Bathtub in the Road

No, I am not making this up. In traffic reports one recent morning there was word of a rush hour delay because a bathtub was in the road. I've been thinking about it all day. What does it mean to be blocked on your way by a bathtub in the road? It's a powerful metaphor for something. I just don't know what.

This slice of real life comes on the morning after a dream I had. I was digging up a broken sprinkler valve in the front yard. Because the water had been flowing freely it had carved an underground chamber. I was peering into the hole trying to decide how big it was when I saw a light. I looked deeper and saw that the hole expanded into a large cave with smooth concrete floor that ran from my yard to somewhere under the street. Then I saw a man, kind of Mexican looking. I yelled (or tied to yell in that dream-paralyzed state) at him to get out of there and he ran off deeper into the cave. I suddenly knew how they were getting access to my house! Then I woke up.
Perhaps the Mexican living under my street had something to do with the bathtub in the road.

It’s the ideology, Stupid.

It’s the ideology, Stupid. The Republicans have one. The Democrats don’t.

I know what the Republican Ideology is: Smaller Government, Lower Taxes, Fiscal Discipline, Lower Taxes, limited-entitlements, Lower Taxes, Personal Freedom, Lower Taxes, Military Might, Lower Taxes, Higher Security, Lower Taxes, Domination over Consensus in International affairs, Lower Taxes, Good Business Climate, Lower Taxes, Pro Gun, Lower Taxes, Pro Life, Lower Taxes, Anti-Gay, Lower Taxes, Moral Values, Conservative Good, Liberal bad, and Lower Taxes.

Now in practice, the Republicans have completely abandoned any semblance of smaller government and fiscal responsibility. They have embraced costly entitlements, and would sacrifice more personal freedom in the name of security and ‘moral values’ than anything since Jim Crow and Grandfather clauses. So it’s not that they strictly follow the ideology, it’s that they have one.

I can take a stab at the Democrat’s apparent Ideology. Lets see – how about “We’re sort of the same as the Republicans just not as extreme or mean spirited and we most definitely are not Liberal.” Yeah, that’s how to build a base, and formulate a message.

Given that we were not running for anything, but against Bush, without articulating a clear new direction is it any wonder more than half of American voters decided to stay the course? If we had to lose, we should have lost on what we stand for, because we are never going to win by pointing out how far to the right the republicans are and then saying were not that far right.

We need to stop defining ourselves in terms of the Republican’s Ideology, and define ourselves by what we really stand for. We need to reclaim the term ‘liberal’ from the ash heap of political pejoratives and restore is as a proud tradition. A tradition that stands for:
Stewardship of our environment and resources.
Helping those in need of basic human services.
Defending basic human rights.
Preserving rights for the minority.
Expanding rights for the oppressed and disenfranchised.
Investing in sound science for the betterment of all.
Leading the world, not bullying it.
Making America a better place to live and prosper.

Moral Values?

In the Election post mortem, many stated that their biggest reason for voting for George W. Bush was moral values. Moral values? That is just code for outlawing abortion and seeking legal ways to treat gays and lesbians as second class citizens.
What we need is moral courage. Courage to recognize that safe, legal but rarely chosen abortion is the only acceptable balance between the tragic loss of the unborn and the horrific specter of state control over reproductive and health choices. Courage to understand that there are no second class citizens of this country and to stand against any law, policy, or group that says otherwise. Courage to hold dear the separation of Church & State so that we may worship without fear and suffer civil consequences only when we break man's law and not someone's
idea of God's law. Courage to disagree without hate. Courage to act
on principal with understanding rather than on fear with ignorance.
I wonder if anyone claiming to have voted on 'moral values' ever stood
up for anyone other than themselves and those just like them?

Fear

“…the only thing we have to fear is fear itself.” Those reassuring words from FDR were to calm a nation in the throes of an economic depression so deep and so severe that we have no modern day comparison. As much as anything, FDR wanted the optimism and resourcefulness of the people to lift the country out of the mess it was in.

How times have changed. Now our government sponsors fear as a tool to get what it wants over the better judgment of the people. To be sure, there is plenty to be afraid of. But is nursing that fear to support a war or as a pretext to limit our civil liberties really good leadership?

Our most immediate enemy before and after September 11 was terrorism. Secondary to that were the rouge states that could wreck havoc in their corner of the world, and cause all manner of misery, but not likely to cause us much misery directly. Dealing with rogue states requires diplomacy and international consensus. Dealing with terrorism requires resolve, cunning, imagination and an honest look at the root causes. But the current administration has chosen fear. Be so afraid of terrorists, that we disrupt our lives and liberties, be so afraid of rogue states that we start wars.

And while we’ve got the fear thing going, let’s use fear as an instrument of policy advocacy:
Be AFRAID – Allowing gays to marry will destroy your family.
Be AFRAID – Cleaner air and water will cost you your job.
Be AFRAID – Stem cell research will promote abortions.

Please catagorize your fear according to the helpful scale below:



Now the only thing we have to fear, is the use of fear.

Girlie men

Heavy sigh...  Could there be a less offensive mock pejorative that someone actually took offense to then “Girlie Men”?.    

The Quantum Physics of Fat

Obesity is at an epidemic level and there seems to be no end to the blame.  Is it the food industry pushing lucrative but unhealthy choices?  Is it the entertainment industry that has provided too many sedentary choices?  Is it our service based economy that requires physical labor from so few?  Is it pie?  And dare I ask: does the fault lie within us?

No, it’s none of those things.  After slap-dash research I have stumbled upon the source of the obesity epidemic. It’s Physics.   Did you know that we are accelerating?  Our planet, sun, solar system and galaxy are moving away from everything else in the universe at an ever faster rate.  Did you know that acceleration increases mass?  The more an object accelerates the more massive the object becomes.  So even though you have parked your massive butt in a chair and it seems to be doing no accelerating at all, it never-the-less gets more massive.  Your mass is increasing because everything in the Universe (including your butt and the chair it’s parked in) is flying apart at an ever increasing rate of speed.  So it’s not your fault.  It’s a fundamental law of physics.  Have some more pie.