By Don Klein
When is a war crime not a war crime? When government lawyers exonerate other government lawyers for violating established international law.
Everyone knows that torture is against everything this country stands for. Except, perhaps, the Justice Department lawyers in judgment of the Bush lawyers who inspired the travesty of creating new language to give US agents the green light during the years of authorized water boarding.
We have backed off from the Nuremberg trials which established the rule that "I was ordered to do so" is no excuse for committing war crimes. Dozens of Nazis were charged and at least 12 were sentenced to death for war crimes. The United States led the world in condemning acts of official brutality and installed the rule of decent treatment of all captives, military and civilian, and banning torture.
The Bush Administration, pumped by the warped ideals of Vice President Dick Cheney, reneged on this honorable commitment. Now the Obama Administration has let off the hook the men who justified Bush torture policy. Current Justice Department lawyers probing former Justice Department lawyers ended up slapping the culprits on the wrist for legalizing harsh treatment of captives held by this country.
It’s enough to make one think there is no hope that the US government can ever do anything right anymore. Not only are they not to be tried as war criminals, the lawyers who authored the pernicious rule that led to water boarding, Jay S. Bybee and John C. Yoo, are now "honorable" members of society. Bybee is a federal judge and Yoo a university professor.
According to the decision by the Justice Department the two used flawed legal reasoning but were not guilty of official misconduct. Are these the kind of men we want on the federal bench and teaching in an American law school? They should be serving a term in the penitentiary, or at least suffer disbarment.
This is just one more case of President Obama’s impotence. He is so afraid of offending Republicans he is distorting his entire approach to the right things to do. He bends over backwards to get Republican bipartisanship in the Senate and gets slapped in the face time and again. He has brought turning the other cheek to new level of disillusionment.
His party has already taken war crimes trials off the table for Bush and Cheney, now the government won’t even find anything seriously wrong with the lawyers that were used to give torture the air of legality. It makes it extremely difficult for one-time Obama supporters to maintain their enthusiasm for the man. He just does not seem to have what is needed to do all things he said he would do during the campaign.
Where do disenchanted Obama backers go? There is nothing for them in the two party system. The GOP is bold and drives the country into the arms of the profiteers and Neanderthals, and the Democrats make wonderful promises to reform this, that and everything else and despite having a clear majority in both houses of Congress are scared off from doing anything once resistance raises its ugly head.
Unlike fairytales, our white knights are colossal cowards. Cheney openly brags of his role in propelling torture into the American national image and he trots freely on our streets and on our television screens. Bush rests in comfortable Texas banishment trying on his flight suit whenever he gets bored with reading the comics and ignores the national turmoil he helped create.
Meanwhile, the people are close to rebellion. The Tea Party adherents, embracing their political ignorance – and Sarah Palin, want to secede from the Union. On the other side, the Liberals are disenchanted and won’t come out to vote in important elections which allowed the usually Democratic Senate seat in Massachusetts last month to go Republican for the first time in a half century.
I won’t say this frustration is all Obama fault, but much of it is. He showed little gumption to fight for his programs during his first year in office. People view him as a pussycat being frightened into the corner at the mere mention of a filibuster. He is not the tiger they thought they elected in November 2008.
There is a serious possibility that now, after more than a year of going nowhere on health reform, bank regulations and environmental issues that the Democrats will surely take a beating when the midterm elections come in November. No one wants to be a Democrat running for office this year – with good reason. They are one gigantic national flop.
Now they add insult to their political impotence by allowing war criminals to get away with their malevolent behavior. The inability of the government to perform on any level has paralyzed the nation and America will soon be a wonderful dream that, we in this generation, failed to nurture and pass on in decent shape to our progeny.
Just think of it. During the last decade we had a tragic war, a disastrous economy which has bankrupted the country and a stymied government resulting in massive unemployment plus thousands of dead and horribly injured American servicemen and the loss of global prestige and no government policy maker will be held accountable for it.
If the Republicans take control of the Senate and maybe even the House of Representatives this fall that will mean the end of all progress – as if that would be any worse than it already is.
After Bush many swore never vote for a national Republican again. Now the problem is compounded. They must ask, after Obama, "what do I do?"
Sunday, February 21, 2010
Tuesday, February 9, 2010
Waiting for the next blizzard
By Don Klein
Being stuck at home because of a snow storm is great for kids. There is sledding and snowball fights and for those with skill, ice skating. There is also a healthy resurgence of family comity in at-home activities. Most of all it means no school for them. I never realized until recently that being snowbound is good for grandparents as well.
In my younger days I always liked the concept of snow. It was God’s way of purifying the land with a pristine coat of cool, soothing, white fluff, much as intensive rain sweeps away all the muck of everyday life. Snow just covers it. But just below the line of consciousness in those days I secretly dreaded snow when it pounced onto my life in substantial quantities.
To me it meant shoveling what seems to be tons of the white stuff from the driveway and front walk. It meant power failures and the breakdown in normal public services and cancellations of many civic activities plus horrendous trips to and from my job. Snow storms are eclectic, a balance of fun, frenzy and frustration.
Not anymore. In retirement without little ones under foot, being snowbound is a cherished period of relief. I noticed that for the first time last weekend.
In the days when we had young children at home my wife, Joyce, would bake loads of chocolate chip cookies and make what always appeared to be gallons of hot cocoa. Once the walk was shoveled many of the neighborhood kids would come tapping on the front door for handouts. They knew where the freshly baked cookies were concentrated.
To this day, our daughters now mothers themselves, bake chocolate chip cookies when they are shut-in by winter storms. The acorn never falls far from the oak.
With this most recent storm, her culinary juices aroused by the sight of snow pelting at the sides of the house, Joyce asked me "Would you like me to bake brownies?" My lack of responsive enthusiasm was driven by the fact that before the storm I had wisely purchased a fudge cake and a box of chocolate covered doughnuts (don’t mention it to my doctor) for nutritional fortification during the upcoming weather-driven confinement.
Not being deterred by my negative reaction, she said the magical words, "How about I make a pot full of knadels." Ah, knadels. An image from my past. The Passover delicacy my wife learned to make from my mother. Mom made great knadels but Joyce has outdone her, ameliorating her cooking with each passing year.
There are few foods I can think of that I can resist – French onion soup, beef Wellington, grilled Alaskan salmon, Rainbow trout, chicken l’orange, beef tartare – but none more than knadels. It makes me salivate.
For those who are unfamiliar with knadels accept ths definition. It is a fluffy dumpling made of matzoh meal and other magical ingredients folded into the size of a meatball, cooked for 20 minutes in unsalted boiling water which is disposed of before the little darlings are served with steaming homemade chicken soup.
The soup, as we all know, is a cure all for ailments. Homemade chicken soup is miraculous. Legend has it that it makes stutterers speak like Laurence Olivier, transforms klutzes into Fred Astaires, and would do wonders in making chatty Sarah Palin as erudite as Adlai Stevenson if ever she deigned to taste it.
Despite all the positives that exist in chicken soup, it is the knadels, or matzoh balls as some people call it, that deserve all the praise. Just imagine. A cold night, the wind whistling outside, the snow pelting at your front door, and you are presented with a bowl full of steaming homemade chicken soup with a half dozen knadels floating in it. You brain turns celestial. You hear bells.
But that is not the only reason for me to glory in being snowbound. All during the day as Mother Nature unleashed her fury on us, I had the pleasure of finishing a great book, "My Paper Chase" by Harold Evans, all about newspaper work in Britain and the US. Then I picked up once again a novel I had interrupted to read the Evans book, called, "The Russian Concubine" by Kate Furnivall.
This is a beautifully written piece of fiction about western expatriates in China prior to World War II. Then there were the moments spent with eyes closed listening to recordings on my CD player of Mozart, Strauss, Copland and Beethoven. What else does man need? Thankfully there was no place to go, nothing to do since all meetings and scheduled dinners were cancelled.
Fortunately a bunch of young guys with a sister, showed up and shoveled out our driveway so if we had to go somewhere we could, but didn’t because there was no place to park the car once we got there. That meant another day of involuntary detention.
It was great to stay home and do nothing, except read great new books, listen to fabulous old music and to close out the day with a dinner which included the eternal knadels and homemade chicken soup. Ah, Nirvana right here on earth.
I’ll try to slip in days like this again when the weather is less contrary, but I know it won’t work. The pull of life’s routines are irrevocable. I’ll just wait for the next blizzard and hope for the best.
Being stuck at home because of a snow storm is great for kids. There is sledding and snowball fights and for those with skill, ice skating. There is also a healthy resurgence of family comity in at-home activities. Most of all it means no school for them. I never realized until recently that being snowbound is good for grandparents as well.
In my younger days I always liked the concept of snow. It was God’s way of purifying the land with a pristine coat of cool, soothing, white fluff, much as intensive rain sweeps away all the muck of everyday life. Snow just covers it. But just below the line of consciousness in those days I secretly dreaded snow when it pounced onto my life in substantial quantities.
To me it meant shoveling what seems to be tons of the white stuff from the driveway and front walk. It meant power failures and the breakdown in normal public services and cancellations of many civic activities plus horrendous trips to and from my job. Snow storms are eclectic, a balance of fun, frenzy and frustration.
Not anymore. In retirement without little ones under foot, being snowbound is a cherished period of relief. I noticed that for the first time last weekend.
In the days when we had young children at home my wife, Joyce, would bake loads of chocolate chip cookies and make what always appeared to be gallons of hot cocoa. Once the walk was shoveled many of the neighborhood kids would come tapping on the front door for handouts. They knew where the freshly baked cookies were concentrated.
To this day, our daughters now mothers themselves, bake chocolate chip cookies when they are shut-in by winter storms. The acorn never falls far from the oak.
With this most recent storm, her culinary juices aroused by the sight of snow pelting at the sides of the house, Joyce asked me "Would you like me to bake brownies?" My lack of responsive enthusiasm was driven by the fact that before the storm I had wisely purchased a fudge cake and a box of chocolate covered doughnuts (don’t mention it to my doctor) for nutritional fortification during the upcoming weather-driven confinement.
Not being deterred by my negative reaction, she said the magical words, "How about I make a pot full of knadels." Ah, knadels. An image from my past. The Passover delicacy my wife learned to make from my mother. Mom made great knadels but Joyce has outdone her, ameliorating her cooking with each passing year.
There are few foods I can think of that I can resist – French onion soup, beef Wellington, grilled Alaskan salmon, Rainbow trout, chicken l’orange, beef tartare – but none more than knadels. It makes me salivate.
For those who are unfamiliar with knadels accept ths definition. It is a fluffy dumpling made of matzoh meal and other magical ingredients folded into the size of a meatball, cooked for 20 minutes in unsalted boiling water which is disposed of before the little darlings are served with steaming homemade chicken soup.
The soup, as we all know, is a cure all for ailments. Homemade chicken soup is miraculous. Legend has it that it makes stutterers speak like Laurence Olivier, transforms klutzes into Fred Astaires, and would do wonders in making chatty Sarah Palin as erudite as Adlai Stevenson if ever she deigned to taste it.
Despite all the positives that exist in chicken soup, it is the knadels, or matzoh balls as some people call it, that deserve all the praise. Just imagine. A cold night, the wind whistling outside, the snow pelting at your front door, and you are presented with a bowl full of steaming homemade chicken soup with a half dozen knadels floating in it. You brain turns celestial. You hear bells.
But that is not the only reason for me to glory in being snowbound. All during the day as Mother Nature unleashed her fury on us, I had the pleasure of finishing a great book, "My Paper Chase" by Harold Evans, all about newspaper work in Britain and the US. Then I picked up once again a novel I had interrupted to read the Evans book, called, "The Russian Concubine" by Kate Furnivall.
This is a beautifully written piece of fiction about western expatriates in China prior to World War II. Then there were the moments spent with eyes closed listening to recordings on my CD player of Mozart, Strauss, Copland and Beethoven. What else does man need? Thankfully there was no place to go, nothing to do since all meetings and scheduled dinners were cancelled.
Fortunately a bunch of young guys with a sister, showed up and shoveled out our driveway so if we had to go somewhere we could, but didn’t because there was no place to park the car once we got there. That meant another day of involuntary detention.
It was great to stay home and do nothing, except read great new books, listen to fabulous old music and to close out the day with a dinner which included the eternal knadels and homemade chicken soup. Ah, Nirvana right here on earth.
I’ll try to slip in days like this again when the weather is less contrary, but I know it won’t work. The pull of life’s routines are irrevocable. I’ll just wait for the next blizzard and hope for the best.
Tuesday, February 2, 2010
Time to call their bluff
by Don Klein
Years ago when I was new to reporting a sagacious elder told me that politics is the art of compromise. Over the years I remembered that rule and watched how it worked on every level of government. That is the true meaning of bipartisanship.
You give a little. I give a little. And before long we have an agreement and legislation is enacted.
Last week when President Obama went before the Republican meeting in Baltimore in a face-to-face showdown on public policy it gave the appearance of the start of bipartisanship in action, but really it was just an extension of what has been going on for the entire first year of his presidency.
It appeared that Obama was making a serious attempt to bridge some of the issues that separate the executive and Republicans. I am sorry to conclude that I did not see the same serious act of honest conciliation on the part of the Republicans who spoke out.
The most glaring different between the Democratic president and his GOP opponents was contrition. He had it, they didn’t. He acknowledged that he did not do everything he said he would do during the 2008 campaign and promised to do better in the future. They, on the other hand, stood fast and never admitted standing in the way of legislative progress during last year.
Obama shocked them when he said he had read their counter proposals on several issues and incorporated the best ideas into bills at issue and rejected others for reasons of good government. While the Republicans hardly ever budged from their unwillingness to cooperate with the administration on any issue.
In the end, Obama walked away from the meeting a much more admirable figure than any of his sniveling opponents who only seemed to be interested in stymying any program which put a new face on solutions to problems. The GOP clearly wants to follow the same old, dysfunctional policies of the Bush administration which brought on the terrible state of the nation today.
Examples: They want to solve the severe national financial shortfall by more tax cuts when what the government needs is more income, not less. They still want to implore the old, harmful plans to cut entitlements and privatize social security instead of seeking new solutions. They don’t want to be labeled the "party of no" by Democrats while never voting in favor of anything the Obama party proposes.
The Republicans are wracked by their well-deserved negative image and want the president to make them look good again. They almost unanimously praised the idea of the meeting and thanked Obama for taking up their invitation, but most of them behind the scenes thought they should not repeat the meeting.
They realize they took a beating on view for all to see on television.
Frankly, I hope I am wrong but my gut feeling tells me there will be no change in relationship in Washington the coming year. The GOP sees their current obstructive policies paying off by causing a new round of gridlock, which the public despises and takes out on incumbents. So far the victims have all been Democrats. The New Jersey and Virginia governorships went their way and more recently the half-century-old Democratic seat in the Senate from Massachusetts went Republican.
They feel obstructionism works to their favor and although Obama seems destined to make points whenever he faced them in open debate, they seem to win at the voting booth. And since this is an election year for all the seats of the House of Representatives and one-third the Senate, why should they start cooperating for the good of the rest of us now?
I don’t see any improvement in relations on the horizon between the two sides in Washington. More gridlock. More ridiculous, meaningless opposition up and down the line. And more problems for the grass roots where unemployment demands a unified government approach to problems.
The Obama visit to the Republican retreat last week was good public relations for Obama, not the Republicans. They will not repeat it soon, or ever, because it did not serve their purpose. I feel they invited the president in the first place because they expected him to decline the invitation and thereby give the Republicans a political victory without an actual face-off. It didn’t work
Being obstructive only goes so far. It pleases the distant right wing because these lovers of Bush extremism see Obama as an abomination for many incoherent reasons. But the majority of Americans think highly of the president and not so well of the Republicans, according to all polls taken recently. If the Republicans continue to cater to the extremists by blocking legislative action in the Senate they will be surprised in November.
If the Democrats were smart, now that they have dithered away their 60 vote majority -- and I wonder about the Senate leadership -- they should push legislation to one filibuster after another and allow the public to measure which is truly the Party of No. I think the Republicans are bluffing and cannot sustain many filibusters without causing damage to themselves.
Let them kill economic recovery. Let them stop health reform. Let them fight excessive federal spending which they themselves perfected during the Bush years. Let them bring government down to inaction. Then let them go to the polls in November and ask the public to put them into power. It would be ironic and the best thing to happen for the Democrats.
But it takes bold-faced courage, and I don’t know if the Democrats have any.
Years ago when I was new to reporting a sagacious elder told me that politics is the art of compromise. Over the years I remembered that rule and watched how it worked on every level of government. That is the true meaning of bipartisanship.
You give a little. I give a little. And before long we have an agreement and legislation is enacted.
Last week when President Obama went before the Republican meeting in Baltimore in a face-to-face showdown on public policy it gave the appearance of the start of bipartisanship in action, but really it was just an extension of what has been going on for the entire first year of his presidency.
It appeared that Obama was making a serious attempt to bridge some of the issues that separate the executive and Republicans. I am sorry to conclude that I did not see the same serious act of honest conciliation on the part of the Republicans who spoke out.
The most glaring different between the Democratic president and his GOP opponents was contrition. He had it, they didn’t. He acknowledged that he did not do everything he said he would do during the 2008 campaign and promised to do better in the future. They, on the other hand, stood fast and never admitted standing in the way of legislative progress during last year.
Obama shocked them when he said he had read their counter proposals on several issues and incorporated the best ideas into bills at issue and rejected others for reasons of good government. While the Republicans hardly ever budged from their unwillingness to cooperate with the administration on any issue.
In the end, Obama walked away from the meeting a much more admirable figure than any of his sniveling opponents who only seemed to be interested in stymying any program which put a new face on solutions to problems. The GOP clearly wants to follow the same old, dysfunctional policies of the Bush administration which brought on the terrible state of the nation today.
Examples: They want to solve the severe national financial shortfall by more tax cuts when what the government needs is more income, not less. They still want to implore the old, harmful plans to cut entitlements and privatize social security instead of seeking new solutions. They don’t want to be labeled the "party of no" by Democrats while never voting in favor of anything the Obama party proposes.
The Republicans are wracked by their well-deserved negative image and want the president to make them look good again. They almost unanimously praised the idea of the meeting and thanked Obama for taking up their invitation, but most of them behind the scenes thought they should not repeat the meeting.
They realize they took a beating on view for all to see on television.
Frankly, I hope I am wrong but my gut feeling tells me there will be no change in relationship in Washington the coming year. The GOP sees their current obstructive policies paying off by causing a new round of gridlock, which the public despises and takes out on incumbents. So far the victims have all been Democrats. The New Jersey and Virginia governorships went their way and more recently the half-century-old Democratic seat in the Senate from Massachusetts went Republican.
They feel obstructionism works to their favor and although Obama seems destined to make points whenever he faced them in open debate, they seem to win at the voting booth. And since this is an election year for all the seats of the House of Representatives and one-third the Senate, why should they start cooperating for the good of the rest of us now?
I don’t see any improvement in relations on the horizon between the two sides in Washington. More gridlock. More ridiculous, meaningless opposition up and down the line. And more problems for the grass roots where unemployment demands a unified government approach to problems.
The Obama visit to the Republican retreat last week was good public relations for Obama, not the Republicans. They will not repeat it soon, or ever, because it did not serve their purpose. I feel they invited the president in the first place because they expected him to decline the invitation and thereby give the Republicans a political victory without an actual face-off. It didn’t work
Being obstructive only goes so far. It pleases the distant right wing because these lovers of Bush extremism see Obama as an abomination for many incoherent reasons. But the majority of Americans think highly of the president and not so well of the Republicans, according to all polls taken recently. If the Republicans continue to cater to the extremists by blocking legislative action in the Senate they will be surprised in November.
If the Democrats were smart, now that they have dithered away their 60 vote majority -- and I wonder about the Senate leadership -- they should push legislation to one filibuster after another and allow the public to measure which is truly the Party of No. I think the Republicans are bluffing and cannot sustain many filibusters without causing damage to themselves.
Let them kill economic recovery. Let them stop health reform. Let them fight excessive federal spending which they themselves perfected during the Bush years. Let them bring government down to inaction. Then let them go to the polls in November and ask the public to put them into power. It would be ironic and the best thing to happen for the Democrats.
But it takes bold-faced courage, and I don’t know if the Democrats have any.
Friday, January 22, 2010
Greed hurts all but the greedy
By Don Klein
Imagine yourself a school bus driver with a second job as a newspaper route delivery driver. Your wife works as a kitchen helper at a local hospital. You have three kids and you want the best for them. You see a $650,000 house you would like to move into but cannot afford.
Surprise, the sales agent puts you in touch with a banker who says he will lend you the money and you only have to pay the interest for a number of years while you improve your earnings to eventually handle the principal. You ignore the obvious pitfalls because you are either brainless or terribly hungry for a better life style.
In your foolishness you fall for such a gambit, but the real estate seller and the banker know what the score is. They are shrewd. They are downright crooks who know how to make money even though they are convinced you’re destined to default. They have a plan.
The salesman gets his commission for selling the house, the banker meanwhile takes your feeble mortgage and packages it on Wall Street with thousands others just likes yours. They then sell a whole package of loans at an appealing price to investors – many of which represent pension funds and important charities. That becomes the recipe for a financial crisis.
The real estate sales person and the banker know there is trouble ahead, but they will make their profits passing off the package and sticking it to investors. When the day of reckoning comes and a bubble payment is due, you, the homeowner, will rely on your our little plan. You will sell the house you never could afford but lived in for years and make a solid profit considering the normal ascent in home prices.
Alas, the day comes and the real estate market collapses. You can’t sell your house and the mortgage is in default. At the same time neither can the thousands of others whose mortgages were sold when you took out the loan. The result: An international financial crisis unlike anything seen since the Great Depression. The guilty: The home buyers and sellers, and worst of all the bankers who put up the money for the loans that should never have been made.
You did it because you wanted a better life style for your family and yourself.
The seller was willing to complete the sale because the banker was willing to put up the money and Wall Street was taking the financial risk. The toxic package was passed off to the oblivious investor. None of this would have happened if anyone along the way had a modicum of integrity.
In the end it was the banker who made it all possible. It was the banker who tried to outsmart all others for his gain, and his enhanced year-end bonus. The more mortgages he sold, the more the payoff and to hell with the home owner who defaulted and the pension funds now holding worthless stock.
The banker is the culprit in the financial crisis smothering the global economy for nearly a year and a half. This scenario demonstrates the power of greed. Greed is as normal to a banker as counter clockwise motion is to flushed toilet water. It’s incontrovertible. It cannot be altered.
The 1987 film "Wall Street" spelled it out clearly when the fictional Gordon Gekko expressed the well recalled stock manipulator’s philosophy, "Greed is good."
Greed has become the epithet for Wall Street bankers. It is their synonym like Homosapien is the synonym for the species of man. After the recent testimony of four top bankers before the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission in Washington we can now add "ingrate" to define Wall Street money changers. It’s no wonder their predecessors were chased from ancient temples.
At one point in the testimony the head of Goldman Sachs had the nerve to liken the hellish recession to a Hurricane and other manifestations of rampaging Nature. Phil Angelides, the commission’s chairman, couldn’t let that go unanswered. "Acts of God we’ll exempt. These were acts of men and women."
The commission is investigating to determine if the Wall Street insiders intentionally put the bad assets together and passed them off as healthy investments even when they knew better. All the bankers managed to say was they "regret" people lost money in these transactions. No apologies offered.
The banks under scrutiny at the hearing besides Goldman Sachs were Bank of America, JPMorgan Chase and Morgan Stanley. They all received bailout money from TARP and have already repaid some of the loans. But worst of all is their bonus programs. Billions are disbursed to employees of the banks who benefitted from federal funding assistance to make their year a profitable one.
The bankers never admitted that they had any responsibility for the garbage assets they peddled on the market. They were just interested in moving the rotten goods out of their store and making a profit like an avaricious grocer selling baskets of rotten tomatoes. When the banks recovered thanks to taxpayer funds, they moved to "reward’ their top executives with millions of dollars in bonuses.
John Taylor, president of the National Community Reinvestment Coalition, made one of the most pointed comments at the end of the hearing. "If the leaders of Wall Street did not consider the possibility of housing prices dropping" through their own experience, nor all the red flags raised about mortgage fraud for years and did not realize that high cost, interest-only loans were being made "then their spirited defense of their employees falls flat."
"Based on what we heard today," Taylor concluded, "they should be firing people not giving them bonuses." Amen.
Imagine yourself a school bus driver with a second job as a newspaper route delivery driver. Your wife works as a kitchen helper at a local hospital. You have three kids and you want the best for them. You see a $650,000 house you would like to move into but cannot afford.
Surprise, the sales agent puts you in touch with a banker who says he will lend you the money and you only have to pay the interest for a number of years while you improve your earnings to eventually handle the principal. You ignore the obvious pitfalls because you are either brainless or terribly hungry for a better life style.
In your foolishness you fall for such a gambit, but the real estate seller and the banker know what the score is. They are shrewd. They are downright crooks who know how to make money even though they are convinced you’re destined to default. They have a plan.
The salesman gets his commission for selling the house, the banker meanwhile takes your feeble mortgage and packages it on Wall Street with thousands others just likes yours. They then sell a whole package of loans at an appealing price to investors – many of which represent pension funds and important charities. That becomes the recipe for a financial crisis.
The real estate sales person and the banker know there is trouble ahead, but they will make their profits passing off the package and sticking it to investors. When the day of reckoning comes and a bubble payment is due, you, the homeowner, will rely on your our little plan. You will sell the house you never could afford but lived in for years and make a solid profit considering the normal ascent in home prices.
Alas, the day comes and the real estate market collapses. You can’t sell your house and the mortgage is in default. At the same time neither can the thousands of others whose mortgages were sold when you took out the loan. The result: An international financial crisis unlike anything seen since the Great Depression. The guilty: The home buyers and sellers, and worst of all the bankers who put up the money for the loans that should never have been made.
You did it because you wanted a better life style for your family and yourself.
The seller was willing to complete the sale because the banker was willing to put up the money and Wall Street was taking the financial risk. The toxic package was passed off to the oblivious investor. None of this would have happened if anyone along the way had a modicum of integrity.
In the end it was the banker who made it all possible. It was the banker who tried to outsmart all others for his gain, and his enhanced year-end bonus. The more mortgages he sold, the more the payoff and to hell with the home owner who defaulted and the pension funds now holding worthless stock.
The banker is the culprit in the financial crisis smothering the global economy for nearly a year and a half. This scenario demonstrates the power of greed. Greed is as normal to a banker as counter clockwise motion is to flushed toilet water. It’s incontrovertible. It cannot be altered.
The 1987 film "Wall Street" spelled it out clearly when the fictional Gordon Gekko expressed the well recalled stock manipulator’s philosophy, "Greed is good."
Greed has become the epithet for Wall Street bankers. It is their synonym like Homosapien is the synonym for the species of man. After the recent testimony of four top bankers before the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission in Washington we can now add "ingrate" to define Wall Street money changers. It’s no wonder their predecessors were chased from ancient temples.
At one point in the testimony the head of Goldman Sachs had the nerve to liken the hellish recession to a Hurricane and other manifestations of rampaging Nature. Phil Angelides, the commission’s chairman, couldn’t let that go unanswered. "Acts of God we’ll exempt. These were acts of men and women."
The commission is investigating to determine if the Wall Street insiders intentionally put the bad assets together and passed them off as healthy investments even when they knew better. All the bankers managed to say was they "regret" people lost money in these transactions. No apologies offered.
The banks under scrutiny at the hearing besides Goldman Sachs were Bank of America, JPMorgan Chase and Morgan Stanley. They all received bailout money from TARP and have already repaid some of the loans. But worst of all is their bonus programs. Billions are disbursed to employees of the banks who benefitted from federal funding assistance to make their year a profitable one.
The bankers never admitted that they had any responsibility for the garbage assets they peddled on the market. They were just interested in moving the rotten goods out of their store and making a profit like an avaricious grocer selling baskets of rotten tomatoes. When the banks recovered thanks to taxpayer funds, they moved to "reward’ their top executives with millions of dollars in bonuses.
John Taylor, president of the National Community Reinvestment Coalition, made one of the most pointed comments at the end of the hearing. "If the leaders of Wall Street did not consider the possibility of housing prices dropping" through their own experience, nor all the red flags raised about mortgage fraud for years and did not realize that high cost, interest-only loans were being made "then their spirited defense of their employees falls flat."
"Based on what we heard today," Taylor concluded, "they should be firing people not giving them bonuses." Amen.
Tuesday, January 19, 2010
The Eleventh Commandment
By Don Klein
I never thought much of devout people who lecture others on the qualities of his or her faith. To me, when it comes to religion, what you believe in – or don’t believe in – is no one’s business but your own. It is like someone clumsily presupposing they know the path to goodness and morality while the other person does not.
It also presupposes there is only one pathway to virtue. Such propositions are flawed and ignorant. And unseemly.
Many years ago when I was an executive with the Maryland Port Authority on a trade mission in Japan I experienced a haunting example of misplaced religious ardor. Four of us were in a taxi on the way to the airport near Osaka when the head of the delegation somehow turned the usually light travel talk to religion. The others were Christians, I wasn’t.
"Klein, you’ll never have a satisfying life because you do not accept Jesus as your savior," he said. I thought he was jesting and laughed, but he wasn’t.
I wondered what this arrogant muttonhead considered a satisfying life. His wife was an alcoholic who died earlier than she should of sclerosis of the liver. His only daughter left an exclusive college without graduating after three years of costly tuition. He was forced out of his top job before retirement because of his professional ineffectiveness and ended up a lonely widower with few friends.
If that was what the "good life" his religion brought, no thank you. Actually, it wasn’t his religion that made his life good or bad, it was his tactless demeanor, his poor business judgment and his arrogance that provided the downturn of his career and private life.
Brit Hume’s demeaning remarks about Tiger Woods’s need for religious forgiveness brought that memory back to me. "Tiger, turn to the Christian faith and you can make a total recovery and be a great example to the world," he lectured on television the Buddhist Woods for his womanizing antics.
Having religious beliefs are fine and often serve good purposes. But to have the nerve to openly suggest what others should do is loathsome, but not unusual. Take the thousands of missionaries who are scattered around the world proselytizing their faith over the beliefs of natives with bribes of food and medicine.
The endearing quality of life in America is the Constitutional protection of religious belief. The government will never indorse a specific religion and will never restrict its citizens in choosing the religion they prefer. In most cases people follow the religion of their parents and family. But if they wish to convert, it is their free choice.
I would hope no one construes what I am saying as opposition to conversion. If people freely decide to change their faith, so be it. Congratulations and good luck. But for an outsider, layman or clergyman, to gratuitously preach conversion is definitely a no-no in my mind. Hands off, friend, this is the land of free choice.
Now to the subject of Brit Hume’s proposal to Tiger Woods – "forgiveness." That’s a beauty in itself. What does that mean? What sins are forgivable and who decides which? Would we forgive a cold-blooded slayer of children? A traitor to his country? A murderous head of state like Hitler or Stalin?
All right, cool off. Tiger has only admitted to having extra-marital affairs. That’s got nothing to do with religion and all to do with his relationship with his wife. They must resolve the problem. There is no need to change his religion. Did not Brit Hume’s mother ever warn him to stay out of other people’s personal lives?
There should be an Eleventh Commandment – Thou shalt not stick thy nose in other people’s private affairs.
When I was growing up in polyglot New York City we would often hear a bigot claim that many of his best friends are Jewish. We laughed at the obvious hypocrisy. But I can claim the reverse with unembarrassed preciseness. Many of my best friends are Christian. If fact most of my friends are Christian and I have no complaints.
The ordinary people I have met in life, which includes a career in journalism and public relations and my wife’s career in public education and later as an accountant, has been sprinkled richly with great people of all religious denominations. Except for a minimal of aberrations, like the one mentioned above, I found people keep their spiritual preferences to themselves, no doubt because they felt their faith is a personal matter.
It is truly a shame that a few unthinking immoderates like Brit Hume besmirch the good intentions of so many others who respect the honest differences in faiths found in a thoroughly mixed and educated society such as ours. The thought that one religion is superior to another is not what this country is about, and should not be in the minds of fair minded person.
Tiger Woods will find his own way out of his current troubles or – he will not. And his religion with have nothing to do with it.
I never thought much of devout people who lecture others on the qualities of his or her faith. To me, when it comes to religion, what you believe in – or don’t believe in – is no one’s business but your own. It is like someone clumsily presupposing they know the path to goodness and morality while the other person does not.
It also presupposes there is only one pathway to virtue. Such propositions are flawed and ignorant. And unseemly.
Many years ago when I was an executive with the Maryland Port Authority on a trade mission in Japan I experienced a haunting example of misplaced religious ardor. Four of us were in a taxi on the way to the airport near Osaka when the head of the delegation somehow turned the usually light travel talk to religion. The others were Christians, I wasn’t.
"Klein, you’ll never have a satisfying life because you do not accept Jesus as your savior," he said. I thought he was jesting and laughed, but he wasn’t.
I wondered what this arrogant muttonhead considered a satisfying life. His wife was an alcoholic who died earlier than she should of sclerosis of the liver. His only daughter left an exclusive college without graduating after three years of costly tuition. He was forced out of his top job before retirement because of his professional ineffectiveness and ended up a lonely widower with few friends.
If that was what the "good life" his religion brought, no thank you. Actually, it wasn’t his religion that made his life good or bad, it was his tactless demeanor, his poor business judgment and his arrogance that provided the downturn of his career and private life.
Brit Hume’s demeaning remarks about Tiger Woods’s need for religious forgiveness brought that memory back to me. "Tiger, turn to the Christian faith and you can make a total recovery and be a great example to the world," he lectured on television the Buddhist Woods for his womanizing antics.
Having religious beliefs are fine and often serve good purposes. But to have the nerve to openly suggest what others should do is loathsome, but not unusual. Take the thousands of missionaries who are scattered around the world proselytizing their faith over the beliefs of natives with bribes of food and medicine.
The endearing quality of life in America is the Constitutional protection of religious belief. The government will never indorse a specific religion and will never restrict its citizens in choosing the religion they prefer. In most cases people follow the religion of their parents and family. But if they wish to convert, it is their free choice.
I would hope no one construes what I am saying as opposition to conversion. If people freely decide to change their faith, so be it. Congratulations and good luck. But for an outsider, layman or clergyman, to gratuitously preach conversion is definitely a no-no in my mind. Hands off, friend, this is the land of free choice.
Now to the subject of Brit Hume’s proposal to Tiger Woods – "forgiveness." That’s a beauty in itself. What does that mean? What sins are forgivable and who decides which? Would we forgive a cold-blooded slayer of children? A traitor to his country? A murderous head of state like Hitler or Stalin?
All right, cool off. Tiger has only admitted to having extra-marital affairs. That’s got nothing to do with religion and all to do with his relationship with his wife. They must resolve the problem. There is no need to change his religion. Did not Brit Hume’s mother ever warn him to stay out of other people’s personal lives?
There should be an Eleventh Commandment – Thou shalt not stick thy nose in other people’s private affairs.
When I was growing up in polyglot New York City we would often hear a bigot claim that many of his best friends are Jewish. We laughed at the obvious hypocrisy. But I can claim the reverse with unembarrassed preciseness. Many of my best friends are Christian. If fact most of my friends are Christian and I have no complaints.
The ordinary people I have met in life, which includes a career in journalism and public relations and my wife’s career in public education and later as an accountant, has been sprinkled richly with great people of all religious denominations. Except for a minimal of aberrations, like the one mentioned above, I found people keep their spiritual preferences to themselves, no doubt because they felt their faith is a personal matter.
It is truly a shame that a few unthinking immoderates like Brit Hume besmirch the good intentions of so many others who respect the honest differences in faiths found in a thoroughly mixed and educated society such as ours. The thought that one religion is superior to another is not what this country is about, and should not be in the minds of fair minded person.
Tiger Woods will find his own way out of his current troubles or – he will not. And his religion with have nothing to do with it.
Monday, January 11, 2010
The enemy is us
By Don Klein
When Rudolph Giuliani, the former mayor of New York and prominent Republican, was being interviewed by George Stephanopoulos on ABC TV’s "Good Morning America" recently he made an astonishing statement which gives us a look into the contorted mind of modern day conservatives.
"What [Obama] should be doing is following the right things that Bush did," Giuliani pontificated, "one of the right things he did was treat this as a war on terror. We had no domestic attacks under Bush. We’ve had one under Obama..."
Now I distinctly remember Giuliani, covered in the muck from the World Trade Center debris on 9/11, telling the world with great passion via television what an indescribable tragedy and loss of life had been suffered in New York. I also recall that the president at the time was George W. Bush.
So what was he saying? He was following the Republican policy of the Big Lie. He dismisses the worst attack on US territory since Pearl Harbor when the GOP was in power but highlights a lesser incident on the airliner headed for Detroit Christmas Day that miraculously never came off as a symbol of political failure in Democratic times.
Unfortunately the Republican Party has adopted a non-cooperative stance with President Obama. Never in this country’s history has there been such outlandish attacks on a wartime president. Our strength in the past has been to join together in wartime – members of all parties support the president. The Republicans have thrown away this common sense, common-survival criterion.
They are rooting for Obama to fail. To use a term the GOP loves to fling at others: such behavior on their part is un-American. During the worst days of George W. Bush’s presidency never did the Dems want him to fail. On the contrary, they hoped he would succeed by doing the right things. Is it any wonder that less than one in five Americans polled approve of the Republicans today?
That should be enough of an admonishment for them to start being responsible, but it has not done so as we are continually treated to insidious lies like the one stated by Giuliani on TV.
The revolting Right Wing invective is so intense it is nonsensical. Obama is depicted as a communist in one breathe and portrayed in caricatures as Hitler, the supreme fascist, in the next. The poor simpletons behind such labeling are unable to construe that communism and fascism are mortal enemies so you can’t be both at the same time. Of course, we are not dealing with Einsteins in this herd.
The argument most heard is that the Republicans have lost their way. The days of moderate conservatism seems to be over. No more Nelson Rockefellers or Howard Bakers or Robert Tafts, people who dearly loved this country and closed ranks when the US was in danger. No. Now we have detractors at every turn.
We have Congressional buffoons like Senators Mitch McConnell and Jim deMint, and House GOP leader Reps. John Boehner and Michele Bachman. You could get the feeling that every one of them is just hoping for an repeat of 9/11 so they can gloat with political joy no matter how dear the human price. The elected Republicans are is such disrepute that the most vivid voices on their side of the ledger are from non-office holders.
Rush Limbaugh is quoted every day making one pernicious remark after another in support of failure for Obama. Glenn Beck is as nutty as pecan pie, but hardly as tasty, is his outrageous accusations and the strongest voice of all seems to come from the weakest mind – former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin.
What the Republican’s are against is more evident than what they favor. The Republicans oppose health care legislation, they do not want the economy to recover, they do not want unemployment to diminish, they do not want the wars in Southeast Asia to end, they reject anything that the majority of Americans want.
Why? Simple, because the worse things get, the better they think their chances in the mid-term elections coming up this year. They would rather obstruct action in time of serious stress than to help with the resolution. They are part of the problem, not the solution. And they think this will assure them victory at the polls.
When the history of the first decade of the 21st century is eventually written historians will find it hard to paint the Republican Party with anything other than a morose brush. They were bold and reckless when they held the White House and sour and contentious when the Democrats held it. They contributed to the worst foreign relations blunder in the history of the nation and balked at all subsequent efforts to turn it around.
Their soft handling of government regulations added fuel to the damaged economy and their allowance of widespread outsourcing of industry for the sake of corporate profits contributed unmistakably to the heavy unemployment that followed.
But even worse. After providing all the ingredients for economic failure, they refused to support any efforts by the central government to help industry back on its feet. And what is unconscionable is they now stand on the sidelines with hands drooped at their sides and hoot as all efforts to produce remedies to the problems they caused, palpitate and sputter in uncertainty.
A long time ago I concluded in a moment of deepest pessimism that America is too technologically advanced ever to be defeated by a foreign enemy. If the country goes down it will be because of our enemies within. That’s when I endorsed the famous Pogo prophecy.
"We have met the enemy... and he is us."
When Rudolph Giuliani, the former mayor of New York and prominent Republican, was being interviewed by George Stephanopoulos on ABC TV’s "Good Morning America" recently he made an astonishing statement which gives us a look into the contorted mind of modern day conservatives.
"What [Obama] should be doing is following the right things that Bush did," Giuliani pontificated, "one of the right things he did was treat this as a war on terror. We had no domestic attacks under Bush. We’ve had one under Obama..."
Now I distinctly remember Giuliani, covered in the muck from the World Trade Center debris on 9/11, telling the world with great passion via television what an indescribable tragedy and loss of life had been suffered in New York. I also recall that the president at the time was George W. Bush.
So what was he saying? He was following the Republican policy of the Big Lie. He dismisses the worst attack on US territory since Pearl Harbor when the GOP was in power but highlights a lesser incident on the airliner headed for Detroit Christmas Day that miraculously never came off as a symbol of political failure in Democratic times.
Unfortunately the Republican Party has adopted a non-cooperative stance with President Obama. Never in this country’s history has there been such outlandish attacks on a wartime president. Our strength in the past has been to join together in wartime – members of all parties support the president. The Republicans have thrown away this common sense, common-survival criterion.
They are rooting for Obama to fail. To use a term the GOP loves to fling at others: such behavior on their part is un-American. During the worst days of George W. Bush’s presidency never did the Dems want him to fail. On the contrary, they hoped he would succeed by doing the right things. Is it any wonder that less than one in five Americans polled approve of the Republicans today?
That should be enough of an admonishment for them to start being responsible, but it has not done so as we are continually treated to insidious lies like the one stated by Giuliani on TV.
The revolting Right Wing invective is so intense it is nonsensical. Obama is depicted as a communist in one breathe and portrayed in caricatures as Hitler, the supreme fascist, in the next. The poor simpletons behind such labeling are unable to construe that communism and fascism are mortal enemies so you can’t be both at the same time. Of course, we are not dealing with Einsteins in this herd.
The argument most heard is that the Republicans have lost their way. The days of moderate conservatism seems to be over. No more Nelson Rockefellers or Howard Bakers or Robert Tafts, people who dearly loved this country and closed ranks when the US was in danger. No. Now we have detractors at every turn.
We have Congressional buffoons like Senators Mitch McConnell and Jim deMint, and House GOP leader Reps. John Boehner and Michele Bachman. You could get the feeling that every one of them is just hoping for an repeat of 9/11 so they can gloat with political joy no matter how dear the human price. The elected Republicans are is such disrepute that the most vivid voices on their side of the ledger are from non-office holders.
Rush Limbaugh is quoted every day making one pernicious remark after another in support of failure for Obama. Glenn Beck is as nutty as pecan pie, but hardly as tasty, is his outrageous accusations and the strongest voice of all seems to come from the weakest mind – former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin.
What the Republican’s are against is more evident than what they favor. The Republicans oppose health care legislation, they do not want the economy to recover, they do not want unemployment to diminish, they do not want the wars in Southeast Asia to end, they reject anything that the majority of Americans want.
Why? Simple, because the worse things get, the better they think their chances in the mid-term elections coming up this year. They would rather obstruct action in time of serious stress than to help with the resolution. They are part of the problem, not the solution. And they think this will assure them victory at the polls.
When the history of the first decade of the 21st century is eventually written historians will find it hard to paint the Republican Party with anything other than a morose brush. They were bold and reckless when they held the White House and sour and contentious when the Democrats held it. They contributed to the worst foreign relations blunder in the history of the nation and balked at all subsequent efforts to turn it around.
Their soft handling of government regulations added fuel to the damaged economy and their allowance of widespread outsourcing of industry for the sake of corporate profits contributed unmistakably to the heavy unemployment that followed.
But even worse. After providing all the ingredients for economic failure, they refused to support any efforts by the central government to help industry back on its feet. And what is unconscionable is they now stand on the sidelines with hands drooped at their sides and hoot as all efforts to produce remedies to the problems they caused, palpitate and sputter in uncertainty.
A long time ago I concluded in a moment of deepest pessimism that America is too technologically advanced ever to be defeated by a foreign enemy. If the country goes down it will be because of our enemies within. That’s when I endorsed the famous Pogo prophecy.
"We have met the enemy... and he is us."
Thursday, January 7, 2010
Wishes for 2010
By Don Klein
Some of my friends think I am a curmudgeon. Not just because I am old, but because they think of me as a crank, a grouch, an old grump who is mostly dissatisfied with just about everything. That is untrue. I am really a nice guy, and to prove it I will list in this space my fondest wishes for the New Year.
As 2010 begins, I wish:
– Everyone in this country without medical insurance at present will be covered before the year ends.
– That all overweight people, especially children, trim down to reasonable size. That obesity we wiped out.
– Not a teacher, firefighter or policeman is put out of work this year because we cannot afford to pay them.
– Not one child, no matter where they live, no matter what their ethnicity, goes hungry for a single day this year.
– That the American automobile industry bounces back and becomes profitable again, employing thousands of currently unemployed people.
– That Wall Street profiteers lose their money in illegal schemes or at the roulette table.
– That Wall Street hotshots be taxed heavily for their bonuses.
– If we continued to ban foreign pharmaceuticals to be sold here shouldn’t we also ban foreign toys, food, clothing and automobiles in the US market?
– That racial and religious bigotry disappears this year and people be judged as individuals.
– That al Qaeda collapses from its own excesses and from pressure within and without, the way all belligerent regimes have in the past.
– That former Vice President Dick Cheney, unbalanced by the horns he has grown in his head, trips over his tail and pitch-forks himself like a pole vaulter out the top floor window.
– That massive oil deposits be discovered from beneath Nebraska to Idaho so we can end oil imports from Saudi Arabia and watch King Abdallah and his swarmy royalty squirm.
– That more films are made focusing on interesting tales about people and things and not on electronic digital gimmickery.
– That everyone who so desires gets a chance to visit the Metropolitan Opera in New York at least once in their lives.
– That the Ravens win the Super Bowl, if not this year, then in 2011.
– That the Orioles go to the World Series this year just to prove to eternal pessimists that miracles can happen.
– That we have a mild winter with just enough snow to please the kids, a cool spring with enough rain to water crops sufficiently, a warm summer to bring out the bikinis and a glorious autumn of brilliant colors in the woods.
– Viewers turn away from television cable news and turn back to the more reliable habit of reading newspapers.
– There be more television shows like Monk and The Closer and less adolescent comedies like Two and a Half Men and How I Met Your Mother.
– That our courageous troops overseas all return home safely this year.
– That Rush Limbaugh becomes inflicted with an ailment that leaves him with a permanent case of laryngitis.
– That Glenn Beck has a tooth pulled and the truth fairy leaves him with her very special gift which results in him having nothing more to say.
– That Sarah Palin impresses so many Right Wingers that she is assured the Republican nomination for president in 2012.
– The next major barrier to break will be a woman as president – and it won’t be someone with the initials S.P.
– That President Obama becomes more incendiary and re-ignites the universal enthusiasm he generated during the 2008 campaign.
– That members of Congress give priority to serving the electorate first, not their political contributors.
– That truth prevails in politics, in business, in human relations, in journalism
and in advertising.
– That lawyers become seekers of real justice, not exploiters of technicalities.
– That sports broadcasters, especially those on Monday night football, turn off the endless nonsense chatter.
– That NFL football "experts" stop predicting game strategies on television. They are usually wrong.
– That Washington pundits give us all a rest and stop their know-it-all predictions and concentrate on explaining the confusing elements in conflicting news reports.
– That people who feel the need to keep firearms in their homes realize that they are more liable to become victims of misuse of deadly weapons than those who don’t have guns in their homes.
– That Jon Stewart should host a daily one hour network prime time program instead of Jay Leno.
– That true democracy will arrive when politicians stop underestimating the intelligence of ordinary people.
– No one should think it wrong to have a black president because as comedian Chris Rock put it after Obama took office, "why not, we just had a retarded one."
– That those who feel the need for religious proselytization would realize that such behavior draws the opposite result and demeans the proselytizer.
– That cancer would be wiped out, as well as diabetes and heart ailments.
– That stem cell research will begin to reap dividends in health cures this year.
– Excesses in all realms be gone forever and instead moderation will reign.
– That all children be born and raised without disease.
– That children be given opportunities through education to succeed.
– That Tiger Woods and David Letterman find satisfaction in one woman’s bed.
– That intellectualism should no longer be a put down for some people.
And finally,
– I hope good looking women take short steps and wink once in awile when they pass me on the boardwalk or anywhere else. It's good for my psyche.
Some of my friends think I am a curmudgeon. Not just because I am old, but because they think of me as a crank, a grouch, an old grump who is mostly dissatisfied with just about everything. That is untrue. I am really a nice guy, and to prove it I will list in this space my fondest wishes for the New Year.
As 2010 begins, I wish:
– Everyone in this country without medical insurance at present will be covered before the year ends.
– That all overweight people, especially children, trim down to reasonable size. That obesity we wiped out.
– Not a teacher, firefighter or policeman is put out of work this year because we cannot afford to pay them.
– Not one child, no matter where they live, no matter what their ethnicity, goes hungry for a single day this year.
– That the American automobile industry bounces back and becomes profitable again, employing thousands of currently unemployed people.
– That Wall Street profiteers lose their money in illegal schemes or at the roulette table.
– That Wall Street hotshots be taxed heavily for their bonuses.
– If we continued to ban foreign pharmaceuticals to be sold here shouldn’t we also ban foreign toys, food, clothing and automobiles in the US market?
– That racial and religious bigotry disappears this year and people be judged as individuals.
– That al Qaeda collapses from its own excesses and from pressure within and without, the way all belligerent regimes have in the past.
– That former Vice President Dick Cheney, unbalanced by the horns he has grown in his head, trips over his tail and pitch-forks himself like a pole vaulter out the top floor window.
– That massive oil deposits be discovered from beneath Nebraska to Idaho so we can end oil imports from Saudi Arabia and watch King Abdallah and his swarmy royalty squirm.
– That more films are made focusing on interesting tales about people and things and not on electronic digital gimmickery.
– That everyone who so desires gets a chance to visit the Metropolitan Opera in New York at least once in their lives.
– That the Ravens win the Super Bowl, if not this year, then in 2011.
– That the Orioles go to the World Series this year just to prove to eternal pessimists that miracles can happen.
– That we have a mild winter with just enough snow to please the kids, a cool spring with enough rain to water crops sufficiently, a warm summer to bring out the bikinis and a glorious autumn of brilliant colors in the woods.
– Viewers turn away from television cable news and turn back to the more reliable habit of reading newspapers.
– There be more television shows like Monk and The Closer and less adolescent comedies like Two and a Half Men and How I Met Your Mother.
– That our courageous troops overseas all return home safely this year.
– That Rush Limbaugh becomes inflicted with an ailment that leaves him with a permanent case of laryngitis.
– That Glenn Beck has a tooth pulled and the truth fairy leaves him with her very special gift which results in him having nothing more to say.
– That Sarah Palin impresses so many Right Wingers that she is assured the Republican nomination for president in 2012.
– The next major barrier to break will be a woman as president – and it won’t be someone with the initials S.P.
– That President Obama becomes more incendiary and re-ignites the universal enthusiasm he generated during the 2008 campaign.
– That members of Congress give priority to serving the electorate first, not their political contributors.
– That truth prevails in politics, in business, in human relations, in journalism
and in advertising.
– That lawyers become seekers of real justice, not exploiters of technicalities.
– That sports broadcasters, especially those on Monday night football, turn off the endless nonsense chatter.
– That NFL football "experts" stop predicting game strategies on television. They are usually wrong.
– That Washington pundits give us all a rest and stop their know-it-all predictions and concentrate on explaining the confusing elements in conflicting news reports.
– That people who feel the need to keep firearms in their homes realize that they are more liable to become victims of misuse of deadly weapons than those who don’t have guns in their homes.
– That Jon Stewart should host a daily one hour network prime time program instead of Jay Leno.
– That true democracy will arrive when politicians stop underestimating the intelligence of ordinary people.
– No one should think it wrong to have a black president because as comedian Chris Rock put it after Obama took office, "why not, we just had a retarded one."
– That those who feel the need for religious proselytization would realize that such behavior draws the opposite result and demeans the proselytizer.
– That cancer would be wiped out, as well as diabetes and heart ailments.
– That stem cell research will begin to reap dividends in health cures this year.
– Excesses in all realms be gone forever and instead moderation will reign.
– That all children be born and raised without disease.
– That children be given opportunities through education to succeed.
– That Tiger Woods and David Letterman find satisfaction in one woman’s bed.
– That intellectualism should no longer be a put down for some people.
And finally,
– I hope good looking women take short steps and wink once in awile when they pass me on the boardwalk or anywhere else. It's good for my psyche.
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