Halloween Costumes - 2013

While this effort has already been picked up by the Toledo Free Press with both it's local Toledo-oriented entries as well as National suggestions,  I thought that it would be worthwhile however for those who might not understand the local  Glass City references to post only those costume ideas that had national implications here.  Besides, there always seems to be additions to this annual effort as the week of its  creation progresses (as a matter of fact, additions have already been made since this was originally posted.), and the TFP has both space and modification restrictions that must be respected.  If you check back later this week therefore, you're likely to discover additions to this entry that you missed earlier.  

Here is the link to the Toledo Free Press website effort that includes the Toledo specific entries as well as most of the national ones.

Halloween is almost upon us, though there's still plenty of time to choose a costume. For those of you who remain 'costume-challenged' for this all-important candy grab however, we here at “Just Blowing Smoke” have once again come up with our annual list of politically-oriented (and politically incorrect) suggestions that could make you the hit of your neighborhood, if not a viral source of public ridicule on Facebook and YouTube.
 

• Place some orange cones on your driveway and install a flimsy gate across the sidewalk leading to your front door with a broken lock and a newly painted 'Closed' sign hanging from it. Leave your porch light on however to encourage participants to push past these feeble barriers. When revelers ring the bell and say 'Trick or Treat', tell them they shouldn't be there but give them candy anyway. If asked about this apparently contradictory behavior, tell them you're the National Park Service.
• Take a big piece of plastic sheeting and paint a wavy blue line across it.  Wrap it around yourself and fasten it together; then make your neighborhood begging rounds.  When asked, tell them that you're a glass, and you think you're half-empty.  What do they think?
• Wear a nice suit and.Trick or Treat from door to door while weeping and mumbling logically contradictory statements on the state of the nation and laws that should be passed as if nobody is listening (they won't be). When asked, wipe a tear from your eye and stammer 'God bless America', before telling them you are Speaker of the House John Boehner. 
• Trick or Treat from door to door, carrying either a recently minted dog turd or freshly filled diaper to sniff right before the door is answered. When residents note your pinched, rather constipated expression and ask about your costume, tell them you are Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and refuse to accept any candy they offer you.
• Wear a piece of poster board on your chest with the neatly printed words: “We are experiencing technical difficulties, please stand by ...” as you walk your neighborhood route. When asked, tell them that you are the 'Affordable Healthcare Website', take their candy, and apologize for not being able to give them anything in return; requesting that they try again later (after all, it's settled law) before moving on.
• Trick or Treat from door to door spouting the most wild, illogical, and even insane beliefs about the news at the top of your voice; making sure to periodically blame Republicans as the cause of the world's ills. When asked, tell them you're a show host for MSNBC.
• Trick or Treat the neighborhood and give the normal greeting when the door is answered. When homeowners attempt to speak however, interrupt their attempts to do so as foolish while disparagingly insisting that you know best about everything and insist that you are only taking their candy 'for the folks'. You will, of course, be masquerading as Fox News host Bill O'Reilly; and should be ashamed of yourself for providing him even that much attention.
• Wear whatever you want in while making your Trick or Treat rounds.  When asked who you're supposed to be and what you've done, tell them you're a member of the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW). When they explain that they don't know who that is, tell them that neither does anyone else, but that you're charged with cleaning up the poison gas in Syria and that you haven't actually done much of anything yet ... except for winning this year's Nobel Peace Prize.  
• Come to think of it, if you would like to Trick or Treat your neighborhood in a formal tuxedo with tails and can speak with a Norwegian or Swedish accent (I use the Swedish cook one from Sesame Street), you can go as a member of the Nobel Peace Prize Committee.  When they answer the door, give them one of the little blue ribbons you'll need to carry and explain that these days you're giving out the prize to damn near anyone whether they've ever done anything or not.  
• Wear something business casual and carry a clipboard full of computer printouts, along with your 'Trick or Treat' bag.  When homeowners answer the door, page through the list 'harrumphing', while telling them you're from the NSA and they shouldn't feel obligated to give you a special reward not to release the information they've gathered on you. 
• Kick a can from house to house on your Trick or Treat route and lethargically hold out your bag when the door is answered.  If questioned on your costume or your lousy attitude, tell homeowners you're a member of the new Congressional Budget Conference Committee and you're as optimistic of success in your coming Congressional efforts as you are of getting $20 bills from them for a 'Treat'.
• Drag out that old zombie costume from your 'Thriller' days but carry around a newspaper delivery bag instead of a Trick or Treat bag.  When those on your route ask about your costume, you might have to explain that it's the daily newspaper and not the carrier who's all but dead; but most will get the message. 
• If you want to really scare everyone however, you may dress however you'd like and carry a sign around your neck with the old Ronald Reagan quote about "the nine most terrifying words in the English language":  "We're from the government and were here to help."
• Wear a pair of jeans, flannel shirt, and cowboy hat; while also wearing President Obama masque on your 'Trick or Treat' rounds.  When asked, tell them that you are an out-of-work rodeo clown.  
• Walk your neighborhood in whatever you'd like and when the houses in the neighborhood answer their doors, mumble "Trick or Treat" in a disgruntled voice.  When asked about your attitude and costume (or lack of it), tell them that you are a non-essential federal employee, and were much happier when still at home watching "The View" on the shutdown's paid vacation.
  (By the way those of you actually capable of doing this should be ashamed ... not for enjoying the paid vacation, but of watching "The View".)
• Refuse to dress up, Trick or Treat, or decorate your house for Halloween; but buy a bunch of candy and leave your porch light on to encourage neighborhood participation in the festivities. When Trick or Treaters arrive, smile and engage them pleasantly, but refuse to give them any of the clearly visible candy you possess. When asked about this apparent contradiction, tell them you're a member of Congress and you're intention is to keep all the goodies for yourself.

Silly Bits V

Since the Administration has had a couple of problems with spying on the US press (the Associated Press and Fox News to be specific).  It therefore seemed only fitting that the latest leak of information (ill-timed for the Administration) that the NSA is collecting data on many of the rest of us came from "The Guardian", an English paper.  Good show old boys and welcome to the party! Tea anyone?

Congratulations on not only scooping your American counterparts on yet another potential PR nightmare for the current Administration, but for creating a new level of national paranoia that we can only be hoped will be covered under the Affordable Care Act.  According to responses from the President and other Administration spokespeople, all of this has been done according to law and under the auspices of the FISA (Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act) court.  (Evidently FISA is like VISA, 'everywhere you want to be'.) 

*  According to information being touted on the Sunday talks shows, over 99.9% of FISA warrant requests have been approved by its judges.  Can you say 'rubber stamp'?

Now I'm a Verizon customer and a Google user, so I probably don't have anything left in the way of secrets where the government is concerned.  No wait, I forget that I was told that they weren't listening in on my calls or reading my emails by the same government who lied about a reporter being a 'co-conspirator' and went to three judges before they could get a warrant issued and also lied when they told me that they weren't having the IRS target conservative groups.  So naturally I believe them when they tell me that they aren't going to intrude on my privacy or keep any private data from my phone or Internet use at the same time that they're building a massive new data storage facility in Utah.

Jesse Jackson Jr may be getting four years in prison after pleading guilty to engaging in a scheme to misuse $750,000 of his campaign contributions on personal items.  Not only is the government looking for that same $750,000 in the way of restitution, but they're also looking for $168,000 in re-imbursement from his wife Sandra; who was receiving a $5,000 per month consulting fee on top of her six-figure salary as a Chicago alderman.  On the bright side, Jesse and his wife may not have to serve their prison sentences at the same time, which would keep their two children from being parent-less, even temporarily.  

With the example of 3 of the last 4 Illinois governors serving or having served time (including Rod Blagojevich,  in a case in which Rep Jackson was at least incidentally involved, though no charges were filed), Jesse Jr was apparently incapable of finding someone in this capital of malfeasance to create a workable paper trail to hide behind.  (What is Chicago coming to these  days?)  His dramatic attempt to drop off the radar and hint at a breakdown was a fair enough strategy, but it came far too late in the game and was poorly played.   

One can only imagine how disappointed that his father is.  After all, Jesse Jr was not only raised in one of the greatest schools of political corruption anywhere in the world ... Chicago, but apparently either didn't apply himself to his lessons or was simply incapable retaining successful strategies while being mentored by an expert on living with dubious expenses.  Jesse Sr has lived, after all, rather well for longer than Jr has been alive, in spite of a holding politically commendable, but financially questionable jobs which earned him a lavish lifestyle that would be the envy of many CEO's.  

Pakistan summoned US Ambassador Richard Hoagland to its Foreign Office today.  Evidently the new Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif wasn't happy over the fact that the US decided to pop off a couple of missiles launched off a drone into his country, killing seven people, without letting bothering to let his government know about it. But what the heck can concepts like national sovereignty mean when you're fighting a war on terror that actually hasn't existed for some time according the same Administration pulling the trigger? 

Now normally I would be concerned over the contradiction of terms involved with such an act and terrified over the long term implications of any government's use of such technology.  Fortunately, MY government has told me that while it's the same government which has come to heavily rely on the concept of remote control 'rub-outs'; it's now going to review the use of such technology.  (Though perhaps the review has more to do with a NBC story revealing that of a review of CIA records concludes that our government couldn't confirm the identity of 25% of the people they killed in drone strikes.)  I know that I, the 25% we can't identify, and the 'incidental casualties' will certainly be comforted by the idea that someone in our government is gong to get to the bottom of this.

Hey!  Maybe they could get the same people in the Administration who are going recommend legislation to Congress to protect the press from the DOJ that has recently targeted them from the DOJ itself to help on this other project before somebody escalates the war on AP and Fox News into drone attacks.

Racist Riptide

For those of us attempting to follow, assimilate, and interpret the story this week involving the remarks of Shirley Sherrod; it felt very much like swimming in a riptide. Now for those of you perhaps unfamiliar with the term, a riptide is a current that moves away from the direction of shoreward bound waves. Such a current is also known as an undertow, since it travels under the surface. Riptides are a great danger, as even the best swimmers can be drawn so away from shore by these swiftly moving waters that they find themselves unable to return to the safety of shore; and eventually they drown.

So too were we drawn hither and yon (and farther from the safety of the shore of reason) by unseen currents in this story. First the edited video released on Breitbart.com led many to believe that this was a story of racism on the part of Ms. Sherrod as she spoke of resenting, ill serving, and finally helping a white farmer in Georgia. Then those who took the time to look closer and listen to her speak more carefully of this as a seminal moment in her life, saw the direction shift as she told us of learning that this situation was not about race relations in this country.

The story quickly changed direction again however as the NAACP and the USDA quickly moved to censure Ms Sherrod, decrying the racism that their first  interpretation led them to; with her federal government employers apparently demanding her resignation (at what level this demand may really have come from may yet in fact be a story).

The currents shifted again however, as those in powerful places either finally looked at the entire speech (or at least the entire originally aired video). Apologies were offered (along with renewed employment) and both Mr Breitbart and Fox News were blamed for the undertow of opinion caused by bringing any of this to light (I believe that this tactic is known as "shooting the messenger".) and for the apparently floundering attempts made by the government and NAACP to now swim to safety in these treacherous waters.

Now as the waves appears to have settled on the surface at least for the moment, those left are carefully attempting to make their way once again to safety of shore. They should remain careful however, for we are still left with some potentially uncomfortable currents that must navigated:

• While Ms Sherrod was apparently using this anecdote as a teaching moment, her speech did talk about turning the white farmer over to "one of his own kind", the kind of lightning rod of a phrase that could still be considered racist language when used in any speech, especially by one in government service. Many have been brought down by far less.
• Ms Sherrod's teachable moment taught her that such inequity was not a racist struggle, but a class struggle. This apparent epiphany moving her from potential racism to potential socialism does not appear to disturb many yet (and fear of falsely accusing Ms Sherrod of such sentiments at this point may prevent any follow up questioning on such beliefs). Such protection may not last forever however, unless the story disappears into the B section of the news.
• Ms Sherrod might have reached that teachable moment many years ago, but apparently the audience at this relatively recent NAACP dinner might still be looking for theirs, as they laughed and clapped at the ill treatment that she described performing on a person of another race.  (This likewise seemed to draw little attention, either in fear of further racist charges or because of selective inattention.)
• This is the only speech to have come out of either Ms Sherrod or an NAACP event since the battle lines were drawn with the Tea Party movement. One might suspect that as time goes on, other equally embarrassing moments on the part of either may yet surface.

Additionally, we have discovered that watching presidential press and cabinet secretaries drowning in their own misstatements while attempting to set records in the Olympic backstroke is a swimming event painful to watch on television. Watching them follow it with the political version of the Australian crawl in the same 24 hour news cycle is almost too painful for words. Speaking of words, watching the liberal left media go into a feeding frenzy over a prior feeding frenzy on the right is to mainstream media what watching the fat man Mr Creosote from "Monty Python, The Meaning of Life" is to eating. I for one am embarrassed and ashamed for most of those who claimed either the titles of journalist or pundit.

-------------------------- 

There is little doubt that many of these swirling currents developed as a result of the NAACP condemning racism in the Tea Party movement. There is likewise little doubt that some in the conservative media used selective inattention when watching and listening to this video to drum up their own particular brand of vitriol and feed red meat to certain rabid parts of their audiences.

On the other hand the NAACP and the federal government seemed to have a similar disability when reviewing the same material, drew many of the same initial conclusions, and tarred and feathered Ms Sherrod with apparently equal zeal and relish.

Finger pointing therefore, that will be attempted by both sides with vigor over the coming days, will probably come to little in the end. There is little doubt however, that riptides like the one that we have just experienced can be dangerous places to swim when you are caught in the middle of them, and perhaps none can be so deadly as those shark-infested waters that the term "racism" seems to create any time its used.

Perhaps all will become a little more careful when wading into these waters, and like Ms Sherrod in her video, use this as a teachable moment (though I do hate that phrase).

I Blame Fox News

Now for any of you familiar with this blog site, the title of this posting has to be a statement that comes as a bit of a surprise. One hardly expects that someone calling himself a Constitutional Conservative will go on the attack when it comes to the only news network that does not appear to have actively aligned itself with liberal and progressive causes in this country. 


Those of you more familiar with the "inside baseball" of blog sites however, will recognize that such a title posting is likely to generate higher hit rates (something blog sites strive for), as it provides reasons for folks with strong beliefs either way to look deeper. I can't say that I have been overly concerned with hit rates over the years on this site, since I don't have advertisers that reimburse me based on such things; but it does one's heart good (yeah I know, who thought conservatives had hearts) to know that there is someone out there reading your work. 


Besides, it appears that my readership has already gone up lately recently, since a site called Before it's News has begun picking up postings on this site on an RSS feed. To the point however ... The furor over the case of Shirley Sherrod and the USDA drew my attention this week, as it appears it did many others. Curious over the latest reports, I decided to follow up on the NAACP's position reversal on Ms. Sherrod, and its claim that the mistaken position that they originally took in the case was because they were "snookered by Fox News". 


Setting aside the fact that 'snookered' is not a term of common parlance these days, that few reporting on the story seem concerned with the audience reactions at an NAACP dinner to the pronouncements of Ms. Sherrod on her treatment of this "white farmer" from many years ago (and before they knew that this was supposed to be a teaching moment), and that no one forced either the White House or the NAACP to condemn Ms. Sherrod without more careful investigation; I found the accusation against Fox News troubling. Not believing in coincidences, I was forced to look further into Fox News and its owner Rupert Murdoch. I couldn't help but wonder what further societal ills might be laid at their feet.

• Mr. Murdoch began acquiring newspaper properties in the US in 1973 with the San Antonio Express through his company News Ltd, going on to purchase the New York Post in 1976. In the years since, the newspaper industry has seen a gradual decline in both its prominence as a source of news and its revenue.
• In 1981 they went on to acquire half of 20th Century, taking over the rest in 1984. Many would argue that both the originality and quality of movies have similarly declined since the 80's.
• In 1986 they went on to complete the purchase of the Metromedia group of television stations, and the Fox Broadcast Company was born. Like the newspaper and movie industries, the network television business has struggled for originality, audience share, and revenue ever since.
• In 1996, the company began the Fox News Channel to compete with CNN. Cable news networks were never the same again (though some apparently attempt to maintain that the start up of MSNBC that same year might have had more to do with it).
• In 2007 the company began the Fox Business Network and around the same time completed the purchase of the august Wall Street Journal. No one can deny that in the days since, the national and world economies have suffered horrible setbacks.

So while clearly circumstantial, I believe that this evidence shows that Fox News (along with all of the other associated organizations under the umbrella of Rupert Murdoch and his News Corporation) is likely at fault for many of the evils in the world today. From the world economic crisis to the decline of newspaper circulation, from Adam Sandler and Will Ferrell movies (sorry, couldn't resist the shot) to the sorry state of reporting on cable news networks; this group is likely at the heart of all of the ills that beset society today. 


Disclaimer: Just Blowing Smoke regularly uses both irony and sarcasm. Those incapable of recognizing such literary devices should by no means endeavor to reach conclusions on any subject based solely on the material contained herein.