*********************************************************************

The Age of Kardashian sweeps away an instructive show on hardworking people with jobs most of us would never do

*********************************************************************

Last month, the reality show Dirty Jobs was cancelled.

The show highlighted in detail the gritty and often disgusting aspects of jobs that most of us would never even consider doing. In a farewell statement, the show’s host Mike Rowe described some of the (mis-) adventures of “dangling from bridges, crawling through mines, swimming with sharks, castrating sheep, transplanting giant cacti, or slowly freezing to death on the Arctic Ocean.”

Admittedly, I never sought out the show on tv during the rare occasions that the family granted me discretionary time but when I cam across an episode, I was fascinated not only by the process revealed but how people cheerily accepted, if not embraced, their jobs. I was also grateful that I was fortunate enough to have an avocation that “pushed the pencil” (or “pressed the keyboard”).

Mike Rowe not only taught us about the dirty aspects of people’s jobs but also about society’s tastes

___________________________

And of course, the show was a refreshing change as it was not one of your typical reality shows (think: the Kardashians) where people are throwing rhetorical and psychological pies in each others faces. It speaks volumes that many in our society are put off and disgusted by someone shucking oysters yet utterly untroubled (if not enjoying) watching families disintegrate before their eyes. The truth is that Dirty Jobs was cancelled by the dirty reality that too many in our society prefer base over upright.

Mr. Rowe went on to say “I’d like to thank my granddad. Carl Knobel was an electrician by trade, but so much more. He was a role model to me, my brothers, my cousins, my uncles, my Dad, and everyone else who knew him. Like so many of his generation, he worked more than he played, listened more than he spoke, and quietly went about the business of making civilized life possible for the rest of us. Dirty Jobs was inspired by him, and dedicated to millions of other Americans cut from the same cloth – men and women blessed with raw skill, the discipline to hone it, the diligence to apply it, and the willingness to wake up clean and come home dirty. Those attributes may go out of style from time to time, but they will never vanish. They mustn’t. Thanks Pop, very much.”

Mr. Rowe may have crawled through sewers and shoveled manure, but he exemplified and taught a mores and work ethic that is in full retreat at all levels of society these days, from Main Street all the way up to the executive suite.

-I.M. Windee

*********************************************************************

Did the election re-structure the federal government and make the executive branch the supreme power over the other branches?

*********************************************************************

Since the election, the attitude that Liberals in general, and President Obama in particular, have taken regarding how the federal government should operate has been perplexing if not downright ironic.

With matters like the “fiscal cliff” as well as the appointment of Susan Rice as secretary of state, the president, Liberals and their media echo chamber have chanted how Mr. Obama won the election and thus should be given everything he wants by the minority Senate Republicans as well as the House of Representatives that is controlled by Republicans.

No doubt, if deference and the balance of power were based upon the ability of Mr. Obama to place the electorate into a trance and make it accept 8% unemployment and an anemic 2% GDP growth rate as voters did this past election, the president should be given absolute power unhindered by the judicial and legislative branches.

Wizard Obama deserves credit for convincing voters to accept high unemployment and low growth but the election did not give him unfettered power to govern

_____________________________________________________

But this past election was about electing a President, House and Senators. No where did any ballot give the option to re-structure the federal government and give the President unchallenged power. And when last checked, Republicans won the House of Representatives with a solid majority which means that by virtue of that arguably archaic but still relevant U.S. Constitution, the House still has an integral role in the federal government. Like it or not, Mr. Obama must secure the House’s approval for any new law (fiscal or otherwise) to be enacted regardless of what mandate he dreams to have gotten in the election.

The president famously told Republican House member Eric Cantor in 2009 “elections have consequences, and Eric,  I won.” Such was an easy position for him to hold as Democrats held congress and the White House with a filibuster-proof majority in the Senate back then. But now Mr. Obama and his Liberal cohorts must deal with last month’s inconvenient election consequnces: both he and the House Republicans won.

Unless Mr. Obama and Liberals are suggesting an imperial presidency which they have historically despised and accused Republican presidents of, they’re going to have to learn to get along with Republicans. Perhaps an infamous Obama re-set on their attitudes is in order.

-I.M. Windee

*********************************************************************

An unlikely sage points out the slow death of common courtesy

*********************************************************************

In the future when archaeologists and historians are sifting through the dvds, memory sticks, computers and other media trying to understand this period, it is doubtful there will be much notice given to “Fireman Ed,” the NFL New York Jets’ iconic mascot. Fireman Ed is not a typical mascot on the field running around as an entertainer, but remains in the stands firing up the crowd and leading one of the sports world’s better known chants – “J-E-T-S, Jets! Jets! Jets!” (perhaps, though, the end of civilization will be traced back to him).

Fireman Ed is the Socrates of North Jersey in 2012

___________________________________

But on Friday, Fireman Ed decided to call it quits.  He chose to no longer be the team’s main cheerleader because of confrontational Jets fans. Given an otherwise disappointing season, Jets fans have apparently began to take their anger out on Fireman Ed, who decided to wear a Mark Sanchez jersey to games this season (this is the first season he’s worn anything but a Bruce Harper jersey to a Jets’ game since 1986). “Whether it’s in the stands, the bathroom, or the parking lot, these confrontations are happening on a consistent basis,” Fireman Ed said.

Fireman Ed is on to something. From the checkout line at the store to driving on the roads and everything in between, ill-mannered confrontation has become the tactic of choice. And not just from a healthy sense of self-interest resulting in robust give-and-take but a take-no-prisoners approach to win the argument of the hour. Such is epitomized in how our leaders conduct themselves, from union heads to politicians. There is a win-at-all-cost approach that will not acknowledge the other side, let alone consider it. It’s no wonder that in some aspects this country is perceived in a decline.

In a farewell address that may not have risen to the level of George Washington’s or Dwight Eisenhower’s, Fireman Ed said “I have enjoyed my time in chanting the greatest chant in all of sports….I have enjoyed meeting all the wonderful Jets fans around the world and look forward to the day we all can raise the Lombardi Trophy as one.”

Magnanimous and (very) hopeful words, no doubt. But we can all thank Fireman Ed for pointing out that in our Age of Kardashian, the slow death of courtesy in too many quarters of society desperately needs a re-set.

-I.M. Windee

*********************************************************************

His discovery that utilities being non-accountable results in poor service begs the question: will he apply such standard to all government agencies?

*********************************************************************

Perhaps there’s good in all things; even something as devastting as Hurricane Sandy.

In the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy and up to 2 weeks of people without electricity, Governor Cuomo came to the discovery that the utilities were not as responsive as they should be and slow in restoring power to more than 2 million customers from Long Island to the Hudson Valley, as a result of the fact that they were pseudo government agencies not directly answerable to their customers.

“I’m going to do a thorough review-slash-investigation, and a very serious one, and they will be held accountable for past performance and then we also have to get smart about this and we have to make sure that we are prepared for when this happens again because I believe this will happen again,” said Cuomo.

For those of us who have sat in the dark for close to 2 weeks, it is hard to not feel heartened by the governor’s position.

But Mr. Cuomo must realize that when he criticizes the lethargic non-response of the utilities, he could well be describing that of any of New York state’s many other agencies, from environmental protection to taxation and everything in between.

And the governor has used this disaster to position himself for the 2016 Democratic presidential nomination by blaming global warming for causing Sandy, thus endearing himself to the green wing of the party. He will thus be pushing for green energy solutions.

Yet as we have learned over the past decade, green energy is an industry not just unresponsive to the markets but often in direct conflict with the wants of consumers which is for a product that is cheap, efficient and reliable. Government force-fed companies like Solyndra (solar panels) and a host of similar entities have happily consumed copious amounts of capital only to produce a product that few if any want, let alone can use.

Storms like Sandy will likely come rarely but government, for good and bad, will be around for time immemorial. Holding utilities to a free market standard for responsiveness is a great start, and no doubt will help Mssr. Cuomo for his presidential run, but if he is truly serious about serving New Yorkers, he’ll focus on eliminating sclerosis throughout all of his government and not just the convenient pinata of utilities.

-I.M. Windee

*********************************************************************

The triumph of hope over experience

*********************************************************************

Winston Churchill is noted for saying, amongst many things, that second marriages are triumphs of hope over experience. The American electorate voting for President Obama yesterday would squarely fit into such hope brigade.

Mr. Obama wound up winning the popular vote by over 2 million ballots. Clearly, there were many who voted for him who were part of the 23 million unemployed and yet they decided to support him. Such requires a level of hypnosis (or vulcan mind-meld) that would make even the Clintons envious. No wonder Hillary lost to him in the primaries; we are dealing with a true political master.

There will be plenty of time for election post-mortems to determine whether Mitt Romney should be flogged for a late-campaign surge that was too little, too late or whether Nixon or Hoover should be blamed for what would otherwise have been an easy Republican victory. Nonetheless, the reality is that Mr. Obama won and will be president for the next 4 years.

If the president’s first term is any indicator of how he’ll govern, the next 4 years could be difficult for Democrats, Republicans and the country at large. The president is already hawking a bi-partisan line which can be easily translated into a “do it my way or the highway” stance.

Yet there are differences between now and 2008. Specifically, Mr. Obama no longer has any more campaigns ahead of him so he need not worry about appeasing his base to get through an election. Additionally, as is with any president re-elected in the last 60 years, the main thought on his mind the night of re-election is his place in history. Perhaps President Obama will have a new-found focus on how history will perceive him based upon his actions and not the soaring but often hollow rhetoric of bi-partisanship that he has so often proffered.

As one of Mitt Romney’s last public acts (though not his last act to benefit the public), he said in his concession speech last night “The nation, as you know, is at a critical point. At a time like this, we can’t risk partisan bickering and political posturing. Our leaders have to reach across the aisle to do the people’s work. And we citizens also have to rise to the occasion.”

Let’s hope President Obama agrees that it is a time for bi-partisanship and and he actually follows through with such.

-I.M. Windee

*********************************************************************

Picking not just the degree of government in our lives but our Commander-in-Psyche

*********************************************************************

On Tuesday voters will go to the ballot booth facing one of the starkest presidential choices in this nation’s history.

Never before has the electorate had the chance to affirm or refute a major government expansion like the one President Obama has instituted the past 4 years, from health care to energy to financial services.

When President Roosevelt pushed through social security in the 1930s, there was no question that it was a program that would not be repealed regardless of what some corners of the Republican party hectored. By the time Republicans had any chance of winning the presidency in 1948, such safety net had been in place for 13 years and it was foregone that no politician with self-preservation would ever dream of suggesting its repeal.

In 1968, after Medicare was put into place by Lyndon Johnson, it did not matter that he was not running again to defend it; like most social programs, once in place, it is impossible to end. Even today, the idea of just reforming it so that it is sustainable is political self-immolation to some degree, as Paul Ryan has found out.

So with Tuesday’s election, voters will be able to pick a candidate who has promised to repeal the third of the major social safety-net programs put into law, Obamacare. Regardless of how voters come down on such, they will hopefully appreciate the gravity of the choice they face.

Who will the voters pick as the country’s next Commander-in-Psyche?

______________________________________________________________________________

But just as there is an important decision that must be made as to how and how much we choose our health care, energy and financial options, so too must we pick who will lead this country when it comes to enunciating its vision as well as defending our interests. One could call the U.S. President the chief spokesman for the country but Commander-in-Psyche would not be too far off the mark, not to minimize the other responsibilities of the office.

On that score, it would be difficult for the average American to choose President Obama over Mitt Romney.

From Mr. Obama’s dour acceptance of an 8% unemployment rate and 2% economic growth to his 2009 overseas trip that can well be described as an apology tour, Mr. Obama has nowhere exhibited the sunny optimism that Ronald Reagan showed, nor even Bill Clinton or Mitt Romney. In short, the president is like the salesman who believes he’s selling an inferior product and can’t avoid displaying such fact, but he must make the sale regardless. Such is not an attitude for the head of any country, and certainly not the world’s superpower.

Pundits have said that the results of this election will indicate not only the direction of the country but the state of the electorate. Probably so.

And if Mr. Obama is able to get re-elected, it will unfortunately say that all too many people have not just accepted a lower standard for themselves but for the U.S. also.

Let’s hope that Reagan’s optimism is prevalent.

-I.M. Windee

*********************************************************************

President Obama runs against himself in a way that would make Bill Clinton blush

*********************************************************************

One could presume that the headline refers to Mitt Romney but it does not. The reality is, no one this year has run harder against President Obama and his policies than….President Obama.

After rhetorically pistol-whipping the Bush administration’s prosecution of the war on terror, the Obama administration is now implicitly conceding that “Darth Cheney” was correct. In a speech  earlier this year, Eric Holder, the Attorney General of the United States, declared ‘We are a nation at war.” There is a scary implication in that statement: has Mr. Holder just come to this conclusion, as his actions in office might support? Mr. Cheney…err…..Holder went on to thunder “And, in this war, we face a nimble and determined enemy that cannot be underestimated.. . . ” He then stated a legal strategy that looked strangely similar to…..the Bush Administration’s. Now acceptable, according to Mssr. Holder, are military commissions for war-crimes trials, noting that they (suddenly) provide for “fundamental due process and other protections,” as well as targeted killing of al Qaeda leaders, where he declared that “we should not deprive ourselves of any tool in our fight against al Qaeda.” This is a stunning rebuke of what candidate Obama said in 2008 as well as the early Obama Adminstration’s position until it found out that governing provided a different perspective than running for office.

Groucho Marx and President Obama ask “who are you going to believe, me or your eyes?”

_____________________________________________________

And after 3 years of self-delusion that Iran could somehow be cajoled into giving up its nuclear program, which has resulted in alienating our ally Israel, Mr. Obama has suddenly become a hawk on Iran, at least in words. At the annual conference of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee earlier in the year, Mr. Obama opened with a keynote address whose strong talk on Iran was in direct contrast to President Obama of the last 3 years. Up until this speech, one could be forgiven if they interpreted his bigger fear to be Israel militarily striking Iran rather than Iran getting a bomb. But. at least in words and at this moment, the President seems to have his eye on the ball  about who the real instigator of danger is: Iran.

And despite killing the Keystone XL pipeline project, along with its 20,000 shovel-ready jobs, the President recently welcomed private industry’s effort to work around his obstinance on the matter. In January, a company that was to build the XL pipeline, TransCanada, announced that it planned to break up the multi-billion dollar project into several digestible stand-alone parts with the hopes of making it more palatable to government regulators. The White House immediately put out a statement claiming that “The President welcomes today’s news” and even that “we support the company’s interest in proceeding with this project.” Thus, in Bill Clinton fashion, Mr. Obama is simultaneously opposing and supporting the Keystone XL but he hasn’t changed his opposition on the transnational (Canada-U.S.) piece of the pipeline. But Mr. Obama cannot have it both ways: he is either for or against the project.

And despite blow-out government growth via spending and regulations throughout his term, President Obama said this January that he wants to reform and streamline government. This mellifluous wind song has yet to be backed by substantive action especially as he has ignored his own deficit-reduction commission as well as business leaders who point out that over-regulation (i.e financial, coal industries) is stunting growth.

A more open government than his predecessor George W. Bush? President Obama recently dubiously used executive privilege to prevent the release of information to congress regarding the Justice Department’s botched Fast & Furious gun drug-war operation.

Taxes? The President was and still is adamant that he will not raise taxes on people making less than $250,000 per year. Yet that’s exactly what he did under Obamacare with the Individual Mandate Excise Tax which taxes people who do not purchase insurance.

Unlike Bill Clinton who would (successfully) take both sides simultaneously, Mr. Obama seems to be disavowing the policies of himself which forces one to ask who is running for President on the Democratic ticket: President Obama or Candidate Obama?

So when entering the ballot booth this Fall, voters should keep in mind Groucho Marx’s wisdom: who are you going to believe, me or your eyes?

-I.M.Windee

*********************************************************************

The President diagnoses “Romnesia” but Obama’s Liberal governance and stated goal of more jobs are mutually exclusive, displaying a cognitive dissonance

*********************************************************************

Modern Presidential campaigns, perhaps like those going back to the 18th century, generally are not the height of enlightened discourse when it comes to addressing the serious issues that the country faces. This year’s campaign is no exception, thanks in large part to the Obama campaign.

Realizing that the economy and jobs are not an issue that will get him re-elected, President Obama has desperately tried to change the subject and resorted to accusing Mitt Romney and Republicans of wanting to raise taxes, destroy Mother Earth and waging a war on [you name it].

Dr. Obama claims that the operation he performed on this country the past 4 years was a success…..even though the patient is dying

_______________________________________

The latest shtick in the Obama campaign’s political Vaudeville act is accusing Mitt Romney of suffering from “Romnesia” for emphasizing moderate positions rather than the alleged conservative ones he put forward in the Republican primary race. Obama told a crowd in the battleground state of Virginia that Romney was backtracking on his conservative-platform.

“He’s forgetting what his own positions are, and he’s betting that you will, too. I mean, he’s changing up so much and backtracking and sidestepping, we’ve gotta … name this condition that he’s going through, I think it’s called Romnesia,” Obama said.

At the rally in Virginia, Obama described Romnesia “symptoms” on Romney’s positions on abortion and taxes for the wealthy.

Putting aside Mr. Obama’s own severe case of Romnesia, given that he railed against George Bush’s war on terror and then adopted virtually all of it as President or that he promised not to raise taxes but did with ObamaCare, the President suffers from a debilitating case of cognitive dissonance.

Specifically, he says he wishes to grow the economy which will create jobs but he then force-feeds via subsidies the green energy industry, imposes drastic regulations on the energy industry (coal), nixes the XL Pipeline that cost tens of thousands of direct and indirect jobs and rammed through ObamaCare which has added an extra burden on business and created a state of animated suspension when it comes to capital investment and hiring. These are all pet projects of Liberals but they are mutually exclusive from economic and job growth.

Thank you, Dr. Obama, for the evaluation of Mr. Romney but given your conflicting thoughts and policy goals, here’s a suggestion: heal thyself.

-I.M. Windee

*********************************************************************

As a follow-up to George Marshall’s Nobel Prize in 1953, how about a post-humous award to Truman, Kennedy or Reagan?

*********************************************************************

Today the Nobel committee awarded the 2012 Peace Prize to the European Union. Europe’s 60-year commitment to reconciliation and peace following World War II were heralded as the primary reason for the honor.

European Council president Herman Van Rompuy welcomed the award, speaking from Helsinki where he had been meeting with Finnish Prime Minister Jyrki Katainen. “It is a recognition of the work of the European Union as a peacemaker,” Van Rompuy said. “We were at war during centuries; we had two world wars that in fact were European civil wars. We put an end to this, and with the European Union wars of that kind cannot happen again anymore.”

“So the European Union is really the biggest peacemaking institution ever created in world history, and we have still a mission of promoting peace, democracy, human rights – in the rest of the world,” he added.

George Marshall formulated a plan of rehabilitation for Europe after World War II that allowed it to survive and prosper. U.S. Presidents thereafter saw that such plan succeeded.

___________________________________

Not to spoil the self-congratulation festival, but a not so minor detail is that without the United States, there never would have been a European Union. The U.S. saved Europe in World Wars I & II as well as in the Cold War. Were it not for America, Europe would have been eating copious amounts of spaetzle or borscht and listening to endless oom-pah-pah or Tchaikovsky.

To refresh the memory, in 1947, the U.S. instituted The Marshall Plan which was the American program to aid post-war Europe. The United States gave monetary support to help rebuild European economies after the end of World War II in order to prevent the spread of Soviet Communism. It worked.

From the late 1940s through the early 1990s, American resolve from both Democrats and Republicans alike helped keep Western Europe safe from the Soviet Union. Had it not been for the U.S. as an ally, all of Europe would have fallen under Soviet domination and a European Union would never have existed.

In the last couple of decades, it has become unfashionable and unintellectual to give the U.S. credit for any good that has resulted in this world. Yet it is no coincidence that the European Union was created, and the world prospered, at the time of America’s zenith. The 20th century, known as “The American Century,” has brought much good to the world, thanks to American principle and will.

It is likely a bridge too far to ask for recognition of the United States’ role in making this world a better place but at a minimum, the EU could at least recognize that their accomplishment of not destroying themselves came with a little assistance from outsiders.

-I.M. Windee