The Current State Of Our Union.

 Oh, did you think that I had forgotten about you all? 
No. 

As I stated back in the summertime-- we will get through this. But darker times are not completely over. 

Our nation is evenly split. We have People Who Want Their Team To Win No Matter What. We have People Who Are Gleefully Showing Shocked Outrage At The Other Team. We have People Who Have Checked Out. 

Our President will believe what is reported in his favor. He will strike out at anyone who reports something not in his favor, regardless of the veracity. He and his supporters have repeated the claims so much, it would be like denying faith to examine the claims with any eye toward critical thought, now. 

People, long convinced that their votes were dismissed by a tampered-with election, are acting out against the government which they feel has let them down. They believe that the government is enabling the  a fraudulently-elevated Biden to be President. They believe that this is life or death, and they have to act. 

They have stormed the Capitol. They broke things and hurt people. This is a riot. 

They were urged to show up by  President Trump. Today was the day on which Congress was to certify the electoral college vote. Somehow, interrupting that count was going to bring some power back to them.

It did not. 

What happened is that the pendulum swung a bit harder, separating and dividing us further. 

For days, our President has been issuing pardons. For the last couple of days, the discussion has turned toward a phone call which he made to the Secretary Of State in Georgia, whom our President urged to "do a favor," and "find some more votes."  Now, the discussion has turned to the issue of our nation's President issuing himself a preemptive pardon. This is ridiculous, because if  he can do this, he may act unlawfully with impunity. 

We have seen 62 courts throw out challenges to the elections, made by Trump's supporters, usually due to lack of evidence. Some of the judges were Republican appointees. Some even Trump appointees. No court yet tried has found sufficient evidence to intervene in the state elections for President. 

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnel (R, KY) has called for a cease to the objections to the vote, by the Senate: "I've served 36 years in the Senate. This will be the most important vote I've ever cast," McConnell said. "The voters, the courts and the states have all spoken. They've all spoken. If we overrule them, it will damage our republic forever."
 Former President George W. Bush has made the call for the riotous demonstration to end.  Numerous Republicans who had pledged to vote to oppose the election results have reversed themselves, and are choosing not to raise objections to the vote. Lindsay Graham, long a Trump supporter, gave an impassioned speech in which he remarked that only Donald Trump could get him to stand with Rand Paul on such an issue.  Senator Paul declared that today's riot was "chaos and anarchy that needs to be stopped." 

It has been reported that the President's Cabinet has current members who are discussing the possibility of invoking the 25th Amendment. 

Now, you can say, "Matt, you've just provided links to MainStream Media. And they lie." Oh, I believe that MSM has biases, and gets some things wrong. But unlike your favorite blog or buddy on social media, or you, they actually have a stake in verifying what they say before they say it. We know that our President has lied.  We know that a swarm of competing news organizations have shown these facts.  Given a choice between our President's specious claims, and numerous professional news sources, I'll go with the news sources. I'll be right more often, if still occasionally wrong. 

If you tell me that you would have been up at the Capitol, storming the building, to interrupt the Constitutionally-mandated count today--- I will tell you that I don't respect that. 
And that I would have wanted to be up at the Capitol, stopping your unlawful interference. 

Shall we go on together, as a nation, now, and lick our wounds, and try to heal? 

The way things are.

How are things? The general consensus is: "Not great."

A quarter of the nation is unemployed, thanks to a novel virus causing international lockdowns for social distancing.

Large cities are powderkegs of "protesters" and police clashing.

Cultural wars are in full swing. We have strong evidence (hell, let's just say "confirmation") of outside influence by international online arsonists who are fomenting hate and discontent on social media.

The President says that he does not trust:
The news media.
Scientists and doctors.
Our nation's intelligence services.
Our nation's criminal justice system.

The Left is cast as being full-bore socialists who want to tear down free enterprise, and get rid of the police.
The Right is being portrayed as racist, war-mongering, radical conservative, gun-obsessed zealots who care nothing for the nation's environment.

Police are being portrayed as focused on killing or at least hurting people of color whenever they can get away with it, who totally would get away with it, if The Left let down their guard.

Every use of force by police is now suspect to the public eye, if there is not a long history of the actor being a dangerous criminal, and there is not beautiful video of the event, depicting the recipient of police force committing indisputably heinous crimes (i.e., not just against police) when the police step in and expertly execute maneuver which stops the crime.

Police are assumed to be part of an inherently racially unjust system.

Because of this, people have taken to the streets in demonstrations which have repeatedly become riots. People will en masse block highways, blocking other people, to "raise awareness" of their issue. (This, to me, is akin to punching out a random old woman to raise awareness about breast cancer.)

People are stressed.

Listen to me: 

WE WILL GET THROUGH THIS.  

We as police will adjust some of the things we can, and the public will have to understand what we cannot adjust.

A vaccine is coming, and the greatest nation on the planet will get back to work again.

The current dumbass President will leave office, and another dumbass President will assume the role.

Do not get worked up over what someone says over the Internet-- chances are, they're just some Russian 'bot trying to goad you into a position of rage, to contribute to our chaos.

I and my brothers and sisters in blue will continue to try. And dammit, we'll try to do better. We have to.

I am sorry for our collective Troubles, and I will take a drink when they are past. For now, the liquor cabinet remains shut, because we have work to do.

If you can, try to be understanding of that idiot neighbor of yours, and do something kind.
If you can, let that comment box with the flashing cursor in it go unfilled with furious text.
If you can, send a little olive branch to that person that you used to think well of, before finding that they were just a little over on the Other Side on some divisive issue or another.

"Look a how mean/distasteful/condescending/dumb/Other-Side he looks!"

You can generally tell a hit piece, lately, by the photo which accompanies it.
As a junior baby wannabe amateur photographer, I will tell you that I delete the portraits that I take which make my subject look bad. If I'm taking a candid shot of an event, I only keep the unflattering ones if the subject is doing something which I don't have another shot of, and the real subject is the action.
Photographers covering a newsworthy event with talking heads take a LOT of pictures of those talking heads. While it is not unethical for a news photographer to publish an untouched photograph of what happened, it causes me to wonder about their objective journalism, when they ONLY publish photos of the subject with his or her face in an unpleasant expression.

We ALL can get caught momentarily with our face in such expressions.

Oh, and don't try to make out that it's only The Other Team that does this. Your team is just as bad about it.

239 years ago...

A group of men decided to sign a document declaring that they were citizens, and no longer subjects. This document started with a list of strident complaints against a man who was arguably the most powerful man in the world, and who believed he had a claim over their provenance. The subject and recipient of that document had standing troops in their homeland, and the resources to send many, many more.

Think about that, the next time you're reluctant to churn out a memo at work which points out an error made by your boss.

The unions. (Why I don't want to be part of them.)

So, today, the Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) released it's opinion on Harris v. Quinn.


The main question:

May a State, consistent with the First and Fourteenth Amendments to the United States Constitution, compel personal care providers to accept and financially support a private organization as their exclusive representative to petition the State for greater reimbursements from its Medicaid programs?

The question we thought that it would settle is whether a person could be compelled to pay union dues without joining the union, just because of the job that he or she held?


The pivotal case of precedent was Abood v. Detroit Board Of Education, which had affirmed that they could, saying that it was fine to require share payment of those in the public sector who benefitted from collective bargaining agreements. The thinking was, "Hey, you benefitted from this agreement that gets you better wages and benefits, so you better pay up and not be a freeloader."


It puts in mind that guy who signs the card on the gift that he did not contribute anything to. Well that's not right, is it??!? 


But to continue the analogy, consider the other employee who comes to you and says, "It's Bob's birthday. I bought him a new laptop. Everyone's chipping in $50. Cough it up." Well, that's not fair, either.  First, I like $50. I need my $50. Also, this creates dangerous precedent. What about when it's Maria's birthday? And Gordon's birthday?* Are we going to do this EVERY year? And you get to decide how much I chip in? Can't I just opt out and not sign the card? I'm just trying to work, here.


You'll note that the cases are in Detroit, MI, and Illinois, where unions are a big deal. I myself find it amazing that a person can be compelled to pay union dues, and be told that it's okay, because they don't have to actually join the union; they only have to subsidize it.


As it is, Abood didn't get fully overturned, because the Court didn't find that the petitioners (contract employees receiving state subsidies for home health care) were the best fit. They didn't have good enough standing. But Justice Alito made clear that he is rubbing his palms together to receive a case that fits the issue best. As well he should.


Unions have done some good things in this country. The ability to belong to a union is of course nothing that I dispute. But they have generally gone too far, and the law as it has stood under Abood v. Detroit B.O.E. has been nothing less than a state requirement to join and subsidize a union.


I see current unions as doing crazy things.  I know a local industrial manufacturer which employs union workers to make its trucks. Brand new employees with no more than high school diplomas can start working on the line at around $30 an hour, which sounds great... until they're laid off after a few months. When they get a big order, they recall the workers. There's no job continuity. If their union hadn't bargained so stiffly, these young men and women could keep $18/hour jobs (which is a living wage in Texas, I assure you), and not miss work.  


I am a cop. I regularly hear about how police unions make it next to impossible to fire a dirty cop. And, in some places, that's embarrassingly true. Regular readers here may recall how I pushed for a letter-writing campaign to have Officer Harless with the Canton, OH PD fired after his incident, after which his union actually temporarily won his job back for him. 


So excuse me if I don't particularly like unions. They make hard-working, honest employees look like lazy money-grabbers. They have hurt the reputation of my own profession, even while I work in a "Right To Work" state. It is jokingly stated that "Right To Work" really means "Right To Terminate," and there's some truth to that. I can be fired from my job pretty much any time. I don't have a union protecting me. Oh, I belong to the Texas Municipal Police Association, which provides me with legal insurance (I pay in monthly dues, and in exchange, I get a policy for up to a million bucks to pay for legit legal fees, in such instance as if I am sued), but that's not a union. I'm not entitled to my job or my badge. And I'm fine with that-- it means that I and my co-workers had best keep our walk on the straight and narrow.


I am embarrassed for public employees who feel otherwise.




___________
*Or Big Bird's? Or Cookie Monster's?  Sorry. The names came at random.

State Of The Union

I'm relatively sure that no one walks away with a new perspective after having watched the State Of The Union Address, so why bother watching it live? If you hate the President, you'll reiterate that. If you love him, you'll underscore that.


In the meantime, check out this interesting piece that charts that words used by past U.S. presidents in their State Of The Union addresses, entitled "Hindsight Is 20/20." The words that most used certainly indicate what was on the mind of the President at the time.

Racial tension.

When our President, Barack Obama, was elected in November of 2008, I hadn't voted for him. But I took some solace in the thought that at least some of our national racial tension would now be eased. No longer could we say that a black man had less of a chance in this country, when the most powerful man in the world and leader of this nation was a black man. Then he was re-elected. Well, now surely the cries of racial injustice would be... well, not silenced, but quelled, somewhat.

Man, am I a sucker.

I'm not going to make this a blog about Zimmerman and Martin, except to note that I want to live in a country where, if the state cannot eliminate reasonable doubt, the accused goes free. Yeah, that means that O.J. walks. Yeah, that means that we miss jailing some really despicable persons. But if we can't eliminate reasonable doubt to a jury, then what business do we have taking a person's liberty?

I have long held that the most racist people in our country are the most outspoken activists against it. I have never seen the Reverend Jesse Jackson nor Reverend Al Sharpton leap to the defense of an accused white person. Yet they immediately offer damning condemnations of whites, and furious defense of blacks, in controversial cases involving mixed race crime. Given their histories, I wonder why they're considered relevant.*

But I'll admit to actually being shocked that our President is one of those people, who become instant and amazing criminal analysts based upon the race of the accused and of the victim.

Maybe I should have known better, after our President, with less than half a year in office, declared that Cambridge Police had "acted stupidly" in their arrest of black activist Henry Louis Gates. Later, our President, often declared one of the most articulate and well-spoken men ever to hold office, gave the non-apology:  

"I want to make clear that in my choice of words I think I unfortunately gave an impression that I was maligning the Cambridge Police Department or Sergeant Crowley specifically — and I could have calibrated those words differently." 

In other words, "I'm sorry that I'm catching flack over this."**

But I thought, well, he's too smart to do that again. Barry's a lot of things, but he's not dumb.

This Spring, our President said: "If I had a son, he would look like Trayvon." Some took this to mean that he was siding with the Martin family's account of how the case went. But I thought, "Hey, maybe he's trying to remind us that there are other sides to the story, and that we should all remember the other person's point of view." Look, I make a point of trying to see the other side of things.

But today***, our President said "Trayvon Martin could have been me 35 years ago."
Again, I don't think so. 35 years ago, Barrack Obama was a privileged kid graduating high school in Hawaii. He was a smart kid on a mission. I'm beginning to wonder if he wasn't a little smarter at that time than he is now. Because this Nobel Peace Prize recipient isn't bridging very well; he's dividing. I don't actually believe that he means to.


_________________________________________
*Full disclosure: In early 1988, I shook Jesse Jackson's hand, following a speech that he gave at a local college while he ran for the Democratic nomination for President. (I had cut class to see the guy.) The man was a dynamic speaker. He was optimistic. He stirred that crowd up. I was impressed, and not a little shaken, by his ability to whip up several thousand people into a chant. I was at the time reminded of an After-School Movie called The Wave, in which a group of students get caught up in a fervor during an experiment about cults. I wasn't sure what he was, but I knew a force to be reckoned with when I saw one.

**Wikipedia says, "An opinion poll released by Pew Research found that 41 percent disapproved of Obama's "handling of the situation", while only 29 percent approved,^[60] and support from white voters dropped from 53 percent to 46 percent."

 ***On which lawmakers are trying to overturn aspects of the 1965 Voters' Rights Act, to give states more freedom to change voting regulation without the federal oversight that was found necessary for some states 46 years ago:

J. CHRISTIAN ADAMS: "My Fair Lady" had just won the Oscar for best picture, "My Girl" by the Temptations topped the charts, and "Bonanza" was the most-watched show on television.

When it hits you.

Usually, I can distance.

"Hey, it sucks to be them. These things happen."

And they do. Happen, I mean. Tornados are pretty low on the list of things that kill us, nationwide.

But I watched this video, and found myself putting myself into the place of the parents looking for their missing child at the school, or of the teachers having to round up kids for a count.

And suddenly I'm in tears. And when I try to discuss the impact with my wife, she refuses to discuss the issue with me. So here you are, Internet: my raw and exposed nerve.

I ask you to watch the very short bit of raw video above, so that you will not do as I was doing last night and this morning, and distance with a flippant dismissal.

Those people are you and me. Their loved ones are yours.

They found her.
From The Oklahoman. Retrieved 21 May 2013.  

So, I'm texting some money. It's all I know to do. They are up there. I am down here.
Maybe you could text some, too. *


_____________________________
*"This has been a major disaster, and the Red Cross will be there for the people in this state and this community. People who wish to make a donation can support American Red Cross Disaster Relief, which helps provide food, shelter and emotional support to those affected by disasters like the recent tornadoes in Oklahoma and Texas as well as disasters big and small throughout the United States by visiting redcross.org, dialing 1-800-REDCROSS or texting REDCROSS to 90999 to make a $10 donation."

Maps.

Check out this amazing, zoomable map of all of the roads in the United States, and nothing else. No borders. No topographical features.

No, no. Click on the BIG one.

And supposedly, half the people live in this circle, most of which is water.

And bad research yields poor maps. When you assume that racists are located where words that you call pejoratives are tweeted from, you get a map like this. Note also that in south Texas, for many, the term "wetback" is not used as a pejorative, but rather as a descriptor of a person who illegally migrated across the Rio Grande. I have the utmost respect for Latinos, and of immigrants, but I used the term in a non-derogatory way for years, before being informed that it was being perceived as pejorative. :(

Let's rise above it.

Probable social media page of Dzhokhar A. Tsarnaev:
 http://vk.com/id160300242
While I'm angry at him and want him caught, I'm embarrassed at most of the words of my countrymen, here.

Thoughts on violence.

--This nation is split right now. There is little in the way of a "conversation about guns and violence." It is two sides, squaring off. It's not pretty, and it's not really effective.

--Under the New Public Service model of governance, we are supposed to engage in a dialogue until we decide what to do, without regard to completing our goal, or achieving a real consensus.

--Those of us interested in maintaining the right to keep and to bear arms are acting calmer than those who blame firearms for the violence in which they are used.
This isn't because we're less upset. 

--Belief that ONE SINGLE POLICY will stop the violence is pretty naive. Thus, even though I believe that there are things that we can and probably should do to reduce the violence, I don't present them and then nod self-assuredly and declare "that's what will finally fix the problem."

--I've said before and I will say again that this nation has a serious problem in identifying and managing our mentally ill. We don't even deal with the emergent ones.

--If I truly believed that we could put the genie back in the bottle, and eliminate all firearms from this planet in an attempt to rid the planet of gun violence, I might well consider it, even though I agree with Marko's excellent essay, here. But it's not possible, so why entertain the mental exercise? If we're going to do that, why not settle invisibility versus flight for a superpower?

--If guns are the problem, why is my life not steeped in violence? Even though I literally am dispatched to every call involving violence in my jurisdiction for half of every other day, I have seen very little in the way of gun violence in the last 12 years of service. I've never been shot at. I've never shot at anyone. I've never arrested anyone for intentionally shooting at another person (true story!). I've only a handful of times arrested people for pointing guns at others. This is in Texas, where private ownership of firearms is almost unrestricted: No limit to number of guns, no registration of guns, no waiting period, no state restriction on private sales, no state restriction on ammunition* or magazines. If you get it federally registered, you can even own an automatic weapon.

--Some folks will see that above comment and say, "well, he works in a small town, so that's different." Well, which is it? Either we're back-woods hicks who are armed to the teeth and seething in violence, or I'm working for Mayberry, and we all get along so great, no one would ever be so unkind as to shoot someone else.  It must not be the guns, though, because EVERY home here seems to have a collection of firearms.

--Firearms were virtually uncontrolled before 1934, then more so in 1968, and more so in 1986. Yet school shootings have increased almost exponentially since just the late 1990s. Why? Yes, there are more guns. Yes, more people live in urban environments. But those aren't the answer. The problem of mass shootings has grown far faster than the rate of gun ownership. Lt. Colonel Dave Grossman, when I saw him speak, opined that the problem grew in direct proportion to the proliferation of first-person shooter video games. Hm.  I don't think that blaming the games themselves is the answer. But I'll for damn sure agree that there's an inured effect upon the players to distance themselves from the perceived consequences of their actions. 

I see evidence of dissociative behavior among youth that I didn't see much before. Youngsters engaged in online debate move quickly to direct each other to kill themselves. We've got individuals scattered among us who genuinely don't see other people as real. We've always had such sociopaths (for such they are), but it seems like we've started distilling them, and creating a higher likelihood that we'll have to deal with them.

--I am real. And so are you.

--The world will never be Nerf'd. We cannot stop violence, much. But maybe we can attenuate it. Maybe we can actually get a handle on what we can do to help reduce the chance that future sick persons will decide to destroy others.  I'm going to try. Please try in your way, too.

--Let me know what you think. I'm interested.
_____________________
*Except armor-piercing handgun ammunition.

Wiping our mouths and moving on.

While working out hard for his new job, my partner hit a dog while bicycling, face-planted, and injured his head badly. While he recovered in hospital, I heard his wife, who was understandably shaken by the nearly-tragic event, tell him "The bike goes. No more bicycling, ever."

I didn't say anything. She loves him dearly, and was speaking from her heart. She perceived that this veteran police officer's nemesis was a Trek bicycle. She wanted to eliminate it, even though riding it had given him low-impact, fun workouts which were integral to his losing weight and getting fit, which in turn was part of the equation that had resulting in his just having been informed that he was getting his dream job.  He is now employed there, working hard and winning.

I think about how we as a nation responded to the worst national day of my life, exactly 11 years ago today.

"Never again," I heard said time and time again.

That was silly talk. Of course our nation will be hit with tragedy again. That's part of what comes when you're the most powerful nation on the planet; you become the target. And if I haven't made it clear in my rants here, or you're new, understand this: no amount of expenditure will stop us from being attacked, somehow. But our nation overreacted. In the name of safety, we imposed undue restrictions on ourselves, and spent inappropriate amounts of money, and perpetuated military actions that could have been shut down far sooner.

When an enraged punk manages to land a punch on your kisser, the toughest and most effective thing that you can do is to wipe the blood off your mouth, smile, and tell him that he hits like a little girl. That is, not to stop down, curl up into a tight ball, and say (incorrectly) "he can't hurt me now."

When it happens again, let us resolve to conduct business as usual. Oh, sure-- hit back if there's a shot available. but do not overreact. Do not cease the free enterprise that actually made us great.

Professional. (Student.)

Recall that test that I went in to get? Turns out that I got a 92. It was a take-home test that my professor had given to us two weeks before, and I started working on it just after midnight of the morning that it was to be turned in. My wife is furious at me for getting an A on something that I put so little effort into (It's 40% of my semester grade.). "You'll never learn if you don't get stomped with a D or something when you do that! Instead, you get rewarded for procrastinating!" she fumed. "How do you do that?!?" (It was just a 12 page paper, plus a page of works cited.)

"I did it because this is the crap that I've been thinking about for over ten years," I answered. This is what I do."

And by that, I mean that I evaluate the state of our Homeland Security from a street-level bureaucrat's perspective, and from a graduate student's perspective.

And I play with kids in sandboxes like this one, and this one, and this one, and... well, lots of smart folk.

My evaluation of Homeland Security is that we're spending $58 Billion a year real money (and losing another ~$40B) for something that doesn't work. The guys that we're catching? The cases are thin, man. They're usually turned in or caught by citizens. And TSA, which won't publish its efficacy (National Security, don't you know) is rumored to be missing 70% of what it's there for, while being proven publicly to be responsible for thefts, frauds, inappropriate gropings, ridicule by public servants, and general abuse of office.

How many freedoms do we want to give up? Remember how we said "They hate us for our freedom?" Have we decided "Well there's your problem, right there!"?!?

Imagine if Google Earth had to drop its pictures off at the Sooper-Sekrit PhotoMat first.

Back in the 1970's, the Cold War was being fought by some bad asses with old slide-rules and new TI calculators. They wore ties and short-sleeved shirts and kept long hours and never talked about their work.

Now we know about Hexagon, the ambitious and remarkably successful project wherein 60 mile spools of camera film was loaded aboard 30,000 lb satellites, which used the most sophisticated cameras of the time to take high-speed, ultra-high resolution photographs of the ground, and to then drop buckets full of the film to be caught midair while parachuting down, to be developed and searched for clues of our cold enemy's doings.

Finally, the old farts who never talked about their jobs can discuss the most fascinating endeavor of their careers.

It makes you think about how many people performed amazing thankless service for years for our country.

No need to jazz it up.

I know that it's cute to have Corduroy Day on the day with all the vertical lines in the date.

But maybe it's better to use today to remember warriors and wars past. That's what we set this day aside for.

If you (like me) never took on the duty, there's certainly nothing to keep you from appreciating the securities provided by those who have done so. If you are a pacifist, then now is the time to reflect on the horror of war, and be glad that it isn't coming to your home. There's a reason for that, you know.

I look forward to the day that we celebrate armistice, yet again.

Until our men and women come home --and even then-- remember.

Just stop it.

My mother and I were talking today about the public reaction to the tenth anniversary of September 11, 2001.

And we're appalled.

"Commemoration" isn't such a distant cousin of a word from "Celebration." It would seem that many have forgotten that there actually is a difference, and that those that know it seem to be blurring the lines pretty heavily.

I get that no documentarian worth his salt would fail to comment on the tenth year passing since our nation suffered an attack that had such ramifications. But the goal of those watching, and the goal of those showing the documentaries seems to be a type of entertainment.

Like a horror movie. "Ooh, it gives me shivers to remember where I was when I heard..."

I'm disgusted, and I'm not participating.

You want to wave our flag? Push to bring back most of our troops from the errands we've sent them on. Push to sunset the Patriot Act for good. Push to fire the TSA. Push to strengthen our borders (still as porous as they were 10 years ago, from what I see.).

But don't use some arbitrary tenth anniversary of the death of our countrymen as a day to be entertained. Do something GOOD for your country for a change, would you, please? We've spent the last 3,652 days dismantling it.

Misplaced enthusiasm for failure.

I was working security for a Drunken Barn Dance on Saturday, and an inebriated local businessman sidled up next to me.

"'D'd'ja hear wha' happened to our economy yesterday?" he asked me, with fumes of Bud Light stinging my eyes.

"You mean the downgrading of our loans by S&P from triple A to double A? Yep. Heard that," I said.

"Well, it means.... we're screwed," he wheezed. "'Cuz you know who owns us? You know what's gonna happen to us?!?"

"Are you implying that China, who owns a large portion* of our debt, is going to suddenly call in our markers, now that they see us at a moment of economic weakness?" I asked.

"Yeah! They got us by the short hairs! We're screwwwed!" he said, as he tipped back his coozy-covered can.

"Okay. Let me ask you: Who is China's biggest market?" I asked levelly.

"Huh?" he asked, with his beer still draining into his mouth.

"Think about it. Where is China's biggest market. Where do they sell most of their cheaply-made products?" I asked him, speaking slowly.

He looked at me searchingly with wet, rheumy eyes, before venturing, "The U.S.?"

"Right. Their best customer is the very country whose debt they hold. It is in their interest to see our economy do well, so that we can buy more of their crap, right?"

He slowly nodded, "Right. Right."

"And, honestly, when China does get paid back, they'd rather the dollar was a bit stronger than it is, so that those billions of US dollars would bring more value, right?" I don't think that he got this part, but the other part had hit home.

"Yeah. Yeah! Sir, I want to shake your hand. You're the smartest guy I know," he slurred.

I laughed out loud as I shook his hand. I didn't mean to insult the man. He had been worried, and now he felt a little better. "Not hardly, sir. Not by a long shot, I promise you." As he over-shook my hand, I began to worry about him having a sober ride home.

_____________________

A self-confessed north Texas liberal (they exist, but they're rare, and most of them, unlike Barry Green, are rabidly irritating) wrote today:

"I don't think I ever seen so many people (who happen to be President Obama haters) so giddy about unemployment and a stock market crash."

I have to admit that I agree. Hey, I don't want the guy as my President, either. But he's got the wheel of the ship that we're in, so why should we be gleeful about him putting us on the rocks?

I believe that I've spoken to this topic before.

____________________________
*Actually, only about 26% of our foreign-held public debt. Which is a lot, but it's not the Whole Enchilada, or anything.

The thing about freedom and equality...

...it spreads.

My co-worker came into the police department this morning to relieve me. While I finished up on a DWI report, he checked his web-based email, which popped up the news. “So,” he said with what I perceived as a smirk, “New York state has made it legal for gays to marry…!”

“Good. Maybe we’ll be next,” I said.

“I know, right?!?” said my conservative, VERY hetero, recently-married cop buddy.

Despite the stereotypes and the expectations of the opposition, many, many of us stand behind equality. More than the bigots know. That’s part of their downfall.

My friend may well have been trying to set up a derisive joke, but the things he said over the next few seconds told me that really, he'd just been waiting to hear someone else say that they support equality. I'm glad that I could answer that call. I think that he'll feel more empowered to next time start that discussion with, "It's about damned time."

A Worrisome Gap, Indeed.

I didn't serve.

I should have. I regret that I didn't. I believe that I would have made a good serviceman. But for whatever reason, I did not.

I now attempt to serve my little community as a patrolman. I don't kid myself about what the job is, and I get paid, so I refuse to accept praises beyond my actual worth.

But every serviceman who signs up for the armed forces of this nation puts himself or herself at risk of being put in harm's way. Yes, even the pogues and the REMFs and the supposedly non-combat support personnel. All may be sent into a hostile country, wearing our nation's uniform. And in truth, our D.O.D. is famous for taking a physicist or an engineer, handing him a rifle, and telling him to march in the front of the line instead of plying his preferred trade. Guys that sign up for easy duty might not get it. That's the risk. They've all got that in common.

But we who do not serve don't often think about those who do, unless someone close to us is in the military. Even now, with our servicemen and women scattered around the globe on two and a half fronts, we forget. Yes, we do.

So I find that the words of Admiral Mike Mullen (head of Joint Chiefs Of Staff) hit home when he describes a gulf between our military and the nation that it serves. He said that we who are on the outside are more and more failing to grasp what those on the inside are experiencing, and what their needs are.

"This is important, because a people uninformed about what they are asking the military to endure is a people inevitably unable to fully grasp the scope of the responsibilities our Constitution levies upon them," he said.

Our jobs on the home front are varied, but we all have a duty to this nation. The first duty, it would seem, is to remember.

Maybe, in between the pouring of drunks back into their houses or into jail cells this three-day weekend, I can remind one or two citizens of why we have the holiday weekend. Because frankly, it's easier to forget than it should be.

Perhaps I Haven't Made Myself Clear.

In comments, someone said, regarding my post about Glenn Beck:

"You note that the nation is great today.

You are either not who I thought or quite blind to where we are. I am sorry for either. I would prefer that you learn a bit more(yes, ignoring his religious points before making a blanket judgment.

After all, he is the only one tracking the very dirty laundry in the White House."

I would submit that, if you haven't figured out that I love this nation, then you haven't been paying attention.

And if you think that Glenn Beck is the only watchdog on the White House, then you might consider broadening your view.