Quirkee.com

I hate fads. Not that I'm immune from them. If you removed the phrases, "Know what I mean?" and "That's what I'm talkin' ‘bout!" from my vocabulary I could be taken for a man of few words. I'm not. I've always been intrigued by the human tendency to jump on the latest bandwagon.

It's not uncommon for a relatively unknown candidate to catch fire in a presidential campaign. In 2000, there was Ralph Nader, in 2004, Howard Dean. Unwilling or unable to secure the nomination of the major parties, they sometimes choose to run as third party candidates. At this point in the 2008 campaign, that role seems to have been assigned to Ron Paul.

Here's the deal. In presidential politics, third party candidates function as spoilers; they never win, they just drain votes and enthusiasm from the candidate they are closest to in terms of political viewpoints. As a result, the candidate who their supporters most oppose is elected. I always wonder if this makes them feel better afterwards.

Of late I have deviated from my self-righteous yet correct contributions to Quirkee. Soon I'll return to the process that requires research, proof-reading, fact checking, and cruel-but-fair editing. This week I'm just going to jump on my high horse and blow off some steam.

How ‘bout that Al Gore! The most maligned figure in the Democratic Party since Jimmy Carter was awarded the Nobel Prize. In 1992 Bush the First derided his environmental concerns by calling him Ozone Man. During the 2000 presidential campaign, the mainstream media didn't look at what he said about the issues. They focused instead on his discomfort in public and his choice of suits. Is there any question now about who would have made the best president?

I'm burned up by the way everyone seems to be picking on Blackwater U.S.A. these days. It's unfair to punish a company for being successful. They have a charismatic leader; they set the standard for the private security industry, and they have record profits with unlimited growth potential. They are an excellent mirror of our successes in Iraq. There are more vicious accusations being leveled at Blackwater than there are demons from hell living inside Hilary Clinton. The misinformation is so widespread; the rumors so scurrilous, that it's time that someone spoke up for these patriotic capitalists.

Recently, an acquaintance asked if I would be able to help him and his wife move. He told me that a moving company would take care of all the hernia-inducing heavy stuff and that all we would have to deal with would be the boxes.

Upon arriving I discovered an entirely different scenario. Since so many people had agreed to help, our host reasoned, why not just move everything ourselves. Unpleasant, but I must admit the last minute switcheroo had a cruel financial logic to it. At least I could put my vocational experience from UPS to good use. Not so, for the household had not really been boxed and when it was, well over half of the boxes had no tops and stuff was protruding from the top. An orderly progression was not in the cards. They gave one agenda, but their actions revealed another.

At this writing, the candidate most likely to be our next President is Hilary Clinton. Her presidency would not be in this country's best interest. It has nothing to do with her gender and everything to do with her lack of a moral compass.

My Google home page is arranged so that I can see the day's top stories. The sixth anniversary of the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon seem to have gone unnoticed. The BBC World News, Reuters, the New York Times, and MSNBC all neglected to make this a headline priority. This seems odd, since every aspect of America's foreign policy, and a great deal of our domestic agenda, have been affected by this event. The Bush administration has used the tragedy as an excuse for almost all of its most controversial policy decisions. In this spirit, I thought it might be nice to ask a few questions about the status of actions taken as a result, or so it has been claimed, of Osama bin Laden's vicious attack on America.

After the game is before the game - Run Lola Run

Sometimes I may be lacking in direction, but by God I've got a lot of velocity. When I saw The Bourne Ultimatum recently, my date told me she was completely exhausted by the experience. I remembered watching the film thinking, "Yeah. This feels just about right." So it should come as no surprise that I'm a big fan of the 1999 film Run Lola Run. Combining time pressure, a perfectly suited techno soundtrack and, of course, all of that running by the film's eponymous heroine, it's perfectly suited to a man with my mental metabolism. It's adrenaline on a stick. So how is this related to the Petraeus presentation? Both the film and the American misadventure in Iraq face the same set of problems again and again. On each new occasion there is an opportunity to try a new solution. In the movie, things get better each time. And in Iraq, nothing could be further from the truth.

I have a theory about creative people. The one thing that unites and drives us is an inability to communicate with our fellow humans using normal channels. To borrow from the current debate on another subject, no amount of counseling, social, or familial cajoling can eradicate the creative identity. You either are or you aren't and that's that.

So I always enjoy seeing celebrities decide to make public endorsements for various causes. Remember, these are the same folks who generally have a hard time ordering at the drive through. Many earn their salaries based upon their looks. Like the public at large, there always seems to be more concern in Hollywood for the welfare of animals than our fellow human beings. When they do decide to do something for those less fortunate, they prefer to go to another continent to get it done. With their whole careers dependent upon a subtlety challenged media, is it any wonder most of the attention is paid to them rather than their causes? Can you recall where in Africa the Brangelina tour went and what problems they focused on? So naturally their political insights must be deep as well.

When I was twelve my family drove from our home town at the time, Baton Rouge, up the east coast to visit some of my mother's relatives in Connecticut. The first half of the journey was prolonged by my dad's insistence that we stop at every single Civil War battlefield park between Vicksburg and Manassas. We finally made it to Washington, DC and left behind the countless memorials dedicated to the War of Northern Aggression as some folks like to call it. Lots of things to see and do. This new opportunity brought with it a new set of challenges. Namely, traffic. The Wikipedia travel section puts it this way, "Driving in D.C. can be summed up in one word: Don't."

The chain of command in the family had long since been established. The commander neither solicited nor heeded the advice of subordinates. With the old man at the wheel there were no wrong turns. The battle for traffic dominance, however, seemed to be going distinctly in D.C.'s favor. After we wound up in front of the Iwo Jima memorial for the third time while trying to get somewhere else, an insurrection broke out. My mother worked up the courage to say, "Robert, I think we're lost." Taken somewhat aback by this brazen challenge to his authority, the commander replied, "Shut woman. I know my shit!"

Crawford

My parents chose to spend their retirement near Granbury, Texas. When I drive up to see them, State Highway 317 takes me through the center of Crawford, the location of George W. Bush's rent-a-ranch. As someone who drove through town back when life was good and foreign and domestic enemies seemed to be banished from the field, I can attest to the hard times that have befallen it.

How often do residents of a small rural town get the chance to have a neighbor who's America's number one ‘guy you'd like to have a beer with' (in a respectful, Baptist sort of way, y'know)? I admit I was puzzled by the fact that the citizens of Crawford, true Texans, were really buying the whole drugstore cowboy bit. My only conclusion has been they were blinded by a double whammy. The footlights of the Beltway and the flattery of having your own prejudices and hatreds reflected by such a powerful man must have been an intoxicating combination.

Driving home, I noticed that the trend of the disappearing Support the Troops magnet was continuing. Long since installed in the political chicanery Hall of Fame, these thinly veiled Bush-Cheney 04 ads have long since been removed by people still capable of vomiting. Crawford, being the last outpost in George Bush's Eastern Front of history's onrushing judgment, still had a few dead-enders as recently as my last drive through town. This time, the closest thing I could find was a yellow Pray for Our Troops magnet. The irony and painful truth of seeing that slogan in Crawford was profound.