Monroe Anderson

That One won the town hall debate

        

(New York Times photo by Stephen Crowley)

 

     So I’m looking at my savaged, decimated stock portfolio, fearing that I might have to come out of my early semi-retirement to find a job at the very moment when they’re being out-sourced or disappeared before my very eyes, as I hear the McCain campaign tell us that Barack Obama once hung out with Bill Ayers and worshiped with Rev. Jeremiah Wright.
      Uh huh. That and $65 will fill up the gas tank in my seven-year old Honda Accord.
     Rather than old, unrelated news, I want to hear specific, concrete plans on how my financial ship will be steered back on course to Treasure Island. 

     I know Obama has a clue. I doubt that John McCain does.
    That’s why I couldn’t wait to watch the second round of the presidential debates. I wanted to see to if McCain was man enough to step to Obama with some in-your-face mud slinging or would he wimp out and pretend that he cared more about Main Street than Wall Street.
    I saw enough at the town hall meeting.
    For one shining moment, the Maverick showed up in Nashville. Right off the bat, he announced that as president he’d have his secretary of state “buy up the bad home loan mortgages in America” and have the banks renegotiate their jacked up rates.

    Once he got that off his chest, McCain rested on the tattered and tired conservative  clichés he’s been spouting ever since he steered the Straight Talk Express off the information highway to bounce along the bumpy back roads in Bush Country.
     McCain insisted on keeping taxes low, particularly for the fat cats. McCain evoked the right-wing idol,  Ronald Reagan’s name--as if that were some sort of white magic that would get us out of the mess eight years of W. misrule have put us in. McCain got stuck on spieling about how he supported the Surge and Obama had not. The Arizona senator also threw out the flag-waving slogans his peeps love to hear but refuse to give any serious thought.
     Never mind that the stock market has plunged 5,000 points this year, “Our best days are ahead of us.” And, never mind that we invaded Iraq—which had no Weapons of Mass Destruction and nothing to do with 9/11—leaving tens of thousands of innocent Iraqi citizens dead and the nation in ruin.  “America is the greatest force for good in the history of the World.”
       And, my friends, McCain knows how to nail Osama bin Laden, lead us back to the promised land of good and plenty, win the occupation in Iraq and the Bush-botched war in Afghanistan—he’s just keeping it a secret until he’s sworn in as POTUS.
     The Republican candidate also knows what to do about making sure Americans have health coverage. Unfortunately for both us and him, his explanation of his insurance plan sounded like Palin's explanation of her readiness to move into the Oval Office—confused, bemused, befuddled, muddled.
      Meanwhile, Obama spoke to middle class frustration and anger with plain talk while sounding and looking presidential, which bottom-lined in “that one”--as McCain chose to condescendingly call him--winning the debate hands down.
    But tomorrow is another day for the right to play.
    With the polls giving Obama the win in both presidential debates and an ever-increasing lead in the national opinion polls, can we count on the McCain campaign to ignore our financial pain and return to the politics of personal destruction, pumped out by the right-wing fear and smear machine?
    You betcha!

You can find this one and others I've posted on EbonyJet.com. Also, you can watch the entire town hall presidential debate on the MSNBC video below.

Cubs lose, Cubs lose, Cubs lose!

      

     Although I've lived on Chicago's North Side, less than two miles from Wrigley Field, for more than 30 years, I've never been much of a Cubs fan for three reasons.

     The first is that I grew up on the far, far Southeast Side--Gary, Indiana--where we were partial to the White Sox.
      The second is that the Sox integrated its player roster a full two years before the Cubs did. Minnie Minoso became the first black with the Southsiders on May 1, 1951. Ernie Banks, now Mr. Cub, wasn't hired by the Northsiders until September 17, 1953.

     My third reason for not caring about the Cubs is that I'm a bad-to-the-bone fair weather fan. Life's too short to waste it watching a losing team. And, in case you missed it, the Cubs' playoff loss Saturday made them official losers for a full century. The last time they won the World Series was in 1908.

     Because I've been smart enough to make better use of my time than watching the Cubs lose again, neither of my two grown sons have wasted any of their time watching the Cubs lose again either. So I think it's safe to say that there will be another generation of Andersons who aren't disappointed with an inevitable home team loss at venerable Wrigley Field.

     But there are tens of thousands, one generation to the next, who are not so lucky. One of those poor souls sent me an exasperated email confessing as much. Here's what Gerald Shinn, who comments occasionally are published on my blog, had to say in his email:

My grandfather was born in 1914 and became a Cubs fan when he came to Chicago from Minnesota around 1940.  He didn't get to see them in the World Series in 1945 because he was still in Europe, having fought there in WWII.  He died in 2000, having been a fan for over 60 yrs without ever seeing the Cubs in the Series. 

My father was a Cubs fan.  Born in 1941, he was too young to have any memories of the 1945 series' appearance.  He died in 2001, having been a fan for over 50 yrs without ever seeing them in the Series.  I am a Cubs fan.  I was born in 1967 and therefore have never known a pennant winning Cubs team despite being a die hard for 32 yrs.

I tried to quit after last year's debacle to no avail. 

Like so many fans I talk to, I can no more separate myself from them than I can separate myself from me although after this latest catastrophe I have no doubt that no matter how long I live, I will die without ever seeing the Cubs in the World Series, as did my father and grandfather before me.   

There is but one saving grace:  Thankfully, I have no children and thus have not encouraged any young innocents to be Cubs fans and squander a huge amount of time, money and emotion the way I was. 

We current Cubs fans have to make sure we are the last ones.  I'm not saying don't have children.  I'm saying don't let them become Cubs fans and follow the hopeless path we took.    Just because our parents inflicted this cruelty on us is no justification to have it continue. 

Intentionally making innocent little kids miserable and depressed is child abuse and in the final analysis, being a Cubs fan is all about being miserable and depressed.    

     Oh, Gerald, don't be so pessimistic--Wait 'til next century.

     You can find this one and others I've posted on Huffingtonpost.com.

 

Palin's pale performance undebatable

   

        Watching Sarah Palin debate tonight was absolutely delicious—she’s done!
        John McCain choice for his running mate served up one half-baked response after the next, short on specifics and heavy on platitudes and generalities. With the public souring on the moose dresser turned instant media star—only 38 percent of voters now believe she’s ready for the big time—this was the Arizona governor’s last best hope to demonstrate any competence or comprehension about national and international affairs.
     It didn’t happen. She wasn’t even close.
     Palin served up the same old leftover right-wing bromides that she’s been feeding us, during the infrequent availabilities she’s made since screeching out her acceptance speech in St. Paul 30 long days ago.
     “Can I call you Joe?”  Palin asked in a folksy right off the bat of Sen. Biden before winkin at the Joe Six Packs and Hockey moms sittin out there in Red state America hopin she wouldn’t end up soundin too stupid.
    Gov. Palin didn't. She didn’t say anything dumb. She said only one thing truly alarming—that she wanted to expand the power of the vice presidency over the senate. But she didn’t she say anything intelligent or knowledgeable. Heck, Palin didn’t even offer any straight talk to any of Gwen Ifill’s questions, choosing rather to ask her own softball questions before giving a practiced answer.
    There was plenty of sizzle but no moose steak. Just an oversized platter full of talking points and snippets of her standard campaign speech.

    So savor this: the elitist Eastern media, with its appetite for truth and substance, will have Palin’s poor debate performance for lunch before the week is out.

    Here's the full vice presidential debate on YouTube:

And here's the SNL spoof with Tina Fey and Queen Latifah: