Control Freaks

The March 9 New Yorker carries two articles about  how two very different governments fail to control what they want to control, each in it's own pathetic way.

Peter Hessler describes being escorted around China by his government assigned censor, who is in charge of deleting phrases to pages from a book Hessler wrote about China.  What was most remarkable is that stuff which you might expect  would evoke the wrath of a sensitive authoritarian regimen was untouched--descriptions of the Communist party's manipulation of a village election, bosses hiring underage workers, violating safety laws, damaging the environment, tax officials taking bribes--but when the author discusses a former Premier, Li Peng, and gets the word for "orphan"  mixed up with "bastard" he has discussion with his translator which is pretty funny-that discussion was stricken by the censors, even though it was about the author's own clumsiness. 
The censor explained his bosses simply did not want the name Li Peng connected to the word "bastard."
In the end, the "censors" appear as hapless and timid functionaries, who are simply looking for work, and trying to please unseen masters higher up the ladder, who are, in turn trying to divine the thinking of those above them. 
Hessler develops a friendly relationship with one censor cum translator assigned him and ultimately  Hessler is able to throw enough work in the direction of this censor to establish this man in a career. 
Of course, when you really think about it, what the Chinese government is doing is pretty thoroughly Orwellian--the bureaucrats are trying to control thought, to manipulate free expression, to insure uniformity of opinion. It's just that the actual people you see struggling with this are just as frustrated as the author, because once you start down that path, all sorts of absurdities fly loose. Bribery? No problem. An American who can't tell the difference between an orphan and a bastard--well, get out the scissors. 

Eric Schlosser's piece, "The Break In at Y-12" is far more disturbing. This one is about failures of the American government to exert control, but this is a control most Americans would like to believe is effective. 

  

Schlosser wrote the wonderful Command and Control about the misadventures of American nuclear weapons over the years--a nuclear missile explodes in its silo in the Midwest,  and on several occasions, nuclear bombs slip loose and fall to ground in the United States from B-52's which once were kept aloft, just in case they needed  to fly to Russia to obliterate a few cities. 

In this piece, no missiles explode. It's worse than that.  A couple of  80 year old nuns penetrate the defenses around the storage facilities where weapon grade uranium and plutonium are kept. They did not intend to steal the radioactive stuff. They pour blood on concrete walls and spray graffiti with quotes from the Bible. The disturbing thing is that these dottering nuns were able to follow a not much younger confederate with a bolt cutter and walk right in. 

These "Highly Protected Areas" turn out to be not all that highly protected, mostly because the security has been "privatized."

You remember "privatized."  Like privatizing social security. In case you haven't thought about this concept lately, it's like this--The basic concepts are: A/ The government can't do anything right.  B/ Private enterprise should always lead the way because C/ Private enterprise is always more efficient.

The problem with private enterprise, when it comes to protecting our nuclear material from all those Jihadists who are drooling over the prospect of getting their hands on fissile material,  so they can wipe out New York City or Washington or Chicago, or Las Vegas, roughly in that order, is that what private enterprise is really good at is turning a profit.

So, if you want to turn a profit, you've got to cut expenses. This is the concept of a two sided ledger sheet. You've got expenses on this side and income on the other side.  Now, with respect to expenses: People are expensive. You have to pay them to watch those monitors and to patrol the fences when the monitors show there are two nuns and guy with a bolt cutter cutting through the fence. 

The company in question is, or was, called Wackenhut Services (I am not making this up. WACK-N-HUT!) But then it got sold to a Danish company, Group 4 Falck, then to a British company "G4S." (The Brits always like names which are simply letters and numbers: M4, Double oh seven,  007, you know, as in James Bond.)

So now you've got the nuclear fissile material of the United States of America in these storage facilities run by a private company which last week was Danish, this week is British and next week, who knows? Somali? Syrian? How about ISIS? It's all private enterprise!

Anyway, eventually the nuns get caught and arrested and treated really brutally, considering their age and the fact they are nuns and quoting a lot of Scripture.
But, clearly the guys arresting the nuns are really embarrassed these nuns got to the quarterback when they were supposed to be providing protection, so they keep these 80 year old women sitting on the group with their hands hand cuffed behind their backs for 5 hours. (Try that sometime.)

A word about these protester people: They are not exactly what you would call "practical." They believe it is better to die turning the other cheek than to resist nasty people--even Nazis.  They would not harm the man who is about to detonate a bomb in New York City because they are non violent, to a fault. So, it's not as if you can really embrace their entire approach to policy.

But, they do seem rather harmless to be sentenced to 18 years in prison for smearing blood on the concrete wall and spray painting Scripture on the same wall. 

Oh, but the judge explains, as he sentences the nuns to years in prison: "If all that energy and passion was devoted to changing the laws, perhaps real change would have occurred by today." 

Do you think the judge has ever heard the word, "Gridlock?"

Anyway, the nuns and the bolt cutter guy are now in prison with other dangerous types: rapists, murderers, drug kingpins. It really is straight out of "Alice's Restaurant." You can just see all those rapists and murderers moving away from the bolt cutter when they find out he's in for spray painting Scripture. But then they move back again, when they hear he cut through three fences and took a sledge hammer to a concrete wall, causing malicious mischief.

Contemplating how easily the nuns penetrated the "Highly Protected" complexes where fissile material was stored even some Republican Congressmen found reason to be alarmed: "It is outrageous to think that the greatest threat to the American public from weapons of mass destruction may be the incompetence of the Department of Energy security."  Of course, being a Republican, Rep. Michael Turner made it sound like it was the incompetence of a federal government agency, but the DOE had long ago been stripped of its security funding--that had gone to private enterprise, the infamous company, G4S. 

If Timothy McVeigh had known a few nuns and a guy with a bolt cutter, he wouldn't have had to use fertilizer to make a bomb. He could have leveled Oklahoma City with fissile material.

Schlosser notes Al Qaeda's current leader, Ayman al-Zawhiri has said a nuclear weapon, such as one he could construct with material from sites like the Y-12 site the nuns penetrated, would be blessed by Allah: "If a bomb were dropped on them, destroying ten million of them and burning as much of their land as they have burned of Muslim land, that would be permissible." 

These particular nuns, it must be noted would not like to see that happen, but neither would they stop Mr. al-Zawhiri if that meant blood might have to be shed to stop him.

As Schlosser leaves the prison housing the bolt cutter he looks back at the American flag flapping and he writes, "And a thought occurred to me: the walls of the penitentiary guarding this pacifist were taller and more impenetrable than any of the fences at Y-12."

Live Free Or Die

Ever wonder what our elective representatives are thinking? 
I know I do.
It's not that easy to actually know, even in the internet age.
It's not like Jon Stewart is on every night with a selection of choice remarks from the New Hampshire legislature.

I do not have Mr. Stewart's staff, but I did make an effort to sift through some remarks from Concord, just to illuminate.  Not sure exactly where to find a record of the thoughts or our legislators--a sort of Congressional Record--but I'm sure my readers will enlighten me. 
Some things are clear, however, whoever they are, New Hampshire lawmakers  like guns. The House passed a law to allow concealed weapons in its chambers. 

I can understand why the representatives would feel safer if they were allowed to carry guns in the State House: As Fred Rice has explained, "We're asking for the right to do what we do in our daily lives," which is to say, I am guessing, carrying a concealed weapon to the dinner table, the swimming pool, the bar and your child's christening.  I'm not sure if it was Fred, but some representative explained there are some pretty crazy representatives elected to the House and the best defense against one of them going ballistic is to arm the other representatives. 

The New Hampshire state house has no metal detectors. Too expensive, I am guessing. Might have to raise taxes. 

What I don't get is why these guns have to be concealed. Doesn't that spoil the effect of carrying a gun in the first place? I mean, what is a gun, if not a statement of potency, masculinity and power?  

But, wait. If the guns were not concealed, when the crazy Representative starts shooting wildly, he would know immediately who to shoot--he would take out the guys with visible guns. Concealing the guns keeps the shooters guessing. He might have to shoot a dozen unarmed Representatives before he got to one who actually might take him out, giving the secretly armed Reps time to get him first.

There is cunning among these legislators. 

As Bob Clegg (R-Hudson) explained, "Just because I held a girl's hand in high school and kissed, and she is now a criminal and breaks into my house, I don't want to lose my guns if I punch her."
Wow, there's a lot going on in that sentence. 

Here's one which is a little easier to deconstruct: "To protect children...get rid of those 'Gun Free Zones' with armed, willing and trained teachers. I really believe that they set up these 'Gun Free Zones' for one reason:To have these killings and to make stiffer gun laws." 
That's Rep. John Burt (R-Goffstown)  explaining that armed teachers (and perhaps armed children) will shoot down the shooters quickly, protecting the school children, but anti gun advocates want to leave children exposed to the shooters, creating more deaths among schoolchildren and a reaction to legislate gun control. That's pretty straightforward. Makes a lot of sense, to Mr. Burt.

Guns may be the first concern in the legislature, but there are more sweeping dangers out there worrying our Representatives. Just listen to Rep. Bob Elliott (R-Salem):  "Obama has opened Pandora's Box, and it will be the end of a free enterprise, Capitalistic, Christian/Jewish Society, with a strong work ethic country, will change into a country where the majority of people will speak Spanish and be Islamic within the next 20 years...The experts say the Caucasian Race will be a minority in 15 years or less."
Wow. Now there's something to chew over. All those Hispanic Muslims. And here I always thought Hispanics were apt to be Catholic. Shows what I know. This is a man who is pretty open minded, though. Notice he includes a Christian/Jewish mix in there as the traditional American profile. I bet he objected to all those Nativity displays on government property during the Christmas holidays as an affront to the Judeo-Christian tradition, a tradition with hard working Jews and Christians, not those lazy, shiftless Hispanic Islamic types who just want to move here to be on welfare. 

But you have to sort of read between the lines with Mr. Elliott. I like mine straight, where you don't have to guess what the guy really means. Take Josh Yousseff's remarks: "Islam is a Satan-inspired and FALSE religion. That is my 2 cents. 'Tolerance' is what got America into this most precarious situation. It's time for a little bit of intolerance, and a whole lot of political incorrectness."
And all this from a man named "Yousseff." Remarkable, really.

The discerning reader may note I have quoted only Republican Representatives. I will be happy to cite remarks from Democrats, but I just could not find any which rose to the level of clarity, intensity and forthrightness of these guys.

Bill O'Reilly: Look Ma! I'm a War Hero!

War Hero 

"Most notably, he has more than once said that during his short stint as a CBS correspondent in the 1980s, he was in the "war zone" during the Falklands war between the United Kingdom and Argentina in 1982. He even once told the story of heroically rescuing his cameraman in this "war zone" while being chased by army soldiers. Yet according to O'Reilly's former CBS colleagues in Argentina and other journalists there during the war, no American journalist reached the war zone in the Falkland Islands and other territories in the southern Atlantic Ocean during this conflict. O'Reilly and his colleagues covered the war from Buenos Aires, which was 1200 miles from the fighting."
--Mother Jones

"On Thursday night, O'Reilly suggested in interviews with Politico and The Washington Post that covering the violent protests in Buenos Aires qualified as 'combat.'"
-Huffington Post


In 1968, after Martin Luther King was assassinated, Washington, D.C. erupted. Riots ensued. Blocks were burned down, and the National Guard was called in to restore order.

Washington, DC, 1968

Watching all this on TV, and listening to accounts on radio, a friend of mine, who owned a nifty open Triumph sports car, said, "Hey. This is all happening just 10 miles from us. Why don't we go take a look? This may be our only chance to see anything like this in our whole lives!"

And, being a sober young man about to enter his final year of college, having not been sent to Vietnam, and having been living a monastic college life, feeling life was passing me by, I replied without hesitation: "What a great idea!"

That's how smart I was.

So we hopped in his open car and zoomed off to downtown. 

Our Car Was in Better Shape

It was remarkably easy for two young white guys,( one a blonde dead ringer for the Knight in the "Seventh Seal" and the other, me) to drive right down Massachusetts Avenue, slide over to Pennsylvania Avenue, and on toward the White House and beyond --just two white kids in a convertible riding merrily along the burning streets of Washington. 

This is Washington, not Dresden

What we saw has never left me:  City blocks I knew well were burning, smoldering, bombed out, but even more striking was the sight of soldiers with rifles on every corner.  You knew this was not just Spring weekend gone wild. This was some serious stuff.  Seeing soldiers on American street corners felt deeply wrong. After about 10 blocks of this sobering sight, my friend looked at me and said, "Had enough?"

Nobody shot at us. 
A few soldiers, holding their rifles followed us with their eyes. These were kids in uniform, about my age. The only authority they had they were holding in their hands:M-14's.

We Forgot Our Masks 

I nodded to my friend. We had seen enough and we looped back along the Whitehurst Freeway, along the Potomac, down to the parkway,  and we followed the river upstream.  We arrived back home in nice, safe, suburban, white Bethesda in 12 minutes. 

Little did I know then or really, until now, that ride had qualified me for my combat medal.   But Bill O'Reilly, who has, apparently, long claimed to have been in combat during the Falkland war, it turns out never got any closer to the Falklands than the riots in Buenos  Aires  and, he says, covering the riots there was the equivalent of combat. 

O'Reilly gets the Brian Williams award for bravery in combat.

So, if Bill gets his combat  medal for Buenos Aires,  then I guess I'll claim mine for Washington, D.C.

And to think, all these years I never thought I had any combat experience. 

Who knew?

Agents of Change

Professor Lessig

In these times, the hardest task for social or political activists is to find a way to get people to wonder again about what we all believe is true. The challenge is to sow doubt.
--Lawrence Lessig

The Democratic Party is intellectually adrift and reluctant to take principled stands that might find disapproval, especially among the moneyed elites... Intellectual innovation rarely comes from front-running, establishment candidates. They have too much to lose. Why rock a boat which you already command?

--Gary Hart

Just when you think crusading professors who try to change the world have gone extinct with the death of Howard Zinn, CNN sweeps in and puts Lawrence Lessig on the air. 

The professor wants to get money out of politics.

Exactly what form this sweeping of money out of politics would take is not clear. I did not see much dissent among the members of his audience about the desirability of eliminating "corruption" from government. Judging from the audience members who rose to emote vociferously,  the professor had been preaching to the choir.

The problem has always been: what is one man's corruption is another man's free speech and his freedom to exercise of  the  power of his purse.

Professor Lessig wants to teach the lumpen proletariat , wants them to wake up and smell the rotten fish.

Professor Lessig has a job which pays him to develop his ideas and to promulgate them. The rest of us have to get the kids out of bed, to get to work, to get the car repaired and (now in New Hampshire)  get the driveway cleared of snow and the roof raked. For the professor, the thing which motivates him to get out of bed in the morning may be fighting government "corruption;" for the work-a-day man or woman, what gets them out of bed is a strong desire to pay the bills and raise their kids. 

Years ago, my father returned from a trip to Franco's Spain very discouraged.  He had gone there, expecting to see Spaniards, living under the yoke of dictatorship, looking grim, unhappy and oppressed; instead he saw happy people, enjoying life at outdoor cafes. How could people  look so happy living where they are not "free"?  

Professor Lessig ought to ask himself that question.

The Movie, "Nashville" (one of my favorites) ends with a character, who has, for the entire length of the film, who has been muzzled, finally bursting into song for everyone to hear: "You may say/That I ain't free/But it don't bother me." Robert Altman at his best.

Professor Lessig. has traveled north, to New Hampshire to encourage the New Hampshire Rebellion, to get corruption out of politics, presumably because he can drive from Cambridge to New Hampshire in no time flat, but also because New Hampshire is, well, New Hampshire.  You know, we have politically engaged, hardy Yankee souls up here, ears and minds open to receive wisdom from a man who can talk sense to aroused citizens. And here in New Hampshire, we are nothing, if not aroused (politically speaking--don't get me wrong.)

Congressmen and Senators, it is obvious, are not representatives of a free people, but simply corporate employees who represent the people who pay them.

No professor, no New Hampshire Rebellion is going to change enough minds to matter.


After the killing of four students at Kent State, there was an image which likely did change a significant number of minds.

This Image Changed More Minds Than Any Protest March

What got us out of Vietnam was not determined teach-ins by academics or even the peace marches by ordinary Americans. What got us out of Vietnam was  the North Vietnamese army and the Viet Cong. 

Oh, If Gestures Could Stop Bombs

Will  the New Hampshire Rebellion really accomplish anything?

Well, it's attracted one energetic motivational speaker: Professor Lessig.

Were it not for him, we might all be living in vans down by the river.

If we cannot depend on the professional reformers to change the political landscape in this country, what mechanism of reform, what kind of reformer might actually be  effective? 

During the last election, in 2014,   a small coven of radical Hampton, NH Democrats  tried to get a message out, about the cravenness of Scott Brown and  Kelly Ayotte and their backers. They used  puppets and song, hoping to create an image to counter the slick fantasy created by Republican marketers and by the likes of Rush Limbaugh.  They failed. The internet is a vast galaxy and their star flamed out without much notice. 

You tube: Scott Brown The Prettiest Candidate 

That's the big problem in this new world of social media--so many voices, so little time, so little space. How do you get seen in a galaxy of competing, twinkling lights?

But they may have taken a first step down the right road.  Theirs, at least, was an authentic voice of derision and outrage, coming from an unadulterated place. Democratic candidates are timid, afraid to say anything which might offend anybody. These citizens had nothing to lose, and so they had everything to gain.

Who Should We Bomb Next? Oh, So Many Choices.

Ryan Zinke 

Ordinarily, I don't watch the Sunday morning talk shows, but this morning, procrastinating about roof raking the snow, I hopped on the treadmill and CNN treated me to an interview with Republican Congressman Ryan Zinke and someone else who was not Lindsey Graham, but could have been for all the difference they have in opinion, a man who captured my attention because he had tied his regimental striped tie so perfectly, with the dimple just so, and he was nodding in agreement with Congressman Zinke and adding we need to have "boots on the ground" in all those places which could serve as a safe haven for terrorists. 

Look at that tie! He must know what he's talking about

So we are talking about Yemen, Syria, Iraq, Iran and don't forget Egypt, these two stalwarts reminded us, they are close to the edge--ISIS could show up there any day.

Now, if we are going to go to war against terrorism, we got to go in to win, you see. What President Obama said in his recent speech about asking for war powers was all about what he would not do, but Mr. Zinke, a former Navy Seal, is here to tell you what we need to do is go in to win. That's what we did in the big one (WWII) and that's what we got to do now. You see, we went in to win and we won it. I am sure I heard Archie Bunker say that once. 

And ringing in my ears was that lovely exchange between Kima and Carter on (you guessed it) The Wire.
Kima: I love you guys, winning the war on drugs, one brutality case at a time.
Carter: Girl, you can't even call this a war.
Kima: Why not?
Carter: Wars end.

But not for Mr. Zinke and the guy with the pretty tie. No, this is endless war against...What or whom, exactly? Whack a mole? You whack Sadam and up pops ISIS.  And, it's not bad enough we got some meat head shooting Muslims in Chapel Head, now we got some Islamic extremist shooting people in COPENHAGEN!

I didn't even know Copenhagen had Muslims, not to mention extremists, or synagogues or Jews.  I was just reading last night in the New Yorker about a book by Michael Booth, The Almost Nearly Perfect People, about the Scandinavians. I was led to believe they do not have problems in Scandinavia, so Copenhagen comes as a great disappointment. Oh, I know about the Girl with the DragonTatoo, but that was Stockholm and that was fiction. Scandinavians are supposed to be melancholy, because of the weather and the dim light, but not because they've got problems with endless war and terror. 

Last time I was in Norway, I thought: these people are not Italians, but they know how to live. They just live in a place where it's still light at midnight during the summer,  and during the winter there is no sunlight at all. So they know how to live, they just haven't figured out where to live. My one night in Reykjavik, Iceland left me with the same feeling. The Icelanders live on a volcano, with no more sun than the Danes, but they have way better sweaters. It would almost be worth living in Reykjavik, just to have an excuse to wear those sweaters all the time.

But I digress.

Nobody is talking about dropping bombs on Reykjavik--although maybe ISIS is because we have a big US Navy base there, for some reason. I mean, I can see the reason the US would want a base there, but why do the Icelanders want to allow us to have a base there?  Seems to me it would just invite some maniac to shoot up a coffee shop because, well, we are the infidels and the Icelanders welcome us. And all those Scandinavians were big into the crusades--Just watch "The Seventh Seal" if you doubt me. I love that movie.  No Islamic extremists, just Death himself, sitting on the beach with a chess board and a black hoodie. 

Where was I? Oh, yes. The endless war. Congressman/former Navy Seal Zinke wants us to have bombers fly in all these places, guided by special forces soldiers on the ground who would need to be evacuated by helicopters if they get wounded or are in danger of being captured, because you know what ISIS does to soldiers or pilots they capture--they burn them at the stake. Well, not at the stake, but in a cage. Because, ISIS fighters are bestial. 

Did I ever mention in France, I stood on the spot where they burned Joan of Arc? I was never quite clear what she had done wrong--somebody heard God's voice telling them what to do--but I am reasonably sure she had no helicopter to evacuate her. 

Sweet Home Alabama: What is Marriage?

The Voice of God etched in Stone 

Judge Roy hears the Voice of God

This morning, on CNN, they interviewed an Alabama state legislator about the ruling by Judge Roy Moore, nullifying the Supreme Court ruling which would require Alabama to issue marriage licenses to gay couples who wish to marry in that state.

The state representative, a Mr. Barry Moore (no relation to the judge) said a number of incomprehensible things, at first saying that the government, both legislature and judiciary should represent the will of "the people" but then it was not clear whether he thought the judge or the Supreme Court represented the will of the people. He was so incoherent Mad Dog found himself thinking of the remark Maud once made about a New Hampshire state representative: "The man needs a translator."

But Mr. Barry Moore did say something which caught Mad Dog's attention: "We ought to get the state out of the marriage business."

Now this is a sentiment Mad Dog has long endorsed. It has always rankled to hear the priest say, at the wedding, "And now, by the powers invested in me by the state of..."
This strikes Mad Dog as a violation of the church/state divide. Here you are in the middle of a wedding mass and priest is now an official of the state. Whew. 

Calling it a "marriage license" has always been a dodge. You are actually signing a marriage contract when you sign on to get married, and you are legally responsible for a whole volume of responsibilities when you do sign that document, but most people are not aware of this. When you go do your will with your spouse, now that is a sobering experience, and couples should likely go through something similar when they go sign their marriage contract, but that would, you know, sort of ruin the moment. Everyone, really, should realize they are signing a pre nuptial agreement.

But, it should be said, Mad Dog has changed his mind, or as George Carlin would say, "I was Irish Catholic once. Now, I'm an American. You know, you grow."

Part of what has changed his mind is experience and part is the realization that marriage is a very different thing among different couples, but also for the same couple, over time. 

When you first get married, and you have no kids, no real estate, maybe all you have is two separate jobs or careers. Then you have kids, and that changes your relationship; you become partners in their care. Then you buy real estate and the marriage changes again. Then the kids move out and the marriage changes. Then you get older, 50 something and you buy a summer home and the kids come visit and things change again. Then one or both of you retire and you buy a winter home and things change again.

And all of these metamorphoses occur under and are governed by this thing called "marriage." The laws which allow you to claim half of the property, half of the pensions, half of the wealth of this relationship apply whether or not you are married--just ask Lee Marvin. Those laws are all governed by that marriage contract, or by "common law" marriage laws. And it is entirely just for a woman who has had to set aside her career to claim half of everything, because she raised the kids, made adjustments to her career, took the hit on her own upward mobility in career.

So Mad Dog is down with all those privileges--you should be able to visit the sick spouse in the hospital, make the decision to pull the plug (unless power of attorney has been assigned to someone else) and the fact you are the legal spouse means, by default, you get the power assigned to you and you get the money assigned to you and the property, in the absence of other declarations. 

The law gets complicated and marriage status simplifies things. If we didn't have marriage as we currently have it, we could certainly fashion a package of laws assigning all the rights of marriage to a couple who signed a marriage contract at city hall. This is what they have in some parts of Europe. In fact, in some parts of Europe, the license is more like a progressive driver's license--as you progress from one stage to the next, you sign a new document, like "renewing your vows."  (Whoever came up with that? Renewing your vows. What a Hallmark notion. And tomorrow is St. Valentine's day. How appropriate: Let's make love a profit center.)

And, it is likely true, many couples stay together, physically at least, because it is just, financially, too complicated to split. And that may not be a bad thing, in their fifth decade with kids out of the house. Nobody has to suffer from a modestly incompatible couple at war. They can live their cold war state without making kids miserable and without destroying each other. They can stick together in some ways and part ways  in other ways. Of course, many couples become even more compatible, as their finances smooth out and the strains of being young with children to support ebb away.

And then there is the recognition of what it means to be "married" to some people. It's like Catholicism:  It may seem like a burden to some, but it is a source of enrichment to others. Every February Mad Dog and his wife go off on a ski vacation with good friends who are  a married gay couple.  They  are very happy to be married because it means they will not face embarrassing events at the Vermont Inn and they can put their kids through college and visit as parents on parents' weekend and life is generally less of a hassle to have that status assigned by the state. 

Some gay couples believe having the state office sign on is a formal acceptance of them as being as worthy of respect and privilege as anyone--it is a long sought delivery of social acceptance to people who were once so scorned they had to hide their feelings. Mad Dog is not so sure it really is all that. There is still a part of American society who will never accept them. But then again, there is a part of American society who burn with racial hatred--said to be about 20%. Some people you just can write off.

And what is the judge in Alabama really saying? He's saying he hears God's voice saying homosexuality is BAD. Homosexual love is an affront to GOD. He hears that voice saying that. That voice may be emanating from  the monument to the 10 commandments he has right outside his door. Of course, he denies he is saying God tells him homosexuality is a personal sin and societal ill. He knows better than to actually say that. He says he simply does not want the definition of a word changed by federal decree, but he lies, plain and simple. He hates homosexuals.

What he is really hearing is his own reaction that homosexual love is repellent, but who am I to say that voice is not God? (Thank you, Pope Francis for that lovely phrase: "Who am I to say?")

And, for now at least, the government is saying to him: You can hear voices, but you cannot force others to hear that voice. 

For others, if not for you, all love is equal.

Oh Captain, My Captain! Jon Stewart is Gone! Fox News Declares Victory!

Jon Stewart is 52 years old. He has been the Daily Show for 16 years. He's packing it in, quitting, leaving, out of here, gone.

What will we do now?

Well, if you are Fox News: Celebrate! 

Mad Dog has solicited reactions from his favorite news analysts they were gracious enough to supply the following reactions:

Rush Limbaugh: This is a great day for all right thinking Americans. The Wicked Witch is Dead! All Hail the Deliverance from the seductive, slick sensation at Comedy Central who masqueraded as a latter day pundit!







Bill O'Reilly:  I never thought I would live to see this day! We have been delivered from evil.  The Antichrist has gone down.  I may invite him to do spots on my program, if he has not gone entirely Hollywood. 










The Bimbo Group:  We are so glad to report the passing of a dark scourge from the evening news landscape. A force of disrespect, loathing and obfuscation has finally been driven from the alter of truth which is television news.  

So, the axis of evil: Stewart, Colbert and Oliver have finally been defeated and we can all feel safer in our homes and beds and cars and yachts. 

The Left is in disarray, silenced. 

Al Franken has been said to be considering resigning from the Senate to try for Stewart's seat, but, truth be told Al Franken is no Jon Stewart. He isn't even Barney Frank. 

Now, there's a thought: Barney Frank. He must be getting bored by now.