Flying down to Buenos Aires

Tonight was my last tango class of 2009 with Barbara Bates at Greenacres Community Center in Bakersfield. It was a wonderful class. I was pleased becaused when I started I didn't know if I could even dance for a half an hour because I have two left feet and two arthritic knees.

But I've done well. The tango is a difficult dance to learn, because it has so many intricate moves. I have been taking lessons since July and the main thing I've learned is I have a lot more work to do.

I have come a long way. During early lessons, it was all I could do to try to remember the initial steps and try not to step on my partner's toes. Tonight, I was dancing, sometimes moving gracefully to the music, sometimes not. But I am glad I stuck with and didn't give up. I also know that when I return from my trip, I will continue to take lesson and probably take ballroom classes as well.

Soon I leave for Buenos Aires. The flights to and from my destination will be 13-16 hours. So I'm not looking forward to flying all that way. But if I want to go to Argentina, a long flight is necessary. I'll be by myself in a strange city, I will have the help of a local tour guide and travel agent. I've studies travel guides and read up on my destination, but I don't have a very clear idea of what I want to do. I'll get a guided tour of the city and a ticket to one tango show. My Hotel is in the Retiro neighborhood of Buenos Aires, north of the city center. I plan to eat steak, and buy some tango shoes while I'm in Argentina. Other than that, I don't know.

All that remains is to pack for my trip, leave my dog Bella with a friend, take a cab to the Airport Bus of Bakersfield and then get on the plane.

Capitano Tedeschi

30

My garage door has been sabotaged

Friends,

I know it sounds silly, but it always starts with the small things. This morning, I tried to open my garage door and it WOULDN'T WORK! I and by I, I mean we America need to get my garage door fixed, because the longer my garage door is inoperable the greater the danger that my country, our country will cease to be FREE!

"Why is that important?" you ask. First of all if you move the "F" from FREE and put it at the end of the word, you get REEF!. Reef. Think about it for a moment. The American Ship of State is sailing towards a REEF because secret agents from the Kenyan Province of Hawaii, have found a way to sabatoge my garage door. Why? you ask am I warning you about my garage door. "Capitano, the fate of the United States doesn't hinge on your malfunctioning garage door. It's no big thing."

No big thing? Re-arrange the letters of "No big thing" and you get the phrase "NOTHING GIB." Gib, Gib, that sounds familiar. I know a Robert Gibbs. Robert Gibbs. Who does he work for? No. No. It can't be. Yes, it's true. Robert Gibbs works for the White House!!!!!!!!!!!!!! And that's not NOTHING!

So you see friends, things--things have unforseen consequences. Some housefrau in Post World War I Vienna, refuses to buy a hand painted postcards from a wounded German WWI veteran named Adolf, the next thing you know the Wiemar Republic falls due to hyperinflation and before you can say "Gott im Himmel," I can't get my car out of my garage. If I can't get my car out of my garage, I can't buy 50-caliber ammunition for my sniper rifle and cat food. No freedom-loving American should be without ammunition or cat food.

I'M sorry...I'm all choked up. You see I love my country. Not only do I love my country, I need someone to fix my garage door. So if you know of anyone who can fix my garage door, please let me know. I need someone who'll show up, on time would be nice. The ability to actually fix a garage door would be miraculous.

So please send any recommendations to me. With your help, I can get my garage door fixed and together we can steer the American Ship of State away from the REEF and keep us FREE. God bless you and God bless our country!

Capitano Tedeschi

30

My garage door has been sabotaged copyright Dec. 8, 2009 by Jamie Jacks

Aging Tiger's Tail's a Draggin'

Happy night. Found out that there was a beginning Tai Chi class being held tonight in the gym of Piar & Marrota Physical Therapy. It was a beginning class and I decided to go. Tai Chi is something I've been doing off and on, mostly off for nearly 28 years.

I taken martial arts classes, jujitsu, aikido, karate and tai chi over the years. But I never was ableto devote the time necessary to advance beyond beginner status. Of all the maritial arts I've studied, Tai Chi is the one I've practiced the most.

Sadly, I stopped practicing, forgot all the moves and really lost the benefit of a wonderful form of meditation and exercise. So tonight I went.

The class was hard. It was a Yang style Tai Chi class, but the moves felt different from the moves I've learned in other Yang classes. But once I started practicing, the muscles seemed to remember so much on their own.

So I am glad I went. I also think I'll keep going.

Capitano Tedeschi

30

P.S. Please forgive my laxity in not maintaining my blog. Been spending too much time on Face book, which is okay, but the funny thing is many of my Face book posts are short blog essays. So, I promise to do better in the future.

Il Capitano

Just a few remarks Solitary Argonaut,

Just a few remarks on madness in 21st Century America


I was there, as giant step by giant step
we became mired in folly.
We are all blemished, yet
no one will be punished or stoned.

You can’t just peek into Pandora’s box
madness makes risk taking inevitable
thinking in terms of MUST!!!
and not MISTAKE

We did this to ourselves
while we raced the storm
Failing to practice moral deliberation
a perverse torture not to be indulged in

After excessive self-injury
Where are we?
Where should we go from here?
For our great wound is there a cure?

We are not better men nor
have we made a better world
No one wants apology or remorse
from death row inmates

Solitary Argonaut,

In high school,
when I imagined
the evolutionary calculus
of my future life

I saw myself as
a solitary Argonaut,
with the cruel eyes
of a Spanish Conquistador
a Pizzarro or a Pirate Prince
sailing across the turbulent
fluid of the Seven Seas

Ever avoiding apology or remorse
performing behavioral mind change
through brawls and
repeated display of inappropriate
practices and beliefs
my big business
pushing for the breakthrough
ever in the future search
perpetually justified bending the rules

That imagined future
turned out different.
My experience has been
collaspes, suffering, and madness
howling like a gut-shot dog
and praying to my momma.

In the dysphoria of personal reflection.
I find no great humor
in painful self disclosure
like the fact this emperor
always winds up needing
new clothes

Capitano Tedeschi

30

Just a few remarks, A solitary argonaut copyright Oct. 29, 2009 by Jamie Jacks

Matters Medical

I have spent much of late September and most of October dealing with medical issues. Today, I am home sick with what may be some version of the flu. I don't know if it is the seasonal or the swine flu. I was lucky that when I felt myself feeling feverish I asked my doctor for a perscription for Tamiflu. Tamiflu does not lessen the flu per se, but it does amelioarate some of the symptons. I while I have not felt great, I haven't been devasted by the flu.

Since the H1N1 swine flu is very serious, I have made an effort to get a flu shot. There will be a seasonal flu vaccination on Friday at the knowledge factory. For the swine flu, I have contacted both my doctor and the Kern County Dept. of Public Health asking for vaccinations. I was told that there is no vaccine available in the County, but some should be available by the end of the month.

Friday, Oct. 23rd, I had my fourth MRI. My neurologists wants make sure that I still have a brain. I am kinda curious myself. This was my fourth MRI. I consider myself somewhat claustrophobic. The first imaging experience I requested a tranquilizer. The upside of being knocked out was that I was really mellow during the procedure. The downside of this was that one of my friends from church had to stay at doctor's office while was undergoing the procedure.

The next three MRIs have been done without anesthetic. The second was something of a triumph, I was able to meditate and make up songs to the electronic shrieking of the imaging machine. My second one without anesthesia was an ordeal. During that M.R.I. while I was essentially lashed to the table and instructed not to swallow, fidget or fart, I was able to meditate on a variety of things. And during the last 12 minutes when it was particularly grueling, I was able to recite Chapter 5 "How it works" and the Prayer of St. Francis. When it was over, I was able to joyfully say in no uncertain terms "Next time I'm taking the Valium." Hopefully though that won't be for another 2 or 3 years.

But when the time came to do another one, I was worried. I wasn't going to do the valium because, I didn't want spend the rest of the day doing nothing while waiting for the drug to wear off. But I hadn't been meditating or doing yoga and I was worried that I might not be able to lie still for the 45 minutes it would take to do the procedure.

There was no need to worry, this MRI was the easiest of all of them. The strapped my head into place, gave me an emergency button, I closed my eyes and they moved me into the bowel of the machine. I was happy to realize that once I closed my eyes, I moved into the infinite darkness that lies just behind my optic organs. It felt like a cathedral with a vaulted roof, a safe yet vast space and I felt that I could stay in that space as long as I kept my eyes closed and found ways to occupy my time.

I was lucky in two ways. The first bit of luck was musical. Thanks to blogger Andrew Sullivan, I've become acquainted with the music of he Pet Shop Boys, the English dance music duo. Their music is ideal play in one's head while one has to listen to the industrial screaming, screechings, poundings and whirring of the MRI machine. So I had a sound track and videos from the Pet Shop Boys (It's a sin and Pandemonium) going on in my head. The other bit of luck was that I would doze off during the procedure. I would fall asleep, sorta wake up, making sure to keep my eyes shut, try to make songs from the noise of the machine and then doze off again. Thanks to closed eyes, 80s dance music and sleepiness, time passed quickly and I was able to almost enjoy the process.

So sick with the flu, I turn to this blog. I talk about the upcoming flu season, which may be very severe. Get a flu shot, if you feel yourself getting sick, you might try to use Tamiflu. My latest MRI was enjoyable thanks to some nice bits of serendipity, the Pet Shop Boys and the fact that the procedure was scheduled during my usual nap time.

Il Capitano tours Bakersfield's newest Target

A new Target Department store opened in Bakersfield's newest retail development site, the River Walk. The store opened on Oct. 11. Today I decided to visit the new store.

When I visited, it was a typical Saturday morning in Bakersfield. The weather was sunny, the parking lot was full and all sorts of people were gleefully entering the new Target. I was reminded about of a story by fantasy writer Fritz Leiber, Bazaar of the Bizarre. In that story, Leiber talks about a race of alien invaders called "the Devourers." Leiber describes them thus,"The Devourers are the most accomplished merchants in all the many universes-so accomplished they sell only trash." Once the Devourers set up shop on a new planet, they "sell and sell!-sell trash and take good money and even finer things in exchange."

Was Bakersfield newest Target, a front for an invasion of the Devourers? No, not really. The store is new, looks very and has all the usual products that you find in all the other Targets. This one's grocery section has been expanded to include fresh fruits, vegetables and meats, so it can take some customers away from Albertson's and Vons. It is filled with all the stuff that any red-blooded American consumer would want to buy. All the goods are reasonably priced, of average quality and made practically everywhere but the United States.

That was my attitude or prejudice as I walked through the new Target. In one instance, I saw three generations of women, mother, daughter and grandmother, pushing a shopping cart through the girls clothing section. The mother seemed to have the determined look of veteran bargain hunter, searching for the latest deal on Hannah Montana tops, shorts and matching sandals. The daughter and grandmother followed along as best they could also looking for deals. Judging from attitude of that family, not all of the shop-til-you-drop American consumers have cut up their credit cards or have been plunged into bankruptcy.

But the American consumer's day of being the engine of driving the world economy are probably over. The recent financial crash has made it clear that not only is the American consumer broke, but the money he uses to be cheap Asian manufactures is worth less and less every day. I have no doubt that Target, like Leiber's Devourers will soon be seeking new worlds to invade, by opening stores in places like Bangalore, India or Cheng Du, China.

It's easy to be smug and rail against consumerism. Fritz Leiber was doing that in 1963 when Bazaar of the Bizarre was first published. It also appears that a new Super Wal-Mart will also open in Bakersfield in the near future. But rest assure gentled reader, as a good union man, I will not set foot in the new Super Wal-Mart.

Capitano Tedeschi

30

Flying down to Buenos Aires Part III

Went to tango class again tonight. Part of me didn't want to go. I had missed last week and I hadn't really practiced any dance steps during the past two weeks. I know that if you want to become good at something you have to practice it. But knowing that I should do it and getting myself to do it are two different things.

But once I got to the community center none of that mattered. The instructor didn't care whether I had practiced or not. All that mattered was learning the steps and moving gracefully to the music. Tonight, I was so happy to be there that I had a really great attitude, I would try anything and even though the steps were difficult, I kept telling myself that I could do them. So I had a lot of fun tonight and I am getting a better at doing the Tango.

The time when I start my journey is getting closer. Just two months to go. There'll be the ordeal of a 18 hour plane ride and the challenge of being a solitary traveller in a busy foreign metropolis. So I have a lot of work to do. But tonight, I held on to my dream of dancing the tango in Buenos Aires. I am not looking forward to the ordeal of airports, long lines and security hassles. But I am looking forward to going to a Milonga and watching the people dance.

Capitano Tedeschi

30

Health Care Reform Clears Baucus Committee

Today, the Senate Finance Committee passed a health care reform bill crafted by Montana Senator Max Baucus. The vote was almost along party line with Democratic Senators voting for the bill and all the Republicans except Maine's Olympia Snow voting against it.

According to the New York Times, the Baucus bill will now be reconciled with a more liberal bill passed by the Senate's Health Education Labor and Pensions (HELP) Committee. Health care reform then must pass the Senate and then reconciled with any bills passed by the House of Representatives.

The battle for health care reform has been long and hard. The debate has at times been loud, angry and sometimes bizzarre. Still, health care reform moves forward. Once the reform bill is signed by the Senate, it can be modified and changed to meet the changing needs of the nation. I hope that the Health Care Reform bill will be like The Civil Rights Act of 1964. The Civil Rights Act has been amended several times since it was first became law.

It is too early to predict the future of any health care reform bill passed by Congress in the forth coming year. There is still a lot of work to be done on the bill, and there is still a lot of work that we as citizens must do to make sure that when its passed, it will be the start of true health care reform. It is important to remember that health care is an important social problem, but there are other more difficult problems that must be dealt with as well, the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, an energy bill, entitlement reform and restoring the Republic to a sound financial footing by reduing the federal deficit.

If you are a supporter of health care reform, today can be a day of celebration, the Baucus Bill has made it out of the Senate Finance Committee. It is not yet law. More civic work must be done.

Capitano Tedeschi

30

President Obama (& America) win the Nobel Prize

I was humbled and proud when I heard the announcement that the Nobel Prize Committee had awarded this year's Nobel Peace Prize to President Obama.

It was a surprise. While Obama's rhetoric during the campaign and at times when he has been president has soared, his list of accomplishments 9 months into his presidency have been small. It is not easy trying to change the nature and direction of a country like a America.

The reasons for Obama's lack of progress in realizing many of his campaign promises are numerous and complicated. He ordered the closing of the Guantanamo Bay detention center, but that has become mired in difficulties regarding the legal status of many of the inmates and the reluctance of Americans and other countries to house or allow the return of many of those inmates. He has done nothing to end the war in Iraq, and has been content to follow the Status of Forces agreement signed by the Bush Administration. On the domestic front the president proposal's for reform of health care and of the financial services industry have met fierce and determined opposition from what is left of the Republican Party and intense lobbying from insurance companies and the financial services industry.

In accepting the award the President has shown that while he is grateful for the award it may appear that the award is premature. Critics on both the right and the left have said that the President's effort to change America have borne little fruit.

The critcs have a valid point. But there is an important counter argument. The American people elected the president and we the people ( or most of us anyway) want to change America's course. After 30 years of Reaganism and eight years of the Cheney/Bush junta much work needs to be done to return the country to its founding proposition that all men are created equal and that all are entitled to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.

I look at the Peace Prize as an encouragement. The Nobel Committee is acknowledging our effort to change and encouraging to continue on this long difficult path. Obama and his supporters have talked the talk regarding changing America, and some in the world find such talk refreshing after the last eight years of arrogance, stupidity and folly on both the world and domestic stage. But it is up to us to continue working for change, to end the failed wars in Iraq and sadly Afghanistan, reduce our consumption of fossil fuels and our emmission of greenhouse gases, and finally create an America whose economy and political system is sustainable and innovative for many decades to come. The damage done by the narcissistic ideology of Reaganism and of the Cheney/Bush administration will not be corrected in a few months, it will take years.

Though it may take many years to complete America's metamorphosis, it is work that is worth doing. The sooner we start, the sooner we'll be done. The award of the Peace Prize to President Obama can be considered a sign the world appreciates our desire to change. It is up to us to fulfill the promise that we made to ourselves when we elected President Obama in November of 2008. Yes we can!

Medical Procedures

Tonsilectomy 1960

I was in 1st Grade, when I had tonsillitis
I was taken to old Providence Hospital
In Kansas City Kansas
Where I was born
7up with ice cubes that
they made drink though it burned
like fire going down my throat.

I fell asleep
as they took
on the gurney,
The attendant told my
Mother I had fallen asleep
I fell asleep so they wouldn't
Give me a shot.

Arthoscopy 1987

The day I hurt my knee,
I asked her to marry me
A month before my wedding
They shaved cartiledge from
My right knee
You may have arthritis later
In your life my doctor said.
My fiancée took me home
Where I drank chicken broth
And took darvocetts for pain.
As I write this my right knee hurts
She has remarried and has a 5 year old child

Endoscopy 1994

What can I say,
I had a lot of job stress at work
My brother was dying of
Incurable heart disease
And stomach acid would keep me up
Til the middle of the night
The Indian Doctor put me under
Yelled at his nurse
After the procedure was over,
My throat was sore and
I had a hietal hernia and was lactose intolerant
A few days later, my brother went code blue
And literally died before my parents eyes.
No parent should ever have
To live through the loss of a child
My mother later said.

Colonopscopy 2004

I was suffering from rectal itch
It was the same Indian doctor
He had mellowed and didn't
Yell at nurses now.
I did the "colon cleanse"
48 hours of shit happens
and happens and happens
after the ordeal
my friend Sam took me home
The doctor recommended I take
Metamucil for the rectal itch.
And get another colonopscopy in 5 years
Two months later I had my first blood clot
A year later, the first symptoms of MS

Endoscopy and Colonopscopy 2009

It was a new colon cleanse
That lasted only 36 hours.
I lay on the gurney and tried
To sleep wishing at least that
The ghost of my mother was
Walking me down the hall
To the procedure room
Where a different Indian Doctor
Shove a tube down my throat
And up my toucus
I could see on TV the program
I called up Jamie's colon
It wasn't all that fascinating
As the demorral wore off
The different Indian Doctor
Told me I had ulcers
Gave me a scrip
And rushed off to grab a sandwich
Or a game of golf.
He also told me he'd see me again
In one month and again
In five years.
I can,
Hardly wait.

Capitano Tedeschi

30

Medical Procedures copyright Sept. 30, 2009 by Jamie Jacks

Can't abide a sloppy man

Neat, that's how he's always looked
His momma always made sure
His hair was combed, his shirt was pressed
"Can't abide a sloppy man," she'd always say.

Marines made him neat as well, tougher too.
Korea was hell but when he was on
R&R in Japan, his boots and belt buckle
always gleamed.

Working in the Midway Sunset oilfield
Was hot, dirty and hard.
But he never was sloppy.
In the oilfields, like Korea, sloppy got you killed

He looks dapper today
Straw cowboy hat
Bolo tie with the blue turquoise slide
starched plaid shirt and pressed khaki pants.

Riding his power scooter
round the block by the assisted living facility
no need to change the habits of lifetime.
Never was sloppy. Sloppy gets you killed

Capitano Tedeschi

30

Can't abide a sloppy man copyright Sept. 22, 2009 by Jamie Jacks

El Corazon Del Valle San Joaquin

El Corazon Del Valle San Joaquin

For Teresa Anderson (died Jan. 9, 2006).


Fox

The San Joaquin Kit Fox
is like a magician
Kit foxes can make themselves disappear
Once I saw a kit fox with a kitten
in its mouth trotting away
from a house on the edge of Bakersfield
one minute it was there
next it just disappeared
invisible amongst the sage and dessicated grass

Owl

The burrowing owl
pretends to be wise
he stands outside his borrow
close to the Kern River Bike Path
by the shores of Lake Truxtun
fishermen, joggers, walkers, and cyclists
all pass by
None of them bother or frighten him
At night he soars above the parking lots
at the edge of the Market Place shopping center
he listens for the squeal of the mouse
and then he swoops
no more squealing just the flapping
of his wings.
during the day he ignores
the people on the bike path
It is not night
they are not mice
Did I not say the burrowing owl
pretends to be wise?

Grizzly Bear

The California Grizzly Bear is history.
The last one in Kern County
was killed in 1898.
But the grizzly bears once were everywhere
Places names bear this out
Bear Mountain, Big Bear, Los Osos
They ruled California before man first came
They ruled California when man came
because Indians' flint arrows and small bows
could not kill all of them.
But when the Spaniards and the Americans came
with their big bore muskets
The California Grizzly was doomed.
They survive in Canada and Alaska
There have been rumors
that grizzlies have been sighted
in the Sierras of northern California.
But who, who I ask you,
believes rumors?

Ernesto

Ernesto, (Call me Ernie) is a retired
PG & E engineer.
His grandparents came from Mexico
in 1910 refugees from the civil war
His father and mother picked grapes
in Delano, except during the strike.
He spends his morning in Starbucks
talking to his friends, he has many.
Today he sits alone talking on his cell phone
to his youngest daughter,
a student at CSU San Francisco.
I eavesdrop on his side of the conversation.
"What do you mean you want to quit college?"
"Where you gonna live?"
"No you ain't living with me.
"I got no room in my house for a college dropout!"
End of conversation.

All

Fox, owl, bear, and man
we live in this land, sometimes we share it.
Mostly we share the bad,
the heat, lack of rain, smoggy air, pesticides,
and poverty.
Making do. Trying to do better
than eat, sleep, mate, and survive
Doing better ain't easy,
but some how it gets done.

Capitano Tedeschi

30

El Corazon Del Valle copyright Sept. 19, 2009 by Jamie Jacks

Rain Maker

Rain Maker

It is getting dark
The sun has set,
All that is left of the day is
A yellow band of light
A ribbon hovering
Just above the peaks of the mountains
Of the Temblors and the Coast Range
Like a wind blown piece of silk

I sit on a bus bench, that is on an edge
Of the city of Bakersfield
Drinking ice water from a sports bottle
My dog lies behind me
Licking her paws.
In the distance I see lights starting
To blink a reddish yellow
The lights are people in houses
In Fellows, Mariposa and Taft.
Lights of pumping units and
Transformer stations
Strung like party lights
Along the foothills of this mountainous bowl
That rings the Southern San Joaquin Valley.

Seven years I have lived
One half mile from this bus bench
And this is the first time
I have come with my dog
To contemplate the sunset
So I sit as twilight becomes
Evening and a cool summer night begins.

Finally it is time for me and my dog
To head home.
I pour my remaining water out as a libation
Thank God for the blessing and the gift of rain
I pray for rain for this drought stricken valley
Cars rush by.
kids racing past the high School
Adults in SUV's on some important errand
I don't expect my prayer to be answered
Miracles happen all round me
Provided I have eyes to see
I don't need my prayer to be answered.
But I guess, one has to pray for something.

Capitano Tedeschi

30

Rain Maker copyright Sept. 15, 2009, by Jamie Jacks

Small Price That, First Day of Classes

Small Price That

He came into the University library
A youngish man in his mid-twenties
With an artificial lower left leg
I wondered where he had fought
Afghanistan, probably Iraq.

George W. Bush, and his dreams of Empire
We'd be welcomed as liberators Cheney said
We were, but then welcomed with land mines
And roadside bombs.
The Decider decided to get the man
Who tried to kill his daddy
Got him too

Safe now in his Dallas suburb
The Decider still no regrets.
It's too bad that
This someone, is one thousands of someones
who lost his lower left leg to get Saddam.
Small price that.

First day of classes

They come
for a different kind of knowing
To sign on, watch a video, or email
An invisible professor.
They want their class schedules and
Online course passwords
They come .
With different needs
Seldom are there questions
That I can answer

Above my empty, aching head,
Knowledge lies filed
And is waiting
Theories of poetry when written poetry
When poetry was formed
Proper prayers to cure the plague
from the 14th Century
The letters of a Union soldier
From an Iowa Regiment
Computer languages
and the proper way for a nurse
to conduct an MRI

Meanwhile the call centers in Bangalore
Have thousands solving all our computer problems
In China thousands of engineers work
60 hours a week for $600 a month
designing future electric cars
as for the new students
they wander in
I sigh,
Against such relentless competion
There is so little
I can give them

Capitano Tedeschi

30

Small Price That, First Day of Classes copyright Sept. 14, 2009 by Jamie Jacks

Defying the Sun, Osama Bin Laden & Like a Beggar

Defying the sun

Today I did defy the sun.
It was 98 degrees and air was
So polluted that it can
make lungs feel like you’re
just huffed exhaust fumes
from the tail pipe of a Hummer

I soaked my jersey and cycling cap
in water before the ride
I rode slowly on shady back streets
That had little traffic.

The sun was setting and I pedaled from
shady spot to shady spot
until my cycling was done

I came home to all those
wonderful rewards,
a cool drink of water
a shower that rinses away
both care and sweat
and then I laid naked on clean sheets
While the cool air of the fan
evaporated the remaining moisture from my body.
I closed my eyes and rested

I have traveled the world
And drunk deep
searching for release
from lonliness, pain and regret.
All my efforts to find oblivion only
manufactured more pain and misery.
During all those sad times,
I never--not never

imagined such sweet pleasures
as a cool drink, a quick shower.
a nap beside a whispering fan.

Much is wrong with me
but cycling
even in the heat of a smoggy summer day
cures some of that

Osama Bin Laden

He spends his days
A hunted man
In a safe house in Pakistan
Drinking tea, surfing the internet
Raising his children
Fondling his wives

Some day he’ll die
Though I doubt that
No American missile
Will kill him

But on that day
In the slums of Cairo
And the streets of Karachi,
He will be celebrated
As the first great Military genius
Of the 21^st Century.

With just 4 jet liners
And 20 men,
He set in motion the
Chain of events
Which has brought America,
the greatest
Nation of the 20^st Century
To the brink of destruction

Of course he was lucky
George W. Bush, Dick Cheney and
Donald Rumsfeld were his enemies

Like a Beggar

Why do I bother with you?
Like a beggar pretending to be deaf
Or a deaf man pretending to be a beggar
I just stand here waving my hands
As if the waving had meaning.

But in the end all there is
Is my need.
And who really needs that?

You reply with a shake of your head
I'd have to be blind not to know
What that means.

Capitano Tedeschi

30

Defying the Sun, Osama Bin Laden & Like a Beggar copyright Sept. 12, 2009 by Jamie Jacks

Spare Change & Arise Tim McVeigh

Spare Change We Can Believe In

The bum
outside the bookstore
Asks for spare change
probably to buy crank or Ripple

Would he be here
if he had had access to
affordable mental health care?
I don’t give him
Any spare change
either.

Arise Tim McVeigh!!!

A Kenyan Muslim is president
Liberals, those Socialist, Nazi, Commie, Fags
run my country
in eight months
they have destroyed America
with their false promises
of affordable health care
And their unspoken threats to
seize our guns.

The body of Oklahoma City bomber
Timothy McVeigh moulders
in some unmarked grave.
His soul yearns to rent a Ryder truck
and park it outside
an inner city daycare center
His proud soul yearns
to march on
America awake!!!!!!!!.

Capitano Tedeschi

30

Spare Change & Arise Tim McVeigh copyright Sept. 1, 2009 by Jamie Jacks

Eco-Lover's Lament

In Los Angeles,
Angry Green Girl
And her girlfriends
Wearing skimpy green
thong bikinis
Are giving a “Green, Free Car Wash”
To anyone driving a hybrid.
Alas, I have no Prius.
In this dry, desolate, and dying world
Is there no end to my longing?

Capitano Tedeschi

30

Eco-Lover's Lament copyright Aug. 25, 2009 by Jamie Jacks

McCarthy Follows Party Line on Health Care

Why is Rep. Kevin McCarthy smiling? Because as a congressman, he has government sponsored health insurance.

On June 18, 2009, I received a letter from my health insurance company. It's not a letter someone with a chronic medical condition wants to receive,

"We reviewed your request to obtain Copaxone Kit under your plan. As we informed your doctor, we are unable to approve your request for the following reason, coverage is proved where therapy can preserve function and provide the patient benefit in performing activities of daily living. The information provided by your prescriber indicates that your use of this medication does not meet this requirement for coverage."

The letter, a portion of which was quoted above, was one part of a drama that started on June 18, 2009, when the company that manages perscriptions for the state of California refused to refill my perscription for Copaxone. An unkown and unnamed insurance company bureaucrat refused to refill a perscription for a medication that I need and gave me no reason except that my doctor did not answer their questions correctly. I was also told I had TWO HOURS!!! to call my doctor, get him to call the insurance company and then answer their question correctly (I asked what questions) but the operator refused to say. If I didn't get that done by the end of the business day, I would have to appeal the insurer's decision.

Needless to say, I was angry and in turmoil. I wrote about my concerns on my Facebook page."Having to argue with my insurance company regarding refill of medication. Told I had little more than 2 hours to get my to doctor to call their pharmicist for "prior authorization." This happens, but it is very vexing. Single payer health care I'm for it!" By the end of the week, my doctor called the insurance company, answered their bullshit questions correctly and got my perscription refilled.

But, I am still angry about because for five days my health was hostage to the whim of a FACELESS, NAMELESS, INSURANCE COMPANY BUREAUCRAT, whose job is to deny claims for no apparent reason. I discovered there is a reason, but first I'd like to talk about health care reform, Congressman Kevin McCarthy's stance on health care reform, and the fact that insurance companies are using "recission" to deny claims to policy holders who make the mistake of getting sick.

The 24/7 news outlets have been giving a great deal of coverage to health care reform and the bizarre reactions of certain segments of the American population. A lot of news coverage has been given to one of the more bizarre segments of the bizzarre population, the people who are protesting by participating in town hall mobs. Many of these people are so afraid that President Obama is the re-incarnation of Adolf Hitler, that they have no problem using Hitlerian tactics to disrupt important civic discussion on health when they are held by Democrats or moderate Republicans (Do they still exist?).

Do moderate Republicans still exist? I guess so, I mean supposedly Kern County Republican Kevin McCarthy is a moderate Republican. In the past, that description used to be given to men like Dwight Eisenhower or Abraham Lincoln. Unfortunately, I am beginning to believe that Rep. McCarthy is starting to flirt with the dark side of the Republican party. I have on occasion seen in on National Television basking in the dolorous glow of House Minority Leader John Boehner's fake tan. He is also beginning to quote the inane policy pronouncements of Minority Whip Eric Cantor on his congressional web site.

I mention Rep. McCarthy because on Thursday Aug. 6, 2009, I made the mistake of spending 15 minutes listening to Rep. McCarthy, R-Bakersfield conduct a "telephone town hall" on health care. It was sad to hear him reguritate the Republican talking points on health care, Government health care bad, Nancy Pelosi bad and so-on. He didn't actually lie, but he misrepresented the truth. If I had wanted that kind of crap, I would have watched Fox News. If you want to know the depth of Congressman McCarthy's views on health care you can visit his web site. It is the usual stuff, of letting the market set prices and give everyone, especially the rich a tax cut, and curbing ambulance chasers who are hounding well-heeled quacks out of the medical profession,

We must ensure that the quality of American health care received by our patients remains the best in the world. Doctors, not Washington bureaucrats, should make decisions about your health. Market-based solutions serve our families' freedom to choose their best health care option at an affordable price. Common-sense tax relief and lawsuit abuse reform can help work towards the goal that all Americans should be able to afford their own health care plan that meets their own unique needs.

It's the typical Republican health care boiler plate. Some of it might even be worthwhile. One interesting thing is the fact is that no one is talking about insurance companies issuing policies and then refusing to pay legitimate claims. Author Peter Gosselin in an interview on PBS' Tavis Smiley on June 24, 2008, had this to say about a woman named Deborah Potter who made the mistake of getting sick.

And then Deborah Potter gets diagnosed with multiple sclerosis, and she couldn't collect on the very policy that she'd been selling to people. The company simply denied her claims and denied them for three and a half years, and it took this insurance insider three and a half years, the hiring of a lawyer, and an "L.A. Times" reporter writing a long story about it to get her benefits turned on.

Tavis: What do you make of that?

Gosselin: Well, the moral I draw from it, I try to step back from these stories of individual people and try to draw the broader moral. Her benefits in the case of that policy are governed by a single federal law. All of our benefits that we get from our employers are governed by a single federal law. It's called ERISA, and ERISA was meant by its authors, its congressional authors, to protect employee benefits. And we know that because it says so right in the preamble of the law.

But over the last generation, the Supreme Court and increasingly conservative federal appeals courts have rendered a series of decisions that have basically flipped the law on its head, making it easier for employers, for insurance companies, and for benefit administrators to deny people like Deborah Potter her benefits.

Deborah Potter was denied benefits due to an insurance company practice called "recissions." According to Gosselin in his book Highwire recissions are a method where, "insurers sold policies, collected premiums, and even sometimes paid small claims. But instead of carefully of carefully scrutinizing an applicant in advance, the insurer would wait until a policyholder filed a big claim, then sometimes cancel the policy and refuse to pay."


The result, according to Gosselin is that "It is hard to overstate how using recission except in the rarest of instances turns the very logic of insurance on its head." It's a great business, sell policies, collect premimums and then when the bills arrive stiff the poor schmuck who bought the policy in the first place. Bernie Madoff should have run an insurance company he'd be a free man today.

How good a business is it? McClatchy commentator Joe Galloway give us a glimpse in an Aug. 7, 2009, editorial on the McClatchy web site,

It's because those same corporations have, in just one decade, driven their profits and overhead (hiring those lobbyists and buying those congressional critters and building their fleets of private jets) from 5 percent to nearly 20 percent. In other words, the corporate bite has gone from 5 cents of every dollar paid in premiums to 20 cents of every premium dollar. It's good old unregulated American greed of the same stripe that drove this country into its current economic meltdown. Wall Street loves these guys.

The key question of the health care debate is simple, do we continue the status quo, or do we try to develop something better? No system will be perfect and there may be cost increases and rationing of care. Employer sponsored health insurance is going the way of the defined benefit pension. According to Peter Gosselin, insurance companies can not be trusted to provided a fair and reliable private option. Insurers will also refuse to allow all-Americans into a health insurance risk groups. Whether we like it or not the government may have to step in,

"Insurers cannot be counted on to assemble those groups on their own; the financial incentives to take the healthy and avoid the sick are simply too great. If employers are no longer to play the role they have traditionally played of assembling these groups, there is only one alternative--government. Unwelcome as many Americans may find the idea of goverment playing a bigger role in health care--and as much as we may object on philosophical and other grounds--we must not fool ourselves into believing there is some simple alternative."

Congressman McCarthy and many Republicans and some Democrats are asking you to trust them and oppose President Obama's efforts to achieve health care reform. If you like the status quo, do nothing. Oh, and do not get sick. Because if you get sick you will probably receive a letter refusing to pay for treatments you thought your insurance company would cover. I received such a letter, have you? If you haven't received such a letter, can trust the Republicans to carry out adequate health care reform?

I don't.

Capitano Tedeschi

30

Photo of Congressman Kevin McCarthy source: http://kevinmccarthy.house.gov/showpage.asp?ID=62

Source for quotations from Peter Gosselin, High wire : the precarious financial lives of American families. Peter Gosselin. NY : Basic Books, c2008.

McCarthy Follows Party Line On Health Care, copyright Aug 11, 2009 by Jamie Jacks.

The Honduran Political Crisis

What is Honduras to me? Or, me to Honduras? Those are two interesting questions. I have a Facebook friend who does mission work in Honduras, and she has been writing passionately about Honduras on Facebook. I admire her passion and her desire for social justice in that Central American country, so I decided to do some research.

In case you didn't know it, Honduras is the middle of a political and social crisis. Political and social crises in Honduras are fairly common. It is one of the poorest countries in the world. The United States is its major trading partner. Honduras exports bananas, clothing, illegal immigrants and drugs.

According to the CIA World Factbook,

Honduras, the second poorest country in Central America, has an extraordinarily unequal distribution of income and high unemployment. The economy relies heavily on a narrow range of exports, notably bananas and coffee, making it vulnerable to natural disasters and shifts in commodity prices; however, investments in the maquila and non-traditional export sectors are slowly diversifying the economy. Economic growth remains dependent on the US economy its largest trading partner, and will decline in 2009 as a result of reduction in export demand and tightening global credit markets.

Most Americans can't spell Honduras and most couldn't place it on a map. Since I had five years of Spanish in high school, my ignorance is less. Capital: Tegucigalpa. I know it fought a senseless little war with El Salvador (The Soccer War) in the late 1960s. It was one of our staging points for Reagan's dirty war against the Ortega Regime in Nicarauga and it was the place where KMart's Kathie Lee Gifford line of clothing was manufactured in sweatshops using child labor. (Bit of an embarassment that) I imagine the sweatshops are still there and indigenous people are still being exploited.

So now that I've told you a little bit about Honduras, I will describe, the current political crisis, the international and national reactions to the crisis and the interesting way that certain conservative political constituencies have attempted to use the crisis to embarass the United States and the Obama administration.

The current political crisis Honduras has been a democracy, but at best a fragile one. Its current president, Manuel (Mel) Zelaya, was elected as a conservative in 2005. During the last couple of years he has allied himself with leftist and populist elements in the country. Internationally, he has also embraced the Latin American brand of socialism expoused by Hugo Chavez of Venezuela. Like Chavez, Zelaya wanted to run Honduras beyond the end of his 2009 term. So he tried to hold a plebescite to allow him to continue past Nov. 2009.

Zelayas attempt to stay in power, caused a political firestorm. The Honduran Supreme Court declared his actions illegal. The Army rousted him out of bed and flew him to Nicaragua. He was replaced by Congressional Leader Roberto Micheletti. International reaction to Zelaya's ouster was swift and fairly consistent. The Obama Administration joined the European Union and the rest of the world in labeling Zelayas ouster as a coup and insisting that President Zelaya be allowed to return to Honduras and finish his Presidencial term. The Obama administration also encouraged both sides to negotiate a compromise under the auspices of Costa Rican President Oscar Arias.

I became aware of the crisis when my Facebook friend posted this op-ed by current Honduran President Roberto Micheletti in op-ed in the WSJ

One of America’s most loyal Latin American allies—Honduras—has been in the midst of a constitutional crisis that threatens its democracy. Sadly, key undisputed facts regarding the crisis have often been ignored by America’s leaders, at least during the earliest days of the crisis.

The op-ed made me curious, because while the Wall Street Journal is a great place for news regarding investment, its editorial page has become the mouth piece for American right wingers.
Once I started looking, I found considerable Right-wing support for coup Magazines, the National Review and the Weekly Standard support the Micheletti government and criticized the Obama administration for failing support the ouster of Zelaya.

Soon some Republican members of Congress were beginning to express dismay at the Washington’s lack of support for Micheletti. On July 24, Congressman Connie Mack of R-Florida posted an editorial in Human Events, castigating Secretary of State Hilary Clinton for supporting negotiations conducted by Pres. Arias.

Day after day, the message from the State Department has been that we should let the negotiators negotiate and ultimately accept the outcome from the Arias talks. But in what seems to be Secretary Clinton’s first conversation with Honduran President Roberto Micheletti since the removal of Mr. Manuel Zelaya, Secretary Clinton joined the likes of Venezuela’s Hugo Chavez and other leaders in the region and warned President Micheletti of serious consequences if he did not back down and allow Mr. Zelaya to return to power.

According to Congressman Mack, supporting negotiations was tantamount to letting the terrorists win,

“Our nation’s legitimacy as the leader of the free world comes into question when we accept the Administration’s argument that by joining the thugocrats, we neutralize their anti-American rhetoric and leave them deflated and without an enemy to fight.”

Mack then went down to Honduras to investigate the political crisis first hand. After returning from Honduras, Mack denounced the administration’s cancelling the visas of four Honduran diplomats.

“Having returned from a trip to Honduras this past weekend where I met with President Micheletti, Members of the National Congress, the Supreme Court President, Honduran and American businessmen, and human rights organizations, it is clear that the Honduran people want a peaceful, lawful resolution to the upheaval. They don’t want the United States to cut off aid to their country. They don’t want our country to pull diplomatic visas. And they don’t want us to stand with the “thugocrats” of the Western Hemisphere like Hugo Chavez.

“The Honduran people, in their fight for freedom from the tyranny of Manuel Zelaya, have earned our support and deserve to have the United States stand with them as they seek freedom and democracy for their country.”

Mack is not the only congressional Republican to criticize or express concern regarding the Administration’s handling of the Honduras’ current political crisis. Sen. Richard Lugar (R-Indiana) and Jim DeMint (R-South Carolina) have also shared their concerns with the State Department.

The Republican view point is wrong headed according to a July 23, 2009, article in the Economist

This argument is short-sighted and wrong. Mr Zelaya’s many faults did not justify his early-morning arrest and summary deportation. Coups are bad whatever the political colour of their victims. That is a lesson Latin America learned the hard way. Any election held under Mr Micheletti will be seen by many as illegitimate. But it is similarly wrongheaded to seek to reverse the coup through violence, as Mr Zelaya, egged on by Mr Chávez, seems to wish. The evidence suggests that only about one Honduran in three supports Mr Zelaya.

While the right-wing media and certain Republican members of Congress, condemn the Obama Administration for not supporting acting President Micheletti and blessing the coup, other voices are examining the implications of the long-term damage that endorsing the coup could cause.
Kevin Casas-Zamora, a Fellow at the Brooking Institution took a dimmer view of the view of the coup. The intervention by the military was illegal and wrong.

Now the Honduran military have responded in kind: an illegal referendum has met an illegal military intervention, with the avowed intention of protecting the constitution. Moreover, as has been so often the case, this intervention has been called for and celebrated by Zelaya’s civilian opponents. For the past week, the Honduran Congress has waxed lyrical about the armed forces as the guarantors of the constitution, a disturbing notion in Latin America. When we hear that, we can expect the worst. And the worst has happened. At the very least, we are witnessing in Honduras the return of the sad role of the military as the ultimate referee in the political conflicts amongst the civilian leadership, a huge step back in the consolidation of democracy.

The U.S. has been spending a great deal of time and our tax dollars to provide a varity of of aid to Honduras. Some of that aid has been dedicated to improving the quality of the Honduran government. The U.S. has been working with Honduran officials trying to improve the quality of their government. Aid has been directed to improving the quality of government officials. Better government will allow the Honduran government to improve the quality of life of its people, reduce poverty and foster real economic growth. According the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) it has been ,

working to strengthen the transparency, accountability, and responsiveness of local governments; increase civil society participation in the oversight of public funds and local decision-making; support free and fair elections; and promote civic education among Honduran youth. USAID promotes democracy and governance in Honduras primarily through decentralization (the transfer of responsibility and resources from the central government to the local governments) to increase participation in local decision making.

To its credit, Honduras has been run by civilians and not the military for nearly 20 years. The use of soldiers to end the coup can be seen as a bad omen. No one wants the military to seize power. Some supporters of the coup said the soldiers were acting lawfully when the escorted President Zelaya to Nicaragua. But still having the military topple the current president is not in the best long-term interest of Honduran democracy.

Recognizing the Micheletti government would also play into the hands of Hugo Chavez of Venezuela and Daniel Ortega of Nicaragua. Zelaya was attempting to use the populist left-wing ideas exposed by Chavez to maintain his hold on power. The Obama Administration appears to have been acting wisely when it refused to recognize the coup and encouraging negoitiations mediated by Oscar Arias.

According to the July 28 article in the Miami Herald, a balanced, patient approach to the crisis has forced Mr. Zelaya depend on Washington and has limited Hugo Chavez to bellicose posturing,

Chavez has limited his action to calling for Hondurans to rise up to reinstate Zelaya, even as pro-Zelaya protests have been small. Instead, the Venezuelan president has been a talkative bystander, calling coup leaders "gorillas" and referring to Micheletti as "Goriletti."
This is not the role Chavez imagined for himself. In a decade in office, he has used his nation's oil wealth and his vision of a united continent free of "U.S. imperialism" to cultivate a leadership role beyond Venezuela's borders.

At the moment, Chavez cannot accuse the United States of preaching the benefits of democracy in one hand while supporting the overthrow of the democratically-elected Zelaya. This would give Hugo Chavez an opportunity and justification to meddle further in Honduran politics.

Conclusion,

As of today, not much has changed. Zelaya appears to be slowly running out of time and political options. The Micheletti government benefits by delaying his return and since the United States is still encouraging both sides to negotiate a solution, while holding the threat of harsher economic and political sanctions. The Obama's administration's demand that both parties negotiate a settlement will probably lead to a non-voilent transition of power, and a new election.

But what of the Honduran people? It appears that the current political crisis is just another in a long line of politcal crises. Most Hondurans don't have much faith in their government or their politicians. Until the country's chronic poverty and economic problems are solved it will not matter too much who runs the country. Politicians like Micheletti and Zelaya are just mirror images of one another. Roger Marin Neda, in a July 6, 2009, editorial "Who Cares About Zelaya?" described the political apathy of many Hondurans,

After almost 30 years of formal democracy, Julia, like most Hondurans, has lost all trust in politicians. While we have had basic liberties and precarious growth, our leaders have thoroughly failed to ease this country’s poverty and longstanding social divide. For these reasons, many Hondurans are apathetic about politicians — and politics in general.

According to Marin Neda, nothing will change until the politicians change,

Mr. Zelaya may or may not return to serve the remaining months of his term. But for the future of Honduras, does it really even matter? Until a new generation of young, uncontaminated, democratic politicians take control — and the deep inequalities in our economic system are addressed — we will not be able to trust our leaders.

Capitano Tedeschi

30

MSNBC as Democratic Party Shill

I hate to admit it, but as a liberal, I like to watch the Keith Olbermann and Rachel Maddow on MSNBC. I watch Olberman and Maddow because their programs are entertaining and their news reporting can be insightful. I became a fan of both these programs during the run-up to the 2008 election. I didn't like the Bush Administration and Olbermann and Maddow's programs ran stories that reflected my prejudice.

Recently my fanaticism for Countdown has begun to wane. I've noticed that Olbermann isn't too much different from his chief competitors Bill O'Reilly, Sean Hannity, and Glen Beck. I thought this opinion reflected a new trend in the way Countdown presents the news. I discovered I was wrong. I became aware of my error after I read Olbermann's biography on Wikipedia, I discovered that Countdown was not a "traditional newscast," even though it started out that way. "Although it began as a traditional newscast, Countdown with Keith Olbermann has adopted an opinion-oriented format. Much of the program has featured harsh criticism of prominent Republicans and right-leaning figures, including those working for or supporting the Bush Administration."

Last night, I had to come to terms with the sad fact that watching Countdown or the Rachel Maddow Show was like watching the liberal version of Fox News. My epiphany came as I watched Gov. Howard Dean, former head of the Democratic Party was guest host for Keith Olberman last night. The transcript of the program is here.

I didn't bother to watch the whole program. Gov. Dean needs a lot of work as a newscaster.I was also vexed by the idea that a former official in the Democratic was hosting a network news program and was thus given an hour to spout the talking points of the Democratic Party. Okay, I'm a registered Democrat and I would probably agree with most of those talking points, but still I have some illusions that a new work news program would have some balance.

I don't have to watch MSNBC, I could watch the News Hour with Jim Lehrer on PBS, which still offers informative and balanced news reporting. There is one problem with watching the News Hour, it tries to have balanced reporting, which can be kinda of boring and I'd also have spend a half an hour listening to people who have views I don't agree with. Why should I have to do that?

There is an answer to that question and it is a good one. The problems of this country are so great right now that no one political party can really solve them. The problems we face are not red-state or blue state problems, their American problems and their solution requires compromise and also shared sacrifice. Compromise and agreement to sacrifice won't come if all we do is spend our time blaming each other for the country's problems. I know the country is very polarized right now, but if we can get past name-calling and actually start talking, people might be able come to some agreement on national problems and then start taking action.

Wow, I can't believe I actually think something like that. As for Gov. Dean, he'll be hosting Countdown again tonight (July 29).

Capitano Tedeschi

30

Walter Cronkite and Network

Walter Cronkite, The movie Network

Walter Cronkite died July 17th, 2009. He was 92. He was an American icon, a great newsman and television pioneer. What struck me was the reaction to his death. On the night his death was announced, Rachel Maddow spent most of her program paying tribute to the CBS anchorman. My impression as I was that the coverage mirrored the reaction to Michael Jackson's death except that it had more gravitas. Brian Williams and Tom Brokaw, were interviewed by phone, both men gave moving tributes. The intensity was the same, but the tenor was different. Instead of pictures of Michael with Bubbles the Chimp, there was a clip of Cronkite in an Air Force transport reporting on prospective astronauts experiencing the effects of weightlessness, along with other clips of Cronkite's reporting such as political convention, space launches, and narrating the nightly news.

While I watched Maddow's reporting, I was reminded of the 1976 movie Network. Cronkite's daughter Kathy, was in the movie. Network was directed by Sidney Lumet, worked with Cronkite. When Network was released in 2006, Walter Cronkite was interviewed about the film as one of the dvd's extra segments. That was how I got started comparing Maddow's show to Network, and its faux news program which is refered to by Wikipedia as

The Network News Hour (referred to as The Howard Beale Show): The retooled news show featuring segments with "Sybil the Soothsayer", "Jim Webbing and his It's-the-Honest-Truth-department", "Miss Mata Hari and her skeletons in the closet" as well as "Vox Populi." The show also opens with editorial by Howard who goes on ranting and raving until he passes out.
As I watched Rachel Maddow, (whose program, I enjoy by the way,) I was wondering if it was that dissimilar from the Howard Beale Hour. The answer is probably very similar the Howard Beale Hour. Times change and the world has changed since Network was in theaters in 1976. Network news has changed dramatically since Cronkite retired in 1981.

I watch MSNBC because it is entertaining and it also has news. But there is a problem with mixing news and entertainment. As Howard Beale points out,

You're beginning to believe the illusions we're spinning here, you're beginning to believe that the tube is reality and your own lives are unreal. You do. Why, whatever the tube tells you: you dress like the tube, you eat like the tube, you raise your children like the tube, you even think like the tube. This is mass madness, you maniacs. source: The Internet Movie Database

Dan Heaton in a 2006 review of the Dvd, on digitallyobsessed, mentions that Cronkite was interviewed about the film.

Legendary television newsman Walter Cronkite worked with Lumet on the You Are There series in the '50s. He shares his opinions about the film in this final segment, and while he admires the movie considerably, he regards it as a comedy. Cronkite does recognize the dangers of media consolidation and offers interesting comments on the subject.

Sidney Lumet was interviewed by the Associated Press on Feb. 22, 2006, the article's author mentioned Lumet, Cronkite and Network

Lumet’s career began in television, notably directing CBS’ “You Are There,” anchored by Walter Cronkite. (The show, offered re-enactments of historical events, thus blending show-biz with news.) On the “Network” DVD, Cronkite, a good friend of Lumet’s, remembers first watching the film with his CBS cohorts.

“We howled with laughter, rolled over on the floor with the depiction of [TV news],” he says.
But Cronkite says he considered “Network” an exaggeration and recalls being concerned people would think it represented the truth about TV news.

In another interview, published in the May 2003 issue of DGA Monthly Lumet says,

"Once [Network] it opened, everybody kept saying, 'Oh, what a brilliant satire.' But Paddy [Chayefsky, screenwriter] and I always said, 'This isn't satire, it's sheer reportage.' We were both brought up in television, so we knew what we were dealing with. But I've got to tell you — I don't think I've seen it in 20 years (I don't usually like to look at my work) — I'm stunned at how prescient it is. A lot of what was hilarious 25 years ago got no laughter tonight because it has all come true. So it hits you with a kind of impact that was not originally intended."

Glen Abel, in his review of the Network Dvd, for the blog DVD Spin Doctor also commented on Network's prescience.

Writer Chayefsky, equally mad as hell, used his black comedy about a raggedy fourth TV network to denounce the hypocrisies of 1976 and warn of media evils to come.
Like his creation Sybil the Soothsayer, "Paddy was capable of seeing the future," director Sidney Lumet says. Chayefsky warned of entertainment masquerading as news, corporate meddling, violent reality shows, the tyranny of ratings, foreign ownership of U.S. media -- essentially the strip-mining of what already was a vast wasteland.

The vision that the movie displayed so eloquently is alive today," producer Howard Gottfried maintains. Adds Lumet, "TV today has become its own satire."

There is one current television personality who apparently does not see the satire or the sadness of Network. That personality is Fox News Glen Beck, who according to an article in the March 29, 2009 New York Times, identifies with Network's deranged protagonist, Howard Beale. According to the article,

In an interview, Mr. Beck, who recently rewatched the 1976 film “Network,” said he identified with the character of Howard Beale, the unhinged TV news anchorman who declares on the air that he is “mad as hell.”

“I think that’s the way people feel,” Mr. Beck said. “That’s the way I feel.” In part because of Mr. Beck, Fox News — long identified as the favored channel for conservatives and Republican leaders — is enjoying a resurgence just two months into Mr. Obama’s term. While always top-rated among cable news channels, Fox’s ratings slipped during the long Democratic primary season last year. Now it is back on firm footing as the presumptive network of the opposition, with more than 1.2 million viewers watching at any given time, about twice as many as CNN or MSNBC.

Sadly Beck, misses an important point, the in the movie Network, newsman Howard Beale is mentally deranged. Hal Broedecker in his The TV Guy and More Blog for Orlando Sentinel wrote on March 31, 2009 that, Beck's comment about Beale might make some people go back and review the movie in a different, light.

Maybe that comment will send more people back to the movie to see Peter Finch's brilliant, Oscar-winning performance as Beale. Beale becomes a public favorite with his "mad as hell" rant, but here are some points to remember:
1. He goes off his rocker.
2. He becomes a pawn in the story.
3. He is used and discarded with harrowing results. Bad ratings can kill you.
Beale is in no way a hero. He is a fad. His madness destroys his career. And he is a dead end.
Being "mad as hell" will take you only so far, writer Paddy Chayefsky explained. Does Beck understand that?

Probably not. Cronkite saw Network and was afraid people would take it as a depiction of current network news. I didn't see it that way. I loved the movie for its powerful, theatrical language, its satire and its cynicism. In 1976, I never really had any inkling that The Howard Beale Hour would become a template for many network and cable television shows. But when I see the movie now, I marvel that life has imitated satire.

I mourn the passing Walter Cronkite. As I watched news coverage of his death, I wondered about his relationship and reaction to Sidney Lumet's masterpiece Network. There is a connection. Cronkite knew Lumet, his daughter had a role in the movie. His original impressions as he and perhaps some of his CBS colleagues watched the movie was that it was outrageous satire, a comedy. But what I'd like to imagine Cronkite actually got was a glimpse of the a future. He was connected to an artwork that not only played in movie theaters and won Oscars, but was also a prediction or prophecy that seemed so fantastic that it could never come true. But then over the next 33 years satire became the model for many television news programs. Glen Beck, Keith Olberman, Jon Stewart and Steven Colbert, could all perhaps trace their roots to the ruminations of Howard Beale.

What would Howard Beale have to say about the passing Cronkite? In his eulogy of UBS Chairman Edward Ruddy, there is a clue perhaps.

Howard Beale: [arms outstretched to the heavens] Edward George Ruddy died today! Edward George Ruddy was the Chairman of the Board of the Union Broadcasting Systems, and he died at eleven o'clock this morning of a heart condition, and woe is us! We're in a lot of trouble! So. A rich little man with white hair died. What has that got to do with the price of rice, right? And *why* is that woe to us? Because you people, and sixty-two million other Americans, are listening to me right now. Because less than three percent of you people read books! Because less than fifteen percent of you read newspapers! Because the only truth you know is what you get over this tube. Right now, there is a whole, an entire generation that never knew anything that didn't come out of this tube! This tube is the Gospel, the ultimate revelation. This tube can make or break presidents, popes, prime ministers... This tube is the most awesome God-damned force in the whole godless world, and woe is us if it ever falls in to the hands of the wrong people, and that's why woe is us that Edward George Ruddy died. Because this company is now in the hands of CCA -- the Communication Corporation of America. There's a new Chairman of the Board, a man called Frank Hackett, sitting in Mr. Ruddy's office on the twentieth floor. And when the twelfth largest company in the world controls the most awesome God-damned propoganda force in the whole godless world, who knows what shit will be peddled for truth on this network? Network (1976) source: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0074958/quotes

With Cronkite, we didn't get hysterics or entertainment, we got something better. Daniel Schorr, in an op-ed piece in the Los Angeles Times, wrote the following,

The tremendous amount of ink and airtime expended on the Cronkite legend since he died Friday might seem odd given that he was a figure of a generation ago in a career that now generates deep skepticism. But during much of the period he anchored the CBS Evening News, Cronkite represented something deep in the psyche of America, embodied in the word trust.

With Cronkite you got news that was considered verifiable truth. With the our current 21st Century Howard Beales, you get news and you can be sure that it will be entertaining. Who knows, in some cases it might actually be true.

Capitano Tedeschi

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Carter's Crisis of Confidence Speech 30 years later

Now the LORD had prepared a great fish to swallow up Jonah. And Jonah was in the belly of the fish three days and three nights. Jonah 1:17

I sometimes think about the biblical story of Jonah. I believe that a couple of decades ago, I was called to change the course of my life. Whether it was the march of events or an act of God is depends upon your point of view. I believe I was called by God to change, and this was an instance where I heard the call and answered it.

So when I see someone who his called, I think of the old testament prophet Jonah. God commanded Jonah to rail against sin in the ancient city of Nineveh. Fearing for his life, Jonah fled and tried to escape by going overseas. God sent a storm, the sailors threw Jonah overboard and Jonah was swallowed by a great fish. After three days in the belly of the fish, Jonah was vomitted up on shore and finally obeyed God's original command to preach to the sinful of Nineveh.

Over the years, I have been called to make other changes in my life, sometimes I have and sometimes I haven't. When I have refused to answer the call, the consequences have been hard to bear. What is really vexing, ignoring the call to change my life usually means that the situation reappears and is worse because the problems I have needed to change have become progressively worse. For example, refuse to pay your credit debt one month, the next month another bill arrives with added penalties and interests. Ignore a pain in your leg and the next thing you know you spending a week in the hospital. Ignoring warning signs is not just an individual failing, it is a failing of nations and cultures as well.

American is a country that has been ignoring the warning signs of imminent national catastrophe. July 15, is a good day to reflect on it. Why July 15th? Because July 15, 2009 was the 30th anniversary of President Jimmy Carter's famous "Malaise Speech." There was an excellent editorial about the making of the speech by Gordon Stewart's New York Times. Stewart was one of Carter's speech writers and was involved the process of creating Carter's Speech. Carter's Speech Therapy, gives an inside look at history of how the speech was created. Today it known as the Malaise Speech, and it was derided by many American Conservatives, including Ronald Reagan.

I was first led to reconsider Carter's speech when I was listening to Andrew Bacevich on Bill Moyer's journal. Bacevich was interviewed by Moyers on Sept. 26, 2008, just five weeks before the 2008 election. Bacevich considered Carter's speech astute and prophetic,

Well, this is the so-called Malaise Speech, even though he never used the word "malaise" in the text to the address. It's a very powerful speech, I think, because President Carter says in that speech, oil, our dependence on oil, poses a looming threat to the country. If we act now, we may be able to fix this problem. If we don't act now, we're headed down a path in which not only will we become increasingly dependent upon foreign oil, but we will have opted for a false model of freedom. A freedom of materialism, a freedom of self-indulgence, a freedom of collective recklessness. And what the President was saying at the time was, we need to think about what we mean by freedom. We need to choose a definition of freedom which is anchored in truth, and the way to manifest that choice, is by addressing our energy problem.

He had a profound understanding of the dilemma facing the country in the post Vietnam period. And of course, he was completely hooted, derided, disregarded.

The actual title of the Malaise Speech was Crisis of Confidence. In that speech President Carter addressed the American people and urged the neation to wean itself from its dependence on foreign oil. In his speech Carter said,



Looking for a way out of this crisis, our people have turned to the Federal Government and found it isolated from the mainstream of our Nation's life. Washington, D.C., has become an island. The gap between our citizens and our Government has never been so wide. The people are looking for honest answers, not easy answers; clear leadership, not false claims and evasiveness and politics as usual.


What you see too often in Washington and elsewhere around the country is a system of government that seems incapable of action. You see a Congress twisted and pulled in every direction by hundreds of well-financed and powerful special interests. You see every extreme position defended to the last vote, almost to the last breath by one unyielding group or another. You often see a balanced and a fair approach that demands sacrifice, a little sacrifice from everyone, abandoned like an orphan without support and without friends. Often you see paralysis and stagnation and drift. You don't like it, and neither do I. What can we do?



First of all, we must face the truth, and then we can change our course. We simply must have faith in each other, faith in our ability to govern ourselves, and faith in the future of this Nation. Restoring that faith and that confidence to America is now the most important task we face. It is a true challenge of this generation of Americans.


What was amazing was that Carter's call for sacrifice and change well-received by the American people, but then political blunders by Carter and criticism of the speech by his political opponents, quickly drained support for this change. Carter's speech was soon being derided as the "Malaise Speech."

Carter speech writer Gordon Stewart was surprised by the American people's change in attitude.

To this day, I don’t entirely know why the speech came to be derided for a word that was in the air, but never once appeared in the text. Still, the “malaise” label stuck: maybe because President Carter’s cabinet shake-up a few days later wasted the political energy that had been focused on our energy problems; maybe because the administration’s opponents attached it to the speech relentlessly; maybe because it was just too hard to compete with Ronald Reagan and his banner of limitless American consumption.



The real reason is probably that there was never any way the Jimmy Carter we all know would avoid saying: “There is simply no way to avoid sacrifice.” Where the speeches of Reagan and Barack Obama evoke the beauty of dreams, President Carter insisted on the realities of responsibility and the need for radical change. Mr. Carter’s sense of our own accountability, his warnings about the debilitating effects of self-centered divisiveness were the speech’s true heresies. They are also the very elements that keep it relevant today.


One of the people who derided Carter's speech was Ronald Reagan, whose optimism appealed to a vast majority of American voters in 1980. Reagan's defeat of Carter, would have consequences that affect us to this day. According to Kevin Mattison's article A Politics of National Sacrifice, which appeared in the April 8, 2009 American Prospect, even liberarians and conservatives should begin to pay heed to Carter's 1979 speech.


Looking back now, the malaise speech indicates a turning point in our history, one that helps define Barack Obama's recent victory. The age of conservatism -- from Reagan's 1980 election up through the end of George W. Bush's second term -- has been framed not by Carter's tones of humility but by celebratory nationalism. In fact, the conservative game plan was laid by Ronald Reagan's direct retort to the malaise speech, made when announcing his candidacy against Carter. Reagan explained, "I find no national malaise." Instead, America stood as a "shining city on a hill," a term he used persistently throughout the campaign.



From that moment, sacrifice and civic obligation faded from presidential rhetoric. You never heard Carter's language from either of the Bushes -- not even in the wake of September 11, when W. instead told Americans to go shopping. Or consider 2008 GOP vice-presidential nominee Sarah Palin, who suggested all was well in "real America" -- it was only Washington that had problems. Such was the end-game of right-wing populism: government bad, people good.


As Mattison points out Obama election in Nov. of 2008 is a reaction to the 30 years of right wing populism. While many would like to cling to the ideas expoused by President Reagan, the idea that the rugged individualism and free markets can solve our current national problems have been proved false. They might been acceptable in 1980, but thirty years later Reagan's ideology appears impotent and sometimes corrupt. A different perspective and a different ideology needed and it was articulated by the junior Senator from Illinois, Barack Obama.


On January 19, 2009 Barack Obama was sworn in as the 44th President of the United States. While his political campaign was full of beautiful rhetoric about America's need for change and the power of the American people to affect that change. His inaugural address was sterner, a description of the crisis facing us all and also a call to action. It is very similar to Carter's Crisis of Confidence speech.


That we are in the midst of crisis is now well understood. Our nation is at war against a far-reaching network of violence and hatred. Our economy is badly weakened, a consequence of greed and irresponsibility on the part of some, but also our collective failure to make hard choices and prepare the nation for a new age. Homes have been lost, jobs shed, businesses shuttered. Our health care is too costly, our schools fail too many -- and each day brings further evidence that the ways we use energy strengthen our adversaries and threaten our planet.

These are the indicators of crisis, subject to data and statistics. Less measurable, but no less profound, is a sapping of confidence across our land; a nagging fear that America's decline is inevitable, that the next generation must lower its sights.

Today I say to you that the challenges we face are real. They are serious and they are many. They will not be met easily or in a short span of time. But know this America: They will be met.

Three decades have passed since Carter's Crisis of Confidence speech. We have come full circle and are back to roughly where we were in 1979. Granted we aren't spending hours waiting in lines at service stations for gasoline, but we are staying up late worrying about whether we can pay our mortgage, our doctor's bills, credit card bills and still have money left to buy food.

The tough question is back before us again. Are we going to answer the call, first issued by Jimmy Carter in July of 1979 and later by Barrack Obama in January of 2009? Will we answer the call and sacrifice and work for radical economic, social and political change. Will we work to build a better future? or will we be like Jonah and try to flee from the challenge that the march of events (or God) have placed before us.

I am hoping that the health care crisis, global warming, the financial crisis, the wars in Iraq, Pakistan and Afghanistan that have hammered this nation in the past few years, will inspire Americans to work together to change the country's direction. If we work together perhaps we can solve many of the terrible problems that face our nation. But if we stay divided and do nothing these crises may overwhelm the Republic.

If we try, we may find that our solving our problems can unite us and allow us to achieve great things. I for one am willing. Let's get together, figure out what needs to be done, roll up our sleeves and get to work. We don't have any more time to waste--Do We?

Capitano Tedeschi

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