President Obama is More Than All Right.

Posted on November 2, 2014 by McPhedran

Make no bones about it, Barrack Obama is the greatest President of the United States in the past 60 years. I say this despite the anti-Obama media barrage, the ceaseless mud slung by his political opponents and the embittered populace who have lost faith in a man who was once their desperate icon for hope. The truth is that President Obama was set up to fail. The ridiculous expectations dumped on him demanded that he walk on water and then turn that into wine; anything less would be a failure. That’s the way everyone wanted it. It gave them a perfect scapegoat for unemployment, international strife, indeed whatever plague or natural disaster arose.

Hurricane Sandy, Battery park Tunnel, 2012

All anyone has to say is, “Obama’s let us down again,” and there is applause. This despite the facts, which are these:

a. Obama passed a bill that actually made health care more affordable, an achievement no other president has been able to achieve in the face of a sick political culture which believes in money more than well being.

b. Obama has reduced America’s military presence in the world, despite a war-hungry opposition, and worked to develop coalitions with anyone who will listen.

c. The economy has steadily improved every year under his administration, to where the financial markets now sit at record highs.

d. Obama has consistently endorsed social policies which promote understanding and acceptance of others, such as gay marriage. And although he has yet to succeed in the battle for gun control, he has stood firm for the reduction of automatic weapons.

e. Obama acknowledges the need to confront climate change and looks ready to put this issue at the top of his agenda in his final two years.

It’s actually surprising that there hasn’t been even more hate against the president. After all, not only has he directly challenged the establishment – and played golf with friends – but there is also the insidious problem this country has with skin color.

As high-minded as it might have sounded to have a black guy as president, there are some, a lot actually, that are tired of the idea and want to go back to way things were, everyone knowing their place, that kind of thing. The George Zimmerman verdict, unrest in Ferguson and choke-hold death of Eric Garner all speak to the fact that this is not going away any time soon.. Nevertheless, the elections are just a couple of days away, and as much as everyone seems to want to distance themselves from this leader of our time, only time will tell how bad a mistake it turns out they all made.

Sister, Sister, Wherever You Have Gone

Posted on July 29, 2014 by McPhedran

I remember when we bounced in the big chair to The Partridge Family and K-Tel’s Fantastic 22. And I remember when we threw the little metal Santa Claus too high and it smashed through the window and we all ran. There were the trips to the cottage, the puzzles, the rain, the boat trips across the lake.

I remember your pained expressions too, you not wanting to be there, anywhere but with your dumb siblings, away with the crowd, all the excitement and things like that. And I remember not liking you so much for any of that. But it’s just kid’s stuff now, right? We move on, yes? I mean, if you hold things too tight, they drive right into you and there’s nothing left, just petty agendas, seeing everything in the world, except where you came from. And that just goes on until you get to the end and then you wonder what happened.

Aeschylus & Robert Kennedy

Posted on May 12, 2014 by McPhedran

I stumbled onto the work of Aeschylus through Robert Kennedy’s most famous speech delivered in Indianapolis on his 1968 election tour. It is a remarkable speech not only for its profoundly personal nature, but also in that it helped turn an angry crowd away from violence only moments after they had learned of Martin Luther King Jr.’s assassination. Kennedy’s words are also remarkable in that he painstakingly cites Aeschylus as a guide to understanding:

My favorite poet is Aeschylus. And he once wrote. Even in our sleep, pain which cannot forget falls drop by drop upon the heart until, in our own despair, against our will, comes wisdom through the awful grace of God. While rioting broke out in many other cities across the country that night, Indianapolis remained calm, in part due to words of wisdom written some 2500 years before.

The Crack Pipe Media

Posted on December 6, 2013 by McPhedran

The people of Newtown, Connecticut are mad.It’s almost as if they expect the media to address issues like gun control instead of mainlining our catharsis.

More importantly, what’s this “media vultures” spin? Is the media supposed to be something alien? Do they live in a shadowy compound?Don’t the people of Newtown understand that we can only read so much about lobbying for gun control? I mean, it’s just like all of this talk about my privacy being invaded. Instead of going on about what this guy Snowden thinks, can’t TMZ just catch him drunk in Red Square?

In the meantime, the people of Newtown need to stay focused on news that matters:

Rob Ford Breaking News!

New York’s controversial Stop and Kiss Program

Miami’s Ten Hottest Female Reporters.

And remember Edward R. Murrow’s famous words: “Television isn’t the classroom of the world; it’s the marketplace.” That wasn’t a bad guess for a guy who had never posted or sexted, not understanding our basic need for the simple things.Life, liberty and the pursuit of more soma.

The Credo of Thanksgiving: Buy More

Posted on December 3, 2013 by McPhedran

This just in: America’s great holiday is a sham.While the advertising world spins Thanksgiving as a holiday of generosity and love, it has devolved into something else.

Wednesday: Go home.

Thursday: Eat too much and then eat more. Friday: Get up incredibly early and engage in contact shopping. Saturday: Look at your things. Sunday: Go home with your new things.

Monday: Buy more things on-line.

Tuesday: Give loose change to someone with nothing.

Or not.

The Myth of Conscience

Posted on October 10, 2013 by McPhedran

While literature is rife with the terror of a bad conscience – Sophocles’ Oedipus Rex, William Shakespeare’s Macbeth, Edgar Allen Poe’s The Tell-Tale Heart and Oscar Wilde’s The Picture of Dorian Gray – there is little evidence that we actually care about wronging others. We aren’t as smart as we think and end up believing that selfishness and greed is what keeps us alive. Children are taught all sorts of other good things – sharing and caring and all that – but they learn by watching how adults behave. The message is clear: Teachers and parents don’t practice what they preach; the wealthy stay rich through manipulation, and leaders maintain their power through collusion.

We want what we have, and we want whatever everyone else has too.Bring on the flood.

Judging Politicians for all the Wrong Reasons

Posted on September 12, 2013 by McPhedran

In 1989, President Bush nominated John Tower for Secretary of Defense, an appointment that the press and public attacked not because of his hawkish politics but for his reputation as a womanizer and drinker.A similar fate met Gary Hart in his 1987 presidential bid.Anthony Weiner’s candidacy for New York City mayor flopped for the same reasons. None of these people were judged on their public policy, but on their private indiscretions. I don’t understand why, beyond his family and friends, anyone cares. Indeed what if the same skewed thinking had been applied to two American icons – JFK & MLK – for their weaknesses for the fairer sex?.

Marilyn Monroe offers her birthday wishes to JFK

What if their indiscretions had been made public while they were alive? Would they have been cast from office?

Consider this pop quiz: Which of the following personalities would you vote for?

Candidate A drinks a quart of brandy every day and is a habitual smoker.Candidate B has had a long-standing extramarital affair and believes in the occult.Candidate C neither smokes nor drinks and is a vegetarian.

Yes, of course it’s a trick. That’s the point. (A: Winston Churchill, B: FDR, C: Adolf Hitler)

What if the NRA was the NCWA?

Posted on August 26, 2013 by McPhedran

As much as the people of the United States might like to focus on their guns, let’s not forget that chemical weapons are also part of an historic past. Smallpox-infected blankets were given to Native Americans as part of a virtual genocide in the 18th century. The U.S. government is also known to have used chemical weapons in World War I, developed a biological weapons project under Franklin D Roosevelt and doused pretty much all of Vietnam with Agent Orange. And then of course there’s the use of nuclear weapons.

And so…what if the United States government had decided that chemical weapons were worth the amendment, and not guns, in 1791? A well regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear chemical weapons shall not be infringed. Is this what they would be fighting for now? Would it be the National Chemical Weapons Associations (NCWA) rather than the National Rifle Association (NRA)? Would mentally crazed individuals be running through campuses spraying nerve gas? Would so many others be collecting various strains and keep them loosely locked in bedroom closets? And would the U.S. government send aid to Syria, in the form of canisters, when people were killed by gunfire instead?

The WOR tourists of Greenland

Posted on July 27, 2013 by McPhedran

The biggest problem with tourism in Greenland is the price. A return flight from Reykjavik is over $1300, day trips average around $250 per person and accommodations are in that same range.Even the hostels are expensive ($60-75 per night) as are food and drink. The fallout is that the silence and beauty is only for those who can afford it, most of whom are white, old and rich, or WORs. While many of these people come across as adventurous and young at heart, there is a disheartening proprietorial sense, the 1% surveying the stunning ice-scapes as their exclusive right. All of which acts as a reminder for exactly why this planet is going to hell.

Paul-Emile Victor’s Arctic Garbage

Posted on July 26, 2013 by McPhedran

Although today’s tourists are well schooled on not leaving their trash behind, it certainly wasn’t the pattern of the past. Paul-Emile Victor led a number of scientific expeditions from the Eqi Glacier Polar Camp in 1947-51, during which he determined that Greenland was in fact composed of three separate islands, all hidden under the ice.Over the years, he and his colleagues left behind many reminders of their presence, including oil drums… sled tracks… other detritus…and of course the shed…now filled with graffiti of who has been there since.