Into the Wild

Well, maybe Obama will have an easier time of it in November after all. “Today, John McCain put the former mayor of a town of 9,000 with zero foreign policy experience a heartbeat away from the presidency,” said Bill Burton, an Obama campaign spokesperson. Appointing a soccer mom to the number 2 spot sort of undercuts McSame’s claim that the most significant challenge facing America is the risk of international terrorism. Alaska has what, 670,053 people living in it? That's less people than live in Brooklyn. McCain took his strongest argument against Barak Obama's candidacy and just neutralized it by appointing someone with less experience in government than a New York City councilman.

So who is this woman? All the Patriot can say for sure is that she's anti-choice, an oil company handmaiden, and a creationist whack-job. Plus, this so-called "maverick" is under investigation for trying to have a state official fire her ex-brother-in-law from his job as a state trooper. (The brother-in-law was in the middle of a custody dispute with Palin's sister.) When the Public Safety Commissioner refused, Palin fired him too. Abuse of power and executive entitlement? Hmm, where else have I seen that in the last 8 years?

Governer Palin would probably be on my short list of people I’d want to go moose hunting with, but her lack of foreign policy credentials render her unqualified to take the position of Vice President. If Gramps McCain thinks this maverick choice will be a plus for the ticket I think he has made a serious miscalculation. Denali is not just a mountain in Alaska. (The picture is Governer Palin's head shot from when she was the winner of the Miss Wasilla beauty pageant winner in 1984. She was also a one time Miss Alaska beauty pageant runner-up, journalism major, brief sports beat writer, and former city council member turned mayor of a the megaopolis that is Wasilla Alaska. If that resume doesn't scream "Vice Presidential Material, " I don't know what does).

Mile-High Milquetoast Meeting

Ok, it’s over. The Democrats have had their historic convention, stage managed and scripted in a way that would make Joseph Goebbels proud. Another middle of the road Republican-lite candidate has been nominated by the party hacks and set loose in the ether. For anyone who is anticipating any sort of actual change in the way America comports itself, I submit the following for your review:

1. Influence peddling. There were more lobbyists in Denver throwing parties for Democratic lawmakers than are scheduled to be in Minnesota for the Republicans next week. I’d hazard a guess that these firms are not dispensing peeky-toed crab on toast points and Grey Goose martinis because of some new-found respect for the Democratic Party platform. The corporations sponsoring these lavish events have legislation pending before Congress and they know the Democrats stand to make substantial gains in November. Politics as usual.

2. An amazing failure to discuss of issues that are actually important. Glen Greenwald had a great column on this yesterday in Salon. He noted that while healthcare and the price of a gallon of gas are important issues, they are strange thing to focus on when compared against “the sheer radicalism and extremism of the last eight years. During that time, our Government has systematically tortured people using sadistic techniques ordered by the White House; illegally and secretly spied on its own citizens; broken more laws than can be counted based on the twisted theory that the President has that power; asserted the authority to arrest and detain even U.S. citizens on U.S. soil and hold them for years without charges; abolished habeas corpus; created secret prisons in Eastern Europe and a black hole of lawlessness in Guantanamo; and explicitly abandoned and destroyed virtually every political value the U.S. has long claimed to embrace.” The fact that Obama and the rest of the Party stalwarts hardly mentioned any of these insane perversions of the Constitution makes me question whether they have enough moral indignation to deserve the opportunity to govern.

3. Obama’s people edited Kucinich’s speech. Remember Dennis Kucinich? He actually spoke at the convention, although his speech was conspicuously absent from news reports. Obama's team edited out a line in the Kucinich speech which went "they want four more years, what they deserve is ten to twenty". Meaning that Obama has no plans to investigate or prosecute anyone in the Bush regime. As one letter-writer on Salon put it, “That would be divisive and we all know Obama is the MUPpet (Magical Unity Pony).”

I could go on and on, and I hate to rain on the parade of good feelings produced at the Mile-High Milquetoast Meeting, but take a look at what is being said between the lines. My guess is Obama won’t change a hell of a lot of anything too important. But aren't his kids cute? Isn't his wife glamorous? Aren't they tall and slim and sophisticated? It's Camelot all over again!

Rocky Mountain Fever

The Patriot is blogging live from the Democratic convention, i.e. watching the public broadcasting coverage. I doubt I will have the stomach to watch the Republicans for more an a few minutes next week, unless McCains ex wife shows up to start some trouble.

Bill Clinton just made the greatest speech that I have heard him make since he left the White House. I am not a Clinton fan, far from it, but even I admit that his capacity for stirring oratory is unsurpassed by anyone with the exception of Barak Obama. In contrast, John Kerry has taken the stage and is making me very sleepy. I’m still not sure how he ended up as the party nominee in ’04. Nonetheless, it appears that the Dems have taken the gloves off. Kerry is fighting harder against the Republicans now than he did in the 2004 election. He did make some strange reference to Swift-boating, although he made it sound as if it happened to someone else. If I were him I would have said something along the lines of, “and those Republican rat-bastards had the nerve to question my military service while Dick Cheney and Karl Rove did everything they could to dodge the draft”. He didn’t say it in 2004 so I guess he isn’t going to say it now.

More tomorrow.

Rocky Mountain High

The Democrat’s Dog and Pony Review pulled into Denver on Sunday with their weeping and overtly emotional vignettes polished just so for prime time television. As someone who hasn’t completely lost his faith in America, I was heartened by the tribute to Ted Kennedy and thought Michelle Obama did a credible job of Stepfordizing herself for middle America, but there was something missing…Oh yes, it was any mention of the fact that if you vote for John McCain you are a fucking moron. I am hoping that Joe Biden will take off the gloves and start swinging, but his voting record, yes to the war, yes to the bankruptcy bill, gives me little hope that he has the stones to take on anything more substantial than a dry martini.

Salon led today with a story on the PUMAS (Party Unity My Ass), who have been making a racket which is wholly disproportionate to their size. Despite the fact that this group of ostensibly maligned Hilary supporters is largely comprised of Republican operatives and slightly deranged illiterates, CNN and MSNBC have been devoting large blocks of air time to covering their protests. Never mind the fact that there were anti-war demonstrations with 100 times the numbers marching two blocks away, the main stream media has decided that the story of the convention is to be of a splintered Democratic party unable to unite behind its candidate. From my informal survey of the cable outlets the Clintons have gotten more press than the nominee in the last few days and the talking heads are playing up the posturing between the Hilary and Obama teams as if discussing the negotiation of the treaty of Versailles. Lost in all of this superficiality is any discussion of the poor, the disappearing middle-class, the economic meltdown, the housing crisis, the energy crisis, the failure of financial institutions and the war in Iraq. But really, do the Democrats really want to talk about that stuff? After all it was the Democrats who continued to fund the war after seizing Congress in 2006, the Democrats who caved in on FISA (with Obama’s support), the Democrats who failed to repeal the Patriot Act, the Democrats who put the bankruptcy bill over the top a few years back and the Democrats who have failed to take an aggressive stance against the predatory lenders and banks. In my opinion their credibility on these issues is somewhat lacking.

Nevertheless, Obama talks a good game, and that may be enough to get him in a position to thwart the electoral fraud that is sure to return for an encore in the swing states. He has to widen the gap in the polls by at least 7 points or the Republicans will simply rig the ballot boxes like they did in 2000 in Florida and 2004 in Ohio. In order for him to do that he has to start swinging the axe and chop the McCain campaign down to size. I'm not holding my breath.

Tonight we get to hear from the spurned prom queen with the big ego. I can’t wait to see who she is going to support in this election.

Surfin' Safari

So, while Russian tanks are rumbling through Georgia, Obambi (thanks Cormac!) takes a page from the John Kerry playbook and allows himself to be photographed engaging in water sports. In Hawaii. Who exactly is running that campaign, the ghost of Lee Atwater?

Meanwhile, back in the United States, McCain has been running around polishing his foreign policy credentials to a high gloss while issuing grave pronouncements about Russian aggression that are sure to resonate with the hillbillies in the flyover states.

I think Obama is starting to believe his own press and is starting to fancy himself the second coming of Christ. (Or Neo from the Matrix, or something like that). What Obama fails to remember, is that despite the adoring crowds and hotties singing for him on youtube, he is coming into this election with three strikes against him: 1. he’s a Democrat; 2. he’s black; and 3. he’s intelligent. McCain is taking full advantage of his supporters innate racism and ignorance by portraying Obama as an effete, vainglorious elitist. Obama's response to these attacks? ? Takes a vacation in Hawaii in the middle of a European military conflict and spend his days bodysurfing at Waikiki. The Democratic Party’s circular firing squad tactics are in full effect this season, aren’t they?

Obama is being assisted down the path of self-destruction by the mass media. I uncovered this little gem on CNN.com today: “the images that are shaping Americans' lasting perceptions (of the Russia/Georgia dispute) are of a president playing in the sand with the women's beach volleyball team and the presumptive Democratic nominee alternately walking along Kailua Beach and playing golf in Hawaii.” Nice job, CNN, managing to link Obama with Bush, even placing them both on a beach engaging in frivolous activity! If only they could come up with a few photos of Obama patting the fanny of some tall girl from Santa Monica they could run it in a split screen in The Situation Room.

It appears that the main stream media has already decided the winner of the election. Witness the follow-up commentary from a paragraph or two later: “In contrast to both Bush and Obama, McCain conveyed strength and determination. While Obama timidly urged Georgia and Russia to "show restraint and to avoid an escalation to full-scale war," McCain took to the airwaves to deliver a blunt warning to Russian President Dimitri Medvedev and Prime Minister Vladimir Putin.” See, McCain is the real man. Obama is just a pussy. The problem is that Obama isn’t doing anything to make the case that this isn’t an accurate analysis. Ultimately, I have to agree with the CNN piece to the extent that perception matters: “If he fails to cut this holiday short, he might soon wind up being remembered as the guy who blew his chance to be president because he played on the beach while the Russian tanks rolled through Georgia.” Yup.

Obama Problems

"An appeaser is one who feeds a crocodile, hoping it will eat him last." - Sir Winston Churchill

Maureen Dowd in her op-ed in today's Times made an interesting observation. Dowd's column was mostly about the potential for Hilary to make a stink at the convention, but she also had this to say about the state of the Democratic Party:

"The Clintons know that a lot of Democrats are muttering that their solipsistic behavior is “disgusting.” But they’re too filled with delicious schadenfreude at the wave of buyer’s remorse that has swept the Democratic Party; many Democrats are questioning whether Obama is fighting back hard enough against McCain, and many are wondering, given his inability to open up a lead in a country fed up with Republicans, if race will be an insurmountable factor.”

This appears to be the real story, if you ask me. Obama is languishing in the polls and his tepid response to McCain’s nasty ad campaign is giving the Patriot that sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach that he remembers from election season 2004. In fact, if I squint hard enough when watching Obama on TV, I notice a heretofore unrecognized resemblance to John Kerry.

Obama may be a great orator and a charismatic man, but he is a center-right Democrat who has come out recently in favor of the death penalty and the so-called “compromise” on warrantless surveillance. He is running a fairly traditional campaign from the ideological center and in this respect he is no different from Kerry and Pelosi, and Reid and the rest of the feckless Democrats who sold out the Constitution for a few more years of personal power. Those remnants of the Democratic Party who were still able to conjure up some sense of hope that all is not lost (and for a while I counted myself among them) are starting to realize that they were duped into supporting a sheep in wolf’s clothing.

Obama doesn’t represent change so much as the illusion of change. This has secured for him the backing of a percentage of the corporate elite that he needs to make a good run; they know he’ll play ball once he’s elected. The problem is he ahs to get elected. By allowing his followers to get a glimpse of the man behind the curtain so early in the election cycle, i.e. before the convention, he runs the very real risk of reenergizing the nutty Clinton supporters, making a huge mess at the convention, and ensuring another 4 years of right wing hegemony. This is a mistake that only a neophyte politician would make. It took Bill Clinton well over his first 100 days in office to exhibit the Republican-lite attributes that alienated the left wing of the party for a generation. It has taken Obama about three months.

Despite my revulsion at Obama’s stance on the death penalty and most constitutional issues, I may be forced to vote for him anyway. The Supreme Court must not be allowed to suffer any more Republican appointments in the next four years lest we run the risk of descending into complete, overt, totalitarian rule. Can we stand to allow McCain’s finger on the button with a conservative Court rubber-stamping every unilateral expansion of executive power? Not with a resurgent militaristic Russia in Europe. Not with the middle-east still in a state of near chaos, and certainly not with a weak Democratic Congress who has clearly indicated that they will not confront the President on issues of “national security”, or anything else.

I'm Baaack.....

I’m back. I really would rather not be, but every time I read the paper or watch the vapid “reporters” on CNN hold forth on important topics like the “staycation” and the second Phil Specter trial, I start frothing at the mouth and my left eye starts twitching. I think holding in all of my anger at the fascist oligarchs running this country is going to start causing me health issues. So, it’s back to ranting and raving on the internet for me.

A random survey of the morning papers produced one item of immediate interest. In a spectacular victory for the 911 terrorists, the City of New York is now completing its transition to a police state with its plan to scan and archive the license plates of every car that crosses into Manhattan through the tunnels and over the bridges. The invasive program is desperately needed in order to “strengthen the city’s guard against a potential terror attack,” according to the NYPD’s chief spokesman. (I suppose it should pass without mention-but I’m going to mention it anyway- that such a plan, had it been in effect on 9/11, would have done nothing to deter the hijackers who flew the planes into the Towers. After all, they didn’t fly the freaking planes through the Holland Tunnel, did they?)

The plan to take snapshots of the subversive bumper stickers on your minivan is part of a much larger operation with the Orwellian name “Operation Sentinel”. The backbone of this plan is the integration of various frighteningly intrusive new technologies with the goal of encasing Manhattan in a web of surveillance. In addition to photographing and scanning the license plates of cars and trucks at all bridges and tunnels, and using sensors to detect the presence of radioactivity, data on each vehicle “including its time-stamped image, license plate imprint and radiological signature — would be sent to a command center in Lower Manhattan, where it would be indexed and stored.” (NY Times). Police Commissioner Ray Kelly, flush with Homeland Security dollars that would arguably be better spent on classrooms and improved transportation infrastructure, “has been urging the creation of a London-style surveillance system for the financial district that relies on license plate readers, movable roadblocks and 3,000 (!) public and private security cameras below Canal Street, all linked to a coordination center called the Lower Manhattan Security Initiative. The goal, according to Kelly, is to save the financial center from a possible disruptive terrorist attack. From what I’ve seen of the economy lately, I’m more inclined to think that the people need to be protected from the financial center rather than the other way around.

Operation Sentinel is also part of the NYPD’s 39 page vision for security at the 9/11 site. Call me crazy, but I kind of remember that right after 9/11, before the country went completely mad, the thinking of designers and politicians alike was that the public space that would rise on the ashes of the World Trade Center site should reflect the angels of our better nature; wide pedestrian spaces, a vibrant streetscape, etc. I am forced to admit that the current plan, with a dozen guard-booths to control pedestrian traffic and placing the entire area of the former WTC within a security zone in which only specially screened taxis, limousines and cars would be allowed through barriers staffed by police officers, to be much more reflective of the small-minded, paranoid, mean-spirited, war-mongering fascists we have become in the last seven years.

It's good to be back.

Mission Accomplished

Well my friends, the Patriot has had a good run over the course of the past two years but I think it’s time to pull the plug. From the day I started hacking away at this blog in 2006 to the present day my life has changed in ways that would have seemed inconceivable to me then. The country has also gone through a lot of changes, very few of them positive ones, and whether we survive with our principles intact is a very open question in my mind.

I have decided to continue to blog, although postings on politics and political ideology will take a back seat to comments on the far more frustrating (yet rewarding) job of parenting little Jack Becket. I invite you all to stop by the new blog, “Who’s Your Daddy” www.whosyourdaddie.blogspot.com and have a look around. The blog will primarily be concerned with, “Meditations and musings on being a single dad in New York. “ What this means exactly isn’t quite clear to me yet. Stay tuned. And thank you, dear readers, for your support over the last two years. It has been a real treat foaming at the mouth with all of you.

"You should not have to have your penis fall off to get medical treatment from the government."

Very true. Unfortunately, it happens occasionally:

http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/031408G.shtml

WTF?

Now I don't care that Spitzerwas sleeping with hookers, although to do so on Valentine's Day seems the height of bad taste when you are married and have three daughters waiting at home with heart-shaped cards and all that. What I do care about is how cavalierly he was shuffling money around and how his outsized ego seemed to warp his capacity for critical thinking. Did he really think that noone was watching? The man made a lot of enemies and all of them were lined up waiting for him to fuck up in some way. The hubris! I never really liked him personally; he was a bully and abused his office as attorney general, even though the net result of his prosecutions was generally positive for the people of New York. But he is also a lawyer, and the State Bar takes a dim view of lawyers who commit felonies. In fact, upon conviction they are instantly disbarred. Spitzer is familiar with what charges one can bring down on the heads of high priced call girl agencies through his moralistic crusade against them while he was attorney general, so he must have been aware that he was in violation of the Mann Act when he was arranging for Kristin to hop on the 5:39 Amtrak to DC. (The same train, incidentally, that I used to take home when I was commuting from to Philadelphia a few years ago). He also must have known that "stacking" your financial transactions to avoid raising the attention of the IRS is also a felony. This incredible lapse of judgment makes me question whether he is suffering from some sort of mental illness. The Republicans will have some fun with this one, but they probably shouldn't get out the knives until they find out who clients 1 through 8 were. What a flameout. See ya Spitzer.

Police State, Useless Congress, The Usual Stuff

I haven’t posted in a while. Mostly this is because I have not had any time, but it’s also partly because I have come to realize that living life is more interesting than writing about it. So what’s new? Things have been slow at work and I’ve taken a step back from distance running. I’m back to 5 miles per day for 6 days per week. I found that when I was running 10 on Sunday and continuing my weekly mileage I was pretty sore and I was also shoving a fair amount of high calorie food into my face because I was constantly hungry. As a result, despite getting my mileage up around 40 a week, I was incrementally gaining weight. This was not the result I hoped for so I’m circling in a running holding pattern until I can figure out when to up the mileage to better prepare for the Long Island ½ Marathon in May. The runner’s term for what I’m doing is accumulating “junk miles,” but I never liked the term. Holding pattern is more descriptive.

So, what has the government been up to lately? Let’s see, the Democratic controlled Congress is circulating a draft of its FISA bill which essentially gives Bush everything he asked for. The current draft does not contain telecom immunity (solely for temporary strategic reasons), but incorporates every substantive warrantless surveillance provision of the Rockefeller/Cheney bill passed by the Senate. The bill was drafted by Pelosi and Reyes, may they rot in hell, and is expected to be signed by the President without any complaints. Your opposition party at work in the Brave New World folks.

What else? Well, the Washington Post is reporting that the DOJ has created a domestic intelligence system set up through computer networks which will gather together broad new categories of behavior of Americans, from the suspicious to the innocuous. Federal authorities hope that The National Data Exchange, or N-DEx. DEx will become a "one-stop shop" enabling federal law enforcement, counterterrorism and intelligence analysts to automatically examine enormous caches of local and state records for the first time. But wait, doesn’t this violate our constitutional privacy rights? The answer is it depends on what your definition of “privacy” is:

"As Congress debates new rules for government eavesdropping, a top intelligence official says it is time that people in the United States changed their definition of privacy.
Privacy no longer can mean anonymity, says Donald Kerr, the principal deputy director of national intelligence. Instead, it should mean that government and businesses properly safeguard people's private communications and financial information. . . . "

You can trust us, we’re from the government! Remind me again why I should care who wins this election.

Stuff White People Like

Probably the funniest blog in the history of the internet. A sample from #60, "The Toyota Prius".

"Over the years, white people have gone through a number of official cars. In the 1980s it was the Saab and the Volvo. By the 1990s it was the Volkswagen Jetta or a Subaru 4WD stastion wagon. But these days, there is only one car for white people. One car that defines all that they love: the Toyota Prius.

The Prius might be the most perfect white product ever. It’s expensive, gives the idea that you are helping the environment, and requires no commitment/changes other than money.

The Toyota Prius gets 45 miles per gallon. That’s right, you can drive 45 miles and burn only one gallon of gasoline. So somehow, through marketing or perception, the Prius lets people think that driving their car is GOOD for the environment.

It’s a pretty sweet deal for white people. You can buy a car, continue to drive to work and Barak Obama rallies and feel like you are helping the environment!"

LOL!!

http://stuffwhitepeoplelike.wordpress.com/

William F. Buckley

So William Buckley kicked the bucket today. Was he a smart man? Indubitably. Was he a charismatic man? Verily. I even agree with many of his libertarian views. A good leftist need look no further than the National Review for a principled stance on the drug war and on the dangers of giving the government too much power to search and seize. From a speech Buckley gave to the New York State Bar association against the “war on drugs” in late 1995:

“I came to the conclusion that the so-called war against drugs was not working, that it would not work absent a change in the structure of the civil rights to which we are accustomed and to which we cling as a valuable part of our patrimony… I leave it at this, that it is outrageous to live in a society whose laws tolerate sending young people to life in prison because they grew, or distributed, a dozen ounces of marijuana. I would hope that the good offices of your vital profession would mobilize at least to protest such excesses of wartime zeal, the legal equivalent of a My Lai massacre. And perhaps proceed to recommend the legalization of the sale of most drugs, except to minors.”

I might also mention that he was outspoken in his opposition to the Iraq war. However, I do not agree with Buckley on a great deal. The idea, for example, that people with HIV should be tattooed on their forearms as a warning to those who would share needles with them is the sort of thing that makes one’s stomach turn. (He recommended a similar tattoo on the rear ends of people with AIDS to, as he put it, “prevent the victimization of homosexuals.”) Nevertheless, compared to the current crop of Neo-Cons who lay claim to his legacy without possessing his intellectual acumen, he was a giant and a worthy adversary.

Perhaps the best tribute I have read thus far is from leftist author and blogger Rick Perlstein who used Buckley as a source for his book on Barry Goldwater. One excerpt:

“He did the honor of respecting his ideological adversaries, without covering up the adversarial nature of the relationship in false bonhommie. A remarkable quality, all too rare in an era of the false fetishization of "post-partisanship" and Broderism and go-along-to-get-along. He was friends with those he fought. He fought with friends. These are the highest civic ideals to which an American patriot can aspire…”

See ya Bill. Your type of conservative is hard to come by these days.

Nader Redux

Nader is in the race. This causes me a host of philosophical and practical problems. I’m not quite ready to jump ship yet, but I have been carefully considering Obama’s stance on a variety of issues and find them wanting. Granted, he is probably the most progressive candidate one can expect, but this isn’t such a great allocade when one considers the sorry state of progressive politics in America. On the issues, Ralph and I have no disagreement. Ralph Nader takes these stands: Adopt single payer national health insurance. Cut the huge, bloated, wasteful military budget. No to nuclear power, solar energy first. Aggressive crackdown on corporate crime and corporate welfare. Open up the Presidential debates to legitimate third party candidates. Adopt a carbon pollution tax. Reverse U.S. policy in the Middle East. Repeal the Taft-Hartley anti-union law. Adopt a Wall Street securities speculation tax. Put an end to ballot access obstructionism. Work to end corporate personhood. Obama supports, well, none of those things.

What does it mean to be a progressive? What does it mean to be a leftist? These are not simply meaningless philosophical questions. Obama is probably the best we can expect from the Democrats. He’s no JFK, but even Nader himself called Obama "a person of substance" and "the first liberal evangelist in a long time". Unfortunately, when you look at his positions, he stands for, at best, incremental change. I feel like that isn’t enough. It only took the Republicans seven years to destroy the economy, eviscerate the constitution and trash America’s reputation in the world. They certainly weren’t holding back on their agenda for the sake of political expediency. I don’t know. Maybe I am so disenchanted with the inherent corruption of the political system that I cannot get beyond the fact that these great media driven personality contests that are trotted out for public consumption every four years have very little to do with things that concern average Americans. Presidential elections aren’t about issues; they are about money and personality. Issues tend to bore the media. Plus, well, we know who controls the media. Corporations are perfectly happy to allow us to wallow in ignorance as long as we are spending money to buy their products. Some days I feel like a human ATM. But I have questions. I want to know why are we the only western democracy without government sponsored universal healthcare? Why is no one running for president talking about that? How come the war in Iraq isn’t being debated? Why isn’t Obama demanding the repeal of the Patriot Act and coming out strongly against warrantless wiretapping?

Silver Lake Park, Staten Island

Saturday in the park. We finally got a decent snowstorm, although it still doesn't seem as substantial as the ones I remember when I was a lad. Nevertheless there was a good sledding hill...

Not Dogs and Soysages

A week-end in the mountains is a wonderful prescription for a long list of society induced stress related ailments. Despite the unseasonably warm weather, the Patriot was even able to get in a day of skiing at Plattekill, a small family ski resort in the Catskills. The trails certainly didn’t rival anything in Colorado, or even Vermont, but the Mountain had one virtue which made the skiing the equivalent of what you would find at a much better situated resort-daycare. What an enlightened concept. I have always had an affinity for the Catskills. I have camped and hiked all over the park at one point or another since I was in high school and I like the fact that the place (with a few exceptions like Woodstock) hasn’t been overrun by yuppies. Unfortunately there is a large development project slated for Bellayre which will probably forever change the air of gentle sleepiness that hangs over the smaller towns.

I was watching CNN the other day and they were playing video taken by an undercover animal rights activist of workers in a slaughterhouse kicking and tasering cows that were too sick to walk on their own into the killing chute. It was a pretty gruesome sight. Workers also sprayed water with high intensity hoses up the cattle’s up noses, and rolled them with forklifts in attempt to get them to stand . The abuse was probably motivated more by economics than any sadistic impulse on the part of the workers. Federal rule prohibits the slaughter of non-ambulatory disabled ("down") cattle for human consumption. If the cow can be tortured into walking into the slaughterhouse under its own power then it isn’t a down animal and can be made into McDonald’s ¼ pounders. If it has to be dragged to the killing floor then it’s basically worthless and has to be sold as dog food.

I am not an animal rights activist and although I was a vegetarian for 10 years, over the last several years incorporated small amounts of meat, including beef, into my diet. My personal belief, supported by science, is that man is an omnivore. However, I also believe that eating low on the food chain is a wise choice for a variety of ecological and health reasons. When I do eat meat I try to obtain it from reputable sources like local farmers and try to ensure that the animals were raised humanely. Unfortunately this is not always possible, so I suppose I have to accept responsibility for helping create the demand for factory farmed meat. It should not be surprising to anyone that scenes such as those played out in the video result from treating animals as commodities.

I confess that watching the mistreatment of sentient beings like those cows has gotten me to reconsider how much suffering I want served up with my potato and side salad. The first precept mandates that Buddhists refrain from taking life. The fact that American’s are several steps removed from the actual killing seems a flimsy rationale for ignoring the reality that a demand for meat causes the death of sentient beings. Not to mention the fact that the process that eventually results in meat under cellophane at the grocery contributes greatly to the immense suffering of human beings due to the unsustainable demand on the earth’s resources and the contribution of factory farming to the pollution of the world’s drinking water. Perhaps a first step to turning around America’s unsustainable lifestyle should be a decrease in meat consumption. How to sell it to the public is quite another question.

Amerian Unreason

Why are Americans so stupid? Perhaps more importantly, why are they so proud of their ignorance? Author Susan Jacoby probes the issue in her new book, “The Age of American Unreason.” Jacoby is hardly the first social commentator to address the subject; a number of books have been written lately which lament American’s growing hostility to rational thought, but Jacoby has cast her gaze over the land and sees a perfect storm of ignorance that has been brewing for quiet some time.

According to her observations, at this point in our history anti-intellectualism (the attitude that “too much learning can be a dangerous thing”) and anti-rationalism (“the idea that there is no such things as evidence or fact, just opinion”) have fused in a particularly insidious way. The blame can be laid at the feet of our failing public educational system as well as religious fundamentalism’s antipathy toward science. She cites a disturbing statistic that nearly two thirds of Americans want creationism taught alongside evolution. Two thirds!

A good review of Jacoby’s book can be found here.

The Matrix

My friend Joe Bageant has been living in exile down in Belize for a little while. His most recent essay is a thoughtful (and very, very funny) indictment of American consumer culture and its lack of sustainability. Unfortunately, Americans are not known for their selfless nor are they prone to naval gazing, which explains why the Dalai Lama quipped a few years ago that Americans had “perfected Samsara”. All of our electronic diversions and digital entertainment have left us bloated and lethargic, in a state of complete delusion and almost willful ignorance about the dangers posed by a rapidly increasing world population and dwindling resources. Here’s Joe:

“Mainly though, aware Americans are watching and waiting for someone else to make an important move. Guts are nonexistent in Americans these days, programmed out of us during the posh captivity of the "cheap oil fiesta" that drove our grotesque and brief civilization. Still, if ever there were a time to show some guts, it's now. Not by protesting ­ -- which has become a security state supervised liberal pussy sport -- but by giving up the material life, the consumer life. Damned near all of it. Including all those leftie and alternative books from Amazon -- sitting on our asses reading and drinking green tea just because we can afford to is just another type of inaction and consumerism. It's the only real act of protest possible by the prisoners of our consumption driven monolith. True, you'll be just one iPodless and carless little guy throwing a single stone at the United States of Jabba the Hutt. But assuming you're still capable of any kind of life after the stellazine mind conditioning we've all been administered for past 40 years, I've got folding cash that says you will own your life in a way that seemed previously impossible. Hanging onto or chasing the bling is over with anyway, as dead as the economy. The Olive Garden and Circuit City are still open, true, but only because the hair and nails still grow on Jabba's corpse. Would somebody please quit pretending he's alive and yank the feeding tube?”

Yanking the feeding tube. A great visual that conjures up images of Neo in the Matrix after he swallowed the red pill.. We are all like little Neos, safely wrapped in our cocoons being pumped full of food while our warmth and humanity is being harvested to feed our machine overlords. Except in our reality our overlords aren’t machines (unless you consider the system of international capitalism to be a machine), our overlords are our own greed and complacency. Unless enough of us wake up and swallow the red pill, our planet is fucked and all of us along with it.

Dongshan’s Heat and Cold

“A monk asked Master Dongshan, “Cold and heat descend upon us. How can we avoid them?” Dongshan answered, “Why don’t you go to the place where there is no cold or heat?” The monk continued, “Where is the place where there is no cold or heat?” Dongshan said, “When it is cold, let it be so cold that it kills you. When hot, let it be so hot that it kills you.”

It is freaking freezing in New York today; 10 degrees this morning when I went out to the car. Today is one of those few days of the year when wearing a large puffy down jacket is acceptable, fashion be damned. The wind came roaring up the coast like an angry dragon last night, bringing the sub-zero temperatures from somewhere west of the Jersey state line. Jack and I were awakened a few times during the night by gusts that shook the house down to the foundation. I am generally ambivalent about the weather. Winter is cold, summer is hot. To accept this idea and then to complain about this state of affairs seems kind of crazy. But, come on, 10 degrees?

I ran 9 miles yesterday in much better weather. I was supposed to head up to the Bronx to run the Bronx ½ marathon, but this would have required getting up at an ungodly hour and making all manner of complicated arrangements so I decided to just continue my tour of industrial Staten Island that I started on last week’s run. I was running with an i-pod and listening to a dharma talk given by John Daido Loori Roshi, the abbot of Zen Mountain Monastery in Mt. Tremper New York. Zen Mountain Monastery back in the early 1990s and always felt attracted to Loori’s teaching style. The inscription at the door of Zen Mountain Monastery reads: Only those concerned with the questions of life and death need enter here. A reminder, no doubt, that life is short and opportunities to penetrate the great matter quickly slip by, like the rest of earthly phenomena. To paraphrase Nyogen Senzaki, like a lightning flash or a dewdrop. Ephemeral, fleeting.

One thing that did not feel ephemeral or fleeting yesterday was my 9 mile run through the Staten Island hills. At about mile 6 I was so intent on listening to Loori expound on the Dharma that I tripped on a cracked sidewalk on Bay Street and fell on my ass. Well, hip more than ass. Such are the risks of running in an urban environment without paying attention to where your feet are going to land. Zen practice and running are all about paying attention.

Staten Island is a place of many micro-environments. On yesterday’s run I passed by the mansions of Todt Hill, the Staten Island Ferry drydocks and the Alice Austin House, all within 5 miles of one another. There was a long stretch by the Staten Island Homeport that was extremely industrial and grimy. Staten Island never quite got accustomed to the concept of zoning so it is not unusual to find beautiful Victorian homes snugly nestled next to busy auto body shops. I try not to discriminate between the ugly and the beautiful; its all about non-duality and acceptance, right? Still, I much more enjoy running along the curve of the shoreline by the ferry terminal where I can watch Manhattan shimmering in the distance across the harbor than through the industrial wasteland over by the Homeport where I’m dodging stray dogs and the occasional crack addict. I guess I have a little way to go with my understanding of the universe.

Is it the weather that is cold,

Or is it the person that is cold?

Think neither cold nor heat.

At that moment,

Where is the self to be found?

Today

So I went out for a long run on Sunday. This is a typical thing that I do every week-end, but this particular Sunday it was a bit more challenging since I was recovering from Jack’s party, which started early and ended late. Still, I managed to get in 8 miles by patching together a route that included both Snug Harbor and the Staten Island Ferry terminal pathway. Buying a Garmin Forerunner has completely changed the quality of my week-end runs. The Forerunner is a GPS device that you wear on your wrist and it accurately logs your distance and pace, thereby untethering you from your established running routes and eliminating the need to run circle after circle around the perimeter of your local park. Thanks to this little device, I have rediscovered the fun part of running; just heading down the road and exploring without worrying whether I’m covering a set distance in a certain period of time.

The treadmill has been wearing me down lately, as has the grey, non-winter we’ve been having here in the Northeast. I feel like Jack and I have been spending too much time inside in front of the television when there is so much else I could/should be doing. But it is a challenge to leave the house once I get home from work, and where does one go on Staten Island in the dark anyway? I miss the summer-time walks Jack and I used to take around Silver Lake Park every night. I guess cabin fever is setting in. Our local rodent weather prognosticator Staten Island Chuck says winter will be over soon, but how much faith can you put in a ground hog? At least the sun is staying up a little longer these days. As of today I have 23 miles in for the week, and Mitt Rmoney has been sent packing back to whatever hole he crawled out of . I suppose spring is really just around the corner.