Undo Power for the Deservedly Powerless

It was warm and pleasant today when my wife and I drove our nephew and his daughter (my grand niece) to the San Jose Airport to drop them off for their flight back to Detroit. There was a lone car parked outside their Terminal C in the as-yet-unmarked loading area. We pulled in, removed their baggage from the trunk and began to exchange goodbye-for-a-while hugs.

Suddenly the warmth was icily dissipated with the lumbering approach of an unshapely hulk of a man with an equally misshapen goatee. He appeared to be tented within a pair of blue durable Dickie work pants and matching shirt, with the latter partially hidden under a yellow day glow vest.

As he trundled toward us he bellowed in an buffoonish, authoritative voice, “This is only for unloading. You have to move on.”  When I said, “We’re only saying goodbye.” He again bellowed, “You should have done that in the car. This is for unloading only.” Rather than trying to explain to this immovable object that it is difficult to hug in the car either on the highway coming from Santa Cruz or after we parked, we defiantly continued hugging until after we finished full well knowing that we were probably violating an “Unloading and No Hugging Ordinance,” and then said goodbye.

Ironically this weekend was designated as the San Jose International Airport Community Open House  — a planned public relations festivity welcoming one and all to view the end of a six-year, $1.3 billion renovation. Terminal C will be razed after July 4 and the incredible bulk will either have to find another position representing the airport or he could become a media spokesperson for BP.

 

 

 

Yiddish Lesson in Politics

Oy Vey and Gai Avek

Here Comes Verbal Drek

Less than two days after the June 8 California primary election results were confirmed for the gubernatorial and United States Senate races, the GOP and Democratic candidates for both offices were slinging more than mud at one another.

However, the campaigns show the promise of tackling the real issues citizens are concerned with as the GOP senatorial candidate Carly Fiorina, the former CEO and attempted assassin of Hewlett-Packard, lashed out at her Democratic opponent’s — hairstyle. Meg Whitman, the GOP candidate for governor who bought her nomination for more than $80 million (see June 1 post), tore apart her Democratic opponent Jerry Brown claiming he had failed at every political job he ever had. Allegedly Brown politely retorted by comparing Whitman’s campaign to that of Hitler’s minister of propaganda Joseph Goebbels. In turn, Whitman’s campaign manager called Brown’s reported comments ”deeply offensive and entirely unacceptable.’

California voters will be subjected to 151 more days of this crap — drek —before the November 9 general election. Sadly, this will probably be the same story for citizens across the country wherever an election is taking place. You can hear their collective moaning of  “Oy Vey” accompanied by them imploring the politicians with their sure-to-come banal rhetoric and deceptive advertising to Gai Avek – just go away.

 

 

Inspirational Adam Cintz Accentuated the Positive

Adam Cintz lived through two World Wars, was confined to the Lodz ghetto by the Nazis during World War Two, and then sent in a cattle car to Auschwitz where he lost his eight-year-old son Shlomo to the chimneys. He was also separated from his wife Genia with whom he was miraculously reunited after the war. Adam came practically empty handed to America, found work and worked hard, learned English, started his own business, and looked for the positive in life and in people and always was willing to help in whatever way that he could. At ninety-six he started speaking about his experiences to students, as many as three hundred at a time, and inspired them to also do good in the world while they were around. Adam is no longer around as he died peacefully on Memorial Day, one month shy of his 100^th birthday. Unlike the stories that follow, Adam always accentuated the positive and eliminated the negative, exemplified in the words of Johnny Mercer’s song. *

For more on the extraordinary life of Adam Cintz see posts on April 17 and 26, 2010.

Others Are Positively Negative

Each Side of the I’ll Says, “Get You Next”

You can start with the obvious — the politicians —who find no good in their opposition’s programs, brazenly describe their rival’s faults to the media, and make little or no effort to compromise on anything. It is not only party against party, but in California during the primaries it’s been GOP candidates against their fellow Republicans in an acidulous manner. Good news — there will only be twenty-two weeks of nauseating negative campaigning after tomorrow’s primary before the November 9 election. 

Doomsday Groups Fear End of Oil

They are lurking out there, people who feel oil supplies peaked two years ago, that an oil shortage is eminent and the economy may collapse followed by a breakdown of civil order. Some people are stocking up on food reserves in case the oil squeeze prevents food from reaching market while others are converting their investments into gold and silver. Good news —this fear brought together a Democrat and a Republican in Congress and they formed a Congressional Peak Oil Caucus in 2005. There is no record of this two-person caucus accomplishing anything, much the same as is with all members of Congress.

We Gather Together to Find Out Who Did It

On June 5 in San Jose, 400 discerning men and women met and the general agreement was that bad things are being secretly done to them. When asked who is responsible for this outrage, individuals accused Obama, extraterrestrials, the military-industrial complex, Communists, Jews, the United Nations, the lead guitarist of AC/DC, or in some case, a combination of two or more of these entities. They were attending the 10^th annual gathering of people searching for alternative truths at the Conspiracy Con 2010.  Good old “Con Con” probably best describes the promoter’s motivation and those of the vendors.

Good News May Not Equal A Good Story

Those in the news business will say that you can’t blame the messenger — the media — for delivering the unpopular messages that permeate print, broadcast and online media today. It’s not their fault and to counteract the barrage of more than twenty-five minutes of dismal news each broadcast, some television networks search for something positive and close their evening newscasts with a story on a “Person of the Day” or “Someone Who Made A Difference.”

Today’s newspaper headlines (June 7, 2010) proclaim one gory story after another, and these were found in either The New York Times, Wall Street Journal, San Jose Mercury News, San Francisco Chronicle or the Santa Cruz Sentinel: “2 Men Seized at J.F.K Accused of Plotting Jihad,” “Coast Guard Sees Oil Spill Cleanup Lasting Into Fall,”  “Markets Prepare for Week of Turmoil,”  “Midwest tornado kills 7,”  “4 Killed in Iraq Bombing,”  “Millions of patients overtreated in U.S.” and  “Two window washers in critical condition.” One headline offered the question that’s been on everyone’s mind day and night, “Are contractors bribing Taliban?”

Ready for the Good News?

Bad news has been covered in perpetuity and about fifteen years ago a newspaper was started by some naïve, well-meaning individuals to counteract the overflow and it only presented good news. It quickly went out of business due to a lack of advertisers and readers.

*Lyrics to Mercer’s “Accentuate the Positive”

You've got to accentuate the positive, Eliminate the negative,

And latch on to the affirmative, Don't mess with Mister In-Between.

You've got to spread joy up to the maximum, Bring gloom down to the minimum

Have faith or pandemonium's Li'ble to walk upon the scene.

To illustrate  my last remark Jonah in the whale, Noah in the ark.

What did they do just when ev'rything looked so dark?

Man, they said "We'd better accentuate the positive "Eliminate the negative" And latch on to the affirmative -Don't mess with Mister In-Between,  no, no,  Don't mess with Mister In-Between."

The California Primary With One Weak to Go

The Beatles Didn’t Care Too Much for Money

Politicians Believe It Can Buy More Than Love

In 1964, the Beatles released a successful single that included the words, “I don‘t care too much for money, for money can’t buy me love.” The two leading Republican candidates for California governor in the June 8^th primary might not care too much for money but are hoping that it can buy them enough votes to become their party’s nominee in the November.

In 1973, It Was Deep Throat

In 2010, It Is Deep Pockets

By of the end of May, Meg Whitman, the billionaire former CEO of eBay had raised $83.4 million, including $68 million of her own money, but had only $3.8 million left in cash on hand. Her chief GOP opponent, entrepreneur Steve Poizner had raised $26.3 million including $24.2 million of his own money, leaving him with $3 million on hand. Their combined spending in the GOP primary race alone comes to about $103 million.

Fatherly Advice

To put this in some perspective, in the 1984 presidential election, the total spending by all candidates came to $103.6 million, and fifty years ago in 1960 when Kennedy ran against Nixon, it became the first $20 million presidential campaign. There’s the story that JFK received a telegram from his occasionally anti-Semitic father Joseph which read, “"Dear Jack: Don't buy a single vote more than is necessary. I'll be damned if I'm going to pay for a landslide."

Brother Can You Spare $51.50

If Meg and Steve are trying to buy votes, they should recall that in the 2006 gubernatorial primary, Arnold Schwarzenegger received 1,724,288 votes — or 89.99% of the total of 1,916,080 cast by Republicans. Should the total GOP primary votes in 2010 rise to two million and the $103+ million is spent, that comes to about $51.50 per vote. It might have been more cost effective for each candidate to place one of their workers stand outside every voting place in the state, pass out a Ulysses Simpson Grant $50 Federal Reserve Note, and buy their votes directly.

I’ll Raise You $50 Million

The primary is just the warm-up for the general election that takes place on November 9^th and the leading (and only real) Democratic candidate for governor is California’s Attorney General Edmund G. Brown, Jr. He’s better known as Jerry and has raised $21 million, spent only $400,000, and has not put a dime of his own money into the campaign. Yet.

No Republicans Running for Congress

Suits These Two Candidates to a Tea

The 19^th U.S. Congressional District in the heart of the San Joaquin Valley has long been an almost guaranteed Republican seat, but not this year. Two of the three leading candidates seeking to replace the retiring Republican congressman are still out to win the GOP primary nomination and have their slogans pasted on billboards and on signs stuck in the ground throughout the rural areas. Their political leanings are quite similar and so are those slogans, yet neither candidate will admit to being a member of the Republican Party. “Pombo — Conservative for Congress,” reads Richard Pombo’s, and his opponent’s reads, “Jeff Denham — Conservative for Congress.” Looks like some advertising geniuses for both camps worked hard to create such powerful campaigns. When this bitter, heated contest is over, the two candidates should sit down, work together and plan how to beat any Democrat opponent who is foolish enough to run. They could probably best do so in a genteel manner with a tea party.

See http://www.mercurynews.com/top-stories/ci_15200771?nclick_check=1 for more on an environmental villain running in this campaign.

 

 

 

Don’t Blame Me

That’s the Way the Ball Bounces

With the National Basketball Association’s (NBA) playoffs in full bloom, there’s a simultaneous growth of blooming idiots on both sides of the referee’s whistles. The refs, who unlike brain surgeons, are forced to make critical, instantaneous decisions in front of thousands of hostile fans, insecure and screaming coaches, and prima donna players. Many of the latter carry the extra weight of a festoon of tattoos on their arms, chests, torsos and legs. When a foul is called, they put on an Academy Award acting performance followed by a “Who me?” incantation before they sulk away. If they vent their anger at the refs, they may also get a technical foul, and two of them in any game earn an ejection from the game. Referees have blown calls and one such obvious playoff technical call was rescinded after the league viewed the videos. Players may kvetch – complain ­— on the court but should find some solace knowing that the average NBA salary in $5,356,000.Three players earn more than $23 million a season to run around in their underwear and throw a sphere through a metal rim for a living. Of course it’s not all peaches and cream as the lowest paid NBA performer earns a mere $457,588 for the 82-game season, which comes to $5,580.34 per game. This serf probably plays ten minutes a game, which comes to a paltry minimum wage of $558.03 per minute. The minimum wage for the rest of the country’s workers is $7.25 per hour.  

 

What a Racket! What? A Racket?

The top international professional table tennis players may make more than $100,000 a year through tournament prize winnings, endorsements and sponsorships. Whether they are a top-ranked pro or an amateur, when it comes to matches, some players seem to have a similar entity to blame when they misplay an opponent’s serve or volley, and it is not the referee — it is their racket — aka paddle or blade. They will first look incredulously at it at arm’s length, slowly bring it to eye level and carefully scrutinize the surface, trying to determine where this instrument deserted them. Some turn the racket over to check both sides trying to ascertain if suddenly a malformed surface appeared. It is a far quieter action than that of the miscreant NBA player, and an excellent study in facial expressions.

 

Who’s to Blame? Mirror, Mirror on the Wall

Perhaps French philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre (1905-1980) was right when he emphasized in his writings that each of us is responsible for the consequences of our actions. 

Whom Do You Trust?

Yesterday after finishing lunch in the King Louie Restaurant on NW Stark Street in Portland, Oregon’s Chinatown, I picked up two fortune cookies to see what the future held.

You might be dubious about the predictive power of a fortune cookie but I am not. The first fortune cookie I ever opened was in San Francisco’s Chinatown after I arrived in California in March of 1960. It told me in simple language what I was meant to do during my lifetime as it read, “You are creative and like to write.”

The two I opened at King Louie’s had me a bit confused for the first one read, “Your choices at the moment will be good ones. Trust yourself.” The second seemed to be contradictory as it read, “Trust others, but still keep your eyes open.”

There was no reference to the word “trust” in relation to those currently in any political office, to those running in the upcoming primaries, nor to anyone connected with a financial institution. However, I will keep my eyes open regarding those aforementioned entities. 

The President Has Resigned

Ecclesiastes Verse Three...Life Is All in the Timing

I retired after the spring 2008 semester at San Jose State University (SJSU) and twenty-two years of teaching in the School of Journalism. It was time to devote more time to my own writing rather than spending more and more energy helping students try and improve theirs.

No one seemed to know then that with the collapse of the state’s economy, the entire California State University (CSU) system with twenty-three universities was also in need of rescue. 

With fewer moneys available, those in the executive offices mandated that SJSU’s student enrolment would be reduced, some part-time faculty would be let go, and some staff positions would be eliminated. In their infinite wisdom and limited vision, too many eclectically-titled vice presidents making more than $100,000 a year decided to move some staff members around rather than releasing them. It seemed like a kind gesture.

A Dollar Saved Can Be a Dollar Wasted

In the School of Journalism, a woman with the title Academic Assistant who had spent years diligently working with the students, helping me and my fellow professors extricate themselves from messes that we had created, and who was the face of the School greeting and helping everyone who walked into the office, was told to prepare to work at a yet unknown destination elsewhere on campus after this spring’s semester ends.

Across the hall, the dedicated and student-friendly Equipment Technician who was the most knowledgeable (and only) person in charge of maintaining all video, audio and computer equipment would also be reassigned — somewhere. Those two positions would remain unfilled with the School’s Resource Analyst forced to take on their duties. That would be in addition to her regular, taxing obligation as the chair’s and School’s “secretary”, maintaining the financial records, trying to work with and appease more than twenty odd professors with their collection of idiosyncrasies, and helping students with their outside-of-the-classroom problems.

More or Less

This is what is happening in just one area and you must multiply this by dozens of programs at SJSU times the same situation at all CSU campuses.

Leaving A Sinking Ship For a Field of Dreams

To add to SJSU’s dysfunctional operation, its president resigned in mid-May, after just two years to escape “the angst facing California’s public universities.” He had managed to eke out a living on his salary of $328,209 plus fringe benefits and $25,000 from the university’s foundation. He would become the CEO of the ACT national testing organization in Iowa City at $554,000 a year where the cost-of-living would be far less than the Silicon Valley and where his two children were attending the University of Iowa. There he hopes to find his own field of dreams, or perhaps buy the one created for Kevin Costner’s 1989 movie which is up for sale at $5.4 million.

Pales In Comparison

Author, television commentator, former vice presidential candidate, tea party agitator, moose skinner and bull slinger Sarah Palin, “earns” $100,000 each time she regurgitates the same canned platitudes whether it is at an Amway meeting or the National Rifle Association convention.

Palin is up to her wading boots in controversy for she was asked to be the featured speaker on June 15 at cash-strapped California State University-Stanislaus in rural Turlock, California for the university’s 50^th anniversary gala sponsored by the Stanislaus Foundation. Her contract calls for either first class seating on a commercial airline from Anchorage to California or the providing of a private aircraft which must be a Lear 60 or larger. 

The Foundation for the Defense

It is obvious to all right-thinking individuals that this is a tempest in a teapot, not a Tea Party teapot, nor the Teapot Dome Scandal of 1924. Her fund-raising speech would be sponsored by the nonprofit CSU Stanislaus Foundation, which they claim to be totally independent from the university. That is the truth, almost, except the latest news reports note that the foundation not only operates on the Turlock campus, but also uses university facilities, equipment and employees.

No Moose is Good Moose

As the semester ends today at San Jose State University with a forced, unpaid furlough day set for tomorrow, no moose has yet been sighted in Turlock. Moose is actually both the singular and plural description of the animal, not mooses nor meese, and there might have been a tenuous connection between Sarah Palin and the latter word. According to the Heritage Foundation, the former Attorney General Edwin Meese is an elder statesman in the conservative movement and a prominent thinker. The “prominent thinker” description dissolves any connection with Sarah.