America's oldest war criminal

Today millions of Americans will pause from their barbecues and family gatherings to remember the American heroes who fought and died in the service of their country. This is altogether fitting, for even when the cause has not been just, they served, and risked all, on our behalf.

By coincidence, today is also the ninetieth birthday of a man who least deserves another day, not to speak of another year, of life. Unlike our fallen heroes, the life of Henry Kissinger is marked not by sacrifice but by self-aggrandizement, not by devotion to our founding ideals, but by their utter rejection.

Whether we speak of his direction of unrestrained bombing of civilian populations in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia, his engineering of Pinochet's coup d'etat against the democratically elected president of Chile, of which he observed,  "I don't see why we need to stand by and watch a country go communist due to the irresponsibility of its people. The issues are much too important for the Chilean voters to be left to decide for themselves," or his support for Indonesia's genocidal invasion of East Timor, we are speaking of a man who has become wealthy and gained the regard of political elites, all the while escaping any accounting for his crimes.

Today, remember our fallen heroes, but also spare a moment for the victims of America's oldest and most vicious war criminal, Henry Kissinger.

The sports page, again

Let's follow up on a theme we looked into a couple of months ago, only we'll shift from basketball to tennis.

Yes, tennis, the sport of white shorts, hushed crowds, and impeccable sportsmanship.

Wait, did I say sportsmanship? Well, I admit that that was a very long time ago, and before John McEnroe established his apparent lifetime lock on the title Biggest Asshole in Tennis, he had an important predecessor: Jimmy Connors.

Last week's release of Connors's autobiography should put to rest any question of whether his abominable behavior on the court was the result of an excess of competitiveness, a desire to put on a show for the fans, or just another example of a depraved character.

In the early 1970's the tennis world was dominated by two young Americans, Jimmy Connors and Chris Evert, who were not only linked in the public eye on the court, but were also together romantically off the court. It didn't last, but it was not until the memoir that we learn the details. Suffice it to say, the details do not look good for Connors.

As reported by The Atlantic, here's what he says about Evert:

“But now, 35 years later, Connors is releasing a biography this week titled The Outsider, in which he strongly hints that during their whirlwind affair in 1974, Evert got pregnant and had an abortion. He says that she did so without allowing him to be part of the decision-making, though he states that he ‘was perfectly happy to let nature take its course and accept responsibility for what was to come.’ He bitterly writes to Evert in the book, ‘Well, thanks for letting me know. Since I don't have a say in the matter, I guess I am just here to help.’”

What is there to say about this? That Chris Evert's decision was hers to make, not his. That the fact, and the decision to make it public, was hers and not his. Most of all, though, that his choice to make this public, and his attitude, that the choice was all about him, tells us all we need to know about his egocentric, entitled world view.

In the Biggest Asshole in Tennis competition, that is game, set, and match for Connors.

Thirteen Moons by Charles Frazier
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

At first I was a bit skeptical when Thirteen Moons was selected for my book group. After all, I had read the author's Cold Mountain and found it mediocre at best. Nevertheless, I got started and stuck with it, and I'm glad I did.

At the opening of the book we encounter an old man in the early part of the twentieth century, we sense his death is probably near, and he starts talking about his life history. In an appealing authorial voice the narrator, Will Cooper, traces his life from a twelve year old "bound boy", or indentured servant, to a prosperous trader, "white chief" of the Cherokee Nation, frontier lawyer, Washington lobbyist, and impecunious debtor. Set largely in western North Carolina, Thirteen Moons shows an appreciation of the hardships and possibilities of frontier life and a great empathy for the fate of the native Cherokee as they were forcibly driven from their homes.

As in Cold Mountain, the main character could be criticized for being a little too resourceful or invulnerable, with an almost Zelig-like ability to turn up at important junctures in the history of the nineteenth century, with the exception of his uncanny ability to avoid much serious action during the Civil War. Nevertheless, I don't think this is a terrible criticism: after all, our history is peopled with many remarkable characters, and they're the ones we're mostly interested in. In addition to Will Cooper, the other main characters were well drawn and believable, and the scenes in Indian country in particular demonstrate the author's affection for the land.

When Cold Mountain won the National Book Award for fiction I thought Don Delillo had been robbed. Thirteen Moons surpasses Cold Mountain in every respect.


View all my reviews

Thirty-seven

Do you watch baseball? I do. Not all the time, but I still watch a fair amount, and over the years I've seen a lot of changes.

One of them is not a change to the rules; in fact, it doesn't change anything that the players or the managers or the coaches or the umpires do, but it's still made a difference to the baseball watching experience.

Take a look at something you might have seen in years past.

You never see this nowadays, because sometime back in the 1970's the people who run Major League Baseball decided that when idiots run out on the field the broadcasters won't show them on TV. They concluded, wisely, why give them what they're craving, attention?

Why don't we just do that with the Republicans? Today they voted for the thirty-seventh time to repeal the Affordable Care Act.

And, as with the previous thirty-six votes, this vote means nothing.

So my suggestion is, stop talking about it. Stop putting it on the news. Stop writing about it.

Because what baseball learned is that giving idiots publicity just encourages them.

And do you really have any more interest in watching this:

Than you did watching this?

Any change?

That would be a big no.

With Ratzinger's resignation there's a new pope (I was about to say "we have a new pope", but *I* don't actually have any kind of pope), and people are still watching to see if he will bring change to The 
World's Most Corrupt Organization (TM).


Early signs suggest not. Here are three recent news items suggesting it's business as usual with the Catholics.

He is planning on keeping up the war on women religious leaders. As reported in Slate:

Pope Francis announced Monday morning that he will stick to his predecessor's hard-line approach to reforming an umbrella group representing about 80 percent of U.S. nuns, an organization that Benedict XVI believed was promoting "radical feminist themes incompatible with the Catholic faith."

And two items showing the church intends to stay firmly planted on the wrong side of history on gay rights:

That was a brief honeymoon, Rhode Island. Just hours before becoming the 10th state to approve marriage equality, the slim, pocket-sized state — which also happens to be the nation’s most Catholic — received a stern warning from the Bishop of Providence.In a seriously buzzkill message, Bishop Thomas Tobin issued a pastoral letter to his brothers and sisters in the Ocean State suggesting they might want to decline invitations once same-sex marriage becomes official in August. “It is important to affirm the teaching of the Church, based on God’s word, that ‘homosexual acts are intrinsically disordered,’ (Catechism of the Catholic Church, #2357),” he writes, “and always sinful. And because ‘same-sex marriages’ are clearly contrary to God’s plan for the human family, and therefore objectively sinful, Catholics should examine their consciences very carefully before deciding whether or not to endorse same-sex relationships or attend same-sex ceremonies, realizing that to do so might harm their relationship with God and cause significant scandal to others.”

And in New York, not only are they telling Catholics not to go to same-sex weddings, they're actually threatening to arrest gays who have the temerity to show up at church:


Cardinal Timothy Dolan today used the NYPD to prohibit from Sunday worship services gay Catholics and their allies by barring their entry into NYC’s historic St. Patrick’s Cathedral, the iconic home of the Roman Catholic Church in New York.

The small group of silent Catholic protestors were threatened with arrest by a New York City Police detective — unless they first washed their hands.

Apparently the irony of the Catholic church accusing someone else of not having clean hands, after decades of covering up for child rape, was not obvious to Dolan or any of his advisors.

Change could come, but so far it looks like "Meet the new boss, same as the old boss."

A personal note

Of course, as we learned years ago, the personal is political.

We've heard this a lot in the past few years, and even more in the days since basketball player Jason Collins came out to the world. "I don't care what anybody does, but why do they have to throw it in our face like that?"

Whenever I hear that it's a heterosexual saying it. And I know they're heterosexual, because for some reason heterosexuals don't have a problem with flaunting their heterosexuality.


I know I don't.

For instance, I wear a ring that my wife put on my finger almost thirty-seven years ago and has never been off, and it tells the world that I am married.

Whenever I meet someone it's rarely more than about five minutes before I mention my wife, or something my sons or their wives are doing, or what my wife and I did on the weekend, or some other way of flaunting my heterosexuality.

The federal government knows I'm heterosexual because I flaunt my heterosexuality every time I file an income tax return. So does the state government, and even my town government, because every time I've bought a piece of real estate I have proclaimed to the world that my wife and I have bought it "as husband and wife".

Even on Facebook if you look me up you'll see my marital status, pictures of me with my wife and our sons, wedding pictures. Lots of pictures of other heterosexuals doing what heterosexuals do.

Maybe they're right. Maybe we should have a law to prevent me from flaunting my heterosexuality.

Oh, and one last thing: if you want to be a bigot and proclaim it to the world, maybe you should think twice the next time you say that gay people you don't like should stop "shoving it down your throat".

What happened yesterday

In light of the defeat of the background check bill yesterday (or, in light of its inevitable rejection by the Republicans in the House, its premature defeat), it's worth thinking about what actually happened.

And why? Because I can already hear people saying that this is one more sign that in their view the Democratic Party is useless, Democrats lack spine, Democrats won't fight for anything.

So let's be clear. This was not a failure of the Democrats in the Senate, this was a Republican filibuster.

Sure, there were conservative Democrats who voted to support the filibuster, but even if all of them had voted to end debate, the Republicans had enough votes to maintain the filibuster and block the legislation, even though the bill had the support of a majority of the Senate.

Ii have no problem criticizing Democrats when it's deserved, and I have great contempt for the Democrats who voted with the Republicans yesterday, but they're not who killed the bill. It was the Republicans.

Interesting contrast

Margaret Thatcher is dead and good riddance.

I thought it was a funny coincidence when I heard the news this morning because it was just yesterday that I listened to and shared on Facebook "Stand Down, Margaret" by the English Beat and it got me thinking.

i said i see no joy
i see only sorry
i see no chance of your bright new tomorrow
Lyrics from href
="http://www.elyrics.net">eLyrics.net

The careers of Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan were remarkably similar. They shared the same malign perspective of favor the rich and screw all the rest. They each took the opportunity to crush a union, the air traffic controllers here, the coal miners in England. Perhaps Reagan surpassed Thatcher in racism, although it could be that I don't know enough about Thatcher to express an opinion.

One tremendous difference, though, is that in England Thatcher inspired a wealth of oppositional popular music, like Stand Down, Margaret, whereas there was nothing like that in the United States.

Listen to "Tramp the Dirt Down" by Elvis Costello.

Well I hope I don't die too soon
I pray the lord my soul to save
Oh I'll be a good boy, Im trying so hard to behave
Because there's one thing I know, I'd like to liv
Long enough to savour
That's when they finally put you in the ground
Ill stand on your grave and tramp the dirt down.

I don't know of a similar body of anti-Reagan music in the United States. The only thing that comes close is He Got Hungry and Forgot His Manners by Jimmy Breslin. Breslin is every bit as angry at Reaganism as Costello is at Thatcherism, but what really stands out is how rare it is.

Still, as Slate points out, there is a wealth of anti-Thatcher music, and with good reason.


But if we had more of that here in America we wouldn't have Republicans winning elections by railing against inheritance taxes and income taxes for the obscenely rich, while trying to dismantle health care for the poor and aged.

The sports page

There's big news in the world of college sports this week, and it really opens a window on the nature of big-time college athletics.

First, you probably heard about Mike Rice, the coach of the Rutgers basketball team. He got fired yesterday after video surfaced showing him shoving, punching, kicking, and throwing basketballs at his players, as well as swearing at them and calling them such vile names as "fucking fairy" and "fucking faggot".

Robert Barchi, the president of the university, released a strongly worded statement about the firing.

"Rutgers University has a long and proud history as one of the nation's most diverse and welcoming academic institutions. Coach Rice's abusive language and actions are deeply offensive and egregiously violate the university's core values," the statement said.

Of course, we also know that the university had the videos of this abusive conduct since at least last November, so when Barchi talks about the "university's core values" I think we know exactly what he means: the desire of Rutgers University not to be publicly humiliated or lose any of its sports revenue.

And are they going to take any action against the athletic director for not firing the coach earlier? No, and for exactly one reason. As they admitted to ESPN, "Pernetti's job is safe" for now because of his prior work on getting Rutgers into a lucrative Big 10 deal last fall.

Stay classy, Rutgers!

Sticking with basketball we have the case of Kevin Ware, the Louisville basketball player with the gruesome tibia fracture on Sunday, the injury that was so bad that the networks aren't even showing the replays of. He had surgery earlier this week, and we're hoping he has a complete recovery that won't interfere with his continuing to pursue his education--er, his career as an unpaid minor league basketball player. This is fortunate, because under existing NCAA rules, if his injury had prevented him from playing he would not be entitled to keep his athletic scholarship.

Every tragedy is an opportunity, though, right? For instance, to honor Kevin Ware Adidas and the NCAA are marketing a T-shirt emblazoned with his number, the Louisville cardinal, and the slogan "Rise to the occasion". You know who won't get any of the twenty-five bucks you have to plunk down to show your respect for Kevin Ware? Kevin Ware or his family. Ever.

If you're still not mad enough at the gross shame and corruption that is big-time college athletics, learn more from this great article by Taylor Branch, The Shame of College Sports, in The Atlantic.

Help me understand this

The budget cuts caused by the federal sequestration have been in effect for a month now, and some of them are starting to roll out to the communities where those dollars were going to be spent, and now I'm confused.

Now don't tell me I don't understand economics, because I do. I listen to the Republicans year after year, so I know what works and what doesn't. And like Republicans, the one thing I know for sure is this:

"The government doesn't create jobs," – Mitt Romney, October 16.

So can you explain what Republican congressman Dennis Ross is talking about when he doesn't want the FAA to shut down the control tower at his local airport?

The state’s largest convention, SUN ‘n FUN, which is held in April at Lakeland Linder Airport, not only provides incredible economic value to Lakeland, but it serves our children by investing $1.4 million dollars annually in education. It is unacceptable to close this important control tower. 

Maybe he needs Mitt Romney to explain to him, one more time, that the government doesn't create jobs.

I really, really had to post this today.

No, really.

Today is Easter, which is a big deal for a large segment of the population. Not as big as Christmas (although liturgically Easter is the more important holiday), but a big deal nonetheless.

Maybe it's because it isn't as consumer driven as Christmas that we haven't heard as much about the "War on Easter" as we have about the "War on Christmas", but that's apparently all changed.

Today, thanks to those assiduous conspiracy-spotters at Breitbart, we now know who's at the heart of the War on Easter: Google!

March 31 marks the birthday of National Farm Workers Association (later United Farm Workers) co-founder Cesar Chavez. Chavez, who was trained by Saul Alinsky in the tactics of community organizing, has become a cult figure in California due to his organization of agricultural workers. March 31 also happens to be another important date this year: Easter. So, naturally, Google’s current logo features a graphic of Chavez’s face, rather than anything having to do with Easter.

Set aside the fact that apparently Google never observes religious holidays in its doodles, the Breitbartniks know better. In the cultural war, when you really want to know what's happening on the front lines, where else would you go to find out?

Oh, and why did I absolutely have to post this today?

It's pretty simple, really. If I'd waited until tomorrow you would have bet money that it was an April Fool's prank. Fortunately, though, the people at Breitbart are fools every day of the year.

And the Republicans stand for what, exactly?

It's been a revealing day, I guess.

First off, we all learned that Rob Portman, the conservative Republican who spent most of last year campaigning for Mitt Romney, has decided he's in favor of marriage equality, and all it took was learning that the issue personally affects his son, who is gay.

We also learned something important about other Republicans.

You might have seen the story in the New Yorker about Paul Cantor, the nasty piece of work in charge of the Republicans in the House (actually, he's only Number Two, but he doesn't take a back seat to anyone in being a nasty little prick).

What I thought was very striking was this line about Ramesh Ponnuru: He argued that too many voters believe that the Party’s economic agenda helps nobody except rich people and big business.

Read more: http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2013/03/04/130304fa_fact_lizza#ixzz2Nf7re15Z

Wait. "Too many voters believe"? So they believe they have an image problem? Well yes, that's exactly what Cantor believes. Or, as he explained it with an analogy to Domino's Pizza, when Domino's realized their problem was that their pizza sucked they decided to fix it so it wouldn't suck so bad.

If the Republican Party is the pizza, here's Cantor's solution:


Since the 2012 elections, the Republicans have been divided between those who believe their policies are the problem and those who believe they just need better marketing—between those who believe they need to make better pizza and those who think they just need a more attractive box. Cantor, who is known among his colleagues as someone with strategic intelligence and a knack for political positioning, argues that it’s the box.

Maybe today was the day for the new box, and what better packaging to prove that people are wrong, that the Republicans are not just for the rich people and big business. The vote was to increase the federal minimum wage, surely an opportunity to show whether the Republicans are purely on the side of rich people and big business.

227 Republicans voted against raising the minimum wage. How many voted in favor of it? Well, that would be none. Zero. The Republicans were unanimous in opposing an increase in the minimum wage.

Where's that new pizza box?

And using Rob Portman as an example, I guess we know that none of the Congressional Republicans have kids trying to live on minimum wage.

The new darling of the Right

You've probably heard that the new darling of the Right is Ben Carson, a pediatric neurosurgeon who recently spoke at the National Prayer Breakfast and supposedly was all brave and everything because President Obama was so mad about what he said.

Except I haven't seen any indication that Obama was mad about anything, and except for some mindless prattling about flat taxes and health savings accounts, Carson didn't say anything particularly exceptional.

He made up for it when he was on NPR's On Point this week. Feel free to listen to the whole thing if you want to hear a conservative Republican pretending he's not a Republican, and trying to duck any questions about progressive taxation, but that's not really what I'm interested in.

If you skip forward to about minute thirty-five and start listening there you will hear him claim that there is no evidence for evolution. Or, to be specific, you'll hear him make the specious distinction between "micro-evolution" and "macro-evolution", and claim that there is no evidence that any species has ever evolved into (or presumably, evolved from) another species.

Yes, this is the guy who is a famous doctor, and whom the Wall Street Journal is endorsing for President.

He'll fit right in.

The Party of Family Values

Did you catch this? Josh is reporting that ousted Republican representative Joe Walsh is now trying to get out of paying child support permanently.

After insisting he wasn’t a “deadbeat dad” throughout his failed campaign for re-election, ex-U.S. Rep. Joe Walsh is still dogged by questions about child support.

You can look at his "Motion to Terminate Child Support Obligation" here.

Ratzinger Out: What Next?

Okay, so this isn't news anymore, but it's still a big deal. Ratzinger announced he's gone at the end of the month, which leaves a vacancy for god's vicar on earth.

The question is, what's next?

Who next to replace this venomous old man, the man who engineered and institutionalized the coverup of child rape by Catholic priests? The commissar who determined that to report the rape of a child by a priest would be a sin punishable by excommunication. (Thanks to Christopher Hitchens, who also pointed out in 2010 that "Nobody has yet been excommunicated for the rape and torture of children.")

Still, it's not quite fair to say that the church conducted a coverup of child rape by its employees. No, not fair at all, because what the church actually did was a much greater crime than a mere coverup. A coverup would be one thing, but Mother Church not only concealed the rapes of children by her officials, Mother Church transferred the rapists to other parishes, other territories, where new victims would be delivered to them.

Yes, what the church did with the assistance of Ratzinger was much worse than a mere coverup, but the question now, as I said, is how to replace him, and with whom?

So a few of the details. The election is carried out in the College of Cardinals, but not every cardinal is eligible to vote, just those under eighty years of age. Of those, a majority were appointed by Ratzinger himself, and can be expected to follow his doctrinal conservatism. Of the voting members, only five are younger than sixty. One of those voting members, incidentally, is Roger Mahony (or to use the Catholic construction, "Roger Cardinal Mahony"), who was recently stripped of all his public duties because of his involvement in the coverup; he remains a member in good standing, and says, "I look forward to traveling to Rome soon to help thank Pope Benedict XVI for his gifted service to the Church, and to participate in the conclave to elect his successor." One wonders if he will take the opportunity to stay at the Vatican in an effort to duck extradition, should the United States seek to charge him for his crimes.

So the electorate is a group ranging in age from fifty-three to seventy-nine, with the great majority seventy or older. The eligible candidates are largely the same group. All of these men have been priests, bishops, and cardinals during the same decades that the church has concealed thousands of rapes by its priests. The John Jay Report, a 2004 investigation into the extent of child sexual abuse in the United States from 1950 to 2002, found that there were nearly 11,000 allegations of some form of sexual abuse by over 4,000 priests just in the United States. Of course, the problem extends to every continent.

Generations of priests committing crimes against children. Generations of bishops and cardinals who knew about these crimes and who failed to protect the children from their subordinates.

How many of these men who were priests, bishops, and cardinals during these years have clean hands? How many participated in the crime, either directly and actively or passively? Or, to put the question another way, where is the bishop or the cardinal who stood against the tide?

Can any bishop or cardinal be a credible choice? Can any person elected by this group be accepted as a legitimate moral leader?