I had an interesting conversation about an hour ago, with my barber.

I suppose I should say "hair stylist," or at least, I would if I weren't so old-fashioned.  Once every five or six weeks, I stop in and get a haircut.  She and I talk about travel, people, jobs, the city.  One of the first conversations we ever had was about barbershop customers in general; she appreciated the fact that I wanted a real, professional haircut; half her customers, or so it seems, are kids (including adults who never grew up) who come in for the buzz-cut, the near-shaved look, the one that you associate with toughs recently released from prison, or who want to project the appearance that any job they would qualify for probably involved a car wash.

Today, she was a little hesitant to talk.  She was hinting about politics, but didn't want to upset a customer whose political leanings she didn't know. 


The two of us sort of danced around the subject, until finally it got through my thick skull that she wasn't going to to make a direct statement until I gave her a clear picture of my own stance.  So I took a chance and laid it out that I wasn't hugely excited about McCain, but I was completely against Obama, and the one person on any ticket I was excited about was Ms. Palin, and I would be voting for McCain and Palin.  She was immediately relieved, and gave me a smile.  "Yeah, good," she said, "I like McCain."

I didn't understand everything she said; her accent still is strong with old-country inflection, and her vocabulary doesn't always come through, but as we talked, it was clear that she was very put off by two things: Obama's character, and Obama's policies.  We talked in more detail, and after about ten minutes, the perfect question dawned on me.  "Say, when did you come to America?" I asked.  She answered that she had arrived in 2000.

You see, my barber immigrated here from Vietnam.

Her arrival here in 2000 made me aware that she experienced first-hand the regime that ruled over that country after the pullout of the Americans, and I asked her what it was like, and whether it influenced her decision.  "Yeah, Obama is Communist," she answered.  And she would know - she endured the despot Communist rule for over two decades.

As we explored it further, we narrowed it to several things she saw from the Communist government in Vietnam that she saw as well in Obama.  There was the economic policies of destroying the wealth of the haves; there was the controlling statism of government dictating from the top; there was the harsh, oppressive treatment of opposing points of view; there was the use of minions as proxies to carry our the dirty work of the Dear Leader; there was the elitism of the Dear Leader and his inner circle of power, and contempt for the peasants; there was the predominance of evil and violent men in that inner circle.

My barber finished off with an observation.  She said that America was very different from Vietnam.  Here in America, she said, if you're willing to work, and work hard, you can earn anything.  It's not easy, but there's nothing preventing a common worker from earning his way to success.  In Vietnam, there is no opportunity for success or climbing to a better class.  But she's afraid that if Obama is elected, America would change drastically.  What she was saying was that Obama would turn America into a Communist Vietnam.

I don't know if she understands all the nuances of the political season or how much of all the issues she gets, and I had to puzzle out some of her statements to make sure I understood her.  But I'm convinced that she gets the core of it, and she's got the experience to know that what she lived through back in the 1970's, she clearly recognizes when she sees it here, and means she is seeing clearly what half a nation of Obama voters either don't see, or are pretending they don't see, or worst of all, want to happen.

Today, October 15, has been declared Blog Action Day 2008, and this year's theme is poverty.

We're blessed to live in America, one of the most prosperous nations in the world.  By comparison to places like Zimbabwe, Myanmar, and Uruguay, it's amazing how much prosperity we enjoy.

Much has been said about how America has only 6% of the world's population but possesses 30% of the world's wealth, or somesuch figures; consumes 30% or so of the world's energy; and a raft of other statistics meant to make me feel guilty.  We're all overweight while half the world goes to bed hungry at night.

Heck, we have a Presidential candidate who spends fifteen times on a pair of shoes what is half-brother living in a hut in Africa makes in a whole year.

The guilt trip doesn't work on me.  I'll tell you why, and as I'm doing it, I will also tell you the greatest key to prosperity and wealth that the world has ever known.  You don't have to subscribe to my newsletter to get the secret; you don't have to send me $49.99 plus shipping and handling for the CD.  All you have to do to become wealthy is read carefully what I'm about to tell you and act accordingly.

The secret to wealth is this: freedom.

The truth of the matter is that most of the famine in this world is not caused by climate change or natural catastrophe - it's caused by mankind and oppressive governments, and it's deliberate.  Visit Sudan if you don't believe me, where tribal strife and intentional relocation policies have resulted in mass starvation.  Oppressive government raining its wrath down on its internal enemies have a history going back long before the Soviet purges.

Here is an undeniable truth: no one ever got to the top of a mountain by falling onto it out of the sky (snowboarders with rented helicopters notwithstanding).  Someone made the long, arduous climb to get there.  America did not magically appear in the world as a wealthy nation; we earned out way through productivity, trade, and investment.

Yes, we are blessed with amazing supplies of natural resources - most of which our Federal legislature refuses to allow its own citizens to drill for or saw down.  Russia has an even larger abundance of natural resources, and is poor.  Japan, with almost no natural resources, is prosperous.

The true key to wealth is freedom - freedom from government interference, freedom from oppressive taxation, freedom from seizure of property, freedom to keep the profit from one's own work.  Until the Great Depression, America enjoyed the benefits of a free-market economy; that Depression, of course, was caused not by capitalism, but by manipulation of capitalism.  FDR's economic policies and taxation for the redistribution of wealth actually prolonged the Great Depression.  Increasing taxation and government regulation, starting with Truman and increasing with Johnson and thereafter, only served to further imbalance the motor of the American free market economy, leading to the recent descent into socialism with the government intervention in the unstable financial market - which were primarily caused by the government's own actions.

Imagine the powerhouse of the American economy and what it could accomplish if it were not for government meddling.

Imagine the improvement in the economies of other nations in the world, and the benefit that would accrue to their citizens, if only those citizens were given the freedom to create wealth, to keep the profit they earn, to produce, to not be the victims of their own governments.  Poverty could be ended, not by redistributing wealth from producer nations to non-producer nations, but by loosing the citizens of those nations to become producers.

Despots and autocrats, of course, will not easily relax the iron reins of rule.  Don't expect North Korea, one of the hardest-hit nations in terms of poverty, to suddenly become less of a police state just because their puny dictator wants to give his serfs the freedom to grow their economy and become less poor.  Absolute power not only corrupts absolutely, but it is also absolutely addictive.  And so, we will always have the poor.

America also has its poor, but even our poor are wealthy in the grand scheme of things.  Ours is one of the few nations of the world where even our poor possess automobiles, color televisions, and cellular telephones.  Sadly, they also have a welfare system that, instead of freeing them to become productive and prosperous, perpetuates their poverty, and passes it on to their children and grandchildren - in return for making them permanent clients of the state, and brainwashing them for their votes.

When you read the words "soulless political tools," you probably think of Obama's minions out knocking on your front door, the members of the Young Socialist Brigade with their "No Blood For Oil" and "Impeach Karl Rove" signs every Friday night at the corner of Main and Garfield, or commenters at Daily Kos or Huffington Post.  I know I do.  But today, I'm giving a pass to the young and the senseless, and I'm going to instead take a swing at my personal pet peeve of this election cycle: robodialers.

If your reaction to robodialers is that they're the very first hint that there really is a Skynet and it's about to become sentient, you're probably not far wrong.  For an average cost of less than five copper cents per victim, a campaign can dial every number in the local calling zone in the middle of dinner and annoy every single one of them.  They come with the latest technology known to boiler-room telemarketers: smart software that detects when the line is answered, distinguishes between a live human and a recording device, and even knows when it's been hung up on.  And unlike human telemarketers that you can torture and mess with, robodialers are immune to my games and petty vengeance.  They can - and do, oddly enough - completely ignore you, even as they try to get you to hang on to every word, sometimes for minutes on end.

For the record, I totally despise robodialers.  They are soulless.  They are inhuman.  They are impersonal.  If I haven't already decided which candidate in a particular race will get my vote, all it takes is one robocall, and I'm firmly in the camp of their opponent.  I may have settled all my picks for national and state offices, but suppose there's a race for Municipal Court Judge 3 between Fran Peachfuzz and Pat Harbinger, and I know nothing about either beyond a couple of evenly-distributed lawn signs that I see between home and the freeway (c'mon, admit it - what do you know about these minor races, huh?).  Then the phone rings right in the middle of Bohemian Idol or the premier episode of Forensic Lab Rat: Des Moines, and when you pick it up, you hear the scripted voice: "Hello-this-call-is-on-behalf-of-Peachfuzz-for-Judge.  Peachfuzz-is-tough-but-fair-and-lives-in-the-community..."  Just as your blood pressure goes up about fifteen points, you think to yourself: Harbinger just got my vote...

Honestly - is there anyone who actually finds robocalls persuasive?  Is there anyone in creation who changed their intended vote as a result of an impersonal recorded telephone call?  And if there is, why are they trusted with a vote?

I was the first on my block to get onto the National Do Not Call Registry.  Unfortunately, it doesn't apply to political calls.  I'm also on the opt-out list for the credit bureaus.  This really needs to be expanded into a National Just-Leave-Me-The-Heck-Alone Registry.  Here are some things you can do:

(1) There's a new National Political Do Not Contact Registry at http://www.stoppoliticalcalls.org.  Sign up.  I did.

(2) Live in California, like me?  Did you know that robodialers are illegal in California, even for political calls?  Read it at the Public Utilities Code:  http://law.justia.com/california/codes/puc/2871-2876.html.  The useless Public Utilities Commission hasn't enforced it, and they won't until enough of us complain. 

(3) Dump your landline and use your cellular, and don't put your telephone number on your voter registration.

(4) Explore sites like http://www.whocalled.us, http://www.callferret.com, and http://800notes.com.  With Caller ID, you can publicly share information about callers who use these tactics, avoid them, and publicly expose them.

(5) Let candidates know you hate the practice and are fed up.  They'll continue using the robodialers until we make them understand how much we hate it.

Spread the word.  The revolution is on, and this is just a small part of it.

(cross-posted at ABF and STAND)

Big tip of the hat to Ace of Spades.

This will come as no surprise to anyone who has been paying attention, and certainly shouldn't be a surprise to anyone in Obama's Sturm Abteilung gang of followers, but the news going viral this afternoon is that Barack Obama was a member of the "New Party" in his 1996 campaign in which he was elected to the Illinois State Senate.  What, you ask, is the New Party?

"The New Party was a radical left organization, established in 1992, to amalgamate far left groups and push the United States into socialism by forcing the Democratic Party to the left. It was an attempt to regroup the forces on the left in a new strategy to take power, burrowing from within."

Obama didn't just obtain their endorsement - he was a member, and their candidate.  Ace of Spades has a lot of links - read them all.

http://ace.mu.nu/archives/275145.php

This group was a collective established by the Democratic Socialists of America (that's not a label I made up to tar the Democrat Party, but the real name of a real organization) which states "[o]ur mission is to establish democratic socialism as a political force in the United States and around the world by training and mobilizing socialist activists to participate in a vibrant and diverse socialist organization at both the local and the national level."

This is monumental.  Read this, share it with your friends, post it on your own blogs.  This word has to be spread.  Anyone who is remotely thinking of voting for Obama must be allowed no excuse to not know what kind of person he is supporting.

Two days ago, I needed to write the following to three leaders among the Republicans:

Wednesday, October 01, 2008

Subject: Today's Senate Vote on the Bailout

To:    Mr. Pete Kirkham, Executive Director, NRCC 
         Mr. Tom Cole, Director, NRCC 
         Mr. Tim Albrecht, AFF Political Action

I am horrified to have seen the events that unfolded today in the United States Senate.

Today, over two-thirds of the Senators of my political party, the party that is supposed to be the conservative party, the party that tells me it stands on the Constitution as written, voted in favor of the most massive, socialist-style redistribution of wealth - from responsible earners, savers, and taxpayers, to those who are irresponsible, who do not save, who default on loans, who make bad investments. Under the pretense of nightmare scenarios of the second coming of the Great Depression, these men have voted to reward the mistakes and malfeasances of the irresponsible, on the backs of the people who are the backbone of this country.

Second only to water, there is nothing that seeks its own level more and better that a free-market economy. In a genuine free-market economy, poorly-run businesses sometimes fail. It is not the job or the role of the government to meddle with this. This is how competition works.

The federal government - specifically, the 1995 Clinton-era changes to the CRA, which opened the doors for activist agitators like ACORN and the Greenline Institute to manipulate - caused the current economic situation. These, coupled with the duplicity of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac providing a guaranteed underwriting pool for loans that should never have been written, resulted in what we now call the housing bubble: the escalation of prices artificially as a result of a tremendous increase in demand for homes without a corresponding increase in supply. Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac packaged these bad loans as "mortgage-backed securities" and peddled them as an investment products. Needless to say, everyone who has invested in these is now discovering just how sketchy they are. This is remarkably similar to the "junk-bond" investments that manufactured the savings and loan crisis, and I trust each of you has sufficient memory to recall that episode in our recent economic history.

If I were to go to Las Vegas with my life savings and take it to the roulette table, the Federal government wouldn't restore my savings if I were to lose it all, would they? Of course not. I get to keep the profit if I win, and I bear the burden when I lose. Investment in a free-market economy is exactly life that. All these "troubled" companies were able to pocket the increases in the time of profit; on what basis should the loss be nationalized and borne by the taxpaying public?

If I have a cancer, you don't nourish the cancer for the sake of the rest of the body. You remove the cancer so the rest of the body can live. If I have a foot that is irreversibly gangrenous, you amputate it; better that the rest of the body live that the foot go to the grave and take the rest of the body with it. The same applies to an economy. Those companies and institutions that are failing, as a result of poor management and bad investments, you allow them to fail, so the rest of the economy is able to survive. Taking capital away from honest earners and profitable companies and pouring that capital into failing ones is the opposite of a free-market economy.

Understand this - I am a Republican, and have been since I first registered in 1975. I've never missed a state or national election. I am a serious conservative. I have participated in the party, serving in my local State Assembly District committee. I have written and debated in favor of my party. In this election cycle, I have written a series on the presidential election - one that received 800 hits in a single day as a result of one installment in my series. Maybe I'm not a major player, maybe I'm not supremely influential, but I've done my share and been a reliable vote. Sadly, here in California, I have no Senate representation.

On the forum at a friend's website, I wrote the following in a debate that included members of both parties; this was in response to a Ron Paul supporter who wondered at my statement that a Paul supporter should be excited about Mr. McCain because of his selection of Sarah Palin as his running mate:

...

[lengthy quotation deleted for space consideration; supportive of Mr. McCain in part as a result of fiscal restraint]

... 

As a result of Mr. McCain's vote today, I'm sure you can see that I'm going to have some apologizing to do tomorrow.

I hope you can see my perspective. I've stood with the party for years, despite people like Arlen Spector and Lincoln Chafee, as well as my own governor. But today was a make-or-break issue for me. My party has drifted away from me. Given the choice today between free-market capitalism and Soviet-style, central-planning socialism, my party voted for socialism.

I'm going to use a word I don't like using. RINOs. Republicans-In-Name-Only. I feel like my party has become a party of RINOs. Big-government, big-spending, entitlement-expanding RINOs who have forgotten our founding principles and our Constitution we are supposed to hold so dear.

I want to give you a chance to convince me I'm wrong on this. I want to hear back from you, explaining to me what, if anything, my party stands for anymore, and how that is evidenced by the last five years of voting in the Federal Legislature. I have a President who is right on Iraq and wrong about just about everything else, and supported this excuse for a bailout. George W. Bush has abandoned Conservative principles. I have a party nominee to replace him who voted in favor of this bill, and who keeps supporting amnesty for illegal aliens. I have a Congress full of Republicans who spend money like they were Democrats.

I want an explanation of why you aren't all ashamed of yourselves.

I want an explanation of why you think I should give one thin dime to support this party’s candidates, because they seem to keep voting consistently against my best interests, and America's.

I've argued with solid Republicans who feel like they've been sold out by John McCain, and who are voting Libertarian, throwing away their vote because they tell me that can't in good conscience vote for John McCain. The party sold me and America out today, and I feel like I have some friends to whom I owe an apology.

Convince me I'm wrong. And "Barack Obama is worse" in not an answer. I know he's worse. I'm feeling like I'm voting between destroying America quickly and destroying it slowly.

I'm becoming convinced that the only two options are either the formation of a Conservative Party, which would result in a split of the Republican Party and a guarantee that the Democrats would win every election in America for the next twenty years, or another tea party. If the House of Representatives does not vote down this bailout bill, I fully expect to change the party affiliation on my voter registration and withdraw from the Republican Party, because membership does not seem to mean anything anymore. And if I do this, I will write about it and blog about it and speak about it with as much fervor as in the past I have done so in support of the party. And you will be able to thank George W. Bush, John McCain, and every Senator that voted "YES" on the bailout bill for it.

This is your opportunity to convince me I'm wrong about this. I will be awaiting your replies.

Keith Arnold

Today, following the results of the corresponding actions in the House of Representatives, I re-sent it to the chairman of the RNC, with this preamble:

Friday, October 3, 2008

To: Mr. Mike Duncan, Chairman, RNC

After 33 years as a faithful member of the Republican Party, you just lost me. Aiding and abetting the Democrats, we just moments ago approved a socialist bailout and betrayed the free-market capitalism which used to be a necessary support of this once-great nation.

Explain to me if there is any good reason why I should continue to support the party. Explain to me why you are all not ashamed of yourselves. I am ashamed of you. Ronald Reagan is ashamed of you where he is right now.

I wrote the following to Pete Kirkham, Tom Cole, and Tim Albrecht previously. If they have any answer, or if you do, I would love to hear it....

Keith Arnold

I have had it up to my eyeballs with the ever-growing government, the nanny-state, the collectivism, the whole world demanding more and more from the producers.  I am done with the corrupt politicians, the slackers, the deadbeats, and all the looters and moochers.

I am sick of a government which has drifted from its early Constitutional foundation of limited central goverment and great individual freedom, and become a bloated behemoth consuming 40 percent of our economy and hungry for more.  I am finished with out-of-control political correctness and its attendant thought police outlawing truth in order to cater to those who would destroy us.

HERE I STAND.  I AM JOHN GALT.

Whether the world around me likes it or not, I will put my foot down and insist on personal responsibility and accountability.  I will tell my government to take its hands off my rights, my freedom, and my wallet.  If the people of other nations are content to allow their countries to devolve into Hell, that's their business.  I'm sick of financing their destruction.  They can plunge into chaos on their own dime.

As for my own, I will be a call for my government to return to doing those things which are right for a legitimate government to do - to form a more perfect Union, establish justice, ensure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty for ourselves and our posterity.  Not to regulate the price of milk, meddle with the mortgage market, bail out failing companies, or tell me how to raise my children. 

HERE I STAND.  I AM JOHN GALT.

And I have a pulpit.  I may not be able to stop the motor of the world, but I will stomp on the brake, and I will fight for control of the steering wheel before the motor seizes up on its own - and believe me, that motor is on its way to seizing up.

I will give Caesar his due, but I will not bow to him.

I am John Galt.  Come and join me, or come and get me.  Here I stand.

It seems Iranian madman and Holocaust-denier Mahmoud Ahmadinejad feels the need to come to New York to visit Ground Zero (well, okay, there's a brief side-trip to the United Nations, too, and possibly Columbia University).  It seems many people have an issue with his proposed visit to the site of this jihadist assault on American soil.

If I can make a modest proposal, there's a simple solution that will satisfy Ahmadinejad and keep red-blooded Americans happy at the same time.  Why not have the United States military deliver his own personal Ground Zero to downtown Teheran?  That way, assuming for some reason he's still ambulatory, he can make his visit without having to leave the comforts of his own back yard, and patriotic Americans (including some who remember that little problem with our embassy during the Carter administration and his role in it) won't have to deal with the stress of his presence.

Sounds like a win-win for all involved, near as I can tell...

(/satire off)

- Keith

I saw something the other day that caught my attention.

I see a lot of things during my daily commute through the soft underbelly of Los Angeles, but on my drive a few days ago, I found myself following an SUV through the transition road from the westbound I-10 onto the I-710 south.  In the center of the big rear picture window was one of those ubiquitous graphics of Calvin (late of "Calvin and Hobbes") urinating on something the driver doesn't like - in this particular case, the word "Chevy."  I'm a Ford man myself - I surely don't want any of you to think I'm singling this guy out because of his automotive preferences - but the truth is, I simply find these displays of Calvin and his bladder-control problem tasteless.  It is rude.  It is vulgar.  And it is something I've come to expect from the unwashed masses.

But what caught my attention was the juxtaposition of this graphic with another bumper sticker about a foot to the right on the same window.  There, emblazoned for all the world to see, was this message: "got jesus?"

Heartbreak.

What kind of person is it - and if you're reading this and you're the guy in the green SUV, do feel free to share, okay? - who can use his auto to proclaim to the world "Not only am I a Christian, but I am so excited about the Savior and my faith in Him that I put His name on public display as I motor around - and by the way, I'm also comfortable being vulgar and displaying coarse, worldly images"?  Does the incongruity not register with this guy?  Going on the assumption that he parks this thing in the parking lot of some church on Sunday mornings, what kind of comments does he get from his pastor and fellow parishoners?  Do his neighbors and co-workers look at him and admire how Jesus changed his life?

The lovely and talented Cecile and I were invited to visit a church not too long ago.  Situated on the edge of a residential neighborhood, and with insufficient parking to accommodate the entire flock, many of the worshipers resort to parking where they can, sometimes as far as three blocks away.  As we walked back to the car afterwards, Cecile and I were crossing a side-street arm-in-arm, when we heard a woman's voice shout out "Thanks for using the crosswalk.  You're the only ones from that church that do."  It took a couple of moments and some serious neck-craning to spy the woman behind her bushes, watering her lawn and her flowers.  

We smiled and thanked her back, and as we did, we both looked up and down the street; at various places within our line of sight, we saw between thirty and forty people walking through her neighborhood, away from the church, in clusters of two to five.  More than half were in the street at that very moment: crossing mid-block, crossing without regard to the cars they were forcing to stop, some even walking down the center of the street.  Many were walking out in the roadway along the parked cars, ignoring the perfectly good sidewalks the City had thought to construct for their convenience.

It caused us to wonder if widespread jaywalking were this woman's only greivance, or if there were other causes for this woman being so bitter toward this church that she had no qualms about making loud complaints; at least twenty other people heard her say this to us, and if she felt bad about offending them, it didn't show.  It seemed pretty clear she wanted them all to hear.

Saw a teenager at a church recently, wearing a tee-shirt that boldly said "I'm only pretending to listen to you."  If you're thinking my first thought was "how could someone feel comfortable wearing this to church?" then you're wrong.  Surprised?  No, my first thought was "how could someone who calls himself a Christian feel comfortable wearing a shirt with this message anywhere?"  Christians aren't supposed to be living double lives - religious in church and however they want out in the world.  That's superficial hypocrisy.  Obviously, this young man is living a consistent life: the antisocial, worldly, me-centered veneer he portrays in church doubtless accurately mirrors his values and attitudes out in the world.  No hypocrisy there.

"Therefore I urge you, brethren, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies a living and holy sacrifice, acceptable to God, which is your spiritual service of worship.  And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, so that you may prove what the will of God is,  that which is good and acceptable and perfect."  (Romans 12:1-2, NASB)

Instead, it is a sad observation that a large part of the church in our present age is very conformed to the world - carnal, selfish, thoughtless of others, unholy.  Were we not supposed to be holy, as our Father is holy?  Or when did grace become nothing more than an excuse to dispense with the calling to holy living and considerate behavior, and a license to indulge our base, fallen wants?  The Paul who wrote that we are no longer under law, but under grace, is that same Paul who wrote a great deal about what kind of lives we are to live.  Perhaps we're picking and choosing our faith buffet-style - we like the grace part, but not so much that holiness part.

Or maybe we're just too addicted to a faith that makes no demands of us.

Yes, it's been a while since the last time I was able to post here.  Call it a combination of things: it's what I call seasons of the soul.  In my case, it's been a combination of being too busy at too many things, and being overwhelmed by the feeling that it's just never going to get any better than this.  Put those two together, and it's not long before despair sets in.  When you get ten free minutes, you just feel too tired to do anything constructive, and too drained to believe it would do any good anyway.  That's where I've been, and I'm afraid I haven't been very good company while I've been there.

Right now, I've got a kitchen that I've been trying to remodel, and every time I get a free day to get some more of the work done, somebody needs to take that day away from me.  So most of my kitchen is in my dining room, I'm nearly down to my bare walls in my kitchen, and I wonder when I'm going to get to finish.

Couple that with the fact that halfway into the remodel, my in-laws decided to finally take us up on our offer - which we've been offering for six years - to move in with us.  Don't get me wrong, I love my in-laws, and I'm glad to have them in with us, but it means that everything that was in our guest bedroom is now crowded here into the home office with me.

And I've started a new job, one that keeps me on the road an hour and a half longer every day.  It's a great job, and the only bad part about it is the commute.

And I could go on for another six paragraphs about situations within the church, the dog, the car, taxes, news and politics, and on and on.  It not a good place to dwell.  Were it not for the lovely and talented Cecile, I'm not sure where I'd be.

Then two things happened.

First, I was listening to an on-air interview during my long morning commute; radio host Shawn Parr talking with country artist Collin Raye.  In the course of the interview, there was a moment when they were reminiscing about a private conversation a few months before when they had both been down in the dumps.  Parr's successful gig with station KZLA had suddenly come to an end with ownership's decision to change formats, going from a solid monopoly on Los Angeles' country audience to the same dance club junk that fully half of the area's non-Spanish stations play endlessly; Raye's career seemed to be in a state of permanent doldrums without any real inspiration.  The two of them recollected that as they had been talking together, they had gotten to the point that they were assuring each other that God had plans for them - a personal, powerful God who was intimately concerned with them as individuals.  Fast forward to the interview, with Raye's career back in full swing with the release of "A Soldier's Prayer," and a project in which he was donating the proceeds from the song to a charity for servicemen, and Parr at the helm of the morning drive slot of station KKGO, changing its format from classical to country to meet the needs of the abandoned country audience.  To hear the two of them freely talking about a very real God in whom they believed and who acted in the lives of men, and not on a religious radio station but on a secular one, was a joy to hear.

Second, I found myself hit between the eyes by a set of song lyrics, from a song hereby adopted as the official musical theme of this blog.  I'm not going to allow myself to think for more than about three seconds that Gary LeVox reads this humble blog, but Rascal Flatts had decided to release the first track off their "Me and My Gang" album as a single, and it was getting a lot of air time.  The song lyrics were a perfect description of how I've been feeling.  The title of the song?  STAND.

I've lived too long and seen too many things to believe in coincidences.  The group didn't record the song knowing I was going to need to hear it, and I didn't name the blog after the song.  I'm not going to reproduce the entire song here (hint: go buy the album); the verses are a picture of where I was, and the chorus is where I am right now.  Here are the words from that chorus:

'Cause when push comes to shove
You taste what you're made of
You might bend 'til you break
'Cause it's all you can take
On your knees you look up
Decide you've had enough
You get mad, you get strong
Wipe you hands, shake it off,
Then you stand - then you stand -

If any of you reading this happen to know Gary, Jay and Joe Don, tell them Keith says "thank you very much."  The song was the slap across the face I needed to encourage me to get back to living, and their "Stand" is now the official theme song for this blog.

Life is good again.  More to follow -

- Keith

Faithful Readers: has it really been two months since my last appearance here?  Yes, it's been a busy couple of months, and I apologize for my absence.  More later on our adventures.  But I'm not the only one making a return to the public today - I am absolutely delighted to announce that country music has come back to Los Angeles, and hopefully to stay.

Those of you who know me and my many inconsistencies well know I have a great love for both classical music and country.  I'm not even going to try to explain it.  It's just one of those many things that Cecile and I share.  We both mourned the loss of country broadcasting on Los Angeles radio with the format change of KKLA several months ago (see her November 10 post from last year on the genre).

Ending a short vacation with us, my father had a return flight out of LAX this morning, and I had our clock radio set to go off early so I could drive him to the airport.  Our radio is set for our local classical station, at 105.1 on the FM dial - nothing like waking up to Mozart in the morning, right?  I was surprised to be greeted by the familiar sound of country guitar when the alarm went off.  I eventually asked Cecile if she'd changed the station to KFRG out of San Bernardino, because ordinarily, the reception we get is scratchy, but it was coming through five-by-five.  She said no, and we suddenly found ourselves staring at each other.

Long story short - our classical station has changed format, and has now become KKGO "Go Country" 105 (KKGO was the former callsign of KMZT, our classical station).  If you're a local country fan, you've GOT to tune in.   In fact, you're going to have to excuse me for a couple of minutes - Little Big Town is playing, so I'm going to take a little break.

Okay, I'm back.  I was mystified when KKLA changed format a couple of months back; Los Angeles is a huge country market, and KKLA had a monopoly on it.  Surprised?  You shouldn't be.  Don't forget that famous Los Angeles band The Eagles' music betrayed a lot of their country roots prior to "Hotel California" and "Life In The Fast Lane," and Buck Owens before that virtually invented the Bakersfield sound just a short way north of here.  The performers can count on selling out when their tours come through town.  Country music is great music, and as far as I'm concerned, if you ain't country, you ain't --

Oops, sorry - this IS a family blog, and I was getting carried away there, straying from my PG rating.  But Cecile will tell you, I predicted that we'd have a new country station in sixty to ninety days.  Okay, so it didn't happen quite so fast, but I called it.

Welcome to town, Go Country, and welcome back to the airwaves, Shawn Parr!  It's good having you here; stay a spell, and I can promise you I'll be a faithful listener.  Faithful STAND readers, give them a listen; I'm looking forward to hearing more.  Let me know what you think...

- Keith

Faithful readers: in the wake of leaks by mainstream media outlets (read: New York Times), another large-scale surveillance program has been brought to light.  The scope and ramifications of this one are just short of staggering, and this time, it was exposed not by the legacy media, but by a blogger.  You can read all about it here.  I have no doubt that you'll react to this revelation the same way I did.

Hat tip to one of my daily reads, Day By Day, by the very talented Chris Muir.

I wish you all a truly joyous Christmas, and all the blessings the day may bring.

- Keith

I like to think of myself as a good-natured misanthrope.  You have to understand that being a good-natured misanthrope is a difficult balance to maintain; after all, having a high view of the human race while being (as the lovely and talented Cecile describes it) at war with the world is a full-time job.  It's just that, well, I know people are capable of amazing and wonderful things, and then daily fail to even try.  I could go on for pages.

But every once in a while, something happens to show that glimmer of potential that can make even a hardened misanthrope like me believe that all is not lost.  And sometimes, it can be the littlest things, too.

About a week ago, Cecile and I were having dinner out with a good friend and her two daughters.  We don't get together with Adriana often enough as far as I'm concerned.  Her two daughters, Katherine and Paxton, are a delight (but don't tell them I said that).  A gentleman, of course, never discusses a lady's age, so I'll just tell you they're just about junior high school age, I think.  If they comment on this blog, they may tell you themselves, but that's their business. These are two young ladies who, truth be told, actually read books, don't talk like mallrats, and study.  Therein lies the wonder - studying.

One of these young ladies was exhausted, and it was from staying up late the the night before drilling herself on a class project, doing some memorization.  Of course, I had to ask what it was she was memorizing, and when she answered, it was like the choirs sang and the clouds parted:

"We, the people of the United States, in order to form..."

You could see it was on the tip of her tongue; she had all the elements and wanted to make sure she had them in the right order.  All she needed was a prompt.  "Form a more perfect union," I suggested.

Suddenly her face lit up like she'd just won a prize from the top shelf at the county fair; you could almost read the thought golly, a grown-up knows this?  And not because he has to? written on her face.  Right there in the diner we finished the Preamble to the Constitution together:

"...establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America."

She was in awe that I knew it from memory, without having studied it the night before; I was in awe that someone in the public schools is still teaching it.  My gosh, there is hope for the world yet.  It may wind up being Katherine and Paxton who have to do it (I'll try to help where I can, of course), but it doesn't look like the lights have gone out just yet.

Intelligent participation in American democracy shouldn't require a degree in history or political science, but it certainly requires common sense.  Today's politicians and punditry seem to feel like they know so much better that that handful of rustics and farmers that actually brought this country into being, but those with some sense of history understand that those rustics were onto something.  Never before had a nation been formed in which the founders sat down together and discussed what the role of government should be.  Take a look at what they decided was the proper role of government:

To form a more perfect union - to manage interactions between the states and between their citizens in a way that encourages a cohesive nation, and to work toward building a government not merely by the consent, but by the consensus, of the governed. 

To establish justice - to maintain a system of laws and courts which would protect the wronged and punish wrongdoers.

To insure domestic tranquility - to keep peace within the collective nation's borders, to quell unrest, and to maintain the new nation as a place unburdened by the wars of Europe.

To provide for the common defense - to secure and protect the borders from invasion from without. 

To promote the general welfare - to enact those laws which would create a better life and a better way of life for the nation's citizens. 

To secure liberty for the present and future generations - to make America a land which would be free not merely in the short-term, but for the long haul.

I submit that the Founding Fathers of this nation knew exactly what they were doing when they drafted a Constitution what started with this passage as their mission statement.  These things, and ONLY these things, are the legitimate roles of government.  In the historical perspective, you need to remember the context in which these words were written: the writers were very familiar with the European concept of government.  Take, for example, the contemporaneous French monarchy, soon to be thrown over by its people as a result of its elitist life of luxury, or the English rulers governing by domination.

It warms a corner of my heart when I hear a young student cherishing these words.  Perhaps, if enough young minds will learn them and make them their own, we might still have a future...

- Keith

Friends: I'm going to take time out to do a shameless plug for a worthy cause.  Yes, you all know I'm a funny guy (note the "Football" and "Pluto" posts) when I want to be, but I'm strictly amateur.  I want to turn you on to a bunch of professionals at it.  You have to - and I mean YOU MUST - visit the guys (and the gal) over at IMAO.  They are among my first reads of the day, and I sneak over when I can throughout the day to keep up to date.  Frank, Sarah, Harvey, Laurence, Spacemonkey and the Duck have to be the funniest group on the net.  If it's in current events, or even close to current events, you can count on them to rightly skewer it.

There is a contest going on right now called The Weblog Awards.  Make sure to visit and vote for IMAO - in fact, vote early and often.  When I'm big like they are, I may be competing with them in the Biting Social Commentary category, but this year, they really, really need you to bring in the win for them.

And read IMAO every day you have electricity and a connection.  They're a hoot -

(By the way, buy Frank's book, too.  And no, I'm not getting a commission on this.)

- Keith

Let me be honest right up front as I write this.  I love football.  I love the game, the strategy, most everything about it.  I confess, I'm between teams right now.  The Cowboys I rooted for in the Eighties ran into a little trouble with the law, and the Forty-Niners to whom I transferred my fandom descended into a protracted mediocrity, and at least for the moment, I've forsworn allegiance to any team.  Now, all I want to see is a good game.

That being said, there are a lot of things I'd really like to see fixed.

First, let's talk about something I've mentioned elsewhere about professional athletes and their teams: their allegiance can be bought and sold.  Shaquille O'Neal's commitment to the fans in Los Angeles ended as soon as his paychecks were being written in another orange-producing state.  That's not to portray O'Neal in a bad light; it's simply a fact of the game.  Even entire teams can trade allegiances by moving; ask any randomly-selected sample of fans of the Cleveland Browns - the OLD Browns - what they think about that.  Ask the Los Angeles fans of the Rams or the Raiders (well, okay, Raiders fans are pretty much a breed unto themselves) how they feel about their teams packing up and leaving town.

So unless you happen to own stock in the team, your team isn't YOUR team, if you know what I mean. I can't remember the last time I heard a player say, "you know, that Mike Brown bought the pennant, the tee-shirt, and the seat cushion, and that really motivates me to play for him."  It would be a great promotional campaign if some team tried it, and if one does, I expect royalties.  Truth be told, the athletes do appreciate a large turnout for them at the game, but beyond that, they have no idea who is buying the merchandise.  And they don't care, except in the sense of aggregate numbers.  A Lakers fan can buy a couple of those purple-and-yellow flags for their car (and let's be real, guys, who picked that color scheme?) and drive all over town, and Kobe will never see it.  Kobe will not thank you, other than a general collective thank-you to "the fans."

Think that's cynical?  I've barely started.

My favorite is the jersey.  The jersey, the one that screams out "I don't have an identity of my own, so I went to the sports mart and bought one for just $32.99 and tax.  This guy whose name and number are on my jersey is so much cooler than me, and I just wish I were him."

But, Keith, you say, it supports the team.  No, Chumley, it makes the team rich.  There's a difference.  It's called merchandizing.  They have a thousand gross of them made up for eight dollars each, and the rest goes into a pot along with the fees paid by sponsors, the take from the broadcast rights, the cut from the concessionaires, and the ticket sales.  Those of you out there who go all apoplectic over The Evil Corporations who exist to make an Ungodly Profit, like WalMart, Halliburton and Starbucks should be marching on sports teams with pitchforks and torches if you were anything like consistent.  Write this down: a sports team is a business just like any other.  They exist to make money for their owners.  What they sell is entertainment.

Nonetheless, I love football.  For that matter, I love baseball.  And for the record, I find myself completely fascinated by curling.

What I can't stand is everything that detracts from the game.

* Do not, under any circumstances, fool with the national anthem.  Ever.  We don't sing it at the beginning of sporting events because there's some law imposed on us that says we have to.  We sing it because gosh darn it, football games and baseball games are just a slice of Americana.  Under ideal circumstances, the game has a Norman Rockwellesque appeal to it that brings us back to better days.  Honor the national anthem by singing it as written if you're the featured celebrity chosen to lead us in it.  Do not Whitnify the song.  It's not being performed so you can impress us with your vocal prowess on arpeggios.  It's not being performed so you can "make it your own."  It's not yours, it's all of ours, and it's fine the way it's written.  This is not All About You.

* I came here for the football.  There are things that go naturally with football.  Cheerleaders go with football, because their job is to lead the fans in cheering for the team.  By "cheerleader," I am not referring to tartlets in hot pants reeking of sexuality.  Sorry, Dallas.  Undulating flesh is a sideshow, and eye-candy like that is a distraction from the game.  Marching bands during halftime go with football; like cheerleaders, marching bands are a holdover from college days, when football was supposed to be all about school pride.  Here are some things that do NOT go with football: aging British rock groups phoning in a crappy performance.  Pretended "wardrobe malfunctions."  In general, any type of extravaganza halftime show with paid celebrities, whether or not the show includes trapeze artists to accompany said singer, paid shills on the playing field pretending to be enrapt spectators, ridiculous choreographed dancers, or any other farce common to the new need for constant entertainment.  These things have nothing to do with football, and I'm here for the football.  Halftime exists so the two teams can regroup, catch their breath, and fine-tune their strategies as needed.  Halftime also exists so the fans can queue up at the restrooms and resupply themselves with overpriced frankfurters and sodas - and for those not in need of either of those comforts, a local marching band fits right in.

* Fans: the purpose of the event is the contest between the two teams on the field.  It is not All About You (see above under "National Anthem").  If you're cursed with one of those juvenile "look-at-me-look-at-me-look-at-me" mentalities, get over yourself.  No one is here to see you.  Not the paint job on your face and chest, not your freakish costume, and not your sign.  Memo to the television networks: stop giving these losers an audience.  I don't care how many cute ways they come up with to spell out ESPN.  For those of us watching on television, we already know what channel we're watching, thank you.  

* Broadcasters: not only do you need to stop paying attention to the above fans, you can also do away with the eyewash cluttering my screen.  Prancing robots with glowing eyes imitating football players, as if they were trying to intimidate opponents before a snap, just detract from the broadcast.  The same goes for flying, whooshing graphics designed to look like something on my computer screen or something inspired by H.R. Giger - I'm not sure which look you were going for - every fresh set of downs.  All it does is block my view of the game.  So does the annoying AFLAC duck that waddles across the screen, and the animation for whatever Tuesday night sitcom you're hyping that's on the same channel.  What do you say we keep the graphics simple?  I'd settle for a score, the quarter and time on the clock, down and yards to go, in one-color text without frames or backgrounds; the same for penalties, player number and name, and other captions when needed.

For the graphics junkies, I say we do with them what we do with closed-captioning for the hearing impaired, and with Spanish-language voice-over; put it on a separate SAP channel, so we only have it imposed on us if we want it.

Also, you networks have just gone fanatical with the statistics overload.  For crying out loud, it's impressive, but it's useless.  A team's won-lost record for successive Novembers is meaningless.  Knowing a team is 14-2 in games where it was leading by 15 or more points going into the fourth quarter is just sort of expected.  I have no idea who cares about average passing yards in the third quarter for Libras.  Keep the historical trends in your pregame show, and analyze details in your postgame show.  Call the plays and let me watch the game.

* Teams: give me a game.  When your fourth-and-three and going for the first down, it just annoys me when your strategy is changing the snap count in hopes of drawing an offsides penalty.  A team playing for the penalty is like a lawyer who gets his guilty client off on a technicality.  A desperation pass when you're in the hole and trying for a pass interference flag instead of trying for a reception is just as bad.  And taking a knee for three plays to kill the clock is cheating fans who paid for a whole game.  Play the game.

* Penalties: maybe it's just me, but changes in officiating have been a drag on the game.  Too many penalties are being called for incidental contact, particularly involving wide receivers and quarterbacks.  Some of this goes back to Joe Namath and rules that were changed to protect his bad knees, but the pendulum has swung way too far.  Also, too many false starts are called; when minor movement was done to draw an opponent offside, this may have been needed, but defensive lines are disciplined and just don't get drawn anymore; it's time to loosen up on unintentional movement.  Finally, too many passes now are ruled incomplete that I would have made receptions; the whole quibbling over "did he have possession" and "did he make a 'football move'" has become too hairsplitting in favor of the incompletion.

But that's just me - after all, I'm only here for the game.

- Keith