I'll be seeing you

My column tomorrow will make me more unpopular with conservatives who are not famous for their sense of humor, despite what my colleague Ruth Ann Dailey suggested in a recent column. She thinks that it is the liberals who have no sense of humor.

Actually, all zealots have no sense of humor, and I don't care if they are conservative or liberal. But it is mostly the conservatives who get on my case and they tend to be older and bristling with resentments, like aging porcupines. They couldn't get a joke if a platoon of clowns were to parachute into their yard and deliver it to them personally.

If they call me up to abuse me, or email me, they will find me gone, departed, decamped, off like a streak of weasels. I am putting the old brain in storage and taking some vacation. I have left a column for next week, just in case they miss the irritation of seeing my smiling face.

This blog will resume after I return on Monday, Aug. 11.

To err is human ...

Correction: I said in my last posting that Barack Obama spoke at the Brandenburg Gate, but actually he spoke at the base of the Victory Column in the Tiergarten, looking out in the direction of the Brandenburg Gate.

Charles Krauthammer is still a pompous oaf, however.

In reaction to that posting, I got this charming little email. Apparently, we are all doomed, according to the logic of this correspondent. Still, this represents the only time in my life that I have been called an American jingoist, or indeed an American-Australian jingoist, and that was a humorous consolation for being called stupid. I conclude that this reader must be new in town. By jingo, I shall have to inform the Welcome Wagon.

Without further snide comment, this is what my correspondent wrote:

"Your recent comment on Obama's Brandenburg Gate appearance noted something at the end about the possibility to 'lose the war on terror.'. To me this says that you believe that, somehow, someway, that that 'war' can be 'won.'

"Anybody who believes that this claimed 'war on terror' can be won is historically stupid. Terror tactics by ethnic or cultural groups have never been able to be stopped by foreigners. And often win out. Look how the Communist won control of China. The Jews got the Brits to leave Israel. Why did the French leave Morocco? Haven't you ever read South Africa's history? Speaking of terror look at Darfur.

"Yes, the Russians crushed the Polish underground after WW II was over. But the Germans never stopped the French resistance in WW II."

You come across as another American jingoist.

Germans love Obama -- but does it matter?

Last week, with his usual vacuousness, Washington Post columnist Charles Krauthammer told us how presumptuous Barack Obama was because he was going to be speaking at the Brandenburg Gate and the Democratic candidate didn't understand "that the Brandenburg Gate is something you earn."
Then he spoke at the Brandenburg Gate and 200,000 Germans turned up and were wowed. Apparently, they thought that Obama had every right to be there - and as it is their gate, and not Charles Krauthammer's, they were in a better position to know.
But does it matter that everywhere he goes foreigners have greeted him enthusiastically? They can't vote, after all.
It does matter. In a perverse way, it was George Bush who gave Obama the right to speak at the gate. People in foreign countries, just like many Americans, have been repelled by Bush's arrogant and reckless behavior for nearly eight years. They embrace the idea that America at last may elect someone different, someone who isn't a disgrace to a great nation that in their hearts they want to love.
Of course, John McCain may yet win the presidency (among those who can vote he isn't far behind, according to polls) but as McBush he won't win the hearts and minds of the world.  He could go to the Brandenburg Gate himself and see how many friendly people turn up. My guess would be only the curious or the hostile.
Yes, Germans can't vote in this election. But long ago, Thomas Jefferson wrote the Declaration of Independence with "a decent respect to the opinions of mankind."
Those who dismiss Obama's popularity on this trip should also have a decent respect for mankind's opinions. Without them, America can stay in Iraq for 100 years and still lose the War on Terror - to name just one thing that needs international support to eventually succeed.

The forgotten one pouts

This just in from the McCain campaign:

"While Barack Obama took a premature victory lap today in the heart of Berlin, proclaiming himself a ‘citizen of the world,' John McCain continued to make his case to the American citizens who will decide this election. Barack Obama offered eloquent praise for this country, but the contrast is clear. John McCain has dedicated his life to serving, improving and protecting America. Barack Obama spent an afternoon talking about it."

There is a petulant, sorry-for-himself quality to Sen. McCain's reaction to Barack Obama's attention-grabbing tour of Europe and the Middle East. His latest ad, which focuses on the media infatuation with Obama, has a jealous quality to it that would not be out of place in junior high.

Somewhere in America some girl in pigtails is sounding very like Sen. McCain as she pouts: "It's not fair that when that cheerleader smiles all the cute guys are fawning after him."

The thing to remember is that the McCain campaign dared Obama to go to Iraq (see previous post) and so it continues. Telling someone to "bring it on" rarely works out.

The wardrobe malfunction revisited

Helen of Troy is said to have had a face that launched a thousand ships. At the 2004 Super Bowl, our annual American re-enactment of the Trojan War, Janet Jackson had a breast (the right one) that launched a thousand million outraged mutterings - and a ridiculous Federal Communications Commission fine of $550,000 imposed on CBS.

The infamous incident in which Ms. Jackson teamed with Justin Timberlake to introduce her breast briefly to prime-time viewers during the halftime show gave the language a new expression - wardrobe malfunction - even though no wardrobes have malfunctioned quite so shockingly since.

To say that the FCC overreacted is to state the obvious, but then again the whole culture went nuts. As I wrote last year in my column in recalling the incident:

"It was not even a very big breast, but concerned citizens reeled before it, yelling, 'The breast is coming, the breast is coming.' Meanwhile, Godzilla sat around the Old Monsters Retirement Home on the outskirts of Tokyo, regretting that he didn't have some breasts to spread more terror back in the day."

On Monday, in a fit of sanity, a federal appeals court in Philadelphia threw out the fine, ruling that the FCC was wrong to hold CBS responsible for Janet Jackson and Justin Timberlake, who it said were "independent contractors hired for the limited purposes of the halftime show."

The court also noted that the breast was free of its moorings for "nine-sixteenths of one second" - which common sense suggests is hardly enough time to titillate the audience.

This precise thinking just goes to show how exciting a legal career can be. I believe it will inspire young people everywhere to shout: "Law school or bust!"

OK, sorry.

Time waits for no polical tomfoolery

On May 28, the Republican National Committee decided to highlight the fact that Barack Obama hadn't been to Iraq for more than two years and then only for two days.

Clearly, this was supposed to impress the chronically partisan or gullible (or both) that this Obama fellow knew nothing about foreign policy in general and Iraq in particular and was probably a coward who slept with a teddy bear with the night-light on.

The RNC started an online clock (www.gop.com) to show what a wimp he was. It was titled: Days Since Barack Obama Visited Iraq, and at that time the total stood at 871 days. Every turn of the running clock was an indictment of him.

Today the clock stood still at 925 days, 01 hours, 07 min 00 sec.

Unfortunately for the RNC, Obama had arrived in Baghdad. With him came an army of reporters, some of whom might have been otherwise covering John McCain.

Darn! Don't you just hate it when you challenge someone and they call your bluff? It makes you look really stupid.

Not to worry. Beneath the silent Iraq visit clock, the RNC has another online clock ticking over: Days Since Obama Invited to Townhall and when I checked this afternoon that was 47 days, 01 hours, 54 min, 48 sec and running.

I suppose that when, in his own sweet time, Obama decides to go to a town hall meeting with McCain, that clock will fall silent too.

Perhaps the RNC could then run a clock that says: Days Since We Last Did Something Suggesting Competency.

Monday's childishness

The Tribune Review ("All the News That Fits Our Agenda") has a weekly feature called Media Monday.

It serves two purposes:

1) to use offerings from a right-wing crackpot outfit called the Media Research Center in order to give the fevered editorial writers at The Trib a break.

2) to scatter-bomb the so-called liberal media's credibility so that any story suggesting administration wrong-doing will not be believed by the Republican Party faithful, even if it is true.

In the same trite introduction every week, the offerings are presented as "the latest outrageous, sometimes humorous, quotes from or about the liberal media ..."

OK, what category does the first item Monday belong to?

Pre-smear reporting: "At a fund-raiser in Florida, Sen. Barack Obama warned his supporters that the Republicans are going to try to play the race card against him in an effort to simply scare voters." -- Wolf Blitzer on CNN's Election Center.

Is this humorous? I don't think so. Is this outrageous? Given the well-documented history of the GOP having played the race card to defeat Democratic challengers, as the recent obituaries of the late Jesse Helms were a reminder, it was hardly outrageous for Barack Obama to suggest that it might happen again.

Was it outrageous for Wolf Blitzer to report that he said it? Was this somehow a product of the liberal media? I don't think so. Unless I am missing something, the candidate said it and the job of a political correspondent such as Wolf Blitzer is to report what the candidates say. So what's the problem exactly?

The problem is that when you are so politically biased you don't know which way is up, as they are over at The Trib, you are in no position to see bias in others.

They should call it Delusion Monday.

Government eavesdropping, a bad idea

President Bush won another political victory this week when the Senate approved the FISA bill he favored to permit government eavesdropping. Whether this was also a victory for the American people and their civil liberties during the war on terror cannot be assumed. Given this administration’s bull-in-the-china-shop record, I assume damage has been done to the Constitution in ways yet to be revealed.
Everybody sane knows that a proper balance needs to be struck between protecting civil liberties and protecting the nation against terrorist attack, but nobody sane could have confidence that Congress has pulled off this trick on the way to pleasing Mr. Bush. I have sadly come to the conclusion that anything that pleases this administration is presumptively a bad idea.
One of the most objectionable features is that the bill immunized telecommunications companies from lawsuits arising from eavesdropping done without legal authority. It is pretty clear that the president broke the law and he is now able to get his accomplices off the hook.
Even more amazing, he threatened to veto the bill if immunity were not granted.
Think of it: This bill was vital to national security, or so it was claimed, yet it was not so vital that it could stand alone without immunity being granted to the likes of AT&T and Verizon. An amendment to strip the bill of immunity lost on a 66-32 vote. Barack Obama voted for this amendment (John McCain was absent) but Mr. Obama joined the other sheep in the 69-28 vote approving the final bill with its odious gift to Mr. Bush’s partners in crime.
Late score from Major Political Football in Washington D.C.: Bush Corporate Pals 1, American People 0.

The East is Red and green

I grew up during the Cold War. While I don’t miss its obsessions and the disastrous policies that flowed from them —-- the Vietnam War for one --— I have not become completely soft on communism, as so many people have.
Communism was a bad idea then and it’s a bad idea now. (Old-style liberals opposed communism because their liberal principles were affronted by societies that denied human rights and I am nothing if not old style). But today even conservatives have put aside their loathing of the Reds out of their loving for the green, as in greenback dollars.
Now that China has capitalist trappings, now that it has become a dictatorship with which we can do business, most conservatives seemed to have dropped all objections to its form of government. The East is Red and it has cash registers -- — so not to worry. It makes one wonder what all the fuss was about in the old days.
How much the world has changed was illustrated the other day when President Bush announced that he was going to attend the opening ceremonies of the Beijing Olympics. Skipping it, he said in Japan before the G-8 summit, would be an “affront” to the Chinese  people.
Yes, perhaps it would be an affront to the Chinese people, but I think it would be more of an affront to the Chinese government --— not to mention an affront to the admirable and democratic Taiwanese people across the strait, our long-time friends whom we seem to have abandoned in our affections.
Frankly, I wouldn’t mind if the Chinese government were affronted. I know we are in no position to lecture the Chinese anymore about human rights abuses— -- not with Guantanamo Bay still in operation— -- but does the president of the United States really have to worry about affronting them when they richly deserve a little affronting? Couldn’t he instead have made the respectable argument that the Olympics represent a worldwide truce when countries put aside their differences?
Oh, I forgot: China now owns the United States. Mr. Bush was just trying to suck up to management. We can only hope he doesn’t actually kow-tow to Chinese leaders in between basketball games.

Bad hair day

Before I took my little break over July the Fourth, I got a haircut. Possessing hair all over my body except where it ought to be in abundance, on my head, this is not a common event ? although what happens has become all too familiar.

I have never liked my hair too short and I like to encourage the heroic follicles that remain on the sides by letting them grow out a bit. So I generally wait several months before going to a barber, with the result that when I do sit down in the chair I look like a cross between Einstein and Bozo the Clown.

I always say the same thing to the barber: I don’t want much off, just give me a trim please, make me look halfway respectable. The barber always nods as if he understands.

Then a gleam comes into his eye.

I have seen a cartoon titled "What dogs really hear." In the first panel, the owner is telling the dog: "You be a good dog when we go for our walk ? and don’t chase anything." The second panel explains what the dog hears when his owner speaks: "Arf, arf, arf, arf, arf, arf, arf!"

I think I could do a similar cartoon for the barbershop. I say: "Give me a trim, please" but the barber hears me say: "I don’t want to look like Einstein or Bozo the Clown and I don’t want to pay $15 for you to cut just to cut a few long and straggly hairs."

So the barber sets to the task, cutting and cutting until the sides of my head resemble the top and the all-chrome-dome look appears out of the mess, too late for me to say anything.

For the next three months, I will avoid going out as much as possible lest dogs bark and children cry. And in three months, I will return to repeat this unhappy procedure.

My question: Is there no barber in Pittsburgh who actually listens to the customer or am I doomed to walk about with my ears banging the sides of my head in the wind because the wanton nakedness of my head does not shelter them?