Sailing Off Course

So as not to let a writing effort go to waste, I thought I would post the column I wrote earlier in the week for the TFP, one that was ultimately supplanted by my State Of The Union piece.  I hope you get a kick out of it ... 

It seems amazing that something so large could be allowed to go so far off course, permitted to sail so close to potential disaster, and with danger largely ignored, fail to prevent it running aground on a known hazard. It's astonishing that the person allegedly in charge should all but abandon the charges in his care in a cowardly attempt to save his own skin. It's astounding that as more information becomes known, this person should now attempt to blame everyone and everything around him but his own failed policies and foresight. And in spite of all the mistakes made, responsibilities abandoned, and in a total failure of leadership, it appears likely that he will ask to be placed in command once more.

Oh sure, you thought I was talking about the recently unsuccessful attempt by the Carnival cruise ship Costa Concordia (with the assistance of the Island of Islo del Giglio) to prove that two objects could in fact occupy the same space at the same time. I was however, talking about another top heavy behemoth that has been off course for some time now. One which seems often to go out of its way to find things to run into … the ship of state.

As for its captain; he appears to have abandoned the concept of working with the rest of the crew to pick a less dangerous course, in favor of taking up the fight to retain his exalted rank and extravagant privilege instead. In traditions more befitting those of captains like the Bounty's Bligh, this one stood cap in hand before us, pleading the case yet again that the cause of all the untoward events of these last three years of voyaging are the fault of the previous captain, members of a sometimes mutinous crew that has refused to follow his wise orders, and passengers who apparently have not paid enough for the voyage. But after lecturing for months that the only way to maintain a properly working ship is for all to work together to keep it on course, he once again seemed unable to heed his own advice, and there is little doubt that we will see a return to a typical election year's acrimonious invective and rancorous rhetoric.

This is not to say that there isn't some cause for the captain's complaint, or that there hasn't been a sizable element opposing both the course being followed and the treatment of crew and passengers alike. Nor is to say that this crew and its ambitions are either altruistic or above reproach, or that they have shown the ability to steer a better course themselves. Such opposition when it deigns to make an appearance is in fact often both inconsistent and disingenuous. Many of the crew seem far more concerned with maintaining or improving their position in the chain of command than improving the lot of the passengers aboard or reaching a more desirable destination. Few have shown the courage of their convictions when faced down by captain, fellow crew, or passengers.

Swaggering around deck and with little clear idea where they would sail if the wheel were placed in their hands, they appear instead content to merely to complain. When put to the question however, their course in fact seems little different from that of their ill-fated captain, with the amount of sail raised amidst the growing storm as their only point of debate. None seems capable of operating a moral compass or charting a clear course away from the dangerous waters that we find ourselves in, nor avoiding the growing maelstrom around us. Any among them that appear of sound judgment or a with grasp of the real dangers at hand are shouted down by captain and crew alike as rabble rousers and trouble makers by a multitude growing in size, ignorance, and inflexibility.

And what do we hear from this blustering and boisterous majority? Is not the captain in charge? Has he not already told us that the ship of state would be in far worse shape had we not sailed the course he has charted? Have we not already given him our every confidence, that we should now question his leadership? Does he not have an able group who still believe in him?

Perhaps then, we are little more than a Ship of Fools; blind to the faults in captain and crew, ignorant of the dangerous waters we sail in, and oblivious to the rising storm around us. Perhaps it's our fate to continue sailing off course until like the ill-fated Costa Concordia, we too capsize, floundering in rising waters far too deep for us to fathom.

Stabilizing the MCP (Again)

I have spoken before about the Miscellaneous Crap Pile near my desk, comprised of tidbits of information that I found enlightening, interesting, or simply bizarre that I hadn't yet managed to find a use for. The MCP however, is as much mental as physical, requiring periodic review in a mostly useless though never-ending attempt to maintain both stability and storage capacity, both of which appear to be woefully limited around here.  These periodic purges allow me to take on a variety of subjects in a form whose brevity is as welcome by JBS readers as it is unusual for me.  Since the unusual has long been something that we embrace here at JBS, I am therefore happy to oblige.


The French threatened yesterday to pull their forces out of Afghanistan after four of their ranks were killed and fifteen wounded in what has been deemed an attack by a 'rogue Afghan soldier'.  Apparently the fact that the French are out of practice in the act of surrendering, means that in spite of their threat, they're still there today.  Of course France's contribution of 4,000 of the 130,000 NATO forces currently stationed in Afghanistan, troops which were scheduled to leave next year anyway, will probably not end either NATO or US involvement in an area that cries out for a lack of involvement.  Afghan President Karzai (speaking of both 'rogue' and 'lack of involvement') is due in Paris in a week, and has already offered his condolences to the families (and here many of us thought that President Obama was the only world leader to travel around the world apologizing).  Maybe while he's visiting he can also explain how bad guys keep apparently infiltrating the ranks of his army, or how to tell the difference between a rogue soldier and any anyone else in the Afghan army (other than not being ineffectual of course).


For those of you who have somehow missed it, the Costa Concordia is still lying on its side on the coast of Islo del Giglio.  To say that no ship's captain has made more mistakes since 'The Skipper' took some folks out for a purported three hour tour with Gilligan is an understatement.  I don't mean to make light of a situation in which human life was needlessly lost, but one cannot help but see a certain 'gallows humor' in this tragic example of the vaunted technology of Mankind failing on an epic scale.  That one of these floating islands managed to crash into a real one is ironic on a scale seldom seen in fact or fiction.  That the circus currently surrounding the circumstances of this maritime disaster involves a ship that's part of a cruise line named 'Carnival' only adds to the incongruity.  The concept that environmental scientists are as concerned with the food stored in the ship making contact with the local environment as they are that the fuel will speaks volumes about environmental scientists and what we stuff in our pie holes.The pathetic excuses of the ship's captain in shirking his responsibilities and abandoning his charges to their own fate cannot help but make one believe that this miserable example of humanity has a lot of time to look forward to in prison ... or in politics.  In Italy, perhaps both.


Speaking of miserable examples, last week's self-serving announcements by two former Mayors in Toledo about how the current office holder is doing his job is apparently a plot that's thickening.  While these lamentable examples of alleged political leadership only sought to take the stage after a story reported in the Glass City's daily paper, we now see that rather than it being a shining example of that institution's fading star of investigative journalism, the facts of the tale were fed to the Blade based on the investigations of a member of City Council.  Fortunately, the Toledo Free Press is on the case, and there is little doubt that the facts of the case will now come out. 


As for lauding the stalwart former detective / politician / investigative reporter's channeling of Columbo (or was it Woodward and Bernstein), one may want to look a little closer before awarding the laurel wreath.  D Michael's legislative aide is a former well-known Toledo blogger whose talent for sniffing out facts, knowing who to talk to in getting them confirmed, and gathering them into a consistent narrative are far more likely to deserve the actual credit than the Councilman.  Lest one seek to deride the man in question for taking all the credit for the detective work involved, for failing to first approach the Administration with its results of the investigation, or for handing the story over to the daily in the hopes of embarrassing the Administration; one should first listen to his smug attempt to present his case at a City Council meeting a while back.  It seems that his false attempts at humility (he thought he would accused of political grandstanding) and his failures to live up to Peter Falk's portrayal of the intrepid cigar chewing detective are only exceeded by his even greater inability to channel the late Raymond Burr's portrayal of Perry Mason (as well as his failure to distinguish the difference between a hypothetical and rhetorical questions).  


The Republicans had another debate this week (yawn) as a prelude to the South Carolina primary (yawn).  It was somewhat easier to bear, as with the withdrawal of Rick Perry we were down to a number of candidates on stage that didn't require a wide angle lens.  Unchanging however, is the fact that the debate moderators still haven't managed to get most of the contestants of this political version of 'American Idol' to hand out more than political standards and show tune sound bites that the pundits can later congratulate them for.  Along the way however, all seemed to have added a number to their repertoire that includes a healthy dose of ridicule for the media themselves, whose feeding frenzy for irrelevancy is only equaled by the candidates willingness to chum the waters for them, and whose inclusion guarantees them a standing 'O'.  


This however, is apparently a truly sorry bunch of candidates.  Mitt Romney is sorry he made so much money in the private sector (which leaves one questioning why failure should be more laudable in a candidate for this nation's highest office).  Newt Gingrich is sorry that he got married so many times, but happy that he paid a higher tax rate than Romney (which leaves one questioning why paying more taxes is good).  Rick Santorum is sorry that he can't reconcile his supposed Conservative credentials with his Statist pronouncements and voting record (not that we've ever demanded logical consistency of Presidents).  Ron Paul is sorry that no one took him this seriously 20 years ago, that he never learned to speak 'soundbite' well enough to play at this level, and that no matter what he says they're still going to treat him like a crazy relative with turrets syndrome that everyone hopes will leave.  The ponderous political process continues however, with all of faux drama of a poorly written reality show, and all of the excitement of the Tic-Tac-Toe championships.


OK, that's enough natural fertilizer for one sitting (though it is a miscellaneous CRAP pile after all).  I've cleared enough of the pile away to show me the many other useless writing assignments that I need to work on, so I'm going to get to work.


Smoke em if you got em.