were reported to be selling on e-Bay for as much as $3500. That’s one hell of a markup from the $600 retail price.

Now, some would argue that the entrepreneur’s game plan was just smart business, but I beg to differ; it’s not nearly as much smart business as it is bad ethics. By hoarding 20 machines for himself, he prevented 20 people with more legitimate reasons for owning a machine from buying one. He caused 20 others, who can accurately be described as having an abundance of money and a shortage of patience and good sense, to pay prices far in excess of retail value.

If ticket scalping is illegal, why isn’t profiteering on merchandise illegal, too? The differences between the two are indistinguishable. But, hey! I guess the entrepreneur in question was merely adhering to one of capitalism’s inviolate rules: Buy low, and sell high—no matter whom you screw!