Category Archives: Politics

12/22/12

There Comes a Time for Every Blogger…

The Family Poobah

Marcia (Wife), Claire (Daughter), and Me at an annual fundraiser for Claire’s Chi Omega chapter.

Some of you have asked, most of you have not. That’s not surprising since the readership of the Poobah has dropped considerably. Life waxes and wanes. That is the way things work.

I’ve been doing this gig for 7 1/2 years. That’s an epoch in blog time. I’m not sure how many posts I’ve done, but it has been in the thousands. I’m not sure how many visitors I’ve had, but it is in the high hundreds of thousands (I even got one from Antarctica once). That’s not bad for a guy with a keyboard and a loud mouth.

My production has dropped too. This is where I should say something about all the fun I’ve had and the close friends I’ve made, and that would be true. But most importantly, this blog has been my friend too. It has helped me vent and given me a new-found respect that an astonishing number of people read what I had to say — regularly — even deeply personal things aside from important (and sometimes unimportant) things that go on outside of me.

If bloggers have a steady complaint it is that life too often intrudes on their writing. Relationships need tending. Jobs get in the way. It’s the way of the world. Sometimes the tumult of personal life and the lives of so many people and so many events  outside just converge and make one tired. I’ve given advice to many a blogger just getting started. I have two pieces for them. Always write for yourself and when it isn’t fun anymore, stop.

It’s not as much fun anymore. These days the idea of writing is more appealing than actual writing these days. The words don’t come and when they do, they aren’t good enough — better a little of something good than a lot of something bad. After all, I can’t rage at the world forever. I always promised myself that when I reached that point I’d stop. I’ve reached that point.

I’m not sure if this is a retirement or a hiatus. Perhaps the spark will return and perhaps not. If you’d like to know if it does, please drop me an email or hit the subscribe button over there. I’ll keep a list.

If this is the last time I post or if this is the last time you stop in, I appreciate your patronage. I hope you got at least a small taste of the joy it’s been for me.

Fellow bloggers, update your link lists.

I’m out of here. See you around the intertubes.

12/6/12

Fiscal Cliff: Republicans Will Lose

Montgomery Burns explains the Fiscal Cliff.

So far, I’ve abstained from posts about the Fiscal Cliff or Fiscal Crag or Hoar Frosty Diving Board Into the Socio-Economic Pits of Hell. One, there is chatter enough without me throwing in my rapidly worthless 2 cents. Two, it is the most predictable story in the history of politics. But, let me to throw in at least a cent and a half with the caveat that this post isn’t all about the cliff, but the behavior surrounding the tax hike on the wealthy.

It’s safe to say the Republican party is suffering  bit of internal strife. Their election bid failed for many completely foreseeable reasons, not the least of which was acting like imbeciles led by a candidate who never met  a position he wouldn’t gladly abandon. The Republican intelligentsia, like Bobby Jindal (And let’s face it, how intelligent can your intelligentsia be if Jindal represents it?), keeps trying to tell the Tea Partiers, Grover Grovelers, and Evangelical Loons to cool it. “Psst. They finally caught onto us. Shut up and look smart for a change you guys.” But, they just don’t get it.

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11/26/12

Creating Jobs in the Booming Corporate Executive Sector

An industrial bonus

High ticket CEOs often complain those who object to their squeezing blood out of the nation turnip for their personal gain are simply jealous. I suppose that is true in many cases, but even if people are jealous it is understandable. It’s hard not to be jealous when the mortgage company is kicking your family to the curb – just as the CEO buys a multi-million dollar summer “cottage” in Aspen. But there are others, and I am one, who object on business grounds.

Much of the CEO’s “compensation” comes from companies that take the concept of corporations-as-people far past any original intent. Under the CEO’s direction, corporations reap record-breaking profits, even in recessions that crush those who buy their products or citizens that pay hefty taxes (which captains of industry caterwhal are breaking America’s back) to fund the profits through not insubstantial corporate welfare.

For all the talk about the value of small business, we could fund thousands of small businesses for years just on what a single multi-national gets in tax breaks in a single quarter. It’s a vicious cycle – multi-nationals take billions in taxes from just-plain-citizens to prop up corporate values to pay hefty dividends and fund expensive lobbying efforts to continue getting our money from the people who don’t live tax-free. In turn, CEOs get massive compensation to hire lawyers and accountants to make sure they get their money as tax-free as possible, and so on. This is not robbing Peter to pay Paul. This is robbing Peter and then complaining Paul wasn’t carrying enough cash for Paul to steal.

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11/13/12

The Patraeus Affair: Does it Really Matter?

Cast of characters

The David Petraeus narrative is coming out in dribs and drabs, all the better to make things look worse than they are and give the story long, long gams. Petrausgate is as strange, or stranger, than any other Washington “boy meets girl … boy beds girl … boy resigns … girl hides in an undisclosed location” story. Surprisingly, everyone is still working out the details of a story with more plot twists than the Da Vinci Code. They are just beginning to get to the rights and wrongs of the matter and as we all know, that’s when the sh*t will really hits the fan.

Despite the coming onslaught of, “God smiteth thou who cannot keep his pecker in his pants” admonishments, most Americans could probably care less the General had an affair. Heck, half of America is screwing around so they tend not to get too worked up over sexual indiscretions – unless they are televangelists coveting their neighbor’s wives. That’s as it should be. Morality is best left to the people exercising those morals. No one needs a squadron of Church Ladies to tell them they will burn in eternal fire because of something they did behind closed doors. Note to over-reaching religious zealots, if they will indeed burn in hell, it’s between them and Beelzebub. No more needs be said.

Although I usually follow the screw and let screw position, there are some differences between Petraeus and your average cad. For one, he’s the leader of America’s spy apparatus.

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11/7/12

The Election: Well, That was Anticlimactic

Obama wins the election

Well, that was anticlimactic. We listened to a grueling (for voters) 4-year long campaign during which we witnessed the worst political spectacle of the epoch. If, “liar, liar, pants on fire” meant anything, there wouldn’t be a pair of Levis left on the planet. The country immersed itself in a boiling cauldron of rancor so deep there is no word in English to adequately describe it. And yet, after all that, we have essentially the same balance of power as before.Well played America, well-played.

It’s time for a few observations and maybe a little advice. For the “mandate” crowd, winning an election by the skin of your teeth does not a mandate make. For the “it’s imponderable we lost” crowd, no it isn’t. You acted like a bunch of jackwads. For the “gridlock will finally break” crowd, what makes you think reelecting largely the same people who are already bought and paid for is going to break gridlock?

But since the nation is populated with a large ignorati caucus, let’s break it down real simple like:

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