Texas Gov. Rick Perry

By Bob Gaydos

Some national political pundits are already promoting Texas Gov. Rick Perry to the head of the Republican class of presidential candidates because he is the chief executive of a state so large it can be regarded as a “mini-nation.” If you haven’t been paying attention, Perry is another folksy straight-shooter who once vetoed a bill that would have made it illegal to execute mentally retarded inmates. He has bragged a lot lately about his record insofar as creating jobs is concerned. Since he wants to be the chief executive of the whole dang nation, I thought it would be a good idea to check out exactly what kind of country we’re talking about. What is life like in Perryland, aka Texas?

For a detailed analysis, I went to the Texas Legislative Study Group’s fifth annual report on the state of their state, entitled “Texas on the Brink.” (You’re sensing something, aren’t you?) Full disclosure: The Texas Legislative Study Group does research on issues affecting Texans and prepares reports and policy papers for state legislators to help them decide what to do. It is a liberal-leaning group. However, all I’m presenting here are facts the group has compiled in assessing where Texas stands today in relation to other states. Texans do not quarrel with the study group’s facts; they merely disagree on their relative importance. That’s fine, I guess, if you’re happy living in Texas, but, as I said, Perry, who is as rigid as any other conservative candidate out there, wants to turn the whole USA into Perryland.

So, let’s start with jobs, shall we? Perry’s braggin’ on how Texas has created more jobs than any other state during the recession. True enough. Yet its unemployment rate in June was 8.2 percent, which was higher than New York’s. And last year, nearly 10 percent of the state’s work force, more than half a million people, were paid the federal minimum wage of $7.25 an hour, or less. That ties Texas with Mississippi for having the highest percentage of minimum-wage hourly workers. Not where you want to be number one.

Of course, Texas always has available jobs because of its huge energy industry. It also isn’t big on regulating business, has low taxes and housing prices and a warm climate. Those factors may attract people from other states to go to work in Texas, but as a national policy for creating jobs, it cannot work — unless we ease immigration policies on Canada. Mexico is clearly another story.

And what do people find when they settle in Texas? A snapshot of Perryland compared to the other 49 states:

• It ranks 38th in average hourly earnings of production workers on manufacturing payrolls.
• Government employee salaries rank 24th.
• Percent of workers who belong to unions: 41st.

Of course, Perry has offered the usual argument about creating more jobs leading to greater wealth, better education and more opportunity. Here’s the state of education in Perryland (where teaching creationism is the governor’s answer to so many ills.):

• The average salary of public school teachers (2009-2010): 31st
• Current expenditures per student: 38th
• State and local expenditures per pupil in public schools: 44th

Now, for a lot of our more conservative countrymen, these numbers might seem encouraging, since they feel New York and other states spend far too much on education in relation to the results. Well, the proof is in the pudding. Here’s how going cheap on schools has paid off in Perryland:

• On SAT scores, Texas ranks 45th in the country.
• Its high school graduation rate is 43rd.

And for real braggin’ rights:

• In the percent of the population 25 and older with a high school diploma, Texas ranks 50th, dead last, in the country. (Some cynics might say that explains the election of the state’s last two governors.)

That takes care of opportunity, but that’s not all folks. All those low-income workers coming to Texas where the living is cheap have this to enjoy, courtesy of Gov. Perry:

• Texas is 1st in percent of the population without health insurance.
• Percent of non-elderly uninsured: also 1st
• Percent of low income population covered by Medicaid: 49th
• Percent with employer-based health insurance: 48th
• Per capita state spending on mental health: 50th
• Per capita state spending on Medicaid: 49th
• Physicians per capita: 42nd
• Dentists per capita: 39th
• Registered nurses: 44th

Stay healthy, man.

And as far as being a low-tax state: A 2009 study found that families in the bottom 20 percent of the income scale pay more than three-and-a-half times as great a share of their earnings in taxes as the top one percent of Texans.

It all sounds like a very 21st century Republican approach to governing. Now, I’m all for reassessing budget allocations and belt-tightening all around, but I reckon I’m just not ready to turn the whole goldarn country into Perryland. Not just yet.

Bob@zestoforange.com

Neither is viable.

By Bob Gaydos

Time for my occasional stroll through the headlines, a la Jimmy Cannon:

Maybe it’s none of my business, but when did TV reporters start interviewing caddies at the end of major golf tournaments? Last week, Australian Adam Scott won the Bridgestone Invitational tournament, for his first World Golf Championship victory. Yet the post-tournament focus on CBS was on Scott’s caddie, Steve Williams.

For those who understandably don’t follow golf on TV (zzzzzzzzz), Williams was the caddie for Tiger Woods for many years. Carrying the bags for a dozen years and 13 major championships. Yet on Sunday, Williams was declaring Scott’s victory “the most satisfying win I’ve ever had, there’s no two ways about it. The fans have been unbelievable. It’s the greatest week of my life caddying and I sincerely mean that.”

Well, gee, Stevie, that’s nice, but wasn’t Scott the one hitting the ball and putting it in the hole and weren’t you the one carrying the bag?

Williams is ticked off at Woods for firing him. The caddie says he wasted a couple of years of his life waiting for Woods to get his life and game on track again. Fine. But Williams has made a fortune carrying bags for Woods and earned more than Woods did on Sunday caddying for Scott, whom he never mentioned in the TV interview.

A word to CBS and Williams: The story is never about the caddie.

* * *

Speaking of ratings, maybe it’s none of my business, but doesn’t anyone think it’s odd that stock markets around the world are thrown into chaos because a credit rating company blamed for playing a large part in creating the worldwide economic recession issued a downgrade in the rating of the United States from AAA to AAplus? That downgrade, by the way, included a $2 trillion error and seemed to lean more on politics than economics in its conclusion.

Standard and Poor’s, which has nothing good to say about the ability of the U.S. to cover its debts, is the company that had nothing bad to say about all those worthless sub-prime mortgages that sent the same stock markets reeling when banks realized they were stuck with worthless paper, and lots of houses. Of course, if the checks on such ratings companies that were included in legislation passed by Congress in the wake of the recession had actually been put in place, we might have a clearer, more objective idea of what is really going on. But hey, who needs regulation? It’s only money.

* * *

I know this is really none of my business, but sometimes rioters are just hoodlums and thieves looking for an excuse to do damage. Which seems to be what much of the rioting in London and other British cities is about. It may have begun with anger over the shooting of a citizen by police, but the mobs of young people looting and burning businesses and attacking police have no apparent connection whatsoever with that incident.

* * *

The wide-eyed photo of Michelle Bachmann on the cover of Newsweek says a lot more about the steep, sudden decline of the magazine, with its new owner and editor, as a viable news weekly than of Bachmann as a viable presidential candidate. Neither is. Viable, that is. Of course, since I have canceled my subscription to Newsweek, this is none of my business.

* * *

I really wish no ill will of Jorge Posada and I appreciate those years of occasional key hits and trying to call games as a catcher, but when he strikes out looking every other at bat, I feel like it’s really my business, as a fan, to say swing or get off the bench.

* * *

OK, maybe this is nothing for me to be sticking my nose into, but he is my president, so I have to ask: Has anybody seen Barack Obama’s spine lately? (I wasn’t sure how to spell cojones, although I understand Sarah Palin apparently knows how and was wondering the same thing about Obama.)

* * *

By the way, happy 50th birthday, Mr. President. For all your difficulty dealing with Republicans in Congress, it looks like Republicans themselves are having as much trouble dealing with their new friends, the tea party people. If I were you, I’d keep encouraging every one of them to declare their candidacies for president. It may not be the most impressive way to get elected, beating a God-fearing, science-fearing, Muslim-fearing, education-fearing, Mexican-fearing, logically challenged, contraception-fearing, homophobic gun worshiper who loves the death penalty and hates Medicare and Social Security, but if you don’t mind, then I don’t either.

* * *

And finally, a report tells us that  NASA-funded researchers have found DNA elements — the building blocks for life — in meteorites. Which suggests, strongly I guess, that the components for life on Earth may have originated in outer space. I guess that’s kind of everybody’s business. Even the tea party people.

Until next time.

Bob@zestoforange.com

Amy Winehouse

By Bob Gaydos

Last week, fellow Zest columnist Michael Kaufman posed some questions about the death of Amy Winehouse — in sum, why was it “allowed to happen” — and suggested that, since I also write a published column on addiction and recovery, perhaps I might have some thoughts on the subject.

Which, of course, I do. They are not based on any special insight into the psychological makeup of the singer, nor any knowledge of her medical history or even a hint of the kind of environment in which she grew up. To some extent, all of this unique information may matter in trying to determine why Amy Winehouse died so tragically at age 27 (the precise cause has not been announced). On the other hand, hers has all the earmarks of a typical alcohol and drug-related death. Her celebrity made it newsworthy, but don’t for a minute think that the parents of other, less-talented young men and women who succumb to addiction do not understand and share the profound sorrow of Amy’s parents.

Addiction is a remarkably democratic disease, an indiscriminate killer. Could Amy’s death have been avoided? Possibly. There is always the chance with addiction that a person can be “saved” from himself or herself. Most of the time, this hope rests with the family and friends of the addict, the ones who bear the brunt of the pain of the addictive behavior. For her part, Winehouse seems to have bought into the stereotyped alcohol-and-drug-filled life of the tragic, young musician early on. Now she will live forever as the dark flip side of the sex, drugs and rock ’n roll theory of life.

She has company there, of course. In the immediate aftermath of her death, the internet was full of observers welcoming her to the infamous “27 Club.” These are talented, immensely popular young performers who died at age 27, all of whom led self-destructive lives fueled by alcohol and drug abuse. The most prominent other members are Jimi Hendrix, who choked on his vomit after combining sleeping pills with wine, Janis Joplin, who overdosed on heroin while drinking, Jim Morrison, whose cause of death was listed as “heart failure,” and Kurt Cobain, who committed suicide.

Addiction is obviously not fussy about the manner in which it kills. But truth be told, while thousands die each year from some cause related to excessive use of alcohol or drugs, many more simply live out their lives with untreated alcoholism or drug dependency. A lot of it is not pretty. Much of it is avoidable.

Most public discussion of addiction focuses on the behavioral symptoms of the disease. Most people still think of it as a cultural, social or criminal matter, rather than a health issue. Society for the most part treats it that way. We never ask why someone suffering from heart disease or cancer who refuses treatment can’t be “committed” for their own good. It’s their choice. Is a person in the grip of addiction capable of making a rational decision on receiving treatment? Maybe not, seeing as denial is a primary symptom of the disease. But there is no way to legally require an addict to get treatment, even if a crime has been committed. We tried committing alcoholics to mental wards for many years only to learn that it didn’t work.

What does work? Or, more specifically, what might have worked for Amy? Here’s where knowing her medical and family history could help, since science has established a genetic predisposition to addiction as well as identifying the likely center for this activity in the brain. But people without a family history of alcoholism or brains hard-wired to require more pleasure receptors also become addicts.

What science is also telling us now is that it is important to begin when children are young to establish a lifestyle that does not encourage the indiscriminate use of alcohol or drugs to “feel good.” One that does not glamorize or demonize alcohol, but rather offers an honest perspective on it. Kids’ brains are malleable. They mimic their elders and have little concept of their own mortality.

Amy’s parents may well have done this, but the key is to keep doing it even when the child resists. There’s no such thing as caring too much, of giving too much information. But the singer also had the burden of tremendous success, with the pressure to keep performing. The stress on young people in this situation is unimaginable to most of us. If she was inclined to use alcohol and drugs to deal with stress to begin with (and her music suggests as much), the inescapable presence of alcohol and drugs in the pop music industry could have been enough to drown out any voices of reason coming from loved ones. Amy Winehouse, while young, talented and vulnerable, was also a tremendously profitable business. Money talks. Business associates can be persuasive enablers. (Even Charlie Sheen has been offered a new TV sitcom.)

This is my personal opinion. I would say, given her history, Winehouse needed a lot of time away from performing and professional help in detoxing herself from alcohol and drugs — neither of which she got. She may well have rejected both. But if her music family had combined with her biological family and persisted in their efforts, if, say, they made performing impossible for her until she had received professional help in treating her addiction, Amy Winehouse might still be with us. People in recovery tell those who are still struggling not to give up before the miracle happens, because you never know when that miracle — the death of denial –may happen.

And as for her fans, rather than memorializing Amy Winehouse as the latest member of a foolishly glamorized group of talented dead addicts, how refreshing it would be for them to start honoring a different group — all the talented, clean and sober performers living in recovery. Talk about your miracles.

Bob@zestoforange.com

Michele Bachmann's strappy sandals

By Bob Gaydos

Can high heels really cause migraines? Apparently, Michele Bachmann thinks the answer is yes. She also continues to do well in polls of possible Republican presidential candidates. And so, we will once more sit in on Professor Bachmann’s class. The subject this time is health, not history.

Let’s start with a statement of fact: There is no scientific or biological evidence that wearing high-heel shoes can trigger migraine episodes. There’s not much anecdotal testimony on any cause and effect either. This is not in any way to belittle the sometimes debilitating effect such headaches can have on those who get them (women are three times more susceptible). Indeed, if the issue were merely migraines and how they affect Bachmann’s ability to handle her job as a congresswoman from Minnesota — or potentially, president of the United States — there probably wouldn’t be much of an issue.

Some ex-Bachmann aides (of which there are a lot) gave out the information on the migraines and said she took a bunch of pills to deal with them. They said she was sometimes incapacitated for a day by the headaches. Bachmann herself confirmed the migraines, but said she was always able to function. She said she takes prescribed medications for the headaches and side effects.

This is not unusual. Several presidents had to deal with painful health issues, but managed to fulfill the stressful duties of the Oval Office. John Kennedy and Thomas Jefferson suffered from migraines, to name two. So, assuming she is being forthright on the issue, doubting Bachmann’s ability to serve as president simply because she’s a woman who suffers migraines would be patently unfair.

But Bachmann’s the one who brought up the high heels, immediately making it a gender issue as well as a possible health issue. Her son, who is a doctor, said his mother noticed “a correlation” between the headaches and days when she is wearing heels. “The truth is she wears high heels all the time and she doesn’t get migraines” all the time, he said. “But she has found a correlation, though a correlation does not necessarily equal causation. It’s an unknown cause.” He pointed out she was wearing high heels during stressful situations.

Bachmann says she started wearing high heels as a little girl, when she wore her mother’s, and has always loved wearing them. In fact, high heels are a critical component of a certain type of modern powerful-woman package: Well-tailored expensive suit, stylish hair, high heels. I can be feminine and effective. Do not doubt me.

Fine. But high heels and migraines?

I decided to check with Orange County’s most famous female high-heel wearing politician — Mary McPhillips — to see if she ever had a problem with shoe-related migraines.

“No, never,” she said with a chuckle. “And I walked in a lot of parades wearing high heels. In fact, if I changed the color of the shoes, people asked me why.”

McPhillips, a funeral director who served as a county coroner, a member of the state Assembly and as Orange County executive, said the only physical problem she ever had because of wearing high heels was when she switched to wearing flats or low heels. “Your calf muscles have to change,” she said. “My legs would ache.”

Why did she even wear high heels all the time in the first place? Did it make her feel more powerful?

“When you’re 5-4, the heels at least put you on eye level with your constituents,” she said. “Now, when I wear flats, say to go to the store, people say, ‘You’re so short. Where are your heels?’ ”

Would she have any shoe advice for Bachmann, whose politics are 180 degrees from those of McPhillips?

“Try a pair of sneaks.”

Which brings me to my real problem with this whole issue. If Bachmann, who presents herself as a serious candidate for the highest office in this land, really believes that wearing high heels can occasionally trigger debilitating migraine headaches, why in the world does she continue to wear high heels? After all, she is willing to ignore scientific evidence on a host of other issues and speak and act based on her beliefs. So to me, this is not a gender issue, but a judgment issue. I suspect that if the equally style-conscious Mitt Romney thought tight, Italian leather shoes caused him headaches, he wouldn’t wear them.

I can admire a pair of shapely legs fitted out in high-heel shoes as well as the next heterosexual guy (that’s another Bachmann column and an admittedly sexist comment). But if a woman who wants to be president thinks the shoes are triggering serious migraines and continues to wear them anyway, she’s merely reinforcing the suspicion that there’s more style than substance at work. She’s also flirting with being relegated to Bimbo Land and Sarah’s got that constituency all sewed up.

Bob@zestoforange.com

Rupert Murdoch

By Bob Gaydos

Where to begin? Is it with the charming Hugh Grant playing Hugh Grant wearing a wire in the movie version of “End of The World as Rupert Knew It“? Or with the dishy Wendi Deng (Mrs. Rupert Murdoch) playing herself in the same film and then replacing Lucy Liu in the next “Charlie’s Angels” vehicle? I must admit, I’m at sixes and sevens over this hugger-mugger that is rapidly engulfing our British cousins.

Part of me thinks it is smashing that a lot of people who have given journalism a bad name for a long time are finally getting their due. But another part of me is cheesed off to learn how widespread this abuse of power was and how apparently easy peasy it was for the Murdoch’s News International empire to entwine its tentacles in the highest reaches of British government. (Blimey, I can’t even stop writing English English instead of American Engish, I’m so narked about it.)

There really is too much happening so fast at the moment in this scandal to know where to focus. Merely having the Murdoch name at the receiving end of the word “scandal” for a change is almost beyond irony and is surly the source of much of the glee with which the rest of the journalistic world has pounced on the story.

But really, do we start with the fact that the head of Scotland Bloody Yard — the top cop in England — has resigned because a lot of people accuse him, his deputy and other police officials of covering up the phone-hacking scandal that is at the heart of the scandal?

Or how about the fact that Prime Minister David Cameron is so chummy with former editors of Murdoch’s News of the World tabloid that he hired one to be his chief press aide, regularly goes riding (horses) with another and has had 26 meetings with editors of that now-defunct newspaper in his first 15 months in office? Or the suggestion that the Murdoch media empire in Britain is so powerful, former Prime Minister Tony Blair actually gave Murdoch veto power over foreign policy initiatives.

Maybe we should look at the fact that the first Murdoch-employed reporter to admit to the phone-hacking and cop-bribing was found dead at home the other day. He was 40. Police said his death was not suspicious. They have arrested a bunch of journalists, however.

Perhaps the best place to start with this, since it appears likely to be a long-lasting story, is at the beginning. News of the World, which was the largest circulation paper in Britain, featured juicy stories about public figures — entertainers, athletes, politicians, members of the royal family — that were less concerned with fact and news relevance than with their gossip and headline value. Kind of a New York Post on steroids.

To get some of the inside information on these people, the World hacked into voice mails on their phones. Even in England, this is not legal. The list of potential hacking victims is anywhere from 400 to 4,000 names long. Hugh Grants is on that list and he has sued and he did indeed wear a wire to get evidence of the activity. Good job, Hugh.

This snooping has been going on for about six years at least and, a committee in Parliament has charged, some officers in Scotland Yard have been complicit in covering it up — in exchange for cash bribes or promise of future employment. In fact, the first detective on the case resigned and went to work for Murdoch.

As examples of how low the hackers went in their search for “news,” former Prime Minister Gordon Brown, told Parliament of the emotional pain caused when News of the World revealed details of his young son’s cystic fibrosis. And, in what is so far the most callous of all phone-hacking incidents, News of the World listened to voice mails of a murdered teen-age girl and actually deleted some of the voice mails, giving the parents false hope that their daughter was still alive. I must have missed that journalism course in college.

As I said, this is just beginning and the story gets better every day. Heck, I almost forget to mention that a British comedian smacked Murdoch in the face with a shaving cream pie while he was testifying before Parliament. Gotta love that subtle British humor. Murdoch said the day he closed the News of the World was the “most humble” day of his life. He apologized, but he did not take responsibility for any of the actions of his top editors. Neither did his son. Meanwhile, Murdoch’s prize paper in the United States, the Wall Street Journal, ran an editorial supporting the boss, saying, “It is up to British authorities to enforce their laws.”

Rubbish.

This is a trial of the power of the press and the ability of news media to remain independent and objective and to report the news honestly, regardless of who is at the center of it. That has not been a hallmark of many Murdoch holdings. There are bound to be changes in British law regarding ownership of media outlets (Murdoch has nearly 40 percent of British newspaper and TV news stations). And it will be fascinating to see how his holdings on this side of the pond respond. This has really bollixed up their agenda.

Bob@zestoforange.com.

By Bob Gaydos

If Derek Jeter had been the leader of a powerful Greek army in the fifth century BC, there would be no Greek tragedies.

Derek Jeter

Aeschylus, Sophocles and Euripides would have been out of luck, out of work, or trying to make ends meet by writing lyric poetry. And we know how well that gig still pays today.

If there had been Jeter Rex rather than Oedipus Rex, there would have been no patricide, no gouging of eyes. And who needs to marry his mother when he dates the likes of Tyra Banks, Vida Guerra, Miss Universe Lara Dutta, Jessica Alba, Jessica Biel, Victoria Secret’s Adriana Lima, Mariah Carey, TV personality Vanessa Minnillo and current flame, Minka Kelly, the cheerleader in TV’s Friday Night Lights and Esquire Magazine‘s “Sexiest Woman of the Year” in 2010?

You catch my drift.

Perfection really is its own reward.

If Jeter’s athletic skills had translated to football rather than baseball, the best college football player every year would be awarded the Jeter Trophy, not the Heisman. If he played basketball, we’d talk about Michael, Kobe, Wilt, Oscar and Derek. (Lebron still has some explaining to do.)

It could be no other way. That much is clear, finally and irrevocably. Derek Jeter, the Golden Boy of the New York Yankees, captain of the team, five time world champion, all-star, role model, Mr. November, Captain Clutch, and future Hall of Famer just told Messrs. Ruth and Gehrig to scrunch over a bit in Yankee Stadium’s Monument Park so they can make room for Number 2 when he retires, which may not be as soon as some mere mortals believed.

Sorry Babe, Lou. You, too, Joe and Mickey. The kid’s got more hits than any one of you. More than 3,000 now and you all know how hard that is to do. None of you did it. Oh yeah, Babe, you’ll like this. His 3,000th hit was a home run and not a cheapie either. He’s got that flair for the dramatic you used to have, without all that bravado. Yeah, he’s humble, too, which isn’t easy when you go five for five on the day you hit 3,000 and drive in the winning run to boot.

Even the other team applauded him.

Leo …? Hey, Durocher, you listening out there? You know that whole “nice guys finish last” theory you lived your life by? Jeter never heard of it. He is nice to what some people regard as a boring fault, which says more about them than him. And not just nice. He’s also respectful, hard-working, considerate, smart, diligent, reliable, consistent, classy and handsome. If he wasn’t so identified with the New York Yankees, he could pass for Minneapolis.

If he were a chef, his steaks would be succulent, his veggie omelet perfectly fluffy. If it wasn’t, he’d do it until he got it right. No charge for the misses.

There is a theory on how to live one’s life to the fullest. It used to be called the Golden Rule — do unto others as you would have them do unto you. Today, some people talk about doing the next right thing, or passing it forward and reaping the rewards. Indian religions — Hindu, Buddhist, Sikh — call it karma. Simply put, in a world in which every single thing is connected, every individual act, every deed, has a corresponding reciprocal effect. Do good things and good things will happen to you. Do bad things, etc.

Derek Jeter is Captain Karma. The exception that proves the rule. Most of us are too “sophisticated” (and self-centered) to embrace such a simple philosophy of life. Most of the time we give it lip service at best. Not Jeter. Play back any interview he ever gave after some outstanding play. “The important thing is we won.” “I just try to do the best I can for the team.” “Individual honors are nice, but the main thing is to work together, pick each other up.” “I just try to stay focused and put the bat on the ball.”

Over and over. The guy never misses a beat. It can’t be an act. Even the great Olivier strayed from the script sometimes.

Jeter has more money than Croesus and more Little Leaguers mimic him — getting set in the batter’s box or trying to master his jump throw from deep in the shortstop hole — than any other player of his time. No contest. His memorabilia is the biggest seller in sporting goods stores. People even name their kids after him — Jeter, not Derek.

And yet, as with all the tragic Greek heroes, there is a chorus sitting at the edge of the stage, just out of his spotlight, waiting for some slight slip, some chink in the Jeter armor. After all, didn’t Achilles have his? With Jeter, they say it is his age. (Makes sense to look there because if he had any flaws in his behavior, some scandal mag or blog would have found it by now, given the high-profile dating life he’s led.) They — the skeptics — say he will exhibit hubris when it comes time for him to let younger players assume his key role, in the lineup or in the field. No way Captain Karma, now 37, can keep it up, say the doubters. He is not perfect.

Maybe not. But did you catch what happened with that home run ball he slugged for hit number 3,000 — a ball immediately valued at six figures on the open market? A modest, young man from Highland Mills, N.Y., a lifetime Jeter fan, retrieved the ball and said he didn’t want any money for it. He just wanted to personally give Jeter the ball because “he earned it.”

Sounds an awful lot like good karma to me.

(With a bow to Jim Murray, simply the best.)

Bob@zestoforange.com

Casey Anthony

By Bob Gaydos

Here’s what we know for sure after a little more than a month of some of the most irresponsible, rush-to-convict “reporting” on the part of cable TV outlets and, sad to say, quite a few mainstream news organizations:

All powerful men are sex-addicted pigs … or not

• Dominique Strauss-Kahn is no longer director of the International Monetary Fund.
• DSK, as headline writers so cleverly dubbed him (the way they do serial killers) is also no longer considered one of the Socialist Party’s leading candidates to run for president of France.
• Strauss-Kahn has a reputation as sort of a ladies man and some people say he has a fondness for hotel maids.
• He lost his IMF position and his standing in France’s presidential politics because of an alleged rape of a hotel maid in New York City.
• The allegation of rape became a virtual fact in ensuing stories in newspapers, magazines and on TV even though nothing had yet been argued in court.
• Shortly after charging Strauss-Kahn with rape, Manhattan DA Cyrus Vance Jr. learned that the maid who claimed she was raped had been lying about virtually everything in her life for many years, including what she did after the alleged encounter with Strauss-Kahn. In fact, she could face criminal charges in several areas and might be a candidate for deportation for all her lying.
• Vance had a legal duty to reveal this information about the alleged victim even though it put his high-profile rape case in jeopardy.
• Lacking a confession or recording of the event, no one except DSK and the maid know exactly what happened in that hotel room. Sex may have occurred, but was it rape? DSK says no. She says yes, but the DA says she’s a known serial liar.
• Shortly after Vance revealed the facts about the maid, the New York City tabloids launched an assault on her. She’s suing the Post for libel.

Casey Anthony was a horrible mother … fact

• Caylee Anthony, 2-years-old, died a tragic death.
• Casey Anthony, by any reasonable definition, was not a good mom. She and her family lie a lot.
• The Florida prosecutor who charged Casey with murder in the death of her daughter, had no physical evidence, no confession, no witness linking Casey to the death of Caylee. It was all circumstantial.
• The case took on national prominence because of hysterical cable TV coverage (Nancy Grace) centering on the question: How could a mother kill a young child? This coverage featured a procession of supposed experts, none of whom had any connection to the case or access to any of the testimony or evidence.
• The jury was sequestered from all media coverage of the trial.
• That coverage was prompted by the fact that Casey lied to police about her daughter going missing and that she partied while the search for Caylee (who was dead) went on.
• The prosecutor, who says he was surprised at the jury’s not guilty verdicts on all the homicide charges, says he thinks the reason for the verdict is that he never proved how Caylee died. That is usually crucial in a homicide case.
• An alternate juror who heard all the evidence and inflammatory testimony about the Anthony family, agrees with the prosecutor. The juror also says no motive was ever established.
• There has been a huge outcry of injustice because of the verdict. As explained by Aphrodite Jones, author and host of “True Crime” on the Investigation Discover Network: “There’s a huge groundswell that thinks no one else could have killed this child.”
• See above: Prosecutor says he never proved how Caylee died.
• In a homicide case, when an accused’s life may be at stake, juries are instructed to be certain “beyond a reasonable doubt” that the accused did in fact cause the death of the victim — under the terms of one of the criminal charges actually placed.
• Casey could have been charge with other, lesser, criminal charges in connection with her daughter’s death.
• Casey was convicted only of lying to police, which Geraldo Rivera, a rare voice of dissent on Fox News, noted, is not proof of murder.

Nor does it mean a woman wasn’t assaulted. I don’t know if DSK raped the hotel maid, although I suspect something hinky happened in that room. I suspect that Casey was somehow responsible for her daughter’s death, but can’t be certain how or why. I believe both prosecutors overreacted to the cases at first and that the Manhattan DA at least had the good sense to realize the limitations of his case and react accordingly.

I also believe that what passes for news media these days went well beyond traditional reporting guidelines on both stories, passing along suspicion and speculation instead of facts, playing on people’s emotions and creating that “groundswell” for conviction that Aphrodite Jones mentioned.

Once upon a time in America, real life tragedy was not our only source of entertainment. And reporters had to use the word “alleged” if they wanted to keep their jobs.

Bob@zestoforgange.com

Ron Paul: Can Republicans tolerate him?

By Bob Gaydos

One thing is certain about libertarians — or Libertarians, for the politically serious — at some time they will take a stand on an issue that is in perfect harmony with yours. And, just as inevitably, they will soon take another stand diametrically opposed to yours. It’s their hallmark and the overwhelming reason that a political party arguably more committed to a core philosophy than any other party has so much trouble expanding its base and, in America’s two-party system, finding a political partner with whom it can comfortably coexist.

Think about it. How do you deal with a candidate who opposes the death penalty and abortion, is strongly opposed to a military draft, has voted against an amendment to prohibit flag-burning but favors legalizing prostitution and medical marijuana and doing away with Social Security, the FBI and the IRS?

Well, if you are among the political activists who attended the recent gathering of the Republican Leadership Conference in New Orleans, you make him the easy winner of a straw vote on potential Republican presidential candidates in 2012. In fact, Ron Paul, the man who won 39.7 percent of the votes in New Orleans, is an old hand at such victories having won a similar vote earlier this year at the Conservative Political Action Conference.

Not bad for a 75-year-old doctor who was the Libertarian Party candidate for president in 2008. But Paul is a Republican congressman from Texas and, in fact, has always been a Republican, probably because he agrees with their no-tax-is-a-good-tax philosophy and their oft-repeated arguments against government involvement in people’s lives. But, see, Paul, who is a tea party guru, too, really believes that stuff, which means, while he’s against government regulations, he also opposes government snooping and denial of individual rights in the name of national security. And most conservative Republicans have a problem with that kind of, well, logical purity.

I think I’m like most Americans in that I don’t think much about libertarians most of the time. I tend to notice them when presidential politics resume and, honestly, most of the time it’s to wonder how the most ardent libertarians (or Libertarians) came to have such a negative view of the political system which has brought this country so far in a mere 235 years. Also, they have had some really strange leaders. What stirred this current interest is a public posting on Facebook by a former colleague of mine which suggests his dismay with the attitude of Republican conservatives to some of the statements of Paul.

My friend posted: “What divides libertarians from conservatives is the conservatives’ failure to realize, or their unwillingness to concede, that toleration is not equivalent to endorsement. It should be obvious that to tolerate something is not the same thing as to approve of it. If toleration required approval, toleration would not be a virtue. What value is there is being prepared to tolerate only those things of which you approve?”

Now, that’s why I “friended” this guy. He understands that in a diverse, democratic society like ours, the only way to coexist with a semblance of serenity, if not dignity, is to tolerate differences of opinion. That would seem to be a basic requirement for any political group that preaches about moral values all the time. My friend also dismisses my suggestion that libertarians might be more comfortable with Democrats, who are clearly more tolerant of diverse views and groups, because, he says, both political parties think libertarians are “crazy.” Which is probably true.

Still, there’s Ron Paul atop the straw polls, speaking his mind more unabashedly than any other Republican candidate dares, arguing against the war in Afghanistan and the Federal Reserve, opposing U.S. involvement in Libya and introducing a bill with Rep. Barney Frank (D-MA) to end the federal war on marijuana and let states legalize, regulate, tax, and control it without federal interference. Paul is against pre-emptive wars and being the world policeman. He opposed the Iraq war, wants all U.S. troops brought home, did not vote for George W. Bush, has opposed affirmative action for any group, thinks rights are individual, not collective, considers abortion to be murder, voted no on banning physician-assisted suicide and declaring gay-marriage unconstitutional, favors prayer in schools, opposes replacing oil and coal with alternative fuels, rejects letting illegal immigrants earn citizenship and strongly opposes free trade agreements. He’s all for owning guns, but thinks the Patriot Act has seriously harmed civil liberties.

It either makes no sense or is the most cohesive political philosophy around. Actually, it kind of reminds me of that beer commercial for “The most interesting man in the world.”

I wouldn’t vote for that guy either.

Bob can be reached at bob@zestoforange.com

Lebron James grew smaller with each game.

By Bob Gaydos

There was a story in the papers Monday about the smallest man in the world. No, not Lebron James, although I can understand the confusion. The official smallest man, according to Guinness World Records, is Junrey Balawing, of the Phillippines. Junrey turned 18 Sunday, qualifying him for the title. He is listed as 23 1/2 inches tall and weighs 12 pounds. Or just about the size of one of Lebron’s thighs.

When Lebron was 18, he was 6 feet 8 inches tall and weighed about as much as a football linebacker. He was on the cover of Sports Illustrated. He was the Chosen One. King James. Savior of the Cleveland Cavaliers, first pick in the NBA draft and heir-apparent to Michael Jordan.

On Sunday, Lebron played basketball like he was the smallest man in the word. Indeed, as the National Basketball Association championship series marched on to its conclusion. Lebron shrank inch-by-inch with each defeat for his Miami Heat until he was virtually invisible at the end of each game and a mere bobble head of himself at the end of the series.

Indeed, his shrinkage was made even more pronounced by the growth with each passing game of Dallas’ seven-foot giant, Dirk Nowitzki. Mr. Softee became Mr. Clutch. James just became irrelevant.

This is not about basketball. If it were, I would say that the Dallas Mavericks, a very talented group of players, were simply better at playing as a team than were the Miami Heat, which is true and rather important in a team sport. But this is one of those sports-as-metaphor-for-life moments. An allegory for all times and my favorite kind, because it involves sports, which, at most, are a pleasant distraction from all the other stuff. No one gets seriously hurt when Lebron James comes up small in the biggest game(s) of his life except maybe for some degenerate gamblers who should have known better than to bet the ranch on a classic narcissist whose life has been a testament to hubris. (Gotta love those Greeks.)

Took a while to get there, but that’s the life lesson. If you are told from childhood that you are special, you are bigger, faster, stronger and far better than others, that you can do no wrong, that you are, indeed, the Chosen One, it can be extremely difficult when something goes wrong (say, the other team wins a game your team should have won) to look at yourself in the mirror and say, “It’s my fault. I didn’t play hard. I didn’t lead. I didn’t do all I could have to win that game.” After all, you can do no wrong.

But behind the arrogance and exaggerated sense of self-importance present in the narcissist, usually lies an insecure individual with low self-esteem who has trouble dealing with failure or criticism. Because he has never been wrong — or so he was led to believe — he doesn’t know how to react when blame (for his team’s loss, for example) is laid at his feet.

Someone with a more realistic self-image who also happens to be a superstar (Michael Jordan, Kobe Bryant, Magic Johnson) will take it upon himself to do try to do better the next time and, if he fails, well at least he gave it his best shot. But a narcissist — say someone who starts each game with arms outstretched messiah-like in a cloud of white powder — can’t deal with failure, so he’s likely to avoid taking risks that could result in defeat. An Average Joe might blow off a job interview. A basketball player might avoid demanding the ball and taking important shots late in a basketball game, even when his teammates are counting on him to do so. Let Dwyane do it.

Unfortunately, for Lebron and his teammates, Dwyane Wade couldn’t carry the team this time. He tried and failed, which is no shame. It still put him one significant step ahead of Lebron.

As I said, this is no-harm, no-foul for most of us. Fans move on. The players get paid well and will try again next year. Young hero-worshippers learn a valuable lesson about clay feet and hopefully file it away for later in life.

For Lebron James, though, it will linger, despite his day-after bravado about moving on with life. There is a lesson — actually several lessons — in this painful public humiliation for the young man who held a nationally televised announcement to reveal that he was leaving Cleveland, where he was the unchallenged King James, and “taking (his) talents to South Beach.” To wit: You are never as good as the people who surround you say you are. No one is perfect. The Chosen One has yet to arrive. Showing up is 90 percent of life. Losing is not a disgrace; not doing your best because you’re afraid to be blamed for the loss, is. Humility is a virtue. And, not for nothing, hubris was considered a crime in Ancient Greece.

* * *

P.S.: Junrey Balawing got no cash from Guinness for his smallness, but he showed up for the ceremony, smiled a lot, got a plaque and a birthday cake and gifts from around the world. He seemed certain that no one, not even a star basketball player from America, would claim his crown.

Bob can be reached at bob@zestoforange.com.

Sarah Palin and Michele Bachmann, Tea Party divas, and possible presidential candidates.

By Bob Gaydos

There’s a movement afoot, apparently started by conscientious, well-meaning citizens of the liberal political persuasion to convince the mainstream media to stop covering Sarah Palin as if she is a serious political candidate. They want people to write to major network news shows to stop their “wall-to-wall coverage” of Palin and “report on issues that actually effect(sic) us.”*

Sorry friends, I couldn’t disagree more. Ignoring Palin in favor of reporting on the debt ceiling and the relative merits of Tim Pawlenty and that guy who used to be ambassador to China would not only put America to sleep, it would deprive Americans of what promises to be the top reality TV show of the summer: Female Mud Wrestling, starring the two divas of the Tea Party/Republican Party, Sarah Palin and Michele Bachmann. This hope alone makes the whole GOP primary mess worthwhile.

Some people would pay big money to see and hear these darlings of conservative ideology (sorry Mr. Will and Mr. Krauthammer, but I didn’t pick them) go mujer a mujer in a series of debates on “the issues.” But if they’re both candidates, we won’t have to pay a dime. It will be free and in living color, with great hair and enough great quotes to spawn a hundred more web sites.

And on a practical note, as long as Palin and Bachmann are treated as serious candidates, by the media as well as followers within the Republican Party, they will generate headlines and TV coverage and make it harder for any other Republican candidate to get his views more widely known. All of which will make it more difficult for Republicans to continue to blame President Obama for the Bush recession and the two Bush wars and easier for Obama to organize his re-election campaign under the “I Got Osama” banners. And isn’t re-electing Obama what the “serious issues” people really want?

Bottom line here is that the Republicans either hate the few serious candidates they have or won’t let them venture anywhere near the truth on the budget, health care, taxes, etc. That leaves Michele and Sarah as easily the best show in town. Even Republican commentators are speculating on the showdown. Who will prevail?

Will it be the Iowa congresswoman who proclaimed that the shot heard ‘round the world was fired in Concord, New Hampshire, not Concord, Massachusetts? Or will it be the half-term Alaska governor who volunteered that Paul Revere went riding through Boston firing warning shots and ringin’ bells, warning the British that the Americans were not about to give up their guns?

Folks, this is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. Palin, 47, and Bachmann, 55, are both attractive, family values, Christian conservatives, whose free-wheeling verbal styles resonate with Tea Party faithful. Of course, there have already been the usual charges of sexism for anyone even suggesting a GOP catfight and denials among aides in both women’s camps that there is any rivalry here. The web site Politico reported that “Publicly, Palin, Bachmann, and their top staffers have nothing but praise for one another. Palin campaigned for Bachmann last spring in Minnesota, where Palin said the women were “buddies” and Bachmann called Palin “so much one of us” and “absolutely drop-dead gorgeous.”

But this is politics, after all, and Bachmann can’t be happy that Palin launched a bus tour on the eve of Bachmann’s anticipated entrance into the campaign. And “friendship” notwithstanding, Bachmann has told an interviewer she is reading the political gossip book, “Game Change,” an insider’s look at the 2008 McCain/Palin campaign.

“Game Change’ is a book that is very difficult to put down,” Bachmann said. “At least I found it difficult to put down, and it gives a person pause. But the other thing that it does, I think, is it informed me of what I don’t want to do.”

In case you’re curious, “Game Change,” which relied heavily on interviews with McCain’s campaign manager, portrayed Palin as ignorant of world events, including World Wars I and II, the Cold War, the history of Iraq and Saddam Hussein and prone to wild mood swings.

It was so friendly of Bachmann to point out that she doesn’t want to follow in those Palin footsteps. And so nice of her supporters to note that Bachman is a three-term member of Congress, former Minnesota state legislator, a trained tax law attorney and foster mother to 23 children, and Palin is not.

What Palin is is a savvy self-promoter and fund-raiser, who will have a say in Republican politics, as a candidate or not, as long as other, more knowledgeable, more qualified potential candidates allow her to parade around as if she speaks for them or their party. And so long as she does that, Bachmann, her semi-clone, will also be afforded the same, undeserved status. You want to talk abut issues? Ask them about issues. After all, their party says they are serious candidates. Or at least it doesn’t say they aren’t serious candidates. Same difference in politics.

Which is why I’m salivating at the thought of a Palin/Bachmann oratorical mud-wrestling match. Will we get more of the quotable Bachmann:

• ”I think there is a point where you say enough is enough to government intrusion. … Does the federal government really need to know our phone numbers?”
• “I don’t know where they’re going to get all this money because we’re running out of rich people in this country.”
• “There is a controversy among scientists about whether evolution is a fact … hundreds and hundreds of scientists, many of them holding Nobel prizes, believe in intelligent design.”

Or more of the incomparable Sarah:

• “Well, let’s see. There’s of course in the great history of America there have been rulings that there’s never going to be absolute consensus by every American, and there are those issues, again, like Roe v. Wade, where I believe are best held on a state level and addressed there. So, you know, going through the history of America, there would be others but ?” — Sarah Palin, unable to name a Supreme Court decision she disagreed with other than Roe vs. Wade, interview with Katie Couric, CBS News, Oct. 1, 2008.
• “I haven’t heard the president state that we’re at war. That’s why I too am not knowing — do we use the term intervention? Do we use war? Do we use squirmish? What is it?” — On the U.S. and NATO bombing of Libya, March 29, 2011.
• “It may be tempting and more comfortable to just keep your head down, plod along, and appease those who demand: ‘Sit down and shut up,’ but that’s the worthless, easy path; that’s a quitter’s way out.” — Announcing her resignation as governor, July 3, 2009, midway through her term.

I strongly suspect that none of the people who want the press to ignore Sarah Palin as a serious candidate, has much respect for the opinions of other Republican candidates on “serious” issues either. And network news executives gave up covering news in favor of entertainment years ago. Better to use your energy listening to Obama and trying to influence his opinions, if you wish, and praying like the dickens that Sarah and Michele wind up on the same stage in the same debate over and over again.

Which one do you think looks better in red?

(* OK, major gripe: If you want to rally smart liberals to your cause, use the right words. It should be issues that “affect” us, not “effect.” Look it up. Even network news execs might catch the error.)

Bob@zestoforange.com