I'm Skeptical Too

Regarding "Justices skeptical of federal marriage law" (Thursday Nation), the article states that "a majority of the justices seemed offended that the federal government denies more than 1,100 rights and benefits to legally married gay and lesbian couples."  The Supremes should reserve their high dudgeon for a federal government that even presumes to have 1,100 rights and benefits to bestow, much less the power to decide who gets them.

Pete Smith
Cypress

The Astros & Rockets Get Greedy

Regarding "Mayor: Network dispute ‘intolerable’" (Thursday Sports page C7), while I'm glad Mayor Parker is concerned about the Houston Astros and Rockets fans who might be upset about not being able to see their games broadcast locally, I'm more concerned about the solution being proposed by CSN, the syndicate primarily comprising Comcast, the Houston Astros and the Houston Rockets.  According to David Barron's previous articles, CSN proposes to charge every television household in a five state area up to $3.40 per month so that a relatively tiny handful of households outside of Comcast can have access to the games.

 

This begs two questions:

 

1) Why not just make access to these games a voluntary subscription fee, an option that AT&T and the satellite broadcasters proposed months ago?  Clearly this is the fairest approach, since people who don't care about the Rockets or Astros would not be forced to pay for something they don't want.  And as Barron's various articles have pointed out, historically, only 1% of all households tune in Rockets or Astros games anyway. 

 

2) Has CSN no shame?  Their colossal money grab would siphon hundreds of millions every year from the pockets of helpless consumers.  Assuming they get the $3.40 fee they are angling for, they would rake in an extra $4.5 Million per month from the 1.3 million non-Comcast subscribers in the Houston area alone.  Assuming they cover the same area as Fox Sports did previously, that figure would more than quadruple to 6 million non-Comcast households.  Making reasonable assumptions about population growth, CSN's money grab might net them as much as One Trillion Dollars over the next 64 years, roughly the remaining lifespan of the average 21 year old subscriber.

 

Mayor Parker's ambiguous statements are troubling to me.  Is she concerned about the little guys that will be forced to pay this fee against their will, or is she more concerned about the wealthy broadcasters and sports franchises with their hands in our pockets?  And where does it all end?  If our civic and business leaders can rationalize this expropriation, they can rationalize things a lot worse.

 

Pete Smith

Cypress
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More On Beserk Health Care Spending

Regarding "Partnerships with providers are key to reining in costs" (Sunday Outlook Page B9), former Texas Medical Center President Richard Wainerdi suggests that the solution to the City of Houston's skyrocketing health care costs is to tweak the existing system to reward health care providers based on results, not volume of services rendered.  There are other structural changes that he proposes, but at the end, what is totally missing from his prescription is any aspect of a free enterprise system, or anything resembling control of the outcome on the part of the consumer.

 

To name but one example, Wainerdi recommends that information systems be improved to give health care providers better means to "manage the health of employees".  It sounds reasonable, but it is a continuation of the same paternalistic approach that has taken patients out of the decision-making loop for decades.  The fundamental problem here is that the City of Houston is looked on as the Customer, not the employee.  Until that changes, it's not likely anything is going to substantially improve.

 

Pete Smith

Cypress

Somebody Deserves The Boot, Or, A Boot In The Ass

Regarding "On-air segment gets out of hand for KILT" (Saturday Pro Football, Page C8), former Patriots linebacker Ted Johnson was roundly criticized for answering the question "which of his former teammates had the ugliest spouse?" on a radio talk show hosted by sportscasters Nick Wright and John Lopez.  Johnson mentioned by name former teammate Vince Wilfork, and subsequently apologized.

 

What has gone largely unremarked upon is how this question ever got asked in the first place.  Unlike Ted Johnson - who had little opportunity to think before he spoke - Lopez and Wright knew of the question before the segment, and likely discussed it prior to the broadcast, yet they decided to ask it anyway. 

 

Johnson's spontaneous response to the question was juvenile and obnoxious, but he at least was remorseful and apologized.  By comparison, the decision to ask the question by Wright and Lopez was downright mean-spirited, and worse, in their follow up comments they took no responsibility and offered no apology.  Lopez in particular went to great pains to rationalize their behavior, even blaming the victims by saying "sometimes people take this thing literally", and “Most people understand when you’re being serious on the radio and when you’re having fun, and sometimes that line gets blurred a little bit.”

 

Sounds like there's at least two more people involved who owe a big round of apologies.

 

Pete Smith

Cypress

The Astrodome And The Superbowl

Regarding "Goodell weighs in on Dome study" (Thursday Texans Report), the NFL commissioner says of the plan to demolish the Astrodome: "I think that could be a very positive change in their Super Bowl bid."

 

He couldn't have been blunter.  Why would the NFL award the Super Bowl to a venue that has a stadium-sized eyesore right next to the stadium where the event will be played?  The only thing that remains in this high-stakes game of civic chicken is who will pay for the demolition.  Will it be the various private interests that benefit from Reliant Center, primarily the Rodeo and the Houston Texans, or taxpayers?

 

Either way, if the Houston sports establishment doesn't demolish the Dome, there will be no Super Bowl in Houston in 2017.

 

Pete Smith

Cypress
-----------------------------------------------------------------
Blunt talk
Regarding "Goodell weighs in on Dome study" (Page C10, Thursday), the NFL commissioner says of the plan to demolish the Astrodome: "I think that could be a very positive change in their Super Bowl bid."

He couldn't have been blunter. Why would the NFL award the Super Bowl to a venue that has a stadium-sized eyesore right next to the stadium where the event will be played?

The only thing that remains in this high-stakes game of civic chicken is who will pay for the demolition. Will it be the various private interests that benefit from Reliant Center, primarily the Rodeo and the Houston Texans, or taxpayers?

Either way, if the Houston sports establishment doesn't demolish the Dome, there will be no Super Bowl in Houston in 2017.

Pete Smith, Cypress

http://www.houstonchronicle.com/opinion/letters/article/Musings-about-the-Astrodome-4377877.php

Pope Francis Shows His True Colors II

Regarding "Pope Francis’ longtime rival asks for help" (Tuesday Nation), it seems newly installed Pope Francis' tenure is off to an inauspicious beginning.  In this article, we learn that Argentina's President Cristina Fernandez De Kirchner approached Pope Francis to intervene with Britain in the dispute over the Falkland Islands.  More curious are the statements attributed to Francis as the Archbishop of Buenos Aires, claiming "Britain 'usurped' the remote islands from Argentina and last year paid homage to the Argentines who were killed trying 'to reclaim what is theirs for the fatherland.'”

 

This doesn't jibe with the public portrayal of Francis as a humble man of God who constantly asks people to pray for him.  Couple that with the on-line Chronicle article titled "Francis urges protection of nature, weak", and it appears at first blush that what the Catholic Church has in their new Pope is a man overly concerned with the material world, and one willing to take sides in nationalistic disputes.  When the Pharisees tried a similar strategy to draw Jesus into the political arena on the question of whether Jews should be forced to pay taxes to Romans, he famously replied "render unto Caesar what is Caesar's, and to God what is God's".

 

His rebuttal reminds us all that the purpose of the Catholic Church is to tend first and foremost to people's spiritual needs.  Hopefully Pope Francis will respond in kind to the Argentine President.

 

Pete Smith

Cypress

Regarding "Top steer fetches $360,000 in stock show sale" (Sunday City & State, Page B2), the steer brought in a bid of $360,000, but the youngster that raised it earned only $75,000 of the proceeds.  This has been the practice for several years now, but it used to be that the youngsters that raised the champions in all categories got all the money.  The Rodeo would no doubt defend the practice by claiming that they raise funds for education and that this is a fair thing to do, but keep in mind, the State of Texas originally made the same claim about the proceeds from the lottery, while only a fraction of those funds actually go for education, and the rest is just a gigantic slush fund.

 

And then there is the payoff relative to the take.  The grand champion steer winner netted less than 20% of the bid.  That's actually less than what the Texas Lottery pays off on the gross.  Here's hoping that the Houston Rodeo does a better job of using the millions they take in than the State of Texas.

 

Pete Smith

Cypress

Democrats Criminalize Everything

Regarding "Cellphone rule can put the unlocked behind bars" (Sunday Business page D3), my compliments to Loren Steffy for exposing yet another example of the Obama administration's willingness to use Executive Fiat to trample on personal freedoms.  The news that the Librarian of Congress had the authority to overrule Clinton-era legislation that favored the rights of the consumer in moving a bought-and-paid-for cell phone to the carrier of their choice was no doubt a shocker to most of us, much less that his proclamation could land us in jail for up to five years with a $50,000 fine.

 

But of course, "choice" is something that is less and less available to us under the Obama Administration.  The ObamaCare Individual Mandate will force the typical family to pay thousands per year in penalties if they choose not to purchase insurance from the health care cartel.  We are all forced to use engine-destroying ethanol, a practice that sucks billions from taxpayers and forces corn prices through the roof for the benefit of the Ethanol cartel.  Taxpayer subsidies distort the markets by favoring the Electric car and Wind Power cartels. 

 

These policies all have four things in common: 1) They further erode individual freedoms; 2) They are designed to kill competition; 3) They all suck money from the pockets of taxpayers and consumers; and 4) The corporations who benefit all make huge contributions to the usual suspects in Washington.  It's pay-to-play on a massive scale - the rights of citizens be damned - and is likely to be the true legacy of Obama's presidency.

 

Pete Smith

Cypress

"What do you mean 'we', White Man?"

The charming phrase on the Subject line of this little meditation is from OffHisMeds' childhood, bestowed by my father and often used by him, since he had a singular talent for expressing cynicism in a humorous manner.  To appreciate the phrase - and not incidentally my Old Man and the manner in which he used it - a little explanation is in order: The phrase "What do you mean 'we', White Man?" refers to some theoretical Minority - be he black, brown or red - that confronts a White Man who is attempting to enlist him in some onerous task, generally one that involves brute labor of a particularly unsavory nature, but frequently something that might also threaten, say, the loss of a limb.  The White Man in this instance will have attempted to enlist said Minority in the task by imposing on a collegiality that he presumes exists between them. 

Feel free to replace the term "Minority" with “Native American", "African American" or the Minority of your choice if you are one of those White People endlessly concerned about the feelings of the lesser souls whose lot you are determined to improve.  This Riff is really about you.

Here’s an example of the use of the phrase: In the book "Tom Sawyer", Tom as a boy is being punished by his Aunt Polly for some misdeed, his punishment being to whitewash a picket fence.  Unwilling to do the task himself, he tries to enlist a young black boy named Jim to help him.  I won't even try to do justice to the exchange, except to say that Tom uses every trick in the book to convince Jim that not only is it his duty to help paint the fence, but that he will enjoy it as well.  Jim finally agrees, but the whole thing is undone by Tom's Aunt Polly, who tans both their hides - however briefly - with Jim allowed to get about his business and Tom relegated yet again to his solitary and lonely task.

In the modern era, Jim’s skepticism as to Tom's motives might well have provoked him to ask: "What do you mean 'we', White Man?"   And there you have the context for the use of the phrase.  The simpatico presupposed by the White Man to exist between him and the Minority that justified the imposition is of course, a myth; it existed only in the mind of the White Man, who assumes not only that his judgment is superior to the Black Man that he was soliciting, but that the Black Man would concede that a White Man's judgment was in fact superior to his own, based solely on his whiteness.

As to why it was that my Dad and his contemporaries – the bulk of them White - came to adopt the phrase I can only speculate.  What I remember with certainty, though, is that I figured out the meaning of the expression strictly from his usage: that an imposition is an imposition regardless of how you attempt to rationalize it.  And since the Old Man suffered foolishness not very well at all, he usually weighed such issues for his customary 1.5 milliseconds before offering a reply.  The phrase was generally reserved for friends or people he otherwise had some regard for, either to provide them the opportunity to retract the request for whatever favor or labor it was that had been solicited, or because he wished to jack with them a little.  If you were not a friend or somebody to whom he otherwise felt obliged, the response you got was much more direct.  The use of the phrase was always good-natured, though, and used more in fun than reproach.

It also had more than a touch of self-deprecation, not just of himself, but of White people in general; more about that later.

There are scores of expressions I inherited from the Old Man that are unique to the Midwest that I use down here in Texas that are somewhat controversial; not necessarily because of the expressions themselves, but their unfamiliarity amongst my friends and acquaintances; and of those expressions that are at least vaguely familiar to them, there might still be uncertainty as to the meaning if the context is not clear.  To me, that is one of the joys of conversation with folks who grew up in a different culture: watching the expressions on their faces when I use an unfamiliar term, to see if they've decoded the meaning and if so, how quickly.  The vast majority of the time, the meaning is intuited promptly, with scarcely a break in conversation.  On occasion, I'll be asked to explain the remark. 

And I find myself on the other side of the equation as well.  There are folks all over this great land of ours that make next to no sense to me.  Take the citizens of Philadelphia, for example.  But that doesn't stop me from talking to them, making the effort to speak their language, and understanding their turns of phrase.

That brings me to the real point of this story: Mostly due to the influence of Ronald Reagan, in the mid-90s there was a "Republican Revolution" that allowed Repubs to capture a majority in both houses of Congress for the first time since 1952, along with a solid majority of governorships and a massive pickup in state legislatures.  This happened because Democrats had used their near-unbroken dominance of American politics since the days of FDR to indulge any and every wasteful and destructive scheme to “fix” what was wrong with America.  By 1994 the result was electoral disaster for Democrats. 

As a result, the term "Liberal" lost most of its virtue with the American people, even among bread-and-butter Democrats.  And well it should have.  By 1994, one could justifiably hold the Democrat Party responsible for the sorry state of our Black brothers and sisters, mired as they are in generational poverty, enslaved to the dole and for the very large part, devoid of households with a father.  That of course was not near the limit of the damage that Democrats did, or continue to do.  The blame for our despicable public education system can be laid at their door entirely, along with the bulk of the blame for the many defects in health care, civil liberties, public infrastructure and the deterioration of our big cities.

This all came to a head in 1994.  All across America, Democrats were in retreat, and the term "Liberal" - if used at all - was used in a pejorative sense.  Their comeback seemed doubtful, and right-thinking folks were hopeful that the tremendous damage they had done could be undone.  It hardly bears recounting what came next, except to say that Republicans squandered the opportunity to reform the system.  Their failure was partly due to the fact that they started acting like Democrats themselves, but mostly the failure was due to messaging: the simple inability to trump Democrat talking points with reason.

Repubs vastly underestimated how firmly Democrats were entrenched in the bureaucracy, academia and the media, and within a decade the Republican Revolution was over.  And of the many changes that occurred that allowed Democrats to retake the moral high ground, none was more profound than the rhetoric they employed to justify their positions.

Specifically, the default Democrat strategy became institutionalized demagoguery: to simply accuse folks who disagreed with them on any issue of racism or bigotry.

This wholesale decline into demagoguery was embraced not just by Democrat politicians, but rank and file Democrats as well.  For close to twenty years, Democrat politicians continuously play the race and bigotry card to legitimize their positions and denigrate their opposition.  There is no opposition to their goals that is not tainted by accusations of low character.  And it has become so a part of the Democrat vernacular that - in describing people who do not share their views - my Democrat friends toss the terms "bigot" and "racist" around as freely as just about any word in their vocabulary.  And they use such terms not just to dismiss a truly amazing and generally benevolent phenomenon like the Tea Party; they use variants to rebuke their Republican friends and acquaintances.  Granted, they might not outright call me a Racist for disagreeing with them on, say, Illegal Immigrants, but they will say that my views are "offensive", the implication being that any differing opinion on matters involving race or creed are morally wrong, and thus are not to be taken seriously.

It's not hard to see why things have developed the way they have: when your national government and the vast majority of your educators and media types are all reading off the Democrat script, it takes a serious effort on the part of any Democrat to be skeptical of what they're being told, particularly since they've been conditioned to feel virtuous only if they buy off on the entirety of the Liberal agenda.

I used to be surprised by the lack of self-consciousness on the part of my liberal friends when they spoke in this manner, and the relative freedom with which they use these terms in dealing with me or other of our friends who held conservative views.  It ceases to be a surprise, though, when you consider that most Democrats cut their teeth on a smorgasbord of “isms” - Racism, Sexism, Homophobism, Ageism – along with the all-purpose accusation of Bigotry.  It was unavoidable that they should view the world through a prism of righteousness vs. unrighteousness, once they had a monopoly on the words that defined righteousness.

Which brings us back to the expression: "What do you mean 'we', White Man?"  Starting probably in the 1950s and through to his death, my Dad used the expression freely and unselfconsciously.  It would not in a million years have occurred to him that it had a racist overtone, nor would anybody of his era have thought so either, much less chastised him for it.  Democrats of today, however, would have none of it.  Racism would be imputed for the simple reason that he bothered to notice that Blacks and Whites are different to begin with, much less that he had used some aspect of Black folks’ centuries-long subservience to Whitey to make a rhetorical point.  Instead of being applauded for so subtlely and humorously using a phrase which acknowledged the burden of the Black man, the Brown man or the Red man - something that might cause a less enlightened soul to look inward - my Old Man would be the one cast as the brute, flogged by the million limp noodles with which Liberals enforce political correctness.  But hey, a million of anything, however limp, will certainly do the job.

That brings me to a classic example of the phenomenon that I encountered today: I was going to save all the specific cases I’ve encountered for another Riff, but this was too precious to pass up.  A liberal Facebook Friend posted the following.  It requires no explanation:

  

Simply put: Democrats have lost the argument, and this is all that is left to them.

 

Teachers Are Packing

Regarding "Governor signs bill allowing teachers to carry guns in class" (Saturday Nation), South Dakota has gone ahead and done what much of the Education Establishment and most gun control advocates say must not be done, and allowed teachers to carry guns in class.  The excuses for denying guns to Teachers vary, but those that oppose such a measure never acknowledge the one inarguable benefit: the element of uncertainty. 

 

The entire state is now one vast area of concern for people inclined to mass murder.  A killer can never know which school might have an armed employee and which does not, and as has been demonstrated time and again, mass killers like this are entirely discouraged by confrontation, or even the prospect of confrontation. 

 

The irony of all of this is that showing measurable success with this policy is very hard to do.  How do you document success or failure when nothing happens?  And yet, the school districts across the country that have adopted carry policies for Teachers and staff will have to content themselves with the knowledge that they have done the right thing.  Meanwhile, perhaps the Naysayers will focus on why mass killings happen most frequently in states with strict gun control policies, and leave those who wish to defend themselves alone.

 

Pete Smith

Cypress

His Grace Is A Disgrace

Regarding "Cardinal who resigned admits sexual misconduct" (Monday Nation/World), Catholics are confronted yet again with a cleric admitting to sexual abuse, this time involving younger seminarians and priests, although admittedly in a seminary where teenage boys were prepared for the priesthood.

What is most distressing in this instance, though, is the behavior of Cardinal Keith O’Brien of Scotland up to and including the admission: First, using his authority and that of the church to cover up his misdeeds; second, strongly denying the accusations of his victims and immediately hiding behind lawyers; third, removing himself from public view while still admitting nothing in the hopes of quelling further investigation. According to Catholic doctrine, all of these are mortal sins, made all the more serious by his concerted efforts to deceive.

His so-called admission, though, was the greatest disappointment. Rather than offer a full and frank apology, O'Brien obfuscated, saying "my sexual conduct has fallen below the standards expected of me as a priest", and of his victims, his paltry admission was "To those I have offended, I apologize and ask forgiveness.” 

So there you have it: conduct not up to standards, and, may have offended somebody; sounds positively, well, inconsequential.

Let's forget for a moment the position of authority he so abused or the two popes (and possibly more) that he compromised with his actions over 25 or more years; what of his eternal soul? Where is the complete confession demanded of him as a Catholic and a penitent? If Cardinal O'Brien was so vague in describing his sins to his confessor, he would be guilty of yet another mortal sin. If he did give a full, frank confession and then offered this weasel-worded explanation to the public, he is guilty of yet another mortal sin.
 

As Catholics, we must regret the prospect of any soul willfully denying God's grace, as Judas did in betraying Jesus, but since Cardinal O’Brien’s statements and actions have been so completely self-serving, and since the Church has not repudiated him, we can also hope that there will be a full investigation conducted by civil authorities. Depending on the outcome, I suspect his declaration that "I will now spend the rest of my life in retirement" will prove to be more than a little wishful thinking.

The Astros Money Grab

Regarding "Want to go to Astros’ opener? Step up to plate — with wallet" (Friday Sports C1), the huge increase in ticket prices against marquee teams like the Yankees isn't the worst thing that the new owners of the Astros have done to Houstonians of late, not by a long stretch. As reported in the Chronicle Online Feb. 15th, the Astros and the Houston Rockets are angling to charge every television subscriber in Greater Houston a surcharge of as much as $3.40 per household per month, whether you watch their games or not.
 

Apparently, the Astros are not satisfied with just the inflated prices for tickets, hot dogs, beverages and merchandise; they are not satisfied raking in millions for the commercials that will still be broadcast with their games; they are not satisfied with the tens of millions in bonds and other taxpayer subsidies that we all had to pay; and they are not satisfied having a protected monopoly on baseball in Houston. Now they want to reach into the pockets of millions of people who don't even like baseball and would willingly go without it being broadcast into their homes.

Adding insult to injury is the timing of this latest money grab. The Astros are the worst team in baseball, and at roughly $30 Million, their payroll is mere pocket change against their overall revenues.  This is what happens when businesses are granted a monopoly. What is new, though, is filching money from folks who aren't even your customers. As big a deal as all professional sports make about the integrity of the game on the field, they ought to try practicing some when it comes to their business dealings.
 

Pete Smith
Cypress