A WIZARD IS A WIZARD AFTER ALL

Dorothy.........If you were really great and powerful, you'd keep your
......................... promises!

Wizard........Do you presume to criticize the Great Oz? You ungrateful
.........................creatures! Think yourselves lucky that I'm giving you an
.........................audience tomorrow instead of twenty years from now!
.........................Oh! The Great Oz has spoken!
........................ Oh! Pay no attention to that man behind the curtain.
.........................The Great Powerful-- has spoken –

Dorothy.......Who are you?

Wizard........Well, I - I - I am the Great and Powerful - Wizard of Oz.

Dorothy.........You are?

Wizard........Uh -

Dorothy.........I don't believe you!

Wizard.........No, I'm afraid it's true. There's no other Wizard except me.

Scarecrow...You Humbug!

Lion...............Yeah!

Wizard.........Yes - that's exactly so - I'm a humbug.

Dorothy......Oh - you're a very bad man!

Wizard.........Oh, no, my dear. I - I'm a very good man. I'm just a very
........................bad Wizard.

A humbug? A very bad man? A very good man? A very bad wizard? Just 100 days into a new administration, these are the questions being asked by an increasingly disillusioned electorate. As buyer’s remorse starts to creep in, America is just starting to ask the questions it should have been asking two years ago. The country wants to know who it is that it has chosen to be its President. More importantly, who is it that lurks behind the curtain, producing the sound and light show and projecting a two-dimensional face to the transfixed masses? Exactly who is this Modern-day Wizard of Oz?

Throughout the campaign, Barack Hussein Obama presented himself as the anti-Bush to a weary electorate – an electorate that had been beaten over the head for over seven years by the liberal media’s constant drumbeat against President Bush. Forget about the absence of any more 9/11 attacks. Forget about the Democratic fingerprints all over the sub-prime lending debacle at the heart of our banking/credit crisis. Forget about the miserable performance of Princess Pelosi’s Democratic Congress. The citizens of Oz had been convinced that Bush did nothing right and all the bad things happening to them were Bush’s fault. Forget about the gymnastic feats of tax dodging, influence peddling, social engineering and other malfeasance of Democratic members of Congress. Forget about the headline-grabbing transgressions and worse of Democratic Governors. In the Land of Oz, Republicans are the party of greed and self-indulgence. The Democratic Party represents goodness and light, a massive tent sheltering all of life’s victims.

If you’re a victim because your neighbor earns more than you, welcome. If you’re a victim because you’re a single mother with four children from three different fathers, and need someone to support your fatherless household, your pain is felt. Welcome. If you’re a victim because you believed the spiel of the snake-oil salesman and invested in his promise of unrealistic financial returns, we respect your innocence and hold you blameless. Welcome. If you’re a victim because you disagreed with the policies and laws of the foreign country in which you were born and decided to disregard this country’s laws and enter illegally, we are not judgmental. Welcome to our healthcare system, our educational system, our banking system. Welcome to our everything.

Into this tent rides The Manchurian Candidate, a worker of wonders, a sorcerer with super human powers. With “CHANGE” emblazoned on his cape and riding a white charger named “MEDIA”, he promises to wave his magic wand and make us all feel better again, ‘cause that’s what a wizard does. And, in the absence of any sense of personal responsibility, we seek supernatural solutions to our everyday problems. We seek wizards. If we see our crops are dying from lack of rain, we call in a wizard called “The Rainmaker”. If we overeat and become overweight, we call in a wizard called “The Diet Doctor”. If we lack meaning in our lives, we turn to a wizard called “The TV Pop Psychologist”. If we seek excitement for our lives, we rely on a wizard called “The Celebrity”. And, when we feel we can’t shift for ourselves any longer, we cede all responsibility for our own well-being to that biggest Wizard of all, the one we call “The Government”.

In his quest to be the biggest Wizard of all, Barack went forward as the essential jedermensch, the everyman, ‘fellow citizen of the world’, as he called himself in Berlin in July 2008. He was all things to all people, sensitive to everyone’s misfortune, promising to use his healing powers to solve all of the world’s ills. When elected he would be President of all the people and no one would escape his largesse. Since the election, he has performed well as the teleprompter reading, canned speech delivering, talking points enumerating, stand-up comic – the not ready for prime time President.

He is the embodiment of Oz, the direct opposite of the Miracle Worker. The real Miracle Worker, Annie Sullivan, used her talent and tenacity to enable Helen Keller to know and communicate with the real world beyond her blindness and deafness. She managed to penetrate the black and soundless world of a young girl and gave her the tools to create an abundant life. On the other hand, we have the Ozian Wizard, Obama, who uses his talent to blind us to reality while delivering the message fed to him by the shadows behind the curtain.

In the final analysis, what is our Wizard capable of delivering? If we look at the model, the original Wizard of Oz, we may get some guidance.

Education -...Did the Wizard of Oz give the scarecrow a brain? Did he
...........................educate him? No, he only presented him with a diploma
...........................so he’d feel educated. Sound familiar?

Healthcare - Did the Wizard of Oz give the Tin Woodsman a heart?
...........................No, he only presented him with a ticking clock to make
...........................him think he had a beating heart. Might this be a
...........................metaphor for healthcare reform?

Security -.......Did the Wizard of Oz give the Cowardly Lion courage?
...........................No, he only gave him a medal with the word “courage”
...........................written on it. Word instead of action. Form instead of
...........................substance. Bye-bye to National Security.

But, what’s the difference if he’s good or if he’s bad? A wizard is a wizard, after all.

"GOD DAMN YOU ALL TO HELL!"

"GOD DAMN YOU ALL TO HELL!"

Monday – 9 February 2009

Today I did several things. On and off throughout the day I watched television accounts of the wrangling over the proposed 1 trillion dollar Democratic spending (excuse me, economic recovery) plan. I listened to President Obama (echoed by countless Democratic politicians and liberal pundits) follow though on his promise to bring civility and bi-partisanship to the process, by attacking the so-called ‘failed policies’ of the last eight years and blaming all our ills on Bush. I saw President Obama pandering to the citizens of a small town, a town with a 15% rate of unemployment, a town whose economy is almost completely dependent on relatively large, fairly expensive, fuel inefficient Recreational Vehicles. No irony there. I heard him tell the country that the Pelosi/Reid spending plan was America’s must-do, must-do-immediately, must do-or-die bail-out package. I saw the NEWSWEEK cover which says “WE ARE SOCIALISTS NOW” and, while channel surfing, I caught the end of PLANET OF THE APES where Charlton Heston screams out in frustration at the people who had destroyed his planet, “God Damn You All To Hell!”

I am sure that many of my countrymen, if not most, would agree with me when I vent my frustration at the people who would destroy my country, "God Damn You All to Hell!"

➢ I am sick to death of the Democrats screaming about the ‘failed Bush policies of the past 8 years”. Up until the Democrats took control of Congress 2 years ago and Speaker Pelosi started spreading her wings, we were doing just fine, thank you. (In spite of Osama bin Laden, the naysayers of the mainstream media and the assortment of befuddled leftovers from the drug-infused anti-war at any costs crowd.) Up until Barney Frank, Maxine Waters and other Democratic officials, in cahoots with their Liberal/Progressive allies at Acorn and Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, helped destroy our housing industry, undermine our banking industry, debauch our currency and wreak havoc upon our society in general.

➢ I am amused at the performance of our ‘Not ready for prime time’ President, all style and no substance, using his first televised press conference to recycle all of his old campaign speeches, thinly disguised as rambling answers to questions posed by his adoring press. (Even as I write this, I am hearing the smartest man in the world refer to OPEC and when they were “first formed in the early 70’s”. What’s a decade or so, more or less, anyway? (Since when has historical accuracy been a prerequisite in political speech?)

➢ When asked about Senator Leahy’s plan to go after members of the Bush Administration for the ‘crimes’ they committed over the last eight years, President Obama said that anywhere a crime has been committed, a law broken, the people responsible should be prosecuted. No one is above the law. I wonder if Tim Geithner, Charlie Rangel, Tom Daschle and Barney Frank were listening and, if so, have they lawyered-up and gone into hiding?

➢ President Obama said he was disturbed that Alex Rodriguez was guilty of using performance-enhancing drugs. After his performance during the first few weeks of his administration, I’d suggest he contact A-Rod’s supplier.

➢ And finally, according to Newsweek - WE ARE ALL SOCIALISTS NOW -

“In many ways our economy already resembles a European one.
As boomers age and spending grows, we will become even more French.”

Make you feel good? Then - ALLEZ VOUS TOUS À L’ENFER.

LIFE IMITATES ART

LIFE IMITATES ART
- or -
SECOND CITY SHENANIGANS

To the extent that the Chicago political morass is the cesspool from which the incoming Obama administration arose and the Illinois political circus is the flavor of the month, it would be helpful if we could learn more about that City and that State. What really constitutes Chicago Politics? What really constitutes the ‘pay-for-play’ approach to Illinois Politics?

As to Chicago Politics and its impact on the President-Elect, the mainstream press has had two years to investigate and hasn’t yet asked question number # 1. To underscore the complete lack of vetting of Obama by the mainstream media, in a conversation between Tom Brokaw and Charlie Rose on Public Television shortly after Obama’s election victory, they both indicated that they had no idea of what Obama might do as they didn’t know enough about him. Watching them, you also realized that that same lack of knowledge was not an impediment to their overblown opinion of him.

As to the Illinois ‘pay-for-play’ political supermarket, it will probably be another few months before U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald releases any more information regarding Governor Blagojevich's own version of THE PRICE IS RIGHT.

So, what are we to do? Where do we go to get our questions answered? To whom do we turn to gain enlightenment? As the only providers of wisdom in the real (?) world would seem to be the Liberal/Obama press and television networks, it just might be that our only source for context might be the world of make believe, the movie-makers of Hollywood, the titans of tinseltown.

For instance, if the movie THE GRADUATE were to be released today, on the eve of President-Elect Obama’s push for massive infrastructure expenditures, rather than in 1967 when the Baby-Boomers were more interested in massive inhalation experiments, the one iconic line from the screenplay might be changed just a bit. The advice to Dustin Hoffman’s character, young Benjamin Braddock, ”I have one word for you, plastics” , could be rewritten as “I have one word for you, asphalt”. Especially if young Benjamin lived in Illinois where, if you dig deep enough with your government-issued, TARP-funded digging implement/shovel, you just might find some very well connected asphalt providers, their commercial sticky fingers embedded in political tar babies.

In the movie SOME LIKE IT HOT, a pair of down-at-heels musicians (played by Tony Curtis and Jack Lemmon) are accidental witnesses to a mob rubout in a Chicago parking garage. They flee their mob pursuers and join up (in drag) with an all-girls orchestra entraining for a gig in Florida. The movie ends when a dotty old rich guy (comedian Joe E. Brown) proposes marriage to the cross-dressing bass violin player (Jack Lemmon) forcing Lemmon’s character Daphne to reveal his charade, whipping off his wig and admitting his maleness. An iconic movie moment was born when Joe E. Brown deadpanned Billy Wilder’s (and I. A. Diamond’s) classic closing line, “Well, nobody’s perfect”.

That line might also apply to Governor Blagojevich's defiant choice for the successor to Obama’s Senate seat. As Eric Zorn wrote in his column in The Chicago Tribune the other day, Roland Burris is “.....annoying, but he's not a nitwit, a kook or a criminal.” Certainly not perfection, but who could ask for anything more?

In the satirical movie musical CHICAGO, based on the Broadway musical, an earlier play of the same name and, ultimately, the real-life adventures of two Chicago jazz age female killers, almost everyone is a sleaze. “Cell Block Tango” is a number from the show in which the “six merry murderesses of the Cook County jail” plead their innocence. “He had it coming. He had it coming. He only had himself to blame.” In the current situation, it could be rewritten as the Blago Tango, the song and dance wherein Governor Rod Blagojevich (D-Illinois) explains himself. “I had it coming. I had it coming. And I know how to play the game.”

Incidentally, up until Chicago’s tryouts, the musical had another character, The Agent, whose role was to exploit the notoriety of the six imprisoned murderesses for his own gain. This character's role was eventually cut from the show, along with his song, Ten Percent. In our rewrite, we might consider restoring that character, or giving his song to Blago with a significant increase in the percentage.

I’m still trying to decide what we can do with another number from the show, The Press Conference Rag, but Blago may have already exhausted all possibilities.

As an aside, notwithstanding the expertise of Chicago’s Democratic machine in election rigging (see Joe Kennedy), it may not be the only hotbed of Democratic sleight of hand. In their book Defining Moments in Journalism, Nancy J. Woodhull and Robert W. Snyder relate the following episode concerning a well-known Texas Democrat and his version of ‘One person – One vote’.

“On at least three separate occasions he (LBJ) told (David) Brinkley about how he committed voter fraud in Texas. When first running for the Senate, Johnson and a group of friends scoured a graveyard looking for names to add to the voting rolls. When one of the friends found a stone that was difficult to read, he wanted to skip it. According to Brinkley, Johnson responded: 'You will not skip it. He’s got as much right to vote as anybody in this cemetery.'”

With this in mind, I’m considering a rewrite of one of the classic horror films, THE RETURN OF THE LIVING DEAD, as a sort of metaphor for our election system. Perhaps we might film it in Minnesota.

THE OLDEST, ESTABLISHED, PERMANENT FLOATING CRAP GAME IN NEW YORK

NATHAN DETROIT - MEET SKY PAULSON
PAULSON - MEET DETROIT

“It’s the oldest, established, permanent floating crap game in New York.”

(GUYS & DOLLS – ‘A Musical Fable of Broadway’ - by Frank Loesser out of Damon Runyon)

GUYS & DOLLS opened on Broadway 58 years ago last month (November 24, 1950) at the 46th Street Theater in New York. The tale is built around Nathan Detroit’s famous ‘floating crap game’. There’s a lotta guys in town looking for action, including Sky Masterson, and Nathan is having problems raising the thousand bucks he needs to underwrite the game.

“If we only had a lousy little grand, we could be a millionaire!”

Nathan tries to boondoggle Sky Masterson into a sucker bet regarding the Save-A-Soul mission doll Sarah Brown, but Sky doesn’t fall for it. However, Sky does fall for the mission doll and, when Nathan’s game finally gets going, Sky finds himself throwing the dice for the ‘souls’ of all the other unholy rollers. If he can deliver these Broadway bums into Sarah Brown’s soul-saving hands, her ministry will be saved.

Recently, the show was redesigned and the updated version, revised to be more in line with current events, is now playing in our nation’s capital.

GUYS & DOLLS & FANNIE & FREDDIE

‘A Musical Fable of a Beltway Bailout’ – by the United Auto Workers out of the U.S. Congress

The revival previewed on Monday September 30, 2008 at The Theater of The Absurd (located somewhere in the Capitol Building in Washington, D.C.) and officially opened later that same week, Friday October 4, 2008. The show is still a work in process and continues to undergo revisions as it plays out its limited run.

THE CAST

NATHAN DETROIT .................................Hank Paulson
SKY MASTERSON ....................................Franklin Raines
SARAH BROWN .......................................Nancy Pelosi
ADELAIDE ................................................Maxine Waters (evenings) - Barney Frank (matinees)
HARRY THE HORSE ...............................Harry Reid
ANGIE THE OX ........................................Paul Sarbanes - Mike Oxley (alternates in role)
JOE THE PLUMBER ...............................Himself
BRANDY BOTTLE BATES ......................Ted Kennedy
BIG JULE FROM CHICAGO ..................Big Barack from Chicago
BENNY SOUTHSTREET .........................Ron Gettelfinger
SOCIETY MAX .........................................Henry Waxman
NICELY - NICELY JOHNSON ...............John McCain
RUSTY CHARLIE ....................................Chuck Schumer
JOEY BILTMORE ....................................Christopher Dodd
LT. BRANNIGAN .....................................George Bush

THE STORY

All the heavy rollers were in town, loaded with lettuce and looking for action. Harry the Horse, Big Jule from Chicago, Brandy Bottle Bates, Angie the Ox, Rusty Charlie to name a few, along with the heaviest roller of all, Sky Masterson. And, if you’re looking for action, Nathan Detroit’s floating crap game was where you found it. Nathan knew he could make a killing but he was having problems finding a secure location to house the game. The Union Garage on South Street would be best but Benny Southstreet, the guy who controlled it, wouldn’t negotiate his price. He wanted all his money up front, all of it in his fingers before he’d let anybody use the place. On top of that, the heat was on from his competition, the gang from across the aisle which considered such an enterprise not to be Kosher, as well as from the law in the person of Lt. Brannigan.

To raise the money and save the game, Nathan Detroit tries to boondoggle Masterson into a sucker bet……….but, we’ve gone over all of that already.

The preview critics were mixed in their reviews of this musical comedy in two acts, which by now was being referred to as the ‘Beltway Bailout’. More than half of them thought that the basic concept was faulty, the overall production shoddy and the investors would lose their shirts. Others agreed with the show’s concept but thought that it needed extensive rewriting and restaging and should spend more time out-of-town before being brought back in for the official opening.

A slightly altered version of the show was quickly cobbled together, some songs were added and the resulting conglomeration had its official opening on October 4, 2008, four days after the original preview. This time, a sufficient number of the critics held their noses, changed their minds and gave it a thumbs-up, enough to ensure its survival.

THE MUSICAL NUMBERS

Act I

* “Fannie Mae Ain’t Falling Down”–to the tune of London Bridge(Nancy Pelosi/Company)
* "Fugue for Tinhorns" (Chuck Schumer/Chris Dodd/Harry Reid)
* "Follow the Fold, Swallow the Gold" (Nancy Pelosi/Barney Frank/Chris Dodd)
* "The Oldest Established Permanent Floating Crap Game" (Hank Paulson)
* "I'll Know When Sub Prime Comes Along" (Franklin Raines/Nancy Pelosi)
* "I Love You a Bushel and a Peck" (Barney Frank/The Hot Box Girls)
* "Adelaide's Lament" (Maxine Waters/Barney Frank)
* "Guys and Dolls and Fannie and Freddie" (le tout ensemble democratique)
* "If I Were a Bell" (Nancy Pelosi/Franklin Raines)
* “I've Never Been in Love Before" (Franklin Raines/Nancy Pelosi)

Act II

* "Take Back Your Tarp" (Maxine Waters and The Hot Box Girls)
* "More I Cannot Get You" (Ron Gettelfinger)
* "Crapshooters' Ballet" (The Democratic Congress)
* "Luck Be a Lady" (Franklin Raines)
* "Sue Me" (Hank Paulson)
* "Shut Up, You're Blockin' the Vote" (Chuck Schumer and the Chorus)
* "Barry’s the Man Today" (le tout ensemble democratique)
* "Finale" (Company)

Two numbers not in the original libretto were taken from other shows and added during tryouts:
From–OF THEE I SING – “Of Thee I Sing, Baby” as “FDIC Baby” – (Henry Waxman)
From–ANNIE GET YOUR GUN–“Anything you can do, I can do better”(Barack/John McCain). This number was dropped a month after the opening.

The show that evolved shifted the locale from The Great White Way to inside the beltway but retained the theme of ‘the floating crap game’. Despite their relatively tepid reviews, the critics agreed there were a few memorable moments. The best of these was Nathan Detroit’s all-night crap game in the basement of the Treasury Building, in which Franklin Raines, as Sky Masterson, demonstrates his willingness to roll the dice for the souls of all his fellow gamblers in ‘Luck Be a Lady Tonight”.

The critics also singled out Chuck Schumer’s going against type in his comic turn as Rusty Charlie, trying to avoid the cameras during the ensuing police raid.

While there are rumors that the show will close in Detroit, it struggles on, still undergoing revisions, still without a closing scene, but remains -

‘The oldest, established, permanent floating crap game in New York’

Note: Many people have played Nathan Detroit – Sam Levene in the original production in 1950, Frank Sinatra in the 1955 movie, Nathan Lane in the recent Broadway production and, at various productions in between, Walter Matthau, Alan King, Robert Guillaume and Jack Deeney, among others. (Personally, I think Deeney was the best.)

THE HISTORY LESSON

THE HISTORY LESSON

In a piece several months ago, during the more feverish segment of the 2008 Presidential campaign, I commented about Obama accusing McCain of trying to bring about the 3rd Bush term. I concluded then that I would prefer that to what Obama was promising, the 2nd Carter term. (I’ve even heard Christopher Buckley refer to it as the 1st McGovern term). Now, with McCain’s defeat, the former can’t come true and, with Obama’s announced selection of members of his administration, neither might the latter two.

The Obama assemblage of familiar names from recent history leads many to posit that he is slapping together the 3rd Clinton term. (The moment we hear that Monica Lewinsky has been named as Secretary of the Interior, we’ll know for sure.) However, Obama’s entering into an asexual ménage à trios with the Clintons in January 2009 will occur in a world vastly different from that of January 1993, when the Clintons sidled into the White House, courtesy of Ross Perot.

So, what has history to tell us about that difference and what might it whisper in our ear about Obama’s presidency?

1. CLINTON had won the White House with the support of only 43% of the voters, his victory aided in no small part by the 3rd party candidate, Ross Perot, garnering 19% of the popular vote.
OBAMA’s victory was less a blowout than many of his supporters expected, but he won convincingly, receiving 53% of the popular vote. Not exactly the mandate they were looking for, but a significantly more impressive win than Clinton’s.

2. CLINTON was handed a burgeoning economy, already on its way to record levels. After eight years, he handed off a declining economy, a recession to his successor, George W. Bush.
OBAMA will be greeted by a worldwide recession, at the root of which is the freezing up of the credit markets, caused principally by the Democratic Congress and their misuse of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.

3. CLINTON began his regime in a fairly peaceful world, the USSR no longer a threat. He was handed the ‘peace dividend’, the freeing up of large amounts of money which might otherwise have gone to Defense had Reagan not won the ‘cold war’. Despite a series of terrorist attacks on U.S. interests here (The World Trade Center in 1993) and abroad (Khobar Towers in Saudi Arabia in 1996, the United States embassies in Dar es Salaam and Nairobi in 1998, the USS Cole in Yemen in 2000), Clinton engineered major reductions in our military strength and did little to carry the fight to the terrorists. (Aspirin factories don’t count!)
OBAMA steps right into the middle of a worldwide jihadist threat, with on-going U.S. military commitments in Iraq and Afghanistan, along with Iran as an over-hanging menace. Fortunately for Obama, there is no longer an Arab-Israeli problem as Jimmy Carter solved that, as attested to by his Nobel Peace Prize……or, did I miss something?

4. CLINTON had a less than sparkling 1st two years, taking a long time to put his team together and making several missteps before the biggest one of all, HillaryCare. It took Newt Gingrich’s ‘Contract with America’ in 1994 to regain Republican control of Congress, leading to Welfare Reform, tax reductions and the first balanced budget in decades. Lord only knows what might have happened in the Clinton years had the Democrats continued to control both the Legislative and the Executive branches.
OBAMA, in contrast, is assembling his team early and it’s not unreasonable to hope he’ll be ready to move immediately after inauguration. However, with the three tenors in the White House (Barry, Hillary and Bill) and the back-up singers in the Congress (Nancy and Harry), hope is not an easy thing to come by. Apprehension is more like it. And, while we were all alarmed about Candidate Obama’s ‘share the wealth’ philosophy, the spate of recent and impending bailouts of just about every failing enterprise Congress and the Administration could find, has already turned Washington D.C. into Moscow on the Potomac. President Obama will be hard-pressed to do worse.

So, how will Obama govern? The psychological and monetary costs of the current financial collapse will impede (if not completely negate) his ability to throw the taxpayers’ money at every social problem. His desire to move to socialization (if such a desire really exists) may not be capable of fulfillment. As to Iraq, he will inherit a winning hand from George Bush and there’s a good chance he’ll play it out. The last thing Obama could afford to do is to acquiesce to his lunatic far-left fringe, pull out of Iraq prematurely, and let history saddle him with the disastrous consequences certain to follow. And how will he handle the Clintons? Quite possibly, we’ve been given a peek at the Hussein side of the Barack Hussein Obama gene pool. Is he acting in accordance with the old Bedouin admonition about it being better to have the camel inside the tent pissing out?

“History is just one f**king thing after another.” Alan Bennett – ‘The History Boys’

JACK DEENEY
November 30, 2008

THURSDAY'S CHILD

THURSDAY’S CHILD

Monday's child is fair of face,
Tuesday's child is full of grace,
Wednesday's child is full of woe,
Thursday's child has far to go,
Friday's child is loving and giving,
Saturday's child works hard for a living,
But the child that's born on the Sabbath day
Is bonny, blithe, good and gay.

I arrived on this planet on Thursday, November 3, 1932, within a few days of Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s election to the first of his unprecedented four Presidential terms. It was the depth of the Great Depression and my father struggled to pay the $10 it cost for my mother and I to spend our first seven days together in Manhattan’s Park Lane Hospital.

I celebrated my 76th birthday on the day before Barack Obama’s historic election, another unprecedented piece of Presidential history and, though it was not the depth of a depression, the market had lost over 30% of it’s value since my 75th birthday and was still sinking. I won’t even try to guess how much 10 days in a hospital would cost today.

Being born on November 3, 1932 made me Thursday’s Child, indicating that I had far to go. Now that can be interpreted in two ways, either that I was destined for greatness or, more likely, that there was significant room (if not an absolute need) for improvement. After 76 years, I can testify that it was the latter circumstance that prevailed then and still obtains.

In the same vein, October 24, 1929 (3 years and 1 week prior to my arrival) also produced a Thursday’s Child. That child was christened Black Thursday, the day when stock prices on the New York Stock Exchange fell sharply, beginning the week-long crash that gave birth to the Great Depression. Hopefully, there will be no further parallels between then and now.

There are many other miserable Thursdays, but I will not belabor the point. Obviously, there are many good Thursdays, such as the one on which Thomas Edison was born. Suffice it to say that, of the 6,722,810,033 inhabitants of this planet (yes, I counted), it is statistically sound to posit that approximately 960, 401, 433 (1/7) are Thursday’s Children, split pretty evenly between good and bad, male and female, acceptable and annoying, but very few destined for greatness.

However, there is one very special Thursday’s Child to whom the circumstance, destined for greatness, most certainly applies. She’s a bit older than I, having been born on Thursday, July 4, 1776. She’s indeed destined for greatness, already having achieved a great deal of it in the relatively short historical period of her existence. Right now, she is under attack from many quarters, within and without. The attacks from without have been there for all of her existence and, whether sneak attacks or frontal assaults, she’s been able to handle them. The only exception was Vietnam, where her internal enemies were able to force her to turn victory into defeat, leading to the slaughter of untold millions in Southeast Asia and the opening of a permanent, festering wound in her bosom. That festering wound keeps trying to heal, but the same anti-war, anti-American crowd from the 1960’s keeps picking at the scab.

So, it’s the attacks from ‘within’ that are most worrisome, whether they are the frontal assaults from the liberal/progressive factions on either of her coasts, from every level of her educational system where the concept of Akademische Freiheit is interpreted as the academic freedom to express only liberalism, from the overwhelming majority of her mainstream media and, most disturbingly, from within her own government.

The potentially mortal blow she has received from her own Congress in their criminal misuse of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac has severely damaged her and, by extension, the entire globe. Their manipulation of these two pillars of her mortgage market turned home-renters into home-owners into homeless while bringing the world’s financial system to its knees. Barney Frank and his accomplices have succeeded where the 9/11 terrorists failed, they’ve crippled her economy, debased her reputation and caused her to empty her Treasury in an attempt to stop her citizens’ bleeding.

As Vladimir Ilyich Lenin put it, “The best way to destroy the capitalist system is to debauch the currency.”

Now, with the party of Barack Obama in control of all three branches of her government, you can be certain that there will be no effort made to punish those responsible for this debacle. But you will see everybody else dragged before endless committee hearings to be harangued and browbeaten by the posturing Poo Bah’s of what is jokingly referred to as her ‘The House of Representatives’. You can also look forward to her Congress spending an inordinate amount of time and effort to criminally prosecute members of the outgoing administration.

Yes, this ‘Thursday’s Child’, this blessed nation, has far to go, just to get back to where she was. She can only pray that her new President will be wise and strong and take good care of her. That her new President be more Harry Truman (another Thursday’s Child) and less Jimmy Carter. That her new President remain vigilant against the outside threats while bandaging the wounds caused by the insiders. That she can keep smiling.

For, as proclaimed Gabriel Syme (G.K.Chestertons’s “The Man Who Was Thursday”) ,

"Always be comic in a tragedy. What the deuce else can you do?"

MEMO TO SELF

WHERE THE HELL ARE YOU
AND HOW THE HELL DID YOU GET THERE?

You’ve lived through a depression, several recessions, 12 presidents (6 of whom you voted for), a world war, a ‘cold war’, several other declared and undeclared ‘hot’ wars and a ‘police action’ in which you participated. You’ve witnessed the space race, men walking on the moon, little man-made vehicles traversing the Martian landscape as well as little Japanese-made vehicles traversing the American landscape. You’ve seen the malevolent influence of the drugs and sex driven zombies of the 1960’s anti-war, America-hating left, the crowd which dragged this country through the disgraceful retreat/defeat in Vietnam, and whose influence and progeny will continue to pollute our politics for generations to come. You’ve watched the rise and fall of communism and its related collectivist ideologies all over this planet and you now sense the very real possibility of their rebirth, in the United States, of all places. You’ve no way of knowing what else may be in store, but nothing really surprises you anymore.

Now, two days after your 76th birthday, and one day after casting your vote for John McCain and watching him lose to Barack Obama, you sit there pondering the future of America under President Obama. You sit there wondering what the hell has happened over the last two years and, more importantly, what might happen in the next four. Has your country become a place where emotion has completely replaced reason, where respectful disagreement has been replaced by harangue, where all the failed collectivist ideologies of this planet’s history will find a new home?

You’ve given up analyzing this presidential campaign, trying to understand why a thoroughbred with the track record and credentials of a John McCain was unable to win the race against an untried and unproven individual with no track record and a long list of questionable relationships. You feel you know the four reasons for McCain’s loss. First, the liberal-oriented mainstream press has been telling the country for almost eight years how George W. Bush is a disaster, a stupid man, the worst president ever. The fact that he was re-elected 3+ years ago means nothing to them. Is it any surprise then, with the constant battering of the media, that Bush is held in low regard? All Obama had to do is wrap Bush around McCain’s neck, even though McCain often disagreed with Bush. Secondly, the Republicans behaved like Democrats for the past six years, helping to spend us into the deficit mess we now enjoy. Thirdly, and very importantly, about seven weeks before the election, the economy tanks as a result of the Democratic Party’s meddling in the mortgage market, using Freddie Mae and Freddie Mac to pollute the market with sub-prime mortgages. The Democrats, in effect, converted home-renters into home-owners into homeless as the mortgage market tanked and took the rest of the economy with it. The fact that it happened on George Bush’s watch, along with the fact that the Democratic controlled congress had neither the desire nor the will to address the problem at its source and endanger their presidential candidate, was a killer for McCain. Finally, and most importantly, the Democratic candidate proved to be one of the most capable and adroit politicians ever to seek the Oval Office, was able to raise and spend unheard of amounts of money and ran a masterful campaign.
However, you now hear esteemed members of the mainstream media admitting that they are hard-pressed to predict what our new President will do because they just don’t know the man, have no sense of who he really is.

Perhaps, you think, if they hadn’t spent all their time and effort pulling Obama’s bandwagon and avoiding any examination of the man, his associations, his voting record or his campaign promises, they might have attained some knowledge of the man behind the charisma. If they had replaced some of their adulation with the slightest bit of journalistic integrity and curiosity they might have achieved some sense of what they were enabling.

Perhaps, on reflection, you really can’t blame the young for voting the way they did. It is no surprise that the young are idealistic. It is also no surprise that many have been influenced by their teachers and professors and, to a large extent, by peer pressure. But, they voted honestly and in great numbers. And if, as they mature, they are able to maintain some of their idealism and factor in some degree of wisdom gained from experience, it could auger very well for our future.

Perhaps the overwhelming number of blacks voted along racial lines. That shouldn’t surprise you or distress you. If you were black, you very well may have done likewise. Human nature is an integral ingredient of the political process.

Barack Obama was not your choice but he will be your President. So, pray for him and his family, pray that the Lord give him wisdom and strength to lead us through the current financial and economic mess. Pray that he fully recognizes the need for us to be strong in the face of our enemies. Pray that he sees the wisdom (if not the necessity) of governing from the center. Pray that he adheres to his campaign promises to do just that and does not allow the far left faction of his party to drag him (and us) closer to socialism or into the self-destructive sewer of capitulation, recrimination, retaliation and vengeance.

So there, self. I hope that closes the book for you on this election. Go on with your life, fight the good fight and do whatever you can to help your party reclaim its principles, if not its very soul.

Regards,

Me