social commentary – Page 15 – Hopeful Romantics

Will Democrats Screw Up Healthcare Reform?

There is a darkly humorous scene in the film, The History of Violence, where the main gangster, played by William Hurt, arranges for the murder of his brother, played by Viggo Mortensen. One of Hurt’s henchman is to sneak up behind Mortensen, wind the garrote around his neck and strangle him. But the tables are turned, and Mortensen escapes.

“How can you f**k that up?” exclaims and exasperated William Hurt. He then shoots the henchman to punctuate his case.

This is how I feel about the Democratic Party and its attempt to reform healthcare. I am aware you can argue intelligently for healthcare reform and variations on that healthcare reform, or you could against it. There are credible opinions, for sure. There are options that may be worth considering. But that is not what I am talking about here. That on one hand is too simple and argument and too mired in knee jerk doctrine to warrant my adding my two cents on the matter.

First off, healthcare is not what I consider a philosophical issue. Abortion. Same sex marriage. These can be philosophical issues. Not healthcare. People get sick. People need healthcare. Many people don’t have healthcare. Even more can barely afford the healthcare they have. I pay a fortune every year in healthcare. I pay more for healthcare than a fair amount of people make as take home pay, annually. And every January my premiums go up. Last January it went up 40-something percent. That’s a big increase. I have no idea what will be extorted from me this January. And I am lucky. Why? Because I am in a group, so I am not confronted with the big, bad bugaboo, preexisting conditions.

As for our “choice.” That’s almost funny. Our choice is to face rejection for different procedures or fight like hell for months on end with the health insurance people. Luckily, we have good doctors with whom we have established long term relationships. I can only imagine how it would go down if our doctors just got here last Wednesday and had no personal investment in our general well being. And that is what most people are facing.

So we need healthcare. And we need healthcare reform. What gets me is the Democrats and the remarkable way, to paraphrase William Hurt, they managed to f**k this up. How when you have any number of options to clarify your healthcare initiative do you choose to lead with your chin? In fact this desultory attempt at convincing America that healthcare reform is necessary and is being implemented with the best intentions is so lame, so lacking in clear information, that the Democrats risk having any meaningful healthcare reform being kicked down their throat. They could lose their advantage in both houses of Congress in the forthcoming elections. They could face disaster and render what should have been a shoo-in eight year Presidential term into a four-year Jimmy Carter extravaganza.

Amazing. It is so amazing that one friend of mine believes the inept way the Democrats, in general, and the White House, specifically handled this healthcare initiative, they must have a secret plan. They must be sandbagging the opposition. They must know something that we don’t, but like any secret weapon they are only waiting for the right moment to unleash it on their opponents. I can understand why he would think that way. Hoping against hope that they are not that incompetent. Unh uh. Not happening.

We have done nothing during the past couple of decades or so if not turn every smart strategic act, politically, socially, and otherwise into some slick term that is used to identify its application. We are homogenized that way, very precise with all of our modeling, studies, surveys, statistics, pigeonholing. There is little allowance for random and unpredictable action. There is little allowance for gullibility that can border on insanity. But things do fall randomly, and even the most cogent proposition can lead to chaos. And, indeed, the road to hell has often been paved by good intentions.

Among the first things you learn in media management is to conceive of your message. Keep it concise, make it clear, and be damn sure the language is such that the average Joe Public out there can grasp what you are getting at. Introduce your message way ahead of time. Test market that message. Take it for a spin. Kick the tires, looking under the hood. If it’s a clunker, modify it in a hurry.

Repeat the message as if it was a Sunday prayer. Make sure all your primaries, secondaries, and surrogates understand that message. Make sure they can translate it, repeat it to large crowds and as a talking head on news shows. Like any good sales pitch, preach all the good stuff in easy language. Don’t allow for confusion. If you have too many facts, realize you are not in a fact finding nation. Reduce those facts to the three or four things that will resonate with the crowds. And if all that fails, hire a brilliant guy like Frank Luntz to make sure you can stay on point and deliver your message.

In the case of the Democrats, they believed people were hurting in a bad economy and would be open to change in their healthcare system. They probably would. The Democrats believe that there is a matter of moral consciousness, that there are far too many people without healthcare. Very true. The Democrats believe that economically speaking we are in big trouble with our present healthcare system, and in the very near future with costs soaring more and more people will not have a viable healthcare plan. No argument there.

But so much for beliefs when they translate to message that is supposed to lead to action. Democrats have approached this vital initiative, believing because it may be so you won’t have your ass handed to you by the financial interests concerned with preserving the private healthcare system just the way it is? We’re talking big bucks adversaries who have no interest in reform, really, not when they are raking in the money. And some of that profit goes to a fair share of legislators, local, national and statewide, in the lovely guise of campaign contributions. Maybe so. But certainly these campaign contributions, which total in the tens and maybe hundreds of millions, are not crossing palms to encourage reform that would detract from the bottom line. These campaign contributions, all right, you can call them bribes, are being paid out to keep things just the way they are, or close enough.

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So now President Obama is the one delivering the healthcare message. Sort of. Finally. This tactical decision only comes after the Republican leadership and the private healthcare industry takes the Democrat’s discombobulated message and turns it on its fanny. But the damage has been done. People love to buy into groundless information, it would seem. Thanks to the Democratic stumble step, a fair percentage of this country believes the Democrats are planning to kill grandma and the government is climbing into your underwear.

No matter that in the Bush administration, civil rights were abrogated, voluntarily surrendered, and intruded upon without so much as a peep from this crowd. No matter that we are still taking off our shoes in the airport and being forced to carry a gnat’s worth of shampoo on a seven day business trip. Forget you have nineteen different agencies listening on your phone, monitoring the books you read and checking out your toilet paper for secret code. It’s the healthcare reform that will ruin our country. In fact, in some circles the message has been so distorted that some ardently believe it is a copy of Nazi policy.

Amazing. Again, let me repeat. There are intelligent ways to debate healthcare reform. There are civil and cogent perspectives that should be heard. There are people out there, on both sides, who are actually trying to be heard. But they cannot be heard above this ridiculous din of lunacy and ragged incompetency that has predicated this mess.

I watch not with shock, but a whole lot of dismay as the princes and peasants with pens and pitchforks descend on these alleged town hall meetings, to rant and rave, show their guns, and try to shout down what are far too many excuses for legislators who are tongue tied and brain twisted by the level of adversity and near-violence. With the notable exception of Barney Frank who offered the appropriate response to one programmed lunatic who termed the healthcare plan a play taken out of Hitler’s National Socialists, most other Senators and Congress Persons seem grossly incapable of dealing with adversity.

Yes, adversity. It does still happen in a world where we believe everyone should be safe. In a world where our more naive believe American citizens will not be subjected to any abuse, in spite of the more obvious atrocities in the world around them. These are the people who believe reason prevails. Well, like anything else, miracles included, sometimes it happens that way, and most often it doesn’t. Sometimes, if you want to reason with someone, you have to hit them with a two by four in order to get them to listen.

I am not suggesting actual violence. I can see already what would come of it, what with the nut jobs out there who are carrying their guns to Presidential rallies. I believe in gun ownership. Really. But I also believe that anyone carrying a gun within the proximity of a president or elected official is not confronting a rights issue. That person is confronting a security issue. It is dangerous in theory and even more dangerous in practices. It is incredible to me that this should be allowed to occur. It is amazing that any doofus carrying a gun to a political rally isn’t hauled off to the rubber room for a quick stay with the shrink of his choice. C ‘mon, people, haven’t we all seen “Taxi Driver?”

But I digress. The fact remains that the Democrats have muffed the healthcare initiative. They have screwed up. Now they are playing defense. A smart defense is a good offense. A good offense is one that works. If you want to get it passed perhaps it is best to forget bipartisan efforts, group hugs, and marshmallow roasts. Tear a page from the old Democratic Playbook when such pols as Lyndon Johnson and Sam Rayburn were not afraid to twist arms in their own party. Even Bill Clinton did that.

Tell your supposed Blue Dog Democrats, cute name, that if they don’t climb on the train here, they can forget about any National Party support in 2010. Tell him there were be no funding, no marquee value personalities showing up in support. There will be no support of any kind. Nothing. Hell, if this healthcare initiative fails, as the Democrats must realize, and the Republicans certainly do, they will be losing congressional seats anyway. They might as well lose the seats that didn’t do them any real good.

In other words, cowboy up and show some boldness. Do like the Republicans do. When they get in power, they have an agenda, and they follow it in lock step to see that agenda is realized. They don’t mess around, getting caught up in the facts or apple bobbing in their own confusion. The Republicans don’t apologize. They don’t hem and haw. They have a message, and they stick to it. They don’t want to hug. Whether their policies are right or wrong, they are there to do their job, and that is exactly what they do. Give them credit where it is due.

But not the Democrats. They mistake confusion and mixed messages as freedom of choice and personal expression. They believe like every obnoxious television series that everything will right itself in the end. It doesn’t. It often gets worse.

So, Democrats, if you are really concerned with healthcare reform, then act the part. Get tough. Be direct. Get your message straight. Get rid of a thousand page document. Tell the public the public option is Medicare, but only if you are younger than 65, then you have to pay for it. That’s it. If you like Medicare, then this is your chance to buy it. Simple. To the point. No confusion.

Am I making myself clear?

When You Are Living Dead Above Marilyn Monroe

Westwood Village Memorial Park is arguably the nicest cemetery in Los Angeles. It is a small park, just south of Wilshire Boulevard. A movie multiplex sits in front of it as well as a high rise office building. In fact, you would never know it is there, unless you…know its there. Or discover it by accident.

Bodies have been entombed, buried, and cremated. Ashes have been stored in urns in a special room that looks like a dusty old apothecary, and in designated vaults. There are cylindrical graves, a couple inches wide, set into posts that also hold ashes. There are fountains, rock formations, and benches marking burial sites. The graves in the cemetery are both simple and elaborate. Yet you will never find a garish grave. This is Hollywood, and spending eternity in a tacky setting is the ultimate in bad taste.

While small and obscure, this quiet graveyard is hardly a secret. Although Forrest Lawn may get the attention, Westwood Village Memorial Park is the final resting place to many show business luminaries. It is an A-List repertory company. The legendary Fanny Brice is buried there, along with film pals Walter Matthau and Jack Lemmon. Natalie Wood, Kirk Douglas, Roy Orbison, and Frank Zappa have been all laid to rest in this exclusive little cemetery. Singers Mel Torme and Beach Boy, Carl Wilson are here. You can find the graves of Dean Martin and Burt Lancaster, if you are so disposed. George C. Scott and Billy Wilder. Peggy Lee and Carroll O’ Connor. The list goes on and on.

But perhaps no resident is more famous, or controversial, that Marilyn Monroe. She lived as a legend and died in mystery. Even today, we see her like she was in “Some Like It Hot,” or even, toward the end, in “The Misfits.” It is hard to imagine her, if she remained alive, visiting talk shows at 83 years of age. That is what she would be today. Eight three. Hard to believe.

Male users certainly seem to profess gratefulness to the erectile dysfunction drug, for its effects on their sexual viagra online pharmacies stamina and erection during intercourse with their partner. canadian viagra 100mg mouthsofthesouth.com Ask them how they are doing, ask them what techniques they are using to advertise and network. I have followed his plan faithfully and Iwent from $90,000 in debt with no direction, to where I am now having a normal love life with my partner and he or she is extremely best prices on levitra proud of Pine Tree State. you cannot even guess that I had this problem from birth. online levitra mouthsofthesouth.com Once you forward the message, the spammer actually has a program that can copy the list of addresses that the message has been forwarded to and send that list back to the person who originally sent you the email. Marily is entombed and not buried. Her casket is set above ground and covered in marble. There are myriad lipstick impressions all over the marble made from people who have come and kissed her grave. There are flowers, courtesy of former husband and Baseball Hall of Famer, Joe Dimaggio. At least the flowers were still being delivered each day, as Joe had ordered, even after his passing. He loved her, after all.

But no enough to spend eternity alongside her. That was the plan, but then the plan went awry for reasons that have embellished both their legends. Instead Joltin’ Joe sold that crypt, just above Marilyn’s, to Richard Poncher. Poncher has been occupying that crypt for the past 21 years. It is fitting in a way, as Poncher was an inventor but a rounder who had befriended gangsters, movie stars, and assorted notables. He ate at the good restaurants, traveled, and was the bon vivant. Poncher lived well and died at 81.

At Richard’s insistence, his wife, Elise, had the funeral director turn Poncher’s casket upset down so that he was facing Marilyn. A little unorthodox, perhaps, but far from the oddest dying request. It is Marlyn Monroe we are talking about here. Elise contends that if she didn’t abide by his wishes, Richard would haunt her for the rest of his life.

But now Elise wants to sell Richard’s place and move him. She is selling his crypt and moving him to the one that had been reserved for her. She will be cremated. Opening bids on EBay will start at $500, 000. Half-Million bucks, and up from there. Elise is not selling the crypt out of whimsy. There is nobility involved. She wants to leave here Beverly Hills house to her children, mortgage free.

I wish Elise luck. I hope she gets plenty of cash. I am sure she will. After all, who wouldn’t want the berth above Marilyn Monroe? And right next door to her, reserved for the time he draws his final breath, will be Hugh Hefner. Fitting enough for the Founder of Playboy to be Marilyn’s next door neighbor. And if nothing else, it’s a very exclusive neighborhood. No rowdy neighbors. Very quiet. And the shows they put on are not to be believed.

Les Paul’s Death Marks the End of a Music Era

Rock and Roll Music is many things to many people. From its inception in the late forties and early fifties when black blues and rhythm and blues combined with country and rockabilly, rock and roll has alternately been one of the most revered and hated of American institutions. Nearly everyone has something to say about its impact and its legacy.

Back then the religious figures and social conservatives absolutely deplored its encroachment into the fabric of American culture. They viewed it as a threat against racial segregation, it was, and a means of expression for untoward and calamitous behavior, an instrument of temptation, luring otherwise innocent young Americans to sex and drugs. It did that, too.

For the very same reasons it was viewed as a threat to constrained but allegedly decent American culture, rock and roll was seen by millions as source of liberation. It was an emotional outlet and a new resource for embracing the lifestyle that was rebellious an anti-heroic, that contrasted with the proverbial Man in the Gray Flannel Suit. It was a conduit for integration and for social and mystical reflection. It was a lot of things to a lot of people.

Few people had as much influence on rock and roll music itself than Les Paul. His iconic guitar has been played by legions of rock and roll gods, aspiring gods, and regular guys who played for awhile in their high school before switching out their dreams to sell insurance. Like far too many brilliant people starting out in life, he was deemed an underachiever. One of his early instructors lamented that Paul would never learn music.

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Without the eight track, we would have all the advancements since then. We would not have many musical innovations, creations like the Beach Boys’ “Pet Sounds.” The Beatles’ “Dr. Pepper” and so many innovative recordings, too numerous to name, would have remained obscure ideas that never reached fruition. The eight track mixing system seems quite by today’s digital standards. Even before the music world went digital the 72 track sound boards dwarfed the meager little eight track. But the true analogy is to compare Les Paul’s eight track with the Wright Brothers’ first venture, and then measure the technological advancements to, say, the B-2 Bomber. In short, it had to start somewhere, and in the case of mixing music, it started with Les Paul.

Gibson Les Paul guitars are still produced and sell around the world. Vintage Les Paul guitars can sell for the price of a modest house. More recording sessions were driven at least in part by Leo Fender’s Stratocaster and Telecaster, and the durable Gibson Les Paul. More musicians owe their careers to these three guitars.

Les Paul didn’t look cool. He didn’t look like a rock legend or rock god. He was unassuming, a genuine nice guy who liked to play music and liked to tinker. He fused jazz with country and grittier roots music for his own special sound. He was often genteel when compared to the more raucous aspects of rock and roll. He played with his wife, Mary Ford, which I’m sure nullified any groupies hanging around. He never made the tabloids for drug overdoses or tossing the hotel furniture twenty stories into the swimming pool.

Perhaps what made Les Paul so exceptional is that he looked so ordinary. He appeared the regular guy. But he was extraordinary, and few come along that contriube so much to American culture. He was one of a kind. He will be missed.

What the Porn and Newspaper Industries Have in Common

At first blush the pornography industry and the newspaper industry wouldn’t appear to have much in common. But they do. The business model has eroded in both industries. Both are falling victim to Internet sites that deliver the same information without charge. Newspapers are going belly up and their staffs of reporters and media people are getting laid off by the droves. The same is true for the pornography industry, with the exception being that the actresses who work in these productions are getting laid less and laid off with greater frequency.

It is a pity, I suppose, that we have to lament the loss of two of our most pervasive institutions. One gave us news, and one gave us distractions. But these are changing times. Perhaps all times are changing times, but these times seem to change more frequently and more dramatically than those in the past. Political and economic tsunamis are now worldwide, commensurate with the global economy. Even regional industries are affected by the global economy. It holds true for news and sex. Although it is ironic that it is “news” that is the four letter word.

Both the news and porn industry are not only succumbing to the free Internet outlets, but have been damaged by amateurs who are only too willing to perform the same duties of professionals in the obscure hope of lasting recognition. Here were two institutions that most thought would never die. They were the purveyors of public interest and as such thought their need would never end. But appears those need have been supplanted, and their industrial business models have been eclipsed by advancing technology.

The pool of applicants for what few jobs remain has increased substantially, while revenue has declined precipitously. Porn stars who regularly made a good six figures a year are now struggling to make less than half of that. Journalists who ascended with the status of the industry are watching their salaries reduced, dramatically. That is if they still have a job and aren’t either exiled to the blog world or faced with only part time work wherever they can find it.

Perhaps not so ironically, both industries had similar, modest starts. Both were started on the streets, where papers were hawked and sold to the teaming masses on the old city streets. The reporters and most of the staff were blue collar workers, men and women who barely finished high school yet alone college. But they knew their business and learned their trade. They could write well and some with original style and flair. They built followings and over time their grasp of the world around them evolved with the world itself.

That changed with the advent of a different sort in the newspaper. Newspapers may have taken the high road as the “Fourth Estate” and such, but the business itself was grounded in gutter fighting for distribution territory as well as the odd relationships between the “Fourth Estate” crew and the municipal lords on whose deeds they reported. The local news world was punctuated by the occasional threats to the reporter’s well being and some mutual back scratching, along with bonafide investigative tactics. There was also the human interest story, the local cat caught up in the local tree kind of thing.

The blue collar guys were supplanted for the white collar guys. Where you once hung loosely from the lower rungs of the ladder of success, news people now gained new status and with it greater salaries. You were no longer reporting for the love of it, the proverbial printer’s ink that became indelibly embedded in your system, but also because you could make a buck. Hell, you could even get famous.
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Pornography, too, had its beginning from the streets. In fact, vendors on the QT would peddle what were labeled as “French Films,” to willing customers who would pay cash,. Perhaps there is irony that the early smokers were often peddled under the counter at newsstands. The films themselves were scratchy and grainy. But in an emotionally suppressed nation they provided nervous relief for a good many stalwart Americans. take them home and run these 8 millimeter wonders for their friends and colleagues.

These sessions were called “smokers,” and they hinted of the dark but playful corners of small town and suburban America where the Rotarian, Elks and other clubs held their smoker sessions as not so secret, special events. Male bonding at its bondiest. It was a fun time. A few beers, some scratchy black and white silent sex extravaganzas, punctuated by corny subtitles, and there you were.

With the sixties and seventies there was sexual liberation, and pornography migrated to movie theaters. First came the poor excuses for sex films, supposedly educational vehicles that showed enough actual sex to stimulate public taste. Then came the seminal “Deep Throat,” and “The Devil and Miss Jones,” and soon it was not only acceptable but hip to go see a porn film. People took dates to these theaters, which were often converted from mainstream venues that had fallen on hard times. Still, because some were the older theaters with big screens and many seats, couples could see their sex in near-Cinema Scope. Giant sex organs projected from the screens like angry lizard space aliens.

Then came the video tape revolution and the sex industry came home. Couples watched porn in the comfort of their bedrooms, sipped on wine, ate some cheese, and tried out sex acts they saw on their color TV. Thousands rushed into the industry as the demand grew for these erotic wonders. Here, the San Fernando Valley became the capitol of the porn industry. I remember vacant homes on the blocks being rented out for sex sessions. Production trucks pulled up front and the film crew remained as discrete as possible as they shot sex for a consumer market that was shopping in the local mall, a few blocks away.

Then came the Internet. Sex exploded on the Internet. It lead the way in resolving key issues about selling goods and services on the Internet. The sex industry practically developed E-Commerce. The sex industry resolved algorithms and search engine puzzles long before mainstream industry. It was pornography, after all, that issued so many offerings to so many sexual predilections. Each one had to be cataloged, keyworded and put up for sale. And sell they did. entrepreneurs became billionaires. If not everyone made a fortune then a good many made a decent living from having sex on the Internet.

But now the party is suddenly over. Not completely over. No. But the party has diminished. If the lights aren’t out, they have been dimmed, for sure. Like the newspaper industry, the porn industry is going through the tough economic times from which it may never recover. Sure, some of the icons will still stand, and some of the elements of both institutions will remain. In some form.

As for those who worked in these industries, finding work is tough in this economy. There may be some opportunities for those who can make the transition. As for most, it may be time to wipe the slate clean and start again. Meanwhile, while searching for work, the news people are going on the Internet, and the porn stars are going to college. What strange times are these.