Wit, Gun, and Stein

Back in Business

2011-12-18T21:43:00.007-05:00

ANNOUNCING ... my new blog:

I like to write. It is good for me to write things that I think.

What I think can be written, and those things will be posted on (as) English Swill.

My new blog is English Swill.

Click on it. Follow it. Enjoy it.

Thank you for your time.

(Hat tip: The Coracle}

LCDR Rosendo T. "Ross" Santonil, USN (1931- 2001)

2011-03-12T00:15:00.006-05:00

A SON'S EULOGY:

My Father's last words to me, as I was moving away with my wife and child to another land, are still preserved on video. Even though I remember what he said, nothing he said ever had a more powerful and lasting impact than when he talked to me about two things. Those were: his childhood . . . and his escape from economic bondage.

I think now there is a reason why these topics are so prominent whenever I recall having so many conversations with him. I feel like he always emphasized those topics in order to give his sons a way to express what he could not in his 80 years on this planet.

Every American here today is witness to his legacy. Those of you who knew him well know that he was a man of action, instead of words.

His years of Naval training always made you feel a sense of urgency when you were in his presence. There was always a project to compete. There was always a goal to be met. There is always a mission to accomplish, and thanks to Our Savior's death and resurrection, there is always someplace to rest.

In many ways, my Dad's restlessness was a constant reminder to me about a youth spent shining shoes in the streets of Manila, only to come home late at night, finding nothing to eat, except a small bowl of rice that his sister Lydia had saved for him. Now, hopefully, he will be able to see her again, and thank her for her gentle kindness.

We are gathered here today not because he died. We are gathered here today because he lived his life with robust energy and a disciplined drive.

Outsiders only knew him as "Commander," but those of us who have reaped benefits from his courage and compassion need to remember a young naive Filipino sailor in 1952, who could not afford an education.

We are here today because a young boy in the Philippines dreamed of giving his children the gift of Liberty to use their God-given talents to build their own lives, to feed their own families, and to live without the psychological shackles of poverty, free from the petty obligation and self-serving oligarchies that are the remnants of his childhood.

I do not need to list for you his long career resume, or recite his academic curriculum, or mention his business acumen. There is no need to boast about the success he achieved in his favorite arena, his life AFTER the Navy, on the golf course, although I'm sure he would have wanted me to tell you that twice he made a hole-in-one.

I am speaking to you today to help fill the final orders from Lieutenant Commander Ross T. Santonil, a United States Naval Officer, whose life, in my view, gave meaning to the term "Service." His identity as a man was not circumscribed by national origin, or his military rank, or by religious preference, or even barrio affiliation; far from it. I know because I grew up in his house, and I saw how time after time, people came to him, and so many lives were affected in a positive way because he would not refuse them. I saw how he worked so hard to serve his family and adopted country. Now that I have a family of my own, he has become more to me than just a Dad. He is my hero.

The last command from Commander Santonil came to me in one of our man Father-Son chats. He told me, Son, when I die, I want everyone to have a fiesta. Celebrate; and feed everyone.

Those were his final orders.

***

Before I'm done, I want to share a few words about the nuclear family he is leaving behind. To my Ma I think you already know this, but you were the true object of Pa's desire. You were the apple of his eye, and the source of all his passion and energy. Whatever brought you and Pa together, it is the sustaining power of your Love for each other that inspires me in my own marriage. To my sweet sister, Penelia, the good soldier, what can I say that we have not already shared, and that we never would tell our parents! To our little brother, Ross, who could not be here today, thanks for showing us that some things in life are private, and for proving that it was you who learned the most from Pa about how to live free of the past. And to his granddaughter, Tori Tam, my little mochi, you will always carry Lolo's spirit with you, anytime you look towards heaven.

To all the Santonils and Barins here today, and all our dear friends and close associates, we are humbled by your presence, and we are hopeful that my Dad was someone you could think kindly upon, and remember in your hearts that his life's aim, purpose, and pleasure, was Service . . . to his family, this country, and God.

I know I speak for all of us today when I say we deeply appreciate your kind gestures and prayers as we let go of a man . . . a brother . . . a cousin . . . a husband . . . an in-law . . . a friend . . . a father . . . a grandfather . . . and whatever may come, he will live in our hearts, finally, as our Fallen Hero.

R.I.P. Dad

2011-03-09T12:08:00.000-05:00

Here is the obituary. I will post later with the text his eulogy.

Your thoughts and prayers are appreciated.

"The End of the Trail" James Earle Fraser (1915)

2010-12-26T15:26:00.014-05:00

Witness the quest for power in spite of others' private property rights.

The FCC, through Barry Soetoro's crony schoolmate, have taken the bait.

Say no more. This is my FINAL POST for Wittgenstein

* * *

Perhaps . . . I'll start another blog with less zeal, but this 2-year journalistic experiment is over, my agenda illustrated, hopefully with a legacy of humor being left behind. And though Exile may be a precondition for Redemption, I can't sit and wait behind my computer screen. There's too much real life going on to spend venting my frustrations about "the Law," as a wanna-be William Blake, scrivening in artful obscurity. Not to worry. Good men must do something in the face of evil, but I pray someday we also gain the wisdom to know when to do nothing. So long, and thanks for all the fish . . . I'm outta here.

I'll see you on the golf course. Par is doomed.

© 2010 Roy Barin Santonil

I have carried a heavy load on my back ever since I was a boy. I realized then that we could not hold our own with the white men. We were like deer. They were like grizzly bears. We had small country. Their country was large. We were contented to let things remain as the Great Spirit Chief made them. They were not, and would change the rivers and mountains if they did not suit them.

I am tired of fighting.... from where the sun now stands, I will fight no more.

Chief Joseph of the Nez Pierce (1840 - 1904)

There is nothing new under the sun.

Ecclesiastes 1:9

DREAM Dies, Nightmare Lives, Winning Ain't Old

2010-12-19T10:56:00.018-05:00

The end is near; for Year 2010, that is. (Can we get a measurement?)

Sorry friends, I can't resist spouting off. Blame my high school soccer coach. He was a Navy Captain, and a judge in the JAG Corps. He always reminded us that "we are playing for fun (long pause) . . . and winning is fun."

Seeing the Senate vote the DREAM Act into its deserved oblivion, helped push my psychic balancing act a smidgen towards what can maybe be called hopefulness about the next session of Congress. It's only a single-issue result, but the issue rests at the core of our national discourse, and portends how and whether we continue in the political sphere, to secure the blessings of liberty for ourselves and our posterity.

* * *

Professor Victor Davis Hansen has become a regular contributor at National Review and American Thinker, preaching to the conservative choir, and maybe occasionally winning over a convert or two. Last year, I unwittingly scooped (by five weeks!) an idea of his for an essay title. It was about ObamaCare. Now, the professor offers some observations about life in rural Fresno, CA. In "The Two Californias", he paints a picture of how living conditions have changed in the San Joaquin Valley.

While it may be seen as alarmist, and while America has not yet fallen to the squalid corruption, institutionalized ignorance, physical insecurity, and oligarchic oppression of other countries, the Senate's rejection of the illusory DREAM Act at least temporarily puts the brakes on those encroachments. I am grateful, as a naturalized American, that I can say, as the Third World encroaches: "been there - done that - never going back."

I note this because hundreds of students here illegally are now terrified of being deported to Mexico. I can understand that, given the chaos in Mexico and their own long residency in the United States. But here is what still confuses me: If one were to consider the classes that deal with Mexico at the university, or the visible displays of national chauvinism, then one might conclude that Mexico is a far more attractive and moral place than the United States.

Substitute "the Philippines" or any other Third World country for "Mexico," and you will finally get my point. The DREAM Act sponsors, especially the activists, are either confused or lying when they advocate in favor of laws which effectively trash America. To wit,

[T]here is a surreal nature to these protests: something like, “Please do not send me back to the culture I nostalgically praise; please let me stay in the culture that I ignore or deprecate.” I think the DREAM Act protestors (sic) might have been far more successful in winning public opinion had they stopped blaming the U.S. for suggesting that they might have to leave at some point, and instead explained why, in fact, they want to stay. What it is about America that makes a youth of 21 go on a hunger strike or demonstrate to be allowed to remain in this country rather than return to the place of his birth?

What indeed?

I think I know the answer to this paradox. Missing entirely in the above description is the attitude of the host, which by any historical standard can only be termed “indifferent.” California does not care whether one broke the law to arrive here or continues to break it by staying. It asks nothing of the illegal immigrant — no proficiency in English, no acquaintance with American history and values, no proof of income, no record of education or skills. It does provide all the public assistance that it can afford (and more that it borrows for), and apparently waives enforcement of most of California’s burdensome regulations and civic statutes that increasingly have plagued productive citizens to the point of driving them out. How odd that we overregulate those who are citizens and have capital to the point of banishing them from the state, but do not regulate those who are aliens and without capital to the point of encouraging millions more to follow in their footsteps. How odd — to paraphrase what Critias once said of ancient Sparta — that California is at once both the nation’s most unfree and most free state, the most repressed and the wildest.

Hundreds of thousands sense all that and vote accordingly with their feet, both into and out of California — and the result is a sort of social, cultural, economic, and political time-bomb, whose ticks are getting louder. [bold added]

Here is the link.

* * *

In the sports world, my San Diego State Aztecs are reaching heights heretofore unscaled, thanks to a full complement of returning starters, a first-time Top 10 NCAA Division I ranking, and sellout crowds at the campus arena. These basketball games are such a hot ticket, even the surfers are paying attention. Trust me, if you went to school on The Mesa and are familiar with Monty's Den, it should warm the cockles of your heart knowing that our massive alumni base is rising to national prominence, not merely for the laid-back surfing, party-school image, but for old-fashioned, disciplined teamwork, humility, talent, skill and determination. Evidently, warm cockles have been underrated. Now I should go look up the definition of "cockles."

Our student body voted overwhelmingly to keep the team name "Aztecs," in spite of the PC crowd's insistence that we were insensitive racists. And being happy about the DREAM Act's demise will probably invite more of the same baseless name-calling.

I don't care what they say. Knowing California the way I did, and seeing current events, I can harbor a glimmer of hope that love of country, even my self-loathing brand of paternistic loyalty, might someday go beyond something that's merely trendy.

© 2010 Roy Barin Santonil

Comments, Coach Fisher?

"Poker Face" Lady Gaga (2008)

2010-12-14T10:05:00.048-05:00

Are those briefs on the table?

I was too lazy to embed the cool video acoustic version, so just click on the title if you really want to view it.

Well, it's too cold to golf right now, so try drinking and and laughing through the Holidays in the company of your relatives. Forget the national scene for now. It's Shakesperean sound and fury, as our president gets lessons from Bill Clinton on how to schmooze with Republicans. The Tea Party needs a Mad Hatter, as the front lines have moved to the judicial branch, which happens to be the stealthiest arm of Progressivism because of its predisposition for arcane academia (it's more vulnerable to dangerous bullshit).

To our majority Monotheistic friends, Merry Christmas, Happy Hannukah, and Have A Really Nice Ramadan.

If you are Polytheist, Many Manu Blessings.

© 2010 Roy Barin Santonil

The Resurrection of Sam Kiniston

2010-12-08T08:16:00.012-05:00

If you've never heard of Sam, he's was the late ex-evangelical preacher turned comedian who found salvation through Rock 'n Roll. This ten minute video shows him re-incarnated as the founder of InfoWars.com. Their tag line is "There's a War for Your Mind."

Really?

If you are a government censor reading this obscure blog, then dude, you need to get out of the house more often. Have at it. I use a condom. LoL. Maybe the most ironic thing you can say after viewing this "current events" video is to quote Billy Joel, except that the MSM is "shooting the piano player."

Only the good die young.

Regarding this whole Wiki - Assange affair, my first question would be: How do you prosecute an Australian for treason against the U.S.A.?

Oops, I forgot. We've become idiots.

Gee, maybe I should incorporate?

Be Afraid. Be Very Afraid.

Poor Alex. He's only partly right. It's not just foreign bankers he needs to worry about. Don't forget the lowly insurance companies and securities traders. But not to worry, we have a new law guaranteed to fix it.

© 2010 Roy Barin Santonil

Creepy Misfits and Multiple Losers

2010-11-22T10:16:00.057-05:00

FOR SALE

Childhood Delusions, Vicarious Glory, and Psychological Transferrence

With a record of 1-9 so far, Carolina's lowly status in the League is no problem to us fans. We have already been through the humiliation of a 1-15 season (must ... kill ... George ... Seifert ... kill George Seifert), so any victory the Panthers can scrape out between now and the Super Bowl is pure gravy!

Ironically, there are more than draft picks to be gained as I write from this illusory soapbox for misfits and losers. If you need further proof that we Tea Partiers have nothing to lose, click on this confessional example of the folly of political punditry. How often do TV's talking heads get it wrong? Yet we persist in paying heed and pretending substance can be found by debate. There is no debate. There is only the noise of debate. Furthermore, there is no "reason" in TV land. There is only the emotional appeal persuading commercial interests. Sanity is the off switch.

"Hey man, I'm just trying to find the bridge."

What's worse for American civilization is that broadcast images bring on a form of mass hypnosis, induced when the synergy of balmy weather and narcissistic surfers obtains the structure provided by a self-deluding authoritarian mythology. This monstrous gospel of self-esteem disguises itself in the sheep's clothing of movie nostalgia, entertaining and fascinating the public like a cankered whore, a cultural cancer from the coasts, Hollywood and Broadway.

The kind of national character produced from these depraved unassimilated sub-cultures is one of clownish, joyful arrogance, an apathetic disrespect where civilty comes through a servile sneer, whose only authentic cultural expressions are diverted through the perverse whimsy of the remote control and slavish attachment to their appetites. Their bloody deeds reveal a tyrannic desire, immersed in the belief that they are acting with impunity.

Stay classy, San Diego. I'm keeping my precious self-loathing.

Okay, even if this web log is Wit, Gun and Stein, (Wittgenstein, if you don't know me by now), a little bit of Nietzschean craziness will intrude from time to time, for no better reason than to acknowledge eternal recurrence.

Maybe I should write a poem: An Ode to Shattered Innocence. We are the rejected building stones, but the Truth marches on. Thank the Lord, this personal history lesson is over. No "gods," no "masters". No turning back. A legacy of misfits and losers is not fed by dreamy promises of Peace, but by the parting of the terrible swift Sword. Either Oswald acted alone, or,

"I shouted out: Who killed the Kennedys? When after all, it was you and me."

When I was a child, I saw as a child, but when I became a man, I could no longer serve two masters. BTW, you get a free T-shirt if you win the auction.

Heads up!

© 2010 Roy Barin Santonil

"Hey Nineteen " Steely Dan (1980)

2010-11-05T09:58:00.017-04:00

"She thinks I'm crazy, but I'm just growing old."

For my friends and those with enough energy to pay attention, there is a lot going on as Winter makes its approach. Let me preface this video segment by giving you the non-linear logic which led me to post this piece.

At first, I thought of something from the group Exile, rather than Steely Dan. Unfortunately, there was no way I could put up a vid of their only top song. It would have been really inappropriate. Frankly, broadcasting "I Want to Kiss You All Over," over the internet didn't quite fully or accurately encapsulate my own interpretation of today's current political climate. Really though, Exile should put the band back together so they can do something for Marco Rubio's 2012 run.

Hey, just kidding.

Then, I wanted to talk about the politics of antidisestablishmentarianism. Boy, was it fun to say that word back in middle school (ooh, it's soo long) but, Roger Kimball pretty much covered it (so to speak), as of two months ago.

For some real incredulity, I commend to you a CBS piece headlined:

"GOP Leaders: Sarah Palin Must Be Stopped"

Really? Are you f***ing kidding? That's not funny. That headline is beyond out of touch. It's beyond silly. It's just out of order. That's right, out of order. I tell you, Brian Montopoli, you're out of order. CBS is out of order. You're all out of order. Attica! Attica!

"Hey Nineteen," on the other hand, means more than the number 19, so I went for it. Plus, it makes for the lucky 7th post using Becker and Fagan. The number applies if you have ever partaken of the fine Columbian. It would definitely apply if you live and vote in California, where the cathechism of Prohibition maintains its supposedly overwhelming sphere of artistic, social, political, cultural, and prurient influence, having no redeeming value when considered in light of community standards.

Clearly, the paradigm has not shifted in toto in CA.

"Hey, Nineteen's" lyrics suggest the speaker is someone looking back in time, a disturbing lamentation on the innocence of young girls, with the depressing possibility that his social status is now diminished in comparison to his college years as a "dandy of Gamma Chi." They can't dance together. They can't talk at all. In a broader, modern context, that communication gap is not merely between genders, it is between generations. "She don't remember the Queen of Soul."

Nonetheless, the speaker seems to have passed the stages Grief, and reached Acceptance. Tonight is "a wonderful thing." You can't deny the unabashedly American theme: exile and subsequent redemption are wonderful things.

This seven-minute live version is cool for many reasons. Highlights include the "political debate" between Mike Leonhart and Jim Pugh at 2:45, Fagen's ad lib before the chorus, the good resolution, unique product placement, and of course, the hot back-up singers (including Mike's sister).

© 2010 Roy Barin Santonil

Way back when in '67
I was the dandy of Gamma Chi
Sweet things from Boston so young and willing
Moved down to Scarsdale where the hell am I?

Hey Nineteen
No we can't dance together
No we can't talk at all
Please take me along when you slide on down

Hey Nineteen that's 'Retha Franklin
She don't remember the Queen of Soul
It's hard times befallen the sole survivors
She thinks I'm crazy I'm just growing old

Hey Nineteen
No we got nothin' in common
No we can't talk at all
Please take me along when you slide on down

--ad libbed lines--
(well-rehearsed)

The Cuervo Gold
The fine Columbian
Make tonight a wonderful thing
[say it again]

The Cuervo Gold
The fine Columbian
Make tonight a wonderful thing

The Cuervo Gold
The fine Columbian
Make tonight a wonderful thing

We can't dance together
No we can't talk at all.

Performed @ Charlotte, NY 8/12/2006

Donald Fagen - Keyboards and Vocals
Walter Becker - Guitar
Keith Carlock - Drums
Jon Herington - Guitar
Carolyn Leonhart-Escoffery - Backing Vocals
Michael Leonhart - Trumpet
Cindy Mizelle - Backing Vocals
Jim Pugh - Trombone
Roger Rosenberg - Baritone Sax
Freddie Washington - Bass
Walt Weiskopf - Sax
Jeff Young - Keyboards and Backing Vocals

Why We're Winning Wars With Words While Wondering Whence They Were Wrought

2010-11-02T12:28:00.028-04:00

Hey there, citizens and bloggers. (You are a citizen, aren't you?)

Thanks for stopping by.

It's literally down to the Wire here in the USA. As you know by now, (What? You haven't signed up to "Follow Me" yet?) I've rebooted this blog to focus on golf. Nonetheless, in the spirit of this blog's namesake, and since I'm in between rounds, let's spend some time, ergo money, on the "other stuff."

I respectfully disagree with Jon Stewart, who cleverly manipulated my "end times" theme into a "hard times" placation. So it's election day (or as I like to re-phrase it, The Day of Choosing the Elect) and according to all the freaks of reasonableness, here's the video from April of 2009 which pretty well covers what most see as THE BIG ISSUE facing our purportedly self-determinating Republic.

Here's the deal (insert flash of satori here). We learn our lessons or repeat until we do. Oh and don't forget the key political principles we learned in our Political Music class, back in March of this year.

The mockery will go unabated, however, so it's better to decide how you prefer your tea. Perhaps with a "W?"

© 2010 Roy Barin Santonil

An Even Newer Low

2010-10-23T10:07:00.002-04:00

Yes, this is a blog that talks about golf and other stuff, too.

Give credit where credit is due. The Lord has blessed me and humbled me. Life's forces conspired again to result in my all-time low score. I say blessed for numerous reasons, not the least of which is the mere fact that I even play this game. I've been humbled because despite the inner satisfaction of shooting the best score of my life, I missed a 3-foot putt on the final hole that would have fulfilled some of the promise I made to my Father, that I would someday break 70 for him. It's another one of the bittersweet charms about the mental journey contained by the game; many middle aged men perhaps still seeking a psychological catharsis with "dad's approval."

I would maintain that that's a beautiful thing.

© 2010 Roy Barin Santonil

Highlights:

Missed birdie putts inside 10-feet on holes #2, #9, and #18
Huge up-and-down par saves on #4, #7, #13
Round saving 15-foot par putt on #14 on top of Ron's birdie
Birdie on long-par3 #5 from 12-feet followed Ron's birdie from 18 feet
Partners dubbed it "the par from hell" on #17, after a penalty drop
We played the white tees
27 putts, 13 pars, 3 birdies, 2 bogeys, 11 GIR, 10 fairways
It was my daughter's birthday!

1 John 4:18

A New Low

2010-10-13T18:14:00.008-04:00

Losing the Ryder Cup by a mere half-point should push Americans to "up" our games as we recognize there is no respite when the rest of the world enjoys seeing us lose.

I've been making lots of small adjustments to my game, now that we're post-Labor Day and shouldn't be wearing white on the golf course. By the way, that's my driver on the left.

Some family is coming in for Race Weekend in Charlotte (and my daughter's birthday), so as you can see, the posts are coming less frequency, with fewer political rants, acerbic as they may be.

Pardon my mixed metaphor, but the snowball/butterfly effect of bloggers with empathy for the Tea Party seems to be coming to fruition, a fruition often vulgarized beyond recognition. As Tom Petty once sang, even the losers get lucky sometime.

So anyway, since we bloggers only talk about important stuff, I can report that I've made seven birdies in my last two rounds after making a slight change with my putting grip. Five of the birdies came during my new low round at my home course (all-time low is 70), when I lipped out for eagle at 18. In addition, I now have four consecutive rounds in the 70's (78-79-72-79) and my index should be dropping back to around 8. We'll see if the streak continues next week. The lessons are working!

© 2010 Roy Barin Santonil

2010 Ryder Cup Preview

2010-09-28T12:16:00.006-04:00

So much for playing more golf. After a three week hiatus from blogging, a numerical procession of scores (83-83-81-80-88-84-85) has only raised my USGA handicap index. Alas, you can never beat this game, you can only play it.

The freewheeling futility of regular practice rounds, rather than stoking the fire for me to rejoin my competitive golf league, only made me retreat to the computer again to write away and purge the self-limiting thoughts I encountered on this sacred journey of self-actualization. At this rate, I may not play another tournament until Spring. Here's a quick review:

FedExhausted

My take is simple. If you are going to have "playoffs" in golf, use Gary Van Sickle 's cumulative par system. It's easier to follow for everyone involved, fans and players alike, and it is much less contrived than the current system. Listening to Dan Hicks try to squeeze drama from what should be a meaningless bogey putt by Bo Van Pelt on the 18th green, because it might affect Matt Kuchar's chances for a solo 25th place finish does not compelling television make.

Money putter

Best back story of the playoffs: Jim Furyk's $39 dollar putter. I had a small rant about the deleterious effect of money upon the game here, but that was really meant to cast aspersions on real estate developers who are ignorant about the game of golf. As a representative of Srixon Golf, Furyk's win was a particularly satisfying "poke in the eye" of other golf manufacturers whose relentless assurances dig deep into the wallets of hapless weekenders who believe in "buying" a cure for their lack of skills. That putter is in play this week. Here's the rest of the story.

Euro K, But We're Better

I'm barely a coin flip above my NFL Picks as we enter Week 4, so why not another bold prognostication? Consensus is as useless for sports betting as it is for political leadership, but the bottom line is we have a better team of guys who can putt.

What makes this Ryder Cup interesting this year, and perhaps what makes this biennial competition/exhibition more compelling lies in what we know about the character of the team captains. Corey Pavin has essentially built his career on "grittiness," not only by the way he won the U.S. Open at Shinnecock in 1995, but in the way he competed in numerous Ryder Cups during the 90's. Monty, well, he's Monty. Petulant, gruff, immensely skilled, and a Ryder Cup assassin, his view of golf is very Euro-centric, as signaled by his glaring omission of the 7th-ranked player in the world, an "Americanized" Paul Casey, from the team, and the selection of Padraig Harrington, who has been in poor form.

On the American side, fans will be watching closely as Captain Corey makes the key critical decisions regarding pairings. Who indeed will Tiger team with?

Still, since my "old" NFL team, the Chargers, have been so disappointing, and my "new" team, the Panthers, are destined for the division cellar, I'll be taking heart in the healthy jingoism and subtle rejection of Euro-bama-socialism by predicting that the USA will retain the cup. Enjoy your weekend!

© 2010 Roy Barin Santonil

Obama Completes Bush?

2010-09-05T15:21:00.003-04:00

I think there are a lot of ways to interpret this cartoonist's message. There is no caption, and no one is saying anything, save the referee's signal. In the end, though, it seems fitting. For some reason, you might feel like . . . eh . . . whatever.

We won. So what.

On the other hand, you could react by getting pissed at what the cartoon implies for both sides of the political fence, either giving too much credit to one side or taking too much from the other, ignoring the point that they are wearing the same jersey. Bush can't complete the pass without Obama. Obama gets the score, but apparently, due to no desire on his part, since the ball gets caught by his mask.

Also, one may question the whole premise of the cartoon: What is "victory", and who outside the MSM says it has been achieved?

In a strange way, the cartoon captures the essential ambivalence which has spurred the independent voter to the prominent place he/she occupies this election year. If politics is a voyage, then clearly, we're on a ship of fools.

© 2010 Roy Barin Santonil

Shine On

2010-09-04T18:39:00.000-04:00

"Home at Last" Steely Dan (1977)

2010-08-24T15:34:00.004-04:00

I know this super highway
This bright familiar sun
I guess that I'm the lucky one
Who wrote that tired sea song
Set on this peaceful shore
You think you've heard this one before.

CHORUS:
Well the danger on the rocks is surely past
Still I remain tied to the mast
Could it be that I have found my home at last
Home at last

She serves the smooth retsina
She keeps me safe and warm
It's just the calm before the storm
Call in my reservation
So long hey thanks my friend
I guess I'll try my luck again

CHORUS

It's about The Odyssey (not the putter, not the van) and it's also about relationships. Be prepared for the winds, synthesized at 2:54, which lead into Larry Carlton's honey-dripping solo. As I prepared this post, I found Carl Franklin's fairly amazing Silverlight version (requires IE 8.0, not Firefox compatible) of this song. Check it.

TPC Piper Glen : Show Me the Money

2010-08-18T16:12:00.011-04:00

Pretty, no? You are looking at the finishing hole at TPC Piper Glen, the 6,853 yard tribute to uneccessary excess, the unholy spawn of real estate speculators and poor schmucks called "professional golfers."

Dustin Johnson's travails on TV, at this year's PGA Championship, gave the masses a taste of the way our sport differs from the others, because, whatever our opinions about "fairness" and "rules," they are irrelevant to the bottom line, which is: How many did you shoot?

Even at my lowly level of play, beginning a sentence with the words "I shoulda, I woulda, or I coulda" turns whatever words that follow into snivelling drivel from your flapping gums. In golf, it happened or it didn't. Those are the House Rules. In golf, the player becomes the ultimate arbiter between Honesty and Larceny, so if you routinely tee it up for a six or seven figure dollar prize, I hate you. Just kidding. Maybe not.

So let's bring the conversation back to what's important: Me and My Game. I entered another ego-bruising tournament, for not much more than the chance to qualify at a TPC course. Piper Glen is a residential real estate development located on North Rea Road off the I-485 exit in South Charlotte. I know the tournament was mainly a marketing scheme for granola bars, but hey, nobody said we golfers were any smarter than normal people. To justify the expense I used the experience as my own opportunity to market and sell these awesome hand-knit headcovers. Take that, Donald Trump!

Let me save you some time: I shot a net 83 and failed to qualify. For the gory details, read on. By the way, no one cares what you shoot.

First things first, the event was well-run, but the course conditions were only adequate, considering that it was a PGA Tour facility. The staff was friendly, and all qualifiers had the opportunity to play in a national championship at the TPC Sawgrass course in Ponte Vedra, Florida, the site of The Players Championship.

Armed with a USGA Handicap Index of 7.6, I knew my chances would be dim. They got dimmer after I missed a 4-foot par putt on the 2nd hole. In fact, there were no pars to be had until, mercifully, I made a 15-foot sand save at the par-5 529 yard 6th Hole (shown below, from behind the green). I blasted out of the bunker on my fourth shot to about where the flag is shown in the picure. That day, the hole location was more toward the back of the green.

By that early point in the round, despite the momentary joy of a "sandy" par, my only goal had now become simply to finish out a round of golf which had turned, like some rounds do, into an excercise in drudgery. Nothing but comic relief could compensate for the shanked tee shot, chip out, chip on, 4-putt, and ensuing quadruple bogey seven (7) that came at the 210-yar par-3 4th Hole, where I lipped-out for the third time in the first four holes. Bryan and Bruce, my fellow-competitors, both made their only birdies on the 501-yard par 5 16th, and they ended up tied with net 79's.

Positives? Well, I parred both par 3's on the back nine, and a couple of par 4's at 10 and 15. The first par-3 on the back nine was a 167-yard 5-iron into the middle of the 12th green, where I two-putted to the front right hole location, as shown.

The other 3 came off my "Shot of the Day" at the 17th Hole. I can't think of another descriptive term for this cute, 142-yard par 3 besides "picturesque."

OK. Pay attention. The pin was tucked in the left front, just behind the tounge of the hazard. I literally shanked a 9-iron to a spot in the above picture, past those trees on the right, up on the hillside above the green, in heavy rough. Imagine that shot. Yes, I was tempted to whack my second into the lake beyond because I was pissed, I didn't care, and I was ready to dunk that golf ball as far into the lake as possible from up on that hill. That would have been fun, even if stupid. Then, for some inexplicable reason, I instead chipped the ball down the hill, using my 52-degree wedge. The ball landed in front, and rolled up slowly, nearly grazed the hole, and ended up 6-inches away from a par. Unbelieveable. In the middle of a bad round, I went from up on the hill, in the rough, after a shank, to nearly holing out, and 6-inches from the hole. Why is is always 6-inches from the hole and why does that always sound so f***ing funny?

I suppose I'll get back to posting about "Other Stuff" besides golf. Maybe something about the law of Privacy, or the economic principle of diminishing returns. I mean, if I lived in one of the houses shown in these golf pictures, I honestly don't think I would give a sh*t about anything. I suspect the Law of Karma requires that a price will exacted for living in undeniable luxury, even if the price is not necessarily monetary. When you build your bay-window house about 195 yard to the right or left of a tee box, you may be rich, but you evidently don't fully understand the nature of golf. The misconception is that golf is an elite, rich, white game. It appears that contrived monstrosities like Whistling Straits were built to profit from such misconceptions. They're wrong. It's a shepherd's game. It started on and belongs on a pasture. If the false perceptions about golf haven't been dismissed over the last 13 years of the Tiger Era, then all the more reason for us average guys to keep playing.

And so, to all the so-called "rich" who don't understand or play golf, thanks for showing me the money. And from all the schmucks who were fortunate enough to have the opportunity to play your course, "See you on the back nine on Sunday."

© 2010 Roy Barin Santonil

Stonebridge Golf Club : A Game of Sorrows

2010-08-10T03:54:00.007-04:00

When you play the game for fun, it's fun. When you play it for a living, it's a game of sorrows. - Gary Player

I've got lots of loose threads to tie up. My golf group played its own version of the World Golf Championship in Mineral Springs, NC, a few miles from downtown Waxhaw, in Union County, North Carolina. For you city-dwelling Yankees, let's just say we played in the middle of nowhere, where you could hit-and-giggle to your heart's content, with nobody from the office mocking your languishing career. I understand languish.

The picture tells us why the course got its name. The "stone bridge" on the 574-yard par 5 1st hole is an homage to the famous Swilcan Bridge at the Old Course at St. Andrews. The picture is dated, so it doesn't reflect the current state of disrepair that has befallen the local version. If you visit the course as of last Sunday, you will find that weeds have overgrown the footings and there are cracks in the mortar. Large cracks. It was downright dangerous to cross that bridge because the stones are protruding and it didn't feel very stable as I stood over the creek. All that chicken wire reinforced concrete made me feel like a real redneck.

It didn't help my mood that I had hit my tee shot OB on that hole. Still, there was a small victory in making that 20-footer to finish another ugly "shotgun" round with a pretty six. (We started on Hole #2, so it was a bittersweet ending to birdie number one, but suffer the indignity of a penalty, and last place in my flight.)

For the round, I hit two other tee shots which came to rest outside the area of intended play (Holes 4 and 7), resulting in a total of six (6) stroke and distance penalties. There was another penalty shot at 13. I hate penalties, but I suppose there's nothing to cry about shooting 86, considering the fact that the whole experience was so terribly sad. Ultimately, I am writing about a round of golf that was a completely subjective, inner experience. Whatever the numbers say, there is so much more that lies beneath the game.

Speaking of beneath, take a look at the "other" bridge at Stonebridge Golf Club, the wooden bridge that sits on the corner of the dogleg right 378-yard par 4 13th hole. Unlucky 13 was where I found my ball underneath the bridge pictured below.

What a laugh. You have to laugh when the golf gods imply that your game requires you to play a troll under a bridge. I took my penalty drop, so there's another undeserved lash of the whip, another stroke on the card, another story for the clubhouse, another stupid double bogey.

Why do I laugh at this divine comedy? I might not play golf for a living, but I unquestionably sell golf for a living. Ask yourself. Why do the Rules penalize your mental lapses? Why would your playing partner berate himself as a "stinking pig?" Why, after a miserable round, would that last long putt drop? Why would a 3-handicapper play in a flight meant for 6-10 handicappers? Is there Honor among thieves? What is a computer glitch, really? Maybe somewhere, on some golf course, someone is cheating. Whatever.

Sunday, I played with a great foursome, and enjoyed the company of an Evans Scholar, so the joys and the sorrows that make golf a game battled all day, and the battlefield is in the mind. Despite the inevitable encounters with cool buddies and uncouth boors, one thing is certain about golf. As Henry Longhurst said, it is an entirely voluntary affair.

The love of the game can often leave you feeling quite sad precisely because, like life, it is not intended to be, nor is it ever, fair. It is what it is. Without a sense of joy and a pocketful of good quotes, you will inevitably run the risk of being consumed by the game . . . and its sorrow.

© 2010 Roy Barin Santonil

By George, He's Got It!

2010-07-28T15:19:00.003-04:00

Back to politics for a moment.

I know. Who can tell the differences between political advesaries when discussions in every medium are merely excercises in squabbling? And, if you've read this blog, you already know what I think, as well as what I might think is funny. But when there are points to be made, I figure I'll make mine and, like the farmer who was asked what he would do if Jesus ever returned, "keep farming."

The pull quote is from George Will:

"I believe that today, as has been the case for 100 years, and as will be the case for the foreseeable future, the American political argument is an argument between two Princetonians: James Madison of the class of 1771, and Thomas Woodrow Wilson of the class of 1879. I firmly believe that the most important decision taken anywhere in the 20th century was the decision where to locate the Princeton graduate college. Woodrow Wilson, then Princeton's president, wanted it located on the campus, others wanted it located, where it in fact is, up on the golf course away from campus. When Wilson lost that, he had one of his characteristic tantrums, went into politics, and ruined the 20th century."

Nice and controversial. With an opening gambit appealling to your higher faculties, George wants to surmise and express a thoughtful understanding of our political climate in terms that lead the meandering minds of liberal opponents into an overpowering river of logic. Forget that any pro-Wilsonians (read: progressivists) will revert to characteristic modes of sarcasm and derision at any hint that their philosophy would be subject to critical analysis. In all fairness, you either you follow the logic or you don't.

If you don't have the time or the inclination to click on the title link, please bear with this re-iteration of George's speech. Otherwise, enjoy it for yourself.

Briefly, the speech is simply another in the series of attempts we make to educate the world to the principles of Rationality and Liberty. The first illustration uses historical facts (darn things) about Europe in general, Greece in particular, and the U.S. in contrast. Politics have diverged into the Madison vs. Wilson camps by way of Heraclitus, who said "you never step in the same river twice." Your philosophy of governent evolves from whether you interpret that to mean the river changes (Madison) or human nature is changeable (Wilson).

Of course, it wouldn't be a Will speech without a baseball analogy. Warren Spahn's quote about giving up Willie May's first hit, first home run ball applies to what the "state-broken" people of Europe and Greece say about their big government budgets, his point being that there is an alarming lack of alarm about the U.S. National Debt. In the end, the uniquely American principles of individuality and freedom are suffering from degradation that results from public policies that further dependency and infantalization. Witness the Shirley Sherrod episode. We should be above that sort of melodramatic idiocy, yet it happened.

As far as my political philosophy goes, I like to characterize it as an ideal golf game . . . repetititve and redundant, a long string of pars, with the occasional birdie. But if George Will can whet your appetite for reason, then by all means help yourself to some more really academic meat.

© 2010 Roy Barin Santonil

The Art of Distraction

2010-07-24T21:46:00.006-04:00

After a string of pretty good rounds, I blew up last Thursday at Charlotte National Golf Course, shooting 92, finishing the round with a klutzy triple bogey 7 on the 18th hole.

Four foursomes of hardy souls teed off that morning, foolishly thinking they could beat the hyper-100 heat index by starting early. Yet there I was, yours truly, out of gas by the 4th tee. The round started on a good note, with a couple of opening pars, but the shank shot from the par-3 3rd tee foreshadowed the rest of the day. How do you explain a dead hosel rocket that comes out of nowhere and haunts your swing, just when you've begun to start playing well? I blame my friends. I mean, what are friends for, if not to serve one's definition of "otherness?"

On the following hole, a 372-yard par 4, I shanked another iron from a mere 112 yards. Clearly, the golfing gods were telling me to forget about enjoying myself, and start figuring out how to maintain my composure. I finally ended up enjoying only bits of the round, but overall, it really was a classic golfer's struggle. In retrospect, the punishment was probably well-deserved. It's debatable, but you gotta believe there is Justice when, just as you start to feed the delusion and think you have a tour-worthy game, demons re-spawn, and you take 37 putts. You 4-putt the 10th hole, take three triple bogeys (including a "snowman"), and you watch as your 9-foot birdie bid lips out of the 17th hole, and the final gasp for a redeeming "skin" expires. I won't tell you how many balls I lost.

LOL.

That's golf. My friend (let's call him "Jim") beat me handily, getting retribution for the previous round we played, when I quaffed a cold brew on his dime, and whipped him on the scorecard as well. Jim is a master gamesman and yields no quarter when it comes to friendly competition, but there is more to winning golf than the distraction of silly conversation. Unfortunately, I could not stop listening to Jim's rambling banter, and as I am so often prone to do, I allowed my fellow-competitor's game to interfere with my own shot-making strategy and pre-shot routine.

Yes, I'm using Jim's ability to artfully cause distractions as an excuse for my own bad game. I can't be mad at "Jim," but I know we'll keep playing until I at least get EVEN. That's not vindictive, that's competition. It may be time to call Hogwarts and check with my Defense Against the Dark Arts professor.

Waterford Golf Course : Let's Play 27!

2010-07-12T16:13:00.023-04:00

If you are one of the few and the proud who still cares what the national press says, you probably should know that Roger L. Simon is the CEO of Pajamas Media, a leading blog which features many nationally recognized contributors from various points of the political spectrum. Call me a liar, but I've been out here on a virtual limb for the last couple of years, most of the time wearing more than pajamas. (If you can purge that image from your mind, you are a more focused person than I). At any rate, Simon's comments on what I call the "failure option," are timely reading. Here's Roger.

As we cruise through the summer anniversary following the Tea Party uprisings and enter the stretch run to the mid-term elections, my only comment in reply to what Simon says is this : What does the demagogic dissatisfaction of firebrand ex-Marine preacher Jeremiah Wright have in common with the deviant dissatisfaction of far right 9/11 truthers, birthers, and secessionist governors?

They can't get no . . . duh duh duh . . . Satis-Faction . . . duh duh duh.

--- HT: Mick Jagger

Frankly, my friends, I don't know what to make of an MSM agenda that is just now getting worked up about a story we previously blogged about in February, regarding the U.S. Department of Justice, except to say there must be some truth to the existence of a "prince of the powers of the air." This morning, I watched Erskine Bowles and Alan Simpson speak to the National Governors Conference on a pre-recorded C-SPAN program from yesterday.

Mere coincidence? I think not.

Anyway, back to the important stuff.

I'll try to save you some time. Shane Sharp has already provided a review of Waterford Golf Club and its facilities, so I will recap the highs and lows of my round, not because I accomplished anything (for the record, I shot 43/39 - 82, hit 4 greens, took 28 putts, had 9 pars and 0 birdies), but because I can.

Oh, wait a minute, I just did. I should also mention I was paired with a couple of high school P.E. teachers and, for the front nine, an 87-year old gentleman by the name of John Leroy Kilpatrick. What an inspiration.

Though the 376-yard par 4 3rd Hole requires a very tight tee shot for the first hundred yards, it opens up a lot if you can thread it through the trees. I lost my Bushnell 1500 Laser Rangefinder somewhere between this fairway and the second green. :-(

A couple of days before shooting my 82, I played just the front nine (shot 40). This sweet 149-yard par 3 8th Hole was my only birdie. The flag was about where you see it in the picture, back left, and my 8-iron ended up 18 inches below and left of the hole. Yes, I pulled it.

The finishing hole is the 434-yar par 4 18th (old photo, note construction). My tee shot ended up in the fairway, to the right and about 8 yards behind the white stake 150-marker in the photo. With a sidehill lie, I came over the top of a 5-iron, but made a nice up and down chipping to 16-inches from the left front for a finishing gimme. Okay, okay, I played a goofy side-saddle stroke and missed the one-footer, but the P.E. teachers (Greg and Greg) gave it to me. I penciled in "4" anyway. Call me a liar.

© 2010 Roy Barin Santonil

Improving a Dull Game

2010-07-10T12:03:00.010-04:00

If you have actually played soccer, as I did from junior high to post-law school, you can no doubt appreciate the skill and strategy involved at the highest levels of the game on display for the world to see this weekend.

But it's hell to watch without a team to root for . . . er, I mean, without a team for whom to root.

American humorist P.J. O'Rourke from the Cato Institute, by way of Johns Hopkins, and Toledo, Ohio, wrote a book that's still on my bucket list. I recommended A Parliament of Whores (1991, Vintage Publishers) to a fellow lawyer, but I have yet to sit and read through it. If you like Hunter S. Thompson, you'll also like his brand of humor. Sample quote:

The American political system is like fast food - mushy, insipid, made out of disgusting parts of things and everybody wants some.

Yup. Click here to read his comprehensive solution to the boredom problem with soccer "futbol".

© 2010 Roy Barin Santonil

February 1986 - San Diego Sports Arena, the Link-A-Bit Corporation's Soccer Teams (Blue vs. White) played an indoor exhibition after the San Diego Sockers game. Is that Landon Donovan?

He sees the open man on the right wing! Ooh! Pass the ball! PASS IT!

"Stop Making Sense " Talking Heads (1984)

2010-07-06T07:35:00.006-04:00

Try as you might, you will find your efforts FAIL, if you think you can just "Keep It Simple." Stupid is incurable.

Who cares what we think or who we are? I'm going to the movies.

The Tradition : Demons vs. Aces

2010-06-26T08:29:00.006-04:00

You don't draw pictures on your scorecard, just write down the numbers.

I had a chance for consecutive sub-80 rounds, and frankly, have no excuse for dumping a 3-wood second shot into the lake on a short finishing par-5, except to tackle demons of doubt that insist I am a so-called "poor finisher."

Something's gotta give on that mental score, because I'm starting to get pissed. Just kidding. The best golf line I've heard in the last month was said in reply to a guy who complained about SIX hour rounds of golf. His buddy told him, with disdain, that he would rather spend EIGHT hours at the golf course, than TWO hours anywhere else. Case closed.

If you insist on knowing what I was thinking, hitting 3-wood, when a lay up could assure the needed par, I will oblige. But I must toot my own vuvuzela for the six-hole stretch of pars on the back nine, after the guys I teed off with had to quit, letting me catch the group ahead.

The starter put me with Andy and his 13-year old son Daniel. Dad and I played the green tees, and Daniel teed off from the reds. At the First hole, a 382-yard par 4, I hit a 151-yard 7-iron, and the ball stopped 10 feet left of a middle pin. Thanks to the new grip on my Scotty Cameron, I was able to convert the quick left to right putt for a rare opening birdie.

You wouldn't believe the looks I had for missed birdie putts at the 15th (6 feet straight uphill - misread), 16th (8 feet left to right uphill - short), and 17th (12 feet right to left - lipped out). It was grrr-eat! Temperatures were hot, hot, hot, but we finished in time for my kid's taekwondo class.

Before going, I have to remind myself that "The Tradition" lives on for nothing, if not for one day, August 29th 2000, when I aced the 203-yard par 3 11th Hole with a 6-wood. It was nice to "play it again." Still, there are no pictures on the scorecard.

© 2010 Roy Barin Santonil

Charlotte National Golf Club : Dad's Dream

2010-06-22T14:35:00.038-04:00

How good do you want to be?

On the Left Coast, the best golfers in the world were playing Pebble, leaving Graeme McDowell with the title of 2010 United States Open Golf Champion. Meanwhile, I counted myself "in" for the love of the game, joining the regulars at Charlotte National Golf Club last Sunday. The contrast in the quality of play was beyond stark, however, the parallel was striking.

To answer the first question, ask another: What are you playing for? It is an inescapable fact that, in our golf fellowship, whatever bets we place, we know in the end it doesn't really matter, and if your golf buddies never pay up, what exactly is the reward?

I had had a soft spot for Ernie Els to win, because my first golf coach was named Ernie. Actually, he was a Filipino driving range pro named "Ireneo," but on the islands, they like to shorten people's names in a way, perhaps attributable to a state of mind (read: laziness) that makes pronouncing all those letters feel like too much work. With only three letters, my name eases that burden because you can't call me by making it any shorter.

So on Father's Day, we played. Summoning the energy of the ancients, our group teed off in fivesomes at about 10:30 A.M. Scott, Darrell, Chris, and Brad started the ribbing, the needling and the gamesmanship on the first tee, and it never let up. The big winners were Dummy and Stupid.

Ironically, Charlotte National isn't in Charlotte. Dave Moore and his staff have been the hardy keepers of the greens at the Indian Trail, NC location since the club's 1996 inception. Take the Lawyers Road exit on I-485, and drive past Stevens Mill Road and The Divide GC. Once you feel like you are safely away from the city, you can't miss the sign at the filling station. It remains one of the top golf courses in the area for its outstanding greens, which are very large and require exquisite touch. Charlotte National is a classically Carolina golf course design by Russel Breeden, carved out of the pine woods, demanding strategic play and deft chipping. The slope rating from the tees we played (blues) is a modest 129, and with little wind on a 90-degree summer day, the course played shorter than the 6,751 yards on the card. I had no longer than a 6-iron into 8 of the first 10 greens.

Perhaps it was the inspiration of knowing I'd be watching the U.S. Open in prime time after the round, or perhaps it was the minor adjustment I made with the Odyssey 2-ball putter I took out of the garage, or maybe it was the good company and vicarious pleasure of seeing Brad shoot a 1-under par 71 from the Championship (green) tees, but whatever the reason, I had what was for me an extremely steady round which produced one of my more respectable scores. After bogeying 2 of the first 3 holes, I figured out that my putter grip should be an inch lower. That tiny adjustment produced eight one-putts in the last 14 holes, no three-putts, and a 10-hole stretch at one under.

The last three holes at Charlotte National are probably the toughest string of finishing holes I've played since coming to Charlotte. Last year, I met my goal of parring the 424-yard par 4 17th and the 447-yard par 4 18th. This time, I made a good par save out of the left bunker at the 184-yard par 3 16th hole, so I am feeling blameless for the weak bogey-double bogey finish. The process moved forward despite the mini-collapse. In fact, I'm still happy I made the 15-footer for a "sandie" bogey at 17.

Anyway, it was hot. At the end of the day, I shot 77 with 28 putts, 6 GIR, 10 pars and 2 birdies. The one at the 160-yard par 3 12th hole was off a 6-iron to 8 feet, and I converted the straight putt. Here's the 12th tee:

At the 370-yard 14th hole I hit a draw off the tee (below) and ended up on the better half of the fairway. I had 147 yards remaining to the flag, so (again with the 6-iron), I hit it slightly uphilll into a light wind.

The green at 14 is big and slightly elevated. We putted to a back hole location on a sublime upper tier. My second birde was from hole high right, and was about 15 feet long with half a hole break to the right.

I should add couple of words about our National Championship, which if you had not already noticed, falls every year on Father's Day. The defending champion, Lucas Glover, fared well, making the cut, shooting 77-76 on the weekend. The new champion, called "G-Mac" by his peers, was already in the top 50 in the Official World Golf Rankings, so no surprise there. In fact, just two weeks prior the the U.S. Open, he shot 63 in the final round to win the Celtic Manor Wales Open. Still, he was not likely to have been anyone's office pool pick.

I think the golf world witnessed a brand of post-Tiger scandal golf. The tournament had a stripped down, gritty feel. There was an element of struggle and survival, so it had a quality matching what I've learned about the eventual winner. Dustin Johnson's implosion will serve him only if he possesses the intelligence and perspective to decipher his thoughts as he hurried his way through the start of the round. I said to my playing partners that I didn't think Mickelson possessed the qualities to win at U.S. Open golf, which mocks his swashbuckling style and instead rewards workmanlike, even boring, bordering on robotic, substance.

I doubt whether we will be seeing glitzy self-absorbed 65's on major championship Sunday for a while. This U.S. Open was simple and it was glorious in that, for Father's Day, it vanquished the egoistic drama, the relentless greed, and the fraudulent temptations that money and corporatism bring to golf. Last Sunday, a Dad watched his son keep his head, while those around him were losing theirs.

Happy Hockey Sticks!

Olde Sycamore Golf Plantation : Par for the Course

2010-06-14T23:23:00.023-04:00

It's not just a golf "course" or golf "club."

It's not even a "country club."

The FindAGolfer.com Tour made its weekly Sunday pilgrimage, this time to Olde Sycamore Golf Plantation, located just east of Charlotte, off I-485 in the town of Mint Hill, NC. The course opened a month before Tiger won the Masters in 1997, and has been voted "Best Eastside Course" by Charlotte's Best Magazine. Just like The Divide GC, I have fond memories of glory days playing Olde Sycamore. In terms of bang for your public golf buck, you won't find many places where the facilities and the course combine like they do at Olde Sycamore to give you simple elegance and touches of class. But then, sitting in a nice clubhouse and playing a Tom Jackson course doesn't necessarily make you a good golfer.

Scoring well at Olde Sycamore requires good judgment and smart putting, neither of which was in my mental arsenal that day.

I had set one goal in my mind for the round: to par the #1 handicap hole, my favorite, the 442-yard par 4 9th hole. I had won a tournament at Olde Sycamore before, so winning now became a mere afterthought to the joy of just re-visiting a good course. As it turned out, my lack of fitness conspired against me with the high humidity, the mid-90 degree temperatures, the sloppy groupings, and the trashy "shotgun start" (my biggest golfing pet peeve), but I managed to close out the round with four straight pars to take 2nd place in A Flight.

After playing Olde Sycamore, you should retain indelible images of its numerous doglegs, deep woods, and water hazards, as well as the harsh green complexes that allow for well-protected hole locations. But the course is not brutally long. It has a hint of old school style, where the premium for scoring is on iron shot accuracy and correct placement of tee shots. You still have opportunities to grip and rip on the reachable par-5's, except maybe the 601-yard par 5 12th hole, a dogleg left fronted by a hazard. Take a look from behind the green:

Our electric cart died on the 11th green, so there was evidence of bad karma in our group. My cart partner Stephen and I showed, I think, saintly patience, standing there in searing heat, having called the clubhouse to send for a new cart while the groups behind us gave us nasty looks, and our other fellow competitors wondered why we didn't meet them at the next tee. Like it was our fault!

Anyway, there was one highlight. Our fellow competitor, John, sank an eagle putt on the 534-yard par 5 7th hole, as well as making birdie at the 384-yard par 4 16th. John and I were tied with another "A" player, Bruce, after 15 holes. Because of the "shotgun" start, we ended our round at the 378-yard par 4 2nd hole. Bruce hit his second shot OB on 517-yard par 5 1st hole, and double-bogeyed himself out of the running. John and I ended up at level 87's, so the scorecard playoff determined the winner in our foursome.

I was thankful I had made it my goal to par #9, the first handicap hole. You can see the clubhouse in the background while standing on the elevated tee box:

The saddleback fairway helps funnel your drive, but it's not that wide. Out of bounds lurks left, and both sides have high mounds covered in bermuda rough. Landing your ball in the left or right fairway bunkers makes a long second shot over water to a sloping, bunkered green even more difficult. There is a reason it is my favorite hole at Olde Sycamore. The first time I came to play, when I pulled into the gravel parking lot, there was no well-appointed clubhouse, no grass driving range, no chipping area, nor was there a large putting green. I brought home one of my first Tour wins at this very hole with a memorable shot from the right fairway bunker, hitting 4-wood 215-yards onto the green, and making an uphill 4-footer for a finishing two-putt par.

This time around, not so much drama, I hit my tee shot hard past the left bunkers, leaving only 169-yards to the pin. (Have I gotten longer off the tee in my old age?) The ball was on a mound nestled in the bermuda grass, on a sidehill lie, about a foot above my feet. The hole location was on a back left shelf, a little deeper than shown in the picure above, and anything short had to deal with the severe slope from front of the green down to the water. Anything in the left bunker was a nearly impossible up and down because of the severe left-right slope of the putting surface.

I selected 6-iron and gripped down a bit, opening the face and aiming a bit right, with the ball a bit back in the stance to compensate for the sidehill lie. I took my best baseball swing and, fortunately, it flew on its intended line. I still had to negotiate 35-feet of bent grass, so I two-putted uphill from the front fringe, the last one a downhill 4-footer that slid right into the hole for my precious par. My day was done.

Other than our final four holes, most of the round was a collection of mental "blackouts" and many missed putts inside 8 feet, 37 putts in all. I had "Vijay" disease because I was trying a new grip or new method every time I hit a putt. Not to worry. I still won my foursome, and I've learned anything about golf, I know to treat triumph and disaster as mere imposters.

It has taken some time to force myself into being a more process-oriented golfer. Results mean less and less, and yet my enjoyment of the game is getting more and more. The simple goal of one special par, and the process of winnowing my set-up and pre-shot routine feeds my belief that results happen. It's the process and the focus that counts. Going back to Olde Sycamore was like visiting an old friend and sharing a cold beverage on the porch on a hot summer day. Just as we finished playing our final hole, a vicious summer storm swept into the area and drove everyone off the course as well. I was happy to play. And to finish strong. And I felt a little sad to think of how far I had come since that victory long ago. And was humbled by the fact that, thanks to the game of golf, I was exactly where I wanted to be: playing golf on an F*ing SOUTHERN PLANTATION!

Only in America.

© 2010 Roy Barin Santonil

A Tribute to Snail Mail

2010-06-09T16:09:00.015-04:00

Pity the poor semi-rural mail box.

Once the noble standard bearer for artful correspondence, it has evolved into the forlorn, faithful friend, a sidekick Cato to the Green Hornet microprocessor. Or maybe it is just a staid Alfred, patient and servile to the restless Dark Knight. You get the picture.

Your mailbox, your "real" mailbox, serves as both a timeless relic and daily reminder of the world outside your sanctuary. Historically, it has given us assurance that no matter our geography, whether at war or at peace, somebody important to you could somehow tell you about mundane things, like "what grandpa had for breakfast," or bring you to bear life-altering news about deaths and divorces among those of your kind. Still the snail mail box holds fast, clinging to relevance, if only as a mere conduit of commerce for the junk mail kingpins. Some days, you hate that all they bring you is the next crashing tide of bills, bills, and more bills. Bills make me sick. Other days, you wait by the door, anticipating the arrival of "Vern the Mailman" to complete his rythymically appointed rounds because you ordered that special something. I suspect a soldier has no greater joy than hearing his name at "mail call." Do they even do that any more? Our servicemen probably just Skype nowadays.

I presume my old mailbox is as old as my house (why wouldn't it be?), meaning it has stood sentry for 44 years amid the numerous storms of hail, snow, and rain, unflinching through the searing summer heat, the bitter winds and likely physical abuse of random passers-by, not to mention the routine wear and tear of me, checking on what the world had to bring to my doorstep. At one point a couple of years ago, the wooden post simply rotted away from its steel splint, and rather than replace the old guy, I literally held it together with duct tape and staples, as you can see from the photo.

When the Quail Hollow Championship was in town, the "change" theme took over, and thanks to some prompting from She-Who-Must-Be-Obeyed (HT: @Fehertwit), we undertook to overmake the source of our precious missives. From a technical standpoint, there's nothing to describe. The pictures explain the process. Sometimes it's just nice to take those quantum leaps back and forth from cyberspace into the physical world. Just add muscle.

1. Like I said, the thing was barely standing. The wood was corroded, the cross post had no supporting brace, and duct tape held the upright post against its metal splint. The cedar shingles were falling off, and the door was bent so it could not shut properly. Oh, the scars of neglect!

2. First, go to a home improvement store and get a post and a mailbox.

You may wish to trimmed the height of the post, so you don't have to dig too deeply.

They make pre-fitted base boards that must be attached and painted, too.

3. Prepare the gravel cement materials, including the bag of cement, loose gravel, and water.

4. You will need a PHD (post hole digger) to dig a 16-18 inch deep hole.

5. After overcoming your urge to drop the project and go golfing, put in some gravel to form a base.

6. Place the post on the gravel and back fill a little. It's in the hole!

7. Get that bucket of water and pour it in, then back fill the rest of the dirt.

8. There's a special tool that helps level things out. Just line up the bubbles, horizontal and vertical.

9. After the cement dries (about 24 hours), attach your new box to the pre-fitted board.

10. Pat down the dirt. Add custom address numbers if you want. Now you have a nice new mailbox to help you deal with all the various vendors, solicitors, acquaintances, corporations, personalities, people and places that make the world go 'round. Clean and redeemed. Old school. Big time.

To my old rotten mailbox, I say farewell friend. It didn't bother me that you were ugly. You were a bastion of defiance in a world without shame. Meet the new boss.

Same as the old boss.

© 2010 Roy Barin Santonil

Eagle Chase Golf Course : Going On Tour

2010-06-05T22:29:00.024-04:00

It's June and the golf bug is biting again. There is a website out there I commend to anyone looking for a game. Rick Scherrer provides an enlightened service for the new breed web-savvy golfers, combining his extensive knowledge of computer programming with his passion for golf to grow the game in a positive way. With his friendly staff of tour managers, Rick launched FindAGolfer.com last year, and it is opening doors of opportunity for fun and fellowship on the links.

About a dozen of us gathered for a golf outing at Eagle Chase Golf Club, located in Marshville, NC, about 40 miles east of Charlotte. The Tom Jackson-designed course has hosted several mini-tour events and USGA section qualifying tournaments over the years and, according to its web site, gives players "a mountain golfing experience." The owners also say that "the course’s green complexes require a variety of shots, as they sit both down in valleys and atop hills. Many of the tee boxes are elevated and offer picturesque views of the Uwharries in the distance."

They're not kidding.

My round at Eagle Chase started with a fairly routine 5. But the picture above showing the tee shot at the 387-yard par 4 2nd Hole is an example of the dramatic vistas you'll see as you negotiate your way around Eagle Chase. What you can't see is the lake on the left behind the trees, and the creek situated on the right hand side along the cart path, down below series of high mounds which magnify shots pushed off line.

Rather than recap my lone birdie (a brain-dead 25-footer on the final hole) it's probably more illustrative of my golfing deficiencies to show my double-bogey holes. My second shot leaked off the aforementioned 2nd green into that right hazard, leading to the first double bogey on #2, and I carelessly backhanded a tap-in at #14 (below) for my other double bogey.

Frankly, as good a round as I had, given a nice stretch of pars from holes 5 through 10 (and 10 pars in addition to the birdie at 18), it paled in comparison to my fellow competitors Drew and Rex, who shot gross scores of 71 and 72, respectively, leaving my humble 80 in the dust. I'm going to have to take the Yes! "Amy" model putter out of the bag. My 34 putts consisted of way too many missed 5-footers and three 3-putt greens. It's time to bring out the big guns. Do I go with the old school honesty of the faithful Bulls Eye or the craftsmanship and forgiveness offered by the Newport 2? Decisions, decisions.

Before I go, here's one last image of the type of holes at Eagle Chase that somehow leave you feeling like a mountain goat.

The par 3 12th hole measured 194 yards uphill into a stiff breeze. I hit my 18 degree hybrid pin high and left, but the ball perched on a treacherous shelf on the fringe above the hole. The first putt ran 8 feet too far, and I had to accept a bogey there. I mentioned the 6-inch tap-in I missed on #14. That might explain my loss of focus, when I missed another in a series of 5-foot par putts on #15, the hardest handicap hole. Another 3-putt at #16 evidenced my "nerves of rubber" as the tournament slipped away from my grasp, even as my playing partners were spotting me 5 handicap strokes for the round.

But alas, we golfers are a hardy lot. The day at Eagle Chase was a joyful respite, a great pleasure in the company of serious, but gentlemanly golfers. It was another 18 holes in the journey that is the bigger "chase" as we keep our eyes on the prize!

© 2010 Roy Barin Santonil

The Divide Golf Course : Cart Golf

2010-06-02T17:31:00.009-04:00

First off, I was reticent about this writing this review. That's because, even while I thoroughly enjoyed playing this golf course, there was nary a birdie to be had (by me, anyway). My playing partner had one. Still, I can report that the state of my game is very good, notwithstanding the recent lack of competitive rounds. I've been allowed the opportunity to focus on fundamentals and vanquish those greedy ghosts of glorified ego that haunt serious amateur players.

The golf course is located just off Lawyers Road on the Mecklenburg - Union County line (hence the name "The Divide"), and in a word, the best description of the golf course would be "Don't Walk." There are literally hundreds of yards of paved cart paths between greens and tees, so forget about the old school "nice walk spoiled" theory of golf here. This is one of those golf community courses, built in 1995, designed by John Cassell, Jr., that were developer's perquisites and buyer's incentives, back when most of us never heard of AIG, toxic assets, or credit default swaps. Notwithstanding the glut of real estate required to build these types of modern courses, it features a number of quite memorable holes, most notably the 555-yard, par 5 18th.

As you can see, it requires a dramatic approach and frankly, it is a wonderful way to finish your round and recap your shots at the clubhouse. I have fond personal memories of The Divide because, back in the 90's, I shot a scorching 83 to win an Amateur Tour "B" Flight tourney and a $50 gift certificate. Happily, not much has changed. As I checked in last week with head pro, Mike Musialowski, the challenge lay before me to play it again, one set of tees further back, having now advanced my age by a dozen years.

We started on the back nine, so there would be no dramatic 18th hole finish today. Still it was a great time.

That Thursday morning, the pro shop put me with another individual golfer named John, who played to a scratch handicap. He told me he was a hockey fan from up North, out to enjoy the Carolina blue sky day. It was about 79 degrees with puffs of clouds, and we played through an intermittent, one-club wind, blowing east to west at 10 mph at the very most. We played in less than 4 hours. Does it get any better?

John was bombing it by me all day, but all we were playing for was "honors." We got off to a quiet start, missing medium length par putts on the first hole, even though I hit the green from the left rough (yes, I three-jacked). I knew it was going to be a fun day when we both striped our tee shots down the middle of the second fairway, and both hit our approach shots into the bunker short and right. I blasted my buried lie over the green, chipped to 15 feet, and made the only putt of the day for a scrambling bogey to halve the hole again. When my partner hit the 504-yard par 5 12th in two for an easy birdie, the game was joined.

When we made the turn, I had driver, hybrid, wedge to the 18th green. John "The Bomber" hit driver, wedge, wedge to 6-feet. I watched as his second birdie bid slid low past the cup and quietly sighed, satisfied that for now, my tap-in par was enough to halve the hole.

The two toughest holes for me that day happened to be the two toughest handicap holes: the 542-yard par 5 2nd hole and the 412-yard par 4 12th hole. Those were my only double bogeys. Hole #2 is especially nasty. There is ample room for your tee shot, though visually, you can barely see the landing area, which bends slightly left. A hazard runs the length of the hole along the right side, cutting into the fairway at around 200 yards from the green, and easing its way back gently to the right again, making the second shot a very demanding one into a narrow approach and a front-bunkered green that slopes back to front.

I hit a decent 3-wood off the tee, not knowing that driver was okay. That left me too far away to carry the water hazard on the daunting second shot, which looked like a ribbon of fairway with water on the right and OB left. I dunked the second shot and had to scramble, narrowly missing a 20-footer for bogey. I felt lucky just to make double, since John played the hole smartly and made a proper, conservative par. Of course, his 290-yard drive didn't hurt him.

After carelessly missing a 2-footer for par on our 12th hole of the day, the 170-yard par 3 3rd hole (I guess I was still steaming about the double bogey on #2), I pretty much got it together and parred the last six holes for an 81. The final stretch was a blast, as my playing partner and I got into a good flow, with little waiting between shots, and pleasant conditions all around. The whole day, I don't think we saw 5 other groups on the course because the spacious layout doesn't lend itself to seeing other groups playing other holes.

As we finished our round playing the front nine, the final stretch included the pretty 165-yard 7th hole, where I fatted a 5-iron short to a back left pin, and used a Texas wedge to get up and down.

Our best hole of the day was the challenging 427-yard par 4 8th hole. The fairway slopes left to right off a ridge, with woods on the left and a creek on the right. The large green is perched on another ridge and is guarded by a deep swale on the right that swallows up mis-hits. The day we played, the hole was located on a "tounge" of green on the front left, maybe six feet off the green, with the swale and heavy rough ready to take our scores to bogey land. In fine fashion, we both managed par, the only difference being I had to hit a 23-degree hybrid from 173 yards, while my playing partner hit 9-iron onto the back of the green from 165 yards. Two putts each, and there you have it: the satisfaction of simply doing what you intend to do.

Final tally: 9 GIR, 33 putts, 5 bogeys, 2 double bogeys, 11 pars, 81 strokes. Beating your old score: priceless.

The Divide Golf Course has a driving range, putting green, short game practice area, pro shop, snack bar, and a variety of scenic golf holes that provide a well-balanced mix of difficulty on Bermuda grass fairways and Bent grass greens. It measures 6,922 with a 73.5/137 rating from the Gold Tees, 6,506 (71.9/131) from the Blue Tees, 6,090 69.3/123) from the White Tees, and 5,183 69.9/122) from the Red Tees. Other than the fact that you absolutely should not walk it, it is a well-kept, well-designed, well-run modern golf facility, and if you get a chance to start at Hole Number 1, you can look forward to a fantastic finish!

© 2010 Roy Barin Santonil

In A Global Economy, You Know You're a Success If . . .

2010-05-20T11:54:00.012-04:00

Okay, I'll bite for now. I'll buy into global statist-corporatism, even though Rand Paul's win is a prelude to something better in 2012. In the meantime, it helps having another viable source of humor as the summer roils forward, and Americans hope our House begins a fruitful transformation.

My mother called me on the telephone the other day, just to take advantage of her lawyer son and get some free legal and tax advice.

For what is was worth, I enjoyed joking with Ma because her "friend," an accountant of Chinese ancestry, had a real estate problem and was trying to avoid any potential tax liability in California. I suppose that sort of exposure is what any successful person has to deal with in some degree, if they have accumulated any significant amount of wealth. That problem led me to consider other factors that would indicate a high probablity of material success in a symbiotic, inter-dependent, trans-national economy consisting of free flowing labor, goods, services, and capital.

A cursory examination of most most upper class neighborhoods will probably reveal that you have "made it" in America if you employ or function within some combination of the following variables:

A German mechanic

A Chinese accountant

A Middle-Eastern store clerk

A Mexican yard service

A Vietnamese lawyer

A Russian bodyguard

A British butler

An American software engineer

A French maid

Or a Filipino cook!!!

I suppose I should apologize in advance for any politically incorrect inferences that one may draw, and any stereotypes or mistaken aspersions miscast in the name of blog humor. But no! Apologies are for wimps, especially when issued out of a sense of liberal guilt by useful idiots like Michael Posner, under an effeminate, President-approved foreign policy of appeasement. So as Americans, we witness the fruits of the promised hope and change. We are beyond being Socialists, beyond being pirates. Now, whether we like it or not, if you read between the lines, we have all become what fellow San Diegans used to call those pasty-skinned visitors who invaded our beaches in the summer . . . Zonies!

I'm just saying . . . hey . . . for those of us living under the blessings of Liberty, shouldn't we humans do what each of us does best?

© 2010 Roy Barin Santonil

Pinetuck Golf Course : Old School

2010-05-11T22:07:00.005-04:00

Just off Interstate 77, three miles from Exit 73, Pinetuck Golf Club is one of those South Carolina courses that takes a golfer back to the era of steel spikes, persimmon woods and pure love of the game.

The club holds bi-weekly open mini-tournaments for a $20 entry fee, and there is a band of regulars who make you feel welcome to enjoy your round as well as adding friendly competition in a team format. My team got to 2-under par, thanks to a sparkling 20-footer by yours truly from below the hole at the 390-yard par-4 fourth.

You can't tell from the picture, but it is a deep green. Unfortunately, another thing you can't tell is that we finished the front nine even par because our team played the par-3's in four over.

The par-3's at Pinetuck are particularly challenging and, and more importantly, memorable. If they don't repel shots with Ross-style upside-down saucers, then they require a significant carry over water hazards to greens surrounded by bunkers. Since the tournament format was Two Best Scores per hole (except every birdie could count to lower the team score), the fact that nobody could make three on the short holes meant we had to surrendered two shots to par on them. Arggh.

As it turned out, the winners were 5-under par, so my team finished a full 10 shots in back of the pack. After we made a pair of birdies at Number 4, I missed a tricky 5-footer for birdie at the 505-yard par-5 sixth hole. The putt was a bit uphill into the grainy Bermuda grass and it broke half a foot right when I was aiming inside left edge. Later, when my playing partner Keith and I only parred the 496-yard par-5 eighth hole (after having short chips for our third shots), everybody on the team failed to par the tough par-3 ninth (I lipped out). 36 was all we could manage on the front side.

After the obligatory stop at the club house, thinking we could rally on the back, I basically "checked out" mentally. That's my excuse anyway. I pulled my tee shot OB at the 10th hole, and even though I made the only team birdie at the 166-yard par-3 17th hole (below), we ended up well out of contention. Actually, I had 168-yards into the wind and hit a solid 5-iron pin high. The 18-foot putt broke two-feet, right to left, so at least we could celebrate one bright spot on the back nine. It was tough out there, especially with wind gusts at 10-20 mph.

Anyway, if you are looking for a golf experience in South Carolina's Olde English District, sans pretense and all about the bare essentials, you might just give a call to the clubhouse and join the fun!
© 2010 Roy Barin Santonil

"Change of the Guard" Steely Dan (1972)

2010-05-03T13:56:00.008-04:00

Well, you can't do business without marketing your presence. I indulged in more golf last week, stepping into our "backyard" at Quail Hollow Club. Over 40 stills are posted on the Facebook album. Also, there are some original 30-second videos at the new Classic Headcovers Video channel, which feature a brief spots with tournament winner Rory McIlroy, Angel Cabrera, Lee Westwood and Vijay Singh.

The Ecco visor (above) now has autographs from Webb Simpson, Matt Bettencourt, Kevin Streelman, Carlos Franco, Jeff Overton, Garrett Willis, and Lucas Glover. It's due to be put up for a charity auction.

There are too many cool anecdotes to relate about my spectating experience. It was not my first pro event. I met one of my golf buddies out there with his son. There's a lot of standing around. Many business deals are made out on the range because so many of the guys are just chatting it up, meeting and greeting. The actual golf matters less than the fascinating networking rituals and interaction of the players on the putting green and especially in the clubhouse. There's a lot of amazement by the fans at the rhythm of tour pro swings. There's so much natural beauty from a golf course sculpted rather than constructed upon the landscape and the featured lake. And of course, let's not forget the fact that there was lots and lots of money to be won.

I couldn't help myself with the autograph seeking. Sometimes it's nice to feel like a kid no matter what your age. That, of course, serves as a nice segue into what happened if you saw the tournament. Bottom line appears to be that, with 19-year old Ryo Ishakawa shooting 58 in Japan, and 20-year old Rory breaking the course record by two to win in Charlotte, the world of golf has affirmed the fact that youth will be served, regardless if it may be wasted on the young. Overall, I can say that the experience of the past week has made me extremely happy about my own game. Brilliant!

To sum up, listen to Skunk Baxter's solo, as the band re-iterates that it is high time we play our card. Admittedly, it's a heck of a stretch from '72. Where's my caddie?
© 2010 Roy Barin Santonil

Thanks for the 3:40 of listening.

If you listen you can hear it
It's the laughter in the street
It's the motion in the music
And the fire beneath your feet
All the signs are right this time
You don't have to try so very hard
If you live in this world
You're feelin' the change of the guard

All the cowboys and your neighbors
Can you swallow up your pride
Take your guns off if you're willin'
And you know we're on your side

If you wanna get thru the years

It's high time you played your card

If you live in this world
You're feelin' the change of the guard

--Words and Music by Walter Becker and Donald Fagan

The New Paradigm : "You're Welcome"

2010-04-19T08:47:00.019-04:00

Sometimes, you have to look really hard to find the axe not ground. If you're familiar with this blog, you might know my national origin is in the Philippines, and I have not touched on that subject with any meaningful depth. Not yet.

I do, however, beg your pardon for my newly adopted attitude about America's decaying moral fiber and my absence of worry over whether we, as Americans, are on the road to economic ruin. You see, the place my parents fled in the 1950's was a hellish playground of tropical corruption, fiscal insanity, political prostitution and quite frankly, the Philippines was and always has been a bloody farce of a democracy. So, I have to tell you that from where I sit, Uncle Sam has miles to go before fears about growing "3rd World conditions" actually materialize in the Land of the Free.

Notwithstanding that we're novices when it comes to living under a protracted oligarchy threatening martial law engendered by irreconcilable national debt, Tea Partiers (whose godfather I supported) are getting it right about our country's prospects, given the unchecked and unseen workings of "the system."

Government AND Corporations, the military-industrial complex that comprises the First World are, to any unobstructed viewpoint, the unseen lurkers, "the man behind the curtain" asking us to pay no attention and remain ignorant. We oblige them when we incessantly vilify one of these institutional beasts and stupidly acclaim the other.

Along with Religion, those powers and principalities are but fractions of the world of human imagination. They are figments of the human mind. Real, no doubt. Powerful, unquestionably. But as failed and flawed products of human endeavour, they leave you hopeless, shorn of dignity, altogether inhuman and barren of Virtue, should you choose to abide in their existence and assent to their aims. Collectivism and altruism work their evil seeming benign and cheerful, so as to approach and devour those souls who have been subjugated to governmental, corporate, and religious precepts. I must confess I've read Nietzsche.

Listen, don't take my word for it. I'm not a nihilist. As I've written and thought a boring blog, as a loony loner, a fanciful fool at first and even now, I've found to my surprise that an embryonic spark of common courage often lurches like a Young Frankenstein, with electrons and photons illuminating crystal screens in a synchronicity allowing two or more to agree. Paradigms shift. And all the while, the Emperor and his court "let us eat cake." But I digress.

The Daily Show with Jon Stewart is a televised show that came from A) Corporate sponsorship, distributed on a highly technological platform, engages in B) Political Commentary involving social criticism, and it features C) Religious references from its unabashedly Jewish host. All in all, it presents an exceedingly benign and cheerful formula for addressing the ennui of the secular world. Video just says things differently, in spite of my eloquent blog screeds (kidding). Satire runs deep in the New Age, Irony is its Master. So even as the Pen was mightier than the Sword, the New Paradigm is the Pixel is mightier than the Pen.

Last week, John Hodgman congealed Common Sense to address the absurd and he asks for no credit, other than a simple "Thank You." By attacking a problem with humor, there is always a risk of "demonization" by those you skewer. He suggests a three-fold solution to help the Catholic Church with its (ahem) "image problem." I am now more than ever persuaded that Samuel Johnson's wise entreaty, that "Patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel" applies to many, many other "--isms." Name any hypocritical, oppressive, power-grabbing, institutional construct of the human mind. Keep your Wit, Gun and Stein handy. We still have Time, and it's becoming time to smoke them out. [Insert Battle Cry Here]

© 2010 Roy Barin Santonil

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart

Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c

You're Welcome - Church Scandal Prevention

www.thedailyshow.com

Daily Show Full Episodes

Political Humor

Tea Party

Putters of Distinction

2010-04-18T11:17:00.012-04:00

Show and Tell time! There's no debate about the classic features and timeless design involved with these putters, in spite of the fact that this design is the number one style at just about every miniature golf course in the world.

Dalton R. Daves has compiled the most complete historical summary of this putter style, the one I grew up with beginning with Dad on the range in New Mexico, to junior golf tournaments in Guam, the high school golf team in Virginia, even at my most recent tournament win. For me, it's the simplest and most honest way to putt. Everything else is pretty much a variation of the model Rodney Dangerfield used in "Caddyshack." I love Dangerfield, so I don't mean to offend. It's just that good putting is like music -- too subjective and too many variables to be sure.

PUTTERS OF DISTINCTION ~~ A Guide to Classic Putters

BULLSEYE PUTTERS

* The man behind the bullseye putter was John Reuter, Jr. His design came to fruition around 1940. In 1958, the rights to the name and the design were sold to Acushnet (Titleist).

* Most bullseye putters are a blade style made of a soft brass head (some are aluminum and brass combination mallets or semi-mallets). It is estimated there have been more than 400 different Bullseye configurations offered over the years when styles, lengths, lies, grips and head materials are all considered. Over the years, the mixture of the brass in the heads changed from batch to batch. Some of the heads have a very yellowish coloration while others are a darker brown. Generally, the lighter the color the softer the material.

* All bullseye putters are marked with a bullseye on the sole of the putter near the toe with the Bulls and Eye being separated by the bullseye itself. The early bullseye stampings are quite large, often larger than the sole they are stamped on. The more recent bullseyes fit comfortably on the sole of the putter.

* Bullseye putters are "center-shafted" with the hosel located more than one third of the way between the distinctive hooked heel and the toe. This shaft placement allows the weight of the overall putter to be properly distributed. A collector will often find a non-factory sight line cut on the top line of a Bullseye halfway between the hosel and the toe. While this sight line detracts from the value of the putter, it is also positioned in the wrong place. The sweet spot on the bullseye is located near the hosel and not at the center of the blade. When a ball is positioned properly on the face of a Bullseye it almost appears to nestle at the end of the shaft next to the hosel.

* Almost all shafts used in Bullseyes were fluted and flared. Some of the earlier models can be found with non-fluted flared shafts and in the hosel shafts (Pro Feel) were made for one year. There are six flutes 2 and 3/8 inches long on most Bullseyes (some of the earliest models can be found with flutes over 4 inches). Grips on Bullseyes were leather with flat fronts and either a paddle type (now illegal) or more slender variety.

* The earliest Bullseyes (pre-Acushnet no model number) were stamped with a large bullseye, John Reuter, Jr., and Pat. Pending. As the number of different available models increased, the model number stampings (discussed later) were also placed on the sole along with the above stampings (pre-Acushnet with no model numbers).

* After Acushnet purchased the rights to Reuter's designs Acushnet was added to the sole of the putters with the above mentioned stampings. For a brief period after the granting of the Bullseye patent the stampings remained the same as those just mentioned except the Pat. Pending was deleted and a ® was added below the large bullseye.

* The next series of Bullseyes were stamped John Reuter, Jr., Made In U.S.A., the model number, Acushnet, a smaller bullseye with a ®, and a replica of the distinctive Bullseye head shape with a ®. The shafts on the next series of Bullseyes were changed to a straight taper fluted shaft and designed by was substituted for Made In U.S.A. on the sole. More recent Bullseye putters, while still playable, do not currently have a collector following and will not be discussed.

* As mentioned earlier, over 400 different Bullseye putters have been offered over the years. Out of this multitude of offerings the pre-Acushnet no model number, and three other models, appear to have the greatest collector and playability interest. As with so many other collectible golf clubs, older is deemed better. Thus, the pre-Acushnet no model numbers carry the highest value with the other pre-Acushnet and Pat. Pending models also having a higher value.

* The no model number pre-Acushnet putters are wide, heavy blades with either rounded or squared toes. The other three desirable models are the Old Standard, Standard and Standard Flange. The Old Standard and the Standard are the traditional basic Bullseye blade design, the Old standard having a squarer toe and top line and the Standard having a rounder toe and top line. The letters stamped on the sole designating these two models are OS (Old Standard) and STD (Standard). Sometimes an additional letter or letters - L (light) -H (heavy) or MH (medium heavy) will be stamped after the OS or STD to indicate the relative head weight of the putter. The Flange model (FL stamping) is similar to the Standard model except a small flange has been added to the back of the blade and the hosel is slightly more offset.

* The additional letters and numbers found on Bullseye putters indicate the lie (F for flat, M for medium and U or UP for upright), the length (4, 5 or 6 for 34", 35" or 36") and the type of grip (S for standard leather and P for the wide leather paddle).

The Bipartisan Lie

2010-04-12T11:27:00.006-04:00

Before We the Lemmings go overboard paying heed to siren songs at the extremes of today's so-called post-partisan, post-racial politics, I am taking my blogger's license to task. I've chosen to examine a bit more closely and post items about the battles that slog their way into mass media and pass as Reasoned Discourse.

Because like most people, I can't afford a 30-second TV spot, you have to use what you have. I'll simply go one sentence at a time and use pictures to substitute for the other 1000 words.

You've gotta make a case to have a case, right?

RESOLVED: The 17th Amendment has eroded and nearly eliminated the tempering quality of Reason as a check on democracy's inherent predilection toward mob rule.

Sadness Says Nothing More

2010-03-31T11:31:00.017-04:00

The following essay is presented in full, unabridged, unedited, with all rights reserved to the writer. No need to repeat myself. Just remember, it's no joke: pro golf is a game of Sorrows. So we gather again in the cruelest month to celebrate the greatest game to find moments of the fullest joy.

TIGER'S MORAL HAZARD - Opinionator Blog - NYTimes.com

By ROBERT WRIGHT

“There are so many young boys you influence.”
“That’s right,” said Roy.
“You’ve got to give them your best.”
“I try to do that.”
“I mean as a man too.”
He nodded.
— “The Natural,” by Bernard Malamud

When Tiger Woods tees up his Nike golf ball at the first hole of the Masters next week, will you be wishing him well? Or will you hope he yanks his drive into the pines and spends four days trudging toward the searing defeat that, in your view, he richly deserves?

Be honest. This is a moral litmus test. In fact, it’s a test for all of America — a test of where our moral consciousness is these days.

As befits a pronouncement as grand — even grandiose — as the previous sentence, I’ll illustrate it via literary allusion.

Ten years ago, writing in Slate, I noted with mild alarm an eerie parallel between Woods and Roy Hobbs, the baseball player at the center of Bernard Malamud’s 1952 novel “The Natural.” Woods had just said his goal was to be the greatest who ever played the game, and I observed that in Malamud’s story an utterance very much like this precedes the character’s downfall.

I had no idea how faithfully life would imitate art. Woods’s downfall did come, and it came for much the same reason as Hobbs’s downfall. Now the question facing Woods is whether his story will end like Malamud’s novel or like the Hollywood version of the story, the movie that starred Robert Redford as Roy Hobbs.

At the outset of the story, Hobbs is a young slugger with preternatural skill who is headed for stardom when he encounters a seductive young woman named Harriet Bird. She asks him about his ambitions. Eager to impress her — he already has sex on his mind — he says, “Sometimes when I walk down the street I bet people will say there goes Roy Hobbs, the best there ever was in the game.”

She finds his answer disappointing, and when he adds that he may make a lot of money, too, she remains unimpressed. She asks, “Isn’t there something over and above earthly things — some more glorious meaning to one’s life and activities?”

Next thing you know, she has lured him to a hotel room, presumably for a tryst. But, as he gazes at her figure through a translucent negligee, she starts mocking his aspiration to greatness and then pulls out a gun and shoots him.

Hobbs is now where Tiger Woods is. His career is on hold, and where it goes next will depend on whether he has learned his lesson. Harriet Bird has delivered the lesson in surreal, mythic form, and life will now offer Hobbs the chance to show that he grasps it.

There’s a difference between wanting to be the best and wanting to be known as the best, wanting to reap the rewards of renown.

What is the lesson? Woods gave his answer to that question during his televised confession six weeks ago, while talking about his Buddhist upbringing. “Buddhism teaches that a craving for things outside ourselves causes an unhappy and pointless search for security. It teaches me to stop following every impulse and to learn restraint. Obviously I lost track of what I was taught.”

Yes, it’s safe to say that Woods has shown poor impulse control. But Buddhist scripture — and its ancestor, Hindu scripture — puts a finer point on the matter. When you pursue great things — great golf, great art, whatever — you shouldn’t do it because of the rewards: the acclaim, the adulation, the sex. There’s a difference between wanting to be the best and wanting to be known as the best, wanting to reap the rewards of renown. “The fruits of action,” as the Bhagavad Gita puts it, are emphatically not the point of action.

I’m not saying any mortal could passionately pursue excellence while wholly abandoning the quest for acclaim and its benefits. But I am saying that virtue involves trying.

In Malamud’s novel, Roy Hobbs doesn’t make much progress on this front. He gets to the big leagues and acquires superstar status but can’t stop indulging his animal appetites. (I assume “The Natural” is a double-entendre.) Malamud conveys Roy’s excess with comically exaggerated scenes of performance-sapping overeating, and Roy shows no more restraint in his sexual appetite. He continues to evince an unerring instinct for the wrong woman, notably a beautiful, materialistic blonde who is drawing him toward corruption.

In the movie version things work out fine. Roy (Redford) resists the lure of this femme fatale (Kim Basinger), falling instead under the spell of a wholesome-looking woman with a tendency to wear white (Glenn Close) — who, very roughly speaking, is Elin Woods. By staying true to her, Roy ends his career on a heroic note, and the movie closes with a scene of familial bliss: a retired Roy teaching the game to his son. Redemption is his.

In the book, not so much. The Kim Basinger character lures Roy into complicity with gamblers, and his attempt to escape their grip comes too late. His sordid life is revealed in the newspapers, along with the punishment: he will be banned from the game, and all his records will be expunged from the annals of baseball. Apparently if you want to be the greatest just so that you’ll be known as the greatest — and enjoy the fruits of fame — the punishment is that you won’t be known as the greatest.

I’m of course not talking about real life. In real life Tiger Woods was known as the greatest while basking licentiously in that reputation, and he may well repeat this performance. But the point of an old-fashioned morality play is to send a message about karmic justice, and Malamud’s novel sends a harsh one.

That the movie version doesn’t is, presumably, a reflection of Hollywood’s preference for happy endings. At the same time, the two endings are also reflections of their respective times.

Malamud was writing in a pretty Calvinistic America. Back then if you were playing a word-association game and someone said “sin,” you were at least as likely to think “damnation” as “forgiveness.”

Does redemption that comes without major atonement send a message that transgression is no big deal?

By the time the movie version came out in 1984, things had changed. That year Oprah Winfrey first appeared on the program that would soon be renamed “The Oprah Winfrey Show” and would become such a showcase for redemption that, when Tiger Woods had his fall, people started counting the days until the seemingly inevitable Oprah cleansing ritual.

Is Oprah’s America a weaker America? Does redemption that comes easily, without major atonement, send a message that transgression is no big deal, and wind up encouraging self-destruction?

Whatever your answer to that question, Tiger Woods is exhibit A, for he has chosen the path of low atonement.

True, he’s taken a hit in income. (He’ll probably be down in the low eight figures this year.) And he’s said he’s sorry. (Good thinking!) But his great goal — and the key to being known as the greatest golfer ever — is to chalk up five more career victories in the four major golf tournaments, thus breaking Jack Nicklaus’s record of 18 majors. If he had waited until after the Masters for his return, he’d be skipping a chance to put one of those notches in his belt.

That’s a modest price (he’d still have 25 or so majors left during his prime), but it’s a price in the currency he values most. And unlike the price he’s paid in lost endorsement money, it would be voluntarily incurred.

But he’s refused to pay it, and this hubris is one thing that makes it tempting to root for his failure. (I’m trying to resist that temptation; I was raised a southern Baptist, and that has left me with a moralistic streak as formidable as Woods’s libido. His story is a rehab opportunity for both of us.)

Of course, you could also root against Woods for less reflexive reasons. He has turned his life into a real-life morality play, and maybe it would be better for his young fans if his story ended badly — if, having shown no real atonement, he was forced to pay a steeper price: never breaking Nicklaus’s record. That would be a lesson to remember.

In any event, that was the tone Bernard Malamud chose. The final piece of dialogue in the book harkens back to the Chicago Black Sox scandal of 1919, when a young fan is said to have pleaded to a fallen star, Shoeless Joe Jackson, “Say it ain’t so, Joe.” A boy hands Roy Hobbs a newspaper reporting his wrongdoing and his banishment from baseball and says, “Say it ain’t true, Roy.”

Malamud ends the book with this passage: “When Roy looked into the boy’s eyes he wanted to say it wasn’t but couldn’t, and he lifted his hands to his face and wept many bitter tears.” Apparently, there will be no redemption for the great one.

But that was then.

[Wright's]Postscript: The Slate column in which I first compared Woods to Roy Hobbs is here. I also wrote an earlier Opinionator column suggesting that the new technologies of transparency may make upstanding — or even seemingly upstanding — role models an endangered species. And, finally, here I have a video dialogue with the blogger Ann Althouse on some of the questions I address in the above column — Tiger as role model, Oprah as arbiter of redemption, etc.

Copyright 2010 The New York Times Company

"Be Yourself " Audioslave (2005)

2010-03-25T22:03:00.039-04:00

It really makes me wonder . . . now that the world's worst Buddhist has purportedly changed his life path, now that the world's best medical system is deemed legislatively kaput; and now that Spring is back in the Northern Hemisphere, Americans will have to endure yet another two years of emo-Messianic politics. We now know that as far as Everyday People are concerned, the sound and fury surrounding Scott Brown's Massachusetts miracle signified Nothing. The fix was in, effective Christmas Eve 2009.

At the risk of being labeled "reactionary", I will venture to say that good writing demands an affectation for much more than well-turned phrases. To be persuaded an idea has merit and is worth expressing (whether online or in conversation), one had better be able to anticipate the mind of one's critics. Or learn to play guitar.

Since starting WGS, try as I might to avoid latching onto sheepish political labels (notably, after experiencing satori regarding faux conservatism), a thought occurred to me I've deemed worthy of admission into this series of obscure electronic epiphanies. It is a meme preached by the eponymous character of the TV series House M.D., whose development was based largely on fictional detective Sherlock Holmes. Yes, the examined life means self-reflection, and that leads one to meaningful self-understanding. Not only does "everyone lie," it is irrational to operate assuming otherwise. That Certainty comes by addendum and edification from well-worn passages from the Ancients.

Modern Philosophers will reply in the same vein, imploring:

"Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent."
~~~ Ludwig Wittgenstein, Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus (1921)

Don't get me wrong. Labels work. Pharmacists couldn't function without them. Nor could a taxidermist, nor a canned food processor, neither a bartender. But I am now convinced that Politics, more precisely mass politics, is the domain of Machiavelli's Prince and of Sun Tzu's War, and they are far too far removed from the realms of the Healer, the Merchant, or the Farmer, to mean anything . . . useful . . . anymore . . . to my LIFE . . . for goodness sake.

The coded, hot-button, epithet-laced Beast, indigeneous to every medium, satisfies and enthralls with bicameral kabuki, presided over by its silver-tounged sociopaths, robed and gavelling false jurisprudence, promoted by prostate sycophants of Journalism, as an Orwellian trough of disintegrated, malodorous shit soup, poured over our preening cultural plates with a sterling silver ladle of electronic extension, air-brushed, blown dry, and finally, syringed into human consciousness, forming the joindered tendrils of fascist demagoguery, in serpentine service of whatever Spirit of Oppression you imagine exists.

What did we learn today, kids? We learned that nobody on the "winning" side of the Health Reform vote cared to read the devil driven details. Oh, joy.

For yours truly, a video was needed to force my own "reconciliation" with political Stupidity, to deal with rampant Constitutional and linguistic Bastardization. Sorry I can't be someone else.

It's nice to know one's critics, but it's better to know one's self.
© 2010 Roy Barin Santonil

"Everybody Lies" (4:39)

Welcome to NY, America

2010-03-24T10:00:00.012-04:00

The Google web crawlers have read this blog, and somehow the droids concluded that the content of this blog relates to something called "Health Reform." Weird.

Must . . . move . . . on. Have you ever felt like Jason Bourne?
Now what? Where to?

To DEFAULT source material when bereft of originality!

Thus Spake Movie Quote Machine:

"Are you not entertained? Are you not entertained?! Is it not why you are here?"
~~~ Maximus, from the Y2K movie Gladiator.

Click on the Title.
Go Ahead.
Bite the Big Apple.
Don't mind the maggots.

Bullet Points

2010-03-21T12:27:00.056-04:00

Whether or not you are persuaded of China's ascendancy or doubtful that America's constitutional foundations are under attack, our cultural swirl is making things as difficult as expected for anyone familiar with Scriptural admonitions about fence-sitting. I like writing just before some "momentous" happening, like the Super Bowl or the Big Vote in the U.S. House of Representatives, not because I am in the business of prognostication, but because I like to think my convictions will remain the same no matter what happens in the world.

Time seems to accelerate despite my attempts to kill it on PlayStation 3. Meanwhile, on WorkStation 1, with Sunday talking heads blaring in the background, it was with exquisite and finely wrought irony that I spotted Anita Dunn amongst the propagandizing programmers. She, of course, the now-resigned Interim White House Communications Director who commended master mass manipulator/murderer Mao Tse Tung to young high-schoolers as a paragon of how one should live one's life. Here's a naughty bit attributable to Anita's (and presumably the rest of the White House's) hero:
"Political power grows out of the barrel of a gun."

To be fair, to alleviate paranoia, and to quell fear, we could read the Maobama administration to be revisiting their brethren Clintonians and the sloppy, ineffective goo of hippies and "flower power" from the 60's as in this classic image:

On the other hand, though, they act as if they take "the great leader" literally, as evidenced by their desperate efforts to (ahem) transform America:

We should not be persuaded that collectivist government is altruistic. It matters not on which side of the barrel we stand. Political power is earthly power. So whether it grows (à la Chairman Mao) from a barrel of a gun or (per the Health Reform Bill) from a 2,700-page pile of legal crap*, the job of governing will always be a function of societal evolution, and will constantly challenge individual Liberty in a Free Republic.

It may appear that the only political certainties are death and taxes, but it should be no surprise that when humanity fails to contain its impulse for tyranny, despite the written precepts by which our Constitution intends to do so, the citizenry and its exercise of Freedom will be constrained for no better Reason than that we simply exist.

The politics of envy is ugly, and serves as a horrid basis for intrusive unfunded mandates. It has disguised itself as Health Reform, but it can shape-shift into any progressive-populist program you name. Its Utilitarianism usurps the role of Our Creator, because its good intentions lie within the very heart of deception. And their deceptions scorn Providence.

(*Ed.note: Last three paragraphs amended after Bill passed Congress 3-22-2010)

© 2010 Roy Barin Santonil

Health Bill Hazard

2010-03-17T18:58:00.006-04:00

Scott Ragan writes at Verum Serum, and sounds like he shares my frustration about the law of our land.

Article I, Section 7 of the U.S. Constitution states:

"Every Bill which shall have passed the House of Representatives and the Senate, shall, before it become a Law, be presented to the President of the United States;

If he approve he shall sign it, but if not he shall return it, with his Objections to that House in which it shall have originated, who shall enter the Objections at large on their Journal, and proceed to reconsider it.

If after such Reconsideration two thirds of that House shall agree to pass the Bill, it shall be sent, together with the Objections, to the other House, by which it shall likewise be reconsidered, and if approved by two thirds of that House, it shall become a Law.

But in all such Cases the Votes of both Houses shall be determined by Yeas and Nays, and the Names of the Persons voting for and against the Bill shall be entered on the Journal of each House respectively.”

[Bold Emphasis added]

That's all I can say anymore about the so-called "Slaughter Rule."

(Hat Tip : Landmark Legal Foundation)

© 2010 Roy Barin Santonil

A Rose is a Rose is a Daffodil

2010-03-16T15:53:00.009-04:00

What's in a name? Before Romeo dealt with that vexing philosophical question whilst wooing the fair maiden Juliet, or before you ever heard about the problem of universals in Philosophy 101, activist collectives must have viewed themselves much like today's Democrat party minions.

Since WGS is here to serve as your johnny-on-the-spot blogger, here's today's ironic delicacy: an excerpt from Michael Tarm's report, concerning ACORN's new handle:

"One of the latest groups to adopt a new name is ACORN Housing, long one of the best-funded [community organizer] affiliates. Now, the group is calling itself the Affordable Housing Centers of America.

Others changing their names include what were among the largest affiliates:

California ACORN is now Alliance of Californians for Community Empowerment, and

New York ACORN has become New York Communities for Change.

More are expected to follow suit."

The bloody guts and contemptuous core of America's economic woe scurries in the shadows cast by juridical chimera, while people vested in Constitutional governance and who abide in simple honesty shine the spotlight of truth, blogging upon them in good faith, and hopefully with good humor. CAUTION: The clip contains one of the seven words you can't say on television.

And now . . .
© 2010 Roy Barin Santonil

Unintended Skepticism

2010-03-15T09:54:00.021-04:00

As much as we try to be intellectual, we end up watching video. Thinking is just too damned dangerous.

Here's a possible 30-second explanation of the Government Motors - ABC campaign of economic slander, brought to you by the Tort Lawyers Association for the Advancement of Contingency Fees.

Toyota thanks you, George Soros. Remember: cats and coffee don't mix.

(HT : DoctorEcks at Gawker.com)

CAUTION: Gawker is a gay leftist website well-liked by Rush Limbaugh

Poe's Law has been invoked. SET Irony Filter to HIGH.

© 2010 Roy Barin Santonil

The Doctor Is "IN"

2010-03-12T12:23:00.021-05:00

Hey hey. My my.

Spring is springing, madness looms for college hoopsters, and the quest for perfect landscaping prepares its yearly rituals on the Georgia border in the city of Augusta. What gives me this sense of seasonal renewal? Well, my foot is on the mend, and I've grown to appreciate the simple joy of MOBILITY.

So what do you do when you're semi-retired, incapacitated, itching to golf, and bored?

Share it and bore others!

We're approaching the end of 2010's first quarter, and to use a football metaphor, the Republicans have great field position, due to Democrat turnovers, because their quarterback can't hit his receivers. Both teams are competeing with a new franchise, the Constitutionalists, who have a bye until November elections. In the meantime, the new franchise needs to either draft more players or they will end up quitting the game.

Since we bloggers often deal with the characterization of being insular, narcissistic, demagogues reciting masturbatory pleasantries for like-minded geeks in an echo chamber, please allow me to further that particular sterotype by adding the charge that writing an internet-enabled web log also requires an embarrassing wealth of confession-driven vanity.

In the face of this exhibitionist tendency, such a selfish prerequisite helps to explain why so-called conspiracy theorists and Tea Partiers are, on many levels, surpassing the long-held dominance of "mainstream" pundits with respect to the substance, authoritative origins, and ultimately, the weight and credibility of opinions in debates about what is public policy is best. Granted, there is now a less-diplomatic tone in mainstream politics (I give you Chris Matthews). And now . . . video captures and advances the vulgar edge of this supposedly libertarian (actually, it's progressive-populist) wave. But the fact that bloggers are predisposed to confessional rants has a cleansing effect.

Thus, in spite of the derision and leering disdain coming from "traditional" journalism, there exists a very strong, very logical, and as evidenced by long time watchers, discernible and persuasive undercurrent, a "Movement," if you will, that anyone paying attention knows is running through the crumbling structures non-Constitutional and extra-Constitutional elements of American government. Even here at WGS, we have evolved, quite literally, and without fear of recrimination (after realizing the only thing we have to fear is writer's block). One by one, these labels, these self-imposed, categorical penitentiaries of political affiliation are falling. How do we characterize these amorphous mobs showing up in the public square of American politics?

Heroes? Nah.
Loners? No.
Welcoming hosts? I doubt it.
Bush supporters? Don't think so.
Obama supporters? Not likely.
Union members? Uh, no.
Political forecasters? God, no.
Conservatives? Ha! No.
Birthers? Not any more.

Whatever the label, the more disdain expressed by the priviliged few, who dismiss serious concerns using ad hominem arguments against deluded crackpots and crazy racists, the more acceptable explication of "what's going on" is not merely missed. It is obliterated. It is denuded, hidden in a shroud of chatter in a game played by so many smart people, each claiming fairly that they are the smartest person in the chat room. Wherever you find them on the spectrum, the pot is not the kettle, and that is the rub. "Old" media has been recognized (once again) as the Fourth Estate and, therefore, another arm of Leviathan oppression. So while the pot and the kettle mud wrestle in a televised cage match to the death, who really cares what is (actually) written?

After only a month of doing it online, a writer becomes aware of how truly unoriginal his thoughts are. He eventually figures out that anyone intelligently interested in what you wrote, to their credit, probably already knew it. They get it. I think that explains why a confession-obsessed personality serves bloggers so well. It's not so much guilt as it is a desire to illuminate. For a writer to achieve his aim, whatever one lacks in originality can be compensated by another equally compelling social trait, a negative one; such as, oh, I don't know, Gruesomeness. We watch politics for the same reason we watch NASCAR. Or Oprah. Or Tiger making sextuple bogey.

Look away. Look away. Look away.

Ron Paul (The Doctor) has now earned the dubious distinction of becoming Mitt Romney's successor at the CPAC conference last month. Justin Fox at Time.com has provided at least an attempt to objectively critique the merits of the arguments given by the Godfather of the Tea Party Movement. If we had enough time, maybe more people will hear the many voices in the blogging wilderness, getting louder, an insurgency against wrong-headed efforts to "transform" us into a Nation of Men, not of Laws.

I can't say "I told you so" because I'm too busy dealing with all the mockery.
© 2010 Roy Barin Santonil

The Courage to Do Nothing

2010-03-01T13:38:00.014-05:00

Don't say we lack for substance during the End Times.

Here's a tip of the hat at the top of the first March morning to friend and former roommate @Mel_Lono. There's nothing nicer to numb our minds than a friendly discussion about macroeconomics, U.S. fiscal policy and their implications against a backdrop of the Federal Reserve System and Shakespearean tragedy. Enjoy.

As for me, I joined the masses on Sunday and watched a hockey game. They have a name for the winners in the world, eh?

No changes for this blogger as we enter the final throes of winter in the Carolinas. My elective podiatric procedure, an Aiken osteotomy and bone spur removal, will keep me partially incapacitated for at least another month, so that makes you the lucky audience. Being incapacitated, as you may well understand, multiplies the crazy factor by about 10. Around here, "2" qualifies for shots of tequila. Still, I'll do my best to keep the tone civil. Civil and weird, if you please. How amazing are these times when you can share X-rays of your big toe on line with the world? I added lines on the images to show what was corrected, anatomically speaking. You can see the pins, which will be removed in about 3 weeks.

As the title suggests (and summarizes), there isn't a whole lot missing about politics that a little stillness can't cure. Legislation, anyone? Me neither.

Sometimes you need to have the courage to simply do nothing.

Happy Birthday, Dad.
© 2010 Roy Barin Santonil

"Deacon Blues" - Steely Dan (1977)

2010-02-21T11:26:00.023-05:00

Truth be told, Steely Dan fans have always secretly reveled in the band's unpopularity. Their low numbers -- three top ten hits ("Do It Again," "Rikki Don't Lose That Number," and "Hey Nineteen") and one measely certified platinum album (Aja) -- were worn like defiant badges of rock snobbery. But what really hurts is the recognition that, even though Pete Townshend was still doing windmills at this year's Super Bowl, we cannot fight the looming certainty that our particular stream of cultural influence is, or soon will be, relegated to the sedentary stylings of menopausal post-boomers vested in social stability and tasked with the duty to transmit values we are convinced possess Quality and that define what is aesthetically "good."

Have popular music and lyrics become degraded, alien horrors? Lately, they irritate and annoy with tones from the Harpy and not of the Muse. They offend sonic space, and having lost "the essence of true Romance," overrun thoughtful appreciation with unpleasant rhythms, sow discord and arouse with fleeting sound sampling, quenching the spirit with overt merchandising and photogenic compatibility, soulless and meaningless.

I'm okay with that. Though I have a library of Mp3's that would take six days to listen to, I'm reconciled to the fact that I'm just as likely to hear Steely Dan in elevators and department stores than anywhere else in life.

Patrick McKay summed up their obtuse artistry in a blog post two years ago, and as we've previously mentioned to hard core fans, the band hasn't made a really novel statement since 1971. It's more of the same: Genius.

If you listen to “Deacon Blues” and only hear lite pop, the joke’s on you; with just a little close-listening, and the help of that English degree you never thought you’d use, it’s clear that “Deacon Blues” isn’t about a melancholy priest, but about a young hipster celebrating being a drunk, jazz-loving loser in an America that only cares about college football teams. And herein lies the greatness of Steely Dan: they wrote complex, mysterious songs disguised as catchy pop tunes. They’re both the most MOR [Middle-of-the-Road] and least MOR band ever. They’re accessible and subversive at the same time. If that isn’t the definition of great art, what is?

"Sharing the things we know and love with those of my kind"

Animal Spirits

2010-02-19T05:09:00.034-05:00

I'm almost certain that this picture isn't a Photoshop forgery (unlike a certain birth certificate), but my theory has been shot down anyway. I was starting to imagine that all the messiahs being offered up by the mainstream media were truly the work of the devil. Alas, unlike Clark Kent and Superman, we now have evidence that the world's leading figures in sports and politics have been seen in the same room at the same time. That doesn't yet mean my theory is wrong, because I am never wrong. (Snigger)

WGS first mentioned these U.S. Justice Department shenanigans last August (Post #100) during the dog days of our President's first summer of discontent. Bear with me here, so this essay can start making sense:

"If you were feeling any better about our legal system, just last week, Obama's Justice Department dropped a civil rights case involving some serious charges of voter intimidation including violations of the 1965 Civil Rights Act. Witness the creepy events at Philadelphia polling places on Election Day 2008. Thomas Pirelli, an Obama political appointee, went against the recommendations of six Justice Department career attorneys, as well as the U.S. Civil Rights Commmission and dropped the case without explanation. I get it. You are supposed to experience nausea at the tactics, strategy, and philosophy of Chicago thuggery. Then you enter their national health care plan. Right."

Hey, no ellipses! We should likewise consider the case in Philadelphia, PA.

Anyway, the stinking story lives. The space between the dots is getting bigger, and our attention spans are getting smaller, so don't think this is easy. What we have here is an menagerie of current events. While TIGER reads a terse and no doubt carefully crafted statement to the masses like some papal encyclical feeding idolatrous manna to the lost, a recent Washington Times headline reads: "WOLF Seeks PANTHER Case Dismissal Probe." One of the lead witnessess is a MR. BULL. I shit you not.

Jennifer Rubin, at Commentary Magazine, has been one of the blogosphere's point people on the matter. She is a prolific writer and in my view, an ace reporter. Her report concerns the Civil Rights Division, whose lawyers were fined by a Federal District Court (Kansas) for their failure to respond to a subpoena issued by the U.S. Commision on Civil Rights. Their concealment is costing U.S. Taxpayers thousands of dollars. Bureacratic turf wars are nothing new for one of those lawyers, Loretta King, who has previously incurred nearly half a million dollars in attorney fees sanctions while serving under the Clinton administration.

The New Black Panther Party case was filed by the DOJ in January 2009 before Bush left office. The defendants did not deny the charges, so DOJ veteran trial lawyers began preparing motions for default judgement and orders for a broad injunction. The case was, however, dismissed in May 2009 and is the subject of inquiry by Rep. Frank Wolf (R-VA) and Rep. Lamar Smith (R-TX). The key allegation in this saga is that career Justice Department lawyers were overrulled by Obama appointees in what was supposed to be the fair and impartial administration of justice. In our post-racial, post-partisan utopia, it appears that enforcment of the Civil Rights Act on behalf of whites may be akin to blasphemy. What's worse is that instead of enforcing Commission subpoenas, the Civil Rights Division is actively thwarting them.

In late December 2009, when nobody was paying attention, the White House visitors list was released to reveal strong signs of a synchronicity of surreptituous subpoena suppression at the highest levels of the Obama administration. In mid-January, the House Judiciary Committee voted down a resolution of inquiry that would have required the DOJ to explain to Congress why it dismissed the case. According to Wolf, the leader of the New Black Panthers is "a lawless man" and the Congressman has written letters of appeal to DOJ Inspector General Glenn A. Fine to investigate these potential improprieties.

Calling Dr. Fine, Dr. Howard, Dr. Fine.

In a written reply and before Congress, the IG demurred, indicating that the Office of Professional Responsibility was handling the matter, and that the OPR was:

“in the midst of its investigation – which is a full investigation, not a preliminary investigation or inquiry.” It intends to share the results of its investigation with Congress, according to Fine’s letter. Previously OPR had only said it was conducting a more limited preliminary “inquiry” into the matter, according to documents released last summer by House Republicans."

Don't get your hopes up, fellow citizens. Former Harry Reid-Ted Kennedy minion Ron Weich, is the Justice Department's AAG for Legislative Affairs. He too has replied to Rep. Wolf's letter, and disagrees with the charge that an OPR investigation could be conducted in an "unbiased and independent" manner, re-iterating that no independent authority exists for the IG to investigate any decision by the department to stonewall congressional inquiries. Mary Patrice Brown was appointed in April 2009 to act as head of OPR. The Justice Department lawyers were told to stop prosecuting the case two days before the judge's deadline for filing Motion for Default Judgement. All the pieces were being put in place and it smells of high treason.

Here's the clincher. The New Black Panther Party leader, Malik Z. Shabazz, has failed to appear for a February 12th deposition before the Civiil Rights Commission, stonewalling the facts and creating further suspicion. Hell, let's ignore subpoenas and skip depositions. Silly transparency. Remember the man who "spiked" of the DOJ prosecution, Thomas Pirelli? Not only is he accused of Abuse of Discretion for Failure to Prosecute the case (after the new administration de-capitated OPR), Pirelli himself was appointed only days before one of the case defendants became suddenly transformed into an "Official Poll Watcher" for the Philadelphia Democratic Party. Oh joy.

Here's the online copy of the dropped DOJ complaint. You decide.

After celebrating the anniversary of Federal stimulus, after the cult of celebrity does its ritual dance, after two weeks of yours truly stewing in front of a big plasma screen with a new nose and a new foot, maybe we better look back at how we got here, before stimulus becomes code for coercion. Pray for Erskine Bowles and Alan Simpson. It looks like militant racism will be getting a pass - until next Thanksgiving.
© 2010 Roy Barin Santonil

Ooh, pretty words

2010-02-16T14:45:00.045-05:00

Word geeks, Wittgensteinians and non-Wittensteinians alike, might find this kinda cool.

I won't bore you with the detailed programming elements, but in the end you have a word cloud, as sampled below from a WGS essay posted on February 7, 2010. Just like the web master at Wordle, I must issue a caveat regarding the link: you will have to enable Javascript to use the site.

The fun never stops. Keep talking. And listening. And watching. And reading.

We're bound to figure it out eventually:
© 2010 Roy Barin Santonil

Here is the original post that the above image represents. Good technology makes magic.

Commentary vous?

2010-02-07T08:38:00.006-05:00

This will only take a minute. By the way, good football game. I'm writing this before Super Bowl 44 starts (screw the Roman numerals, it's our game), so good luck Black-Gold vs. White-Blue. Whatever.

You may ask yourself: what is it that so interests me today, that I would take the time to sit at my desktop hunting and pecking my way to post another commentary on another topic, on a different day, on the same old blog. Here it is.

Now if you are a fast reader, you probably have already decided to skip the link and move on. More power to you for avoiding potential link-bait. And who really needs to read a statistical summary of random telephone calls made from the phone book to ask parents and kids questions about internet usage? Yet, that piece of scientific inquiry has been used to support a quite non-scientific hypothesis, namely, that blogging is "uncool." So basically, a couple of scientists at the Pew Institute, some bloggers, and AP writer Martha Irvine are still worried about being cool. How sad.

If you did manage to view the "interesting" link from this commentary, sorry about that. Bo-ring! We already know that immediacy and entertainment are the keys to holding an audience on the Net. But wait, that's not all. Intelligence matters. Regardless of the merit or cuteness of their arguments, blog writers who advance notions like "Blogging Sux," or "Old Farts Top Charts Online," forget there is a war going on in the world of ideas.

Now I won't say that the Pew Study is flawed. After all, it appears to have all the earmarks of what passes for modern wisdom, especially in the way they analyzed their "survey" results by sampling methodology which employs "weighted" variable distributions using a Deming Algorithm. OK. Like the credibility of anthropogenic global warming scientists, or the flowering of carefree youth, my attention span is officially, and thankfully, gone.

Time for video.
© 2010 Roy Barin Santonil

J.D. Salinger (1919 - 2010)

2010-01-30T21:16:00.036-05:00

This post comes from his last interview in 1980. I read "The Catcher In The Rye" for the first and only time in the mid-1970's as a pot-smoking high school kid, destined to fulfill a family dream, preparing to head to Annapolis for a Naval career. As it turned out, my life ended up being more contemplative than martial. Maybe I was really meant to have a "navel" career.

It was a perfect match between book and reader. I cannot forget how I felt when I began turning the pages. It was as if the writer had wrenched his way into the subconscious depths of his young Seekers, unabashedly saying the things we thought in cadences we understood, having no fear of authoritarian recrimination, he made us comfortable confirming what we knew: that the world really was filled with idiotic adults. Some things never change.

To me (and I'm no expert), the most amazing thing about Salinger's Opus is the self-evolving nature of the work. It speaks to me today as it did then, however, its genius lies in the inspirational quality possessed by the synthesis of the world of the author and the world of the first rock-star, Holden Caulfield. The blurred reality between writer and character is what illuminates, mystifies, and fascinates us about Salinger. Other than God's Word, you will be hard pressed to name a written work with the same scope of cultural impact that connects baseball in Iowa with the CIA's MK-ULTRA program, with actress Jodie Foster and The Beatles, and ties them together in a scenario involving the near assassination of a U.S. President.

Awesomeness, dude. We could say he'd be missed, but it's easier to just say what Salinger himself said of his own work: "It's all there." Finally, he's probably where he dreamed he would be, doing what he always wanted to do. What a prince.

The Article below is reproduced in full from The New York Times.

By LACEY FOSBURGH

San Francisco, Nov. 2 [1980] -- Goaded by publication of unauthorized editions of his early, previously uncollected works, the reclusive author J. D. Salinger broke a public silence of more than 20 years last week, issuing a denunciation and revealing he is hard at work on writings that may never be published in his lifetime.

Speaking by telephone from Cornish, N. H., where he makes him home, the 55-year-old author whose most recent published work, "Raise High the Roof Beam, Carpenters" and "Seymour, an Introduction," appeared in 1962, said:

"There is a marvelous peace in not publishing. It's peaceful. Still. Publishing is a terrible invasion of my privacy. I like to write. I love to write. But I write just for myself and my own pleasure."

For nearly half an hour after saying he intended to talk "only for a minute," the author, who achieved literary fame and cultish devotion enhanced by his inaccessibility following publication of "The Catcher in the Rye" in 1951, spoke of his work, his obsession with privacy and his uncertain thoughts about publication.

The interview with Mr. Salinger, who was at times warm and charming, at times wary and skittish, is believed to be his first since 1953, when he granted one to a 16-year-old representative of the high school newspaper in Cornish.

What prompted Mr. Salinger to speak now on what he said was a cold, rainy, windswept night in Cornish was what he regards as the latest and most severe of all invasions of his private world: the publication of "The Complete Uncollected Short Stories of J. D. Salinger, Vols. 1 and 2."

During the last two months, about 25,000 copies of these books, priced at $3 to $5 for each volume, have been sold--first here in San Francisco, then in New York, Chicago and elsewhere, according to Mr. Salinger, his lawyers and book dealers around the country.

"Some stories, my property, have been stolen," Mr. Salinger said. "Someone's appropriated them. It's an illicit act. It's unfair. Suppose you had a coat you liked and somebody went into your closet and stole it.

That's how I feel."

Mr. Salinger wrote the stories, including two about Holden Caulfield, the pained, sensitive hero of "The Catcher in the Rye," between 1940 and 1948 for magazines like The Saturday Evening Post, Colliers and Esquire.

Prefiguring his later writing, they concern themselves with lonely young soldiers and boys who eat egg yolks, girls with "lovely, awkward" smiles and children who never get letters.

'Selling Like Hotcakes'

"They're selling like hotcakes," said one San Francisco book dealer. "Everybody wants one."

While "The Catcher in the Rye" still sells at the rate of 250,000 copies a year, the contents of the unauthorized paperback books have been available heretofore only in the magazine files of large libraries.

"I wrote them a long time ago," Mr. Salinger said of the stories, "and I never had any intention of publishing them. I wanted them to die a perfectly natural death.

"I'm not trying to hide the gaucheries of my youth. I just don't think they're worthy of publishing."

Since last April, copies of "The Complete Uncollected Short Stories of J. D. Salinger, Vols. 1 and 2" have reportedly been peddled in person to bookstores at $1.50 each by men who always call themselves John Greenberg and say they come from Berkeley, Calif. Their descriptions have varied from city to city.

One such peddler told Andreas Brown, manager of the Gotham Book Mart in New York City, that he and his associates did not expect to get in trouble for their unauthorized enterprise because, as Mr. Brown related, "they could always negotiate with Salinger's lawyers and promise not to do it any more."

Mr. Brown, who described the young man as "a hippie, intellectual type, a typical Berkeley student," said, "I asked him why they were doing it, and he said he was a fan of Salinger's and thought these stories should be available to the public.

"I asked him what he thought Salinger would feel, and he said, 'We thought if we made the books attractive enough he wouldn't mind.'"

Gotham refused to sell the books and alerted Mr. Salinger to the unauthorized publications.

"It's irritating," said Mr. Salinger, who said he still owns the copyright on the stories. "It's really very irritating. I'm very upset about it."

According to Neil L. Shapiro, one of the author's lawyers here, the publication or sale of the stories without Mr. Salinger's authorization violates Federal copyright laws.

A civil suit in Mr. Salinger's name was filed last month in the Federal District Court here against "John Greenberg" and 17 major local bookstores, including Brentano's, alleging violation of the copyright laws.

The author is seeking a minimum of $250,000 in punitive damages and injunctive relief.

The stories have since been enjoined from all further sales of the unauthorized books, and, according to Mr. Shapiro, they still face possible damage payments ranging from $4,500 to $90,000 for each book sold. Additional legal action, he said, was being planned against bookstores elsewhere.

The mysterious publisher and his associates remain at large.

It's amazing some sort of law and order agency can't do something about this," Mr. Salinger said. "Why, if a dirty old mattress is stolen from your attic, they'll find it. But they're not even looking for this man."

Discusses Opposition

Discussing his opposition to republication of his early works, Mr. Salinger said they were the fruit of a time when he was first beginning to commit himself to being a writer. He spoke of writing feverishly, of being "intent on placing [his works] in magazines."

Suddenly he interrupted himself.

"This doesn't have anything to do with this man Greenberg," he said. "I'm still trying to protect what privacy I have left."

Over the years many newspapers and national magazines have sent their representatives to his farmhouse in Cornish, but the author would turn and walk away if approached on the street and was reported to abandon friends if they discussed him with reporters. There have been articles reporting on his mailbox, his shopping and his reclusive life, but not interviews.

But last week, he responded to a request for an interview transmitted to him earlier in the day, by Dorothy Olding, his New York literary agent.

Did he expect to publish another work soon?

There was a pause.

"I really don't know how soon," he said. There was another pause, and then Mr. Salinger began to talk rapidly about how much he was writing, long hours, every day, and he said he was under contract to no one for another book.

"I don't necessarily intend to publish posthumously," he said, "but I do like to write for myself.

"I pay for this kind of attitude. I'm known as a strange, aloof kind of man. But all I'm doing is trying to protect myself and my work."

"I just want all this to stop. It's intrusive. I've survived a lot of things," he said in what was to be the end of the conversation, "and I'll probably survive this."

Be Afraid (Part 4)

2010-01-24T08:25:00.098-05:00

In case you missed it, here's the story so far:

It was a dark and stormy year. It was January and the country had a newly elected leader. Out in North Carolina, that vale of humility between two mountains of conceit, a blogger using the pen name Golfmage, crept ever so hesitantly into the abyss of souls laid bare before The Matrix. The fortunes of his country had taken an unprecedented turn for the worse. The pain and frustration was made more intense because in spite of all the work on the driving range, lowering his handicap to single digits, he had recently failed to break 100 in the local amateur golf tournament.

Prescient voices of the mass media could not find words sufficient to carry the majesty and celebration with which the new regime was handed the rapturous reins of leadership. It was immaculate in tone, and more than merely an inauguration. It was an immaculation.

Amidst the pomp and circumstance, Chief Justice John Roberts choked the oath of office, not knowing how that small misstep would portend things to come. Was it a valid induction into office? Would they have to do it again? (They did.) Is this new president a native born citizen under the Constitution? Of course, Golfmage asked and asked until July, when finally for him, the question was relegated to a political plane reserved for Lewis Carroll tea parties.

In Part I, as he channeled lyrics from Gordon Sumner (aka Frodo's Sword), in an attempt to illustrate the power of simplicity, Golfmage surmised as follows:

Let's see . . . silver tounged orator . . . elected out of nowhere . . . in the midst of severe and difficult economic conditions . . . promising to unify a nation "under attack" from a significant religious minority . . . with a mandate to lead America's "return to it's rightful place" as the deserving and superior leader of the world's nations . . . hmmm . . . George Santayana, where are you?

Little did he know that the American firesale would be cancelled, or at least postponed, by the people of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts.

After 70 years, Hitler analogies in political discussions are all too commonplace for anyone with internet access. Since the (Scott) Brown menace raises the hopeful possibility of a single-term White House, the fear of failure to heed history's lessons would appear to have lost its sense of inevitablity in 2010. Our little fears never happened in spite of our mindless election of a National Socialist to the Oval Office. (So little happened that the Norweigians gave our President a prize). Now, Brown's election opens the door to a uniquely American story of redemption in the affirmation of liberty: e.g., it's a compelling story of how the political "machine," a dynasty built by Nazi-sympathizing liquor-smugglers, aided and abbeted by murderous Chicago syndicates and propped upon mythic images culled by gatekeepers in broadcast media, whose infectuous politics metastasized from Hyannis Port to Little Rock to Sacramento to Manila, could be partially dismantled by operation of a conditional promise in the Book of John.

In Part II, Golfmage admitted to himself: embrace your exile, be a real political loser and confess your Unaffiliated status. By the middle of May, his glimmer of faith remained unseen, even though the "losing" message of 2008 (and years before) turned out to be an anticipatory juggernaut, to be made manifest in the people's will months later. As he seeks the truth, it is the obfuscators of the truth, the major political parties, who have become now more than ever, technologically, demographically, philosophically, and perhaps existentially, doomed. Part III again warned us of The Road to Serfdom.

But wait, Kimosabe.

Eternal vigilance is a pain in the ass and we have failed another history lesson. With remarkable symmetry, a different Kennedy has struck at the national fiber, this time from the Supreme Court bench. In the same week of a stunning political upset, the scales of Justice tipped back to equilibrium with the announcement of a similarly stunning 5-4 judicial result, Citizens United vs. FEC, with the sublime irony that Justice Anthony Kennedy wrote the majority opinion.

Thus, we arrive at Part IV through the prompting words of John (Sexton), blogging at Verum Serum about the fears engendered through logical extensions of the Citizens United ruling, their specific impact on Roe v. Wade, and their overall impact on progressive liberalism. While Golfmage satirized the Preamble in response to Citizens United, he could not ignore the dissonance. Piling on the bad metaphors, the Brown win is a political holocaust in its infancy and Citizens United is a canary in a coal mine.

Since he made his meager monetary contribution to the Ron Paul campaign, Golfmage doesn't write as a contributor to anything or for anyone, and insofar as he fills disk space on some remote Google server, he spends a hell of a lot of time getting bad stuff out of his mind while sharing what he thinks is funny. Observe and report. Observe and report. Observe and report. Et cetera.

At any rate, the prospect of having government officials adorned like NASCAR drivers should be as intriguing as it is frightening. We are led to believe that Massachusetts vindicated rage against the political machine. Yet, Citizens reinvigorates the machine like a Schwarzenegger cyborg. Those who are savoring Brown's victory instinctively applaud the Citizens United ruling because they have confused "freedom of speech" with the "power of bribery." In fact, it re-fixes the machine damaged by Scott Brown. It is actually a betrayal of the paleocons by the same explicit judicial activism seen in Bush v. Gore and traceable in historical jurisprudence at least as far back as the 1905 Lochner case. You can argue the case reflects the same nefarious Substantive Due Process analysis used against a different and less successful Scott: Dred.

Silly populists. Their gloating stems from the dual electoral repudiation of annoying extra-constitutional paternalism in both Obama's health care initiative and McCain's campaign finance law. Both major party candidates have been, as always, agents, not of change, but of business as usual. While the Left is obviously reeling politically, the strategic dominance they have historicaly enjoyed in the courts is under seige. Meanwhile, the Right has been blinded by envy, less because of Obama's race, but of his class. In spite of the crowing about "winning," both fail in most respects to recognize that the populist surge which swept Brown (as well as Christie and McDonnell) to office is about to face a full frontal assault, crushed by iron fists, the Twin Death Stars of American politics: Corporations and Labor Unions.

After a year of blogging, Golfmage has learned that in this neural expanse, euphoria is a deceiver, and an oracle's warning from 1817 remains true today.

R party? D party?

Sharpen your wit, load your gun, and fill your stein. We're dealing with a bunch of F's.
© 2010 Roy Barin Santonil

WE THE CORPORATIONS

2010-01-22T09:57:00.068-05:00

We the Corporations of the United States, regardless of our funding sources, in order to form a more perfect collectivist-fascist Plutocracy, pervert Justice by limiting liability, insure economic Hegemony, provide for the common defense of our markets, promote our latest Products, and secure the Blessings of steady dividends to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this legal opinion:

Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission
No.08-205, 558 U.S.____(January 21, 2010)

ISSUE: Does the U.S. Constitution protect (as "speech") money given by non-human entities?

RULING: You bet your potential life in perpetuity it does.

ANALYSIS: We the People have been f****d since law clerk Bancroft Davis wrote his infamous obiter dictum in 1886, which recognized corporations as juridic persons under the 14th amendment.

CONCLUSION: In God We Trust. (Not Rush Limbaugh, who is actually a Haitian counter-spy.)

Seriously. Who has time to read? Unless the clerks made a typo and indeed dropped the letter "k," it looks like the train is leaving the station because the traditional 24-hour news cycle has quickened into approximately 5 minutes. Along with the trifecta of MA Brown, the White House (notably, not Treasury) announcing revised financial institution regulatory initiatives, and the Speaker's concessions to the obvious, the serio-comedic, insulting Salahi Inquisition, the Jet's playoff run, and John Edwards' hair has made it even easier to miss through these smoke screens how "irrational exuberance" is not merely an economic bubble maker, it's this month's centerfold!

Money. It's a hit.
© 2010 Roy Barin Santonil

M-O-N-K-E-Y in Politics. ALL ABOARD?

Affrontery

2010-01-20T17:08:00.010-05:00

Dan Lungren was California's Attorney General before me and my family fled.

Nice to see a GOP point of light who gets it.

Watch this and you won't know whether to get outraged or suppress a smirk.

Es ist so traurig.

Sound and Fury

2010-01-19T22:59:00.103-05:00

How now Brown Scott?

Whether amused or bemused, people with real lives have no time for the obvious silliness surrounding the political machinations regarding who would be elected to fill Ted Kennedy's seat. And you certainly do not need a law degree to know that filling Ted's seat will require awfully large briefs.

Whatever route we take when we analyze the "epic" nature of what happened in the Bay State Senate race, the bottom line points to a morose truth with little consequence and feeble effect on the big issues for the post-boomer generation: what's for supper, where can I get a job, and stay off my lawn. That hard truth is this: in the GOP version of hopeychange, another ass is going to Washington D.C. to replace another dead Kennedy.

Otra cerveza, por favor.

With all due respect, we're still stuck in a cross-fire of fools, so despite any incremental battles won, this is no time to abandon the call for a plague on both their houses. It's the unaffiliated, independent voter who rules American politics in early 2010. Many a constitutionalist Mercutio lays yet slain, pajamas strewn, while traditional politicos, incumbent Tybalts, continue to huddle in sheltered brothels of public office.

For the Democrat Party, losing the Virginia and New Jersey governorships, and now the "Kennedy Seat," does not automatically turn them into a political Haiti. Unlike Haitian revolutionaries, these Democrat leftists do their Satanic deals at wholesale and by their aspirational rhetoric, invoke the political pathology of a thousand Robespierres.

On the other hand, a pretty face that appeals to Tea Party plagiarists, echoing metro-messianic "Deliverance," in the end reduces our political discourse to a vapid, wacko chorus, evoking stupid pageants of political wags leeringly nodding, "I'd hit that." Think of all the visceral reactions you get when you mention Sarah Palin. For all of its promise, a Brown victory could end up tying a big red bow on the national handbasket to hell.

Nice photo, Senator. Revise and extend this.

Okay, too obvious. Ignore their tinny words. Watch their actions. Here's the perspective I will be adopting to handle the spew sure to follow from the onslaught of talking-heads as they spin their respective agendas onto the political landscape of a Republican win in Massachusetts. (Whew! Spelled that one right.)
© 2010 Roy Barin Santonil

AND NOW . . . IT'S . . . five minutes of Linguistic Philosophy:

Monday Morning QB

2010-01-18T00:58:00.029-05:00

Here's your first timely cliché: aftershocks from Port-au-Prince may soon be felt in an off-year Massachusetts Senate election, and with Jack Bauer back in business, America will again be made safer on this Martin Luther King Federal Holiday.

WTF just happened?

Carolina's been out of the playoff picture for some time, so frankly, we don't give a damn. And now that we see San Diego as a mere colonial outpost for the State of Arizona, it makes sense that a USC Trojan would have to visit the borderlands and play AFL ghost-buster. In football, every play begins with the Center. As San Diego became the sole team that failed to defend its home turf, it reinforced a certain karmic quality on the Road to Miami.

Brett Favre must first visit the site of his previous Super Bowl win, just to get a chance to win . . . another Super Bowl. It's déjà vu all over again. In the AFC, the Southwest is a big loser, and so we look Eastward to replay Super Bowl III. This time, there's no Namath guarantee, but we have plenty of hindsight.

Really now, was there any way Arizona could win on MLK weekend? Still, I thought the Ravens might rise to pull off their upset, given how the Colts ditched Baltimore like an unfaithful wife. I guess it wasn't cold enough for them to serve up that dish of revenge. Yet.

Evidently, the league depleted it's purple jersey quota, so it was the Jets' turn to play the rookie-coach-and-QB-make-strong-playoff-run-to-get-smacked-in-the-face-by-reality scenario. BTW, the '69 Jets won the Super Bowl by a score of 16-7. Old school means low scoring, so the question remains: Did Mary Landreau trade her health care vote for the Saints' spot in the Super Bowl?

OK, the coast is clear, the bitterness is gone, and I can prognosticate with complete, yet unfounded, confidence, to grant the WGS Kiss of Death and pick:

NFC: VIKINGS, with Superior D, and a spirited leader. Saints fall short.

AFC: JETS, again with the D, and old school style. It's all on Payton.

THE EARLY CALL: Cinderella bandwagon here. Manage the game, 6.

J - E - T - S

Oblivious to the Obvious

2010-01-10T16:35:00.039-05:00

"Sometimes the first duty of intelligent men is the restatement of the obvious."

~ paraphrased from George Orwell (2010)

"We have now sunk to the depth where the restatement of the obvious is the first duty of intelligent men."

~ what Orwell actually wrote (1939)

The pull quotes illustrate why we hear what we choose to hear, and what once was common knowledge gets lost and becomes something less than obvious, something hidden. Yes, it would be nice to wax poetic on the subtle irony of this technology which simultaneously unifies and isolates. But insofar as national politicians have abandoned their duty, by the looks of things, it will be hard enough finding signs of intelligent life.

That the Emperor has no clothes is barely obvious.

The sage and crafty TV character Arthur Spooner gave us a humorous definition of irony as "having large amounts of iron." Its corollary suggests that anything ironic may be bent. Today's political irony is wrought from the frequency with which the parties unknowingly use ideas from the opposing side in order to feed the proselytes. The smoke, mirrors, bread, and circuses make you forget the catch-22: "In war, truth is the first casualty."

Don't get me wrong. I won't beat an obviously dead horse, since we all know who the boss is, right?

Take the above examples. Obviously, the first quote is a paraphrased variant of the second, which, in turn, is traceable to Orwell's 1939 review of Bertrand Russell's work, published in the journal Adelphi. But Orwell's socialist sympathies have been concealed by what John Rodden calls the "politics of ellipsis." He illustrates how deleting the words "democratic socialism" from a famous Orwell quote, we never learn what it is that so passionately drives him to write. Nowadays, how often is Orwell called upon to bolster the arguments of those who can hardly contain their aneurismic disdain for state socialism?

Obviously, when the chattering class (like bloggers) have words to thank for their positions, it may "well serve" us to choose even more carefully, especially in light of that editorial scam . . . the ellipsis. I should have said "behoove" just so it would turn up in a word search.

One final salvo: I can't continue to say nothing about the (obvious) Tiger Woods gossip rag frenzy without first seeking to find parallels to our (obviously) embattled president in Washington D.C., but hey, you gotta give a guy props for some level of prescience when I called Tiger the Icarus of golf. Isn't it obvious, or am I just oblivious?

Connect the dots.
© 2010 Roy Barin Santonil

Soccer Break!

2010-01-08T10:41:00.010-05:00

We weren't much better than these guys when we played. And given its 5-star viewer rating, I know we weren't nearly as hilarious. ROTFLMAO!

2 minutes of light in the depths of the darkness. Enjoy the show.

Hat Tip to . . . Lusyydia’s Pyr Aionion

Irony of ironies

2010-01-06T10:14:00.004-05:00

Someone will have to tell me why I laughed out loud after reading this at a Politico.com sidebar.

I mean, they are an attractive, seemingly middle-aged couple, who I understand aspire to celebrity and noteriety. What am I missing? Can we blame technology? Is the road to fame really a detour to derision?

I've always suspected that adulthood may just be a slow motion replay of high-school that flows into society at large, anyway. Heck, we all "wanna be" something somehow, to somebody or something. Right, Tiger? The writers of our divine comedy must be drinking that 6th cup of coffee.

Laugh or cry, it just wouldn't be fair to judge these folks.

© 2010 Roy Barin Santonil

Tareq and Michaele Salahi are heading to Las Vegas for a party where they won't need an invitation. | Photo by Courtesy

Bank of America's Life of Brian

2010-01-04T11:58:00.004-05:00

Prefacing the new year from Charlotte, I have to warn friends that my eccentricities may devolve to simple selfishness, so I beg your pardon in advance for what it is I decide to cyber-bore you with. Grammar and punctuation count, and yes, this will be on the exam. LOL.

I'm watching Bloomberg TV's exclusive interview with Bank of America's new CEO, Brian Moynihan. How is this relevant? Well, aside from another Pearl Harbor analogy, they do have the naming rights for the Panthers stadium. Crazy theory of the day? The shame of having fat cat bankers as a major sponsors was too much for our team to bear, so we couldn't play to our potential until the last three games. So what's the upside? It's a new year and the football team seems to have a new starting quarterback!

What I gather from the blather is that Moynihan wants the company to focus on "execution" to "serve its customers" and ensure the company is "well-positioned." I know, I know, it is all about as meaningful as your generic company Mission Statement, but for now, since it is the first day on the job, with all eyes on him, I pity poor Brian. After an exhaustive search, as new CEO, he had to talk to all the best and brightest bankers out in Raleigh (as in "folly") this morning to discuss the economy after doing this TV interview.

He already likes the company's business model, and doesn't think they need to offer any new products (aw, no more derivatives) or make any new acquisitions (aw, no investing in crooks). So his mantra will be to simply "execute" on behalf of the customer. It appears that they have the programs in place, and after tieing up loose ends with Merrill and MBNA, he says they will try not to screw up so badly in the next business cycle. Well, they do have great market share. As you would expect, money will be tight, so if your credit score is less than 700, good luck.

Moynihan makes these key points in terms of the economy:

We are past the financial "crisis."
Since he's younger, he'll engage regulators more than did his predecessor.
Headquarters will remain in Charlotte.
Glass-Steagall should stay dead.
Morale is good and improving. TARP is re-paid.
Innovation surpassed risk-management abilities. Don't let that happen again.
Power and fun come from the same place: people.
Live in moderation.

Of course, shares were up 2.5% as I write, and last month, FBR upgraded B of A shares to "outperform." Still, analysts wonder if they will eventually break off pieces of their business. Earnings will have to grow. Balance sheets will have to stabilize. Job numbers will have to improve.

If they don't, take the remote and change the channel.
© 2010 Roy Barin Santonil

More random video that I hope you find as amusing as I did:

Your Obligatory WGS Year in Review

2010-01-02T14:37:00.006-05:00

I'm writing again.

But I'm tired.

Welcome to the Year of the Tiger.

Vacation has a way of wearing you out in a Clark Griswold sort of way. It was a Christmas pause that failed to refresh, mainly due to the gruesome American spectacle now coming to the house in over 150 channels courtesy of DirectTV, and soon to be displayed on a newly purchased (only) 42" flat screen TV.

Yours truly, Mr. Rabbit Ears, is "letting them in" to share our crowded house. Content rules, eh?

So as we complete the decade of the aughts, I'll try to be helpful, as I submit for your approval the painful reminder that dead fish go with the flow, and harass is not two words.

I pretty much agree with Lee Siegel that the DOMINANT POLITICAL THEME OF THE YEAR was "Monsters vs. Weenies".

Monsters were those insulting, slanderous, and belligerent characters on the national stage. They came across seeming bigoted, irrational, obsessed, driven by a fixed idea or ideas, and spurred on by demons. They displayed hints of inner torment strongly indicating megalomania by virtue of their pontifical style, trying to be “regular Joes,” “Everymen,” and guys you knew at the corner bar. You don't want to live with Monsters.

Weenies are those reflective, ambivalent, and equivocating political creeps. They seem rational and pragmatic, professorial and eager to please, but are in fact sneaky and underhanded. Machiavellian to the core, they suggest knowledge of buried secrets, but their utmost concern is to appear virtuous. What we end up seeing are people acting professorial and detached, but revealing themselves in their arrogance. Where's my gun? And so it goes.

Turning to sports, if you know Wit, Gun and Stein, you know I care about football, but my business is golf. You also know I grew up rooting for the Chargers, but my home team is the Panthers. This may yet be a memorable year as Carolina tries to do what no other NFL team has ever done, which is, rush TWO backs, each with over 1,100 yard for the season. It is significant. In terms of the league, I'm rooting for the Chargers and their N.C. State quarterback to go all the way. That too, would be significant from a football standpoint. John Fox has earned another year at the helm, our defense is getting even better under Coach Meeks, and the last time I rooted for a team with an Oregon State Beaver at QB was back in the 80's. What goes around comes around, right? One caveat: the best golfing QB in the NFL has found something that may just lead the Cowboys to the promised land.

Yes, I know, it's a guy thing, but outside of sports and politics, what else does an overeducated derelict talk about?

As far as money and the economy goes, so goes the world. 2009 began and ended with massive assaults of American freedom. First, the fledgling presidency was powerless to halt the $700B Goldman Sachs-AIG-Connecticut coup d'etat engineered by the Skull and Bones Society. And at the end of the year, we rinsed away any last vestige of a constitutional republic and put a stake through the heart of enumerated powers, as the various Wars on Poverty, Drugs, and Terrorism congealed into a gelatinous Federal Guarantee that You Will Never Die. It's called health insurance reform. Oh joy.

The battle lines are forming with the prospect of a Democrat banzai charge orginating from the elitist coastal cities, with spotty guerilla resistance forming among indigenous Nebraskans, Alaskans, Texans, and the majority of silent, property-owning, small business-oriented, tradition-based citizenry repulsed by the epidemic of attention-starved juvenalia passing for American values, courtesy of (insert-demonized-greedy-outsider-entity here).

10 for 10

Let's get started. Here are either the worst, most ridiculous (so more likely) predictions, compiled from what I've skimmed and browsed in the last 15 minutes online. Linked for your convenience and, as it should be, in no particular order, I present to you what may or may not happen in the second full year of Wit, Gun, and Stein:

1. Why you need your Wit, Gun and Stein : The United States will fall apart. LOL.

2. World War III, of course.

3. Clean is the new green, and it is still just politics.

4. As platforms engage in death matches for market share, phones will replace wallets.

5. Facebook will go public despite increased cyber-attacks

6. Old (distribution) media will continue to get hammered. It's about content, man.

7. What took them so long? Google will get hit with anti-trust lawsuits.

8. The evolution continues from Virtual to Augmented reality.

9. Information Technology will lead the global economic recovery. I did not know that.

10. This seems inevitable: someone will die on Reality TV.

As you well know, all and none of these things will happen. Have fun, keep reading, and keep "getting it."

Our mentor, Ludwig Wittgenstein also wishes you a Happy New Decade.
© 2010 Roy Barin Santonil

Santé Réforme de la Législation

2009-12-23T11:30:00.010-05:00

Preserve protect and defend my butt.

Please excuse my French : Comment terriblement triste.

Water You Gonna Believe?

2009-11-24T09:28:00.050-05:00

If you don't believe everything you hear from NASA and the government, or if you generally question authority, then Richard C. Hoagland is your man. Like all conspiracy theorists (I prefer the term "dot-connector"), Hoagland has been smeared with accusations of plagiarism. Now, we have seen the AGW (Anthropogenic Global Warming) alarmists forget (or ignore) the fact that to be a good scientist is to be, truly, a skeptic. As ClimateGate has developed, AGW advocates are the ones who have been revealed as bullies and frauds.

But that's not the point here. Reports are coming from a wide array of sources trumpeting that "water ice" has been found on the moon. If that is true, the ramifications may be literally earth-shattering. Water, technically the water molecule H2O, is the key building block that would allow humans to create colonies in outer space. This is theoretically possible because human food, rocket fuel, and oxygen can be chemically processed from lunar surface water (if it truly exists).

Despite the critics, I went ahead and entertained more facts about the NASA mission, to find an interesting, intelligent, albeit loosely-stitched theory that should be dismissed with reluctance. It's a bit far out, so don the tin foil hats and read further.

THE MISSION(S)

The LRO (Lunar Reconaissance Orbiter) and LCROSS (Lunar CRater Observation and Sensing Satellite) projects trace their origins to January 2004 when, after decades of stagnation in NASA's lunar program, George W. Bush announced our renewed exploration efforts with a "vision of discovery" that set sights on Mars and beyond. The "reconnaisance" part of the LRO uses an array of complex optical instruments and will create a comprehensive digital map of the entire lunar surface which will serve NASA's plans for future landing sites. Neat, huh?

The existence of water on the lunar surface (and therefore the possibility of sustained extra-terrestrial life) has already been proven in substance, really, since the Lunar Prospector mission of the late 1990's. The theory has been supported further by results from the Clementine mission that launched only days after President's Bush's 2004 announcement.

Here is where Hoagland casts a skeptical eye on the proceedings. When LRO was identified in 2004 as the first project in the renewed Robotic Lunar Exploration Program (RLEP), LCROSS was not part of the original plan. It was quietly piggybacked as a relatively cheap $80M add-on in 2006, with the mission rationale to search for more supporting evidence of water, including In Situs Resource Utilization (ISRU).

Skeptics looked at this scenario, and questioned why would NASA fly the LCROSS mission since they already knew it would basicaly add nothing to our strategic knowledge about polar water deposits. In addition, there was an unusual amount of media hype about the way "spectacular" plume would look to earth observers. People all over the globe caught a glimpse of what to expect to see from the LCROSS collision when, in 2005, Deep Impact satellite collided with comet Tempel 1, providing dramatic images from space:

Credits: NASA/JPL-Caltech

Fairly awesome. Large plumes of comet debris with elemental by-products, heat, and light.

Compare that Deep Impact collision to the images in the following web link, which shows pictures of the target crater Cabeus, moments after LCROSS hit the lunar surface.

Thanks to the good people at Palomar Observatory near San Diego, we have it here: Bubkus!

Zilch.

As Hoagland put it, "This is NOT what we all paid for."

THE EVIDENCE

It gets crazy, and a little complicated, but it is truly skeptical, blinding, science.

The Mission Rationale (linked above) provided the theory supporting what the LCROSS collision was supposed to prove. Keep in mind that NASA had decades of first-hand spacecraft observational data as a foundation to work from. In this case, a satellite weighing over 2 tons crashing at a roughly 80 degree angle at about 1.5 miles/second should have produced a plume of moon dust in tonnage sufficient to permit the companion LRO to analyze its composition and relay the spectrometric data back to earth. Quote from the NASA website:

"The amount of material (dust and probably ice) ejected could fill ten school buses, or ten Space Shuttle cargo bays. The plume will reach nearly 50 km high (over 30 miles)!"

Well, that didn't work out so well.

Hoagland explains the theory, saying that a thin layer of lunar soil would have produced a bright flash due to the conversion of excess kinetic energy into raw heat and light, while thick soil would have thrown more dust into a big plume because kinetic energy would be transferred to the extra volume of soil particles. In either case, the impact approximating one ton of TNT should have produced something visible to Earth. Instead, we got neither a flash of light (which should have lit up the whole crater), nor the towering plume of moon dust.

In the end, NASA officialy said, "a faint but distinct flash was only a few pixels wide in the LCROSS cameras and lasted only a brief moment." A few pixels?

THE THEORY

At this point, you are better served reading Hoagland's explanation of a third alternative to explain why neither the bright flash nor the tall plume made their appearance. In essence, he thinks that the LCROSS went through the lunar surface. Yup. Went through it.

Here is the official NASA post-impact photo:

Still with me?

Take it away Mr. Hoagland:

This official NASA image release (above) is the product of three co-added, stretched LCROSS Visible Light Camera images ....

The fuzzy object in the center of the red circle (on this totally washed-out, high-contrast LCROSS image "stack") is purported, then, to be the Centaur impact plume event ... measuring about 4 or 5 miles in diameter.

A close-up of this circled "plume" (below), reveals just how tenuous this "official identification" remains ....

And yet ... this conclusion -- ostensibly based on an intensive analysis of this ambiguous NASA visual composite is the claimed result of applying the fastest NASA computers on the planet to the LCROSS data using state-of-the-art NASA computer image-processing algoithms [sic] that "can pull the glow of a firefly over a hundred miles away out of a pitch-black night ...."

And yet it took the LCROSS team a full week ... to come up with --

This?

And then, I realized something else ... that was REALLY wrong with this peculiar LCROSS image ... something VERY strange indeed ---

Because this "official, NASA presentation image" of the intensely-searched-for Centaur impact plume" ---

Was being released UPSIDE DOWN ... and BACKWARDS! [emphasis added]

CONCLUSIONS

From here, skeptical science turns into speculative philosophy and just plain detective work. You can reason that the images were unintentionally flipped or that the subtle geometric orientations are some kind of purposeful "code." That is the current dilemma. People in the know say seven days is an abnormally long time for them to release official images, and also, they seem way overexposed.

But remember the non-plume collision event? The best explanation seems to be that the floor of the Cabeus crater is HOLLOW. Here are infrared readings from LCROSS's first "swing-by" orbit in June 2009. Note how the temperature distribution runs from the extreme cold pre-dawn values (-250 Fº) to the red hot high lunar noon (+250 Fº).

Hoagland asserts that the thin yellow line on the surface is the combined effect of semi-transparent, heat-radiating, ancient lunar structures all blending together along a substantial section of the horizon of the far side of the Moon, given away by their intrinsic thermal heating from the Sun, and the re-radiation of that heat back into space. The sensitive LCROSS IR cameras immediately picked it up and displayed it as the "room temperature" yellow-arc stretching above the real, higher-temperature (red) lunar surface. These smart-bomb images approximate what might have actually happened:

Like Rupert Murdoch has us programmed to say: "You decide."

Here are some final NASA images, as I have already bitten off more than I can quickly chew. Do you see geometric shapes indicating the possibility of architectural structures extending downward under the surface of the moon? Since the LCROSS experiment, the Japanese have made further discoveries supporting the hollow surface theory. Politically, "wacky" rumors from Hawaii indicate some world wide "reveal" is imminent. Don't bet on it.

Soylent Green is people!

Right angles?

Recent Japanese finding : lava tunnels.

Marius Hills ruins.

That's it in a nutshell, conspiracy cadets:
The ruins of civilization on a dome-shelled moon.

"Don't know when I'll be back again."

It's late for Bible study, Sarah has a plane to catch, and I have to tune up my Avatar.

Until next post, NEXT YEAR: Happy Holidays!

Live Long And Prosper
© 2009 Roy Barin Santonil

NFL Week 12 - 2009

2009-11-24T06:59:00.008-05:00

I've got it all figured out. Listen carefully: Cincinnati and Cleveland are different cities in Ohio. Good thing I've been gambling so much; otherwise football on TV would be time better spent on the range. We'll know by Monday if perfection is attainable. I don't think so. Rimmed the cup with the Ravens last week, so blow on the dice and roll 'em. Switch up the plusses and the minuses this week, but stay positive.

LAST WEEK'S RESULTS (Season) Percentage

Straight Up: 11-5 (106-52) .670
vs. The Spread: 5-11 (80-78) .506

My picks are in BOLD CAPS type.

BYES: None.

*** Upset Special

AFC GAMES

DOLPHINS @ Bills (+3) : Keep it simple.

Browns (+14) @ BENGALS : Columbus wins!

Colts @ TEXANS (+3) : Schaub should shine.

Chiefs (+13.5) @ CHARGERS : Rivers rolling.

Steelers (+2.5) @ RAVENS : Maddening.

NFC GAMES

PACKERS @ Lions (+10) : Northern exposure.

Buccaneers (+12) @ FALCONS : It's just business.

Redskins (+9) @ EAGLES : Snyder's folly.

SEAHAWKS @ Rams (+3) : Bulger's hurt.

Bears (+10.5) @ VIKINGS : MVP QB = W.

INTER-CONFERENCE GAMES

RAIDERS (+13.5) @ Cowboys : National TV spite. ***

GIANTS @ Broncos (+6.5) : Pile on Denver.

PANTHERS (+3) @ Jets : Complete objectivity.

JAGUARS (+3) @ 49ers : Southern boys rock'em.

Cardinals (+1) @ TITANS : Young is young.

Patriots @ SAINTS (+3) : Too big to fail.

Inter-Conference visitors get the edge on long weekends. The Black and Silver would make for an outstanding food coma on Thursday. Either way, with the Chargers on a roll, the Bengals and Broncos exposed, and Division South leaders undefeated, so-called "order" will be restored : More beer!

(NOTE: For entertainment purposes only)

Onion Sliced Patriot

2009-11-18T09:04:00.073-05:00

The jig is up.

Under the new management agreement, people at The Onion found some North San Diegans who I actually may have met in person some years ago. Evidently, the Onioners are celebrating "National Awareness Month". Satire at it's best.

Creating satire is a bit like buying a Rolls Royce. If you have to ask the price, then you cannot afford it, and if you have to explain it, then the whole effect is lost. Great mischief ensues when it is done right, but don't be surprised if you get thrown into the pool along with the rest of the braying fools, regardless of the brevity of your wit.

Scholars point to Jonathan Swift's "A Modest Proposal" as one of English Literature's leading examples of effective satire. American writer H.L. Mencken, who described the "colossal buffoonery" of the Scopes Monkey trial, was also an admirer of satirist Mark Twain, and so on and so forth. As for me, I love the way legendary satirists could pull off their commentary leaving their targets oblivious to the skewering. When calling for a way to deal with overpopulation and hunger by killing and feeding on young children, the loud sincere protests of indignant readers believed Swift's shocking "Proposal" to be an affront to civilization itself. Duh. I said many moons ago, it sucks to not get it.

After nearly a year of writing this blog, I have reached the point where my politics have been transcended and the voices inside my head have been fully synthesized. The "level up" (play a video game, dude) did not happen by force of opinions regarding any political issue, but rather through a moment of satori. The concept of satori began (not exclusively) in Zen Buddhist teaching and can be described as a moment of intuitive experience one achieves understanding of individual enlightenment. It may be described as an idea, but my satori experience was more like taking a hit from Pac Man Pacquiao: non-communicable in form, it came out of nowhere or at least seemed to come out of nowhere. And there was pain.

I can't say it any better. I used to think I was a "conservative," because growing up in the 70's, "conserve" meant "don't smoke the whole bag at once." And sadly, as we learned with the Bush Administration, being conservative doesn't necessarily mean being frugal.

In law school, as in high school, you learn to recognize how much appearance matters. Being single, I tried to write blistering rhetoric favoring school prayer while taking vehement pro-life stands against abortion to become noticed by fellow students (especially female students). It was only a matter of time before the sheer brilliance of my argument, contrasted with my swarthy, slovenly ethnic countenance, would produce swoons of admiration. After experiencing satori, I realize I put on the "conservative" jersey for the same reason I formed a rock band as an undergraduate: like any poor bachelor, I was trying to get laid. Nowadays, with no social or political reason to impress anyone I am glad to still think and write along the same lines: It's a big joke.

So much for capital "C" conservatism. Hindi ako bobo.

Now, when I think about political issues (ahem ... clearing throat) "in the Age of Obama," the aphrodisiac of dogma crumbles away, fluttering like a dry, dead leaf, down to the abyssmal canyon of more essential questions such as, How Do I Stay on Good Terms with Neighbors Who Have Noisy, Ugly Kids? Or, Was The-Artist-Formerly-Known-As-Prince-Again-Now-Known-As-Prince right about the symbolic ties between sex and religion in Purple Rain? You know. Important stuff. Got Satire? Click the Title.

© 2009 Roy Barin Santonil

NFL Week 11 - 2009

2009-11-16T07:44:00.021-05:00

Fellow golfers, the NFL season is on its back nine, the Jets are OB, Eagles are unikely, and happiness can be found in solid hits, up or down the middle. Adam Vinatieri for MVP! Just kidding. I blame the refs when the wild cards start rumbling. Yes, I stupidly went with my head against my Packers (Poor Romo), and yes, I ignored the Orange and Black juggernaut. Blame Cris Collinsworth (kidding again). Even good guys go through dry stretches (Tennessee), but karma plays a well-tuned harp, and 17 is playing well. So as teams press on, breath is bated, wondering when Brother Manning and the Saints will lose. Where's my dartboard . . .

LAST WEEK'S RESULTS (Season) Percentage

Straight Up: 11-4 (95-47) .669
vs. The Spread: 9-6 (75-67) .528

My picks are in bold CAPS type.

BYES: None.

*** Upset Special

AFC GAMES

STEELERS (-10) @ Chiefs : Counter Madden's curse!

Colts @ RAVENS (-1) : Just because. ***

Bills @ JAGUARS (-8) : Middle market madness.

Jets @ PATRIOTS (-10.5) : Haunted by Namath's ghost.

BENGALS (-9.5) @ Raiders : Bandwagon!

CHARGERS (-3) @ Broncos : Bandwagon II!

TITANS @ Texans (-5) : See CJ run.

NFC GAMES

49ers @ PACKERS (-6.5) : Heart beats head.

Falcons @ GIANTS (-6) : Protect this house.

SAINTS (-11.5) @ Buccaneers : Tough 10th win.

Browns @ LIONS (-2.5) : Anything but a tie.

Redskins @ COWBOYS (-10) : Please protect #9.

CARDINALS (-9) @ Rams : Riding Beanie, baby.

Eagles (-3) @ BEARS : Move along, folks.

INTER-CONFERENCE GAMES

Dolphins @ PANTHERS (-3) : 8-footer for par.

Seahawks @ VIKINGS (-11) : Ooh, pretty colors.

Classy visitors can win on the road. Life's tough, so sue me for peeking at the standings and reading Bucky Brooks. Keep on gambling. Just kidding.

(NOTE: For entertainment purposes only)

Pac Man Gobbles Up Cotto

2009-11-15T08:41:00.019-05:00

TKO 12. I have some good news and some bad news.

In case you missed it:

I was impressed with the intelligence and precision Manny displayed in terms of tactics, rhythym, and technique. Cotto was unable to match after the 4th round. Some commentators put Rounds 2-4 in the same category as the savage Hagler-Hearns battles from the 1980's.
I'm not a big boxing nut, but it sure was entertaining. 90 million Filipinos and 3 million Puerto Ricans found a fight and it seemed clear that, after it was over, each boxer held the other in profound respect. On the business side, it may surpass the Mayweather-Marquez PPV threshold at over a million buys.
First, some post-fight commentary:

Finally, raconteur and boxing bon vivant, Bert Sugar:

Like the man said, this ranks as an "all-time great."

Queensberry Rules

2009-11-12T17:51:00.015-05:00

Tim Starks gives a comprehensive preview of this Saturday's showdown between two men whose respective countries were the spoils of the Spanish-American War. Puerto Rico and the Philippine Islands were "given to" or "seized by" the United States, along with Cuba, and Guam as a result of the signing of the 1898 Treaty of Paris.

The scheduled 12-round boxing match between Miguel Cotto (P.R.) and Manny Pacquiao (P.I.) is being promoted as the "Fight of the Year." Whatever you think of the level of corruption that exists in this "sweet science," you can't help but appreciate the work these guys put in. Says Starks:

"Cotto, as both a junior welterweight and welterweight, has been in no fewer than four fights over the years that were finalists for the best fight of the year (Ricardo Torres, Zab Judah, Shane Mosley, Antonio Margarito) and that doesn't include some honorable mentions (Paulie Malignaggi, Joshua Clottey).

Pacquiao, who started his career as a junior flyweight (106 lbs.), has been in five Fight of the Year finalists (his three fights with Erik Morales, both fights with Juan Manuel Marquez) since moving up to featherweight and becoming a boxing star who now is fighting at 145 pounds.

And I've never once been bored by a Pacquiao fight or Cotto fight. It's never happened. Even when they steamroll their opposition, the way Cotto did Carlos Quintana or Pacquiao did Ricky Hatton, I've gazed in awe at what destructive forces of nature and nurture both men are.

So best-case scenario, they combine to produce another Fight of the Year-caliber thriller. Worst-case scenario, one man looks amazing blowing away the other. OK, worst-worst-case scenario, somebody gets disqualified or there's a bad cut that ends the fight in the 1st round as a no-contest. But that kind of thing hardly ever happens in fights of this scale."

Whatever happens, it's nice to see Manny having and sharing his success, distant and vicarious as it is to we potential viewers. It's no surprise that here is another Filipino who becomes even a little famous and so begins to harbor political aspirations. It must be in the DNA. There is hardly any question he carries hope for millions (of people).

Starks thinks the winner may have a shot at Floyd Mayweather, depending on the pay-per-view numbers. Manny's promoter Bob Arum is formerly from Mayweather's camp, and may get in the way because of a personal vendetta. The keys to the fight break down with Cotto having the advantages of size and power. Pacquiao will have to use his speed and stamina, as well as his ability to take a punch, if he wants to win.

No money on this thing, but I can't hide the fact that I'd like to see Manny pull it off, just so people can reflexively call upon a different stereotype than the one that sees Filipinos as mostly thieves, whores, sailors or medical professionals who speak English with thick funny accents.

NFL Week 10 - 2009

2009-11-11T10:19:00.004-05:00

Maybe it's the clownish orange and black tiger-stripe helmets. The league is officially on notice about the Bengals. Their win puts them ahead of two powerhouse teams in AFC North, so the South and East are looking like battles for the second wild card. In the NFC, Arizona is in firm control of the West, and as Cowboy lovers/haters prime themselves for the usual December swoon, wild cards rule the conference. Tampa is off the schneid, so spoilers are in full lurking mode, and that includes my Panthers, injuries and all.

LAST WEEK'S RESULTS (Season) Percentage

Straight Up: 8-5 (84-43) .662
vs. The Spread: 8-5 (66-61) .520

My picks are in bold CAPS type.
Click title link for full schedule.

BYES: Houston, NY Giants

*** Upset Special

AFC GAMES

Jaguars @ JETS (-6.5) : Rookie QB breaks through wall.

Bengals @ STEELERS (-6.5) : Back to business.

Bills @ TITANS (-6.5) : Too late for Tennessee.

CHIEFS @ Raiders (-1.5) : Winning in spite. ***

Patriots @ COLTS (-3) : There's no place like home.

RAVENS (-11) @ Browns : Sophomore slogging year for Flacco.

NFC GAMES

Bears @ 49ERS (-3) : Coach Mike wants this one.

Falcons (-1.5) @ PANTHERS : Sticking with it.

Lions @ VIKINGS (-16.5) : Just don't get hurt.

SAINTS (-13.5) @ Rams : "Representing" NFC South.

Seahawks @ CARDINALS (-9) : Trap game. Stay focused.

COWBOYS (-3) @ Packers : Not as close as Vegas thinks.

INTER-CONFERENCE GAMES

Buccaneers @ DOLPHINS (-9.5) : Dolphins are the daddy.

BRONCOS (-5) @ Redskins : Bronco break out East.

Eagles @ CHARGERS (-2.5) : Eagles treated like foreigners .

It's good to be home this week (hint), unless you live in Cleveland. It will get tougher for Cincy and Denver, who will have bullseyes on their backs in the AFC. It's time for teams to ask themselves how much they really want it. Another question is whether the Chiefs have enough bad memories to win for "spite." When you're beating the spread, it's house money!

(NOTE: For entertainment purposes only)

Marriage Wins!

2009-11-09T13:38:00.026-05:00

In the opening scenes of the 1937 classic film, The Good Earth, a young Chinese peasant lies awake in bed as the morning dawns.

"Today is my lucky day!"

Wang Lung repeats this to himself, as he prepares tea, dresses himself, and gets ready to leave his house.

It is his wedding day.

The film follows the story of Wang's marriage to Ou Lan over their years of failure and fortune, and we watch as they face life together in pre-revolution China.

Last week, as the GOP celebrated gubernatorial victories in Virginia and New Jersey, there was somewhat less fanfare about a political fight in the great state of Maine. Question One was a referendum to repeal a state law legalizing same-sex marriages. It won 53 to 47 percent. It won by a bigger margin than the same repeal victory in California, this despite the fact that GLBTQ (gay-les-bi-tran-?) supporters spent more money, and presumably had learned from their defeat. Kathryn Jean Lopez covers the story here:

"Robert P. George, a professor of politics at Princeton and founder of the American Principles Project, observes: “Maine is a northeastern liberal state with a significant student population. There are few blacks and very few Mormons. There is not a large Evangelical Christian population. The forces working in the state for the abolition of the conjugal conception of marriage as the union of husband and wife had the strong support not only of the media, but also of the state’s governor and other leading political figures. They had a significant funding advantage. On Election Day, they got the large turnout that they believed would assure them of victory. Yet, when the votes were counted, the people of Maine came down solidly in favor of restoring the conjugal conception of marriage that the state’s legislature and governor attempted to abolish.”

“I think people may not understand the magnitude of what we were up against,” emphasizes Brian Brown, executive director of the National Organization for Marriage. “They had four years to build an effective grassroots organization and claimed 8,000 volunteers in a state with a population of only 1.3 million. Still they lost — and by a larger margin than in California.” He asks where proponents of same-sex marriage go from here, “how they convince their base to fund another campaign. At this point they are 0 for 31.” The “31” refers to the number of states where there has been a ballot initiative concerning gay marriage.

Why has gay marriage consistently lost when put in the hands of voters? Because what’s true is true."

Thank you, Mr. Brown.

You may ask yourself, what does an old film about a Chinese peasant wedding have to do with the rejection of gay marriage? I suppose it's just the sentimental fool in me who draws the parallel between the story in The Good Earth and the "old fashioned" values enriched by staying with the one you love who loves you as the saying goes, for better or worse, for richer or poorer, etc.

Yes, I'm perhaps guilty of the cut and paste mentality of internet-influenced thought patterns, stretching the link between the lessons of that film and today's political climate regarding marriage. But I ask for your indulgence.

You see, eighteen years ago to this day, November 9, 1991, I took my bride for life, and, even though it seems a little unfashionable, our hopeful vow of commitment to one another has grown to become a natural, solid sanctuary. There is no small touch of romance in saying she has made me and we have made each other simply, and happily, married.

Warts and all, what was true is true.

"Today is my lucky day!"
© 2009 Roy Barin Santonil

NFL Week 9 - 2009

2009-11-03T08:48:00.010-05:00

It's a love/hate relationship. I love going 12-1, but I hate that the Jets kept me from being perfect. When your inner gambler is winning, that's never a good sign. The Broncos, Eagles, and Jets are still who I thought they were. The Giants and Falcons have shown they aren't really all that, while the Bengals, Steelers, and Cowboys remain question marks. NYG looks cooked, and a resurgence in Carolina gives me the audacity to pick 'em and weep. Or maybe cheer?

LAST WEEK'S RESULTS (Season) Percentage

Straight Up: 12-1 (76-38) .667
vs. The Spread: 9-4 (58-57) .504

My picks are in CAPS and bold type.
Click title link for full schedule.

BYES: Buffalo, Cleveland, Minnesota, NY Jets, St. Louis, Oakland

*** Upset Special

AFC GAMES

RAVENS (-3) @ Bengals : Not yet, Carson.

Dolphins @ PATRIOTS (-10.5) : So what's new?

Chiefs @ JAGUARS (-6.5) : Under the radar.

TEXANS @ Colts (-9) : Opportunity knocks. ***

STEELERS (-3) @ Broncos : Charger helpers.

NFC GAMES

Cardinals @ BEARS (-3) : AZ reeling on the road.

Redskins @ FALCONS (-10) : Birds coming off a bitter loss.

PACKERS (-9.5) @ Buccaneers : Slow death in Tampa.

PANTHERS @ Saints (-13) : Homecoming.

COWBOYS @ Eagles (-3) : Follow the money.

Lions @ SEAHAWKS (-10) : No surprises here.

INTER-CONFERENCE GAMES

TITANS @ 49ers (-4) : Back on track?

CHARGERS @ Giants (-5) : NY pass D exposed.

Look like this is Road Tripper Week. Texans over Colts is bigger than the Saints losing their first game. I have no reason to predict the upset, except the entrails of a frog tell me Houston is ready. When it comes to division rivals, there are too many intangibles, but I'm only guessing the Panthers number one pass defense edges the Saints number one pass offense. But hey, I'm just a football fan.

Ed. Note: Point spreads added 11-6/09
(NOTE: For entertainment purposes only)

wurd 2 da wyze

2009-11-02T08:20:00.052-05:00

Busted.

I thought it would be only a matter of time before my guilty suspicion was confirmed.

Because we're really just manipulating digital packets of alphanumeric symbols, the Shakespearean Monkey Theorem operated to bring about this missive during the NFL pre-season: reflections on the Ocean of information, the Origins of shame, and the Obfuscations of health care reform. Oh my. It seems like eons ago because we all know light years really aren't years. Right?

Back then, I considered posting James Bowman's essay entitled "Onward, Culture Warriors!" to help sharpen the contrast between progressive and conservative thinking. Bowman takes aim at New York Times token conservative David Brooks for pushing public debate away from the area of so-called cultural issues. Brooks asserts that broader opportunities exist in the economic sphere, and that conservatives dealing with "obsolete" cultural issues are missing the chance to further a corresponding (and more effective) economic morality that cuts across Red and Blue America equally. Bowman refuses the bait, brilliantly and literally advancing the clarion call, cutting a swath broad enough to mention Harry Potter, the Pope, Karl Marx and Roman Polanski. Check it out.

I call "busted" because Professor Bowman hits the mark via the text of a speech he delivered to The Philadelphia Society titled "The Pursuit of Wisdom in the Age of the Internet" which laments or lauds, I'm not sure which, the ease with which the Internet allows us to cut-and-paste our way to intellligent cultural appreciation. Again with the culture. Oy.

On the good side, citing Tyler Cowen's work in the Wilson Quarterly, "there is evidence that in the age of the Internet, most people, unlike me, are not getting dumber." Bowman continues:

"Intuitively, however, I feel that my time spent online has robbed me of at least some of my powers of concentration, and I believe that a very significant component, if not the principal one, of intelligence is the power of concentration. Or, to put it the other way around, stupidity is the inability to focus, and my ability to focus has become severely compromised.

[. . .]

All attention is choice, but the easy choices of the online world rob you of the ability to make harder ones, producing a different kind of knowing — for example, the kind that comes from the time it takes to plow through a Victorian novel and learn about its multitude of characters and absorb the dense texture of its prose as well as the little incidental facts about Victorian life that you might know if someone extracted them from the novel for you and put them up on the Internet as bullet points — . . . [emphasis added]."

I'm not that smart, so I don't have anything to lose, but we've said it before: we are spiritually compromised just by paying attention.

Cowen contends, and I tend to agree, that the Internet is "not so much about having information as it is about knowing how to get it." Bowman says because of the Internet, the object of criticism (the pursuit of truth) has become "the fancy of the critic, who thus steps forward as the real hero of the critical enterprise whose only aim is to enhance his own 'rich and varied inner experience' which connects a joke from YouTube, a terrifying scene from a Japanese slasher movie, a melody from iTunes, and some images — perhaps your own digital photos — to capture the sublime beauty of the Grand Canyon." He continues,

"University English courses today routinely treat Shakespeare’s plays and Batman comics as being on the same plane and not meaningfully different from each other.

[. . .]

Now that a generation has grown up believing that that kind of truth is invidious, or "privileged" or authoritarian or hierarchical or, God help us, "patriarchal," and that everybody has a right to his or her own truth, what we have instead of truth as the purpose of criticism— where it is not simply Marxist political analysis — is "intertextuality." That is, we harvest as many points of connection as we can think of between King Lear and Batman and between both of them and the universe of texts awaiting us out there on the Internet — and then we put in the links between them."

NFL Week 8 - 2009

2009-10-28T09:21:00.016-04:00

Sometimes it's better to be lucky than good and you have to give something up to get something. Sadly, my Panthers are toast, so watch for the spoiler! Denver is the new Tennessee, and as we approach the season's mid-point, I remember why we often have a love/hate relationship with the game.

LAST WEEK'S RESULTS (Season) Percentage

Straight Up: 9-4 (64-37) .637
vs. The Spread: 9-4 (49-53) .485

My picks are in bold typeface. Click title link for full schedule.

BYES: Cincinatti, Kansas City, New England, Pittsburgh, Tampa Bay, Washington

*** Upset Special

AFC GAMES

Broncos @ Ravens (-3.5): Somebody stop them.

Texans (-3.5) @ Bills : Houston's a sleeper.

Jaguars @ Titans (-3) : Paging Vince Young (again).

Raiders @ Chargers (-13) : No love here.

Dolphins @ Jets (-3) : Classic.

NFC GAMES

Seahawks @ Cowboys (-9.5) : Nice flatscreen.

Rams @ Lions (-4) : Failure is fun! ***

Browns @ Bears (-13.5) : Wherefore are thou Romeo.

Giants @ Eagles (-2) : A jersey contest. Green is home.

Vikings @ Packers (-3) : Close as always.

Panthers @ Cardinals (-9.5) : Cats hurting. Avengers?

Falcons @ Saints (-10) : Drew not missing SD.

INTER-CONFERENCE GAMES

49ers @ Colts (-12) : ZZZ ... zzz

Good fishing for bottom feeders, as the wild cards take shape. Only one inter-conference game this week, so as Tip O'Neill once said, "All politics is local." Carolina's troubled offense dominated Buffalo and lost the game. SS Chris Harris sums it up, "If you look at the numbers and not look at the score, you say that we probably blew them out. But, numbers don't win games, points do." Play on.

(NOTE: For entertainment purposes only)

Lather. Rinse. Pontificate. Repeat.

2009-10-26T14:05:00.059-04:00

As Congress prepares to once again usurp We The People by excercising its domain over personal health, the "out" party needs to preach its gospel in terms broader than nostalgia.

I know that I am guilty of a generational wistfulness which often masks an increasingly radical reactionary attitude. Like the stages of grief, one's prevailing political philosophy goes through seasons, and evolves with the interplay of shifting demography, mass communications, and global commerce. In the 21st century, it challenges us to examine the way we respond to the multiplicity of choices required by life in the First World. Nevertheless, to sustain credibility, good politics requires consistency.

Whether it is a sign of success, the hobgoblin of little minds, the mark of a professional, or a character flaw in its predictability, consistency works in the echo chamber of political blogging. Ideally, you want to be consistent and also get it right. But striving for such is an altogether impractical (non-utilitarian) path because strategy and tactics lose some degree of relevance. Being consistent and getting it right provides little bang per buck because it is often irreverent and prone to snarkiness.

Political consistency is a by-product of thinking through sound principles, but the usual consequence of being politically incorrect means putting one's self at a political disadvantage. Imagine my surprise to learn last week that the U.S. government is adopting a new policy regarding marijuana. Winning the conservative debate despite pajamas. LOL. I think my glaucoma is acting up again.

It is said that the media are the massage, but that may be bass-ackward. A proper understanding of mass politics reverses the telescope. I think today's public policy forms with examination of effects starting with individual causation. The old pebble-ripple-butterfly-cyclone theory is a subversive theory of empowerment, because despite the power of mass communications, every listener, viewer, or reader sends a message whenever they simply choose to pay attention. Existential apprehension is the genesis whereby mass media obtains license to trespass one's spirit and, unfortunately, lends authority to their function as technological extensions (hence, mere degradations) of human consciousness.

How do freak shows like "Jon and Kate" thrive on the airwaves? Who cares about trash-monger Levi Johnston? Why did people watch "Balloon Boy" and his family?

Look away. Look away. Look away.

Instead of getting into a lather about creeping socialism, perhaps conservatives should rinse their hands of cultural malaise and avoid a repeat of the 2008 electoral mistakes. But if politics were as simple as shampoo instructions, thinking citizens would stand a better chance of addressing, advocating and advancing their social policies, forestall perceived cultural decline, and successfully resist the temptation to just drop out.

Is it any wonder that one of the greatest mass manipulators in history is a "favorite" in the White House media office? Yes, Virginia, he is our president and Fox News is in the hen house. In the early 1970's a popular bumper sticker queried passers-by about their feelings for the U.S.A., saying "Love it or Leave It."

We're not going anywhere.

Anything would be finer . . .

2009-10-26T14:00:00.005-04:00

. . . than playing for Carolina this season. Times are tough for the home team. Jake's old team is kicking butt, the natives are getting restless and it looks like heads will roll. Read local sportswriter Scott Fowler.

Quotes You Haven't Heard Yet

2009-10-26T11:10:00.004-04:00

Tip of the hat to @Mel_Lono for this bit of foresight relayed via California conservative stalwart Hugh Hewitt.

Net Neutrality: No

2009-10-21T08:22:00.036-04:00

Look, Ma. I'm using the internet to talk about the internet.

Is there an echo in here? Echo in here? Is this thing on?

Back in the real world, UCLA scientists have discovered proof that using the internet makes older people smarter, or at least makes their brains function better. Comforting thought. In this Brave New World, we have less to fear about evolution than the idea that our ancestors were monkeys. If you knew some of my relatives you would have no doubt.

"Previous research by the UCLA team found that searching online resulted in a more than twofold increase in brain activation in older adults with prior experience, compared with those with little Internet experience. The new findings suggest that it may take only days for those with minimal experience to match the activity levels of those with years of experience . . . "

Thanks to technology, we're beyond medical marijuana. Now, we have neuropathic porn!

* * *

On the geopolitical scene, the United States has officially relinquished "control" of the internet to give foreign governments more say in the future of the system.

"After complaints about American dominance of the internet and growing disquiet in some parts of the world, Washington has said it will relinquish some control over the way the network is run and allow foreign governments more of a say in the future of the system.

ICANN – the official body that ultimately controls the development of the internet thanks to its oversight of web addresses such as .com, .net and .org – said today that it was ending its agreement with the U.S. government.

The deal, part of a contract negotiated with the U.S. Department of Commerce, effectively pushes California-based ICANN towards a new status as an international body with greater representation from companies and governments around the globe.

ICANN had previously been operating under the auspices of the American government, which had control of the net thanks to its initial role in developing the underlying technologies used for connecting computers together.

But the fresh focus will give other countries a more prominent role in determining what takes place online, and even the way in which it happens – opening the door for a virtual United Nations, where many officials gather to discuss potential changes to the internet."

"Potential changes" mean potentially nothing. Have a nice global computer network.

Here's potential change on the "respect for property" front (acknowledgments to Witch Doctor Repellent and blogger Andrew Dalton). The FCC and Congress are pushing for new laws that would restrict ISP's from running their businesses as they see fit.

"Net neutrality advocates such as Stanford law professor Lawrence Lessig liken the Internet to a “commons”—to “public property,” akin to state-owned highways and municipal parks. They call for the Internet to be treated as if it were “public property,” managed by the government in accordance with the “public welfare.” On these grounds, they advocate that the Internet remain a “neutral platform” where “the network owner can’t discriminate against some [data] packets while favoring others.” Plainly stated, net neutrality is the idea that the Internet is “public property”; thus, the government must ensure that online content is delivered in a “neutral,” non-preferential fashion.

But delivered by whom? To hold that the Internet is a “commons” or “public property” is to evade its actual nature; the Internet is a network of privately owned personal computers, servers, and cable. Ignoring this fact and pretending to themselves that the Internet is “public property,” proponents of net neutrality seek government control over private property—specifically that of Internet service providers.

In order to achieve net neutrality, its advocates hold that the Internet must remain, as they put it, a “stupid network,” meaning unregulated by an intelligence that might favor the transmission of some content over other content."

The rationale for controlling data packet transmission would, for example, require Ford to carry Toyotas in their showrooms or allow your neighbor to use your lawn for his car port. The call for net neutrality is quite literally a call for networks mindless of quality, quantity, content, or profitability. And, sadly, there is no cure for stupid. Proponents of net neutrality use the rhetoric of "economic innovation" and "free speech" to justify governmental control over private infrastructures. Darn that eminent domain.

Finally, closing with today's science theme, BBC writer Paul Hudson asks the pointed musical question about another socialist ruse: What Happened to Global Warming?

Video has killed the radio star, again.
© 2009 Roy Barin Santonil