Republicans, Democrats and Tiger Woods

I woke up cranky today. In and of itself that is not news. I wake up cranky most days. Waking up cranky and flipping on the cable news channels to hear of the awarding of the Nobel Peace Prize to President Obama is like pouring gasoline on a fire. As is my wont I fired up Facebook and made a few disparaging remarks and then lit up Twitter with a few more gems, especially after I heard the game of golf had been approved as an Olympic event commencing in 2016. More on the Olympics and golf later if I'm not too tired and drunk on Jim Beam and if I really think anyone has hung in and read that far. After a couple of "Tweets" I made some breakfast and took my two pit bulls out for their morning walk and game of dog hockey. Upon returning home and scoping the Blackberry out I found that two people, both total strangers, had found my remarks regarding the president sufficiently incendiary to prompt them to post replies, chastising me for my position and use of language that they felt was offensive when applied to their hero, President Barack Obama, whom I am fond of referring to as "Obamass, because, well, honestly that's what I think he is a good deal of the time. All three of these people, though, made it a point of calling me an "extreme right wing Republican", and frankly folks, that pissed me off. I thought name calling and generalizing was what "extreme right wing Republicans" did, not thoughtful, intelligent and enlightened supporters of our President. Notice that I did not refer to these people as anything other than supporters of the president. I did not make a snap judgement about them and assign them a label and button hole them into a certain group based on a few short statements because I have no freaking idea what or who they are. Do NOT LABEL ME.

For the record. I can't stand George W. Bush. I despise Dick (was there EVER a more aptly named man?)Cheney. I was inclined to support John McCain last year in spite of, not because of, him naming Sarah "NRA Barbie" Palin as his running mate. Full disclosure: As a red blooded American male pig I find Sarah to be incredibly hot! As a politician and the potential holder of the postion "one heartbeat away from the Presidency" I found her to be a joke. I would have actually voted for the Tina Fey version of Palin over the real one. I think Cheney, Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz, the triumverate leading the charge of the neo-cons in modern day DC should be arrested and charged as war criminals, as profiteers, as murderers for the loss of life in our US Armed Forces and for being stupid in public. I don't think there's nearly as much difference between a Republican and a Democrat as people think there is, especially once they have been elected to high state or national office. I pretty much despise ALL of them equally as much as the other. I think the war in Afghanistan was necessary and right. I think the war in Iraq was unnecessary and wrong. I honor, no revere, the service and sacrifice of the men and women in our armed forces who did not question the mission but went forth and did was asked of them regardless of my opinion or anyone else's of the decisions of the men(predominantly) who sent them to either or both theaters of operations. Those of you who know me know that I was a police officer for most of my adult career. I have openly and publicy endorsed the concept of the police shooting more offenders and beating people who truly deserve it while resisting arrest but I insist, no I demand, that the police play by the rules, be held to a higher standard of conduct than other citizens and I vehemently support the Bill of Rights and the concept that what I do in my house is my business and shame on you if you show up without a properly prepared and legitimate search warrant. I am a "law and order" guy so I endorse the death penalty, right? WRONG. I think the death penalty, as it is presently administered in this country is a disgrace. Poor people get executed, not moneyed or connected people. Taking upwards of 10 years to execute an offender is, to me, akin to waiting a month to punish your child after you catch him/her pilfering Chips Ahoy from the cookie jar. I support the broad term "gay rights". Gay/Lesbian/Bisexual/Transgendered is too much to type, so I'll use the generic term. Sue me if you don't like it. If two people are in love and are truly committed to each other I think they should have the right to marry. What the hell do I care? I think they should be able to have a say in legal and health care matters for their partner. I do not EVER want to hear about a GLBT person assaulted or harmed because of his her or ??? sexual orientation but at the same time I refuse to support "hate crime" legislation being expanded to include members of that group. I do not support assigning special victim status to people who manage to pigeon hole themselves into a specific group or class of people because I believe assault is assault and murder is murder. I endorse capitalism. If you can build a better mousetrap, market it, sell it and make a billion dollars I say more power to you but I believe if you do make that billion dollars you should pay at least the same per centage of your earnings in taxes as the guy who gets up every day and goes to work at your mousetrap company. Its not like that now - you know it and I know it. The deck is stacked against you if your are not a big money person. The state legislatures and the Congress have perverted the tax codes and the rules to allow big money, big companies, big business to make more. "It takes money to make money" has NEVER been truer in our country and I guess that's where this is headed.

I don't like Barack Obama. I think the day he was elected was a bad day for America. Is it because he's black? Lately its been popular in the media to say anyone who does not approve of him or questions his judgement or decisions is racist because he's black. I know he has a dark complexion and his hair appears to be similar to that of most persons of African descent but wait a minute. Last I heard Obama was HALF WHITE! So if the people who are against him are racist for doing so are they just half racist? Why is he the first "black president"? Why isn't he the first "dual racial" president? I have yet to hear a black person refer to Obama as so. They seem to want to completely disregard the fact that the man's mother was a white woman and he was raised by his white grandparents. What he is really doesn't count unless you are racist!!! I don't like Obama because I think he is bullshit. I refuse to believe, in my heart of hearts, that Obama is anything but a snake oil selling politician, no better or worse than 99.9 per cent of all the other snake oil selling politicians who have managed to get elected and are now running the country (into the ground). Obama was elected, largely on the strength of overwhelming turnout by younger people and African Americans who admittedly voted for him ONLY FOR THE COLOR OF HIS SKIN. Its a fact, people. Its a fact. Ask an African American. I know the reasons and can accept the reasons but please, just ADMIT IT! Consider this: A person who had reached the legal voting age of 18 by last November's presidential election was 10 years old when George W. was elected. As these young people came of age all they had as a politcal example was W and his ilk. To a young person living through 8 years of W and his bullshit and the war and terrorism and everything else that's gone on ANYBODY but Bush was a good choice, especially when the political process views issues and honesty as "an inconvenient truth" and is able to use spin and TV commercials and Saturday Night Live and The Daily Show as legitimate sources of political information. Michael Moore, who I think is an incredibly intelligent and gifted man, makes movies condemning white middle aged men who have too much money. Just about every bad thing in our lives in the past 25 years or so has been blamed on white middle aged men. We all know that is not true. White middle aged men are only responsible for about 90 per cent of all the bad things in our lives! Michael Moore is a white middle aged man who is a certified multi millionaire! His latest film excoriates the American system of capitalism that Moore has used to make millions and millions of dollars. He owns five houses and a Manhattan condo and when questioned about the hypocrisy says, "I own a house. I have to live somewhere". He is everything he rails against and is being celebrated by liberal people while he deposits another million in his accounts! Come on, people. Open your eyes! I couldn't imagine a person between the ages of 18 and 30 NOT voting for Obama. My problem is that its just like the Wizard Of Oz. Its all smoke and mirrors. Obama may turn out to be the greatest president the country has ever seen, and frankly, I hope it works out that way but when you see younger people interviewed on TV and they say they are so thrilled he was awarded the Nobel Prize because of "his ideas and his personna" and "because he's really smart" and "because he's bringing us the change we need" (these are all actual quotes heard today on both cable and broadcast news programs, folks, I swear its true) and "because he's African American and he understands us" and numerous other senseless, inane, assinine answers that have NOTHING to do with his actual running of the country! For Pete's sake (who the hell is Pete, anyway?) the guy's only been on the job for 9 months, how much can he have accomplished already? My biggest problem with him? The whole government propping up businesses, that, because of the way people running them ran them into the ground and should have been allowed to fail as a consequence and his blatant, bold faced 180 degree about face on the whole situation in Afghanistan and his refusal to take the advice of the people HE assigned to give him the story....while our young people continue to die there. My bottom line is this: No one. NO ONE. Gets elected President Of The United States Of America who has not already sold his soul to the devil by making deals (BOTH parties do it) with the big money interests who pull all the strings behind the scenes. Call it a conspiracy theory, call it what you will, but if you honestly believe there is more than "talking points" that make up the difference between a Republican and a Democrat once he attains high state and then national office I just think you're wrong. Maybe I'm wrong and you're right. Who knows? I just believe, with all my heart, that Barack Obama doesn't give a shivering shit about the plight of the average, every day, middle class American, be they black, white or whatever any more than George W. Bush, Bill Clinton, George H.W. Bush, Ronald Reagan, Jimmy Carter, Gerald Ford, Richard Nixon.....you get my point....did. The only difference is what they say in the TV commercials. "Change We Can Believe In" is the biggest pile of steaming, stinking bullshit sold to the American Sheeple in the past 50 years! If Obama actually does ever manage to change anything for the betterment of the average American I'll be the first to give him his props. But until then I'll continue to call him out when I feel its right, not because he's Dem. or Rep., black or white, left or right, conservative or liberal or what ever!

Golf? In the Olympics? Come on, now, seriously. Several outlets who supposedly have the ability to garner the information needed to make these pronouncements pronounced that Tiger Woods will make over ONE BILLION DOLLARS from playing golf and all the assorted endorsements, winnings and what ever. A billion dollars. In one year, folks. One year. One guy. Probably more than that next year. Phil Mickelson: upwards of half a billion. Hell the poorest guy on the PGA tour last year probably made several million. Although the ladies playing pro golf don't make nearly the money the men do, the top players on the LPGA tour are all multi millionaires. The Olympics lost the whole amateur thing years ago and we've been treated to NBA stars and NHL stars and I suppose its natural the pro tour golfers wanted in on it, but really, come on. They took softball out. Although a few of the ladies who played USA Softball were able to garner some endorsements and such (Jenny Finch, Cat Osterman) most of the competitors in the Olympics are really never going to become household names. They truly do compete for the love of their sport of choice and for the chance to represent their country. Do you honestly, for one milli second, think Tiger Woods or Michelle Wie are going to be out there for the glory of the good old U S of A? How many millions of dollars is it worth for Nike to be "the official golf equipment supplier to the US Olympic Team"? Hmmmm....money. Now there's a familiar theme.

BTW - dog hockey is played by going to the city recreation center on Academy Road and using the outdoor street hockey court. The court is only accessible by two doors which can be closed, allowing the two dogs to run free without worry of them taking a powder to chase a poodle. A pair of "Kong" brand nearly indestructable rubber balls can then be thrown for the aforementioned mutts to chase the balls, and themselves, to their hearts content while I laugh at their antics. Its good exercise for them and they love it!

Thanks, as always, for taking the time to read my ramblings. That's the View From The Mountain! What do you think??
William J. "Mountain Bill (don't you dare label me) Paupst

Full disclosure: I was in no way, shape or form compensated for my endorsement of the KONG brand of dog toys, although Sofie (my beloved mentally challenged shelter rescued pit bull terrier) was given a milk bone by the girl behind the cash register at PetCo when we bought the KONG balls.

Wish I Knew

This post, if it ever sees the light of day, is a fairly severe departure from my regular type. Its not a rant, or a complaint, or a call to action or arms. I'm not sure what it is. I sat down with no idea what, if anything, was going to make the trip from my head through my fingers and onto the screen. Normally I have some notion or topic that I want to cover or explore and I go with it. I actually believe, in my twisted mind, that I'm writing something that someone would actually like to read. I just don't know if that's the case here. This is not a rant. I suppose if truth be told its more of a whine. I've been reduced to whining because I just don't know what else to do. I have never, ever, in my life felt so powerless to influence or affect events that have such an impact on my life and the lives of my loved ones. I'm whining because I'm scared shitless that I'm going to get the call telling me my son has been killed in a foreign land by enemies of our country, savages who want nothing else in this world than the deaths of as many American soldiers as they can possibly cause. Animals who kill other humans as casually as we would tread on a spider and who have become so skilled with ways and methods so barbaric and horrific that details and accounts of their deeds are not believed by the rest of us. I can't do anything to stop it. I can't do anything to help him and I can't do anything to influence the people who are running this war and this country to make him or any of them with him any safer. I am not unique. I am no one special. Across this country thousands and thousands of other families deal with this every day and every night and I'm thinking most of them don't whine about it. They suck it up, accept it for what it is and hope for the best. Far too many of them have already had to deal with the nightmare. Right now 9 American families are finalizing funeral arrangements. No spoken or written word can do anything to help those people. I feel ashamed, knowing what these families are going through right now, to say one word about how hard this is for me to deal with. I feel ashamed, knowing what my son's wife goes through every day, to complain. I feel ashamed when I see my four grand children coping with every day life with no Daddy around. Let me tell you folks, it sucks and I only hope that my whining does not diminish his service. Something tells me that even though its wrong to feel this and even worse to express it, if I don't I'm going to explode. Maybe someone will read this, maybe not. Maybe just getting it out of my head and into black and white in front of me will be enough for me to move past it, suck it up and put my "game face" back on. I just don't friggin' know. All I know is I've never seen any other parents of a deployed soldier write anything like this. But I have to wonder if any of them feel or felt the same way.

Many, if not most of you know that my son, Billy, is currently serving a deployment with his Army Engineer Batallion in Afghanistan. He's been there since the first week of this past May and his deployment is scheduled to last until May 2010. We are hoping he will be able to come home for a "R&R" leave right around Christmas time. That's not guaranteed but we're hoping it will come about. Afghanistan is big news right now. I posted a rant a couple of weeks back imploring President Obama to follow the advice of his chosen Army generals to expand the war effort so as to be able to accomplish the mission as he, Obama, laid it out both during his campaign and upon being elected. Since the news broke of the Army's assessment of the situation the entire Afghanistan campaign has become the most hotly contested political argument surpassing even the debate over the health care reform efforts. This week on the CBS Evening News Katie Couric devoted three entire 1/2 hour news casts to the situation in Afghanistan and the debate currently underway in Washington regarding the course to be taken. Its obvious that there are no easy or simple solutions but once again, in true D.C. fashion the whole deal is being boiled down to the same old bullshit Democrat vs. Republican, Us vs. Them, Blue State vs. Red State, Liberal vs. Conservative and any number of other A vs. B scenarios and while all the arguing and posturing and statements and counter statements are going on one thing is constant: American kids are sweating and suffering and dying and, in the immortal words (at least here in the Philadelphia area) of one Ricky Watters, I have to wonder, "for who - for what?"

Ricky made a half hearted attempt to snag a football thrown his way and when chided for the blatantly obvious failure to give the expected "110%" that athletes are supposed to exert in their efforts to entertain us with their blood sport, Ricky responded with the above quote. To Ricky, doing so would have most likely resulted in his taking a pretty severe hit from the defending players, and, in Ricky's estimation, expending the effort required to make the catch would not have resulted in a substantial gain of territory on the field and so we were treated to, "for who - for what?" Ricky didn't care. Pro athletes get paid the same win, lose or draw.

Lately I've been kind of thinking along Ricky's lines when it comes to the goings on in Afghanistan. It just doesn't seem to me like anyone in Washington really wants to win the game. Obviously there's a whole hell of a lot more at stake here then who wins a stupid football game and don't think for one minute that I am trying to compare the war to a game. Its not. People can get hurt playing football but people die in war. The soldiers and marines over in "the Stan" don't think its a game either and they can't understand why the politicians who are running the country and the war think it is. Lately all we've been hearing about is Obama's "strategy" for moving forward, forming a "new strategy". What is wrong with his last strategy? What's changed since he formed the last strategy? I don't know. Do you? Does anyone? Last I heard there were people in Afghanistan who wanted to kill us. All of us. As many of us at one time as they could. Remember 9-11-01? I do. Us going in to Afghanistan was to find and eliminate the people who did that as well as all their friends and relatives who were lined up waiting for their chance to do the same. I suppose all we can do when faced with a situation we have not had to deal with previously is try and relate in some way to something we have dealt with. In my case I think back to a period of time in 1990 when I was assigned a foot beat in one of the most notoriously violent public housing projects in Philadelphia. I walked, with one other officer in and around 3 high rise apartment buildings. At any given time we were outnumbered probably 2000 to 1. Groups of loiterers gathered outside the building entrances in groups as large as 40 to 50 individuals and most of them either had guns on their persons or had them stashed close by and readily available. Our only hope of gaining any measure of respect and maintaining any hope of survival was to convince the locals that we were, A - the two baddest, craziest psycho cops they had ever seen and that, B - ANY effort on their part to challenge our authority or do us harm would be met with swift, sure and deadly retribution. You don't want your police to act that way? Get over it. It goes on every single night of the week and if it didn't there'd be more cop funerals than you could believe. Were it up to me there would not have been only two of us there. There would have been two HUNDRED! And we would have cleaned out the bad guys, locked them up, beat them up or shot the sons of bitches who we couldn't lock up or beat up and make sure they all knew if the decent people who lived in the projects had to live in fear and never come out of their homes then we would be back and we'd do it all over again. Doesn't work that way I guess. Can't be violating the civil rights of criminals lest we have Jesse and Al raising hell. But Afghanistan is not the projects and the animals over there have no civil rights.

War sucks. For the life of me I don't know why we all just can't get along and war over religion....RELIGION....is the most stupid thing I've ever heard of. Stupid. The word doesn't cover it. Asinine. I have no thesaurus handy, but war over religion is as dumb as it gets but we've been doing it since they invented religion and I don't guess its going to change anytime soon. But no matter how stupid the reason, war is war, and if you're going to get into one then you damn sure better make certain you win. Over whelming force, applied mercilessly and swiftly. Eliminate the enemy once and for all. If you're going to send our kids over there and ask them to accept the risk of getting killed they MUST know that their country and their leaders are giving them every thing they need to do the job, do it right, do it with extreme prejudice and then get them the hell out. Maybe if Leisure Suit Larry in Iran sees what happens to the Taliban and bin Laden's buddies he wouldn't be so quick to rattle his saber and that would be one less place we'd have to worry about sending our kids off to next.

So here I sit, in front of a computer, warm and safe in my home, and perfectly able to go to sleep (most likely with the assistance of some pretty gnarly drugs) and rest knowing that there is no one on top of the hill surrounding my house who is devoting every moment of his existence trying to figure out how to kill me. Is my way the answer to the problem? Hell no. I know that. I wish it weren't so but I know. But there's a lot of ground between my way and the way we've been doing things so far and maybe if we moved the operations a little closer to my way, and let the bad people know that we're there to stay and make life miserable for those who oppose us both my son and I could sleep a little better tonight. And I wouldn't feel like I was letting him down by being so worried. Thanks for hanging in and reading this far. 'Preciate it.