Missing Reagan

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I miss this guy, everything about him.

I miss his optimism, his dignity, his self confidence, but mostly I miss his wit. Here was a president whose best jokes always seemed to be at his own expense. You can do that when you possess great faith not only in yourself but in your country. I didn’t agree with everything he did as President. In many areas he was a great success, but in others he failed miserably. In this regard he was not unlike all who came before or after him, a mixed bag.

But, who among us in this day and age of humorless political discourse doesn’t long for a President who routinely said things like this:

1. “If the government were placed in charge of the Sahara desert, there would be a sand shortage within three years.”
2. “It’s true that hard work never killed anybody, but I figure, why take the chance?”
3. “I’m not worried about the deficit. It’s big enough to take care of itself.”
4. When responding to a reporter’s worry that he was known to take long naps in the afternoon, “I have left orders to be awakened at any time in case of national emergency…even if I’m in a cabinet meeting.”
5. “Politics is supposed to be the second oldest profession. But I have found that it bears a very close resemblance to the first.”
6. “The nine most terrifying words in the English language are, “I’m from the government and I’m here to help.”
7. When answering a reporter’s question about whether he was too old to run for President…”Thomas Jefferson once said, ‘We should never judge a President by his age, only by his works.’ And ever since he told me that I’ve stop worrying.”
8. First remarks at the beginning of a press conference, “Before I refuse to answer any of your questions, I have an opening statement.”
9. “One way to make sure crime doesn’t pay is to let the government run it.”
10. “I have wondered at time what the Ten Commandments would have looked like had Moses run them through Congress.”
11. “Government is like a baby. An alimentary canal with a big appetite at one end and no sense of responsibility at the other.”
12. Responding to criticism of his foreign policy by Ed Asner…”What does an actor know about politics?”

Oh yes Mr. President, I surely do miss you.

Shut Up and Sing!

Suppose you’re an aspiring politician with low name recognition running for Governor somewhere. You schedule a rally, desperate to move the needle of the public’s attention. The last thing your campaign needs are television reporters filming empty chairs for the 11 o’clock news. So you do whatever it takes to put fannies in those seats and since you know that Americans aren’t going to show up to hear some gasbag talk about the minimum wage for an hour, you have to have a whiz-bang opening act.

Now, if you were a liberal politician running in Oregon, or say, San Francisco you might run Barbara Streisand out there. She would say a few vacuous words and then launch into a soaring rendition of “People Who Need People.” If you were a conservative politician running in someplace like Mississippi, or say, Texas you would pack those chairs with Ted Nugent who would bring the house down with his thunderous, “Cat Scratch Fever.” But then, he too would say a few vacuous words. And then all hell would break loose, because, while Babs can be an infuriating, airheaded nitwit, Nugent can be a vicious moron. And the powers that be in the national media who might give a liberal celebrity a pass for some inanity, will rip Ted Nugent a new one.

Conservative reaction to liberal celebrity politicking is usually something along the lines of, “shut up and sing!” Liberal reaction to the relatively few examples of conservative celebrity politicking is more like, “off with his head!!!!” But, in this particular case, they are right. Here’s what Mr. Nugent had to say:

“ A Chicago Communist-raised, Communist-educated, Communist-nurtured, subhuman mongrel like the ACORN community organizer gangster Barack Hussein Obama to weasel his way into the top office of authority in the United States of America.””

There’s plenty of over the top invective here to go around, and frankly, I don’t have a problem with most of it. After all, this is politics and we have a 1st Amendment right to say over the top inflammatory things in the heat of a campaign. But, if a line has to be drawn somewhere, subhuman mongrel would certainly be a good place to start.

Ted Nugent, being a washed up rocker, probably isn’t aware of the history of this phrase, but knowing him, even if he were he probably would still have used it. It’s the exact term used by the Nazis to describe and denigrate the Jews. In order to pave the way for their final solution, they first had to remove the humanity of their victims. If Jews aren’t even human, but subhuman mongrels, then they are ultimately no different than that rabid mongrel dog that must be put down lest he infect someone. To use this hideous term to describe Obama is especially horrible considering the darker chapters of our own national history of race relations.

So, does Mr. Nugent have a 1^st Amendment right to say such things without fear of imprisonment? Yes. But I have a right to denounce him for his hateful ignorance and distance myself from his remarks. If the politician he was shilling for has any brains, he will do the same thing.

Mr. Nugent, shut up and sing!

Wedding Planning Part IV

Another crucial item has been checked off of our wedding “to do list.” This particular benchmark is a new component of the modern wedding industrial complex, hereafter referred to as simply WIC. New though it may be, I am told it is essential, no modern wedding can be had without it. I refer, of course, to the engagement pictures.

According to WIC protocol, not only must a couple hire a photographer to immortalize the actual wedding for posterity, but the engagement announcement as well. This involves the happy couple walking around in fields of wheat, or sitting in a coffee shop, or simply gazing into one another’s eyes longingly, while their overpriced photographer snaps away. Props are encouraged, so the couple brings emotionally significant artifacts from their courtship like coffee mugs from their alma maters, favorite books, or perhaps the ticket stubs from their first movie date. It’s all so incredibly sweet. Meanwhile, our happy photographer pockets an extra paycheck.

Once these essential pictures are in the can, a favorite must be chosen to use for another newly minted must have of modern WIC protocol…the Save the Date postcard, whereby all potential wedding guests must be given 6 months notice of the wedding, lest they inadvertently schedule a root canal on the blessed date. In this, the photographers are in league with the greeting card and high end stationary moguls along with the postal service, since now two mass mailings must be executed; the first to warn people not to schedule anything for July 12^th, 2014 and a second to actually invite them. Why this couldn’t be combined somehow into one announcement/invitation like it had been done for, I don’t know, the past 4,000 years, is not for me to ask. I’m just the guy playing George Banks in this movie.

Happily, I am told that the engagement photos were a huge success and turned out beautifully. Another item has been checked off of the list, and the ball has been moved forward.

Making impressive progress here at Wedding Central.

Snark Fatigue

It has occurred to me recently that I don’t write as many blog posts about politics and politicians as I used to. It’s not that they have all suddenly become reasonable and it’s certainly not the case that they have stopped doing moronic things. Rather, it’s like every time I think to rip into one of them, I sigh heavily and move on to some other topic. How many times can you lampoon a buffoon before it becomes unnecessary?

Listen, I could sit here all day, every day, and never run out of hilarious things to say about the likes of Al Gore, John Kerry, Nancy Pelosi, John Boehner, Joe Biden, and Michelle Bachman. I mean, those blogs practically write themselves! But the reason that Vaudeville disappeared was that after a while people got bored watching people tripping over ottomans and face-planting into the green bean casserole. Sure, a pie in the face is funny, but after 100,000 pies, it gets old.

Sure, I could rail against President Obama’s latest extra-constitutional shenanigans, or ridicule his latest bone-headed policy proscription, or even make another crack about those ginormous ears, but to what end? Besides, he’s a lame duck and soon the Republic will be free of him.

Basically, I’m sick of making jokes about my country’s governmental dysfunction. It’s starting to become embarrassing. We are the United States of America, for Pete’s sake. I’m getting a little tired of feeling like I turned my back and now suddenly I live in Uruguay. Who are these people running my country? Where did they come from? And what the hell happened to my television? Every channel I flip to features the worst examples of human depravity among us, celebrated in the form of a reality show. So, you hoard every scrap of paper and piece of garbage all of your life until you drive away everyone in your family and your house is stuffed to the rafters with filth, the stench so foul it hangs like a cloud over your entire street? Don’t worry, there’s a TV show in your future. You can become a star. Who says the American Dream is dead?

Unfortunately for those of us tired of politics, we are about to enter another Presidential election cycle. For the next two years we will be inundated with that Super Bowl of dysfunction, that World Series of pandering known as “the campaign.”  We will witness all of the primaries, caucuses, straw votes, straw polls and straw men that make up the candidate selection process. There will be Super Tuesdays and 16,000 televised debates. By the end of it all, I will be about ready to resurrect the Monarchy and install the Earl of Grantham as our King.

But, I am an American, which means that I possess a ridiculously inexhaustible reservoir of hope. Perhaps somewhere out there lives a man or woman who will step up to the plate and offer a sensible leadership alternative. Maybe there’s someone out there who can transcend the muck and mire of left versus right, someone who will run on a platform that promises, “First, do no harm!”

Hope springs eternal.

A Jewel in the Valley

I inherited wanderlust from my mother. If I had my way, I would travel somewhere half of my life, and use the other half planning the trips. And although a 100 mile drive to Staunton, Virginia for a weekend doesn’t exactly qualify as globetrotting, it was a lot cheaper than Paris.

Pam and I celebrated Valentine’s Day at a marvelous Hotel called the Frederick House.  It’s actually more like a Bed and Breakfast, only it is made up of three separate houses that provide over 25 rooms. Our accommodations in the Patrick House were a huge two room suite, beautifully furnished and appointed with everything except a coffee-maker, my only complaint of the weekend.

At this point I should mention what a trooper my wife is. She woke up Thursday morning, the day before our trip with a cold which only got worse Friday, the day of our departure. Instead of just staying at home and resting, she chose to go, figuring that if she was going to be sick all weekend, she might as well be staying in a beautiful hotel. Despite much sneezing and coughing and general icky-ness, she soldiered on, outside, in 30 degree weather, walking everywhere we went without one complaint. What a woman!

Staunton is a small town in the Shenandoah Valley that was once the frontier of our state, since it was where the railroad ended. It was a supply dump for the Confederate army during the Civil War, but oddly no battle was ever fought there which had the happy result of preserving its beautiful Victorian mansions built mostly by rich railroad men. Today it has a population of 24,000 souls, and if our trip experiences are a fair representation, all of them love their city. Everyone we encountered and I do mean everyone, from the owners of the Frederick House, to the guy behind the counter at the visitor’s center, to the guy who drove the 25 cent trolley, to random people on the streets; all were as friendly and helpful as people could possibly be, each of them clearly proud of their town, and for good reason.

We arrived around 3 o’clock on Friday afternoon; 24 hours after the town got pelted with 18 inches of snow. Not only were practically all of the downtown streets plowed but most of the sidewalks as well. I was surprised at how hilly the place was, but despite the tricky terrain, the city government had the streets safe for cars and pedestrians in less than 24 hours.

So, what is it that one does in Staunton, Virginia for two days, you might ask? Here goes, and try to keep up:

1. Had a terrific dinner at Aioli’s, a Mediterranean restaurant, a short walk from our room.
2. Went to a play, Shakespeare’s As You Like It, performed by a superbly talented group of actors and musicians at the Blackfriars playhouse, a Globe Theatre replica built back in 2001.
3. Took a tour of the Woodrow Wilson Presidential Library and birthplace.
4. Walked through the newly redecorated Stonewall Jackson hotel.
5. Toured two Museums
6. Took a trolley ride around and through the city with stops at the most memorable buildings and homes.
7. Walked the length of Beverly Street, the major boulevard in downtown, and probably the biggest reason that Staunton was voted by Smithsonian magazine as one of the best small towns in America. Beautiful, clean and entertaining.
8. Took in a movie at one of those old downtown movie theatres that only has a couple of screens, and tons of legroom!
9. Had a fabulous lunch at the Clocktower, and delicious lasagna at Emilio’s.
10.  The Frederick House provided breakfast each day, which was amazing. The menu was printed on the back of their coffee mugs and featured only 6 choices, but the four that we tried were perfectly prepared.
11.  Attended a glass blowing demonstration at a place called Sunspots.

My best story of the weekend involved me losing my gloves. I absentmindedly left them on the seat beside me during my first trolley ride. An hour later we stood at the trolley stop hoping that we would get the same driver and trolley as before. When I got back on, three women were sitting right next to the gloves and asked me if they were mine. They seemed so relieved that I had found them. If that had happened in downtown Richmond, in an hour’s time those gloves would have already been exchanged for crack!

So, once again Pam and I discover another jewel of a town in the Valley. How blessed we are to live in this state?