The iPINIONS Journal

The Colts are favored to win. But I’m betting on the Saints not only to beat the 5-point spread but to actually win in an upset reminiscent of the 1969 Jets’ win over the then Baltimore Colts. Though, frankly, I can’t imagine anyone, except die-hard Colts fans, not praying for the Saints to provide this miraculous outcome for the Katrina-ravaged people of New Orleans.

[NFL Championship Sunday: Favre intercepted ... again, TIJ, January 25, 2010]

The Game

What can I say….

Hell, I was so convinced the Saints were going to win that I informed my brother, an Ordained Bishop, that the Lord was going to get more converts for inviting them into Super Bowl heaven than he could get from a thousand religious crusades. 

And it was clear they were going to go marching all the way in after they won that onside kick to open the second half.  But Lance Moore’s spectacular two-point-conversion catch from Drew Brees midway through the 4th (to give the Saints a 24 to 17 lead) really clinched it. Enough said!

Except that, given the prevailing national sympathy with the people of Haiti, Colts fans should derive some consolation from the fact that Haitian wider receiver Pierre Garcon scored the first touchdown of the game. Of course, Haiti could not lose in this respect given that its claims Stanley Arnoux of the Saints as a native son too.

The Entertainment

Queen Latifah’s performance of “America the Beautiful” was awful!  Perhaps it had something to do with her earpiece popping out.  

But not since Whitney Huston performed the “Star Spangled Banner” at Super Bowl XXV has anyone performed it as well as Carrie Underwood did tonight. She was really that good.

Unfortunately, the Who not only looked, but even sounded like a group of grumpy, dirty old men. Their half-time performance was a snooze. 

Alas, this is what the lingering national trauma over a peek at Janet Jackson’s right, nipple-pierced boob (yes, I remember it vividly) has wrought:

Me: Next year they’ll be favouring us with a half-time performance by the Monkeys.
The Bishop: The who?
Me: No, the Monkeys! …

The Commercials

I was so nervous after the Saints’ slow start, and the Colts’ quick score that I didn’t even notice the most controversial spot of the night was airing until I saw Tim Tebow at the end. But pro-Choice activists must have been smoking crack when they deemed this a rabid anti-abortion commercial. It was fine, even if misplaced.

(Incidentally, the Bishop calmed my nerves by reminding that the Lord saith that the race is not given to the swift nor to the strong, but to he that endures to the end.)

My pick for best commercial goes to the Doritos spot featuring a dog wearing a shock-therapy, anti-barking collar.  Its riff on the man-bites-dog anomaly - with the dog placing the collar on the guy who was teasing him with the Doritos - was hysterical. But the fact that it also conveyed a subtle message about cruelty to animals (think Michael Vick) made it priceless.

The bit with Jay, Oprah and David gets honorable mention only because of the dramatic and funny real-life controversy behind it. And the picture of the three of them sitting on a couch watching the game in this context was as poignant as it was pithy.  I just wonder why they couldn’t have worked Conan into the spot…

But am I the only one who was thoroughly disgusted by all of those fat, pasty white folks walking around in their underwear for the Career Builders commercial?

And Dockers must have died when their $3 million spot, featuring more ugly men walking around in their underwear, followed right after this one.  (I suppose this is what happens when one big ad agency runs out of ideas….)

How ’bout them Saints, eh!!!

Related commentaries:
NFL Championship Sunday…

* The commentary was published originally last night at 10:47 pm

Today, 10 Baptist missionaries from the United States were formally charged with conspiracy and child kidnapping for allegedly trying to abscond from Haiti with 33 children.

They were arrested a week ago today while crossing the border between Haiti and the Dominican Republic.  The missionaries claim that all of the children were left homeless, and in some cases orphaned, by the January 12 earthquake. And that they had proper authorization - such as could be granted by Haiti’s fractured government.

Yet they now face 5 to 15 years in prison and remain in custody pending further determination by an investigative judge; i.e., no bail!

But, even for Haiti, this is surreal:

First and foremost, instead of inciting moral indignation, this story fills me with hope. After all, if law enforcement in Haiti is already functioning well enough to apprehend white-collar criminals, this must auger well for Haiti’s rapid recovery.

It’s just too bad the police do not appear to be doing as good a job of arresting the violent criminals who are preying on the millions of displaced women and children now living in tent cities all over Haiti.

Then there’s the almost farcical scene of these missionaries in court pleading that they were engaged in the work of the Lord, not in child trafficking.  

But am I the only one who thinks it’s crazy that these folks are being prosecuted for attempting to whisk 33 kids off to a better life when there are probably a thousand times that many desperately wishing, waiting for that opportunity…?

Whatever the case, this story is an unfortunate distraction; not least because the international media are now focusing far more on the fate of these 10 missionaries than on the fate of 10 million Haitians.

Frankly, this judge would be well-advised to release these missionaries on humanitarian grounds ASAP - recognizing the good, even if misguided, intentions of the defendants, as well as the overriding welfare of the Haitian people. 

That judge can free you but he can also continue to hold you for further proceedings.

This, according to Reuters, is the damoclean hope the prosecutor offered the missionaries at their hearing yesterday. I have to think, though, that the judge will find in fairly short order that the dysfunctional nature of life in Haiti alone raises reasonable doubts about their guilt. 

In any case, the charge of child trafficking becomes patently absurd when one considers that the missionaries had parental consent (in some cases); and moreover, that they were involved in trying to help poor Haitian children long before it became fashionable. 

Not to mention that even if they were tried and convicted, former President Bill Clinton, who is now the de facto leader of that country, would procure an immediate pardon. This is, after all, the roving American ambassador who flew all the way to North Korea to procure the release of just two Americans who were convicted on equally dubious charges.

So, point made: Haitian children are not for sale! And a religious calling to “save the children” does not confer the right to circumvent the laws of poor, earthquake-ravaged Haiti to do so.

Now, for the sake of their country, I hope foolish pride does not prevent Haitian authorities from disposing of this case with dispatch.

NOTE: Many people are accusing these missionaries of cultural and religious arrogance. But I’ll bet that these are the same people who praised Madonna for taking kids from their poor parents in Malawi by promising that she could give them a better life - complete with Kabbalah indoctrination no doubt. 

Related commentaries:
Haiti’s Three Rs: Relief, Recovery, and Reconstruction

* This commentary was originally published yesterday morning and updated last night

Western leaders have made a mockery of their condemnation of the brutal crackdown on Tibetan monks by heeding China’s warning against meeting with the Dalai Lama in any official capacity.  In fact, UK Prime Minister Gordon Brown appeased the Chinese by barring him from No. 10, agreeing instead to meet only in private at the residence of the Archbishop of Canterbury. This enabled Brown to claim that he was meeting the Dalai Lama “in a spiritual rather than political capacity.”

[Punishing China for its brutal crackdown on Tibet? Hardly..., TIJ, July 28, 2008]

As this opening quote indicates, the Chinese can be forgiven for thinking that even President Obama would heed its extraterritorial directive against meeting with Tibetan spiritual leader, the Dalai Lama.  And they were undoubtedly emboldened earlier this year when Obama appeared to be doing just that when he snubbed the Dalai Lama on the eve of his first state visit to China.

His spokesman, Robert Gibbs, insists that Obama’s meeting with the Dalai Lama was always scheduled for later in the year… Far more credible is that Obama is snubbing the Tibetan leader because the Chinese would consider such a meeting ahead of his state visit to China next month an insult. And frankly, given the unprecedented and unparalleled power China now has to affect the economic and geopolitical interests of the United States, appeasing the Chinese to this degree seems far more prudent than pusillanimous.

[Obama upsetting liberals, appeasing China?! Calm down folks, TIJ, October 6, 2009]

But the day of reckoning on this directive for Obama, as well as the Chinese, is drawing nigh.  For when the White House announced yesterday that Obama intends to welcome the Dalai Lama later this month, the Chinese reacted variously like an angry parent disciplining a willful child and a loan shark dealing with a delinquent debtor:

A meeting would be totally at odds with international accepted practices and would seriously undermine the political basis of Sino-US relations … If the U.S. leader chooses this time to meet the Dalai Lama, that would damage trust and cooperation between our two countries, and how would that help the United States surmount the current economic crisis?

(Zhu Weiqun, the Communist Party official in charge of enforcing China’s global effort to marginalize the Dalai Lama)

I applaud Obama for calling their bluff.  Not least because any real attempt to squeeze the US financially would amount to an unprecedented case of cutting off one’s nose to spite one’s face. After all, the US market is even more indispensable to China’s economic growth than China’s credit is to the US’s.

Meanwhile, the Dalai Lama today, but who knows what extraterritorial directive the Chinese might issue pursuant to their perceived national interest tomorrow…?  Moreover, consider for a moment what passive-aggressive hegemony they have in mind if they already presume that they can dictate who the president of the United States invites to the White House….

(Incidentally, I believe China has a right to exercise a sphere of military influence over Taiwan based on the same principle (such as it was) that entitled the US to do so over Cuba during the 1962 missile crisis.  And I fully expect that, despite commitments under the Taiwan Relations Act (TRA) to defend Taiwan, if (or in fact when) push comes to shove, the US will defer to China over Taiwan just as the Soviet Union deferred to the US over Cuba.)

All the same, this episode should serve as a warning to all countries around the world that are not just lapping up China’s largesse, but are heralding it as a more worthy superpower than the United States. Because if the Chinese can spit such imperious and vindictive fire at the US over a relatively insignificant matter like meeting the Dalai Lama, just imagine what they  would do to a less powerful country in a conflict over a truly significant matter. 

I anticipated that the Chinese would be every bit as arrogant in the use of their power as the Americans.  But I never thought they would use it for such an irrational and plainly unwinnable cause. 

In point of fact here, in part, is how I admonished countries in the Caribbean and Latin America in this respect almost five years ago:

What happens if China decides that it is in its strategic national interest to convert the container ports, factories and chemical plants it has funded throughout the Caribbean into dual military and commercial use? Would these governments comply? Would they have any real choice? And when they do comply, would the US then blockade the entire region - as it blockaded Cuba during the missile crisis? Now, consider China making such strategic moves in Latin America where its purportedly benign Yuan diplomacy dwarfs its Caribbean operations. This new Cold War could then turn very hot indeed….

[China buying up political dominion, TIJ, February 22, 2005]

But God help us all if China is drawing moral and political equivalence between its beef with the US over the Dalai Lama and the US’s beef with it over internet espionage, unfair trade practices, and support for indicted war criminals like President Bashir of Sudan. Because irrational self-pity in a regional menace like North Korea is one thing;  in a global power like China it’s quite another.

Still, when all of the chest-thumping and saber-rattling are done, I am confident that cooler heads will act to prevent a trade war between the US and China pursuant to the same principle that prevented war between the US and the Soviet Union:  the sobering and inescapable recognition that it would only lead to mutually assured destruction; i.e., it would be MAD!

Related commentaries:
Punishing China…Hardly
Obama upsetting liberals
China buying dominion over Caribbean
Tibet - China’s Buddhist intifada…

After the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) published a report last Friday, which zealous environmentalists are now touting as “the final word on global warming”, I felt obliged to respond…

The way the findings in this report are being proselytized begs allusions to the Holy Bible. It is ironic, though, that some renowned scientists (including Dr Tim Ball - Chairman of the Natural Resources Stewardship and Dr Richard Lindzen - Alfred P. Sloan Professor of Meteorology at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology) are dismissing this IPCC report with the same intellectual derision with which secular humanists dismiss the Holy Bible…

[G]lobal warming and cooling are natural phenomena that have occurred in (30 to 40 thousand-year) cycles since the beginning of time… Believers in global warming are uninformed, fad-obsessed herds being led by a cadre of myopic media and political elite…

I could not be more indignant at rich environmentalists who seek absolution for their environmental sins by “purchasing carbon credits or offsets” in the same spirit with which Catholics once sought absolution for their moral sins by purchasing Papal indulgences.  

[Mother Nature makes UN report on global warming seem like flaming hoax, TIJ, April 12, 2007]

These excerpts are from a commentary I published almost three years ago.  Back then, I’m obliged to note, the orthodoxy of global warming was such that I got branded a veritable heretic for not only questioning, but actually ridiculing the purported scientific findings upon which this orthodoxy is based.

Trust me, I have the scars to show from the metaphorical flogging and stoning I took. But that was then. For recent revelations are causing a pandemic of doubt even among the most devoted believers in the IPCC’s report, which most famously provided the script for Al Gore’s cult classic, An Inconvenient Truth.

First Climate-gate exposed emails in which scientists from the Climate Research Unit (CRU) at the University of East Anglia - who conducted much of the research for this now infamous 2007 IPCC report - are clearly conspiring to manipulate data to hide the fact that there’s more evidence of global cooling than warming.

Research in some areas of climate science has been and is full of machination, conspiracies and collusion, as any reader can interpret from the CRU files… The scientific debate has been in many instances hijacked to advance other agendas.

(Eduardo Zorita, an expert in European climate trends)

Then a January 23, 2010 article in the Times of London cast doubts on almost all of the IPCC’s most important findings.  For example, the report, which won the IPCC and Al Gore the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize, found that “the probability of Himalayan glaciers disappearing by the year 2035 and perhaps sooner is very high.” But according to the Times:

It emerged last week that the forecast was based not on a consensus among climate change experts, but on a media interview with a single Indian glaciologist in 1999.

Even worse, this article continued as follows:

[The IPCC report] says the total area of Himalyan glaciers ‘will likely shrink from the present 500,000 to 100,000 square kilometers by the year 2035′. There are only 33,000 square kilometers of glaciers in the Himalayas.

Now comes an article in the most recent edition of The Sunday Telegraph of London which reveals that some of the IPCC’s findings weren’t based on any scientific research at all. 

Instead, the scientists who authored this critical section of the report evidently relied, alternatively, on “anecdotal evidence from mountaineers about the changes they were witnessing on the mountainsides around them,” which were published in a climbers magazine; and on a dissertation by a geography student at the University of Berne in Switzerland.

And in a late-breaking development, the Guardian is reporting today that the head of the beleaguered CRU, Professor Phil Jones, clearly tried to hide flaws in the data on which his climate change findings were based.

These revelations, as well as others, finally forced the head of the IPCC, Dr Rajendra Pachauri, to concede that:

There may have been other errors in the same section of the report, and said that he was considering whether to take action against those responsible.

All the same, there’s a crescendo among politicians and scientists alike calling for Dr Pachauri to resign. And those calls will only grow louder given reports in recent days that, despite his denials, he knew of the errors and did nothing to correct them; and, more damning, that he used the report to win hundreds of thousands in grants. But he remains defiant:

I know a lot of climate sceptics are after my blood, but I’m in no mood to oblige them.

Of course, any self-respecting scientists who contributed in any way could be forgiven for wanting to disassociate from Dr Pachauri as well as this IPCC report and its now tarnished Nobel.  In fact, here is how Professor Richard Tol of the Economic and Social Research Institute in Dublin, Ireland did just that:

Why did they do this? It is quite astounding … it is illustrative of how sloppy Working Group Two (the panel of experts within the IPCC responsible for drawing up this section of the report) has been.

Yet, according to The Sunday Telegraph, a survey of the 400 authors and contributors to the IPCC report found that a majority not only stand by it but still support Dr Pachauri and his panel of agenda-driven climate-change scribes.

But redemption for the IPCC might still come from the efforts of other scientists who are driven more by the science than politics of global warming.  Here, for example, is the constructive insight Roger Sedjo, a senior research fellow at the US research organisation Resources for the Future, shared on this embarrassing spectacle … fraud:

The IPCC is, unfortunately, a highly political organisation with most of the secretariat bordering on climate advocacy. It needs to develop a more balanced and indeed scientifically sceptical behaviour pattern. The organisation tend to select the most negative studies ignoring more positive alternatives.

I fear, however, that the IPCC will only be redeemed if melting glaciers defy God’s Rainbow Covenant and cause another flood of Biblical proportions. 

In the meantime, these revelations should compel the Nobel Committee to revoke the IPCC’s, as well as Al Gore’s, Nobel Prize. Although, with British MPs calling for criminal prosecutions, Dr Pachauri, Prof Jones and others clearly have far more to worry about than professional humiliation.

They are not merely bad scientists - they are crooks. And crooks who have perpetrated their crimes at the expense of British and U.S. taxpayers.

(Lord Christopher Monckton, Science and Public Policy Institute, Chief Policy Advisor)

Related commentaries:
… UN report on global warming
Gore and IPCC win Nobel Prize
Climate-gate…
Copenhagen: more hot air but no binding agreement

Beyoncé was hot!

I’m not sure why people are so gaga over Lady Gaga. 

Ironically, her costume-heavy act probably never looked so “been there, done that” as when she came out for a somber duet with Elton John, who - as we all know - elevated the spectacle of theatrics over talent to its zenith 25 years ago.  

Maybe, like Elton, she will come to realize someday that her talent alone is enough to make her superstar - cuz the girl can sing…. Speaking of which, whatever happened to Nora Jones?

But Beyoncé was hot!

Like Jay Leno, Steven Colbert proved that he’s not funny at all in prime time.  His opening bit sucked!  Perhaps one had to be a father to get the cutesy repartee with his daughter - who did the worst job of looking like an embarrassed teenager ever. Hell, she looked and acted more like an eager Hannah Montana understudy.

But Beyoncé was hot!

Having seen Cirque du Soleil, all I can say is that Pink should spare us the acrobatics and work on her singing….

But Beyoncé was hot!

Who knew Jamie Fox could sing Opera…?  His gig featuring Slash and T-Pain was easily the highlight performance of the night. (With all due respect to the belated and overly hyped Grammy debut of Bon Jovi: 3 friggin song?! Puhleeeese!)

But Beyoncé was hot!

Wyclef Jean gave an appropriately jubilant pitch for Haiti.  And I was pleasantly surprised to hear Mary J. Blige hold her own in a duet with Andrea Bocelli, singing a Bridge Over Troubled Water as a “Song for Haiti.”  It’s just too bad that I kept waiting for Blige to stop in the middle of their performance to cuss out her band again the way she did so notoriously the night before at a command performance for Clive Davis.

I really like Taylor Swift. But poor thing: last year she was rudely upstaged by Kanye West, this year she was properly upstaged by Stevie Nicks. (Of course, only an impressionable young thing like Taylor would think it’s a good idea to sing Rhiannon in a duet with Stevie.)  But kudos to Taylor for winning four Grammys, including the most coveted one of the evening, best album of the year!

But Beyoncé was hot!

I should have known when I heard that Celine Dion would be leading the all-star 3D salute to Michael Jackson that it would not be worth waiting for. And it wasn’t; not least because, having heard Michael sing Earth Song,  his homage to Mother Earth, Kerry Underwood, Jennifer Hudson and even Usher sounded like, well, American Idol wannabes trying to mimic him.  

Just goes to show what a great singer/performer MJ was…. 

But does anyone still believe those lily-white kids who accepted his Lifetime Achievement Award are really Michael’s biological children? 

Nothing is more pathetic than watching his siblings on TV going on about how they look just like Michael - oblivious to the fact that cosmetically shaped features, bleached skin and wigged locks cannot be inherited.

Never mind the patent exploitation of traipsing them out like performing MJ mascots. Indeed, given the extremes to which he went to keep them off camera, Michael must be rolling over in his grave.

But Beyoncé was hot! 

Curiously enough, it seems Maxwell lost a little of his grove when he chopped off his dreadlocks; but poor Roberta Flack, she has injected so much botox that she could barely mouth the words to her classic, Where is the love.

Having said all that, I’m sure Travis Barker, Lil Wayne, Drake and Eminem were the bomb!  It’s just too bad so much of their performance was bleeped for profanity…. But truth be told, Eminem proved again last night why he’s easily the best rapper in the game - and not just for a white boy….

But Beyoncé was hot!

And she won the most Grammys too, six, including best song of the year.  This was the most Grammys ever won by a female in one night.  Way to go Bey!

NOTE: Of course Beyoncé always exudes boundless sexual energy (something Sasha Fierce) during her performances. And she was on top of her game tonight. 

But here’s a tip for all of you wannabe Beyoncés out there:  I’m sure the reason I found her so particularly hot tonight is that I saw for the first time - during an extended interview on a pre-Grammy broadcast of 60 Minutes - how poised, articulate and disarmingly intelligent she is.

We men are often accused of being dick heads. But, with some of us, the one below will show no interest unless you can appeal to the one above.

Now I lay me down to sleep….

Technology’s Commandments … 

(according to Apple)

 Thou shall buy a Mac

Thou shall buy an iPod

Thou shall buy an iPhone

Thou shall buy an iPad…

Somehow I’m managing to get by without obeying any of them.

In this day and age when being famous for being famous is a consummation so devoutly to be wished, it is probably hard to imagine anyone becoming famous for not wanting to be famous.  But this latter phenomenon, in a nutshell, can serve as an epitaph for J.D. Salinger.

His ironic, if not iconic, fame stems of course from the publication of his 1951 novel The Catcher in the Rye. Like most people my age, I read it in high school.

But, honestly, what I remember most about this book was thinking back then how odd it was that my teacher would assign a book that reads like a sojourn through the sex-addled mind of an alienated, angst-ridden, rebellious 1950s teenager.  I’m not sure what lesson she was hoping to teach, but it was probably completely lost on this 1970s teenager.  Because, for so many reasons, I simply could not relate….

If reading it was no longer a rite of passage when you were in high school, and you’ve never bothered to read it, just imagine your teacher assigning the viewing of Ferris Bueller’s Day Off for literary or cultural insight. 

It is a curious thing, though, that so many people claim to have related to this novel; after all, you’d think that the “cool kids” would have seen in Holden all of the poor saps they picked on in school.  So why their coming of age problems became required reading had to have been a mystery. Imagine what a loser you had to be to pay for sex and not only fail to get laid, but end up with a fat lip….

All the same, this novel has reportedly sold 65 million copies, and continues to sell hundreds of thousands each year.  No doubt the mystery surrounding Salinger’s doggedly reclusive life fueled sales. (Never mind that his reclusiveness might’ve had something to do with wanting to conceal his predilection for teenage literary groupies….)

You could be forgiven for thinking, though, that he never wrote another novel. But he wrote three others - all of which were relatively successful. Moreover, he probably thought all of them were just as good, if not better.

Therefore, it must have been a source of profound humiliation, perhaps even resentment, that none of them came close to matching the critical acclaim and commercial success of Catcher. Why subject one’s talent (and oneself) to a world in which people are too stupid and superficial to appreciate real literary merit, eh?

In fact, his last book was published in 1963. And, according to The Washington Post, no new writing of any kind has been published since a short story appeared in The New Yorker in 1965. This is why I have always regarded him variously as the most notorious sufferer of writer’s block and the most enigmatic literary celebrity of the 20^th century.

Rumors abound that he spent much of his time in seclusion writing as many as 11 masterpieces, all of which remained locked in a vault in manuscript form.  But if his three published, post-Catcher novels proved so forgettable, I’m not sure why anybody thinks these masterpieces, if they exist, would be any better. 

Nevertheless, just as it was with Michael Jackson, Salinger’s death provides a unique (and fleeting) opportunity for the executors of his estate to maximize sales from the release of any new material….

Salinger reportedly died on Wednesday of natural causes.  He was 91.

Here’s to catching little children as they’re about to fall off a cliff….

Farewell J.D.

As speeches go, it was vintage Obama:  hopeful, skillfully drafted, brilliantly delivered (often with a disarming charm), and chuck full of soaring rhetoric.

More importantly, though, he demonstrated why, despite his critics, he’s still America’s (and the world’s) best HOPE for leadership in this age of economic and political transformation. 

In fact, I’m sure the inside-Washington joke was watching well-known Republican partisans get so rapted up in the speech that they were jumping to their feet with unbridled applause. Frankly, this, like most of his speeches, was so flawless, that all I feel worthy to do here is to share some highlights. 

He cited the reasons why he gave himself a B+ for the first year of his presidency:

We cut taxes. We cut taxes for 95 percent of working families. We cut taxes for small businesses. We cut taxes for first-time homebuyers. We cut taxes for parents trying to care for their children. We cut taxes for 8 million Americans paying for college. As a result, millions of Americans had more to spend on gas, and food and other necessities, all of which helped businesses keep more workers. And we haven’t raised income taxes by a single dime on a single person. Not a single dime.

Because of the steps we took, there are about 2 million Americans working right now who would otherwise be unemployed.

He reminded everybody why the country is in the state it’s in:

At the beginning of the last decade, America had a budget surplus of over $200 billion. By the time I took office, we had a one year deficit of over $1 trillion and projected deficits of $8 trillion over the next decade. Most of this was the result of not paying for two wars, two tax cuts and an expensive prescription drug program. On top of that, the effects of the recession put a $3 trillion hole in our budget. That was before I walked in the door.

He heralded a new era of fiscal responsibility:

Starting in 2011, we are prepared to freeze government spending for three years. Spending related to our national security, Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security will not be affected. But all other discretionary government programs will. Like any cash-strapped family, we will work within a budget to invest in what we need and sacrifice what we don’t. And if I have to enforce this discipline by veto, I will.

He positioned his administration squarely on the side of Main Street versus Wall Street:

Some are frustrated; some are angry. They don’t understand why it seems like bad behavior on Wall Street is rewarded but hard work on Main Street isn’t… I supported the last administration’s efforts to create the financial rescue program. And when we took the program over, we made it more transparent and accountable. As a result, the markets are now stabilized, and we have recovered most of the money we spent on the banks.

To recover the rest, I have proposed a fee on the biggest banks. I know Wall Street isn’t keen on this idea, but if these firms can afford to hand out big bonuses again, they can afford a modest fee to pay back the taxpayers who rescued them in their time of need.

He focused on creating new jobs:

We can put Americans to work today building the infrastructure of tomorrow… There are projects like that [high speed rail] all across this country that will create jobs and help our nation move goods, services and information… We should put more Americans to work building clean energy facilities and give rebates to Americans who make their homes more energy efficient, which supports clean energy jobs. 

The House has passed a jobs bill that includes some of these steps. As the first order of business this year, I urge the Senate to do the same. People are out of work. They are hurting. They need our help. And I want a jobs bill on my desk without delay.

He reiterated his push for a new age, green economy:

I know that there are those who disagree with the overwhelming scientific evidence on climate change. But even if you doubt the evidence, providing incentives for energy efficiency and clean energy are the right thing to do for our future - because the nation that leads the clean energy economy will be the nation that leads the global economy. And America must be that nation.

He declared his bloodied but unbowed determination to pass health insurance reform:

I did not choose to tackle this issue to get some legislative victory under my belt. And by now it should be fairly obvious that I didn’t take on health care because it was good politics.

I took on health care because of the stories I’ve heard from Americans with pre-existing conditions whose lives depend on getting coverage, patients who’ve been denied coverage and families - even those with insurance - who are just one illness away from financial ruin…. I take my share of the blame for not explaining it more clearly to the American people…

There’s a reason why many doctors, nurses and health care experts who know our system best consider this approach a vast improvement over the status quo. But if anyone from either party has a better approach that will bring down premiums, bring down the deficit, cover the uninsured, strengthen Medicare for seniors and stop insurance company abuses, let me know. Here’s what I ask of Congress, though: Do not walk away from reform. Not now. Not when we are so close.

He had relatively little to say about the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan or about the global war against terrorism. 

Throughout our history, no issue has united this country more than our security. Sadly, some of the unity we felt after 9/11 has dissipated. We can argue all we want about who’s to blame for this, but I am not interested in relitigating the past. I know that all of us love this country. All of us are committed to its defense. So let’s put aside the schoolyard taunts about who is tough.

As we take the fight to al-Qaida, we are responsibly leaving Iraq to its people. As a candidate, I promised that I would end this war, and that is what I am doing as president. We will have all of our combat troops out of Iraq by the end of this August…  But make no mistake: This war is ending, and all of our troops are coming home.

He chastised the Bush-dominated Supreme Court:

Last week, the Supreme Court reversed a century of law to open the floodgates for special interests - including foreign corporations - to spend without limit in our elections. Well, I don’t think American elections should be bankrolled by America’s most powerful interests, or worse, by foreign entities. They should be decided by the American people, and that’s why I’m urging Democrats and Republicans to pass a bill that helps to right this wrong.

He reserved his most ennobling flourish for a frontal assault on the partisan politics that has turned Washington into a schoolyard of bickering do-nothings:

Now, I am not naive. I never thought the mere fact of my election would usher in peace, harmony and some post-partisan era… But what frustrates the American people is a Washington where every day is election day. We cannot wage a perpetual campaign where the only goal is to see who can get the most embarrassing headlines about their opponent - a belief that if you lose, I win. Neither party should delay or obstruct every single bill just because they can.

But it is precisely such politics that has stopped either party from helping the American people. Worse yet, it is sowing further division among our citizens and further distrust in our government.  So no, I will not give up on changing the tone of our politics.

To Democrats, I would remind you that we still have the largest majority in decades, and the people expect us to solve some problems, not run for the hills. And if the Republican leadership is going to insist that 60 votes in the Senate are required to do any business at all in this town, then the responsibility to govern is now yours as well. Just saying no to everything may be good short-term politics, but it’s not leadership.

Finally, he put the challenges to deliver on Change people can believe in into perspective:

I campaigned on the promise of change - change we can believe in, the slogan went. And right now, I know there are many Americans who aren’t sure if they still believe we can change - or at least, that I can deliver it. But remember this - I never suggested that change would be easy or that I can do it alone…

Our administration has had some political setbacks this year and some of them were deserved. But I wake up every day knowing that they are nothing compared to the setbacks that families all across this country have faced this year. And what keeps me going - what keeps me fighting - is that despite all these setbacks, that spirit of determination and optimism - that fundamental decency that has always been at the core of the American people - lives on…

We don’t quit. I don’t quit. Let’s seize this moment - to start anew, to carry the dream forward, and to strengthen our union once more.

Hell, his speech was so good that when he was done, I felt like smoking a cigarette ... and I don’t even smoke.  But that’s Obama the smooth talker for you:

After all, as even his liberal friends at Saturday Night Live lampooned recently, despite talking up a transformative global agenda, he has precious little to show for it.  And this will only provide more fodder for his critics who already ridicule him as all talk and no action.

[Obama awarded (Affirmative Action) Nobel Peace Prize, TIJ, October 10, 2009]

But don’t take my word for it. Here’s the cold water The New York Times has thrown on all of the swooning going on over this speech:

By the end of his first year in office, they had expected to have overhauled the health care system, enacted a market-based cap on carbon emissions blamed for climate change, imposed a new regulatory system on financial institutions, closed the prison at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, and signed a new arms control treaty with Russia. None of those have happened….

So, time to put up or shut up Obama! Because no matter how many taxes you cut and how many jobs you “save,” unless you can check off, at the very least, healthcare reform and jobs created on your report card, voters will give you a F instead of that B+ in 2012….

Related commentaries:
Obama awarded Nobel Peace Prize

This alleged crime occurred on a small island Copperfield bought from the Bahamian government last year; which he has magically transformed into a bohemian paradise called Musha Cay… One can certainly understand why this woman probably assumed that he was immune to criminal charges there, and why he probably presumes that what Copperfield wants on Musha Cay, Copperfield takes…

It also allows Copperfield to cover up whatever sex crime he may have committed by arguing - with professional indignation - that everything that happens on his island is pure illusion…by design (and implied consent)! Just kidding folks

[Copperfield accused of rape?! Maybe it was just an illusion, TIJ, October 23, 2007]

This, in part, is the tongue-in-cheek way I commented on the sensational allegation of rape that  Lacey L. Carroll filed against illusionist David Copperfield in 2007.  And, as you can probably well imagine, I was raked over the coals by the sisterhood of surfing feminists for it.

I am not in the habit of making light of such allegations of course. But there were so many inconsistencies in her story that making allusions to Copperfield’s art of illusion seemed appropriate.

For example, even if he graduated from the same school of bimbo management as Tiger Woods, I did not believe that Copperfield would have offered her $2 million, as she claimed, to buy her silence; and, more to the point, I did not believe that she would have rejected it if he did….

Now it seems that my take on her allegation has been vindicated by a report in Tuesday’s Seattle Times, which read in part as follows:

The 23-year-old model who has accused magician David Copperfield of rape is now facing misdemeanor charges of prostitution and filing a false report after she allegedly tried to solicit $2,000 for sex from a man in Bellevue. The charges were filed Tuesday by the Bellevue City Prosecutor’s Office against Lacey L. Carroll of Kirkland, who represented the City of Kirkland and was first runner-up in the 2010 Miss Washington USA pageant.

On Dec. 2, the pair rented a room at the Hotel Bellevue. Inside the room, the two engaged in a sex act until the woman allegedly told him, ‘put $2,000 in my purse and you can have it all,’ according to the man’s statement to police. When he refused, he said, she left the room. The man told police he went to the lobby and found the woman claiming to hotel staff that she had been ‘taken advantage of.’

No doubt this explains why the FBI and federal prosecutors dropped their investigation into her 2007 claim against Copperfield two weeks ago.

But never mind me, just direct your apologies to Copperfield; because this allegation nearly ruined not only his personal but also his professional reputation.  

Related commentaries:
Copperfield accused of rape…

The same pundits who, just a year ago, were propagating the notion Obama’s historic election signaled the end of the Republican Party as a viable force in American politics. Now they would have you believe that the Brown’s upset election signals the end of the Democratic Party….

[Election of Scott Brown: sound and fury signifying nothing, TIJ, January 20, 2010]

This quote sums up my take on the handwringing and finger-pointing among Democrats on the one hand, and the gloating and chest thumping among Republicans on the other in the wake of last week’s stunning upset victory of Republican Scott Brown to fill the “Democratic Senate seat” vacated by the late Sen Edward Kennedy.

Of course, I expected no more from the partisan hacks who masquerade on Capitol Hill in Washington as this nation’s political leaders. 

But I was profoundly disappointed when even President Obama reacted as if Brown’s election to the Senate signaled every bit as great a transformation in American politics as his election to the White House.  

For nothing made him seem just like the rest of them quite like the way he tried to rationalize the failure of his presidential coattails to take Democratic candidates to victory in gubernatorial races in Virginia and New Jersey, as well as in this Senate race in Massachusetts:

If there’s one thing that I regret this year is that we were so busy just getting stuff done and dealing with the immediate crises that were in front of us that I think we lost some of that sense of speaking directly to the American people about what their core values are and why we have to make sure those institutions are matching up with those values.

(Obama in an interview last week with George Stephanopoulos of ABC)

The only problem with this of course is that the very articulate Obama has spent more time speaking directly to the American people this year than any other president in US history has in the first year of his presidency. In fact, in “Obama’s First Year: By the Numbers,” CBS news documents that he gave 411 speeches, comments and remarks; 158 interviews; 42 news conferences; and 23 Town Hall meetings.

Which begs the question: Just what the hell does Obama think he was talking about all year if not about core values like good jobs and healthcare, and fixing the economy and reforming health insurance coverage to match up with those values?

In fact, only two months into his presidency, he was spending so much time talking to the American people and not enough time getting stuff done that I felt constrained to offer the following cautionary observation:

Researchers have determined that President Obama has made more media appearances at this point in his presidency than any of his predecessors… Critics can be forgiven the impression that he’s doing more to compete with the likes of the “Octomom” and Lindsay Lohan for media coverage than to fix the ailing US economy.

[Is Obama's familiarity breeding contempt...? TIJ, March 25, 2009]

But God help him if he thinks all the American people need is more of his mug on TV talking … at them. Because the one criticism that has really resonated this year is that he’s turning out to be all talk and no action.  And the fact that most Americans would be hard-pressed to cite any of the stuff he was so busy getting done only reinforces this perception. 

Therefore, after he delivers yet another scheduled speech tomorrow night (his State of the Union Address), I urge him to spend less time talking and more time creating jobs, combating terrorism and reforming healthcare.

And, who knows, maybe that absence from TV will allow the American people to rekindle the fondness they had for him a year ago. 

I’d rather be a really good one-term president than a mediocre two-term president.

(Obama in an interview yesterday with Diane Sawyer of ABC News)

In the meantime, though, when he does speak it would help if he is a little more straightforward with the American people instead of saying things that sound good but mean absolutely nothing. For example, he knows full well that any president who has a good (never mind a really good) first term automatically gets a second term; which makes his attempt to seem principled and courageous by declaring no interest in being a mediocre two-term president patently specious. 

That said, what is certain is that, if employment is still languishing over 8 percent in September 2012 (or God forbid, if there’s another 9/11 attack), Obama will be a failed one-term president - fated to be rated even worse than Jimmy Carter. This, no matter what or how many changes he makes in political strategy and White House personnel (with all due respect to David Plouffe).

Related commentaries:
Election of Scott Brown…
Is Obama’s familiarity breeding contempt

I had mixed emotions watching the NFC game. Because on the one hand, I wanted the Packers to win to further vindicate the decision of their elderly quarterback, 38-year-old Brett Favre, to play this season. Especially since virtually every sports writer said his best days were way behind him, and that there was no way he could help his team improve on last year’s 8-8 regular season record.

Therefore, despite their loss on Sunday, which, unfortunately, he aided in part by throwing a critical 4th-quarter interception, Favre should derive considerable consolation from the fact that he led the Packers to a remarkable 13-3 record this year.

[NFL Championship Sunday, January 24, 2008]

This quote confirms the uncanny similarities between the 2008 NFC League Championship Game and yesterday’s, which, interestingly enough, was played two years to the exact day.  The most notable similarity of course is that, against all odds, Brett Favre figured prominently in both.

This year’s game was between the (Hurricane Katrina-inspired) New Orleans Saints and Favre’s new team, the Minnesota Vikings. But, given how improbable it was that he was playing in 2008, that he was even in yesterday’s game was in itself truly remarkable. 

Yet the now 40-year-old Favre was not only on the field; he was easily the most dominant player.  Alas, in the end, this second miracle season turned out to be more Groundhog Day than a day of triumph. 

For, just as it was in 2008, Favre was on the cusp of leading his team to the Super Bowl when he threw another 4th-Quarter interception.

That led to overtime, when the Saints, after winning the coin toss, marched the ball down the field to position their field-goal kicker to take them to the Promised Land with a 40-yard chip.

This 31 to 28 victory paves the way for their first appearance in the Super Bowl in franchise history.

So, just as it was in 2008, Favre ended this storybook season, which really should be his last, with an interception that cost his team the League Championship.   And even though the Vikings had a respectable 12-4 record this year, I doubt Favre will derive any consolation from this at all.

So here’s to his retirement … and for real this time Brett!  But, hey, thanks for the memories man…

Meanwhile, in a rather ho-hum AFC League Championship Game, the seasoned Indianapolis Colts defeated the upstart New York Jets 30 to 17 to earn their second Super Bowl berth in three years, having won Super Bowl XLI in 2007. 

Super Bowl XLIV will be played in Miami on February 7. 

The Colts are favored to win. But I’m betting on the Saints not only to beat the 5-point spread but to actually win in an upset reminiscent of the 1969 Jets’ win over the then Baltimore Colts. Though, frankly, I can’t imagine anyone, except die-hard Colts fans, not praying for the Saints to provide this miraculous outcome for the Katrina-ravaged people of New Orleans.

This should be a very exciting game….

Related commentaries:
NFL League Championship Sunday

NOTE: For my update on Haiti at Caribbean Net News click here

The only fair and equitable way to deal with obese passengers is to require them to purchase two seats - the second one perhaps at half price.

[Bar obese passengers from flying? TIJ, September 11, 2009]

Air France has become the first airline to take up this suggestion for dealing with obese passengers. The airline explained its new policy in a press release yesterday, which read, in part, as follows:

People who arrive at the check-in desk and are deemed too large to fit into a single seat will be asked to pay for and use a second seat. They will be charged 75 per cent of the cost of the second seat.

(Monique Matze, an Air France spokesman)

I have no doubt that other airlines will soon follow suit. 

But when contacted yesterday, British Airways informed reporters that they will only advise fat passengers to buy a second seat “for their own comfort and safety.”

This, of course, is typical of the patronizing, condescending and plainly disingenuous way the British deal with people. After all, everybody knows that the only reason to offer such advice to obese passengers is to ensure the safety and comfort of the passengers who might get smothered sitting next to them.

Related commentary:
Bar obese passengers from flying?

The Late Shift is a dramatization of the behind-the-scenes machinations that led to Jay Leno instead David Letterman taking over The Tonight Show in 1992; notwithstanding that Johnny Carson clearly wanted Letterman to succeed him.

After watching this movie in 1996, I became convinced that far too much of Leno’s public persona as ”America’s male sweetheart” is as phony as Tiger’s public persona as a faithful husband has turned out to be. 

Leno is portrayed as a sniveling, whining, back-stabbing, self-righteous jerk.  And he has only validated this portrayal by the way he has conducted himself on camera during this most-recent late shift at NBC.

For example, on Tuesday night I watched in utter stupefaction as he sat behind his desk and delivered a deadly serious “state of the network speech,” which he laced with this patently disingenuous plea: “don’t blame Conan O’Brien … don’t blame Conan” for the late-night mess at NBC.  After all, as Letterman pointed out, “nobody, but nobody is blaming Conan.” 

In fact, most people are blaming Jay for pushing Conan out today just as he pushed Dave out in 1992.  But he’s just too self-righteous to get it….

Though, let me hasten to note here that I am not particularly sympathetic to any of the multimillionaires involved in this public spat over who gets what show at what time. After all, Conan is getting a $33 million severance, and Jay will be getting even more to move back to The Tonight Show at 11:30 after failing spectacularly with his prime time show at 10.

And am I the only one who finds the jokes Jay and Conan have been telling every night about their NBC bosses just spineless and trite? Frankly, this is like government workers poking fun at the faceless bureaucrats who are their bosses. And, just for the record, Conan might be a terrific comedy writer, but he sucks as a standup comedian and talk-show host.

Far more interesting has been the zingers Jay and David have been trading across networks about each other’s personal life: 

Hey Kev, you wanna know how to get David Letterman to ignore you?  Marry him!

Which convinces me that there’s still a lot of bad blood between them from that late shift over 17 years ago.

Meanwhile, it is a curious thing that celebrities, who famously tweet about all things private and public these days, have been so conspicuous by their silence on this spat; fearful, no doubt, about being blacklisted from these shows.

The notable exception is the liberated Rosie O’Donnell.  Then again, if she had the balls to take on the Hollywood whale - by commenting on the Sapphic nature of Oprah’s relationship with her gal pal Gayle - then commenting on this spat is rather like beating up a baby seal….  

At any rate, here’s how she summed up this winter of discontent at NBC:

It was a really crappy move on Leno’s part. Conan moved his family across the country and his entire staff to get a shot at what he worked 17 years for only to get it taken away by the bully on the playground who doesn’t want to let go.

That’s a wrap!

Tonight, Democrat Martha Coakley suffered a stunning defeat by Republican Scott Brown in a special election to fill the Senate seat vacated by the late Sen Edward Kennedy. 

Stunning, of course, because Massachusetts is a heavily Democratic state that Obama won by 26 points over John McCain in the 2008 presidential election.  And, despite the well-documented shortcomings of Coakley’s campaign, it was generally expected that she would win this “Democratic seat” that Kennedy held for 47 years almost by acclamation. 

Brown’s victory will change the Democratic majority in the US Senate from 60-40 to 59-41. But listening to political pundits you’d think that he alone now holds the power not only to defeat Obama’s policy agenda, most notably healthcare reform, but also to render him a failed one-term president.  But nothing could be further from the truth.

These pundits are propagating the notion that Obama needs 60 Democratic votes in the Senate to enact progressive legislation.  Yet this is belied by the fact that President Clinton amassed a pretty impressive legislative record not only with a smaller Democratic majority of 56-44 during his first term, but even as an impeached president with a Democratic minority of 55-45 during his second term.

I appreciate, of course, that political strategy today is informed by such reflexive and visceral thinking that even Democratic leaders seem clueless about these instructive (and reassuring) precedents.  But acting as if a minority of 41 Republicans could or should dictate the national agenda is as untenable as it is surreal.

More to the point, though, these pundits know full well that Obama has a number of options at his disposal to pass healthcare reform.  The only question is deciding which one will be most politically palatable to Democratic members of Congress who face uncertain reelection prospects this fall. Especially since many of them are so spooked by Brown’s victory that they’re beginning to sound like Republicans - declaring healthcare reform dead while making patently disingenuous overtures to negotiate a more bipartisan bill.

Never mind the hypocrisy inherent in Brown and Republicans blaming Obama and Democrats for banding together to pass this seminal legislation while they’re all banding together to oppose it. Indeed, am I the only one who finds the hypocrisy of this Republican strategy surpassed only by its self-righteousness…? 

And, does anybody really believe that Republican  ideas for reforming healthcare are any better for America and have a better chance of becoming law than the Democratic ideas now being considered…?  If so, then ask yourself why the Republicans never even attempted to enact any of their ideas when they controlled both the House and Senate during much of George W. Bush’s presidency….

But there they go again: because much of what these pundits are spouting off as insightful and reliable analysis about the state and fate of Obama’s presidency today is essentially the same analysis many of them were proffering about the state and fate of Reagan’s presidency after his first year in office. 

It is also noteworthy that these are the same pundits who, just a year ago, were propagating the notion Obama’s historic election signaled the end of the Republican Party as a viable force in American politics. Now they would have you believe that the Brown’s upset election signals the end of the Democratic Party….

No doubt this is a humiliating defeat for the Democratic Party. And no doubt more than a few of its members will lose their seats in the fall - just as was the case when many members of the Republican Party lost their seats in midterm elections during Reagan’s first term. 

But enough of this inside Washington stuff.  Just rest assured that, in very short order, talk of Brown’s election and the perils it portends for Obama and the Democrats will be reduced to sound and fury signifying nothing. Especially after Obama signs healthcare reform legislation and begins promoting more populist items on his domestic agenda, like creating middle-class job and taxing the profits of rich bankers.

NOTE: Ironically, the only people who might be more disappointed than Democrats by Brown’s win are Republican wannabe presidents like Mitt Romney and Sarah Palin.  Because fickleness and opportunism in politics today are such that it’s only a matter of time before Brown is being hyped for a meteoric rise from the Senate to the White House following the trail blazed by Obama himself.   So, Brown is the new black, eh…?

Google won international praise last week for merely announcing that it intends “to review our business operations in China” after Chinese agents hacked into the Google email accounts of human-rights activists - who are deemed to be enemies of the state.

Meanwhile, far too few pundits are bothering to note that these hackers just did to Google what Google has done to others in China. For, as the price for entry into the lucrative Chinese market, Google followed the compromised path laid by Microsoft and Yahoo by agreeing to spy on the Internet activities of ordinary citizens on behalf of the Chinese government:

How odious and hypocritical that American corporations - after exploiting  democratic freedoms to make their names and untold fortunes - are now collaborating with a totalitarian regime to deny people in the most populous country on earth similar democratic freedoms.

[Yahoo becomes China's most-favored thought police, TIJ, September 12, 2005]

Google made a mockery of its motto: “Don’t Be Evil”… Was its corporate conscience, at long last, predicated upon a cost-benefit analysis for its own bottom line?

[Google adopts...motto of moral relativism, TIJ, January 26, 2006]

Of course, I welcome Google’s belated pang of corporate conscience. But the best I can do is damn it with faint praise.  Because frankly, there’s no escaping the manifest hypocrisy in Google now complaining about  the application of the Golden Rule after striking a Faustian bargain with China.

More importantly, though, Google’s dance with the Devil should serve as a warning to other multinational corporations hoping to exploit the Chinese market.  It should also give pause to all foreign governments that are currying favor with China for financial gain  and even hailing it as a worthy replacement for the US as the world’s only superpower.

Mind you, I’m no apologist for the United States. After all, my commentaries are replete with criticisms of its business-centric domestic policy and egocentric foreign policy, both of which persist even under the transformative presidency of Barack Obama.

But China’s totalitarian rule at home and the wholly mercenary ties it pursues abroad, which includes cuddling a genocidal maniac in Darfur, Sudan, compels me to offer this pithy admonition to those still banking on China:

Better the American Devil we know, than the Chinese Devil we don’t.

I am also acutely mindful that it’s one thing to vow to stop doing business in China, but quite another to do so - as Microsoft has demonstrated so poignantly:

Microsoft’s constrained conscience has caused it such unbearable headaches that, in a dramatic plea for corporate redemption, it has professed its intent to stop doing business not only in China but also ‘in all non-democratic countries.’

[Microsoft vows to leave China to save its soul, TIJ, November 3, 2006]

So hold your praise for Google, and stop holding your breath for Microsoft…

Related commentaries:
Yahoo becomes China’s most-favored thought police
Microsoft vows to leave China to save its soul
Google adopts…motto of moral relativism

I suspect that if Dr Martin Luther King Jr were here today he would be as thrilled as anybody that Barack Obama is the first black president of the United States.

Yet I have no doubt that he would be the first to remind us that we are far from reaching the Promised Land that inspired his prophetic dream. 

Moreover, I have no doubt that Obama himself is all too mindful today that his election is only one small step in the march towards economic and social equality for all Americans.  Indeed, it did not take long for the fatuous notion of a post-racial election to be dispelled.

(Remember, Obama was the only black person in the US Senate; and  white Democratic leaders did all they could to block the swearing in of the black man who was appointed to replace him….)

Nevertheless, it speaks volumes that, of all the great Americans who have ever lived, MLK is the only private citizen to have a federal holiday declared in his honor.  Hell, even Washington and Lincoln have to share one holiday on Presidents Day.  

But today’s holiday is not only a testament to MLK’s greatness but also a symbolic down payment on the promissory note, which represents the unpaid (indeed unpayable) debt America owes the descendants of its former slaves.  

That said:

This is the day which the Lord has made; Let us rejoice and be glad in it.

And I can think of no better way to mark this MLK Holiday than to contribute to the emergency relief effort down in Haiti. 

NOTE: Related commentaries:
Obama inauguration commemorates Lincoln…
Happy MLK Day 2008
Burris finally sworn in to replace Obama in Senate

It is simply heart-rending to watch the images (which I see no point in republishing here) of Haitians living among the dead as they wait for food and water; to say nothing of those waiting for emergency medical treatment or to be rescued before earthquake rubble becomes their tomb.

But this emotion is mollified somewhat by an unprecedented outpouring of support from around the world that easily constitutes the most ennobling affirmation of our shared humanity in my lifetime.  Indeed, to see rescue teams from China, Venezuela, Iceland and other countries practically competing with teams from the United States to save Haitian lives is truly heart-warming.

It’s just so disheartening that earthquake-ravaged roads and the damaged seaport are encumbering not only these time-sensitive rescue missions, but also the delivery of emergency supplies to the tens of thousands who have been without food and water for three days - with the suffering for far too many of them compounded by untreated wounds.

I am convinced, however, that all is being done to execute this relief effort as expeditiously as humanly possible. And I trust it is now plain for the world to see that no country is more willing and able to lead this effort than the United States of America.

Responding to a disaster of this magnitude will require every element of our national capacity: our diplomacy and development assistance, the power of our military and most importantly the compassion of our country … This is one of those moments that call out for American leadership.

(President Barack Obama)

Actually, China, Brazil, Venezuela and France have all made politically opportunistic attempts  to lead this effort.  But the Haitian government endorsed America’s exceptional standing in this respect by granting the US exclusive and indefinite command and control of the airport, which has become the nerve center of this relief effort. 

More to the point, though, the US is not only providing the vast majority of all emergency supplies and financial aid, but an advance team of military forces were already handing out supplies and helping the Haitian police enforce law and order within hours of landing this afternoon. A force of 10,000 US troops is scheduled to be on the ground by Monday….

All the same, the story of this tragedy is the biblical suffering of the Haitian people - who are eating, sleeping, washing and going to the bathroom on the ground where they lay. And with decaying dead bodies all about them, just imagine the stench…. 

Meanwhile, Rev Pat Robertson intruded on the commiserating pathos of their suffering by proselytizing this headline-grabbing religious fable:  

They were under the heel of the French. You know, Napoleon III, or whatever. And they got together and swore a pact to the devil. They said, we will serve you if you’ll get us free from the French. True story. And so, the devil said, okay it’s a deal.

This earthquake, he sermonized, is just the latest installment in the eternal penance Haitians are paying for striking that bargain with the Devil. It is cruel, irresponsible and patently un-Christian of course.  But nothing demonstrates how fallacious it is quite like the fact that only their faith in God has prevented these Haitians from rioting en masse out of sheer despair and frustration.

Unfortunately, recovery and reconstruction will soon test even their faith and long-suffering nature.  Because even though recovery will come within weeks, as tent cities are erected and food and other supplies become readily available, reconstruction will take years.  And as indicated in my related commentary below, I pray that governments that seem so eager to provide emergency aid today do not fail to honor their commitments to help build a Haiti that can sustain itself, govern itself and police itself.

The United States will be working with the Haitian people, their government and other governments in the Western Hemisphere, as well as nongovernmental organizations and the private sector … to rebuild a society that is more durable and more successful in the long run… This is part of the long-term commitment that we have to Haiti.

(Assistant Secretary of State for Public Affairs P.J. Crowley)

Finally, am I the only one who wonders why there’s such a hard drive to get us to donate cash for this effort? Not that I mind, in fact I have.  But this is a once-in-a-lifetime occasion where charity is the currency of the day.  Therefore, the notion that private charities need our cash to purchase supplies seems … inconsistent. 

Why aren’t people like Obama and Clinton getting manufacturers, producers, airlines, et al to donate their supplies and services, and directing our cash contributions towards Haiti’s long-term rebuilding effort…? For example, it only took a little public shaming by government officials to get banks and credit card companies to stop charging processing fees on charitable donations.

NOTE: The Red Cross estimates the death toll at around 50,000; whereas,  Haitian government officials insist that it’s at least 200,000.  In any case, it is bound to rise above 50k given the number of people who remain buried under rubble all over the country. 

But since the greater the number of dead, the greater the amount of cash donations, one can understand why some Haitian officials have estimated the death toll at 500,000. Of course, whether 50k or ten times that number, the tragedy unfolding in Haiti compels us to give whatever we can to support the relief effort.

Related commentaries:
Haiti’s catastrophic earthquake
Rev Pat Robertson’s false prophecies

* This article was originally published on Friday at 9:57 pm