Recently in Op Ed Category

It seems, sometimes, as though the United States is, in reality, a giant high school. It has its cliques, like the jocks and the stoners. Remember? The jocks swaggered, blustered, and got in your face. They'd use threats and fear, and they'd beat up the stoners. The stoners, meanwhile, would be all, "Hey, man, just chill, it's cool. Wanna toke?" Then they'd giggle and make off-color jokes about the jocks' sexual preferences and the size of their girlfriends' tits or ass.

This is how I see partisan politics these days. On one side, you have the rather mellow lefty-loons who use comedians as their spokes-media. Colbert, Maher, Groening, "Family Guy's" Seth McFarland, Gary Trudeau. These guys didn't just take a page, they ripped entire volumes from Twain's library, clearly.

Not to be outdone, the right wingnuts have selected the masters of froth to pitch for them. Limbaugh, Beck, Hannity, Coulter, and Malkin. Fearmongers and screechers. The world is ending! The holy of holies of the week is under attack, and only spittle can save us! It's odd, but only right wingnuts seem to be listening seriously. Moderates are hanging back, not too far from the stoners, and laughing.

I wonder when the right is going to realize how stupid they look. If they really want start influencing people, they should stop blustering and fire up their own barbecues.

See, the problem is that politicians are just people. We forget that. We elect them, and then we want them to be more than people. We want to hold them to a higher standard. We are aghast when they cheat on their spouses -- moreso than when it's your neighbor. We're shrill -- Jesse Jackson fathered a baby with a young woman! John Edwards had known all along that baby was his! Bush lied! Obama lied!

But they're people. They're human, and so they are frail, and they lie, cheat, connive, take risks, are arrogant, jingoistic, bloated. Just like pretty much all of humanity as a species. And just as individuals among the species vary, so too do politicians. Some are kind of good. Some are not so bad. Some are worse.

This is nothing new, nothing surprising, but we forget it. We expect -- demand -- our leaders be better than merely human. We find it difficult to forgive them when they end up being merely human.

A few days ago in some lost conversation I mentioned that I dislike politicians. A friend said she actually liked them, which, of course, got me to thinking. Why do I not like them? They're human. I like humans. Should I not like politicians, just as a matter of course, and let the bad individuals among them stand out as not like-worthy?

Well, no. See, I form likes and dislikes based on behavioral characteristics and how it affects me. It seems to me that the very behaviors a politician requires in order to succeed as a politician and a statesman are the behaviors I find least like-worthy among humans.

For example, we all lie to varying degrees, and I am no exception. It is not a behavior to celebrate, and yet, a politician, in order to succeed in getting elected, must hone and refine and embrace the lie. He must lie without seeming to lie. He must shade, and evade, and spin. Deceit is one of the tools of his trade. Once elected, that tool is again essential as he deals with other elected officials, and with foreign statesmen. It behooves the elected official to do the best he can for his constituency. I can't really fault the politician for being an accomplished liar. We would not do well as a nation if our leaders could not or would not do this to some extent. But I don't like it.

We all manipulate. We all try to get the best for ourselves and ours. Politicians, again, must excel at manipulation and taking tactical advantage of situations, even at cost to others. Politicians must succeed more than they fail at amassing the goodies. I can't fault them for being good at it. But I don't like them, because they are good at it.

Does that make sense?

So I am unsurprised when a Joe Wilson type plots to gain notoriety and improve his campaign chances by shouting "You lie!" during a a televised address by President Obama. I figure, that's what he and his ilk do. Grandstand and make themselves known. I don't like that he did it. I don't like him, for many reasons beyond his politician-ness. But I feel pretty much the same way about President Obama, and President Bush before him, and Senator McCain and, well ... politicians in general.

They're too good at being human.

See, the problem is that politicians are just people. We forget that. We elect them, and then we want them to be more than people. We want to hold them to a higher standard. We are aghast when they cheat on their spouses -- moreso than when it's your neighbor. We're shrill -- Jesse Jackson fathered a baby with a young woman! John Edwards had known all along that baby was his! Bush lied! Obama lied!

But they're people. They're human, and so they are frail, and they lie, cheat, connive, take risks, are arrogant, jingoistic, bloated. Just like pretty much all of humanity as a species. And just as individuals among the species vary, so too do politicians. Some are kind of good. Some are not so bad. Some are worse.

This is nothing new, nothing surprising, but we forget it. We expect -- demand -- our leaders be better than merely human. We find it difficult to forgive them when they end up being merely human.

A few days ago in some lost conversation I mentioned that I dislike politicians. A friend said she actually liked them, which, of course, got me to thinking. Why do I not like them? They're human. I like humans. Should I not like politicians, just as a matter of course, and let the bad individuals among them stand out as not like-worthy?

Well, no. See, I form likes and dislikes based on behavioral characteristics and how it affects me. It seems to me that the very behaviors a politician requires in order to succeed as a politician and a statesman are the behaviors I find least like-worthy among humans.

For example, we all lie to varying degrees, and I am no exception. It is not a behavior to celebrate, and yet, a politician, in order to succeed in getting elected, must hone and refine and embrace the lie. He must lie without seeming to lie. He must shade, and evade, and spin. Deceit is one of the tools of his trade. Once elected, that tool is again essential as he deals with other elected officials, and with foreign statesmen. It behooves the elected official to do the best he can for his constituency. I can't really fault the politician for being an accomplished liar. We would not do well as a nation if our leaders could not or would not do this to some extent. But I don't like it.

We all manipulate. We all try to get the best for ourselves and ours. Politicians, again, must excel at manipulation and taking tactical advantage of situations, even at cost to others. Politicians must succeed more than they fail at amassing the goodies. I can't fault them for being good at it. But I don't like them, because they are good at it.

Does that make sense?

So I am unsurprised when a Joe Wilson type plots to gain notoriety and improve his campaign chances by shouting "You lie!" during a a televised address by President Obama. I figure, that's what he and his ilk do. Grandstand and make themselves known. I don't like that he did it. I don't like him, for many reasons beyond his politician-ness. But I feel pretty much the same way about President Obama, and President Bush before him, and Senator McCain and, well ... politicians in general.

They're too good at being human.

Coupla weeks ago the tech world and main stream media were all wetting themselves and gasping with the buzz about the Baby Shaker app that had, for a time, been available at the iTunes Store. It's old news now, but it helps to underscore something a bit ... inconsistent ... in Apple's vetting process.

People can code up whatever they want to to try to sell or give away on the iTunes store. They can do their best to attempt to cash in on the rather large market ... sell a bazillion copies of your application to eager iPhone and iPod Touch users at $0.99 a pop, and you're a bazillionaire! Sure, you can code whatever you want. You have to, however, submit it to Apple's approval process before it will show up on the store site. Makes sense: Apple doesn't want an app that will do something illegal, use dirty words, nor does it want an app that will break the phone or interfere with other applications. Apple's reputation is on the line. If they let you have access to the application, then it is as though they stand behind the application, after all.

So you hear stories of people submitting applications and waiting ... and waiting ... and waiting for approval. They reportedly don't get much feedback on how the approval is going. That, too, makes sense since there are doubtless thousands of apps pouring in per week, and I'd be surprised if there was a very large team testing and reviewing them.

But here is one startling inconsistency: Apple rejected an application developed for the music group Nine Inch Nails for "objectionable content." As InformationWeek reports, "The app itself does not contain profane content, but it enables users to stream music for the album "The Downward Spiral," whose lyrics contain multiple curse words." [emphasis mine]. Front man Trent Reznor had noted that people could buy "The Downward Spiral" on iTunes.

So Apple's review team would let you virtually kill a crying baby (until someone complains), but won't let a rock band provide an application to enable fans to stream a song. That apparently made sense to the Apple peeps.

The social media world came to the rescue. Twitter, Facebook, MySpace, tech bloggers, music bloggers, podcasters all rallied and mocked Apple for this, and rightly.

Apple succumbed. The band gets to market its little application.

I doubt this will happen, but I really hope that these two incidents, the reporting of which went viral, will get Apple to review and maybe overhaul its review process. Maybe, just maybe they should include a few people who have a knack for understanding what really constitutes offensive, hurtful material, and when it's just so much farting in the breeze. (Look for my new "Farting in the Breeze" app, coming to a scent-enabled iPhone near you!)

Iowa's Supreme Court understands what the real stuff is when it comes to gay marriage, and the Court clearly understands the US Constitution. Read the ruling here. One of my Facebook buds -- you will know the Hip Unhip one as Don -- showed me this link. Also, over on the NorthPuffiner's blog, there's a bit of talk about the focus on gay marriage.

Regardless to say, I agree with the Iowa SC's ruling. I disagree with those who make the specious claim that marriage is only about children and the natural bearing of same, or that it has some bearing on "morality." Marriage as a church sacrament was about church approval of contractual bonds between land owning families (read noblemen) in order to ensure that the acknowledged offspring of those unions (whether or not the children actually came from either of the married pair) inherited the properties.

Marriage today is about forming a family unit for a broad array of civil and legal conveniences, entitlements, and rights. It is, by its own nature, a moral thing. It may be between one man and one woman who either can not or refuse to procreate. It may be between one man and one woman each of whom have several children by other means (prior marriages or children born out of wedlock). It may be as it was with my own parents -- a marriage into which children were adopted, and a marriage that broke apart as my father went from one lover to the next.

In some cultures legal and sanctified marriage may be between one man and many women. So it was in Jesus' time and culture, and so it continues to be in many cultures today.

There are cultures today where marriage may be between one woman and many men.

And in sub-cultures today, marriage may be between many people of any of the three sexes.

Sticking your head in the hoary muck of "God Intended One Man & One Woman When It Comes To Marriage Cuz That's How Genesis Defined It" is utter nonsense. Even the people who wrote the Adam & Eve fable believed in multiple wives and concubines, for goodness' sake! God intended men and women to create children. He intended them to be raised in a stable society with stable family resources from which to draw. In the days when the Man was the sole breadwinner, it made sense for there to be a man in that family unit, but today, that's hogwash.

As Iowa's Justice Cady wrote: If gay and lesbian people must submit to different treatment without an exceedingly persuasive justification, they are deprived of the benefits of the principle of equal protection upon which the rule of law is founded.

God Bless Justice Cady, and God Bless America -- here's hoping the rest of the country stops fearing their own rectums, pulls their heads out of it, steps OUT of the nation's bedrooms and moves ahead.

Hyperbolic, sure. But I'm feeling a little pissy right now.

I refinanced recently for a variety of personal reasons. Of course, as soon as I did that, my name and particulars went zipping 'round the world to all the "business people" who prey on mortgage holders, offering all manner of special services designed to make my life easier. They offered a service where, for a low monthly fee, they could arrange it so I would pay down my mortgage more quickly, paying off principal more rapidly, simply by changing my payment methods. Instead of one big chunk, the bulk of which is applied to interest and some smidgeon of which goes to principal, once a month, if I align my payments with my pay cycles, add a little bit on top of each bit, I would be applying more to the principal. I'd also be taking advantage of extra payments during the months that had extra pay periods in them.

Yowza! Great idea, thought I! I can easily set that up for myself using my free on-line banking bill pay service.

And so I did.

January went off without a hitch, but someone in accounting woke up from their nap when they got the first part of my February payment. I got a nasty gram. I got a phone call from a 'bot telling me there was a problem and to call an 800 number.

I called.

"We don't accept partial payments," intoned the nice lady. "They confuse the system."

Oh. I didn't realize you didn't have computers there. Sorry.

"We have computers. It's just that it's against policy to accept partial payments."

Um. Why?

"Well, it confuses things. The system isn't set up for it. They might misapply your payment."

Define "misapply." Like, you put it into someone else's account? What?

"Well, I can see they did misapply your early January partial. They used it to pay down the principal."

That doesn't sound like misapplication. That is exactly what should happen, in fact. But we're getting to the nut of it. See, the bank will help me be "flexible," if I so choose, by setting up a "flex pay" system for me, where by for a low per-draft fee they will "draft" a charge against my bank account to make the partial payment for me, and then they will apply the partial payment "correctly." That is to say, they will charge me money so they can set things up so I will pay the interest amount as well as the minuscule bit of principle they take out of each payment at the front end. Not only that, but THEY will control the amounts I pay and THEY will suck it out of my account for me.

This is why the banking industry must die. I accepted the interest rate they are charging me, and understand they front loaded it so as to maximize things. They are getting that full amount that they calculated for each of my payments. But now if I choose to reduce my principle faster, they have found a way to leech even more out of me.

They suck.

Before I left the New Year's party early Thursday morning, I made sure I wasn't breaking the law.

I had, of course, been careful to have only one glass of wine, early in the evening. I ate food, drank lots of water. I drove the speed limit. My car's lights were in perfect working order. I signaled when turning or changing lanes. And I made sure I did not have a license plate frame that obscured the word "Arizona" on my license plate.

Yah. AZ has a law that makes it illegal to obscure the word "Arizona" on your license plate. Most frames issued by dealerships, or the ones you can buy to show just how much you love Westies or show your support for your favorite high school football team are now illegal. You can be fined anywhere from $140 to $160, depending on the locality in which you get pulled over. Moreover, it's a primary offense, so even if you're not doing anything else wrong, the cop can pull you over and cite you if your frame covers the state's name.

Ostensibly it was made illegal for safety reasons. Used ta be you could easily tell what state a car was registered in by the plate's colors. Then states started changing plates more often than my fastidious and fussy neighbor changes his underwear. That is true even without accounting for the specialized plates for cancer, historic vehicles, child abuse, environmental awareness, universities, veterans, and having voted for Obama.

The idea is that victims of car-related incidents or police can now more easily tell if the car involved in the incident is an Arizona registered vehicle.

There is something fundamentally wrong with that reason, however. See, the law only applies to cars that are registered in Arizona. So a car involved in a hit-and-run just might be one of the many, many, many cars registered in Minnesota, Vancouver, or other northern place that crowd our roads for 9 months of the year.

My belief is that this is really all about one more way for a state hit hard by the economic slump to squeeze more money out of her citizens.