Uncertain 2: A work in progres

A little background:

Several years ago I wrote my first novel -- Uncertain Times -- and while it sold only about 1,200 copies, it gave me a check-off on my "bucket list' -- write and publish a novel. I learned a lot on how not to write a novel from "Uncertain," but did come away with a personal sense of accomplishment.

I also came away with a love for the book's two main characters -- Adnijio Benjamin Franklin Jones and his constant sidekick Bob. My PhD son, Dr. C .Jason Smith, a touted literary icon in his own mind (and mine) and publisher of two books and a hundred or more scholarly papers -- gave me the supreme compliment. "Bob is, as far as I know, unique in literary history."

Bob is Adj's inner voice, a stuttering conscience that keeps his host straight, or helps set his course as crooked as a Wall Street banker close to getting his bonus. After Uncertain Times was published and I had my first novel sitting in my hands, I promised to write a prequel of how Adj and Bob first became one and do a better job of writing their story than I did the first time.

For the past three years, I've been working on Uncertain People, a little story set in Mountain Home, Arkansas. Adj is a newspaper man working at the Baxter Bulletin and Bob is ... well, Bob. It has, like Uncertain Times, a cast of rich, unbelievable characters that pop up like the action figures in Whack-a-Mole games at county fairs.

Meet Thorburn Skeeter, a man who talks only in cliches.

“It’s official,” Thorburn Skeetcher said, while digging in his right ear canal with his right pinky. He was about two digits deep when he started up again. “The situation is cut and dried. The High and Mighty Shurf is going to cut and run. From the cut of his jib I can tell you his goose is cooked because he’s bound and determined to cut off his nose to spite his face.”

Eh-If he’s not kah-killed by fah-flying clichés starting wah-with the lah-letter ‘C’ first.

I thought Bob to hush and, trying to egg Thorburn on, said, “His argument don’t cut no ice with me. I think he’s trying to curry favor with his base constituency and just crying over spilled milk. As far as I’m concerned, he’s just crying in the wilderness.”

Jah-Jesus! Yah-you’ve walked into a gah-gunpowder fah-factory with a lah-lit match!

Thorburn fixed me with a look stout enough to etch glass. He took a sip of whiskey, cleared his throat, shook all over like a wet dog, and twisted his neck back and forth a few times.

“I’m not sayin’ he’s crazy as a coot, just that he’s crazy like a fox, and will be till the cows come home.”

He paused and I started to tongue-jump in.

Holding up a hand to stop my planned verbal intrusion, he said, “I’m just coming up for air. Now, as I was saying, the High Shurf thinks he’s going to come up smelling like roses, but I think we ought to call a spade a space and cast the bread of reason upon the waters of discontent. In other words, before we commit the cardinal sin of putting the cart before the horse and cast aspersions on his character, we should understand the man can’t see beyond the end of his nose.”

Pausing for a breath, Thorburn again held up the stop sign hand again. After a big suck-in of wind and a forceful exhale, he put his tongue in overdrive.

“It’s a fact you can catch more flies with sugar than vinegar, but we’re not looking to catch flies here. We just want to get with the High Shurf and chew the cud, so to speak, chew the rag, and make sure we don’t chicken out when the chickens come home to roost. There’s not a Chinaman’s chance he’s as clean as a hound’s tooth. Not clean as a whistle, neither.

“It’s up to us to clear the decks and take this cock of the walk’s cock and bull story and, come hell and high water, tell him not to count his chickens before they hatch or cry wolf. He needs to cut to the chase and come on like gangbusters telling the truth before he comes to grief.”

Thorburn sat back in his chair, crossed his arms and let a grin skid on his face like an eighteen-wheeler hitting a dumped load of Crisco.

Bob thought me to close my mouth and then offered:

 Gah-game. Sah-set. Mah-match.

As my Cajun cousin would say, “Cut to the quick, me.”

Two hours later I was wrestling with the Percale and trying to unbunch the blanket with the spurs, chuckwagon, and herd of horses on it. And I was mad. Real mad. I mentally pummeled myself.

What’s the matter with me? I could have worked in that’s the way the cookie crumbles, and cool as a cucumber, costs a pretty penny, crack of dawn, didn’t like the color of his money, and even child’s play.

Eh-I can answer tha-that. You gah-got knocked out of the cah-catbird seat because the cah-cat got your tah-tongue.

Yah-you’re not helping, Bah-Bob.

His stuttering laughter drove my funky mood ever deeper in the mental ditch.

Four days later, still smarting from my cliche smackdown,  I turned the corner, head down, checking to make sure I didn’t step on a crack . . . and ran slap-dead, head-on into Thorburn Skeetcher.

He gave a little woof as my shoulder hit him a good blow to the sternum. He sounded like a colic-y collie.

“Jeeze, Thorburn, I’m sorry. Are you okay?”

“Right as rain, I am,” he said, slapping on that hint-grin that I had come to know mean that a slide down his own personal cliché chute was en route. “A little accident like that don’t raise my hackles and not even if I rack my brain for an excuse to rake you over the coals.”

I blew out a little puff of air to calm me down and get my brain to working. I inhaled and girded my throat for battle. “I was just thinking about the rat race I find myself in and I was ready to read someone the riot act before you came along and I gave you an excuse to ream me out. You’re the real McCoy, you know that, Tornburn?”

He gave a slight nod, closed his eyes and gave his head a quick shake. “This is a red letter day, Boy-o. Everything is right as rain and before we ring down the curtain on this little happenstance, I want you to remember it’s not a good thing to rob Peter to rob Paul, to risk life and limb, to travel the road to Perdition, to rock the boat, to throw out red herring, to be rotten to the core. You get me?”

“Right as rai—you’ve already said that one. My bad!” He smiled serenely and Bob started snarling.

I took another deep breath. “While I’m not rolling in money, I do know that a rolling stone gathers no moss, and that a person who has rocks in his head is between a rock and a hard place.”

Thorburn looked at me like I messed my pants in Sunday School class and he was the head Christian care-giver.

“Roll with the punches, Lad. Don’t rock the boat, be rough and ready without a legitimate purpose, or rub salt in the wounds of those that don’t deserve it. Things like that rub me the wrong way and, as a rule of thumb, you can’t run the gauntlet of life by simply running off at the mouth. Your actions may be run of the mill, but with age and gained wisdom, that will run its course. If you want the red carpet treatment in life, you have to make ever day a red-letter day and not rest on your laurels. If any of this rings a bell, join the rising tide and roll with the punches.”

I stood there, a wounded target, no counter punchline. Then, an inspiration:

“Right on!”

Thorburn gave a little bow and headed down the sidewalk. After about three steps he started laughing and it only stopped when he was out of earshot.

Jah-Jesus, you’re pah-pathetic, you know that.

Granted, Bob. But what does that make you.

That shut him up.

Livestrong -- past and present

 

Lance Armstrong.

Few people have ever had a personal legacy changed as quickly, as radically and as negatively as this man.

Phase 1: Hero. Supreme athlete. Cancer survivor. Founder of Livestrong Foundation. Seven-time Tour de France winner.

Phase 2: Liar. Doper. Emotionless robot. Vengeful and hurtful to those who questioned him.

If Armstrong coming clean about his cycling career and the calculated use of banned substances to improve his performance was meant to enhance his image, the attempt failed miserably.

Armstrong displayed the emotions of a dust mop; his “apologies” to those people he bullied and sued when they questioned his integrity and honesty seems exceptionally hollow. His admissions and timing are suspect due to his wanting to return to completion as a triathlete and just after the statutes of limitations on some of his lies made under oath passed.

I wanted to believe him – then and now. I wanted to believe he didn’t “juice” in the most “juiced-up” sport in the world. I wanted to believe his apology and confession and that he was doing it for the right reasons.

I was wrong then; I won’t be taken in so easily this time.

I wore a Livestrong rubber bracelet for more than 10 years; I took it off several years ago due to a skin rash but about six months ago, put it back on. When the global cycling community stripped him of the seven Tour de France titles, I removed it and put it in a drawer.

Now, today, I’m going to get it out and put it back on … not to honor Armstrong, but to acknowledge the good his foundation to fight cancer has done and also to serve as a reminder that real heroes are few and far between and many, if not most, have feet of clay.

The two words, made into one word for marketing purposes, have meaning in more ways than one: Livestrong.

Even though its roots are now suspect, it's still not a bad motto for life.

Scamming the Internet Spamming Scammer

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Overview:

Several years ago, on a rainy Saturday, boredom set in as I surfed the Internet. An email popped up that caught my eye: "Dear Sir: I need your help!" It was a request for financial assistance from a person in Africa whose father had been assassinated, whose mother had died of cancer and whose dog, Happy, had pink-eye (or whatever).

On a whim, I answered and offered help. The ensuing email back-and-forth went on for a total of 61 emails before the spammer got tired of my high-jinks and quit writing.

Over the next two years, more than 4,000 scam-type emails were received ... and the concept of a book was born. Working with my daughter Mattie Somer Smith Cummins, we now have more than 160,000 words in email dialogue with more than 200 of the Best of the Best Scamming Spammers. By the end of the year, after culling a majority of second-rate exchanges, it will be a book titled: Scamming the Internet Spamming Scammer.

Here's a snippet from the book. Exchanges with some memorable scammers will be posted here in the future. (To whet your appetite further, one day's mail brought a FedEx package from a scammer in Canada containing more than $180,000 in money orders from three businesses, including Wal-Mart, plus $30,000 in American Express  gift "cheques." My local bank said the "cheques" looked real enough to cash; the money orders were for unusually large amounts and "might not" be cashed.

Learning to love spam – the email variety, not the canned meat

       Few computer users on the planet – make that “no” computer users – have not received unsolicited emails offering everything from quick stock tips, how to “Meet Singles in Your Area,” credit card applications, a promise of a free laptop, free vacation, collection of CDs for a penny, or free car insurance quotes.

       The spam filter software phenomenon is a multi-million-dollar industry and, for the most part, the software is well worth the money. But those that spam, that make their living from blast emailing millions of mail offers too good to pass up per year, routinely find a way to get around virtually any spam filter. That is accomplished by inventive subject lines that intentionally circumvent the litany of words that trigger spam filters: Rich, deal, fortune, stock, quick . . . and myriad others.

       It’s inconceivable that a large number of computer users would invite spammers to infest a personal computer. Those that do are either extremely lonely, desire to get mail – any type of mail – fall into the category of cyperspace masochists, or are simply interested in the verbal foreplay. Many computer users get dragged into Spammer Hell unwittingly. It’s relatively simple to do: Fill out an online questionnaire for something as innocuous as trying to win a free computer, DVD player, or free dinners or movie tickets and a deluge of offers – real and surreal – will pop up with the frequency of woodland mushrooms after a spring shower.

       A half-completed, simple questionnaire from a reputedly on-the-level research firm about personal preferences in regard to reading material, soft drink, music preference, and other common discussion-of-life topics resulted in hundreds of spam emails flooding a single Google gmail address.

       The first week after the spam “hook” was dropped into the email ocean, 121 spammers dropped off invitations: Try a new cookbook, get a new credit card with “no interest” for a year; try out an online encyclopedia service; sign up for hot stock tips; “win” a free plasma TV; and a link to a soft porn site based on the Scooby-Do character. (Scooby-Do, not Shaggy.)

       By Week 6, more than 2,100 spam emails had made their way to the in-basket. Of that number, 427 were answer-this-because-I-want-your-money scams. Five months after the initial spam message, more than 20 spam emails were still coming in daily.

       It is no secret to law enforcement and bank officials, or dispirited victims who buy into scams, that sales tools of the scammers include a variety of “hooks,” with greed being the largest and most weighty of the instruments of your destruction. There are few people on the planet that would not jump at the prospect for large sums of money for relatively little effort. Look at the everyday examples: Those who religiously play the lottery; gamblers of all levels and degree of professionalism; televangelists; and, many professional athletes.

       What turns a scammer on? The thrill of the hunt and the imagined reward. Scammers look for “high signs,” words or phrases that trigger a response to hit the victim on a certain level of emotion. One scam message might be sent out to generate a small “courier fee” for quick, down-and-dirty transfer of cash. But if the victim lets it slip he or she is living off an “insurance settlement” trust fund, the scammer takes on a different life and the monetary target is increased exponentially.

       If you are religious and pulpit-pound your chest in your contact with them, the next email usually include phrases like “The Lord be With You” or “Praise Jesus” or “I am most happy to be communicating with another person of faith. Praise God.”

       If it is revealed the intended victim has an illness or affliction, the words of sympathy and solace pour forth like healing elixir from a computer fountain. The targeted victim will be reassured the malady – regardless of what it is –will not in any way deter their participation in the too-good-to-believe proposition. Information about a deceased loved one from a victim brings forth words of support.

       Often the scammer will one-up the victim, relating horrible tales of personal tragedy and woe. That holds true unless the original letter contained a story about a murdered relative, or one who died in a plane crash, assassination, or is lying in a “cancerous condition” on the brink of death. In that case, the intended victim will be reminded – again and again – about the situation, striving for maximum sympathy, digging the emotion-filled hook in ever deeper.

      Some scammers, when all else fails, make the ultimate sacrifice. They actually “die” during the email correspondence to add a nice grief garnish to the pitch. It’s not unusual for the scammer to claim to be fading fast, but still valiantly trying to leave his or her money to a deserving and good person – you – before Death rides in, cloak flowing in his wake, scythe swinging.

      Relying as most scammers do on a prepared script for the initial contact, any deviation from the patented spiel the connivers expect to hear in return can cause immediate cessation of email contact and dismissal of the victim. Goodbye. And on to the next mark. Or, the confusion caused by a non-expected answer can trigger curiosity, and the scammers themselves become the scammed.

                  If a foreign-based scammer runs head-long into a word or phrase they

       don’t know, they take the action of the intelligent ignorant: They ignore it. A

      good example is the acronym sometimes stuck in emails: ESAD! Only one

      scammer every asked what it meant: Eat Sh** and Die!                                                      

      Some working the con will go to great lengths in an attempt to salvage a seemingly lost victim that fulfills certain expected and sought-after qualities in an Internet scam victim: Sincerity, gullibility, cultivated naiveté, a rare wanna-help attitude, and, most importantly, ready cash. One con ended abruptly, then was resurrected two months later like nothing had happened.

      There is a core of scam pitches that carry, more or less, the same central themes. While the location, product or computered hook may vary slightly, for the most part, all have the same objective . . . get money, get it fast, and disappear into the dark Internet forest.

Stupid is as stupid does

I was thinking this morning about the dumbest thing I ever heard of in my life.

Hmmmm.

There was the time a politician gave me an ad for a newspaper at which I was publisher; I perused it, saw some glaring misconceptions and false statements and refused to run it. 

An hour later, he returned with his lawyer and both men insisted I had to run the ad: “Freedom of the press!” I said, “Follow me,” and led them to the newspaper press room. “See that press,” I said, with a smile on my face, “Go buy you one of them sumbitches and you have freedom of the press.”

Then there was the time three women from NOW (National Organization of Women) came into the newspaper and demanded an apology for a column I had written about a certain political situation. Obviously, I was lost. A nice lady showed me the column and I had written, “There is more pork in Washington-on-the-Deficit than a fat sow at slaughter time.”

I didn’t understand their concern and said so. “Sow. You used the term ‘sow.’ Why did you have to say ‘sow.’ Why didn’t you say ‘boar’?”

After I picked my jaw up off the floor, I said: “I grew up in rural South Arkansas. At slaughter time, the biggest pig on the place was a sow. Now, if you don’t mind, and even if you do, get out of my office and don’t come back until you have a real issue to discuss.”

Oh, another time a woman came into the newspaper griping about how the paper messed up her husband’s obituary. (Actually, the funeral home messed up the information but passing the buck at a time when someone is grieving and mad is not the correct business-to-customer approach.)

After assuring her we would reprint the obituary and make all requested corrections, she got madder. “You and all your people are incompetent. I want the editor and anyone who touched my husband's obituary fired. FIRED!”

Then she started cussing and knocking stuff off my desk. I called in my circulation manager as a witness and told the lady to please leave my office. “Ma’m, it’s obvious we can not correct this wrong and I’m sorry. But you have stepped over the line. If you are a subscriber of this newspaper, I an canceling your subscription and will return your money in full. And, as of this minute, I am instructing my circulation department to fix all of our vending machines so it will not accept your money.”

After the lady left, the circulation manager looked at me askance and said, “Fix the machines so it won’t accept HER money?”

“Well, I was mad and it sounded good at the time.”

Sounded good at the time.

Somewhere in the bowels of the National Rifle Association (NRA), someone in some cubicle at some point in time came up with the idea of making available to the public a “shooting” game that let folks blast away at targets with an AK-47 at … coffins, with “kill” shots marked at the head and middle of each coffin.

This idea sprang full blown from the NRA brain trust and the "game" was made available to the public exactly one month after the Sandy Hook massacre in which 26 people, including 20 children, died.

Callous. Unthinking. Uncaring. Arrogant. In-your-face stupidity.

Pick one. Pick them all.

The NRA played this card and it will prove to be the worse decision in the history of the organization.

GOP rasslin' with its image

Congress is like a Tier B rassin’ match in a small high school gym in Minot, ND:  Fuss and feathers, bluster and boisterous boasts, bad acting and a predictable outcome.

The main difference is that after the public displays of disaffection, the participants do not go to Flo’s Eat and Drink for chicken fried steak and a couple of beers.

Members of Congress, circa 2013, are part and parcel of one of the most dysfunctional governing bodies in the history of this nation. While opposing party members have not yet resorted to beating on another with canes and fireplace tongs, with few exceptions they don’t try and work together to solve problems, content to play the age-old game of Partisan Politics with a vengeance.

The rise and fall of political parties – from the Federalists to the Whigs to the Bull Moose Party and including regional parties like the Blue Enigma Party, Taxes are Too Damn High Party and Vegetarian Party – is determined by the long-term relevance of individual party platforms and the competency its leaders bring to the national (or regional) debate.

Today, like it or not, accept it to not, the Republican Party is rendering itself irrelevant on the national front by refusing to accept the reality that the party’s influence is diminishing in direct proportion to the changing demographics of the nation.

The problem and solution can be simply stated: The nation’s voter base is changing; that dynamic change creates opportunities in which compromise is not only preferable, but necessary. The only other pathway is extinction.

That is not an overtly overstated scenario. Before the campaign of 2012 started, there was absolutely no way that Barack Obama could be re-elected: Economy, foreign policy, a distanced administration, unemployment … all pointed to a clear chance for the Republican Party to win back the White House.

What happened? The perfect storm of events that spelled doom for the party:

1) A slate of candidates as weak and clueless as any every offered up by any party, ever;

2) Monied interests buying preferred platform planks from favored candidates;

3) Candidates bowing and scraping to the ultra-right-wing segment of the party;

4) All candidates, by actions and words, putting party before the needs of the country;

5) Fighting for “issues” that a majority of voters were not interested in … at all.

What’s changed since the election? Nothing, except the loud voices of party heirs blasting their own party as they start the race to vie for party leadership; Bobby Jidal of Louisiana and Chris Christie of New Jersey have uttered words of wisdom and hope not heard from the Republican camp in years.

What can GOPers do to change the cycle, to become relevant again? Apparently the hatred the current party leaders have for the president trumps any chance for bipartisan compromise.

To change its chances to remain an active participant in government, the GOP must change, and quickly.

But, will the party accept that change is inevitable. Recent history would point to “no way.” That is a sorry state of affairs for the Republicans. And a sorrier state of affairs for America.

American needs a two-party (or more) system in order to give clear choices to voters. It is, after all, the American way.

Typecasting ... and the woman who knew me best

Ms. Margie Grant was an enigma and an anathema to generations of students at Avery High School in Northeast Texas. Her college-level lesson plans and the in-class chores and homework assignments elicited more cuss words from many students than a practical joke from a friend involving Ben-Gay and a jock strap.

It was only after high school, when college English classes seemed startlingly simple that ex-students elevated her to Education Goddess status.

With a uncommon combination of common sense, dedication to her chosen field, and education, she could have taught at any college in Texas, but marriage to a man with a business in the community of English (yes, English), kept her tied to teaching English to less than 100 students a day in ninth to twelfth grades.

Despite her marital status, she was singularly known as Mizgrant . . . a single word that spoke volumes about the woman.

In Mizgrant’s classes you learned English whether or not you were so inclined.  She demanded obedience in learning all things English (the subject matter, not the town). Grammar was her passion, as was diagramming sentences, punctuation, and literature of all ilks. While other school-age ruralites in Annona, Detroit, Powderly, and Dimple were reading one step above “The Little Engine that Could,” Mizgrant’s students were plowing through Twain’s “A Tramp Abroad” or Osa Johnson's "I Married Adventure."

It was not unusual for a Mizgrant class to spend time on Monday going over the word picture intricacies in Sinclair’s “The Jungle,” switch to a discussion of “The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn” on Tuesday and then spend the last three days of the week on the stacked-high examples of symbolism in “Lord of the Flies” or the fiction-can-become-reality aspects of “Animal Farm.”

In addition to teaching freshman-to-senior English classes, she also directed any activities associated with word arts in the state’s Interscholastic League competition, i.e., one-act play, debate, extemporaneous speech, and poetry reading. Her one-act play direction never failed to win the district competition, but, honestly, the other actors didn’t stand a chance. A rendition of “Aaron Slick from Punkin Creek” by competing schools paled in comparison to Shakespeare’s “Midsummer Night’s Dream” or “The Devil and Daniel Webster.”

She didn’t just direct the action and dialogue of the selected pieces like any normal drama teachger; we learned the history of the play, why it was written, why she had selected it, and what life-lessons we could learn from being a part of the production.

For “The Devil and Daniel Webster, she told us it was originally a short story by Stephen Vincent Benet.

Fine. Good. Let’s get to this acting business, shall we?

That wasn’t enough for Mizgrant. The play was the retelling of a classic German tale, on which the the short story “The Devil and Tom Walker” by Washington Irving was based.

Okay, we got it and we’re officially bored to the point of contemplating suicide.

The casting of the play, Mizgrant told the assembled would-be thespians, was strict typecasting: She smiled as she announced I was to play the devil.

I didn’t look much like a devil in the eleventh grade; to obtain that look took years of hard work and an ex-wife who sucked the blood clean out of me.

“I don’t look like the devil,” I whined to Mizgrant.

“You’ll do fine,” she assured me. “The part is all about attitude and demeanor; you have the attitude down already and you can be demeaner than anyone in school.”

Oh, yeah, forgot. She was fond of springing really awful puns without warning.

After six weeks of rehearsals – in which I had to learn how to hit a couple of notes on a borrowed fiddle -- and with a new, shiny black suit, a red vest, hair longer than the usual flattop with fenders, which I slicked back with Butch Wax, plus hours spent trying to figure out how to loosen my vocal chords to lower my voice -- Mizgrant transformed me into not just “a” devil, but “the” devil.

            It did not escape my attention – nor that of my parents – that in three successive years I had been chosen to play the part of Bottom in “Midsummer Night’s Dream,” (a character who flits between the human world and a fantasyland of the fairy underworld); Petruchio in “Taming of the Shrew” (a fortune-hunting scoundrel who is a bit of an idiot), and the devil.

            No doubt about it: Typecasting.

            After winning the district’s best actor award three years in a row, I elected not to be in Mizgrant’s play my senior year. Rather, she elected me not to be in it. The tryouts were held and I was given the lead. However, the part – don't remember what it was or the name of the play – called for the character to have long hair. Deal breaker, that. My flattop with perfect fenders hairdo was a masterpiece and long hair was not in my immediate plans.

            “She won’t cut me. Not me. Not after I handed that woman three best actor awards and my performances won three straight district titles. No way. No how.”

Way. How.

When I showed up for practice the following Monday – with a flattop and fenders greased back to perfection – she announced that another boy had assumed the lead role.

“You cut me?” I asked in astonishment.

“Not literally, figuratively,” she said, smiling.

I hate it when she talks like that. Next thing you know, she’ll have me diagramming that damn sentence!

Great leaders leave great messages

In his farewell address as the nation’s first president, George Washington warned against the evils of partisan spirit in government.

More than 200 years later, his fear and the evils he warned against are real and threatening the very fiber of this country. The state of partisanship in Washington-on-the-Deficit is a national embarrassment and is shared by both parties and their collective wing-groups.

The clamor in the media by those who hold their labels like shields of righteousness – from Rush “Say Whatever It Takes To Keep the Vitriol Flowing” Limbaugh to Rachel “Madcow” Maddow, from Al “No One Will Out-Liberal Me” Sharpton to Bill “Trust Me! This is All True” O’Reilly – should give every voter with common sense what three generations ago was called “biliousness.”

These folks should not be considered voices for reason and progress: They are entertainers who push buttons to … dare I say it? … make money. That is, and will be, their reason for being.

It is a clarion cry from the conservatives in general that the “liberal media” is setting the national political agenda and pushes Democratic ideas and ideals. Yet, not one word about how the Top 5 political commentators on television are of the conservative bent.

Are they talking about newspapers? Probably, yes. But every single major daily in the United States has a variety of columnists who take both sides of an issue and dissect it in harsh conservative and liberal slices.

What then is the problem?

In a phrase: Special interests. Politicians – practically ALL politicians from local to national  – are bought and sold on every major issue. If an elected official claims otherwise … mouth moving … you know.

The reality of politics is that it takes money to get elected and a vast majority of politicians or would-be politicians solicit donations from citizens. There are many folks who donate to political campaigns because they believe in or associate with the ideals of a particular candidate.

Most money, though, comes from deep-pocketed special interests who want something back for their contribution. Give-and-take: It’s a simple byproduct of the political system.

In the national political arena, there are a few (a very, very few) politicians from both parties who really want change and worked hard to achieve it. They were buried by their colleagues, who crave power and one-upmanship status above all else.

Both parties are at fault; there are no winners in the present political climate.

But each party has a duty to be true to their core beliefs. It is a fact of political life today that the Democrats have the upper hand in the national voter base due to the diversity of the population and the party catering to that base. In that regard, and finding middle ground on issues that matter to a majority of voters, the GOP has not a clue. Hardcore Republicans seem hell-bent on aiding and abetting the party's slide into irrelevancy.

Despite the recent election in which Republicans proved beyond a reasonable doubt they didn’t have a clue about how to win THAT election, nothing seems to have changed. Party leaders are still taking a hard line on certain issues that a majority of Americans oppose. Standing up on principle is an admirable trait; in certain situations, refusing to compromise simply rings the death bell louder.

To make matters worse, I heard a Republican congressmen say the other day that he was “an Old Guard Republican,” but then went on a harangue about immigration, the importance of military might with little restraint, protecting the wealthy, abortion, etc.

All I could do was shake my head and reflect back on what one centrist Republican, former Sen. Mark Hatfield from Oregon, said upon his retirement in 1996: “I’m an Old Guard Republican. The founders of our party were for small business, education, cutting the military budget. That was our platform in 1856 and I think it’s still a darned good one.”

Meanwhile, the rancor grows louder.

Nothing changes ... whose fault is it?

A long-time friend and colleague recently wrote me about politics in general and the state of politics today.

After a lot of back and forth via email, we agreed to disagree on a whole bunch of issues. He's an O'Reilly and Hannity guy and I tend to watch Morning Joe on MSNBC in order to get, to some degree, both sides of an issue. 

We have been friends since the mid-'70s, and neither of us are going to go out of our way to jeopardize that friendship, but we also are not in the mindset to back down from a good discussion.

So, we agree to disagree without being disagreeable. I am an Independent in my political bent; I vote for the person, not the party. Every member of my family thinks I am a liberal, but, honestly, I voted for the Lesser Bush ... once. In the '70s, I confess to being a screaming liberal. i was pro-abortion, hated the Vietnam War, dismissed the idea of capital punishment and wanted to fund every help-you program on the planet. Now, believe in capital punishment with a fervor for heinous crimes. I still don't see the purpose of the Vietnam War. I still like help-those-that-can't-help-themselves programs but also want a balanced federal budget; eliminating government waste and duplication alone could balance the budget. I believe in individual rights but don't believe that old, white men have any business telling women what they can and cannot do with their bodies. 

I have really studied the Constitution over the past several years ... and while a great document, it is, like the Bible, open to interpretation. Few absolutes rest in that venerable document. And, as always, that's the rub. You say "toMAHto" and I say "toMAYto."

I, like the conservatives in this country, am cynical about government. But, lamenting about what it has become does no good. Change, real change, must be affected before our public serpents (no, that is not misspelled) perform their duties for the benefit of the people and not to their personal collection of false gods, i.e., lobbyists and monied special interest groups.

What to do? Without term limits the "ins" will perpetually keep doing whatever they have to do to stay "in." Without limiting or abolishing the amount of stupid pork barrel projects -- delivering "bacon" back home to ensure re-election -- nothing is going to change.

We can all blame the President for all ills, but that office, regardless of who holds its, is just one corner of the four-pronged problem: President, Congress, courts ... and me and you. It's not "them" that are screwed up -- though, of course, they are -- it is US for allowing THEM to maintain the status quo.

I am reading Jon Meacham's book about Jefferson, "The Art of Power." The same type of political shenanigans happening in Washington today were happening in the federal government back in his day. 

Nothing changes, does it?

Wizard of Oz

The current political situation in this country -- including the Democrat and Republican parties -- is a remake of The Wizard of Oz.

Dorothy: Good heart, but lost, doesn't have a clue and can't figure out how to get back in touch with  her roots.
Tin Man: Cold, squeaky and doesn't have a heart. Wants to do right on some level, but hasn't a clue.
Scarecrow: Dances around issues but no brains for tackling the big issues, thus doesn't have a clue.
Cowardly Lion: Backs down at every opportunity due to a lack of substance and courage to do what's right. Also, doesn't have a clue.
Wizard: Works behind the scenes to manipulate every other character, a master manipulator interested in only his own agenda.
Glenda the Good Witch: Any politician not working on the national stage that still has a hint of the common sense and fortitude and determination that made this nation great.
Wicked Witch: Lobbyists and special interest with money to burn. All of them.

You can assign any member of any party to the characters, but the facts don't change: The federal government is broken and both parties are at fault. Squabbles break out on the most menial of proposals, i.e., presidential cabinet appointees, because of ideological differences; compromise has become a four-letter word and base labels -- conservation/liberal/tea party -- push all agendas regardless of degree of need or public opinion.

The national debt is an abomination and both parties are to blame. Spending more than you take in is a problem of government in general and has been for decades (with a few positive exceptions) not just of this administration. Everything wrong with this government is not Obama's fault ... or the fault of Republicans; it is a co-joined responsibility and regardless of what pollsters say or leaders affirm loudly, the public knows that. The problem is two-fold: Them for acting like they do and us because we keep electing them.

Nothing in Washington is going to change unless the people move to change it. The Tea Party is not the answer, nor is any third-party uprising that hinges its success on a singular, loud-speaker issue.
The problem is more serious than that.

The problems we face today are not about just Democrats vs. Republicans. It's about a lack of common sense, civility, understanding of this country's demographic shift and how to run government like a business. The solutions are simple (yet so complex in the minds of elected officials) that inertia bogs down any positive movement: Term limits, curtailing influence of lobbyists, balanced budget amendment, simplifying the tax code and eliminating loopholes not available to all, demolishing the division of the wage-earner classes in regard to taxes, health care, foreign aid packages, protecting those in our society that can not take care of themselves ... and the list goes on.

The existing parties spend too much time building walls for defense and setting up offensive strategy on how to make the opposing party look bad than they do figuring out how to drive the American economy and do what's right for its people on every important front.

We deserve better but we can only ensure we get it by ousting status quo candidates and electing folks that truly understand what is needed for this country to remain great: Diversity, compassion and attention to details in the budget and in policies.

Now's the time for change. If not now ... when?

Not fit for Facebook

For the past...well, long time, I've neglected this blog. It's really a good place for rants, some of which I have been putting on Facebook. But, my daughter Mattie told me that rants are too long for Facebook and just stir people up.

She wants me to be a good Facebooker and tell Facebooky-type things, like, you know, when you take a break to go to the bathroom and what restaurant you are visiting and how much you enjoyed seeing the newest episode of Gator Boys or Swamp People. Important life stuff.

Okay, but still have to have a place to rant...and that's worldaccordingtogeorgesmith.blogspot.com.

I feel a rant coming on!