Category Archives: Current Events

The True Measure Of A Great Man.

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Few people achieve great things in their chosen professions. Fewer still are capable of teaching others how to achieve those things. And it’s a rare individual who can teach others how to face difficulty, even death, with courage and grace.

Mike Hughes has done all of these things.

Mike is President and former Chief Creative Officer of one of the world’s great advertising agencies, the Martin Agency of Richmond, Virginia. I’ve really only had the privilege of meeting Mike once or twice, sharing stories over a couple of drinks. Nevertheless, I feel I know him well. You see, I’ve followed his work for decades. In the ad business, creative brilliance and integrity shine through the clutter of sameness like a dazzling beacon on the darkest night.

Now Mike is facing mortality with the same gentle good humor and thoughtfulness that he has so often imparted into his advertising. You can read his insights at unfinishedthinking.com. His doctors have told Mike that his illness is terminal. I know their diagnosis is correct…as mere humans, our death is certain. I just hope Mike’s doctors have the expiration date wrong.

There are far too few men on this Earth with Mike’s ability to make us see things clearly…be it the benefits of owning a product, using a service or dealing with the realities of life and death.

Long live Mike Hughes.

The Nation’s Toughest Sheriff?

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In my opinion, it would be more accurate to call Joe Arpaio the nation’s most corrupt sheriff.

I’m not saying Joe’s not tough. He’s plenty tough on Latinos, other minorities and anyone who dares to question his actions.

For example, Arpaio has repeatedly conducted “crime” sweeps in Latino neighborhoods, hoping to latch onto an undocumented immigrant. But don’t call this obvious harassment racial profiling. Joe simply won’t stand for that characterization of his law enforcement techniques! According to Joe, there are plenty of Latinos he hasn’t arrested…yet.

But Joe’s toughness extends beyond his surly demeanor and questionable arrests. He’s been particularly tough on the finances of Maricopa County taxpayers. His actions have cost taxpayers tens of millions of dollars in court settlements and legal fees. He has also misspent millions of county funds.

Arpaio even tried to arrest county officials on trumped-up charges when they refused to cooperate with him. I’m not yet certain what those actions are going to cost taxpayers.

Of course, Joe is most famous for Tent City, the prison in the desert with no heating or air conditioning. At this canvas hell hole, inmates are forced to eat the same helping of green baloney meal after meal, day after day. Arpaio is responsible for creating an atmosphere in which prisoners have been neglected, beaten and allowed to die while in custody. But the national media never report those stories. Instead, they play footage of the tough talkin’ sheriff with his infamous posse that includes washed-up action star, Steven Seagal.

Most recently, Arpaio’s department was accused of ignoring hundreds of sex crimes, prompting an internal investigation which eventually supported the allegations. Yet no one was disciplined. And although the investigation was completed in late 2011, the results were not released until 2013.

Why the delay?

Well, Joe was facing re-election in 2012. Even with millions in Tea Party contributions from across the country and his bat-crap crazy supporters, it would have been difficult for Arpaio to beat the truth, the accompanying bad publicity and a highly qualified opponent in a close election.

Is The Tea Party A Political Party? Or Not?

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Following President Obama’s State of the Union address, there were two rebuttals: One from Republicans and one from the Tea Party. This begs the question: What is the Tea Party? Is it a real political party competing with Democrats and Republicans? Or is it just a more angry, more mean-spirited faction of political Neanderthals within the Republican Party?

If it’s the former, it should operate like the Democratic Party, the Republican Party, the Green Party, the Libertarian Party, the Socialist Party, etc. That means raising money and generating enough votes to be placed on the ballot.

If it’s the latter, it should drop the word “Party” from its name and continue to operate within the Republican Party as a caucus in the same way progressives and African-Americans operate within the Democratic Party. Moreover, the media should treat it as such. No more free air time on cable networks in order to promote its backward agenda as a rebuttal to the State of the Union address.

Or, if the Teabaggers continue to demand special treatment, the Progressives, Socialists and other factions should be afforded the same amount of time to push their agendas.  

The American people have a right to know the status of this caucus or faction or club or group or militia or party or whatever the hell it is. It’s time for an end to its Fox News-fueled free ride.

A Heartless Dick Who Won’t Go Away.

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On the day of President Obama’s State of the Union address, Richard “The Dick” Cheney crawled out of his hidey hole to show off his new black heart.  He used the opportunity to criticize the president’s choices for Secretary of Defense and CIA Director as “second rate.”

Even if The Dick were to be believed, no one would be more familiar with second-rate leaders than Cheney.

At the risk of being whisked away to another country to be tortured by The Dick’s extraordinary rendition crew, I’ll remind you that Cheney was a supporter of Condoleeza Rice, the former National Security Adviser who ignored numerous warnings of a possible attack on US soil using hijacked airplanes.

Cheney supported the elevation of Rice to Secretary of Sate.  He supported other incompetents such as Donald Rumsfeld and I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby. Cheney ordered the outing of CIA agent Valerie Plame, thereby endangering the life of Plame, her husband and everyone associated with her. Even worse, Cheney orchestrated the charge to invade Iraq by claiming Saddam Hussein not only had built a nuclear arsenal, but collaborated with al Qaeda prior to the attacks of 9/11.

The Dick’s actions led to the deaths of approximately 5,000 US soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan along with civilian casualties so numerous that no one has been able to accurately count them.

If that’s what The Dick considers first-rate foreign policy leadership, I’ll take second-rate leaders any day.

NRA Hypocrisy On Gun Laws.

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Since the massacre of children at Sandy Hook Elementary School, National Rifle Association leaders have spoken out against any form of gun control. Instead, they call for “enforcing the more than 20,000 gun laws already on the books.”

That’s interesting because the NRA and its Teapublican pawns in Congress have placed an increasing number of roadblocks in the way of those charged with enforcing the laws. They have continually discouraged mayors and city police from enforcing gun laws, saying that enforcement should be left to the Department of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF).

Yet Teapublican senators in the pockets of the NRA have refused to confirm the appointment of an ATF director since 2006. They have not confirmed appointments by either President Obama or former President Bush for fear that those appointments will be too aggressive in enforcing laws. As a result, the current Acting Director B. Todd Jones must commute to Washington from his post as US Attorney in Minnesota.

That’s right, Jones is splitting time between two full-time jobs!

Moreover, as the result of budget constraints, the ATF has not added to its staff of 2,500 agents…the number it had when it became a separate bureau in 1972. These 2,500 agents are charged with policing the more than 100,000 licensed gun dealers in the US in addition to enforcing alcohol and tobacco laws. If that isn’t daunting enough, thanks to Teapublicans, the ATF is forbidden by law to inspect a dealer more than once per year. Of course, that’s hardly an issue, since the bureau doesn’t have enough staff to inspect each dealer more than once every 17 years!

In addition, an NRA-written amendment sponsored by a Teapublican Congressman and inserted into a Congressional spending bill banned the ATF from requiring gun dealers to track their own inventory. The amendment also gave dealers the power to ignore police requests for assistance in tracking guns. It ended the oversight of used gun sales. It required the destruction of background check records within 24 hours of the purchase in order to protect the privacy of gun owners. It also banned the ATF from creating a national registry of gun transactions or even publishing statistics on crimes committed with guns!

Further, NRA bills passed by Teapublican-controlled state legislatures have so liberalized gun laws that it is virtually impossible for law enforcement to prosecute “straw buyers” who purchase guns on behalf of drug cartels, gangs and other criminals. That is what led to the frustration of ATF agents who resorted to the tactics at the heart of the Fast and Furious operation.

Police and the ATF know that one percent of the nation’s gun dealers sell the weapons involved in 57 percent of crimes. Yet they are powerless to do anything about it as the result of NRA-endorsed Teapublican obstruction. Remember that the next time there’s a mass shooting.

More important, remember that the next time you vote!

Vatican Exposed!

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John Dalberg-Acton, a British Catholic historian, politician and writer, once wrote of the Vatican and the Catholic Church, “Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.”

No statement could better describe the Vatican’s actions (or should I say inactions?) which were exposed like a priest caught with his pants down in Alex Gibney’s documentary Mea Maxima Culpa: Silence in the House of God.  As you will see, the description of the Church as the House of God is most certainly in question. Did God teach priests to be sexual predators? Did God tell the bishops, archbishops, cardinals and Pope to cover up pedophilia?

Gibney’s film not only documents an extensive number of child abuse cases involving the clergy. It tracks the cover-up of these crimes all the way to Pope John Paul II and to the current Pope Benedict XVI. Indeed, as Cardinal Ratzinger, Pope Benedict was in charge of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith which was responsible for tracking all indiscretions such as child molestation.

According to the documentary, the “Holy See” saw all of the files documenting abuse yet did nothing to help the victims or discipline the offenders.

It’s not surprising.

Should we expect anything different from an organization that still refuses to admit that the torture and murder of thousands during the Inquisition was wrong? Or that the slaughter of Cathars and Huguenots was wrong? Should this behavior surprise us coming from an organization that enslaved indigenous populations around the globe in order to “save” them?

Should we expect more from a Church that officially accepted Mussolini’s fascist government in 1929 in exchange for being declared a separate nation? Should we expect better from a Church that helped Nazis escape prosecution by providing them with new identities and guidance from Europe following WWII?

The documentary also gave us a fascinating look at the Catholic clergy’s beliefs and behavior. For example, a former Benedictine monk and therapist conducted a 25-year study on sexuality in the clergy. He found that, at any one time, no more than 50 percent of Catholic priests were practicing celibacy.

You might say it’s hypocrisy of the highest order.

But the faithful are becoming less accepting of the clergy’s hypocrisy.  Following the exposure of massive abuse of Irish children and a Church cover-up, the percentage of Irish citizens who were practicing Catholics dropped from nearly 95 percent to just 4 percent!

Don’t misunderstand me. I believe that the institution, its clergy and its followers have also done a great deal of good. But given the Vatican’s on-going history of institutional crimes, should anyone give credence to the Vatican’s position on gay marriage? On abortion? On contraception? On the role of women in society? On politics? On anything?

I think not.

It’s time for the Vatican to live up to the best behavior of its followers. It’s time for the Vatican to repeal its archaic demand of celibacy for its clergy. It’s time for the Vatican to open its files, admit its crimes and beg for forgiveness.

Let’s Have A Real Debate About Drone Strikes And Torture.

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Over the past decade, our “war on terror” has led to two highly contentious policies. Extraordinary rendition (AKA torture) involving the US and 50 nations which acted in defiance of the Geneva Conventions’ ban on torture, and unmanned drone strikes (AKA assassination by remote control). These two policies were created and undertaken by the CIA and the US military without open debate.

It’s long past time for that debate to take place.

Today, Congress will have what promises to be a highly partisan circus of self-righteous statements by both parties during the confirmation hearing for the position of CIA Director. But it’s unlikely that we’ll learn anything from the hyperbolic statements of partisanship.

What we need is a series of non-partisan Congressional hearings and a public debate on both policies at the same time. After all, torture was authorized by the Bush administration and drone strikes by the Obama administration.

By addressing both policies simultaneously, we might see an honest debate without the usual posturing for the media that accompanies most Congressional hearings these days.

Admittedly, it’s unlikely that anything will actually be accomplished by such a debate other than focusing public attention on the issues. But at least voters would be informed and could make their opinions known to our elected representatives. Then, and only then, our elected officials might arrive at workable constraints that control these policies.

Better yet, they might prohibit the policies entirely. There simply must be better methods of pursuing terrorists and stopping them before they strike.

Torture and assassinations without due process have no place in modern society.

We Not Only Have A Gun Problem. We Have An Anger Problem.

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Sometime in the mid-1980s, I heard a report on the radio of a road rage incident. I later found out that a friend had been involved. While my friend was stopped at a traffic light, another driver inexplicably attacked him. My friend got out of the car, picked him up, and deposited the attacker in the ditch.

Although it was the first road rage incident I heard reported on the news. It certainly wasn’t the last. Today road rage incidents are common events. And, unlike the one involving my friend, they often involve guns. (It seems there’s a road rage killing weekly in the Phoenix area.)

I believe such incidents are a glaring measure of the anger index in our nation. Likely caused by underlying anger and triggered by stress, it seems many of our citizens are one incident away from going “postal.” (For those of you who are too young to remember, the term originated following a number of workplace shootings in Post Offices around the country.)

Today, much of our anger is politically based. Following the housing crash, those affected were angry at the government for allowing it to happen. Worse yet, they were furious that the federal government bailed out the banks responsible. When a black president then bailed out the auto industry as I believe was necessary, old white men went ballistic. Egged on by Republican strategists who wanted to block any initiatives by President Obama, they created the Tea Party.

Their anger and the anger of those who oppose them has grown ever since.

As the Tea Party types have decried every step of the Obama administration, many have stockpiled food, guns and ammunition preparing for what they consider the inevitable battle against a tyrannical government.

Of course, much of the violence is the result of gang-on-gang turf disputes and the illegal drug industry. But since the Me Party, Fox News Channel, Rush Limbaugh and his equally venomous wannabes have ratcheted up their angry rhetoric, they must take responsibility for creating a rage that’s ready to explode at the slightest provocation.

Guns make that anger even more dangerous. And the most lethal kinds of military-style weapons allow the violence to create more victims.

The only real solution is for everyone to chill out. For the Mean Party to tone down its rhetoric. For the media to stop reporting manufactured controversies and to end the “if it bleeds, it leads” style of journalism. And for the government to treat us all like tantrum-throwing kids by taking away our most dangerous toys.

America’s Gun Culture.

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At halftime of an NFL game, Bob Costas incurred the wrath of gun nuts by raising the issue of this nation’s out of control gun culture. His comments followed a tragic murder/suicide committed by an NFL player. And he recently expanded on those comments during a guest appearance on The Daily Show.

Although Costas was much more eloquent in addressing the issue than I am, I will try my best to summarize it here.

Unlike those who blame gun violence on the availability of specific types of firearms, on the lack of gun registration, on mental illness, on movies and on video games, Costas points to a culture that glorifies guns; a culture of paranoia that causes ordinary citizens to carry guns; a culture that too quickly resorts to gunfire in order to settle disputes.

So how did we get here? How did we get from Mayberry RFD to Newtown?

Our gun culture is even older than our nation. We stole the land from Native Americans with the gun. We won our independence with guns. We conquered the continent with guns. And we’ve used guns to impose our will on the rest of the world.

Of course, our gun culture has evolved. In years past, every farmer and rancher had guns. But they were merely tools for hunting or for shooting predators that preyed on their livestock. Men…especially those who returned from World War II and Korea…viewed guns as tools only for hunting. They never considered using them to shoot another American.

Since movies tend to chronicle our culture, it’s easy to see how the role of guns has changed. In old-time movies the guns were primarily six-shooters, heroes were slow to anger and they only shot in self-defense. More important, the early movie and television plots used violence to teach lessons in ethics and morality. There was no gratuitous violence merely to whet the reptilian appetites of rebellious boys and frustrated, angry men.

But the movies of recent years feature ever larger and more lethal weapons. Violent scenes have become more bloody and more senseless. Our most popular video games focus on warfare and crime. Decades of war in which soldiers have been ordered to shoot first and ask questions later have impacted our psyche. So have poverty and social injustice.

Hip-hop music screams of violence and anger. Angry old white men carry firearms to fulfill their self-image of modern-day cowboy, Rambo or Dirty Harry. “Preppers” egged on by right wing radio hosts and politicians stockpile large caches of weapons and ammo so they’ll be ready to fight our government or their neighbors following what they consider an inevitable government coup or natural disaster.

Even churches foment paranoia by quoting the Book of Revelations and warning members of the “end times.” 

If we’re serious about ending mass shootings and reducing gun violence, we must accept that it won’t happen overnight. Gun registration, limits on ammunition clips and bans of military-style weapons will help. But these measures are only a start. Real change will only come from changing our entire culture.

No Such Thing As Partial Equality.

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Although I’m not excited at the prospects of young women being involved in combat (I’m actually not fond of anyone being involved in combat), I applaud the decision. It means that our government is finally addressing inequality.

We have a long way to go. There’s still discrimination with regard to women’s salaries, GLBT rights, economic inequality for racial minorities, even inequality with regard to religion.

Many women are paid less for doing the same job as a man. Our laws still do not recognize gay and lesbian marriage. After centuries of slavery and discrimination, racial minorities often begin their lives with fewer opportunities for a good education, economic advancement and personal security. Religions try to impose their beliefs on our laws and individual behavior. And those who do not participate in organized religion are forced to subsidize those who do through tax exemptions for church property.

It has taken far too long for our nation to achieve true equality. It took nearly a century to end slavery. It took far longer to grant suffrage to women. It took longer still to end Jim Crow laws. And after more than 200 years, it would seem that many Americans do not yet understand the meaning of Democracy; of equality and of freedom with responsibility.

If, one day, all American citizens are to be equal, we must recognize the inequalities that still exist. And we must do everything in our collective power to address inequality whenever and wherever we encounter it. Equality is, after all, absolute. Our citizens are either equal in every regard. Or they’re not. There is no middle ground.