Let’s Have A Beer. . .

It hasn’t happened yet.

But it sounds like it might.

You gotta hope it does.

It would be a beginning, and in a time of so many unpleasant endings, a hopeful beginning would be nice to see.

What we’re talking about is three guys having a beer, except one of the guys is President of the United States, another is a sergeant in the Cambridge, MA police department and the third is a Harvard professor.

For the benefit of those who’ve been on Mars the last several days:

So this late-50s black guy comes home from a trip and finds the front door stuck on the house he rents from Harvard where he’s a widely respected professor. He and the black guy who brought him from the airport force the door.

Someone sees a couple of black guys forcing the door and calls the cops.

Cops arrive and enter the house, asking the professor for explanations. Cops, a black-and-white team, are doing what they’re trained to do. Professor, outraged at being confronted in his own home, raises a fuss and winds up taking a stroll in handcuffs on a charge that’s later dropped.

Activists on both sides howl. Professor’s supporters say this is typical of what being a black man in America is about. Cops, a veteran salt-and-pepper duo, say they were just doing their job, which doesn’t include being loudly dissed. Things might have cooled but the President give a news conference on health care and gets asked a question about the mess. Says although he’s a friend of the professor and doesn’t have all the facts, that it sounds as if arresting the professor was stupid.

Stupid?

Oy, Vey – racial animosity and resentment hits the fan big time. Stupid indeed.

We now have three honorable and respected men dancing in the mud puddle and wondering why they’re getting so dirty: Barack Obama, President of the United States; Henry Louis Gates, Jr., Harvard professor; Sgt. James Crowley, an immensely respected Cambridge cop who teaches classes in avoiding racial profiling, no less.

Words bounce back and forth and the chattering classes circle like wolves around three wounded buffalo, and then President Obama, some say at the urging of his wife, but we’re not going there, says the equivalent of “You know, guys, I may have said more than I should have and before this gets completely away from us, let’s have a beer and talk about this. At the White House. On me.” He says it in calls to each of the other two guys and it looks like they might accept.

You gotta hope so.

It would set an example of three guys of different backgrounds getting into a disagreement over legitimately held points of view and instead of hammering each other saying “Screw it – let’s have a beer and talk about it.”

You know, like men.

Like grownups.

Like Americans, when we remember where we’re going is always more important than where we’ve been.

So God Bless Beer – it beats bombast every time.

And God Bless Wives who say “You said WHAT?” – but we’re not going there.

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Weekend Tids and Bits

FULL-SERVICE MORTGAGE BROKERS INDEED as the New York Times reports that the folks who made lots of money by selling mortgages to those who couldn’t afford them now are trying to make money by selling mortgage renegotiation services to that same customer group. That’s well in the historical legacy of hucksters who went to towns lecturing about this or that horrible disease for which – just by chance, honest – they happened to have the cure at $2 a bottle. History also shows that from time to time the rubes got wise and tarred and feather the hucksters, riding them out of town on a rail. Current official indifference here shows our learning lessons from history to be incomplete, since selling cures for problems you caused remains legal, but tarring and feathering isn’t.

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AND IS THE OFFICIAL SONG “ ZIP-A-DEE-DOO-DAH?” – Who knows, but in Durham, NC, Mayor Bill Bell signed a proclamation making July 17 a day of happiness in Durham. Read the article on the News and Observer website which will explain – sort of – the connection between Durham, happiness and SpongeBob SquarePants. It’s all a puzzle to those of us in New Jersey, where elected officials don’t proclaim happiness, they seek it out in cash, as the recent batch of corruption indictments in the Devil’s Favorite State attests.

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DETAILS, DETAILS! Didn’t bother Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Steele this week when he was asked by CNN what his health coverage was. He thought it was Blue Cross/Blue Shield. Turns out the health coverage for the Republican National Committee comes from Cigna, reports Politico. Isn’t it unfair to bother a Very Important Person with remembering mundane details as might ordinary folk when he’s busy working to deny 47 million of them health coverage?

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ONE, TWO, THREE REBOOTS AND YER OUT! isn’t yet the norm in professional baseball, but a story from AP on the USA Today site reports on a robot that pitches and a robot that bats. No word yet on robots that scratch, spit and take steroids or on fan robots that can endure five hours of watching grass grow punctuated by a total of five minutes of action.

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MORE AMMO FOR SEXUAL EQUALITY comes from this oprah.com report on CNN’s site that women can enjoy porn as much as men and that the fair sex accounts for about a third of the traffic on some adult websites – as viewers not just those viewed. Next up on the list of revelations each generation usually finds: You mean Mom and Dad did it?

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Last Week’s Class Assignments:

n Evidence to the contrary aside, the donkeys and elephants in the Senate are against human-animal hybrids we discover at http://www.cnn.com/2009/LIVING/personal/07/24/o.women.watching.porn/index.html

n Most toddlers outgrow the No! stage of the Terrible Twos, and those that don’t become Republicans at http://larryblaskosaid.blogspot.com/2009/07/terrible-twos-some-never-outgrow_21.html

n The Senate had a chance to start finding common national ground on concealed-carry guns laws, but fell back on its time honored shoot-self-in-foot stall tactics at http://larryblaskosaid.blogspot.com/2009/07/update-common-sense-wounded-in-senate.html

n A man with lots less hidden than most – and photos to prove it – says his hat is in the ring for New York City Mayor, which leaves him in just his boots, tighty-whities and guitar at http://larryblaskosaid.blogspot.com/2009/07/naked-almost-ambition-enters-nyc-mayor.html

n When Satan left the Garden of Eden, he found himself a home in the Garden State as this exclusive interview on the recent corruption roundup shows at http://larryblaskosaid.blogspot.com/2009/07/much-easier-pickings-satans-garden-of.html

Have a great weekend!

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‘Much Easier Pickings’

Satan’s Garden of Eden

In The Garden State

Those who wondered where Satan set up shop after he got Adam and Eve booted from the Garden of Eden saw a strong hint yesterday in the federal arrests of three New Jersey mayors, two state assemblymen, five rabbis and mixed bag of other accused totaling 44.

“Not for nothing is it called The Garden State,” smirked Satan, who agreed to be interviewed on the condition that his exact New Jersey location not be disclosed. “New Jersey folk are much easier pickings.”

When asked what made New Jersey citizens and politicians easy to corrupt, Satan said “maybe we can do a little business. You know, entrepreneurial stuff, free enterprise, like those mayors.”

The United States Department of Justice press release said Hoboken Mayor Peter Cammarano III was accused of accepting $25,000 in cash bribes, while Secaucus Mayor Dennis Elwell got on the list for accepting a $10,000 cash bribe and Ridgefield Mayor Anthony Suarez was charged with agreeing to accept a $10,000 corrupt cash payment for his legal defense fund.

“Ya gotta think ahead,” Satan said. “Plan for future needs, like that Suarez guy.”

Reminded that prosecutors had plans for those futures, Satan laughed “Yeah, I forgot. . .but say! What about your eternal future? Maybe you need some spiritual guidance. Trust me, I can make you a good deal – I just got five rabbis on the team, take your pick!”

Only two of the five rabbis arrested on money-laundering charges were from New Jersey, but Satan cautioned not to discount the other three because they had not yet reached the Promised Land. “They’re making a good-faith effort,” he said. “It’s wrong to judge someone just on the basis of where they live.”

He said that also applied to those arrested for human organ brokering and money laundering charges.”It’s a service economy,” he added. ”Even the feds bailed out financial guys and brokers. Folks need them, and so do I.”

Most of the other New Jersey figures hauled in for a compulsory chat with the feds were officials looking for campaign cash or other areas of opportunity and Satan was quick with his praise.

“What, you want dummies running your government?” he sneered. “These folks were smart enough to know when opportunity was showing a little leg -- don’t we need government that’s smart?”

Questioned about whether most of the arrested being Democrats would have an effect on the coming New Jersey governor’s race, Satan grew serious. “You know, it is wrong -- absolutely and completely wrong – to judge someone on the basis of their group affiliation,” he said.

“I and others have worked long and hard against this horrible habit of political profiling in New Jersey corruption cases, and your question disturbs me in that you asked it at all.”

Pressed that most of those arrested seemed to have Democratic connections, Satan became visibly angry, shouting “I look forward to the day when New Jersey politicians are judged not on their party identity, but on the content of their character!”

After a couple sulfurous minutes, Satan was asked to clarify that statement. Was there really a “content of their character” difference between New Jersey politicians of different political parties?

Several seconds of thought produced an answer more mellow in tone. “No,” Satan said with a reflective smile. “Not when you put it that way, not really.

“As I said earlier, New Jersey folk are just much easier pickings.”

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Naked (almost) Ambition

Enters NYC Mayor Race

Many throw their hat in the ring for mayor of New York City, but few can claim it’s a third of their workday wardrobe.

It is for Robert J. Burck, better known as the Naked Cowboy who stands wearing nothing but tighty-whities, cowboy hat and boots in New York’s Times Square, strumming a guitar and posing for photos with tourists (and tips).

Now he’s dressed the same but running for mayor with no hidden agenda or almost anything else.

Burck, running as a naked independent, joins a field that includes hopefuls from the Democratic Party, the Party for Socialism and Liberation, the Libertarian Party, the Rent Is Too Damn High party and many others, all of whom wear clothes, raising transparency issues.

The Naked Cowboy’s clothed opposition also includes incumbent Mayor Michael Bloomberg, who was a Democrat until he got elected as a Republican and became an Independent. After serving the limit of two terms, a City Council vote bumped the limit to three and Bloomberg seeks his trifecta as an Independent trying to run in the Republican primary.

It’s not that Mayor Bloomberg doesn’t feel the call of party politics as much as he feels the call of anything that will generate a vote.

The Naked Cowboy’s political motivation’s, no less direct, are on his website:

“It’s time to tighten the belt, but of course that’s just a saying because I don’t even wear a belt. But that’s my point – I don’t need a belt. I don’t need the whole suit and tie thing either. And you won’t see me buying a whole new wardrobe just because I’m running for Mayor – not on the city’s dime. Fact is, no one knows how to do more with less than yours truly – and that’s the kind of thinking I plan on sharing with my fellow New Yorkers if you elect me. It's exactly the kind of leadership this city needs during these challenging times."

Which sounds like a lot of Republicans, except that they usually keep their clothes on in public, even if they take a more liberal position – maybe several if they’re up to it – in private.

Or the wardrobe thing could be a dig at spending on Sarah Palin’s wardrobe in the last presidential campaign, but the Naked Cowboy was right there supporting John McCain with Joe the Plumber, which may explain why Barack Obama is president.

Or maybe it’s just a political ploy, helping the Naked Cowboy cover his base, if not much else.

Mayor Bloomberg runs implicitly on the entrepreneurial vision that helped him boost Bloomberg News – and his own checkbook -- into the billion-dollarsphere. The Naked Cowboy, an ordained minister at 38, also thinks out of the box as well as out of his pants. He earns as much as $1,000 in tips from camera-toting tourists in a three-hour almost-daily stint, which means he probably makes $250,000 or so a year.

And the Naked Cowboy displays unique initiative. While Mayor Bloomberg’s campaign website touts a whole slew of initiatives for New York’s growth and stability, a careful check didn’t find anything to match the Naked Cowboy’s suggestion of “Naked Fridays” with workers wearing just undies to save on business cooling costs in the summer.

The Naked Cowboy has other financial ideas to help New York City, including bungee jumping from the Empire State Building. As he puts it “If I can make a fortune with no clothes and a one-octave range, imagine how much I can make for everyone with the entire city as a resource?”

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Update!

Common Sense Wounded

In Senate 58-39 Gun Vote

The United States Senate rejected common sense in a 58-39 vote today that would have granted any holder of a concealed gun permit in the 48 states that issue them reciprocal rights in the others.

The two votes that shot down an important first step to a national policy on concealed weapons belong to Republicans Richard Lugar of Indiana and George Voinovich of Ohio. Senate rules said 60 votes instead of a simple majority were needed to pass.

States Rights was the rallying cry of opponents. It’s a version of the argument that has been used in support of secession, segregation, discriminatory voting laws and other zombie issues that periodically rise from their 18^th century graves to bedevil the modern nation.

Although this particular vote was on the concealed-carry gun issue, the larger issue of an antiquated tangle of state and local laws befouling progress on national issues remains. See below.

Brothers In Arms?

NRA, Brady Group

On Common Ground?

Democracy takes some funny bounces and this week’s fielder’s nightmare finds both the National Rifle Association and the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence coming off the same bat.

The bat belongs to Senator John Thune, Republican of South Dakota, who has proposed an amendment to the current Defense Authorization Bill that would, in his website’s words, “help in reducing crime by providing reciprocity for the carrying of concealed firearms.”

Explained simply, the amendment would allow someone who met home-state concealed-carry rules to pack heat into another state even if the “host” state’s laws would have denied the permit. A resident of Vermont, which requires no permits to carry or conceal a weapon, could legally bring a weapon into New Jersey, where the rules are very strict.

Some form of concealed carry is legal in every state except Illinois and Wisconsin, and the NRA warmly supports the Thune amendment, saying on a website “Now is the time for Congress to recognize that the right to self-defense does not end at state lines.”

The Brady folks also feel warm about the Thune amendment, just warm heading in the opposite direction. The Brady website says “This legislation, if passed, will endanger public safety and make it more difficult for law enforcement to do their jobs.”

So of the three, who’s making sense?

They all are, because whether they recognize it or not, their stands here implicitly recognize a national issue being mishandled by a hodge-podge of often conflicting state laws.

Senator Thune’s constituents in South Dakota can take satisfaction in seeing their guy earn his pay by spotting something so state-fragmented that it that doesn’t make sense and proposing a national solution. You know, like a United States Senator.

And while both the NRA and the Brady outfits have embraced states rights when convenient, they both have glowed when their views got on the national stage.

The Brady law is a national law, named after James Brady, wounded in the attempted assassination of President Ronald Reagan. Brady and his wife Sarah are the mainsprings of the Brady Campaign, which describes itself as a “national, non-partisan, grassroots organization.”

The NRA would very much like to see D.C. v. Heller applied on a national basis. That’s the recent Supreme Court decision that said the Second Amendment prohibited the federal government and federal entities like the District of Columbia from banning handguns for self-defense.

So Senator Thune, the NRA and the Brady Campaign may be able to find at least this much common ground:

Leaving a national issue like gun rights to state and local regulation produces an unworkable mess. Just as the unworkable mess of state and local voting laws were fixed by the 26^th Amendment to the Constitution’s declaration that everyone could vote at 18, we need to fix the unworkable mess of conflicting state and local gun laws.

How that fix comes and which of the many views it favors are items for down the road. But all the views can unite in saying that road must now be taken, starting at least from that much common ground.

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Brothers In Arms?

NRA, Brady Group

On Common Ground?

Democracy takes some funny bounces and this week’s fielder’s nightmare finds both the National Rifle Association and the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence coming off the same bat.

The bat belongs to Senator John Thune, Republican of South Dakota, who has proposed an amendment to the current Defense Authorization Bill that would, in his website’s words, “help in reducing crime by providing reciprocity for the carrying of concealed firearms.”

Explained simply, the amendment would allow someone who met home-state concealed-carry rules to pack heat into another state even if the “host” state’s laws would have denied the permit. A resident of Vermont, which requires no permits to carry or conceal a weapon, could legally bring a weapon into New Jersey, where the rules are very strict.

Some form of concealed carry is legal in every state except Illinois and Wisconsin, and the NRA warmly supports the Thune amendment, saying on a website “Now is the time for Congress to recognize that the right to self-defense does not end at state lines.”

The Brady folks also feel warm about the Thune amendment, just warm heading in the opposite direction. The Brady website says “This legislation, if passed, will endanger public safety and make it more difficult for law enforcement to do their jobs.”

So of the three, who’s making sense?

They all are, because whether they recognize it or not, their stands here implicitly recognize a national issue being mishandled by a hodge-podge of often conflicting state laws.

Senator Thune’s constituents in South Dakota can take satisfaction in seeing their guy earn his pay by spotting something so state-fragmented that it that doesn’t make sense and proposing a national solution. You know, like a United States Senator.

And while both the NRA and the Brady outfits have embraced states rights when convenient, they both have glowed when their views got on the national stage.

The Brady law is a national law, named after James Brady, wounded in the attempted assassination of President Ronald Reagan. Brady and his wife Sarah are the mainsprings of the Brady Campaign, which describes itself as a “national, non-partisan, grassroots organization.”

The NRA would very much like to see D.C. v. Heller applied on a national basis. That’s the recent Supreme Court decision that said the Second Amendment prohibited the federal government and federal entities like the District of Columbia from banning handguns for self-defense.

So Senator Thune, the NRA and the Brady Campaign may be able to find at least this much common ground:

Leaving a national issue like gun rights to state and local regulation produces an unworkable mess. Just as the unworkable mess of state and local voting laws were fixed by the 26^th Amendment to the Constitution’s declaration that everyone could vote at 18, we need to fix the unworkable mess of conflicting state and local gun laws.

How that fix comes and which of the many views it favors are items for down the road. But all the views can unite in saying that road must now be taken, starting at least from that much common ground.

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The Terrible Twos

Some Never Outgrow

Toddlers turning two enter a very negative time, where every word out of their mouth is No! until they learn to wail “I doan-wanna!” Parents keep their sanity by knowing that most children will outgrow this demand for negative control and that those who don’t will become Republicans.

There’s no other good way to explain the Republican Party’s stance on most of the day’s major issues. The only solace for distraught parents is that the number of Republicans – and their success at the polls – seems to be shrinking in opposite ratio to the volume of the “I doan-wanna!” cries coming from the Republican National Committee.

Perhaps with fewer and fewer sharing their One-No-Fits-All approach to policy, the party will eventually dry its tears, turn on Public Television and begin paying attention to sharing and caring lessons from Big Bird.

Until then we face these tantrums --

On Health Care: Americans pay the most for their health care and get results that are less than many other countries. Some say that paying more for less means we ought to have reform, and since almost all parts of the current system profit and have power except the patient, that reform must come from Washington. Republicans as represented by National Committee Chairman Michael Steele say that’s “socialism.” Perhaps, but paying more for health care and getting worse results than other countries is another kind of “ism.” It’s called Suckerism.

Economic Reform: Greed in all its largely unregulated forms dropped us into this swamp when the balloon we were told was lifting our blimp turned out to be a bubble blown by folks who made Gordon Gekko of the film Wall Street seem almost selfless. Efforts to combat those effects in the Stimulus Package and elsewhere are characterized on the RNC website as “Eroding Support For A Failed Economic Experiment.” Nostalgia for the days when the primary economic policy was “Take The Money And Run!” is understandable coming from those who took the money and ran. For those whose money was taken while government looked the other way, not so much.

Tax Reform: Republicans react with wounded-beast howls when the discussion turns to raising taxes for the very wealthy back to what they were before the Bush Administration lowered them. There’s a way to explain their position.

Suppose three men eat lunch together in a fancy restaurant. One has a salad and water, one orders Today’s Special and a soft drink and the last guy starts with shrimp cocktail and just chows down on Caesar salad , filet mignon and expensive wines. The bill comes.

If they split it equally, that’s socialism -- two of the three get a higher bill and the chowhound gets a lower bill, but all bills are equal, even if consumption wasn’t. If they divide the check according to who ordered what and split the tip accordingly, that’s progressive taxation – lots of tiresome counting, accounting and haggling, but a bill sort of related to consumption. If, on the other hand, the guy who ate so richly excuses himself to go to the bathroom and never comes back, that’s the Republican position on tax reform – it never fails to bring a tear to the eye, especially the eyes of those stuck with the bill.

Only time will tell whether or not Republicans can actually grow from toddler tantrums and into governing, but until something like that happens, voters in 2010’s elections can do the same thing most parents do with ornery toddlers – declare a time out until they are ready to behave.

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Human-Animal Hybrids Ban --

Jackass Senators Not Exempt

Reforming health care, nuclear proliferation, an economy still on life support and other nuisance issues could deter the focus of some senators from important things, but not Sam Brownback, Republican of Kansas and Mary Landrieu, Democrat of Louisiana.

No, those two leaders in a bipartisan display refused distractions and instead co-sponsored the Human-Animal Hybrid Prohibition Act of 2009. Brownback offers information on his website, and Landrieu, perhaps with commendable reticence, on her website search offers only this from 2008.

The act itself is pretty self-explanatory, forbidding laboratory blending of genes between humans and animals.

As with many bold leaders, Brownback and Landrieu find others following their trailblazing path as co-sponsors. According to Brownback’s site, that includes Senators Jim Bunning (R-KY), Richard Burr (R-NC), Saxby Chambliss (R-GA), Tom Coburn (R-OK), Bob Corker (R-TN), John Cornyn (R-TX), Jim DeMint (R-SC), John Ensign (R-NV), Lindsey Graham (R-SC), James Inhofe (R-OK), Mike Johanns (R-NE), Jon Kyl (R-AZ), Mel Martinez (R-FL), John McCain (R-AZ), James Risch (R-ID), John Thune (R-SD), David Vitter (R-LA), George Voinovich (R-OH), and Roger Wicker (R-MS).

That Mary Landrieu is the only Democrat in this Republican herd and also the only woman simply proves that the urge to sponsor a bill like this can transcend issues of gender and party, not to mention common sense.

Or as Brownback puts it on his web site:

"My background is in agriculture, and for a number of years we have been working with crops and animals to produce a superior soy bean, a superior cow, and so-on. We can genetically engineer safe products and herds that are disease resistant or that possess more desirable attributes. But doing this in plants and livestock is very different than doing this in humans.

"The issue is that when you make changes in the germ-line, such changes are passed along to one's offspring. You could make a change now that could be passed along through the gene-pool for the rest of humanity. We do not know what the full effect of this could be, and it could be disastrous.”

Although Senator Brownback is correct that changes in the gene pool can have unintended consequences, we should point out that not all traits – intelligence, for example – necessarily pass from one generation to the next. Or maybe the Senator has made that point.

Since the bill focuses on laboratory efforts, the co-sponsors, many from states with large rural populations and lonely cow or sheep herders, seem to have taken care that What Happens In Pasture Stays In Pasture. And because of that focus, no analysts have suggested it would affect sitting member of Congress, whose link with jackasses and elephants is common knowledge, although no language in the bill specifically exempts Members of Congress from the ban.

Still, the Republic stands more secure when stalwarts such as Brownback, Landrieu et al man the ramparts to see that we do not develop horse sense. To carp that they do so only because they would be unemployed if the public did is to miss the point completely.

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