Republicans See Gyro Meat in Obama's Healthcare Plan

Some of my loves--and we are talking food here--are Jamaican beef patties, Chinese food, pizza, and gyros. In fact growing up in my part of Queens, we called them "gyros" as in gyroscope. Even today, and knowing that the "g" should be dropped and the y should screech like an "eee", I still fill uncomfortable getting so phonetically correct. It's a JIRO in my head, and ever more shall be.

The New York Times has a story today about the evolution of the mass production of that gyro mystery meat, and it's an entertaining read, thy type of reading that takes your mind off the pressures of the day, the worries of the mind, the reality of deeper things. You turn on some Michael Buble, whom a woman on my job loves, or my Mark Knopfler, and you sit back and read about people with a dream. The dream being to supply you and your hungry tummy with a cheap and satisfying meal of beef and lamb trimmings (and added seasonings, bread crumbs).

But no, don't tell me the details, lest I stand there in the Asian owned burger joint near me, staring too intently at the vertically resting meat, thinking thoughts my belly doesn't want to process. Such is life, that reality intercedes in the middle of dream and desire.

David Segal's gyro piece gives us this:

Feeling somewhat burned but eager to move on, the couple eventually opened that restaurant with the dolphins, and two others, none of which sold gyros.

The Garlics moved to Orlando, Fla., in the early 1980s, where John sold subdivisions for a developer. He did well, but when he became sick, the family’s savings were drained to pay for treatments not covered by insurance. After her husband died, Ms. Garlic waited tables to support her children.

As gyros went nationwide and earned millions for a handful of entrepreneurs, the sight of rotisseries broke Ms. Garlic’s heart a little. “That was our idea,” she would think. She’s rarely discussed her and her husband’s role in Greek-American food history, but only because the subject rarely comes up. When it does, people think she’s kidding.

(N.Y.Times)

Every time you hear someone who is not in favor of any kind of healthcare reform, or who resorts to straw arguments about socialism, ask them how they would resolve the issue of people being financially drained down to zero due to health concerns.

Today the U.S. Senate began the process of moving forward, with some on board, and others growing more critical, but not necessarily constructively critical.

President Barack Obama achieved a milestone Wednesday when a Senate committee approved a plan to revamp the U.S. health care system. The Senate panel's action, which attracted no Republican votes, came as the president's campaign organization rolled out television ads to build support for his top domestic priority.

Obama met with Republicans at the White House in search of an elusive bipartisan compromise on his call to expand coverage to the nearly 50 million uninsured Americans as well as restrain spending increases in health care.

But the 13-10 party-line vote in the Senate health committee signaled a deepening rift in Congress. While Democrats respond to Obama's call for action with renewed determination, Republicans are using harsher words to voice their misgivings.

(A.P.)

The question is not so much as whether Obama or Democrats are mostly right. I have my doubts too. But the other side in the debate refuses to budge on significant change, cloaking their concerns in rhetorical fantasies based more in fear than in substance. They cannot conceive of how an economy filled with workers unburdened by health concerns might be significantly more productive.

It's amazing how reality pushes in, when all you want is a nice bite of gyro, maybe a side of fries, and some coke.

Iran Targets Dissenters, Links Them to the United States

Thankfully John McCain is not president. In observing the internal collision in Iran between "reformists" and hardliners, McCain argued that President Obama was not vocal enough in showing his support for those Iranians out in the streets protesting a possibly corrupted electoral process.

Obama has taken a lesson from past overly verbose American policy statements, deciding to low key it, albeit succumbing to some pressure as time has passed. But his intent was about maintaining the purity of those in Iran who were most inclined to embrace the United States should they ever get into power. He knew that the minute we started making strong statements in support of the reformers and dissenters and their candidate Mousavi, that it would empower the other side. It would allow Ahmadinejad, the disputed winner of the election, and his powerful backers, to paint the opposition as tools of America.

McCain is ever blind to these types of nuances, and now we have the result of our slightly more vocal criticism of the regime:

"Hossein Shariatmadari, editor-in-chief of the influential Kayhan newspaper, said Mousavi had committed "terrible crimes", including "murdering innocent people, holding riots, co-operating with foreigners and acting as America's fifth column", in pursuing his claims that last month's re-election of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was rigged.

The accusations - in a newspaper editorial - were the most ferocious yet from regime insiders and may serve notice that preparations are under way to arrest Mousavi and his main allies. Several hundred known reformists and pro-Mousavi supporters have already been detained since the election. The editorial also singled out the reformist former president, Mohammad Khatami, who last week compared Ahmadinejad's re-election to a coup."

(UK Guardian)

This artificial tethering of Iranian protest to American and western manipulation is what Obama hoped to avoid. So long as he kept his language neutral while at the same time encouraging respectful treatment of protesters, we were good. Ahmadinejad and Ayatollah Khamenei were not likely to let the "evil America" card go un-played, and yet, it would be much harder for that card to have any domestic actionability to the extent we kept closed mouthed.

Sometimes we have to recognize the limits of verbalization and keep silent. Silence can be a powerful weapon. That is not something Senator McCain would fully comprehend.

Sarah Palin Resigns for No Real Reason...Hmmm

The speculation is on about why Alaska Governor Sarah Palin has decided to resign midterm. The leading theory seems to be that she wants to prepare for a run at the presidency in 2012. While that theory fits nicely as the "most normal explanation", we can pretty much discard it. Others have suggested that you cannot quit one job, and then turn around and reach for a bigger, better job, so that she is effectively dead as a presidential possibility (lack of intellect aside, which, if taken into account, makes for double death).

The fact that she is "quitting" her job, and just two years or so into the job and one in which she needs in order to bolster her political weight, and releasing the news on a pre-holiday Friday, let's you know that some major something (scandal ?) is on its way. Or was on its way.

This was not a selfless act of Palin seeking to step away and explore other ways to make change happen, but rather, a selfish attempt to get in front of something, or away from something (the complexity of governing in difficult economic times).  Or, she is simply clearing the path to the yellow brick road of speaking fees and unfocused fame.

We speculate. We wait. The most fascinating truth surely it will come, but likely buried in a bed of Palinesque hubris and verbal figmentation.

Purdum's Rundown and Update on Sarah Palin's Vanity Fair

"As Palin has piled misstep on top of misstep, the senior members of McCain’s campaign team have undergone a painful odyssey of their own. In recent rounds of long conversations, most made it clear that they suffer a kind of survivor’s guilt: they can’t quite believe that for two frantic months last fall, caught in a Bermuda Triangle of a campaign, they worked their tails off to try to elect as vice president of the United States someone who, by mid-October, they believed for certain was nowhere near ready for the job, and might never be. They quietly ponder the nightmare they lived through."

and

"None of McCain’s still-loyal soldiers will say negative things about Palin on the record. Even thinking such thoughts privately is painful for them, because there is ultimately no way to read McCain’s selection of Palin as reflecting anything other than an appalling egotism, heedlessness, and lack of judgment in a man whose courage, tenacity, and character they have extravagantly admired—and as reflecting, too, an unsettling willingness on their own part to aid and abet him."

In an unfriendly portrait by Todd Purdum in Vanity Fair, we get a rundown of Sarah Palin. The article does not attempt to be balanced, nor does Palin agree to set the record to reflect what would invariably be her imagination.

Let's just think back, and look back, at the actions said and done, and during a time that the United States was headed into serious economic trouble. Thank you McCain for your cynicism and unmatched hunger for power.

No serious voter, or serious Republican, should be able to tolerate the complete lack of attention to policy that has continued from the 2008 presidential election forward. There is a contingent of voters who bring strong moral sensibilities to their choices for office, and that should not be abandoned. However in the ever present realness of the financial difficulties in which we live-- where even now, the Arizona state government is on the edge of not closing a budget in time, Republicans fighting Republicans over a $3 billion deficit--we must ask: if you are on a plane and the pilot is drunken and sloshed, do you seek a replacement that carries the greatest morals, or the person with the best aptitude at landing the plane so normal life can go on.

While that example presents only two choices, it is highly reflective of recent events.

End of the World Strikes Michael Jackson... How Long Us?...How Long Me?

A busy news day, ending with the deaths of the beautiful Farrah Fawcett and the talented Michael Jackson. All good things come to their end, and one hopes the end is but a temporary change in physiology leading to new life somewhere, somehow.

Mr. Jackson managed to squander quite a bit, but some of the music he left us with is sure compensation, and he will be missed, in part because we felt there was much more for him to give musically. Sadness now. He was mocked, and will be dismissed by some, unable to find anything good at all. "I never liked his music or him," will go the refrain from less talented people with harder, possibly darker hearts, and as though that personal injunction carries any weight at all when so many more have been blessed.

In these parts, Mark Knopfler is our musician we respect the most and consistently turn to when contemplating who we might listen to if limited to but one person. But Michael Jackson was the person we often identified with,  for he, like us, always seemed strangely out of place and off sync with the people around him. We wish there was more of him in the music, and not just glimpses and illusions and masks of something deeper. Now he is gone.

Our favorites written by him: "Give In to Me", "Who Is It", "Will You Be There" on his  Dangerous album, "Dirty Diana", "Smooth Criminal" and "Leave Me Alone" off of Bad, and "Billy Jean" from Thriller.

We also like "Human Nature" from Thriller and "Man in the Mirror" from Bad, but those were not his own words. For us, it's his voice combined with the mystery of his own ramblings and writings that intrigue and keep us listening in the dark.

Tonight when we lay down our head, we will wonder where he has gone, and if the spirit truly lives on beyond sentimental remembrance. When we listen we see another lonely soul that matches our own.

That matches my own.

Sanford and the Republicans, Screwing U.S. Toward Prosperity

Here we go again. The Republicans have decided the most appropriate strategy to getting America back on it's feet is via getting assorted women off of theirs. Obama works for you, the voter, via the big head, while the Republicans use the little head on the down low.

First it was Senator John Ensign, head of the Republican Policy Committee coming forward with a confession about his affair with a married staffer, and now, but a week or three later, it's Governor Mark Sanford of South Carolina, all teary eyed and chatty over his affair with a South American theoretical beauty.

Dana Milbank, Washington Post columnist, reports:

As he rambled his way through his confession of adultery, he stumbled upon incoherence: "The biggest self of self is indeed self." He meandered into the trivial: "We called it Jurassic Park because of the kids' dinosaur sheets." And, just off the plane from his last tango in Buenos Aires, he confessed the dark details: "I have seen her three times since then, during that whole sparking thing, and it was discovered."

(W.P.)

Now as a man I can fully understand that temptation lurks, and lurks rather aggressively for those blessed with power, money or extreme good looks. Women can be delightful, with the one you don't have, or can't have, ever more fetching than the one back home raising the kids and washing your dirty, dirty laundry. I understand that. That said, there is probably a more honorable way to have that woman you find oh so lovely.

The problem in too many of these situations is that the politician (or any other soul creeping and seeking) want to have it all. The illicit relationship issue itself is simple enough to solve by giving up the one person--the spouse--for the new person, and taking the hits to your career and wallet. Unfortunately honesty all around is never the initial instinct after the affair starts, honesty increasing exponentially as discovery looms and novelty wares off.

This should be a trivial event, to the extent that we all have "sins" or issues that we carry with us and hide. The reason it is not, is that it shines the light on continued Republican goofery, where real issues get swamped by the ridiculous, in action or rhetoric.

You cannot screw your way to economic prosperity unless you are a prostitute...an even then it's a long row to hoe.

North Korea Calls in Middle of Night, Clinton Can't Pick Up Phone, Elbow Shattered

Right about now you are sitting down to some Spam musubi and a loco moko plate, and thinking, "Awesome, Hawaii is making the news on the mainland!" And since all attention is good attention, potential nuclear destruction included, one might as well make the most and value this moment in the blazing sun while it can still be seen.

Kim Jong-Il of North Korea has the missiles pointed east, and on lock, and is not swayed by the current budget difficulties engulfing Hawaii, re-targeting being such a bitch and all.

"I recognize the impact the furloughs will have on many employees and their families. This is not something we want to do, but something we have to do to balance the state budget," Lingle said.

Lingle announced at the beginning of the month that she will begin the furloughs on July 1. She said payroll is prepared to begin the paycheck adjustments.

In a letter to employees, the governor informed workers that anyone hired before July 1, 1998, will see their adjustments starting on July 20; anyone hired after July 1, 1998, will see the adjustments in the Aug. 5 paycheck.

Barring an injunction by the courts, workers will see a 14 percent drop in their paychecks."

(KITV ABC)

Certainly this is a run for your lives or visit the family on the mainland kind of moment, and the extra three days off a month should provide that extra time for disaster preparedness. Last place you really want to be, actually, is at work during a nuclear moment. You want to be home with the loved ones, eating a delicious meal of barbecued meat and macaroni salad, and catching up on missed episodes of The Office while you still have the chance. Why worry anyway?

The mainland stands ready to come to the physical (if not financial) aid of Hawaii, so things are not all that bad:

"Speaking at a Pentagon news conference, Mr. Gates said he had directed the military to deploy mobile, ground-based interceptors to Hawaii. Mr. Gates also ordered seaborne radar into the waters off Hawaii to provide detailed information to track and attack any North Korean missile."

(N.Y. Times)

I'm pretty sure this is that "phone call in the middle of the night" moment Hillary Clinton and Republicans warned us about. Certain Republicans are probably a bit anxious, hoping events prove them right, and are willing to sacrifice a few Hawaiians on the alter of predictive accuracy.

What's really ironic is that during this moment of crisis, Hillary probably cannot pick up the phone with the strong arm, given her shattered elbow:

Hillary Clinton will undergo surgery after shattering her right elbow in a fall on the way to a meeting at the White House.

The US Secretary of State has cancelled all public engagements, including a scheduled appearance alongside the Hollywood star Angelina Jolie to mark World Refugee Day.

President Obama is understood to have phoned Mrs Clinton to express his sympathy after the accident last night.

(U.K. Times)

Sit back Hawaii. You have Spam. And when times get tough, Spam is all you need.

Palin, Ensign, the Socialists, the Banks, the Wind, and the Willows

Part of last night was spent watching NOVA on PBS in an episode that explored the Federal bailout of several banks and Wall Street investment firms. What the program was able to portray was the gravity of the financial situation in the fall of 2008 as regulators struggled to get a fix on the situation and figure out which firms to help, and how.

There comes a point when the heads of several major firms are called in for a meeting with Treasury Secretary Paulson, and are told, forced even, to accept government funds. Some of the firms did not want the assistance, putting personal freedom above broader financial stability and forward thinking. Critics of the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) would probably suggest that the firms that resisted were justified, and that that resistance showed the lack of necessity for the program. Mind you, these were (and are) the same firms with assets on the books that have not been fully valued even today.

One of the truths of the process, and the politics around the process, is that this minor nationalization of the banks--and we say minor because the government was not taking majority stakes, nor dictating who could sit on the board or what business could be engaged in--was the result of the Bush Administration. They took these actions to prevent worldwide economic collapse. These actions were justified and necessary to preserve the foundation of American capitalism.

Six months or so later, when we hear certain politicians and public personalities continuing to call the current administration "socialist", let us remember what actually happened, who made it happen, and why it was done. Careful observers know that the Republicans have been gaming the issue, lacking any substantive policy initiatives.  We are reminded of Alaska Governor Palin's recent and extended battle with a talk show host; she made the rounds on television, expressing her outrage over the idea of one her daughters being the target of a joke. She  was able to expound upon and spin the issue at great length, and with an energy and enthusiasm unmatched by any of her previous attempts to weigh in on more important national concerns.

It was truly amusing to observe, given that it was Palin's mouth that was one of the chief sources of nasty insinuations against Obama during the campaign. Those barbs and insinuations, unchecked by her brain and spilling out into the public debate, helped take the Republicans deeper down a road with no exit. The biggest news the Republicans have going, aside from Palin's outrage at talk show host David Letterman, is that some senator has been having an affair.

When the head of the Republican Policy Committee (Senator Ensign) is too busy with other  non-governmental affairs, it's not surprising that Republicans are struggling to come up with policy alternatives.

As a critic, Palin was at the center of the "Obama as socialist" mantra, so she must turn to other news, to whipped up drama, to avoid commenting on the fact that banks right and left are becoming, in effect, "denationalized" under the Obama administration. Why focus when you can divert national attention to issues of modest import. Palin has yet to speak deeply on issues like North Korea or how to improve the financial structure of the banking system. She hasn't because she can't. Better to talk about the wind and the willows.

The news today is that several more banks are repaying TARP funds:

"J.P. Morgan repaid $25 billion, Morgan Stanley gave back $10 billion, Minneapolis-based U.S. Bancorp refunded $6.6 billion and Winston-Salem, North Carolina-based BB&T Corp. paid $3.1 billion, the companies said today in separate statements.

The banks are among 10 companies that last week said they would repay a total of $68 billion to the Troubled Asset Relief Program after Treasury approved the payments. Banks have unveiled plans to raise more than $100 billion in capital, and financial stocks have climbed in the past three months on signs the global credit contraction is easing."

(Bloomberg)

And, while Ensign and Palin are busy with family drama that impacts nobody, the Administration has come out with new, somewhat imperfect, financial regulations that are an attempt to avoid repeating the type of mistakes  that brought capitalism to near collapse.

Verizon, Sprint, A.T.&T., T-Mobile Share Underwear

Why do Verizon, Sprint, T-Mobile, and A.T.&T all have wireless plans that offer 5 gigs for $59.99 or $60, with only Verizon's Alltel unit offering a $59.99 plan that does not immediately specify a usage cap. Is this some form of corporate collusion?

And why are certain websites really badly designed from an information organization standpoint? T-mobile in particular does little to clarify which data plans are for which device, or the differences in data plans, until you have selected the phone. How about spelling out the exact differences when listing all the data plans?

Sprint's current website is also not fun. On my limited system, it seems quite sluggish, and one has to pay attention for a few moments and weed through the oxymoron of titling plans with the word "Everything" followed by their particular focus, like "Everything Data". Clearer language with less visual manipulation is in order. Once you get used to the voice plan page, it does have a logical order, moving from high price to low. But one imagines it could be a lot simpler and brighter visually.

The companies need to really be clear on what the various data plans offer, and if they offer more than one, explain, for example, how one data plan at $39.99 offering unlimited is different from the other data plan offering capped service for $59.99. (I think it's T-Mobile that leaves this contradiction a mystery until you pick a given phone and discover what data options are actually required).

Ideally someone needs to offer a 500 anytime minute, 10 favorite, 2000 text, unlimited nights and weekend, unlimited data with tethering (hooking up to your laptop or pc) plan in the range of $50 to $75. The permissability and cost of using the phone as modem (tethering), accessing data over the phone, and what kind of data (the internet or company sponsored data) needs to be made much clearer. And the companies need to stop branding their house products in ways that don't clearly specify what they are offering, or the usual limitations of the offerings.

Finally, why is T-Mobile not allowing some people to access updates of their Favorites via Google's Chrome browser after their recent website update? It's about time most company website updates circa 2009 are compliant with not just IE, but Opera, Chrome and Safari, not to mention Firefox. When you are using Chrome and the website is not allowing a function, telling you that you are on Safari, that's a problem.

It's annoying having to keep multiple browsers on hand, or having to default to the worst (in terms of features and speed), IE, in order to take care of business.

(Not my usual post but had to get that off my chest)