Distractions Abound

I have been silent for most of this year. The reasons why are many but suffice it to say that the stuff out there to write about is almost overwhelming and I have been unable to decide what I wanted to write about because there is just so much really distressing and distracting stuff that has happened since the beginning of the year. Much of what is going on is a distraction from the really important stuff.
I am interested in the news surrounding the change of heart on 'the marriage issue' that is dominating CPAC's annual circle jerk. Sen Rob Portman (R-OH) has announced that he is switching his position on marriage equality from being an opponent to being a supporter. He says that he changed his position because his son Will came out to him. I wonder if his position change extends to voting for repeal of DOMA and of course, preliminarily to such a vote into a vote for cloture of the always launched “GOP filibuster” machine. The conversion of Rob Portman makes me wish he had been the veep nominee of the GOP in the last election. Could it be that Paul Ryan was second choice to Rob Portman and that Portman was disqualified because he has a gay son at Yale and because the wingnuts in the GOP figured the potential nominee was struggling with something that might be an October Surprise for them?

Last weekend was also the weekend of the annual CPAC conference. There was a lot of the old in and out at CPAC this time around. This year Trump was in and Christie was out. Both Ted Cruz and Rand Paul competed for favorite son status at the conference. GoProud is also out apparently. Sarah Palin was obviously in. Sarah was in good form but sounded like her next gig is going to be in a back alley comedy house somewhere. Rand sounded like Rand, someone who would create his own ophthalmology association in order to call himself an eye doctor. Oh and in case you were worried Barack Obama is still on the outs, and according to some of our fellow citizens at CPAC, the worst thing to happen to the US of A since the enactment of the Thirteenth Amendment. Speaking of the Thirteenth Amendment Mississippi just got around to ratifying it a few weeks ago. Repeal of ongoing injustices should never be entered into abruptly and only after careful thought apparently. It only took one hundred forty-three years.

One of the afternoon presiders at the conference on the afternoon before the straw poll was taken urged the attendees to vote 'early and often' as the saying goes. He suggested they just make up names and vote ignoring the log-in system that been established to provide security for the CPAC members' right to vote. These are the same people who are by and large arguing for and legislating to protect the sacred and fundamental right to vote by making sure exercise of the right by people of color, poor people and old people is as onerous as possible.

There was probably more fun stuff going on at CPAC but news of that circus was completely overtaken and pushed off the front page by the drama going on in Rome over the conclave of cardinals charged with selecting a new pontiff. Wonder, speculation and whimsy seemed to dominate that offering. The result of course was the guy no one expected, the Archbishop of Buenos Aires, the fellow who rides to work on the bus, cooks and eats his own meals. The man called Francis. He has apparently not yet moved into his apartment in the apostolic palace because he has complained of its size. It is being remodeled to reduce its size. That's an ominous sign for things to come at least as far as the curia goes. Talking heads are saying that the man's biggest task is going to be to rein in the curia and to diversify it. It is interesting to note that many of the papal electors were and are curia members. Perhaps that's why after five ballots they chose Jorge for the simple reason he has no curia experience and probably has no idea where the skeletons are buried in Vatican City and has no clue where to start. Or perhaps after two pontificates stretching thirty-five years headed by non-Italians the choice of an Italian-descended Argentine pope was a nudge back to selecting Italians as popes. Who knows? Doctrinally this Francis is pretty much by the book and I don't expect any large changes to come in doctrine. Although it is of some interest to note that when the Argentine national legislature was considering marriage equality he argued to the conference of bishops that they should not struggle against civil unions but should instead support them as the lesser of two evils. So he appears to be somewhat of a pragmatist. He is seventy-six years old and if he rubs too many medieval lords the wrong way they will most likely be rid of him soon, one way or another.

Some Things Need to be Passed On.

I did not know who Anne Lamott is until after I found this letter to President Obama on the web this morning but I really am envious of the skills of this author.   I read it. Then I read it again, this time. aloud, It read to me like a good sermon coming from the mouth of a good preacher and when I had finished reading and listening to it there was a great silence in my soul and a calm and a knowledge that this is what we, as Americans, must do for all the reasons set out in this letter:  Here is its full text:

"Dear Mr. President,

I am afraid there has been a misunderstanding since that election in 2OBAMA008, during which 66,882,230 Americans cast their votes for you. Perhaps one of your trusted advisors has given you bum information. Maybe they told you that we voted for you -- walked, marched, prayed, fund-raised and knocked on doors for you -- because we hoped you would try to reunite the country.

Of the total votes cast that long-ago November day, I'm guessing that about 1,575 people wanted you to try to reconcile the toxic bipartisanship that culminated in those Sarah Palin rallies.

The other 66,880,655 of us wanted universal healthcare.

You inherited a country that was in the most desperate shape since the Civil War, or the Depression, and we voted for you to heal the catastrophic wounds Bush inflicted on our country and our world. You said that you were up to that challenge.

We did not vote for you to see if you could get Chuck Grassley or Michael Enzi to date you. The spectacle of you wooing them fills us with horror and even disgust. We recoil as from hot flame at each mention of your new friends.

Believe me, I know exactly how painful this can be, how reminiscent of 7th-grade yearning to be popular, because I went through it myself this summer. I did not lower my bar quite as low as you have, but I was sitting on the couch one afternoon, thinking that this adorable guy and I were totally on the same sheet of music -- he had given me absolutely every indication that we were -- and were moving into the kissing stage. Out of nowhere, I thought to ask him if he liked me in the same way I liked him.

He said, in so many words, no.

And Mr. President, that is what the Republicans are saying to you: They are just not that into you, sir.

This may have thrown you for such a loop that you have forgotten why you were elected -- which was to lead your people back to the promises of our founding parents. Many of us no longer recognized our country after eight years of Bush and Cheney, and you gave us your word that you would help restore the great headway we had made on matters of race, equality and plain old social justice.

People, get ready, you said; there's a train a 'coming. And we did get ready. We hit the streets. We roared, whispered, cried, whooped and went door to door, convinced that even if Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. had not specifically dreamed of you, his dream of justice and equality and pride might come into being through your vision, your greatness, through the hope that your words gave us, through the change you promised.

He dreamed of a leader like you. Just like you. And something in the deepest part of this country's soul heard.

After eight years of Bush, and then the Palin nomination, we were battered and anguished and punch-drunk. But in rallying behind you, we came back to life, like in Ezekiel when the prophet breathes the spirit of bearing witness and caring onto the dry bones, and those bones come back to life, become living people again, cherished and tended to.

We did not know exactly how you would proceed to restore our beloved Constitution. It seemed beyond redemption, like my kitchen floor did briefly last week after my dog, Bodhi, accidentally ate 24 corn bread muffins. You said you would push back your sleeves and begin, that it would take all of us working harder than we ever had before, but that you would lead. While acknowledging the financial and moral devastation of the last eight years, you said you would start by giving your people healthcare. You would do battle with the conservatives and insurance companies. You said in your beautiful way many times that this was the overarching moral and spiritual issue of our times, and we understood this to mean that you took this to be your Selma, your Little Rock.

I hate to sound like a betrayed 7-year-old, but you said. And we believed you. Now you seem to have abandoned the dream. That is why moderates and liberals and progressives like myself all seem a little tense this summer. It is time to call your spirit back. We will be here to help when you get back from vacation. We want to help you get over the disappointment of Mr. Grassley's cold shoulder, of Mr. Enzi blowing you off, even that nice Olympia Snowe standing you up. We can and will take to the streets again, march and hold peaceful rallies, go door to door, donate to any causes that will help get out the truth of what a public option would mean. But we need you to shake off the dust of the journey and remember the promises of Dr. King, and we need you to lead us toward what is no longer so distant a shore.

Do it for Teddy Kennedy, boss. Do it for the other Kennedys too, for Dr. King, for Big Mama, for the poorest kids you met on the trail, the kids who go to emergency rooms for their healthcare, do it for their mothers and for Michelle. Just do it.

Trusting you, Mr. Obama

Anne Lamott"

President Jimmy Carter Recognizes Racism When He Sees It.

President Carter was asked today what part racism played in Representative Joe Wilson's (R-SC) intemperate, rude and disgraceful outburst in the House of Representatives on the night that President Obama addressed the Congress in joint session on the topic of reforming the health care delivery system.   Carter a former governor of Georgia and a man raised and educated in the south minced no words and pointed out that a great many opponents of Mr. Obama as president are terribly uncomfortable with the fact that the President of the US is a black man.  Maureen Dowd said much the same thing over the weekend.

What is going on with the Birthers?

A new phenomenon has been created. It is the Birther 'controversy'. These folks who are part of a species of people I call the Cave Dwellers are people, who despite all contrary evidence believe that President Barack Obama is not entitled to be the President of the U. S. of A because he is not a natural born citizen of the United States as is required by Article Two of the Constitution. These crazy folks believe that he was born of a white woman from the heartland of America and a father from the African nation of Kenya in Kenya. They derive their opinion based on the 'testimony' of an elderly Kenyan woman who claims to be both his step paternal grandmother who also claims to have been present at the birth of Baby Barack in Kenya. They explain away the birth certificate that says he was born in Hawaii and the contemporaneous birth announcements published in Hawaiian newspapers as ancient conspiracies and frauds. They claim a conspiracy the state government of Hawaii's Vital Records and some sort of Muslim plot dating from 1960 to make this baby President of the United States almost fifty years after his birth. Recent polls suggest that this conspiracy theory originated and is most strongly believed in the Old South. Which gives this a decidedly racial basis in the old Confederacy. Almost 53% of good white republican folks in the old Confederate states either believe he is not a citizen but an "illegal alien" or that his 'natural born' citizenship is open to dispute. These folks are not in the reality based community (as Bill Maher calls it) but rather are truly Cave Dwellers.