Where Am I?

So many things to write about, with so little time to write. To quell the rumor mill; I have not succumb to Swine Flu, nor have I gone underground with the Witness Protection Program. I'm just busy. Really, really busy.

Passover

Max Fischer is observing the Passover holiday and will not be writing this week.

Taken At Facebook Value

Twitter me this; what compels a person that I didn't know that well in high school, or ever particularly cared for, to ping me with friend requests on Facebook?

Although I've been on Facebook for a couple of years, I hadn't been an active social networker until a friend of mine from my youth invited me to join a group that's dedicated to our upcoming 25-year high school reunion. I've now dusted off my wall and posted some fresh pictures of myself and collective vast spawning.

It's been fun reconnecting with friends and classmates, some of whom I haven't seen or talked to in over twenty years. There are a few, however, curious friend requests that still fester in my inbox.

If I don't accept your friend request, it just means that I never liked you and I have no desire to exchange a few "dude, what's ups" with you. As much as I'd like to say it's nothing personal, it's all, well, just personal.

Facebook feels a lot like high school.

Just Guilty Pleasures

I love the CW Network. There simply can't be a better panacea for placing worries aside and vicariously dismissing ones moral platitudes than settling into the guilty pleasures of CW prime-time.

I'm entirely enamored with Gossip Girl. Such a steady barrage of upper east side adolescent narcissistic scheming and backstabbing, heavily accented with tartan plaids, dramatic rhetorical inflections and good old fashioned passive-aggressiveness. Chuck Bass is a balls out man bitch, always at the ready to laser all adversaries with his piercing glare and sharp, succinct tongue. Santa, please add Gossip Girl seasons one to forever at the top of my Christmas list. I've been a good boy. Really. When compared to Gossip Girl, at least. Gossip Girl is a bit like Las Vegas. When you're finished with the experience, you need to shower twice to get the filth off of you. Then you can't wait to go back.

One Tree Hill is another hook of mine, although it defies both logic and odds that an entire gaggle of a high school clique could all graduate from high school, head off to college, and then all move back to tiny Tree Hill, North Carolina to enjoy life with such immense professional acclaim. Let's take a roll call. Lucas is a best selling author, Brooke carries her own clothing label, Payton founded and manages a record label (after a failed internship in LA), Nathan still chases the dream of playing pro hoops (in his Range Rover) and milking his seemingly endless shoe contract endorsement money, all earned before his brush with death two seasons ago. Hayley, Nathan's wife, apparently used to be a pop star bigger than Brittany Spears, yet managed to do it all from the comfort of Tree Hill.

Despite its complete lack of believability on a most basic level, I'm a One Tree Hill disciple of the highest order. I just want to know where this magical land of opportunity, scandal and hot girls is on the map. We need to move there.

Tree Hill may be the answer to our great recession.

The Notorious A.I.G.

The media has been running hard to keep up with the American public lately, to remind us that we're enduring a collective "public outrage" at A.I.G. for awarding a gaggle of failed company executives millions of dollars in contractually agreed bonuses. Bonus money that was paid by the federal government, an interest bearing debt now neatly saddled on the backs of American taxpayers.

Several news reports emerged over the weekend that A.I.G. employees in an affluent suburb of Connecticut were receiving death threats, on the heels of New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo releasing the names of those that were awarded large payments.

Sifting through the sensational and unsavory headlines though, I'm beginning to feel that our anger is entirely misplaced.

Congress hastily pushed through a measure, supported by President Obama, that will enforce a 90% tax liability to those A.I.G. employees that received bonus payments.

For the love of yo-yo-ma, this is all so ridiculous.

This is all nothing more than an egregious and glaring example of politicians, once again, failing to supplicate at a most basic human level.

The government chose to hand over hundreds of millions of dollars to A.I.G., without a most basic clause set in place to avoid this type of fiasco. In fact, President Obama had requested such safeguards be placed in the contractual language of the governments agreement to bail out A.I.G., only to have such common sense wisdom be ignored by Connecticut Senator, and Finance Committee Chairman, Christopher Dodd.

Dodd would make a helluva efficient gastrointestinal doctor. He managed to stick it to 300-million-people in one stroke of the pen.

We often hear of politicians brushing poor policy decisions off as a simple "mistake". It's time that ultimate accountability be taken by the Congressional majority and our President. A mistake is a direct result of a bad decision. They need to take accountability for not only the decision to hand over such a heady amount of scratch to A.I.G. with no strings attached, but also take accountability for the politically mucky outcome of their decision.

Simply blaming A.I.G. for what the President calls their "unconscionable" choice to award these bonus payments and then taxing them at 90% (90-percent!) is reducing themselves (Democrats) to the low level of morality legislators that our electorate rejected at the polls from the Republican party in 2006 and 2008.

A.I.G. has done nothing legally wrong. The government, however, has set a very dangerous precedent.

I'm beginning to lose hope. I don't see change.

No matter how hard I look for it.

One Million Thanks For Nothins

I reached a milestone last week that, I feel, is both impressive and utterly pathetic. While neatly folded in to seat 7C on my flight from Newark to Cincinnati (my final destination was Minneapolis), I surpassed one-million miles logged on Northwest Airlines.

This event passed with no fanfare whatsoever, unless you count the cru de ta of a shortbread cookie, in which case every other passenger was celebrating along side of me with the exact same savory snack.

One-million miles. You'd think that after all those flight hours, I'd be an expert on navigating the equally friendly and passive-aggressive skies. Truthfully though, I'm just one of the herd that shuffles from here to there, fingers-crossed that weather, airplane mechanics and the laws of physics are loyal to both my travel plans and mortality.

I've endured a few curious odysseys along the way. A few years ago I almost landed on the do-not-fly list when I admonished an airline waitress for over serving alcohol to a chatty old lady seated next to me, whose 5th, or maybe 6th Bloody Mary ended up in my lap and all over my computers keyboard. It was during a flight to Minneapolis, the land of 10,000 rehab centers, so maybe she was simply on her climb to the wagon and was just enjoying one last bender.

I've gotten to the point where flying is as routine as taking a bus. For that, I'm sad. People often ask me how I "do it". I always answer with the same simple advise.

On the way to the airport, I lower my customer service expectations to a level that would make an IRS audit feel like shopping at Nordstrom. Then, when I get to the airport, I lower them even more.

When interacting with a TSA agent, I never say thank you. I will, however, say you're welcome, even if they didn't thank me for the privilege of my wand search and pat down.

At any airport Starbucks, be prepared to consider English a second, or third, language. Save your special, "dopio-add-a-shot-180-extra dry" order for your familiar neighborhood Starbucks. At the airport, order black coffee and you have a 50% shot of getting what you ordered.

Once on the plane, I have a few steadfast pet peeves.

The overhead bins are for roller bags and other suitable carry-on luggage, and not the crushed velour fedora and accompanying smoking jacket purchased at the Caesars shops while in Las Vegas.

When getting out of your seat on the airplane, it's not necessary to use my seat back in front of you as a launching pad, or sling shot, if you will, when getting out of your seat.

There is grace and an orderly technique to reclining your seat, especially if you're sitting in front of me. Ease back, please. Otherwise the coffee ends up in my lap.

One-million miles. Maybe Northwest Airlines will send me a special luggage tag.

I won't hold my breath.

Rush, More

The perpetually broken levee of Rush Limbaugh's mouth has been flowing at flood levels lately, which is welcome news for both Democrats and Rush Limbaugh.

For Democrats, framing Rush as the "face" of the Republican party works on the most basic of political levels. Limbaugh is, for better (if you're a Democrat) or worse (if you're a Republican), the de facto leading spokesman for a once proud party.

Limbaugh polls at 11% favorable for voters under 40. With minorities, he has a 6% likability rating. Not exactly a base to build on.

Limbaugh has enjoyed a huge spike in ratings since his CPAC podium rage a couple weeks ago. Good on Rush. The man is a marketing genius. He will ride this wave he created until the elephants come home, much to the delight of Democrats.

Charles Manson has a higher favorable rating than Rush Limbaugh. Really, I'm not kidding.

It's only fair to note, however, that Rush is still holding strong with the demographic of partially edentulous, high school educated, ass-crack emerging at the waist NASCAR white guys between the ages of 49 and 49 and a half.

On a moderately (operative word italicized for emphasis) serious note, it's great to witness Rush back on his game. For far too long he had to stretch the bounds of conspiracy hacks to pinpoint blame on liberals, as he patiently waited for six years of Republican deficit borrowing and big government spending to pass. Now he has the trifecta of President Obama, Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi to blame, along with his usual suspects, activist judges and the liberal media.

My favorite Limbaughism came a few years ago when Rush was addicted to Oxycontin. There he was, a gaunt and - by comparison today - emaciated shell of a Rush, hopped up on narcotics, live on the air in full mellow-drama, announcing to his faithful that he suddenly and inexplicably had gone deaf.

It's a common side-effect of narcotic abusers to temporarily lose motor senses, most commonly hearing. Rush was nothing more than a broken drug addict. A few years earlier, he famously quipped his hard line and entirely unsympathetic opinion that all illegal drug users should be locked up in jail, without exception.

I don't recall Rush asking for that level of punishment in his case. And it's a good thing he didn't, really.

Without Rush, we'd suffer a mass shortage of hot air and white noise.

Bobblehead Jindal

After President Obama delivered his speech to the joint session of Congress last Tuesday (known for the next 3-7 years as his State of the Union address), I noticed what looked like a young high school debater on the television, engaging in a well honed sales pitch infomercial.

Upon closer review, it was actually Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal, the man given the honor of providing the Republican rebuttal to President Obama's speech.

Just when we thought the Republican brand couldn't possibly take a more severe self-inflicted drubbing, Governor Jindal showed up to barf a tightly packaged review of conservative talking points from the past thirty years.

Not one fresh idea. Nary an original solution. All delivered like a third grader reading a teleprompter for the first time.

It all made me nostalgic for the eloquence of President George W. Bush.

The electorate is worried about the stimulus and its pending outcome. Bobby Jindal had a captive audience that was open to ideas. Any ideas, really.

Instead we got a punch line. It only took fifteen minutes and the damage was done.

That's how long it took for Bobby Jindal to go from Republican rising star to a sad metaphor.

Feeling Rather Unstimulated

After taking office in 1981, President Reagan made an immediate push to honor the tax cuts he promised during his campaign. The nation was mired in a steep recession at the time, which was not the least of his worries, at least when compared to the Democratic congressional majority he had to convince to play along nicely with.

Reagan's tax cuts passed with the help of forty-eight Democratic votes in the House, and thirty-seven Democratic yays in the Senate. The plan was enacted effective that spring and Reagan celebrated an early bi-partisan victory.

When President Obama took office last month, he was poised to usher in a new era of friendly government decorum, the kind where divisiveness would be cut through, and a cozy group hug would emerge.

Not so fast.

President Obama is celebrating victory in the passing of the massive stimulus package, an accord brokered by a hold-the-party line Congress before limping to the White House for the President's signature. After weeks of meetings and clandestine back room negotiations with Republican members of Congress, the President garnered zero votes in the House and just three in the Senate, or just enough to escape the prospect of ugly dramatics of a Senate filibuster.

Hope took a few right jabs to the nose, and change was left staggering and woozy, TKO'd by the partisan beltway machine.

This doesn't feel like a stimulus to me. Come to think of it, I don't feel stimulated at all. In fact, it smacks of a sort of awkward foreplay that ends up ruining the mood and making me want to conjure an excuse to pack up, go home and pretend it all never happened.

The stimulus reeks of bad pork and typical government waste. If garbage goes in, garbage must come out, I suspect. This is no New Deal, gang. It's an insult to FDR to even suggest that this is remotely similar.

If I brought the stimulus bill with me to my proctologists office, the doctor would stick his finger in it. That's how stinky it is.

Now it's time for all of us to roll up our sleeves, get to work and see if the stimulus works. These things take several years to play out, despite the gloom and doom that cable news and talk radio suggest is imminent.

As for Reagan and his tax cuts, history shows mixed results. The separate realities of the left and right have vastly different opinions of its effectiveness.

And President Obama's stimulus? I'll hold my strongest disdain after the completion of the bullet train that will be built between Disneyland and Las Vegas, a project made possible by the stimulus package and courtesy of Senate Majority Leader, Nevada Senator Harry Reid.

It would be only appropriate that Disney's Goofy take the lead in the ground-breaking ceremonies.

SlumfRod Multi-Millionaire

Being a parent can render itself to intellectual tedium at times, a constant game of "hurry up and wait" for those fleeting "teaching" moments, where parental wisdom is simultaneously required and ignored by its loving recipient.

My oldest son is a huge baseball fan, much to my vicarious delight. He's a statistical hound that brings innate analytical nuance to our great American spectacle, a byproduct of a naturally curious boy that is an amazing purveyor of patience, for which he has enough of to enjoy the methodical pace of a baseball game and seemingly endless season it's played in.

The boy has grown up taking a shine to the game during a time that has amounted to the most tarnished era the game has ever seen, an era now and forever known as the steroids era. Sure, baseball has weathered other distractions and controversies; racism and segregated leagues, gambling scandals and ugly labor disputes. Never before, however, has such an epidemic of cheating, scheming and lying ever gripped the sport the way steroids has. The result is a decades worth of questionable statistics that bring wary eyes to anybody looking at them.

Last season the boy and I were discussing the all time home run record now held by Barry Bonds, a man that is the crowned king of the steroid era. With every ounce of earnestness intact, I assured my son that in a few short years Barry Bonds would be rendered a pathetic footnote in the annals of baseball history, after a squeaky clean slugger named A-Rod (Alex Rodriquez) catches Bonds to take his worthy place as baseballs home run king.

Well, looks like I had some more splainin' to do.

A-Rod has now publicly admitted using steroids for three full seasons (2001-2003), one of which he was named the league MVP and another he used to position himself to sign the highest paid contract (with the Yankees - shocker!) in the history of the game.

Disgusting.

Time to dust off the classic Simon and Garfunkel's song, Mrs. Robinson, revise the words, but keeping the vibe; "where have you gone, Nick Punto, our nation turns its lonely eye to you."

Yesterday the boy and I discussed A-Rods' admission, and it turns out the wisdom I was ready to strategically dish wasn't needed at all.

"Well dad", the boy chimed, "there are a lotta players that don't use steroids."

"I know, son."

Then the boy put things into proper perspective.

"I don't use steroids, dad."

Baseball will be fine. Thanks to my boy, I'm now sure of it.

Check Out My Stimulus Package

Sports talk radio personality, Dan Patrick, coined a clever observation several years ago while working as an ESPN Sportcenter anchor. Whenever Patrick would report news of athletes injuries, he would invariably come across one less severely injured athlete that was listed on the injury report as simply "day to day". Patrick would respond by commenting, "well, aren't we all" - day to day, that is.

Patrick's wisdom came to mind this morning while I was tending the orange juice (actually, it was Tang) station at Grace Lutheran Church in Phoenix, where my daughter and I served as volunteers to help gift a pancake and sausage breakfast to the homeless.

When we arrived at 6:30 to begin setup and food preparations, there were already about a dozen people outside the door waiting to be fed, weathering an uncharacteristic Phoenix rain drizzle, even though the doors would not swing wide until 7:30. Typically the Sunday breakfast and worship at Grace yields about 450 hungry bellies.

A few weeks ago I was laid off from my job, and the subsequent days since have been an interesting mix of networking, emailing resumes, phone calls and rhetorical navigation into hiring recruiters dead-ends. While my spirits remain buoyed and confident, I must admit that the I've reached a near panic attack on more than a few occasions when my days work, of finding work, ends with bleak results. I'm scared.

Today, though, came a much needed dose of perspective. You might say I received my very own stimulus package.

I have nothing at all to whine about. In fact, lest you believe that this post is about to take a sudden turn towards the cliche of a "there by the grace of God I go" story, I can assure you that there is no way, no matter how bad things get for me, I will ever be so unfortunate as to be alone and homeless, standing in the rain to wait for pancakes and sausage.

I'm blessed with so much that is not material and can't be commoditized or financially inventoried. Aside from our own resources, Mrs. Fischer and I have massive families that we could lean on if we were ever to get to the point where the roof that covers are head were to collapse. The mere thought of the love and support that surrounds us is entirely humbling.

I'm pretty sure that the masses I served Tang to this morning aren't nearly as fortunate. As the steady stream of patrons shuffled with their food plates towards me so I could hand them a glass of juice, I made my best conscious effort to look each person in the eye and greet them individually.

"Good morning", I said, "thanks for coming today".

Most would simply nod there head, with an occasional few requesting me to fill their thermos with a day or two worth of nectar. One person, however, caught me off guard with an enthusiastic greeting of his own.

"Hello, sir", the wide smile man noted, "how you doin' today?"

A bit surprised, I responded with a succinct, "I'm doing very well. Thank you for asking."

The man was long gone before "thank you for asking" left my lips. What a stupid goddamn answer to his rhetorical question, I immediately thought. I mean, of course I was doing well. In fact, very well by most standards, and astronomically well compared to the man that asked me the question, I would presume. I felt like a total dick.

So I reached an accord with myself that if somebody else were to ask me how I was doing, I'd be damn well prepared with a better answer. About five minutes later, my moment arrived. An older man approached, well worn and broken, although in a most endearing of ways, like a pair of denim jeans that may be battered and torn, however still hold a tough and dignified veneer.

He looked at me with a toothy grin. "Well, well, well. How you doin' tahday, yun man?" (editors note: I'm really not so young)

"Grateful to be here", was my reply.

The man stopped in his tracks. "Really? Meeeee too", he said with full confidence. "Well, looks like me and you gots somethin in common. God bless."

It all lasted less than ten seconds. Two men, bonded only by sentiment, yet with vastly different circumstance.

The rest of my day was the best I've enjoyed in a long while, and the man that brought it outta me lives day to day somewhere - everywhere, really - in the streets of Phoenix.

Day to day. Aren't we all?

Remembering John Updike

An amazingly gifted storyteller died last week. John Updike, a prolific and extremely popular chronicler of every day middle-class suburban drama, succumb to lung cancer last Tuesday. He was 76.

Updike was best-known for his series of four novels and a novella about the life of Harry "Rabbit" Angstrom. He was first published in 1950 and, by most accounts, kept a busy and varied writing schedule up until his death.

Updike wrote more than 50 books, including short-stories, poetry and essays, and reaped the gamut of nearly every literary prize, including two Pulitzers, for "Rabbit Is Rich" and "Rabbit at Rest," and two National Book Awards.

Updike found much to write about in the seemingly pedestrian lives of all of us, through his wide-eyed curiosity and peripheral observations.

"I've always had, I think, even before I began to publish, this notion that the ordinary middle-class life was enough to write about, that there was enough drama, interest, relevance, importance, poetry and poetry in it", Updike once noted. "I didn't need to write historical epics, or science fiction, though I read a lot of science fiction as a kid and rather liked it. But I didn't have the mentality (to do so). So I was stuck from my own limits, really, with middle-class life, or the mundane, let's call it, and so I was just trying to, story by story, encapsulate some aspect of life as I was experiencing it or observing it."

And encapsulate, he did.

Updike was a brilliant writer of masterful prose. He was, at times, accused of being a bit "poetic" and mellow-dramatic with his scribe, which is critical rubbish not deserved. Not many fictional writers were (or are) as earnest, raw and "gritty" real about our march through life. The way Updike weaved a clever narrative with sharp dialogue reminded me of a lighter version of Richard Yates. The glaring distinction was Updike earned an immensely steady adoration (mostly) of critical acclaim, while Yates endured with the encumbering weight of being the "writers writer".

John Updike was uniquely skilled at helping the reader along, with an assumed mutual promise that humility and redemption would come in the end, a welcoming comfort of his stories' silver lining;

A Rescue, by John Updike

Today I wrote some words that will see print. Maybe they will last forever and that someone will read them there, ink making a light scratch on his mind or hers.

I think back with greater satisfaction upon a yellow bird, a gold finch that had flown into the garden shed and could not get out, battering its wings on the deceptive light of the dusty, warped, shut window.

Without much reflection for once, I stepped to where its panicked heart was making commotion, the flared wings drumming, and with clumsy, soft hands pinned it against a pane, held loosely cupped this agitated essence of the air, and through the open door released it like a self-flung ball to all that lovely, perishing outdoors.

Rabbit run, old boy. You will be missed.

A Hope To Change

It occurred to me last Sunday while reading the newspaper that, more and more, I've been spending what many may seem as an inordinate amount of time reading obituaries. I'm absolutely fascinated at the glimpse of a recently deceased life and their final punctuation before heading off into the infinite abyss.

It's entirely sad how many people die from cancer at such a young age. Those are the hardest to read for several reasons, not the least of which is the fact that I've reached a point of middle-age where many of the dead are far younger than I. Sadly, these people die far before their full potential has been reached, probably hanging on for their every last breath to make sure that the family they leave behind, including small children, are prepared to live and thrive without them. This is why the cancer obituaries nearly always include the persons "courageous battle" with the disease that they succumb to. While it may read as cliche, it's a well deserved observation.

One obituary from last Sunday jumped from the pages and made me smile though. It was a 74-year-old man that had left a little parting wisdom that we can all take solace in. The man (his name escapes me) believed that, "what people need most in life is compassion and love. They don't need advice and most certainly don't need judgement".

Wow.

Those words stuck to me, like blame on a politician, as I watched the Presidential transfer of power on Tuesday. The outgoing President, head held high with no visible regret, handed the reigns of responsibility to an eager new President that will now be in charge of balancing a temperament of blaming his predecessor and accepting full accountability for his administrative decisions.

There was glaring irony noted in the inaugural proceedings as well. Seeing Dick Cheney being wheeled from the White House in a wheelchair, part metaphor and part severance package, was a picture of ultimate mortality, a reminder that we all reach the same fate in the end.

For some, the end seems to come too soon, while others outlive their shelf life. That's not mine to judge, however we have varying media to nudge our conscience to tell us what we think.

Life is not nearly as quizzical as what's being sold to us through soulful chicken soup, purpose driven pontification or new age karma from an Indian guru.

I am (we are), quite simply, a sum of the choices we make in life, and that's what I (we) will ultimately be judged on. With that, I agree with the obituary philosopher.

Love is a great place to start.

And an even better place to end.

Changes At The Musings

When the Musings first launched last June, I promised that I wouldn't allow it to be reduced to a daily journal that chronicled my somewhat pedestrian personal waltz through mid-life. I had a pretty simple plan, actually. Pick a topic, whether it be politics or pop culture, barf a few thoughts and sit back to see if anybody gave a hoot, holler or pay-no-nevah-mind.

Well, along the way nearly 18,000 clicks have entered Rushmore to read what the daily academy had to spew. Pretty damn humbling, considering the fragmented syntax that I've been throwing at you. We all have a weakness, and mine appears to be the dangling participle.

I'm having a hard time keeping up with the daily writing grind. Heck, with diapers to change and a dental implant world to tend to (that's my racket), I often find that I'm falling behind. Put simply, I have blog fatigue.

Due to the global recession, frequent writers block and sheer laziness, the Board of Director's and Chief Editor of Rushmore have unanimously approved of a restructuring plan that will change the format of Musings From Rushmore Academy.

Beginning Sunday, 25 January, Rushmore will become a weekly rag with a fresh layout, promising to be no less thought provoking - albeit ambitious as hell - than before.

See you next Sunday. Have a great week.

Young President, For Now

Take a good look at this young, dapper man. It's the freshest you'll see him look during the course of the next four-to-eight years.

It's amazing how the rigors of the office of the President drips off each man to serve. The before and after shots of a president, spanning their entry into office and final exit out the door, always make me wonder why anybody would want the job in the first place.

I suppose the speaking fees earned after office make it all worth while.

Daily Irony: Our New Treasury Chief

I smell a quagmire looming for President-elect Obama. It turns out our incoming Treasury boss may need a bigger calculator.

Obama tapped Timothy Geithner to head the Department of Treasury several weeks ago. It's now though, only a few days prior to his senate nominating hearing, that we learn Geithner waited several years to pay income taxes on a business he owned. Making matters a bit stickier, Geithner continued to employ an undocumented citizen as his housekeeper, long after knowing her immigration status had lapsed.

Irony is amusing. Hypocrisy is ugly.

This is both.

Make Way For An Articulate President

When Barack Obama takes over as president next week, our country will say goodbye to garbled grammar and curiously assembled rhetoric, and the word will be pronounced nuclear again.

I'm going to miss the Bushisms of the past eight years.

“Our enemies are innovative and resourceful, and so are we. They never stop thinking about new ways to harm our country and our people, and neither do we.”

“Thank you, Your Holiness. Awesome speech.” - At a ceremony welcoming Pope Benedict XVI to the White House.

“The fact that they purchased the machine meant somebody had to make the machine. And when somebody makes a machine, it means there’s jobs at the machine-making place.”

“I remember meeting a mother of a child who was abducted by the North Koreans right here in the Oval Office.”

“Rarely is the question asked, is our children learning?”

“They misunderestimated the compassion of our country. I think they misunderestimated the will and determination of the commander in chief, too.”

Finally, my all-time favorite that I simply can't get enough of.

“Too many good docs are getting out of business. Too many OB/GYNs aren’t able to practice their love with women all across this country.”

I'm already feeling a bit misty eyed with nostalgia.

Obama's Blackberry Endorsement

note: portions of this post are copy/pasted from a New York Times article

President-elect Barack Obama has repeatedly insisted that it's going to be very difficult for the Secret Service to get the incoming president to relinquish his Blackberry by the time he's sworn in as our nations 44th Commander-In-Chief.

“I’m still clinging to my Blackberry,” Obama said Wednesday in an interview with CNBC and The New York Times. “They’re going to pry it out of my hands.”

For the maker of Blackberry, Research In Motion, it's brand advertising that isn't costing them a dime.

Marketing experts suggest that the Obama endorsement would run Blackberry more than 25-million-dollars, and perhaps as much as 50-million.

Obama is an ideal marketing representative, agents say — popular, constantly in the news and explicit about his attachment to the product.

“You always want the celebrity to be a good fit with your brand, and is anybody considered a better communicator right now than Barack Obama, or a better networker?” said Fran Kelly, the chief executive of the advertising agency Arnold Worldwide, who estimated that an endorsement by Obama would be worth $25 million. “It couldn't have a better spokesperson.”

Mr. Shabelman put the value even higher, at $50 million or more, because the endorsement is worldwide.

“The worth to a company to have the president always talking about a Blackberry and how it absolutely is a necessity to keep in touch with reality?” he said. “Think about how far the company has come if they’re able to say, ‘The president has to have this to keep in touch.”

Stay tuned to see if our next president turns in his Blackberry. I guess we'll just have to let the White House IT team figure out a way for Obama to Facebook.

Notable Quotable: A New Beginning

"I look forward to a great future for America; a future in which our country will match its military strength with our moral restraint, its wealth with our wisdom, its power with our purpose."

-President John F. Kennedy

Political Fatigue

Oh, Rushmore, I'm so tired. Absolutely exhausted, in fact. 24-hour cable news and talk radio have marginalized our intellect to the extent of sapping every ounce of original thought.

Everyone's an expert these days. Simply tune into your favorite left or right hacking mouthpiece, nod along in agreement and prepare to "debate" family and friends. Our mouths are moving, but the marionette in control is media conjecture, assumptions and a sickening array of hyperbole.

Civility be damned, I guess. We're all shaped by our cultural surroundings. I can spot a Hardball, Countdown, Dittohead or Factor disciple a mile away.

The absolute worse offenders are blog regurgitates, those that believe anything they read on the internet as fact, provided it tucks into their own stubborn ideology, and pass it on as wisdom through an email attachment.

It's time for the customers (all of us, myself included) of media to take accountability for how damn seriously we take political opinion from others that have no credentials beyond our own, other than the pancake of makeup they wear for the camera or their dramatically sarcastic inflections.

There is plenty else to watch on cable. I'll take an old Meredith Baxter Bernie movie on Lifetime over the garbage that Fox and MSNBC are pimpin' every night. Join me, will you?

I'll make the popcorn.

Cirque de Senate

California Senator Dianne Feinstein has echoed common sense calls for seating the next junior Senator from Illinois, Roland Burris. Majority leader Harry Reid will finally check his ego at the Senate door and remember that, as a nation of laws, there is no legal authority to bar Burris from his seat.

Illinois Governor Blago Fonzerelli played the Democrat controlled Senate like a dime store fiddle. When the Senate unanimously stated last week that any appointment the Fonz made would be denied entry to the Senate, Blago threw caution to the wind and said the hell with ya, appointing Burris to fulfill the remainder of President-elect Obama's Senate term.

Burris is a fine man and tested public servant that managed to serve scandal free in Illinois for several years. That alone should be cause for celebration.

Heck, all Burris wants is to join the same club that housed the likes of Jessie Helms, Larry Craig and Strom Thurmond. By comparison, Burris appears to be a throwback to an era where politicians were statesman.

Let Burris in, pack up the circus and get to work.

Bumpy Ride On Revolutionary Road

"And where are the windows? Where does the light shine in?...forgive me, but I haven't got the answer to that one. I'm not even sure there are any windows in this particular house. Maybe the light is going to have to come in as best it can, through whatever chinks and cracks have been left in the builder's faulty craftsmanship, and if that's the case you can be sure that nobody feels worse about it than I do...God knows there certainly ought to be a window around here somewhere, for all of us."

-Richard Yates, from the short story Builders

Ever sentimental for a raw metaphor, the late author Richard Yates chronicled the fallibility of the human experience and the resiliency of the human soul better than any other writer of his time. And so is the readers experience in Yates's novel, Revolutionary Road, a well guarded literary masterpiece that is finally reaching its long overdue mainstream recognition through the Sam Mendes (American Beauty) directed film adaptation starring Kate Winslet and Leo DiCaprio.

I, ever the sucker for cliches, am here to say that the book is much better than the movie. It didn't have to be though.

Mendes handled this project like a high school stage director. At times the characters seemed to be mocking themselves in a sort of, "look, I'm being ironic" kind of way. In particular, Mrs. Givings (Kathy Bates) appeared to be winking at us the entire time with her over-the-top, suggestive inflections. As for Leo and Kate, they played a great, well, Leo and Kate. Ultimately, the star power of the main characters, Frank and April Wheeler, might have had a mightier impact in the care of lesser known actors.

Famed author Richard Russo, a student of Yates at the Iowa's Writers Workshop in the mid-60's, once noted that each Yates character carried the weight of being big dreamers that consistently fail. After all, in America, the bigger you dream the harder you fail. With Yates though, the protagonists failure was universally accepted, and even expected, due to the enormity of the dream in the first place. Once at the crossroad of reality and vulnerability, the characters veneer is slowly peeled away, layer by layer, like an onion that's been idle on the kitchen counter for a week, permeating the entire house with a stench so repulsive that it seeps into the homes occupants clothing and taken out into the world to horrify the rest of us and, ultimately, they succumb to the low expectations that they had saddled themselves in the first place.

Author Robert Lacy, a friend and former student of Yates, said it best, when he referred to Yates's "seemingly congenital inability to sugarcoat". Indeed.

Revolutionary Road is bleak (insert understatement here), thought provoking and a grind to witness. The movie is mostly fodder, however only when compared to the book. Left to stand on its own without comparison to the book, Mendes posted an admirable effort. Yates though, never to be outdone long after his passing, would likely note the irony in Mendes the director, dreaming big to capture Revolutionary Road, only to fall short after he had it all in the palm of his hand. For Mendes, solace can be taken for taking on a project that may have been a little too ambitious.

So where does the light shine in? For all of us, this is daily consideration as we forge ahead, fail, succeed, celebrate and despair our collective human drama.

Don't dismiss this film outright, but rather embrace it with low expectations, the kind that Yates demanded of his characters. Then, be certain to seize the films intent more vividly in the pages of the book, Revolutionary Road.

Plenty of writers write about real life. Richard Yates wrote about life that is real, and he did it exceptionally well.

Minnesota Welcomes A New Senator

Guilt By Association In Illinois

Let's ruminate the political viability of Roland Buriss, the man that Illinois Governor Blago Fonzarelli has appointed to fulfill the remainder of President-elect Obama's U.S. Senate term.

Buriss has done nothing wrong. In fact, he enjoyed a long and squeaky clean public life in Illinois before entering his twilight years. The guy is so far removed from Blago that, by comparison, Obama would be about as tight to Blago as the Governor's "football".

Football is what Blago calls his great equalizer, a Paul Mitchell hairbrush.

Can we be intellectually honest, please? Buress is being marginalized due to an association with a corrupt governor, and it's not only unfair for Senate Democrats to deny him his legally appointed Senate seat, it also smacks of blatantly ugly hypocrisy.

Personal associations do matter in life. 52% of the electorate - myself included - decided that Barack Obama escaped close ties with a racist pastor and a loose affiliation with an admitted domestic terrorist and elected him president.

Roland Burris deserves the same benefit of the doubt.

Best Actor Of Our Time

If the craft of acting is about taking risks, there's a reason why George Clooney and Brad Pitt are nearly unwatchable. And it's the reason why Philip Seymour Hoffman is the best actor going these days.

While the predictably staid Clooney and Pitt continue to play a moderately tweaked version of themselves with their every film effort, PS Hoffman has channeled an eclectic array of characters throughout his career.

I'm geek'd to head to my neighborhood turboplex to finally see Doubt this week, where Hoffman takes on the unsavory role of Father Flynn, an alleged pedophile Catholic priest.

To really appreciate PS Hoffman though, go back to his initial foray into film with his role as the smarmy prep school adversarial brat in Scent of a Woman. Al Pacino took full-throttled "hoo-hah!" critical acclaim for his part in this Oscar darling, however it was Hoffman that turned in the most genuine performance that has stood the test of time during cable reruns.

The essence of Hoffman can be captured through his roles in Boogie Nights, Magnolia, The Savages and Capote. Heck, you can even throw in Along Came Polly for a lighter dose - and guilty pleasure - of his brilliance.

Enjoy.

As You Wish

Great call, gang. The polls have closed and the peoples voice has been heard with a loud and clear mandate. The Princess Bride is your top film pick of movies to help laugh through the recession. In fact, it was the only movie to exceed the 50% voting threshold, preferred by 51% of poll respondents.

Rushmore finished second with 23% (I admit that I voted twice for this one), with Sixteen Candles, Fargo and School of Rock coming in at 16% each. All told, five great movies to put in your NetFlix que.

President-elect Obama, please take note of a little Princess Bride wisdom.

Never get involved in a land war in Asia.

Talkin' 'bout A Resolution

This year I resolve to write less and say more (I can actually hear your deep sigh of relief). That said, I imagine I'll fail miserably.

Let's put one final coat of lipstick on the pig that was 2008.

Hope, change, on the way.

Happy new year.