Cultural Boomerang - Welcome to the Liberal Authenticity Trip

"This is Abraham Lincoln's axe. Last week the handle fell off and I had to replace it, but this is still Lincoln's axe. Oh, and the blade broke off yesterday so I had to put a new one on, but essentially, this is still Abraham Lincoln's axe."

                           Harry Anderson, Night Court

Ok, the above quote might lead you to believe that this is going to be a review of Jonah Goldberg's amazing new book "The Tyranny of Cliches", since he's been using Anderson's old axe joke as an apt analogy on his book tour. We'll have a review up soon enough, so if you want to change the channel, this is going to be a Meg episode - no one is going to blame you (if you get that reference, you can either be proud or ashamed of yourself. I'm your blogger, not your priest).

I usually don't preface my blog posts with disclaimers. I usually just plunge the knife in deep and gag you before you can say "Et tu, Brute?", but, in this case, a beloved friend and a dear relative have dabbled in this stuff, and they are neither silly, destroyers of cultures, nor moral monsters. This piece is about a collective anthropological phenomenon, and not an indictment of the people about whom I care deeply. If anything, I have to thank my friend and my relative for sparking my aging memory regarding something I had not thought of since I was in university and my wife was still taking a lunchbox to school.

Ever hear of ayahuasca? I'm not going to bore you with the pharmacology. Suffice it to say that it's a plant-based hallucinogenic-ingested tea with purgative properties used (not exclusively) by the indigenous peoples of of the Peruvian Amazon. It's all the rage these days, with the New Age crowd and drug tourists willing to pay out hundreds and even thousands of dollars to puke their guts out and experience hallucinations they believe will give them insight and guidance from the spirit world. Others just want to trip out.

It's use was first recorded by Spanish missionaries in the 17th century. It's commonly believed that it's a ritualistic sacrament presided over by a Shaman that dates back thousands of years - and this is where the problems start. New Agers and the holistic gang like to harp on about its ancient origins, but this is a source of much contention amongst the Indiana Jones crowd. Apart from it's mention by the Spanish, there is only speculation on just how old the use of this stuff is. Bowls and clay figures dashed with red paint have been discovered by archaeologists in regions of the Amazon. They posit that the bowls could have been used during the ritual, and the red paint on the figurines could represent the user's existential state of being. Bowls and figurines are not uncommon finds in dig sites anywhere in the world, so to buy into the theory, you have to be looking for proof to fit your thesis rather than letting the artifacts suggest a thesis.

I first heard of ayahuasca in 1993, when researching how European missionaries integrated existing customs used by indigenous peoples around the world into the rituals found in a traditional Catholic mass (you'll often see statues of the Virgin Mary in some of the ayahuasca hot spots). When my professors found out that I didn't think this was always necessarily a bad thing if not done by the tip of a sword, they looked at me the way my baby nephew does when I make a sillly face that he first finds amusing, but then it slowly begins to horrify him. Anyway, after a bit of verbal fencing, I eventually dropped it and went and got drunk instead - and stayed that way until about 8 years ago. But that's another story.

Let's rewind to the 1960's, when a generation of young people decided to tear down what was once considered good and decent, and proceeded to spend the better part of a decade trying to fill the spiritual void they created with something else. Something more exotic; something more "authentic".  Hippies flocked to Peru after hearing about a hallucinogenic happy meal that transported the local Peruvian Amazonians to new levels of spirituality, healing, love, and wisdom. It sparked what's now commonly referred to as "drug tourism". I'm not saying that people then or now endure the dangers of the Amazon just to get high, but because you are altering your conciousness by ingesting drugs, you are, by nature, a drug tourist, regardless of your motives. Some of the first westerners in the '60's to experiment with ayahuasca were actually met with bewilderment by the locals. Even as late as 2006, as documented in a National Geographic article, a lady who went Shaman shopping in Peru was told

"You're going to pay someone to give this to you? You crazy white people!'”

Indeed they do - pay that is. Google ayahuasca and you'll find a Chinese food menu of hot spots throughout North America where you can pay up to $2000 for the experience with a genuine bonafide Shaman - or are you really?

These people are not taking part in a Shamanistic ritual, because there are no Shamans in Peru. They're buying a commodity that has no semblance to what it once was.

Shamans are found exclusively in parts of Russia and Northern Asia. Now, anthropologists are generous with the term, and though there is a bit of intellectual tension within the community about this, it is generally tolerated that in certain tribal settings outside of this area, the term Shaman can be used to describe a spiritual leader, but there are caveats. The spiritual leader must perform a specific set of functions and the term must not be completely alien to the people using it. The word shaman was never used by the Peruvian Amazonians before the 1960's. It was imported to them by Westerners who didn't know any better. They already had terms for their spiritual leaders.  Curanderos is one them, but that doesn't really roll off the tongue - neither does ayahuasqueros. The correct term is "quasi-shamanist", but the hippies who started arriving in droves in the 1960's wanted to see a real, in the flesh Shaman. Hey, folks from Peru gotta eat too, and if you got the coin, you can call them Shapoopie! if you want. Now, there was a vague Spanish word "Chaman" that fit the bill. No surprise that the word morphed into shaman to meet the demands of the tourists. It's good business.

In fact, it started becoming such good business that the Board of Tourism in Peru - in conjunction with their major newspapers - decided a few years back that it would be great for the economy if they filled said papers with nothing but stories of ayahuasca miracles, UFO sightings, and other supernatural phenomena.  You know, to grab that international travel niche market. I'm not making this up. 

It's a mess, and I don't think those who are partaking in this ritual truly appreciate the gravity of what they are doing, and have done, to a culture.

Let me explain it like this, and remember, I am NOT making a point about religion.

Suppose there was no such thing as the Vatican with dioceses and arch-dioceses throughout the world. Pretend you'd never heard of it. Imagine there was a little spot in Rome with a few small gathering places called "churches" that practiced something called the "Catholic mass". There's something known as Gregorian chanting, and at one point during the ritual, there is something called "communion". Word starts to spread that during this "communion" thing, a guy called a "priest" magically transforms a piece of bread into a deity. Trippy! When you eat this magic bread, you are ingesting a God. So, now, imagine you're a New Ager and this mystical experience with incense and smoke and chanting really calls to you. You want to receive Communion and be one with a greater power (this is not much different from what happened with ayahuasca so stay with me).

So you go to this mysterious Rome place, with cash, and ask the locals where you go to do the Communion thing. Naturally, they are baffled. You can't just take Communion, they tell you. You first have to go through a process that for many starts at birth, called "baptism" - but you are insistent, and you have money. This little Rome place is very poor, so they take you to a priest. The priest lets you sit in on the mass (warily, mind you) and lets you take Communion. There are people flinging a weird smoke maker that smells like a bonfire, and wait a minute...there's WINE. Wine that is transformed into the life essence of the Deity when he was amongst the living. You go back the next day with even more cash so you can drink the wine. Well, that's not something the tribe usually allows, but again, they're poor, and they're pretty sure you're probably going to go away soon anyway. So you take Communion again, and you drink the wine. A little too much of the wine. The chanting, the frankincense - you feel elevated.You have become one with a deity! Then you leave, and life goes on for this poor little tribe who call themselves Catholics.

But you tell your New Age friends, and they want to experience "communion" too, so they start to swarm to poor little Rome with cash, also demanding they be allowed to take "communion." Tourists are travelling to the middle of nowhere at great risk and expense asking to see a "communionist." The locals are at a loss. The priests need to preserve the sanctity of the mass, so they splash water on your forehead, and then you must sit with the priest in a dark box and "confess" - a sort of soul cleansing. This is getting better by the minute for the new age, spiritual traveler. The priests can't handle the crowds, so they start ordaining people to dispense the communion and wine. There was never a person called a communionist in the 2000 year history of this tribe, but there is now. Frankincense is expensive, but the tourists want it, so the locals throw something together that sort of smells like it. The communion wafers are very rare and expensive, but there are hundreds of people coming through every week, so they make do with whatever they can find. So many years have passed at this point that now Rome is entirely focused on the influx of people that have and are inundating their little village.

The Gregorian chanters are all dying off, and there is no one to teach the intricate viva voce method to pass on the tradition, so they just get folks to dawn robes and start chanting gobbledy gook (this very same thing happened to the chanting heard during ayahuasca rituals. The language died, and the chant was reduced to little more than a performance enhancer).

Fast forward a couple of decades. There are no more priestsv- They got so busy with the tourists that no one was available to teach the important theological ideals vital to these Catholics, so now, there are only "communionists" - a term coined 20 years ago by outsiders who now insist it goes back thousands of years. Mass no longer truly exists, it is now only a ghost of what it was. There are no more homilies, no more Our Fathers. Confession is now called "the cleansing"; rosary beads are worn around the neck with their meaning and sacred prayers long forgotten; communion wafers are just pita bread; the wine has been "fortified" to, again, enhance the experience (yes, I know the dozen theological caveats this raises, but as I said, I'm not trying to make a point about religion).

Worst of all, these "communionists" have taken the show on the road - for profit.

This is what has happened to the tribal peoples of the Peruvian Amazon. New Agers, hippies, and stoners who meant no harm flocked to the Amazon seeking spiritual fulfillment, and, slowly, over the course of 50 years, launched a wrecking ball that turned a sacred ritual into a circus side show. This is what is so damned dangerous about the "a bit of this and a bit of that" quest for spriritual fufilment.

It's an extension of neo-paganism of sorts. New Agers have made a soup out of all things mystical in their quest for enlightenment, and have sullied very old and ancient traditions in the process. Take Kabala: People say they practice Kabala. Did you know a Rabbi has to have studied the Talmud for at least 40 years before being allowed to delve into Kabala because it is so abstract and complicated? Yet Madonna claims it's some kind of religion she follows after taking a weekend course. There is no Book of Kabala. Just like people have no idea of the difference between rebirth and reincarnation. New Agers have unintentionally done more damage to the customs and traditions of indigenous peoples around the world than the supposed horrors of McDonald's built in third world countries that they are always screaming about. Does anyone else see the irony in the fact that the Dali Lama globetrots in a private jet, giving countless media interviews and being treated like a rock star?

I know. You can say "What about the Church?", "What about the Big Corporations"', "What about the one percent?" Those are things about which we can have a morally seriously argument another day. Today I'm asking: what about you?

Hey, if you want to trip out with the pseudo-quasi-shamanistic dude who's performing in a town near you, knock yourself out. If you want to hang with a mysterious French doctor who has an army of lawyers surround him when the press gets too nosy, have at 'er. But, luckily, there are still places deep withing the Amazon where the ayahuasca ritual is still performed by a genuine ayahuasquero. Please have the decency to leave them off your "to do" list when you travel.

Cordially

Joe

The Keynesian Fabulist - Blogging By Numbers

Let me start by giving a hat tip to Aaron Wong, the President of USC College Republicans, who gave TSH a very kind shout out on Twitter. I'm just some smart-ass Canadian with a laptop that overheats to the point of being a fire hazard and a dream that, someday, they will reboot the American Ninja franchise. Aaron is the sort of fellow who works in the trenches, rallying young college Republicans and enduring the olfactory offenses of whatever branch of the "Occupy" movement that is presumably still invading his campus. I have it lucky in my little neck of the woods. Moncton's Occupy movement consists of two tents and a cardboard sign. It's really just a hobo hotel that's been there for as long as I can remember, but they think writing OCCUPY on a ripped up Saltines box gives them street cred. Anyway, good on ya' Aaron! The conservative movement is a global one, and I think it's pretty cool beans that Canadians, Americans, East Indians, Italians, Australians and countless others who feel passionately about limited government, free enterprise, and the essential dignity of all human life stop by my little lemonade stand to hang out and spread the word.

Shall we blog by numbers?

1 -In early 2009, the President declared that he would have the deficit cut in half by the end of his third year in office or he would be a one term President. Here we are, three years later, and he's presided over the four largest deficits in American History. Maybe he has a wicked Groupon he hasn't told us about that's going to slash the deficit overnight and make it rain gumdrops and snow cotton candy.

In early February, the President finally released his Keynesian Greco-Roman orgy budget that makes Jimmy Carter look like Calvin Coolidge. It's a spending bonanza that boggles the mind. It's like when Mayor West found out that 'the bird is equal to or greater than the word', and screamed "CHECK IT AGAIN!" The only phrase that can accurately describe this tax and spend bonanza is fiscal insanity.

Veronique De Rugy broke down some of the numbers, and they confirm the economic immaturity of this administration.

By the end of fiscal year 2013, the federal government will have spent just under $4 trillion. Projected over the next 10 years, cumulative spending will have reached an astounding $47 trillion dollars. Gross debt, both public and private, will increase to $26 trillion.

The annual interest alone on this beast of a budget will be $1 trillion annually. Spending will increase in virtually every government department. How does the President plan to pay for all this? TAXES! How else? There will be a death-tax hike of $143 billion, and a host of other tax increases equaling $340 billion, compliments of the American taxpayers - but even the massive tax grabs the President is proposing don't come close to covering the massive debt he plans to incur.

When all the numbers are crunched, by 2022, Americans are looking at a $7,900,000,000,000 increase in debt. This is not sustainable; this is not realistic; this is not sane. Time for a change in management.

2 - An irritating comment I hear a lot when liberals in the media (are there any other kind?) engage in discussions about the stimulus is that "...there is only one side to this discussion." That side, of course, being that the stimulus was a necessary inevitability. Doug Holtz has countered the comment with a question I rather like. He posits, "You simply can’t throw $800 billion at the economy and have nothing to show for it. The real question is of course, was its impact worth it?" So, aside from Superbowl half-time commercials, did the American public get any bang for their buck? The answer is no.

When looking at how the CBO examines where stimulus dollars went, it boils down to this. The CBO openly acknowledges that each dollar of stimulus expenditure is generating less than a dollar of output. The President is not even breaking even.

"Economists are comparing it to eating ice cream today, while committing to broccoli later. But that’s not what we’re seeing." Instead, President Obama, who has presided over four years of $1-trillion-plus deficits, he has proposed an average ten-year deficit of $668 billion. Holtz muses that the president wouldn’t .."even pass Keynesian economics. Instead of holding out for broccoli, we get a ten-year ice cream party."

Debt is at a historical high, surpassing the GDP. Holtz's forecast is gloomy - "The implications of this scenario are plainly evident from the recent experience in Europe — but the economic fallout from a debt crisis in the world’s largest economy is difficult to fathom."

3 - It's curious that when conservatives point out their concerns about the impact of executive over-reach and the devastating effects of Joseph Ellis-style anti-orginalist SCOTUS-think, we're accused of being zealous, ridiculous wing-nuts by liberals who, prior to 2008, constantly screamed about living under a war-mongering police state run by a fascist dictator who should be tried for war crimes. Yeah...We're the one's who overstate things.

4 - Haven't seen The Hunger Games yet, but I shudder at the thought of how many grown women twenty years from now are going to be addressed as "Katniss" (hat tip to J-Bow).

5 - I know it's become "de rigeur" to peer through the other side of the looking glass and complain about those who complain about Facebook. Fair enough. Sure, it's not the end of the world, but I still don't want that damnable "timeline." I use a product. I like the way that product is set up. Now I am waiting for that cursed day when I have to start swilling Facebook's version of "New Coke."

I hate the thought of that inevitable morning when I wake up to some random elongated picture of myself that says "Hey look! I'm the Blueray letterbox version of The Godfather." My friend Amanda jumped ahead of the curve and posted a picture of herself lounging on a hammock. Clever girl. I need a hammock.

6 - The Stoics are rolling in their graves. Those sneaky Greeks just received a $170 billion (OPA!) bail-out. Greece has a sad record of running its country into the ground, and a fickle record of adhering to policies to which it has agreed. Their public debt makes for 120% of their GDP. Greece arrived at their Waterloo as a result of out of control spending gone wild. In fact, a recent audit showed that they "...consistently and deliberately misreported the country's official economic statistics." Greece had to be dragged, kicking and screaming, to even consider cutting so much as a toenail. The jury is still out as to whether or not this recent bailout in conjunction with the proposed austerity measures will do any good. Greece is illustrative of the ship of fools President Obama is steering over a waterfall, and his recent public tantrums and finger pointing are reminiscent of a man who refuses to leave his beachfront home despite the warning of a category 5 hurricane evacuation - only he's insisting the rest of neighborhood stay with him.

7 - It looks like the Supreme Court will uphold the 11th circuit's ruling that the individual mandate of Obamacare is unconstitutional. Media reports seem to indicate that the Solicitor General was poorly prepared for oral arguments. Not surprising. The 11th circuit's decision fast tracked this case to the nation's highest court, to the chagrin of the justice department. If the decision comes down as expected, it means the end of Obamacare, a major victory for all citizens who have seen their costs doubled and services reduced under the current law.

This is a major blow to the Obama administration. The court is reiterating the 11th circuit's decision, which stated that the law had no limiting principle and that "...the government’s position amounts to an argument that the mere fact of an individual’s existence substantially affects interstate commerce, and therefore Congress may regulate them at every point of their life. This theory affords no limiting principles in which to confine Congress’s enumerated power."

...but hold the celebration until the decision comes down. If anyone remembers Judge Bolton's ruling on SB1070, she began her decision by asserting the burden on the DOJ in a facial case was insurmountable, but ruled in favor of the administration anyway.

Hope this bad law is struck down. Cross your fingers.

8 - Have a great week. Let's roll the credits to a little Turner Cody.

Cordially

Joe

Sad, Not Suspicious. No Conspiracy, Just Tragedy.

A typical sampling of blog and Facebook posts I've been reading today start something like this:

"I never saw or heard the man speak, but a couple of weeks ago this guy said he was going to release tapes that would take down the administration and then he dies. Something very wrong is going on here. This is too strange."

Conspiracies about dart guns, poisoned red wine, and suspiciously early cause of death reports are running wild across the web. But the reality is that while his death is shocking, it was not entirely surprising.

Let me first dispose of the notion that the tapes of President Obama Breitbart referenced during his CPAC speech were some kind of explosive bombshell. The tapes are not a revelation. Breitbart was speaking publicly about them during the Acorn expose as early as 2009.

As for the claim that the LA Times reported his cause of death before it was released - well, they didn't. Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center pronounced that Breitbart had probably died of natural causes at 12:19am. The LA Times reported what UCLA Medical had announced at 7:33am.

Remember the "probably" part. It is not at all unusual for ER doctors to speculate on the cause of death immediately following sudden, unexpected trauma. ER doctors all over the world do it every single day. Anyone who has anxiously waited for news of a loved in an emergency waiting room knows this. "He probably died of a heart attack", "It looks like it may have been a stroke", "It could have been an allergic reaction." Far too many of us have heard those words. It's not unusual or strange.

Anyone who knew Andrew Breitbart knows he did not take the best care of his health. He had heart problems, and hadn't been examined by a doctor in over a year. He rarely slept, traveled constantly, and had a wife and 4 energetic kids he took everywhere, including on National Review cruises. Everyone was begging him to slow down.

Arianna Huffington, of the Huffington Post, of which Breitbart helped to develop, had implored him over the years to slow down:

"Andrew, you’ve got to sleep, got to stop."

Michael Walsh, one of Brietbart's closest friends, claimed:

"....he did suffer from heart trouble, and told me he had spent some time at UCLA Medical Center in the past year for treatment. As a heart patient myself, I often urged him to slow down and take care of his family — even Achilles had to spend time in his tent. It was advice he could not heed."

We don't know the official cause of death as of yet.

A heart attack at 43, if a heart attack is what this turns out to be, is not a strange occurrence. Males 45 and under account for 20% of all heart attacks in the United States. Given Breitbart's non-stop pace and documented heart issues, I don't see this as such a shocker.

So let's take a breath.

I despise the Obama administration. I hate everything it stands for. I want to see this corrupt President and every Democrat run out of Washington in November. I want to see the mainstream media stammering and staggering about trying to spin the massive GOP tidal wave that is coming. I want to watch in delight as liberals seethe with rage. I want to stick it to the Occupy crowd. I want to do all the things that Andrew relished in life.

What I do not want to do is sully Andrew's legacy by skipping down the road to Loch Ness talking about black mini-vans and poison blow darts.

Andrew Breitbart's death was sad, sudden, and tragic. Instead of watching and reading the work of conspiracy theorists, why not make better use of our time watching the hundreds of brilliant and impassioned speeches and interviews Andrew left behind?

Cordially

Joe

Andrew Breitbart February 1, 1969 – March 1, 2012

Widely read conservative Internet publisher Andrew Breitbart has died, his attorney confirms.

The site Big Government, which he founded, reported that Breitbart, 43, died "unexpectedly from natural causes" in Los Angeles shortly after midnight on Thursday.

"We have lost a husband, a father, a son, a brother, a dear friend, a patriot and a happy warrior," the article on the site said. "Andrew lived boldly, so that we more timid souls would dare to live freely and fully, and fight for the fragile liberty he showed us how to love."

You're Older Than You've Ever Been - 39 and Counting....

I'm feeling old lately. Not the kind of old Bill Cosby used to schlep about in his stand-up routine, lamenting the inevitable forgetfulness that comes with age, like the panic you feel when you've forgotten who you're calling before the intended party has answered the phone. It's more an ever-growing sense that there is a chasm that's widening between myself and the past. It first hit me while listening to the Stones' You Can't Always Get What You Want in the car. I was pondering how the song is a reflection on the end of the 1960's freewheeling drug culture in London, a culture that by 1969 had long outlived its welcome. It's the 1969 part that nags at me. Using my astonishing mathematical prowess, I realized the song is over 40 years old. I remember when I was a kid, my mom used to sing the Andrews Sisters' "Rum and Coca Cola" when she was in the kitchen. Back then, that song was barely 40 years old.

There's something unsettling about that to me. When I think of songs that are 4 decades old, I like to imagine the list would be strictly relegated to the likes of Glenn Miller, Perry Como, or Johnny Mercer, but definitely not Rolling Stones' guitar licks.

Recently, some hip-hop artist sampled Warren Zevon's Werewolves of London, and I was dismayed to discover that hordes of people not even a decade younger than I am mistakenly sing "Where are the Wild Things?" when the chorus rolls around. I even had some kid argue with me over it. I dropped it, realizing that debating the finite points of music with a strung out stoner was an intellectually reductive process. He probably would have steadfastly insisted that the Statue of Liberty is actually holding an ice cream cone, and that William F Buckley Jr is a guitarist who is still very much alive.

I know 39 isn't old, but it seems life is intent on convincing me each day that there's a Scoot-About with my name on it waiting for me just around the corner. As most of my avid readers know, my wife is 14 years younger than I am - she was trick or treating when I first met her (just kidding). Often times I'll show her some movie from the early 80's that I enjoyed as a child, during which she'll methodically point out half a dozen sub-plots that were never adequately explored or were completely abandoned by the end of the movie. I try to explain that what's pivotal to the movie is that by the end the hero has killed all the drug dealers and Communists and mobsters before shooting the dirty chief of police. Apparently how the hero deduced that the chief of police was double crossing him all along is not sufficiently explained by simply declaring "I knew it was you all along" before throwing him out of a window and walking away to the beat of a Duran Duran song that fades as the credits roll. Hey, works for me, buzz kill.

I think it all came crashing down on me while we were watching an episode of Family Guy, during which a cartoon Rob Schneider does an imitation of his "Copy Guy" character from Saturday Night Live, prompting a perplexed young lady - oblivious to the cultural reference - to declare "Umm, I was born in 1987." While Claire understood that Family Guy often uses obscure or dated cultural references, she also had no idea who Copy Guy was. I enthusiastically Youtubed it to show her just how incredibly rib splitting this recurring character was, only to realize the skit was rather dull and annoying.

The lovely Mrs Claire loves that I'm older than her. It tickles her for some reason, and I am certainly a lucky man to have an intelligent and beautiful young wife. I don't know why the looming thought of 40 troubles me so much. The zero reminds of the O in LOST that comes looming out of the screen at you in the beginning of every episode. I know I should round off this column with a nice tie-in to some reference I made at the beginning - but hey, I knew it was you all along.

Cordially

Joe

About Last Night - TSH TV

Pick Your Poison - Blogging by Numbers

Excuses, excuses, but once again, I must apologize for the lack of content lately. This place has been emptier than a Jon Huntsman rally at a Red Lobster restaurant. If anyone is wondering what the meaning of the Chinese expression he used during the Saint Anslesm College debate was, it roughly translates as "I won less than 1% of the Ames straw poll, but the media is succeeding in making me relevent." Actually, he couldn't even muster less than half a percentage point. He's actually taken out an ad that ends with a befuddled old Wilford Brimley-ish guy who grumbles "Why haven't we heard of this guy?" Solid statagy Jon -  but we'll get back to that.

Truth is, I have recently embarked on a whiplash inducing career change, and am currently practicing as an addictions and human services couselor. I am also working on securing the necessary certifications that will allow me to open a private practice as a grief and loss counselor. I am also incredibly lazy, and my fingers hurt from trying to play a C chord on the sweet acoustic guitar my wife bought me for Christmas.  Let the blogging by numbers begin!

1  -  It seems that as conservatives, every GOP primary since 1992 has been about trying to make the best of a bad situation. Doth we protest too much? Perhaps, but if the 2010 mid-term election taught us anything, it's that we can demand more and get it, even against an orchastrated campaign by the leftist establishment to derail us at every turn using their yes-men in the media. The usual suspects are already starting to line up behind Mitt Romney, who, as Jonah Goldberg said, "looks like the picture that comes with the frame."

Romney is running a textbook campaign: Don't bet the house on one State, build your base, raise buckets of money, stay on message, and disect your opponents with surgical skill. He is becoming more at ease during the debates, and breezed through the St. Anslesm debate because the rest of the pack, oddly enough, passed up the golden oppportunity to unload their guns on him when he was the most vulnerable.

Romney is weak on social issues, and "Romneycare" was the model for Obamacare, whose individual mandate was recently declared unconstitutional by the 11th circuit.

Many in the conservative press, most notably the former Governor's cheerleaders at the otherwise sensible National Review, have been quick to wag their fingers at those of us who think Romney is far too slick. I would counter that he goes beyond slick to downright greasy at times, refusing to take definitive stands on any issue, and evades difficult questions by falling back on his new soundbite about how this election is a fight for the "Soul of America." 

Governor Romney may not be the "Massachusetts liberal", as his detractors have painted him, but he is certainly not the all-American conservative we deserve.

2 - If you ever refuse a friend request on Facebook, never make the mistake of sending a message giving a reason as to why you are doing so. Trust me on this. It prompts people to act like jilted 14 year old girls who cyber stalk classmates who don't like Justin Bieber. Über creepy.

3 -  A couple of months ago,  former Republican Utah Governor and Obama admistration lacky Jon Huntsman tried to boost his staggering 0.4% poll numbers before the GOP primaries by spitting on the very same social conservatives he's now trying to court by tweeting "To be clear. I believe in evolution... Call me crazy."  Of course, this triggered a frenzy of media attention, as liberals dusted off the old canard that the conservative lobby of the GOP is waging a war on science! This is utter nonsense, and Huntsman and the liberal media know it. It was Christian conservative Dr. Francis Collins who discovered the new cancer treatment which maps out the human genome and selectively targets damaged DNA.

Huntsman is a tree-hugging RINO, who has lobbied to give valid ID's to illegal immigrants, and supports  granting China non-reciprocal trade favours that would further promote the decay of the American economy while propping up a communist dictatorship.

The media is continuing to clamour on about the supposed Huntsman surge. I guess in the MSM, polling almost 25 points behind the front runner in one single state is surging.

4 - Ron Paul, trying to deflect attention from his racist past, made the disingenuous argument that African Americans receive the death penalty at a disproportionately higher rate than whites. The Justice Department's own stats show that in federal cases "The Attorney General approved seeking the death penalty for 38 percent of White defendants, 25 percent of Black defendants, and 20 percent of Hispanic defendants.” Ron Paul has referred to African Americans as animals, and once encouraged radical libertarians to arm themselves for an upcoming race war. I'm sure Dr. Paul is awaiting the KKK's endorsement...or does he already have it?

5 -  No one in this race is a "Washington outsider." No one. That just grinds my gears.

6 - The editorial board of The Straight Hype is officially supporting Newt Gingrich for the GOP nomination, with a hopes of an eventual Gringrich/Santorum ticket, based on Gingrich's 30+ years of service, his knowledge of not only the national stage, but also his intricate understanding of the problems facing individual states, right down to matters of obscure New Hampshire infrastructure and veteran's healthcare. Much has been made about the former Speaker's "baggage." He has addressed his personal failings, and, more importantly, his political  fumbles, and the wisdom obtained from those miscalculations.  Newt Gingrich would demolish President Obama in a debate and would extinguish the media created myth of superficial "electability."  God Speed Speaker Gingrich.

7 - Have a great week! Enjoy!!

Cordially

Joe

Kim Jong II - Your Lunatic BFF

Hey there. Remember me? I'm Kim Jong II. Ring a bell? No? Back in '06 I was the man. I detonated a low yield nuclear weapon off the coast of North Korea. How crazy is that? Plenty crazy. That's sniffing airplane glue, huddled in the corner of a rat infested basement writing cryptic Greek messages on the wall and screaming about ants and Wilfred Laurier crazy - but oh no. 2 years ago everyone was talking about me and my sweet nuclear stuff, but no one cares about me anymore.

You're all obsessed with Mahmoud and Bashar al-Assad. Freakin' losers. Can you even pronounce "Ahmadinejad?" That's just a mess of vowels and consonants no man should be made to decipher. You know what else? Mahmoud may be short, but I'm waaaay shorter. I am so short I am literally staring at the urinal puck when I take a leak. Most of it dribbles down my leg.

I'm not unreasonable, though. I'm willing to meet you half way. Give me a couple of slots on CNN showing how moon bat crazy and scary I am, and I am willing to go the extra mile for you. I'm already off to a good start. I'm an unstable despot who is constantly drunk on Hennessy brandy. I wear lifts in my shoes (mostly because of the dribble) and I spend endless hours in my private screening room watching Godzilla movies.

I can tell. You're not impressed. My man Gaddafi got sodomized with a knife while they dragged him through the streets. Tough act to follow you say? NAY! I will sodomize myself with a bat covered in rusty nails while giving you bedroom eyes. I will set my taint on fire and poop out a bar of uranium if that's what it takes.

That's dedication. That's the kind of nuttier than squirrel poop crazy that you're not going to get from that little dandy Al-Assad. It's not enough to be scary.

You deserve Skeletor crazy, and I promise - give me a chance, and I will be your lunatic bff.

Lots of Crazy Love

Kim Jong Il

Poppy - Remembering the Haida

Editor's note: The following Remembrance Day blog is a guest article written by my wife and editor, the lovely Mrs Claire.  This moving tribute to her grandfather is in honour of all those who fought and sacrificed for our freedoms.


We have become accustomed to the term 'family unit'. It is a dry phrase, for when I reflect upon my own family, one word trumps this commonplace expression, and that word is 'legacy'. It is a legacy of a family, and a man I knew as 'Poppy'.

My mother's family are very close-knit, and would do anything for one another, and by extension, for anyone that can be considered family. I believe this is because of the values instilled in them by their parents. My grandfather and grandmother, Clyde and Edith Crews, were feisty Newfoundlanders, a rare and special breed of Canadian.

We, their grandchildren, knew my grandfather, quite fittingly given this subject matter, as Poppy. Poppy, as I knew him, was a gentle, soft-spoken man, who loved bear hugs and back scratches. He was a warm, kind, and genuine person, and the delight in his eyes was obvious when he saw family coming. When I was young, if he saw our car coming up his long driveway, he would lock the door, knowing that I would be the first one out of the car. Running excitedly to the door, I would knock, and he'd look through the little window and yell 'Go away, foreigner!' (they had since moved to Nova Scotia; we lived in the neighbouring province of New Brunswick), then, flinging the door wide, give me a giant hug.

As I got older, I started learning about World War II in school. At some point, we were given an assignment: To speak to a veteran about his time during the war. When I got home, my mother suggested I call Poppy. I found out he had served in the Navy. I called him, and he told me a story. At the end, he was quiet for a moment, and then he said 'That was the most scared I was, during the entire war.'

My mother doesn't remember, growing up, hearing stories about his service, because my grandmother didn't want her children to know of the horrors of war. Once grown, my grandfather would speak of it, albeit rarely, at times prompted by televised images of the war, or, quite simply, if he was asked about it.

Through the years, I've heard many stories about his service, from my mother, my aunts, and my uncles. Please forgive the scattered nature of the stories, I don't know them in chronological order:

Newfoundland, the province in which my grandparents were born and raised, did not join the Canadian Confederation until 1949. During the war, my grandfather signed up to fight for his country, a country to which he did not yet belong. His younger brother, my Great-Uncle Mickey, lied about his age and joined as well. Newfoundlanders (or Newfies as we now endearingly call them) were treated as the mud on every one's shoe, but, for the most part, they never complained, and followed orders - or at least they did on my grandfather's ship.

He served on the HMCS Haida, which served multiple functions - everything from convoy escort to full-blown warship - from 1943 through to the end of the war. My grandfather was a gunner. He once recounted to my mother that his and an Allied ship were sailing out on open water when a U-boat surprised them and fired on the ship closest to it, which was not the Haida. They managed to evacuate the Allied ship and sink the U-boat. They were not always so lucky.

Once, they came upon another Allied ship that had been fighting an enemy ship, but was at that point sinking. My grandfather said he could see the men from the ship bobbing in the waters of the Atlantic, and the Haida neared in an attempt to pick them up. They began drawing enemy fire, and had to pull out of the battle. They saved as many men as they could, which was not many. They were forced to retreat, leaving the vast majority of their brothers behind.

The story he recounted to me was what he described as being 'the most scared I was, during the entire war.' While fighting an enemy ship during a storm, firing at one another, huge waves were beating down on them, pounding the ship into the ocean. At some point during the fight, an enormous wave pushed the Haida high up in the air. He recounted that while they were technically still in the water, they were basically at a 90 degree angle to the ocean. They were completely exposed, and there was a 50-50 chance they'd land properly. The ship could have easily tilted the other way and landed upside down. When they landed bottom down, he said it was an ear-splitting booming noise that probably would have been louder had he not been so terrified. They won the battle.

The HMCS Haida sank more enemy surface tonnage during the war than any other Canadian warship. He was proud to have the honour of serving his country, and even as an elderly man, he could describe every detail of his ship. My parents gave him a framed photograph of the ship one year for Christmas, and it hung with a quiet dignity until he and my grandmother passed away and their house was sold. My parents now have the picture.

I can't begin to imagine the horrors he must have encountered during World War II, the stories no one ever heard. He fought with stoicism and pride. He fought for our freedom. He fought with honour.

After the war, he went on to marry my grandmother Edith, moved to the province of Nova Scotia, and had 14 children. My mother, the eighth child, can hardly remember a time he raised his voice (with one exception, funny, but not appropriate here). He contracted tuberculosis around 1956, and spent a year in a sanatorium. The doctors eventually removed a portion of his left lung. He worked at the docks in Halifax, Nova Scotia, to support his family, and support them he did. He raised a beautiful family, and each of his children can and do tell stories that highlight the great man he was.

When he passed away in January of 2008, he was survived by his wife, 14 children, 25 grandchildren, and 30 great-grandchildren, as well as a multitude of nieces and nephews. Those numbers have grown, and, if the world has luck on it's side, we will instill the same virtues of kindness, gentleness, generosity, and all of his wonderful traits, all the things that made him such a wonderful man, into our children as he instilled in his, who in turn instilled into us. This is his legacy.

He was my hero.

Cordially

Claire

Howdy, I Might Be Rick Perry

Howdy!  I'm Rick Perry, and I'm running for somethin' in Norway.  Wait...that ain't quite right.  I'm a dang ol' Texas boy, and I made these Gucci loafers...I mean, snake skin boots with a bear I caught with my own three hands.  Confused?  Me too.

You see, after I went and started forgettin' stuff at the last debate, ma' campaign advisers decided it might temporarily boost my poll numbers if I start forgettin' stuff more often. From now on, I plan to forget a ding-dang pile of stuff to anyone who will listen, like them fellers on the late night radio, David Letternumber, and Jay Pruno.  But I can get up before the crack o' dawn and do the morning shows too, cause that what we do here in Ohio...I mean, BIG OL' TEXAS.  We get up nice and late so we can have an early lunch before the kids go to work or whatever.  You see, I went and forgot again.  Ain't that just so electable. Seriously.

Now, you might think it was a case of the nerves that made me forget that I wanted to abolish the Department of Energy and some other stuff, but heck, I've gone a step further and plum forgot what Energy is.  I think it's that thing they put in toothpaste.  I might get rid of some of them other departments as well, but I can't remember what they are.  When I do remember, they're as good as gone, but for now, I forget stuff and remind people of it because we decided at a brain storming session that it's a solid strategy for the next week as it seems to be artificially inflating my poll numbers...I mean screw letters.  Sorry, I forgot that I was supposed to be forgettin' stuff.  Ain't that the dangest thing?

Anyway, I'm David, and...HEY! WHO THE HELL ARE YOU AND WHAT HAVE YOU DONE WITH 'MA POPCORN?"

What?  Is that too over the top guys?....You want me to reign it in?  Yeah, that's just making me sound crazy.

Howdy again.  It's me, and I'm fairly certain I'm Rick Perry.  I know my fellow Canadians don't like how they've started to get all cheap with the sprinkles at Baskin and Robbins, so if I remember, the Department of Ice Cream Toppings is GONE.

Now, I know in these uncertain times, it's hard to know just what to remember, but if you remember anything, forget this: I'm Rick Perry, and I'm going to be forgettin' stuff for a yet to be determined amount if time, and I will continue to fight for your rights until I am Prime Minister.

(This message would have been approved by The Committee to Elect Rick Perry but they forgot as well.)

Cordially

Joe