SURVIVOR: APOLOGY!

There is this strange, angry priest who writes in the local Catholic paper in my diocese. I will call him "angry priest," or AP. About every 28 days AP comes out with a bitter, sarcastic diatribe against some conservative or another, mostly George Bush or one of his peeps, like Dick Cheney or Scooter Libby. In his latest article AP is demanding apologies for the Iraq war.

The angry priest was very satisfied about Robert MacNamara apologizing for Vietnam. Apparently, though, AP has an extremely long list of people who need to apologize for being on the wrong side of social issues from AP, and cannot rest easy on the MacNamara apology. MacNamara only whetted AP's contrition appetite.

Robert MacNamara apologizing.

Eternal Optimist wanted to write the angry priest and apologize to him, so AP could quit obsessing about Bush and Cheney and Scooter Libby (which by the way, why does a grown man keep that nickname?), and maybe write happy articles about baseball or Obama something. My wife told me it probably wouldn't do any good.

Scooter Libby.

Then I thought we could do something hip and oh so 'now', a TV show called

"Survivior: Apology!"

where everyone sits around in Speedos and string bikinis and apologizes for important stuff like global warming, or the $50 bazillion of taxpayer money we just gave GM so they could put off bankruptcy for an extra week and a half.

"Wait, let me put $50 bazillion on board before you sink!"

Each side would be given one horrible result of their ideology to apologize for. The other side could criticize their horrible result, and then criticize their lame apology.

You could have audience participation by web-voting, which would drive ratings way up. Participants could get voted off the show for being insincere or irrelevant. Or people like AP could organize campaigns to get contestants thrown off just because they hate them so much.

If you could get Dick Cheney or Don Rumsfeld on the show



with maybe Alec Baldwin and Sean Penn, you would get a huge audience.

"I detest George Bush more than any other human being."

"Ditto. Except for Madonna. It's like a tie."

You know the vindictiveness would be completely real and heartfelt. Have Simon Cowell and Paula Abdul be the moderators.

You could do Bill Clinton vs. Ann Coulter during sweeps week. That would be a huge ratings smash.

(Just look at the way Clinton is looking at her.)

(And she is TOTALLY IGNORING HIM!)

Once you get it rolling, everyone will want to be on the show!

The History Channel could run a special with Lenin, Stalin, Hitler and Mao (maybe Pol Pot, too) lined up to apologize for big government excesses (like killing and enslaving hundreds of millions) versus Ken Lay, Charles Keating and Bernie Madoff apologizing for stealing people's pensions.

Captain, Team Socialism.

Captain, Team Kleptocracy.

Jack Kennedy could apologize for Vietnam.

"My fellow Americans, I am sorry about Vietnam.
Jackie, I am sorry about all that other stuff.
You know what I mean."

Reagan and Al Franken could apologize for being mediocre actors turned successful politicians.



Jimmy Carter could apologize for, well, for just being Jimmy Carter.

And Al Gore . . .




Well, the possibilities are almost limitless.

I think "Survivor: Apology!" would be a HUGE hit. Plus, it would employ a lot of people, which would be good for the economy right now.

Give it some thought and have your people get back to me.

EUPHORIA

Gosh I had a wonderful day Friday, the 19th of June.

I am coming home from work, traveling south on a suburban road, thinking what a beautiful day it is,

(This is how I felt before)

when someone traveling north decides to make a sudden left turn and dart in front of me.

Apparently he did not see me, but I saw his car just for an instant, long enough to swerve right. I avoided "T-boning" the errant traveler, but he did not avoid me, smashing into the midsection of my car on the driver's side.

This precipitated a high speed spill in my small "toaster" (Scion XB, 4-door, for those taking notes on survivalist cars). I was both spinning and rolling over, and wound up hitting the concrete curb twice before winding up passenger side down, hanging from my safety belt.

As the car was spinning and rolling over (very, very slowly - a very strange internal effect) I thought "well God, maybe this is it." I wondered if the roof would hold up as the car was flopping over. I felt really peaceful, although I was totally disoriented as the the car spun and flipped. I thought I was in the oncoming lane of traffic, hitting other cars, but it turned out I was just in a losing battle with the high concrete curb by the side of the road. Eventually the curb gave in and the car flipped again onto the grass, passenger side down.

(This is how I felt after toaster came to rest.)

As I hung by my safety belt, looking out my twisted, shattered windshield, I started taking inventory. I could move my toes and my fingers. My legs felt fine. My back and neck felt fine. I could not see any blood. I did not hit my head. After a second or so I came to the conclusion that I was probably fine.

And what was weird was the sense of euphoria that came over me, like I had just been through a ride at an amusement park. Only, for the first time in my life, I was not ready to puke!

(How I felt after euphoria set in.)

The rest of the evening was interesting but pretty tame, as they pulled me from the wreck, put an ungainly collar on my neck that made it difficult to talk, tied me to a board and hauled me off to the trauma center in an ambulance. There they took about 30 X-rays and a CT scan.

My new ride.
(By loupiote (Old Skool))

At about 10:30 the doctor gave me a prescription for Tylenol III and sent me home. My only visible injury was a slight scrape and bruise on my left collar bone, where the safety harness saved my life.

I got to keep the neck brace as a souvenier. It probably cost $250. Some day I will check the insurance bill and see. I am pretty sure my brother could make one for $7.00 in materials. My wife has already tossed it out, as it is ugly, bright yellow and just takes up space.

All evening long at the hospital everyone kept asking me what kind of car I was driving. I would tell them a Scion and they would look puzzled. Then I would say "a toaster" and they would say "Oh, yeah!"

Thanks, God. Thanks, Scion. Thanks, safety belt.

The truly miraculous thing is that when I checked the car Monday morning I found that my newly acquired bottle of Russian vodka, given to me by a fellow worker for covering some event here in 'Merica while fellow worker was in Russia testifying before the Duma, was intact.

Basically everything else in the car was in tiny smashed pieces or bigger smashed pieces. Except the vodka bottle.

The Russians know how to make vodka and, apparently, vodka bottles, too. So I got that going for me.

CONSERVATIVES AND LIBERALS

(A reader chimed in on "I Had a Dream, Like Wow!" After acknowledging some of the positive contributions of capitalism and rich people, the reader had some unhappy comments):

Reader: However. Let's get some things clear.

Would EO actually like to state that the past eight years of conservative republican business loving government bears no responsibility for the stinking hellhole that we find ourselves in?

EO: "Stinking hellhole?" America is not Mogadishu. Yet. The Bush Administration certainly bears responsibility for what happened on its watch.

Now THAT'S a hell-hole.
by Chogra

Reader: EO strikes me as a man who sells a broken down house and laughs at the new owner for spending money to fix it.

EO: If you are arguing that all the money we are now spending by quadrupling the Bush deficits is necessary to fix the economy, that is clearly false.

The Obama administration is trying to do much more than repair plumbing leaks left over from the Bush Administration. It is taking out a whopping jumbo loan to build a shiny new 12,000 square foot mansion with 7 1/2 baths. That's the import of Rahm Emanuel's wry line about not letting a crisis go to waste.

Reader: But I digress. The "Democrats and liberals want to screw the rich" argument is crap.

EO: There are plenty of democrats and liberals who genuinely or cynically seek to gain power through generating class envy. Take, for instance, Franklin Roosevelt, who even infuriated fellow Democrats with his class warfare demagoguery.

FDR: Liberal, Episcopalian, Class Warrior

Reader: Here's what I think is the basic difference between "Conservative" and "Liberal". When liberals think about government by the people, for the people, they don't forget that second part.

EO: Liberals tend to forget that "the people" are also the ones paying the taxes.

The basic differences between liberals and conservatives don't revolve around conservatives forgetting people and liberals remembering them.

Some examples. When confronted by a social problem, liberals tend to assume that more government is the solution. This is because having government compel a change is conceptually much more direct and simple than trying to convince people to change by other means, including free market incentives.

Conservatives tend to be concerned about expanding government, since the expansion is very difficult to reverse, and often has long-term ill effects on people. Bush undercut his popularity among Conservatives by serving up big deficits and increasing government spending.

Liberals often assume that proposed governmental policies will work as intended. Conservatives tend to be concerned about unintended consequences. For instance, data suggest that well-intended welfare spending can actually harm poor people by creating economic disincentives to healthy behavior, like seeking employment or having a two-parent household.

Liberals frequently assert that conservatives who question the benefit of a proposed government program are acting from mere selfishness. But social conservatives generally give far more of their income and time to charity than liberals. This contradicts the simplistic "conservatives are selfish" theory.

Governance, for liberals, demands taking everyone into account. And I think this is why 'liberal' implies 'change'. When everyone in the jurisdiction is pretty much the same (white farmers in the 18th century, let's say), government is fairly simple. Everyone pretty much agrees about the basics. Same morals, same outlook, same religion. But when you start getting some plurality things start to get messy.

Governance was not "fairly simple" in the 18th century. Things were very messy during the Revolutionary War. We fought a Civil War in the 19th century - things were even messier, as in 500,000 dead messy. Disagreements abounded.

Civil War Dead, by tomsaint11

Human society is normally messy. One of the drivers behind liberal social philosophy is an effort to smooth the "messiness" of plurality and freedom. The chosen method is to increase government involvement in the affairs of citizens for the purpose of ordering the "messes."

This can be a noble goal, but it often makes the messes worse, not better. Think Mao's "Great Leap Forward" or Johnson's Great Society, neither of which came close to their intended goals, but cost hundreds of billions. In Mao's case, it also cost tens of millions of lives. Liberals often ignore or deny these consequences and simply move on to bigger "fixes."

Chairman Mao, by Andy Warhol.
Big Killer Liberal.

I think the current administration's fixes are well intended. I also think they will have a variety of rotten, unintended but perfectly foreseeable outcomes that will overwhelm the good intentions.

A liberal insists, annoyingly, on trying to take everybody into account; a conservative says let's keep the way we've been doing it.

Liberals didn't lose power in the 1990s because they were "annoying." They lost power because they had a long history of taking "everybody into account" by pouring taxpayer money into hugely expensive and well-intended programs that were failing. This was harmful, especially to poor and middle class people.

Reagan was popular because he sought to change the liberal status quo, not preserve it.

Ron Reagan, annoying conservative.

Liberals will now have 8 years or more to demonstrate to America that their policies are effective. If the policies fail, liberals will be voted out of office, not because Americans are "annoyed" but because liberal policies failed.

Right now I am alarmed at the "mortgage payments" on the new 12,000 s.f. mansion Obama proposes to build. I am concerned the country will wind up like Argentina. I don't think running up ruinous debt takes "everybody into account," and especially not the poor people in whose name this mansion is being built.

The liberal message is hard to get across because doing liberal things (that is, trying to take everyone into account, not just the ones with the money) is complicated. Liberalism guarantees complexity.

The liberal message is actually very easy to get across, because it is fundamentally simplistic: everyone should be taken care of, and the best way to do it is have government do it directly. Liberalism as currently practiced is actually an effort to simplify society, which is painfully complex when left on its own. Obama got the message across very well. Al Gore and John Kerry were just lousy communicators.

John Kerry and America:
"What we have here is a failure to communicate."

Conservatism is simple. If it ain't broke don't fix it! Except, oops, we're talking about the economy, which is.. umm... broken. And was broken by, yes, conservatives.

Umm, broken? Nah. The Obama White House recently said the economy is in fundamentally good condition. Doesn't sound broken.

If you are talking about the sub-prime mortgage crisis, that is an excellent example of well-intended social programming gone very wrong.

Sub-prime lending had its genesis in the 1990s as a liberal social policy that sought to enlist private lenders in supplying money to people who couldn't afford standard mortgages. Bill Clinton and other democrats pushed the program through a combination of carrots - like Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae buying up sub-prime loans, and the Federal Reserve loosening lending standards - and sticks, like the Justice Department opening investigations on banks that didn't make sub-prime loans.

The fact that the Bush Administration grew fond of this particular pet alligator because it stimulated growth in the housing sector does them no credit.

Pet Alligator, by Judy Goreland

By 2005 Bush was trying to put more stringent controls on the program because of concerns about the viability of Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae. He was harangued by the likes of Barnie Frank and Chris Dodd, among other liberals, as a heartless bum out to hurt poor people, and Democrats managed to defeat the effort to cage the alligator.

Barney Frank, annoying liberal.
Guardian of sub-prime lending.

Bottom line: lots of poor people are now being crushed by the consequences of a program originally intended to benefit them.

Now we are going to "fix" the problem by quadrupling the annual federal deficit, and along the way the government will buy up a big chunk of the car industry and the health care industry.

The Bush deficits were a bad idea. Quadrupling the Bush deficits is also a bad idea, however nobly the money will be spent.

So EO, I envy you your simplicity. But if you don't have any ideas about how to fix things,

I have lots of ideas. No one listens. Ah me.

please stand aside and let the work begin.

The baton is in your hand, sir. Go forth and do good.

Now it is time to listen to "Trouble," from the Music Man, about a charming and eloquent huckster who convinces people to engage in massive social spending.

Everything works out well in the end, which is what EO hopes for America.

PANTS THAT FIT

I was at the Mall tonight. I became preoccupied by a detail, something that happens when I have not been scrupulous about taking my medications.

For some reason 88% of women age 25 and under think that jeans two sizes too small make them look more attractive. Ditto with blouses.

by Candid Street Photos

This is clearly untrue, but how to get the word to the self-deluded women wearing denim encapsulated donut rolls around their upper thighs? I am normally outspoken, but in this instance I'd rather get the word out anonymously.

Even scary skinny women look bad in jeans that are too tight. It just emphasizes the "too skinny" factor, and no one is comfortable looking at that. Check out Amy Winehouse. She's famous, got a great voice, but do you like her pre-rehab in jeans? I say no, no, no.

I noticed another fascinating, and perhaps related, anthropological fact. 72% of the the males age 25 and under think that their underwear is attractive to other humans. They wear their oversize pants belted down around their thighs to make sure everyone can check out their underwear.


Again, every person in the mall will tell you they don't want to look at the underwear. I asked 10 people at the mall - "do you want to see my underwear?" Every one of them backed away from me with a look of disgust. One person called for security. One man called me a freak and threw his soda on me.

For the last 10,000 years the unanimous verdict of all human cultures has been that male underwear is NOT attractive. You will find no classic sculptures wearing a pair of men's jockey shorts. Either they are naked or they have clothes on. No Chinese clay soldiers in underwear. Check out Neanderthal paintings - no men in underwear. Check out any art history book - hardly any men's underwear in there.

Boys get pants that are way too big, so they can show off their underwear. Girls get pants way too small to show off their adipose tissue. I say the true purpose of clothing is to camouflage what lies beneath.

I urge some new federal regulations requiring pants that fit. It will be rough sledding at first, but give it time. Public policy is never easy.

SAFE-SMOKE REVOLUTION

KINSHASA, DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC OF THE CONGO (dateline 2 hours ago)

Scientists here announced a breakthrough device they claim will make smoking safe.

The device is a small plastic baggie that fits over the end of a cigarette. The smoker puts the device over the unlit end of the cigarette immediately after lighting up. If the device is used correctly each time, scientists say, the smoker will not inhale deadly fumes.

"Safe-Smoke" comes in many colorful and distinctive designs.

The device, named "Safe-Smoke," promises to be a boon for billions of smokers world-wide, as well as for the economy of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), ravaged by crime, inflation and multiple name changes since its independence in 1960.

"For years anti-smoking campaigns have been premised on a flawed assumption: that abstinence is the only safe alternative to smoking" said Dr. Navarra Krupnik, lead scientist on the hitherto top-secret 'Safe-Smoke Project."

Unknown soldier testing "Safe-Smoke."

"People can't be expected to actually quit smoking. Smoke abstinence is naive in the extreme, and quite dangerous" said Dr. Krupnik, shaking her head. "We can now offer smokers a safe, effective alternative: 'Safe-Smoke.'"

U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan hailed the announcement as "breathtaking." A press release issued shortly afterward stated that the Secretary-General "did not mean 'breathtaking' literally, but figuratively. 'Safe-Smoke' promises to save tens of millions of lives world-wide."

At a hastily called press conference, President Obama promised to commit $1 trillion to a world wide "Safe-Smoke" educational ad campaign.

Reporters listen raptly to President Obama.

"I want to apologize today for American intransigence. For too long we have accepted Smoke-Abstinence as our only hope in the war against smoking. And it is a war; make no mistake.

"But Smoke-Abstinence simply does not work" said the President, pausing to cough. "It is one of the many failed policies of the last Administration. And we can do better.

"Because safe-smoke gives us the hope we need to win this war.

"And yes, we can do better.
And yes, we must do better.
And citizens of America, citizens of the World, I promise you this day: we will do better."

The President exited the White House press room to a thunderous standing ovation. Several reporters fainted; one had to be taken to a local emergency room, where he was given oxygen and released.

President Obama before historic speech.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi called for hearings on smoking in America. "No one from the Department of Health told me this was going on" said the Speaker.

The Secretary of Health and Human Services released a carefully worded statement in response: "Get real."

Speaker Pelosi, craving a smoke.

Across the United States, reaction was mixed. Several smokers interviewed at "smoke-houses" stated the "safe-smoke" baggies took all the fun out of smoking. Some smoke-abstinence groups insisted studies have shown that smokers are unlikely to use the inconvenient and sometimes painful baggies routinely or correctly.

"All these objections can be ignored as stupid" said Dr. Krupnik, shrugging her shoulders as she took a drag on her Lucky Strike cigarette and handed her pet hyena a dog biscuit. "Anyone who actually expects people to quit smoking is either a lunatic or a religious fanatic, or both."

Dr. Krupnik at play with pet hyenas Beelzebub and Mao,
shortly before she was eaten.

HOPPER HARMONY

It was never my intent to get into an argument about the toilet seat. However, it happened, and I wish to recount the circumstances.

At a relatively early age I heard perfectly genteel lady friends make sarcastic remarks about the male tendency to leave the toilet seat up, that is to say, in the "open" position. This habit of leaving the toilet seat in the "open" position was apparently the definitive proof of male selfishness and lack of consideration for others.

"Yes, he absolutely did!"
by beenbair

I was vague on exactly why this was. After I got married, my wife explained to me that on occasion a female will be lured into a false sense of security by the open seat, especially in the middle of the night, and sit down on the cold ceramic rim of the toilet, or perhaps plunge into the ice-cold toilet water itself.

Yeech.

This was a revelation to me.

Epiphany

by mriego54

On those exceedingly rare occasions when I sat down on the cold ceramic rim of the toilet (beer was involved), I blamed myself. The thought never occurred to me to blame anyone else. Although I liked the idea.

When I mentioned this to my wife, we had a discussion. I found that she concurred with female orthodoxy on the subject.

I should have let it go, but I asked this: if a female put the lid down, and her husband failed to lift the lid and created a disaster, would this be a demonstration of female callousness?

Apparently not.

Also (I had not learned discretion) I said: if you want to do it the "right" way, you should put the lid down. What do you think the lid is for?

This was a revelation to my wife.

This is how my wife looked that day.
("Hallelujah")

So now we agree. We put the seat AND the lid down.

This has drawn us closer together.

Not really us. But almost.

One husband I know has gotten even closer to God on the subject. Early in their marriage, he informed his wife that he alone would be responsible for cleaning the bathroom, since he alone was responsible for the messiest part of the job.

25 years, and she STILL thinks he's wonderful.

SPITFIRES AND A.R.M.s

America, we need to have a talk.

Once I bought a Triumph Spitfire. It was a beautiful little car.

Spitfire as I envisioned it.
(by bayernernst)

Problem was, everything on it was broken. And I couldn't afford to fix anything. I had just purchased a "new" home (think of the ones advertised "afraid of a little work?"), and was having trouble scraping up money to buy peanut butter, never mind a new decombobulator on the left front franzit on the sports car. I am mechanically disinclined. So the car was at Mario's or Jim's or whoever's shop almost all the time.

Spitfire as it was.
(by Rootes_arrow_1725)

I kept that car for several years, and poured about $5,000 into it, eventually. In the end I just gave it to another young man who wanted it. I was grateful he took it from me. In good conscience I could not ask him to pay me for the car. A total, total, loss. I might have driven it 15 times in three years.

All of this was easily foreseeable. The car was broken when I got it. A look at repair histories for Triumphs was a simple task, and would have made any sane person blanch. And my cash flow position, which was actually a "non-cash flow position," was obvious. Had I asked my dad or mom, they would have told me not to get the car. In a nice way.

But I wanted that Triumph.

Now I want to talk to the tens of millions of people who took out an ARM - adjustable rate mortgage - and couldn't afford it.

It was easy to foresee what would happen. You just had to give it 5 minutes of thought, and figure out what the highest possible mortgage payment was, and whether you could afford it for the long haul.

Tell me, why would you risk your home, the most expensive thing you'll ever buy, without knowing what you were doing? Can you tell me that?

No, you can't.

To the extent you actually thought about it, you just gambled that you could sell your house if the deal turned sour. Ahead of the 50 million other people stampeding for the door at the same time.

Ovejas [Estampida]
(by Alvaro Herreras)

Please stop complaining to me about big banks and Wall Street. Yes, they were stupid and greedy and they figured out a way to lend you the money, even though it was crazy. That's why so many of them are under water.

I'm talking to YOU right now. You wanted what you couldn't afford, and got it with voodoo mortgage lending. You absolutely deserve what happened.

Right, the bank made you sign the loan. They held you hostage and tortured you. You really had no choice.

Right, the mortgage lender lied to you. Well, okay, you didn't hire an attorney. And you didn't actually read the terms of the note. Or the comprehensive disclosure statement that explained the risks in excruciating detail. And you didn't ask anybody sensible in your life about your great idea.

Nope, you just signed the $300,000 loan with 2% down and a top end monthly payment of $5,035.27 on a salary of $50,000 a year. Yup.

Please do me a favor tomorrow morning. Find a mirror, look in the mirror, and say this:

My bad.
MY bad.
My BAD.

Say it three times, just like that. Say it with emotion, like you mean it. You'll feel better.

Because it is true. Sure, there are fraudsters out there. But they are on the fringes. The real engine room of the "mortgage crisis" was the monumental cupidity and stupidity of borrowers who were not "victimized" by anyone except themselves. You just found equally stupid and cupid lenders to play musical chairs with.

(by parkerkrhoyt)

Now the music has stopped and you don't have a chair. That is always how the game ends, with almost everyone a loser.

(by tootdood)

There are bad things in life that just happen to you.

There are bad things in life you do to yourself.

This was a bad thing you did to yourself.

News flash: just because there were other, equally short sighted people who helped you be stupid . . .

DOES NOT TURN YOU INTO A VICTIM.

So never mind all the goo-goo noise from newspapers and Washington, talking about how you were victimized. It sounds like Captain Renault in Casablanca: "I'm shocked, shocked to find that gambling is going on in here!"

Take control of your life, tell yourself the truth, and stop making stupid, self-indulgent decisions.

Hey listen, gotta go now, just saw a great deal on a '98 Jaguar!