Potshots

Pigs, elephants and the Lipstick Paradox

Monday night, 15 September 2008

I’ve been pondering the Lipstick Paradox for a few days now. Not even Hurricane Ike could push it completely out of my mind. I shove the thought out the door, skim the Internet for a while reading about Galveston, Houston and other hard-hit areas, but as soon as I look away from the screen, the paradox is back again, whining like a puppy at the back door, begging to be let in. I'd best let 'er rip.

The Lipstick Paradox goes like this: On the one hand the GOP has been swaggering around like a pitbull overdosed on testosterone, talking about being tough and going to war and taking on the baddest terrorists in the world, and then Sen. Barack Obama made the comment that, insofar as the GOP saying they were being committed to change, it amounted to putting lipstick on a pig.

Good heavens! The GOP all but fainted to hear such talk directed at dear Gov. Sarah Palin, moose-skinner extraordinaire and oh, so fair. I would suggest that the McCain camp’s sudden onset of the vapors comes from overexertion: the strain of trying to slap the lipstick on Palin, even if it was an unbecoming shade.

What can I say, you can put lipstick on an elephant, and it’s still an elephant. And this one has a short memory, already forgetting that McCain made the pig comparison to Hillary Clinton last fall, referring to her rehashing health care reform.

Of course, we won’t blame Palin for rehashing Bush’s big fat lie about Iraq having a part in the 9/11 attacks. Things outside the Anchorage-D.C. axis, especially those lacking earmarks, don’t seem to fall under her purview. As she demonstrated on her first big television interview, Palin was equally ignorant about Bush’s preventive war strategy. Well, that one’s a little confusing, too, when you think about it: a war that prevents a war is itself a war, isn’t it?

So geopolitics isn’t her strong suit, is that such a big deal? Who can blame her when she’s put off by the thought of having to get a passport to visit Oregon? No wonder she went out and shot a moose. Somebody has to pay, right?

Meaty issues for American minds ... and some strange news

The wee hours, 13 June 2008

Finally, issues worthy of the American popular brain:

Is Barack Obama black or bi-racial?

Did Michelle Obama say “whitey?”

Oh, dear. I hope we have definitive answers soon.

What are we to think of Sen. Barack Obama, the soon to be official Democratic presidential nominee, if we don’t know whether he’s black or bi-racial?

Jeez, Louise, without knowing the answer, we might have to think about other stuff, such as the direction in which he wants to lead the country.

Thinking? Americans? Then where will we be?

As for Ms. Obama and her putative uttering of the word “whitey,” the fact that no evidence exists of this hasn’t seemed to slow down the rumor mill.

But now we can add “whitey” to the list of seven words that, per George Carlin, you can’t say on television, except that now you can say them if you’re on a premium channel or something like that.

Some would argue that, judging from the content on those channels, saying those words is almost obligatory.

I’ll confess that I haven’t watched television for some 28 years, but I don’t recall “whitey” being banned from the screen. Maybe the Republicans want to make an exception for Michelle Obama.

No surprise there.

This just in: Is Barack Obama a freemason?

Honestly, I don’t know, just as I don’t know why anybody would see that as a problem other than devout Roman Catholic clerics who have to blame somebody for their woes now that they’ve exonerated the Jews.

Thankfully freemasonry was not an issue in the 18th century. If it had been, they would’ve ridden that rascal George Washington out of town on a rail.

Strange news ...

Yahoo Inc. is hiring Google Inc. to do some of its advertising sales. That’s like Nancy Pelosi hiring Karl Rove as a public relations consultant.

And ExxonMobil is getting out of the gasoline retailing business. The company is selling its 2,200 gas stations, citing a very challenging fuels marketing sector.

In other words, they can’t afford their own gasoline.

Now, I knew the high price of gasoline has many of us up the creek without a paddle, but if this keeps up, we may not even have the luxury of a canoe.

 

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Grenade, anyone?

Friday, 9 May 2008, late afternoon

Grenade, anyone?

The question people are posing to Hillary now is about self-sacrifice: How about you quit the race so we can all get behind Obama and start wearing down McCain?

It’s about taking one for the team, Team Democrat, if you will.

But she won’t.

Taking one for the team isn’t what Hillary’s all about. Hell, that’s not what she dodged sniper fire in Bosnia for.

Hillary's all about Team Hillary.

So anybody who expects her to fall on a grenade so Obama can forge onward to victory is going to be sadly disappointed.

Hillary’s more likely to throw a grenade than fall on one. That’s just the nature of the beast.

Which brings up the supposed “race card” that Hillary played: “White people that didn’t go to college support me,” she said in effect.

Which could be restated as “White folks who went to college know better than to support me.”

IMHO, of course.

But, getting back to that hand-lobbed explosive, did Hillary play the race card and will her career die of self-inflicted grenade wounds?

Honestly, the race card has been in play, with or without her saying it. If she wants to parse her support group by race, that’s fine.

When a black male squares off against a white female, the race card is on the table, played or unplayed. So is the gender card.

Is that news to anybody?

So I doubt that the comment about certain white people supporting her will go off in her face.

And so the race continues, to the dismay of those bored with politics or worried that McCain wins with every punch thrown between Hillary and Obama, and to the delight of the pundits, advertising companies and media that profit from political confrontation.

Hey, don’t look at me! I’m not making money from this. I haven’t been paid for lobbing grenades since I left the Republic of Vietnam in April 1968.

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Annie Oakley for President

Sunday, 13 April 2008, the wee hours

So now Hillary is appealing to the gun lobby.

In a recent statement she recalled how her father took her out behind a little cottage that her grandfather built in Pennsylvania, and taught her how to shoot.

Aw, shucks! I’m sure the thugs firing off rounds in the neighborhoods in Reading, Pa., near where I live, Philadelphia and other urbs blessed with lots of flying bullets got all choked up.

But honestly, Hillary, you can’t hold a candle to the Republicans on the issue of guns and shooting. Think about it, how many of your friends have you shot?

Cheney’s got the body count advantage here, so the Annie Oakley bit won’t do you much good.

And your memory about bullets isn’t so good, considering how those rounds whizzing overhead in the Balkans turned out to be figments of your political imagination.

I’m surprised Hillary didn’t show up at Charlton Heston’s funeral. After all they both share a lot, at least in forgetfulness.

Heston at least had an excuse: Alzheimer’s.

But Hillary still has time to prove her mettle.

Maybe she ought to invite Monica Lewinsky out for a taste of the sporting life.

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China's Olympic Trials

Friday, the wee hours, 11 April 2008

Upset by protestors voicing their support for Tibet, the mainland Chinese have elected to change the route the Olympic torch will take on its way to their country.

The torch will now traverse selected sections of the Gobi Desert, at night.

But seriously, they’ll still be going through major Western population centers — with the runner on a treadmill in a specially-equipped, unmarked tractor-trailer, at night.

The Chinese had no choice. When they toted up how many security guards they would need to protect a runner out in the open, the operation started to look like the Million Man Jog.

But I am not unsympathetic to the plight of the Middle Kingdom trying to stage a wholesome, let’s all-be-one-happy-family Olympics while over in the Himalayas they’re heel-stomping on Tibet’s freedom, and not a few faces.

Monroe Doctrine, Manifest Destiny and dictatorial pro-American governments aside, our leader was so worried about Saddam Hussein that he launched a pre-emptive war, which looks like any other war to the uneducated (or maybe to the unpropagandized).

To all appearances, Operation Iraqi Freedom has succeeded in unleashing the age-old freedom often exercised all over the world: the right to slaughter one’s neighbors in the name of God.

But back to the China's problem: getting the torch through the throngs of protestors.

Suggestion one: Disguise it.

In Chinatown, it could’ve been disguised as a Chinese take-out or home delivery order. In other parts of Frisco, it could’ve been hidden in a fire-proof pizza delivery box, or out in the open as the World’s Biggest Burrito, flambé.

In Argentina, where the torch just arrived, it could be disguised as a giant, flaming empanada (meat turnover) dancing the tango.

Trust me, Argentinians can handle this; they've seen far stranger things.

Suggestion two: Think out of the box.

Take a few high-ranking Chinese officials, preferably those who have helped “administer” Tibet, soak their heads in kerosene and set them on fire. A young, spry athlete bearing a fire extinguisher will stay a few steps ahead of them, running down the planned torch route. Once the official sets the next guy on fire, he's rewarded by having the flames extinguished.

Wouldn’t this leave the protestors agape in slack-jawed wonder?

And talk about media coverage. Screams make excellent sound bites.

I have to stop. I have this sudden craving for marshmallows and s'mores.

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Hillary makes a Rocky comparison

Tuesday night, 1 April 2008

Presidential candidate Sen. Hillary Clinton compared herself to Rocky Balboa, the boxer that got Sylvester Stallone's career off the ropes and into the winner's corner. Like Rocky, she said, she’s not a quitter.

She obviously forgot the plot. Rocky started as an underdog; Clinton started out at the head of the pack.

Maybe she and the former Prez stopped once too often for cheeseburgers and fries. Remember the tortoise and the hare?

Well, maybe the Rocky comparison is apt. Didn’t Rocky get his butt kicked by a black dude?

But now Clinton and Obama both say they’re going to take on Big Oil.

She said that Pres. Bush “is too busy holding hands with the Saudis to care about American truck drivers who can't afford to fill up their tank any longer."

Has anybody told her that Bush isn’t running for office again this time around?

Obama, on the other hand, said that we “need a president who can stand up to Big Oil and big energy companies and say enough is enough."

Actually, Senator, Americans have been saying more than that to Big Oil. They’ve been saying “Enough is enough, but we want more!”

Given how Americans' bodily width has expanded along with that of their cars, they don’t take kindly to conservation because it means doing with less. In this country, less isn't more. It's just plain less.

Good grief, man, do you want us to walk or ride buses, trains and bicycles like those scrawny Europeans?

We need that SUV to take us to the gym so we can get our exercise!

The Big Oil execs, meanwhile, defended their tax breaks.

After all they’ve invested in campaign contributions, it’s only fair they get something out of it, right?

And Congress needs to remember that the oil execs didn’t give themselves the tax breaks. Congress did that.

If the oil execs are laughing all the way to the bank, blame Congress for providing the punch line.

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