Read this and then come back and let’s talk about it.

Pete Rose Should Enter the Hall of Fame with Ichiro Suzuki

Be sure to check out the comments as well – a really good discussion. It seems pretty clear from the comments that Pete, nicknamed Charlie Hustle in his day, and his story represent a serious transgression of ethics and likely the law. But it appears that the whole story was never fully told re: his gambling on baseball. And yes, comparing his ‘sin’ to that of taking drugs may be a case of two wrongs don’t make a right, or a bigger sin cancels out a smaller sin. What he did was wrong, and like Lance Armstrong, he didn’t admit to it until he was forced to. But was there more? Did he, in fact, influence the games on which he bet, and in exchange for a lifetime ban, that part was not disclosed? This was alluded to by a commenter. With the press today and the pressure on MLB because of the incredible sums of money involved, such a deal might not be possible. The details would be leaked and the 24 hour news cycle – not to mention baseball talk radio – would go crazy. I kind of liked the reader’s suggestion: since it was a lifetime ban, induct him posthumously. To do otherwise is to buy into the big sin/little sin unfortunate rationale that always gets us in trouble.

But I have to say I put this piece here because I really enjoy and am impressed with Frank Deford’s prose. What do you think?

So let’s talk about it!

For the past 5 years, I think we – the U.S., the world – have been going through a phase shift. For so many years, things pretty much stayed the same. We grew up, got married, raised a family, went to work for one firm for 30 years, retired, moved to Florida, complained about everything, drove slowly and then died. Simple; straightforward. Everybody understood the rules, and pretty much stuck to them.

Then things started to change. The change was gradual and subtle, so nobody really noticed, until some time between 2007 and 2008 when everybody sort of woke up to the fact that there was a new reality with major upheavals for themselves and their families.

What is the new reality?

People as workers are disposable and should be treated badly by their employers.
People as consumers of goods and services should be manipulated and tricked into buying what corporations are selling.
People as voters should be manipulated and tricked into buying what politicians are espousing.
People as citizens cannot be trusted, and so must be spied on and watched lest they commit some dastardly act – or think about doing so.

What do all these elements of the new reality have in common? It’s this: we have stopped being a community of people that respect, watch out for and take care of each other. Instead, we have become an angry, worried, cynical, bifurcated tribe of individuals, hanging on to the most tenuous connections of family, friends and institutions through the lens of social networking.

Is this a new observation? Hardly. Paddy Chayevsky captured this alienation well in his screenplay for that insightful film Network, which was released in 1976. But Paddy’s character’s rants were pretty much restricted to the media, and viewers thought it was a send up and exaggeration of the way television reacted to ratings. But I would argue the change started to occur in roughly this same time frame, 1976.

Most economists track the flattening out of middle income wages to the mid 70’s. Social changes were occurring in a big way at that time: civil rights, women’s so-called liberation, reproductive rights and the two-working parent family. Some would argue these social changes caused the new reality. Some would argue the reverse: that the new reality caused families to have fewer children and encouraged women to further their education and then to enter the workplace. Kind of a ‘chicken & egg’ argument. But here’s my theory … get ready.. here it is:

The new reality is a normal result of the life arc of the baby boomer generation.

If my theory is correct, then this is a phase shift that, by definition, will be temporary. Started about now, baby boomers world-wide will begin to retire. In 2020, the last of the boomers will turn 65 and ostensibly will retire. There were insufficient Gen X’ers born subsequent to the boomer generation to fill the void. So the result will be … drum roll…soothsayer pic…

Starting in the latter part of this decade,

People as workers will be accorded new found respect and will be actively sought out by competing firms. It will become a ‘seller’s market’ if you will of skills and willingness to work.
People as consumers of goods and services will be treated with respect for their intelligence and ability to discern the truth about products & services.
People as voters will have all the information they need about issues and policy positions, so as to make the best possible choices for their governance.
People as citizens will be accorded significant rights to privacy and independent thought, with these rights supported and upheld by all three branches of government.

How’s that for a vision of nirvana? But reality is: it’s all in the numbers. That old saw ‘familiarity breeds contempt’ applies to large quantities of people available to work, buy, vote and live. When the numbers begin to decrease, the value of the individual will reach a new ascendency. You just wait & see. I’m not too old to see that day come.

Here’s the text of an e-mail I sent to the NY Times, ref: an Op-Ed piece entitled “Why Pay Off the Debt” by a retired math professor. Check it out and then we’ll talk. BTW: the NY Times Editor, likely a twenty something savant with the attention span of a newt declined to publish it. Can you blame him? (She does go on..and on..)

If things in the economy were as simple as Professor Charlap described, then the answer would be obvious, and his statement “I cannot find a period when too much debt hurt us” would lead to the conclusion that it makes no sense to pay off the debt. But the U.S. economy is complex and dynamic, with a variety of cause-and-effect relationships simultaneously occuring. But saying that does not dismiss the need to answer the question, which unfortunately will require some rephrasing and examples of what has occurred with other countries.

The debt is a result of more dollars going out than coming in. The impact of that is not felt in a given year, or a decade or even over a lifetime. And I agree with the professor: the U.S. economy is not the same as a family’s economy. The government manages money either loosely or tightly to influence the economy to avoid the pitfalls of inflation and deflation. For the bulk of our current life experience, we have experienced inflation and not deflation – by a factor of 30 to 1. There have only been two years – 1955 and 2009 – when inflation has been negative, i.e. when we experienced deflation. But before that? From 1921 to 1933, we experienced deflation 8 out of 13 years. And what was the debt in those two periods? From 1955 to the present the debt grew by a factor of 58. From 1921 to 1933 there was a 6% reduction in the national debt. So a facile conclusion would be that to pay down the debt is bad for the economy, resulting in negative growth, and therefore we should not even try to reduce it.

But there’s another example: Japan. From 1993 to last year, Japan’s debt increased from 80% of GDP to 230% of GDP. Over that same period, it experienced deflation in 11 of the 20 years, with 1.1% the highest level of inflation for the period. So if you look at that data, you’d say increasing debt causes deflation, and therefore we should try to reduce and pay it off. But we know that isn’t true: common sense says it isn’t.

So what’s the real issue? It’s growth, accurately and consistently measured. Debt as a function of that growth determines whether you’re in trouble or not. If there’s growth, debt can be managed. If there isn’t growth, the cost to service debt becomes increasingly more difficult, and usually leads to drastic action (ref: the Euro mess at the moment). At the same time the debt has been increasing, so has the population of the U.S. So has the GDP in every year from 1950 until 2009. The reality is, there’s both a numerator (debt) and a denominator (GDP). If both are increasing, it’s OK. if both are decreasing in proportion to each other, maybe you’re OK. But if the numerator is increasing and the denominator is decreasing – for whatever reason – you’re in big trouble. So the answer to the question “Why Pay Off the Debt?” is found in the reality of global competition and demographics. When our growth declines because of either factor, it will be too late and we will have to face years of hardship and/or renege on our debt and become just another third world country. Fortunately for us, China is our only real global competitor, and they are facing a bigger challenge than we are in the next few years with their debt to GDP ratios (whatever they may be – they likely manipulate the numbers). And demographics? Hello, immigrants! You will be our salvation when baby boomers begin to retire in droves. Keep that growth machine going, and paying off the debt will be a non-issue.

So now that you’ve read that, here’s the thing: a large portion of the world is messing with those two numbers. For example: China keeps increasing the numerator at the same time the denominator is decreasing. Per the above, that’s really bad, right? Well, they have lots of money stashed, so they can keep doing this for a long, long time and hope things in Europe get better so they can start exporting stuff again. OK, what’s Europe doing?

Europe is decreasing the numerator at the same time the denominator is decreasing. That’s the ‘maybe you’re all right’ example above. But are they? It’s all in the proportions. The denominator is decreasing at a faster rate than the numerator. That’s bad for Europe, and bad for China since they aren’t buying that stuff.

What about Japan? Japan is increasing the numerator in an attempt to increase the denominator, after having spent the past twenty years seeing their denominator decrease slowly while the numerator is increasing. So how does increasing the numerator faster help? A lot of folk are mystified by that. But it seems to be working: they may actually have sufficient growth to break out of their doldrums. But they’d better hurry: demographics is sneaking up on them.

So what about the third world, the so-called BRICs? Brazil, Russia, India, China. We’ve already talked about China, which isn’t really a BRIC. Russia relies totally on energy exports, which will be in jeopardy when our natural gas exports cause them to lower their prices – not right away, but eventually. Brazil is experiencing stagflation and social unrest. What’s stagflation? Growth is declining while prices are increasing. Deadly combo, eh? Finally, India is still struggling to feed its ever burgeoning population while continuing to try to compete in the global marketplace for jobs…I’d bet they’ll emerge a winner eventually.

And that leaves just the US of A. Economically, we’re the healthiest economy in the world. Our political situation is tenuous at best, but destined to work itself out when the Republicans can’t agree on what day of the week it is, much less how to govern any segment of our country. What must we do to continue to survive and thrive? Three things: reduce the cost of education, housing and health care. First, reduce the cost of education. The MOOCs will see to that. MOOCs are massive open online courses, and they will revolutionize education in this country. Second, reduce the cost of housing: that’s a technology and political question, but the incipient and long-awaited housing boom is upon us. And finally third: reduce the cost of healthcare. Obamacare is on the way – albeit slowly. Preliminary results out of New York show every indication that the cost of health care will be reduced. And all of this under the noses of Republicans who think the answer is to get the government completely out of loan guarantees for housing, increase the interest rate for student loans and repeal Obamacare. Oh, okay…great model, eh?

So the next time you see a Republican, be nice to him or her: it’s tough being an endangered species doomed to self-destruct through the desire to cling to an outdated and risky model.

The Way Way Back Movie

(That thing in blue just about this line is a link to a movie website: click on it, and then hit the return button to come back here. Do I have to tell you how to do everything? Sigh)

Yesterday afternoon we were looking for something to do, so Erik suggested we go to the movies. Not an unusual suggestion for a quiet Sunday afternoon, but I had a sense of foreboding going to the Majestic movie link on the Ipad. In the middle of July, all that’s out there are – yes, you know – movies designed to please a 13 year old boy. Shoot-em-up space movies. Animated films with pictures for 8 year olds but occasional dialogue for the adults forced to sit there for 2 hours to keep the kid quiet and away from porn on the computer. And the inevitable ‘scary movie’ genre with loud music and a cheesy, bloody plot line. But then there was this other pic that I’d seen a review for in The Atlantic: The Way Way Back. Said it was the best movie of the summer. Well, being the best movie of the summer generally puts one in the category of being The Cream of the Crap (imho)…

So OK, we went. And the movie was adoreable…it had a happy ending (which Erik insists on) and it wasn’t cheesy at all. In fact, the two writers-turned-directors Nat Faxon and Jim Rash were in the film and were wonderful character actors. Apparently these two guys wrote the screenplay for The Descendants (a movie I loathed, by the way) but at least it got them noticed and apparently a little money so they could make a really good film: this one.

The plot line is a familiar one: two divorced parents, each with a kid, journey to the beach together to “try out being a family”. The girl is a typical teenage surly hottie and the boy is pale, awkward and miserable. You kinda know where it goes from here, so I won’t bother with the plot line. Instead, I’ll comment on the characters and actors that made it charming.

Let’s start with Sam Rockwell. You don’t know the name, but you know the actor. First, he was a psycopathic sadist in The Green Mile. The guy that just knew he was the extra doomed to die in Galaxy Quest. Finally, he was Zaphod Beeblebrox in Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy (a fabulous film recommended by my daughters and one I could watch a hundred times and never get tired of). So now do you remember him? Alas, the fate of the actor who does a great job in anything he’s in, but nobody remembers his name.

So poor Sam goes from being The President of the Galaxy to playing Owen, the owner of a broken down water slide amusement park called Water Wizz. Owen is a terminally adolescent 30 something year old man-child in a tank top, baggy shorts/swim trunks, sporting a funky haircut that’s clearly self-administered. Get the image? But inside this gnarly character beats the heart of a guy who truly understands what it means to be a 14 old boy who’s lost his way. He takes Duncan, the 14 year old boy who’s lost his way, under his wing in a most gentle, hip and sensitive way. Owen delivers the fastest, funniest dialogue in the movie – so fast that I told Robin she and I would go see it so 1) she can see it; and 2) so I can hear the dialogue again because it’s so well done. This character’s performance alone is worth the 8 bucks to get in to see the movie.

You might see yourself at a different age in the film; or see others you know and love (Allison Janney) (or don’t) (Amanda Peet) in the neighbor characters who are in perpetual states of alcohol-induced anesthesia to forget life as it is instead of what it should have been or they’d hope it would develop into. But somehow they exceed your expectations and avoid becoming caricatures. Toni Collette has some great moments with looks and mostly-hidden grimaces as Duncan’s Mom who wants the best for him but also thinks she should have a life after divorce. The role is vaguely reminiscent of her Fiona Brewer in About a Boy, but without the suicide thing. Steve Carrell does a good dick character, more hardened than his Office guy but still complex enough for us to think his Trent isn’t beyond redemption.

And the little guy who plays Duncan – Liam James – is really 17 and an experienced actor. Nonethelss, he’s quite believable in this role, as Duncan is a nice foil for the crazies that surround him. You just know he’s going to turn out OK, in spite of everybody else’s efforts to make him miserable. The one scene that felt phony was when Duncan is supposed to break up a gathering of kids watching a couple of break dancers. It was just too sweet to be real…OK, so nobody is gonna write the perfect screenplay, are they? It’s a small criticism of an otherwise perfect jewel of a film.

So go see the movie. And if you don’t like it, then there’s clearly something not right widcha.

So The Newsroom second season began last week. The dialogue was so fast and so confusing in the first episode, I didn’t finish watching the whole hour. Hoping for an improvement in week 2, I tuned in last night at the beginning of the 2nd half. Why midway? I hadn’t finished watching Masterpiece Mystery yet, and The Newsroom is always available from On Demand…always thinking & planning…

Most noteworthy about last night’s episode was the plot line wherein Sloan, the fastest talker, is upset about…wait for it … drone strikes. Imagine such a thing…she informs Mac that an American has been targeted and killed by a drone strike. Mac brings it to Will and they have a mini discussion session – echoing comments that result from every editorial on the topic, and in fact rehashing the same discussion that took place in our very own family room when the Daniels’ clan came to call. The two sides: lack of due process trumps all versus when you go to Yemen and advocate jihad against the U.S., you get what you deserve. No mention yet of the 16 year old son…does that come in a few episodes, or is a little angst enough on the topic, since there is a love quintangle to deal with (Don & Maggie, Maggie & Jim, Jim and Maggie’s roommate what’s her name, Maggie and the roommate (no – not that way..oh, never mind) Don and Sloan…geez, you need a scorecard)…

So I guess you can tell from my tone that the second season of The Newsroom is less than fulfilling at this point in its juncture…too many drinks thrown into faces and laps, too often leading characters (Will) having instantaneous catherses, and frankly just caricatures of reality that aren’t working for me any more.

OK, so what of it? Hey, this is just the intro to the main topic denoted in the Heading: I Need a Hero (Not).

Remember that bouncy Bonnie Tyler song, adoreably used in Footloose as two suitors square off playing chicken on farm vehicles? Of course you do…OK, if you’re too young or too old or … whatever, here’s the refrain…you’ll say “Oh, yeah!” after you read this part, silly…

I Need a Hero
I’m holding out for a hero
‘Til the morning light.
He’s gotta be strong
And he’s gotta be fast
and he’s gotta be fresh from the fight..

Think Kevin Bacon…got it now?

OK, but here’s the thing: we don’t need a hero.. Nope … plenty of those … in fact 30 of them brought onto the field at last week’s MLB All Star game in New York City…thank goodness Erik declined my invitation..it was embarrassing to watch them trotted out as part of a propaganda moment (Erik’s description, not mine…but he’s spot on). So the last thing we need is another hero.

What we need is a villain. Someone straight out of central casting that looks like Hitler, acts like Stalin and kills white people.

Why, you may ask? Well, I shall tell you why.

First, some background. In the history of America between the Civil War and now, we have gotten involved in major conflagrations only when a character as described above emerges to behave really badly. I’m not taking about little wars like the Spanish American War or the Mexican war, but the real deal: World War I and World War II. Even Korea and Vietnam don’t count because of the scope and scale.

In WWI, we had Kaiser Bill with his pointed helmet and bushy mustache, trampling those folk in Belgium and causing mayhem in France. In WWII, of course we had Adolph to hiss and boo at in movie theaters. Villains responsible for the death of millions of white people.

Now for the past 12 years we have been engaged in a “war on terror”. As you’ve likely heard countless times before, terror is a tactic, not an enemy. So therein lies the problem! We don’t have a face – a character upon whom to heap our vituperation. For a while we had OBL, but he was too quiet for too long, and in the end our satisfaction with killing him was too short-lived and unsatisfactory.

So why do we need this character? I’ll tell you why. We are currently engaged in the equivalent of gang warfare. We are the Jets and those other guys are the Sharks…we are defending Tony and Riff, dontcha see? But drone warfare is so lily-livered…so cold and sanitary, that we never get enough. The ‘death by pecks’ revenge never quite measures up to the scale of 9/11’s double whammy, so on and on it goes.

If we had a real bad dude to fight, to prove our ‘street creds’, maybe we’d get it out of our system once and for all and go back to watching The Biggest Loser and The Bachelorette. We’d escalate this thing to a scale that will prove once and for all that we are the toughest gang on the street.

Oh, but there’s the bridge in “I Need a Hero” that is somewhat more revelatory…here it is:

“Up where the mountains meet the heavens above
Out where the lightning splits the sea
I could swear that there’s someone somewhere watching me
Through the wind and the chill and the rain
And the storm and the flood
I can feel his approach like a fire in my blood”

I could swear there’s someone somewhere watching me. That’s not just a feeling..that’s the reality we’ve known for years, the reality that Little Eddie Snowden thought was a huge revelation. So in the process of looking for the archvillain Bernardo and only finding little Chinos, we watch and we collect data and we expand the drone “war on terror” to the war on narco trafficking and the war between the Turks and the PKK over freedom for Kurdistan. This is no way to be the toughest gang on the street. This is a recipe for self annihilation. Maybe that’s what OBL had in mind all along, and why I believe the continued use of drones will be the end of us all.

Blame The Newsroom for bringing this all back home. But I’ll likely watch next week, hoping it gets better. We’ll see.

All right, OK, I suppose it’s time to weigh in on the George Zimmerman, Trayvon Martin tragedy. I will weigh in, but I’ll make it brief. Too much has been said about it already by many, many others.

The verdict is in and – no surprise, given Florida’s Stand Your Ground (SYG) law and the vicissitudes of this prosecution that should never have happened, George was found not guilty. Was he exonerated? In a manner of speaking, yes. But when the President and Attorney General of the United States weigh in on the case, I don’t think exoneration is the word that immediately comes to mind. Instead, what it appears has happened is that his level of guilt did not rise to topple the bar enacted by the Florida legislature (and more than 30 other state legislatures as well) called SYG.

I choose not to second guess anybody’s motivation in this. What happened was simply a tragedy that left a young man dead and another man and his family’s life ruined. These kind of situations happen fairly frequently in the U.S. Why was this one different? First of all, it’s Orange County, home of Mickey Mouse, former home of Casey Anthony and that three ring circus. CORRECTION: The incident occurred in Sanford, which is in Seminole County, NEXT to and south of Orange County. So the troubles are on their way south. Hope they don’t come here…Now, back to the post. Guess they’re becoming as known for sensational trials as Palm Beach County is for failure to manage the voting process. Did anything resembling the truth come to the fore? It’s hard to say. I think it might have, just as it likely did with Casey. But this I know about such things: I am shocked and dismayed by Barack’s and Eric Holder’s comments. Both of them are lawyers, and both of them realize that the judicial process is all that stands between us and the anarchy you see daily in Egypt’s headlines. To put negative comments out about anything related to the trial is either pandering, extreme emotion (from two guys who’s emotional temperature is somewhere between tepid and frozen) or a knee-jerk reaction to a history of these kinds of events. Again I don’t want to second guess anybody’s motivation, but sometimes those two just don’t know when to shut up. Guess it’s time for another lip zip pic, eh?

This is the last I’ll say about it: George’s troubles are far from over. To quote a line from Paul Simon’s immortal but rarely seen or heard Broadway Show “The Capeman”,

“the boys had their day in court, and now it’s time for some fuckin’ law and order…”
Judge Gerald Culkin

In the Capeman, it was two Puerto Rican boys who were tried and convicted of murdering a white boy in a situation analogous to this one. They were sentenced to the electric chair in New York in the late 50’s. But this time there was a death, but thanks to SYG, there was no conviction, no sentence and no perceived justice. I fear someone will feel compelled to balance the books on this one. Beware George: watch your step from any angry friend, relative or sympathizer for Trayvon. Feeling that since the President and Attorney General of the United States aligned themselves with the bereaved, it’s surely OK to take care of business. Then what will they say? To quote Will Smith and Jeff Goldblum in Independence Day…

Oops.

For about the kazillionth time, Ambrose Evans-Pritchard (AEP) is highlighting the imminent meltdown in the southern quadrant of the European Union. The southern quadrant includes Greece, Italy, Spain and Portugal. All of these Mediterranean countries are deep in debt, their economies are in a depression and no help is coming from the northern members … make that member: Germany. There’s a lot of heat, smoke and noise going on here. But thus far that’s all there’s been.

In his latest article, entitled “The Wheels are Coming Off the Whole of Southern Europe”, AEP quotes El Mundo as saying about Spain that “a ‘pre-revolutionary’ mood is taking hold.” This is because, on top their 26.9% unemployment, and debt to GDB ratio of 134%, a financial scandal is brewing, involving Mariano Rajoy taking “illegal payments” prior to becoming Premier. Rajoy would have been better off fathering an illegitimate child or being accused of beating his wife, instead of taking illicit money. But who knew things would get this bad? Yep.

Things in Portugal aren’t much better…the finance minister quit this week, because of lack of support for austerity measures (so maybe this is a blessing, depending on what his successor does). Greece will, once again, miss its austerity targets “by a wide margin” and its economy is expected to shrink by 5-7% this year. Italy had its bond rating reduced to junk status this week, and last I heard it was having trouble forming and keeping a coalition government going.

So the wheels are coming off. But they’ve been wobbling for the past three years or so. What’s new & different? First, HB, head of the Fed, with his ‘tapering’ comments, caused already strapped countries to endure a rather abrupt interest rate increase. Second, statements from ECU members have put them into a corner where they are bound to lose, whichever way they go. I shall elaborate.

Where it’s clear to everyone else in the civilized world, the ECB (European Central Bank), Chancellor Osborne of Great Britain and Angela Merkel still believe austerity can alleviate the problems in the EU. This strategy hasn’t worked, isn’t working and won’t work anytime, anywhere in the future. But you know the definition of insanity, and these folks previously named should be locked up in Bellevue relative to their position on this. But a few folks ‘get it’, and are working on trying to fix it. The folks that ‘get it’ are in the executive branch of the European Union. Referred to as the European Commission, they propose to give themselves extraordinary powers to help bail out failing banks in the EU. This would mean another massive bailout of the failing southern countries. Who is vehemently opposed to this proposal? Germany, naturally. So that won’t happen. Conversely, the leaders of the EU – including Merkel – have learned from their past mistakes in Greece and Cyprus, and have promised not to force any EMU state into default, with the associated losses for their member banks and pension funds. But folks, listen: it’s gonna be one way or the other. Right now, the choice is none of the above.

But as AEP points out, doing nothing is, in fact, de facto tightening of the flow of money. This will exacerbate the debtor countries’ problems, and can only end in grief for everybody. All the ECB and its head Mario Draghi have done so far is bluff their way into buying more time. Sooner or later, folk will figure out the emperor wears no clothes, and The Lone Ranger ain’t on his way to save them or back them up or do anything but maybe show up for the funeral. Oh me, oh my.

And what does that mean for the U S of A? Aren’t we, in fact, part of the global economy, and what will failure in Europe do to America’s ability to grow its economy and move forward toward a better life for all? Well, we may be either the last man standing, or the last body to fall on the heap. Time will tell..but in the meantime, it would really help a lot if Chopper Boy Ben would just keep his lip zipped.

Here’s the headline from a Washington Post article dated July 7th:

Somali American caught up in a shadowy Pentagon counterpropaganda campaign

Seems this American of Somali heritage named Abdiwali Warsame has a website called Somalimidnimo.com. It’s a news site that, according to Mr. Warsame, is provided because “I just want the community to know what’s going on”. Since most of the articles on the site are written in other languages, it’s difficult to gauge his intent. That’s not my job anyway. The point is, a beltway contractor, Navanti, targeted the guy, two Somalis wrote a report, and that got him an FBI visit to his house. In Minnesota.

Is there something wrong with this picture? You betcha. This contractor, Navanti, was working as a subcontractor for the Special Operations Command to help conduct “information operations to engage local populations and counter nefarious influences” in Africa and Europe. So what is this kind of work called? Psychological Operations, or PsyOps. But did you notice that defined locale? Africa and Europe. It doesn’t say Minnesota. Oops.

Here: let’s have some pictures to clarify.

and

. Can you spot the differences? Apparently, nobody at Navanti could.

Now here’s the problem, per the Washington Post: “The Pentagon is legally prohibited from conducting psychological operations at home or targeting U.S. audiences with propaganda, except during domestic emergencies. Defense Department rules also forbid the military from using psychological operations to target U.S. citizens at any time, in any location globally, or under any circumstances.”

Gee, that seems pretty clear, eh? Except that’s exactly what they did, and they knew he was an American citizen living in Minnesota when they did it.

So what’s the upshot of all this? Another brick in the wall of too many contractors doing work that is not well supervised and creates situations that embarrass everyone, and don’t make us one whit safer than we were before they did it? You decide. But I’ll say this about that: since our esteemed government does not hesitate to blow up American citizens with drones, what’s a little targeted psychological warfare? If I had to choose, well…OK, beatin’ this dead horse

But here’s the real kicker: again, per the Post: “In 2010, the U.S. military stopped using the phrase “psychological operations” because of its negative connotations. Instead, it adopted a blander term…” No more PsyOps. When did they make this change? In January of 2010. The movie “Men Who Stare at Goats” was released in November of 2009. In it, PsyOps is portrayed as a bunch of loonies running around doing strange things like making goats pass out by staring at them. November, 2009 – January, 2010. Tell me they didn’t change the name in reaction to this movie. Of course they did. But to what? Military Information Support Operations, or M.I.S.O.

MISO… as in MISO Soup. Ah, come on – you know what’s coming next…

Let’s talk about Aaron Hernandez first. What’s the scoop here?

Aaron was a Gator in 2007 sticking around Gainesville until his senior year when he decided to go to the NFL draft. A gifted football player with lots of kudos and accolades from high school on, Aaron was a mere 20 years old when he joined the New England Patriots. He was just given a huge signing bonus before ‘the troubles’ began.

But was it before? No, apparently all his old troubles that started last year in Miami have caught up with him. A bunch of folk are coming out of the woodwork to put the finger on him for other murders and general mayhem. They were silent before, fearing reprisal. Hey, that’s a quote from the newspaper – I don’t normally say stuff like that…much

So big Aaron – and boy has that boy grown – is now wearing an orange jumpsuit instead of a jersey. In point of fact, the Pats have tried to erase all memory of Big A by removing all his football archania from NFL shopping sources. Can’t imagine why…maybe it’s an image thing…Paula Deen, are you watching all this?

I’m confident steroid use contributed to all this. Roid rage surely has become a problem. But sometimes all that bundled up energy and angst can be useful.
Read on.

Now let’s talk about President O’bama: added the apostrophe when he was in Ireland visiting with O’Bono…jeez o’pete…

After Ireland he came home for a few days, then off to Africa. While in Senegal, he made the off-hand comment “I’m not going to be scrambling jets to get a 29 year old hacker”. Well, first of all he’s not 29, he’s 30, as of June 21st, little Kiernan’s birthday. Second of all, scrambling jets in Russian airspace might assuredly create an international crisis that makes little Eddie seem insignificant indeed…remember little Eddie, stuck at the airport in Russia with nowhere to go and no means to get there? Third of all, normally O’Bama would just drone the poor sucker, but since he’s at the Russian airport, well…guess it rules out killing this kid this way. Boy, how soon we forget: Anwar Al Awlaki’s 16 year old son…allegedly collateral damage…yeah.

So I put the two news items together because I have an idea that might ‘kill two birds with one stone’…or at least solve two problems.

How about we send Aaron and his posse on a secret stealth bomber flight that just happens to land at Sheremetyevo airport where little Eddie is in the transit lounge? What if Biggie boy and the posse arrange for little E to find refuge in an industrial park on the outskirts of the Kremlin? Problem solved…and A and the gang can play Russian football for the rest of their time? Beats a 6 x 8 prison cell, eh? Now that’s creative, you must admit…

In case you are unfamiliar with old movie tunes, the title is a punnish take on the song “Put the Blame on Mame” sung by Rita Hayworth in the Movie Gilda. Aw gee, I wish I didn’t have to ‘splain these things, but few are as nerdish as me, so…there you have it.

Now that that’s out of the way, we need to talk about Edward Snowden. Yes, the latest leaker. Picture, please!

Yes, little Edward…carefully plans out giving information that frankly isn’t that new or original to the Washington Post and simultaneously to the British, liberal newspaper The Guardian. I first heard about the story through the Guardian, and Glenn Greenwald’s name was mentioned as the journalist who broke the story.

Organized media – what is it Sarah puckishly calls it – lamestream media? Organized media seemed to focus on two elements of the story: first that it’s terrible that the government is spying on all of us using a software program called PRISM, and second – and not too far behind – that Little Edward was a high school dropout. Congressmen and women pretend to be outraged about the spying, but the Obamites rubbed their bellies and put them back to sleep with a couple of briefings. So no big deal there…the “American Public” quickly polled on the subject said yes, it was a shame that the government is spying on somebody (certainly not them individually!) but if it keeps us safe, well then they support it. OK, no issue there. So what’s left? A HIGH SCHOOL DROPOUT is making a six figure salary working for a government contractor and he gets access to all these secrets. There, at last is a story. Whew! The news cycle simply must be fed.

High school dropout, earning somewhere between $122k (per Booze, Allan, his now-former employer) and $200k (per Little Edward). Yes, Booze Hamilton fired little Edward over this. Golly! Reminds me of that line from Nine to Five, shared by Lily Tomlin, AKA Violet Newstead: “I killed the boss. You think they won’t fire me for a thing like that?”

Back to the money. No matter who’s telling the truth, it’s a bunch of money. To do what? He’s been labeled an IT administrator. Well, that could be the guy who comes to your office, boorishly shouts at you to “Move”, sits in your chair, hits the keyboard a dozen times and fixes whatever you were complaining about. Maybe Little Edward did more than that. I expect that Little Edward was a database administrator: hence his ability to access all that info. D/B admins are hard to find and should be paid well (note to my brother John: see??!!)

Little Eddie undoubtedly had a “top secret” clearance, and why not? He’d never done anything bad before this. So he gets a little bit of info, and becomes a ‘hero’ to somebody by telling all of us about it.

OK – where am I going with this? In a weird sort of way, maybe Little Edward is like those guys that dress up in black outfits, take guns and ammo to a public place, start shooting and then either commit suicide themselves or get shot by the police who eventually arrive to take him out. This is his 15 minutes of fame. Maybe Ed is somebody who thought he was living a charmed life making all that dough with so little effort, but needed to make the big time by becoming a martyr for a delusional cause.

Or maybe there’s another potential explanation (of course there is – you should know by now the first suggestions are always throw-away lines.) I think Little Edward is an example of the computer nerd archetype (CNA). He’s the geek who’s shunned by nearly everybody at school. But he translates that to his reality: he’s too much of a genius to go to school. So he sleeps all day and tap on keyboard keys all night. Maybe he’s a little autistic; into Japanese anime; he’s Sheldon on The Big Bang Theory (what a dumb show…really, I don’t watch it – honestly I don’t…) Zilch for social skills, lives on Ramen noodles, plays Minecraft for hours with his “on-line” friends and thinks he’s been shortchanged in life because of his unmistakeable yet unrecognized genius. I believe we’ve got him I.D.’d.

So how does this tie back to the title? I guess it’s a warning to all you Mothers out there (real Moms: I’m not using the epithetical label here). If you have a son or daughter who fits this archetype, but are not yet old enough to have fully blossomed into Little Ed, take that computer and toss it out the window. Lock him or her up for a week with sensory deprivation (no on-line access) until he or she promises to give it all up. Otherwise, at the end of the day, or when the smoke clears, or whatever summing-up platitude you want to use, you’ll be blamed for not raising Little Edward or Baby Edwina properly. Act now, or be prepared to take the rap!

So, again to say it succintly, using a musical metaphor: Mamas, don’t let your babies grow up to be cowboys or CNAs (Computer Nerd Archetypes).