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.