You’ve waited with impatiently, with baited breath, as a day turned into days and those days turned into a week and longer. But here it is, our 100th Morning Coffee together. It’s been over a year since we began having Coffee together, and I hope that I’m able to continue to join you in your mornings for a long time; for as long as I’m capable of Brewing. I had planned on doing some grand bit to celebrate the 100th, but other things got in the way day after day, so I think I’ll just see where it goes this morning.
"Politics Man, Politics…!":
So much has happened since our last get together that it’s hard to know where to begin. Politically, it seems as though we’re light years from where we were a week or so ago, but at the same time, it feels as though we haven’t moved an inch. We’ve had a Democratic debate and Super Tuesday, neither of which have done much to solve the Left side of the political race. Super Tuesday seemed pretty lame, actually. You know, it’s hard to imagine any lasting, substantive changes in our political system (due to a variety of reasons), but I would love to see many changes implemented. Finding an alternative nomination process would be one of many.
Once nominations are confirmed, presidential politics today (and perhaps politics at all levels) is like watching the Kansas City Royals and the Tampa Bay Devil Rays play a baseball game. Both teams, like both candidates, suck but at the end of the day, one of them is absolutely, positively going to be the winner no matter how ugly the game is played by both teams. The main difference is that in this game, the crowd (fans) must vote on who wins, and the crowd rarely votes on what matters (though one could argue when you’re talking about these two teams, what matters?). Instead of winning because they have a better pitching staff or a nasty lineup, the Devil Rays have cooler uniforms, so they should win. Or, the Royals are an older team, and thus more experienced, so they should win. The Rays might have a pitcher who is terrible year in and year out, but happens to have a good year and picks up a fat contract; the Rays are the frontrunners because now they’re richer. Never mind the fact that this guy will probably still be terrible. Then you’ve got the sports commentators telling you who you should vote for as the winner. No candidate will ever be perfect, nor will any baseball team ever go an entire season without losing. But can’t we find better “teams” than the political equivalent to the Royals and Rays?
Okay, now that I’ve gotten the obligatory analogy off my chest, I’ll conclude this tirade by summing up Super Tuesday. It did end with McCain being the clear Republican front runner. But on the Democrat side, little was decided. Huckabee, about whom you might have first heard in an earlier edition of the MC, did surprisingly well and may have positioned himself nicely for the VP slot on McCain’s ticket. I, for one, was not terribly surprised by Huck’s showing, as I stated earlier that the man might very well be the Republican nominee. I didn’t think he was as out of the race as virtually every pundit suggested. The evangelical base is too strong, and that’s where he has appeal. He probably won’t win the nomination, and that’s probably a good thing, but he’s still right there. And if McCain were to win the Presidency, Huckster could end up our President through succession.
Conservatives Worse Fear: A Republican Nominee:
It sounds strange that conservatives fear a McCain nomination. He is, after all, a Republican, and Republicans are generally conservative. They don’t fear a McCain nomination because they think he’ll lose. Instead, they fear it because they fear he’ll win. That’s mind-blowing. Conservative pundits like Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck, Ann Coulter and others dislike McCain so much that they’ve proclaimed that they’d vote for Hillary Clinton before they would vote for McCain. And the sentiment is trickling down to the masses (which is quite sad because it indicates clearly that a majority of people get their opinions from people on the radio). Several people have come up to me stating that they’d vote for Clinton before McCain. They can’t really articulate why, exactly. But they know they don’t like him for some reason. I actually asked the first person to say this to me if his name was Rush Limbaugh. His reply to me was something about McCain being a POW and that POWs learn to live by telling people whatever they want to hear and that they’ll lie and etc, etc. I was quite taken aback by this, and called him on the fact that such a sentiment would mark all POWs as liars and thus unworthy of listening to in any capacity. Weird.
My question to conservatives is this: which would you rather have name Supreme Court Justices, McCain or Clinton? Remember that the Supreme Court makes rulings on Constitutional matters…like Roe v. Wade. I know how obscenely important a person’s choice is to you (or more accurately your revocation of that choice), so you might want to remember the fact that our next President might have the chance to nominate three Justices. McCain is pretty much pro-life whereas Clinton is pro-choice. It seems that on this issue, which is oftentimes the most important consideration for conservatives, McCain is the clear winner. But because conservatives dislike McCain’s stance on immigration and campaign finance reform (which they irrationally view as a usurpation of the 1st Amendment right to free speech), they would vote for someone who, in their view, tacitly supports the murder of unborn children. Amazing, isn’t it, the herd mentality of these people, bleating the catch phrases and opinions of their radio gods.
Limbaugh and Beck and their ilk lament over what they see as a slow death of conservatism, but really, their incessant whining merely illuminates the problems with such strict adherence to ideology. They’d sell their souls and their vote to someone they considered a few months ago to be the devil simply because the likely GOP candidate isn’t what they view as the ideal conservative. You will continue to hear about this (if you pay attention to such things). You will continue to hear Limbaugh and Coulter and Beck say that conservatives should cast their votes for Clinton rather than McCain. You’ll hear all sorts of nonsense, like that Clinton is more of a conservative than McCain. My advice to you is to learn what you can about the candidates and then vote for the one that is the least distasteful to you. If that’s Clinton, then vote for her. Just remember, you will always be sacrificing some of your ideals, because no one candidate is going to represent you with 100% fidelity unless you get off your ass and run yourself.
I thank Roland Martin at CNN for providing a good article on this, though it’s been reported on for about a week by various news outlets.
Down with the Sickness:
Al-Qaida in Iraq (AQI) has a new weapon against Coalition forces: women. I know what you’re thinking, but it’s not sexual seductions. And it’s not just any women. These women are highly skilled in the arts of terrorism. Why? Because they have Down’s Syndrome. Last week, two separate women were used in attacks on crowded markets during which 70 people lost their lives. The women probably didn’t even know what they were doing until they spontaneously detonated. They weren’t the only ones surprised by their explosion because their illness likely helped them get past security check points. The explosives were hidden under their traditional garb. This isn’t new, but the use of women as suicide bombers is still fairly novel, so they get past security easier than young men. Add the fact that the women had a severe illness, well, who’s going to stop and vigorously question and/or frisk someone with Down’s? I’m guessing that security details will scrutinize women and disabled people more now. This is the ever-changing game of cat and mouse that the Coalition plays with AQI.
The Loss of National Treasures:
Harry Richard Landis past away. He was 108 years old and only one of two remaining WWI veterans. Landis didn’t see combat in the Great War because he was still in training when the war ended, but he is, like the 4.7 million other US military members of the day, considered a WWI vet. In 1941, Landis tried to sign up to fight the Germans (seeing as though he missed his shot the previous time), but was deemed too old (at 42). This is a man who admits that he didn’t want to fight in WWI, but then volunteered to go fight in WWII. Such honor. His story’s pretty interesting, as he went on to manage S.S. Kresge Co. (later to be named Kmart) all through the northeast.
The last remaining US veteran of that war is Frank Buckles (107). The Canadians have John Babcock (107) as their last remaining vet. The last German veteran, Erich Kaestner, passed away on New Year’s Day at 107. With that in mind, there could be as few as two WWI veterans left on the entire planet.
Raymond Jacobs recently died as well. Jacobs, who you may have never heard of, claimed to be the last living member of the original group of Marines that first raised an American flag on Mount Suribachi during the Battle of Iwo Jima. As you know, the famous photo shows a second flag raising. No records exist which can verify Jacobs’ claim and all his contemporaries are already dead, so we may never know who really was involved in that first flag raising, as Jacobs also disputed the official identifications of the Marines in a picture taken by Louis Lowery.
There is a lot more that I wished to discuss with you during the past week, but much of it is OBE, or overcome by events. As in no longer relevant. So I’ll end now. Until next time.
Word of the Day: Mien (noun): Air, bearing, or demeanor, as showing character, feeling, etc: a man of noble mien.
On This Day in History: The Mongols burn the Russian city of Vladimir (1238). The US bans all Cuban imports and exports (1962). Slim pickings today; see the last few days for some interesting happenings throughout history.
“When a true genius appears, you can know him by this sign: that all the dunces are in a confederacy against him.” – Jonathan Swift.
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