Made in Manhattan

Check out Maureen Dowd's interesting essay entitled "What's a Modern Girl to Do" in today's New York Times Magazine. Maureen Dowd's essay probes the dilemmas confronting feminism in 2005. The most interesting thing I found in the essay was the following excerpt that talked about the role that movies are playing in shaping modern attitudes about feminism:

"In all those Tracy-Hepburn movies more than a half-century ago, it was the snap and crackle of a romance between equals that was so exciting. You still see it onscreen occasionally - the incendiary chemistry of Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie playing married assassins aiming for mutually assured orgasms and destruction in "Mr. and Mrs. Smith." Interestingly, that movie was described as retro because of its salty battle of wits between two peppery lovers. Moviemakers these days are more interested in exploring what Steve Martin, in his novel "Shopgirl," calls the "calm cushion" of romances between unequals. In James Brooks's movie "Spanglish," Adam Sandler, playing a sensitive Los Angeles chef, falls for his hot Mexican maid, just as in "Maid in Manhattan," Ralph Fiennes, playing a sensitive New York pol, falls for the hot Latino maid at his hotel, played by Jennifer Lopez. Sandler's maid, who cleans up for him without being able to speak English, is presented as the ideal woman, in looks and character. His wife, played by Téa Leoni, is repellent: a jangly, yakking, overachieving, overexercised, unfaithful, shallow she-monster who has just lost her job with a commercial design firm and fears she has lost her identity.In 2003, we had "Girl With a Pearl Earring," in which Colin Firth's Vermeer erotically paints Scarlett Johansson's Dutch maid, and Richard Curtis's "Love Actually," about the attraction of unequals. The witty and sophisticated British prime minister, played by Hugh Grant, falls for the chubby girl who wheels the tea and scones into his office. A businessman married to the substantial Emma Thompson, the sister of the prime minister, falls for his sultry secretary. A novelist played by Colin Firth falls for his maid, who speaks only Portuguese. Art is imitating life, turning women who seek equality into selfish narcissists and objects of rejection rather than of affection."

According to Dowd, the battle of the sexes has reverted from the 1970s highwater mark of feminism to a 1950s-era "Ozzie and Harriet" social structure. Earlier this year, while doing research on the role of women in films, I discovered the 1954 film "A Woman's World" starring Lauren Bacall and Fred MacMurray. "A Woman's World" is about three 1950s-era couples who are competing with one another to prove that they are the right couple to fill the position of a general manager for a prestigous auto manufacturer. The film is extremely witty, and I highly recommend it not only as an excellent film experience but also as a historical look at an era in our past when a man's career was enhanced by the "perfect wife". Watching this film from the perspective of 2005 is like watching a movie about the dinosaurs. Speaking as an American born in the 1970s, I have no experience with the social and marital worlds presented in "A Woman's World". Like an archaeologist uncovering a long forgotten past, I had trouble relating to the film and the bygone era it represents. And no matter what Maureen Dowd writes in her essay, this era is still bygone. We live in a world where 35% of births in the United States are to unmarried women and where the rising cost of living requires parents of any marital status to work outside the home (In the United States in 2005, both parents are employed in 60% of 2-parent families with children).

Thorny work-family-marriage issues confront each person to some degree at some point in life. No one has discovered a silver-bullet solution to these age-old challenges. The key thing is to read, absorb, think (yes, think!) and come to your own conclusions about how you want your life to be structured.

The Smurf Manifesto

As if I didn't have enough to worry about, I now have to worry about communist smurfs. As George McFly said in "Back to the Future": "Lou, give me a milk!"

This is some truly crazy stuff. Unbeknownst to me, there has been a silent war raging on the Internet for years about whether the Smurfs, those lovable blue characters from the 1980s television show, were actually a subtle plot by their Belgian creator to present communism in a kindler, gentler light to younger generations. Don't believe me? Then look here, here, and here.

Where do people find time to dream up this crazy stuff? Granted, Brainy Smurf (below right) does bear a striking resemblance to Leon Trotsky (below left), the communist intellectual hero of the early Soviet Union:



But really, does it have to come to this? I could sit here all day long and dream up the parallels between "The Love Boat" and the Bush White House. But I am not going to go there. OK, maybe I will. Be patient with this analogy, for it has some leaks (no offense, Rove): Bush is Captain Merrill Stubing, Cheney is Doctor Adam Bricker, Karl Rove is Yeoman-Purser Burl 'Gopher' Smith, Colin Powell is Bartender Isaac Washington, Laura Bush is Cruise Director Julie McCoy, and the Bush twins are a combined Vicki Stubing).


In case you are wondering where the genesis for this blog post is, it actually came from Belgium (you know, that country in Europe that is a good NATO ally, got invaded pretty bad in WWI and WWII, and has since given us those famous waffles). Here I was, going about my business in 2005, when I saw this interesting article about how UNICEF is using a cartoon of a Smurf village being bombed to make an anti-war message on Belgian television: Bomb's Away!!! It appears that creator of the Smurfs was Belgian! (commie bastard!) And furthermore, he wore spectacles! (double commie bastard!!) Where is Joe McCarthy when we need him??? Surely, if the good senator were still with us today, he would have a field day with this diabolical plot. And here I thought I only had to worry about the Teletubbies (aren't they trying to turn my kid into a switch-hitter?).

Further research into the use of the Smurfs as political propaganda yielded the raging "Smurf Communism" debate. Perhaps I can carve my own niche in the political analysis world by turning my "Bush Administration - Love Boat" theory into a book. That would give me tenure and a life-time privilege to waste even more tuition and taxpayer money on frivolous pursuits.

The Prom Parade

Last month Kenneth Hoagland, the principal at Kellenberg Memorial High School in Uniondale, New York, cancelled the annual school prom in order to prevent underage drinking and sex at post-event parties. In his announcement suspending the prom, Hoagland denounced the school prom as "an exaggerated rite of passage that verges on decadence" and stated that the school wanted to support a dance, but not an orgy. Principal Hoagland also denounced the "financial decadence" of parents and students who spend up to $1,000 for dresses, tuxedos, limos, flowers, and all of the other extravagant, extraneous items required for the modern prom. In addition, many thousands more are spent by parents and students alike on the post-prom parties. The post-prom parties have reached a level of degeneracy in terms of sex and booze that would make Howard Stern, the founding father of our reigning gross-out culture, very proud. Peter Brown of the Orlando Sentinel has a great op-ed piece that provides the background to what Principal Hoagland has done in the name of common sense: Read this.

Hollywood has definitely not done anything to help curb the excesses of the prom. If anything, Hollywood's films over the past two decades have created the aura of the modern American prom and have fueled the notion that drunken degeneracy and wanton sexual excess are the mandatory raw materials for any successful prom. There are several cinematic culprits that have fueled the "prom as porno fest" theme in our society, but the most enduring one from a popular culture aspect is "Sixteen Candles" (or is it "Sexteen Candles"?). On the one hand, "Sixteen Candles" is a 1984 teenage coming-of-age film that is a hallmark of the John Hughes 1980s teen-angst era (joined by its cousins "Pretty in Pink" and "The Breakfast Club", et. al.). On the other hand, if "Sixteen Candles" was placed in a police line-up of films that have propagated the prom-as-porno image, it would be immediately arrested, booked, and be read its Miranda Rights for crimes against humanity (and then would join a cell with its jail cell pal, the 1999 film "American Pie").

It is sad that our society has nothing more of value to offer its graduating high school students, who are about to join society as adults, other than conspicuous consumption, drinking as the only way to have fun, and a "just do it" mentality regarding reckless sex. When I look at the challenges facing our nation - our budget and trade deficits, our economic competition and challenges from Asia, a permanent underclass - I see nothing of value in the current culture of conspicuous consumption and irresponsibility exhibited by the modern proms. Speaking as a college educator, these problems cascade up the educational food chain as the high school "porno-prom crowd" morphs into the college drinking crowd on undergraduate campuses (characterized by little academic achievement and an "Animal House" vision of what a successful college experience entails). Speaking as a manager, these problems cascade further upstream in the business world as the college drinking crowd becomes the next generation of unmotivated young slackers at companies. At that point, reality sets in and the slackers grow up. But not before tremendous damage is done.

I wish we had more people of integrity like Principal Hoagland that made necessary but unpopular decisions. Until then, I will sadly wait for "Sixteen Candles II" to further fuel the fires of the modern prom parade.

Rome Rules!

HBO's new series "Rome" is absolutely phenomenal. I have been addicted to it since it first premiered in August. So far, 8 episodes have been shown and the episodes keep getting better and better and better. HBO has been doing a fabulous job with each of their original series (that is why it isn't TV, it's HBO...), and "Rome" will join the legions (sorry, I couldn't resist...) of awesome HBO original shows that exist in the HBO Empire (ok, I did it again). "Rome" has already entered the ranks (alright, last time I do this) of such great shows as "Curb Your Enthusiasm" (although the current season sucks compared to the last four seasons), the foul-mouthed "Deadwood" (of course, there are only so many f-bombs one person can take during a 1 hour episode!), "The Sopranos" (did you know that New Jersey leads the nation in ex-mayors in federal prison? True fact!), and "The Larry Sanders Shows" (a true blast from the past!). "Rome" is the type of show that allows me to pay my outrageously-priced monthly cable bill without too much gnashing of my teeth (Although it is ridiculous. Do I really need Oxygen and the NASCAR Channel? No! So why am I forced to pay for these channels in order to get to the promised land of HBO programming?)

If you haven't seen "Rome", check out the official website. It will get you up to speed on the ground covered so far, from Julius Caesar and his army of centurions crossing the Rubicon, to the fall of the Republic and the creation of the Roman Empire, and finally to the fateful union of Caesar and his Egyptian lover Princess Cleopatra. From battlefields to high society, "Rome" has it all.

The Rome of 52 B.C. was characterized by a decadent society consumed by debauchery, a tremendous chasm in wealth between the rich and the poor, a relentless army that invaded foreign lands and forced regime change in the name of keeping the peace, a corrupt and ineffective Senate that had long ago lost the affection of the people it was supposed to represent, and a society was rich militarily and in terms of spiritual possessions but spiritually bankrupt. Hmmmm, we don't see any parallels here, do we? (sarcasm off)

The intersection of film and politics in terms of television doesn't get much better than this. Check out "Rome" - you won't be disappointed. And if you are, then cancel your HBO and instead flip the dial on the boob tube to watch "Growing Up Gotti on A&E or the equally wretched "Being Bobby Brown" on Bravo.

Politicians with Playing Cards

"The Manchurian Candidate" (the 1962 version, not the 2004 re-make) is an extremely disturbing film, and the macabre side of me grows fonder with this Cold War classic each time I view it. It is definately one of those edgy films that doesn't pull any punches, beginning with the mind-bending Ladies Botany Club Meeting in Maoist China in the 1950s and culminating in assassination, suicide, and betrayal. From the perspective of 2005, there are quite a few things in this film that make modern audiences howl (either in laughter and/or horror at the extreme political incorrectnesss):

- There is an extreme anti-Asian bias in the film. Asians are either portrayed as sneaky villians or as stupid "Fu Manchus" (coined by the Sinatra character). American stereotypes of Asians have morphed over the years since "The Manchurian Candidate" came out, from the stupid/sneaky stereotype of the 1960s to the studious/smart stereotype of today. Personally, I have grown sick and tired of Hollywood stereotpying Asians. I can understand when it was done in the 1960s, but it still happens today! Unbelievable.

- The portrayal of the women characters as either evil witches or as dumb bimbos is unbelievable from the vantage point of 2005. Angela Lansbury (Mrs. Iselin) is a truly evil and manipulative character in the film. She is basically Hillary Clinton on acid (my apologies to any strong Democrats rooting for Hillary in 2008...).



- There is a line in the film where the Raymond Shaw character (played by Laurence Harvey) tells his new wife Jocelyn Jordan (played by Leslie Parrish) to "make like a housewife". Try telling this to a modern American woman in 2005, and you have just issued "fighting words" that will get yourself into a doghouse that you will never emerge from anytime soon.

- Frank Sinatra is great in the main role of Captain Bennett Marco. In the film, Frank Sinatra always appears to be kind of dirty and grimy. In real life, Frank Sinatra took four showers a day. I am not making this up...

When the Gobbler Ruled

No blog post worth its salt on life in the 1960s during the Cold War is complete without pointing its dear readers to the delights of The Gobbler Motel & Supper Club. If you are a Gobbler virgin, consider yourself officially deflowered. Prepare to enter a world of heavy shag carpeting, state-of-the-art 8-track tapes, disco bars that spun around cheesy dance floors, big American-made black-and-white television sets, and the pinnacle dining experience in central Wisconsin during the Nixon presidency. Who ever said they didn't know how to party hard in 1969?

My Public Service Announcement of the Day...

This is my public service announcement of the day: Harriet Miers is absolutely the wrong candidate for the job of Supreme Court Justice!

Consider the following story from today's Washington Post:

The top two members of the Senate Judiciary Committee yesterday complained about the written responses they received from Supreme Court nominee Harriet Miers this week, and warned her to expect tough questions from Republicans and Democrats alike when her confirmation hearing begins Nov. 7.

Barely concealing their irritation during a 35-minute news conference at the Capitol, Chairman Arlen Specter (R-Pa.) and ranking Democrat Patrick J. Leahy (Vt.) called the lobbying on Miers's behalf "chaotic," and said the answers she provided Monday to a lengthy questionnaire were inadequate. "The comments I have heard range from incomplete to insulting," Leahy said.

Conspiracy Mania

I will admit that while I don't necessarily believe in political conspiracies, I love reading about political conspiracies. It takes an imaginative mind to come up with oddball stuff that is supported by the slimmest of available public evidence. I have searched the web far and wide for my favorite political conspiracies, and here they are in abridged format (you can click on each link to go to the "source" material for each conspiracy). So put your phasers on stun, and let's get to it:

1) The Majestic 12 Alien Conspiracy: No list of political conspiracies would be complete without inclusion of that old chestnut about the U.S. government making a secret alliance with aliens in space saucers during the 1940s and 1950s (during the Truman and Eisenhower Administrations). As if Truman and Eisenhower didn't have enough on their hands with the Cold War and the Russians! Now, they were making inter-galactic treaties with advanced races of weirdo gray aliens (some good, some bad). All of this business started in Roswell, New Mexico in 1947 and the rest is conspiracy history. But in the annals of the Roswell/Alien saga, the Majestic 12 angle is by far the most lucrative payoff in terms of investing your time researching conspiracies. It has all of the best angles: secret alliances, top-secret government organizations, alien autopsies presidential involvement, and secret bases in places like Nevada and Utah. Conspiracies don't get any better than this!

2)I know Area 51 by itself can't compete with the larger conspiracy of Majestic 12: But who hasn't heard about this weird military installation in Groom Lake, Nevada? Any casual observer of "The X-Files" knows that Area 51 is ground zero for the conspiracy movement.

3)The Face on Mars: Back in 1976, when the United States still had a growing and robust space progam, NASA sent probes to Mars to photograph the surface. On July 25, 1976, the Viking I probe photographed an area on Mars that some conspiracy theorists claim is an artificial "city" and "face" on the surface of the Red Planet. The “Face” at Cydonia on Mars is shown supposedly shown in the 1976 medium resolution Viking spacecraft images 70a13 and in the Mars Global Surveyor (MGS) spacecraft strip-image SP1-22003. The conspiracy theorist Richard Hoagland expanded these photos into a full book claiming that the "face" on Mars is part of a long-lost civilization on the Red Planet. The "Face on Mars" theory was the basis of the 2000 film "Mission to Mars", starring Don Cheadle and Gary Sinise.

4)Who Shot JFK?: Alright, enough has been published about the Kennedy assassination to fill the libraries of all the Jesuit university libraries. This is rich conspiracy fodder.

5)The Apollo Moon Landings Were Fake: There is only so much mileage one can milk out of this conspiracy without getting an advanced degree in physics.

The Kansas-Nebraska Acts (Part I)

As I was watching the political comedy "Election" last Tuesday, I began thinking about how badly Hollywood treats states like Kansas and Nebraska. These states comprise the proverbial "fly-over" country that Hollywood treats pretty shabbily in its films.

"Election" is set in Omaha, Nebraska. The Omaha of "Election" is portrayed as kind of a dumpy, plain Jane Midwest town. There may be some truth to this. The problem is that this is how Hollywood portrays states like Nebraska and Kansas (my home state) time after time. At the end of "Election", the two main characters of Tracy Flick (played by Reese Witherspoon) and Jim McAllister (played by Matthew Broderick) flee to big East Coast towns (Washington, D.C. and New York City respectively). Now I have nothing against Washington, D.C. and New York City. I have lived in both towns and have visited both frequently. But Hollywood has gone a little overboard with its treatment of "fly-over" country. As I think back through time, I can't think of a single positive film portrayal of my home state of Kansas, or my home town of Kansas City. Not that there are that many of them to think about. Kansas is usually a forgotten endnote in the catalog of Big Screen films. But when Kansas (or Nebraska, or any other state from "fly-over" country) are portrayed, it is rarely in a positive light. From "The Wizard to Oz" to "Little House on the Prarie" to "Gunsmoke", it is just one long saga of tornadoes, cow manure, and "cowboys & indians". Unfortunately, Kansas and Nebraska are the set of a new political stage - depicting and mocking middle class red-state Americans as being un-enlightened, leading futile lives (a.k.a. the "unexamined life" of Thoreau) and not being as "hip" as our blue state brethen on the two coasts (California, New York City, Seattle, Washington D.C., etc.).

I can think of one recent film that was filmed and set in Kansas City. That was the 1990 film "Mr. and Mrs. Bridge" starring Paul Newman and Joanne Woodward. "Mr. and Mrs. Bridge" was shot on location in Kansas City. It is a tale about a 1930s upper-class Kansas City couple that lead a morose and sad life amidst the turbulence of the Great Depression. Paul Newman's character is a real piece of work. He rules his household with an iron fist and has driven his wife into oblivion. Joanne Woodward's character is the repressed Kansas City housewife who is trapped in a meaningless existence. What a wonderful depiction of my home town (sarcasm off).

Even more unfair is the depiction of Wichita, Kansas in the 1987 comedy "Planes, Trains, and Automobiles" starring Steve Martin and John Candy. The Wichita presented in this film is filled with half-educated cretins who can barely speak English. These rednecks carry rabied dogs in the back of their antique pick-up trucks and are throwbacks to the Civil War era. This contrasts with the more civilized Chicago and New York City depicted at the beginning and end of the film. Once again, Kansas gets stiffed on the Silver Screen.

Last night, I was watching the Alexander Payne movie "Sideways" on HBO. "Sideways" is a clever little film about two friends, one of whom is a week away from being married, who take off for a week of driving through California's wine country in a Saab 9000 while getting in romantic misadventures. I doubt you will find a similar movie made about or set in any "fly-over" state. Instead, you will find more of the same depictions of "fly-over" country in the 2003 horror movie "Wrong Turn". "Wrong Turn" is about a group of crazy young college kids who get lost in the back roads of West Virginia and accidentally run across a tribe of hillbilly cannibals. The cannibalistic hillbillies are grossly disfigured through generations of in-breeding, and they like to eat Blue State tourists. If you thought "Deliverance" was bad in terms of its negative portrayal of the South, wait until you see "Wrong Turn". This is par for the course in terms of Hollywood's double-standard against the Heartland.

I guess low costs of living, low crime rates, and the industrial and agricultural backbone of America (all attributes of my home state and home town) just aren't sexy enough for Hollywood's standards. I guess I am just being a spoil-sport because I don't live in a state deemed "cool" enough by the grand pooh-bahs of Tinseltown to merit a better film portrayal. I am miffed that Gwynneth Paltrow doesn't come visit in Lenexa, Kansas and sip Starbucks while enlightening me with a view from the top. I will have to suffice with living in a town that has no traffic gridlock, miniscule crime, a great environment to raise children, and plentiful jobs. But wait - these are all bad things, according to Hollywood, and need to be mocked in films! Oh well, such is life. They say the best revenge is living well. I will keep Kansas City - and Hollywood can keep "Sideways".

When Political Scientists Ruled...

One of the most fascinating (and grotesque) parts of the 1964 Cold War thriller "Fail Safe" is the scene in the beginning of the film which introduces Professor Groeteschele, played by Walter Matthau. Professor Groeteschele is a world-famous political scientist, although he doesn't resemble any political scientists I know. In fact, he is almost like a James Bond political scientist. At the beginning of "Fail Safe", Professor Groeteschele is holding court at 5:30 a.m. at a dinner party that is in rapt attention of his political science theories. As the party breaks up at the ripe hour of 6:00 a.m., the married Professor Groetschele proceeds to escort a hot single babe home (in his convertible, no less); he then slaps her hard on the face when she makes an unwelcome sexual advance on him. He then rather ingloriously dumps her on the curb and drives off to the Pentagon for an early morning briefing on nuclear deterrence.

Watching this film from the perspective of 2005, I am perplexed as to what the film makers were thinking when they wrote the role of this bizarre political scientist character into the movie. I mean really, are there any political scientists out there who dress in tuxedos each day, drive convertibles, pick up hot chicks at A-list dinner parties, and have cushy gigs at the Pentagon advising presidents and generals on the nuances of nuclear strategy? Every professional political scientist with a Ph.D. that I have met (whether they beckon from the Ivy Leagues/Washington, D.C., big shot political science schools, or the Heartland) has been incredibly uncool, socially inept, and about as socially connected to high society as Gomer Pyle on crystal meth. Perhaps political scientists in the early 1960s lived in a different world, a world that respected their abilities as the high priests of deterrence. Perhaps this alternate, bizarro world provided these political scientists with rarefied perches along the highest and mightiest ridges in the social spectrum. As a political scientist, I have never heard nor seen any political scientist do anything even remotely resembling what Professor Groeteschele did in "Fail Safe". And I have never met a political scientist who drove a convertible (I have met a lot that drove beat-up Dodge Neons, decrepit Nissan Sentras, and ancient Oldsmobiles from the 1980s).

Perhaps Hollywood took too much artistic license when they made this film. If Hollywood remade this movie today, then can hire me as a technical advisor in terms of how any political scientist character is portrayed on the silver screen. My advice would be to cast Nicole Kidman as a world renowned political scientist who drives a BMW Six Series convertible, hangs out at posh dinner parties in the Washington, D.C. area until the wee hours of the morning, picks up a hunk at the party and drives him home (perhaps Brad Pitt would be available to play this role since he and Jen have broken up and Angelina is pretty damn weird), then slaps the hunk across the face when he makes an unwelcome advance (all the while holding court about the perils of mutual assured destruction and nuclear holocaust). Now that would be realistic...

Tracy Flick in Lenexa

This past 4th of July, I attended the annual Lenexa 4th of July parade. My, what sites I saw! I showed up bright and early in Old Town Lenexa. Unfortunately, the politicians were at the front of the parade in their shiny new cars, and they led the parade by riding through the streets of the parade route like Roman Emperors in their chariots. One by one, the brain-dead politicians passed me, waving from their special interest automative perches:

• State Representative Stephanie Sharp (R-KS), a brain-dead representative from the 17th district located in Lenexa. Her large army of volunteers were handing out candy to the little kids on the parade route in a vain attempt to buy the loyalty of any of Sharp's parent constituents who just happened to be in the crowd. Stephanie was elected to the legislature in 2002 at the young age of 27. She is a go-getter who is an expert at looking good in the press photos and issuing brain-dead press releases. Unfortunately, she won re-election in 2004 and will be with us for a long time. Her beauty will fade over time, but the fact that she is brain-dead will not.
  
• State Representative David Huff (R-KS), my state representative and an old fart who does nothing of value in the legislature besides passing what he calls "small bills" into law (like addressing the pressing issues of the day, such as regulating the use of laser pointers in movie theaters). Huff is a retired executive from the Colgate-Palmolive Company. If you look at his photo, you can see a faint resemblance to either Santa Claus or Wilford Brimley. I don't really know what he did at Colgate, but he probably made a lot of money making soap and going to conference calls and playing golf with his clients. Huff didn't see me because he was sitting in the back of a giant Lincoln Town Car with tinted windows. Giant "Huff" placards were all over the Town Car. The windows were up, so I couldn't tell if Huff was in there or not. Although I did see a faint resemblance of a do-nothing politician sitting on top a pile of special interest money, so perhaps he was in there after all.
  
• Johnson County Sheriff Frank Denning (R-KS), our "law and order" sheriff who keeps us Johnson Countians safe from violent criminals, high school graduation parties run amok, and the ever-present threat of al-Qaeda terrorists. Sheriff Denning didn't look very nice as he drove his convertible Mustang through the parade route with his dumpy, frumpy wife sitting by his side. They both looked foul and they scowled a lot, like they both needed immediate enemas to clear out their systems. They didn't wave, and I kind of wondered how he got elected as sheriff in the first place. Then I started thinking "In 2005, why do we even elect sheriffs anymore? This isn't the Wild West of Dodge City. Can't we just hire a sheriff instead of having them run for office?". But then if they weren't elected, we would never see the sheriff show up at community parades. They might be off catching criminals and deterring crime, which is what they are paid to do (what a novel thought).
  

Finally, the politician's parade concluded with Mayor Mike Boehm, first elected as Lenexa Mayor in January of 2003 and re-elected to a full four-year term in April of 2003. When he isn't busy being Mayor of Lenexa, Mike spends the rest of the work week as a Vice-President at Commerce Bank. Of course, I don't know what the title of "Vice-President" really means if someone works at a bank because let's face it, everyone who works at a bank is called "Vice-President" (other than the tellers, and they do all of the work). The problem with Mike was that he was riding in a convertible Toyota Solara. I did a double-take. Surely, an American politician from a major automobile-production town like Kansas City (and its suburbs) wouldn't be callous enough or politically tone-deaf enough to be riding through a 4th of July parade in a foreign-made car. But, alas, Mike was riding through the parade route in an imported Japanese car.

Several thoughts raced through my mind as I saw Boehm in the Toyota. In the movie "Election", the character Tracy Flick represents the typical ambitious, public-relations-focused candidate that litter the American political scene. During her election campaign to become Student Government President of Carver High School, Tracy baked 480 individualized cupcakes and gave them to the students on election day. Mike Boehm is Lenexa's Tracy Flick. He looks good, he has the perfect overpaid pud job at Commerce Bank, and he has a nice pud position as Mayor of Lenexa. But he has the leadership foresight and political acumen of a wet blanket. He doesn't give us Lenexans cupcakes, however, and I hold this against him. If you are going to be a Tracy Flick cupcake politician, you might as well hand out the cupcakes.

Kansas City is a major auto production hub. We have a Ford production facility and a General Motors production facility. Over the past 30 years, Ford and GM have been losing market share to the Japanese and Korean automakers. Today, the Big 3 domestic producers (Ford, GM, and Chrysler) are barely clinging to a majority share of the U.S. auto market. And the effects on the U.S. economy have been catastrophic: the U.S. trade deficit explodes year after year; U.S. autoworkers losing their well-paying jobs (which has a tremendous ripple effect throughout the U.S. economy); and the de-industrialization of the Unted States.

As I saw Mike Boehm pass me in his Toyota, all I could think of was "What a fink. What a traitor. What a loser." Doesn't he have any loyalty to the autoworkers who make their livings in the Kansas City auto plants? Well, he probably doesn't come from a union household so he doesn't "get it" on this issue. He probably doesn't understand that each year as we shovel hundreds of billions of trade-deficit-ridden dollars to Japan for their automobiles that we are just driving the U.S. closer to the cliff of economic bankruptcy and national oblivion. But what does Mike Boehm care? He has his cushy job in his cushy bank and sits on the cushy City Council of Lenexa. He could give a rat's ass about the plight of the U.S. economy or of local area automakers. I was so filled with rage that I yelled out at Mayor Boehm as he stood there in front of me waving in his Toyota Solar (at the top of my lungs): "Why don't you drive an American car?". The crowd of fellow Lenexans around me exploded in spontaneous applause when I uttered those words, and Mike Boehm did a serious double-take at the insolence of this catball from the constituent peanut gallery. Everyone around me starting cat-calling Mayor Boehm with epithets like "that is a great idea, why aren't you driving an American car?" and the like. I could tell that Boehm was embarassed, and yet to be truthful I could care less about him.


Of course, when we elect Tracy Flick-like politicians, this is what we can expect at the 4th of July parades when all of the politicians come see the hoi polloi and try to show how much they truly care about their constituents. In Lenexa, I will continue to monitor the self-serving political advancement of our own Tracy Flicks: the economically traitorous Mike Boehm, the brain-dead and vapid Stephanie Sharp, and the retired old fart David Huff. Who knows, if I wait long enough, maybe they will give me a cupcake!

Where Are You When We Need You, Herman Kahn?

Herman Kahn was one of those oddball thinkers who had jobs during the Cold War (paid for by generous military budgets) to think the unthinkable and to think outside the box. Some good background on Herman Kahn can be be found at this link: Herman Kahn at Tech Central Station.

I wish we had more people in the United States who followed in the footsteps of Herman Kahn and intellectually danced outside the proverbial box by thinking the unthinkable. When I look around the society and political world of the United States, I see very little innovative thinking and a lot of "more of the same" thinking. Instead, we muddle along the same worn path...as our budget and trade deficits explode, as our auto industries go bankrupt and we hand our collective economic future to the Chinese and Japanese, as we do nothing to achieve energy independence, as we do nothing to invest in the next generation of scientific inquiry. Unfortunately, we are not preparing for the challenges of the future. This will force us all to "duck and cover" when the day of reckoning comes.



I see very little leadership in either the Republican or Democratic parties to help us out of our non-thinking predicament. The leadership of both parties is a blow-dried collection of prima donnas and special interest clowns. All they care about is winning the next election and gaining a few more seats in the House of Representatives and U.S. Senate.

I think the resurrection of the United States will occur not from its politicians and its brain-dead politics, but rather from its citizenry. Herman Kahn, had he lived long enough to be with us in 2005, would have been one of those types of citizens. Are there others out there who are willing to think where no one has been before?

The Word of the Month: Marplot

Marplot: n. An officious meddler whose interference compromises the success of an undertaking.

The End of the Cupcake Presidency

The nomination of Harriet Miers to the Supreme Court has got to be one of the biggest political blunders of the presidency of George W. Bush. Up until the Miers nomination, Bush's actions in the White House primarily outraged liberals (the invasion of Iraq, Guantanamo Bay, Abu Ghraib, tax cuts, pulling the plug on the ABM treaty, pulling the plug on the Kyoto treaty). Bush could get away with this because liberals and Democrats didn't vote for him in 2000 or 2004. Instead, Bush appeased his conservative base of supporters and governed from the right. The 2002 and 2004 Republican election victories gave Bush the political clout with the conservative Right that his father never had as president. By nominating an unqualified crony to the Supreme Court, Bush has ticked off his conservative base of support. This was an unnecessary appointment of a Question Mark to the Supreme Court, someone with no qualifications and absolutely no intellectual heft for the job.

Since the nomination of Harriet Miers, Bush has split his base of support in two, between thinking conservatives who are principled and know right from wrong (and therefore oppose this nomination), and brain-dead conservatives who would support the appointment of Bush's dog Barney to the High Court (and repeat without reservation whatever talking points on the Barney appointment that Karl Rove generated from his Blackberry). As a result of the bone-headed Miers appointment, Bush's approval ratings have fallen below 40% for the first time of his presidency, a dramatic drop from the high-water mark support of 92% he received after 9/11.

What is to be done? This country cannot afford a failed presidency for the next 3 years. There is too much at stake in terms of the U.S. economy and national security to have a feebled Carter-like presidency that is impotent, rudderless, and adrift. Here are some thoughts to consider:

1) Bush will never be facing election again, so on one level it doesn't matter what his approval ratings are. The only people that will be screwed by Bush's low approval ratings will be Republicans up for election in the 2006 midterm elections.

2) Bush could rebuild his credibility if he aggressively attacked the trade deficit (which is at an all time high), the budget deficit (which is out of control), and U.S. energy consumption (which is out of control). But of course, attacking any of these three items will mean having to govern and make messy choices. And so far, Bush has only made messy choices in foreign policy (the decision to invade Afghanistan, the decision to invade Iraq, and the decision to tell the ACLU to go to hell in terms of how al-Qaeda detainees are muzzled in Guantanamo). On the domestic front, Bush is the ultimate cupcake president - Americans don't need to sacrifice at all! We can have our tax cuts, make no sacrifice or cuts in our biggest entitlement programs, jack up domestic spending to levels that would embarass Lyndon Johnson, and throw jet fuel on the economy in the form of low interest rates and even more tax cuts and even more domestic spending. The cupcake presidency is coming to an end because we have maxed out the credit card. Will Bush blow out the candle of his cupcake presidency? Only time will tell.

3) The Republicans are going to take a bath in the 2006 midterms. After 5 years of uninterrupted electoral success, the Karl Rove election party is coming to an end. Unfortunately, the Democrats are so divided and screwed up and rudderless that they cannot at this point mount a vigorous offense against a leaderless GOP.

We live in interesting times, and they are only going to get more interesting in the future. The best thing that Bush can do at this point is dump Harriet Miers (why not give her a nice ambassadorship in Luxembourg or Lichenstein?), appoint another John Roberts-like candidate to the bench, and then pick two to three high profile issues and fight like hell for them for the remainder of his presidency (how about energy independence, entitlement reform, and reducing the trade deficit?).

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