Decide Dammit!

OK quick!  What's the most frustrating thing in the world?  Now for those fence-sitters out there running through the extensive list in your tiny little minds, let me help you out just a bit.  It's You!  And don't try and kid yourself that we haven't noticed who you are while we're standing behind you in the line at McDonalds (not that you'll find me hanging out at 'The Golden Arches' these days), waiting for you to decipher the intricacies of a menu that hasn't seen significant alteration in this millennium.

Don't get me wrong here, I know that there are sometimes tough choices that need to be made out there.  Yoga pants or pajama jeans, the shortest route or the quickest one on your GPS system, and chunky or smooth peanut butter are but a few of the earth shattering determinations that apparently can only be made after lengthy deliberation by someone with your Solomon-like judgment skills.  Of course there are those looking on from the sidelines who would like to see such resolution proceed at a less glacial pace, but certainly we can wait until you've completed proper contemplation on how much foam they should put on your latte (though the restraint required to keep our hands from your throat is almost crippling).

The problem now however, is that 2012 is a presidential election year; and that brings up even more indecision.  The mainstream media cannot decide how far in the tank it's willing to go for Democrats.  Fox News hasn't decided how far it's willing to go to counter the impact of its competitors on Republicans.  Largely irrelevant daily newspapers can't decide, based on their own past bias and increasing loss of credibility, if endorsing a particular candidate will do them more harm than good. 

Around the world, our traditional allies can't decide if more of what they've gotten for the last 3-1/2 years would be worse than what they might get from four years of the new guy.  Inimical governments and terrorist organizations can't decide if taking advantage of the apparent foreign policy weaknesses of the current White House occupant (especially this close to an election) can be used to their own political advantage, or will simply facilitate the election of someone who might be another game-changer for them, like Reagan was after Carter.

Of course all of this indecision inside the media and outside the nation, is because we are once more being told that this year's electoral process will be decided by ... you guessed it .... 'the Undecideds'.  This apparent group of vacuous voters will, according to pundits and other so-called experts, be swayed in the coming weeks by any public (or private) misstep of the candidates, by who makes a better showing in the three presidential debates (or how badly 'Jokin' Joe Biden performs in his one), and by who can raise the most money and run the most TV ads running up to the election.  (And people complained about how the BCS Championship decided the winner of College Football.)

Ostensibly the fate of the electoral process weighs on a group of people who, after over two years of campaigning, cannot now decide on their national leader.  After a campaign whose length seemingly rivaled that of the 100 Years War, they are still unable to commit to a candidate.  Apparently the fate of the nation will ultimately be decided by those who stand in the check out line at the grocery store, incapable of producing a decisive answer to,  "Paper or plastic?"  

Which of course leads me to my own 2012 dilemmas.  I can't decide if I simply pity those who, with all the information out there cannot apparently complete the deliberative process; or if I just hate their guts.  I'm undecided over whether perhaps if a few more people took more interest in learning about the people they vote for than about the lives and back stories of performers on 'American Idol' or on 'Dancing With The Stars', we wouldn't have Congressional gridlock (another form of indecision) and a $16 trillion national deficit.  I am unable to reach a conclusion over whether perhaps there wasn't a two-party stranglehold on the national election process, there wouldn't be so much indecision in the first place.  I am completely flummoxed over whether, if the education process in this nation spent a little more time teaching critical thinking and little less on fostering self-esteem, we'd have less people incapable of decisions on anything more important than whether they'll super-size their fries.

What I do know however is that there is a real pandemic of 'cranial / rectal inversion' occurring in this country; and it's far past time that people started pulling their aggregated heads out of their collective asses and Decide Dammit!

TFP Column: Not Sherwood Forest, Camelot

This is one of those rare weeks when TFP Editor-in-Chief Michael Miller has apparently lost his mind.  Not content to let me shake up his world with "The EPA is Starving People" earlier in the week, he's now allowed me yet a second disturbing effort in the TFP, "Not Sherwood Forest, Camelot".  

This non-controversial and non-confrontational piece (well, I think so anyway) takes a look at the current presidential offerings of 'Romney Hood' and 'Obamaloney' with what has long been described as the 'Second Camelot' of William Jefferson Clinton. Clinton, you might remember is the last President, Democrat or Republican, to operate with a budget surplus.

But I don't want to burden you here with a surplus of introduction.  I'd rather have you spend the time going to the website of Toledo's largest Sunday circulation, and Ohio's Best Weekly Newspaper for the last three years, the Toledo Free Press.

TFP Column: It's All A Bit Taxing

I guess I'll have to owe you one for a bit, as once more an attempt at a mid-week blog post has become yet another column for the TFP.  Since the media and the election campaigns for President seem to be caught up either calling for release of more of Mitt Romney's tax returns, or the refusal to do so; I decided to put my two cents in with "It's All A Bit Too Taxing".

It's not that I know any more about whether or why they should be released and why they're not; but I think that I'm capable of applying a bit of common sense to the situation while making fun of some the other out there purporting to do so.

Another thing I don't know any more about than anyone else is what's going to be going on in the Glass City for the rest of the week.  So while passing on the opportunity to read my own effort and discover the typos and grammatical errors that I've committed, you can bet that in order to find out what's going on I'll be reading today's 'Star' edition, as well as this weekend's edition of Toledo's largest circulation and Ohio's best weekly newspaper for the third year in a row; the Toledo Free Press.

    

The Evolution of the Flip Flop

I am reliably told that there are a lot of people out there who don't believe in Evolution, which is perfectly fine by me.  Evolution is a scientific theory and though there's a fair bit or corroborating data to back it up, there are also some terribly important gaps and questions that need to be adequately answered before it moves from the concept of a theory to established scientific fact.  What's more, since this is a scientific theory and not an article faith (regardless of what some on both sides of the argument would like to tell you), the concept of belief has nothing to do with its validity one way or the other.  The theory will be either proven, modified over time to fit the facts as we currently understand them, or disproven and discarded as no longer of any scientific use.

While theories regarding the 'Origin of the Species' may remain in doubt however, there is none whatsoever regarding whether the flip-flop exists in politics, and that it has evolved in this country throughout its history.  One could even go so far as to say that it has been doing so since before there even was a country.  

Was Benedict Arnold not the ultimate flip-flopper of his time; first as the hero of the capture of Fort Ticonderoga, the Battle of Ridgefield, and the Battle of Saratoga, (where leg injuries cost him time on the battlefield and damned near his life).  Did he not then, for no better reason than retribution for personal insult, lack of promotion, and money betray the very ideals he earlier fought for and switch sides in the argument; eventually receiving a commission as a brigadier general in the British Army and leading attacks against former allies and compatriots in Virginia.

Didn't Teddy Roosevelt change his mind about running for President after serving two terms in office (one after stepping up following the McKinley assassination, and one of his own), promoting William Howard Taft as the next Republican nominee (and eventually President).  Didn't he then flip-flop, change his mind about about seeking yet another term, and go so far as to enter the election as a 3rd party candidate after losing his party's nomination in his attempt to unseat his former protege.   

But it's in the election of 2012 that we seem to have seen the flip-flop reach its highest evolutionary form to date.

It started of course, as Republican candidate (and now all but nominee) Mitt Romney fought to keep himself from being 'tarred and feathered' by fellow Republicans over whether he stood with his potential Democratic opponent as a supporter of what has become commonly known as Obamacare.  Having signed a law in Massachusetts as governor which called for an individual mandate for health insurance, he found himself flipping first one way, then flopping to another in order to distance himself from an unpopular position in the primaries, without repudiating his former stance on the issue.  Caught in an unsustainable and vacillating argument (seemingly with himself), he seemed finally to emerge with a self-satisfied position of being for what he was before, and not for what the current White House occupant is; in spite of the fact that the differences are all but indiscernible, except as to the number of people who must follow the mandate.

It is however, the incumbent Democratic President who has elevated the flip-flop to almost an art form, perhaps afraid he would fall short in demonstrating his ability to remain as verbally and intellectually flexible as his opponent where his core beliefs were concerned.  Where same-sex unions were concerned, it was the President himself that in fact called his stand "an evolution on the issue."  As detailed in a Miami Herald piece (which I am quoting extensively from), in 1996 when running for the Illinois Senate, he said "I favor legalizing same-sex marriages, and would fight efforts to prohibit such marriages."  In a questionnaire just two years later his answer was instead 'Undecided' on legalizing same sex unions.  When running for the US Senate in 2004, he stated "I am a fierce supporter of domestic partnership and civil union laws.  I am not a supporter of same sex marriage as it has been thrown about ..." 

FLIP,FLOP, and done ... right?  But wait, we're not even close to the end.

In his book 'Audacity of Hope', he defined marriage as between a man and a woman.  In a 2007 debate he supported civil unions with "all the benefits that are available for a legally sanctioned marriage", but not legal recognition of same-sex marriage.  In 2008 he said "I believe that marriage is the union between a man and a woman.  I am not in favor of gay marriage." And this year on ABC's 'Good Morning America'  he said, "...it is important for me to go ahead and affirm that I think same-sex couples should be able to get married."

Don't get me wrong here.  I've spoken about my own theories of the place of government when it comes to the subject of marriage (none), so I am casting no stones at the position(s) that the President has taken over a period of SIX YEARS on the subject.  It might even be said that I am voicing a twisted form of admiration for the flexibility that Barack Obama is able to maintain in the face of changing public opinion, polling data, and same-sex marriage legislation at the State level (though I freely admit that my admiration may contain more than a little sarcasm and even a touch of irony).

What we are apparently seeing here is that having been inspired (outed) by the 'foot in pie hole' verbal discipline of his running mate, the Commander-in-Chief is turning the simple political flip-flop into into a gymnastics run involving at least five flip flops, with perhaps two and a half twists on the dismount (difficult 3.4, at least according the judges that I spoke to).

You know this is an Olympic as well as an election year, and I can't help feeling that we're somehow missing the boat by not having the political flip-flop as an event in the games (even if it's only as a demonstration sport).  It's obvious that we are blessed with at least two who are not only ready and able to compete at the international level, but whose skills might well guarantee bringing home both the gold and silver medals.  I am in fact lost in admiration as I watch these truly mesmerizing performances by what will apparently be the two major competitors for the highest office in the land, their efforts achieving what can be considered nothing less that the highest current evolutionary stage of what was once the simple political flip-flop.

Please note that the picture inserted above is not a composite, time-lapse one of my life.  The hair color is completely wrong ...