TPH: Make Your Case (Part 1) & The Hoedown Moves!

The Political Hoedown

Some of you might have noticed the Hoedown hasn't been posted in a few days. Well, it's leaving these shores, though I'm not leaving the Den. I'm proud to present the all-new, yet-still-the-same Political Hoedown. With its own site, I can post daily without clogging up the Den's main page. There will still be TPH posts here, important ones, but the bulk won't be linked directly.

So add The Political Hoedown to your bookmarks. It's all the same exemplary political coverage, but now even moreso.

Onward! The following are the first of six posts aiming to convince you to vote one way or another. Following this round, we'll have another case for each candidate, as well as one against McCain.

Serving Democracy: The Case for Barack Obama by the Carolinian

Spelling Disaster: The Case Against Barack Obama by L.O.G.

The Limitless American Dream: The Case for John McCain by Erik M. Held


Be sure to check out all of the Political Hoedown's new site. There have been posts you may no nothing about! As usual, no registration is required to comment, and we appreciated any and all feedback.

Thanks for your continued support!

-Hooper

Read on, faithful few!

Meet the Press: January 22, 2006

Tim Russert interviewed Barack Obama in January 2006, covering a variety of subjects including 2008 campaign possibilities.

***

MR. RUSSERT: But there seems to be an evolution in your thinking. This is what you told the Chicago Tribune last month: “Have you ruled out running for another office before your term is up?” Obama answer: “It’s not something I anticipate doing.” But when we talked back in November of ‘04 after your election I said, “There’s been enormous speculation about your political future. Will you serve your six-year term as United States senator from Illinois?” Obama: “Absolutely.”

SEN. OBAMA: I will serve out my full six-year term. You know, Tim, if you get asked enough, sooner or later you get weary and you start looking for new ways of saying things. But my thinking has not changed.

MR. RUSSERT: So you will not run for president or vice president in 2008?

SEN. OBAMA: I will not.

MR. RUSSERT: Senator, thank you very much for your candor and for joining us and sharing your views.

***

Read the full interview here.

-Hooper

Read on, faithful few!

TPH Op-Ed: Dining with Doubt

The following is a piece by Matthew H. Griffin about local politics in suburban Chicago. It also touches on voters' economic uncertainty and the desire to be reassured, or at least talked to like adults. Enjoy.

-The Management

For reasons still unknown to me, I found myself invited to a campaign dinner in a posh home in Hinsdale. It was a hard decision: dance class or political dinner.

I can see and feel change I like at one of those places, but I steeled myself and my resolve to hear if IL-13 opposition candidate Scott Harper (D) had anything productive to add to the dialogue about the economy. It sticks in my craw that my one and only financial instrument is worth 70% of what I paid for it.

With Senator Obama's choice to frame the crisis in bleakly populist terms like "When will Wall Street get that the crisis has already hit Main Street?", I have increasingly been dismayed by the lack of gumption our progressive politicians have demonstrated when speaking on this crisis. We're quick to solutions like a $700 billion bailout but slow on providing context for this crisis.

Upon hearing the news that I was going to a tony reception, a friend who has a son involved in the campaign business exclaimed, "My son has been to tons of those in New York, and he says that we have more erudite conversation around the dinner table." High dissatisfaction coupled with low expectations is not a very promising situation. I am reminded of the young dancers playing – well - young people in David Dorfman's Underground pumping their fists in the air chanting, "We're apathetic!"

At the party, I found that I was surrounded by deliciously informed voters. One voter knew the roll-call of Northeast Illinois' Congressional delegation on today's failed financial bailout. Another voter explained the credit crisis to me in great detail. I told this man that I expected our elected officials to be able to articulate the roots of the crisis, to which he responded that most people do not follow the crisis in as much depth as he does. I conceded this pointed and countered that it's important that elected officials have really sharp staff!

He sighed and said, "Ah well, it's the American 'S' factor."

"'S' factor?" I said.

"S for stupid," said he. "No one would understand the explanation. What did Churchill say, 'Five minutes with any voter is enough to discourage any politician!'"

Five minutes with this informed voter was very heartening to me, but would I be able to say the same after hearing Harper speak? After Harper did speak, a high school pal's father listened to me pining for specifics. He reminded me, "Politicians aren't anybody's friend."

To Mr. Harper's credit, he respectfully took his potential constituents' questions with an openness of spirit. I was reminded of a teacher who said that the Dali Lama is always smiling. We're dealing with big amounts of money here and serious issues and we are looking for the candidate who makes the well-timed joke that gets to the heart of the matter. It's the better person who does. "Will she debate you?" asked a local politician referring to Scott's incumbent opponent Judy Biggert (R).

"We'll make something of it if she does not," replied Harper with a smile.

-Matthew H. Griffin

Read on, faithful few!

TPH Presents: If "Ecology" Were to Replace "Economy" in McCain's Speech

The following is an independent, op-ed piece by Matthew H. Griffin, long-time sounding board and conscience of Hooper's. The opinions expressed in this piece are the author's, and they do not have to be yours. But he certainly wants you to think about them.

And you should. Please read on.

-The Management

Listening to McCain's speech on Thursday night, I repeatedly heard invoked "global economy." What I really long to hear is a politician that starts talking about "global ecology."

A global ecology envisions the benefits of letting the earth lie fallow, of cultivating inefficiencies in the hope that something will germinate because it has the time and positive conditions for growth. Unemployment benefits, state-supported universal access to excellent, affordable health care and education: the global economy that I heard so much about does not allow for such inefficiencies. The global economy holds true that there can be no end to the parade of commodities that ceaselessly stream into our homes and pass out just as quickly. The motto of the global economy is, "Drill, baby, drill."

I long for a politician who can make a convincing case for conservation and for preservation in all its myriad forms. The real candidate for change will formulate the problem thus: unfettered access to profit is resulting in our poisoning! The global economy is causing immeasurable degradation to our bodies, to our planet, and to the delicate web of wildlife about which we know so little and hear, see, and experience increasingly less.

I struggle with the fact that I can't bring this point home to those to whom it matters most. My friends will not hear me equate my father's poisoning and death by cancer with the machine behind, "drill, baby, drill." They will say that's liberal crazy talk.

Who now would stop to consider if his condition has been adversely affected by the lack of migratory birds that pass through Hinsdale, Illinois, because of the toxic sprays used fifty years ago in the campaigns against insects that killed Elm trees? Who would stop to consider if he has been hurt by the increasing indiscernibility between art and marketing. For surely art--which is using up and wasting a lot of paint to quote Monet--is one of those inefficiencies that has to go!

We need inefficiencies and fallow time to let the earth produce wonders that we can only come to appreciate in future generations. Otherwise, our constant demands on the finite resources of the planet will make deficiencies our only legacy.

-Matthew H. Griffin

Read on, faithful few!

Hypocrisy, thy name is GOP.

Hooper's promised me that the Dick Morris clip in particular is taken out of context for comedy purposes. But you can't deny Rove's flat-out contradiction of his own previous stance.



YouTube link in case the above doesn't play for everyone.

UPDATE: More Daily Show goodness:



-Buck

Read on, faithful few!

TPH Presents: Ovary-Slapped

This commentary by Hooper, presented by The Political Hoedown, and does not mean you have to vote Republican or buy a shotgun. It also isn't indicative of Buck's belief system, based as it is around the availability of tar heroin and illegal fireworks.

I know I didn't respond at all to last week's Democratic Convention speeches as they happened, but I could not pass up expending a few words on the brilliant speech by Gov. Sarah Palin.


She's a conservative all right, and also a feminist. A mother, and a full-time government employee. A wife to a working husband, and the Republican VP nominee. There's a lot on Sarah Palin's plate. Tonight, she (and the other speakers before her) made the case that though she's handling a great deal right now, she's ready for more.

Perhaps it was Rudy Guiliani who had the best retort to those saying she should drop out to "be a mom," essentially 1950s' housewife thinking spewed by leftist liberals: "How dare they question whether Sarah Palin has enough time to spend with her children and be vice president. How dare they do that. When do they ever ask a man that question? When?"

It's a valid point. But enough about that. You know my opinion now, that her ovaries of steel can take and dish out more abuse than the media and the Obama campaign want you to believe. Let's look at her honeyed words.

"I guess a small-town mayor is sort of like a community organizer, except that you have actual responsibilities." <-- that's when the speech rose from simple acceptance, from rote "life story" territory into something downright magical for a conservative or Republican. It hits hard right at the root of Obama's story, his time spent working for the "downtrodden." It's time and experience that shaped him, he says, but Sarah Palin would argue it brought no executive experience. It's snarky, funny and to the point. She followed it later with another effective jab, "[America]'s not just a community and it doesn't just need an organizer." While certainly community organizers will bristle at this line of attack, the average person will understand that she is deflating an overinflated resume.

"The fact that drilling, though, won't solve every problem is no excuse to do nothing at all."

Some have argued that Palin brings nothing to the White House but a few episodes' worth of Jerry Springer material. Here, she reminds us Alaska's key role in supplying America with domestic energy sources - and that it's got a lot more to give. For those frustrated at the pump, what sounds better: drill on our soil for a product that we can use and support today with our current infrastructure, or don't drill and instead "invest" in alternative energy sources as the way out, sources that would require an unprecedented change in our country's energy supply systems? I think they'll pick the former, because when you listen to Palin, you understand it isn't the end of the road, as Democrats doom-and-gloom. Oil is step 1. Natural gas, step 2. Ethanol, geo-thermic power, nuclear power, wind, water and solar power steps 3. and up. Innovation, creativity, ingenuity: these are the hallmarks of US industry, captured perfectly in Gov. Palin's statements.

On final quote, and then I must away to bed.

"But listening to [Obama] speak, it's easy to forget that this is a man who has authored two memoirs but not a single major law or even a reform, not even in the State Senate."

If there's one thing Palin's not afraid to do, it's attack, and that's what the Republicans need. The party needs to get out the message that Obama has essentially been campaigning for president his entire time in office, posturing, but not following through. Michelle Obama did mention some legislation she was proud her husband was attached to or behind, but none of it has been made law or made it out of committee.

It's easy to target Palin as inexperienced. Alaska is big, but has less population than most states. And a small town in Alaska is a bump in the road to the rest of us...right? That is the line we have been fed, but will not swallow. Being mayor simply gives Palin a better record than the law-less Obama; adding to that being Governor - even if just less than two years - puts more "executive" experience marks in her box than anyone else on either ticket.

If Palin, the second name on the ticket, can get the American people to doubt the competition's #1 guy (and I think she has), what chance do the Dems have? Can they do more than try to manufacture scandal? Will the killing blows be left to Palin to deliver, freeing McCain from the rigors of being his own offense and defense?

Whatever the outcome after the debate, after the election, I have no reservation in saying Palin has become this election's unlikely star. Her deft defense of her record and experience, relevant family story and cutting attack of the Democratic hopefuls must cast aside any aspersions even the harshest of pundits had.

-Hooper

Read on, faithful few!

Okay, mob. Get your torches.

By now we've all heard of the outrageous case of incest and imprisonment in Austria. A man kept his daughter in a dungeon-like cellar and repeatedly raped her over the course of 24 years; he fathered seven children from her, one of which died shortly after child birth and was incinerated.

For this, you'd think he'd be imprisoned for life, or perhaps summarily executed, if found guilty. He did confess, after all. Guess how long he could get for this.

Go on, guess.


If you guessed life or death, of fifty years or thirty, you're wrong.

Try only fifteen years.

Josef Fritzl, 73, built a small dungeon out of a portion of his basement and kept his daughter trapped. He built a small bathroom and cooking station, had a bedroom/cell of sorts and an electronic lock on the door. While he was an electrician by trade, there is no way he did this all by himself.

His wife, mother of the captive Elisabeth, knew nothing of what was going on. She was told to stay out of the basement past that 350kg steel door - the whole family was. And so for twenty four years he had a secret. The neighbors knew nothing, nor did his other children, of the rape factory he kept going down there.

It's not like raping his daughter was a new hobby he picked up when she turned 18; he'd been doing it for the prior seven years. The motivations for her imprisonment will surely come out, as will a more rounded story of what happened, of her daily life and the children's. Already we see that he would come down, lock the kids up to have his way with Elisabeth without them seeing it. In short, he was a tyrant over them.

But this isn't about what he did; it's about what the European courts won't do.

According to an AP article by William J. Kole, "Many Europeans abhor the death penalty, and capital punishment is illegal across the 27-nation EU...even convicted murderers handed life sentences seldom serve more than 25 years."

We in American are divided over the death penalty, whether it is right to take the life of one who has done the same, or equivalent. Some states, like Texas, practically kill their harshest criminals for sport, while other states start that way but switch to a moratorium on capital punishment, as Illinois has. Right-to-lifers aren't just anti-abortion, but anti-death penalty. The two often don't go hand in hand, of course.

In the US, were these actions to have happened here, based on the offenses we have been told of, Josef Fritzl would face involuntary manslaughter for the death of the twin, at least six counts - individual counts - of rape, conspiracy and kidnapping. If you add all that up, just the rape, he could face a minimum of sixty years and that's lenient. The stated punishment would probably be over a hundred. The maximum I can hammer out would see him in jail past our tricentenniel, and well onto the quad.

I find it beyond the pale that such a monster could see freedom while he still lives. If ever there was a cause for at least life imprisonment, it's this. Keep this sort of predator away from the general population, separated from "decent society" by layers of iron bars and concrete.

But of course, my personal opinion would not be three hots-and-a-cot until old age took Fritzl. I am a proponent of the death penalty. In my mind, there are some violent offenders so heinous that we need to risk our own immortal souls to see them swept from this earth. Some take a war analogy, the war on crime, and in war there are casualties on both sides. Is it time to take the fight to the enemy? I don't see it that way. Not every violent offender is irredeemable. Our prisons are there for rehabilitation as well as incarceration.

To limit our recourse to the very worst offenses, though, puts society at risk. The death penalty isn't administered in every quarter like it is in Texas, where people joke about an execution a week. Balanced against the potential crime the death row convicts could commit should, as some future date, their sentence be commuted or the havoc wrought on the inside against the "redeemable," Texas has decided to mete out a harsh justice. Unfair to some, medieval and backwards, there nevertheless is message sent that they will not tolerate the degenerate, violent members of society. Not every state operates like the Lone Star state, but 3 of50, plus the Federal Government, exercise the right to execute a prisoner for a capital offense (listed as murder, treason, espionage). Perhaps it is this culture that shapes my views....

For the greater good of our fellow citizens, their safety and ability to pursue boundless freedoms, I find it the solemn duty of the criminal justice system to mete out lethal justice to those who have crossed the line, who cannot and will not let themselves feel remorse. In the cold heart of Josef Fritzl, what regret is there but for the loss of his incestuous lair? If he cared, he would never have started down that road. If he felt guilt for his actions, shouldn't he have let the imprisoned children loose and submitted himself to the will of the courts at a far earlier time - the death of one of them - or when he realized he was keeping people as caged animals?

Nearly a quarter of a century - twenty-four years - have elapsed between when his daughter Elisabeth became a captive and when she found freedom, all the while suffering the most inhuman, abasing treatment at the hands of the man who helped bring her into this world.

There is no earthly justice that can redress the wrongs done to her, but I hope the Austrian courts do their best to try.

-Hooper

Read on, faithful few!

It's Racism Friday at The Den of Mystery!

Normally I leave the political stuff to Hooper, but sheer lunacy and ignorance such as this needs to be brought to people's attention. More after the jump.

'We'll end up slaves. We'll be made slaves just like they was once slaves,' he said. Telvor, a white Democrat who supported Hillary Clinton in West Virginia's primary, said he planned to vote for Republican John McCain in November. 'At least he's an American,' he added with a disarmingly friendly smile.

So sayeth Johnny Telvor of Williamson, West Virginia. Here's the full article.

Now, I have family that traces to West Virginia. So does Mrs. Buck. So I suppose I could form some sort of defense of the state; about how you shouldn't judge the entire populace by the comments of one man. But I find I have no desire to defend them. Sweet Christmas, are people really that stupid? That racist?

I particularly like the ninth paragraph, where another esteemed resident of Williamson advocates the lynching -- sorry, assassination of Obama.

'Look, someone will kill him. Whoever Obama picks as running mate will end up being president.' Spence's ready smile and chatty manner on the thorny issue of Obama's possible murder gave little clue as to whether he thought it would be a bad thing or not.

God help the people of Williamson, West Virginia if Obama chooses a VP candidate that isn't white. There will be a great disturbance in the land, as though millions of hillbillies suddenly cried out in terror, and were suddenly silenced.

- Buck

Read on, faithful few!

TPH: The Need of Our Own

A Political Hoedown Special Edition

Disclaimer: The opinions of Hooper McFinney are his own, and do not reflect yours, so don't worry. You won't get a mild case of intolerance from reading the following.


I read an interesting article in today's Chicago Tribune (credited to the LA Times, by Anna Gorman): "Illegal immigrant's case raises transplant issues." Ana Puente, the article tells us, is waiting for her fourth liver transplant. She received her first as an infant and other two in 1989 and 1998, all at UCLA Medical Center. The "approximate cost for a liver transplant and first-year follow-up," according to the article, is $490,000.

Ana is also an illegal immigrant. Does anyone else see something wrong with this picture?

To preface, I am not a heartless monster who thinks a child in need should be denied care. We need medical safety nets in place to make sure that children of all stripes are provided with responsible pediatric attention. I'd of course argue that the children of the wealthy deserve the coverage, but shouldn't be eligible, just like the requirements certain schools have regarding scholarships. The redistribution of wealth, as some Democrats might say, to the youth of this country is a finer thing than broad welfare spending on able-bodied adults. I digress, though.

What we're faced with is slap in the face, a people - and yes, I will stereotype and generalize, and to be sure, I'm talking about illegal Hispanic immigrants - full of a skewed sense of entitlement. Puente was quoted as saying, "It doesn't matter if I'm undocumented...they should take care of me at UCLA for the rest of my life because I've been there since I was a baby."

The waiting list for liver transplants in California alone is 3,700 people long, and only 767 transplants were performed in 2007. As many as 75 of those were for non-US citizens, the number for illegals unavailable.

We have a health care crisis in our country, no one denies it. People go without or with too little because of insurance, medicinal availability or full patient dockets at public hospitals. While the crisis is not necessarily widespread, it is still pervasive and threatens millions of people with, at the least, inadequate care. Why then are we so eager to give our services, our time, our tax dollars and our medicine to people who have violated federal law to be here?

I understand the "people are people" argument put forward by Dr. Michael Shapiro. "When you make an incision in an organ donor, you don't find little American flags planted on their organs." If you come to this country legally and get placed on a donor list, but your citizenship status is Iranian, you shouldn't be denied because you aren't a US citizen. But you're here legally, you went through the right channels; you didn't swim under them.

The executive director of NumbersUSA, Roy Beck, was right when he said transplants are about rationing. It's a needs-based system, but one that should also have built in it a legality component for those competent enough to seek their own health care. Basically, if you are in your twenties, like the two illegal immigrants in the article who are awaiting further transplants, there's a reason you're kicked off the state health care bill. You are old enough to make any decision you want, and perhaps the first one is to go home.

Home being, in these cases, Mexico. Seek its donor lists, wait with your countrymen, allow our citizens who paid for your livers - plural - to get one of their own, because they deserve it more than you. I know you couldn't choose where you were born, that those of us in the US don't realize how good we have it. It's a foregone conclusion!

But if you want to stay here, to take our benefits without putting anything else in the pot, how dare you demand our service.

Jose Lopez, the other illegal 20-year-old in the article awaiting another transplant, said, "You can't just leave a person to die. That's pretty much what they're telling me: 'You're illegally here. We're just gonna let you die.'"

Damn you for placing that burden on us! For putting the responsibility of your life at our feet! The sword of human dignity cuts both ways. If you want to live, don't say it's our ethical imperative to provide that life; man up! Run back across the border, apply for a worker visa, for citizenship or stay there and use your own nation's health care system.

It is not the responsibility of the United States to care for the world. I'm no isolationist, but on this there can be no argument. We have to order our own house, heal our own people who are in dire straights. The plight of a Mexican child with a bum kidney or livery might be heart-rending to hear, but if it's the difference between them and the child of an Ohio steelworker, or a Dakotan farmer or a Maine fisherman, there's no choice. I place us before them.

"Selfish" easily describes that action, but it's a small word for this, and makes the action small by relation. But this isn't a kid in a playground pouting and taking his ball home; it has to do with protecting the health, welfare and future of a whole nation. The more we allow programs like Medi-Cal, which seems to be a loophole program letting illegals get medical service at the cost of the state, to prosper, the less service we offer our own.

Think of it this way. Ana Puente, conservatively, has cost the state of California at least $1,000,000 (unadjusted) over the last two decades, Jose Lopez a little less. These two - just two - illegal immigrants by the end of the year, if all goes to plan, will have spent over $2,500,000 overall in California-taxpayer money by manipulating the structure of state health care systems. Illegal immigrants, mind you.

California has a program set up to provide quality health services for the poor, exactly who need the benefit. Medi-Cal in theory is great, but in at least this instance tragically flawed if it allows the downtrodden of our country to be beaten into the dust even more by those flagrantly ignoring federal law to seek our superior medical capabilities. Medical service that should be intended for the truly less fortunate of our country, not Felipe Calderon's or Alvaro Colom Caballeros' or Antonio Saca's.

I get frustrated with people who demand we treat the 12 million illegals as though they were already citizens when we have our own citizens dying from lack of the same medicine these illegals are utilizing. The economic benefit of cheap, head-down-cash-only labor does not outweigh the suffering of our own people. Again, it's a sense of entitlement, that because we are the "land of the free," that means it's free for any to walk all over and abuse.

Some argue it's our Christian duty to provide this much-needed care to the "undocumented," but not all taxpayers are Christian. If an organization independent of our state, local and federal governments wants to provide funding in a private clinic setting for illegal workers at no cost to the taxpayers, or detriment to poor US citizens, more power to them. That's one great thing about our country, the amount of private giving. Our charities do a great job complementing Federal programs and aid. Let's have them take a larger role.

But I do not see how, in clear conscience, we can continue to provide medical benefits to illegals above and beyond what we give our own citizens.

The University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine's ethics department chair, Arthur Caplan, stated, "Physicians and institutions do have a duty to these patients once they transplanted them. . . . Insurance running out is no excuse for abandoning them." The latter statement is correct, but greater need is an excuse. The need of our own sick and dying.

How can we lead the world, like all politicians preach we will if only you vote for them, if our own country has its very foundations crumbling due to disease and avoidable medical calamity?

-Hooper

Read on, faithful few!

The Hooplah: iRant

SUBMIT to iLIFE: Bliss Through Acquiescence

Apple is making me nervous. The brilliant folks at the pirate computer company have keelhauled the souls of millions!

All right, perhaps it’s not as bad as that. Apple makes fine products in its two key lines, computers and portable media devices [iPhone inclusive]. Their computers are arguably the best for graphics work, ease of interface and reliability (even if they lack some of the functionality of a PC). I've been tossing around the idea for a while now of getting one, if just for the space considerations. I've friends and family with the machines, and they are quite happy with their purchases.

These same people also have iPods, those fancy little numbers in stylish colors, rounded and sleek. They are part of a horde of consumers who have made the iPod one of the most successful product launches ever. Stores run out, people line up, they lose the iPod and buy a new one heedless of cost. If crack had a headphone jack and a thumbwheel, it would be something like this.

There is a level of addiction to this product that I have rarely seen in my own frenzied consumerism. The only computer-linked item that has grappled onto the public so quickly is Blizzard's World of Warcraft, at 7 million customers worldwide and counting, the juggernaut and new standard of online massive multiplayer RPGs (before, subscriptions in the hundreds of thousands was considered good; Blizzard past that after some three months). But even that people quit.

People just can't quit those iPods, though. A former co-worker of mine loves to espouse the benefits of the iPod and the iLife it engenders. Recently, her iPod ran out of batteries…and though that happens in all electronic devices, iPods of her generation cannot be given new life with new batteries. Once they crap out, they're buried. Were I the consumer in her shoes, I'd be upset. After all, I paid several hundred dollars on this thing, expecting a good life at least equal to my Discman (thank you, Sony, for not messing that up like your batteries; it's still going strong after 14 years), and four years in it says, "Goodbye"? That dog won't hunt, monseigneur.

She decided to buy a new iPod, my co-worker. When? At lunch. It ran out of batteries in the morning and by lunch she intends to have it replaced so that by this time tomorrow it will be fully armed and operational. If she could, she would run back to her apartment and load it up before the work day was out so, when commuting home, she wouldn’t have to listen to the drone of fellow "el" passengers or the clank of the tracks. And she is not alone in her obsession with the little device. It's become, if not a status symbol like a fancy car or a big house, then a social symbol. Do you have an iPod? Are you one of us?

To call them pod people would be too obvious, and iLife is too cute, but also eerily close to what's happening, beginning with these things. It's almost as if, while listening to your favorite playlist, a subtle addiction is formed in the back of your mind. You have to have your iPod, lest you feel cold and alone. It comforts you whenever it’s around, like a security blanket, and like a child you do get upset and flustered when you don't have it handy. You'll do anything, spend any price, to make sure it is always a part of your life. Buy the car adapter, so it broadcasts on a very localized station. Make sure to have the waterproof case so when you head to the beach, it won't get damaged. Leave a charger at work and at home, in the car or at your parents' house; you never know when it'll need a little boost. Plug it into a one of a variety of port and speaker options at home, so it can function as your stereo, your alarm clock, the white noise in the background while you stare vacantly at the wall. Don't have a lot of money? Buy a Nano, which used to be a Mini (now discontinued). Have too much scratch? Try the iTouch, or wait a few months (if you can wait five minutes) for the iPhone to become available with your network. Feel your wallet lighten, your spirits plateau and your mind slowly tumble off a precipice.

This might all be a rant because I fear the demise of physical media distribution systems: CDs. The record is a novelty item, the 8-track a nearly forgotten bad dream, the tape a fondly remembered childhood item and now the CD: how soon until its head falls on the chopping block? I'm a fan of the CD, of the clever liner notes you can get and the case styles, the tactile quality of it all, knowing you own a thing instead of just nebulous bytes on a small harddrive.

Swap tapes when you were younger, or CDs more recently? I love the concept of trading music collections, and MP3s are as ready a format as CDs, but they take a little of the personality out of the equation, and perhaps that's more at the core of my problem with iPods. They insulate us against the outside world since, for many of the people who use them, they use them all the time. Between classes, on the train, in the elevator, on lunch breaks, jogging, shopping, relaxing at home: there isn't a function of the waking (or sleeping!) day that an iPod can't insinuate itself in. My co-worker put it best when she said it's a "way of life. Once you have an iPod, there's no going back." Her sentiments were echoed by the others in my cubicle area who also own iPods.

It’s a way of life. What does that mean about our society then, that we're captivated so by this small thing, this pocket-sized device that spews out our shuffled musical tastes in 3-minute helpings? People aren't killing people over the things, thank God; no, only clothing drives us to kill when fashion tastes are involved. But iPods are certainly creating distinctions in the American population, a thin, sleek line if you will, where you have one and you're One of Us or you don't, and then the others just pity you, trapped in your caveman-like past. Even the commercials show a lack of individuality, a sort of conform or die quality with the shadow shapes flailing about all the same, their iPods in common, letting us know this is how you find your group, your self, your spot.

It's Apple we're talking about, not Microsoft, but why do I feel the former is being more sinister? I could be paranoid; the claim has been made before. But think to your friends who have the Objects: do they cherish it a bit too much, pat themselves on the back for owning it, shake their head that you don't own one, isolate themselves in its stereophonic cocoon whenever they get a chance (car ride, bus, train, bathroom, dinner, homework, work, nocturnal activities)? Is iLife the new way for America, a polished, sleek, uniformity that numbs us at the press of a button?

Ah, but all that sounds so serious. I have an iPod Nano (free) waiting for me at home, but I just haven't been able to bring myself to use it very often. I'm sure I will, though, if just for convenience, right? It's just a little old MP3 player. What's the harm in that? It's not like everyone in the US has an iPod variant.

Just one in six.


-Hooper

Read on, faithful few!

The Foreign Policy That Wasn't There

NPR challenged its listeners the other day: write a brief essay detailing the best "foreign policy" candidate among the current slate of Presidential contenders. It's not a small list to choose from, though at this stage in the game we've certainly slimmed things down a touch.

Who do we choose? The obvious choices on both sides are Governor Bill Richardson - freelance diplomat, former Secretary of Energy, former UN Ambassador, 2-term border state Governor - and John McCain - has served in both the House (2 terms) and the Senate (4 terms and counting) on various committees, aside from his military service. You could pour thousands of words into dissertations heralding either as the best choice to "reintroduce America to the world," as some in the media have said.

But why not go a little contrarian, and choose Ron Paul. After all, his foreign policy exists of not having a foreign policy.

Revert our international outlook to the isolationist early 20th Century, and you have a glimpse of Ron Paul's America. He is for removing all assets on the ground from the Mid East. In this, we will promote peace, for they will certainly come to us for advice. In fact, that is the worldwide aim, to distance ourselves from entanglements, extricate our military forces from defending borders and regimes not our own and trusting to the power of the American Dream, that shining city on the hill, to draw the world's diplomats back to our door. [1]

He claims his withdrawal is not one bred of a desire to isolate us, but to reestablish our role in the world. Free trade and travel, open communication and diplomacy will still remain. We'll simply not be the world's police force. Another point he advocates as a part of this is removing ourselves from the UN - entirely - and NATO, backing out of any free trade agreements (which are "managed trade" plans, opposed to open borders) and any other diplomatic alliances that could endanger our interests down the line (such as those that existed throughout the 19th Century and led to World War I).

So is this lack of foreign involvement, the "sit back" approach the best approach, as asked by NPR? It is the most dynamic and aggressive foreign policy, certainly, for it poses a completely new modus operandi not only for our state department and military, but those of every other country the world over. Why aggressive and not bratty? By not being involved, by holding back our might and negotiating leverage, we send a stark message: our interests are our own, not yours - tread wisely.

In our global village, the rolls of various countries are changing as I write this. India and China are becoming superpowers, with the latter pretty well there. The EU is consolidating itself, under one banner, and for the first time since the Holy Roman Empire might just present a united front. South America could further fall under the pall of autocracy masked as socialism. And Africa is a warground, with no end in sight. The US stands currently as the sole superpower in the world, the one arbiter that, grudgingly or not, all eventually come before. Should we not use that leverage, Congressman Paul might argue, to reduce the thread on our citizens and assets abroad?

Or do we keep our military in play, our truces ensconced with dictators, our economic welfare dependent on the changing tides in countries that frankly dislike us? Congressman Paul is awaiting your answer.

-Hooper McFinney

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[1] Think of it this way: he wants us to be the old man in the house behind the outfield fence of a sandlot baseball diamond. Let the kids play their game, let them skin their knees and charge the mound, but when that ball goes flying over the fence and drops in our yard - never mind what happens if it breaks our window - then we'll get off our rocking chair and see what the problem is. They come to us, asking for a favor. We are in a position of power; after all, we're the old man, the equalizer among the teams. Hat in hand, they approach and ask for their ball back, to see if it was a foul, where it dropped. And we can help them...or not.

Read on, faithful few!